Schwartzman Shows Off Soft Hands At Monte-Carlo 2017
Schwartzman Shows Off Soft Hands At Monte-Carlo 2017
Apr212017
View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the following semi-final match-ups Saturday at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters & vote for the players you think will win!
Ramos-Vinolas v Pouille | Nadal v Goffin
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Romania’s Fed Cup captain, the former world number one and Grand Slam champion Ilie Nastase, has been heard making a derogatory comment about Serena Williams’ unborn child.
As Romanian player Simona Halep was answering a question in English about Williams’ pregnancy at Friday’s Fed Cup draw in Constanta, the 70-year-old turned to one of his other team members and added in Romanian: “Let’s see what colour it has. Chocolate with milk?”
A spokesman for the International Tennis Federation has told the BBC it is aware of the comments and has begun an immediate investigation.
“The ITF does not tolerate discriminatory and offensive language and behaviour of any kind,” the statement reads.
“We are aware of alleged comments made by Romanian captain Ilie Nastase and have begun an immediate investigation so that we have the full facts of the situation before taking further and appropriate action.”
Romanian journalists present did not ask anything more about the statement but appeared to try to pass off the comment as a joke.
This is the second time in a month that Nastase has made comments about the American world number two.
In late March he made unsubstantiated allegations about Williams’ doping record to the Romanian website Digisport.
During the draw ceremony on Friday, Nastase also put his arm tightly around British team captain Anne Keothavong and asked for her room number, in earshot of the watching media.
I understand that Nastase made a similar comment to Keothavong, who is pregnant with her second child, at Thursday’s team dinner.
George Cosac, president of the Romanian Tennis Federation, was at the draw but did not stay for the news conference and will not comment on the matter.
Great Britain and Romania begin their two-day World Group play-off tie on Saturday at 10:00 BST.
Williams is due to give birth in the autumn and had posted a picture on Snapchat on Wednesday, posing in a mirror with the message: “20 weeks”, before deleting it.
But the news was confirmed later on Wednesday by her representative.
Williams will miss the rest of the season, having not played since the Australian Open, citing a knee injury.
Williams, who will return to world number one next week, would be eligible to retain her ranking under the WTA special ranking rule if she is ready to play her first tournament within 12 months of giving birth.
Williams announced her engagement to the co-founder of community news site Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, in December. The American is top of the all-time list of major winners since Grand Slams accepted professional players in 1968.
She is second only to Australian Margaret Court on the list of women’s all-time Grand Slam singles titles leaders – Court won 24 titles between 1960 and 1973.
Court, who won the singles Grand Slam in 1970, gave birth to her first child in March 1972, aged 29, and returned to win three of the four Grand Slam events in 1973.
Williams is a five-time Tour finals winner, the last of which came in 2014, and was recently picked as the greatest female tennis player of the Open era by BBC Sport readers.
Novak Djokovic’s comeback from injury was cut short at the Monte Carlo Masters as Belgium’s David Goffin earned the biggest win of his career.
World number two Djokovic, playing his second match following an elbow injury, lost 6-2 3-6 7-5 in the quarter-final.
Goffin, who will meet Rafael Nadal or Diego Schwartzman in the semis, had not previously beaten a top-three player.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Andy Murray will play in Barcelona next week following his early exit in Monte Carlo.
Goffin, ranked 13th in the world, earned his first career win over Djokovic by taking his fifth match point in a dramatic 11-minute final game.
It ended the Serb’s hopes of a third title in Monte Carlo, which is an ATP World Tour 1000 event and considered a key part of preparations for the French Open in May.
The 12-time Grand Slam champion looked in trouble after losing the first set and then suffering a heavy fall early in the second.
But he showed no serious damage after falling into the courtside advertising hoardings, improving to break Goffin’s serve in game four as he went on to level.
Goffin, 26, lost his serve in the opening game of the decider, only to fight back and level at 4-4 by taking his seventh break point of the set.
