Tsitsipas tops Garin in 3 sets in first action at Miami Open

Associated PressMar 27, 2023, 8:40 PM EDT

Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas beat Chilean qualifier Cristian Garin 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 at the Miami Open, the Greek’s first on-court action after a bye and walkover in the opening rounds.

In women’s competition, 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada left the court in a wheelchair due to a lower left leg injury in the second set of her night match against 18th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova. There was no immediate word on the nature of the 22-year-old’s injury or its severity.

Andreescu was trailing in the match when, moving across the baseline, she fell to the court, clutching her lower left leg and screaming. A short time later, she was wheeled off to a standing ovation.

Andreescu had dropped the first set 7-6 (7) and was mounting a comeback, winning the first two games of the second set when she was forced to retire, allowing Alexandrova to advance.

Earlier in the day, Tsitsipas had 12 aces in his first victory since an opening-round win in Rotterdam over Emil Ruusuvuori in mid-February. He ran his record to 3-0 against Garin, who was attempting to become the first Chilean player to reach the fourth round in Miami since Fernando Gonzalez in 2010.

After losing the first set, Garin won eight straight points late in the second to force a decisive third. Tsitsipas had a critical break at 4-all in the final set and advanced.

Tsitsipas, who withdrew from Acapulco due to a shoulder injury and lost in the opening round in Indian Wells, overcame 21 unforced errors in his first match of the tournament.

“I was waiting for a very long time to get out and play,” Tsitsipas said, according to the ATP Tour website. “It has almost felt like a vacation this past week, staying in Miami. I’m glad I got started. It was a difficult match against an opponent who has played good tennis against good opponents in the past.

“I am happy with the way things turned around and my confidence towards the end. I had an eye-on-the-prize attitude and it was effective with how I played in the last game when he was serving.”

Tsitsipas will take on Karen Khachanov, who eased past Czech Jiri Lehecka 6-2, 6-4, in a round-of-16 match on Tuesday.

In other action, Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina surprised sixth-ranked and fifth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada 6-2, 7-5. Cerundolo, a semifinalist in Miami last year, has faced Auger-Aliassime in third-round matches of every ATP Masters 1000 or Grand Slam event this year – all won by the Canadian.

Cerundolo said he fed off the energy of the crowd.

“Super happy to get another top-10 win, another important win for me,” he said. “I think I played really good from beginning to end. Super nice to play here. A lot of Argentinian, Latin people. … Last year was amazing. So I’m really excited to be in the round of 16 again and try to keep winning.”

Cerundolo advanced to face Italy’s Lorenzo Soneog, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over No. 12 seed Frances Tiafoe in one of the night matches slowed by a nearly two-hour rain delay.

American Chris Eubanks also endured the nearly two-hour delay on the way to a milestone win over Frenchman Gregoire Barrere 6-3, 7-6 (9). He rallied from a 2-6 deficit in the second set and piled up a 12-1 edge in aces in the win. With the victory, the 26-year-old Eubanks, a two-time All-American at Georgia Tech, was assured of moving into the top 100 when the new rankings are released Monday.

Also on Monday, Quentin Halys of France eliminated American Mackenzie McDonald 7-6 (7), 6-3. Halys will face fourth-seeded Daniil Medvedev, who advanced in a walkover. Adrian Mannarino of France beat Hubert Hurkacz of Poland 7-6 (7), 7-6 (7) and will take on Eubanks on Tuesday.

In other women’s action, world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus defeated Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic in straight sets in a match that started at 10:45 p.m. because of the two-hour rain delay. Sabalenka prevailed 6-3, 6-2 for her 20th win of the year and will face Sorana Cirstea in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.

American Jessica Pegula, the No. 3 seed, dispatched Poland’s Magda Linette 6-1, 7-5. Pegula advanced to face 27th-seeded Anastasia Potapova, a 6-4, 7-6 (7) winner over Qinwen Zheng, in Tuesday’s quarterfinals.

The 29-year-old Pegula raced to a five-game lead in the opening set against Linette and then found herself tied at 5-all in the second set before closing out the win.

