2012 Tennis Thread

[Smallville22]

Ferrer in seventh heaven after winning Paris title

David Ferrer won his seventh title of the year with a gritty 6-4 6-3 win over big-serving Polish qualifier Jerzy Janowicz in the Paris Masters final.
The world number five - seeded fourth here - had lost in three previous finals in the Masters series, but came good against the world number 69 Janowicz, only 21, who ousted Andy Murray and Janko Tipsarevic during his fairytale run to the final.
He has won more titles than any other player this year having moved ahead of Roger Federer's six wins. For the record, Ferrer has already picked up trophies in Valencia, Bastad, s-Hertogenbosch, Acapulco, Buenos Aires and Auckland.


Petrova destroys Wozniacki in final

Russia's Nadia Petrova thrashed top-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki 6-2 6-1 in Sofia to secure her maiden Tournament of Champions trophy and a 13th career title.
It was the 30-year-old's third tournament victory of the year after winning a Wimbledon warm-up event in Den Bosch, Netherlands and the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in September.
"It's a great way to finish the season," Petrova said after receiving the trophy.

 

[Smallville22]

ATP World Tour Finals - Federer cruises to record win over Tipsarevic in London

Roger Federer was close to his imperious best as he dismissed Janko Tipsarevic 6-3 6-1 in their Group B opener at the ATP World Tour finals at the O2 in North Greenwich, London.
Federer, widely regarded as the greatest indoor player of all time, was given little trouble despite a determined performance from the feisty Serb. The Swiss top seed never had to face a break point as he saw off the world number nine in an hour and eight minutes.
It was Federer's 40th career win at the finals, bettering the record he had held jointly with Ivan Lendl.

 

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Ferrer fights to win over Del Potro
David Ferrer opened his ATP World Tour Finals campaign with a 6-3 3-6 6-4 win over Juan Martin Del Potro in an enthralling baseline battle at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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ATP World Tour Finals - Djokovic beats Murray in London thriller
Novak Djokovic battled to a 6-4 3-6 5-7 win over Andy Murray in yet another epic tussle that cemented the Serb’s world number one spot at the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in London.

 

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Tomas Berdych beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-5 3-6 6-1 in a Group A slugfest at the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2, London.

 

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ATP World Tour Finals - Federer beats Ferrer to make semis

Roger Federer continued his 100 per cent record against David Ferrer with a 6-4 7-6(5) win in their Group B match to qualify for the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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Del Potro crushes off-colour Tipsarevic
Juan Martin Del Potro landed a huge blow to Janko Tipsarevic's ATP World Tour Finals hopes with a crushing 6-0 6-4 win at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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Djokovic cruises past Berdych into semis
Novak Djokovic eased into the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals with a 6-2 7-6(6) victory over Tomas Berdych at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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Murray cruises past Tsonga into semi-finals
Andy Murray moved into the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals with a 6-2 7-6(3) win over a confounding Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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Del Potro downs Federer to make semis

Juan Martin del Potro beat Roger Federer 7-6 4-6 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals on Saturday.

 

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ATP World Tour Finals - Ferrer overcomes Tipsarevic in dead rubber

Spain’s David Ferrer overcame a sluggish start to beat Janko Tipsarevic 4-6 6-3 6-1 in a dead rubber in Group B at the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.

 

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Djokovic fights back to beat Del Potro and reach final
Novak Djokovic secured his place in the prestigious end-of-season ATP World Tour Finals in London’s O2 Arena after coming from a set and a break down to record a thrilling 4-6 6-3 6-2 victory against Juan Martin Del Potro.

Federer beats Murray to set up Djokovic final
World number two Roger Federer overcame a sluggish start to beat Andy Murray 7-6(5) 6-2 and reach the finals of the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.

Marray-Nielsen dream ends in semis
Jonathan Marray's dream to add the ATP World Tour Finals crown to his Wimbledon doubles title ended at the semi-finals stage in what will probably be the last match of his partnership with Frederik Nielsen.
Britain’s Marray will have to find a new doubles partner as Denmark’s Nielsen, 29, makes one last bid for a successful singles career.
The duo landed a shock Wimbledon title this summer, and did well to qualify from a tough group and the season-ending titles, but a 6-4 6-3 defeat to Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez ended that run.
Granollers and Lopez will face Indian pair Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna in Monday evening’s final, which comes before the singles final.

