ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament – Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Gael Monfils launched the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in style with a daring stunt in Rotterdam. The Frenchman took to the roof of a hotel to fire balls across the street to suspended stunt “ball kids”, who were dangling in front of a vertical tennis court. 

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“It was different, it was fun,” said Monfils. “It was cool that we tried something new. But they didn’t catch the ball, so I’m pretty disappointed! With the wind, it was tough for me to be precise, but I think it’s tough for them to catch it. But it was cool. It was a good try.”

Defending doubles champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau played with Richard Krajicek and Dutch wheelchair tennis star Esther Vergeer on a special court in front of Rotterdam’s Central Station.

David Goffin and Viktor Troicki met fans and signed autographs.

Argentina Open – Buenos Aires, Argentina

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was a busy man in Buenos Aires.

The Frenchman visited a traditional Argentine Asador to learn how to make two very well-known and popular sandwiches, the choripan and the bondiola. View Photo

“I like Argentinian meat, it’s one of the best in the world,” said Tsonga after the experience. “I’m used to cooking at home and I have a big barbeque at home.”

Tsonga and Juan Monaco visited Buenos Aires Playa to play some mini tennis with fans. View Photo

Tsonga also joined Dominic Thiem for a practice tie-break with some highly-trained ball dogs. View Photo

Leonardo Mayer, Fabio Fognini, Guido Pella and Dusan Lajovic were on hand for kids’ day as they played some points with children in wheelchairs and hit balls into the stands. View Photo

Santiago Giraldo and Nicolas Almagro did on-stage interviews and signed autographs for fans.

Memphis Open – Memphis, Tennessee

The Bryan Brothers, Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey took to the basketball court during Monday night’s Memphis Grizzlies game at FedExForum for a shootout. View Photo

Taylor Fritz (18), Tommy Paul (18), Frances Tiafoe (18), Michael Mmoh (18) and Jared Donaldson (19) posed together in front of the Racquet Club’s Memphis Open 40^th anniversary tournament sign to mark a record five American teens in the main draw of the tournament. Read More

Benjamin Becker (view photo) and Malek Jaziri (view photo) attended the Memphis Grizzlies game Saturday night, meeting up with Dirk Nowitzki and Salah Mejri of the Dallas Mavericks.

Steve Johnson, Dudi Sela and Scott Lipsky took time away from the Memphis Open to visit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, meeting fans and signing autographs. View Photo

Sam Querrey, Max Mirnyi and Max’s brother Peter visit FedEx headquarter in Memphis to try out the flight simulator. View Photo

Roberto Bautista Agut kept up his strong early season form in Rotterdam on Wednesday as he reached the second round of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament with a 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-3 victory over Joao Sousa.

The Spaniard has a 13-2 mark in his best start to an ATP World Tour campaign, with two titles already in Auckland (d. Sock) and last week in Sofia (d. Troicki). He goes on to face Jiri Vesely for a quarter-final spot.

Philipp Kohlschreiber was the first player through to the quarter-finals as he defeated qualifier Ivan Dodig 6-4, 6-2 in 70 minutes. The German also reached the quarter-finals last week in Sofia (l. to Troicki) and goes on to challenge second seed Marin Cilic.

Cilic, the 2014 finalist, held his nerve to beat fellow big-server Gilles Muller 7-6(2), 7-6(7). There were no breaks of serve in the two-hour encounter.

“I was expecting a close match,” said Cilic. “Luckily I was serving well today and I was mentally focused. I was close to breaking a few times in the second set and put pressure on his serve. Gilles is a very difficult player to play against indoors and I’m happy to be through.”

Eighth seed Viktor Troicki celebrated his 30th birthday by striking 14 aces in a 4-6, 7-6(2), 6-3 victory over qualifier Andrey Kuznetsov in two hours and six minutes. He now plays teenager Hyeon Chung.

