Monday, February 03, 2025

Weekend Tennis Roundup


Lots of Davis Cup action over the weekend as Auger Aliassime, Alexandrova and Mertens won tour titles. Full report plus all the ATP beef that's fit to post BELOW


Hate to do this again, but I'm swamped at my day job so will have to flesh this out later.


Barely more than a month of the season down, and Felix Auger-Aliassime is a two-time champion for 2025. The Canadian on Sunday pulled through a stern championship-match test from Aleksandar Kovacevic to claim the trophy at the Open Occitanie in Montpellier. Auger-Aliassime let slip two championship points in the second-set tie-break but held firm for a 6-2, 6-7(7), 7-6(2) triumph.


The 26-year-old American hottie of Serbian descent -- who curiously cites seeing at age 6 Novak Djokovic playing at the U.S. Open on TV as the reason he got into tennis yet has a one-handed backhand to be like his idol, Roger Federer -- had to play qualifying after his father and coach forgot to enter him into the tournament by the deadline. Despite this, after the match he dubbed it "the most fun I've ever had on a tennis court in my life."


A Netherlands-centric doubles showpiece did not disappoint on Sunday afternoon in Montpellier. Robin Haase and Botic van de Zandschulp ultimately prevailed 6-7(7), 6-3, 10-5 against Tallon Griekspoor and Bart Stevens to claim their first ATP Tour crown together.


Griekspoor and Stevens


Ekaterina Alexandrova, ranked 30th in the world, claimed her fifth WTA Tour title with a hard-fought 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 victory over Dayana Yastremska in the Linz final on Sunday.


No. 2 seed Elise Mertens of Belgium eased to her ninth career WTA singles title on Sunday, defeating unseeded American Ann Li 6-1, 6-4 in the Singapore Tennis Open final.


Although the biggest headline out of the weekend's Davis Cup ties was the incident between Zizou Bergs of Belgium and  Cristian Garin of Chile, here's where things stand overall:

The 13 winners of this week’s ties progress to September’s second round of qualifiers with 2024 finalists Netherlands receiving the one bye. From there, seven teams will qualify for the 2025 Davis Cup Finals, joining defending champions Italy in the battle for the title in November.


The second round ties will be:

Netherlands vs. Argentina
Australia vs. Belgium
Hungary vs. Austria
Germany vs. Japan
USA vs. Czechia
Denmark vs. Spain
Croatia vs. France





What did you make of the situation?


Czech mates: It sure seems like Jakub Mensik is tired of Tomas Machac getting all the attention!


When he too has so much to offer ...




Team Great Britain 





Team Italy


Find someone who looks at you the way Lorenzo Musetti looks at Andrea Vavassori 


Team Germany 






More HERE.


Team Bosnia and Herzegovina


Nerman Fatic


Bart Stevens 


Lorenzo Musetti


Team Musetti 


Luciano Darderi 


The goodies



Lucky girl


Lucky kid




Get Luca 


Team Darderi 




Vasek Pospisil begins the long goodbye 


Carlos Alcaraz gives the foot fetishists what they want 



Grigor Dimitrov 



The Bulgarian yogi is putting me to shame






Team Austria 


Reminder of why 37. Jurgen Melzner made my list of the 100 hottest ATP players of all time 


Tallon Griekspoor




Team Ireland 



Tallon and Bart 


Andrea Vavassori



Perfect view 




Karen Khachanov 






Team Great Britain: Here's the beef



Team USA welcomes Marcos Giron 


Hot matchups: Team Austria's Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler vs. Finland's Patrick Kaukovalta and Patrik Niklas-Salminen


Flavio Cobolli


Congrats to Monica Puig for catching this guy's load -- even more impressive than the Olympic gold medal!



Aleksandar Vukic smoldering during Davis Cup


Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury 



Jonny O'Mara is an official daddy 



Marton Fucsovics 


Hamad Medjedovic


Cold, Marcos? 





Your periodic reminder how f**kable Thiago Seyboth Wild is 



Another reason to root for Tomas Etcheverry


His biggest fan?


J.J. Wolf 


Who's the big one in the middle with the Lock brothers?


Tobias Simon 




Mikhail Youzhny









Nico Jarry


Jacob Fearnley


Billy Harris 



Daniel Masur


Team Spain 



Max Marterer


Team Argentina 


More HERE


Cam Norrie 


Andrey Rublev gives Marcos Borderias something to flex about 


Horia Tecău


Nico and the boys before Chile's bizarre dismissal 


Best men


The only way this could have been better is if the ginger admitting to borrowing Marcus's Budgie Smuggler 






Pedro Martinez 


Lucky friend 


My other Latin love 


Johnny Millman with Cruz Hewitt 


Quentin Halys: My French husband


Tommy Haas and a thiccc-looking Pat Rafter 


Nikolas Sanchez 


From HERE


Eero Vasa of Finland 


Otto Virtanen of Finland 


Richard Gasquet 



Albano Olivetti looks like he needs a hand 




Close your eyes and you can picture Constant Lestienne's knee-highs 


Fran Cerundolo helps Diego Schwartzman ready for his farewell event 


Santiago Franchini and friend


Zizou Bergs was shooting for the villain look before the scandal even happened! 


Joe Salisbury


Neal Skupski


Billy Harris 


Jacob Fearnley 


Dani Vallverdú


Joe and Dani


Billy


Jacob 




More Andrea 



If it's good enough for Elmar Ejupovic


Big daddy Mitchell Krueger


Read about Petra Kvitova's return after giving birth HERE.


I think this shot of Stan Wawrinka is old, although it never gets old ... proof HERE.

(With wire services) 

No comments: