Category: Tennis

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.

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• 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.”

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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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

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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.

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• ‘I just have to manage it,’ Briton tells reporters

• Prize money for WTA 500 event to be £1m

Emma Raducanu has admitted she is unsure how her body will hold up to the rigours of the grass court season after another back spasm in ­training. The 22-year-old’s latest injury ­concern came as she was preparing for the first women’s tournament at Queen’s Club for 52 years, and left her unable to practise for several days.

It was Raducanu’s second back spasm in three weeks, after initially experiencing the problem against Danielle Collins in Strasbourg a week before the French Open, and as a result she goes into the Queen’s Club event with low expectations.

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Carlos Alcaraz came back from two sets down to beat Jannik Sinner in a fifth-set tiebreak, retaining his title in one of the greatest finals ever played, in any sport

Sinner reckons Alcaraz is the favourite, but notes he’s improving on clay. He’s moving better and more confident and knows that if he serves well he’s very difficult to beat. If he can get his line forehand going too, he’s almost unbeatable.

“Wondering how the doubles have gone in Paris,” begins Andrew Benton. “The dear old doubles always seems to get scant coverage, but games are so nice to watch.”

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Gauff claimed her first Roland Garros title, her second Grand Slam to deny the world No 1 in an epic three sets

The roof is open and the wind is blowing in, which adds a variable. It could get a bit swirly.

Via the BBC, plucky Brit news:

Teenager Hannah Klugman was unable to become the first Briton in almost 50 years to win a French Open juniors title after losing in the girls’ singles final.

The 16-year-old, competing in her first junior Grand Slam singles final, was beaten 6-2 6-0 by Austria’s Lilli Tagger.

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• Djokovic has nowhere to hide against relentless Sinner

• Queen’s to offer equal prize money by 2029 | Mail Daniel

Musetti 1-1 Alcaraz* How can you be sponsored by Nike and turn up in beige and cream? Someone needs to ave a word wiv someone. Up 15-0, Alcaraz plays the shot he missed on break point, a spiteful forehand down the line, but at 40-15 a hopeful and, dare I say it, lazy drop, gives Musetti a sniff. For all the good it does him: a backhand falls long and the champ looks good. Of course he does.

Musetti 1-0 Alcaraz (*denotes server) A netted forehand gives Alcaraz 0-15, then a long backhand restores parity and a good point for each players takes us to 30-all; already Musetti is under pressure. And when Alcaraz wallops a forehand from the backhand corner to the Italian’s backhand corner – exactly the kind of shot we talked about earlier – he can’t control his response and must now face break point. Alcaraz quickly manipulates the rally to open a passing lane down the line … only to hit the net, a let-off for Musetti. And from there, he closes out a highly necessary hold.

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• American ends wildcard’s fairytale run in two sets

• World No 2 reaches second Roland-Garros final

Coco Gauff said she had to block out the home support as she beat French wildcard Lois Boisson to reach the final at Roland-Garros on Thursday.

Boisson, the world No 361, sent shockwaves around the tournament by becoming the first wildcard to reach the semi-finals, and a notoriously fierce crowd can be a challenge even for the most seasoned players, but Gauff came prepared.

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• LTA hopes profit from new venture will bridge gap

• 2025 prize pot at £1.042m for women; £2.12m for men

The LTA has pledged to secure equal prize money for the new women’s tennis tournament held at Queen’s and the mixed event in Eastbourne by 2029 at the latest.

Women’s tennis will return to The Queen’s Club in Baron’s Court, London for the first time in more than 50 years next week in the form of a WTA 500 event, one week before the annual men’s ATP 500 event at Queen’s. The player list includes Madison Keys, Elena Rybakina, Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter.

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• No 2 seed recovers to win 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-1 in patchy match

• Gauff to face local hope Boisson in the last four

Coco Gauff passed her biggest test so far at the French Open as she scrapped her way past fellow American Madison Keys to reach the semi-finals. A scruffy match featuring 101 unforced errors and 14 breaks of serve ended 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-1 in favour of the world No 2. Gauff had previously not dropped a set as she quietly made her way through the friendlier side of the draw.

In a nervy first set Gauff overturned a 4-1 deficit to force a set point at 5-4, only to be taken to a tie-break, which Keys won. Gauff went 4-1 up in the second but found herself pegged back, before a break and a hold took the match into a decider.

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