STARS
Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal 6-4 6-4 to win the men’s singles at the Internazional BNL d’Italia in Rome, Italy
Maria Sharapova beat Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-4 to win the women’s singles at the Internazional BNL d’Italia in Rome, Italy
Marc Gicquel beat Horacio Zeballos 6-2 6-4 to win the BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux Challenger in Bordeaux, France
Magdalena Rybarikova beat Petra Kvitova 6-3 6-4 to win the Sparta Prague Open in Prague, Czech Republic
SAYING
“He is the king of clay and he is the best player ever to play on this surface. I have won against him twice in the last eight days which I think is incredible, an incredible achievement for me, and he has given me a lot of confidence for the French Open. This is only a couple of tournaments this year and he has since been dominant on this surface for so many, many years.” – Novak Djokovic, after beating Rafael Nadal to win the Internazional BNL d’Italia men’s singles.
“I am not disappointed about my match and I am not sad tonight. We will try next time. I have been doing everything that I can, so I cannot ask myself more. I am trying and I am doing very well, but one player is doing better than me.” – Rafael Nadal, following his second straight loss to Novak Djokovic.
“It’s been a while since I’ve won a title. I’m sure I wasn’t the favorite, so to be the champion and beat players who have had great results on clay means a lot to me. This is just the beginning of many things to come.” – Maria Sharapova, after winning her first premier level clay court title.
“Going down 4-0 is not the start you want against Maria. In the second set I had a few opportunities but unfortunately I wasn’t able to take those and the match was over.” – Samantha Stosur, after losing to Maria Sharapova in the final at Rome.
“There’s no reason to panic, but I should have never lost this match. It‘s kind of annoying. Richard played better as the match went on and my level went down. I never thought I‘d win the (third-set) breaker, it‘s not fun to play that way. I had multiple chances but I couldn’t make the difference.” – Roger Federer, after losing to Richard Gasquet in Rome.
“I’m doing my best to see if I can still play at the top level of the game, and it’s fun. I think I can play at the top level, I’ve won seven or eight matches at the tour level already this year. I do want to get back to the tour level, but it’s always a great reminder to appreciate what you have.” – James Blake, who has been playing Challenger events in Florida, winning one tournament, as he attempts yet another comeback.
“It’s a big title for us before the French Open and it definitely gives us a lot of confidence going into Roland Garros. I didn’t know it was my 25th doubles final, but that’s really exciting for me. I try to treat every match the same and not worry about the numbers.” – Zheng Jie, who teamed with Peng Shuai to win the women’s doubles in Rome.
“I don’t know how long the break will be. I don’t want to torture myself and my body any longer. I want to take as much time to recover, so I don’t have any regrets at the end of my career.” – Dinara Safina, announcing she is taking an indefinite break from tennis.
STREAKING SERB
“I was amazed by the way I played,” Novak Djokovic said after defeating Rafael Nadal on clay for the second straight week and extending his unbeaten streak this year to 37 matches. No one is surprised anymore by Djokovic, who is now just five matches short of equaling John McEnroe’s 42-0 record start of a year. One week after beating Nadal for the first time on clay in the Madrid Open, Djokovic did it again, claiming the Rome Masters title 6-4 6-4. “This was maybe my best performance on clay courts to beat the best man in the world in straight sets.” The start of the men’s final was delayed by rain. It only delayed his second straight victory over the man many, including her Serbian conqueror, consider the man to beat at Roland Garros. “Let’s get one thing straight – he’s still the king of clay,” Djokovic said of Nadal. “He’s the best person ever on these courts. Winning twice in the last week is a great achievement and gives me confidence coming up to France, but he has been so dominant over the years.” Nadal, however, disagrees. “He’s playing the best right now,” Nadal said of Djokovic. “In the last few months he’s been at a different level. He’s doing amazing things. He’s playing with a lot of confidence. I’m the second in the race. My goal is to be there the next time.”
SHARAPOVA SHINES
It was her first title in a year, yet Maria Sharapova showed she has to be considered one of the favorites for the French Open – the only Grand Slam tournament she hasn’t won. The former world number one crushed Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-4 to win the Italian Open in commanding style. In the semifinals, the Russian beat top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki. “I may not be the best mover or best slider on clay, or the strongest player with the strongest legs, but there’s a lot more than that in tennis,” said Sharapova, who won her third WTA clay court title but first at the Premier level. It was her 23rd career title and first in Rome. The winner took 14 of the first 15 points to race to a 4-0 lead. The Australian, playing in her first final since Roland Garros a year ago, never had an answer to Sharapova’s power game. “I was ready from the first point and wanted to be aggressive. I tried to take that start away from her,” said Sharapova. Stosur blamed her performance on her ailing health. “I wasn’t feeling very well when I woke up this morning,” she said. “Then going down 4-0 is not the start you want against Maria.”
