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Cecchinato Reaches First Semi-Final In Budapest

  • Posted: Apr 27, 2018

Cecchinato Reaches First Semi-Final In Budapest

Seppi, Bedene, Millman compete later on day five

Marco Cecchinato pumped his right fist in celebration after hitting a smash winner to wrap up a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 victory over seventh-seeded German Jan-Lennard Struff on Friday at the Gazprom Hungarian Open. The Italian lucky loser is through to his first ATP World Tour semi-final, where he’ll face eighth seed Andreas Seppi of Italy or Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili.

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Rafa's New Golden Era Hits Top Gear

  • Posted: Apr 27, 2018

Rafa’s New Golden Era Hits Top Gear

Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers shows the Spaniard won more than 50 per cent of return points in Monte-Carlo

Is Rafael Nadal elevating his game to another level at 31 years of age?

Our eyes see it, his opponents feel it, and yes, the stats sheet confirms it as well. The golden age of Rafa is happening right here, right now.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Nadal’s record-setting 11 titles at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters identifies that the Spaniard has only once (2010) won a higher percentage of total points to take the title than he did this year.

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Nadal won 60.9 per cent (298/489) of total points in five matches last week, which is the second highest of any of his 11 victorious campaigns in the Principality. It was more than three percentage points higher than his total points won average of 58.3 per cent (3885/6668) in winning 11 titles, beginning back in 2005.

Nadal has won 54 per cent of total points on all surfaces throughout his career, and 56 per cent lifetime on clay. To be at 61 per cent last week clearly identifies how dominant his game is at the moment.

Rafael Nadal 11 Titles In Monte-Carlo: Total Points Won

Year

Total Points Won

2010

64.1%

2018

60.9%

2007

60.5%

2017

59.7%

2012

59.3%

2008

58.0%

2005

57.4%

2011

57.1%

2009

56.5%

2006

56.4%

2016

55.6%

AVERAGE

58.7%

Second-Serve Points Won
Nadal’s major area of influence in Monte-Carlo last week was his second serve. He won 67.5 per cent (52/77) of his second-serve points. That’s his highest win percentage in this specific metric he’s ever recorded en route to winning a Monte-Carlo title.

Returning Serve
It’s hard to fathom that Nadal could possibly make the opponent’s serve a weakness, but that’s exactly what he regularly does in Monte-Carlo. Nadal won 50.8 per cent (129/254) of his return points last week, meaning that he won more points returning in opponents’ service games than the server did.

Watch Highlights: Nadal Wins 11th Monte-Carlo Crown

In the 11 times Nadal has won in Monte-Carlo, he has averaged winning 51.5 per cent of return points, with the highest in 2010, when he won 58.8 per cent (133/266). Serving against Rafa is not an advantage on clay in Monaco.

Consecutive Clay-Court Sets Won
With Nadal’s 6-1, 6-3 victory on Thursday in Barcelona against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Nadal extended his Open Era record to 40 consecutive sets won on clay. Monte-Carlo last week accounted for 10 of those, with only one set out of the 10 reaching 6-4.

Everything is on fire at the moment for the Spaniard as a new clay-court season kicks off. Opponents are having trouble winning games, let alone sets or matches. The all-time great is asserting his dominance like never before.

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Hewitt To Make Brief Return To ATP World Tour

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

Hewitt To Make Brief Return To ATP World Tour

Aussie will partner de Minaur in Estoril

Aussie great and former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt will make another return to the ATP World Tour this month.

Hewitt and #NextGenATP Aussie Alex de Minaur, whom Hewitt helps coach, will play doubles at the Millennium Estoril Open, which starts Monday. It’s the third time Hewitt has come out of retirement to play doubles since he retired from tennis after the 2016 Australian Open.

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He played doubles with John Peers during a Davis Cup World Group tie in March 2016. Hewitt also played doubles at 2016 Wimbledon, with compatriot Jordan Thompson, and at 2018 Australian Open, when he joined countryman Sam Groth during his final tournament.

