Nick Bollettieri has always relished a challenge.

In more than 60 years as a coach, the American has thrived on accomplishing what others said could not be done. From honing talents such as Jim Courier, Andre Agassi and Monica Seles, to founding the world’s first major tennis boarding academy, Bollettieri is one of tennis’ true pioneers.

Now a TopCourt ambassador, Bollettieri opens up to fans on the fundamentals of his coaching philosophy, offering key insights that will last them a lifetime. He also reveals how his humble beginnings as the son of Italian immigrants in New York have driven his self-belief over the decades, and how he has embraced the unique playing styles of some of his most successful charges.

Instruction: Bollettieri introduces three building blocks that he teaches to all tennis players, starting with one simple skill that he believes is crucial in developing an early enjoyment of the sport. He then shares his philosophy on how and when a player should move forward in his ‘Learning How To Attack The Net’ class, before using a real life example of two players playing a few points to immediately demonstrate areas of potential improvement.

Drills: Bollettieri brings six of his favourite drills to TopCourt, ensuring there is something for players of all levels. For beginners, ‘The Alley Drill’ shows how to make solid and consistent contact with the ball. More confident players can try Bollettieri’s ‘Box Drill Intervals’ exercise, which he introduced to Mary Pierce before she won the 1995 Australian Open.

Follow Bollettieri’s Tutorials at TopCourt.com.

Rafael Nadal, who at the Rolex Paris Masters will compete for the first time since the Laver Cup, faces a tough path at the season’s final ATP Masters 1000 event following Friday’s release of the draw, when it was revealed the Spaniard is in the same half of the draw as six-time champion Novak Djokovic.

Nadal, who will pursue his first title at the indoor hard-court event, will begin his run against former Top 10 player Roberto Bautista Agut or American Tommy Paul, who has enjoyed the best season of his career. The first seeded opponent Nadal could face is this year’s Montreal champion, 14th seed Pablo Carreno Busta. Fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas is also in his quarter.

The lefty Nadal has advanced to at least the quarter-finals of the tournament in his eight previous appearances. He has tallied a 22-6 record at the event. 

Sixth seed Djokovic will open against serve-and-volleying American Maxime Cressy or former Top 10 player Diego Schwartzman. The Serbian arrives on a nine-match winning streak after lifting trophies in Tel Aviv and Astana, tournaments that are also played on indoor hard courts. Djokovic owns a record 38 Masters 1000 crowns.

Top seed Carlos Alcaraz will start his chase for a third Masters 1000 trophy this season against Aslan Karatsev or Yoshihito Nishioka. The Spaniard could play 13th seed Matteo Berrettini in the third round. Nitto ATP Finals contenders Andrey Rublev and Hubert Hurkacz are also in the first quarter.

With the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin heating up, one potential match in the second quarter of the draw could prove critical. Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is seventh in the Live Race, is projected to meet Taylor Fritz, who is eighth.

They are both in Daniil Medvedev’s quarter of the draw. The fourth seed will play the winner of Alex de Minaur and Sebastian Korda in the second round, with US Open semi-finalist Frances Tiafoe a potential third-round opponent.

The Rolex Paris Masters will be the final tournament of Gilles Simon’s career, and the Frenchman will play former World No. 1 Andy Murray in the first round. Another intriguing matchup will see in-form Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals qualifier Holger Rune face former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka.

Carlos Alcaraz moved to within two wins of capturing his sixth tour-level title of the season Friday when he overcame Pablo Carreno Busta 6-3, 6-4 at the Swiss Indoors Basel.

The 19-year-old Spaniard looked in control throughout the one-hour, 38-minute clash at the ATP 500 event, opening his shoulders to hit through his countryman on the indoor courts. Alcaraz overpowered Carreno Busta during the backhand exchanges and showed good touch around the net to efficiently win points and triumph.

“It is difficult to play against a friend like Pablo,” Alcaraz said in his on-court interview. “Every day we go and have dinner, lunch, together. Every week and we train together, so it is difficult to play against him. I also support him and want him to win every match. On court, there are no friends. You have to be focused and go for the match and that is what I did.”

The World No. 1 Alcaraz now leads Carreno Busta 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series, having defeated him in the Barcelona final in April. Alcaraz, who defeated Jack Draper and Botic van de Zandschulp earlier this week, will next play Felix Auger-Aliassime in the semi-finals on Saturday.

“It is going to be a really tough match,” Alcaraz said looking ahead to his match against Auger-Aliassime. “He is playing really well. He has had great victories this year. I will have to be really focused. I will try to show my best tennis against him.”

The Spaniard is now 4-2 since his US Open triumph last month – which earned him his debut atop the Pepperstone ATP Rankings – and 55-11 on the season overall. Through to his ninth semi-final of the year, Alcaraz is looking to add to his Tour-leading five titles in 2022, which includes ATP Masters 1000 crowns in Miami and Madrid.