 

[Smallville22]

Djokovic ends Federer dominance in London
World number one Novak Djokovic grabbed the ATP World Tour Finals crown from Roger Federer with a 7-6(6) 7-5 win at the O2 Arena in London.

Granollers and Lopez take ATP Finals doubles title to Spain
Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez became the first Spanish pair to win the ATP Tour Finals doubles title for 37 years with a narrow victory over India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna.
The Barcelona natives, the first Spaniards to qualify for the season-ender since Emilio Sanchez and Sergio Casal in 1994, held their nerve to win a third set championship tiebreak 10-3 after the first two sets were split 7-5 3-6.
The only other Spanish duo to win the title were Juan Gisbert and Manuel Orantes in 1975 in Stockholm when the title was decided by a round-robin group.

 

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Davis Cup - Czech Republic beat Spain to lift Davis Cup

Czech Republic beat holders Spain 3-2 to win the Davis Cup when Radek Stepanek overcame Nicolas Almagro 6-4 7-6(0) 3-6 6-3 in front of a raucous home crowd in the final rubber in Prague.
Stepanek, who jumped the net and waved his arms in triumph to the 14,580 packed into the arena, was hugged by team-mates before going to his wife with tears rolling down his cheeks.
The result meant the Czech Republic had claimed the Davis Cup for the first time as an independent nation 32 years after Czechoslovakia won the trophy with a team led by Ivan Lendl.
It also made the Czech Republic the first country to win the Davis Cup and Fed Cup team trophies for men and women respectively and the mixed Hopman Cup event in one year.
"I was dreaming about it my whole life and now we're standing here as Davis Cup champions, it's amazing," said Stepanek after clinching the 100th Davis Cup final.

 

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:hatsoff: Argentine star Dulko quits tennis :clap: :clap: :clap:

Argentina’s Gisela Dulko has retired at the age of 27.
Dulko, who reached a career high ranking of 26, won four titles in her career. The last of these was in Acapulco last year.
She won the 2011 Australian Open doubles title with Flavia Pennetta and reached the fourth round of the French Open, on two occasions, and the US Open.
“Tennis has been my life for the past 20 years,” Dulko said on her website.
“I started playing when I was seven. I gave tennis my total devotion. With all my energy and my love I achieved things I never believed possible. Along the long road, there were many great moments and some which were not so great."
Dulko, who is married to Valencia player Fernando Gago, now wishes to concentrate on a life away from the sport.
"The reason why I have decided to retire from tennis is because I now have other priorities on which I want to focus. As a result, I don’t have the same desire or ability to make the sacrifices which are necessary to live the life of a tennis pro.
"This is my way of saying goodbye to tennis, a sport with which I fell in love as a very young girl and will continue to love my whole life.”

 

[Smallville22]

Federer to miss Miami Masters in 2013

Roger Federer's schedule for 2013 has revealed a notable omission in the Miami Masters.
It will be the first time the world number two has missed the event in Florida, which he has won twice, since 1999.

Federer, who from next year will be exempt from ATP World Tour Masters 1000 commitments due to the milestones he has reached during his career, can now pick and choose which events he attends.

The Swiss will also skip Monte Carlo and his home tournament in Basel, an event at which he used to ball boy.

The 31-year-old will, naturally, play at all four Grand Slam events - in Melbourne, Paris, Wimbledon and New York.

Federer's 2013 schedule:

Australian Open, Melbourne

ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament, Rotterdam

Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Dubai

BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells

Mutua Madrid Open, Madrid

Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Rome

Roland Garros, Paris

Gerry Weber Open, Halle

Wimbledon. London

Rogers Cup, Montreal

Western & Southern Open, Cincinnati

US Open, New York

Shanghai Rolex Masters, Shanghai

BNP Masters, Paris

 

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French tennis coach jailed for rapes

Former tennis coach Regis de Camaret has been sentenced to eight years in prison for raping young players at his academy in France.
Frenchman De Camaret, now 70, ran a tennis school in Saint-Tropez in the 1970s and ‘80s, and was the coach of former world number three Nathalie Tauziat.