The pair traded holds in the next three games before nerves appeared to affect Goffin as he squandered four match points in what proved to be the final game.
But he refocused to win at the fifth attempt when Djokovic, who had been given a time violation moments earlier, hit a forehand into the net.
It was Goffin’s first win in six meetings with Djokovic and his first victory in 15 matches against a player ranked in the top three.
Earlier, Spanish clay-court specialist Albert Ramos-Vinolas followed up his victory over Murray with a 6-2 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 victory against Croatian fifth seed Marin Cilic.
He will play France’s Lucas Pouille, who beat Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 6-0 3-6 7-5, in Saturday’s other semi-final.
Andy Murray, 29, has accepted a last-minute wildcard at the Barcelona Open as he looks to continue his own recovery from an elbow injury.
The world number one, who fell to a shock third-round defeat by Ramos, is looking to build up clay-court time before Roland Garros.
The Scot will join Nadal and six other members of the world’s top 20 in the Barcelona draw.
Jamie Murray followed his younger brother out of the Monte Carlo event when he was knocked out of the men’s doubles quarter-finals on Friday.
The 31-year-old and Brazilian partner Bruno Soares, who were seeded third, lost 2-6 7-6 3-10 against wildcard French pair Hugo Nys and Romain Ameodo.
Jamie
Albert Ramos-Vinolas continued his run of form at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on Friday when he reached his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 semi-final in beating Monaco resident and fifth seed Marin Cilic.
Ramos-Vinolas, who is contesting his fifth clay-court tournament of the year (15-5 match record), experienced no let-up from Thursday’s victory over World No. 1 Andy Murray when he defeated Cilic 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-2 in two hours and 33 minutes.
The Spaniard, who is currently at a career-high No. 24 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, picked up his lone ATP World Tour title at the SkiStar Swedish Open (d. Verdasco) in July 2016. Last month, he finished runner-up at the Brasil Open to Pablo Cuevas, a player he could meet on Saturday if the Uruguayan No. 16 seed topples French No. 11 seed Lucas Pouille later today.
Ramos-Vinolas so nearly let his 18th match win of the year slip away, when he led by a set and 5/3 in the tie-break. For one hour and 50 minutes, the Spaniard didn’t blink. But after he dropped to 0-2 in the decider, he managed to regroup and go on a run of six straight games for his first victory over Cilic since the 2011 Shanghai Rolex Masters.
Cilic dominated the early exchanges, centered on his powerful forehand, having grown in confidence after beating ninth seed and 2015 runner-up Tomas Berdych the day before. But Ramos-Vinolas continued to slug it out from deep behind the baseline, just as he did against Murray, to wear down Cilic. Two service breaks in the third and seventh games of the first set went the way of Ramos-Vinolas, who closed out on his third set point opportunity with Cilic striking a backhand return long.
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Cilic committed an unforced error at 30/40 on Ramos-Vinolas’ serve, when leading 1-0, and his frustration began to grow on another hot day at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. Unable to make an impact on Ramos-Vinolas’ serve, at 3-3 Cilic dropped to 0/40 and paid the price with another mis-timed groundstroke. The Croatian regrouped and, in waiting for the ball, rather than taking the ball early, broke Ramos-Vinolas to 15 with four straight forehand winners to level at 5-5. Ramos-Vinolas then saved one set point at 5-6, 30/40, prior to squandering a 5/3 lead in the tie-break.
Cilic sensing Ramos-Vinolas was shaken, broke in the first game of the decider, but he couldn’t make it count as Ramos-Vinolas converted his fifth break point chance in a lengthy fourth game. Thereafter, Cilic won just five points, striking his third double fault in the final game to be broken to love.
The 29-year-old Spaniard recorded his fifth Top 10 victory (5-26 lifetime) and he is now 18-11 on 2017. Cilic, who had not lost a set to Ramos-Vinolas in their previous three meetings (including one on clay at 2012 Hamburg), dropped to a 7-8 mark on the season.