If he can overcome Auger-Aliassime and reach his eighth final of the season, he will move ahead of Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has advanced to seven championship matches this year. The Greek could also reach the final in Vienna this week, though.

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In the bottom half of the draw, Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut moved past Swiss home hope Stan Wawrinka 7-5, 7-6(5) in two hours and 10 minutes.

The 34-year-old had lost at the quarter-final stage in his three previous appearances in Basel but produced a consistent baseline performance against Wawrinka to ensure he would not fall at the same stage this year.

Bautista Agut will next play Holger Rune after the #NextGenATP Dane defeated Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech 7-6(0), 6-2 in 82 minutes.

Rune, who will compete at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan next month, has now won 12 of his past 13 matches. The 19-year-old defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas to triumph in Stockholm last week.

Daniil Medvedev’s defiant defence shut down the high-powered challenge of Jannik Sinner on Friday at the Erste Bank Open, where the 26-year-old secured a clinical 6-4, 6-2 quarter-final triumph.

Medvedev’s persistence proved decisive in an engrossing 91-minute encounter in Austria. Sinner threw a barrage of heavy groundstrokes at his opponent but was unable to regularly hit through the top seed. Medvedev did not face a break point in the match and converted three of six break points of his own as he improved his ATP Head2Head series record against the Italian to 4-0.

“Jannik is a top player, and he can pose problems to anybody basically,” said Medvedev after the match. “The last two Grand Slams, he played five sets with the [eventual] winner, so Jannik is a top player and I’m really happy today with my performance.

“I served amazingly well, I almost didn’t do any unforced errors, I was solid behind the baseline. Everything was working well today and I’m really happy about it.”

From downtown 🤯@DaniilMedwed with a return from wayyyy back!#ErsteBankOpen pic.twitter.com/BpidvBBnvy

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) October 28, 2022

With the win, Medvedev improved to 32-10 on hard courts in 2022. Medvedev, who can seal his spot at November’s Nitto ATP Finals by lifting the trophy in Vienna, was pleased to have backed up his semi-final run in Astana three weeks ago by reaching the same stage in the Austrian capital for the first time.

“In general the way I played today against Jannik is the same as in Astana,” said the top seed. “I’m really happy, I have been looking for this level for a long, long time. It’s the level where I can win the biggest tournaments on Tour and I hope I can bring it to two more matches.”

The only man in the singles draw yet to drop serve this week in Vienna, Medvedev will next meet Grigor Dimitrov as he chases his second tour-level title of the season. The Bulgarian earlier held off Marcos Giron for a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 quarter-final victory.

Medvedev leads Dimitrov 3-2 in the pair’s ATP Head2Head series, but the Bulgarian won the last meeting between the two in Indian Wells in 2021.

“Grigor is the same [as Sinner], he is a top player, he can beat anybody,” said Medvedev. “He was a Top Three player, making semis of Slams. Maybe more up and down this year, but when he is up he is amazing, so I just have to play my best tennis from my side and that’s how I can have the chance to win.”

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In the bottom half of the draw, Borna Coric held his nerve in a deciding-set tie-break for the second consecutive day in Vienna as he prevailed 6-4, 6-7(2), 7-6(5) against Hubert Hurkacz in a thrilling quarter-final clash.

Barely 24 hours after he rallied to a stunning second-round win against second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, Coric withstood a huge serving performance from Hurkacz (that included 28 aces) to reach the semi-finals for the first time on his fourth appearance in Vienna. The Croatian saved all four break points he faced in his two-hour, 53-minute triumph.

“I don’t know [how I won], to be honest,” said Coric after the match. “He was serving absolute bombs, I’ve never seen that in my life. I was just hanging in there, focusing on my serve and trying to stay positive, because that’s the only thing that I could do, and then hope that in the tie-break I could make some returns.”

Cincinnati champion Coric will take on Denis Shapovalov, a 6-3, 6-3 winner against Daniel Evans, in the semi-finals as he aims to reach his second tour-level final of 2022.

Hurkacz’s defeat represents a blow to the Pole’s hopes of qualifying for November’s Nitto ATP Finals. The 25-year-old is in ninth position in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin as he heads to next week’s Rolex Paris Masters, where he will likely require a deep run to have a chance of sealing a spot at the season finale for the second time.

Felix Auger-Aliassime extended his winning streak to 11 matches on Friday when he moved past Alexander Bublik 6-2, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals at the Swiss Indoors Basel.

In a dominant display, the Canadian fired 28 winners and committed just four unforced errors to advance after 73 minutes. Auger-Aliassime now leads the 25-year-old Bublik 2-1 in the pair’s ATP Head2Head series and will next play top seed Carlos Alcaraz or fifth seed Pablo Carreno Busta.

