Tennis Frontier

Category: News

General Tennis News from the Tennis Frontier

  • Sharapova and Williams face off in Madrid Final

    Sharapova and Williams face off in Madrid Final

    The top two ranked ladies singles players in the world, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, will face off in the Mutua Madrid Final, on Sunday, May 12. It will be the pair’s third meeting of the year, with Williams winning both times, but their first ever meeting on red clay.

    On Saturday, Williams advanced to the final after defeating Italian No. 7 seed Sara Errani, 7-5, 6-2, in a little over an hour and a half. Sharapova beat Serbian Ana Ivanovic, the No. 16 seed, 6-4, 6-3 to book her place in the final.

    Sunday’s final will take place at 1:00 PM local time.

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  • Ladies Final Four in Madrid

    Ladies Final Four in Madrid

    The final four will play out the Ladies semifinals on Saturday with both top seeds still in the draw. World number #1 and top seed Serena Williams meets Sara Errani, and Maria Sharapova faces off against former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic.

    Quarterfinal Results:

    [7] Sara Errani (ITA) d Ekaterina Makarova (RUS) 6 – 4, 6 – 3
    [16] Ana Ivanovic (SRB) d [6] Angelique Kerber (GER) 6 – 3, 6 – 1
    [1] Serena Williams (USA) d Anabel Medina Garrigues (ESP) 6 – 3, 0 – 6, 7 – 5
    [2] Maria Sharapova (RUS) d Kaia Kanepi (EST) 6 – 2, 6 – 4

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  • Nishikori sends Federer crashing out of Madrid

    Nishikori sends Federer crashing out of Madrid

    Roger Federer crashed out of the Mutua Madrid Open with a surprise defeat to 23-year-old Kei Nishikori in the third round.

    Nishikori, the 14th seed, defeated the defending champion 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 in one hour, 35 minutes. Federer is the second high-profile casualty of the tournament following Novak Djokovic’s shock exit by way of Grigor Dimitrov two days earlier.

    Federer was playing his first tournament in eight weeks, and his first of the year on clay, after taking an extended break due to niggling back problems. He was broken in the fifth game of the opening set, and his Japanese opponent served it out to take the lead.

    The 17-time major winner fought back strongly in the second set, taking it 6-1, and looked to have the momentum as they moved into the deciding set.

    However, Nishikori took control again, reasserting his ground game and broke Federer for an initial 3-1 advantage and held on for victory.

    “Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with my play,” Federer stated in the post-match press conference. “I’m not sure how well Kei thought he played. I didn’t think he had to play his very best, either, which is even more disappointing. It doesn’t change my mindset going forward. I’m going to go back to the practice court, train hard, and make sure I don’t have these kind of days anymore.”

    Nishikori, who will now meet Spanish wildcard Pablo Andujar in the quarterfinals, said, “I wasn’t really expecting this — 6-2 in the third, that’s not easy against him. I played well. I was a little bit tight, of course, but he didn’t make many first serves in the third set, and I was able to attack his second. I was even more aggressive in the third set. I’m pretty happy the way I played.”

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  • Dimitrov shocks Djokovic in Madrid

    Dimitrov shocks Djokovic in Madrid

    Twenty-one-year-old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov defeated World Number 1 Novak Djokovic in the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open, prevailing 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (8-10), 6-3 in a shock upset.

    A tight first set saw the young Bulgarian save a set point at 5-4, with Djokovic sportingly challenging a poor line call on behalf of his opponent. Dimitrov held serve before going on to clinch the tiebreaker, where he had to save further set points coming from 4-6 down to win the breaker 8-6.

    The second set was equally hard fought, with both players exchanging breaks before the Serb #1 won a closely contested tiebreak (10-8).

    Heading into the third set decider, the momentum was with Djokovic, but only very briefly. Roared on by the Spanish crowd, Dimitrov made his big statement, breaking Djokovic early, and hanging on to take the set 6-3, claiming his biggest career scalp to date.

    Dimitrov, an accomplished junior who won both the US Open and Wimbledon junior titles in 2008, has long been considered a future star of the sport. Recently, he laid down a marker of intent by pushing Rafael Nadal all the way in a tough match in Monte Carlo.

    Today he went one better, in what will be seen as a significant breakthrough.

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  • Wawrinka feasts on Ferrer to take Portugal title.

    Wawrinka feasts on Ferrer to take Portugal title.

    Stanislas Wawrinka continued a fine run of recent form by defeating top seeded David Ferrer in straight sets at the ATP Portugal Open.

    Wawrinka prevailed 6-1, 6-4 in just 64 minutes. “Stan played a great match, he deserved to win,” said Ferrer, whose own game was littered with 31 unforced errors.

    It took Ferrer 25 minutes to get on the scoreboard as he was pinned down by Wawrinka’s aggressive approach during an opening set.
    The second set was a more competitive affair but Wawrinka secured the crucial break to move 5-4 ahead and then served out the match to seize the title.

    It was the first ATP tour title for the 28-year-old Swiss since winning Chennai in 2011.

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  • Tommy Haas takes Munich title

    Tommy Haas takes Munich title

    Tommy Haas won his 14th ATP title on Sunday by defeating two-time former champion Philipp Kohlschreiber at the BMW Open in Munich.

    Haas won the match in straight sets 6-3 7-6 taking 83 minutes.

    “It’s a little dream,” said Haas, a German now residing in California.

