mtenis.com.pl

Darby has served the tour for nearly three decades
The ATP World Tour hasn't existed without Mark Darby. Literally. Darby has been an ATP supervisor since 1990, the first season of the tour.
But after more than 27 years of traveling the globe and making sure tournaments and players follow the rules, Darby will retire from the ATP World Tour to spend more time with his family, including his wife and his 14-year-old triplets. The Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston was his final tournament. Darby was honoured on Saturday during an on-court ceremony.
Asked what he'll miss the most, Darby said the countless number of good people he's worked with during his career. “As in a lot of jobs, I think it's more the people you meet than it is necessarily the job itself,” Darby told ATPWorldTour.com on Sunday evening.
Houston was the latest tournament in what has been a lifetime of tennis for Darby. As a kid growing up outside of Pittsburgh, he became interested in the sport because his mother played. She dragged him to the tennis court with her, and pretty soon Darby was playing as well. He turned out to be pretty good.
Darby was a talented junior player in Pennsylvania and went on to play at Penn State University, eventually representing the Nittany Lions in the NCAA singles tournament. Darby remains in seventh place on the school's all-time match wins list.

He worked as an official for the U.S. Tennis Association before joining the ATP World Tour. Darby is also a member of the USTA Middle States Hall of Fame. After decades of traveling, he has accumulated quite a few stories and some favourites along the way.
Favourite tournament?
“Newport, Rhode Island. It's a 250-level event... The atmosphere at Newport I think is so good for the spectators and I think the players enjoy going there,” Darby said. “I think it had a certain charm to it. There are a lot of events around the globe that do such a wonderful job. If I had to pick one that would be it.”
Most unusual incident you had to rule on?
“In 1994, centre court at the New Haven, Connecticut, tournament had received so much rain that it started to crumble. The tournament had to resurface centre court on Tuesday night and let it dry all night before play resumed on it on Wednesday morning,” Darby said. “We even brought in a helicopter to help blow the lines... That's probably as unusual of a case as I've ever had... I'm glad we didn't ever top that one.”
What are you looking forward to most about retired life?
“The thing I'm most looking forward to is being at home every day with my kids and not going somewhere and maybe missing some activity that they're involved in,” Darby said.
He won't be completely out of tennis, though. As of now, he still plans to work as the referee at the Miami Open presented by Itau.

Five ATP World Tour stars among the Top 50 of the new ESPN World Fame List
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have been named among the world’s Top 10 most famous athletes in new analysis by ESPN. Federer is fourth on ESPN’s World Fame 100 list, Nadal is ninth and Novak Djokovic is close behind at 12th.
Federer and Nadal both move up one place from their positions in last year’s inaugural list. Djokovic rises four places from 16th in 2016.
Kei Nishikori surges to 20th from 47th last year. Andy Murray slips one spot to 32nd and Stan Wawrinka, at No. 42, is the other ATP World Tour star to make the Top 100 list.
Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo heads the World Fame 100 list, followed by Cleveland Cavaliers basketballer LeBron James in second and Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi in third.
View The Full List
ESPN.com explains how the ratings are calculated…
The ESPN World Fame 100 is our annual attempt to create a ranking, through statistical analysis, of the 100 most famous athletes on the planet.
We started with Forbes' annual list of the highest-paid athletes and expanded the pool from there using a variety of domestic and international sources to make sure we didn't overlook any legitimate candidates. We also sought input from ESPN journalists around the world, including colleagues in our bureaus in Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
The data for each athlete in the pool was then fed into a formula created by ESPN director of sports analytics Ben Alamar that weighs athletes' endorsements, their following on the social media Big Three (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and Google search popularity, producing a comparative ranking system. The analysis includes five categories: endorsement money, Twitter followers, Instagram followers, Facebook followers and Google Trends score.
Nadal is competing this week at Roland Garros, where he is attempting to win a historic 10th title. Federer will return to the ATP World Tour 12 June in Stuttgart, when the grass-court season begins.

Alex Hunt is a tennis player from New Zealand, Wakefield, and he can proudly say that he is a unique figure in the whole ATP Tour! Namely, Alex was born with only half of his left arm, and he is forced to wear prosthetic arm every time he plays tennis.

This amazing young man with a will of steel has always believed he can earn his place under the sun of professional tennis circuit, never giving up and constantly improving, despite the fact he can use his left arm only to throw a ball while serving.

Back in May, Hunt graduated from St Marys College, competing for their tennis team for 4 years, and he was ready to embrace some professional action. This week in Guam F1 Futures, Alex wrote tennis history as the first disabled player who scored an ATP point, beating an 18-year-old Christopher Cajigan 6-0 6-0 in 48 minutes! This was only the second main draw appearance for Hunt in the pro events, playing in Thailand F1 Futures two weeks ago, and he claimed an impressive triumph over an inexperienced rival, dropping just 10 points on serve and never facing a break point.

