Anderson Helps Raise Money For Charities At Courtside Cause
Dec182019
South African hosts successful charity event in Florida
Former World No. 5 Kevin Anderson hosted Courtside Cause — his third charity event — on Saturday at the Boca Grove Golf & Tennis Club. The event benefitted First Serve, Dezzy’s Second Chance Animal Rescue and Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas Alliance.
“For our third charity event, it was great to be able to expand it even further and help more worthy causes this year. I know how much the money we raise helps these organisations, so the more we can raise and help, the better,” Anderson said. “We were really lucky this year that the tennis didn’t get rained out. Last year, we had to move it to the next day, so everyone was able to enjoy all the action, participate in some fun on-court challenges and then go next door for the silent auction, music and dinner. Everyone has a lot of fun.
“It’s really laid back and relaxed for the players and fans to mingle and enjoy themselves. I’m really looking forward to continuing the momentum of what we’ve built for this event each December and do more good for organisations that need.”
The event raised more than $90,000. Anderson played a singles match against former World No. 69 Jesse Levine and Coco Gauff competed against Shelby Rogers, before Anderson and Gauff faced Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan. Comedian Michael Kosta, a former college tennis player at the University of Illinois, served as emcee.
There were various on-court challenges, and after the tennis, Anderson and the Bryan Brothers held a question-and-answer session with attendees. There was also a silent auction.
Working towards putting on such a successful event also helped put things in perspective for Anderson, who has dropped to No. 91 in the ATP Rankings due to elbow and knee surgeries that limited him to five tournaments in 2019.
“I think planning this event and being able to give back or bring awareness to needy causes is one of the biggest perks of being a tennis player. Especially this year being away from the court so much with my injuries, having my focus on what we were going to do at the end of the year kept me busy while I was rehabbing and made me really excited for what we would accomplish,” Anderson said. “I feel very lucky tennis has allowed me to do these sorts of things and use my platform to hopefully do a bit of good.
“In September, I did a visit to an after school program that First Serve hosts to see how their organisation benefits local youth, and seeing how great the program was for kids that needed a place to be and keeping them off the streets and doing fun activities, I knew it was an organisation I wanted to partner with. This year again, we wanted to support Dezzy’s Second Chance Animal Rescue, which is where we rescued Lady Kady from. I know how much good the money will do for them in helping rescue dogs from kill shelters and bringing them back to great health. And lastly, I’ve been very passionate about the elimination of single-use plastics and trying to promote this change within the tennis tour, so Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas Alliance is not only a great organisation and program to support, but also bring more awareness to what we could all be doing in our daily lives to help our environment.”
Last December, Anderson raised more than $100,000 at his Grand Slam Cause for the Paws. The 2018 Nitto ATP Finals qualifier will return to the ATP Tour for the first time since Wimbledon at the ATP Cup, where he will lead Team South Africa.
Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers shows how the Russian reached six consecutive finals in 2019
Knock, knock. I have arrived.
Daniil Medvedev’s scorching 32-match streak during six straight tournaments this year catapulted the Russian from No. 10 to No. 4 in the ATP Rankings. From late July to mid-September, Medvedev was the hottest player on the planet.
He didn’t so much walk through the door to the Top 5; he kicked it down.
An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Medvedev’s six straight tournaments highlighted four specific areas where his game elevated. The six events, including his win/loss record:
Citi Open – Finalist (5-1)
Coupe Rogers – Finalist (4-1)
Western & Southern Open – Champion (6-0)
US Open – Finalist (6-1)
St. Petersburg Open – Champion (4-0)
Rolex Shanghai Masters – Champion (5-0)
OVERALL = 30-2 (3 titles / 3 finals)
1. Bouncing Back From 0/15 Medvedev won 84.1 per cent (810/963) of his service games in 2019 from 79 matches, which was good for 13th best on Tour. But when he fell behind 0/15 in his service games during the 32-match streak from Washington to Shanghai, his overall hold percentage hardly took a hit.
He won 86 of 109 service games, which was good for 78.9 per cent, a drop of just 5.2 percentage points. One point in arrears hardly made a dent.
2. Bold On Break Points Medvedev served 690 aces in 79 matches this season, for an average of 11.4 aces per match. During the 32-match streak, he served 312 aces in 32 matches for an average of 10.2. So on the surface, this area of his game was slightly down in the 32 matches compared to the rest of the season.
But then you look where they occurred. On break point, Medvedev importantly delivered 15 aces, while committing just four double faults. In big moments, he could often rely on the serve not coming back.
3. Finishing When Ahead After winning Shanghai, Medvedev said, “Something clicked in my game in the USA. I started to understand even more about my game, even more I would say about my serve.”
