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The Hindu
39 minutes ago
- Sport
- The Hindu
Yuki Bhambri and Robert Galloway go down fighting in final
Santiago Gonzalez and Austin Krajicek survived three match points to beat Yuki Bhambri and Robert Galloway 6-1, 1-6, [15-13] in the doubles final of the €596,035 ATP tennis tournament on grass in Mallorca, Spain, on Saturday. The champion team won 250 ATP points and €31,530. The Indo-American pair which did not drop a set in three matches before the final, got 150 points and €16,940. In the ITF men's event in Monastir, Tunisia, Nitin Kumar Sinha won his ninth doubles title, in partnership with Alejandro Pertusa of Spain. The results: €596,035 ATP, Mallorca, Spain: Doubles (final): Santiago Gonzalez (Mex) & Austin Krajicek (USA) bt Yuki Bhambri & Robert Galloway (USA) 6-1, 1-6, [15-13]. $15,000 ITF men, Monastir, Tunisia: Doubles (final): Alejandro Pertusa (Esp) & Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Grigoriy Lomakin (Kaz) & Luca Pow (GBR) 7-6(11), 6-3.
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First Post
5 hours ago
- Sport
- First Post
Wimbledon 2025: From absence of line judges to record prize money, everything that's different at SW19 this year
Ahead of the 138th edition of the grass-court Grand Slam, which takes place less than a month after the thrilling French Open men's singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, we take a look at what's different at Wimbledon this year. read more The grass court season is well and truly underway, and it's almost that time of the year when some of the world's top players show up at SW19 for the Wimbledon Championships – the 138th edition of which gets underway in a couple of days time in London. The grass-court Grand Slam takes place less than a month after Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner played out one of the most breathtaking matches in recent memory in the French Open final, in which the former prevailed from two sets down. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Also Read | Wimbledon's controversial expansion plan approved: What is planned and who opposed it? And before the tournament gets underway, we take a look at what's different in this year's edition: No line judges The biggest talking point ahead of this year's Wimbledon is the grass-court Major joining hard-court Grand Slams Australian Open and US Open in replacing on-court line judges with electronic line calling. And it's not just half of the Grand Slams that have implemented this technology – electronic line calling is the norm in a majority of ATP and WTA events. Wimbledon will have no line judges for the first time in 2025 tournament. Image: Reuters Which means that the 2025 edition will be the first in Wimbledon history that will not have its best-dressed officials on court. And while organisers insist the technology is almost fail-safe, they will have a team of reserve line judges, part of a team of 80 match assistants. Two reserve line judges will be present on each court to not only provide support to the umpire but to act as back-up should the electronic system fail. Start time The start time for the women and men's singles finals has been pushed by a couple of hours, and will start at 4 pm local time instead of 2 pm. Additionally, the marquee fixtures will be taking place after the doubles finals instead of preceding them. Record prize money Wimbledon will have a record prize money of £52 million ($71.3 million) on offer this year, witnessing a hike of 7.1 per cent. The men and women's singles champions are set to earn £3 million ($4.1 million) each, with £38.8 million ($53.2 million) available for players in the two draws. Players suffering a first-round defeat are guaranteed to walk away with £66,000 ($90,565) – a 10 per cent hike from last year. More expensive strawberry Strawberries, cream, and a slice of heritage!🍓✨@DineshKarthik soaks in the Wimbledon experience at Winfield Café! ❤️#Wimbledon2025 | Starts 30 JUN, MON, 3 PM on Star Sports Network & JioHotstar — Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) June 27, 2025 Costs have gone up at Wimbledon this year, and while players are being paid more handsomely, the iconic strawberry and cream that is synonymous with the grass-court Grand Slam is set to become more expensive – from £2.50 ($3.43), which had been the fixed price for the last 15 years, to £2.70 ($3.70). STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
The making of Jack Draper: from teen ‘maniac' to Wimbledon title contender
Towards the end of 2018, a relatively unknown 16-year-old British tennis player took some of his first strides on the professional tennis circuit in a $15,000 (£11,000) tournament in Lagos, Nigeria on the ITF World Tennis Tour. Earlier that summer, Jack Draper had offered a glimpse into his considerable potential with a run to the Wimbledon boys' final and his encouraging first tussles against adult opposition had earned him a modest ATP ranking of No 623. 'I was very different then,' Draper says, smiling. 'A bit of a maniac, to be honest.' Those experiences were key in his development for various reasons. He ended that tournament by winning his third consecutive title, offering him more reason to believe he was on the right path. Along the way, he gained some essential perspective. 'I'd have a wet [racket] grip, because it was so humid there. I'd put it in a bin and the kids were fighting over it. Just the energy from the people there, they were really passionate about tennis,' says Draper. 