As a player who has always done things his own way on the tennis court, Nick Kyrgios appreciates the importance of innovation in the game. It comes as no surprise that the Australian is looking forward to the inaugural edition of the United Cup.

“I think it’s just a great event to have,” said Kyrgios as he prepares to lead the host nation at the new mixed teams event to be held from 29 December to 8 January. “An event where females and males come together as one to represent their nation, I think that’s incredibly important, and for the fans to see their favourite female players and male players come together and play for their country, [with] all the best athletes from around the world. I think it’s a very special, special event.”

The teams competition will kick off the 2023 season on both the ATP and WTA Tours, with 18 nations competing in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. As Team Australia’s leading men’s singles player, Canberra-born Kyrgios is set for a pair of blockbuster clashes against Team Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie and Team Spain’s Rafael Nadal in Sydney, the city he now calls home.

“There’s nothing better, to play the Australian summer is one of my favourite times of the year,” said Kyrgios. “Obviously being home, but being able to play in Sydney, in front of the home fans, my family, my friends, there’s nothing more that I love.

“To be honest I’ve never really played that great in Sydney, but I’m hoping I’m going to change that narrative at the start of the year. Just playing in Australia in general is special. The Tour is a long grind and it’s rarely in Australia, so I’m definitely not going to take it for granted.”

Each United Cup tie will comprise two men’s and two women’s singles matches and one mixed doubles match to be played across two days. Kyrgios is a top-class doubles option for Team Australia’s co-captains, Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur, with the 27-year-old’s high-energy performances alongside Thanasi Kokkinakis making the pair crowd favourites wherever they play on the ATP Tour. Kyrgios predicts more of the same when male and female stars team up at the United Cup.

“What I love about mixed doubles is [what it brings] for the fans,” said Kyrgios. “To see some of the best females in the world playing with some of the best males in the world, I think it provides some really good entertainment… We’ve seen some iconic doubles pairs over the last decade.”

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal headlined ATP Tour stars who reacted to the epic FIFA World Cup Final on social media Sunday, when Lionel Messi led Argentina past France for the trophy.

Federer wrote on Instagram, “Fairytale stuff Argentina! ⚽️ Time and time again you @leomessi have redefined greatness. It’s a privilege to watch you. Congrats Leo & 🇦🇷 . Special and historic 👏🏼🏆.”

 

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Nadal posted on Instagram stories congratulating both the Argentines and French on the classic match. “Enjoy it champions,” he wrote in one of his posts.

Argentines, led by Juan Martin del Potro, quickly took to social media to celebrate their country’s victory.

FELICITACIONESSS LEOOO!!! 🐐
FELICITACIONESSS SELECCIÓN!!! 🇦🇷
GRACIAS POR ESTA GRAN ALEGRÍA QUE NOS DIERON!!!
LA FOTO QUE TODO EL MUNDO NECESITABA VER!!! 🙏🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/tTFIfpU3rq

— Juan M. del Potro (@delpotrojuan) December 18, 2022

🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/GkE2UWO5nD

— diego schwartzman (@dieschwartzman) December 18, 2022

Former World No. 1 Andy Murray, who praised Messi throughout the tournament, shared his thoughts on the global superstar once more: “Is Messi the best athlete of all time? Forget just football,” Murray wrote. “What a man.”

Is messi the best athlete of all time? Forget just football. What a man.

— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) December 18, 2022

Casper Ruud, who was wearing an Argentina jersey with his name on it during the championship, also congratulated the winners.

 

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True tennis fanatics find joy in sharing any random fact or record that they can recite from memory. The 2022 ATP Challenger Tour season held no shortage of historic moments that can be shared as your next trivia question.

After 11 months of nonstop tennis, ATPTour.com takes a deep dive into the facts and figures from the 2022 Challenger Tour season.

Halys Held Most Wins
For the second straight year, a Frenchman topped the Challenger match wins leaderboard. This season, Quentin Halys was nearly unstoppable as he collected a 43-10 record on the Challenger Tour.

The 26-year-old reached seven Challenger finals, including in Pau, Lille, and Ismaning, where he captured the title. Halys finished the year at a career-high 64 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. 

Title Leaders
Pedro Cachin and Jack Draper finished with a season-leading four Challenger titles. While the Argentine Cachin competed in seven finals, he was crowned champion in Madrid, Prague, Todi, and Santo Domingo. Draper’s early-season surge helped pave the path of his graduation to Tour-level tournaments and qualification for the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals. The Briton triumphed at the Forli-2, Forli-4, Forli-5, and Saint-Brieuc Challengers.

