Winners of the Week
Alex de Minaur earned his 10th Tour-level title in dramatic fashion on Sunday when he saved three match points to claim the title at the Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington in a 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(3) victory against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
For Davidovich Fokina, who was looking to win his first ATP Tour title, losing in such agonising fashion must have had a familiar feeling after he missed out on two championship points in Delray Beach this past February against Miomir Kecmanovic and lost the Acapulco final to Tomas Machac in March. The Spaniard broke down in tears after the defeat but was comforted by de Minaur in an incredible act of sportsmanship.
World No. 36 Leylah Fernandez became the first Canadian to win the women's title in the same tournament when she dismantled No. 48 Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 in the hard-court final, to secure her fourth career WTA singles title in just 69 minutes.
The 2021 US Open finalist Fernandez who had been in a minor title drought, as her most recent champion's trophy was in Hong Kong in October 2023, showed plenty of her well-known grit all week in Washington, battling on court for over nine hours in total to get to the final while Kalinskaya, by contrast, did not drop a set en route to her third career WTA singles final.
Alexander Bublik captured his second consecutive tour-level title on Saturday at the Generali Open ATP 250 tournament in Kitzbuhl, where he got the better of Frenchman Arthur Cazaux for the second week in a row to lift the trophy in the Austrian mountains.
Bublik, who hit 26 winners, has now won his past eight matches and may boast of a 17-2 record since Roland Garros, where he reached his first major quarter-final. Thanks to his triumph in Kitzbuhl, the 28-year-old has now won three trophies in a season for the first time, after he claimed the title in Gstaad and the ATP 500 event in Halle in June.
To emulate Bublik's impressive feat, Luciano Darderi won his second consecutive ATP title, securing victory at the Croatia Open in Umag with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Carlos Taberner. This win came in the wake of his recent triumph at the Nordea Open in Bastad and the 23-year-old Italian has won his last nine matches.
Marie Bouzkova won her second WTA Tour singles title at the Livesport Prague Open on Saturday with a three-set comeback over fellow Czech Linda Noskova.
The first-seeded Bouzkova dropped the first set for the second time in five matches before staging an impressive comeback for a 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 triumph in the ninth all-Czech Tour-level singles final since the Czech Republic became an independent nation in 1993. A Czech woman has now won the title six times since 2015.
Strugglers of the Week
It would be fair to say that Andrey Rublev, has looked far from the player he used to be this year and already in February, he again spoke about battling depression while also suffering from a severe burnout on the Tour.
The Russian World No. 9 Andrey Rublev said he reached the breaking point after last year's first-round exit from Wimbledon and that he "didn't see the reason for living."
Rublev has remained in the Top 10 in the last four years and has 16 titles to his name, but he has never won a Grand Slam and has attracted much attention for his emotional on-court outbursts, often hitting himself with his racquet.
Rublev has had a series of disappointing results this year which has seen him drop to No. 10 in the world rankings and things didn't get much better for him in Washington when he already crashed out in the second round of the tournament after making no less than 42 unforced errors against young American left-hander Learner Tien, a finalist at the Next Gen ATP Finals last December.
Moment of the Week
Stefanos Tsitsipas on 24 July ended his collaboration with coach Goran Ivanisevic after less than two months working together.
"Working with Goran Ivanisevic was brief but an intense experience and a truly valuable chapter in my journey," Tsitsipas wrote on his Instagram story Wednesday.
To be honest, it never seemed like a match made in heaven after Ivanisevic gave a scathing assessment of the 26-year-old Greek, saying he had "never seen a more unprepared player" in his life following Tsitsipas' opening-round exit at Wimbledon.
"He says he wants to (return to the top level), but he’s not doing anything. It’s always 'I want, I want,' but I don’t see any progress," added Ivanisevic. "With this knee, I’m three times fitter than him. It’s really bad."
After that announcement, the split between the two seemed inevitable and on the same day that Tsitsipas announced that he would part ways with the former Croatian Wimbledon winner, Tsitsipas told Greek publication SDNA that "It is very difficult to have dictators and people who speak negatively and you don't feel like they are close to you like family," in a message seemingly directed at Ivanisevic.
Rallies of the Week
The Frenchman Corentin Moutet sealed his ticket to the semi-final of the ATP tournament in Washington by winning one of the most spectacular match points of the year, which resulted in Daniil Medvedev pushing the ball wide as Moutet collapsed on the court.
Despite things looking very bleak, De Minaur never gave in during his final against Davidovich Fokina in Washington, and he saved his third match point against the Spaniard in spectacular fashion through this point.
Upcoming events
The North American hard-court Tour continues this week as the prime of men's and women's tennis head to Canada with the ATP 1000 tournament taking place in Toronto, while the women will line up for the WTA 1000 tournament in Montreal.
It will be the 135th edition of the men's tournament. Fresh from his maiden Wimbledon triumph, Jannik Sinner (No.1), along with Jack Draper (No.5) and Novak Djokovic (No.6), have decided to withdraw from the Canadian Open in Toronto. Remarkably, Djokovic hasn't competed in Canada since 2018.
Shortly after those withdrawals were announced, five-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz also decided to opt out of the Masters 1000 event, where Alexei Popyrin is the defending champion.
World No. 2 Coco Gauff leads the draw in Montreal as the No. 1 seed (World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka withdrew from the event, citing fatigue).