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Monterrey Open: Heather Watson loses as Johanna Konta plays Kim Clijsters

  • Posted: Mar 03, 2020

British number two Heather Watson let a 4-1 final-set lead slip in her Monterrey Open first-round match against Germany’s Tatjana Maria.

Watson, 27, led 4-1 in all three sets but only converted one of those leads as she lost 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 7-5.

The world number 49 was unable to continue her winning streak after lifting the Acapulco title last week.

Defeat ended the possibility of a potential second-round match against British number one Johanna Konta.

Konta, 28, plays in one of the most intriguing matches of the first round, when she faces four-time Grand Slam champion Kim Clijsters in the second match of the 36-year-old’s comeback.

The Belgian, who retired for the second time in 2012, produced a remarkable display in her return last month when she pushed Australian Open finalist Garbine Muguruza before losing 6-2 7-6 (8-6).

Clijsters will face the Briton, who is ranked 16th in the world and seeded second in Monterrey, later on Tuesday in Mexico (about 01:00 GMT, Wednesday).

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Need A Second Serve? Call Federer…

  • Posted: Mar 03, 2020

Need A Second Serve? Call Federer…

Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers looks at second-serve points won

When Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are positioned first, second and third in a specific statistic over a five-year period, you know that it is a dominant driving force of their continued success.

The metric is second-serve points won and from 2015-2019 nobody on the planet was more successful winning points behind their second serve than the Big Three. Federer led the trio and the ATP Tour in second-serve points won over the five-year period, winning 58.61 per cent (4,237/7,229) of his second-serve points.

In second place, less than one percentage point back, was Nadal at 57.86 per cent (4,011/6,932), with World No. 1 Djokovic less than a percentage point back of Nadal, at 56.92 per cent (4407/7742).

Both Federer and Nadal were able to cross the daunting 60 per cent threshold of second-serve points won on grass, with Federer winning 60.16 per cent, and Nadal at 60.03 per cent. The Infosys Beyond The Numbers data set contains all players that have hit at least 1000 second serves over the five-year period from 2015-2019.

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic: Second Serve Points Won 2015-2019 On Each Surface – (Bold = Big Three Leader)

Player Hard Clay Grass
Roger Federer 58.10% 58.49% 60.16%
Rafael Nadal 56.97% 58.65% 60.03%
Novak Djokovic 58.06% 54.69% 56.21%

John Isner sits in fourth place overall with second-serve points won from 2015-2019 on all surfaces, winning 56.54 per cent (3,754/ 6,640) of second-serve points. Isner’s most recent tournament victory came in July 2019 at the Hall of Fame Open in Newport, where he won a dominant 58.77 per cent (67/114) of second-serve points.

Milos Raonic is in fifth spot, winning 56.17 per cent (3,507/6,243) of second-serve points from 2015-2019. Rounding out the Top 10 are:

No. 6: Ivo Karlovic = 55.63% (3,142/5,648)
No. 7: Stan Wawrinka = 55.48% (4,805/8,661)
No. 8: Reilly Opelka = 55.09% (1,261/2,289)
No. 9: Juan Ignacio Londero = 54.69% (752/1,375)
No. 10: Miomir Kecmanovic = 64.55% (744/1,364)

Federer won’t be competing in the ‘Sunshine Double’ at Indian Wells and Miami this year as he is recovering from right knee surgery, but he does lead all players with second-serve points won at the two ATP Masters 1000 tournaments over the past five years, winning 60.36 per cent (504/835).

An important element of the second serve to understand is that most of them come back in play. At the recently completed Australian Open, the tournament average for unreturned first serves was 37%, but that dropped all the way down to 17 per cent for second serves.

Djokovic won the title Down Under, and led the trio with the highest amount of unreturned second serves at 22 per cent.

