| US Open |
|---|
| Venue: Flushing Meadows, New York Dates: 29 August-11 September |
| Coverage: Live radio commentary on Radio 5 live sports extra plus live text coverage on the big matches on the BBC Sport website and app. |
John McEnroe has ended his spell as a coach to Canadian world number six Milos Raonic before the US Open.
The seven-time major winner joined Raonic’s team in May before the 25-year-old reached his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon, where McEnroe also did punditry for ESPN and the BBC.
McEnroe was seen with Raonic’s primary coaches Carlos Moya and Riccardo Piatti just days before news of the parting.
He said he would step down “for Milos’ sake, for ESPN and my sake”.
McEnroe added: “When the US Open starts on Monday, he’s got his people. I’m pulling for him and want him to do well.
“I’d love to see all the guys play their best because I think it’s better for tennis. But it’s best to sort of separate at this stage. It will just make life easier for everyone.”
McEnroe admitted his media commitments “ended up becoming an issue at Wimbledon”, but added he was “open to the possibility” of a second coaching stint should Raonic seek it.
The Canadian faces Germany’s Dustin Brown in the first round at Flushing Meadows.
DJOKOVIC Novak (SRB) The final slam of the year will kick off on Monday in New York with all but 2 of the top 20 involved in the…
| US Open |
|---|
| Venue: Flushing Meadows, New York Dates: 29 August-11 September |
| Coverage: Live radio commentary on Radio 5 live sports extra plus live text coverage on the big matches on the BBC Sport website and app. |
Johanna Konta can break into the world top 10 by the end of this season, according to Greg Rusedski.
Great Britain’s Konta, 25, is seeded 13th for next week’s US Open and faces America’s Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the first round at Flushing Meadows.
And former British number one Rusedski believes world number 14 Konta can become the first British woman since Jo Durie in 1984 to reach the WTA top 10.
“It’s something she will do by the end of the year,” he told Sportsweek.
Rusedski also believes that 2016 Australian Open semi-finalist Konta, who was ranked 146th in the world as recently as July 2015, has improved by working on her “mentality”.
Find out how to get into tennis in our special guide.
“She hired a sports psychologist who works with hedge funders,” said Rusedki.
“He has put her into a process and a set of goals where she wants to achieve things and the process of doing things rather than focusing on results all the time, for Jo that is the right thing to do.”
Speaking of Konta’s US Open prospects, Rusedski added: “I expect her to get to the round of 16.
“If she gets a good draw, don’t be surprised to see her back in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam again.”
| US Open |
|---|
| Venue: Flushing Meadows, New York Dates: 29 August-11 September |
| Coverage: Live radio commentary on Radio 5 live sports extra plus live text coverage on the big matches on the BBC Sport website and app. |
Laura Robson’s recent holiday in Italy lasted all of six hours.
She found time to visit Mount Vesuvius and the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, she took her friends to the villa they had hired… and then she received an email from her agent with news of a wildcard into the US Open qualifying draw, and promptly headed back to the airport.
Forty-eight hours earlier, Robson had won her first tournament since the age of 14 – capturing the ITF title in Landisville, Pennsylvania. It was by far and away her biggest triumph since first feeling the effects of a wrist injury in the late summer of 2013.
She played only two events in the whole of 2014, and in April of that year underwent surgery on her dominant left wrist in Minnesota. Her recovery was a slow, painful and very frustrating process. She next played competitively at the Eastbourne qualifying event of June 2015.
By this time Robson had forfeited her WTA ranking. She was playing on a 12 month long protected ranking of 58 (the position she held at her last event before injury: the 2014 Australian Open) and the comeback was a very stilted affair. Other minor injuries held her back as she hit the practice courts hard and it is only since the start of this year that she has been totally free of pain in the wrist.
Robson’s progress in the first six months of this year was unspectacular.
At the back of your mind you’re not quite sure if your body is going to break down or if it’s properly healed
She has won only one tour level match since her return – and that came against an unranked Moroccan teenager in the first round of the WTA event in Rabat; she was soundly beaten by Andrea Petkovic at the French Open, and Angelique Kerber at Wimbledon.
But then, after dispiriting trips to minor tournaments in Fort Worth, Lexington and Sacramento in which she collected five ranking points and earned barely one thousand dollars, Robson won five matches in a row in Landisville – including the final without dropping a game.
The $3,919 in prize money was irrelevant, but the 50 ranking points helped her climb back into the world’s top 250, and did wonders for her confidence.
“I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself when I had my protected ranking,” Robson told BBC Sport after qualifying for the main draw at the US Open.
“You know you are on a limited amount of time so I wasn’t playing as freely as maybe I should have – especially at the Slams.
