Nadal Continues His Clay-Court Rampage, Adding 11th Barcelona Title - Mondays with Bob Greene

Mondays with Bob Greene

STARS

Rafael Nadal beat Stephanos Tsitsipas 6-2 6-1 to win the Barcelona Open Bac Sabadell in Barcelona, Spain

Karolina Pliskova beat Coco Vandeweghe 7-6 (2) 6-4 to win the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany

Marco Cecchinato beat John Millman 7-5 6-4 to win the Gazprom Hungarian Open in Budapest, Hungary

Pauline Parmentier beat Polona Hercog 6-4 3-6 6-3 to win the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Cup in Istanbul, Turkey

Prajnesh Gunneswaran beat Mohamed Safwat 5-7 6-3 6-1 to win the Kunming Open in Anning, China

SAYING

“Last year, they made a video of my 10 titles here. Now they have had to make another video for 11. It makes me feel like I am aging.” – Rafael Nadal, after winning the Barcelona Open for the 11^th time.

“I have seen millions of Rafa’s clay matches on TV – I have been preparing for this match for 10 years.” – Stephanos Tsitsipas, who won only three games against Nadal in the Barcelona final.

“This is just awesome. It was a perfect week. I didn’t expect to be here today and to have the trophy.” – Pauline Parmentier, following her victory over Polona Hercog in the Istanbul Cup final.

“Maybe it’s a dream, I don’t know.” – Marco Cecchinato, who as a lucky loser won his first ATP World Tour title, the Gazprom Hungarian Open.

“All matches we play, it’s pretty similar. There is always a tiebreak and there is always one break in the set. It’s always tough with her. You have to really be there mentally to try to get every point even though you are down in the game.” – Karolina Pliskova, in beating Coco Vandeweghe to in Stuttgart.

“I didn’t get enough balls back. … I need to be smarter in the winning position.” – Maria Sharapova, after losing her first-round match in Stuttgart to Caroline Garcia.

“Finally, I can say that after seven years I have beaten her. It’s an important win.” – Caroline Garcia, after beating Maria Sharapova for the first time in five career meetings.

“I can’t say I’m super surprised because that’s what I work for, and I knew I can play at this level.” – Marta Kostyuk, a 15-year-old Ukrainian who beat Alize Cornet to qualify for the main draw at Stuttgart.

“I didn’t come out here to play and lose.” – CoCo Vandeweghe, after routing Sloane Stephens 6-1 6-0 in the first round of the Stuttgart Grand Prix.

“I saw she had some problems in the second set with the serve. She was not serving full speed. … Even though we are opponents on the court, we want everyone to be fine, so it’s not easy.” – Pauline Parmentier, who advanced in Istanbul when top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki retired with an abdominal injury.

“We lost a big part of our community with the passing of Anne Marie D’Amico. She gave her time and passion to the Rogers Cup for many years and did so from a young age. Anne Marie helped make the Rogers Cup the great event it is, and she will be truly missed.” – Milos Raonic, on one of the people killed when a van plowed onto a crowded sidewalk in Toronto.

STREAK REACHES 11

Proving yet again that he is indeed the “King of Clay,” Rafael Nadal won Barcelona for the 11^th time in his career, romping past Greek teenager Stefanos Tsitsipas and dropping just three games. It was Nadal’s 55^th career clay-court title and extended his winning streak on the slow surface to 46 consecutive sets. The Spanish left-hander won his 11^th Monte Carlo Masters a week earlier, also without dropping a set. “It’s very difficult to describe how to win 11 titles at one tournament. To win 11 Monte-Carlos and 11 Barcelonas is something I couldn’t imagine doing,” Nadal said. “I’m just enjoying every week and the fact I’m playing in a tournament that I enjoy so much means a lot to me.” Nadal now has 77 career titles overall, pulling him level with John McEnroe. They trail only Jimmy Connors, who won 109 tournament titles, Roger Federer with 97 and Ivan Lendl with 94. Nadal’s career clay-court match record stands at 401 wins against just 35 losses. Against Tsitsipas, Nadal needed just 77 minutes to wrap up the title. At 19, Tsitsipas was the first Greek man to reach an ATP final since Nicholas Kalogeropoulos in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1973. He also is the youngest Barcelona finalist since Nadal in 2005.

SNARES TROPHY

It took a decade for Pauline Parmentier to win another WTA title. The French woman did it this time by defeating Polona Hercog in the Istanbul Cup final. Parmentier had not won a title since Bad Gastein, Austria, in 2008, but now has won all three times she has reached a final. She also won Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2007. Hercog had 26 winners to just seven for Parmentier, but the loser also made 34 unforced errors. In their only previous meeting, in Bogota, Colombia, in 2011, Hercog beat Parmentier in three sets. This time, Hercog had no answers to Parmentier’s powerful play late in the final set. “I’m a bit disappointed today, but we did a great job this week,” Hercog said.

