#tennis

#tennis

There are two ways to look at this. Either Alex de Minaur is not good enough to beat Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, for that matter or the world's top two players are in a class of their own. Sadly, for Australia's top-ranked player, both things are true. De Minaur's 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 quarter-final defeat by Alcaraz on a hot, breezy evening at the Australian Open on Tuesday was a humbling experience.

I've had to make the difficult decision to withdraw to address something my body needs attention for after my last match,

I think I started really well and Ashlyn started a little bit slow,

Alexander Bublik, the resident eccentric of professional men's tennis, has the lyrics to two different Eminem songs tattooed on his arm. Doubles specialists, he's said, aren't "real athletes," though Bublik himself reached the doubles final of the 2021 French Open. The 28-year-old Kazakh has quoted Kung Fu Panda to cast doubt on Jannik Sinner's doping status, and called the tennis exhibited by greats like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal "boring."

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On a cool Wednesday afternoon before the US Open last year, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev were busy fine-tuning their games in an intense practice set at Louis Armstrong Stadium. Danielle Collins and Christian Harrison, semi-finalists in the mixed doubles tournament, were scheduled to take their place at the hour and the American pair duly arrived a couple of minutes before their allotted slot.

Three-time Australian Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev has warmed up for an assault on this year's opening Grand Slam in perfect fashion by winning the Brisbane International final. The Russian world number 13 was too strong for American Brandon Nakashima on Sunday and ran out a 6-2, 7-6 (7/1) winner in 96 minutes at Pat Rafter Arena for his 22nd ATP Tour title.

A lot can change in a year on the tennis tour. Around this time in 2024, Naomi Osaka was 57th in the world, still looking for traction following her return from maternity leave. Belinda Bencic was 487th, just getting started on her own comeback. Eighteen-year-old Victoria Mboko was 336th and only beginning to embark on a high-level professional pursuit. Now they're 16th, 11th and 18th in the world, respectively. Amanda Anisimova jumped from 36th to fourth.

Over the next 12 months the capital will host a vast range of sporting events, truly living up to its rep as the planet's greatest city for sport. Those events will include notable firsts, like Wembley hosting its first ever college American football game) and the inaugural rugby union Nations Championship finals, plus important returns, such as NBA at the O2 and tennis' Laver Cup. In September London will become the first city to have ever hosted the Laver twice.

Samba likes to start off his projects with poetry, translating emotion onto the page before raising his camera. Each of the tennis players captured in the film is depicted like a statue, with a raise of a racket featured as a nod to New York's Lady Liberty. The outlines of moving figures are caught in silhouettes, carrying architectural visual language. Samba says: "The intention with the silhouettes in the piece was to mirror New York itself, half in light, half in shadow."

I'm just so settled, she says. I've barely been in the UK this year because I've been competing so much, but I think just spending really good quality time with my parents has been so nice. I have loved just being in Bromley. It just reminds me of when I was a younger kid and it's the same bedroom, same everything. Bromley has some amazing speciality coffee shops now that didn't exist a few years ago.

In today's digital age, where every sport spins stories across screens, tennis still seems trapped in its old rhythm, struggling to embrace the pulse of modern content. Taylor Fritz and his girlfriend, Morgan Riddle. who began dating the American star in 2020 and turned her life as a tennis 'WAG' into a social media empire, recently sparked conversation by calling out the sport's rigid approach to online storytelling.

Before Wimbledon in 2019, I remember skimming over the list of men's favorites at a number of sites. Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal ... Felix Auger-Aliassime? He was 18 years old at the time and ranked 21st in the world, but no worse than the sixth-favorite anywhere I looked. Auger-Aliassime had famously owned Stefanos Tsitsipas, who beat each member of the Big Three before age 21 and enjoyed plenty of hype at the time, in juniors.

Sinner extended his indoor winning streak to 25 matches, including a victory over Zverev in the Vienna final last weekend. He beat Zverev -- the defending champion in Paris -- for the fourth straight time to lead 5-4 in their career meetings. The second-seeded Sinner was 5-0 up in 25 minutes and then served out a first set in which he won 90% of his first-serve points, compared to only 47% for Zverev. He had five break points on Zverev's serve, converting two of them.

Coco Gauff had more struggles with her serve but overcame seven double faults to beat Jasmine Paolini 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday and reach the Wuhan Open final. Gauff will face Jessica Pegula in Sunday's title match after her fellow American came from behind to oust top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2). The third-ranked Gauff edged Paolini by winning the battle of converted breaks 7-5 as both top-10 players struggled with their service games.

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I hate when it's the same, to be honest,

Has San Francisco rebounded? If all the events this weekend are any indicator, then the answer is a resounding yes. The city's eastern shoreline has seen a flurry of activity this past week. On Saturday, the fourth installment of the popular electronic festival Portola returned to Pier 80, bringing its signature window-rattling bass and tens of thousands of fans fitted out like extras from the '90s cyberpunk classic "Hackers."