Gauff starts US Open 'victory lap' with routine win
Defending champion Coco Gauff says she is treating this year’s US Open as a “victory lap” after comfortably beating Varvara Gracheva in her opening match.
Defending champion Coco Gauff says she is treating this year’s US Open as a “victory lap” after comfortably beating Varvara Gracheva in her opening match.
At peace with his impending retirement and the end of his US Open career, Dominic Thiem was happy to sign off in New York with a final appearance on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday afternoon.
“Everything was a bit different,” said Thiem in his post-match press conference after his straight-sets defeat to Ben Shelton. “I tried to enjoy, I tried to really soak up every moment in this stadium. It was really nice. I think I was able to focus on the match, but of course I don’t have that level anymore that is required to really go head-to-head with players like Ben.
“This I also knew before, so of course I tried to enjoy as much as possible, but still, I was focusing on the match pretty good.”
New York will forever love Domi ❤️
2020 champion @domithiem bids an emotional farewell to the US Open 🥹@usopen | #USOpenpic.twitter.com/Zfx5KJlx5s
— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 26, 2024
Thiem will end his career later this year as the owner of a 23-9 record at the US Open. That tally includes the highlight of the Austrian’s career: his run to his only Grand Slam trophy at the 2020 edition of the hard-court major.
“When I came first here as a pro, I straightaway played fourth round, and that gave me a boost for all the upcoming years,” said Thiem, when asked to reflect on his US Open career. “I think it’s like that. If you have really good memories or if you have a good start at something, this really gives you positive vibes for the future. It was like that, because the only really bad year I had here was 2019, when I lost in the first round and when I was not 100 per cent healthy.
“Other than that, I almost only had great highlight years. The 2017 [five-set match] against [Juan Martin del Potro], which was back then a really, really tough loss to handle. But now, it’s a legendary match, which I really like to remember actually, and then of course the epic [five-set 2018 quarter-final] with Rafa [Nadal] was great.
“But still, 2020 is above everything, and is also above everything else in my tennis career.”
[ATP APP]Thiem will bring his career to a close on home soil in October at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna. The former No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings, whose time at the top of the game was curtailed by a long-term wrist injury, is ready for his next chapter.
“I’m happy. I was struggling enough, the last years, especially since I was not able to come back to my level,” said Thiem. “But once I took the decision this year in March, from this moment on, I was happy about it.
“Obviously I was also able to kind of prepare already this new chapter that is coming soon. Honestly, I always loved playing on Tour, and I was very patient about it, but honestly, I also always really enjoyed being at home and to have, as much as it was possible, a kind of normal life at home.
“That’s why I really look forward to this now, now that the normal life is now coming. That’s why I think it’s not that difficult for me, and that’s why I’m really also happy with my decision.”
[NEWSLETTER FORM]
Dominic Thiem’s Grand Slam career comes to an end in the US Open first round as the former New York champion loses to Ben Shelton.
On 11 June, #NextGenATP American Learner Tien posted a series of photos on Instagram of himself competing with the caption, “all in due time”. The last slide of the post was a graphic of two men in a dirt tunnel with a pickaxe. One had turned around dejected due to the seemingly never-ending tunnel. The other was further behind, but eagerly swinging away. Unbeknownst to them, there were diamonds on the other side of the dirt in their way.
“If you work away, inevitably you’ll break through. I think that’s was what I was thinking,” Tien told ATPTour.com. “Obviously, with the setback of the injury and coming back and just kind of plugging away in the Futures, I felt like just building on match after match, inevitably I’d be back just because I felt like I’d lost some time.”
The two-time USTA Boys’ 18s National Champion entered the season with high hopes, but only managed to play three tournaments before missing more than three months due to a seventh-rib fracture.
“I believe it was just an overuse thing. It wasn’t any blunt force or anything like that. It could have been something on my serve, and I was just kind of irritating the spot,” Tien said. “I felt it more like a knot in my back before my rib started hurting, my lat and rib area. So I think just a lot of tension over time just caused it to break down.”
The injury was in an awkward spot for the 18-year-old, who was unable to do much of anything and limited the impact on his body.
“I wasn’t really running. I couldn’t obviously hold weights or really support or even put any weight on my arm. Couldn’t really rotate. So I wasn’t doing much of anything besides watching shows, playing video games, stuff like that,” Tien said. “It was definitely tough to see everyone else playing during that time. And I feel like I was falling behind just because right when the year started, all the tournaments started to pick back up, I missed the first however many months. So, yeah, it was tough.”