SEIZES FIRST TITLE

A week after he lost in qualifying, Italy’s Marco Cecchinato won his first ATP World Tour title. The first lucky loser to win a title since Leonardo Mayer triumphed in Hamburg, Germany, last July, Cecchinato swept past John Millman in straight sets to capture the Gazprom Hungarian Open. “I lost Sunday (in qualifying) and now I won the tournament,” the 25-year-old Cecchinato said. “It’s amazing for me.” Cecchinato trailed 5-4 before winning the next three games to take the opening set. Then Millman raced to a 4-1 lead in the second set. But the Italian took the next five games to close out his victory. “Today is a special day because I won the first title of my career,” Cecchinato said. “I’m very happy.

SERVES WAY TO VICTORY

Karolina Pliskova overpowered American CoCo Vandeweghe in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final to grab her first title of the year. “It’s the best atmosphere to play in Germany,” the fifth-seeded Czech said. “I want to thank my team. I think we had a great week, and without them I would not have the trophy.” Pliskova fired 11 aces in stopping Vandeweghe best result on clay. The 26-year-old American beat world number one Simona Halep and US Open champion Sloane Stephens earlier in the week. She won the first two points in the first-set tiebreak before Pliskova reeled off seven straight points. Vandeweghe tumbled on the court early in the second set and needed help from a trainer. By then, however, Pliskova had raised her game and broke Vandeweghe’s serve twice to go up 5-2. Vandeweghe broke Pliskova as she served for the match. It was too little and too late. The next time she served, Pliskova held for the trophy. It was Pliskova’s 10^th career title and her first since winning at Eastbourne last year.

SOON-TO-BE MOTHER

India’s Sania Mirza is joining the growing list of WTA players who are becoming mothers. Mirza and her husband, former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik, announced they were expecting their first child in October. “Having thought about it for a while, we both felt right now is the correct time to start a family,” Mirza said in a statement. “When we found out, we were ecstatic and couldn’t wait to give out this news to our fans and well-wishers. We are very excited to enter this new phase of our lives and look forward to our journey as parents.” Winner of six Slam tournament titles – three women’s doubles, all with Martina Hingis, and three mixed doubles – Mirza had said her child would bear the Mirza-Malik surname and that her husband wanted a daughter. The 31-year-old Mirza, who once was ranked number one in the world in doubles, has been sidelined with a knee injury since October. At the beginning of this year she said she wanted to return for the French Open in May. Now that she is pregnant, she has not given any indication whether or not she would retire from tennis.

SWEET NUPTIALS

Fifth-ranked Marin Cilic has married his longtime girlfriend Kristina Milkovic. The couple were married in Milkovic’s hometown of Dubrovnik, Croatia. It’s where the couple first met during a Davis Cup tie in 2008. The two were married in a private ceremony, which was followed by a reception for around 400 guests. Among those invited were Cilic’s former coach Goran Ivanisevic, and WTA player Ana Konjuh.

SICK CALLS

Injuries have decimated a number of the top WTA players as the clay court season gets underway at full steam.

World number two Caroline Wozniacki retired with an abdominal injury from her Istanbul Cup quarterfinal against France’s Pauline Parmentier. Wozniacki received an on-court medical timeout before Parmentier won the second set to pull even 4-6 6-3. Wozniacki called it quits before the third set began. “It’s tough when you see your opponent not doing well,” Parmentier said.

At the Stuttgart Open, world number three Garbiñe Muguruza retired after losing the opening set to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5. The Spaniard suffered a back injury during her round-of-16 match.

Former world number one Angelique Kerber lost the first eight games against Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit before retiring from the Stuttgart Open match with a right thigh problem.

Marketa Vondrousova, a qualifier from the Czech Republic, also retired in Stuttgart. She was trailing third-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 2-6 6-1 3-2 when she halted play because of a thigh injury.

STUTTGART COLLAPSE

Maria Sharapova is having trouble winning matches. The former world number one was eliminated in the opening round in Stuttgart by Caroline Garcia of France 3-6 7-6 (6) 6-4. “This was not the result I wanted, but I can take a lot out of this match,” Sharapova said. “I’ve not competed for a few weeks, but I played pretty solid and did all the right things.” It was Garcia’s first win over the Russian in their five career meetings. Sharapova, who made just two unforced errors in the opening set, took a 6-3 4-2 lead before her French opponent rallied, staving off two match points. “I served well in the first set but had a few doubles at the wrong time,” the 31-year-old Sharapova said. The Russian said her game might have been affected by her recovery from a forearm injury suffered when she last played in Indian Wells six weeks ago.