2020 Australian Open: Big Three Unreturned Second Serves

Djokovic = 22% (40/185)
Nadal = 18% (28/153)
Federer = 17% (37/219)

The career leader for second-serve points won is Nadal at 57.42 per cent (15,327/26,692). He will once again be relying on this proven strength of his game in 2020 as he looks to add to the 85 tour-level singles titles he has already captured in his career.

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With Fresh Perspective, Rodionov Races Into Milan Contention

  • Posted: Mar 03, 2020

With Fresh Perspective, Rodionov Races Into Milan Contention

Austrian occupies fifth position in ATP Race To Milan

Fortunes can change quickly in tennis. Just ask Jurij Rodionov, whose three-week run on the ATP Challenger Tour has catapulted him into Next Gen ATP Finals contention.

Just three weeks ago, the Austrian was sitting at No. 362 in the FedEx ATP Rankings. Rodionov had not been ranked that low since 11 June 2018, the week before he cracked the Top 400 for the first time.

After a disappointing 2019 season, the 20-year-old had begun to work on a new mental approach in 2020 and also hired former Top 30 player Javier Frana as a touring coach ahead of his appearance at the RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas last month.

“I wanted to listen to my body and to listen to coaches and other people around me who know me and know my tennis. To trust, believe them more and hear them out,” said Rodionov. “Before, I was more like ‘I know myself better, I can do it’, but sometimes hearing from a different point of view can be very beneficial and it just helped me out over the past few months.”

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Challenger Q&A: Rodionov Hits The Reset Button In Dallas

Alongside Frana, Rodionov discovered his best form in Texas to beat Top 100 stars Dominik Koepfer and Andreas Seppi en route to his second Challenger title. Two weeks later, with added confidence, Rodionov battled through three consecutive three-set matches to capture another Challenger crown in Morelos. The three-week run catapulted the 6’3” left-hander 190 positions in the FedEx ATP Rankings to a new career-high No. 168.

“Before, I was struggling in tournaments to get my rhythm and the right mindset,” said Rodionov. “I think Javier really helped me on this… I always knew that I was a good tennis player, but for some reasons in 2019 I was not playing my best at tournaments.

“With Javier, I have a very talented and experienced coach on my side. I think this made the difference, especially in Morelos. I wasn’t playing my best, but mentally I was the strongest player. I believe this was the key difference. Every single match was a tough match. The last three matches were three sets and I think I was just a bit more consistent and the more solid guy at the end.”

Dallas
Photos: Tessa Kolodny

When Rodionov is not on the road, he can also rely on the support of two further coaches when he practises at his Südstadt base in Austria. One of those coaches is World No. 3 Dominic Thiem’s father, Wolfgang Thiem.

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The three-time Challenger titlist, who is also coached by Riccardo Belotti, believes he will continue to grow if he perseveres with his new collaborative approach by listening to his team more.

“With Wolfgang Thiem, he is the father of one of the best tennis players in the world right now,” said Rodionov. “Javier Frana is an ex-Top 30 ATP Tour player who can obviously help me in tennis. It just gives me a great boost if I just shut up and listen to them.”

Rodionov is not the only Austrian star to reach new heights in 2020. On Monday, Thiem overtook Roger Federer as the No. 3 player in the FedEx ATP Rankings. Austrian No. 2 Dennis Novak also reached his career-high position (No. 93) on 3 February. Prior to the 2020 ATP Tour season, Rodionov was able to train with Novak and Austrian No. 3 Sebastian Ofner.

“Being around those guys has helped me a lot, practising with them and talking with them,” said Rodionov. “I will definitely take advantage of it. It is a good team with great people and great personalities.”

Jurij Rodionov adds ATP Challenger Tour titles from Dallas and Morelos to his trophy collection.

With his title runs in Dallas and Morelos, the Austrian is now ahead of last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals champion Jannik Sinner and runner-up Alex de Minaur in sixth position in the ATP Race To Milan. In his final year of eligibility, can the Austrian continue to find success and qualify for the 21-and-under event?

