Google Play App Download

Tennis News

From around the world

Tsitsipas Shines Against Fellow #NextGenATP Star

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

.videoWrapper { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; / 16:9 / padding-top: 25px; height: 0; } .videoWrapper iframe { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Stefanos Tsitsipas won a battle of #NextGenATP 19-year-olds at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters on Monday.

Competing with confidence after two straight-sets victories in the qualifying tournament, Tsitsipas knocked out Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6-3, 6-4 in 81 minutes for a place in the second round.

Tsitsipas won four of the first five games and recovered from 0/40 at 4-2. From 5-3 in the first set, the Greek qualifier won three straight games, but was soon pinned back by Shapovalov, who was also making his debut at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. The crucial break came in a 10-point seventh game of the second set.

World No. 71 Tsitsipas will next challenge sixth seed and last year’s semi-finalist David Goffin of Belgium on Tuesday evening. He earned his only previous Top 10 victory last year in Antwerp against Goffin to gain a 1-0 lead in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.

[ALSO LIKE]

After losing the first game, it was one-way traffic for Spain’s No. 11 seed Roberto Bautista Agut, who defeated Peter Gojowczyk 6-4, 6-3 in 80 minutes. Bautista Agut has already picked up two ATP World Tour trophies this year at the ASB Classic (d. del Potro) and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (d. Pouille). He awaits France’s Benoit Paire or Feliciano Lopez of Spain.

Last year’s finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas, the No. 15 seed, wrestled control away from American Jared Donaldson in a 6-3, 6-3 win over one hour and 37 minutes. He will next play Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany or American Tennys Sandgren, who finished runner-up in Houston on Sunday at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship (l. to Johnson).

Watch Live

Tennis Radio

Source link

Dimitrov/Goffin Combine For Doubles Success

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

Five months ago, Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin faced each other in the most important match of their careers in the 2017 Nitto ATP Finals championship match. On Monday, they put their singles rivalry aside, partnering for the first time in their careers to beat Frenchmen Adrian Mannarino and Fabrice Martin 7-6(3), 6-2 in 75 minutes at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

The Bulgarian-Belgian pairing had never played doubles with or against each other at any professional level, and Goffin, who had not played doubles since last April, owned just a 4-20 record in the discipline. So perhaps it was not a surprised when the team of singles stars trailed 3-0 in the opening set, but they battled back from there. A break in the seventh game reset the balance and Dimitrov/Goffin grew in confidence from there, taking a one-set advantage after an impressive tie-break.

With the freedom of a one-set cushion, Dimitrov and Goffin improved in the second set, winning 100 per cent (10/10) of points behind their first serves and converting on each of their two break point opportunities to reach the second round. They will face eighth seeds Ivan Dodig and Rajeev Ram for a spot in the quarter-finals.

Watch Live

Alexander Zverev ensured there was a third Top 10 singles representative in the second round, teaming up with brother Mischa Zverev to beat Andres Molteni and Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 4-6, 10/8. The Zverevs won four consecutive games from 2-2 in the first set, but Molteni and Schwartzman replied in style, dropping just seven service points in the second set to reach a Match Tie-break.

From there, the Germans took control, establishing a 9/6 lead before securing the 76-minute win on their third match point. The Zverev brothers will meet Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, who have won three tour-level titles this year (Doha, Auckland, Australian Open) in the second round.

Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers also emerged victorious in a decisive Match Tie-break, beating Damir Dzumhur and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi 6-2, 3-6, 10-6 in 81 minutes. Cuevas, who won the title alongside Rohan Bopanna in 2017, looked to be cruising alongside Granollers at 6-2, 2-0, but were forced the distance by the alternates before booking a second-round meeting with 2016 champions Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut.

Monaco’s Romain Arneodo and Hugo Nys defeated Santiago Gonzalez and Ben McLachlan 6-4, 7-6(2). The wild cards, who reached the semi-finals in 2017 (l. to Bopanna/Cuevas), saved both break points they faced in the 89-minute contest.

Tennis Radio

Source link

Djokovic In Devastating Form In Monte-Carlo

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

.videoWrapper { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; / 16:9 / padding-top: 25px; height: 0; } .videoWrapper iframe { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Novak Djokovic sent out a warning to his ATP World Tour rivals on Monday in his first match since reuniting with Marian Vajda, his coach from June 2006 to May 2017.

Two-time former champion Djokovic didn’t let national sentiment, or even friendship, get in the way of a 6-0, 6-1 victory over fellow Serbian Dusan Lajovic at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. His fourth match win of the year came in 56 minutes.

