Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina have been nominated in the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards.

The Laureus Awards are a highly-regarded ceremony held on behalf of the Laureus Sport for Good foundation. Every spring, they honour the world’s best athletes for their achievements in the previous calendar year via awards in eight categories.

Nadal enjoyed a historic 2022, winning the Australian Open and Roland Garros to move to a then-record 22 Grand Slam titles. The 36-year-old also clinched trophies at an ATP 250 in Melbourne and an ATP 500 in Acapulco, ending the year as the World No. 2. The Spaniard has been nominated for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award.

WTA World No. 1 Swiatek lifted eight titles in 2022, including major crowns at Roland Garros and the US Open. The 21-year-old is one of six nominees in the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year category, having also won trophies at WTA 1000 events in Indian Wells, Miami and Rome.

Spaniard Alcaraz and WTA star Rybakina have been nominated for the Breakthrough of the Year Award. The 19-year-old Alcaraz won two ATP Masters 1000 crowns and captured his first major title at the US Open. He also became the youngest World No. 1 in the history of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings (since 1973). The 23-year-old WTA star Rybakina won her first Grand Slam at Wimbledon.

Winners will be decided by 71 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy. The categories include Sportswoman of the Year, Sportsman of the Year, Team of the Year, Breakthrough of the Year, Comeback of the Year, Action Sportsperson of the Year and Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability. Nominations in these categories come from the 1400 members of our Global Media Panel.

With Rio de Janeiro hosting an ATP 500 this week, some of the sport’s biggest stars have transcended on the Brazilian city. Carlos Alcaraz, Lorenzo Musetti and Dominic Thiem are all competing and they wasted little time taking in the sounds and the sights of Rio.

Top seed Alcaraz enjoyed a helicopter tour, snapping photos of Christ the Redeemer, an iconic statue that is a symbol of Christianity around the world. The Spaniard, who will begin his title defence at the Rio Open presented by Claro against Brazilian Mateus Alves on Tuesday, then went to Sugar Loaf where he took the cable car.

“The moment in the helicopter was spectacular,” said Alcaraz, who triumphed in Buenos Aires last week. “It was the first time that I had flown in a helicopter. I was a little bit scared at the beginning, but it passed really fast. To live everything from the top is incredible.

“To see the Redeemer from the helicopter was marvellous. In the past, I said it would be great to see that from the sky and it exceeded my expectations.”

The 2017 champion Dominic Thiem attended the Rio Carnival alongside Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez. The trio danced to music and watched those in costume parade through the streets.

“Everybody around the world knows the Rio Carnival. It’s going to be a unique experience, and I’m looking forward to it,” Thiem said when arriving. “The stadium is full already, so let’s see how it is going to be.”

“It’s a unique experience,” Brazilian Matos said. “I used to watch it on TV, and to be able to live this is incredible. We will enjoy today and then we will focus on the tournament.”

Italian Lorenzo Musetti opted for a more relaxed day, spending time on the beach.

Francisco Cerundolo lives five blocks from the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club. If he wanted to, he could walk there every day, and he often does in order to avoid the traffic. The same is true of his parents Alejandro and Maria Luz, whose roof he shares alongside his siblings Juan Manuel Cerundolo and Constanza.

It has always been that way for the Cerundolo family, which lives and breathes tennis. The eldest of the Cerundolo siblings has never known any different. Francisco is now the highest-ranked Argentine in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings at No. 33.

The Cerundolo family simply lives for tennis. For them, life without racquets and balls is unimaginable.

“Our house is a locker room,” Alejandro Cerundolo told ATPTour.com. “We talk about sport, tennis, all day. As parents, we never pushed them to be athletes, or forced them to be good. We brought them up with a sporting foundation and each of them went their own way. Today that makes us very proud.”

The 64-year-old Alejandro is a former pro who nearly cracked the world’s Top 300, and he has been a coach and mentor to many Argentines.

The lady of the house, Maria Luz, plays a fundamental role. She is also a tennis player, a qualified psychologist with post-graduate studies in sports psychology, and she travels around the world with her children whenever she can. Two tennis players and an international hockey star, they each have their own personality, and Mother Cerundolo is charged with keeping their feet on the ground and bringing harmony to their home.

The Cerundolo parents always prevented their children from leaving school to spend more time practising.