Teen Titans
Nine teenagers broke through to triumph at the Challenger level. China’s Shang Juncheng won the Lexington Challenger to become the youngest (17 years, 6 months) Challenger champion of 2022. The Beijing native is the youngest Chinese champion in Challenger Tour history. Luca Nardi and Dominic Stricker were the only teenagers to win multiple Challenger titles this season.

Other teen champions include Luca Van Assche, Holger Rune, Hamad Medjedovic, Francesco Maestrelli, Flavio Cobolli, and Zachary Svajda.

Biggest Movers To Top 100
Ben Shelton, who was a six-time Challenger finalist this year, led the way as one of the four biggest movers to the Top 100.

Title Leaders By Country
Players from 38 countries won titles this year. Argentines collected a historic 23 Challenger titles, which surpassed their own record for most titles by a country in a single season (20). French players, who combined for 22 titles, were not far behind.

Valentin Vacherot, who won the Nonthaburi Challenger, became the second player from Monaco to win a title and the first since 2004.

ATP Tour & Challenger Tour Winners
Borna Coric and Holger Rune showed their dominance at the Challenger level and on the ATP Tour in 2022.

Coric, who won the Parma Challenger in June, upset three Top-10 players en route to winning the title in Cincinnati to become the first player since 1993 to win a Challenger and an ATP Masters 1000 title in the same season. And then it was the Danish teen’s turn in Bercy.

Rune, 19, claimed the Sanremo Challenger in April before rising to three Tour-level titles, including the ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris.

Four other players also were crowned champions at both levels: Yoshihito Nishioka, Marc-Andrea Huesler, Francisco Cerundolo, and Lorenzo Musetti.

Doubles Titles History
In the span of six months, British duo Julian Cash and Henry Patten went from scrambling to gain entry into Challenger tournaments to finishing the season with a record-setting 10 titles.

In May, Cash and Patten were ranked outside the Top 300 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings. The former college standouts made quick progress as they collected titles on all three surfaces and surpassed the previous Challenger doubles titles record, eight, which was set in 2012 by twin brothers from Thailand, Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana.

Fast Facts

• A total of 52 players collected their maiden title this season. Shang, 17, was the youngest of the bunch while 28-year-old Alexander Ritschard was the oldest player to win his first title in 2022.
• #NextGenATP stars lit up the Challenger Tour this year. Players born in 2001 or later combined for 40 titles.
• A single-season record 22 players advanced through qualifying en route to capturing a Challenger title.
• Longest final: Genaro Alberto Olivieri and Tomas Martin Etcheverry tied the record for the longest Challenger final. After three hours, 31 minutes, Olivieri defeated his countryman 6-7(3), 7-6(5), 6-3 to win the Montevideo Challenger.
• Shortest final: Hamad Medjedovic needed just 48 minutes to down Zhang Zhizhen 6-1, 6-2 at the Luedenscheid Challenger.
• Youngest final: Hungary’s Filip Misolic, 20, defeated 17-year-old Mili Poljicak to win the Zagreb Challenger. In Granby, 20-year-old Gabriel Diallo defeated Chinese teen Shang Juncheng in the championship match.
• Oldest winner: Fernando Verdasco won the Monterrey Challenger to become the season’s oldest champion (38 years, 3 months). Only Ivo Karlovic has won a Challenger at an older age: 39 years, 7 months (2018 Calgary).
• Four players saved at least one match point in a Challenger final: Wu Yibing (6) in Indianapolis, Jack Draper (4) at the Forli-5 event, Emilio Gomez (4) in Salinas, and Zizou Bergs (1) in Ilkley.
• Guido Andreozzi became the lowest-ranked champion since 2000. The Argentine was No. 901 when he triumphed at the Temuco Challenger.
• Ben Shelton became the youngest player in Challenger history to win three titles in as many weeks (Charlottesville, Knoxville, Champaign).
• At the Orleans Challenger, Gregoire Barrere became the fifth player since 2010 to defeat four Top-100 players en route to a title.
• Francisco and Juan Manuel Cerundolo became the first pair of brothers to win titles in back-to-back seasons.
• A record-setting 184 tournaments were played across 38 countries.
• The Tampere Open, which is the longest-running event on the Challenger Tour, became the first tournament to celebrate its 40-year anniversary.

