Tennis News
Venus accepts wildcard for DC Open singles draw
45-year-old hasn’t played since 2024 Miami Open
Venus Williams accepted a wild-card invitation to play singles at this month’s DC Open, which would be the seven-time grand slam champion’s first tournament in more than a year.
Williams, who turned 45 in June, is listed as “inactive” on the WTA Tour’s website.
Continue reading...Updates from SW19 | Anisimova stuns Sabalenka
Is there a cultural reason Americans enjoy using what we in the UK consider to be surnames as first names? I know we’ve noted it – so too did Billy Connolly – but is there a reason? Perhaps Fritz Taylor can advise.
Nothing to do with tennis, but I’ve got the cricket on my second screen and they’re telling us about the Ruth Strauss Foundation. My eyeballs may be sweating, but Andrew Strauss: what a father, what a husband, what a man. Support him if you can.
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Continue reading...Updates from SW19 | Fritz has class to upset Alcaraz
Our players are out on Centre. Anisimova actually leads the head-to-head 5-3, so won’t be feart, but Sabalenka has won three of the last last four. My feeling is that she controls her power slightly better, but she’s also more prone to collapse and likely to be the less chill of the two.
I did not, I must say, expect Bencic to bin Andreeva yesterday. Partly, Bencic is someone on whose performance I’ve never felt able to rely, but mainly, I felt like Andreeva was ready to win – as much as anything because, for the first time, those were the vibes she and her coach were exuding. Which isn’t to say I expected her to, but I did think it’d take Swiatek or Sabalenka to stop her.
Continue reading...Tennis players have been sceptical about AI line judges – like they were when Cyclops was introduced 45 years ago
There was never a dull moment with Ilie Nastase. Walking across Centre Court before his first-round match at Wimbledon in 1980, the Romanian had his eyes firmly set on a box at the side of the court. He bent down to look at the device, the crowd tittering as he examined it. This was no ordinary box. It was a £2,000 machine installed to improve officiating and eliminate controversial decisions. But, just like the move away from line judges this year, not everyone was impressed.
Now for the science bit. Invented by Bill Carlton and Margaret Parnis in the late 1970s, the machines – for ever known as Cyclops – were only used on service line calls. Two boxes were set up either side of the service box backline on both sides of the net, one sending infrared lines across to the other. If any beams on the “out” side of the line were broken, a red light would show and a bleep would sound to the line judge, who sat beside the box wearing headphones. The official would shout “fault” as usual and everyone would happily accept the decision and move on. Well, that was the plan.
Continue reading...Latest updates as the fourth round begins at SW19
Also going on:
Good morrow one and all and welcome to Wimbledon 2025 – day seven!
Continue reading...Australian beats Italian Luciano Darderi 6-4 6-4 3-6 6-3
Battling veteran now faces No 5 seed Taylor Fritz
Jordan Thompson’s adventures at Wimbledon have continued with the wounded Australian storming into the fourth round of his favourite event for the first time in his career.
Still troubled by a debilitating back injury that had him protesting after his two previous courageous five-set wins that even “snails move faster”, Thompson looked in much sharper nick as he had too much grass-court nous for Italian Luciano Darderi in their third-round clash on Friday, prevailing 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
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Continue reading...Australian beats France’s Arthur Cazaux 4-6 6-2 6-4 6-0
No 1 says grass tournament is like a ‘second home slam’
Alex de Minaur has been left relieved to blast back from being a set down and avoid joining the legion of seeds who have already been scattered at this shock-laden Wimbledon.
In perfect sunny conditions on Thursday morning, Australia’s big hope brushed off a woeful first set against French qualifier Arthur Cazaux before regrouping, asserting his superiority and eventually prevailing 4-6 6-2 6-4 6-0 to ease into the third round again.
