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You don’t have to look hard to find enticing early-round contests at this week’s ATP Challenger Tour 175 event in Bordeaux, France.

Several Grand Slam champions are among the Bordeaux field, including Dominic Thiem, who rallied from a set down Tuesday to escape Benoit Paire at the BNP Paribas Primrose. Stan Wawrinka also earned a victory to set a blockbuster clash against Andy Murray.

The Austrian Thiem overcame early serve trouble to get past home favourite Paire 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 at the clay-court event. After winning just seven of 14 points off his first delivery in the opening set, Thiem dropped just six first-serve points the rest of the match.

The 2020 US Open champion, who was a semi-finalist at last week’s Challenger event on home soil in Mauthausen, will next face another Frenchman, eighth seed Corentin Moutet.

Paire also enjoyed a strong run at a Challenger event last week, reaching the final at the Francavilla al Mare Challenger.

“The main priority is to get into the main draw, to play with the big guys. That's the pressure.”

So says Yannick Hanfmann, who gave a stark reminder of the strength-in-depth of the ATP Tour on Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where the World No. 101 upset sixth seed Andrey Rublev 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3 to reach his maiden ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final in Rome.

Hanfmann is accustomed to having to earn the right to take on Top 10 opponents like Rublev. The No. 101-ranked German has qualified for a Tour-leading six main draws in 2023, including at back-to-back Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. His two-hour, 33-minute fourth-round win against the World No. 6, the biggest win of the 31-year-old’s career, was his sixth match in nine days at the Foro Italico.

“It can go two ways,” Hanfmann told ATPTour.com earlier this month when asked about competing as a qualifier in main draws. “It can be a little bit like [you are] wearing out, playing tough matches in qualifying, and then maybe it's a little bit of a negative.

“But [in Madrid, for example], I qualified [with] two fairly straightforward matches. So [I felt] good. I [knew] the conditions at an event where it's tough to play. So I think that's definitely to my advantage.”

In front of a full crowd on Pietrangeli, top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski survived a second-round test Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

The Dutch-British duo ousted home favourites Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini 6-4, 7-6(5) to advance to the Rome quarter-finals. Despite serving for the match at 5-4, Koolhof and Skupski were pushed to a second-set tie-break before moving past last year’s semi-finalists.

Koolhof and Skupski, who collected seven team titles in 2022, are aiming for their first trophy this season. They reached the final in Indian Wells and in Barcelona, but fell in a Match Tie-break on both occasions. Koolhof and Skupski will look to reach their second ATP Masters 1000 semi-final of the season when they meet Australian duo Alex de Minaur and Jason Kubler.

In Tuesday’s quarter-final action, Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski defeated Americans Mackenzie McDonald and Frances Tiafoe 7-5, 7-6(2) after winning 38 of 43 first-serve points. Robin Haase and Botic van de Zandschulp rallied to escape Jamie Murray and Michael Venus 3-6, 7-6(3), 10-6.

Holger Rune earned the biggest win of his career last year against Novak Djokovic in the final of the Rolex Paris Masters. It was the Danish star’s first ATP Masters 1000 title and his first victory over Djokovic.

That clash was on an indoor hard court and now they will meet on an outdoor clay court in the quarter-finals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. But Rune does not feel the change in conditions will change much.

“To be honest, I don't think it's going to be so different. Novak is an all-court player. I think he's tough no matter where you play him. He's shown that. He's won Rome six times,” Rune said. “[That] says itself that it's going to be tough.

“I have to be at my best. Now [I need to] recover physically, try to be as ready as I can for tomorrow [and] try to play my best tennis because I will need that for tomorrow, for sure.”

The respect is mutual. After Djokovic defeated Cameron Norrie on Tuesday, the Serbian shared high praise for Rune.

Tennis Data Innovations (TDI) has engaged Champion Data to develop the Tennis Sport Data Platform (TSDP), a critical piece of its technology framework set to transform the way tennis data is collected, analysed and consumed.

Champion Data is a company with more than 20 years’ experience delivering sports data and related services to broadcasters, sports organisations and betting providers across multiple sports including football, golf horse racing, AFL and lacrosse. The collaboration marks the latest step in TDI’s growth plans, which include delivering significant enhancements to tennis data capabilities alongside major growth in the value of its rights deals.