“It wasn’t easy, Fran was the most resistant. But now they understand why — they are intelligent kids… Juanma was always the keenest on tennis, on training. And Fran, as well as now being in the Top [35], a few years ago he did a semester in the USA, at the University of South Carolina. Now he’s just a few [credits] short of a degree in Economics and Finance,” Alejandro explained of Francisco, who studies remotely at the University of Palermo, which has an agreement with the ATP Tour.

Francisco said: “I always went to school and trained many hours less than everyone… and that gave me an advantage over my opponents at 14, 15 years old. Nobody had picked me out as someone who could make it and be good.

“I was ‘bad’, but when I finished school at 18, I could start training. I grew taller and always maintained my approach to tennis: I wasn’t going to run and play in the air, that didn’t work for me, I played by hitting it hard and flat. But the most important thing was believing in myself.”

Francisco’s progression was more leisurely than his brother Juan Manuel’s. The younger Cerundolo always excelled from a very young age, winning the Junior Orange Bowl in the Under-12s, and even broke onto the Tour by winning the Cordoba Open at just 19.

“When we were little, I would go all over the club with Juanma, down the corridors, playing tennis all day, especially in the summer, in the pool, drinking milkshakes, but always spending a lot of time on the tennis courts,” Francisco said. “We always followed the same path, each in our own category, but he would win and I would lose, and I was always knocked out of the tournament first.

“As the years have gone by, tennis has changed in my life, and I learned to travel, to play tournaments, and going away and coming home to Argentina always gave me an energy boost.”

Was there any point where he believed he might be living the life he has now? “When you get to the ‘top’ and you’re rubbing elbows with the best, you always remember the things you went through, every stage. Now it’s a dream life, luxuries, fans, huge stadiums, but I’ve always had my feet on the ground and I haven’t changed. Luckily I always believed my moment would arrive and finally it did,” said Francisco, who last year won the Bastad title to join Juan Manuel as the first Argentine brothers to win ATP Tour singles titles.

“When he won the tournament in Cordoba in 2021, and I made the next final in Buenos Aires, both at the same time, it was amazing for both of us… That’s when I think we were convinced we were ready for the Tour,” Francisco said.

According to Francisco, his younger brother taught him to be “more professional”.

“He always wanted to do everything perfectly, ever since he was very small, and I learned a lot, from nutrition to how to train better,” Francisco said. “When I was young I found it difficult, I was pretty lazy and I learned to be disciplined from him. Now I see it in my daily work.

Juan Manuel added: “The best thing about Fran, as a person and a player, is how simple and relaxed he is… As much as he’s No. 33 in the world, he is still the same and he doesn’t have the airs or graces of a star, and that allows him to keep improving. It’s like a mirror for me: I was always more structured and he showed me how to enjoy myself and not stress in certain moments.

“The best moment together was at the ATP Masters 1000 in Miami, I am certain… He made the semi-finals and I got to the third round. At a tournament of that magnitude, it was incredible the matches we both won, and also that we were on the U.S. swing together. And it finished in amazing fashion.”

As if it were written in the stars, Francisco became Argentina’s No. 1 player on 13 February thanks to the fact that his brother Juan Manuel beat Diego Schwartzman in the second round of the Cordoba Open. “We’d spoken about it and I told him I’d help him,” Juan Manuel recalled with a smile. Schwartzman had nothing but praise for the brothers.

“I’m a few years older than them but it’s great that players are still coming through and, above all, that they’re two brothers,” Schwartzman said. “I would be lying if I told you I was glad he overtook me, as much as we have a great relationship. But because I’m competitive, now I’m going to want to overtake him again.

”I can show you thousands of conversations with Juanma. About racquets, strings, game patterns, anything you can think of… and in Cordoba he beat me and that meant Fran overtook me. But that’s tennis, and they are doing things right to get to where they are and to have a really bright future ahead.”

Do the Cerundolos set joint goals?

“It’s what we always dream of, being together on Tour. We hope we can do that at the end of the year, because that would mean me being in the Top 100 and hopefully in the coming years we’ll both continue to climb,” Juan Manuel said.

Francisco said: “I think Juanma is doing great. Last year, he had lots of injuries. He loves sport, tennis, and he couldn’t play, but he did well. I think he was stronger, hitting it well, and since coming back he’s won four Challengers. Hopefully he will be back on Tour again soon.”

