Djokovic: Covid infection gave him vaccine exemption, lawyers say
Novak Djokovic had a recent positive test giving him a vaccine exemption to enter Australia, his lawyers say.
Novak Djokovic had a recent positive test giving him a vaccine exemption to enter Australia, his lawyers say.
Rafael Nadal is one win away from capturing the 89th tour-level trophy of his illustrious career, after he booked a place in the final at the Melbourne Summer Set.
The Spanish superstar, in only his second match since August 2021, drew on his big-match experience on Saturday to battle past Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland 6-4, 7-5 in one hour and 56 minutes.
“It’s an important comeback after five months outside of competition and it means a lot to me to be back in Australia,” said Nadal, who last played at the Citi Open in August 2021. “I need to do some things better on court, but it’s step by step. My body is holding up, and that’s the main thing, and I need matches to get back to 100 per cent. I know my tennis isn’t perfect, but it’s about being patient and doing my best.”
Nadal will now prepare to challenge American qualifier Maxime Cressy, who will be appearing in his first ATP Tour final.
Pressure mounted on Ruusuvuori in the first set, which ended with a double fault and a forehand error. Nadal broke clear for a 5-3 lead in the 69-minute second set when Ruusuvuori made another groundstroke error, but the 22-year-old bounced back immediately. Nadal regained his composure and the match ended with the Finn making a forehand error.
Cressy continued his dream run earlier on Saturday. The 24-year-old knocked out former World No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 7-5, 7-6(9) in two hours and four minutes.
Cressy, who is already assured of his place in the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday, recovered from 3/6 in the second-set tie-break and closed out on his fourth match point. He struck 17 aces and saved all five break points he faced.
This week, Cressy has also beaten Australian qualifier Rinky Hijikata, second-seeded compatriot Reilly Opelka (including two match points saved) and Jaume Munar.
Melbourne Doubles Final Set
Top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski will take on sixth seeds Aleksandr Nedovyesov and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in the Melbourne doubles final on Sunday. Koolhof and Skupski knocked out third seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer 6-2, 6-4 in 68 minutes, while Nedovyesov and Qureshi overcame Ricardas Berankis and Denys Molchanov 6-2, 6-2 in 57 minutes.
Daniil Medvedev wasted little time levelling Russia’s ATP Cup semi-final against Canada on Saturday at Ken Rosewall Arena. The World No. 2 produced a flawless performance to defeat Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-0 and force a deciding doubles.
Call it a ‘Daniil Domination’.
Auger-Aliassime walked on court with plenty of confidence after defeating two-time Nitto ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev on Thursday evening in a three-set thriller. But Medvedev frustrated the Canadian with his all-court game and cruised on serve to triumph after 69 minutes.
“It was really tough for me until 4-3 in the first. I actually thought, ‘How can I actually break his serve?’ He was serving just aces, playing good, so I knew I just had to stay in the match, try to do what I can, what’s possible against his big game,” Medvedev said. “He definitely started to play a little bit worse and I managed to use it, and that was the key today.”
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
The Canadian started well and used his big serve to control points. But once he slapped a forehand into the net at 4-4 to give away the match’s first break, his game began to unravel.
Medvedev played from well behind the baseline and forced Felix to go for more on his shots to finish points. The 21-year-old struggled with his shot selection, which led to more unforced errors. And with the Russian winning 88 per cent of his first-serve points and going through the match without facing a break point, that left little room for Auger-Aliassime to claw back.
Medvedev now leads Auger-Aliassime 3-0 in their ATP Head2Head series. They last met in the semi-finals of the 2021 US Open at Flushing Meadows.
Denis Shapovalov kicked off the tie with a thrilling three-set victory over Russian “secret weapon” Roman Safiullin. Pending potential lineup changes, Medvedev and Safiullin are scheduled to face Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov in the deciding doubles. Both of those teams have won at least one deciding doubles this week.
“I feel like in one match anybody can win,” Medvedev said. “In one doubles match anything can happen, so we need to stay focussed, we need to be good and hopefully we can do it.”
Coming into 2022 at his lowest ATP Ranking since he was an 18-year-old in 2014, Nick Kyrgios doesn’t expect any favourable draws early in the season. Not that he cares.
The World No. 93, who will turn 27 in April, will be unseeded in his return to the ATP Tour at next week’s Sydney Tennis Classic and at the Australian Open. But the Canberra native is just as likely to beat a Top 5 player as lose to someone outside the Top 50, so a draw is really just a piece of paper to him.
“If I’m ranked 1000 or 10 in the world everyone knows what I’m capable of on tour,” Kyrgios said Saturday. “I’m not a player that hasn’t proven himself… I talk a lot, but I also have beaten a lot of players and I have won a lot of tournaments.
“I won Acapulco unseeded and I beat four Top 10 players. So tough draws [don’t bother me]… That’s not something I’m focusing on, honestly. I just want to go out there and have fun. People are expecting me to put on a good show and I think I’m capable of doing that still.”