Elsewhere, Jeremy Chardy battled his way past lucky loser Evgeny Donskoy, a replacement for Richard Gasquet, by saving one match point at 7/8 in the third set tie-break to win 6-7(9), 6-4, 7-6(8) over two hours and 23 minutes. He’ll next meet fellow Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, a qualifier.

Rising teenager Taylor Fritz has won his first match on home soil defeating fellow American Memphis Open debutant Michael Mmoh 6-3, 6-4 to reach the second round on Tuesday. The Californian, currently at No. 145 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, had extended countryman Jack Sock to five sets in the opening round of this year’s Australian Open having won through three rounds of qualifying. 

He continued his hard-court momentum against fellow 18-year-old, Mmoh, in Memphis. “Feels good, I played a really solid match all the way through. I’ve got to be happy with everything,” Fritz said. “Of course, the first one, always remember the first ATP win in the US.”

He sent down 10 aces and broke once in each set, while saving all three break points he faced against the Saudi Arabian-born qualifier, who was making his ATP World Tour main draw debut. A crucial break came at 2-2 in the second set. “That whole game I played three really good points and he gave me a double fault, but that was the kind of game you have to play at this level to get a break,” he said.

And for all the hype over the next wave of American hopefuls, Fritz admitted he hadn’t played the likes of Mmoh, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul or Jared Donaldson as often as many would expect in the juniors.

“Honestly, only played him [Mmoh] once,” he said of his opponent on Tuesday. “I was always playing a level lower. Michael said the same thing. I used to not be that good. I used to not be at the level of Michael and Frances and those guys.

“We’ve only really been playing the same events for two years so in that time I’ve got to see how far I’ve come.” Fritz will meet second seed, another American, Steve Johnson next.

Australian No. 7 seed John Millman, coming off his first ATP World Tour quarterfinal in Montpellier last week, scored a narrow 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-5 win over American Austin Krajicek. Both sent down 11 aces in the two-hour, 42-minute match but it was the 26-year-old Queenslander who had more success on the break points, converting on four of 12 opportunities.

Millman’s countryman, Matt Ebden, was not so fortunate. Ebden was forced to retire while trailing Swiss qualifier Henri Laaksonen 1-6, 0-3. Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis ground out a 6-7(5), 6-2, 7-5 win over Israeli Dudi Sela, while Spaniard Marcel Granollers had a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 result against Portugal’s Malek Jaziri. 

It was mixed results for the highest seeds in action at the Argentina Open on Tuesday with No. 5 Dominic Thiem progressing and No. 6 Fabio Fognini crashing out. Juan Monaco later sealed a second-round rematch of last year’s final with defending champion Rafal Nadal.

For the second time in as many FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings, Thiem and Pablo Carreno Busta went the distance. And for the second time in as many encounters it was the 22-year-old Thiem who emerged victorious over three sets, with the Austrian posting a 6-0, 3-6, 6-3 victory over the Spaniard in the first round.

The youngest player in the Emirates ATP Rankings Top 20, Thiem blitzed the opening set before the 24-year-old Carreno Busta – the youngest of 14 Spaniards in the Top 100 – found his range. The pair had met on clay in Gstaad last year, where it was Thiem who again won through in three and on Tuesday he again found composure after letting the second set slip.

He finished the one-hour, 21-minute affair with four aces and converted five of nine break points. Thiem will next face Portuguese qualifier Gaston Elias who rebounded to defeat Spaniard Daniel Munoz de la Nava 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in two hours and 14 minutes.

There was cause for Buenos Aires fans to celebrate when two local players on the comeback from injuries – Federico Delbonis and Monaco – posted victories. Delbonis upset No. 6 seed Fognini 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4. The 25-year-old left-hander, making his sixth appearance at the Argentina Open, took down the World No. 24 in two hours and 29 minutes, securing five of 10 break points and saving seven of the 10 on his own serve. He will meet Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in the second round. 

