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Dominic Thiem announced on Wednesday that he has been awarded a wild card into the BNP Paribas Open, the ATP Masters 1000 event held at Indian Wells. The last time the Austrian competed in the tournament, four years ago, he captured the title.

“Hello Indian Wells! Today I received the great message that I will get a wild card for the 2023 BNP Paribas Open,” Thiem said. “It’s unbelievable news for me as it’s a tournament I love and it’s going to be the first time I played there since I won the tournament in 2019. So looking forward to seeing you all there. Thank you!”

Testing, testing ?

2019 champion @domithiem has an important announcement to make ?? pic.twitter.com/84NwqlIyMU

The 29-year-old owns a 13-5 record at Indian Wells, where he debuted in 2014. During his dream run in 2019, Thiem upset Roger Federer in the final to secure his maiden Masters 1000 trophy. This year's BNP Paribas Open will be played from 8-19 March.

Thiem, who is still battling back to top form following a 2021 wrist injury, is No. 99 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. The Austrian is competing this week in the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires.

Alex de Minaur earned his third Top 5 win in four months on Wednesday at the ABN AMRO Open, producing a dominant display to defeat second seed Andrey Rublev 6-4 6-4.

De Minaur did not face a break point in the one-hour, 21-minute matchup, winning 88 per cent (28/32) of his first-serve points. He put pressure on Rublev early in both sets and secured a break in the third game of each.

"It was a hell of a mach," De Minaur said after advancing to the last 16 at the Rotterdam ATP 500. "I think I had the right mindset. I knew I had to be aggressive and take it to him, and really believe in myself. I've been practising great. I've been doing exactly what I did today on the practice court. So it was great to see it all come alive."

The 23-year-old did his damage from all parts of the court, hitting 19 winners to seven unforced errors and winning 11 of 14 net points.

Flying into the next round @alexdeminaur @abnamroopen #ConversionScore calculates the percentage of points won when the player has been #InAttack#StealScore calculates how often a player has won the point when they are in defence during the point#TennisInsights | @atptour pic.twitter.com/F79YeBc2In

When tennis fans talk about Hubert Hurkacz's delivery, they're usually discussing the Pole's booming serve, one of the best on the ATP Tour. But the 26-year-old can also deliver a good punch line.

His comedic timing was on full display in the latest edition of our 'Travel With A Pro' series, in which the Pole gives an interview from his Vienna hotel room. Our Q&A got off to a rough start, with Hurkacz pointing out the "Privacy Please" sign on his door: "That wasn't respect!" he joked.

[ATP APP]

He later shared the importance of his physiotherapist during his time on the road. A big Formula 1 fan, Hurkacz enjoys watching the weekend races with his physio and was travelling with a book on the history of the sport.

"I actually watch every single race," he said. "Very rarely I miss one."

Casper Ruud has been a competitor all his life, having fun playing many sports throughout his childhood in Norway. After being exposed to a variety of athletic options, he made the “natural choice” to pursue tennis as a career, with his father Christian Ruud a former pro himself.

Now that the game of tennis has become his job, the Netflix Break Point star is all business.

“I would say that I’m quite professional about things in my career,” he said in a recent interview with the ATP Tour. “I don’t mess around too much. Any time I step on court, whether it’s a practice or a match, I’m all business. Of course I always have fun with it.”

Ruud’s dedication paid off in a big way in 2022, when he rose to a career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking of No. 2 by winning three titles and reaching finals at Miami, Roland Garros, the US Open and the Nitto ATP Finals.

Anytime there’s an ATP Challenger Tour event in France, the local fans flock to watch world-class tennis. The Cherbourg Challenger, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this week, is a case in point.

The longest-running French Challenger has been a staple of professional tennis for three decades. Year after year, spectators have enjoyed seeing some of the sport’s stars before they became household names.

