Fabio Fognini reached his second tour-level final of the season, beating Fernando Verdasco 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 at the SkiStar Swedish Open on Saturday.

The Brasil Open champion defeated the Spanish left-hander for the first time in four FedEx ATP Head2Head clay-court encounters (overall 3-4) after two hours and 17 minutes, winning 76 per cent of second-serve return points en route to victory. Earlier this year, Fognini and Verdasco met at the same stage at the Rio Open Presented By Claro, with Verdasco triumphing in straight sets.

Fognini got off to a quick start, breaking Verdasco in three consecutive return games to take control of the semi-final encounter. But Verdasco, after making an early breakthrough in the second set, forced a decider with a third break of serve in the ninth game.

The 31-year-old Fognini twice led by a break in the third set, and despite surrendering his advantage on both occasions, eventually claimed victory. Fognini capitalised on forehand errors, either side of an aggressive foray into net, to deny Verdasco a third opportunity to lift the trophy. The 34-year-old reached the championship match in 2013 (l. to Berlocq) and 2016 (l. to Ramos-Vinolas).

Fognini, who improves to 30-14 this season, will meet Swiss lucky loser Henri Laaksonen or Frenchman Richard Gasquet for the title. Fognini trails Gasquet 1-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series and is yet to meet Laaksonen at tour-level.

Did You Know?
En route to his sixth tour-level crown at the Brasil Open in February, Fabio Fognini ended Pablo Cuevas’ 15-match win streak at the Sao Paulo-based event.

Leander Paes is well known for his efforts on the doubles court, reaching No. 1 in the ATP Doubles Rankings, claiming 54 tour-level titles including eight Grand Slam triumphs, and becoming the first tennis player to compete at seven Olympic Games.

But it’s easy to forget that Paes was successful on the singles court as well, winning 101 tour-level matches in his career. Twenty years ago this week, the Indian star captured his lone singles title on the ATP World Tour in Newport, Rhode Island at the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

“It’s one of the Top 5 career highlights that I have right next to my Olympic medal, right next to all the Grand Slams that I’ve won,” Paes told ATPWorldTour.com. “Winning Newport at the Hall of Fame got my tennis racquet that I won with in the Hall of Fame, got my shoes that I played with that day and the shirt that I played with in the Hall of Fame and when I do have kids and when I do have grandkids I can always bring them back here and show them a bit of the body of work that papa and grandpa has done.”

Paes had always found some of his best singles success at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. In 1996, at the age of 25, he reached his first ATP World Tour semi-final on the Rhode Island grass, beating 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash in the first round. Two weeks later, he won the bronze medal in singles at the Olympics, proving his ability in the discipline.

“That was just humongous back home,” Paes said. “So when I came back here two years later and won the singles event here at the Hall of Fame, I remember it was a pretty big deal back in India.”

Looking back at it, the 1998 Newport field was stacked with talent — a 17-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, 18-year-old James Blake and 22-year-old Rainer Schuettler stick out. The second seed was doubles legend Mark Woodforde, who had been in the Top 20 of the ATP Rankings just two years earlier. Two future No. 1 players in the ATP Doubles Rankings, Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor, were also competing in singles.

But Paes was a man on a mission. He remembers playing on Court 2 in the first round against David Dilucia, getting pushed deep in a third set against the American. He says he hit a diving backhand drop shot winner to help get him through that match, and the rest was history.

“It was huge [for me],” Paes said. “I think that the Newport win in many ways gave me a sense of belief, gave me a sense of confidence and a sense that my hard work was paying off.”

At the time, Paes was on the fence between pushing on in both singles and doubles, or focusing solely on doubles, which he would do following the 1998 season. He had already owned 10 tour-level doubles trophies alongside Mahesh Bhupathi when he arrived at the International Tennis Hall of Fame that July.

“I was on the threshold of winning doubles Grand Slams,” Paes said. “I had to balance both. And I knew having won my singles medal in the Olympics in 1996, I had a lot of singles in me.”

But Paes has only made two singles quarter-finals on the ATP World Tour since his triumph in Newport, beating then-World No. 2 Pete Sampras just weeks later in New Haven to earn perhaps the biggest singles victory of his career. He’d then make the quarter-finals at the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open for the fourth consecutive year in 1999.

“I feel like a lot of my singles results like beating [Pete] Sampras, that got overshadowed a bit. Beating [Roger] Federer too, when he was coming up. Just a lot of the singles gets overshadowed a little bit, including winning the singles here, because of the mammoth doubles career I’ve had,” Paes said. “I can’t believe that the singles win was 20 years ago. That’s a long time. I would’ve never imagined that I’d still be playing tennis.”

