TENNIS BITS & PIECES – Appendicitis won’t stop Nadal. Fognini gets another fine and Ivanovic pulls out of Linz.
Nadal determined to play the rest of 2014 season
Rafael Nadal plans to play out the rest of the 2014 season, sharing on Wednesday in Shanghai that he plans to have surgery to remove his appendix following the Atp World Tour Finals: “my thought is to continue with Basel, Paris and London,” said the World No. 2. “It is true that the past few months I did not have the best of luck. I didn’t have the best of luck since Wimbledon. I was playing a good year, very positive year. After that I was unlucky with the wrist, what’s going on now. Now there remain three more tournaments for me.” Nadal had returned to the court for the first time since Wimbledon last week in Beijing, before being diagnosed with appendicitis on Sunday ahead of the Shanghai Masters He received an aggressive course of antibiotics intravenously, and was able to play his second-round opening match against Feliciano Lopez on Wednesday. Nadal lost 6-3, 7-6(6).
Fognini fined $2,000 for obscene gesture
Fabio Fognini has been fined $2,000 for flashing an obscene gesture at the crowd after crashing out to a 553rd-ranked Chinese wild card at the Shanghai Masters. The No. 17-ranked showed his middle finger to the crowd as he left the stadium following his 7-6 (5), 6-4 loss to Wang Chuhan in the first round on Tuesday. He also gave Wang a shove with his elbow after the two shook hands at the net. The Italian is routinely fined for his bad behavior on the court. He received fines totaling $27,500 at Wimbledon this year for unsportsmanlike conduct and showing a visible obscenity during his first-round match.
Ivanovic pulls out of Linz with hip injury
Ana Ivanovic pulled out of the Generali Ladies with a left hip injury on Wednesday, one day after receiving medical treatment during her first-round win over Pauline Parmentier of France. In a statement on the tournament website, the Serbian player said, ‘this injury has been plaguing me the whole summer, and it got worse during the recent tournaments in Asia. I am sorry but I can’t play on’. Ivanovic, who was seeded second, defeated Parmentier 6-3, 6-2 but asked for a medical time-out while trailing 2-1 in the second set. The eighth-ranked Ivanovic, who won the indoor hard-court event in Austria in 2008 and 2010 and reached the final last year, has qualified for the WTA Finals in Singapore in November.
