Category Archives: Tennis

Rafael Nadal demolishes Novak Djokovic to win 13th French Open title

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  • World No 2 thrashes No 1 seed 6-0, 6-2, 7-5
  • Spaniard equals Roger Federer’s haul of 20 grand slam titles

Novak Djokovic drove Rafael Nadal to almost unprecedented heights of excellence but was powerless to stop his old rival winning his 13th French Open and the 20th major he needed to match the record of their absent friend, Roger Federer.

Nadal’s 100th win at Roland Garros was almost flawless – 6-0, 6-1, 7-5 in two hours and 41 minutes in front of a drastically reduced audience because of the pandemic at a rescheduled grand slam under a new roof at Court Philippe Chatrier – yet it was a final of rolling contradictions, too.

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Novak Djokovic disqualified from US Open after hitting line judge with ball

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  • Title favourite defaulted during first set after losing serve
  • Player dismissed after discussions with tournament officials

Novak Djokovic was thrown out of the US Open in sensational circumstances on Sunday night when he inadvertently struck a line judge with a dead ball towards the end of the first set of his fourth-round match against the Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta.

The world No 1, who appeared to hit the ball away casually and with no great force, was distraught as he comforted the woman after she had collapsed in a coughing fit holding her throat. He then engaged in a fruitless 10-minute discussion on court with the tournament referee, Soeren Friemel.

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Novak Djokovic will decide whether to join US Open exodus in ‘next few days’

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  • If world No 1 withdraws he will join absentees Nadal and Federer
  • Non-US players unsure on quarantine rules when heading home

Novak Djokovic will decide “in the next few days” whether or not to join the US Open champion Rafael Nadal in withdrawing from this month’s tournament.

If the world No 1 pulls out, the tournament, due to start on 31 August, will be considerably weakened, given five-times champion Roger Federer is resting after a second knee operation and several other leading players in both draws have withdrawn or expressed reservations about travelling to New York, with women’s world No 30 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova the latest player to join the list of absentees.

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Rafael Nadal withdraws from US Open citing Covid concerns as Madrid Open cancelled

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  • Reigning champion pulls out of tournament due to pandemic
  • Madrid Open had already been moved from May

Defending champion Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the US Open citing concerns over coronavirus. The four-time winner at Flushing Meadows does not want to travel to the United States while Covid-19 cases are on the rise.

He joins women’s world number one Ashleigh Barty in pulling out of the tournament due to the treat of coronavirus.

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Khololwam Montsi: ‘If you come from Africa and make it, you’re someone big’

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The 17-year-old South African tennis star on climbing the world rankings, meeting Nick Kyrgios and finding his self-belief

Khololwam Montsi has always been a dreamer. Before he had ever entered a tennis tournament, he was imagining himself winning Wimbledon. In lieu of any role models or a path trodden before them, dreams are what black African tennis players have. They are to be held on to and guarded. So when people have attempted to tread on Montsi’s aspirations, questioning whether a 5ft 5in player like him can succeed, he simply used it as further motivation.

“Me wanting to prove people wrong, I was like: ‘OK, I’m gonna do this thing and I’m gonna work hard every day. I’m gonna beat everyone that I can,’” he says. “If I lose, I lose, I go back to the drawing board. But I’m on a mission, really.”

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Novak Djokovic tests positive for Covid-19 amid Adria Tour fallout

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  • World No 1 becomes fourth player to test positive
  • Dimitrov, Coric and Troicki revealed other positive tests

Novak Djokovic, the men’s world No 1 tennis player, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Serbian said in a statement on Tuesday.

Croatia’s Borna Coric, Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Viktor Troicki have previously tested positive after playing in Djokovic’s Adria Tour exhibition tournament in the Balkan region.

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Australian Open 2020: day two – live!

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Second set: Pliskova* 6-1 3-3 Mladenovic (*denotes server): Pliskova holds to love in the time it took me post a tweet and confirm who Sinner faces in the second round.

Shame to see Max Purcell bow out so early, but Jannik Sinner is a kid going places. The Next Gen Finals champ has Márton Fucsovics next.