“It is one of my goals this year, because it is the last year I can qualify,” said Rodionov. “It would be huge to play there. I heard from all angles that everybody is saying this event is very good. I would love to play it. Obviously, that is a motivation. I am doing pretty good in the Race To Milan and I would be happy to continue my run.”

The versatile Austrian, who believes his game resembles that of two-time Australian Open quarter-finalist Tennys Sandgren, is also keen to experience the unique tournament innovations in Milan. Last year’s event featured the first uses of Video Review and in-competition wearable technology on the ATP Tour.

“I am someone who likes to try new things. It is best of five sets, [with sets up to] four games. I like that there are no line umpires and you have to take care of your towel yourself,” said Rodionov.

With two trophies and a reversal in fortunes in the FedEx ATP Rankings, it is clear that Rodionov’s new approach is a step in the right direction.

“I feel most proud about being back, being myself and competing again very good,” said Rodionov. “Having the feeling of winning again just feels great… I am relieved that I am back on track. I want to improve from now on, I want to work harder and see where it takes me.”

Only time will tell if Rodionov’s February run will lead him towards his goal of Milan qualification, but there is no mistaking it’s an impressive start.

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McEnroe's Rise From Child Prodigy To No. 1… 40 Years On

  • Posted: Mar 03, 2020

McEnroe’s Rise From Child Prodigy To No. 1… 40 Years On

With exclusive insight from John McEnroe’s former coach and friends, James Buddell of ATPTour.com recounts how the American quickly rose from junior to No. 1 in the FedEx ATP Rankings.

Forty years since first becoming No. 1 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, John McEnroe remains inimitable, iconic, and fiercely relevant in the sport for which he transcended. Aged 21 years and 16 days, the American found himself following in the footsteps of four previous World No. 1s — Ilie Nastase, John Newcombe, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg — on 3 March 1980, when he also became the sport’s first dual No. 1, having been at the top of the doubles game for 49 weeks since 23 April 1979.

It was a remarkably quick rise for a player who turned pro in June 1978 at The Queen’s Club, one year after reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals as a No. 270th-ranked qualifier. Arthur Ashe, that same year, commented, famously, “Against Connors and Borg you feel like you’re being hit with a sledgehammer. But this guy is a stiletto. ‘Junior’ has great balance and hands, and he just slices people up. He’s got a ton of shots. It’s slice here, nick there, cut over here. Pretty soon you’ve got blood all over you, even though the wounds aren’t deep. Soon after that, you’ve bled to death.”

By January 1979, McEnroe, whose game was based on precision, touch and versatility, was among the world’s Top 5 after beating Ashe at the 1978 Nitto ATP Finals at Madison Square Garden, a 30-minute journey from his childhood home of Douglaston, NY, where he’d first picked up a racquet. Always speedy around the court, in his first few years as a pro, McEnroe continued to develop his fast left-handed serve, laced with deadly spin and worked on his stunning, feathery volleys. “On the court, he only concerned himself about winning the next point,” Peter Fleming, his long-time friend and doubles partner, tells ATPTour.com. “Early on, you could see that John was willing to have a bigger game and try to win points. His awareness of the court, of the game, of everything, was so elevated.”

McEnroe, who would go on to lift the 1979 US Open title over his great friend Vitas Gerulaitis before first becoming No. 1, would spend a total of 170 weeks across a record 14 different stints as the top-ranked singles player until 8 September 1985. “Arguably, the most fun years of my career were when I was moving up,” said McEnroe, who finished 1981-84 as the world’s premier player. “I put a lot more emphasis on finishing the year as high as possible. I was more into the idea that tennis wasn’t about two or three tournaments, it was about a full season. It was about consistency.” His partnership with Fleming, which reaped 54 team titles, ensured three concurrent years as both the singles and doubles No. 1 (1981-83). McEnroe, who used doubles matches as a way to practise his exceptional touch and sharpen up his singles game, would ultimately register a total of 269 weeks, over eight periods, in top spot of the FedEx ATP Doubles Rankings until 24 September 1989.