Kyrgios, who reached a career-high No. 13 in 2016 and was most recently in the Top 20 in February 2020, remains one of the game’s biggest stars despite his tumble in the rankings. And he regularly produces his best tennis at the Australian Open. Last year he led then-World No. 3 Dominic Thiem two sets to love before losing 6-4 in the fifth in the third round. One year earlier he defeated then-World No. 17 Karen Khachanov in a fifth-set tie-break before falling to Rafael Nadal in a fourth-set tie-break in the fourth round.
Kyrgios played just 15 matches last season and is making a delayed start to this year after withdrawing from this week’s Melbourne Summer Set due to asthma. Spending three or four days in bed with extreme fatigue, he initially thought he had Covid-19, but that thinking was disproved by multiple negative rapid antigen tests.
Still, he didn’t feel well enough to take to the court.
“Last week, with everything floating around these days, obviously I thought it was Covid,” he said. “I was feeling pretty average… I was testing with these rapid tests and all this other stuff, I was testing a lot, came back negative every single time.
“I just wanted to get over that. I still am feeling some effects, like my breathing is a little bit affected. I don’t feel 100 per cent on court as yet… I didn’t want to start last week at like 60 per cent… I didn’t want to go out there and force myself to play under those circumstances.”
Turns out that it was asthma that kept the six-time tour-level title winner sidelined.
“I’ve had asthma my whole life. I didn’t really realise how bad it was until I got tested,” he said. “When I tested at the AIS [Australian institute of Sport] maybe six years ago, they were almost surprised on how bad my asthma was.
“My grandma used to smoke packs of ciggies in the car and her windows were real old, so it took me like ages to roll down the window, and before that happened she had already smoked like two. So I was passive smoking from a young age. So that’s probably why my asthma is pretty bad.”
Kyrgios said that his extended break at home allowed him to fully rehab his knee and get himself into a good mental space ahead of the new season.
“Being home, doing the gym, getting the correct physio… having my team around me and having access to what a professional athlete should have access to [helped]. It feels good now.”
I don’t really dedicate my life to tennis. I take every day how it is, like I just enjoy doing whatever I’m doing. I don’t train just for tennis. I train just for a general happy living. I like to feel good and I like to just enjoy my life.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I play a bit of tennis on the side.”
Canada lost its first four matches of this ATP Cup. But Denis Shapovalov on Saturday put his country one win from the championship tie in Sydney.
The dynamic lefty worked hard to neutralise Russia’s “secret weapon”, Roman Safiullin, battling past the World No. 167 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 to give Canada a 1-0 lead in the semi-finals. Felix Auger-Aliassime can now clinch the tie if he upsets World No. 2 Daniil Medvedev in the No. 1 singles match.
It was a tough start to the ATP Cup for Shapovalov, who missed his first singles match as he got up to speed following his quarantine due to a positive Covid-19 test. But the 22-year-old has worked into form and he played his best when it mattered most to take down the gritty Russian.
“Definitely super tough. Obviously Roman is playing with a lot of confidence,” Shapovalov said. “He’s a great player and surely he’s going to have an amazing season, so I’m very happy to get the win. It was definitely very tough.”
Safiullin is competing with more confidence than ever, and he fought hard for his country against Shapovalov. But the Canadian’s firepower — from his serve to baseline game — proved too difficult to overcome in the crucial moments over two hours and 39 minutes.
“I’ve known him for a while because the first time I played qualifying of juniors at the Australian Open, Roman was playing the juniors and he won the tournament. He won the Aussie Open, so he’s a guy I’ve looked up to and I’ve always thought he’s got an unbelievable game,” Shapovalov said. “He’s shown this competition that he definitely should be ranked in the Top 100. The way he was playing today, it was Top 10, Top 20 tennis, it was incredible.”
Team Russia Captain Gilles Cervara helped talk Safiullin through tactical adjustments throughout the match in the Team Zone. In the middle of the second set, Cervara urged his No. 2 singles player to return Shapovalov’s second-serve return from deep in the court if more comfortable, but to step forward for the second ball to avoid forcing shots from far behind the baseline.
That paid dividends, as the 24-year-old increasingly put pressure on his opponent’s serve. For a large portion of the first two sets, Shapovalov powered his way out of trouble. But on Safiullin’s second set point, the World No. 14 hit an overhead into the bottom of the net.
Safiullin sensed an opportunity to press home his momentum and at 2-1 in the third set he earned six break points in a game that lasted nearly 12 minutes. But he did not gain an advantage on any of those points, as Shapovalov took the racquet out of his hand.
Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
That game proved absolutely critical. Break there, and Safiullin might have surged to the finish line. Instead, the momentum flipped back to the Canadian’s side of the court, and he broke for a 4-3 lead, which he never relinquished. Shapovalov held to love to close out the match and gave his Team Zone a big fist pump and a “Come on!” to celebrate.
“For sure I felt like I had to buckle down, especially in that game,” Shapovalov said of the 2-1 game. “I just fought through it. I knew if I held that game, the momentum was going to switch quite a lot. That’s exactly what happened. I had a lot of good looks after that on his serve. It was definitely a very crucial game.”