But the 45-year-old is still plugging away on the ATP World Tour. He partnered American Jamie Cerretani to beat Nature Valley International champions Luke Bambridge and Jonny O’Mara in the first round in Newport this year before bowing out in the quarter-finals.

And while Paes is happy to reflect on the memories of his triumph 20 years ago, he’s not done pushing for success. His focus is set solely on what’s ahead.

“I’m a happy guy. I stay in the moment. I focus on things that I have in hand. I don’t think I’ve really sat back over the last 29 years and really looked at my career and said ‘I’ve done that’,” Paes said. “I’m always striving to do something new. I’m always trying to push the body and the mind to different boundaries. That’s the reason that I still play now.”

Robin Haase ousted defending champion Andrey Rublev 6-3, 7-6(6) at the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag on Friday to reach his second tour-level semi-final of the season.

The sixth seed won 81 per cent of first-serve points and saved six of the seven break points he faced to defeat the #NextGenATP Russian, who was competing in his first event since April due to a lower-back stress fracture. Haase, the World No. 38, is pursuing his first ATP World Tour title since the Generali Open in Kitzbuhel six years ago. The Dutch No. 1’s only other triumph came at the same tournament in 2011.

Next, the 31-year-old will face Argentine Guido Pella, who beat Serbian Dusan Lajovic 7-6(3), 7-5 in one hour, 41 minutes. Pella is fresh off of a third-round appearance at Wimbledon, where he came from two sets down to defeat Marin Cilic.

In the other semi-final, qualifier Marco Trungelliti defeated Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-1, 6-4 in one hour, 13 minutes to make his maiden tour-level semi-final. Before arriving in Croatia, the Argentine had never advanced to the quarter-finals at an ATP World Tour event.

Trungelliti will face the winner Italian Marco Cecchinato, who ousted Serbian Laslo Djere 6-4, 6-1 in one hour, 22 minutes. This year’s Gazprom Hungarian Open winner and Roland Garros semi-finalist is into his fourth tour-level semi-final of the season. Entering the 2018 season, he had just four tour-level match wins.

American Steve Johnson moved closer to capturing his fourth title on Friday, defeating Israeli Dudi Sela 6-2, 6-3 in 58 minutes to reach the semi-finals at the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open.

“It feels good,” Johnson said. “You come here to Newport, you come to an event, you expect to at least give yourself a chance at being here at the end of the week. Now we’re here, and I’m just going to keep putting my best foot forward.”

In April, Johnson retained his trophy at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, his third victory at tour-level. The third seed’s first triumph came two years ago on the grass in Nottingham.

Johnson will face Marcel Granollers in the semi-final, after the Spaniard upset top seed Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-1 in 61 minutes. Entering the week, the 32-year-old had just a 10-18 tour-level record on grass. But he won 52 per cent of return points against the Frenchman to move into his first ATP World Tour singles semi-final since 2015 in Zagreb.

The American has won both of the pair’s FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings, with their most recent match coming at the 2015 BNP Paribas Open. But he isn’t putting much stock into those victories, both on hard courts. 

“That’s not going to play into effect here,” Johnson said. “He’s a great tennis player. He’s won 500s, he’s no slouch. He’s a Grand Slam doubles champion. So he knows how to come in and be aggressive. He’s a tough competitor and I know he’s going to come out tomorrow guns blazing and I’m going to try to do the same.”

German Michael Stich was walking through the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island on Friday for the first time, wearing a constant smile across his face. On Saturday, he will become an inductee, joining an elite group made up of the greatest players in tennis history.

As he toured the museum with family and friends, the former World No. 2 came across a young boy, who was also looking through all of the historical artifacts. The boy was playing a trivia game, and didn’t know the answer to the question he was asked.

“Never give up,” Stich told him.

That’s something that the 18-time tour-level titlist never did. When the German was that boy’s age, he never dreamt of making it this far. In fact, Stich’s first sport was football, not tennis, which he began playing at the age of six. Gaining induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame never appeared in his wildest dreams. But he worked hard to build a successful career that spanned nearly a decade.

“I never thought about it. I think when I started playing and understanding that I could become a good player and when I turned professional, then I had a list in my head of what I wanted to achieve,” Stich told ATPWorldTour.com. “But to be here, and to have that as a goal, really was never something I could have imagined.”

Stich wanted to play well in Germany, lift a Grand Slam trophy in singles and doubles, and help Germany triumph in the Davis Cup. Mission accomplished.

The German famously ousted top seed Stefan Edberg in the 1991 semi-finals at The Championships without breaking serve, and then defeated his compatriot, second-seeded Boris Becker, to claim victory at Wimbledon. He’d go on to win the doubles title at SW19 the following year with John McEnroe, and aid Germany to Davis Cup glory in 1993. Stich also owns an Olympic gold medal, and plenty more.

