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Tiafoe upsets Medvedev: 'I felt like I was Roger Federer, honestly'

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

Frances Tiafoe caught such fire on Saturday in Berlin that he felt like he was Roger Federer.

That form helped the Team World player rally past Team Europe’s Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 6-4, 10-5 to give his side a 4-2 lead in Berlin.

“Honestly I just started having fun. Laughing with my team, laughing with my team over there and here. Just having a bit of fun and started really finding my rhythm,” Tiafoe said. “The courts are obviously much slower than I’m used to playing on, so it’s tough playing Daniil on this court. But after the second set, midway into the second and in the tie-break, I felt like I was Roger Federer, honestly.”

Federer, who was in the crowd, gave on-court reporter Mark Petchey a double thumb’s up when asked about Tiafoe’s comment. The American is playing some of the best tennis of his career, having just reached the US Open semi-finals for the first time after making the final in Cincinnati.

Tiafoe entered the match facing a 0-5 Lexus ATP Head2Head deficit against Medvedev, but did not let that intimidate him. He played freely in the critical moments and had a blast on court even when losing points. After one Medvedev shot drew Tiafoe to his side of the court, the American did his signature sprinkling celebration to compliment his opponent.

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“I just have a lot more confidence in myself. I’m having a lot of fun playing the game at the moment,” Tiafoe said. “I’m just trying to play the right way and compete as hard as I can, let the chips fall where they may. I respect everyone, but I’m just not fearing anyone at the moment. I’m just going out there, taking it to guys and seeing what happens.”

Team Europe’s Carlos Alcaraz and Team World’s Ben Shelton are now meeting in the second match of the day.

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Uchiyama upsets Rune, advances to Hangzhou QFs

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

Japanese qualifier Yasutaka Uchiyama upset top seed Holger Rune 7-5, 6-4 on Saturday to advance to the quarter-finals at the Hangzhou Open.

The No. 160 in the PIF ATP Rankings won 77 per cent of his first-serve points to record the joint biggest win of his career, after his victory over World No. 14 Kyle Edmund at Brisbane in 2019. The 32-year-old Uchiyama also saved two of the four break points that he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to close out the match in one hour, 40 minutes.

“I’m very excited, I’m happy with my performance today,” Uchiyama said after the match. “I couldn’t imagine winning in two sets, I was just thinking about my performance, I had to play 100 per cent the whole match to get the chance to beat him, so it went well for me today”.

Uchiyama will compete in the third ATP Tour quarter-final of his career, in which he will face wild card Marin Cilic.

Former US Open champion Cilic eased past Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4, 6-1 Saturday to seal his place in the quarter-finals in Hangzhou.

The former No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings struck 32 winners to take his Lexus ATP Head2Head record against the eighth seed to 2-0. The Croatian wild card also converted four of his six break point chances as he wrapped the match in just 69 minutes.

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“It was a really good match even though I was a break down in the first set at 4-3,” Cilic said after the match. “Sometimes you have to wait for the right moments to get your game together, when everything clicks and luckily I made that break to come back and win the first set and then everything started to fall into place so definitely extremely pleased with the level.

“I know what my level can be and when I’m getting to the level where I’m close to my best. I try to stay there as much as I can, try to push myself and get as many points as I can to try to play well.”

Cilic achieved consecutive ATP Tour wins for the first time since reaching the 2022 Tel Aviv final.

Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena rallied to defeat lucky loser Mitchell Krueger 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

The 31-year-old won 76 per cent of his first-serve points to close out the match in two hours, 30 minutes. The No. 55 in the PIF ATP Rankings extended his winning streak to seven matches at all levels after capturing a Challenger title in Seville last month.

 

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Musetti rallies to beat O’Connell, advances to Chengdu QFs

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

Lorenzo Musetti battled past Christopher O’Connell 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(4) on Saturday to advance to the quarter-finals at the Chengdu Open.

The top seed recovered from 5-3 down in the deciding set to notch a personal-best 35th win of the season and progress to his seventh quarter-final of the year. The 22-year-old Musetti hit 33 winners, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to close out the match in two hours, 37 minutes.

“That was a difficult match, he [O’Connell] was serving pretty sharp and really precisely and I didn’t find so many break points,” Musetti said after the match. “But at the end I stayed focused, I played the right tactics and I managed to play well throughout the match.”

