Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic is the talk of the sporting world. The Serbian superstar led the Denver Nuggets in a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers to reach the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.

When asked after Monday’s game about his countryman, Novak Djokovic, he was quick to praise the tennis great.

“He is a guy who represents Serbia in a much bigger scene,” Jokic said during his press conference. “He’s a Serbian ambassador, and he’s really [an] idol to the kids in Serbia and not just on the court, [but with] the things that his foundation is doing. He is the guy who can you can look up [to]. ‘I want to be like him’.

“He is doing something great for kids, for Serbia, for everything. So we cannot be compared.”

Djokovic has often complimented Jokic, too. The 93-time tour-level champion shared an Instagram Story on Tuesday celebrating Jokic’s success.

When Jokic earned his first MVP award two years ago, Djokovic wore his Nuggets jersey at practice ahead of Roland Garros.

“MVP! MVP! This is for my friend Nikola Jokic, The Joker,” Djokovic said in a video he recorded at the time. “Congratulations for your MVP, well deserved. Sending you big regards from Paris, Roland Garros. I’m carrying you today with me in practice and hopefully bringing you luck in the playoffs. All the best, my friend!”

Jokic could face Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. Earlier this year, Butler watched Carlos Alcaraz play in Buenos Aires and Miami. 

“He’s always poised. He’s never rattled and more than anything, it looks like he’s having so much fun out there,” Butler told ATPTour.com. “I think whenever you have fun and you have that mentality that you know you’re the best, you go out there and you play as though you’re the best, results happen and he’s not No. 1 for no reason.”

Mark Philippoussis announced on Instagram Tuesday that he is no longer working with Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“@stefanostsitsipas98 thank for the opportunity of being a part of your team,” Philippoussis wrote. “It was a great ride and experience, I’m proud of what we achieved together in the short amount of time we had. I wish you health, happiness and success for your future, on and off the court! 🙏🏼💙”

 

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One of the brightest moments of the Philippoussis-Tsitsipas partnership came at this year’s Australian Open, where the Greek advanced to his second major final.

Ahead of this year’s BNP Paribas Open, Tsitsipas said of Philippoussis “Mark is a very wise man, he has a lot of knowledge.

“I think the fact that he’s lived these things himself on the tour and he’s able to provide some [advice] to me now is essential. He provides a lot of feedback. He can relate to a lot of things that have happened to me and sees a little bit of himself in me in some circumstances and situations.”

Tsitsipas is still coached by his father, Apostolos Tsitsipas. The Greek will enter Roland Garros as the fifth seed.

Former Gonet Geneva Open champion Alexander Zverev continued his love affair with the ATP 250 event on Tuesday when he moved past American Christopher Eubanks 6-2, 6-3.

The German, who is competing in Geneva for the first time since he won the title in 2019, overpowered Eubanks in their first ATP Head2Head meeting. He hammered the ball off both wings and broke Eubanks’ serve four times to advance after 69 minutes.

“My first reaction is that I am very happy,” Zverev said. “I am very happy to be in the quarter-finals here. It is nice to be back here. The weather is beautiful and the city is beautiful. The crowd was amazing and I really enjoyed myself out there today.”

Zverev arrived in Geneva off the back of runs to the fourth round at ATP Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. The 26-year-old will face Wu Yibing or Marco Cecchinato in his second tour-level quarter-final of the season.

Zverev is this week chasing his first tour-level title since winning the 2021 Nitto ATP Finals. The German has clinched six of his 19 tour-level trophies on clay.

Earlier, sixth seed Tallon Griekspoor reached the second round when he defeated Italian qualifier Stefano Travaglia 7-5, 7-6(3). The Dutchman Griekspoor snapped a four-match losing streak with his 15th victory of the season.

American J.J. Wolf defeated Hugo Dellien 6-4, 6-2 to set a meeting against top seed Casper Ruud, while Ilya Ivashka beat Guido Pella 6-4, 7-5. Australian Christopher O’Connell also advanced, defeating Croatian qualifier Nino Serdarusic 7-6(5), 6-7(1), 6-1.

A lot has gone into Aleksandar Vukic’s pursuit of becoming the best tennis player he can be. That paid off Monday, when the 27-year-old broke into the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time.

The Australian, who is now World No. 95, accomplished the feat by reaching Saturday’s final at the Oeiras Challenger. One of the big reasons he has reached this point is his ability to compartmentalise the pressure of chasing the milestone.