“But I knew I was putting in all the right things on the practice court and in the gym. It was waiting for that one moment where it all came together. I was prepared for it – I knew that I had this long season of training behind me.”
Her reward for overcoming a nasty bout of conjunctivitis to win three qualifying matches at Flushing Meadows is a first round match on Tuesday with fellow British player Naomi Broady.
Robson is now being coached by the former British number one Lucie Ahl and Colin Beecher, and being watched here in New York by the LTA’s lead women’s coach Jeremy Bates.
“You see it a lot with athletes when they’ve had a long term injury,” Bates explained, after Robson’s early Saturday morning practice session.
“Mentally it’s very difficult to fully commit yourself again to the physicality of the sport. At the back of your mind you’re not quite sure if your body is going to break down or if it’s properly healed.
“You can’t shortcut it. At Wimbledon she was playing, but now when you see her play she’s completely uninhibited, she’s very mobile, she’s chasing every ball. She’s able to recover and compete as she used to. And you can see that she has no negative thoughts in her mind at all.
“It’s completely mental – you’ve just got to get your brain around it.”
Robson has lost virtually three years of her career – but yet she is only 22, and is still armed with a devastating forehand. She says she is working harder than ever on the practice court, and has proved in the past she has the temperament for the big occasion.
In the first eight months of 2013 alone, Robson beat Petra Kvitova en route to the third round of the Australian Open; had clay court wins over Agnieszka Radwanska and Venus Williams; reached the fourth round of Wimbledon and then the third round of the US Open. As a result, she reached a career high ranking of 27.
Her involvement in the final Grand Slam of this year has, though, come as a lovely surprise.
After winning in Landisville, Robson’s agent Max Eisenbud told her there was virtually no chance of her being awarded a wildcard into qualifying. Hence the flight back home to the UK, and then on to Italy for that girls’ holiday.
Find out how to get into tennis in our special guide.
She was soon gone. But not forgotten.
“I’ve had so many pictures of their sunset cruises and they have been tagging me in their Instagram as if I’m still part of the group,” Robson said.
“We had squad necklaces and everything – it was a full on girls’ trip.
“But they’re very happy that I came here instead.”
They say a picture can speak a thousand words, but if you ask Steve Darcis, he would illustrate it with one. “Unbelievable” the emotional Belgian said after marching through qualifying at the US Open on Friday.
“Unbelievable” describes the 32-year-old’s three-set marathon victory over Enrique Lopez-Perez, saving a match point in a 10-8 deciding tie-break. It represents his dominance of #NextGen stars Tommy Paul and Duckhee Lee in the opening rounds, refusing to drop a set en route to qualifying in New York for the second time in three years. But more importantly, it aptly chronicles his journey back to the Grand Slam stage – and near-return to the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings – after shoulder and knee injuries sidelined the former World No. 44.
“You take every win when you’re out for six or seven months,” he added. Having posted a 21-4 record on the ATP Challenger Tour this year, the 5’10” right-hander has carried a strong run of form into the US Open. Titles in Lyon, France and earlier this month in Trnava, Slovakia, have vaulted him to World No. 108.
While Darcis will be making his eighth main draw appearance in New York, other qualifiers have surged into the field of 128 for the first time following breakthrough performances on the Challenger circuit this year.
“This is why you play tennis,” #NextGen star Karen Khachanov told ATPWorldTour.com. Inside the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings following a title run at the Challenger in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and plotting his ascent towards stardom, the 20-year-old qualified for his first Grand Slam in his sixth attempt, defeating Noah Rubin.
“You want to play in these big events. It feels great to me to be in the main draw. I’m just very happy. Even though I didn’t play my best tennis, I passed through qualies, dealt with my emotions and I’m happy to be in my first Grand Slam. I know Noah pretty well. He’s a fighter. He’s the same age as me and he beat me one time in juniors, so it means a lot to get through.”
Indeed, Khachanov has already become a household name on the ATP World Tour, but the quartet of Ilya Ivashka, Jan Satral, Marton Fucsovics and Saketh Myneni are reveling in their first moments in the spotlight and first experiences on one of the biggest stages in the game.
“I’m very happy that I qualified,” said 22-year-old Ilya Ivashka, who is the third player representing Belarus to reach the main draw of a Grand Slam, joining Max Mirnyi and Vladimir Voltchkov. “I played very good tennis, which is even more important. It’s amazing because Voltchkov is coaching me now and I know Max very well. They are helping me a lot.”
With his Emirates ATP Ranking vascillating near the Top 300, Ivashka owned a 15-15 record on the ATP Challenger Tour when he stepped on the clay of Recanati, Italy, in mid-July, and battled to his first career final. Despite falling to Illya Marchenko, he believes it was the week that changed everything.
