Aussie great and former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt will make another return to the ATP World Tour this month.
Hewitt and #NextGenATP Aussie Alex de Minaur, whom Hewitt helps coach, will play doubles at the Millennium Estoril Open, which starts Monday. It’s the third time Hewitt has come out of retirement to play doubles since he retired from tennis after the 2016 Australian Open.
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He played doubles with John Peers during a Davis Cup World Group tie in March 2016. Hewitt also played doubles at 2016 Wimbledon, with compatriot Jordan Thompson, and at 2018 Australian Open, when he joined countryman Sam Groth during his final tournament.
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The 19-year-old de Minaur will look to kickstart his tour-level clay-court season. The 5’11” right-hander reached the final of the Ferrero Challenger Open, an ATP Challenger Tour event in Alicante, Spain, earlier this month (l. to Andujar).
Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza was one of three players forced to retire in the last 16 of the Stuttgart Open.
The Spanish second seed pulled out with a back problem after losing the first set 7-5 against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Germany’s Angelique Kerber withdrew with a leg injury after going 6-0 2-0 down against Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit.
Czech Marketa Vondrousova won the first set against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina but also quit with a leg problem.
Third seed Svitolina, who recovered to lead 2-6 6-1 3-2 before Vondrousova’s retirement, will now play French sixth seed Caroline Garcia, who overcame Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-1 3-6 7-5.
Kontaveit and Pavlyuchenkova now face each other in the quarter-finals, while American Coco Vandeweghe booked a meeting with top seed Simona Halep after winning 6-4 4-6 6-3 against defending champion Laura Siegemund of Germany.
Czech fifth seed Karolina Pliskova beat Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 and will now meet fourth seed Jelena Ostapenko after the Latvian won 6-3 6-0 against Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.
Nadal wins record 40th straight clay court set to reach Barcelona quarters
Dimitrov will now meet Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta, who beat France’s Adrian Mannarino 6-2 4-6 7-6 (8-6).
Dominic Thiem will play Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarters, after the Swiss third seed beat Slovakian Jozef Kovalik 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.
Tsitsipas, 19, knocked out Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4 7-5.
World number 10 David Goffin, from Belgium, came through 2-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-0 against Russia’s Karen Khachanov to earn a last-eight draw against Roberto Bautista-Agut, who beat fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar-Alba 6-4 6-1.
#NextGenATP Tsitsipas Finding Best Form In A Hurry
Apr262018
Greek faces Thiem on Friday for the third time in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series (0-2)
Stefanos Tsitsipas, who reached his fourth ATP World Tour quarter-final in Barcelona on Thursday, is only 19 years old, a leading candidate to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, where eight of the world’s best 21-and-under players will compete from 6-10 November.
But the 6’3” right-hander is also leading his entire country. For nearly everything the Greek achieves on the ATP World Tour, he becomes the ‘first’ or the first in decades’ time from Greece to celebrate the milestone.
Last October, Tsitsipas became the first Greek to enter the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings and the first Greek semi-finalist (2017 Antwerp) in 44 years (Kalogeropoulos, 1973 Des Moines). And after his start to the European clay-court season this year, Tsitsipas is well on his way to becoming the first Greek to enter the Top 50 of the ATP Rankings.
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“I’m very happy to represent my country on the biggest stages, at the biggest tournaments,” Tsitsipas told ATPWorldTour.com. “It’s very satisfying to help tennis grow up in Greece.”
The 19-year-old advanced to the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, beating 2017 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas, at his home tournament, 6-4, 7-5. The Spaniard is the second clay-court stalwart that Tsitsipas has swept past this week at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament. The Greek eliminated seventh seed Diego Schwartzman of Argentina 6-2, 6-1 in the second round.
“It’s the surface. I feel very confident when I step on the dirt. I always show my best tennis on this surface,” Tsitsipas told ATPWorldTour.com. “I really hope the confidence keeps going. I’m very satisfied with my tennis so far.”
Tsitsipas grew up playing on the red dirt in Athens. He learned how to construct points on clay from a coach who emphasised attacking and approaching the net more so than using heavy spin to win matches.
Read More: With Annacone By His Side, #NextGenATP Fritz Knows This Run Can Continue
Recent practices with Patrick Mouratoglou have also helped. Tsitsipas splits his training between his home Athens and the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice.
Watch: Uncovered Interviews The Family Behind #NextGenATP Tsitsipas In 2017
“The things he told me have changed my game until now. I’m playing on a completely different level and when you play on a level where you feel that confident and so sure of yourself, nothing can stop you,” said Tsitsipas, who is also coached by his father, Apostolos Tsitsipas, and was coached by his mother, Julia Salnikova, a former professional player in the Soviet Union.
