Tennis Majors

On this day, May 16, 2009, in the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters 1000, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic played the longest three-set match in ATP Masters 1000 history. After four hours and three minutes of play, and after he saved three match points, Nadal, who had only lost three times on red dirt in the last four years, prevailed once again (3-6, 7-6, 7-6 (9)). Although i...

Top seed Jannik Sinner and Russian No. 7 seed Daniil Medvedev will return to Campo Centrale on Saturday to finish their suspended Rome ATP Masters 1000 semi-final, the Italian leading 6-2, 5-7, 4-2 when rain ended play for the night. Tournament organisers confirmed the match will resume on Saturday as the second match on Campo Centrale, with play scheduled to begin at 1:00 p....

Luciano Darderi’s Rome week came to an end on Friday with a 6-1, 6-1 semi-final loss to Casper Ruud, after a campaign that had included a 1-6, 7-6(10), 6-0 upset of world No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the round of 16. The 24-year-old Italian was visibly drained by the time he walked onto Centre Court – the third match of his week had finished in the early hours of Wednesday morni...

Norwegian No. 13 seed Casper Ruud reached the Rome ATP Masters 1000 final for the first time with a 6-1, 6-1 demolition of Italian No. 18 seed Luciano Darderi in 66 minutes on Campo Centrale, the 27-year-old completing the full set of finals at the four biggest clay-court events in tennis — Monte-Carlo (2024), Madrid (2025), Rome (2026), of course Roland-Garros (2022, 2023) —...

When Elina Svitolina took 12 months away from the WTA tour in late 2022, she was 28 years old, ranked No. 24, and considered post-peak by most of the tennis world. She returned at Charleston in April 2023, ranked outside the world’s top 800. Within four months of returning, she had reached the Roland-Garros quarter-finals and the Wimbledon semi-finals. Then the more difficult...