“I don’t analyse it a crazy amount, but I’m aware of what’s going on, it’s in the back of my head,” Vukic said in a press conference in Oeiras. “But when I’m on court, I try not to think about it. There’s sometimes when you do and sometimes it helps, it can be motivating in a way. Sometimes it can add maybe too much pressure. I try to stay in the moment as much as I can.”

To understand how the Australian reached this point takes revisiting his past. Vukic’s parents, Rad and Lilijana, made a critical decision to flee the Yugoslav War in the 1990s before ‘Aleks’ was born.

“All the males over 18 had to be enrolled in the army, but my dad didn’t want to go and get killed. They were living in Sarajevo [Bosnia] at the time and this was the heart of the war. My brother [Vladimir] and my mom were able to leave,” Vukic told ATPTour.com in 2020. “They would hear bullets outside their home, so it was too dangerous and they were sending all the women and children away. Then my father tried to escape too and made it to the airport.

“There was a plane leaving and he blended in with another family and managed to get out of there. Eventually they got their visas and made it to Australia. They literally came with nothing, like a thousand dollars. It was so tough at first. They struggled to find jobs. Now, they are computer engineers and worked their way up from nothing.”

To this day, Vukic considers his father as the biggest influence in his life, stating, “He would push me the most,” the Australian said. “He was definitely instrumental in my development and is still my biggest supporter.”

Fast forward to this season, when the Aussie has enjoyed a standout run on the Challenger Tour. He’s won 14 of his past 17 Challenger-level matches and has reached at least the final in three of his past four tournaments, including his triumph at this month’s Busan Challenger.

Vukic then made a quick transition from the South Korean hard courts to the Portuguese clay. Despite the surface change, he continued his hot streak en route to a finalist finish at the Oeiras Open 4. Just two days separated Vukic’s triumph in Busan and his first-round match in Oeiras.

A former University of Illinois standout, Vukic will aim to carry his momentum to Roland Garros, where he will attempt to qualify for his second main-draw appearance on the Parisian clay. Vukic defeated Raphael Collignon 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the first round of qualifying and will next face Nicolas Moreno De Alboran.

Jack Draper continued his winning return on the ATP Tour Tuesday when he moved past fifth seed Miomir Kecmanovic 6-4, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon.

The 21-year-old competed in Monte-Carlo in April but missed ATP Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome due to an abdominal injury. He has come out firing on his return in Lyon, though. The British lefty defeated Alexandre Muller in the first round and backed that up with a hard-fought display against Kecmanovic.

Draper rallied from a break down in the first set and won 82 per cent (27/33) of his first-serve points in the match to earn his 10th win of the season after one hour and 33 minutes.

“I am really happy. I have played two really high-level players and I feel that my game is in a good place, especially after having a few weeks off with injury,” Draper said. “Hopefully I can continue.”

Watch Tuesday Lyon Highlights:

Draper, currently No. 53 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, will face Francisco Cerundolo in his second quarter-final of the season after the fourth-seeded Argentine advanced past Juan Pablo Varillas, who was forced to retire after losing the first set 2-6.

Brandon Nakashima moved past Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech 7-6(6), 1-6, 7-5 to reach his first quarter-final of the season. The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals champion will next play third seed Tommy Paul or Gregoire Barrere. The American and Frenchman’s match was suspended at 7-6(6), 4-6, 2-2 due to bad light.

Paul is aiming to win his first title of the season this week in Geneva. Earlier this year he reached the semi-finals at the Australian Open and the championship match in Acapulco.

In other action, Argentine Pedro Cachin earned a comeback win against Frenchman Gael Monfils, advancing 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. It is the first time Cachin has won a match this season after losing the first set on Tour. The 28-year-old will meet countryman Sebastian Baez in the second round after the 22-year-old defeated Marton Fucsovics 6-4, 7-6(5).

Spanish qualifier Pablo Llamas Ruiz also advanced on his tour-level debut, defeating Australian Max Purcell 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-1. Llamas Ruiz will play top seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second round.

Arthur Fils has consolidated his fifth-placed position in the Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race after recent clay-court success.

The 18-year-old, who is aiming to make his debut at the Next Gen ATP Finals, defeated Top 100 Frenchmen Gregoire Barrere and Quentin Halys en route to the quarter-finals at the ATP Challenger Tour 175 event in Aix-en-Provence. He then advanced through qualifying and reached the second round at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the first time in Rome.

Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race

Frenchman Fils, currently on 431 points, is competing this week on home soil at the ATP 250 in Lyon, where he is in the second round.

