It's not every week that we have this many memorable story lines, so let's get right down to business.
Feliciano Lopez stunned the tennis world by winning the Queen's singles as a 37-year-old wild card, beating fellow veteran Gilles Simon.
Lopez 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-2).
The Spaniard had spent almost five hours on court on Saturday and France's Simon, 34, had come through some long matches as well.
(See Lopez's jockstrap and Simon's Daisy Dukes
HERE.)
Lopez, who won the singles crown in 2017, returned to the court 30 minutes later to win the doubles title alongside Andy Murray. The well-hung Scotsman was playing his first tournament since having hip surgery in January and the pair will beat Joe Salisbury, another Briton, and American Rajeev Ram 7-6 (8-6) 5-7 10-5.
Wait, were Feliciano and Murray even on the court?
We'll probably never hear from the 27-year-old Salisbury, so enjoy this while you can!
Roger Federer defeated David Goffin 7-6, 6-1 to capture a record 10th title in Halle, Germany. (It would have been 11 if he hadn't lost to Borna Coric last year, who promptly flopped out this year.) The 37-year-old is now just seven titles behind the men's record of 109, held by Jimmy Connors.
Perhaps more importantly, Fed will now be seeded No. 2 at Wimbledon, above Rafael Nadal, which means the Swiss legend will not have to play Novak Djokovic, the four-time champion and last year's winner, before the final.
No.6 seed Sofia Kenin of the "United States" executed a stunning comeback in the Mallorca Open final on Sunday, saving three championship points at 5-4 in the second set en route to a marathon 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 6-4 defeat of No.3 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and locking up her second WTA singles title of the year as a result.
After the match, Kenin
credited her fighting spirit as "what really got me through. With [Bencic], you have to fight every point, and I’m just really happy with this title. It just means a lot to me." Kenin kept her breakthrough year rolling with her two-hour and 42-minute win over Bencic, in their first meeting. The 20-year-old, who at World No.30 is enjoying her first-ever month as a Top 30 player, claimed her first WTA singles title at Hobart in January, and just had her best-ever Grand Slam result at Roland Garros, where she upset Serena Williams to reach the fourth round.
And last but certainly not least: Ashleigh Barty became the first Australian woman to seize the world No.1 tennis ranking in almost half a century after claiming her third title of a phenomenal 2019 season, casting aside her German doubles partner, Julia Goerges, 6-3, 7-5 in Sunday's final of Birmingham -- aka the Fucking Crumbs Everywhere Classic. The all-court Aboriginal follows in the footsteps of Evonne Goolagong, who retroactively ranked as World No. 1 for two weeks in early 1976 after missing data
was acknowledged in 2007.Congrats, Ash! So nice to see a player win even when the pressure of becoming No. 1 was on. She just played her game and the rest took care of itself.
New Zealand's Michael Venus and South African doubles partner Raven Klaasen captured their biggest title together as a team, winning the crown in Halle. The second seeds toppled top-ranked defending champions Lukasz Kubot (Poland) and Marcelo Melo (Brazil) 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 in a final that lasted an hour and 26 minutes. It's the second title for the Venus-Klaasen pairing after their victory in Marseille last year and Venus's ninth of his career. Venus, who recently became an actually daddy, now climbs to a career-high 10 in the ATP doubles rankings, with Klaasen moving up a spot to nine. They will be the third seeds for Wimbledon.
P.S.
Speaking of players of a certain age: Tommy Robredo, who I didn’t even realize was still playing, captured the ATP Challenger event in Parma. No word if
REICHEN was on hand to cheer him on.
Around the net ...
Denis, Denis, oh with your eyes so blue ...
Congrats (again) to Caroline Wozniacki and David Lee.
(With wire services)
