CROATIA 1, UNITED STATES 0
Sportski Centar Visnjik, Zadar – Clay (Outdoors)

Borna Coric gave 2005 champion Croatia a 1-0 lead on Friday in its Davis Cup semi-final against United States in Zadar after defeating Steve Johnson 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-3 in two hours and 24 minutes.

Coric recorded his 30th match win of the season, hitting 23 winners and winning 81 per cent of his first-service points. The 21-year-old lifted his second ATP World Tour title at the Gerry Weber Open (d. Federer) in June.

World No. 6 Marin Cilic now looks to extend 2017 finalist Croatia’s lead against Frances Tiafoe, who is making his debut as the 141st player to represent the United States.

FRANCE 1, SPAIN 0
Venue: Stade Pierre Mauroy, Lille, FRA (hard – indoor)

French captain Yannick Noah’s decision to blood Benoit Paire paid off on Friday when the 20-year-old debutant overcame Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain 7-5, 6-1, 6-0 in one hour and 54 minutes. Paire struck 37 winners, including 16 aces, to give defending champion France an early advantage.

Roberto Bautista Agut will now attempt to get five-time titlist Spain back to 1-1 overnight with victory over Lucas Pouille in the second singles rubber.

It is no secret that ATP World Tour players learn plenty from their experiences in professional tennis. Horia Tecau, the 2017 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award winner, is using those lessons to help the youth.

Tecau donated hundreds of copies of a children’s book he wrote, Life Is Like A Tennis Game, at this year’s US Open in large part thanks to an ATP ACES For Charity grant. In conjunction with the Fundatia Curtea Veche, Tecau received €15,000 earlier in 2018 to support the cause.

“When I first started thinking about making this book, it was a passion and I wanted to share it with more and more kids. I launched it in 2016 in Romanian,” Tecau said. “Because of the funds that we got from the ATP, we were able to translate it, to ship it, and to donate it here at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day.

“I think that’s very important for a country like Romania. Seventy to 80 per cent of the country is rural. And a lot of the families in those rural places don’t have books in their houses. So together with the foundation, we’re trying to donate a lot of books in this area and raise the educational level of the country.”

The grant Tecau received is projected to benefit 5,000 children. The Romanian uses his experiences from life on the ATP World Tour to give insight to youngsters around the world through his writing.

“A lot of these lessons, I had to go through a few times until I learned them,” said Tecau of trying to figure out how to balance schoolwork with playing tennis. “What I learned from my experience is that you can really do both. It just takes more time, more effort, but you need to make the effort to organise your time really well.”

Tecau’s book helps show children the importance of key values like honesty, teamwork, fair play, adherence to rules, respect for themselves and more. It also provides a guide for young people to learn how to deal with competition and how to cope with both winning and losing.

“Tennis is a learning game. You learn a lot more from your losses than when you win,” Tecau said. “So you have to approach a tennis match like you just want to make a better player, a better man out of you every day. The moment you stop doing that, you’re not doing your job as a tennis player.”

Learn More About The ATP ACES For Charity Programme

All eyes were on Novak Djokovic over the past fortnight, as the Serbian exhibited tremendous form to claim his second Grand Slam championship in a row. But the 31-year-old was not the only one winning.

Back in his native Serbia, two kindergartens were winners, too. The Novak Djokovic Foundation donated more than €30,000 for the purchase of new furniture, sports materials and more to aid in the educational experience for the four classes housed at the schools. 

“We are so excited to have been able to make this donation and to help children in Svilajnac have a better start in life,” Jelena Djokovic, the co-founder and national director of the Novak Djokovic Foundation, told ATPWorldTour.com. “Their early years are so incredibly important and make the foundation upon which children can build their future. There are still so many children in Serbia that lack early childhood learning opportunities and seeing what we have achieved here today is what makes our work ever so meaningful and important.”

The kindergartens that the foundation donated materials to are located in Crkvenac and Bobovo, two villages in Svilajnac that each have less than 1,500 residents. The donation follows the mission of Djokovic’s foundation, which he founded in 2007 to work on providing underprivileged youth with the opportunity to receive a quality pre-school education.

“Cooperation with Svilajnac municipality has lasted for several years, and we are proud that it always results in better conditions for growing up and education of the children,” said Maja Kremic, who leads the Donation Program Department at the Novak Djokovic Foundation. “With the children, parents and teachers from Svilajnac we went through the support programs and professional development, and we are happy that 35 children from Svilajnac will soon be coming with us to the Friendship Games, a one-week long friendship camp in Kopaonik.”

The “Friendship Games”, created by the Novak Djokovic Foundation, is a camp for Serbian children aged 7 to 10 from socially disadvantaged communities. Its purpose is to encourage better youth socialisation and inclusion through a number of games, creative workshops and group activities that are led by specially educated personnel.

Earlier this year, before the Miami Open presented by Itau, Djokovic visited the Miami Children’s Museum to read Pete The Cat to 50 children.

“Obviously, being a child is something that every adult should always remind themselves of or think of, to keep that inner child, so to say, active and joyful throughout your life because we all shouldn’t take life too seriously and children remind us of that and remind us of what it is to be curious and to be happy to live in the present moment,” Djokovic said. “It was just overall a great experience that I’ll remember.”

The Novak Djokovic Foundation received an ATP ACES For Charity grant in 2013 and 2017. In 2012, Djokovic was named the ATP World Tour’s Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year.

View Djokovic’s ATP ACES For Charity Profile

Learn More About The ATP ACES For Charity Programme