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Muller Upsets Zverev In Den Bosch

  • Posted: Jun 17, 2017

Muller Upsets Zverev In Den Bosch

Jun172017

Karlovic defeats Cilic on Saturday

Fourth seed Gilles Muller kept up his top form on Saturday in s’-Hertogenbosch, storming into another final at the Ricoh Open by upsetting second seed Alexander Zverev 7-6(5), 6-2.

“It was definitely one of my best matches this season. I played very well from the beginning. Everyone knows Sascha is a tough player and has already won some big tournaments, so I’m very happy to get through,” said Muller. “It’s true that I’m one of the older guys on tour, but I’m having my best time this year. I’ve been injury-free the past few years and able to play a full schedule, so that has helped me a lot.”

In a battle of veterans, Muller will contest the championship match against third seed Ivo Karlovic, who prevailed in a big-serving battle over top seed and fellow Croatian Marin Cilic 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-6(2). Karlovic moves into his 18th ATP World Tour singles final (8-9) and seventh on grass (3-3). 

“It was a great match. I was struggling this year, so it’s nice to make another final,” said Karlovic. “Hopefully the final against Gilles is a good match also.”

Muller and Karlovic are even in their FedEx ATP Head2Head at 1-1, with both matches coming last year on grass. Muller prevailed in their semi-final in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, but Karlovic turned the tables in the Newport final.

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The 34-year-old Muller is through to his third ATP World Tour final of the season, winning his first title this January in Sydney (d. Evans) and finishing runner-up in Estoril (l. Carreno Busta). His success led to reaching a career-high Emirates ATP Ranking of No. 26 on 6 May.

Muller has continued to excel at this event. He was a runner-up last year (l. Mahut) and semi-finalist in 2015 (l. Goffin).

“I’ve played here many times,” said Muller. “I can travel here by car and my family is here, so it’s a really nice tournament for me.”

Karlovic evens his FedEx ATP Head2Head with Cilic at 3-3. The big-serving Croatian’s previous best result this year was a pair of quarter-finals in Doha and Budapest. The 38 year old is also just 14 aces shy of 12,000 after hitting 29 in his victory over Cilic.

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Muller and Zverev held serve throughout the first set to force a tie-break. Zverev grabbed an early mini-break, but the fourth seed went on a four-point run from 2/4 down. A strong serve on his second set point gave Muller the early advantage.

The Luxembourg native poured it on in the second set, firing a forehand passing shot to earn the first break of the match and lead 2-1. An aggressive forehand approach at 4-2 earned him a double break. Muller fired an ace on his first match point to wrap up the contest in one hour and 24 minutes. 

More: Melo/Kubot Win Den Bosch Doubles Title

Both Cilic and Karlovic held serve throughout the first set, but Cilic’s first double fault of the match gave Karlovic a 2/0 lead. The third seed rode that momentum to a one-set advantage. Cilic earned the first break of the match at 5-5 in the second set after a Karlovic volley floated long, and the top seed ultimately forced a decider.

Cilic bravely saved a match point at 5-6 in the final set with an overhead winner to force another tie-break. However, he hit a forehand error early on to give Karlovic a 2/0 lead. That lead was extended further after a forehand winner from Karlovic gave him a 5/1 advantage. The third seed hit a backhand volley winner on his first match point to prevail in two hours and 43 minutes. 

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Nottingham Open: Johanna Konta beats Magdalena Rybarikova to reach final

  • Posted: Jun 17, 2017

Johanna Konta reached the final of the Nottingham Open for the first time with a tidy victory over Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova.

The British number one registered a 6-2 7-5 win over the world number 117 to reach her first grass final.

Konta broke her opponent early as she powered through the first set before upping the tempo at the end of the second to secure victory.

She will face either Croat Donna Vekic or Czech Lucie Safarova on Sunday.

  • Live scores and schedule

More to follow.