Stich was a runner-up at the US Open in 1994 and Roland Garros in 1996. He tallied a 385-176 record, which according to the FedEx ATP Performance Zone ranks 35th all-time in terms of winning percentage (68.6 per cent).

The museum has a showcase with loans from Stich and fellow Class of 2018 inductee Helena Sukova, featuring the German’s 1991 Wimbledon singles trophy, his 1992 Olympic Men’s Doubles gold medal, the Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz — Germany’s highest honor for service to the nation — and more. So what was it like to see some of his most valuable possessions on display alongside some of the most notable artifacts in tennis history?

“The first thing I thought when I saw it was like, ‘Damn, I’m missing some more Grand Slam trophies. Should have been some more’,” Stich joked. “But when you walk by and you see John [McEnroe] donating a trophy from the Wimbledon doubles, if I would have had five [trophies], I would donate one as well. I just have one.”

That makes this moment even more special for Stich.

“The whole setup is just great, the history of the building, the history of the place itself and to be part of that history is remarkable,” Stich said. “I’m very grateful for that, but you’re just a tiny piece of the puzzle.”

In a way, there was an air of uncertainty about the trip. Stich had never been to Newport. But when he got a call from International Tennis Hall of Fame Chief Executive Officer Todd Martin notifying him of his induction, the excitement began to build.

“I thought of it as a little bit of an adventure trip,” Stich said. “I didn’t know what to expect because I don’t know the place. That’s why it’s so great to come here, and also the atmosphere in Newport in general when you just walk through the streets, it has a lot of similarity for me with Wimbledon with the tradition and with the feeling and with the sense of the history and the tradition. There are very few places in the world that have that and preserve that and that’s great.”

The first room visitors see in the museum is the Woolard Family Enshrinement Gallery. And Stich’s plaque calls him, ‘one of the sport’s most stylish players, a free-flowing shot-maker who excelled on all surfaces’. 

“I realised when I looked at my pictures on that wall in the room that we have, that they only showed my backhand, so maybe they’ll just remember my backhand,” Stich joked. “For me, that’s actually not so important. I think what’s important for me is when people come up to me and say I enjoyed watching you play tennis in general, the way I played tennis, maybe the style, maybe playing quite fluently.”

Of course, Stich is happy to have won the titles he did and accomplish many of his goals. But in the end, he’s not as concerned about the mementos. Instead, he wants people to remember enjoying him play.

“As long as I gave joy to the people from time to time, then that’s what makes me happy,” Stich said. “I don’t want them to remember me for certain wins or trophies that I won. I want them to remember the Wimbledon final because of the final, because of the match, not for the fact that at the end I lifted a trophy.”

Novak Djokovic has posted an open letter on his official website detailing the mental and physical issues he has had to overcome to win a fourth Wimbledon title at The Championships on Sunday.

The Serbian, who returned to the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings on Monday with his 13th Grand Slam championships crown, revealed the doubts he had about returning to his peak performance days after suffering a six-month injury layoff last year.

“In 2017, the injury of my right elbow was so severe that I was forced to be out from the Tour for six months. Injury was one of the issues, the other big one was any motivation. I didn’t have problems to practice and to enjoy the tennis court but I had mental hurdles when I had to compete.

“One day I will share more in depth what kind of challenges I had to face and how I felt.

“For the past two years, I wasn’t patient with my tennis expectations. I wasn’t wise in strategising. And I certainly wasn’t clearly hearing my body telling me that there is something serious happening with my elbow. I was trying to find solutions somewhere else and solution was always inside of me.

“After many changes made with training, racket, team members, I didn’t know if I would be able to get back on the desired level of tennis. Actually, one part of me always believes in my own qualities and capabilities. But there was a lot of doubtful moments where course of action could have gone different ways.”

Djokovic, who beat World No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals at Wimbledon, overcame Kevin Anderson in the final and afterwards witnessed his son, Stefan, come into the players box on Centre Court to celebrate the victory. He also paid tribute to his wife, Jelena, and children, in the open letter.

“The feeling of having my son in my wife’s arms at the trophy ceremony in the Players box was the most wonderful sensation I have had at any tournament that I have ever won in my career.

“When I became a father, one of my biggest dreams was to have my children present at the stands while I am playing. Let alone winning trophies. That dream came true several days ago. Everyone keeps on asking me to describe the feeling. I have said it is unforgettable, special, fulfilling, wonderful, joyful. But most of all, it is Magical! When I thought that moment could not get any better, he shouted “Daddy, Daddy!” That’s when I completely melted. Overwhelmed with emotions. Happy and joyful beyond belief. I am so GRATEFUL to have experienced that.”

Read The Full Open Letter On Djokovic’s Official Website