“I think after 5-2, I don’t know what I was doing,” she said. “It was, like … The changeover before that I switched racquets because I thought maybe the ball was flying on me a little bit. It didn’t feel very good. Switched back to the old racquet and I won the next five games.

“I don’t know why that happened, but sometimes it does. I was mad at myself that I switched racquets in the first place because it was only one break. But we got through that little mental battle I had with myself, and I was able to play very well.”

In a fourth-round matches, 10th-seeded Elena Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion who won the title at Indian Wells last weekend, fired off 10 aces and made short work of Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-4, 6-3. Rybakina will face Martina Trevisan of Italy in the quarterfinals.

Trevisan eliminated Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-3.

Also, Petra Kvitova beat Varvara Gracheva 7-5, 7-6 (7) and advanced to face Alexandrova in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Cirstea topped Marketa Vondrousova 7-6 (7), 6-4.

Djokovic enters French Open with chance to top absent Nadal with record 23rd Slam title

Associated PressMay 27, 2023, 3:27 PM EDT

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PARIS — For quite some time, Novak Djokovic made his long-term goal clear: He wanted to focus on accumulating Grand Slam titles in order to surpass the totals of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

With the French Open set to start without either Nadal (who is injured) or Federer (who is retired) for the first time since 1998, Djokovic finally gets the chance to lead the career standings alone with a men’s-record 23. If he winds up with the championship two weeks from now, Djokovic would break a tie with Nadal and have three more trophies than Federer finished with.

“It’s no secret that one of the main reasons I play today and compete in professional tennis is to try to break more records and make more history in tennis,” Djokovic said. “That’s extremely motivating and inspiring for me.”

His current collection of 22 majors – two at Roland Garros, in 2016 and 2021; three at the U.S. Open; seven at Wimbledon and 10 at the Australian Open, including this January – means he owns 16 more than the other 127 men in the bracket in Paris combined. Stan Wawrinka won three, while Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Dominic Thiem have one apiece.

“Grand Slams are a different tournament, a different sport, in a way, because you’re playing best-of-five (sets), you are playing in the most important tournaments in the world,” said Djokovic, a 36-year-old from Serbia, “and the experience is on my side.”

It’s why when other players are asked who enters as the favorite in Nadal’s absence, they often mention two names: Alcaraz, who is ranked No. 1 and is 20-2 with a tour-high three titles on red clay in 2023, and Djokovic, who is just 5-3 this season on the surface used at the French Open.

Why point to Djokovic?

“Because Novak has won so many times,” said Casper Ruud, the runner-up to Nadal at Roland Garros and to Alcaraz at the U.S. Open last year. “This year’s clay season has been maybe not what he expected, but I’m sure he has good confidence in myself.”

Djokovic, for his part, pronounced the 20-year-old Alcaraz as “the biggest favorite,” citing “the last few months, and the kind of shape and the form that he’s having – and that I’m having.”

Djokovic is ranked No. 3 and could meet Alcaraz only in the semifinals.

The player with a chance to become the only man in tennis history with at least three titles from each major also mentioned several other contenders, including Ruud, Daniil Medvedev, Holger Rune, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev and Jannik Sinner.

Djokovic was in something of a contemplative mood on the eve of the event, explaining how much harder things are on his body at this age and that he views each Slam tournament he competes in nowadays “like a present” (leaving aside any discussion of majors he missed because he didn’t get vaccinated against COVID-19).

His most heartfelt comments came when he was asked about Nadal, the 14-time champion in Paris who has been sidelined since January with a hip injury.

After beginning with a joke that made reference to Nadal’s 8-2 edge head-to-head at Roland Garros – “Honestly, I don’t miss him being in the draw, you know” – Djokovic turned more serious.

He reflected on their intertwined paths and said he got emotional when hearing Nadal say 2024 probably will be his final year on tour.

“He’s my biggest rival. When he announced that he’s going to have his last season of his career, I felt part of me is leaving with him, too, if you know what I mean,” Djokovic said.

“I feel that he was one of the most, I would say, impactful people that I have ever had in my career, the growth of my career, and me as a player. Definitely a great motivational factor for me to keep playing and keep competing and keep pushing each other,” Djokovic continued. “Who’s going to achieve more? Who’s going to do better? It made me wonder. It made me think about my career and how long I’m going to play.”