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Andy Murray faces Aljaz Bedene in Queen's Club first round

  • Posted: Jun 17, 2017
2017 Aegon Championships
Venue: Queen’s Club, London Dates: 19-25 June
Coverage: Comprehensive live coverage on BBC One, BBC Two, Red Button, Connected TV and online daily

British world number one Andy Murray will face compatriot Aljaz Bedene in the Aegon Championships first round at Queen’s Club on Tuesday.

Top seed and defending champion Murray beat Bedene, the British number four, in straight sets at last year’s event.

British number two Kyle Edmund will face a qualifier on Monday.

Swiss second seed Stan Wawrinka has drawn Spain’s Feliciano Lopez, while Australian Nick Kyrgios will face Steve Johnson of the United States.

Sam Querrey, who won the event in 2010, will play British wildcard Cameron Norrie, while last year’s finalist Milos Raonic of Canada faces Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis.

The tournament is seen as an important stepping stone for the leading male players in their build-up to Wimbledon – and this year’s event contains 10 of the world’s top 20.

Murray, 30, has won at Queen’s in both of the years he has gone on to claim the Wimbledon title, while the likes of John McEnroe and Rafael Nadal have also claimed the grass-court double in London.

“There’s a lot of tough players in the draw and it’s going to be a tough game, but there’s a lot of exciting first rounds there,” said Kyrgios.

“It’s perfect preparation for Wimbledon. This is always a tournament I look forward to playing and the grass court is in really good nick.”

The tournament gets under way on Monday with the final on Sunday, 25 June.

Queen’s without ‘King of Clay’

Six of the world’s top 10 players were supposed to be appearing at Queen’s, but that number has been reduced after Nadal and David Goffin pulled out.

French Open champion Nadal, 31, said he has been advised to rest by his doctor after a “long clay-court season”, while Belgian Goffin will miss the grass-court season with an ankle injury suffered at Roland Garros.

“My body needs to rest if I am going to be ready to play Wimbledon,” said world number two Nadal.

BBC coverage

BBC Sport will provide the usual comprehensive live coverage on BBC One, BBC Two, Red Button, Connected TV and online daily throughout the competition.

A title winner at Queen’s a record five times, Murray’s victory over Raonic in the 2016 final was watched by 3.7 million people on TV, with many more listening on BBC Radio 5 live and following online.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, described the tournament as “one of the most cherished events in the tennis calendar”.

Full details of BBC Sport’s coverage

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Consistency Is King With Grass Courts

  • Posted: Jun 17, 2017

Consistency Is King With Grass Courts

Jun162017

Grass guru strives for uniformity, few ‘dead spots’

In the nuanced world of grass-court preparation, consistency is king. Like grass itself, it’s a mantra that Canadian agronomist Barry Britton lives and breathes by.

Achieving consistency of speed and bounce across the three match courts and three practice courts at the TC Weissenhof, home of the MercedesCup ATP World Tour 250 tennis tournament, is no easy feat. Enter Britton, his four-member court crew and a trusty yellow engineering tool, the Clegg hammer, a common engineering tool (often used in road construction and house foundations preparation) to measure the density of soil.

“The key thing is to match all the courts if you can,” Britton says. “We don’t want dead spots; we want uniformity. But we’re working with plants that are growing at different rates, have different root structures, a different bio mass and with different soils. You have to accept that you will get dead spots, but we try to eliminate them as much as possible. That’s the beauty of playing with a living surface.

“I know where the dead spots are. But I can’t let that out as players would play to those spots. But a smart player, the really professional ones, will pick up areas on the court where the ball reacts differently.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re a low-ranked qualifier or Roger Federer. If you’re practising in the 4pm-5pm hour, you better build in an extra few minutes to accommodate Britton and his yellow instrument of choice. On a typical day, Britton heads out to the practice courts at that time of day to begin poking and prodding the playing surface. By then, the courts have already been roughed up by players and endured the toughest heat of the day.