'To go to those sorts of places was definitely … going from the UK and having a lot of, I guess, things given to me, it definitely helped the way I saw life.' As Draper arrives at Wimbledon as the fourth best player in the world, and seeks out his first deep run at his home grand slam tournament, the 23-year-old's disposition in his youth underlines just how far he has come. During his formative years, he was smaller than many contemporaries and his only route to victory was through grinding, scrapping and outsmarting his rivals. His teenage growth spurt was a transformative event in his career and he now stands at an imposing 1.93m (6ft 4in). That dramatic physical change has allowed Draper to build one of the most well-rounded games on the tour. Although he is now a more offensive player, he has retained his excellent defensive skills from his youth. Draper's wicked, varied lefty serve is one of his most pronounced strengths, even though its consistency is still a work in progress. While many big servers tend to not return as well, Draper is an even more effective returner. His two-handed backhand was the foundation of his success during his youth, but he now looks to dominate with his heavy topspin forehand. He can still draw out errors from behind the baseline even though he has grown comfortable with attempting to dominate all opponents. Draper's affinity for using drop shots and his comfort around the net also provide him with more options than most players to finish any given point. 'You're scared of his forehand because he rips it cross, rips it down the line,' says the three-time grand slam finalist Casper Ruud. 'You're also, in a way, scared of his backhand because he can rip and counter from that side as well. So there aren't many holes in his game that I see or that I feel.' According to Tennis Viz, which uses data metrics to quantify the quality of strokes, Draper is the only player other than the world No 1, Jannik Sinner, to average a rating of more than eight (out of 10) for serve, return, forehand and backhand quality this year. For Draper, being a complete player has been the goal all along. 'When I was younger, I was always thinking: 'If I'm going to be a top player, if I'm going to play someone, what do I want them to think?'' says Draper. 'And I want them to think: 'He has no weaknesses,' because I know that if I play someone who has no weaknesses, I'd be feeling a lot of pressure. So I suppose that's the goal I want to get to. I'm still not fully there, but I'm wanting to get to that.' Of all the shots in his arsenal, Draper's forehand has changed and improved more than anything else. A natural right-hander, his two-handed backhand has always been his most instinctive and reliable groundstroke. When they began working together in 2021, Draper and his coach, James Trotman, spent significant time discussing how to improve his forehand. 'The forehand was an area that I always thought could be a weapon, but it was a weakness as well,' he says. 'Any time anyone would rush it, it would not hold up. I wasn't able to get through the ball as much as I wanted to. We worked on my body positions, how I'm going to be able to come forward. There's a big misconception that to be a top player your forehand has to look a certain way. I don't think that's the truth. You just have to hit the ball in front and learn how to use your body to be effective.' While his forehand is still a work in progress, it has been a decisive factor in his recent success. He has long possessed one of the heaviest forehands in the game, with the stroke averaging 3,158 revolutions per minute (rpm) over the past year, far above the tour average of 2,844rpm, but this year he has been determined to flatten the stroke out, look to dominate opponents with it and attack more frequently down the line. His forehand quality has increased from 7.6 to 7.9, elevating it from 25th on the tour last year to 14th in 2025. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Possessing such a varied skill set is clearly an asset to any player, but for a long time Draper still could not find his identity on the court. Last year, as he still struggled to shake off his defensive instincts, Draper hired the former top 10 player Wayne Ferreira as a supplementary coach alongside Trotman. After years of being instructed to play the brand of ultra-offensive tennis befitting a big man, he tried it out. 'I was in a bit of a crisis last year thinking: 'Where's my game going to go? What do I need to change?'' Draper says. 'Then I did certain things and I tried to maybe go to the opposite end of the spectrum and try and hit every ball as hard as I can, and return up the court and do all these things, but it didn't really work, that experiment.' Although he won his first ATP title in Stuttgart during this period, Draper suffered a first-round loss at the French Open followed by a miserable second-round defeat at Wimbledon by Cameron Norrie. By the end of the summer, the experiment was over. The experience taught him that he could find a greater balance between attack and defence in his game, but also a fundamental lesson that he will never forget: he should always trust himself. 'It got to the point where maybe I was thinking that I needed to do something drastic to be a top player,' he says. 'The truth was I just needed to be consistent, trust the work that I was doing, and know that with the right mentality and doing things well day in, day out and preparing the best I can for competitions, that's going to just help me to find more consistency and be the top player I wanted to be. So it feels good to have gone on that journey and realised that it's just hard work, really.'