The Italian will meet fifth seed Adrian Mannarino in the quarter-finals, after the Frenchman survived a scare to beat home hope Yi Zhou 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-4.

Mannarino rallied from 1-3, 0/40 down in the deciding set to overcome the 19-year-old wild card and advance to his second quarter-final of the season (Dallas). The No. 46 in the PIF ATP Rankings saved eight of the 12 break point chances against him.

By sealing victory in two hours, 45 minutes, the 36-year-old became the oldest quarter-finalist in the tournament’s history.

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“It was really hot conditions out here, I was feeling really tired in the match and it wasn’t easy because I could see that he [Zhou] was super fresh,” Mannarino said in his post-match interview.

“But at the end he was playing too good so I thought ‘Okay, try to put one more ball in the court’ and I was lucky that he made some mistakes at the end.”

The Frenchman defeated Musetti in their only previous Lexus ATP Head2Head encounter (Indian Wells 2023).

Second seed Alexander Bublik defeated Federico Agustin Gomez 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final eight.

The four-time ATP Tour champion hit 25 winners en route to victory over the qualifier. The 27-year-old Bublik also saved four of the five break points against him to close out the match in 97 minutes.

Bublik will face either #NextGenATP star Shang Juncheng or eighth seed Roman Safiullin in the next round.

 

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What makes Pouille tick? 'This little thing in the stomach'

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

Lucas Pouille knows what it is like to win ATP Tour titles, reach the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings and compete in a major semi-final. The adrenaline of a match day is nothing new for the Frenchman. 

In 2017, Pouille held his nerve to secure the Davis Cup title for France in front of a raucous home crowd. It was a final, all-or-nothing deciding rubber against Belgium.

Now ranked World No. 142 and competing mostly on the ATP Challenger Tour this season, Pouille continues to live for that thrill of going toe to toe against another competitor.

“Before the match, in the morning you wake up and you have this little thing in the stomach. You know it’s a match day. You don’t wake up like the other days,” Pouille told ATPTour.com at this week’s Saint-Tropez Open, an ATP Challenger Tour 125 event. “Once I step on court, they are there for sure, but I take it as a positive. For me, it’s just great to have this kind of stress.”

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In May, Pouille won his first title across all levels in five years at the Mauthausen Challenger. It was an important moment for Pouille, who has been plagued with injuries. He underwent elbow surgery in 2020 and last year at Wimbledon, he suffered a stress fracture in his lower back.

In his first tournament back last September, Pouille tore an abdominal muscle that forced him to shut down his season in September.

Claiming his second ATP Challenger Tour title on the Austrian clay this year was a pivotal turning point.

“It proved to myself that I was able to win this kind of tournament. I was able to play five matches in a week. It gave me a lot of confidence in my body and my capacity as well, to play day after day,” Pouille said. “It was the first time I was finishing the week on a victory in awhile, for five years actually, so it meant a lot.”

Pouille later advanced through qualifying at Wimbledon, where he competed in the main draw of the grass-court major for the first time since 2021. A quarter-finalist at the All England Club in 2016, Pouille began this year’s tournament by winning a five-setter against Laslo Djere. Pouille reached the third round, but withdrew before his clash against ninth seed Alex de Minaur.

The Frenchman had suffered another abdominal strain, though in a different area than last year’s injury.

“I felt abdominal [pain] the first day against Djere. Finally I managed to win, it was okay. After that I checked with the doctor that was there for the French team. I tore my abs a few centimetres. It was a Grade 2,” Pouille said.

Making the third round was already a huge accomplishment, considering that Pouille’s team advised him to retire in the second round against Thanasi Kokkinakis, who suffered an injury of his own. The Australian retired in the third set.

“I decided to go on court because I wanted to play so much. I decided to serve a way where I was able to control the pain,” Pouille said. “If I got broken in the second set and started to lose two sets to love, then yes, I think I would’ve been thinking to stop.

“Then after the match, it was too much and the [doctor] said, ‘If you play now, you are going to have to stop for more than six weeks because it’s going to be too much’.”

There are positive signs for Pouille, whose goal is to “make the main-draw cutoff for the Australian Open”. He is on pace to play more than 50 matches at all levels this season, a feat he has not accomplished in a single year since 2017.

“It’s great considering that I didn’t play in July [after Wimbledon], almost nothing in August and June either, except the qualifying at Wimbledon,” Pouille said. “It means every time I step on court at a tournament, I win many matches, so that’s a good thing. I cross my fingers that I stay healthy until the end of the season and play as many matches as I can.”