“I thought it was good considering the amount of matches I’ve played in the last almost 12 months,” Djokovic said. “I thought all in all, it was a great start of the tournament.”

The ninth seed, who resides in a seafront Monte-Carlo apartment, required just 22 minutes to wrap up the opener — finishing with a forehand winner down the line past qualifier Lajovic. The capacity 10,200-strong crowd were delighted when Lajovic won his first game for 1-1, with a smash winner, in a competitive second set. Djokovic saved break points at 1-1, 30/40 and at 3/1, 30/40.

The 30-year-old will now prepare to face Croatia’s Borna Coric, who broke a three-match losing streak at the Monte-Carlo Country Club in beating 36-year-old Frenchman Julien Benneteau 6-2, 6-3 in 65 minutes.

Watch Live

Coric reached his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 semi-final at the BNP Paribas Open (l. to Federer) last month. “He’s very good in the Masters 1000s now,” said Benneteau, when asked about Coric. “He’s very complete and he serves very well. Today he was the best.”

Djokovic, who could potentially meet top seed and 10-time champion Rafael Nadal in the third round, has a 31-9 record at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. He lifted the trophy on Court Rainier III in 2013 (d. Nadal) and 2015 (d. Berdych).

[ALSO LIKE]

Elsewhere, #NextGenATP Russian Andrey Rublev denied Dutchman Robin Haase the 200th match win of his career early in the afternoon with a 7-6(7), 2-6, 7-5 win over two hours and 30 minutes. Rublev saved four match points in the first set – one at 5-6, 30/40, then from 4/6 and 6/7 in the tie-break. The 20-year-old broke 2012 quarter-finalist Haase in a 20-point game and will next challenge fifth-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem.

Did You Know?
Djokovic’s first match at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters came 12 years ago — the Serbian lost to then-World No. 1 Roger Federer in three sets.

Tennis Radio

Source link

Evans set to return at Glasgow Trophy after drugs ban

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

Former world number 41 Dan Evans is set to return from a one-year drugs ban as a wildcard entrant into the qualifying draw at the Glasgow Trophy on 28 April.

The 27-year-old, who tested positive for cocaine during the Barcelona Open last year, is eligible to return on 24 April after passing “agreed checks” by the Lawn Tennis Association.

He said: “I have learned a lot about myself in my time away from the game, a sport that I love very dearly.”

Evans added he was “grateful”.

Under the terms of his suspension, he was allowed to access LTA facilities and support from the end of February.

LTA performance director Simon Timson said their support “will be entirely dependent on a non-negotiable commitment to ongoing monitoring”.

He added: “The LTA condemns any form of doping, which has no place in our sport.

“We have been having regular contact with Dan and he has shown genuine commitment to getting his tennis career back on track.

“He has passed our agreed checks over the last six weeks and it is on this basis we have agreed to provide him with a place in the qualifying tournament for the upcoming ATP Challenger event in Scotstoun from 28 April.”

Evans thanked everyone who had supported him during his ban.

“I am now committed to training hard, resuming my career and getting back to where I was, although appreciate this will take time,” he said.

“If there is a lesson to be learned here it’s that it is every athlete’s responsibility for what they put into their bodies.”

‘Evans may yet contribute to Davis Cup cause’ – analysis

BBC tennis correspondent Russell Fuller

The LTA says Dan Evans has kept his side of the bargain in the six weeks since he returned to full training – and has therefore earned a helping hand.

Evans currently stands in 994th place in the ATP rankings – France’s Yannick Jankovits, at 343 in the world, was the last direct entrant into the main draw when the list was released last week.

No-one should be penalised indefinitely for failing a drugs test, but I take the view that invitations to tournaments are inappropriate when players return in these circumstances.

The LTA, though, set a precedent when they offered the returning Maria Sharapova a wildcard into the main draw of last June’s grass-court event in Birmingham.

While that decision was a commercial one, this is more about offering support and encouragement to a British player who may one day be able to contribute again to the Davis Cup cause.