The TSDP will enable TDI to ingest, merge and distribute multiple live data sources from professional tennis, including umpire scoring and player & ball tracking data, at ultra-low latency. This puts TDI in position to directly serve the needs of its customers, including media, betting partners, players and fans as well as the capability to service other tennis bodies in future. Players and fans alike will benefit from the rich stream of content generated by the platform, as the stories behind pivotal moments in tennis are told through data.

The TSDP will also serve as a rich and accessible archive of historical data sets, in addition to providing an open ‘sandbox’ environment to enable third parties to innovate with tennis data.

David Lampitt, CEO of TDI, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Champion Data to create a game-changing platform for tennis data. Our goal is not only to deliver the most accurate and reliable tennis data but also transform the way in which these assets can be managed, enabling new narratives and storytelling possibilities for the tennis industry. Champion Data are specialists in the field, bringing together their extensive experience in data and analytics with our vision for the future of tennis."

Is this the week Casper Ruud captures his first ATP Masters 1000 crown?

The Norwegian produced a dominant performance on Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where he cruised past Serbian Laslo Djere 6-1, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals.

The 24-year-old arrived in Rome having enjoyed a modest season by his standards, falling in the third round and second round in Monte-Carlo and Madrid, respectively. Ruud has looked close to his best so far in the Italian capital, though, dropping just one set to advance to his second tour-level quarter-final of the season.

[ATP APP]

Ruud dictated against Djere throughout their 70-minute clash, striking his heavy topspin with depth and accuracy to keep the Serbian pinned deep. Ruud committed nine unforced errors and broke Djere five times to improve to 1-2 in their ATP Head2Head series.

Despite an overnight break in play, Alexander Zverev expertly retained his focus to complete a third-round victory against J.J. Wolf on Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

With his 6-4, 7-5 victory, the 19th-seeded German set a blockbuster fourth-round clash against Daniil Medvedev. The pair’s 15th tour-level meeting will take place later on Tuesday at Rome's Foro Italico.

We will be there no matter what. ?@AlexZverev ⚔️ @DaniilMedwed@InteBNLdItalia | #IBI23 pic.twitter.com/BJFAJj3WUz

Zverev had led Wolf 6-4, 3-3 when rain interrupted their maiden tour-level meeting on Monday evening. Upon resumption, neither player forged any break point opportunities until Zverev broke the American to love in the 11th game, and the 26-year-old held firm behind serve to wrap a one-hour, 49-minute triumph.

Zverev offered only one break point in the match against the World No. 54 Wolf, and the 2017 Rome champion will hope for a repeat serving performance as he bids for his first tour-level victory against Medvedev since 2021. The third seed leads Zverev 8-6 in their ATP Head2Head rivalry, including fourth-round ATP Masters 1000 victories in Indian Wells and Monte-Carlo already this year.

Novak Djokovic continued the quest for his record-extending 39th ATP Masters 1000 crown on Tuesday when he moved past Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-4 at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

The Serbian suffocated Norrie with his deep aggressive hitting on the Italian clay. He also moved well, sliding freely into shots to pull the Briton around and reach the quarter-finals in Rome for the 17th consecutive year.

"So far so good," Djokovic said when asked about his tournament so far. "It was an early start today. Strange conditions and we warmed up for just 20 minutes. I was rushing a little bit and we couldn't play before because of the rain, so I am glad to overcome the challenge in straight sets and move on."

Djokovic is chasing his seventh title in Rome, having triumphed at the event in 2008, 2011, 2014-15, 2020 and 2022. The 35-year-old will next meet Dane Holger Rune or Australian Alexei Popyrin following his 89-minute win.

The top seed is looking to find his best level on clay this fortnight at the Foro Italico, having arrived in Rome off the back of early defeats on the surface in Monte-Carlo and Banja Luka. Djokovic is currently third in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin and could rise to first if he wins the title following Carlos Alcaraz’s third-round exit.

Carlos Alcaraz’s early exit from the Internazionali BNL d’Italia has repercussions beyond the Rome ATP Masters 1000 event. It also could have a big effect on the battle for No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

The Spaniard will return to World No. 1 next Monday, but instead of departing the Foro Italico with a sizable advantage, Alcaraz may be left with only a narrow lead if Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev push on to have deep runs in the Italian capital.

Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings

If Djokovic and Medvedev both lose in the fourth round on Tuesday, Alcaraz will lead Djokovic by 950 points and Medvedev by 1,395 points.

But both stars can claim plenty of points on the Italian clay. Djokovic, a six-time Rome champion, can reach 6,775 points by the end of the tournament, which would bring him within 40 of Alcaraz’s 6,815.

