Andy Murray turns the big 3-0 on Monday, a cause for celebration throughout the tennis world. But to Murray, the nice, round birthday won't mean much. Don't misinterpret: The Scot isn't down in the dumps about saying goodbye to his 20s. He's just never been that into birthdays. “I was talking to my team about that a bit yesterday, and everyone sort of says, 'Oh, when you're 30 or 40, they are huge birthdays.' I have never found that with any birthday,” Murray said during his pre-tournament press conference in Rome on Sunday. Part of the reason: Murray has been away from home for the past 15 of them. The last time he remembers being near his loved ones for...
View FedEx ATP Head2Head for Sunday's final at the Mutua Madrid Open & vote for who you think will win! Nadal v Thiem [GROUP POLL]45[/GROUP POLL] One day after defeating Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal could tie his rival’s record by capturing his 30th ATP Masters 1000 championship on Sunday. Nadal bids for his fifth title in eight Mutua Madrid Open finals against first-time ATP Masters 1000 finalist Dominic Thiem. The Spaniard has swept 14 matches and 28 of 30 sets on clay this spring, including titles at Monte-Carlo and Barcelona. Though he lost to Nadal 6-4, 6-1 in the Barcelona final on April 30, Thiem has defeated him on clay before, rallying from match point down in the 2016 Buenos...
View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the following match-ups on Saturday at the Mutua Madrid Open & vote for who you think will win! Djokovic v Nadal | Thiem v Cuevas [GROUP POLL]44[/GROUP POLL] The Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal rivalry becomes the first in the Open Era to reach 50 matches when the living legends meet in the Mutua Madrid Open semi-finals on Saturday. Djokovic is 26-23 against Nadal, with win streaks of seven matches and 15 sets. Nadal has not taken a set off of Djokovic since the 2014 Roland Garros final, when the Spaniard secured his ninth title in Paris. Nadal is the greatest clay-court player of the Open Era with a 378-34 record on the surface (.917). However, he’s...
Top seed Andy Murray could face another early challenge from a #NextGenATP star at next week’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia. After falling to 20-year-old Croatian Borna Coric in Madrid this week, Murray is seeded to meet in-form German Alexander Zverev, the leader of the Emirates ATP Race To Milan, in the third round. The Rome draw has also thrown up brutal first-round clashes: Juan Martin del Potro, playing just his second match of the clay season, faces 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov. Nick Kyrgios and Roberto Bautista Agut, the two highest-ranked players not to be seeded, will do battle. And 39-year-old Tommy Haas plays 38-year-old Ivo Karlovic in the oldest-combined match since Vina del Mar in 1982, when Ricardo Cano (30) defeated...
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will both be looking to prove a point on Saturday when they meet for the 50th time in the semi-finals of the Mutua Madrid Open. While Djokovic leads 26-23 in their legendary FedEx ATP Head2Head series, the Serbian is searching for a return to the peak of his powers after a slow start to 2017. His last semi-final appearance came in January when he captured the Qatar ExxonMobil Open title, the 67th of his career. [GROUP POLL]44[/GROUP POLL] In contrast, Nadal is looking like the man to beat once again on European clay, having picked up his 10th title at both the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters and the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. He leads the ATP...
