What can we expect from Novak Djokovic in 2024? In one word – everything. The choice of tournaments could be dramatically different from previous ones. The Serbian tennis player will turn 37 in May 2024. Accordingly, he undoubtedly needs a longer recovery period, so a less demanding season is expected. Another issue in scheduling is the Olympic Games, which might lead to a smaller number of tournaments. In previous seasons, excluding Davis Cup appearances, he played only 12 tournaments and won seven. This year, a similar schedule is expected, with only a few things practically certain. Scheduled Tournaments Novak Djokovic …
GP
Konstantinos Kalfountzos is back with another play test. A Mayami String Review, focusing on Tour Hex and hybrids with Machete and Big Spin. Introduction to Mayami Mayami is a tennis string brand with roots in Ukraine. The pandemic and war took a toll on the supply chain these past two years, but as of now, the brand is fully operational in Europe with a new distribution center in Poland. It is also expanding into the US and has a pretty solid presence in SE Asia. You can purchase strings from the Mayami official website. I’ve played 5 of their strings and …
Norwegian Casper, ranked number 6, advances to the Barcelona Open quarter-finals with a defeat of Australian Jordan Thompson, ranked 33, scoring 6 – 1, 6 – 4. The third-seeded Ruud easily outplayed Thompson securing the most tour-level triumphs of 2024. The twenty-five year old, ten time ATP tour champion’s pristine hitting from the baseline was no match for Thompson. Ruud maneuvered into an early 5 – 0 lead as he closed out the opening set before securing a positive break in the seventh game of the second, leading to a seventy-three minute triumph. The Norwegian won 81% (26/32) of points as he …
Rafael Nadal, the 37-year-old twenty-two time Slam winner was prevailed upon in victory by 25 year old number 10 ranking 4th seed Australian, Alex de Minaur 7-5 and 6-1 in the Barcelona Open’s second round. Nadal had begun his Spanish homecoming with a 6-2, 6-3 win Tuesday against Italian Flavio Cobolli. However, he was unable to keep up with de Minaur’s onslaught of speed and agility on the court, living up to his nickname “Speed Demon”. De Minaur stated, “I think about the only thing I might have on Rafa on clay is physicality at this stage of his career. I decided …
Brandon Nakashima has achieved a second Top Ten victory in his career and first time on clay, as he defeated Andrey Rublev 6 – 4, 7 – 6 in an upset win that sent Rubler out of the Barcelona Open. Unseeded number 87 ranked, American Brandon Nakashima has defeated number 8th ranked, number two seed Russian Andrey Rublev. Rublev had won only a single match since his controversial disqualification in Dubai against Alexander Bublik and he had not lost any three consecutive matches on clay in three years. Yet, he was not able to overcome Nakashima’s serving performance. Nakashima won 80% …
And just like that, the first clay Masters tournament of the 2024 season is already in the rear mirror. As players are moving on to Barcelona and Munich, let’s take a second to reflect on what happened and what we can take away for the remainder of the clay season. Tsitsipas is all the way back, is he? There were quite a few experts in the tennis world that were questioning Stefanos Tsitsipas coming into Monaco, but the big Greek seems to have found his game once again. Granted, the Monte Carlo Masters has historically been a very good tournament …
The 2024 tennis season is already well underway, but in a couple of months, things will ramp up a notch when the Grand Slam season kicks off. Additionally, we have already seen one slam event so far this term, and it resulted in a first-time winner. That of course was Jannik Snner, who reigned supreme on the hard courts of the Australian Open at the expense of Russian star Danll Medvedev. The Italian had never made it to a major final before however, he managed to hold his nerve to dispatch his higher-ranked opponent in a five-set thriller, rallying from two sets …
The eight qualifying nations and their players will be competing in the Billie Jean King Cup finals in November after a competitive round of qualifying matches. The eight qualifying teams are Australia, Poland, Great Britain, USA, Japan, Germany, Slovakia and Romania. The 2024 qualifying competition took place between April 12, 2024 through April 13, 2024, with sixteen teams competing and these are the results. Canada, the reigning champions, runner-up Italy, wild-card Czechia and host Spain have already qualified for the November 2024 finals. History of Billie Jean King Cup The Federation Cup (1963 – 1995) was launched to celebrate the …
After two days of qualifying rounds the main draw is finally complete. From the qualis, in they come: from Italy Sara Errani, who surprisingly took out seed number 1 Kalinskaya and who will meet her fellow countrywoman Jasmine Paolini (with whom she teamed up to play doubles here in Stuttgart), to win the opportunity of facing Ribakina in the second round; from the US, Sachia Vickery, upsetting seed number 3 Greet Minnen; again another upset, Aliaksandra Sasnovich made it to the main draw at the expenses of seed number 4 Ocean Dodin; and finally Diana Shnainder, the only one able …
Level: WTA 250 | Prizemoney: $267,082 | Surface: Clay | Singles: 32 | Doubles: 16 With the beginning of the clay season in full swing, we turn to Rouen in France for the 2024 Capfinances Rouen Metropole Open. This is an interesting tournament on the WTA tour as it’s played on indoor clay, posing an exciting deviation from the usual clay court grind. The surface means players will benefit from the ball speed and consistency that an indoor court provides, crossed with the topspin friendly, grippy nature of clay. It’s the perfect clay court for a big server with an …