His return was also a top-notch, winning 26 out of 38 points to break Cajigan on all 6 occasions, in the best possible way to make a debut on the ATP rankings list before Wimbledon. His next rival will be the top seed Hiroyasu Ehara, and it will be a nice test for Alex to see where he stands at the moment.

High risk usually equals high reward, but over the years, on grass courts, taking chances in the form of attacking tennis has left some players looking at passing shots flying by them.

Last week’s finals on the ATP tour, in Stuttgart and ‘s-Hertogenbosch, though, almost had a throwback feel to them, with serve-and-volley tennis, slices and approach shots on full display.

But can those tactics equal eventual success at Wimbledon, the game’s most prestigious event, anymore? And how many players have been left on the outside looking in as grass-court play has slowed down?

The losing Stuttgart finalist, Feliciano Lopez, and the Ricoh Open champion, Gilles Muller, are always on the attack, with solid results to support that strategy during the grass-court stretch between the French Open and Wimbledon. But when it comes to the biggest prize in the game, it’s baseline play that’s been rewarded at the All England Club the past few years, with either Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray winning the title five of the past six years, and Rafael Nadal taking the title in 2008 and 2010.
Of course, the player filling in those gap years has been Roger Federer, whose all-court playing style on the surface has translated to seven titles in 10 finals played. He’s lost twice to Djokovic and once to Nadal in title matches.

Would a faster-playing Wimbledon have made the difference in those encounters? Federer is more likely to go on the attack than his fellow members of the Big Four. Three more titles equal a “La Decima” of his own, mimicking Nadal’s recently accomplished feat at the French Open.

Grass-court tennis has followed suit with the changes in the men’s game, with advances in technology being more conducive to extended rallies from the baseline. And at Wimbledon, a different blade of grass put into use more than a decade ago has put the players on more equal footing, bringing a halt to the serving-contest direction the game appeared to be headed in.

In 2002, the Wimbledon final featured Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian, the first championship match to feature two baseliners since Bjorn Borg beat Jimmy Connors for his third consecutive title. Federer’s first Wimbledon victory came against hard-serving Australian Mark Philippoussis, and in each of the next two years he beat Andy Roddick in the final.

Then, in 2006, he faced then-two-time French Open champion Nadal, which cemented the fact that the days of Boris Becker/Stefan Edberg-type finals were surely a thing of the past.

If the court conditions hadn’t undergone such a drastic change, would a player hitting such extreme ground strokes have been able to win a few rounds, much less make a final?

And could some of the players still bucking the tide by serving and volleying today have made their presence felt at Wimbledon?

Take, for instance, Lopez. The Spaniard, a three-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist, has made four finals on grass in the past several years, including Stuttgart last week, when he fell to Lucas Pouille in a three-set final. Could faster conditions have been the determining factor in a major breakthrough?

In 2013, Sergiy Stakhovsky handed Federer his earliest loss at a Grand Slam in a decade when he beat the Swiss star at Wimbledon in the second round. The sleek serve-and-volleyer from the Ukraine has a grass-court title under his belt, which came in 2010. He’s still capable of causing some damage, but perhaps if he played in a different era he’d be considered a Wimbledon contender.

The always-entertaining Dustin Brown has defeated Nadal twice on grass, in Halle in 2014 and at Wimbledon the next year. The grass-court season has traditionally been the German’s time to shine, with the soft courts providing the perfect setting for his particular brand of tennis.

Murray’s conqueror at this year’s Australian Open showed what he can do with the conditions are at a pace to his liking. Mischa Zverev has made significant strides over the past 12 months. With his ability to keep his opponents off-balance by taking away their reaction time, he can make inroads on the grass, as seen in his semifinal showing in Stuttgart this week. He fits the mold of a powerful grass-court specialist, playing a style that would’ve reaped great benefits in the past.

A player that clearly understands the nuances of grass-court play is Nicolas Mahut: All six of his career singles finals appearances have been on the turf. A former Wimbledon doubles champion, Mahut is perhaps best known for his epic match against John Isner at the 2010 edition of the tournament. Under different circumstances, perhaps Mahut enters that match as a defending champion.

This isn’t to discount the ability or accomplishments of Djokovic, Nadal or Murray, who’ve shown they will make whatever adjustments are necessary in order to win.

In another time, though, perhaps those three are joined by the likes of Mahut or Brown as a Wimbledon champion, which would redefine legacies—and build ones, too.

In a move that could shake up one of the sport’s biggest events, the International Tennis Federation’s board of directors approved a plan to stage the final phases of the Davis Cup men’s team competition and the Fed Cup women’s team competition together the next three years.

A new combined season-ending event, the World Cup of Tennis finals, will be the highlight of a series of historic reforms aimed at transforming the annual national team competitions. The board also approved the first site for the new combined, annual event: Geneva, which was selected from a list of six finalists that included Turin, Italy; Wuhan, China; Miami; Istanbul; and Copenhagen.