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Alcaraz thrilled to play in front of Federer: 'I wished for that moment for a long time’

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

Roger Federer has seen a lot in his career. Friday at the Laver Cup, the Swiss was faced with something new.

Federer watched four-time major champion and No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings Carlos Alcaraz play a match in person for the first time.

The stars had already gotten to know one another during the leadup to the event, chatting at various functions, posing together for a photoshoot and having a nice conversation on the practice court Friday before the Spaniard’s match.

But for the first time, 103-time tour-level titlist Federer experienced the Spaniard’s game up close when Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev faced Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton in doubles. Fritz and Shelton won the match in straight sets.

Alcaraz reflected on playing a match in front of Federer for the first time, saying: “It was great, honestly, playing in front of him. It’s the first time that he watched one of my matches in real life and I’m really happy that he was there watching our doubles.

“I think I’m good [at doubles], but I’m not as good as [I am at] the singles, I guess. I hope to see him tomorrow in the singles. I hope he enjoyed the doubles match, and obviously it was great seeing him in the practice. He didn’t tell me any tactics, any advice. But he just told me that he’s really happy about watching me in real life, that I’m here. It was a great time for me. I wished [for] that moment for a long time.”

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Scores level at Laver Cup after Fritz/Shelton down Alcaraz/Zverev in doubles

  • Posted: Sep 21, 2024

The battle for the 2024 Laver Cup is intriguingly poised heading into Day 2.

Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton drew Team World level at 2-2 with Team Europe after downing the host team’s star Friday-night doubles pairing of Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev 7-6(5), 6-4 in the final match of the day in Berlin.

Americans Fritz and Shelton fired 20 winners, including eight aces, en route to a 95-minute victory against the No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings Zverev and No. 3 Alcaraz, the latter of whom was making his Laver Cup debut. They sealed their win after clinching a crucial break in the ninth game of the second set to restore parity for Team World in the annual teams event.

“We both served really well under pressure,” said Fritz in his on-court interview. “Ben served incredibly well, so I didn’t have to hit any volleys. That was huge.”

Shelton added: “I was just having fun out there to be honest. It makes life pretty easy when you’re playing with a guy who is moving like Taylor is right now. Pretty light on his feet, and we had a lot of fun. Our first time playing together, and I think the chemistry was pretty good.”

Grigor Dimitrov had earlier opened a 2-1 lead for Team Europe on the opening day with a thrilling 7-6(4), 7-6(2) victory against Team World’s Alejandro Tabilo. The Bulgarian rallied from a double-break deficit at 1-5 to snatch a straight-sets win and improve to 2-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Tabilo.

Dimitrov, who was forced to retire from his US Open quarter-final against Frances Tiafoe due to injury just 16 days ago, sent down 11 aces and won 80 per cent of points behind his first serve as he overcame some more physical struggles inside Uber Arena. With his two-hour, 15-minute win, Dimitrov improved to 2-0 in Laver Cup singles matches after he previously defeated Tiafoe on his event debut in 2018 in Chicago.

There will be three more singles matches and one doubles match in Berlin on Saturday, when each victory will be worth two points. Team World is bidding to win its third consecutive Laver Cup this year after it triumphed in London in 2022 and Vancouver last year.

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Cerundolo upsets Ruud, Tsitsipas levels for Europe at Laver Cup

  • Posted: Sep 20, 2024

Francisco Cerundolo helped Team World take its first step towards a third consecutive Laver Cup title on Friday afternoon. Team Europe’s Stefanos Tsitsipas then promptly issued a swift reminder of the challenge facing the Argentine and his teammates this weekend in Berlin.

The No. 31 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Cerundolo upset Casper Ruud in the opening match of the 2024 edition of the teams event. He triumphed 6-4, 6-4 after 97 minutes to take a 4-3 lead in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with the World No. 9.

“I’m super happy. I had the responsibility to go there and play the first match. I knew it was going to be tough,” said Cerundolo in his post-match press conference. “Casper is a great player. We played many times, so I knew how he was going to play, and I think I did a really good job from the beginning to the end.

“I was really there, focused, and super happy to get my second win in Laver Cup and first this year.”

Cerundolo outhit Ruud by 16 winners to 11 to avenge his recent defeat to the Norwegian at the Paris Olympics. The Argentine adjusted more quickly to the indoor conditions at Uber Arena than Ruud, who struggled with the consistency of his groundstrokes, to give Team World and its captain John McEnroe the perfect start in Berlin.

“We have seen it a couple of times, where it can come down on the last day to a point or two, so every point is very important,” said Team World Vice-captain Patrick McEnroe. “Especially, I think, the first match, it’s good to get some momentum.”

If Team Europe captain Bjorn Borg was after a fast response, he certainly got one from Tsitsipas. The Greek raced to a 6-1, 6-4 win against Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second match of the afternoon session.

Tsitsipas set the tone on the opening point of the match, when he pushed Kokkinakis wide with an arrowed backhand before moving in to put away an emphatic volley. The World No. 12 barely looked back from there, and completed his win having broken his Australian opponent’s serve three times in his 81-minute win.

With one point on offer for each win on Day 1, that left the score between Team Europe and Team World at 1-1 heading into Friday evening’s session, when Grigor Dimitrov will take on Alejandro Tabilo, before home favourite Alexander Zverev and Laver Cup debutant Carlos Alcaraz meet Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton in the opening doubles clash of the weekend.

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Jarry snaps streak to reach Chengdu QFs

  • Posted: Sep 20, 2024

Third seed Nicolas Jarry battled past Lukas Klein 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-4 on Friday to advance to the quarter-finals at the Chengdu Open.

The No. 28 in the PIF ATP Rankings struck 19 aces en route to snapping his seven-match losing streak since he defeated Tommy Paul in Rome. Jarry also saved five of Klein’s seven break points to close out the match in two hours, 18 minutes.

“I played very well that last game, put him under some pressure and didn’t give him any room,” Jarry said after the match. “The game before was very tight, he played some unbelievable returns and I just stuck there right in the present, very strong.

“Hopefully I can continue on my path the best way possible.”

Jarry will next face qualifier Alibek Kachmazov, who reached his first ATP Tour quarter-final by defeating Taro Daniel 7-6(1), 6-1.

The No. 252 in the PIF ATP Rankings was clinical as he converted all four of his break point chances, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to record the biggest victory of his career.

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Yannick Hanfmann overcame seventh seed Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to advance to the quarter-finals at the Chengdu Open.

In the pair’s first meeting, the 32-year-old won 79 per cent (37/47) of his first-serve points. The German also struck 26 winners to seal victory over the 21-year-old in one hour, 49 minutes.

“You have to be patient, that was the key to the match,” Hanfmann said in his post-match interview. “You’re not going to get a lot of chances to break him, he’s an amazing server.

“But I thought I had great patience, and I used the chances when I had them, so I’m very happy with this performance.”

The No. 95 in the PIF ATP Rankings progressed to his second career quarter-final on hard courts (Antwerp 2023). He will next face  Aleksandar Vukic or fourth seed Pedro Martinez. 

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Nakashima saves MPs, advances to Hangzhou QFs

  • Posted: Sep 20, 2024

Fourth seed Brandon Nakashima saved two match points to overcome #NextGenATP star Coleman Wong 6-7(7), 7-6(4), 6-1 on Friday and advance to the quarter-finals at the Hangzhou Open.

Nakashima, who is at a career high No. 39 in the PIF ATP Rankings, held his nerve to save two match points as he served at 6-5 down in the second set. The American struck 39 winners to defeat the 20-year-old in two hours, 40 minutes.

The former Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF winner has maintained his momentum in the recent months, posting an 11-4 record since August, including a fourth-round run at the US Open. At Flushing Meadows he defeated Lorenzo Musetti and Holger Rune as he equalled his best run at a Grand Slam.

Nakashima advanced to his 14th ATP Tour quarter-final where he will face Australian Rinky Hijikata, who progressed after Fabian Marozsan withdrew due to sickness.

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Mikhail Kukushkin rolled back the years as he defeated Alexander Shevchenko 6-4, 7-6(3) in an all-Kazakhstani battle.

The 36-year-old converted three of his five break point chances as he reached his first ATP Tour quarter-final in four years (Nur-Sultan 2020).

Kukushkin broke a six-year title drought on the ATP Challenger Tour earlier this year, capturing titles in Manama and Tenerife. The former No. 39 in the PIF ATP Rankings will face either second seed Karen Khachanov or Yunchaokete Bu next.

 

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