Read More: Aussie Groth Shares His Career Highlights

The 19-year-old de Minaur will look to kickstart his tour-level clay-court season. The 5’11” right-hander reached the final of the Ferrero Challenger Open, an ATP Challenger Tour event in Alicante, Spain, earlier this month (l. to Andujar).

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Muguruza among three retirements in Stuttgart

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza was one of three players forced to retire in the last 16 of the Stuttgart Open.

The Spanish second seed pulled out with a back problem after losing the first set 7-5 against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Germany’s Angelique Kerber withdrew with a leg injury after going 6-0 2-0 down against Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit.

Czech Marketa Vondrousova won the first set against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina but also quit with a leg problem.

Third seed Svitolina, who recovered to lead 2-6 6-1 3-2 before Vondrousova’s retirement, will now play French sixth seed Caroline Garcia, who overcame Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-1 3-6 7-5.

Kontaveit and Pavlyuchenkova now face each other in the quarter-finals, while American Coco Vandeweghe booked a meeting with top seed Simona Halep after winning 6-4 4-6 6-3 against defending champion Laura Siegemund of Germany.

Czech fifth seed Karolina Pliskova beat Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 and will now meet fourth seed Jelena Ostapenko after the Latvian won 6-3 6-0 against Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.

  • Nadal wins record 40th straight clay court set to reach Barcelona quarters
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Nadal wins record 40th straight clay court set to reach Barcelona quarters

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

World number one Rafael Nadal eased past Spanish compatriot Guillermo Garcia Lopez to reach the Barcelona Open quarter-finals.

The defending champion came through 6-1 6-3 to extend his Open era record to 40 consecutive sets won on clay.

The 31-year-old, who has won the title 10 times, will face Slovakian qualifier Martin Klizan in the last eight.

Klizan followed up his second-round win over Novak Djokovic by beating Spain’s Feliciano Lopez 6-1 6-4.

Elsewhere, second seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria saved two match points to beat Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 7-5 3-6 7-6 (10-8).

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Dimitrov will now meet Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta, who beat France’s Adrian Mannarino 6-2 4-6 7-6 (8-6).

Dominic Thiem will play Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarters, after the Swiss third seed beat Slovakian Jozef Kovalik 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.

Tsitsipas, 19, knocked out Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4 7-5.

World number 10 David Goffin, from Belgium, came through 2-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-0 against Russia’s Karen Khachanov to earn a last-eight draw against Roberto Bautista-Agut, who beat fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar-Alba 6-4 6-1.

  • Muguruza among three retirements in Stuttgart
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#NextGenATP Tsitsipas Finding Best Form In A Hurry

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

#NextGenATP Tsitsipas Finding Best Form In A Hurry

Greek faces Thiem on Friday for the third time in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series (0-2)

Stefanos Tsitsipas, who reached his fourth ATP World Tour quarter-final in Barcelona on Thursday, is only 19 years old, a leading candidate to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, where eight of the world’s best 21-and-under players will compete from 6-10 November.

But the 6’3” right-hander is also leading his entire country. For nearly everything the Greek achieves on the ATP World Tour, he becomes the ‘first’ or the first in decades’ time from Greece to celebrate the milestone.

Last October, Tsitsipas became the first Greek to enter the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings and the first Greek semi-finalist (2017 Antwerp) in 44 years (Kalogeropoulos, 1973 Des Moines). And after his start to the European clay-court season this year, Tsitsipas is well on his way to becoming the first Greek to enter the Top 50 of the ATP Rankings.

Watch: Tsitsipas Opens Up About The Time His Dad Saved His Life

I’m very happy to represent my country on the biggest stages, at the biggest tournaments,” Tsitsipas told ATPWorldTour.com. “It’s very satisfying to help tennis grow up in Greece.”

The 19-year-old advanced to the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, beating 2017 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas, at his home tournament, 6-4, 7-5. The Spaniard is the second clay-court stalwart that Tsitsipas has swept past this week at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament. The Greek eliminated seventh seed Diego Schwartzman of Argentina 6-2, 6-1 in the second round.