***

McEnroe was ear-marked for great deeds from a young age, once his parents, lawyer John Sr. and powerful matriarch Kay, moved from Flushing, Queens, to the small town of Douglaston, 30 minutes from Manhattan, in 1963. Both were terrifically supportive — and ambitious — for their three sons, John, Mark and Patrick McEnroe, who also became a pro, future Davis Cup captain and broadcaster. “John McEnroe Sr. was absolutely fundamental to being the best at something, but it’s underestimated how much of an influence his mother, Kay, had on John,” McEnroe’s childhood friend, Mary Carillo, tells ATPTour.com. “John tells the story about if he trotted home from school with a 98 on his test, she’d say ‘Where are the other two points?’ If you listen to John and Patrick, it was Kay who wanted John McEnroe Sr. to be a great lawyer at a big firm and was very ambitious for her sons, too. It is a family brimming with ambition and the bar was set very high. No wonder, memorable tales are legion.

Summer 1969: The Douglaston Club, Douglaston, NY. The McEnroe household is a block away from the cement backboards that everybody uses to practise on at a Club that has three clay courts and two hard courts. An 11-year-old Carillo can hang with John, aged nine, giving him a decent game, but not today on Court No. 4. “He absolutely dismissed everything I had that day,” remembers Carillo, 40 years on. “We stopped to get water and I said to John, ‘You are a great player and you’ll be No. 1 in the world one day.” McEnroe’s reply is swift, ‘Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Carillo, who has forged a career as a successful broadcaster, adds, “I consider that to be my first tennis commentary and my first review.

“You just had to look at him, his strokes were tidy and tight and homemade. The spacing between his body and ball was remarkable, even when he was seven years old. My game was taught; coaches really had to teach me about my strokes and grips, but every time John went after a ball, he was doing something different with it: harder, flatter, cutting it, rolling over it. And this was in wooden tennis days. If you wanted to be imaginative, you had to work really hard.”

Summer 1971: The Port Washington Tennis Academy, Port Washington, NY. Director Harry Hopman, the captain and coach of 22 Davis Cup winning teams for Australia, is giving Slazenger’s executive John Barrett a tour. Mr Hopman points into the distance and says, ‘Look over there, that kid will be No. 1 in the world one day.’ The same year, a 16-year-old Fleming, who also trains at the indoor facility located on Long Island, fancies his chances against the player he’d nickname ‘Junior’. “How good can he be?” says Fleming, eyeing up the confident-looking 12-year-old McEnroe from the confines of the café. “I’ll give him a 4-0, 30/0 lead. I was a big powerful guy. His racquet was bigger than him… I lost five sets in a row and I couldn’t even win the 30/0 game. He bunted the ball back and I made mistakes. I was just a kid, but he was a 12-year-old that Mr Hopman had already identified. There was obviously something that was far more advanced than the rest of us. All I saw was he was a precocious little kid, who was happy to hang around older kids and compete against them.”

Fleming, who hadn’t yet started to dream about becoming a touring pro as a 16-year-old, adds, “His Mum always said he was special. He was mature from a young age. I don’t know where he learned it, or where he developed it, but a lot of us panicked in the face of greatness, saying, ‘I have to do this, or I have to do that, or no chance!’ He never had that conversation with himself, I don’t think. A lot of players beat themselves before they walk onto the court. He never did. It was more like, ‘We’ll see what happens’.”

Summer 1972: The Douglaston Club Championship, Douglaston, NY. “We had some pretty good players at the Club,” recalls Carillo. “John was barely a teenager when he won the Men’s Open title. He had to beat a very accomplished player in Mr Stine, Brendan Stine, who was in his 60s and had already won the club title a bunch of times. On the day of the club final, here was this little kid, who had the nickname ‘Runt’, going up against the club champion. Everyone assumed that Mr Stine would win again, but I said, ‘No, John’s going to win easily, and quickly’. The way he was able to go after the ball, all of his weight was going into the ball… I’d never seen anything like it.

