At the weekend, Canada won their first Billie Jean King Cup in history by beating the Czech Republic in the semis and Italy in the finals.
The team of Leylah Fernandez, Marina Stakusic, Rebecca Marino, Eugenie Bouchard and Gabriela Dabrowski and captain Heidi El Tabakh stunned the field to take home Canada’s first-ever trophy.
On Saturday, Canada knocked out 11-time champions Czech Republic in the semis to set up a final match with Italy. In the final, the team only needed to call two of their players, Leylah Fernandez and Marina Stakusic to sweep aside Italy. Canada called on 18-year-old Marina Stakusic to play in the first singles rubber against Italy’s veteran, Martina Trevisan. The youngster Stakusic, ranked 258 in the world produced some excellent tennis to shock the world number 43, Trevisan.
Stakusic, who hasn’t played a tour-level match all year, in comparison with Trevisan’s 36, won the match in straight sets, 7-5, 6-3 to give Canada an early lead.
The 2019 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez secured Canada the victory in the 3-match rubber, defeating Jasmine Paolini, 6-2, 6-3.
This led us to the surprising news that Canada won their first Billie Jean King Cup in history. You can read more about this historic victory on the WTA Tour website.
Mannarino and Humbert winners on the ATP Tour
Elsewhere, on the ATP Tour, it was a successful week for French tennis as we wrote in our post Allez Les Bleus.
Adrian Mannarino and Ugo Humbert were both triumphant at the weekend, winning the Sofia Open and Moselle Open, respectively.
Mannarino fought through British youngster Jack Draper in three sets to lift his third ATP title of the year. It’s pretty impressive for a 35-year-old who’d only ever won tour-level two titles before this season.
As we have seen over the past few years, many players have had the best seasons of their careers well into their 30s.
This year alone, Mannarino has recorded 43 wins on tour, his highest ever in his career.
The Frenchman has always been known as a bogey-man on tour. His minimalist, lefty back wings and awkward style of play have caused problems for so many players. Now sitting at 22 in the ATP rankings, only two places off his career high, Mannarino is well on track to break into the world’s top 20.
He is aging like fine French wine.
His fellow compatriot, Ugo Humbert was also victorious this week. In front of a home crowd, the Frenchman defeated the likes of Dominic Thiem, Fabio Fognini, and the up-and-coming Alexander Shevchenko to lift his first title in two years.
Humbert has had a few tough years on tour. In the past three years, he’s only won seven matches at the major level and has struggled to replicate his fourth-round Wimbledon appearance in 2019.
Can Humbert make a real breakthrough in 2024?
ATP Finals
This week sees the top 8 players on the ATP Tour battle it out to be crowned the ATP Final Champion. The groups have been set and the first matches are already underway. The groups are as follows;
Green Group
Novak Djokovic
Jannik Sinner
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Holger Rune
Red Group
Carlos Alcaraz
Daniil Medvedev
Andrey Rublev
Alexander Zverev
In the first round, Djokovic continued his win streak defeating Holger Rune, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (1), 6-3.
With this win, the Serb is guaranteed to end the year ranked world number 1 for a record-extending 8th time.
In the evening session, Jannik Sinner beat Stefanos Tsitsipas, 6-4, 6-4. Sinner now faces Djokovic in tomorrow’s evening match.
Two-time ATP Finals champion Alexander Zverev got his campaign off to a quick start, defeating world number 2 Carlos Alcaraz, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4.
Group predictions
Djokovic and Sinner to progress to the semi-finals.
Medvedev and Zverev to progress to the semi-finals
We do daily predictions for the ATP Finals, and if you are interested in tennis betting on the ATP Finals. There is plenty of content on the website to give you advice.