SIGNS UP AGAIN

Retirement is an on-again, off-again situation for Lleyton Hewitt. The former world number one will play doubles with Australian compatriot Alex de Minaur at this week’s Estoril Open. Hewitt is 37 – 18 years old than his doubles partner. Hewitt, who won the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon singles titles, retired in 2016 but has repeatedly returned to play doubles. This year he played doubles in Brisbane and at the Australian Open, where he reached the quarterfinals with Sam Groth.

“SIGNIFICANT” PROBLEMS

A review panel reported there is a “very significant” corruption problem at “lower and middle levels” of tennis, especially in the men’s game. The Independent Review Panel (IRP) was set up in January 2016 following allegations made by the BBC and BuzzFeed that leading players, including Grand Slam tournament champions, were involved in suspected match-fixing and that evidence had been suppressed. The panel said it found no evidence to support those allegations. However, the IRP reported that investigations at Grand Slam events was “insufficient” and the ATP World Tour, the governing body of men’s professional tennis, was found to be guilty of “failing to exhaust potential leads before ending investigations.” The panel claimed tennis faces a “serious integrity problem,” particularly at the lower levels of the sport where players often struggle to break even, and especially on the men’s circuits. The panel made several recommendations to tackle corruption, saying it believes the current system used by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) and international governing bodies is “inadequate to deal with the nature and extent of the problem now faced.”

SUCCESSFUL RETURN

Dan Evans successfully returned to tennis after serving a 12-month ban for doping. Given a wild-card into the Glasgow Challenger, Evans won both of his matches to qualify for the main draw in this week’s event. “I don’t feel awkward,” Evans said when asked about being given a wild card entry into the tournament, considering his ban. “There’s not so many people in Britain to take the wild cards. It’s not like I’m pinching them off people. The (qualifying) draw’s not full, so I’m not taking someone else’s opportunity away, which would probably be unfair. Everyone’s got their opinions. It’s not for me to really get involved. I’ll just play and if I get one I get one, if I don’t I can’t have any qualms. I am coming back from a failed drugs test.”

STEPPING DOWN

Elaine Bruening has retired as chief executive officer of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Bruening, who started as a volunteer in 1976, worked alongside longtime tournament director Paul Flory for more than 35 years and was named CEO in 2011. The first female to be appointed to the men’s tennis ATP Media Finance Committee, she is relinquishing that role upon retirement. She was the only female CEO of a Master 1000 level event on the ATP World Tour. During her tenure, prize money went from USD $100,000 in 1976 to more than USD $8 million this year. For decades the Western & Southern Open was a men’s only event until a women’s tournament was added in 2004. The tournament combined both events into the same week in 2011.

SUES USTA

Umpire Tony Nimmons has filed suit against the United States Tennis Association (USTA), charging the organization discriminates against blacks. Once the USTA’s only African-American score-keeping chair umpire, Nimmons has long complained of racial discrimination in the sport, including in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint in 2015 when he alleged he had been demoted to the job of “video editor” for complaining. The commission issued a right-to-sue letter this past January. Nimmons is seeking unspecified cash damages for lost income, emotional distress and mental anguish. “The USTA has a strict policy prohibiting discrimination and retaliations,” USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said. “We deny the allegations by Mr. Nimmons and we will proceed in court accordingly.”

SAD NEWS

One of the victims killed when a van plowed onto a crowded sidewalk in Toronto had ties to tennis. Anne Marie D’Amico was a longtime volunteer at the Rogers Cup, starting out as a ball girl and becoming “an integral part of the volunteer team, most recently serving as committee head of Stadium Control in addition to her full-time role with Invesco, a US-based investment management firm,” Tennis Canada said in a release. D’Amico was not the first member of her family to be connected with tennis. Her grandmother, mother, father and brother all served as volunteers at the Rogers Cup. Two years ago, D’Amico was voted volunteer of the year at the Rogers Cup.

SHARED PERFORMANCES

Anning: Aliaksandr Bury and Lloyd Harris beat Gong Mao-Xin and Zhang Ze 6-3 6-4

Barcelona: Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez beat Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer 7-6 (5) 6-4

Budapest: Dominic Inglot and Franko Skugor beat Matwe Middelkoop and Andreas Molteni 6-7 (8) 6-1 10-8 (match tiebreak)

Istanbul: Liang Chen and Zhang Shuai beat Xenia Knoll and Anna Smith 6-4 6-4

Stuttgart: Raquel Atawo and Anna-Lena Groenefeld beat Nicole Melichar and Kveta Peschke 6-4 6-7 (5) 10-5 (match tiebreak)

SURFING

Munich: http://bmwopen.de/tickets/

Estoril: http://millenniumestorilopen.com/en/

Istanbul: www.mobilet.com/bucket-event/teb-paribas-istanbul-cup-1001

Glasgow: www.lta.org.uk/major-events/glasgow/

Prague: www.jtbopen.cz/cs/