Once Medvedev got ahead in his service games, he was almost unstoppable. The following metrics identify how hard he was to catch once he got ahead in the 32-match streak.
Games Won From: 40/0 = 98% (131/133)
30/0 = 95% (182/192)
40/30 = 92% (101/110)
30/15 = 90% (154/171)
4. Break And Hold Medvedev’s 2019 season average for holding serve was 84.1 per cent (810/963), but that elevated even higher during the 32-match streak when he looked to hold immediately after breaking serve.
Overall, Medvedev broke serve 111 times from Washington to St. Petersburg and had to follow it up with a service game of his own. When that occurred, he won a dominant 88.2 per cent (98/111) of his service games to consolidate the break.
Medvedev was ranked No. 19 in mid-January of 2019, and ended up spending 10 straight weeks at No. 4 before finishing the season at No. 5.
He starts 2020 less than 1,000 ATP Rankings points behind No. 3 Roger Federer, with only 745 points to defend on hard courts in the first three months. Another surge up the ATP Rankings is definitely on the cards.
2019 Nitto ATP Finals Named As Most Sustainable Season Finale Ever
Dec182019
Significant commitment driven by offsetting over 5,500 tons of carbon emissions
The ATP has announced the 2019 iteration of its prestigious season-ending tournament – the Nitto ATP Finals – was its most sustainable season finale ever.
The ATP’s sustainability efforts have been led by its partnership with One Carbon World, a global partner of the United Nation’s Climate Neutral Now initiative. The collaboration between the two organisations has resulted in the offsetting of all international and domestic travel to the event for players, tournament staff and ATP members, as well as the travel of all tennis fans within the UK to the tournament. The season-ending event attracted more than 242,000 fans to The O2. With the additional inclusion of international travel for players and ATP staff to the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, in total 5,683 tons of carbon emissions were offset.
This significant commitment comes a year after the ATP announced a wave of new sustainability initiatives for the 2018 tournament which were implemented to reduce the environmental impact of the eight-day showpiece event. The 2018 event saw a particular focus on reducing the amount of plastic used at the tournament which included the use of water coolers and glass bottles across all tennis family, media and operational staff areas.
Following those changes, this year 60,000 single use plastic cups were removed from the tournament’s waste stream through the elimination of these cups at public concession units and the introduction of tournament take-home cups which were washed and re-used many times during the event. There were also no plastic bags used to deliver 310 newly-strung rackets to players by Tecnifibre, the official tournament stringers, throughout the tournament.
Elsewhere, to reduce the amount of waste generated by the event the ATP worked with City Harvest, a charity focused on putting surplus food to good use in a sustainable way, to redistribute leftover food to shelters around London. In total the food City Harvest collected equated to over 2,000 meals for Londoners in need. These donations prevented over 3.25 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
As well as reducing the environmental impact, the ATP also ensured the tournament made a positive social impact working in partnership with Cancer Research UK who raised over £10,000 through cash collections, the sale of signed player merchandise across a number of Cancer Research UK stores, and a text to donate scheme at the tournament.
Adam Hogg, Event Director, Nitto ATP Finals, said: “After beginning the process of measuring the impact from our activities and trialling a number of new initiatives at last year’s Nitto ATP Finals, we’re thrilled with the results we seen this year. Staging large sporting events always come with significant sustainability challenges, so to accomplish everything we have done at this year’s tournament is a great achievement, particularly offsetting over 5,500 tons of carbon emissions.
“Of course, there is always more that can be done and we look forward to working with our specialist advisors to try and deliver even better results at next year’s tournament.”
ATPTour.com continue its best of the decade series
Entering the decade, it seemed to be a question of when and not if Andy Murray would win a Grand Slam. The Brit had four ATP Masters 1000 titles and several victories over the Big Three of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, but defeating them at a major proved far more difficult to accomplish.
Having already lost the 2008 US Open championship match to Roger Federer, Murray finished runner-up at the 2010 and 2011 Australian Open (l. to Federer and Djokovic), then fell to Federer again in the 2012 Wimbledon final. The Brit had matched Ivan Lendl’s “record” of playing four Grand Slam finals without taking a title.
Fittingly, it would be Lendl who helped Murray get over the line during their coaching partnership from 2012-2014. The stoic former World No. 1 curbed Murray’s on-court temper and helped him maintain a high level of consistency throughout tournaments.
Energised by back-to-back victories over Djokovic and Federer to secure a gold medal for Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics, Murray powered into the US Open final against Djokovic. His dramatic 7-6(10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2 win over the Serbian took four hours and 54 minutes, matching Lendl and Mats Willander’s record for the longest final in tournament this history.