The lefty from California, who has been watching Game of Thrones and Dexter, was eager to return to action. “Honestly, I kind of got bored after a while,” he said. “I was kind of playing whatever my friends were playing.”
One of his coaches, Eric Diaz, explained why the team really took time before allowing Tien to come back.
“We kind of held off his return to tournaments about six to seven extra weeks, so we really just wanted to clean some stuff up and we did a lot of work on the forehand and on the serve,” Diaz said. “The goal was basically putting off this year and just trying to really develop from the physical side and when he would be ready to come back, we wanted to come back with some things a certain way.”
[ATP APP]When Tien returned, it was clear he wanted to make up for lost time. The teen won the first 28 matches of his comeback, claiming four ITF World Tennis Tour titles and his maiden ATP Challenger Tour trophy at Bloomfield Hills.
“Obviously I’ve done pretty well the past few months coming back from injury, honestly, a lot better than I expected of myself,” Tien said. “Not that I had super low expectations, but I just wasn’t really trying to put any pressure on myself, and just trying to go out there and play.”
Diaz added that the goal was to improve and if that translated into wins, great. After Tien won his first tournament back, for which the goal was to get some matches in, there were more events in the area. The lefty maintained his form and has not looked back.
When Tien returned to action in May, he was No. 439 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Three months later, after reaching his first ATP Tour quarter-final in Winston-Salem, he is inside the Top 200 and continuing to climb. Importantly, his confidence has snowballed.
“I think just starting off playing Futures that were close to my house in Southern California were huge. I think playing those matches and playing a lot of consecutive matches, slowly building my confidence back through that [helped],” Tien said. “[I put] myself in a lot of different positions so when some matches get get close, get tight, I’m down a break, I’m up a break, and I lose the break or stuff like that, I can always think back to prior matches that the same things happened. I was able to find a way out of it.
“That was really big, especially coming back from a couple tight matches in Bloomfield Hills. Just having the confidence that I could come back from a set down, set and a break, stuff like that was really big, just for my confidence in those matches, especially the tighter ones.”
Tien is set to compete in his third consecutive US Open main draw at just 18 years old. The #NextGenATP player, who is eighth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah, earned his place this year by winning the 2024 US Open Wild Card Challenge. He plays 24th seed Arthur Fils in the first round.
“I definitely feel more familiar in that setting, I think, as opposed to the last two years. The last two years obviously, I was pretty young, both those years. I still am,” Tien said. “But the last two years coming in, 16, 17, I think my mindset was a bit different. I was playing juniors both those years as well. Obviously, ranked a lot lower than I am now.
“I think my confidence going in this year is a lot higher, and I just think that I’ll feel a little bit more familiar going back for a third time, as opposed to my first two years.”
The past few months have gone as well as possible in terms of results. Diaz called his charge’s work “a very mature effort” and “very clear-visioned”.
“He really carved out the things that we want to improve, and then how to improve them and he’s done a really good job of committing to them in the pressure situations, which I think is pretty meaningful,” Tien said. “It’s been a good block.”
But as Tien posted on Instagram earlier this year, there is always reason to continue digging. Win or lose at the US Open, he will continue to do so.
“I just kind of kept plugging away, and I wasn’t trying to rush myself back, honestly,” Tien said. “I just thought, if I just trusted everything I was doing, just kept plugging away, eventually I’d have my time.”
[NEWSLETTER FORM]Americans Alex Michelsen and Learner Tien have boosted their respective chances of qualifying for the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF after they impressed on home soil in Winston-Salem.
Michelsen consolidated second spot in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah after he reached his second ATP Tour final of the season at the hard-court event. The 20-year-old produced a series of aggressive displays at the ATP 250 event before he lost to Italian Lorenzo Sonego in the title match.
Michelsen, who is also at a career-high No. 49 in the PIF ATP Rankings, is aiming to making his second appearance in Jeddah after competing last year. He will now head to New York to play at the US Open, starting against Eliot Spizzirri.
[ATP APP]PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah
| Player | Points |
| 1) Arthur Fils | 1585 |
| 2) Alex Michelsen | 986 |
| 3) Shang Juncheng | 705 |
| 4) Jakub Mensik | 680 |
| 5) Luca Van Assche | 425 |
| 6) Joao Fonseca | 365 |
| 7) Vilius Gaubas | 286 |
| 8) Learner Tien | 243 |
| 9) Henrique Rocha | 237 |
| 10) Coleman Wong | 211 |
Tien also enjoyed a memorable week in Winston-Salem, where he advanced through qualifying to reach the quarter-finals. The 18-year-old, who has received a wild card for the US Open, had never competed in an ATP Tour main draw before arriving in North Carolina.