The Cerundolo Brothers continue to rise. They have their ups and downs, but they are always pushing one another, and their family are alongside them every step of the way.

A memorable week on the ATP Challenger Tour week saw Thanasi Kokkinakis win his first Challenger title since May 2021 and fellow-Aussie Max Purcell rally to win the Chennai Challenger. Italian Giulio Zeppieri also triumphed at the Challenger 75 event in Cherbourg.

In the Manama Challenger 125 final, Kokkinakis ended the dream run of 19-year-old Abedallah Shelbayh, who was playing in just his third Challenger event. The Australian, who is a five-time Challenger champion, downed Shelbayh 6-1, 6-4 to capture the Bahrain Ministry of Interior Tennis Challenger. However, the teen still left Bahrain with a piece of history.

The Manama crown marks Kokkinakis’ first Challenger triumph since his title in Biella, Italy almost two years ago. The 26-year-old, who is featured in the Netflix series Break Point, returns to the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, which he briefly fell out of this past month when he was unable to defend his Adelaide International 2 crown.

Despite the final loss, Shelbayh became the first player from Jordan and the youngest Arab to reach a Challenger final. In the quarter-final, the Amman native upset top seed Jason Kubler. Shelbayh graduated from the Rafa Nadal Academy in 2021 before playing college tennis at the University of Florida. Following his freshman year, Shelbayh turned pro. The Manama finalist climbs to a career-high 276 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

At the Challenger Cherbourg La Manche, which was celebrating its 30th anniversary, Giulio Zeppieri earned his second Challenger title. The 21-year-old Italian, who is building upon his momentum from his career-best season, defeated Titouan Droguet 7-5, 7-6(4) in the championship match.

In 2022, Zeppieri earned his maiden tour-level victory in the opening round of Umag, where he rallied from a set down to defeat Argentine Pedro Cachin. The Rome native also made his Grand Slam debut as a qualifier at Roland Garros, where he defeated Andreas Seppi in qualifying to snap his countryman’s streak of 66 consecutive Grand Slam main-draw appearances.

Giulio Zeppieri at the 2023 Cherbourg Challenger. Credit: Challenger Cherbourg La Manche

Droguet, 21, advanced through qualifying and was playing in his first Challenger final. The Frenchman rises to a career-high 247 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

At the Chennai Open, Max Purcell saved two championship points to defeat Nicolas Moreno De Alboran 5-7, 7-6(2), 6-4. After three hours, seven minutes, the Australian became the second Challenger titlist to save a championship point this year (Raul Brancaccio, Noumea).

Max Purcell is crowned champion in Chennai, India. Credit: Suman Chattopadhyay

Following the title in India, the Sydney native climbs to a career-high 155. In 2022, the 24-year-old teamed with countryman Matthew Ebden to win two tour-level doubles titles, including at Wimbledon. A three-time Challenger titlist, Purcell paired with Luke Saville in 2019 to win seven Challenger doubles titles.

Moreno de Alboran, who served for the title at 5-4 in the second set, is following up his career-best season. The American triumphed at the 2022 Braga Challenger, where he advanced through qualifying en route to his maiden Challenger title.

Brazilian Thiago Monteiro reached the second round at a tour-level event for the first time this season on Monday when he clawed past former Rio Open presented by Claro champion Dominic Thiem 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(2) at the ATP 500 event.

In a hard-fought clash, the home favourite raced out of the blocks, winning the first five games before sealing the set on serve to move ahead. After former World No. 3 Thiem levelled, Monteiro held his nerve in the third set, saving all four break points he faced to advance after two hours and 46 minutes in their first ATP Head2Head meeting.

“It was a tough beginning of the year, but I feel at the same time I have been playing at a high level,” Monteiro said. “Trying to push harder and harder. I have had some tough loses, some close matches. Now winning my first match at such a big tournament is very important.

“In the tie-break I thought I played very solid and I am very happy to get my first win.”

The 28-year-old, currently No. 80 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, is making his seventh appearance at the clay-court tournament in Brazil, with his best result being a quarter-final run in 2017. Monteiro will look to reach that stage again when he faces second seed Cameron Norrie or Argentine lucky loser Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the second round.

In other action, Nicolas Jarry earned the biggest win of his season when he upset World No. 18 Lorenzo Musetti 6-4, 6-1.

