Tennis
DJOKOVIC LOSES COOL AGAIN, BREAKS RACKET!
Less than two weeks after getting defaulted from the U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic lost his cool again midway through a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win over German qualifier Dominik Koepfer in the Italian Open quarterfinals Saturday.
When Djokovic was broken at love to even the second set at 3-3, he slammed his racket to the red clay in anger.
With the frame broken and the strings all mangled, Djokovic was forced to get a new racket and received a warning from the chair umpire.
“It’s not the first nor the last racket that I’ll break in my career,” Djokovic said. “I’ve done it before and I’ll probably do it again. I don’t want to do it but when it comes, it happens.
“That’s how, I guess, I release sometimes my anger and it’s definitely not the best message out there, especially for the young tennis players looking at me, and I don’t encourage that — definitely.”
The top-ranked Djokovic was thrown out of the U.S. Open for unintentionally hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball in a fit of anger.
At the Foro Italico, Djokovic had already appeared frustrated during the game before he broke his racket, glaring toward the umpire following a couple of overrules and a point that was ordered to be replayed.
“That’s just me,” Djokovic said. “Of course I’m not perfect and I’m doing my best.”
The 97th-ranked Koepfer, who screamed at himself in frustration throughout the match, was also warned for misbehavior early in the third set.
Aiming for his fifth title in Rome, Djokovic’s semifinal opponent will be Casper Ruud, who eliminated local favorite Matteo Berrettini 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5) in a match that lasted 2 hours, 57 minutes.
Nine-time Rome champion Rafael Nadal was playing Diego Schwartzman later in the other half of the draw.
Ruud is the first Norwegian to reach the semifinals of a Masters 1000 tournament. His father, Christian Ruud, got as far as the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Masters in 1997.
While fans have not been admitted to the tournament yet — Italy’s sports minister said Friday that 1,000 spectators will be allowed in for the semifinals and finals — workers, family members and other onlookers inside the picturesque Pietrangeli stadium provided some support for Berrettini, who is from Rome.
Nicola Pietrangeli, the 1957 and 1961 Rome champion and the man the stadium is named after — was also among those sitting on the white marble stands.
“There would have been a lot more adrenaline with fans,” Berrettini said.
In the women’s tournament, top-seeded Simona Halep reached the last four when Kazakh opponent Yulia Putintseva retired midway through their match due to a lower back injury.
Halep, who lost two straight finals in Rome to Elina Svitolina in 2017 and 2018, will need to beat two-time Grand Slam winner Garbiñe Muguruza to return to the championship match. Muguruza required more than two hours to eliminate U.S. Open runner-up Victoria Azarenka 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
“(Muguruza) feels really well on (the) clay court and here,” Halep said. “It’s a big challenge.
“I really want to win this tournament,” added Halep, who will be playing her fifth semifinal in Rome. “I love playing here. … It’s one of the biggest goals now.”
Halep was ahead 6-2, 2-0 when Putintseva decided she was in too much pain to continue — having already taken an off-court medical timeout between sets.
The 30th-ranked Putintseva was coming off two long three-set matches, having upset eighth-seeded Petra Martic and 10th-seeded Elena Rybakina. Entering the match, she had been on court for 7 hours, 22 minutes — far more than Halep, who had a bye in the opening round and won her next two matches in straight sets.
Putintseva also reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals in her previous tournament, while Halep decided to skip the event in New York due to coronavirus travel concerns.
Halep improved to 8-0 since the tennis restart and 12-0 overall stretching back to February.
-AP
Novak Djokovic battled from a set down to clinch his 100th tour-level title by beating Polish sixth seed Hubert Hurkacz 5-7 7-6(2) 7-6(2) at the Geneva Open on Saturday.
The Serbian, who turned 38 on Thursday, becomes just the third man in the Open Era to win 100 ATP titles after American Jimmy Connors and Swiss Roger Federer.
“I had to work for it, that’s for sure. Hubi was probably closer to victory (in) the entire match than I was,” Djokovic said.
“I had some chances in the first set to break his serve, then had a bad game which ended up with the double fault on set point.
“I was just trying to hang in there, I don’t know how I broke his serve… but this is what happens at the highest level. Very few points decide the winner.
“Incredible match, 7-6 in the third with a full stadium, beautiful atmosphere. I’m just grateful to clinch the 100th here.”
Djokovic’s last title came when he won gold at the Paris Olympics last year.
The latest triumph comes at the perfect time as the record 24-times Grand Slam champion bids for a fourth crown at the French Open, which starts on Sunday.