Tien is currently eighth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah and in the final qualification position, six points ahead of ninth-placed Henrique Rocha.
Shang Juncheng has climbed to third after he reached the third round in Winston-Salem. The 19-year-old Chinese lefty beat Argentines Francisco Comesana and Mariano Navone at the hard-court event. Shang is just 25 points clear of Jakub Mensik, with both players set to compete at the US Open this fortnight.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]The North American hard-court season continued apace last week at the Winston-Salem Open, where Lorenzo Sonego overcame #NextGenATP Alex Michelsen in the final to seal his fourth ATP Tour crown.
ATPTour.com looks at the movers in the PIF ATP Rankings as of Monday, 26 August.
[ATP APP] No. 49 Alex Michelsen, +3 (Career High)
One day shy of his 20th birthday, Michelsen stepped on court for his third ATP Tour final at the Winston-Salem Open. Although the home favourite was comfortably defeated by Sonego at the ATP 250, he can look back on another positive step in his career ahead of the US Open. Michelsen has risen three spots to a career-high No. 49 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
No. 48 Lorenzo Sonego, +10
Lorenzo Sonego became just the 11th active ATP Tour player to win tour-level titles on outdoor hard, indoor hard, clay and grass with a dominant series of displays in Winston-Salem. The Italian, who had not won consecutive matches on hard courts this year prior to arriving in North Carolina, did not drop a set all week en route to clinching his first title for almost two years.
No. 72 Shang Juncheng, +5 (Career High)
Chinese star Shang notched his 20th tour-level win of the year against Francisco Comesana in the first round in Winston-Salem, and that victory was enough to propel him five spots to a career-high World No. 72. The 19-year-old Shang has also consolidated third place in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah: He remains 25 points clear of fourth-placed Jakub Mensik as he bids to qualify for the season-ending Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF.
No. 78 David Goffin, +12
Former World No. 7 Goffin downed three seeded opponents in Winston-Salem en route to his first ATP Tour semi-final since April 2022. The Belgian overcame Luciano Darderi, Arthur Rinderknech and Rinky Hijikata before falling to Sonego. Goffin has risen 12 spots to World No. 78, his highest PIF ATP Ranking since April 2023, as a result.
No. 106 Christopher Eubanks, +14
Eubanks boosted his bid for a quick return to the Top 100 with a quarter-final run in Winston-Salem. The home favourite prevailed against Adam Walton, Hugo Gaston and Roman Safiullin before he fell in a deciding-set tie-break to eventual finalist Michelsen.
Other Notable Top 100 Movers
No. 21 Alejandro Tabilo, +1
No. 22 Karen Khachanov, +1
No. 60 Pavel Kotov, +3
No. 62 Rinky Hijikata, +3 (Career High)
No. 80 Zizou Bergs, +5
No. 91 Arthur Cazaux, +6
[NEWSLETTER FORM]
Li Tu was playing Jesper de Jong Thursday in the final round of US Open qualifying on Court 6, which sits in the shadow of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the biggest tennis-only stadium on the planet. The Australian battled with the Dutchman deep into the third set of their match and even faced two match points on serve at 4-5. His dream of qualifying for a major for the first time nearly slipped away.
During the decider, the 28-year-old thought about his mother, Yu Ping Zheng, who passed away nearly two years ago after a courageous battle with lung cancer.
“I was a little bit nervous in the third set and I remember looking up at the change of ends, seeing her face, and just saying, ‘We’ve got this, we’ve got this, we’ve got this’,” Tu told ATPTour.com. “She’s still with me. I truly believe that, and I just want to make my parents proud. I know no matter what I do, they would be. But I just want to make them proud.”
Tu rallied to win the match and earn his place in the main draw at the season’s final major. It was a memorable moment for a player who left the sport altogether for six years and has had to deal with the tragedy of losing a loved one since his return. He will play four-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz in the first round.
“Honestly, I already almost started tearing up, 30-love that last game, because I was like, ‘Oh, wow, is this going to happen?’” Tu said. “I got a wild card into the 2021 [Australian Open], but how that all happened, it was pretty weird. This one, I earned it. I did it, I qualified. Playing a major is stuff that people dream about, that I dreamed as a kid as well. And to really do it, do it properly, it’s just truly amazing.”
When Tu was five years old, he went to badminton training with his brother Chen, 10 years his elder. Li, an Adelaide native born to Chinese parents (his brother was born in China), began hitting the birdie over the net and the coach said, “Wow, your little brother is actually quite talented”. He was told to go play tennis instead because there was more money in the sport.