Italian @janniksin wins his first ever #AusOpen match!

He def. Aussie qualifier Max Purcell 7-6(2) 6-2 6-4 #AO2020 pic.twitter.com/KOZj4JHAJq

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Roger Federer responds to climate change criticism from Greta Thunberg

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  • Credit Suisse closely linked with fossil fuel industry
  • #RogerWakeUpNow has been trending on Twitter

Roger Federer has issued a cautiously worded response to mounting criticism, including from climate activist Greta Thunberg, over his sponsorship deal with Credit Suisse.

A dozen Swiss activists appeared in court on Tuesday after refusing to pay a fine for playing tennis inside branches of Credit Suisse bank in November 2018, in a stunt intended to underscore Federer’s relationship with the Swiss financial giant, which is closely linked with the fossil fuel industry.

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Simona Halep stuns Serena Williams to win first Wimbledon title

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• Romanian storms to 6-2, 6-2 victory on Centre Court
• Game-by-game report: how all of the action unfolded

Simona Halep played a near-flawless final on Saturday to become the first Romanian woman to win Wimbledon, simultaneously wrecking Serena Williams’s bid for a record-equalling 24th major, a dream that grows more unlikely by the day.

The 37-year-old American – still one short of Margaret Court’s all-time tally – smiled graciously at the end but will have been crying inside, while Halep beamed like a lighthouse in celebration of a 6-2, 6-2 drubbing in only 56 minutes of perhaps the game’s greatest player.

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Love all: how Megan Rapinoe and other gay players are taking sport to a higher level

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In the past, queer female athletes all too often had to hide their sexuality. Today, they’re proudly coming out – and challenging bigotry in sport and society as a whole

Women in sport still face a lot of stigma and abuse. One reason for this is the stigma and abuse that women face in general, but added to that is the fact that women in sport are often pegged as lesbians. You’d like to think that women kicking a ball, swinging a bat or hitting a target wouldn’t be so political – yet here we are, still trapped in the patriarchy’s locker room, engulfed in Lynx Africa fumes.

Recently, however, queer female athletes have proudly come to the fore. This week, Belgian tennis players Alison van Uytvanck and Greet Minnen became the first IRL couple to team up at Wimbledon, and called for more support in the sport for same-sex couples – in particular, saying it would help male players to come out.

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Cori Gauff, 15, eclipses Venus Williams in Wimbledon first round

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• American youngster wins 6-4, 6-4 on Court One
• Glimpse of future as five-time SW19 champion beaten

The 15-year-old American Cori Gauff produced one of the biggest opening-day upsets in Wimbledon history on Monday as she upended five-times champion Venus Williams 6-4, 6-4 in the first round.

The teenager, the youngest player ever to qualify for the main draw, played brilliantly throughout and kept her nerve as she ousted the 39-year-old on Court No 1 in what was her debut performance in a grand slam event.

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Wimbledon ditches plastic racket covers in sustainability drive

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All England Lawn Tennis Club move means there will be 4,500 fewer plastic bags this year

It might not quite be a Wimbledon tradition along the lines of the all-white dress code but the sight of players’ discarding the plastic cover from a freshly strung racket is a familiar one at SW19.

However, it will not be seen at this year’s championships, which begin on Monday – or in future Wimbledon tournaments – after a review of use of plastics, and sustainability generally, by the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).

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Ashleigh Barty storms to French Open glory with win over Vondrousova

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• Australian dominates in straight-sets cruise, 6-1, 6-3
• Impressive display secures first grand slam title

Ashleigh Barty celebrated her breakthrough French Open victory with an expletive used often enough by most people not named Margaret Court, the last Australian to win the title, 46 years ago, and a Christian fundamentalist whom the new champion respects but disagrees strongly with for her strident views on gay marriage.

Related: Dominic Thiem ends Novak Djokovic’s slam streak to reach French Open final

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Serena Williams cartoon not racist, Australian media watchdog rules

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Herald Sun newspaper’s depiction of player ‘spitting the dummy’ at US Open had been widely condemned

A Herald Sun cartoon that depicted Serena Williams jumping in the air and “spitting the dummy” after losing a match to Naomi Osaka was not racist, the Press Council has found.

