Looking for Tennis and Racket Sports International News?

If there’s one thing Nick Kyrgios has never lacked, it’s confidence in his game. Even in what he’s dubbed his “darkest times,” when he even questioned his livelihood, he never lost that self-belief, the knowledge that when he’s on his game he can hold his own against the sport’s elite.

“I could lose five matches in a row and I still believe that I have a chance to beat anyone,” said the 27-year-old Canberran last week in Montreal, where he defeated World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev for the third time in four ATP Head2Heads.

A refocused, reinvigorated Kyrgios again finds himself in Medvedev’s quarter at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, though there are some obstacles standing in the way of a rematch. The Aussie will open with a first-time encounter with Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Tuesday at the Linder Family Tennis Center, and could later face the likes of Taylor Fritz or Andrey Rublev should he advance.

Out to a subpar 4-9 start in 2022, Davidovich Fokina turned his year around in April with a dream run to the first ATP Tour final of his career. It came on the hallowed clay of the Rolex Monte-Carlos Masters, and saw the 22-year-old Andalusian stun the likes of then-top-ranked Novak Djokovic, David Goffin, Fritz and Grigor Dimitrov in reaching the title match, where he finally succumbed to defending champ Stefanos Tsitsipas, 6-3, 7-6(3).

[ATP APP]

Frances Tiafoe cherishes competing on the biggest stages. The American proved it again on Monday evening in Cincinnati.

Tiafoe battled past Italian star Matteo Berrettini 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(5) to reach the second round of the Western & Southern Open. The 24-year-old levelled his ATP Head2Head series with the two-time Nitto ATP Finals competitor at 1-1.

"People don't understand, obviously results haven't really shown how well I've been playing. I've been playing some great tennis, honestly," Tiafoe said in his on-court interview. "I really just needed this. I know it's a first-round match.... But everyone knew why I needed this against a quality player, so it was big.

"I know I've beaten a lot of these guys, but it hasn't happened of late. So it's one of those things where you've got to get over the hump. But I'm happy I get another chance to play again."

Photo Credit: Mike Lawrence/ATP Tour
It was not the first time during the North American hard-court swing that Tiafoe was in a tight match against a big-hitting star. In Washington, he earned five match points against Nick Kyrgios, but fell short.

Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios started their quest for a third title of the season with a 6-0, 6-4 victory over Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini on Monday at the Western & Southern Open.

The Australians, who clinched the Australian Open crown in January, fired eight aces and saved the one break point they faced to advance after 60 minutes. Kokkinakis and Kyrgios have now won their past five matches, after lifting the trophy in Atlanta at the start of August.

They will next face top seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in a popcorn second-round clash, aiming to improve on their 14-2 record in 2022.

[ATP APP]

Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares' love affair with the ATP Masters 1000 hard-court event continued when they edged eighth seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 4-6, 6-2, 10-7. The British-Brazilian team defeated Cabal and Farah in the 2018 final in Ohio, while they also enjoyed a run to the championship match in 2017.

The Pepperstone ATP Rankings return to their traditional 52-week calculation logic this week, ending an extended period of covid-era adjustment.

Following the conclusion of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Montral, all points from events held in 2019 and 2020 have dropped off. Therefore, the Pepperstone ATP Rankings now consists of results from the past 52 weeks only, as per the traditional merit-based ranking methodology used since 1973.

Daniil Medvedev remains the current World No. 1, but 36-time ATP Masters 1000 champion Rafael Nadal has the chance to usurp top spot this week should he win the Western & Southern Open title and Medvedev does not reach the quarter-finals in Cincinnati.

Spanish teen Carlos Alcaraz will climb two places to a career-high No. 2 should he win his third ATP Masters 1000 title of the year in Cincinnati.

See real-time player movements in Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings

Cameron Norrie survived a major scare from #NextGenATP Dane Holger Rune to reach the second round at the Western & Southern Open for the first time Monday.

In a hard-fought clash, the Briton showcased a mixture of grit and quality as soaked up Rune's powerful groundstrokes, while he penetrated the 19-year-old's defences with his aggressive forehand to triumph 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4 after two hours and 34 minutes in Cincinnati.

Norrie, who is making his third appearance at the ATP Masters 1000 event, now leads the 19-year-old 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series, having defeated the World No. 29 en route to his fourth tour-level title in Lyon in May. The 26-year-old will face former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka or countryman Andy Murray in a standout second-round match.

[ATP APP]

The ninth seed will be aiming for a deep run in Ohio as he looks to strengthen his chances of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals in November. Norrie is currently 14th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, but could climb quickly with strong results at the hard-court event.

Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka wrote another chapter into their long-running rivalry on Monday at the Western & Southern Open, where the Scot advanced with a hard-fought 7-6(3), 5-7, 7-5 victory in Cincinnati.

The former World No. 1 showed his fighting qualities during the two-hour, 34-minute first-round match as he scampered around the baseline to hang in points. He also caused damage with his backhand, while he rallied from a break down in the third set to improve to 13-9 in their ATP Head2Head series.

“The court is pretty lively when the weather is like this. Physically I feel tired,” Murray said in his on-court interview. “I had some issues with cramp during the match, the same as Washington, so that is something I need to get on top of.

“I tried to take the ball on a little more and finish points at the net. I wasn’t that successful when I came up, but the intention was there. I was a little more offensive on the second-serve return. Last game I was just fighting, trying to find a way through.”

[ATP APP]

With another 1,000 points on offer this week at the Western & Southern Open, the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin continues to heat up as players vie for the eight available spots at the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals.

Fresh off his quarter-final run in his home city of Montreal, Felix Auger-Aliassime is in position to make his debut at the year-end showcase. Sitting at seventh in the Race with 2,645 poins, the Canadian can create some separation from the chasing pack with a strong performance in Cincinnati. Seeded seventh, he will face either Alex de Minaur or qualifier Henri Laaksonen in his opening match, with a potential meeting with Race leader Rafael Nadal looming in the quarter-finals.

[ATP APP]

From the the 22-year-old down to Montreal champion Pablo Carreno Busta in 11th place, fewer than 600 points separate five players competing at this week's ATP Masters 1000 event. That group also includes returning finalist Andrey Rublev, Montreal runner-up Hubert Hurkacz and American Taylor Fritz, with the latter seeking his second Masters 1000 title on home soil this season following his breakthrough triumph in Indian Wells.

Also within striking distance of a Top 8 spot this week are Matteo Berrettini, Cameron Norrie, Jannik Sinner and Marin Cilic, all of whom could reach eighth place or better with a title, depending on other results.

Two players have cracked the Top 100 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time after winning ATP Challenger Tour titles this week.

Argentine Camilo Ugo Carabelli went on an impressive run, dropping just one set this past week en route to winning the Directv Open Lima while Roman Safiullin continued his hot streak, during which he has won 12 of his past 13 matches to claim his third Challenger title at the Chicago Men’s Challenger.

Ugo Carabelli, 23, defeated three of his countrymen back-to-back-to-back in Lima, Peru, including a 6-2, 7-6(4) victory against 21-year-old Thiago Agustin Tirante in the final to claim his third Challenger Tour title and second this season (Buenos Aires). The third seed’s title extends Argentina’s lead to 16 Challenger titles this year and lifts Ugo Carabelli to 96 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

[ATP APP]

In a two-hour, 47 minute semi-final battle, the Buenos Aires native avenged his two previous losses to Tomas Martin Etcheverry (Santiago and Concepcion 2), ending the top seed’s hopes 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.

Casper Ruud’s standout 2022 continued with a semi-final run in Montreal that sees the Norwegian jump back into the Top 5 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. It was Pablo Carreno Busta who lifted the trophy at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers, however, and the Spaniard’s maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown powers him back into the Top 20.

ATPTour.com looks at the movers of the week, as of Monday, 15 August.

[ATP APP]

No. 5 Casper Ruud, +2 (Joint Career High)
Ruud’s run to his first semi-final at the Canadian Masters 1000 event featured contrasting wins against Roberto Bautista Agut and Felix Auger-Aliassime. The Norwegian rallied for a hard-fought three-hour, 17-minute third-round triumph over Bautista Agut before dashing home hopes in style with a 6-1, 6-2 quarter-final win against Auger-Aliassime. Hubert Hurkacz proved too strong in the semi-finals, but Ruud rises two spots to No. 5 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

View Latest Pepperstone ATP Rankings

It rained on and off for most of Sunday in Cincinnati, but Karen Khachanov and Denis Shapovalov made the most of it in more ways than one.

The singles stars enjoyed the delays with the centre court crowd, even briefly dancing to the music during a delay before battling past Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop 7-6(6), 6-7(12), 10-6 to reach the second round of the Western & Southern Open. 

"Seriously thanks to all the fans who stayed late and through the delays!!" Shapovalov wrote in an Instagram story. "Your energy the entire match was ?."

