Tennis Page 68 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Dominic Thiem Resists Clay Colossus Rafael Nadal, Ends 50-Set Streak
Rafael Nadal’s incomprehensible streak of consecutive sets won on clay has ended at 50. And it was ended by the last person to have scraped a set off him on the surface, a full 51 weeks ago: Dominic Thiem. The upset demanded huge hitting from the world No. 7, who has had a somewhat uninspired week...
Rafael Nadal Eats Clay Three Square Meals A Day And Also Has It For Dessert
Does Rafael Nadal live in clay? He may. Is it where he likes to play? Yea—he has owned it for his entire career, and that dominance was made even clearer two weeks ago when he finally took the record for most consecutive sets won on clay. Today he claimed his 21st straight victim on the red stuff, a...
Gael Monfils Loses Rackets To Airline Mishap, Loses Match To Inferior Opponent<em></em>
This week at the Munich Open, the Frenchman Gael Monfils was due to play his first match since that “back injury” at Indian Wells. Getting to Germany was the first step. That should be the easy part, since the dude lives in Switzerland. But on an April 28 flight from Geneva to Munich, Monfils learn...
Stupid Tennis Beef Inspires Threat: "I'll Remember This"
Sample some cheap, greasy tennis beef from today’s Barcelona Open quarterfinal. Down 2-4 in a second-set tiebreak, Grigor Dimitrov delivered a first serve to Pablo Carreño Busta. There was no word from the linespeople or umpire. Nor was there any peep from Carreño Busta; he hit the ball back and wal...
Rafa Is Somehow Still Setting New Records On Clay
Today, playing at the Barcelona Open, a tournament he has won 10 times, on a court officially named “Pista Rafa Nadal,” Rafael Nadal won his 39th and 40th consecutive sets on clay. This extends an Open Era–record for consecutive sets on clay courts, per the ATP, that Nadal first set last Sunday in t...
Congrats To The Tennis Integrity Unit Investigator Who Used "Tsunami" To Describe The Level Of Cheating In The Sport
An independent review panel tasked with evaluating corruption and match fixing in professional tennis, mostly in the lower levels of the sport, has finally released a report that essentially says there is a whole lot of corruption and match-fixing in professionl tennis, mostly in the lower levels of...
Rafa Is About To Do This All Over Again, Isn't He?
Enter Dominic Thiem, the dull boy who is good on dirt. For all his fits elsewhere, the Austrian has mastered clay, a surface that slows things down enough for his deep court positioning, thumping strokes, and one-track mind. He’s the only player who can justifiably hold any ember of hope when facing...
It's Impossible To Take A Bad Photo At The Monte Carlo Masters<em></em>
Novak Djokovic lost today to Dominic Thiem. It went three sets. Nice match. Wouldn’t have been able to pay much attention had I watched it from the stands. The Monte Carlo Masters is the prettiest sporting event on Earth: rich clay, clean skies, jewel seas. Take in this visual feast prepared by Gett...
Novak Djokovic Is Alive Again
If the 2017 season marked the sudden, vague decline of Novak Djokovic, the early 2018 season was him bottoming out. He showed up in Monte Carlo this week with a 3-3 record, having not won a match since January. In March, he lost two straight matches. He hadn’t even lost two—let alone three—matches i...
Tennis Player Screams In Chair Umpire's Face During Overgrown Tantrum
American Jared Donaldson all but stamped his foot while screeching at the chair umpire about a serve that was called in during the second set of his first-round Monte Carlo match against Albert Ramos-Viñolas....
Rafael Nadal Might Have To Stop Picking His Butt Before Every Serve At The U.S. Open
The U.S. Open is getting strict about the time allowed between points, saying that there will be a “serve clock” of 25 seconds during the matches at this year’s event, according to the New York Times....
Part-Time Tennis Man Beats World No. 34 In Triumph Of The Everyman
It’s been two full years since Lamine Ouahab played a match in the main draw of an ATP tournament. Even his appearance at lower levels of competition has been sporadic; the 33-year-old has been “seemingly competing only part time,” per Sport360. If you’d tuned in at any point in today’s first-round ...
Novak Djokovic Seems Salty About How Things Ended With Coach Andre Agassi
Over the weekend, Andre Agassi, who joined forces with 12-time grand slam winner Novak Djokovic last May in order to help the Serb get out of a deep slump, announced the two had parted ways....
The Banana Has What It Takes To Defeat Gatorade
Midway through her first-round match at the Australian Open this year, world No. 10 CoCo Vandeweghe refused to return to the court until someone brought her a banana....
Sloane Stephens's Slump Is Over, Now Can She Win Miami?
Sloane Stephens is in her first final, at the Miami Open, since winning the U.S. Open last summer. That’s especially significant, considering this tournament is the first time she’s strung together more than two wins in a row since that grand slam victory. (She won two and only two rounds at Acapul...
Juan Martin Del Potro Is No Longer A Hypothetical<em></em><em></em>
Many years could have been the year of Juan Martin del Potro. So many of them weren’t....
The Kyrgios-Zverev Rivalry May Not Be So Much Fun After All
Almost one year ago to the day, Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Zverev had themselves a beautiful baby: a match-long highlight reel starring two ornery geniuses. That was a different time: Kyrgios had embarked on a focused tear through Indian Wells and Miami, playing as well as he ever has; Zverev was ab...
Tennis Players Squabble Over The Identity Of One Guy's Father: "That's My Fucking Dad"
The Miami Open’s feisty this year. A few days after Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas were entangled in some midmatch tennis toilet beef, Fernando Verdasco and Thanasi Kokkinakis generated some juicy dad beef....
Caroline Wozniacki Says Unruly Fans Threatened Her And Her Family During Miami Open
Monica Puig came roaring back after a dispiriting first set to beat Caroline Wozniacki, 0-6 6-4 6-4, in a Friday Round of 64 match at the Miami Open. Highlights make it seem like the crowd was broadly pro-Puig, which makes sense—Puig is American, by way of Puerto Rico, and lives in Miami, whereas Wo...
BBC Makes Shirtless Andy Murray And Geri Halliwell Sing Spice Girls Songs In Bed
This video of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, along with excessively cheery host Michael McIntyre, prompting Andy Murray to fill in the blanks on Spice Girls songs is so weird and delightful....