Tennis News
Carlos Alcaraz survived a second-set scare, beating Jiri Lehecka in three to win Queen’s for the second time
Lehecka to serve, ready … play.
Our coverage has, finally, started, and our players are out. Lehecka will have to start well, but if he can he’s a live dog.
Continue reading...Tennis’s great disruptor speaks on his highs and lows on Centre Court and the BBC’s ‘very strange’ decision to leave him out of the commentary box
Wimbledon runs through Nick Kyrgios’s tumultuous career with a mysterious force full of pain, glory and controversy. It is a tournament defined by history and restraint but, for Kyrgios the disruptor, it is also a place pitted with dark despair and sunlit magic.
The Australian has spent a night in a psychiatric ward while playing at Wimbledon and also been served with court orders and lawsuits during and after the 2022 championship that ended in him pushing Novak Djokovic so hard in a memorable final. But he has since struggled with injury and he will miss his third successive Wimbledon this year.
Continue reading...Gauff stunned by qualifier Wang at Berlin Open
French Open champ makes seven double faults
Wang to face Badosa after career-best grass win
Newly crowned French Open champion Coco Gauff was stunned on her return to action Thursday, losing to Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu 6-3, 6-3 at the Berlin Open.
The second-ranked Gauff, who won at Roland-Garros less than two weeks ago for her second Grand Slam title, amassed 25 unforced errors and seven double faults in her loss to Wang.
Continue reading...Man given restraining order in Dubai on ticket waiting list
All England Club employs fixated threat specialists
Emma Raducanu’s stalker has been blocked from buying tickets for the Wimbledon Championships this month in the public ballot, it has emerged.
Security staff at the All England Club discovered that the man, who has never been named, was on the waiting list when they did a re-sweep of the ballot, after he was given a restraining order in Dubai in February.
Continue reading...Australian No 1 swept aside by big-serving Jiri Lehecka
First round exit leaves de Minaur short of match practice
Alex de Minaur has crashed out in the first round of Queen’s leaving Australia’s big Wimbledon hope in danger of heading into the grass court grand slam severely undercooked.
The Australian No 1 took a break after suffering a first week exit on the clay of Roland Garros, admitting the unrelenting schedule of the tennis calendar had left him mentally spent and physically drained.
Continue reading...World No 1 downplayed American’s victory
Sabalenka says she did not intend to attack opponent
Aryna Sabalenka says she has written to Coco Gauff to apologise for the “unprofessional” comments she made after her loss to the American in the final of the French Open.
Speaking to Eurosport Germany, Sabalenka said her remarks after her defeat by Gauff at Roland Garros this month were a mistake. In her post-match press conference in Paris, Sabalenka had suggested that the result was more due to her own errors than to Gauff’s performance.
Continue reading...British player talks about receiving toxic messages
‘I don’t think there’s anything off the cards now’
The British tennis No 2 Katie Boulter has lifted the lid on the level of abuse aimed at some players and revealed she and her family have received death threats.
Boulter shared her experiences with BBC Sport to highlight the issue of players receiving toxic messages online. The 28-year-old’s examples included a message telling her to buy “candles and a coffin for your entire family” with a reference to her “grandmother’s grave if she’s not dead by tomorrow”, one stating she should “go to hell” as she had cost the poster money, and another stating “hope you get cancer”.
Continue reading...Former world No 1 reveals second child with husband Garry Kissick
Parents welcome arrival with photo of their baby in a white beanie
Retired Australian tennis star Ash Barty has announced the birth of her first daughter, Jordan.
Barty and her husband, golf professional Garry Kissick, already have a son, Hayden, born almost two years ago.
Continue reading...Tatjana Maria, a qualifier, beat Amanda Anisimova, the No 8 seed, to win the first women’s tournament at Queen’s since 1973
Ready … play.
Apparently Anisimova was practising this morning and had someone hitting slices at her. That makes sense, but it won’t be the same as what’s in store for her on court this afternoon. Thing is – and as I type, there’s another “slice and dice” – the match may, in fact, be decided by how her excellence on the return matches up with Maria’s excellence on serve.
Continue reading...British No 1 loses Wimbledon seeding as a result
Confident of playing at Eastbourne
Emma Raducanu will miss next week’s Berlin Tennis Open as she continues to manage a back problem. The 22-year-old has been struggling with her back since competing in Strasbourg last month before the French Open and took an off-court medical timeout during her quarter-final loss to Zheng Qinwen at Queen’s Club on Friday.
After the match Raducanu said: “It’s been lingering for the last few weeks and I have had back issues before. I think it’s just a vulnerability of mine. I’m not overly concerned that it’s something serious, but it’s something that’s very annoying and needs proper and careful management.”
Continue reading...All England Club says welfare concerns need different solution
World’s top players had asked for greater prize money at slams
The All England Club has insisted that it has listened to the complaints of leading tennis players regarding prize money compensation but it believes the solution to player issues lies in greater changes to the structure of the sport.
The prize money fund for the 2025 Wimbledon Championships, which begins on 30 June, will rise to £53.5m, a 7% increase on last year’s prize money and double the amount awarded in 2015. The men’s and women’s champions will receive £3m at this year’s edition, while players who lose in the first round will earn £66,000.
Continue reading...Players can get special ranking for three tournaments
Sloane Stephens: ‘It will empower this generation’
Tennis players who choose to take time off in order to undergo fertility protection procedures, such as egg or embryo freezing, will be permitted to receive a protected ranking according to new rules announced by the Women’s Tennis Association.
Players ranked inside the top 750 on the WTA who undergo fertility procedures will be eligible to receive a Special Entry Ranking (SER) allowing them to enter up to three tournaments. The SER will be calculated using their average ranking during a 12-week period before and during their absence and can be used up to WTA 500 events.
Continue reading...Player hid behind umpire’s chair during incident
Queen’s Club next on agenda for 2021 US Open winner
British No 2 Emma Raducanu admitted she was “wary” when going out following her ordeal with a stalker at the Dubai Tennis Championships earlier this year.
The 22-year-old hid behind the umpire’s chair in tears after receiving repeated unwanted attention from a “fixated” man before and during a second-round match against Karolina Muchova in February.
Continue reading...As the tournament concludes with Carlos Alcaraz retaining his French Open crown and Coco Gauff claiming her second grand slam title, we take a look at some of our favourite images from Roland Garros
Continue reading...World No 1’s spellbinding effort dismantled by Alcaraz in the fifth set to conjure theatre in Paris and a rivalry for the ages
By the end, it felt cruel to want more. Look at the state of these men: bedraggled and dishevelled, dragged into a place of wildness and madness, of mental atrophy and physical dismay. You, on the other hand, have spent the last five and a half hours sitting on your couch, eating snacks and gorging on the finest sporting theatre. You want this prolonged for your entertainment? You want more of this? And of course the only real answer is: yes. Yes, please.
Twilight zone at Roland Garros. Two sets each, six games each: the shadows ravenous, the noise bestial, every thrill laced with a kind of sickness. By the end, admiration began to meld with pity. Pity for their teams and families, trapped in the convulsions, feeling a spiralling hypertension with every passing moment. Pity for the tennis balls, being smacked and beaten mercilessly across the Paris night. Pity for the watching Andre Agassi, who you could swear had hair when this match started.
Continue reading...