Summer 1977: Roland Garros, Paris, and Wimbledon, London. McEnroe, who has now grown to almost six-feet tall, is in Paris to play the junior event, but he qualifies for his first Grand Slam singles championship main draw, where he loses to Phil Dent 4-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round. Carillo and McEnroe go onto capture the Roland Garros mixed trophy over Florenta Mihai and Ivan Molina 7-6, 6-4. Three weeks later at the All England Club, 18-year-old McEnroe qualifies once more and reaches the quarter-finals, where he faces Dent, who is the No. 13 seed. “We went out for chicken pizza, as we ate every night that fortnight,” says Carillo. “John said to me, ‘If I lose to this guy again, I’m hanging it up.’” Dent was one of the seeds at Wimbledon in 1977, but McEnroe was serious. He beat Dent [in five sets], which included kicking his racquet across the hallowed turf and crying out, ‘No way I’m losing to this *** guy,” and “Jesus, how much longer before I get a *** call in this *** place.'” Top seed Connors finally shuts McEnroe down [6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4] in the semi-finals.

Spring 1978: Trinity University vs. Stanford University, San Antonio, TX. McEnroe is feeling under the weather, but he’s a 1977 Wimbledon semi-finalist. Two thousand people have turned up to watch as No. 2-ranked Trinity take on top-ranked Stanford University in a two-day mixed match on 31 March and 1 April. “I was having a few confidence issues, as I wasn’t playing too well,” recalls Larry Gottfried, the younger brother of former World No. 3 Brian Gottfried, to ATPTour.com. “Our coach said, ‘Stanford is coming, someone has to play him. Are you afraid?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not afraid. I’ve known him since I was 12.’ Our coach said, ‘No one else knows him like you do, so even if you lose and everyone else wins, we can still win the match.’ With that vote of confidence, I said, ‘I can’t tell you that I will win or lose, but I’m not afraid.’ He said, ‘Alright, you’re on.’ I didn’t have any kind of game plan, but I kept the ball in play and won [6-3, 7-6]. He tired towards the end and I knew he wasn’t the McEnroe I knew.” McEnroe suffers only one other singles loss to South African Eddie Edwards that year, and finishes his college career with the NCAA singles title and team championship for Stanford University. “He had a lot of pressure on him all year every time he stepped out on court, because he was John McEnroe now,” says Gottfried. “Every match and every practice he played, he had pressure. I’m sure the match at Trinity was a microcosm of how he felt every match in his whole career.”

Fall 1978: Mission Hills Country Club, Rancho Mirage, CA. McEnroe’s childhood idol, 1962 and 1969 calendar-year Grand Slam champion Rod Laver, watches courtside as the 19-year-old dismantles Briton John Lloyd 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. Laver comments in an interview, “It’s an honour to be compared to him.” McEnroe, making his singles debut in the competition, finishes the first of his five Davis Cup final victories (1978-79, 1981-82 and 1992) having lost only 10 games in six sets, breaking the 12-games record of games lost in a final tie, held by both Bill Tilden and Bjorn Borg. The United States, which included Stan Smith, has its first silver-gilt trophy since 1972.

***

It was Chuck McKinley, the 1963 Wimbledon champion, who assured John McEnroe Sr. that it was right to entrust the coaching of his 12-year-old son to Tony Palafox, who had moved to New York City in 1968. “One year later, in 1969, McEnroe’s father heard about my programme and asked McKinley, ‘How is Tony Palafox?’ Chuck said, ‘He is very good and honest’,” Palafox tells ATPTour.com. Palafox, who had won the 1962 US Nationals and 1963 Wimbledon doubles titles with fellow Mexican Rafael Osuna, grew tired after five years of competing and the international travel, so he relocated to study at college in Texas for four years. He later picked up work at the Port Washington Tennis Academy, 20 minutes from Douglaston.

