Quad singles and doubles wheelchair tennis events will be added to the schedule at Wimbledon in 2019.
Quad events are currently played at the US Open, the Australian Open and the Paralympics but not at Wimbledon.
The move comes after a quad doubles exhibition match was held during the 2018 Championships, featuring four of the world’s top 10 quad players.
Quad events join the men’s and women’s wheelchair singles and doubles events in the schedule for next year.
Players are eligible to compete in the quad division if they have a permanent physical disability that results in significant loss of function in three or more extremities.
British 2014 US Open champion and world number three Andy Lapthorne, who took part in the quad exhibition match at Wimbledon, said: “It’s been a big goal of mine to play competitive wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon and we got a little taste this year with the doubles exhibition, which was amazing.
“Now the All England Club has given us the opportunity to play competitively next year.
“It’s the biggest event that you can play in tennis, so we’re all really pleased that the work that has gone into this becoming a reality has paid off,” he added.
Watch five of the best shots from Novak Djokovic’s ATP finals group stage win over Alexander Zverev, as the world number one moves a step closer to the semi-finals.
Wimbledon finalist Agnieszka Radwanska has announced her retirement from tennis at the age of 29.
The former world number two was runner-up to Serena Williams in 2012 and won 20 WTA titles in her 13-year career.
She finished every season between 2008 and 2016 ranked inside the world’s top 15, but is currently ranked 75th and has not won a title since October 2016.
Radwanska said the decision to retire was “one of the most important” of her life and was “not easy”.
“Unfortunately I am no longer able to train and play the way I used to, and recently my body can’t live up to my expectations,” she added.
“Taking into consideration my health and the heavy burdens of professional tennis, I have to concede that I’m not able to push my body to the limits required.”
Does your brain hurt trying to work out the permutations for the ATP Finals?
Roger Federer beat Dominic Thiem on Tuesday to keep alive his hopes of making it through to the semi-finals at the 02 Arena in London.
But whether or not he will qualify is horribly complicated.
You can’t say he is through if he beats Kevin Anderson in his final group match on Thursday, because there are several different scenarios that can happen.
Thiem faces Kei Nishikori in the other Group Lleyton Hewitt match on Thursday and either of those could progress.
Federer could win in straight sets and still not make it through. He could lose in straight sets and qualify. So how does that work?
Before we look at that, here’s how people reacted on social media after the ATP tweeted this graphic:
‘My brain hurts’
Some of you just replied with emojis of confused faces.
But many of you responded with funny gifs including this one from Abel Morton.
Though most of you just said what we were all thinking…
Optimist: I have a headache!
Marcou: I’m lost!
Adeyanju Michael: This is Maths 🙁
Aditya Jain: Don’t understand anything.
N Kessler: My brain hurts.
So, is there an easy way to understand it?
In short, no.
Here’s our attempt at a ‘simple‘ breakdown of how the top two are decided in each of the two four-player groups:
Greatest number of wins
If two players are tied: Head-to-head results
If three players are tied: 1) Highest percentage of sets won; 2) Highest percentage of games won; 3) Players’ ATP Rankings coming into the tournament
So with that in mind, Federer will go through if any of these situations happen:
He wins in two sets and Thiem beats Kei Nishikori in two.
He wins in two sets and Thiem wins in three.
He wins in two sets and Nishikori beats Thiem in two sets. Highest % of games won will then be the decider.
He wins in two sets and Nishikori wins in three.
He wins in three sets and Thiem wins in two.
He wins in three sets and Thiem wins in three.
This is how the group currently stands:
Group Lleyton Hewitt
P
W-L
Sets
Games
Kevin Anderson
2
2-0
4-0
25-10
Kei Nishikori
2
1-1
2-2
14-21
Roger Federer
2
1-1
2-2
21-18
Dominic Thiem
2
0-2
0-4
14-25
If you’re still not sure what’s going on, the best thing to do is to follow our guide on the group standings, results and fixtures and just trust us when we say Federer is through or not.
Find out why the Swiss took a day off of practice on Monday
One may wonder how Roger Federer bounced back from his first-ever straight-sets defeat in round-robin play at the Nitto ATP Finals. After recovering well on Tuesday with a victory against Dominic Thiem, the Swiss said that the answer was simple: a day off.
“I will do the same again tomorrow because it worked. [The] important [thing] was not my forehand or my backhand or my serve or anything. I guess it was my head. For that sometimes, you need a break,” Federer said. “I’ve been playing a lot of tennis the past two months… I saw the [Kei] Nishikori match on the way back to the hotel. A good, long trip. That was positive. Had a lot of time to talk. We came to the conclusions, or the coaches thought, ‘Take it easy, enjoy the day with your family, and come out happy’.”
At 37 years old with 99-tour-level titles to his name, Federer knew it was not about fixing his tennis. The Swiss cancelled his Monday practice and cleared his head, hitting the refresh button instead of a tennis ball.
“When you play Thiem, that’s what we care about, the head, not the shots. The shots are there,” Federer said his coaching team told him. “I felt that way today. So I’m very happy that that was the right decision and I was able to show a reaction from my first-round match.”
Federer did well to break Thiem four times in a match-up that had previously favoured the Austrian, with Thiem winning two of the pair’s three previous FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings. The six-time season finale winner maintained his hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals at this event for the 15th time, but he is not looking ahead to the next four just yet. His sole focus is on Kevin Anderson, who is 2-0 in Group Lleyton Hewitt.
“I feel like I’m ready to go for the day after tomorrow [against Anderson],” Federer said. “I don’t know what happened against Nishikori. Maybe it’s the round-robin format that got to me. You don’t feel like you have the knife here, like in another tournament, where if you’re struggling in the first round, you know if you don’t get your act together, you’re home in 30 minutes.”
In hindsight, Federer believes that his match against seventh seed Nishikori was not a lost cause. The World No. 3 believes his mindset doomed him, not his level.
“Kei was playing horribly as well for the first eight games like I was. I should have said, ‘That’s great, I don’t need rhythm, he needs rhythm. Things are looking good for me. It’s okay to not start well. It’s the first round. It’s normal. Sometimes you feel that way,’” Federer said. “But I think I saw it too negative. So for me it was really important to remind myself what a thrill it is to play here at The O2. I love playing in London, always have, always will. It is my 16th year qualifying, so sometimes it’s just another match. I think that’s maybe what happened to me, and in a very disappointing way.”
On Tuesday, Federer saw highlights of all of the Nitto ATP Finals action over the past 10 years since the tournament moved to London. That added a bit of extra fire to his game.
“I really reminded myself again what a pleasure and what a privilege it is to play in this arena. This is when you start playing better tennis instead of thinking about all the bad things that are going on,” Federer said. “There’s no reason to get that negative. The tournament has only just started.”
And after turning things around against Thiem, Federer will hope to add another win to his total against Anderson on Thursday.
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