Located in the heart of the French Riviera, immersed between Nice and Cannes, surrounded by flowing hilltops, is a new ATP Challenger Tour event that has impressed all involved. Sprawling across 30 acres of carefully planned landscape, the Mouratoglou Academy has hosted the inaugural Verrazzano Open. This is no ordinary event or location. The academy, founded by renowned coach Patrick Mouratoglou, offers world-class facilities; including 34 courts on differing surfaces, a 1000 seat centre court, a state of the art fitness centre, indoor and outdoor pools, a medical centre, and even a 4-star hotel on the grounds. This site could host the most prestigious tournaments, but at the same time can develop the stars of the future within the academy....
Damir Dzumhur, Bosnia-Herzogovina's No. 1, has gained Top 10 wins during the past 13 months against Stan Wawrinka, Tomas Berdych and Rafael Nadal. The 24-year-old Sarajevo native tells ATPWorldTour.com about how he got sick of playing Roger Federer, his first celebrity crush and why he decided to fly first class after the 2014 Australian Open. First moment I realised I loved tennis Maybe when I was 3 or 4. My dad was a tennis coach... I would go almost every day with him because I just liked it. No one was really pushing me. I wanted it. First coach and most important lesson he/she taught me My father... To always fight. I am trying to be a fighter. Sometimes I...
SERBIA 2, SPAIN 0 Aleksandar Nikolic Arena, Belgrade, Serbia (Indoor Hard) Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki pushed Serbia to a 2-0 lead in the Davis Cup quarter-finals against Spain on Friday. Djokovic improved to 3-0 in his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry against Albert Ramos-Vinolas with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win. The World No. 2 struck 10 aces and was nearly perfect on serve. The 29-year-old Djokovic erased the only break point he faced and won 88 per cent of his service points (70/80), including 93 per cent of his second-serve points (25/27). “I was especially happy with my serve. It was working very well today,” Djokovic said. “All in all, I’m very pleased. I'm very glad to play for my...
It had been more than a month since Craig Boynton had last seen Steve Johnson, and ordinarily, that wouldn't cause anything to be different in their coach-player relationship. But, then again, Johnson hadn't been living his usual life since the two had last connected, after the Paris Masters in November. Last November and December, Johnson underwent his most intense off-season to date. The American radically changed everything about his diet – what he ate, how much he ate, when he ate – and dropped 15 pounds off his 6'2” frame. Johnson, who had been wanting to drop the extra weight for years, weighed nearly 200 pounds when he and Boynton returned from Paris last November. The next time they saw...