    Tommy will rise to 13th in the ATP World Rankings, and the 35 year old is enjoying a fine year, having already beaten World #1 Novak Djokovic in Miami and making the finals at San Jose.

    “Tommy played outstanding tennis, without any mistakes – almost a perfect match,” said Kohlschreiber.

    It was Haas’s fourth title on German soil.

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  • Mutua Madrid Open Draw 2013 (WTA)

    Mutua Madrid Open Draw 2013 (WTA)

    The draw for the ATP Mutua Madrid Open:

    S. Williams – Qualifier
    L. Dominguez Lino – S. Halep
    K. Mladenovic – S. Soler-Espinosa
    K. Zakopalova – M. Kirilenko
    C. Wozniacki – Y. Shvedova
    M. Barthel – K. Flipkens
    V. Williams – A. Medina Garrigues
    T. Paszek – N. Li

    V. Azarenka – A. Pavlyuchenkova
    L. Safarova – E. Makarova
    Qualifier – F. Schiavone
    E. Vesnina – M. Bartoli
    R. Vinci – V. Lepchenko
    J. Goerges – B. Jovanovski
    A. Morita – S. Cirstea
    U. Radwanska – S. Errani

    A. Kerber – S. Hsieh
    A. Cornet – K. Bertens
    J. Zheng – S. Kuznetsova
    Qualifier – N. Petrova
    A. Ivanovic – Qualifier
    J. Jankovic – Qualifier
    M. Rybarikova – L. Robson
    T. Pironkova – A. Radwanska

    P. Kvitova – Y. Wickmayer
    S. Stephens – D. Hantuchova
    F. Pennetta – K. Kanepi
    C. Suarez Navarro – S. Stosur
    D. Cibulkova – Qualifier
    S. Lisicki – S. Arvidsson
    Qualifier- S. Peng
    Qualifier – M. Sharapova

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  • Mutua Madrid Open Draw 2013 (ATP)

    Mutua Madrid Open Draw 2013 (ATP)

    The draw for the ATP Mutua Madrid Open:

    Djokovic – BYE
    Dimitrov – Marti
    Qualifier – Klizan
    Copil – Wawrinka
    Raonic – Davydenko
    Goffin – Verdasco
    Qualifier – Dolgopolov
    Tsonga – BYE

    Murray – BYE
    Bellucci – Mayer
    Chardy – Zeballos
    Benneteau – Simon
    Tipsarevic – Monaco
    Anderson – Qualifier
    Janowicz – Querrey
    Berdych – BYE

    Nadal – BYE
    Qualifier – Paire
    Fognini – Youzhny
    Qualifier – Almagro
    Haas – Seppi
    Baghdatis – Robredo
    Qualifier – Istomin
    Ferrer – BYE

    Gasquet – BYE
    Lopez – Gimeno-Traver
    Isner – Qualifier
    Andujar – Cilic
    Nishikori – Melzer
    Troicki – Granollers
    Tomic – Stepanek
    Federer – BYE

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  • Murray: Fuentes Doping Ruling “The Biggest cover up in sporting history”

    Murray: Fuentes Doping Ruling “The Biggest cover up in sporting history”

    Britain’s Andy Murray has labelled the court ruling by Madrid judge Julia Santamaria, “Beyond a joke” following the trial of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes. Fuentes was in the dock after a seven year sports doping investigation known as “Operation Puerto”.

    The Spanish sports medicine doctor was handed a suspended one-year jail term and banned from practising sports medicine for four years. The offences relate blood doping athletes for performance enhancement. Doping in sports was not a crime in Spain at the time of the investigation, so Fuentes was arrested and charged for offences relating to public health.

    He will not spend any time behind bars as Spanish law dictates that if the guilty party has no previous convictions then any sentence of less than two years will be commuted. The court also sentenced former cycling team official Ignacio Labarta to four months in jail, and acquitted three others, including Fuentes’s sister Yolanda.

    A controversial element of the case revolved around an initial ruling that Fuentes did not need to name any of his clients outside of the sport of cycling, despite having confirmed that athletes from football, boxing, track and field and tennis were also members of his clientele.  Judge Santamaria resisted pressure throughout the trial to provide the names of non-cycling athletes implicated in the scandal.

    Despite repeated requests from WADA (the world anti-doping body) for access to the blood bags, Santamaria ordered that the bags and any other evidence including all computers used in the investigation be destroyed.

    Murray used Twitter to express his astonishment at the ruling – “The Biggest cover up in sporting history?”, clearly bemused  that all the evidence must be destroyed without further investigation. “Why would the court order blood bags to be destroyed?”

    Andy Parkinson, chief executive of UK Anti-Doping also slammed the decision by the spanish judge: ‘We are disappointed. Dr Fuentes has admitted to having been involved in multiple prohibited doping activities, and linked with multiple unnamed athletes.
    ‘It therefore cannot be right that these names will remain unknown and no immediate action can be taken.’

    It would seem for now that the guilty will escape and the innocent will be tarred with suspicion.

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  • Nadal Signs Up To Play Basel

    Nadal Signs Up To Play Basel

    Yahoo Sports is reporting that Rafael Nadal has signed up to play Roger Federer’s hometown tournament, The Basel Open.

    It will be the first time in nine years that the Spaniard has played the event, where Juan Martin del Potro is the defending champion.

    Read more on Yahoo Sports: “Nadal to play at Federer’s hometown Swiss Indoors”

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