The Challenger Cherbourg La Manche is also the longest-running indoor Challenger and has featured past champions such as former World No. 4 Sebastien Grosjean [1999 champion] and 2017 Nitto ATP Finals winner Grigor Dimitrov [2011]. In 2003, Rafael Nadal was a finalist (l. Sergio Roitman) just two years prior to winning his first Grand Slam title just three hours east in Paris.

That’s what the Challenger Tour has taken pride in its 45-year history: Providing tournaments for young stars to gain pro experience and develop their skills all while competing for points and prize money.

Matija Pecotic is living his Hollywood Moment.

The 33-year-old is the Director of Capital Markets for a real estate investment company who signed in as an alternate for qualifying at the Delray Beach Open. The lefty not only received a spot, but reached his first ATP Tour main draw. On Tuesday evening, he upset former Top 10 star Jack Sock to reach the second round.

Not bad for someone who worked his office job on Monday after qualifying.

But to fully understand Pecotic’s road to this point takes revisiting his roots. The Croatian was born in 1989 and in 1993, his family was still in Belgrade, which was entrenched in war. Matija’s father, orthopedic surgeon Goran, received a call from a friend who had just travelled to Malta. Recruitment was underway for an orthopedic surgeon.

“If he got there within a few days he might have had a shot to get the position. So he flew there by himself and found a base [and] rented a house. It’s not easy,” Pecotic told ATPTour.com. “People say there’s so much pressure playing this match. But if you really think about what he did, he was 40 years old, [had] two kids, hyperinflation [was] going on in the country. All your life’s possessions became worthless and you had to move to a country where you didn’t speak the local language and figure it out.

Jannik Sinner was tested on Wednesday at the ABN AMRO Open, but last week’s Montpellier champion battled on to set a second-round showdown with top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas.

The Italian overcame a second-set hiccup to defeat Benjamin Bonzi 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 after two hours and four minutes in Rotterdam.

“For sure it’s tough when you come quite late to the other tournament, so I’m very happy about my performance today,” Sinner said. “It was not easy for me. We made a lot of unforced errors today. But still I tried to stay focussed [on] my game.”

[ATP APP]

Sinner saved two of the three break points he faced and won 46 per cent of his return points to improve to 9-2 on the season. He will next try to double his win total against Tsitsipas (1-5).

Dominic Thiem got off the mark for the 2023 ATP Tour season with a quality win on Tuesday night at the Argentina Open. The former World No. 3 defeated seventh seed Alex Molcan 7-6(4), 6-3 in Buenos Aires, breaking through in his fifth match of the year.

"It was a good match," said Thiem, who won the Buenos Aires title in 2016 and 2018. "I like it a lot here in Buenos Aires. Already the last days in practice I was feeling well.

"I won my first match of the season against a very good opponent. I stayed focussed throughout the whole match, as well in the difficult moments. So I'm happy and I'm trying to focus fully on the second round now."

Thiem and Molcan traded breaks from 5-5 in the opening set, with Thiem racing to a 5/1 lead in the tie-break after failing to serve out the set. The 29-year-old Austrian did not face a break point in set two as he improved to 12-1 in Buenos Aires with the victory.

Next up for Thiem is Peruvian qualifier Juan Pablo Varillas, a 6-2, 7-5 winner against Joao Sousa earlier on Tuesday. Third seed Lorenzo Musetti is a potential third-round opponent at the ATP 250.

Matija Pecotic became one of the stories of the young season on the ATP Tour by qualifying for his tour-level debut at the age of 33. But the Croatian, who holds a full-time job in finance, was not content just to make the main draw at the Delray Beach Open.

On Tuesday, Pecotic extended his dream run in Florida with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win against former Top 10 player Jack Sock. After falling behind 0-4 in the opening set and fighting off a break point early in the second, the Princeton and Harvard graduate dominated the second half of the match. He won the final four games of sets two and three, and did not face a break point beyond the third game of the second set. 