Coaches have for years drilled into budding tennis players and professionals that serving to the backhand provides a stronger chance of winning second-serve points. In fact, it is clear that this tactic is the norm on the ATP Tour. Fifty per cent of serves have been directed to the backhand corner and 35 per cent to the body – mainly to the backhand side – leaving only 15 per cent of serves delivered to the forehand.

The thinking is simple: Serving to the backhand provides a safer option when sending down a slower delivery on the second serve. Naturally, forehand returns are more dangerous, so a high ball to the backhand provides a better chance of neutralising the opponent’s return, while reducing the risk of double faulting.

Animation 1: Serve Zone Trajectories on second serves to Deuce court: Win % and In %

However, the growth of increasingly sophisticated data and analysis of each and every action in the sport of tennis undermines the logic behind this long-held belief.

ATP players win 51 per cent of points when serving to the forehand corner versus just 49 per cent when serving to the backhand corner.

In other words, primarily directing the second serve to the backhand of an ATP opponent typically reduces the chances of winning the point. This information is derived from detailed analysis for nearly 150 right-handed ATP players with at least 1,000 second serves to right-handed opponents over a 10-year period.

Table 1: High frequency and second-serve win per centage to forehand and backhand corners of 150 right-handed ATP players with at least 1,000 second serves to right-handed opponents over a 10-year period.

What’s more, well-placed deuce-side second serves to the forehand corner generate 8.5 per cent more points won than well-placed serves to the backhand corner of the same service box. Perhaps even more surprisingly, second serves to the forehand corner in the deuce court lead to eight per cent more unreturned serves and lead servers to win 17 per cent more deuce-side return points in shorter rallies of five or fewer shots.

Animation 2: Win % heatmap for placement of second serves to Deuce court

All of this goes to highlight the growing importance of accessing and understanding detailed data analysis on Tour to enable players to leverage every marginal gain available to them. This is why Tennis Data Innovations is committed to delivering detailed tracking data on every court across the ATP Tour in 2023, to shed light on the most effective tactics and strategies in tennis.

And what does all this mean in practice? Well, just as we have seen with the inexorable rise of three-pointers in the NBA driven by crunching the data, so we are seeing the second serve to the forehand rise, increasing from 15 per cent in 2012 to 22 per cent in 2022 (a 47 per cent jump).

Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev are two players who have embraced data analysis and who often serve to the forehand on their second serve on both sides of the court with success.

However, other players have been slower to embrace the insights provided by data analytics and we see a number who rarely serve to the forehand. Not surprisingly, they are missing out on crucial points.

Grigor Dimitrov, as an example, may have gained a significant number of points by serving to the forehand corner 25 per cent of the time instead of 10 per cent. The five per cent differential gained on those second serves could have led to several additional matches being won in the course of a season, such are the fine margins in our sport.

In real terms, the difference in Pepperstone ATP Rankings points and prize money foregone by an over-reliance on serving to the backhand could be sizeable.

Table 2: Low frequency and second-serve win percentage to forehand and backhand corners. Date set of 150 right-handed ATP players with at least 1,000 second serves to right-handed opponents over a 10-year period.

Of course, we should not assume that pushing more second serves to the forehand will automatically increase the win per centage on all of those points. There is undoubtedly an element of surprise with serves to the forehand side currently that underpins its statistical advantage – built on the ingrained expectation of more serves being delivered to the other corner. This raises the question of how much more ATP players should serve to the forehand on second serve? Most players would benefit significantly if they served to the forehand at least 15-20 per cent more than they currently do.

One reason that second serves to the forehand have such a high win per centage is that they are surprising to the returner. Of course, as the per centage of serves by a player to the forehand increases, the win per centage decreases. Our analysis shows that increasing the proportion of serves to the forehand does not decrease the per centage of points won by very much. And more variation in second-serve location will deliver an increase in the win per centage of serves that continue to go to the backhand.

Given ever-improving racquets, string, and training technologies, which lead to faster and more accurate serves, we believe the per centage of serves to the forehand on second serve will continue to rise, with the expectation that one day we will see something closer to parity between the two sides.

Until then, we’ll likely continue to see an enlightened group of players and coaches take advantage of these marginal gains. In isolation, they may not seem like much, but in a sport where winning 51 per cent of the points will generally win you the match, these fine margins can be what separates success from failure.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series in which Golden Set Analytics and TDI are looking at the increasing prominence and importance of deeper tennis data in helping us all better understand the dynamics of the sport, whether as players, coaches, fans or administrators.