“It was a good match. It is so important for me to stay disciplined and focus on my serve,” Auger-Aliassime said. “I haven’t been broken in the whole tournament and today was a good effort on staying focused on my serve. I was able to seize a few opportunities. The first break was important. To take that pressure off myself from the beginning. It is the best way to start the match.

“In the past two months, I have been training much better and very locked in and focused on what I need to do and I am trying to put it on display.”

With his 51st victory of the season, the 22-year-old has strengthened his Nitto ATP Finals qualification chances. Auger-Aliassime currently sits seventh in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin with 3,315 points as he holds onto what is currently the final qualifying position.

He is 405 points clear of eighth-placed Taylor Fritz as he seeks to make his debut at the season finale in Turin. If the Canadian wins his fourth tour-level title of the season in Basel, he will move above Andrey Rublev and into sixth.

Auger-Aliassime arrived at the ATP 500 event off the back of consecutive tour-level crowns in Florence and Antwerp. The third seed has continued his imperious form in Switzerland, where he has also defeated Marc-Andrea Huesler and Miomir Kecmanovic.

Stan Wawrinka faced down an inspired comeback from Brandon Nakashima on Thursday at the Swiss Indoors Basel, where the home favourite held firm to seal a thrilling 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 second-round win.

Wawrinka appeared set for a straightforward victory in his first tour-level meeting with Nakashima when he served for the match at 5-4 in the second set. #NextGenATP American Nakashima had other ideas, raising his level with some high-octane baseline hitting to force a decider, but Wawrinka kept his cool to convert the only break point of the third set and clinch an engrossing two-hour, 12-minute win.

“He battled, of course,” said Wawrinka after the match. “He was playing well, it was a really intense match. He’s a great player and it was tough, the first time playing against each other… I had the chance to close the match at 6-4, 5-4, I couldn’t really find my first serve and he played really well.

“He was aggressive. So it was not easy to come back in the third, but really I am happy with the way I fought again, the way I came back.”

Thursday’s win backed up Wawrinka’s opening-round triumph against second seed Casper Ruud. The former World No. 3 was delighted to seal another victory in front of his home fans and reach the quarter-finals in Basel for the sixth time in 15 appearances.

“I am playing much better than in the past few months and at home the feeling is always special,” said Wawrinka. “It has been many years that I have been [coming back] to Basel. It was not always easy to play here, I’ve not always played my best tennis and not always found it easy to deliver for the fans.

“Tonight and two nights ago, I think I [played] great and I had amazing support, so it’s really great to be here.”

Wawrinka’s quarter-final opponent will be Roberto Bautista Agut, who prevailed 6-3, 6-2 against former World No. 1 Andy Murray. Wawrinka and Bautista Agut share a 1-1 ATP Head2Head series record, with Friday’s clash in Basel set to be their first meeting since 2019.

In the final match of the day in Basel, #NextGenATP Dane Holger Rune continued his hot streak of form with a 6-4, 6-2 second-round triumph against Ugo Humbert. The 19-year-old converted three from five break points to register his seventh consecutive tour-level win. The Munich and Stockholm champion will meet Arthur Rinderknech in the quarter-finals as he continues his bid for his third ATP Tour title of the season.

Borna Coric earned his third straight victory against Stefanos Tsitsipas with a Thursday comeback at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna. Down a set and a break, Coric recovered to claim a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(4) win and advance to the quarter-finals.

The Croatian famously saved six match points to stun the Greek at the 2020 US Open, and while he was never that close to defeat at the ATP 500, he did have his back to the wall when Tsitsipas led by a set and 2-0. After breaking straight back, Coric fought off a break point at 2-3, which sparked a run of 15 straight points on serve that carried into the final set.

Both players fought through deuce to hold early in the decider, with another trade of breaks exchanged midway through the set. From 3-3, there would be no further break points, Coric ultimately taking the tie-break behind a single mini-break.

Coric improved to 3-1 in his ATP Head2Head against Tsitsipas, with the Greek’s only win coming via an early retirement in Rome 2018. The resurgent Croatian is now 13-3 since the start of Cincinnati, where he beat Tsitsipas 7-6(0), 6-2 in the final. Through to his fourth quarter-final of the season and his second of the month (Tokyo), he will meet fifth seed Hubert Hurkacz on Friday.

Jannik Sinner also advanced to the Vienna quarter-finals on Thursday night with a 7-5, 6-3 win against Francisco Cerundolo. The Italian has not dropped a set this week and lost just five games against Cristian Garin on Wednesday in the first round.

The sixth seed will now seek his first win against Daniil Medvedev in the pair’s fourth meeting, their first since a thriller in the 2021 Nitto ATP Finals which was decided by a 10-8 third-set tie-break.