The Chilean qualifier, who advanced to the semi-finals in Rio de Janeiro in 2018, was strong on return throughout the 74-minute clash, winning 65 per cent (15/23) of points on third seed Musetti’s second delivery.

Jarry will next meet Pedro Martinez. The Spaniard snapped a four-match losing streak when he overcame Chilean Cristian Garin 7-6(0), 6-4 in two hours and 27 minutes.

Slovakian Alex Molcan moved past Brazilian wild card Joao Fonseca 6-0, 6-3 and will next face Hugo Dellien after the Bolivian defeated Joao Sousa 6-0, 6-2. Dellien came through qualifying to reach the semi-finals in Cordoba earlier this month.

One of the breakthrough stars of the early part of the season has been Jiri Lehecka. The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up made a big impact Down Under when he battled to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open with wins over stars including Borna Coric, Cameron Norrie and Felix Auger-Aliassime.

How has he stepped up against top-tier competition? Power. Lots of power.

According to statistics courtesy of Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz, the Czech star already has one of the biggest forehands in the world. Over the past 52 weeks, Lehecka’s average forehand speed has been 79.2 miles per hour with an average spin rate of 2,992 revolutions per minute. That is a daunting combination of speed and spin.

It puts Lehecka in the same neighbourhood as renowned ball-bashers Felix Auger-Aliassime (78.4mph and 3,178rpm), Andrey Rublev (78.2mph and 2,917rpm) and Jannik Sinner (77.8mph and 2,901rpm). The ATP Tour average for forehand speed and spin are 75.1 miles per hour and 2,713 revolutions per minute, respectively.

^{Chart courtesy of Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz, a joint venture between the ATP and ATP Media.}
Tennis Data Innovations and TennisViz also produces a metric called ’Shot Quality’, which analyses each shot’s speed, spin, depth, width and the impact it has on the opponent. Lehecka’s 52-week average on the forehand side is 8, and it has improved to 8.3 over his past 10 matches.

Over the past year, his Shot Quality mark has been in the same range as Auger-Aliassime (8.1), Rublev (7.9) and Sinner (7.9). The Tour average is 7.2.

“When I met Jiri first time, he surprised me with the humility. He was such a nice person,” Lehecka’s coach, Michal Navratil, told ATPTour.com. “And then of course it was immediately the strength and the power of his shots that were in him.”

What is scarier for the rest of the Tour is that the 21-year-old Lehecka is still harnessing his power, according to his coach. When they first began working together, Lehecka used a different racquet brand and his string tension was 24/23 kilograms.

Lehecka has since experimented with different racquet and string setups to help control his game.

“He had a huge problems with the string,” Navratil said. “He was able to destroy the string in 10, 15 minutes. [It was] not even for the first ball change, so it was massive.”

The Czech has had his racquets strung increasingly tighter, helping to rein in his game.

“It’s funny. Last year was something extremely special,” Navratil said. “He was stringing last year in Australia 35/33. So in the beginning he was really like a beast with so much power. But finally he manages how to control it and everything. Still I think he cannot play on full percentage of his power because I think in this world there are not racquets he can go for full and he can control it.”

That has paid dividends in his rapid climb up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. It was a year ago when he reached the Rotterdam semi-finals as a qualifier ranked No. 137. Now Lehecka, armed by one of the biggest forehands in the world, is No. 52 and climbing (career-high No. 37).

Lehecka begins his run at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Tuesday in Doha against qualifier Damir Dzumhur.

Alexander Bublik arrived at the Open 13 Provence chasing his maiden tour-level win of the 2023 season. The Kazakhstani dug deep to get the job done on Monday, when he rallied to a 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 first-round victory against Filip Krajinovic in Marseille.

Bublik engineered the turnaround with a late break of Krajinovic’s serve in the second set and two early breaks in the third. Although the 25-year-old was then broken once himself as his lead in the decider was cut to 3-2, Bublik held firm to clinch a two-hour, nine-minute triumph in which he sent down 18 aces.

With the win, Bublik extended his ATP Head2Head series lead against Krajinovic to 2-0. The pair’s previous clash also came on an indoor hard court in southern France, with Bublik a straight-sets winner in the Montpellier semi-finals last year en route to claiming his maiden ATP Tour title.