Hungarian Fabian Marozsan’s win against Carlos Alcaraz on Monday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia stunned the tennis world. One of the best Hungarian players in history, Balazs Taroczy, was thrilled with the result.

“It's an incredible win and it's an incredible tournament for Fabian,” Taroczy told ATPTour.com. “He had some tough matches and since that he's winning match after match. Very tough matches. I saw the one against [Jiri] Lehecka. He was down 4/2 in the third-set tie-break and it was 7/4 and I heard that he did the same thing today in the second set.

“It's an amazing achievement and I think very, very [big] of course to beat Alcaraz when everybody's just talking that nobody can win sets anymore against him. And suddenly there is an unknown kid from Hungary killing him. That's fantastic.”

Taroczy understands what it takes to succeed on the world’s biggest stages. He climbed to No. 12 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and No. 3 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings, both in the 1980s. The Hungarian partnered Heinz Gunthardt to the 1985 Wimbledon men’s doubles title.

Marozsan is competing in an ATP Tour main draw for the first time.

The quarter-final places are up for grabs on Tuesday at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where a bumper schedule includes all eight fourth-round matches at the clay-court ATP Masters 1000 and some rain-delayed third-round battles held over from Monday.

Ahead in their postponed matches, fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, 2017 champion Alexander Zverev and home favourite Lorenzo Musetti will all need to pull double duty to advance to the quarter-finals.

The fourth-round clashes that are already set are headlined by reigning champion Novak Djokovic’s meeting with Briton Cameron Norrie, while Casper Ruud meets Laslo Djere. Italian Jannik Sinner will lead home hopes against Francisco Cerundolo.

ATPTour.com looks at some of the key matchups on Day 7 across the men’s singles draw.

[ATP APP]

Three matches in progress Monday evening at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia will be completed on Tuesday due to rain.

The clashes on court were between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Lorenzo Sonego, Frances Tiafoe and Lorenzo Musetti, and Alexander Zverev and J.J. Wolf.

?? Today's remaining matches won't resume due to inclement weather.

We'll get you updated on tomorrow's order of play in the next few hours.#IBI23 | @atptour | @WTA pic.twitter.com/GyfxWERbEP

Tsitsipas led Sonego 6-3 on centre court in their third ATP Head2Head meeting. The Greek, who reached the final last year in Rome, won their first two battles.

Musetti thrilled his home crowd on Grand Stand Arena, where he took a 5-7, 6-4, 2-1 lead. The Italian leads by a break in the deciding set.

Are you excited for the next batch of Break Point Season 1 episodes? The next five installments of Netflix’s hit tennis series will be released in June, but some of the show’s stars reunited to recap what is out there so far.

Felix Auger-Aliassime, Paula Badosa, Matteo Berrettini, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud and Maria Sakkari gathered to discuss some of the most memorable moments from the first five episodes.

“Walking here before we even got here I said, ‘This is what we’re going to be talking about,’” Fritz said.

What was he referring to? Matteo Berrettini’s messy hotel room!

“It was actually better. It could have been worse,” Berrettini said. “There were like, ‘No we love this.’ I was like, ‘Okay if you love it, I love it.’”

Andy Murray is celebrating his 36th birthday Monday in Bordeaux, France, where the Scot is gearing up for this week’s star-studded ATP Challenger Tour 175 event.

Despite being the third-oldest player in the Top 50, Murray can still take down the best players in the world. The three-time major champion proved so by rolling back the years at this month’s Aix-en-Provence Challenger, where he defeated World No. 17 Tommy Paul in the final, capturing his first title at any level since 2019.

Can Murray produce another strong week en route to a Challenger 175 crown at the BNP Paribas Primrose? The path won’t be easy. The former World No. 1 could clash against three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka in the second round, should the Swiss defeat qualifier Ugo Blanchet in his opener.

An encounter between Murray and Wawrinka would be must-watch TV for the tennis world. The pair has met on the biggest stages of the sport, including in two tour-level finals (2008 Doha, 2019 Antwerp) and two Grand Slam semi-finals (Roland Garros 2016, 2017). They’ve also met at the Nitto ATP Finals, in Davis Cup, and at the Olympics. Across 22 tour-level meetings, Murray leads Wawrinka 13-9. If Murray were to meet the 24-year-old Blanchet, it would be their first meeting.

