Editor’s Note: ATPTour.com is resurfacing features to bring fans closer to their favourite players and tournaments during the current suspension in tournament play. This story was originally published on 4 July 2016.

Novak Djokovic knows the Roger Cup Centre Court inside and out. The Serbian returned to those familiar confines in 2016, but in a different context.

“It was a unique opportunity to share an experience with [NHL players] in their environment,” said Djokovic, who traded his tennis racquet for a hockey stick in joining the annual exhibition ball hockey game alongside professional hockey players Connor McDavid, Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza and other NHL stars. ATP Tour players competing at the event were Denis Kudla, John Millman, Andrey Kuznetsov and the young Canadian trio of Denis Shapovalov, Felix Auger Aliassime and Benjamin Sigouin. “At the same time, it was not an ice rink, so it allowed me and the other tennis players to move around freely. It was the first time that I played hockey, ice rink or not.” 

The organisers did not take it easy on the World No. 1, putting him on the spot by making him immediately take a penalty shot, which the goaltender saved. A second attempt beat the netminder, but hit the crossbar and narrowly stayed outside of the goal.

“I enjoyed it, you don’t get these opportunities too often, so I tried to make the best out of it,” said Djokovic, who just missed converting on two other scoring chances during the game, which finished in a tie.

Djokovic went on to lift his fourth ATP Masters 1000 Canada trophy, winning all 10 sets he played.

At the peak of their rivalry, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras shut down four blocks of downtown San Francisco for a day in 1995, for the Guerrilla Tennis television commercial — conceived by their mutual clothing sponsor and directed by Spike Jonze — that featured eight cameras and 400 extras.

The 30-second advert that saw Sampras direct traffic and Agassi hastily string up a net across a busy intersection, was perfectly timed and became not just synonymous with their dynamic, high-energy, must-see matches, but also their battle for No. 1 in the FedEx ATP Rankings. That year, the Americans met in five finals — at the Australian Open, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the Miami Open presented by Itau, the Coupe Rogers in Montreal and at the US Open.

Agassi, who’d usurped Sampras to claim the top spot for the first time on 10 April 1995, bounced back from a disappointing European summer to set a sizzling pace on his favourite surface: hard courts. Arriving at Jarry Stadium in Montreal, on the back of capturing the Citi Open crown in Washington, D.C., Agassi extended his run of form with straight-sets victories over Jeff Tarango, Daniel Vacek, MaliVai Washington and Mats Wilander to reach his eighth final of the year.

Sampras, who came into Montreal on the back of his third Wimbledon trophy, had beaten Jonathan Stark, Mauricio Hadad and Michael Stich in Montreal, prior to a deciding set tie-break victory over Thomas Enqvist in the semi-finals. He was 16 matches unbeaten.

In testing, windy conditions and searing heat, Sampras started brightly, breaking Agassi in the sixth game of the first set. But as the match wore on, Agassi retaliated, playing with greater aggression and hitting inside-out forehands to Sampras’ backhand, which inevitably cracked. Agassi targeted 70 per cent of his serves to Sampras’ weaker wing.

While Sampras saved two break point in the opening game of the decider, he double faulted twice in the third game and ended the match with an uncharacteristic 43 per cent first-serve percentage. He only serve-volleyed three times on his second serve, largely playing from the baseline. With that tactic, there was only going to be one winner.

Agassi reaffirmed his status as the world’s premier player in front of 10,000 fans with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory — the 400th match win of his career — to successfully retain the Canadian crown. It was Agassi’s third title on Canadian soil in four years and levelled his ATP Head2Head series against Sampras at 8-8.

It was a fitting finale to the old stadium, which was torn down and rebuilt in 1996. At the trophy presentation ceremony, Tournament Director John Beddington said, “Seventeen years ago, we had a dream. Today, we had a dream final. Next year, you will have a dream stadium.” Agassi knelt down and signed “Bye, bye” onto the court.

Agassi went on to compile a 26-match winning streak during the North American hard-court swing, adding the Western & Southern Open and New Haven titles. The streak ended in the US Open final to Sampras, who eventually returned to No. 1 on 5 November 1995, breaking Agassi’s 30-week stint at the summit. It was the year that their rivalry was at the forefront of superstar tennis.

Fans of the ATP Challenger Tour have never had it so good. Free live streams of every match from every tournament have brought you closer to the action from around the world.

Now, it gets even better.

Fire up a stream whenever you want with the new ‘Challenger TV’. Want to follow the path of one of the ATP’s future stars, but unable to watch the action live? Not to worry. Catch up on every encounter with thousands of matches available for free and on demand.

From first ball to last, re-live all the thrilling moments with full match replays and open the vault from the past three years. Our new sortable filters allow you to explore the archives and toggle through matches from every event since 2018. Search for your favourite player or filter by tournament and year. It’s that simple.