Not only did the triumph make Murray the first British man since Fred Perry (1936 Wimbledon) to lift a Grand Slam title, it also gave him a seat at tennis’ top table and turned the Big Three into the Big Four. Energised by joining his elite peers after years of chasing them, he followed up by defeating Djokovic in the 2013 Wimbledon final and became the first British man in 77 years to prevail at The All England Club.
Murray would scale even greater heights in 2016. After a fifth runner-up showing in Melbourne (l. to Djokovic) and recording his first Roland Garros final (l. to Nadal), he prevailed again at Wimbledon (d. Raonic) and defended his Olympic crown in Rio de Janeiro (d. Del Potro). He finished the season with one of the greatest fairytale runs in modern tennis history. He won 24 straight matches, a run culminating in victory over Djokovic in the Nitto ATP Finals title match in a winner-takes-all battle for the coveted year-end No. 1 ATP Ranking.
But after reaching the pinnacle of the sport, a severe right hip injury shut down his 2017 season after Wimbledon. The Brit underwent surgery in January 2018 and returned to action that June after an 11-month absence, but still experienced pain when he played. Before his first-round defeat at this year’s Australian Open, an emotional Murray announced his intention to retire after Wimbledon.
“I can still play to a level — not a level that I’m happy playing at,” Murray said in a pre-tournament press conference. “It’s not just that. The pain is too much, really. I don’t want to continue playing that way. I think I have tried pretty much everything I could to get it right, and that hasn’t worked.”
But the Brit’s plans altered considerably within a couple of weeks. Murray instead opted for a second surgery and had a metal plate inserted into his hip joint. He threw himself into recovery and soon tested the waters with a foray into doubles, winning his first event back in June with Feliciano Lopez at Queen’s Club (d. Ram/Salisbury).
By August, Murray felt confident enough in his metal hip to focus on a singles comeback. Just two months later, he brought himself and the Antwerp crowd to tears by defeating Stan Wawrinka for his first ATP Tour singles crown since 2017 Dubai.
The Brit is too much of a perfectionist to let his latest comeback be a mere nostalgia moment. With his current form and proven track record of overcoming adversity, all signs point to him producing more memorable moments in the years to come.
Players Of The Decade Novak Djokovic Roger Federer Andy Murray Rafael Nadal (Thursday) Stan Wawrinka (Friday)
Recently crowned US Open champion Bianca Andreescu speaks of “feeling worthless” as she struggled to cope with the attention of being a rising teenage star.
Former Grand Slam finalist Madison Keys reveals an eating disorder left her living off three low-calorie bars a day.
British player Katie Swan talks about the impact of her coach’s son falling through a glass window and needing life-saving surgery.
Mental health issues. Sexuality. Financial worries. Leaving home for the first time. Death.
American player Noah Rubin, the 2014 Wimbledon junior champion seeking to fulfil his promise on the ATP Tour, is giving his fellow professionals a platform to open up – whatever the subject.
His Behind The Racquet project, inspired by Humans of New York – a revealing photoblog of the city’s residents now tracked by millions of social media users worldwide, sees current players, former players and celebrity fans including British comedian Miranda Hart pose behind the strings of a racquet.
Accompanying the striking image is an emotive personal story.
“This has never really been done before, something that shows what these people, who are thought of as having perfect lives or doing really well because they are professional players, are really going through,” Rubin tells BBC Sport.
“You really get an understanding of what they’re going through on a day-to-day basis, what their thought process is, what their mentality is, how they are feeling, how their family is, just how difficult tennis is.”
Rubin, 23, is determined to influence change in a sport which he says is “very tough on the body and the mind”.
Belgian player Alison van Uytvanck, in a post published earlier this month, gives a candid insight into the low self-esteem she felt as a youngster when she was bullied at training camps because of her ginger hair.
“I never felt so alone, having no friends and unable to really talk to parents,” she says. “I had no-one to lean on for help and found myself crying in my room day after day.”
Rubin believes a fundamental overhaul of the game is needed to help improve the mental wellbeing of the players, while he also says more support pathways need to be opened up.
Improved access to psychologists and the creation of outreach programmes for youngsters, where a former professional is easily contactable to offer advice, is a key strategy outlined by Rubin.
“The seasons are way too long, the matches are too long, it is not fan-friendly, it is not promotable, it is not TV-friendly. There are so many issues,” Rubin says.
“I think we are a little scared of making true fundamental changes – but we have to.”
The ATP Tour’s 2020 season begins on 2 January with the newly launched ATP Cup, starting just six weeks after some of the world’s leading male players took part in the inaugural Davis Cup finals.
Top female players have a slightly longer break – the season-opening Brisbane International on 6 January comes two months after the WTA Finals finished.
While men’s five-set matches are now reserved for Grand Slams and the Olympic final, the length of matches has still prompted plenty of debate.
