Felix Auger-Aliassime will face two-time Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell champion Kei Nishikori for a place in the quarter-finals of the ATP 500 event.

The 16^th seed won 77 per cent of his first-serve points and fought off Tunisian Malek Jaziri 6-3, 7-6(7) to make the third round. Auger-Aliassime improved to 2-1 during the European clay-court swing, after making the second round at last week’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters (l. to Zverev), the season’s first clay-court ATP Masters 1000 event.

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The 19-year-old Auger-Aliassime, No. 31, is at a career-high in the ATP Rankings. He is the highest-ranked player his age since No. 25 Lleyton Hewitt on 8 November 1999. It will be his first FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting against No. 7 Nishikori, who won the event in 2014-2015.

Monte-Carlo semi-finalist Daniil Medvedev backed up his best Masters 1000 run with a gritty performance against Barcelona native Albert Ramos-Vinolas, who made the Monte-Carlo final in 2017, 6-3, 2-6, 6-1.

Medvedev, who beat Stefanos Tsitsipas and Novak Djokovic last week, saved five of six break points to make the third round and will next meet American Mackenzie McDonald, who knocked out 11^th seed Gilles Simon 6-3, 6-2.

“I’m really happy with the way that I finished the match, and the first and third sets were a really good level,” Medvedev said.

Monte-Carlo champion Fabio Fognini withdrew (hamstring) but Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena took advantage of his lucky loser spot, beating Spanish wild card Nicola Kuhn 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2. The 2018 Quito titlist will play reigning Houston champion Cristian Garin, who dismissed ninth seed Denis Shapovalov of Canada 7-5, 6-2. Garin beat #NextGenATP Norwegian Casper Ruud earlier this month to win his maiden ATP Tour title at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship.

The ATP announced today that the city of Turin, Italy, has been selected to host the ATP Finals from 2021-2025. The five-year agreement will see the world’s greatest players in men’s professional tennis compete for the biggest indoor tennis title in the world at Turin’s Pala Alpitour stadium, Italy’s largest indoor sporting arena.

The winning Turin bid was put together by the Italian Tennis Federation and Sport e Salute SpA in partnership with the Italian Government, the municipality of Turin and Regione Piemonte. The move to Turin brings the ATP Finals to Italy for the first time in its 50-year history and makes Turin the 15th city to host the prestigious season-ending tournament since its inception in 1970.

Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman & President, said: “Our congratulations to Turin on putting together such a comprehensive and impressive bid. Italy provides us with one of the strongest and most established tennis markets in Europe and has a proven track record for hosting world class tennis events with the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome, as well as the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

We’re delighted to expand on our successful partnership with the FIT and Sport e Salute SpA and we look forward to bringing the ATP’s flagship season-ending event to tennis’s growing fanbase in Italy for the first time.

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“The success of the ATP Finals is critical to the health of the ATP and we believe that Turin has all the ingredients to take the event to new heights and to continue the tournament’s growth following a highly successful 12-year stint in London that will come to an end in 2020. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our event partners in London, particularly AEG, and all the fans that have made the tournament such a success at The O2 since 2009.”

Novak Djokovic, World No.1 and President of the ATP Player Council, said: “The ATP Finals is the biggest and most prestigious event that we have at the ATP. It’s a tournament that has historically moved around and so I’m very excited to see it move to Turin from 2021. It’s still a few years away but I know that the players will be very excited to compete there, and I also hope to be part of what will be a very special event.”

Chiara Appendino, Mayor of Turin, said: “We are extremely proud that Turin has been chosen to host the ATP Finals 2021-2025 as sport has long been a significant part of the history and the culture of our city. As a City we will come together to harness the knowhow of a vast range of local experts in organizing international sporting events and we are confident that our unique combination of passion and experience will deliver opportunities to appreciate this exhilarating sport in sustainable and innovative ways. Turin looks forward to building a truly spectacular event for players and fans the world over!”