“It gave me all the confidence, because I beat a Top 100 player there,” Ivashka said of his comeback victory over top seed Evgeny Donskoy in the semis. “I played great tennis. Three of the matches went three sets. It gave me the belief that I can beat the good players and it helped a lot. I want to win every match that I play.”
One of 20 first-time winners on the Challenger circuit this year, Ivashka has since risen to a career-high World No. 181 and is slated to open his tour-level career against Winston-Salem Open champion Pablo Carreno Busta.
All it takes is one win. One win can change the trajectory of a season and often a career. For some, the springboard to the bigger stages and bright lights is swift and immediate. Just ask Jan Satral. It was the first round of €42,500 event in Marburg, Germany in late June. The 26-year-old Czech was sitting at No. 272 in the Emirates ATP Rankings and in search of confidence as his 2016 campaign reached the halfway mark. One win over former Top 100 stalwart Tobias Kamke changed everything.
“It did a lot for me,” Satral told ATPWorldTour.com. “I wasn’t in good shape at the beginning of the season and then I won a round of qualifying at Wimbledon and went to Marburg as a last-minute decision. When I beat Tobias Kamke in the first round, it gave me the most confidence to beat the good players. After that, every match I played pretty well and I started to feel good again.”
Satral would storm to his maiden ATP Challenger Tour title in Marburg, dropping a combined 10 games in the semis and final. But the Czech wasn’t done. Victory on the German clay propelled him to qualify for his first ATP World Tour main draw in Hamburg just one week later, stealing a set from former World No. 9 Nicolas Almagro in the first round. Satral has since carried the momentum into the Big Apple, where he cruised to his first Grand Slam qualification without dropping a set. He awaits fellow major newcomer and American collegiate star Mackenzie McDonald, with a potential date with 10th seed Gael Monfils on the line.
“Kamke was the most important win of the year and after that I played great. I’m happy that I’m staying like this.”
Ivashka, Satral, Fucsovics and Myneni might be Grand Slam debutants, but they are certainly no strangers to high-pressure moments. Ivashka, Satral and Fucsovics each reached an ATP Challenger Tour final while residing outside the Top 200 this year, while Myneni finished runner-up on home soil in New Delhi as World No. 166. Dedicated and focused on taking their breakout campaigns to an even higher level at the US Open, the foursome have earned the opportunity.
“In all my dreams, this is one of best thing that’s ever happened to me in tennis,” said Myneni, who lives in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut. “Qualifying is great, but you still have to stay focused. If it’s the Challenger Tour or tour-level events, it’s the same goal in keeping your ranking up there and always improving. This is my home Grand Slam, being one hour away, and it’s especially nice having the support of my family being here.”
In addition, for India’s Myneni, Belarus’s Ivashka and Hungary’s Fucsovics, qualifying for a first Grand Slam main draw is not only an individual achievement, rather a source of great national pride.
“I hope it helps,” added Myneni, who is just the second player from India to compete in singles at the US Open since 2002, along with Somdev Devvarman. “Tennis has improved a lot in the last 10 years. I think there is a long way to go for the sport to develop further and get better and better, but it’s a good thing for them to see a guy from India competing in such a big stage.”
Brilliant effort by Saki for qualifying for the main draw @usopen @SakethMyneni #SakiBomb #SakiSquad
— Rohan Bopanna (@rohanbopanna) August 27, 2016
Fucsovics is part of an even more exclusive club, as just the fourth Hungarian man to appear in a Grand Slam main draw and first outside of Roland Garros. It was his 15th attempt in total.
“I’m very happy to be on the list, but hopefully I can win some matches in the main draw as well and play even better the rest of the year,” said Fucsovics, who opens with a stern test against a resurgent Nicolas Almagro. “I changed my coach recently to Attila Savolt and he has helped me a lot to get to this level.”
The 24-year-old is on course to surpass his career-high World No. 135 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, having streaked to the final at the prestigious ATP Challenger Tour event in Prostejov, Czech Republic, in early June. It was the first final in nearly two years for the former Wimbledon junior champ.
“I reached the final in Prostejov as a qualifier, which is one of the biggest Challengers. It was a big result after a long time, since I had won two Challengers many years ago. It gave me a lot of confidence and for sure led to this result.”
Fucsovics, Ivashka, Khachanov, Myneni and Satral aren’t the only players to qualify at a Grand Slam for the first time. In fact, there are eight in total, with 22-year-old Christian Harrison, 23-year-old Brazilian Guilherme Clezar and 26-year-old Italian Alessandro Giannessi also making their debuts after prevailing on Friday. Clezar, runner-up at the 2014 ATP Challenger Tour Finals, qualified in his 14th attempt.