Around 20 of his former pupils accused him rape or sexual abuse between 1977 and 1989, with allegations flooding in after former French number two and world number 35 Isabelle Demongeot revealed the scale of the abuse in a book.

Tauziat acted as a character witness for the defence, denying that any abuse took place, but the court found he had raped two girls, then aged 12 and 13.

Most of the victims were unable to pursue prosecutions because the statute of limitations had run out, but they acted as witnesses in the trial.

De Camaret, who denied the charges but admitted that the atmosphere at his academy “encouraged promiscuity”, has been banned from working in tennis for life.

“Tonight he is in prison, he is the victim now,” Demongeot told AFP after the trial. “It was a long battle, and you can see we have been affected beside it.”

The women who were able to prosecute De Camaret were 36-year-old pair Stephanie Carrouget and Karine Pomares.

De Camaret claimed he had only “touched” Carrouget and that he was in a “consensual relationship” with Demongeot while she trained at the Marres tennis club.

The original case against De Camaret was dropped in 2009 for “lack of evidence”, although the prosecutor expressed his surprise at this.

His lawyer claimed the case was a complex conspiracy theory hatched by Demongeot, bitter at her rival Tauziat’s success.

However, her claim was made in 2005, while the first complaint against De Camaret – from a younger player of a different generation – was made three years earlier, in 2002.

 

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Ferrero to coach Almagro
Juan Carlos Ferrero will coach fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro on a part-time basis next season.
Ferrero retired from the professional playing circuit amid emotional scenes following defeat to Almagro at the ATP event in Valencia in October.
The Spaniard had indicated he would work with his compatriot on a coaching level, although he has since said their partnership will only be on a part-time basis.
Ferrero is expected to join Almagro in Acapulco in Mexico for the tour event at the end of February.

Bubka Jr recovering from three-story fall
Sergei Bubka Jr is on the verge of walking again following his fall from a three-story window in Paris earlier this month.
Bubka, who goes out with women's No.1 Victoria Azarenka, sustained multiple fractures after falling while trying to reach an adjacent window after becoming locked in a friend's bathroom.
He is now standing and almost walking, while last week he was able to continue his rehabilitation in the pool.
"The circumstances leading to the fall were all so unlucky, but since the accident I feel I have been really lucky," said Ukrainian Bubka, who is ranked 186th in the world.
"I was lucky to be alive and not have damaged anything major. I was lucky my friends found me and took me to a great hospital where they took great care of me."
He underwent nine hours of surgery at the Georges Pompidou hospital with no memory of the fall and asking his mother repeatedly where he was and how he got there.
He has undergone six hours of physical therapy daily, assisted by his Italian physiotherapist Gianluca.

 

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American Mardy Fish will miss the Australian Open in January as he continues to recover from health issues related to heart surgery, his agent said on Wednesday.

The 30-year-old, who had an operation in May to correct a form of arrhythmia in his heart, is "improving" and plans to return to the ATP Tour in February at the SAP Open in San Jose, California.
"The good news is that Mardy's health is improving and he is back on the court slowing getting back into his regular workouts," Fish's agent, John Tobias, said in an email to Reuters as he confirmed the American's comeback date.
Fish has not played since the US Open in September when he was forced to pull out before his fourth-round match against Roger Federer because of heart palpitations.
Fish began the year ranked eighth but has fallen to 27th after an interrupted season.
The American first felt a problem with his heartbeat before a Davis Cup match in February and the condition worsened in the following weeks.
At the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami in March, he woke up with his heart beating three times faster than normal and later said that he had feared then that he would die.
Fish is still the third-ranked American and with very few ranking points to defend in the first two months of 2013, he is likely to return to the Tour inside the world's top 32

 

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Serena Williams named WTA Player of the Year

American Serena Williams has been named WTA Player of the Year after one of the most successful seasons in her career.
The 31-year-old won Wimbledon and the US Open to take her grand-slam haul in singles to 15 while she also won Olympic gold in singles and doubles in London.
After a relatively slow start to the year, Williams was virtually unstoppable from April to October when she won 48 of her 50 matches, culminating in the title at the WTA Championships in Istanbul.
Williams, who ended the year number three in the rankings but was clearly the outstanding player, has now won the WTA award four times, having also taken it in 2002, 2008 and 2009.
The award is voted for by international tennis media.