Angelo Binaghi, President of the Italian Tennis Federation, said: “The assignment of the great task to organize the ATP Finals in Turin from 2021 to 2025 represents a remarkable international success of our country. Our project has proved to be extremely successful thanks to the great work carried out together with the Italian Government and the local authorities. A team work which I am sure will live up to the wonderful tradition of the end-of-season historical Masters, and offer a very brilliant future”.

The unique season-ending tournament, featuring only the world’s best eight qualified singles players and doubles teams of the season, will boast a record prize purse of US$14,500,000 in 2021.

Turin was the first capital city of Italy from 1861 to 1865. The city has hosted some of the world’s biggest sporting events, such as the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and is also home to two Serie A football teams, Juventus FC and Torino FC. The ATP’s decision brings to a close an extensive international bid process that began in August 2018 in which more than 40 cities worldwide expressed an interest in hosting the ATP season finale.

An official presentation with representatives from ATP, FIT, Italian government and City of Torino will take place in Turin on Monday 29th April at 12:30PM at Palazzo Madama, Piazza Castello.

World No. 6 Kevin Anderson announced Tuesday on Twitter that he will not compete on clay this year in order to further recover an elbow injury.

“I wanted to let you all know that I will unfortunately be missing the clay season this year. After discussing with my doctors and team, we thought the best decision is to rest and rehab my elbow injury for a few more weeks,” wrote Anderson, whose most recent tournament was in Miami, where he advanced to the quarter-finals. “I will keep working hard each day to get healthy again in time for grass.”

Anderson, a first-time qualifier for the Nitto ATP Finals last year, was scheduled to compete in Estoril, Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros. In 2018, he made the semi-finals in Madrid and the fourth round at Roland Garros.

The grass season proved a key part of last year’s season for the South African. After losing in the first round at Queen’s Club, Anderson made his second Grand Slam final at Wimbledon.

“I know this is the right decision for the longterm in the career,” Anderson said of not competing on clay in 2019. “I will also miss seeing the fans there, but I appreciate all of your support and look forward to seeing you again soon.”

pic.twitter.com/rDuAcSRUHg

— Kevin Anderson (@KAndersonATP) April 23, 2019

Rafael Nadal, who is pursuing his 12th title at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell this week, has accomplished virtually everything a player can on clay in his career. But at 32, there are some still things Nadal has not done.

The Spaniard still has not lost consecutive matches on the surface. At all levels, Nadal has dropped just 45 clay-court matches. In the 44 matches that have come after those defeats, he has lost a combined six sets. The Spaniard won 30 sets in those matches by a margin of 6-0 or 6-1.

In 2011, Novak Djokovic defeated Nadal in the final of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. And in the Spaniard’s next match, John Isner took a two-sets-to-one lead at Roland Garros before the lefty battled back to advance and eventually win the title. That was the closest Nadal ever came to losing back-to-back clay-court matches.

Nadal will look to keep it that way on Wednesday when the top seed faces Argentine Leonardo Mayer in his opening match in Barcelona. Nadal owns a 5-0 FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead against the World No. 63, winning 13 of 14 sets in their rivalry.

In other action, #NextGenATP Canadian stars Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov will both open their campaigns. Auger-Aliassime begins play on Pista Rafa Nadal against Tunisian Malek Jaziri.

Felix, the 16th seed, is making his debut at the ATP 500 event. Shapovalov, who reached the semi-finals in Madrid on clay last year, opens against Houston champion Cristian Garin.

Wild card and former World No. 3 David Ferrer, competing in Barcelona for the last time, will try to spring an upset against 15th seed Lucas Pouille. Ferrer cruised past German Mischa Zverev in 65 minutes on Tuesday.

Also in action are Monte-Carlo champion Fabio Fognini, Monte-Carlo semi-finalist Daniil Medvedev and sixth seed Karen Khachanov.

Research courtesy of Michael Hastin.

Fifth seed Laslo Djere recovered from letting two match points slip in the second set and beat Latvian Ernests Gulbis 6-4, 6-7(6), 7-6(2) on Tuesday at the Hungarian Open.