The World No. 50 will seek to build on Monday’s win in a second-round meeting with eighth seed Marc-Andrea Huesler or Gregoire Barrere. Bublik is competing at the ATP 250 in southern France for the second time, having reached the semi-finals on tournament debut in 2020.

Former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka, who first competed in Marseille 15 years ago, also moved on. The Swiss star clawed past Belgian Zizou Berga 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-4 after two hours and 31 matches.

“It was a tough match against a great player. It was a big fight,” Wawrinka said. “I’m happy to get through. The first one is never easy. [It is] a new week, new tournament, different conditions. You have to fight through it [and] stay positive. I’m happy with the win.”

The 37-year-old was cool under pressure, saving all seven break points he faced against the World No. 132. Wawrinka will next face seventh seed Richard Gasquet or another Frenchman, qualifier Laurent Lokoli.

Earlier in the day, Frenchmen Benjamin Bonzi and Luca Van Assche played out two contrasting sets in front of their home fans. The first featured five breaks of serve and the second just one break — in the 12th and final game — but it was Bonzi who prevailed in both.

The 26-year-old’s 7-5, 7-5 victory booked him a second-round clash against fifth seed Maxime Cressy or another Frenchman, wild card Geoffrey Blancaneaux. The World No. 60 Bonzi is now 4-2 in Marseille, having reached the semi-finals there a year ago.

Another week, another Andy Murray comeback win in 2023.

The 46-time tour-level titlist showed trademark resilience to rally to a 4-6, 1-6, 7-6(4) first-round victory against Lorenzo Sonego on Monday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. The two-time Doha champion saved three match points before prevailing at the ATP 250 tournament.

Murray saved the match points from 4-5, 15/40 on his own serve in the deciding set and later trailed 0/3 in the deciding tie-break. The 35-year-old raised his level in style from there, however, winning seven of the last eight points to clinch a two-hour, 30-minute win.

“It was really tough,” said Murray post-match. “We never played together, or practised with each other before, so I didn’t know exactly how the match was going to go and it took a while to get used to his game.

“He’s a very aggressive player, takes a lot of chances, but it’s high-risk tennis. He rolled the dice at the end, and it looked like he had the momentum. But thankfully in the mid-part of that tie-break he made a couple of mistakes and I managed to turn it around.”

It was the second tournament in a row where Murray’s first-round match was settled by a deciding-set tie-break. He also saved a match point before edging Matteo Berrettini in his opener at January’s Australian Open, where he later rallied from two-sets-to-love down to defeat Thanasi Kokkinakis in a second-round epic.

A slow start from Murray in Doha cost him dearly in the first set after Sonego broke the Briton to love in the first game. There were no further break points for either man as the Italian moved ahead, but Murray struck back in style in the second set, racing to a 5-0 lead that proved unassailable by staying aggressive and striking cleanly off both wings from the baseline.

The tension-filled third set appeared to be on the racquet of Sonego, who frequently painted the lines with some huge groundstrokes and at one stage won 13 points in a row on serve. Yet Murray was not to be denied, as his late charge earned the victory despite the former World No. 1 having hit just 20 winners to Sonego’s 34.

Monday’s win means Murray, who is a four-time finalist in Doha and lifted the trophy in 2008 and 2009, is now 7-0 in opening-round matches at the outdoor hard-court event. The 35-year-old Briton will play fourth seed Alexander Zverev in the second round as he bids to reach his first ATP Tour quarter-final of the season.

“He’s obviously one of the top players in the world,” said Murray of Zverev, against whom he holds a 2-1 ATP Head2Head series lead. “He had a bad injury at [Roland Garros] last year and is just coming back from that. He’s going to be improving every week just now.

“He’s not quite at the level he was back in the middle of last year, but injuries like that take time. It will be another great match, hopefully I can keep building on this one.”

Murray’s countryman Liam Broady also enjoyed deciding-set tie-break success on Monday. The World No. 147 converted six of 17 break points to see off fellow qualifier Oleksii Krutykh 6-0, 4-6, 7-6(2) and set a second-round meeting with third seed Daniil Medvedev.

Australians Christopher O’Connell and Jason Kubler both advanced to the second round. O’Connell defeated wild card Fernando Verdasco 6-1, 3-6, 6-0, while Kubler led 7-6(4) 1-0 when his opponent Aslan Karatsev retired from their first-round match.