This July, Holger Rune’s rapid rise had come to a screeching halt.

A 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals competitor, Rune’s season had started well. The teen, who began the year outside the Top 100 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, quickly climbed into the Top 50 by lifting his first ATP Tour trophy in Munich and advancing to the Roland Garros quarter-finals. The only player younger than the Dane in the Top 50 was Carlos Alcaraz.

But what seemed a bump-free road revealed potholes. After losing to Casper Ruud in the last eight on the Parisian clay, Rune lost seven consecutive matches. For nearly two months, he did not win a set against a Top 100 player.

“It was tough for sure. When you lose a couple of matches in a row, you’ve got to get back at it and you have [to think about] your goals that you want to achieve. But I think it’s normal in a way,” Rune told ATPTour.com. “It’s going up and then sometimes it’s going a little bit down. You’ve got to accept it because this is sports. Everybody can beat everybody, so it’s just about accepting it and keep believing.

“[To] keep having belief is the most important. That’s also what kept me going. I’m basically a guy who is very motivated no matter what happens, so that’s one thing that is also helping me.”

In Hamburg, the 19-year-old lost his sixth straight match. He remembers thinking to himself about what was happening.

“It was really not a nice feeling,” Rune told ATPTour.com. “I kind of told myself that, ‘I still have to be motivated and get back to practice.’ As soon as I got back to practice, because I love tennis so much, I was just super motivated and then I was excited for the American swing and there I got things going a little bit again.”

After reaching the third round of the US Open and the quarter-finals in Metz, Rune won 19 of his next 21 matches. He made the final in Sofia, triumphed in Stockholm, advanced to the championship match in Basel and earned the best result of his career in Paris, where he claimed his maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown.

Rune not only won the Rolex Paris Masters, but he did it in style, becoming the first player since the inception of the ATP Tour (1990) to claim five Top 10 victories at a tournament outside the Nitto ATP Finals. He clawed past in-form Novak Djokovic in the final.

^{Photo Credit: Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour}
Patrick Mouratoglou, who officially joined Rune’s team in October, was impressed by the Dane’s bounceback.

“It shows about his character that he can bounce back and that’s also what we say about champions,” Mouratoglou told ATPTour.com. “It’s not about what they win, it’s about how they bounce back when they’re in trouble. So I think it’s a good indicator about his personality, how strong it is, how much he wants it and how much he’s able to bounce [back].

“A champion is able to bounce back during a match when he’s in trouble, during a season when he’s in trouble. They’re able to find within themselves the necessary strengths to find the solutions to inverse a difficult situation.”

With his big win in Paris, Rune broke into the world’s Top 10. Although he is happy with his progress, Rune has long spoken about his dreams of becoming World No. 1. What will it take to get there?

“It’s definitely to keep improving a lot. Keep improving my serve, return, everything that’s possible. And it is the same with the mental side: keep staying composed in those important moments, being brave,” Rune said. “There are a lot of small things that are so important.

“Also now that I have been in the Top 10, it’s going to be even harder because people start to know my game more, so I have to keep improving. “It’s going to be fun and a great experience.”

Alcaraz and Ferrero have been selected by their peers as the Most Improved Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively. Alcaraz, also honoured as the ATP No. 1 presented Pepperstone in the 2022 ATP Awards, made the biggest jump to year-end No. 1 in history and is the first teenager to finish in the top spot. He won five titles in 2022, including a first Grand Slam crown at the US Open and a pair of ATP Masters 1000 titles at the Miami Open presented by Itau and Mutua Madrid Open. 

Visit the official ATP Awards section 

Two other Masters 1000 champions claim ATP Awards in player-voted categories. Rune, 19, has been named Newcomer of the Year while 26-year-old Coric takes home Comeback Player of the Year honours. Rune finished the season by winning 19 of his final 21 matches, defeating five Top 10 opponents en route to the Rolex Paris Masters title. Coric, a former World No. 12, returned from a shoulder injury to win the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. 

Ruud has been voted by fellow players as the first Scandinavian winner of the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award since the award’s namesake in 1995. The Norwegian is also the first player other than Roger Federer and Nadal to win this category since 2003. 