Tu’s father, Yi Xing Tu, was “really sporty”, but was only about 170 centimetres tall. He was coordinated and had talent in basketball and volleyball, but lacked the size.
His son, Li, quickly showed ability in tennis and as he began taking lessons, it did not take long to establish himself as a top junior. Thanasi Kokkinakis, who was born less than two months before him, was his competition for the No. 1 player in Australia through the juniors.
Tu’s father was dedicated to his tennis and pushed him to improve. His mother was on the opposite side of the spectrum.
<img src=”/-/media/images/news/2024/08/26/05/06/tu-us-open-2024-mom.jpg?w=100%25&hash=315DEBBA05084F2AECD398D5B9DDC8BB” style=”width:100%;” alt=”Li Tu” />
“My mom just wanted me to be happy. She would honestly ask, ‘You sure you want to play tennis? Like, it’s really hot out there, it’s a lot of hard work, you don’t have to play if you don’t want to’,” Tu recalled. “As long as I was happy, she really didn’t care if I did well or not. I think she just wanted me to be happy. I think she could see that tennis made me happy, or thriving in tennis made me happy, so that’s what she wanted for me.
“She was more the one that made sure food was on the table, that I was wearing my sunscreen, that I got enough sleep, things like that, mom’s stuff.”
By 18, Tu decided to quit the sport.
“I live with no regrets, and I think at the time, everything works out as it should be,” Tu said. “I look back, and I think that it was all a bit too much for me, the expectations. I really was a bit burnt out.”
The Australian moved on with his life, earning a Bachelor of Commerce from Adelaide University in 2017. Tu also started a coaching business, helping players pursue their dreams. Leaving competition also helped reignite his love for the sport.
“It really helped, coaching juniors,” Tu said. “Having a perspective from the sidelines really helped my comeback, and getting that extra perspective really made me understand things from a whole other level.”
Tu kept in touch with some of his mates from the Tour, but naturally it was not always easy because of their travels. He stayed at Nick Kyrgios’ house a couple of time while in Canberra.
In 2020, then 24, Tu began to work towards a comeback. In 2021, he began playing professional tournaments. His first two events back, an ATP 250 in Melbourne and the Australian Open. It was clear early on that his coaching experience and time away helped prepare him for the ups and downs of tennis.
“I learned a lot watching the sport from the sidelines, coaching, being in people’s journeys from the side,” Tu said.
[ATP APP]His coach, Ben Milner, was the man with whom he started M2 Tennis to coach promising young Australian juniors. According to Milner, Tu struggled when results did not come straight away at the senior level. Their coaching work helped shift his mindset.
“The strong messaging we were giving these juniors was to work hard, have fun and enjoy the journey win or lose, it was then I could tell that message was starting to resonate within himself,” Milner said. “After discussions with his close friends and family he decided to give tennis a crack again but this time with a new perspective on tennis: work hard, have fun along the way and enjoy the new journey! It has been unbelievable how he has stuck with this mantra through both good times and bad. And through this he found his passion and is able to deal with whatever is thrown at him, good or bad.”
Before the Aussie quit, he had never cracked the Top 1,000 in the PIF ATP Rankings. By July 2022, just a year and a half into his return, he was in the Top 300. But at the same time, there were difficulties in Tu’s personal life. More than seven years ago, his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“It would come and then it’d go, and then it would come back again, and then it would go,” Tu said. “Then the last year, there was a significant decline, where we all sort of knew that she was not going to be able to last much longer.”
In August 2022, Tu returned home to Adelaide after an ATP Challenger Tour event in Chicago. He was excited to marry his now-wife, Kimberley, on 25 November. But his family had not really fully clued him into his mother’s condition.
“I got back and she was sort of bedridden,” Tu said. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, it’s really declined here’. And that’s when I took a long break. I sort of stopped traveling, and I spent a lot of time at home.”
<img src=”/-/media/images/news/2024/08/26/05/06/tu-us-open-2024-mom-wedding.jpg” style=”width:100%;” alt=”Li Tu” />
Tu’s brother Chen, now an orthopaedic surgeon, told him he did not believe their mother would make it to the wedding. Li and Kimberley moved up their wedding to 3 September.
“It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life, where less than 20 people were at the wedding, and I got married to Kimberley, and my mom was there,” Tu said. “She passed away on the 24th of September, at 3 a.m. We had the funeral the next Friday.”
Shortly thereafter, Tu flew to South Korea for a few ATP Challenger Tour events. After a second-round loss in the first one, Tu battled through qualifying in Seoul and won his first Challenger title. His father and other family members watched the match, projected on the wall of a Chinese restaurant back home.