“It’s the surface. I feel very confident when I step on the dirt. I always show my best tennis on this surface,” Tsitsipas told ATPWorldTour.com. “I really hope the confidence keeps going. I’m very satisfied with my tennis so far.”

Tsitsipas grew up playing on the red dirt in Athens. He learned how to construct points on clay from a coach who emphasised attacking and approaching the net more so than using heavy spin to win matches.

Read More: With Annacone By His Side, #NextGenATP Fritz Knows This Run Can Continue

Recent practices with Patrick Mouratoglou have also helped. Tsitsipas splits his training between his home Athens and the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Nice.

Watch: Uncovered Interviews The Family Behind #NextGenATP Tsitsipas In 2017

The things he told me have changed my game until now. I’m playing on a completely different level and when you play on a level where you feel that confident and so sure of yourself, nothing can stop you,” said Tsitsipas, who is also coached by his father, Apostolos Tsitsipas, and was coached by his mother, Julia Salnikova, a former professional player in the Soviet Union.

This season has marked quite the turnaround for Tsitsipas, who struggled to win a tour-level match for much of 2017. The teenager dropped his first eight tour-level contests before beating Russian Karen Khachanov at the Rolex Shanghai Masters last October. Tsitsipas had earned his opportunities, too: He qualified an ATP-best eight times last year.

But since Shanghai, Tsitsipas has reached one semi-final (Antwerp 2017), three ATP World Tour quarter-finals (2018 Doha, Dubai, Barcelona) and has played better than .500 tennis (12-10).

Read More: How #NextGenATP Tiafoe Learned How To Focus

The runs have put him in great position to make his debut at the Next Gen ATP Finals. After his trip to the Barcelona quarter-finals, he’s projected to climb to fifth place in the ATP Race To Milan, which will determine seven of the eight players in Milan. The eighth will be chosen by wild card.

Tsitsipas got a taste of the new event last year when he served as an alternate. “All the NextGenATP players are giving me motivation to do better,” he said. “I see them, the way they do things and I want to do the same things they do. I want to stay high in the ATP Rankings and follow their footsteps.”

See Who Tsitsipas Is Chasing In The ATP Race To Milan

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Del Potro Commits To 2018 Fever-Tree Championships

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

Del Potro Commits To 2018 Fever-Tree Championships

The Argentine joins World No. 1 Nadal and five-time champion Murray

Juan Martin del Potro will compete at The Queen’s Club in 2018, the Fever-Tree Championships announced Thursday.

Del Potro joins a lineup full of stars in London, including World No. 1 Rafael Nadal and five-time tournament winner Andy Murray.

The World No. 6 has been on a tear this season, winning 15 matches in a row to claim titles in Acapulco and Indian Wells — where he earned his maiden ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title — before falling in the Miami semi-finals against eventual champion John Isner. The 2013 Queen’s Club quarter-finalist will be playing at the event for the fifth time in June.

The Argentine’s next tournament is in two weeks at the Mutua Madrid Open. The 29-year-old is also scheduled to compete the following week at another ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome, the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

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Del Potro addition means four of world's top six will play Queen's

  • Posted: Apr 26, 2018

Juan Martin del Potro has joined the line-up for the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club.

It means four of the world’s top six players will feature at the Wimbledon warm-up, which runs from 18-24 June.

Argentina’s Del Potro, 29, joins world number one Rafael Nadal on the bill, along with Marin Cilic and Grigor Dimitrov.

The tournament will also be five-time winner Andy Murray’s second appearance on his comeback from a hip injury.

British number one Kyle Edmund will compete for a fourth time along with defending champion Feliciano Lopez.

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Former US Open champion Del Potro moved up to sixth in the world rankings after winning 15 matches in a row on his way to successive titles in Acapulco and Indian Wells last month. Dimitrov is fifth and Cilic fourth in the rankings.

“This year has been a very good start for me and I would love to continue playing my best tennis on grass,” said Del Potro, a former quarter-finalist at Queen’s.

“It is always a very strong player-field, so I am excited to start my grass season at this amazing tournament.’

The Championships will be broadcast live on BBC television, radio and online.

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