MADRID — The old Davis Cup made Viktor Troicki the man of the moment in Serbia: feted in Belgrade and beyond after winning the decisive match of the 2010 final. The new Davis Cup left him sitting in a courtside chair with a towel on Friday, covering his face as he wept at failing to […] More
MADRID — Even for Spain, it was late, which is saying something in a nocturnal nation where a 10 p.m. dinner is nothing unusual. In fact, it was so late that you could argue it was early when the American doubles team of Jack Sock and Sam Querrey finally finished off the Italians Simone Bolelli […] More
MADRID — Before there was Novak Djokovic, there was Janko Tipsarevic. Three years older than Djokovic, Tipsarevic was the tennis prodigy with the strong personality and powerful groundstrokes who first emerged from the ashes and acrimony in Serbia as a great prospect for the men’s game. He grew up practicing in Belgrade with Ana Ivanovic, […] More
MADRID — It is a short, if chilly, walk from the main court at the Caja Mágica to the two other stadiums inside the sports complex. But they were different tennis worlds on Tuesday, the second day of the new-look Davis Cup finals. While Spain and Rafael Nadal played into Wednesday against Russia in front […] More
MADRID — Nerves have been part of Davis Cup since tennis’s oldest team competition began 119 years ago. But the edginess has a different source than usual this week in Madrid, where Davis Cup’s final rounds have been radically transformed by an unlikely partnership between the International Tennis Federation and the Spanish soccer star Gerard […] More
LONDON — A year ago, Stefanos Tsitsipas won the NextGen Finals, the showcase tournament for players 21 and younger that is meant to be a harbinger of future greatness in men’s tennis. In Tsitsipas’s case, the future is now. In an up-and-down final on Sunday, he rallied and held on to beat Dominic Thiem, 6-7 […] More
LONDON — Dominic Thiem will not admit to being superstitious. He said his 5-year-old habit of twirling the tennis ball around in his fingers before every serve is no different than Alexander Zverev tugging at his shirt in between points or Rafael Nadal lining up his bottles in perfect order beside his chair. It is […] More
LONDON — For the first time since 2007, and only the second time in the ATP Finals’ 49-year history, only one American player competed in singles or doubles at the elite year-end event. He was not John Isner, the highest-ranked American man in singles, who played in the tournament last year. He was not Jack […] More