“Within a year or two I had switched his grip to a Continental grip, then we worked like that every day,” remembers 83-year-old Palafox, who currently works at the Carl Sanders YMCA in Atlanta. “He would work and work until he got used to it. He learned very quickly, but he forgot very quickly too. He was never frustrating [to coach] and always listened to me about what I had to say. He always paid attention and he never said, ‘No’. He always tried. He might not have got it on the first shot, but on the third or fourth he’d make the shot. He may forget, but the next day he’d call me and we’d pick it up right away.

“He was always working for something. He would never tell you what he wanted to do, only to win and he would work and work. Sometimes he may lose a set, but he never got excited or lost his patience. He learnt to wait and go for the next stroke, how to hit the next shot. He always wanted to win with the right stroke production, not by luck.”

McEnroe came under the eagle eye of Hopman, who likened some of his stroke-play to Neale Fraser and even to Palafox’s slice backhand. Fleming says “John’s game was like Tony’s.” Two one-hour sessions each week with Palafox, developed into an additional two, two-hour group lessons with future World No. 40 Peter Rennert and two other boys. “Even if I wasn’t directly with him, and he’d be in a group lesson, I’d still be watching him,” says Palafox, who also worked with Gerulaitis and, later, Greg Rusedski. The extra lessons didn’t deter McEnroe from excelling at school or on the basketball court, football pitch or track. Tennis was fun, not yet a full-time pursuit for McEnroe. When Palafox later moved his junior program to the Cove Racquet Club in Glen Cove, on Long Island, the Douglaston teenager followed.

Experience told as McEnroe started to match himself up against the pros, beginning with the 1974 US Open doubles tournament. Gottfried, who’d first played McEnroe in the 12-and-under US Nationals in Tennessee in 1971, believes the New Yorker’s game came together significantly between August 1976 and May 1977. “I was in college that year and he was in high school,” recalls Gottfried. “I played him in August 1976 and won a match because he got tired. He never took great care of himself in the juniors, but we played again in May 1977, I played one of the best matches I ever played and I lost 6-2, 6-2. Something happened in that period where things started to come together, and he became more dedicated. That helped him to become a pro.”

Laver, who played at his last major championship at 1977 Wimbledon, remembers a young McEnroe’s innate ability to play the right shot. “I was very impressed with the way he covered the court, his volleying ability and where to hit the ball at the right time. He just knew what to do when he was a junior and when he hit the Open ranks, that he had to adjust very quickly as pros hit the ball harder. He got to No. 1 aged 21, so it was a transition, but he was ready for it. He had all the strokes, but he had the game already, he just needed to speed it up. When you come from the juniors it takes time to understand the different speeds of strokes and what works. McEnroe was already doing that as a junior, so it was a great asset. He did so many different things well, including how he hit his heavily spun serve, which was a big weapon. He always seemed to be one stroke ahead of everybody and came up with different strokes.”

Carillo admits, “John understood early on that his game was world-class, even though he was a junior playing in the senior events. He understood how disruptive it was and how clever his serve and volley game was becoming. I don’t think he felt anything was terrible unexpected and immediately he felt like he belonged.”

As McEnroe’s star burned bright on his ascent into the Top 5 of the FedEx ATP Rankings, Palafox admits pre-match tactical discussions were infrequent. “I told him to never repeat a shot and always hit the ball opposite to where the ball came from,” says Palafox, who would coach McEnroe for 17 years. “After the third or fourth shot you can switch it, but then mix it up: forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand. I told him to remember that after the first three games of the match, you should know how your opponent plays and begin working against them.”