Monaco had a straight-forward 6-1, 6-3 result over Italian qualifier Marco Cecchinati in little more than an hour. The 31-year-old – a champion here in 2007 and runner-up in 2009 and 2015 – landed 91 per cent of his first serves and made good on four of five break points.

Paolo Lorenzi ensured it wasn’t all bad news for the Italians in action. He secured a 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 win over Spaniard Pablo Andujar. Uruguayan eighth seed Pablo Cuevas forged his way past Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas 7-5, 6-2 on the back of 10 aces over one hour and 34 minutes. Cuevas booked an all-South American second-round clash with Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo.

In an all-Argentine battle, wild card Renzo Olivo edged Facundo Bagnis 7-6(9), 7-5 in two hours and 12 minutes, while Serb Dusan Lajovic had a 7-6(7), 6-3 triumph over another Argentinian Facundo Arguello.

Imagine losing 43 per cent of all points you play, and it being the best day of your life. Welcome to Novak’s world.

To start 2016, Novak Djokovic mentally seems to be widening the gap between himself and everyone else on the planet. The gap ‘feels’ cavernous. The ‘Big Four’ is currently dominated by one player.

Novak is unbeaten so far in 2016, going 12-0 with titles in Doha and Melbourne. He has won a pre-eminent 57 per cent of his points so far this season. Those numbers add up just perfectly for the World No. 1.

The super Serb has 16,790 Emirates ATP Rankings points this week, which is about double that of World No. 2 Andy Murray (8,945 points) and about 10 times as many as World No. 20 Bernard Tomic (1,720 points). But there is good news for all the players chasing Djokovic up the mountain. Forget looking at Emirates ATP Rankings points. That’s just going to make you nauseous.

Players need to break the daunting chase down to it’s simplest element in order to follow the same road map Djokovic took to the summit. Don’t focus on matches, sets or games. Focus on points, which are the critical building blocks of our sport. An investigation of points lays bare the incremental improvements in Djokovic’s game, helping to dissect his global dominance.

A detailed Infosys ATP Beyond the Numbers analysis of Djokovic’s last three seasons gives you a crystal clear look at his pathway to the top.

2014 = 55% Points Won (Record 61-8)
Winning 55 per cent of points in a season is going to put you at World No. 1, year in and year out. If you win 55 per cent of points in a set, it’s typically going to be 6-3. Winning 55 per cent of points over a season has been the gold standard of our sport, basically assuring you sit above all in the Emirates ATP Rankings.

2015 = 56% Points Won (Record 82-6)
Djokovic somehow found another level last year, having one of the best seasons our sport has seen. What is interesting is that playing absolutely lights out, winning 11 events, including three Grand Slams, six ATP World Tour Masters 1000s and the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, only resulted in a one percentage point upswing for the Serb.

2016 so far = 57% Points Won (Record 12-0)
The Serb has won 100 per cent of his matches to start the 2016 season, but that is only derived from a one percentage point bump above and beyond what he achieved last year. Because Djokovic wins every match, it ‘feels’ like he is almost winning every point. But that’s far from the truth.

Returning Is Improving
From 2015 to 2016, Djokovic is making the same amount of first serves (66 per cent), winning the same amount of second serve points (60 per cent), and winning exactly the same amount of points serving (70 per cent).

It’s the returning side of life where he has primarily squeezed the extra one per cent from this year. The world’s best returner is actually returning better, as the data below reveal.

So far this season, Djokovic has found a way to put up superior numbers to those of 2014 and 2015. There is still a long way to go in the year, but it’s the best start possible.

Overview
Win 55 per cent of points over a season and you own the world. Play your best for a year, and you can add just one more percentage point to that total. Achieve perfection with matches won, and it’s just a solitary, single click more. Basic metrics are the foundation of the sport.

It’s impossible to sit on the side of a court watching a match and identify where that one percentage point of separation out of 100 is won by Djokovic. It’s too much of a blur. We feel Djokovic is playing better, but it’s the numbers that identify exactly where he is blazing new ground.

Read more insights at Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers