TENNIS – Rory McIlroy called off his five month engagement to Caroline Wozniacki. Milos Raonic breaks into the top 10. Stanislas turns into Stan and what is going on in Dusseldorf, Nice, Strasbourg and Nuremberg. Joshua Bosco
This week tournaments
All four tournaments this week have reached the quarter-final stage.
Dusseldorf In the top half draw, top seed Kohlschreiber comfortably got to the last eight with a straight sets victory over Gabashvili and will now meet one of the tournament’s surprises, 21 year old Croatian qualifier Mate Delic. The other quarter-final will see Andreas Seppi up against Istomin, who beat No.6 seed Nieminen in the first round. In the bottom half 21 year old Jiri Vesely, after beating Sijsling and Davydenko en route, will now play veteran Jurgen Melzer for a place in the semi-final while big server Karlovic will face Monaco, who crushed No.2 seed Granollers 6-1 6-2 in the previous round.
Nice In France, top seed John Isner will play against Delbonis for a place in the semi-finals against either Simon or Berlocq, who quickly dismissed No.6 seed Mahut in the last sixteen. In the bottom half of the draw, L. Mayer defeated Roger-Vasselin and will now face Montanes in the quarter-finals while No.2 seed Gulbis is up against Tursunov in what promises to be a very interesting match.
In Strasbourg only one seeded player survived the first two rounds: top seed Stephens lost to Goerges, who will now play against another American, Madison Keys, for a place in the last four. Their semi-final opponent will be either No.4 seed Andrea Petkovic or Portuguese youngster Monica Puig. In the bottom half Christina McHale will face world No. 96 Zarina Diyas while Silvia Soler-Espinosa is up against Italian Camila Giorgi, who put No.2 seed Cornet out of the tournament in the first round.
Four seeds got to the quarter-finals in Nurnberg: top seed Angelique Kerber will play Pliskova for a place in the semi-finals against either Mona Barthel or No.4 seed Svitolina. Italian Karin Knapp is up against No.7 seed Caroline Garcia while Yaroslava Shvedova, who defeated Kurumi Nara in the previous round, will play No.2 seed Eugenie Bouchard for a place in the last four.
New Rankings
In this week’s new ATP Rankings Canadian Milos Raonic is back to No.9 in the world – his highest ranking- whilst Grigor Dimitrov has reached his top ranking at No.12. Frenchman Benoit Paire, on the other hand, lost 28 spots and is now down to No.63 in the world.
Even though she withdrew from her 3rd round match in Rome against Carla Suarez Navarro, Simona Halep is now up to No.4 in the world: exactly one year ago, she was No.64 and was forced to qualify for a spot in the main draw of the Internazionali. Jelena Jankovic took over Maria Sharapova as No.7 in the world, while Italian youngster Camila Giorgi climbed a couple of spots and reached her highest ranking at No.51 in the world.
Wozniacki and McIlroy split
Yesterday morning, in a dramatic change of events, Rory McIlroy called off his five-month engagement to former World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki.
In a statement released by his communication team, the golfer said “The wedding invitations issued at the weekend made me realize that I wasn’t ready for all that marriage entails. […] I wish Caroline all the happiness she deserves and thank her for the great times we’ve had”.
Stanislas to Stan
World No.3 Stanislas Wawrinka, Stan the man, has changed his name to Stan, at least on the ATP World Tour. It’s unsure whether he has changed his name in official documents, but from now, at least on court he’ll be known as Stan Wawrinka, as can be seen in his official ATP biography.
