Can you identify this Roland Garros dark horse? He is an impressive 15-5 so far in this year’s clay-court swing, including ATP World Tour qualifying and main-draw matches. During the run, he has defeated seven Top 50 players, including four in the Top 20 and two in the Top 10. He reached the final at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, an ATP World Tour 500 event, but is still yet to celebrate his 20th birthday. He is at a career-high No. 39 in the ATP Rankings, so he is not yet on most people’s radar to go deep at Roland Garros. That needs to change. He is the in-form 19-year-old Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. [ALSO LIKE] An Infosys ATP Beyond The...
#NextGenATP now? Denis Shapovalov, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz all meet the #NextGenATP age qualification by being born in 1997 or later, and they're all looking like they'll qualify for the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held 6-10 November in Milan. The four, in that order, top the ATP Race To Milan, which will determine seven of the eight players who compete in Milan. For the second consecutive year, the eighth player will be determined by an all-Italian qualifying tournament. [ALSO LIKE] But just because they're #NextGenATP doesn't mean they haven't been thriving on the ATP World Tour now. The quartet all have posted career-best results during this clay-court swing, and all four look ready to...
Following the success of the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan in 2017, the second edition of the tournament, taking place at Fiera Milano from November 6-10, will continue to trial a best-of-five set format, shorter sets to 4 (tie-break at 3-All), No-Ad scoring, and No-Lets, the ATP announced on Tuesday at a press conference at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome. Other innovations such as Electronic Line Calling through Hawk-Eye Live, a 25-second Shot Clock, In-Match player coaching via head-sets will also be back for the second edition. The player warm-up will be reduced by a further minute (from 5 minutes to 4 minutes) from the second player walk-on, while players will be instructed to use a towel...
Stefanos Tsitsipas, who reached his fourth ATP World Tour quarter-final in Barcelona on Thursday, is only 19 years old, a leading candidate to qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, where eight of the world's best 21-and-under players will compete from 6-10 November. But the 6'3” right-hander is also leading his entire country. For nearly everything the Greek achieves on the ATP World Tour, he becomes the 'first' or the first in decades' time from Greece to celebrate the milestone. Last October, Tsitsipas became the first Greek to enter the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings and the first Greek semi-finalist (2017 Antwerp) in 44 years (Kalogeropoulos, 1973 Des Moines). And after his start to the European clay-court...
This time, Taylor Fritz feels as if it can last. Two years ago, Fritz, then 18, became “The Next Big Thing” on the ATP World Tour. He reached the Memphis Open final, becoming the youngest American to make a tour-level title match since 17-year-old Michael Chang won 1989 Wembley. Months after, Fritz made the quarter-finals of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC in Acapulco, an ATP World Tour 500 event. “The Next Big Thing” seemed like he was here to stay. But he couldn't produce it week after week, and his ATP Ranking, which had risen to No. 53 in August 2016, fell to No. 135 last June. This year, Fritz is on the rise again, but he's confident...