Tentative attempts to introduce shorter formats of the game have been made – notably with first-to-four-games sets at the ATP NextGen finals and the creation of the Tie Break Tens events, but are yet to break through on the main ATP and WTA Tours.
Uniform change is difficult, however, with seven governing bodies – the ITF, ATP, WTA and four Grand Slams – rarely pulling in the same direction.
“We’re at a time where we have to break down the sport of tennis, invest, take a hit for a year or two and bring the sport to a place to where it has never been before,” Rubin says.
The WTA says the health and safety of its players – physical and mental – are its “number one priority”.
“The WTA has a comprehensive sports science and medicine and athlete assistance support system in place, which is staffed by experienced and expert therapists within the WTA,” it said in a statement.
“The WTA provides extensive resources and education to [help] players manage the challenges professional athletes may face, such as performing under pressure, international travel, managing health, public scrutiny, public commentary and ‘growing up’ in the public eye.”
The WTA added that players can receive individual counselling and support if needed from qualified mental health care providers, both at WTA tournaments and remotely.
The ATP said it was “continually looking to build on its duty of care towards its players” and had recently carried out a review of this area with players, team members and industry experts.
In a statement, the ATP said: “Tournament physicians and physiotherapists on the ATP Tour are in continual contact with players and their support teams throughout the year. In cases where a player were to express psychological concerns, we have an infrastructure that would refer them to the appropriate consultant.
“In situations where ATP physios and tournament physicians are concerned about a player’s mental, emotional and psychological health, we would recommend that the player seek treatment and assist in the initiation of the appropriate care.”
‘I had dark times. This sport isn’t conducive to happiness’
Passionate, articulate and determined to influence change, Rubin speaks from the heart.
Around the time of this year’s French Open, he almost stopped playing a sport to which he has dedicated most of his life. As an 11-year-old, he was said to have been described as “one of the most talented players” fellow New Yorker John McEnroe had come across.
“I didn’t know whether I was going to stop for good or just some real time off. I was telling my family and friends that I just don’t want to play the sport any more,” Rubin remembers.
“I wasn’t happy – the sport isn’t conducive to happiness. I don’t know if I want to throw the word depressed around, but at moments I felt like that.
“I was really thinking this was the end and the last time I was going to hit a tennis ball competitively.”
What changed for the world number 212 was spending less time on court, addressing his work-life balance and rediscovering the fun which made him enjoy tennis in the first place.
Rubin moved back to New York from Florida, practised about an hour a day, and then qualified for Wimbledon where he missed out on a third-round meeting with Roger Federer by losing to British youngster Jay Clarke.
Rubin repeatedly makes it clear he still loves the sport, and believes a change of focus – he talks of his love for fashion and photography, as well as still having time for Netflix and HBO – can enable him to crack the world’s top 50 next year.
“I started to figure out that it is far more important to put happiness on a pedestal rather than spend eight hours on a court,” he concludes.
“I had dark times where I didn’t know if I was going to make it out as a tennis player.
“This world of Behind The Racquet has opened up my eyes, it has given me another passion and helped take some pressure of the world of tennis.
“Now I understand it is far more important to be happy.”
Rubin pauses as he recalls one story, which he says still gives him “chills”.
“It was Jolene Watanabe, who was a top-100 player and played in the Grand Slams in the 1990s. She had cancer, was in remission, and I thought she was going to make it.
“Then I got a message from her husband on Instagram saying ‘I just want you to know she is saying her final goodbyes right now and it would be very much appreciated if you could post her story’.
“To hear that they’re going through something where she’s not going to make it and he was thinking he wanted me to post her story on Behind The Racquet so people could know about it, be a part of it and inspire them… it leaves me speechless.
“To have that kind of impact was something I could not have fathomed, especially this early on, and that’s why I keep pushing on.”
How it began… and what next?
It was during a sleepless night after arriving home from Australia that Rubin formulated the concept of Behind The Racquet.
After inspiration struck at 3am, he acquired the name of his new project on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Within three days he had posted for the first time.
Ten months later, Behind The Racquet has about 35,000 followers across the three platforms, along with a podcast and clothing range as Rubin aims to build the brand.
The next phase is already being worked on, with Rubin aiming to link-up with Talkspace, an online therapy platform which boasts legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps as an ambassador, and the National Association of Mental Illness, as he looks to set up mental health camps for players and perhaps film a docu-series.
Sharing the stories of the sport’s biggest names – Rubin hopes seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Venus Williams and US Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev will feature before the end of the year – is another target.
“Not only are many in a sport where they can’t make money, they’re in a sport where you don’t win very often, so they’re combining failure on the court with failure financially,” Rubin says.
“What I’m really trying to do is pave a way for people that, in five or 10 years from now, are saying ‘this is better because of Behind The Racquet’.”
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