"I certainly didn't expect to win, but certainly didn't come into the match thinking that I'm definitely going to lose," said Pecotic, who represented Croatia at the inaugural United Cup last month. "You've got to be realistic. This is a former Top 10 guy with an incredible amount of tennis experience, with a huge serve. He came out serving 134 [mph] on the first serve. It would be arrogant to think that I'm going to come out and expect to win.

"But I certainly figured if I could sink my teeth into the match and work on the two or three patterns that I prepared before, that I'm going to have a chance. And then let's see... if I was going to fall under pressure or not be able to serve it out at some point. But I didn't and I got the win."

Pecotic hit 10 aces and 30 winners in the two-hour, 10-minute match, saving six of eight break points. He attacked the net 31 times, winning 21 of those points.

Carlos Alcaraz has missed four months due to injury. In doing so, the Spaniard also lost his place atop the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Starting this week in Buenos Aires at the Argentina Open, the 19-year-old sensation is determined to climb back towards the top of men’s tennis’ mountain.

“It has been a long time [I spent] at No. 1,” said Alcaraz, who held top spot for 20 weeks. “Now it’s a goal for me to recover No. 1 and try to do my best in these tournaments to be back on that number. I’m looking for that.”

The teen knows the road to accomplishing that feat will not be an easy one to travel. The current World No. 1 is Novak Djokovic, the 22-time Grand Slam champion and 38-time ATP Masters 1000 titlist, who has been at the top of the sport longer than any other man in history.

Alcaraz looks forward to embracing the challenge of chasing the Serbian, for whom he has great respect.

A day after Stan Wawrinka edged Alexander Bublik in an entertaining ABN AMRO Open first-round singles clash, the pair combined to cause an upset in the doubles draw at the indoor ATP 500 event.

Bublik and Wawrinka defeated second seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic 3-6, 7-6(3), 10-7 in Rotterdam. Although the Kazakh-Swiss pair did not carve out a break point in the 78-minute encounter, they took ultimately unassailable early leads in both the second-set tie-break and the Match Tie-break to notch a notable victory against the Croatian stars.

Next up for Bublik and Wawrinka in Rotterdam are Belgian qualifiers Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen. In the same half of the draw, Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek also needed a Match Tie-break to see off Fabrice Martin and Andrey Rublev. The Croatian-American pair, which qualified for the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals in their first year as a team, prevailed 3-6, 6-4, 10-4 to reach the quarter-finals.

Also on Tuesday, Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden downed Australian Open finalists Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski 7-6(6), 4-6, 10-5, while Grigor Dimitrov and four-time Rotterdam doubles winner Nicolas Mahut beat Andreas Mies and John Peers 6-3, 6-3.

[ATP APP]

In his first competitive action since the Australian Open, Daniil Medvedev battled back from a set down to defeat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Tuesday night at the ABN AMRO Open. The sixth seed earned a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory, turning the match around by winning nine of 10 games after falling behind 0-1 in the second set.

"I just managed to play a little bit better," Medvedev said of the turnaround. "I don't want to say that I played much better, but a little bit better, managed to use the crucial opportunities a little bit better and I feel like he was missing a bit more than in the first set.

"All together, I feel like I changed just a few millimetres of tactics, if we can say like this," he added, later explaining that he varied his position on return, including moving closer to the baseline on second serves. "All of this happened to work, so I'm really happy about it."

Medvedev converted on eight of 16 break chances, with Davidovich Fokina breaking six times from 11 opportunities in a topsy-turvy match. Four straight breaks closed the opening set, with Davidovich Fokina claiming his sixth set point in a marathon Medvedev service game to edge in front.

After finding his best tennis in the second set, hitting 14 winners to just three unforced errors, Medvedev stayed steady in the deciding set in the face of his opponent's aggressive tactics. While Davidovich Fokina earned two breaks with his big ground game, unforced errors prevented him from holding serve in the set as Medvedev locked in on return.