In singles action, Botic van de Zandschulp set a second-round meeting with World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev when he overcame American Maxime Cressy 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

The Dutchman, who is making his debut in Cincinnati, fired seven aces and broke Cressy five times to advance after two hours and four minutes in a rain-disrupted clash at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

It’s been one of those years for Matteo Berrettini, the kind where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The Italian kicked off 2022 in style with a career-best run to the Australian Open semi-finals. In February, he retired midway through his first-round matchup with American Tommy Paul in Acapulco due to abdominal woes. After Indian Wells, he sustained an injury to his right hand that necessitated surgery, forcing him to withdraw from the clay-court swing. Berrettini was just getting back into the swing of things on the grass, winning nine straight matches and sweeping back-to-back titles in Stuttgart and The Queen’s Club, when he tested positive for COVID-19. Wimbledon, where he would have been among the favourites, was suddenly out.

“I started to think it was like a prank or something, a joke, because I was feeling pretty good,” said Berrettini, the World No. 15, last week at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers. “It was really tough. I was by myself. I was quarantined. There wasn’t anybody to hug or watch a movie with. It was just me in my room trying not to think about what would happen, think about the future.”

[ATP APP]

For Berrettini, who dropped his opener against eventual titlist Pablo Carreno Busta in Montreal, 6-3, 6-2, that future is now. A big result this week at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati would do wonders to put him back in the running for a spot at the year-end Nitto ATP Finals. Currently 13th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, he’ll have his work cut out for him from the first round. On Tuesday, the 12th seed will open against Frances Tiafoe. He hasn’t faced the American since 2018, when he claimed a 6-3, 7-6(1) first-round decision on clay in Rome.

Daniil Medvedev will forever remember the Western & Southern Open, but not just for the reason you would expect.

Medvedev claimed his first ATP Masters 1000 title three years ago in Cincinnati, which will forever remain a special moment for him. But a lot happened behind the scenes that fans did not know at the time.

On Sunday, the 26-year-old revealed that it was unlikely he would make it through one match at the Lindner Family Tennis Center that year. The week before, Medvedev advanced to his first Masters 1000 final in Montreal. He was invited on a charter flight to Cincinnati, but that is where things went awry.

“The plane was delayed, maybe there was a thunderstorm or something,” Medvedev said. “I remember coming to my room and I was the No. 9 seed, so I was just one out from [getting] a bye and playing Wednesday, so I had to play Tuesday. I came [to] my room at like 4:30 in the morning [on Monday].”

[ATP APP]

The No. 1 team in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Rankings padded its lead on Sunday in the Montreal final. Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski won their sixth title since joining forces this year by edging Daniel Evans and John Peers 6-2, 4-6, 10-6 to claim their second ATP Masters 1000 crown of the season.

The Dutch-British duo dominated the opening set but dropped the second despite clawing back an early break, setting up a dramatic Match Tie-break. They raced out to a 7/2 lead in the tie-break, with Skupski flicking a brilliant lob on the stretch to extend their advantage, then held their nerve to close out the win from 8/6. It was their third Match Tie-break win of the week.

"We played four very close matches [this week]," Koolhof said before the trophy ceremony. "It's never easy. These days there's no such thing as easy matches anymore. Very happy with the way we played, our second Masters 1000 title of the year. Things are going great so let's keep this run going."

[ATP APP]

Skupski sealed the victory for the third seeds with a backhand return winner down the line as the pair improved to 6-2 in tour-level finals this season by notching its 45th match win. The red-hot duo has also claimed titles this year in Melbourne, Adelaide-2, Doha, Madrid and 's-Hertogenbosch.

Former finalist David Goffin will need to work overtime if he is to return to the final weekend of the Western & Southern Open this year, but the Belgian completed the first part of his mission Sunday when he advanced through qualifying.

The 31-year-old rallied from a set down to defeat Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Hsin Tseng 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 after saving eight of nine break points to reach the main draw in Cincinnati. Goffin recently pushed Cameron Norrie to 7-5 in the fifth set in the Wimbledon quarter-finals but lost his opening match of the US Open Series in Washington, D.C. last week to Jack Sock.

Also advancing to the main draw is World No. 56 Jaume Munar, who has successfully qualified for all three American ATP Masters 1000 events (Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati) this season after taking down home hope Steve Johnson 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

For the third straight year, former UCLA standout Marcos Giron advanced to the main draw in Cincinnati after winning a tight battle against Italian Fabio Fognini, 7-6(9), 7-5. Fognini’s countryman, 27-year-old Lorenzo Sonego, breezed by Bradley Klahn 6-2, 6-4 in his second round qualifying match.

Rain halted play around 5:45pm local time (ET) for nearly an hour before matches resumed and will continue this evening. #NextGenATP Italian Lorenzo Musetti will play Serbian Dusan Lajovic.

