Lleyton Hewitt (Retired: 21 January) Lleyton Hewitt had already completed his final lap around the ATP World Tour in 2015, capped by a second-round finish at the Citi Open in Washington, but the Aussie legend had one last goodbye reserved for his home fans at the Australian Open. The former World No. 1 – and youngest to ever ascend to the top spot at age 20 – drew the curtain on his storied career in his 20th successive trip to Melbourne Park, defeating James Duckworth in his opener, before falling to eighth seed David Ferrer. As expected, the 34-year-old Hewitt left it all out on the court, but Ferrer held off the Aussie’s challenge to claim victory in two hours...
The scoring system in tennis produces a powerful paradox where you can improve on a successful season even by winning fewer points per match on average. Players want to win every point, but only a slim majority is needed for victory. The stats sheets suggest that just a handful of points make a real difference in a match. Take for example Grigor Dimitrov’s resurgence this season. The 25-year-old Bulgarian had his second best year on the ATP World Tour, going 39-27 to improve his year-end Emirates ATP Ranking from No. 28 in 2015, to No. 17 in 2016. Surely, winning more points per match propelled this jump in the rankings. The answer? Yes and no. An Infosys ATP Beyond The...
Give us 10 minutes and we'll give you a fast-paced look at the 2016 ATP World Tour season. Here is part 1 of our two-part review of a dramatic season. Getty Images photo.
Next November, the ATP World Tour’s brightest young stars will take the stage in Milan for the Next Gen ATP Finals. Billed as the ‘Next Generation’ during the campaign launch this past March in Indian Wells, this group of players unleashed their potential in 2016. In total, 22 players aged 21 and under finished in the Top 200 of the Emirates ATP Rankings, including eight inside the Top 100. Continuing our season in review series, we look back on the 2016 campaigns of the top NextGen players. [ALSO LIKE] No. 13 Nick Kyrgios (21 years, 7 months) The Australian clinched a trio of titles in 2016 to place fifth among tour leaders behind Andy Murray (9), Novak Djokovic (7), Dominic...
You are serving, down break point. The initial element of a successful hold strategy is to make your first serve. You would think this would come naturally for the Top 20 players in the Emirates ATP Rankings – an innate ability to elevate their games in moments of crisis. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of 13,295 break points against Top 20 players in both the 2015 and 2016 seasons actually showed just the opposite, with this elite group struggling like players at all levels of the game to find new heights when they need them the most. Only four of the Top 20 in 2016 made more first serves down break point than they did on average during...