Tennis
Nadal pulls out of Wimbledon at semi-finals stage
Rafa Nadal’s hopes of completing a rare calendar year Grand Slam ended on Thursday when the Spaniard pulled out of his highly-anticipated Wimbledon semi-final showdown against Australian Nick Kyrgios with an abdominal strain.
Nadal won the Australian and French Opens back-to-back this year for the first time in his career and was bidding to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to complete the calendar-year slam.
“Unfortunately, I have to pull out from the tournament,” the dejected Spaniard told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference, less than 24 hours before his semi-final.
“As everybody saw yesterday (in the quarter-final), I have been suffering with abdominal pain. I knew something was not okay there. Yeah, that’s confirmed. I have a tear in the muscle in the abdomen.
“I was thinking during the whole day about the decision to make.
With the Spaniard’s withdrawal, unseeded 27-year-old Kyrgios became the first Australian to reach the men’s singles final at the All England Club since Mark Philippoussis in 2003.
The Australian has shown his good, bad and ugly sides during the tournament and been fined a total of $14,000 for two offences — spitting towards a fan after his first-round win and swearing in a fiery third-round clash with Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Kyrgios will take on either top seed Novak Djokovic, who is bidding for a fourth straight and seventh overall title on the manicured lawns of Wimbledon, or local hope Cameron Norrie in Sunday’s final. Their semi-final is scheduled for Friday.
Nadal’s father and sister urged him to retire mid-match against American Taylor Fritz during Wednesday’s match on Centre Court but Nadal ignored the pleas from his box and pulled off a remarkable win in four hours and 20 minutes.
He was back on Thursday at the All England Club, hitting forehands and backhands on the practice courts at Aorangi Park hoping to be able to turn up against Kyrgios.
The winner of a men’s record 22 Grand Slam titles said it did not make sense to continue as it was evident he could not have been competitive.
“Even if I tried a lot of times during my career to keep going under very tough circumstances, in that one I think it’s obvious that if I keep going the injury is going to be worse and worse,” he said. “I feel very sad to say that.
“I made my decision because I believe that I can’t win two matches under these circumstances. I can’t serve. It’s not only that I can’t serve at the right speed, it’s that I can’t do the normal movement to serve.”
FITNESS DOUBTS
After Nadal missed a chunk of last season with a foot injury, including the 2021 Wimbledon and U.S. Open, he arrived for the Australian Open at the start of the year after suffering a bout of COVID-19 and with lingering doubts over his fitness.
But despite a poor build up the 36-year-old went on to lift the trophy at Melbourne Park.
He then suffered a stress fracture in his ribs at Indian Wells but played at Roland Garros and won the title with pain-killing injections before each match.
Nadal only confirmed his Wimbledon participation after radio frequency treatment eased the pain in his foot.
“As I always said, for me the most important thing is happiness more than any title, even if everybody knows how much effort I put in to be here,” Nadal told reporters at the packed news conference.
“But I can’t risk that match and stay two, three months outside of competition because that’s going to be a tough thing for me.”
Nadal appeared in a more cheerful mood when he left the Wimbledon premises, stopping to pose for pictures and thanking the staff in the player reception area and at the exit doors.
It was another year when he left the grounds empty-handed, having won the last of his two Challenge Cups way back in 2010.
“I did all the things the best way possible to give myself a chance here,” said Nadal, adding that he hoped to have a normal hardcourt season, including at the U.S. Open, after recovering.
“I am in the semi-finals, so I was playing very well the last couple of days. Especially yesterday, at the beginning of the match, playing at a very, very high level.
“Even that makes me feel a little bit worse because I felt that playing at the level that I was playing, probably I will have a chance.”
-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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Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban from tennis after the world No. 1 admitted team mistakes led to him twice testing positive for traces of banned substance clostebol in March 2024.
The February 9 to May 4 suspension means Sinner will be free to play in the French Open, the second grand slam of the season, which begins on May 25 at Roland Garros.
In a statement, Sinner said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted that he “had no intent and did not derive any competitive advantage from the two positive tests”.
Australian Open champion Sinner has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut, then provided massage and sports therapy.
“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,” Sinner said.
“I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realise Wada’s strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted Wada’s offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a three-month sanction.”
Wada said separately that “Sinner did not intend to cheat” but that he would serve his suspension as he is responsible for the actions of his entourage.
The agreement between Sinner and Wada means that Sinner will be able to play in front of his home fans at the Rome Open which kicks off just after the end of his suspension and is the last big clay court tournament before Roland Garros.
-AFP
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Naomi Osaka has parted ways with coach Wim Fissette after four years together across two stints, the 26-year-old announced late on Friday.
The former world number one won two of her four Grand Slam titles under the guidance of the Belgian, but is currently 75th in the rankings having returned to the tour nine months ago after a lengthy maternity break.
“Four years, two slams and a whole lot of memories,” Osaka wrote in an Instagram post.
“Thanks Wim for being a great coach and an even greater person. Wishing you all the best.”
Of the 16 tournaments Osaka has played this season, she has made the quarter-finals in only two – Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch – and the Japanese player has also failed to go past the second round in each of the four Grand Slams
-Reuters
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