Players from the Balkans ruled Tuesday at the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow. Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina continued the best stretch of his career with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-2 win against Italian Thomas Fabbiano. The Sarajevo native went 18-3 from 31 July to 29 September, a stretch that included a number of milestones for the 25-year-old right-hander. Dzumhur reached his first ATP World Tour final at the Winston-Salem Open. He won his maiden title at the St. Petersburg Open. And in late September, he gained his second Top 10 win of the season, knocking off then-World No. 4 Alexander Zverev in the Shenzhen Open quarter-finals. Dzumhur, No. 38 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, will next meet Indian qualifier...
Portugal’s Joao Sousa recorded a historic milestone four years ago in Kuala Lumpur, when he became the first player from his country to win an ATP World Tour title. The 28 year old explains the importance of that moment and also shares various ‘firsts’ in this exclusive Q&A with ATPWorldTour.com. First moment I realised I love tennis That’s a tough one. Probably when I decided to go to Barcelona when I was 15. I realised that I really wanted to be a professional tennis player, that was my big dream, so I think it was that moment. First coach and most important lesson he taught me First coach was in my birth city, in Guimaraes, his name was Luis Coutinho....
Rafael Nadal has been forced to withdraw from next week’s Swiss Indoors Basel with knee soreness. The World No. 1 had reached back-to-back hard-court finals at the China Open (d. Kyrgios) and the Shanghai Rolex Masters (l. Federer) as part of a 16-match winning streak dating back to his 16th Grand Slam title at the US Open. The ATP World Tour 500 tournament released a statement Tuesday confirming the withdrawal: “After seeing his team doctor in Barcelona, the World No. 1 sadly had to pull out of the Swiss Indoors Basel. According to his doctors the Spaniard suffers from overstressing of the knee. The problems were already present at the tournament in Shanghai… His spot as top seed in Basel...
Three seeds — No. 6 Fabio Fognini, No. 7 Yuichi Sugita and No. 8 Fernando Verdasco — all got off to winning starts on Tuesday at the Intrum Stockholm Open. Italian Fognini, who picked up the Gstaad crown (d. Hanfmann) in July, opened his bid for a sixth ATP World Tour title by beating Malek Jaziri of Tunisia 7-5, 6-1 in 73 minutes. He now faces Swedish wild card Elias Ymer, who knocked out Argentine Leonardo Mayer, this year’s Hamburg titlist (d. F. Mayer), 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in two hours and eight minutes. [ALSO LIKE] Japan's Sugita lived to fight another day, withstanding 15 aces in a dramatic 1-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan over one hour...
ATP World Tour Uncovered presented by Peugeot go behind the scenes at the Shanghai Rolex Masters 2017, featuring interviews with Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Marin Cilic, Grigor Dimitrov and Steve Johnson.