In danger of a second early exit in as many weeks in his home nation, Francisco Cerundolo used a late surge to escape an opening-round challenge from qualifier Yannick Hanfmann on Tuesday at the Argentina Open. The fifth seed won the final four games in a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 victory, denying his opponent's attempt to serve out the match at 5-4 in the final set.

After retiring with a leg injury last week in the Cordoba quarter-finals, Cerundolo started well at the ATP 250, cruising through the first set and opening up a 3-0 lead in the second without a break point faced. But Germany's Hanfmann flipped the match on its head, winning nine of 11 games to claim the second set and build a 3-1 lead in the third.

With the backing of the home crowd, Cerundolo re-established himself in the match and began to step up his aggression in the late stages. He missed out on three break chances as Hanfmann held for 5-3, but that would be the last game the German won on the day as Cerundolo closed out the match with consecutive breaks.

[ATP APP]

The 24-year-old will next face Jaume Munar, who beat Argentine wild card Guido Pella 6-4, 7-5 on Monday night.

Stefanos Tsitsipas shook off some early struggles to make an ultimately confident start to his 2023 ABN AMRO Open campaign on Tuesday, when the top-seeded Greek defeated Emil Ruusuvuori 7-5, 6-1 in Rotterdam.

Tsitsipas was greeted with an early barrage of clean hitting from the World No. 52 Ruusuvuori at the indoor ATP 500 event. The Greek trailed 3-5 in the opening set but, as he has done so often already in the 2023 season, he dialled in behind his serve and forehand to grind his way back into the match. Tsitsipas won 10 of the next 11 games to accelerate away from the Finn for a one-hour, 33-minute victory.

“My footwork got better over time," said Tsitsipas post-match. "I think I wasn’t very well adjusted in those first few games, and it took a little bit of time to find the right footwork, [get used to] the speed of the court, [acclimatise] to the new conditions.

“I had an opportunity in the last game [when Ruusuvuori led 5-3] to come back. I revived from that, I regenerated some awesome tennis and I recaptured that first set, which was crucial. I think from that point onwards it was flawless tennis. I was able to produce some really good shots.”

Ruusuvuori won just four games in his only previous ATP Head2Head meeting with Tsitsipas in Stockholm last October. The Finn appeared keen to emphasise early that there would be no repeat in Rotterdam as he hit his flat groundstrokes with aggression from the start and that strategy, along with some uncharacteristically wayward Tsitsipas serving, earned the Finn the first break of the match in the fifth game.

Felix Auger-Aliassime made a perfect start to his title defence at the ABN AMRO Open on Tuesday.

The Canadian fired past Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-2, 6-3 to reach the second round in Rotterdam. The third seed saved the two break points he faced to advance to a second-round clash with Frenchman Gregoire Barrere after one hour and 22 minutes.

When Auger-Aliassime arrived in Rotterdam last year, he had not yet claimed an ATP Tour title and lost his first set of the tournament against Egor Gerasimov. He had no such difficulty against Sonego, whose spinny groundstrokes allowed the four-time tour-level champion to crush ball after ball from the baseline.

The defending champion also showed good feel around the net throughout the match to take a 2-0 ATP Head2Head lead against the Italian.

[ATP APP]

The ATP, WTA, ITF and the four Grand Slams – the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open – have united to launch Tennis Plays for Love, a fundraising campaign to support those impacted by the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

More than 17 million people in the affected region are now living in freezing winter conditions and urgently need blankets, emergency shelter, food and clean water.

The campaign, which kicks off with a joint donation by the tennis governing bodies, will benefit Global Giving’s Turkey and Syria Earthquake Relief Fund, helping provide emergency relief and fuel long-term recovery efforts. All fans can lend their support by donating via the fund’s official page.

In addition, a one-of-a-kind NFT from the ‘LOVE’ tennis art project is being auctioned in support of the campaign. Head over to OpenSea to place your bid before the auction’s close on Friday 17 February.