The combined finals would be staged indoors at an arena in the Palexpo exhibition center, which has a capacity of about 18.000, in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The wording of the ITF’s release on Wednesday had the simultaneous ring of relief at a tough decision finally made and crossed-fingers optimism that disturbing more than a century of tradition will not backfire.

“The finals are the centre-piece of a series of historic reforms that will transform Davis Cup and Fed Cup, the largest annual team competitions in sport,” the statement announced. “The ITF AGM will be asked to approve the full reform package at its meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in August.” "By providing Geneva with a full year to organise and promote the event, it will be able to fully maximise the competition's potential, elevating venue and hosting standards to a consistent Grand Slam level and delivering the very best athlete and fan experience," added Hagerty.

"All six cities were highly capable and presented outstanding bids, and each would have been an excellent choice. In the end, the Board felt that Geneva offered the best conditions for hosting this exciting and innovative new event, and will deliver a truly world-class event." Steve Simon, chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, has expressed support for the plan.

“I think it is great, to be honest,” Simon said. “I think the more times our sport is played together, the better we do as a sport. At the highest level, which is at Grand Slam events, the sport is combined, and I think bringing men and women together is what separates us from the other sports.

Conceptually, to do that makes a whole lot of sense.” .

Twelve tournaments will be included in the ATP World Tour 250 tournament package
The ATP announced on Friday the continued aggregation and centralisation of broadcast rights on the ATP World Tour, with 12 tournaments across the ATP World Tour 250 category being pooled and sold together in partnership with ATP Media, the broadcast arm of the ATP World Tour.
Following the success of the centralisation of rights across the Nitto ATP Finals, the nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000s, and the 13 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments, which has seen viewership more than double over the past 10 years, the ATP is pursuing a similar strategy with continued aggregation and centralisation at the 250-level.
“Media rights is one of the biggest growth areas in our sport, and we’ve seen tremendous results both commercially and in terms of viewership with the centralisation of rights at Masters 1000 level and ATP World Tour 500 level,” said Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman & President. “We want to see that growth replicated at the 250-level which, as a category, represents the largest number of events on the Tour. We’re delighted to have started this process, with twelve 250 tournaments coming on board in this initial phase. We’ll be looking to expand this number further as and when the rights become available in the coming years.”
Viewership of the ATP World Tour stood at 464 million in 2008, prior to the creation and centralisation of the ATP World Tour 500 category in 2009. In 2016, viewership reached 938 million viewers, an increase of 102% across a 10-year period.
Mark Webster, CEO of ATP Media, said: “At ATP Media, we pride ourselves on providing market leading production and services to broadcasters, and to fans worldwide. There’s no question that the pooling of the Tour’s broadcast rights is critical to achieve optimal presentation, commercialisation, and exposure of our sport. We look forward to building on the 12 tournaments that have taken this important first step in the coming years.”
The 12 tournaments to be included in the ATP World Tour 250 tournament package are: the Aircel Chennai Open (Chennai), the Fayez Sarofim & Co. US Men’s Clay Court Championship (Houston), the Hungarian Open (Budapest), the Millennium Estoril Open (Estoril), the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon (Lyon), the Antalya Open (Antalya), the Aegon International (Eastbourne), the J. Safra Sarasin Swiss Open Gstaad (Gstaad), the Abierto Mexicano de Tenis Mifel presentado por Cinemex (Los Cabos), the Winston-Salem Open (Winston-Salem), the Chengdu Open (Chengdu), and the European Open (Antwerp).
The rights encompass all forms of international media rights across linear broadcast and digital, across a five-year term from 2017 through 2021.

Tennis authorities may introduce some changes very soon. Well, they are already doing it. According to The Telegraph, US Open will introduce a shot-clock in the qualifying draws, juniors, legends, wheelchair, but not singles and doubles main draws at the moment.

It's still a significant new thing, as it may solve some important issues like players taking too much time between points. At the moment 20 seconds is the limit in the four Grand Slams, 25 secs in the ATP events, although Majors will reunite next week at Wimbledon to decide whether to switch to 25 seconds too.

But having a shot clock on court would also allow players to stop complaints about warm-ups. Do you realize when umpire says "Time" after players hit for five minutes and players, especially Rafael Nadal, keep serving for a little bit more? Or when medical time outs break the game for also ten minutes because trainer needs to listen what the player says about the injury, then thinks about what to do and only then start the three-minute treatment? Well, with shot clock all these little but very important details will be clearer.

Another important thing is that coaching will be allowed, but by distance and not directly on court. These changes will surely be introduced at the NextGen ATP Finals in Milan, but at the US Open we will already be able to see how they work.

If shot clock gets approved in the future also for main draw matches, it would be really interesting to see what umpire will decide to do after a long rally when players are tired and crowd gets excited. If it happens, shot clock time may start only when crowd will be quiet and players ready, if the umpire approves.