Continue reading...Australian beats Benjamin Bonzi 7-5, 6-7 (2-7), 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
He next meets Luciano Darderi, ranked No 59, or Arthur Fery
Jordan Thompson came into Wimbledon with a large box of painkillers, a thick black brace for his back, and a dream that somehow he would defy his body long enough to make an impact at the tournament he loves so much. Two titanic five-set matches later, the Sydneysider is still standing on the green lawns of SW19, just.
With Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt, the last Australian man to win at Wimbledon, watching on, Thompson beat Benjamin Bonzi 7-5, 6-7 (2-7), 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 in nine minutes shy of four hours. After Bonzi hit a return into the net on the second match point, Thompson let out a primal scream into the evening sky, smiled and pointed to his heart.
Continue reading...Kasatkina beats Emiliana Arango in one of four Australian wins on day two
Alex de Minaur, Aleksandar Vukic and Rinky Hijikata also victorious
Australia’s Wimbledon challenge has been reinvigorated after a disastrous opening day, with the national No 1s Daria Kasatkina and Alex de Minaur leading a four-win revival.
On another sweltering day in London on Tuesday, the pair raced into the second round by early afternoon and were joined by Aleksandar Vukic and Rinky Hijikata. Seven Australians had lost in Monday’s calamitous start, with only an injured Jordan Thompson battling through, but there’ll now be five in the last-64 draw.
Continue reading...Much-fancied 20th seed suffers opening day upset
Jordan Thompson brightens gloom for Australian contingent
One of Australia’s biggest Wimbledon hopes, Alexei Popyrin, has crashed out of tournament to a British player ranked No.461 in the world while only a wonderful trademark comeback from Jordan Thompson could rescue a poor start for the Australian contingent on the sun-drenched grass-court grand slam.
Big-serving Popyrin, the 20th seed and the biggest Australian men’s hope beyond Alex de Minaur, tumbled out to French-born English wildcard Arthur Fery 6-4 6-1 4-6 6-4 in one of the biggest upsets of the opening Monday.
Continue reading...Temperatures set to climb to 34C across much of England in one of hottest June days ever
This year’s Wimbledon tennis championships have begun with the hottest opening day on record, according to the Met Office.
Temperatures reached a provisional high of 29.7C (85.5F) at Kew Gardens in west London on Monday afternoon, surpassing the previous record of 29.3C set in June 2001.
Continue reading...Joint defeats Eala 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 for second WTA title
Pegula overcomes Swiatek in Bad Homburg Open final
Australia’s Maya Joint saved four match points before beating Alexandra Eala 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10) to win the Eastbourne title in a gripping final on Saturday.
Four times Eala, the first player from the Philippines to reach a WTA Tour final, was a point away from victory in the final-set tie-break but Joint dug deep to prevail. The 19-year-old showed tremendous resilience to stay alive and when she earned her second match point at 11-10 and made no mistake, drilling a backhand crosscourt winner.
Continue reading...A scrappy, smart defensive player in his formative years, a late growth spurt and shrewd coaching have honed the 23-year-old Briton into an opponent others now fear
Towards the end of 2018, a relatively unknown 16-year-old British tennis player took some of his first strides on the professional tennis circuit in a $15,000 (£11,000) tournament in Lagos, Nigeria on the ITF World Tennis Tour. Earlier that summer, Jack Draper had offered a glimpse into his considerable potential with a run to the Wimbledon boys’ final and his encouraging first tussles against adult opposition had earned him a modest ATP ranking of No 623. “I was very different then,” Draper says, smiling. “A bit of a maniac, to be honest.”
Those experiences were key in his development for various reasons. He ended that tournament by winning his third consecutive title, offering him more reason to believe he was on the right path. Along the way, he gained some essential perspective. “I’d have a wet [racket] grip, because it was so humid there. I’d put it in a bin and the kids were fighting over it. Just the energy from the people there, they were really passionate about tennis,” says Draper. “To go to those sorts of places was definitely … going from the UK and having a lot of, I guess, things given to me, it definitely helped the way I saw life.”
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