Fleming agrees, as his chemistry with McEnroe was almost instantaneous. “We virtually didn’t talk tactics at all, it was more about, ‘We’re going to do what we’re going to do’,” says Fleming, who won seven straight Nitto ATP Finals titles with McEnroe at Madison Square Garden between 1978 and 1984. “Very quickly we became confident it was going to be enough. The fifth tournament we played together we got to the 1978 Wimbledon final. We’d only played three tournaments before we played Queen’s that year – which was the first tournament he played as a pro. Then we played straight through, and I think it was the 10th tournament that I thought we were No. 1 in the world, the best team.

“I am sure he was nervous before every big match, but you could never look at him and say, ‘Geez, he’s really tight’. He always started matches quickly. I always felt that when I played, I was always struggling the first four games and my goal was to get to 2-2, and then I would relax. But he was ‘boom’ from the first point, he relaxed into matches. Maybe he thought, ‘I’m going to play in myself, do nothing special and just run until I feel the shot. Then he would go for his shots. But he didn’t give much of anything away, which is the case with a lot of great players.” McEnroe and Fleming won 25 doubles titles through 1978 and 1979.

***

Ultimately, for Palafox, there was no surprise when 21-year-old McEnroe finally stood at the top of the FedEx ATP Rankings on 3 March 1980, 40 years ago today.

“No, because he was playing the way you should play against everybody, changing the pace on strokes,” says the Mexican, who still keeps a keen eye on the sport from his Atlanta base. “Most players don’t know how to hit a soft shot, they go for big, big shots, then change the pace. When he changed the pace on the shot, players didn’t know how to retrieve softer shots or with spin. He played a different game to everybody. He is still doing that at ATP Champions Tour events.

“A lot of people that I teach today want to imitate John, but there is only one John McEnroe. When I listen to his television commentary today, I can close my eyes and hear him telling the audience exactly what I taught him as a 15-year-old. It’s amazing!”

McEnroe today stands seventh in the list of most weeks spent at World No. 1 (since 1973) and his legacy endures. His 155 combined titles — 77 in singles and 78 in doubles — remains an ATP Tour record and so too does his astonishing 1984 season, when he compiled an 82-3 match record — a 96.5 winning percentage — for the best single-year winning percentage in singles in ATP Tour history. Twenty-six years after hanging up his racquets — not withstanding a mini comeback in doubles in 2006 — 61-year-old McEnroe is engaging as ever.

As Carillo says, “He was not just a remarkable No. 1, but also a glistening tennis player. He is intellectually curious about a lot of things. If he could have been any kind of artist, he would have been a musician. If he’d chosen any sport to be great in, it would have been basketball. He landed on tennis and he did justice to that.”

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ATP Announces Updated ATP Challenger Tour Calendar

  • Posted: Mar 03, 2020

ATP Announces Updated ATP Challenger Tour Calendar

ATP to monitor ongoing situation related to coronavirus

The ATP announced today an updated 2020 ATP Challenger Tour calendar, following the cancellation or postponement of additional events due to continuing concerns over the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

The following events have been cancelled or postponed:

Anning, China (Week of 20 April 2020)
Seoul, South Korea (Week of 27 April 2020 – postponed to August)
Busan, South Korea (week of 4 May 2020 – postponed to August)
Gwangju, South Korea (Week of 11 May 2020 – postponed to August)

Additionally, the event due to take place in Madrid, Spain (Week of 23 March 2020) was postponed to October following ATP’s agreement to the club’s request.

“The outbreak of the coronavirus continues to cause disruption to many sporting events worldwide,” stated the ATP. “We are liaising with our respective tournaments and local authorities where ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour events are played, with the health and safety of staff, players and fans as our top priority. We are in regular contact with our player and tournament members regarding the latest precautionary health measures and guidelines, as well as any travel advisories, and we continue to closely monitor the situation as it evolves.”

Elsewhere, the event in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, scheduled for the 11 May has been cancelled while a Challenger 80 event was added in Manzanillo, Mexico (Week of 20 April 2020).

The ATP will continue to monitor the ongoing situation and will communicate any further updates to the calendar in due course.

View Updated ATP Challenger Tour Calendar

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