Djokovic banged down six aces and 34 winners in the contest, which lasted a little over three hours and five minutes, making it the longest clash of this year’s tournament.
Hurkacz had squandered a 4-2 lead in the decider as Djokovic clawed his way back to clinch victory in the tiebreak with an ace and stretched his career win-loss record over the 28-year-old Pole to 8-0.
With the triumph, Djokovic is the first man to win a tour-level title in 20 consecutive seasons, with his first title coming at 2006 Amersfoort. He is also the oldest champion in Geneva Open history.
Djokovic, currently ranked world number six, will face unseeded American Mackenzie McDonald in the opening round at Roland Garros.
Reuters
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Novak Djokovic marked his 38th birthday in style on Thursday, defeating Matteo Arnaldi 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Geneva Open semi-finals and continue his pursuit of a 100th career title.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion avenged last month’s Madrid Open loss to the Italian and will next face Britain’s Cameron Norrie, who rallied to defeat Australian Alexei Popyrin 7-6 (8-6) 6-4.
“It’s great to be in the semi-finals again. Hopefully this year I can go at least a step further, that’s the goal,” said Djokovic, who lost to Tomas Machac in last year’s quarter-finals.
“I think I’m playing really good tennis. A straight-sets win, but it was much closer than the score indicates.”
After taking the first set, Djokovic trailed 4-1 in the second but stormed back with five consecutive games to seal the win in one hour and 40 minutes.
The former world No. 1 admitted that smashing his racket in frustration helped him reset mentally and close out the match in straight sets.
“After the racquet breaking I kind of found my optimal state and balance mentally and emotionally to be able to play my best tennis when it was most needed,” Djokovic, who was presented with a birthday cake on court, said.
Djokovic is bidding to become only the third man in history to win 100 ATP titles, after Jimmy Connors (109) and Roger Federer (103).
-Reuters
The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and a disregard for player welfare.
The PTPA, an independent players’ union co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2019, said on March 18 that after years of good-faith efforts to reform professional tennis, it had been forced to take legal action to end “monopolistic control” of the sport.
In a statement, it said that along with more than a dozen players, the PTPA had filed papers in a New York court against the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
“Tennis is broken,” said Ahmad Nassar, executive director of the PTPA.
“Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardises their health and safety.
“We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn’t about disrupting tennis, it’s about saving it for the generations of players and fans to come.”
In response, the ATP accused the PTPA of choosing “division and distraction” and having no meaningful role in the sport.
“We strongly reject the premise of the PTPA’s claims, believe the case to be entirely without merit, and will vigorously defend our position,” it said in a statement.
“ATP remains committed to working in the best interests of the game – towards continued growth, financial stability, and the best possible future for players, tournaments, and fans.”
The WTA defended its record of growing women’s tennis, describing the lawsuit as “baseless”.
“Every decision taken at the WTA Board level includes the input of players via their elected Board representatives, and athletes receive substantial financial rewards and other benefits from participation in the WTA,” the organisation said.
The ITF, meanwhile, stressed its goal is to ensure the growth of tennis as a global sport.
“As a not-for-profit organisation and global guardian of the game… we reinvest 90 per cent of our income into the global development of the game, via our 213 member National Associations,” an ITF spokesperson said.
Describing the various governing bodies as a “cartel”, the PTPA, which has also begun legal action in Britain and the EU, accuses them of paying “artificially low compensation to professional tennis players” and imposing a “draconian” ranking system that forces them to compete in certain tournaments.
The lawsuit also calls the schedule unsustainable, says players are made to play in extreme heat and often in the early hours of the morning, that tennis balls chosen by the tournaments are a factor in chronic injuries and that players’ privacy rights are being abused by random drug tests.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the PTPA said it met with more than 250 players across the tours, including the majority of the men’s and women’s top 20.
“The overwhelmingly positive player feedback was a resounding confirmation – change is needed now, and players are united in their fight for reform,” the statement added.
Serbia’s 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic has been a fierce advocate for change to the organisation of tennis, insisting that the revenues generated by the sport are not fairly shared out to players.
“Women and men who are around 200 and lower ranked in the world, they are struggling a lot,” he said in a CBS 60 Minutes interview in 2023.
“They can’t afford a coach, they can’t afford travels, they skip tournaments, many of them leave tennis who are super talented and maybe capable of reaching great heights.”
The ITIA, which manages the sport’s anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, responded to the lawsuit by saying: “Any credible international sport requires robust anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, and we are proud of our role in contributing to a clean and fair sport.”
-Reuters
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