SITE UNKNOWN
Julie Cohen plans on playing tennis the week of May 23. The only question is where. Ranked 169th in the world, the American hopes she will be playing in the women’s singles at Roland Garros as a qualifier. But just in case she doesn’t make the main draw of the year’s second Grand Slam tournament, Cohen has her bases covered all around the world. Literally. She is entered into USD $25,000 tournaments in Bangkok, Thailand; Changwon, South Korea; Grado, Italy; Itaparica, Brazil, and Niigata, Japan, as well as a USD $50,000 event in Carson, California, USA. She would rather be playing Paris, but has her choice of tournaments just in case.
SENT TO HOSPITAL
Tennis legend Ken Rosewall was listed in good condition after being hospitalized in Rome after “suffering a suspected disturbance of the brain circuit,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The 76-year-old Rosewall did not suffer any heart or brain damage, the Herald quoted his wife, Wilma, as saying. Rosewall and his wife were in Rome to attend the annual Golden Racquet dinner put on by the Italian Tennis Federation to honor great players. In his career, Rosewall won eight Grand Slam tournament singles titles, but never Wimbledon, where he was runner-up three times – in 1956 to Lew Hoad, in 1970 to John Newcombe and in 1974 to Jimmy Connors. At 35 years, 10 months, Rosewall in 1970 was the oldest player to win the US Open. Two years later, at the age of 37 years, 2 months, he won his fourth Australian Open title. He may be kept in the hospital for 10 days for observation.
SISTERS STAND DOWN
For the first time since the 2003 US Open, there will be a Grand Slam tournament played with neither of the Williams sisters in the draw. The 30-year-old Venus Williams withdrew from the French Open because of continuing abdominal injury she suffered during a match at the Australian Open in January. Venus pulled out of the clay court event one day after her younger sister, Serena, said she still hadn’t fully recovered from a series of injuries and illnesses that have kept her from playing since she won Wimbledon a year ago. Serena has had two operations on her foot operation and a blood clot scare since last July.
STAYING HOME
A virus will keep Argentina’s David Nalbandian from playing in the French Open later this month. Once ranked as high as third in the world, Nalbandian underwent surgery on a hernia and torn leg muscle in March and hoped to be ready for Roland Garros. But the Argentine, who twice reached the semifinals of the clay court classic, is sidelined by the virus.
SEMIFINAL MONEY
When Andy Roddick pulled out of the doubles final, citing a right shoulder injury, that gave the Internazionali BNL d’Italia title to fellow Americans John Isner and Sam Querrey. When Roddick and partner Mardy Fish were paid semifinal money, Roddick exploded. “We’re going to have to beg for the money we’ve earned,” Roddick said. “Why should Mardy be punished when I can’t play? Mardy has played the (semifinal) match, he won the match, he earned the money. You can’t take away something he has already done.” The Times of London newspaper reported that the ATP docked Roddick and Fish USD $31,400 after they pulled out of the final so three of the players could catch a flight to Düsseldorf, Germany, for World Team Cup, where organizers were allegedly threatening sanctions if they did not turn up in time to play. Fish, Isner and Querrey are representing the United States in Düsseldorf, while Roddick is playing singles only in the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur in Nice, France. “This is embarrassing for the tour,” Roddick said of the decision to award only semifinal money. “The ATP people said they could not make a unilateral decision so I either take a chance with the appeal process or I played with a shoulder that didn’t give us much chance of winning and had a risk for the future. I would have had to play the full match. I asked if I played a point and then withdrew what would happen and they said the same thing, so it would have been an hour mockery as opposed to a five-minute mockery.” Isner and Querrey received the winner’s purse. The ATP adopted the rule to deter players from abandoning doubles matches without good cause.
SIDELINED
To conserve energy, the women’s competition at the Japan Open tennis tournament has been canceled. However, the country’s two biggest tennis events – the Pan Pacific Open and the Japan Women’s Open, will not be affected by the power-saving measures and will be held as planned. The tier one Pan Pacific Open begins on September 25, while the Japan Women’s Open starts October 10 in Osaka. The Japan Open men’s tournament, which will be headlined by world number one Rafael Nadal, from October 3-9, will also go ahead as scheduled. “The women’s event at the Japan Open, at the same time Nadal is in Tokyo, has been called off to save on electricity,” the Pan Pacific Open’s Atsuko Isoyama said. “The Pan Pacific Open is set to go on as scheduled but we’re currently looking at the available data and examining ways to cut down on the use of electricity.” Sports events across Japan have been plunged into chaos since the deadly 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11, which devastated large swathes of the country’s northeast. The disaster left 28,000 people dead or missing, while the massive tsunami triggered by the quake knocked out a nuclear power plant some 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo. Professional baseball and soccer, Japan’s two biggest spectator sports, postponed the start of their seasons and have been ordered to conserve energy amid the power crisis. The world figure skating championships was the first casualty of the disaster, being moved from Tokyo to Moscow, while the Japanese capital may also lose the world gymnastics championships in October.