Only the match courts can breathe easy, but their turn will come later in the evening. “I can’t go on the match courts because if I make an indentation and a ball hits it, a player might blame the agronomist. So I wait till after the matches are done,” Britton says.

The data-collection process is relatively quick, taking just a few minutes. Britton tests six areas of the court, far fewer than the 30 each side he may test in the weeks leading up to the event, when the courts are divided into grids. Remedial action to improve consistency during a tournament is limited to rolling, irrigating (watering or applying covers to trap humidity) and fine mowing.

“Earlier this week I went out to Court 4 and Roger was practising,” Britton says. “I asked if I could come on the court and he said, ‘Absolutely’ and showed an interest in what we were doing. I said our goal was to get the courts consistent and uniform. He wished us good luck. And Viktor Troicki was very interested to know what we were doing. Most players are. They want to know what is going on.”

Britton has worked for the tournament since 2015, when it switched from clay to grass. He says that growing conditions this year were extreme. “They were the worst conditions I had seen to grow grass. March and April were so cold and wet that there was a lot of damage on the courts. It was everything we could do just to get grass on centre court.”

Ahead of the tournament, Britton works with the club’s court keeper, promoter and ATP officials to ensure that the courts are ready for prime time when the grass season begins. “We try to build these courts to Wimbledon standards and we use the three identical rye grasses used there. We’re learning that that may not be conducive to the winters we get here, where we get a lot of winter injury and damage. We’re restricted with the integrated pest management products we can use in Stuttgart.”

But come show time, Britton and his team will do everything in their power to deliver the best possible playing surface to kick off the grass season.

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Hewett eyes top four after French Open wheelchair title

  • Posted: Jun 16, 2017

Britain’s Alfie Hewett is hoping to break into the world’s top four after climbing the rankings following his win at the French Open.

Now ranked number six, equalling his career best, the 19-year-old said he is focused on his next set of tournaments in the lead-up to Wimbledon.

His title in France was the first time a Briton had won a men’s wheelchair singles title at Roland Garros.

“It has given me the confidence that I can do it again,” said Hewett.

‘Top four is the aim’

This time last year, Hewett, from Norwich, was ranked outside the top 10 and was a wildcard entry into Wimbledon, where he claimed the doubles title with fellow Briton Gordon Reid.

“The men’s game is completely open right now,” he said.

“I’ve got no expectations of getting to the top of the rankings by the end of the year because there’s so many great players around who could also be up there. But after my win in France and closing the gap in points, it would be good to get into the top four.”

A top-four ranking would mean he goes into major competitions and Grand Slams as a seeded player.

His historic win in his debut at Roland Garros saw him save three match points before going on to beat defending champion Gustavo Fernandez in three sets.

“Winning the tie-break in the second, and the second set overall, really gave me the confidence going into the third set,” he said.

“It was an emotional tie-break for me but after I’d won it and I could see that Gustavo was starting to tire I started to believe it was my game.”

That was not the first time he has come from behind to win a match. At an ITF1 event in Rotterdam in February he saved nine match points before going on to defeat Japan’s Takuya Miki.

“Once you have that experience of a comeback it just gives you that confidence to know you can do it – and to do it in a Grand Slam final as well was amazing.”

The nickname – ‘iced gem’

Hewett returned home with more than just his first Grand Slam singles title. Thanks to an unfortunate incident at the hairdressers pre-tournament, he also came back with a new nickname.

“It was a bit of a shocker where basically I’ve ended up with a bit more shaved off than I usually do,” he said.

“I got a lot of grief from the team out there because of it and they started calling me iced gem – like the biscuits. I think that’s because of the little whippy bit I have at the top now.”

He is now back on the training courts and preparing for the Open de France tournament.

As well as competing in singles, he will team up again with Scotland’s Reid as they aim to make it to their fourth Super Series doubles final of the year.

Their opponents in their previous three finals have been the French pairing of Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer, who they lost to in the doubles final of this year’s French Open.