Djere led 6/4 in the second-set tie-break and served for the match at 6/5, but Gulbis staved off the match points to force a decider. The six-time ATP Tour titlist then served for the match at 5-4 in the third before Djere broke back and won the final seven points of the tie-break.

The Serbian will next meet 17-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner or Hungarian wild card Mate Valkusz. Djere won his maiden ATP Tour title in February at the Rio Open presented by Claro.

Sixth seed John Millman routed #NextGenATP Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, who made the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Open in March, 6-1, 6-2. The Aussie, who made his maiden ATP Tour final last year in Budapest, will next face Hungarian wild card Attila Balazs, who beat Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 6-4.

Robin Haase held off Italy’s Thomas Fabbiano 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-2 to set up a second-round meeting with No. 2 seed Borna Coric, and Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert, who made the third round at last week’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, beat lucky loser Egor Gerasimov of Belarus 6-3, 6-2.

Third seed Dominic Thiem ended a two-match losing streak against Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the third round of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell.

The 25-year-old Austrian broke Schwartzman six times as the Argentine struggled with his serve, winning just over half of his first-serve points and hitting seven double faults.

Thiem made the 2017 Barcelona final (l. to Nadal) and will next meet home favourite Jaume Munar, who made the semi-finals of the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals last November.

Munar ousted #NextGenATP American Frances Tiafoe, the 14^th seed, 6-4, 6-3 to improve his FedEx ATP Head2Head advantage against Tiafoe to 2-0, which also includes his win at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

To start his clay-court season, the 21-year-old Munar upset No. 3 Alexander Zverev en route to the quarter-finals of the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech. Last week, the Spaniard made the second round (l. to Coric) of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

German Jan-Lennard Struff upset 10^th seed David Goffin of Belgium 7-6(6), 6-3 and will meet fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, who broke four times and dismissed Hungarian Marton Fucsovics 6-3, 6-4.

Nicolas Jarry lost in the final round of qualifying two days ago at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. But now, the Chilean has the biggest win of his career.

The lucky loser saved a match point on Tuesday en route to defeating reigning Nitto ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) in a two-hour, 33-minute second-round battle. The World No. 81 is now 3-1 against players inside the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings, having defeated Dominic Thiem and Marin Cilic last year.

Jarry held a double-break lead at 3-0 in the third set against Zverev, with a chance to make it 4-0. But Zverev reduced his errors and fired up both himself and the crowd as he clawed his way back, ultimately earning his match point at 6-5 on the Chilean’s serve. Even after barely missing a backhand down the line on that opportunity, Zverev stormed to a 3/0 lead in the ensuing tie-break.

But Jarry never went away, using a five-point spurt to regain the momentum and eventually triumph when Zverev missed into the net. The 23-year-old will next face 13th seed Grigor Dimitrov or home favourite Fernando Verdasco.

Zverev, who began the week 21st in the ATP Race To London, has now lost five of his past seven matches. In two weeks, he will be defending his Mutua Madrid Open crown.

Two-time former champion Kei Nishikori recovered from a slow start to record his 20th match win in Barcelona. The fourth-seeded Japanese star bounced back from 1-4 in the first set to win 12 of the next 15 games in a 7-5, 6-2 second-round victory over American Taylor Fritz in one hour and 41 minutes.

He will next play Canadian No. 16 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime or Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri, who needed two hours and 42 minutes to overcome Delbonis’ compatriot, lucky loser Guido Andreozzi, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-2.

Four-time former finalist David Ferrer, who intends to retire after competing in Madrid, lost just 11 of his service points in a 6-3, 6-1 win over Mischa Zverev of Germany in 65 minutes. The 2008-09, 2011-12 runner-up will next prepare to meet French No. 15 seed Lucas Pouille in the second round.

Elsewhere, in other first-round action, 19-year-old Spaniard Nicola Kuhn recorded the biggest win of his career over qualifier and No. 76-ranked Argentine Federico Delbonis 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-2 in two hours and 30 minutes.