Tennis Plays for Love follows on from last year’s Tennis Plays for Peace campaign, which has so far raised more than US$3.5 million for those impacted by the war in Ukraine.

When the best stories of the tennis season are collated at the end of 2023, Matija Pecotic’s journey at the Delray Beach Open will certainly be among them.

The 33-year-old has a full-time job as the Director of Capital Markets for a real estate investment company and is No. 784 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. So how did he end up in the main draw of an ATP Tour event for the first time? 

Pecotic never broke into the Top 1,000 in the ITF Junior Rankings, but he became a star at Princeton University, where he competed from 2009-13. The lefty was a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year and climbed as high as No. 2 in the college tennis rankings.

In 2014, the Croatian fully pursued professional tennis and the following year he ascended to a career-high World No. 206. But that was when he hit a roadblock. Just before the 2016 Australian Open he had a small surgery on his stomach.

“[I] ended up getting a serious staph infection and I was basically bed-ridden for eight months,” Pecotic said. “That changed the trajectory of my tennis timeline and my tennis career.”

Laslo Djere improved to 4-0 in opening rounds this season with a 6-4, 6-4 victory against Fabio Fognini at the Argentina Open on Monday.

In a battling performance, the Serbian saved the first six break points he faced before Fognini denied his first attempt to serve out the match at 5-2. The Italian took a medical timeout after turning his ankle and held serve to put the pressure on his opponent, but Djere held to love to close out the one-hour, 37-minute match.

Djere, who was an efficient three-for-four on break points, will meet Buenos Aires debutant and top seed Carlos Alcaraz in the second round. It will be the pair's first ATP Head2Head matchup.

Fognini fell to 0-3 on the year with defeat in what was the first clay-court match of 2023 for both players.

Argentina's Pedro Cachin also advanced with a 7-6(2), 6-4 win against Thiago Monteiro to set up a second-round meeting with third seed Lorenzo Musetti, while Spain's Bernabe Zapata Miralles scored a 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 win against countryman Pedro Martinez to book a matchup against fourth seed and home favourite Diego Schwartzman.

American Denis Kudla completed a comeback against Jordan Thompson on Monday at the Delray Beach Open with a dominant performance in a third-set tie-break. The 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2) victory avenged a straight-sets loss for Kudla against the Aussie last week in Dallas.

"I thought we both served well, we were both playing pretty physical," Kudla said post-match. "But whoever really got in front of the point stayed in front. Obviously it came down to a few points at the end and I was happy to execute."

[ATP APP]

The 30-year-old was trailing by a set and an early break at the ATP 250, but immediately levelled the second set after losing his opening service game. He saved two break points midway through set two before forcing a final set with his second break of the match.

After a final set without a single break point, the Kiev-born Kudla took control of the tie-break by winning four straight points from 1/1. He survived 19 aces from Thompson in the two-hour, 36-minute match, hitting 22 winners in the victory. 

Fourth seeds Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara made a fast start at the ABN AMRO Open with a straight-sets win against wild cards Petros Tsitsipas and Stefanos Tsitsipas on Monday. The British-Finnish pairing converted on three of four break points in the 6-3, 6-4 victory, winning 86 per cent of their first-serve points in a comfortable outing.

Through to the quarter-finals, Glasspool/Heliovaara are seeking their fourth title as a team and their second of 2023 after a triumph at the Adelaide International 1 last month. The duo is 8-1 on the young season.

Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen were also victorious on Day 1 in Rotterdam, earning a 6-3, 5-7, 10-3 win against Dutchmen Tallon Griekspoor and Botic van de Zandschulp.

[ATP APP]

Defending Champs Arevalo/Rojer Advance In Delray Beach
Top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Marcelo Arevalo defeated Americans Brandon Holt and Jackson Withrow 6-3, 7-5 on Monday in the opening round of the Delray Beach Open. The Salvadoran-Dutch duo won four titles in 2022, including at Roland Garros and Delray Beach. They have already claimed another this season at the Adelaide International 2.