Tennis
Venus Williams Reaches Wimbledon Semifinals for 10th time
It is her 20th appearance at the All England Club’s Wimbledon Tennis Championship and she has reached the semi-finals for the 10th time. That is Venus Williams, as she braces up to win her sixth title. The last time she won the title was nine years ago. She advanced to the semi finals after beating Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 7-5 on Tuesday under a closed roof on Centre Court.
Williams, who is 37 years old, made her Wimbledon debut in the same month that Ostapenko was born. “I love it. I try really hard,” Williams said of tennis. “There’s no other explanation. You do your best while you can. That’s what I’m doing.”
Williams will next face either second-seeded Simona Halep or Johanna Konta on Thursday. In the other women’s semifinal match, Garbine Muguruza will play either CoCo Vandeweghe or Magdalena Rybarikova. Muguruza beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-4 on No. 1 Court.
Konta was next to play on Centre Court against Halep. On Court No. 1, Rybarikova was playing Vandeweghe.
On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic advanced to the quarterfinals by beating Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 7-6 (5), 6-4. That match, the first to be played under the roof on Centre Court at this year’s tournament, was postponed from Monday.
Williams went up a break early in both sets against Ostapenko, the French Open champion. But the 20-year-old Latvian broke back in the second set and pushed the score to 5-5. A few unforced errors later, though, and Williams broke again for a 6-5 lead before serving out the match.
Williams ended up with eight aces and only 13 winners. Ostapenko had one ace and 20 winners.
“Been working on that serve,” Williams said. “It’s working out for me just in time, just for these later rounds. I’d like to think that I can continue to rely on that as the matches continue.”
In the first match, Djokovic was up a break in the third set when he asked for a medical timeout and a trainer examined and stretched his right shoulder. The second-seeded Serb appeared to grimace in pain a couple of times as his shoulder was being checked.
“It’s been something that I’ve been dragging back and forth for a while now,” Djokovic said. “But I’m still managing to play, which is the most important thing.”
Djokovic was broken only once, in the second set. But the 12-time major champion, who won the Wimbledon title in 2011, ’14 and ’15, broke Mannarino early in the third and advanced to the quarterfinals at the All England Club for the ninth time.
Mannarino has never before reached the quarterfinals at any of the four Grand Slam tournaments. He also lost in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2013. Last year, he lost to Djokovic in the second round at Wimbledon, also in straight sets.
Djokovic will face 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, a man he has beaten 25 times in 27 matches, on Wednesday in the quarterfinals. One of those losses, however, was in the Wimbledon semifinals in 2010.
“He’s someone that understands the occasion of playing big matches, big tournaments,” Djokovic said. “He will not get overwhelmed by the stadium or whatever. He’s been there so many years. He’s got experience.”
The men traditionally have Tuesday off at Wimbledon, but Rafael Nadal’s five-set loss to Gilles Muller on Monday forced Djokovic’s match to be pushed back a day.
The rain then started at about 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The opening match on Centre Court was due to start at noon, so the roof was closed for the first time this year. The rain came and went into the afternoon, forcing the delay of the first women’s quarterfinal match on No. 1 Court.
There was a brief rain delay on the opening day of the tournament, but the roof stayed open and the rain went away.
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The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and a disregard for player welfare.
The PTPA, an independent players’ union co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2019, said on March 18 that after years of good-faith efforts to reform professional tennis, it had been forced to take legal action to end “monopolistic control” of the sport.
In a statement, it said that along with more than a dozen players, the PTPA had filed papers in a New York court against the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
“Tennis is broken,” said Ahmad Nassar, executive director of the PTPA.
“Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardises their health and safety.
“We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn’t about disrupting tennis, it’s about saving it for the generations of players and fans to come.”
In response, the ATP accused the PTPA of choosing “division and distraction” and having no meaningful role in the sport.
“We strongly reject the premise of the PTPA’s claims, believe the case to be entirely without merit, and will vigorously defend our position,” it said in a statement.
“ATP remains committed to working in the best interests of the game – towards continued growth, financial stability, and the best possible future for players, tournaments, and fans.”
The WTA defended its record of growing women’s tennis, describing the lawsuit as “baseless”.
“Every decision taken at the WTA Board level includes the input of players via their elected Board representatives, and athletes receive substantial financial rewards and other benefits from participation in the WTA,” the organisation said.
The ITF, meanwhile, stressed its goal is to ensure the growth of tennis as a global sport.
“As a not-for-profit organisation and global guardian of the game… we reinvest 90 per cent of our income into the global development of the game, via our 213 member National Associations,” an ITF spokesperson said.
Describing the various governing bodies as a “cartel”, the PTPA, which has also begun legal action in Britain and the EU, accuses them of paying “artificially low compensation to professional tennis players” and imposing a “draconian” ranking system that forces them to compete in certain tournaments.
The lawsuit also calls the schedule unsustainable, says players are made to play in extreme heat and often in the early hours of the morning, that tennis balls chosen by the tournaments are a factor in chronic injuries and that players’ privacy rights are being abused by random drug tests.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the PTPA said it met with more than 250 players across the tours, including the majority of the men’s and women’s top 20.
“The overwhelmingly positive player feedback was a resounding confirmation – change is needed now, and players are united in their fight for reform,” the statement added.
Serbia’s 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic has been a fierce advocate for change to the organisation of tennis, insisting that the revenues generated by the sport are not fairly shared out to players.
“Women and men who are around 200 and lower ranked in the world, they are struggling a lot,” he said in a CBS 60 Minutes interview in 2023.
“They can’t afford a coach, they can’t afford travels, they skip tournaments, many of them leave tennis who are super talented and maybe capable of reaching great heights.”
The ITIA, which manages the sport’s anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, responded to the lawsuit by saying: “Any credible international sport requires robust anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, and we are proud of our role in contributing to a clean and fair sport.”
-Reuters
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Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban from tennis after the world No. 1 admitted team mistakes led to him twice testing positive for traces of banned substance clostebol in March 2024.
The February 9 to May 4 suspension means Sinner will be free to play in the French Open, the second grand slam of the season, which begins on May 25 at Roland Garros.
In a statement, Sinner said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted that he “had no intent and did not derive any competitive advantage from the two positive tests”.
Australian Open champion Sinner has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut, then provided massage and sports therapy.
“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,” Sinner said.
“I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realise Wada’s strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted Wada’s offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a three-month sanction.”
Wada said separately that “Sinner did not intend to cheat” but that he would serve his suspension as he is responsible for the actions of his entourage.
The agreement between Sinner and Wada means that Sinner will be able to play in front of his home fans at the Rome Open which kicks off just after the end of his suspension and is the last big clay court tournament before Roland Garros.
-AFP
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Naomi Osaka has parted ways with coach Wim Fissette after four years together across two stints, the 26-year-old announced late on Friday.
The former world number one won two of her four Grand Slam titles under the guidance of the Belgian, but is currently 75th in the rankings having returned to the tour nine months ago after a lengthy maternity break.
“Four years, two slams and a whole lot of memories,” Osaka wrote in an Instagram post.
“Thanks Wim for being a great coach and an even greater person. Wishing you all the best.”
Of the 16 tournaments Osaka has played this season, she has made the quarter-finals in only two – Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch – and the Japanese player has also failed to go past the second round in each of the four Grand Slams
-Reuters
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