Match stats are also available with one click. Check out the head-to-head history of two competitors as they renew their budding rivalry, while tracking the numbers behind the matches. It’s all available with the new ‘Challenger TV’.

We’re back! After a five-month hiatus, the long-awaited return of men’s professional tennis has arrived. It all kicks off on Saturday, with the ATP Challenger Tour taking centre stage in Prague. World No. 17 Stan Wawrinka leads a loaded draw at the I.CLTK Prague Open By Moneta.

Players will hit the courts for the first time since mid-March, amid to the COVID-19 pandemic, arriving for the 23rd edition of the historic Czech tournament. Wawrinka is joined by fellow Top 100 players Jiri Vesely, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Philipp Kohlschreiber, as well as #NextGenATP stars Rudolf Molleker and Nicola Kuhn.

Competing in his first Challenger tournament since 2010, when he lifted the trophy on home soil in Lugano, Wawrinka will open against either Roman Safiullin or Lukas Rosol on Monday. Safiullin, age 23, won his first Challenger title in Cherbourg in February. Rosol lifted the Prague trophy in 2018, but is 0-6 against Wawrinka in their ATP Head2Head series.

View Prague Draw

The Swiss could face 13th seed Arthur Rinderknech in the Round of 16. The Frenchman owns a Challenger-leading 16 match wins this year, lifting a pair of trophies in Rennes and Calgary. Fourth seed Kohlschreiber also features in the top half of the draw. The German veteran will hope to replicate his recent success on the Challenger circuit after taking the title at the season-opening stop in Canberra, Australia.

Surging 22-year-olds Sumit Nagal, of India, and Jay Clarke, of Great Britain, are looking to continue their push towards the Top 100 of the FedEx ATP Rankings. Meanwhile, in the bottom half of the draw, Czech No. 1 Vesely leads the charge along with former World No. 10 Ernests Gulbis and fellow seeds Herbert, Jozef Kovalik and Yannick Maden.

One of the oldest venues on the ATP Challenger Tour (founded in 1893), the 127-year-old Cesky Lawn Tennis Klub is located on Stvanice Island in Prague’s city centre. The Challenger 125 event is joined by another clay-court stop – in Todi, Italy – on Week One of the restart schedule. The tournament in Todi starts on Monday.

Photo: Czech Tennis Federation / Pavel Lebeda (sport-pics.cz)

Wawrinka Launches Prague Open With City Visit
The former World No. 3 took in the sights of the Czech capital on Friday, participating in the tournament’s media day at the Four Seasons Hotel before taking photos along the iconic Vltava River.
Eager to return to the match court for the first time since late February in Acapulco, Wawrinka talked about his expectations for the next two weeks in Prague.

“These were many difficult months for everybody,” Wawrinka told Czech media. “I’m looking forward to be back playing some matches here. It’s important to restart the season again with these two tournaments in Prague.

“I went to the park the see some of the city today. It was really nice and I love it here. It’s going to be a great time. For me, it was nice to spend time at home with my daughter when we were in quarantine. That was the positive for me. But I’m happy to be playing again now.”

After 13 years on Tour, Kevin Anderson still has plenty of first-time moments that he wants to accomplish.

The former No. 5 player in the FedEx ATP Rankings is back to full strength after a challenging 20-month stretch in which injuries and the suspension of play due to the COVID-19 pandemic have limited him to eight tournaments. He’ll resume competing this month in New York at the Western & Southern Open and US Open, where he hopes to build on the unforgettable memories of his run to the 2017 US Open final.

Anderson spoke with ATPTour.com ahead of the return to tennis about maximising his time at home and how life on Tour will be different.

How are you feeling heading into your first tournament back?
I’m just excited to have an opportunity to get back on the court and compete. It’s going to be a much different experience than normal, but I’m feeling inspired after having this time off and not playing much in the past 18 months.

I’ve really enjoyed the time at home with my wife and my daughter, which has been great for both of us. I’ve been training hard and keeping healthy. It’s felt like a long period of time in some ways, and in other ways, I can’t believe we’re in mid-August. Time often flies when you have that routine in place.

You’re known as one of the hardest workers on Tour. You obviously didn’t want to be dealing with injuries before the shutdown, but was it perhaps a blessing in disguise so that you weren’t working incredibly hard for the entirety of these five months?
Yes and no. I try to look at it that way. We tried to manage my schedule as well as possible, but you also have to prepare for the rest of the calendar. There are a couple of Grand Slams very close together and our first two tournaments back are two of the biggest tournaments in our calendar.