Ben Shelton remains fourth in the Live Next Gen Race on 545 points. The American’s best result on clay this season came at a ATP Challenger Tour event in Cagliari, where he advanced to the semi-finals.

The 20-year-old, who also earned tour-level wins on the surface in Estoril and Barcelona, is aiming to make his debut at the 21-and-under event.

Luca Van Assche, Flavio Cobolli and Dominic Stricker currently sit sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively. Frenchman Van Assche (390 points) has won two Challenger Tour titles this season, while Italian Cobolli (243) reached the quarter-finals at the Challenger Tour 175 event in Turin this month.

The 20-year-old Stricker (230 points) is aiming to make his second appearance at the 21-and-under event this year, having advanced to the semi-finals in Milan last year. The Swiss star captured his second Challenger Tour trophy of the season in Prague in May.

Hungarian Zsombor Piros has been one of the hardest players to beat on the ATP Challenger Tour this clay-court season. The 23-year-old won back-to-back Challenger titles in April at the Split and Oeiras Challengers and this week looks to qualify for his maiden major main draw at Roland Garros.

If Piros is not competing on court, you can find him creating memories with friends and family or playing football, darts, and card games. The Hungarian may even recollect a magic trick he learned as a teenager.

“When I was 14, I had a good two or three years doing magic tricks. I was very obsessed with it,” Piros told ATPTour.com. “I’m not doing that obsessively like a few years ago, where I would learn for two or three hours a day, card tricks, coin tricks, ring tricks, mental tricks.”

While a series of magic tricks could have left Piros’ friends with their jaws dropped, it was a 10-match winning streak for the loss of just one set that left the World No. 125 surprised in April, when he captured back-to-back Challenger titles in Split, Croatia and Oeiras, Portugal.

^{Zsombor Piros defeats Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the Oeiras Open 3 final. Credit: Sara Falcão/FPT}

“I’m speechless honestly, I’ve never won this many matches in a row at this level,” Piros said in Oeiras after winning the title. “I actually surprised myself with these results. I think the second step is just believing I can play this level and not to think it happened just once. It [will] give me big confidence for the future. I have some great memories on court, but I think this is the most important [one] now. It’s the most special.”

Piros is not the only 23-year-old Hungarian on the rise this year. Fabian Marozsan, who was born five days before Piros, upset World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz last week at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome.

Marozsan, World No. 115, and Piros grew up together and partnered to represent their home country in Davis Cup doubles action against Australia in 2021.

“We are practising together in the same place, we grew up together going to all the tournaments in Hungary and all of Europe,” Marozsan said of his countryman.

One of Piros’ most memorable moments came when he was a teenager, travelling to the biggest venues in the sport for junior Grand Slam events.

The Budapest native went on a dream run to win the 2017 Australian Open boys’ singles title. He became the second Hungarian male to win a junior Grand Slam title, joining Marton Fucsovics, who won the 2010 Wimbledon boys’ singles crown. The Melbourne memory still fills Piros with excitement.

“It was one of the most powerful emotions for me. Even now when I remember [it], I have goosebumps,” Piros said. “Hundreds of Hungarians were there, singing songs for me… I almost played the qualifying for that tournament and I was almost the last one in the main draw, so we expected one or two wins.

“But then for weeks I didn’t realise I had just won a Grand Slam, even though it was just a junior title. It’s still one of the best emotions I’ve ever experienced on the tennis court. It’s still very close to my heart.”

^{Zsombor Piros earns the 2017 Australian Open boys’ singles crown. Credit: Pat Scala/Getty Images}

Around the time he triumphed in Australia, Piros was hooked on darts. He would sometimes throw 800 to 1,000 darts a day. But that quickly came to an end when he realised his shoulder was so stiff the following day that he struggled to serve.

Since winning his junior title in Melbourne, Piros has been developing his game on the Challenger Tour. His hard work has reaped four Challenger trophies within the past year.

“I think I’ve played like 70 Challenger tournaments,” Piros said. “I think there is a big difference from Futures to Challengers, especially the mentality. Everybody’s nonstop in the gym, having everything on the court like new racquets, everything professional.

“You have to give 100 per cent for every shot, being there and fighting for every point, otherwise you can’t be successful at this level. Every point counts. Sometimes if you show bad emotion for just a few points, it can be the end of your tournament. It’s a very tough level.”

Piros hopes to find more success this week in Paris, where he is seeded 13th in the Roland Garros qualifying draw and will meet Dominik Koepfer in the opening round.