Probably "one of the worst years" of his career? Probably not anymore.

Pablo Carreno Busta gave that assessment of his 2022 campaign prior to Sunday's Montreal final. The Spaniard supercharged his season by winning his first ATP Masters 1000 title with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory against Hubert Hurkacz.

The 31-year-old worked his way into the match by dialling up his aggression and locking in on return to control the last two sets. After being gifted a momentum-shifting break early in the second set, Carreno Busta earned his breakthrough in the third game of set three as he closed in on the biggest win of his career.

Carreno Busta moved up nine places to No. 14 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings this week. He is also up to 11th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, soaring 18 places.

More to follow...

Carlos Alcaraz is ready to embrace the new-found pressure that has been placed upon him as he prepares to make his second appearance at the Western & Southern Open.

The Spaniard came through qualifying in Cincinnati last season, but will compete as the third seed this week. He has already captured four titles this year, including two ATP Masters 1000 triumphs.

“Right now, I take each match as a challenge for me to stay the same as always. I am No. 4 in the world, one of the favourites to win this tournament, so it is a bit tough to handle the pressure,” Alcaraz said in his pre-tournament press conference on Sunday.

“But I am training at my best. I am training with the objective to improve and try to produce the game I produced during the clay season and in Miami. It is a challenge for me to be the same.”

[ATP APP]

Rafael Nadal is excited at the opportunity to return to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings over the next month, but believes it will not be an easy journey as he looks to prioritise his health.

The Spaniard will climb to top spot if he wins the Western & Southern Open title and current World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev fails to reach the quarter-finals in Cincinnati.

“It means a lot to me to have that opportunity [to rise to No. 1]. Something that I didn’t expect could happen again. The main thing is to stay healthy and play the events that I want to play,” Nadal said in his pre-tournament press conference on Sunday. “I will not play more than what I believe works well for my body.

“I am going to put all my efforts into every single event I play. It is something that doesn’t matter if I have the chance to be No. 1, but I am happy to be in this position and if it happens, I will be very happy.”

[ATP APP]

Over recent years, Matteo Berrettini, Lorenzo Musetti and Jannik Sinner have been the shining lights of Italian tennis, with the trio capturing 14 tour-level titles between them.

However, if you scratch beneath the surface, you’ll find a plethora of young stars emerging, with eight of the Top 16 players in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Milan from Italy, including Musetti and Sinner.

The 21-year-old Francesco Passaro currently sits 10th and holds a 42-18 record on the year, having won his maiden ATP Challenger Tour title in Trieste last month. Guilio Zeppieri is in hot pursuit in 12th, having enjoyed a dream run to his first tour-level semi-final in Umag in July.

Francesco Passaro in action - Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour
While both will be looking to make their debuts in Milan, 13th placed Flavio Cobolli is no stranger to the Allianz Cloud, having hit as an alternate at the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals last year. The 20-year-old captured his first Challenger Tour crown in Zadar in March and is another exciting prospect for Italian fans to support.

View Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Milan Rankings

Hubert Hurkacz is one of the shyest, most soft-spoken players on the ATP Tour.

You wouldn’t know it by the way 25-year-old from Poland drives. (He was once spotted behind the wheel of a gleaming-yellow McLaren 720S in the Southern California desert, and says if he hadn’t gone into the tennis business he might have pursued a career in auto racing.)

Or the way he serves — a stroke that has fast become one of the loudest, engine-revving weapons on the circuit. As we’ve seen this week at the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers, it’s a shot that has helped him out of many a sticky situation. In fact, all four of the World No. 10 Pole’s victories in Montreal, including his 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 dismissal of fourth seed Casper Ruud in Saturday’s semi-final, have gone the distance, his serve often the difference-maker.

He smacked 23 aces in his opener against Albert Ramos-Vinolas, 16 against Emil Ruusuvuori, 20 against Nick Kyrgios, and another 18 against Ruud, giving him a tournament-leading 77 (and counting) on the week.

Oh, how those free points can come in handy in a pinch.

Daniil Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz are among those who have made the journey from Montreal to Cincinnati this week as they prepare to compete in the seventh ATP Masters 1000 event of the season at the Western & Southern Open.

Medvedev, who lifted the trophy in 2019, will face stiff competition from two-time Masters 1000 champion Alcaraz and Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who will try to win his 37th Masters 1000 crown in Cincinnati.

Taylor Fritz leads home hopes, while a string of stars will be aiming for deep runs to help boost their Nitto ATP Finals qualification chances.

ATPTour.com looks ahead at 10 things to watch in Cincinnati.

View Schedule | View Singles Draw | View Doubles Draw