“It was a really tough moment for my family. Honestly, we all still haven’t really gotten over it,” Tu said. “We all still miss her every day. Every time we talk about her, we sort of tear up a little bit, and she really was one of the best people. We miss her. We miss her dearly.”
<img src=”/-/media/images/news/2024/08/26/05/25/tu-us-open-2024-dad.jpg” style=”width:100%;” alt=”Li Tu” />
The Adelaide native has carried on in her honour and two years on, aged 28, is continuing to break new ground. Tu will compete in a major main draw on his own merit, by qualifying, for the first time at Flushing Meadows.
Milner said: “It was a tough time for Li but he used these tough times as strong motivation to drive him harder than ever before, and I know always will.”
The No. 186 player in the PIF ATP Rankings has never faced a Top 50 opponent in his career. Facing Alcaraz inside Arthur Ashe Stadium Tuesday evening will be a memory for a lifetime.
“It’s amazing. I guess I forget sometimes in tennis because it’s just me out there, sometimes I forget that there’s family behind or what tennis means to a lot more people,” Tu said. “When I qualified, so many people reposted it, so many people commented. I forget that there’s so many people involved and I think that I could play one of the best players on a stadium like Arthur Ashe Stadium, biggest tennis court in the world, biggest tennis stadium in the world, have mum watching, that will stay with me forever.
“I just hope that I can put in a good performance, and I can make my parents proud, especially, mom.”
[NEWSLETTER FORM]ATPTour.com looks at five ATP Challenger Tour players to keep your eyes on during the US Open.
Learner Tien
The 18-year-old arrives at Flushing Meadows fresh off a dream ATP Tour debut week, reaching the Winston-Salem quarter-finals as a qualifier. Eighth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah, Tien survived a marathon tournament at last month’s Bloomfield Hills Challenger, where he needed a deciding set in all five of his matches to lift the trophy.
Tien became the 10th-youngest American Challenger champion, joining the likes of Andy Roddick, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe, whom the teen lost to in the first round of the US Open last year. The lefty will look to rely on his ultra-consistent baseline play to challenge the world’s best in his third consecutive US Open appearance. In the first round, Tien faces fellow #NextGenATP star and 24th seed Arthur Fils.
Mattia Bellucci
It has been a red-hot past month for the Italian inching closer to his Top 100 debut, currently World No. 101 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Bellucci made his first tour-level quarter-final in Atlanta and followed that run by qualifying for Washington and reaching the second round. The 23-year-old held two championship points at the ATP Challenger Tour 100 event in Cary, North Carolina, but fell to Roman Safiullin after nearly three hours.
After qualifying for a third consecutive major main-draw appearance, the lefty starts against 2016 champion Stan Wawrinka.
Buyunchaokete
In May, the 22-year-old became the youngest Chinese player to earn multiple ATP Challenger Tour titles. With title runs in Wuxi and Granby the past three months, ‘Bu’ has climbed more than 100 places in the PIF ATP Rankings since the first week of May. The qualifier is now at a career-high World No. 123.
‘Bu’ has won 15 of his past 17 matches across all levels. The three-time ATP Challenger Tour champion faces eighth seed and 2022 finalist Casper Ruud in the opening round. This fortnight is Buyunchaokete’s first major main draw.
[ATP APP]
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard
The monstrous-serving Frenchman used the ATP Challenger Tour as a springboard this season before launching into the Top 50 of the PIF ATP Rankings. Mpetshi Perricard collected three hard-court Challenger titles spanning from February through April and then triumphed at his home ATP 250 in Lyon, where he saved championship point against Tomas Martin Etcheverry, his first-round opponent this week.
The six-foot-eight 21-year-old made a surprise fourth-round run at Wimbledon as a lucky loser, having begun that week by crushing 55 aces to upset 20th seed Sebastian Korda. This fortnight, a potential clash with fourth seed Alexander Zverev looms in the third round, but Mpetshi Perricard will be focussed on the task at hand as he makes his US open main-draw debut.
Dominic Stricker
Injuries have unfortunately sidelined the Swiss lefty from consistently competing in 2024, but now Stricker returns to the site where he has fond memories from last year. Stricker produced fearless, heavy hitting to upset seventh seed Stefanos Tsitsipas as a qualifier en route to the fourth round in New York.
A semi-finalist at last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF, the 22-year-old is playing in just his ninth tournament of the season across all levels. Stricker faces Argentine Francisco Comesana in the first round.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]