Meanwhile, Nadal adds to his ATP Awards haul by winning his first Fans’ Favourite Award. The 36-year-old Spaniard’s collection includes a full set in the player-voted categories – Newcomer (2003), Most Improved (2005), Comeback (2013) and Sportsmanship (2010, 2018-2021) – in addition to the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award (2011) and ATP No. 1 presented by Pepperstone (2008, 2010, 2013, 2017, 2019).

Murray has been named recipient of the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award for a second time, in recognition of his support for the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. The 35-year-old Brit, who has written an essay about his charity work for ATPTour.com, donated his 2022 prize money to a UNICEF campaign for children. 

The 2022 ATP Awards also recognises Wesley Koolhof & Neal Skupski, winners of seven titles during the first year of their partnership, as the ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by Pepperstone. Australian Open champions Thanasi Kokkinakis & Nick Kyrgios have been voted as Fans’ Favourite doubles team. 

The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells (ATP Masters 1000), the cinch Championships at the Queen’s Club in London (ATP 500) and the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha (ATP 250) have been voted by players as Tournament of the Year in their respective categories. Meanwhile, Argentine journalist Sebastian Torok of LA NACION, has been recognised as the recipient of the Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award.

2022 ATP Awards Winners

ATP No. 1 presented by Pepperstone
(determined by Pepperstone ATP Rankings)
Most Improved Player of the Year
(voted by ATP players)
Carlos Alcaraz: The 19-year-old Spaniard is the first teenager and youngest player to finish No. 1 in the 50 editions of the year-end Pepperstone ATP Rankings. He made the biggest jump to year-end No. 1 in history, rising from No. 32 at the end of 2021. Alcaraz, the 2020 Newcomer of the Year, became the youngest ATP 500 champion (since 2009) by winning Rio de Janeiro in February. He also led the Tour with two ATP Masters 1000 titles (Miami and Madrid) and five titles overall (tied with Novak Djokovic). Alcaraz clinched his first Grand Slam title in September, when he became the youngest men’s singles winner at the US Open since 19-year-old Pete Sampras in 1990.

ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by Pepperstone
(determined by Pepperstone ATP Rankings)
Wesley Koolhof & Neal Skupski: The Dutchman and Briton won seven titles in their first year as a team, highlighted by their triumphs at three ATP Masters 1000 events (Madrid, Montreal and Paris). They were successful across different surfaces – outdoor and indoor hard courts, clay and grass – also picking up trophies in Melbourne, Adelaide, Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch. In addition to reaching the top as a team, Koolhof hit No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings on 7 November. Skupski joined him as joint World No. 1 a week later.

Comeback Player of the Year
(voted by ATP players)
Borna Coric: After missing a year due to a shoulder injury and surgery in May 2021, the 26-year-old Croatian surged back up the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, from No. 278 in May to a year-end No. 26. Coric, who started his comeback in March, won an ATP Challenger Tour title in June. The former World No. 12 then charged back into the ATP Tour winners’ circle in style at the Western & Southern Open in August. Coric took out five Top 20 players in a row, including Rafael Nadal, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas, to claim his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati. Dominic Thiem, Stan Wawrinka and Wu Yibing were also nominated for Comeback Player of the Year. 

Newcomer of the Year
(voted by ATP players)
Holger Rune: The Dane enjoyed a standout season that saw him claim three titles and break into the Top 10 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. Rune lifted his maiden ATP Tour title in Munich in May, two days after turning 19. He won 19 of his final 21 matches of the year, reaching four straight finals during that run. Rune won the Stockholm title in between runner-up finishes in Sofia and Basel. He then capped off his 2022 campaign by defeating five Top 10 opponents in a row – including Novak Djokovic in the final – to win the ATP Masters 1000 title at the Rolex Paris Masters. #NextGenATP players Jack Draper, Jiri Lehecka, Ben Shelton and Chun-Hsin Tseng were also nominees for Newcomer of the Year.

Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award
(voted by ATP players)
Casper Ruud: The Norwegian has been recognised by fellow players for his fair play, professionalism and integrity on and off the court. By winning the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award, Ruud breaks the dominance of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who combined to win it each year since 2004 — Federer 13 times and Nadal five. The 23-year-old is also the award’s first Scandinavian winner since Sweden’s Edberg won it for a fifth time in 1995; the following year, it was renamed in his honour. This season, Ruud reached a career-high World No. 2 and won three ATP Tour titles. Carlos Alcaraz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Nadal and Frances Tiafoe were also nominated in this category.

Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award
(awarded by ATP)
Andy Murray: The 35-year-old Brit has been named the 2022 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award recipient in recognition of his support for the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Murray donated his prize money for 2022 – more than US$630,000, starting in March with Indian Wells – to a UNICEF campaign for children affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Murray, a UNICEF UK Ambassador since 2014, is the fourth player who has earned the award multiple times, joining Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi. 

Fans’ Favourite Award (Singles)
(voted by fans)
Rafael Nadal: The 36-year-old wins the fan-voted ATP Award for the first time, adding to his full set of Awards in the player-voted categories: Newcomer, Most Improved, Comeback and Sportsmanship. Nadal was also named Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year in 2011 and crowned ATP No. 1 presented by Pepperstone five times. The Spaniard made his best start to an ATP Tour season by winning his first 20 matches of 2022, a run that included a record 21st Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open. He made it 22 major titles with victory at Roland Garros.

Fans’ Favourite Award (Doubles)
(voted by fans)
Thanasi Kokkinakis & Nick Kyrgios: The Australians have been voted as the Fans’ Favourite doubles team for the first time. The longtime friends started the season by winning a first team title at the Australian Open. Kokkinakis, 26, and 27-year-old Kyrgios also reached the Miami semi-finals and clinched the Atlanta title, before capping off their 2022 campaign with debut at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Coach of the Year
(voted by ATP coaches)
Juan Carlos Ferrero: The former World No. 1 helped Carlos Alcaraz achieve a record-breaking season on Tour. Ferrero first set eyes on his countryman at the Equelite Sport Academy when the 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals champion was just 13 years old. He witnessed Alcaraz earn his first ATP Tour point aged 14, before the pair started officially working together in 2018. Ferrero was selected as the winner from a shortlist that included Frederic Fontang (Felix Auger-Aliassime), Goran Ivanisevic (Novak Djokovic), Michael Russell (Taylor Fritz) and Christian Ruud (Casper Ruud).

ATP Masters 1000 Tournament of the Year
(voted by ATP players) 
BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells): The BNP Paribas Open wins in the ATP Masters 1000 category for a record-extending eighth time — all in succession. Held amidst the natural beauty and backdrop of the desert landscape, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden offers top-notch player facilities and amenities; plentiful practice courts that allow fans to watch players up close; and unparalleled dining options.

ATP 500 Tournament of the Year
(voted by ATP players) 
cinch Championships (London): The cinch Championships at The Queen’s Club claims honours at the ATP 500 level, winning for the fourth time. Also recognised in the ATP Awards in 2015, 2016 and 2018, the tournament has thrived in its prestigious setting in West Kensington by consistently attracting some of the best singles and doubles players on the ATP Tour.

ATP 250 Tournament of the Year
(voted by ATP players) 
Qatar ExxonMobil Open (Doha): The Qatar ExxonMobil Open repeats as winner in the ATP 250 category, claiming the Tournament of the Year award for the fifth time overall (2015, 2017, 2019, 2021). Doha has set high standards since its inception in 1993 and under the guidance of former player Karim Alami, the tournament continues to build its reputation for its superb facility, world-class hospitality and welcoming fans.

Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award
(awarded by ATP)
Sebastian Torok: Torok has been a journalist for the Argentine newspaper LA NACION since 2000. He has covered football, rugby, boxing and handball, but specialises in tennis. He has been a radio columnist and, since 2018, has been a commentator on ESPN Latin America. He also wrote biographies on Juan Martin del Potro (‘El milagro Del Potro’ and ‘The Gentle Giant’) and Gustavo Fernandez, a leading figure in wheelchair tennis (‘Hambre de Lobo’). The Argentine received international recognition at the AIPS Sport Media Awards for various investigations.

Rafael Nadal announced Friday on social media that his longtime coach, Francisco Roig, is leaving his team.

“I want to inform you that Francis Roig is leaving my team and starting a new personal project as a coach… He started joining the team and worked with us together with my Uncle Toni and later with Carlos Moyá and recently Marc López,” Nadal wrote. “Francis has been an important person in my career and I am very grateful to him for all these years of work and friendship.”

 

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Roig has worked with Nadal since 2005, before the lefty claimed his first Grand Slam title. Now Nadal is a 22-time major winner and has spent 209 weeks at World No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings in his career.

“When we started working together I was a child and together with my Uncle Toni, we started on the circuit,” Nadal said. “Francis is a great coach who knows tennis very well and has helped me a lot to get better and better. I only have words of gratitude and I wish him all the luck in the world in his new project!”