Powys County Times
19 hours ago
- Sport
- Powys County Times
Jay Clarke admits PTPA lawsuit was ‘much bigger than I anticipated'
Jay Clarke admitted he did not know what he was getting himself into when he put his name to a lawsuit against tennis' governing bodies. The 26-year-old was the only British player named as a plaintiff in the explosive case, which has pitted the Professional Tennis Players Association, a body co-founded by Novak Djokovic, against organisations including the ATP and WTA. The PTPA branded the governing bodies as a cartel, with Wimbledon and the other grand slams named as co-conspirators. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝘀. Today, the PTPA and over a dozen players, on behalf of the entire professional population, filed a sweeping series of legal actions against the ATP, WTA, ITF and ITIA to reform professional tennis. — Professional Tennis Players Association (@ptpaplayers) March 18, 2025 Djokovic notably was not named as a plaintiff and quickly sought to distance himself from some of the aspects of the case, and Clarke subsequently decided to take his name off the lawsuit. He also reached out to Wimbledon to clarify his position, and Clarke's role in the case did not prevent him being awarded a wild card for a fifth time. 'I love being here,' he said. 'I've played Wimbledon a number of times, trying to be a member here and stuff like that as well. I know a lot of the people inside. 'I don't think it's necessarily a big thing. I just needed to kind of say where I stood on it. I just think it was much bigger than I anticipated initially.' On the strong language used in the lawsuit, which accuses the governing bodies of systemic abuse, anti-competitive practices, and a blatant disregard for player welfare, Clarke added: '(It was) very surprising, to be honest. I think everyone was surprised by that. 'I think it kind of caught us all off guard. Obviously, we're tennis players, we're not lawyers, so it's just not something that I was comfortable doing.' Clarke does, though, support a lot of the PTPA's demands, including a better distribution of wealth and a greater focus on player welfare. The Derby player, who is ranked 199th, underwent wrist surgery in 2023 and he said: 'I played four Challengers in India, obviously coming back from wrist surgery, four weeks in a row in the same country and we're using different balls every week. And it's just these things need to be better. I think it's a really simple fix. 'I'm not alone. I think all tennis players want tennis to improve, want it to push forwards. I don't think someone on my ranking should be watching pennies trying to figure out which flight is cheaper, and stuff like that. 'I did nine weeks in India. It's a lot of travel. I had a coach with me every week. After paying flights and stuff, I was £3,000 pounds down. And the second half of the trip I won 18 matches and lost two. So it is really tough. 'I think tennis is a big enough sport, and it generates enough revenue, for more than 100 people to be benefiting from the sport. I think a lot of the other sports, they have a better revenue split and tennis is too far behind in that.' This week will certainly help Clarke's finances. A Wimbledon wild card comes with guaranteed prize money of £66,000, and that would increase to £99,000 if he can get the better of fellow British wild card Dan Evans in the first round and set up a likely meeting with Djokovic.
The Star
19 hours ago
- Sport
- The Star
Tennis-Moutet downs Michelsen to reach first ATP final in over five years
FILE PHOTO: Tennis - Queen's Club Championships - Queen's Club, London, Britain - June 19, 2025, France's Corentin Moutet in action during his round of 16 match against Britain's Jacob Fearnley Action Images via Reuters/Peter Cziborra/File Photo (Reuters) -Corentin Moutet booked his place in the Mallorca Open final with a 6-4 7-6(3) win over third seed Alex Michelsen on Friday, reaching his first ATP showpiece match in over five years. The Frenchman will face Tallon Griekspoor in Saturday's showdown after the Dutchman secured a 6-4 6-4 win over Canadian second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime. The unseeded Moutet, whose only previous appearance in an ATP final was in Doha in 2020, broke twice in the opening set and remained solid on serve to take it 6-4. Moutet's court craft kept his American opponent off balance throughout, with his lefty angles and slice disrupting Michelsen's rhythm. The second set was a tighter affair, with both players trading early breaks. Michelsen created five break points at 4-3 but 26-year-old Moutet saved them all in a gutsy hold. The American edged ahead 6-5, but Moutet responded with a composed service game to force a tiebreak. Moutet went ahead 4-3 in the breaker and never looked back, sealing the match on his first opportunity and will now be biding to win his maiden ATP title. Fourth seed Griekspoor secured a break in each set and held firm on serve to reach the final. Auger-Aliassime made a few errors but mostly struggled to challenge Griekspoor's serve, falling short in key moments. (Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