The News Corp cartoon came under global condemnation in September last year for publishing what some saw as a racist, sexist cartoon.

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Naomi Osaka wins Australian Open final to seal back-to-back grand slams

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This time the tears were of joy. Tennis already had a star in Naomi Osaka; now it has a superstar. After squandering three match points at 5-3 in the second set, the 21-year-old Japanese regrouped brilliantly to beat the Czech Petra Kvitova 7-6 (2) 5-7 6-4 to win a dramatic Australian Open final. Her second consecutive grand slam title ensures she will be the new world No 1 and on this evidence, she might stay there for some time.

Related: Naomi Osaka v Petra Kvitova: Australian Open women's final – live!

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Petra Kvitova v Danielle Collins: Australian Open women’s semi-finals – live!

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  • Updates from Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park
  • Any thoughts? Email or tweet @rrjparkin

First set: Kvitova 6-6 Collins* (*denotes server): The game opens with a 17-hit rally, and it’s Kvitova who seems to expend the most energy during it. Collins races to 40-0 as Kvitova punches a wild forehand well wide. Another love hold, and we have a tie-break.

First set: Kvitova* 6-5 Collins (*denotes server): Why all this temperature chat matters is of course that with the roof closed, serving conditions are now a little more comfortable. In theory that aids Kvitova, but there are plenty of permutations such as racquet tension, ball speed etc that are affected, and require adjustment.

Kvitova doesn’t make light work of her second service game in the new conditions, being dragged to deuce with an unforced error. She holds on the first advantage point though, and pumps the fist.

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Naomi Osaka sponsor apologises for ‘whitewashing’ tennis star in ad

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Noodle company Nissin says it will ‘pay more attention to diversity issues in the future’

One of Naomi Osaka’s sponsors has been forced to apologise after depicting the Japanese tennis star, who is half-Haitian, with pale skin in an advertisement.

Nissin featured Osaka in an ad for its Cup Noodle range of instant ramen. It depicts Osaka, who holds dual Japanese and American citizenship, with pale skin, wavy brown hair and Caucasian facial features.

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Andy Murray: from gangly kid to genuine sporting grownup

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Widely loved and politically progressive, the Scot will retire as arguably the greatest individual British sports person of the modern age

Stop all the green and yellow Timex clocks. Put away that union jack tea towel. Stow the Pimms-sodden crash barriers at the foot of the Aorangi Terrace.

Andy Murray may yet play another Wimbledon this summer, depending on the state of his chronic, career-capping hip injury. But in the wake of a raw and tearful press conference on Friday morning it seems highly likely that next week’s Australian Open will be the final appearance of a stellar, transformative, broadly-sketched tennis career.

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Tearful Andy Murray says Australian Open could be last tournament

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• Murray unsure he will make it to Wimbledon
• ‘The pain is too much. I don’t want to continue’
• Latest updates: tributes paid as Murray admits time is up

Andy Murray’s career is all but over. He expects his match against Roberto Bautista Agut in the first round of the Australian Open on Monday to be his last but, even if another hip operation were to help him reach a more emotional and perhaps more fitting farewell at Wimbledon, it will never be the same for the player who stood alongside Fred Perry as the greatest Britain has ever had. Many would say Murray was the greater, but it is a fine call.

The former world No1 and three-time slam champion conceded that the pain that has been running through his right hip with increasing strength the past few months has brought his serious playing days to a reluctant conclusion.

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Easier gambling has sports worried about fighting the fix

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With dozens of states rushing to offer legal sports gambling in the wake of this spring's landmark U.S. Supreme Court' ruling, will fixed games - or parts of games - become more common? The four major pro major sports leagues and the NCAA have argued for years in court that expanding legal betting will lead to more game-fixing. The pro leagues have sought, unsuccessfully so far, to get a cut of state gambling revenues to increase monitoring.