Fernando Verdasco entered his match on Monday evening at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. Clay Court Championship with a fine pedigree — both overall and on clay. The left-hander was just two tour-level wins away from No. 500 in his career, and he arrived in Houston with 213 victories on clay. His opponent, American Denis Kudla, had played just nine tour-level clay-court matches, winning only two. But that proved inconsequential as day turned to night on Centre Court, as the World No. 122 defeated 2014 Houston champion Verdasco, the World No. 36, 6-4, 7-6(4) to claim his best victory of the season by ATP Ranking. "I thought it was a great performance by me on the clay. I honestly did...
The 21-year-old American Ernesto Escobedo is looking to back up his semi-final run of a year ago at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship.
It all happened so fast for Ernesto Escobedo, maybe too fast. At the start of 2017, the American was No. 141 in the ATP Rankings. But after he reached his maiden ATP World Tour semi-final in Houston last April, he rose to No. 73, with his eyes peering toward the Top 50. Brad Gilbert, a former Top 5 player who coached Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, predicted Escobedo would qualify for the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, where eight of the world's best 21-and-under players competed last November. But Escobedo didn't reach the Top 50 or Milan. High expectations and a lack of focus caused the right-hander to finish outside the Top 100 of the 2017 year-end ATP...
The ATP World Tour’s only clay-court event in North America and the Tour's lone event in Africa take place this week at Houston and Marrakech, respectively. Twelve clay-court tournaments will be held over the next seven weeks leading into Roland Garros, with thousands of ATP Rankings points at stake. In Houston at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men's Clay Court Championship, top seed John Isner will attempt to back up his terrific performance to win the second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event of the year in Miami, while 2017 Monte-Carlo finalist and top seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas will look to start his clay-court stretch off on a high note, leading the field at the Grand Prix Hassan II in...