Watch Harrison Interview
Steve Johnson continued the recent American tennis theme at Citi Field, throwing out the first pitch on Friday evening. The top-ranked American made the ceremonial toss with WTA player Bethanie Mattek-Sands before the New York Mets took on the archrival Philadelphia Phillies.
It was a long-awaited experience for the American, marking the first time he had thrown out a first pitch in a Major League Baseball game. Earlier this month, former World No. 1 and New York native John McEnroe launched a perfect strike.
“It’s been great,” Johnson, a fan of the Los Angeles Angels, told ATPWorldTour.com at the game. “Any time you get to do something new and see a stadium like this is pretty awesome. I’ve been a baseball fan my whole life. To finally get the opportunity to come here and do this, it’s pretty beautiful.
“I feel like I was more nervous walking out at Centre Court in Wimbledon this year than throwing out the first pitch, but I hit him right in the chest and that’s all that matters. I was no Reilly Opelka and did not airmail it. It wasn’t as fast as Johnny Mac, but I got it done.”
Last month, Vasek Pospisil threw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game, during the Rogers Cup, followed by Reilly Opelka at a Cincinnati Reds game during the Western & Southern Open.
Johnson, who is in the midst of a breakout campaign on the ATP World Tour, is up to a career-high World No. 21 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. The California native reached his first Masters 1000 quarter-final two weeks ago in Cincinnati, having claimed his maiden tour-level title on the grass of Nottingham in late June. Seeded 19th at the US Open, he is slated to open against Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy, with a potential second round clash against 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro in the cards.
Youngest Spaniard in Top 100 talks about his first title with ATPWorldTour.com
How does it feel to be standing with the trophy as a first-time winner? Are you a little surprised it came on hard court?
This is amazing. This is an incredible feeling. To win my first ATP World Tour title and then playing against Bautista [Agut], a top player, is really tough. It was a really tough match. But it’s amazing. I fought all the time, all week. I think I’m very, very, very, very happy.
Was this something you dreamed about growing up and playing as a junior, to win an ATP World Tour title?
Yeah. To win my first ATP World Tour title is a dream because you can play finals and I played two this year. But when you continue working and you continue fighting all the time and finally the result arrives, for me, it’s really, really good.
What was your approach going into your third final of the season? You were in previous two finals – Sao Paulo, Estoril – both on clay. Did you have a different mindset going into today?
No. This was on hard court. Maybe it was the most difficult of the other two finals. No, you have to try to do your best and I tried. And when you are playing good, like this week, I think I was playing very good. I was serving really well. You never know when you’ll win the final.
You defeated the No. 2 seed Roberto Bautista Agut and the No. 3 seed Pablo Cuevas along the way. What did you do well this week to put all of those good results together?
I think I’m being more aggressive with my game. It’s really important to be aggressive with your serve and then with your return and when you are playing the rallies, you need to be able to be [more aggressive] because if you’re not aggressive, the opponent has the key to win the matches.
Now that you’ve won your first ATP World Tour title, what are the goals you have for the rest of the season?
This is amazing but we have to continue this way. This is a good way and I’m looking to continue like this – working hard and with confidence. I’m playing good, with confidence. And this week, in two days I will play at the US Open in New York so I have to continue focusing on trying to do my best all the time. Then we’ll have three months more of this year, we’ll try to do our best.
You’re the seventh different Spanish winner this year. The youngest of 11 Spaniards in the Top 100. How do view the state of Spanish tennis?
I think the Spanish players are making something great. It’s not easy to make a lot of champions like we are and win tournaments. Nadal, Ferrer, now Bautista [Agut] is a top player… All the Spanish players can win a tournament.
You’ve had a lot of support in your development throughout your career. Who are the people who allowed you to get to this level and you’d like to thank?
I have to say thank you to all the people who helped me to arrive here. It’s not just my team… All the people who worked with me, who supported me, all my family, of course. All the people who support me all the time, when I win, when I lose. And I think I have to say thank you to everybody because without their support, this is not easy and I think it’s impossible.
What do you consider the strength and the best part of your game?
My serve, because I’m serving really good. I’m serving better but I think it’s not enough. I can do it better. And then I have to continue being aggressive. … In this tournament I played a little bit better than the rest of the year. But the rest of the year, it was really good also. So I need to continue this way.
Is there a player you grew up admiring?
Yeah, I watched the matches of [Juan Carlos] Ferrero. Of course he was my hero, and now I practise at his academy. Imagine for me, it’s really special. This moment is really special.
What do you like to do away from tennis?
I don’t have time now, unfortunately. We go now to New York. Tomorrow I will practice again… I play on Tuesday.