SORENSEN RETIRES
Just months after reaching the high point of his career, Louk Sorensen of Ireland has retired from tennis. In January, Sorensen won three rounds of qualifying and then upset Taiwan’s Lu Yen Hsun in the opening round of the Australian Open, the only man from Ireland to win a main draw match at a major in the Open era. But Sorensen suffered a knee injury six weeks ago and has missed Ireland’s last two Davis Cup matches. Born in Germany, Sorenson was the son of a former Irish Davis Cup captain. He retires holding a 10-2 Davis Cup singles record, having made his debut in July 2005. “Louk has had a really impressive Davis Cup career to date and he is a proven match winner in international competition,” Ireland’s Davis Cup captain Gary Cahill said. “Louk’s retirement is a huge blow for the team.”
SAFINA RETIRING?
Laid low by a chronic back pain, Dinara Safina is taking an indefinite break from tennis, a break that could end in her retiring from the sport. The 25-year-old Safina told the Russian daily Sport Express that she will miss the upcoming French Open where she has twice been a finalist. The sister of retired two-time Grand Slam tournament winner Marat Safin, Safina reached number one in the WTA rankings in 2009, the year she reached the French Open final for the second time and also the Australian Open. Yet she never won a Grand Slam tournament title. Because of persistent back problems, Safina missed most of 2010 and dropped out of the world’s top 20. She has lost her first-round matches in each of the last three Grand Slam tournaments she has entered, ending in a 6-0 6-0 drubbing by Kim Clijsters at the Australian Open in January. “At the moment I can’t do anything tennis-wise,” she said. “When I can do certain moves without feeling lots of pain, then I would consider resuming my training.” She won the last of her 12 career titles in 2009.
SIGNED UP
Former Wimbledon champion and world number one Lleyton Hewitt will prepare for this year’s grass court Grand Slam tournament by playing at Eastbourne. Also confirmed for Eastbourne is Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. “I’m excited to be playing in Eastbourne for the first time,” said Hewitt, who won Wimbledon in 2002. His one title last year came on grass in Halle, Germany, another Wimbledon warm-up tournament. The joint WTA and ATP tournament starts on June 12, eight days prior to the opening day of Wimbledon.
STEPPING UP
Portugal and Bosnia/Herzegovina earned promotions to Fed Cup Group I for next year. The two nations secured their promotions by winning the Europe/Africa Zone Group II event in Cairo, Egypt. Morocco and Armenia were relegated to 2012 Europe/Africa Group III.
In Europe/Africa Zone Group III play, also in Cairo, South Africa and Montenegro won promotion promoted to Group II next year.
In Davis Cup Europe Zone Group III, played in Skopje, Macedonia, Turkey and Moldova won promotion to Europe/Africa Zone Group II for 2012.
STUFF OF CHAMPIONS
In just their fourth tournament together, Peng Shuai and Zheng Jie won one of the biggest doubles titles on the WTA calendar, the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. The Chinese pair were unseeded, but knocked off the fourth-seeded team of Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond in the second round and the eighth-seeded team of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and Anabel Medina Garrigues in the quarterfinals. Peng and Zheng played their best tennis in the final where they stopped the third-seeded team of Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-2 6-3, winning the final five games of the match. “We haven’t been playing together very long but we’ve gotten to know each other and our games better this year, and we’re really happy to win such a big title here in Rome,” Peng said. “We’ll be playing the French Open together, then Birmingham and Wimbledon, and we’ll see what happens after that.” Zheng had won two Grand Slam tournament doubles titles, both with Yan Zi.
SALE
Anna Kournikova’s mansion in Miami Beach, Florida, USA, is reportedly up for sale. The asking price is USD $9.4 million. The 6,630-square-foot waterfront home comes with seven bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, a sauna, a pool, a dock and a two-story guest house. The market description reportedly says it is “perfect for outdoor entertaining.” There reportedly is no tennis court on the property.