Canada has now won six consecutive matches after losing its first four. Shapovalov is 2-1 in singles, with wins against Safiullin and Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff. Russia winning from here would not be unprecedented. Jannik Sinner beat Safiullin at No. 2 singles on Thursday, but Russia rallied to triumph and win Group B.
Medvedev leads Auger-Aliassime 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series. It won’t be their first massive clash, as the Russian emerged victorious against the Canadian in last year’s US Open semi-finals.
The men’s tennis star is awaiting a decision on his deportation from Australia over a vaccination row.
Czech player Renata Voracova will leave Australia after losing visa over her vaccine status.
Australian player Nick Kyrgios says his country’s handling of Novak Djokovic’s visa dispute has been “really bad” and urged officials to “do better”.
Former Wimbledon champion Simona Halep says she will enjoy the challenge of trying to climb back into the world’s top 10 this year.
Superstar power makes a big difference in the fortunes of a team at the ATP Cup, but the greatest characteristic of success is how closely the players bond. Novak’s Djokovic’s Serbia won the inaugural edition in 2020, while Russia’s heavyweights Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, with the help of “secret weapon” Aslan Karatsev, secured the silverware last year.
On Saturday afternoon, two teams that have united so well this week, Canada and defending champion Russia, square-off on Ken Rosewall Arena for a place in the final.
For Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is combining playing and captain duties for Canada this week, there is real belief. The World No. 11 has highlighted in his wins over Great Britain’s Daniel Evans and his 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Alexander Zverev of Germany on Thursday, how much he is relishing the atmosphere of the teams’ event.
The 21-year-old now meets his sometime practice partner, Medvedev, for the third time. “We’re going to try to keep that momentum going,” said Auger-Aliassime. “The spirit was really high in the locker room after.”
Auger-Aliassime is already formulating a plan for Medvedev, having lost to the Russian 3-6, 6-4 7-6(7) at Toronto in August 2018 and 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 in the US Open semi-finals in September 2021. “We played twice now,” said Auger-Aliassime. “He just does everything really well. As much as he defends really well and makes you play an extra ball, he’s very agile and has a good hand. He also serves really good. So he can get quick points on his serve and then make you work on the return.
“I would say he’s the modern complete player. But I’m going to try to find a way to get him out of his comfort zone and what he likes. It’s going to be a fight. There’s no secret. Sometimes you just have to give the effort, dig deep physically and mentally, and I’m going to have to do that Saturday if I want to give myself a chance.”
While Medvedev gets more plaudits, the biggest surprise for Russia has been Roman Safiullin’s ability to raise his game in his No. 2 singles matches against France’s Arthur Rinderknech, James Duckworth of Australia and Italy’s Jannik Sinner. World No. 14 Shapovalov will rightly be cautious in his preparations.
As a junior, Safiullin beat Medvedev, Rublev and Karen Khachanov, but life as a professional has been harder since capturing the 2015 Australian Open junior crown. He didn’t expect to compete at the ATP Cup, but with the withdrawals of Rublev and Karatsev, Safiullin stepped up. In recent days, the 24-year-old has experienced several ‘pinch me’ moments.
“Now I’m super happy that I could bring two points in singles and help in the doubles,” said Safiullin, following victory over Italy on Thursday. “I was thinking about it [on court]… that I’m standing here and nearby is Top 10 players, three guys. One is [No.] 2, one is [No.] 6 or 7, another one is [No.] 10, and I’m like [No.] 170.
It’s a great feeling, but I showed my best tennis, and hopefully [my ATP] Ranking will be improving and maybe one day I will be also with these guys [on the] same court [and] position, Top 10. This [tournament] gives [me] a lot of confidence, especially [the] first two wins… It’s absolutely giving me more confidence to work more and to improve.”
The way too that Russia’s captain Gilles Cervara, Alexander Shevchenko and Evgeny Karlovskiy have supported in the Team Zone has played a big part in keeping the courtside energy high for the defending champion.
“You feel that the team is behind you,” said Medvedev, who is 10-2 in singles play at the ATP Cup. “There are two tournaments in the year where, you feel that they are really for you, because let’s say I watch Andrey or any Russian player on the [ATP] Tour, you want them to win, but you’re not going to be in front of TV or standing up every point screaming, ‘Come on’. Here you do. That’s what is fun. That’s why I had a lot of fun on the court.”
Shapovalov, who will begin the ATP Cup semi-final against Safiullin, is looking forward to meeting Russia. “I think it’s super exciting,” said Shapovalov, who helped Canada to the 2020 ATP Cup quarter-finals. “I think we’ve got good chances. Obviously, Russia is playing really well. They have got Daniil Medvedev, one of best players in the world, so it’s going to be tough. But I believe in us.
“The way Felix played, he beat Zverev, who is probably one of the best players in the world right now, and I think he can take [on] anyone. And together in doubles, as well, I think we have really good chances. So we definitely have a good, good team.”
Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut and Pablo Carreno Busta await Canada or Russia in Sunday’s final.