In one of the biggest on-court rivalries in wheelchair tennis, Houdet and Peifer currently lead the 2017 Super Series head to head 2-1 but Hewett is confident that should they face them again in the final at the Open de France next week he and Reid can level the score.

“We’re eager to play them again and every time we lose to them it makes us more determined to beat them next time,” he said.

“I had a joke with Stephane that we were going to cause an upset on their home turf. Mind you, I do hope they don’t do that to us at Wimbledon this year.”

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Queen's Birthday Honours: Judy Murray and Heather Stanning become OBEs

  • Posted: Jun 16, 2017

Judy Murray and two-time Olympic gold medallist Heather Stanning have been appointed OBEs in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Murray, who has worked to grow tennis across Great Britain, has been recognised for services to tennis, women in sport and charity.

Stanning, who retired in 2016, is recognised for services to rowing.

Ireland rugby union captain Rory Best and former England coach Dick Greenwood will also become OBEs.

Northern Ireland football captain Steven Davis, former Great Britain rugby league coach Brian Noble and boxer John Conteh are appointed MBEs.

  • 5 live In Short: Judy Murray on encouraging the development of women’s sport

Murray ‘determined to inspire’

Murray, 57, is the third member of her family to be honoured after her sons Andy and Jamie became a knight and an OBE respectively.

She was the Great Britain Fed Cup coach from 2011 to 2016 and has coached numerous players, as well as mentoring Davis Cup captain Leon Smith.

“I’ve seen first hand that your role models are important – that they inspire and excite – but sport is only as good as its grassroots,” she told BBC Sport.

“I was so determined that there would be a legacy from what Jamie and Andy had achieved and I felt I could have much more long-term effect by sharing everything I’ve learnt over my coaching career with as many people as I could.”

The Scot has worked to introduce more young women to tennis, setting up the Miss-Hits programme in 2014 and heading up the Lawn Tennis Association’s She Rallies initiative.

She also fronts the Tennis on the Road programme, which brings the sport to deprived areas in Scotland.

Stanning and her rowing partner Helen Glover became GB’s first female rowers to win back-to-back Olympic golds when they retained the coxless pairs title in Rio after their London 2012 triumph.

She ended her career having not lost a single race alongside Glover since they teamed up at the 2011 World Championships.

Ireland hooker Best, who has made 104 international appearances, also led his country to their first ever win over New Zealand in November.

“It’s not just a reflection of my rugby ability. There are better players than me, but it’s also hopefully a reflection of the person you are,” Best said.

“It would be humbling to think that you can be considered more than just being able to play rugby.”

Team GB swimming coach Bill Furniss and England Hockey chair Philip Kimberley have also been appointed OBEs, with the head of Sport England, Jennie Price, becoming a CBE.

Great Britain’s women won a first Olympic hockey gold in Rio in 2016, while Team GB’s swimmers ended the pool events with their best haul of six medals.

All the sporting honours in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List

Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE):

Jennie Price, for services to sport, especially increasing women and girls’ participation.

Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE):

Judy Murray, for services to tennis, women in sport and charity; Heather Stanning, MBE, for services to rowing; Rory Best, for services to national and international rugby; Bill Furniss, for services to swimming; Dick Greenwood, for services to national and international rugby; Philip Kimberley, for services to hockey; Laura Smith, for services to disability sport.

Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE):

John Conteh, for services to boxing; Scott Hann, for services to gymnastics; Brian Noble, for services to rugby league and charity; Steven Davis, for services to football; Michelle Adams, for services to girls’ and women’s football in Wales; Andy Banks, for services to diving; Terry Flanagan, for services to rugby league and charity in the north west; Natalie Gilmour, for services to women’s rugby league; Daniel Kerry, for services to women’s hockey; Diane Lampard, for services to equestrianism; Angela Malone, for services to wheelchair curling; Peter Nicol, for services to the Highland Games, the economy and voluntary service in the north of Scotland; Jonathan Rea, for services to motorcycle racing; Dr Alan Stanfield, for services to curling.

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