The second seed Murray is in the bottom half of the draw alongside Richard Gasquet, Ugo Humbert, Mikael Ymer, and Thanasi Kokkinakis. Arthur Fils and Luca Van Assche are among the #NextGenATP Frenchmen aiming for a run on home soil.

Chasing form, Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury reached the quarter-finals at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the first time this season on Monday. The second seeds clawed past Italians Andrea Pellegrino and Andrea Vavassori 7-6(1), 6-7(1), 10-7 at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

Ram and Salisbury, who reached the final in Rome in 2021, saved one set point in the first set and then held their nerve in the Match Tie-break to advance after one hour and 59 minutes.

Ram and Salisbury have won three ATP Masters 1000 titles as a team and will continue their quest for a fourth against Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos. The Spanish-Argentine team defeated Daniel Evans and Ben Shelton 6-1, 7-6(1).

[ATP APP]

Jason Kubler and Alex de Minaur won a thriller against Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden. The Australians saved two match points to triumph 2-6, 7-6(8), 12-10.

If Carlos Alcaraz didn't know much about Fabian Marozsan before Monday, he does now.

The World No. 2’s 12-match winning streak was snapped by the No. 135-ranked qualifier at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where Marozsan produced a barrage of clean hitting to register a major shock in the third-round clash. A philosophical Alcaraz admitted he had expected a high level from the 23-year-old Hungarian, but perhaps not quite so high.

“I didn't watch too much of him before the match,” said Alcaraz in his post-match press conference. “I just followed a lot of [his] results in the Challengers and stuff. He did well. He was doing well before here.

“Of course, he surprised me a lot. I mean, his level was really, really high. I'm sure he's going to break the Top 100 very, very soon. It was surprising for me.”

While every player has an off day, Alcaraz believes that it was the quality of Marozsan’s game that proved decisive at the Foro Italico, rather than any major issues with his own display.

“He only wanted to hit forehands, so I was hitting everything there.”

Cameron Norrie was happy to bow to the demands of an unexpected hitting partner in Florida in March.

The 27-year-old Briton took to court with Jon Bon Jovi prior to the Miami Open presented by Itau after the two were put in contact by the music legend’s daughter, a college friend of Norrie’s girlfriend Louise.

“It was so cool,” Norrie told ATPTour.com. “We went to a tennis club next to his place in Palm Beach and I played with him for 25 or 30 minutes. He only started tennis a couple years ago, so he was obsessed with it. For someone who had only played like two years, he was pretty good and [has a] really good technique on the forehand.

“Then he said, ‘Follow me, and we'll go back to my house’ and we had some food. His house is obviously unbelievable, and he’s such a nice guy. So down to earth and so humble. It was really cool.”

Two teenagers on the ATP Challenger Tour capped a historic week Sunday, when they each were crowned champions on European clay.

Wild card Jakub Mensik completed a dream run on home soil at the Prague Challenger while Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic dropped just one set all week en route to capturing his second title of the season at the Mauthausen Challenger.

Mensik, 17, became the youngest Czech Challenger champion in history. In just his sixth Challenger main-draw appearance, Mensik ousted top seed Radu Albot in the opening round before embarking on a title run. But things didn’t look so positive in the quarter-finals, where Mensik fended off two match points to survive qualifier Akira Santillan.

In Sunday’s final, Mensik defeated German Dominik Koepfer 6-4, 6-3 to triumph at the TK Sparta Prague Open.

"It's the biggest achievement of my career so far. I'm glad I did it here,” Mensik said. “I had my family and a lot of fans here and I felt a lot of support from them. I was confident from the beginning to the end, I'm very happy I managed to [win] and I'll keep working hard.”

#NextGenATP Frenchman Arthur Fils and former World No. 18 Benoit Paire have been awarded main draw wild cards into Roland Garros, the tournament announced Monday.

The 18-year-old Fils will make his debut in Paris having enjoyed a breakthrough season that has seen him reach tour-level semi-finals in Montpellier and Marseille. Paire will make his 14th appearance at the clay-court major, with his best result a run to the fourth round in 2019.

Tournament organisers also announced main draw wild cards for Arthur Cazaux, Hugo Gaston, Hugo Grenier and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

Gaston, currently No. 110 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, reached the fourth round on debut in Paris in 2020. The 20-year-old Cazaux is 11th in the Next Gen ATP Race and will be aiming to climb into the Top 8 with a good run on home soil.

The main draw will start on Sunday 28 May with the final on Sunday 11 June.