There’s been a period of pretty intense preparations. I’ve hit with a few guys who are in the Delray Beach area like Cristian Garin, Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul. You have to make the most of my situation and I’ve tried to do that to the best of my ability. My body is feeling good. Some of the issues that held me back last year and the beginning of this year have resolved themselves, so that’s a positive for me.

At age 34, is it even more important to make sure your body is at the same level of readiness as your tennis?
Absolutely. All of the decisions and scheduling that we make are based around what’s best for my body. As you get older, you have to be a bit more disciplined and aware in some of the choices you make. It’s been a high priority for us and will continue to be for the rest of my career.

Are there guys on Tour that you’re looking forward to reuniting with in New York?
With all of the safety protocols in New York, I think you can expect to spend a lot of time by yourself and with your team. I’m almost looking at this as a solo campaign with very little social interaction. It’ll be great just to be back on Tour, but at least starting out in New York, there won’t be that opportunity to socialise with people that I’d like to hang out with.

How will you be spending that down time?
I’d usually have my wife and family with me, but they won’t be making the trip. My wife has been at every tournament for the past five or six years, so that will be the biggest change.

I see myself spending a lot of time playing guitar, reading books, Netflix. A lot of the day is taken up with training, treatment, getting to and from the courts. There will be some down time, but I’m expecting to be pretty busy. My coach and physio will be with me, so things will remain the same from that standpoint.

What do you think it will be like competing without fans in New York?
It’s going to be a completely different experience, especially on a court that’s so big like Arthur Ashe Stadium. It might be a bit strange competing on the bigger courts or during a night session, but it’s going to be the same adjustment for everybody. It’ll be interesting to see how the players react.

You look to the other side of the net and the No. 1 player in the FedEx ATP Rankings is standing there. It’s Novak. It’s Rafa. It’s Roger. It’s Andy, and it’s specifically when they are sitting at the pinnacle of our sport.

It’s equal parts trepidation and opportunity. How much better is this quartet in full flight
compared to other ATP Tour opponents? How much do you need to raise your level to defeat the No. 1 player in the world?

You better bring your A+ game.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of matches including the top-ranked player from the beginning of the 2015 season, compared to the rest of the Tour, identifies the elevated level of excellence required to capture victory against a reigning No. 1.

The “rest of the Tour” grouping is comprised of players who have played a minimum of 50 tour-level matches from the beginning of 2015 until the week of 16 March 2020, when the rankings were frozen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis is specifically focused on matches against Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray only while they were ranked No. 1. Below is how many weeks each player has been ranked No. 1 since the beginning of January 2015.

Weeks At No. 1 Since January 2015 (272 weeks)
Novak Djokovic = 155 weeks
Rafael Nadal = 68 weeks
Andy Murray = 41 weeks
Roger Federer = 8 weeks

Serving
Against the rest of the Tour, you’re still the favourite if you find yourself serving at 15/30, holding serve on average 58 per cent of the time. But against the World No. 1, you’re now the underdog and likely to hold just 45 per cent of the time. Falling just a little behind in your service game against a reigning No. 1 has dire consequences. Nadal was the toughest competitor of the Big Four to hold against at 15/30, at just 43 per cent.

The following table includes five serve and five return metrics, as well as the specific situation of breaking immediately after being broken.

2015-2020 Comparison: Metrics vs. No. 1 Compared To “Rest Of The Tour”

You would think that losing the initial point when serving and moving to 0/15 is not such a big deal, but the percentages of holding significantly drop from around two out of three times (65%) to slightly more than half (52%). And if you were playing against Murray in one of the 41 weeks that the Brit was No. 1, it dropped even lower to 45.1 per cent (65/144).

What will stop you in your tracks is the confluence of the following three factors coming together when facing Murray:

1. Playing Murray while he was ranked No. 1
2. Falling behind 0/15 when serving
3. Playing the match on a hard court

The hold percentage for the server from 0/15 was only 41.5 per cent (22/53) with all three of these metrics in play.

Returning
Winning the first point when returning and moving the scoreboard to 0/15 is an ideal initial step to breaking serve against any opponent. Against the rest of the Tour, you break 38 per cent of the time. But against a current No. 1 player, that plummets down to just 25 per cent. Against Djokovic, it dropped even further down to 23 per cent (155/673).

Federer fought back most often when serving at 15/30 compared to the other No. 1 players. The rest of the Tour posted an average of 45 per cent, but breaking against a No. 1 dropped to 34 per cent. Against Federer, it moved all the way down to 27.8 per cent (5/18).

Breaking back immediately after being broken happened one out of every five times (20%) against the rest of the Tour. That only happened 14 per cent of the time against a top-ranked player and only occurred 10.3 per cent (27/261) of the time against Nadal.

Defeating any player on Tour is an outstanding accomplishment. Being victorious over a World No. 1 requires tapping into a level you may not know that you had.