Dan Evans factfile
Born 23 May 1990, Birmingham
Turned pro 2006
Best Grand Slam performances Australian Open: 4R (2017)
French Open: 1R (2017)
Wimbledon: 3R (2016)
US Open: 3R (2013) and (2016)
ATP Tour titles 0
ATP Tour finals 1 (Sydney 2017)
Career prize money £1,053,266
2017 prize money £319,132
Highest world ranking 41 – March 2017

Source link

First Final Pushes Edmund To New Career-High, Mover Of The Week

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

First Final Pushes Edmund To New Career-High, Mover Of The Week

Apr162018

ATPWorldTour.com looks at the top Movers of the Week in the ATP Rankings, as of Monday, 16 April 2018

No. 23 Kyle Edmund, +3
Britain’s No. 1 has gone from one career first to another this week. The 23-year-old advanced to his maiden ATP World Tour final on Sunday at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, falling to Spain’s Pablo Andujar.

Read More: Amazing Andujar: No. 1,824 To Titlist In Two Months

But Edmund still has reason to celebrate as he prepares for the season’s first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament on clay at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. The Brit reached a new career-high of No. 23 in the ATP Rankings on Monday.

View Latest ATP Rankings

No. 34 Richard Gasquet, +4
The 31-year-old Frenchman continued his climb up the ATP Rankings by making the semi-finals in Marrakech (l. to Edmund). The former World No. 7 didn’t drop a set en route to his second semi-final of the season (Montpellier). Gasquet also moved closer to a career milestone: He is only three wins away from becoming the first Frenchman in the Open Era to record 500 ATP World Tour singles victories.

No. 47 Tennys Sandgren, +8
The American showed that his Australian Open quarter-final run was no fluke by reaching his first ATP World Tour final at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston. The 26-year-old Sandgren is inside the Top 50 of the ATP Rankings for the first time. In Houston, Sandgren beat Slovakia’s Blaz Kavcic, Argentines Nicolas Kicker and Guido Pella and Croatian Ivo Karlovic before falling to compatriot Steve Johnson in three sets.

Read More: Emotional Johnson Repeats In Houston

No. 66 Taylor Fritz, +6
The #NextGenATP right-hander made his first ATP World Tour semi-final on clay in Houston, beating a trio of countrymen – Tim Smyczek, Ryan Harrison and No. 16 Jack Sock – before falling to eventual champion Steve Johnson in the semi-finals. Before Houston, Fritz had played only three tour-level matches on clay. He’s now 13 spots away from matching his career-high of No. 53, which he reached in 2016, his first year on the ATP World Tour.

Read More: Fritz, With Annacone On His Team, Knows This Run Can Continue

No. 154 Pablo Andujar, +201
The 32-year-old Spaniard became the lowest-ranked ATP World Tour champion in 20 years on Sunday, beating Edmund to win the Grand Prix Hassan II for a record third time. Two months ago, Andujar was No. 1,824 in the ATP Rankings. He entered Sunday’s final at No. 355. Andujar dropped only one set en route to his fourth ATP World Tour title.

Source link

Steeped In History, Mexico City Celebrates Challenger Return

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

Steeped In History, Mexico City Celebrates Challenger Return

Apr152018

Inaugural ATP Challenger Tour stop a wild success

Mexico City is a metropolis rich in sporting culture. And now, the city’s tennis history has witnessed another chapter written with the arrival of the CDMX Open, a $100,000 ATP Challenger Tour event. If you ask the players and fans, the inaugural edition was a fiesta of success.

Organised by the same group that runs the popular ATP World Tour 500 event in Acapulco and sharing the same tournament director, Raul Zurutuza, the tournament received rave reviews from all those competing and those taking in the action at the Centro Deportivo Chapultepec. The singles championship saw qualifier Juan Ignacio Londero claim the trophy, defeating Roberto Quiroz, 6-1, 6-3 in the final. The title was Londero’s first-ever ATP Challenger Tour crown, and he, fittingly, was the event’s first-ever champion. 

Quiroz, who was also vying for his first title at the Challenger level, had nothing but positives to say about the tournament, which was the first of four consecutive tournaments to be played in Mexico this April.

“The venue here in Mexico City is great and the organisation of the tournament is amazing. It feels like an ATP World Tour event,” said Ecuador’s Quiroz. “We can tell because the tournament director also runs Acapulco and he does a great job. For us players, it’s all been great, from the courts and the stringers, it’s all very professional.”

Mexico City

Founded in 1939, the Centro Deportivo Chapultepec is the oldest tennis facility in the country, with its stadium court named after the late Rafael Osuna. Referred to as the ‘Cathedral of Mexican Tennis’, it holds more than 1,700 spectators. Osuna is the most accomplished Mexican player in history, having won the US Championships in 1963 and three Grand Slam doubles titles. His life was tragically cut short in a plane crash at the age of 30, but his legacy carries on in his home capital.

