Tennis News

British number one Johanna Konta was knocked out of the Italian Open on her 27th birthday by French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.

Latvian fifth seed Ostapenko, 20, recovered from losing the first set to win the last-16 match 2-6 6-3 6-4 in Rome.

Defeat was world number 22 Konta’s fifth in a succession against a top-10 player.

Ostapenko will play Maria Sharapova or Daria Gavrilova in the quarter-finals.

Konta raced away with the opening set, breaking Ostapenko’s serve twice to lead 4-1 after only 17 minutes, then serving out.

She had blown a first-set lead in her three previous matches against top-10 players, and the same pattern followed against the world number six.

Ostapenko soon rediscovered the form which helped her claim a shock victory as an unseeded teenager at Roland Garros last year, landing some ferocious winners as Konta rarely failed to attack her serve in the second set.

Ostapenko broke Konta’s serve early in a more evenly contested final set and, after Konta wasted a break point at 3-4 with a wild return, clinched victory in two hours 13 minutes with her first match point.

Romanian world number one Simona Halep was given a walkover into the quarter-finals as American Madison Keys withdrew because of a rib injury.

Reigning champion Elina Svitolina, from Ukraine, beat Russia’s Daria Kasatkina 0-6 6-3 6-2.

She will play two-time Grand Slam winner Angelique Kerber in the last eight after the German won 6-1 6-1 against Greece’s Maria Sakkari.

France’s Caroline Garcia set up a quarter-final with Halep was by beating American Sloane Stephens 6-1 7-6 while Maria Sharapova of Russia also made it through to the last eight with a win over Australia’s Daria Gavrilova 6-3 6-4.

The Italian Open is one of the final clay-court tournaments before the French Open starts on 27 May in Paris.

Analysis

BBC tennis correspondent Russell Fuller

Konta is, to some extent, still in recovery mode – but her prospects look brighter, even though she is still looking for a first win over a top-10 player since last year’s Wimbledon.

In the first set, Konta was accurate, aggressive and played with great clarity. There could perhaps have been an opening for her early in the second set, but Ostapenko held on and began to hit her stride.

Konta fought hard in the decider, having dropped the opening game on serve, but her one fleeting chance to break back was missed and she will head to the French Open after a long weekend at home.

French player Alize Cornet has avoided a potential ban after the International Tennis Federation dismissed a charge against her for missing three drugs tests in a year.

Players must be available for out-of-competition testing for one hour every day under the whereabouts rule.

Cornet, 28, said her intercom buzzer was broken during the third attempt.

An independent tribunal found the doping control officer did not take “reasonable steps” to locate her.

The world number 32 said she was inside her apartment during the designated time slot, but did not receive an intercom call or a phone call.

She also pointed out she had never tested positive in over 100 tests during her career.

The tribunal said it accepted Cornet’s “frank and compelling” evidence.

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Shot clocks and reduced warm-ups appear very likely to be introduced to the ATP Tour – and possibly next season.

A number of innovations were trialled at the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last November.

First to four game sets, no advantage scoring or service lets and coaching via headsets were among the trials.

But it is a 25-second serving clock and a reduced warm-up which players can expect to face on tour in either 2019 or 2020.

• Rival tennis World Cups would be ‘insane’ – ATP chairman

The shot clock is set to be enforced at a Grand Slam for the first time during this year’s US Open.

It was used in Australian Open qualifying and will also be in operation during French Open qualifying this month.

Wimbledon, which has opted not to use it this year, says it will adopt a “wait and see” approach.

Some leading players have voiced their concerns at the shot clock, with 16-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal particularly unhappy.

ATP executive chairman Chris Kermode, speaking at the launch of this year’s Next Gen Finals, said he thinks the proposed changes will happen.

“I think that’s a good thing,” he said.

“When we first started this we never committed to what date we would do any of these, because we needed to take a cautious approach.

“I think we can also look at the medical time outs and the toilet breaks, again to speed up play. I think we can get those done quite quickly as well.

“When it comes to the scoring of the game, that’s getting into the ethos of the sport and that takes much longer because you do need everyone to buy into this.

“I personally loved it: what was incredible was the intensity from point one. But I’m doing this as a collective; I’m not running it as a dictatorship. So all the traditionalists don’t need to panic that I am single-handedly going to do this. I personally like it, but we’ve a long long way to go until we do anything else.”

The format for the second Next Gen Finals will be almost identical to the first, although the warm-up will be reduced by a further sixty seconds to four minutes, and players will be instructed to use a towel rail at the back of the court.

It is hoped this will further speed up play, and reduce the onus on the ball boys and girls to fetch and handle the players’ sweaty towels.

Staging two competing World Cup events in the space of six weeks would be “insane”, says ATP executive chairman Chris Kermode.

The International Tennis Federation has set out plans for an 18-team end-of-season event which will crown the Davis Cup champions from 2019.

The ATP’s priority is to stage a revamped World Team Cup in Australia in the first week of January from 2020.

“Hopefully tennis works together and we come up with a solution,” said Kermode.

• Live scores, schedule and results
• ATP likely to introduce 25-second shot clocks and reduced warm-ups

Talks have already taken place between the ITF – the governing body of world tennis – and the Association of Tennis Professionals to try and find a compromise, he added.

Kermode, whose organisation runs the men’s professional tour, says he is “confident” there will ultimately only be one World Cup, but cannot promise it will be a co-sanctioned event.

“It doesn’t make any sense to have two team events. Personally I think that would be insane. Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen,” Kermode told BBC Sport.

“We have had very, very good talks. What we are trying to do is understand that tennis is a multi-faceted business. Davis Cup is a sports entity that has been around for hundreds of years and we value it.

“Equally the World Team Cup was an event we had for 35 years. It’s been off the shelf for a while, but could we bring that back?

“I think there’s clearly a demand for a huge team event that anyone can buy into.”

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British number one Kyle Edmund continued his fine run of form with a hard-earned round one win over Malek Jaziri at the Italian Open.

The world number 19 saved break points in his opening service game but beat the Tunisian 6-3 3-6 6-3.

Edmund moved inside the world’s top 20 for the first time on Monday after reaching the quarter-finals of last week’s Madrid Open.

He now faces either Lucas Pouille or Andreas Seppi in round two in Rome.

Edmund, 23, beat Novak Djokovic on his way to the quarter-final in Madrid and he continues to look most comfortable on clay.

But Jaziri, 34, was also in confident mood having reached the final of the Istanbul Open last month.

The world number 64 pressured the Briton in the first game but Edmund broke his rival to take a 4-2 lead and closed out the set.

Jaziri broke in the fourth game of the second set and went on to level but Edmund produced the solitary break of the decisive set.

Djokovic – now just one place above Edmund in the global rankings – overcame Alexandr Dolgopolov in straight sets earlier on Monday to also reach round two.