This season has marked quite the turnaround for Tsitsipas, who struggled to win a tour-level match for much of 2017. The teenager dropped his first eight tour-level contests before beating Russian Karen Khachanov at the Rolex Shanghai Masters last October. Tsitsipas had earned his opportunities, too: He qualified an ATP-best eight times last year.
But since Shanghai, Tsitsipas has reached one semi-final (Antwerp 2017), three ATP World Tour quarter-finals (2018 Doha, Dubai, Barcelona) and has played better than .500 tennis (12-10).
Read More: How #NextGenATP Tiafoe Learned How To Focus
The runs have put him in great position to make his debut at the Next Gen ATP Finals. After his trip to the Barcelona quarter-finals, he’s projected to climb to fifth place in the ATP Race To Milan, which will determine seven of the eight players in Milan. The eighth will be chosen by wild card.
Tsitsipas got a taste of the new event last year when he served as an alternate. “All the NextGenATP players are giving me motivation to do better,” he said. “I see them, the way they do things and I want to do the same things they do. I want to stay high in the ATP Rankings and follow their footsteps.”
See Who Tsitsipas Is Chasing In The ATP Race To Milan
Del Potro Commits To 2018 Fever-Tree Championships
Apr262018
The Argentine joins World No. 1 Nadal and five-time champion Murray
Juan Martin del Potro will compete at The Queen’s Club in 2018, the Fever-Tree Championships announced Thursday.
Del Potro joins a lineup full of stars in London, including World No. 1 Rafael Nadal and five-time tournament winner Andy Murray.
The World No. 6 has been on a tear this season, winning 15 matches in a row to claim titles in Acapulco and Indian Wells — where he earned his maiden ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title — before falling in the Miami semi-finals against eventual champion John Isner. The 2013 Queen’s Club quarter-finalist will be playing at the event for the fifth time in June.
The Argentine’s next tournament is in two weeks at the Mutua Madrid Open. The 29-year-old is also scheduled to compete the following week at another ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome, the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
Juan Martin del Potro has joined the line-up for the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club.
It means four of the world’s top six players will feature at the Wimbledon warm-up, which runs from 18-24 June.
Argentina’s Del Potro, 29, joins world number one Rafael Nadal on the bill, along with Marin Cilic and Grigor Dimitrov.
The tournament will also be five-time winner Andy Murray’s second appearance on his comeback from a hip injury.
British number one Kyle Edmund will compete for a fourth time along with defending champion Feliciano Lopez.
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Former US Open champion Del Potro moved up to sixth in the world rankings after winning 15 matches in a row on his way to successive titles in Acapulco and Indian Wells last month. Dimitrov is fifth and Cilic fourth in the rankings.
“This year has been a very good start for me and I would love to continue playing my best tennis on grass,” said Del Potro, a former quarter-finalist at Queen’s.
“It is always a very strong player-field, so I am excited to start my grass season at this amazing tournament.’
The Championships will be broadcast live on BBC television, radio and online.
Seppi to face Basilashvili, who ousted #NextGenATP Shapovalov
Italian Andreas Seppi, the No. 8 seed at the Gazprom Hungarian Open, was down a set and a break in his first-round match in Budapest. And after surviving that battle, he has rode the momentum on Thursday into his second tour-level quarter-final of the season.
Seppi beat former World No. 8 Mikhail Youzhny 6-1, 6-2 in 63 minutes, losing just three points on his first serve. Youzhny remains three victories away from No. 500 in his career.
The 34-year-old Seppi’s efforts in Hungary come on the heels of a strong performance last week when in Monte-Carlo, where he qualified before winning two three-setters to advance to the Round of 16 at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, reaching that round for the second time in 12 appearances. Seppi also reached the semi-finals at Rotterdam in February before losing to eventual champion Roger Federer.
In the next round, Seppi will face a surprise opponent. #NextGenATP Canadian Denis Shapovalov lost his third consecutive match, as Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili ousted the 19-year-old 6-2, 6-4 in 69 minutes.
“I think Nikoloz played really well today,” Shapovalov said. “He came out firing. I had my chances early on and didn’t take advantage and then he took advantage. After that it was kind of hard to get a rhythm.”
Before advancing to the quarter-finals two weeks ago in Marrakech, Basilashvili had lost seven of his past eight tour-level matches. But with his performance in Morocco and his upset of Shapovalov, the 26-year-old has now reached two straight quarter-finals.
Top seed Lucas Pouille begins his title defence Thursday against Australian John Millman.
Did You Know? Andreas Seppi has finished inside the Top 100 of the year-end ATP Rankings for 13 consecutive years.
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