“The centre court here is amazing,” Quiroz added. “It’s a great stadium and it’s named after Rafael Osuna, who was a great player here in Mexico. It’s nice to have such passionate fans here as well.”

Doubles champion Kevin Krawietz, who teamed with Yannick Hanfmann for the title, also reflected fondly on his time at the tournament.

“The crowd is unbelievable here,” he said. “You don’t often see this many fans at a doubles final. The stadium was pretty full. For us, it makes it even more special to play in front of a big crowd. We love to play in front of a lot of people.”

Mexico already has a significant footprint on the ATP Challenger Tour, with the second-longest running tournament in San Luis Potosi celebrating its 32nd edition in March. And the event in Monterrey won Tournament of the Year in 2015.

Next up in the ATP Challenger Tour’s Mexican swing is the Jalisco Open in Guadalajara, with the party continuing in Leon and Puerto Vallarta.

ATP Challenger Tour 

Source link

Bhambri Back In Top 100 With Taipei Title

  • Posted: Apr 16, 2018

Bhambri Back In Top 100 With Taipei Title

Apr152018

Revisit the week that was on the ATP Challenger Tour, as we applaud the achievements of those on the rise and look ahead to who’s in action in the week to come

A LOOK BACK
Santaizi Challenger (Taipei City, Taiwan): If there was any doubt that Yuki Bhambri is fully fit and ready to charge up the ATP Rankings, the 25-year-old made an emphatic statement this week in Taipei. The fourth-seeded Indian blasted to the title at the $150,000 ATP Challenger Tour event, defeating countryman Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday.

Bhambri celebrated a return to the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings for the first time in two years, marching to a career-high No. 83. Having fallen outside the Top 500 following an elbow injury, he is back with a vengeance, claiming his second Challenger crown in five months. He has also qualified for the Australian Open and ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami in that span, scoring a career-best win over World No. 12 Lucas Pouille in the California desert.

Bhambri is now a combined 21-6 this year at the tour-level and ATP Challenger Tour. The highest-ranked player from India, he rallied from a set down on two occasions during the week in Taipei, before ousting Ramanathan in one hour and 29 minutes on Sunday.

CDMX Open (Mexico City, Mexico): The inaugural CDMX Open in Mexico City was greeted to rave reviews from players and fans, as tennis returned to the Mexican capital. On Sunday, the tournament’s first edition celebrated a first-time Challenger champion, as Juan Ignacio Londero lifted his maiden trophy. The Argentine qualifier dropped just one set in eight matches to earn the title, culminating in a 6-1, 6-3 defeat of Roberto Quiroz in 52 minutes.

Organised by the same team that runs the ATP World Tour 500 event in Acapulco, the CDMX Open made great strides in its first year on the ATP Challenger Tour. Founded in 1939, the stadium court is the oldest in the country and is named after the late Rafael Osuna, the most decorated player in Mexico’s history. Referred to as the ‘Cathedral of Mexican Tennis’, the Estadio Rafael Osuna was sold out on Sunday.

Open Citta Della Disfida (Barletta, Italy): From one first-time champion to another, Londero’s countryman Marco Trungelliti captured his maiden title earlier on Sunday in Barletta, Italy. At the age of 28, Trungelliti finally broke through on the ATP Challenger Tour in his 111th tournament played. He rallied past home hope Simone Bolelli 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 in two hours and 33 minutes for the crown. 

Not only did the week see two Argentines win their maiden titles, but both did so as qualifiers, claiming eigth match wins in the process. While Londero soars 96 spots in the ATP Rankings to No. 218, Trungelliti jumps 46 positions to No. 191. He previously reached a career-high of No. 126 two years ago. 

You May Also Like: My First Challenger Title: Nadal’s Historic Victory In Barletta 2003

A LOOK AHEAD
Four tournaments. Four continents.

The Sarasota Open kicks off the U.S. clay-court swing, with Japan’s Taro Daniel leading the charge. A pair of all-#NextGenATP first-round clashes highlight the draw, with Reilly Opelka facing Miomir Kecmanovic and Michael Mmoh meeting Sebastian Korda.

Meanwhile, the ATP Challenger Tour returns to Africa, with the Tunis Open in the Tunisian capital. Jiri Vesely is the top seed. In Nanchang, China, Evgeny Donskoy leads the field alongside second seed Jordan Thompson. And in Guadalajara, Mexico, the four-week Mexican swing continues at the Jalisco Open. 

ATP Challenger Tour 

Source link