Santiago Gonzalez and Donald Young reached their first Grand Slam championship doubles final on Thursday at Roland Garros. The Mexican-American team battled hard to knock out Fernando Verdasco and Nenad Zimonjic 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-3 in two hours and 28 minutes for a place in Saturday’s title match. While Verdasco and Zimonjic clinched the first set, that saw early service breaks, it was Gonzalez and Young who had their 3-1 advantage clawed back in the second set. From 5-5 in the second set, the Mexican and American duo won five straight games to take a 3-0 lead in the decider. Zimonjic, who won the 2010 Roland Garros doubles title with Daniel Nestor, remains on 698 match wins. Gonzalez has an 11-7...
Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka will be the first to admit that much of their clay seasons didn’t meet their lofty standards, but they’ve raised their games at the right moment for a rematch on Friday at Roland Garros. Murray defeated the 2015 champion in four sets at this very round last year, but the rematch is one some tennis critics may not have predicted at the start of the fortnight. Murray arrived in Paris with a 4-4 record on clay this year and lost before the quarter-finals in three of his four events on the dirt. Dropping sets in his first two matches this fortnight to Andrey Kuznetsov and Martin Klizan didn’t do much to fuel optimism, but he...
It’s fitting that the biggest rivalry of this clay season will conclude on Court Philippe-Chatrier. Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem have already met three times in the past six weeks and will battle one more time on Friday for a spot in the Roland Garros final. There will be no surprises when they share the court once again. Both players have a healthy respect for each other and the weapons they bring to the court. Nadal acknowledged the Austrian’s power and that he “doesn’t give you a lot of options.” With his massive forehand, backhand and big serve, Thiem is one of very few players with the firepower to make life uncomfortable for Nadal on clay. Meanwhile, Thiem praised Nadal’s...
The abiding memory is of a stick-thin figure bedecked top-to-toe in yellow and blue, who unleashed explosive groundstrokes and a monotonous groan, which echoed around Stade Roland Garros, to wear down the best clay-court players the professional circuit had to offer. With each win as Gustavo Kuerten walked off court, came an infectious smile in acknowledgement of his growing legion of followers, to whom he became universally known as ‘Guga’. “To win Roland Garros was unbelievable,” Kuerten told ATPWorldTour.com, on the 20th anniversary of his win. “It’s become more absurd as the years have passed. Now I know how hard it is to win a Grand Slam, but back then I kept questioning, ‘What is this?’ and ‘How did I...
If you listen closely, you can hear the crunch of pristinely trimmed blades as players take to the grass courts of the Aegon Surbiton Trophy in suburban London this week. The grass-court season is here, and the fresh smell of carefully groomed lawns is in the air on the ATP Challenger Tour, with three weeks of tennis set to commence in England. The tournaments in Surbiton, Nottingham and Ilkley provide some of the more quaint and picturesque settings on the circuit, but which Challengers are held in the most scenic, breathtaking locales? We look at the 10 best, presented in alphabetical order by city... Kunming Challenger (Anning, China) One of two events in the Asia-Pacific region that feature on our...