And then he paused and smiled before delivering this line, perhaps for clarity’s sake, perhaps for the laughs he knew it would bring: “I’m not going to make any announcement today.”

Post-Serena, women’s tennis heads to French Open led by Big 3 of Swiatek, Sabalenka, Rybakina

Associated PressMay 26, 2023, 7:20 PM EDT

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PARIS — All of those questions about who would step to the fore once Serena Williams walked away from the tennis tour – joining more recent No. 1 Ash Barty in retirement – seem to be getting answered with three names: Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina.

As the start of the French Open approaches, defending champion Swiatek is ranked No. 1, Sabalenka is No. 2 and Rybakina is No. 4. More to the point, perhaps, with a major trophy up for grabs on the red clay of Roland Garros: This group divvied up the past four Grand Slam titles, the prizes that help define greatness in their sport.

They are showing signs of forming a sort of “Big Three,” and while they’re not yet close, of course, to the level of dominance seen across decades from the so-called “Big Three” of the men’s game – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic each won more than 20 Slam championships – Swiatek, Sabalenka and Rybakina are beginning to be seen by some as setting up shop atop the WTA.

“They’ve kind of separated themselves a little bit from the rest of the pack,” said Jessica Pegula, a 29-year-old American who is ranked No. 3 and is a five-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist, losing to Swiatek at that stage last year at the French Open and U.S. Open. “It just comes with the confidence of having a lot of big results and breaking through.”

Barbora Krejcikova, the 2021 French Open champion, put it simply: “They are the best three players that we have right now.”

Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, is the reigning champion at Roland Garros and the U.S. Open; Sabalenka, a 25-year-old from Belarus, won the Australian Open this January by beating Rybakina in the final; Rybakina, a 23-year-old from Kazakhstan, won Wimbledon last July.

There’s more: At the two key U.S. hard-court tournaments this spring, Rybakina defeated Sabalenka in the final at Indian Wells, California, then was the runner-up in Miami. When the circuit moved to European clay, Swiatek got past Sabalenka in the final at Stuttgart, Germany, a result that was reversed when they met for the trophy again two weeks later in Madrid.

And at the last big clay tune-up for Roland Garros, Rybakina took the title in Rome after advancing when Swiatek stopped early in the third set of their quarterfinal with a right thigh injury (“Luckily, nothing serious happened,” Swiatek said).

“It’s good for tennis to see the top players consistently doing well. I think it’s pushing everybody to a next level and pushing everybody to do better and to play better. That’s how I was pushed by Iga last season,” Sabalenka said, referring to the way Swiatek compiled a 37-match winning streak that included six titles. “I think that’s something really important and good to see.”

These could be some riveting rivalries, in part because of the contrast in styles and personalities on display.

Swiatek and Rybakina are more reserved publicly. Sabalenka is never shy about letting her thoughts be known.

Swiatek is a master tactician who covers every inch of the court with defense that is as good as it gets. Sabalenka and Rybakina bring as much power as anyone around, starting with intimidating serves.

Rybakina is first on tour in aces this season with 278, a total more than 50 higher than any other woman. Sabalenka is third with 204. Swiatek rates second on tour (among women who have played at least five matches) by winning 48.6% of her return games in 2023.

“It’s nice to have somebody constantly kind of watching you. We played so many matches against each other that tactically we know (each other’s) game pretty well,” Swiatek said. “But we also have to kind of come up with some different solutions sometimes, which is pretty exciting, because I never had that yet in my career.”

And then, thinking about the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic matchups, she continued: “I think this is what the Big Three had to do, for sure, when they played like, I don’t know, 30 matches against each other or even more. So I’m happy to learn some new stuff. And also, for sure, we are all working really hard to kind of play better and better. It is an extra motivation, for sure.”

After defeating Swiatek 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the Madrid final three weeks ago, Sabalenka expressed a sentiment that surely is shared by the other two members of this elite trio.

“Hopefully,” Sabalenka said, “we can keep doing what we are doing this season.”