SWITCHING SPORTS
NBA star Dirk Nowitzki could be swapping his basketball for a racquet this summer. A former junior tennis champion, Nowitzki has registered to play league tennis for German club TG Wuerzburg, near Frankfurt, in the second division of a local league. The 32-year-old German, who played a big role in the Dallas Mavericks’ 4-0 drubbing of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs, has been keeping up to date on how his future tennis teammates are getting on via SMS messages. “Dirk wants to play. He is very eager to be here,” Nowitzki’s potential tennis teammate Roland Mayer told local newspaper the Main Post. The NBA season is not set to finish until June 16, but his potential teammates are hoping Nowitzki’s schedule will allow him to play tennis.
STRAIGHT IN
Veteran Arnaud Clement has been given a wild card into this year’s French Open singles draw, along with Americans Irina Falconi and Tim Smyczek, Australia’s Casey Dellacqua and Bernard Tomic, and French players Benoit Paire, Maxime Eixeira, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Guillaume Rufin, Vincent Millot, Pauline Parmentier, Caroline Garcia, Kristina Mladenovic, Iryna Bremond and Stephanie Foretz-Gacon.
SPEAKING UP
Broadcaster Mary Carillo is joining Tennis Channel for the French Open and US Open. Besides doing some play-by-play at the French Open, which begins May 22 in Paris, Carillo’s duties will include hosting the cable network’s coverage of the year’s second Grand Slam tournament. She will work with analyst John McEnroe, who was her partner in 1977 when they won the French Open mixed doubles title. She will conduct interviews, offer perspective and analysis and will have wide latitude to produce in-depth, human interest stories. “Tennis Channel just continues to impress everyone with the passion and knowledge they bring to covering this sport, and I really wanted to be a part of that,” Carillo said. “I’ve done things with them several times in the past but never as a member of their broadcast team. It will be great to get going with them at the French Open and contribute to the quality of work they’re producing.” In addition, the Tennis Channel team includes Martina Navratilova, Lindsay Davenport, Justin Gimelstob, Corina Morariu and Bill Macatee.
SPONSOR
Esurance, the direct-to-consumer car insurance provider, has extended and expanded its sponsorship of the US Open. Focusing on elevating the fan experience and the US Open’s Green Initiative, Esurance began its US Open sponsorship in 2010, and the company will remain a sponsor of the event through 2012. The partnership with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) includes media support of tournament television broadcasts, an on-site presence, and a relationship with USOpen.org, the official website of the US Open. The car insurance company is also one of the presenting sponsors of live match streaming on USOpen.org. Additionally, Esurance will sponsor four Olympus US Open Series events leading up to America’s Grand Slam in New York, including the Atlanta Men’s Tournament in Atlanta, Georgia; the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, California; the Winston-Salem Open in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and the New Haven Open at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut.
SPONSORLESS, FOR NOW
Bank Austria has pulled out as main sponsor of the annual Tennis Trophy tournament, but organizers say the ATP Tour event in Vienna, Austria, will continue to be played. Tournament director Herwig Straka said the bank’s decision “has emerged over the past couple of weeks and has not come as a surprise to us. We have started talks with other potential sponsors immediately.” Straka hopes to present a new sponsor “within a few weeks” for the 37th edition of the indoor hard-court event, which will be held in October. Bank Austria chief executive Willi Cernko said his company pulled out after the tournament venue Wiener Stadthalle announced a sponsorship deal with one of Bank Austria’s main business rivals, Erste Bank.
SHARED PERFORMANCES
Bordeaux: Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray beat Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut 7-5 6-3
Prague: Petra Cetkovska and Michaella Krajicek beat Lindsay Lee-Waters and Megan Moulton-Levy 6-2 6-1
Rome (men): John Isner and Sam Querrey beat Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish, walkover (Roddick – right shoulder)
Rome (women): Peng Shuai and Zheng Jie beat Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-2 6-3
SURFING
Brussels: www.wta-brusselsopen.com/
Strasbourg: www.internationaux-strasbourg.fr/
Dusseldorf: www.world-team-cup.com/
Nice: www.opennicecotedazur.com/
Bogota: www.tennissegurosbolivar.com
Sao Paulo: www.grandchampionsbrasil.com.br
Prostejov: www.czech-open.com/
Paris: www.fft.fr/rolandgarros/
TOURNAMENTS THIS WEEK
(All money in USD)
MEN
$1,187,000 Power Horse World Team Cup, Dusseldorf, Germany, clay
$501,000 Open de Nice Cote d’Azur, Nice, France, clay
WOMEN
$618,000 Brussels Open by GDF Suez, Brussels, Belgium, clay
$220,000 Internationaux de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France, clay
FED CUP
Group II Americas at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, hard: Bahamas, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
SENIORS
Seguros Bolivar Tennis Champions, Bogota, Colombia, hard
TOURNAMENTS NEXT WEEK
MEN and WOMEN
Roland Garros, Paris, France, clay (first week)
SENIORS
Grand Champions Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, clay