The Tennis Tour Delivered More Than It Promised Last Week And It Was Insane!

trying to enjoy every moment and I I am excited about being Concor in a professional tournament again we waited 681 days for this the first professional match on clay for Rafa Nadal in almost 2 years but before the week kicked off I had lots of thoughts running through my mind was Rafa's body going to hold up this time will Casper Roode get another bite at the Cherry and finally win a title that isn't an ATP 250 would the umpires do a better job this time and were there going to be any surprises from a player who I didn't even have on my radar the tennis world delivered more than it promised last week and it was insane from Casper Roode winning the biggest title of his career in Barcelona and Yan lard Stu creating history in Munich to Elena rebak in's crazy title run in stutgart and everything in between here's everything that happened in tennis last week the ATP 250 jokes on Casper Roode are officially dead now and I'm really happy that I made that video on him a few weeks ago it might not be a slam or a Masters 1000 title but winning an ATP 500 for the first time against a player who had just beaten him in the Monte Carlo final last week is one heck of an achievement oh and he won the title without dropping a single set taking down Alexandre Mueller Jordan Thompson Matteo arnaldi and Thomas Martin eer before Downing titius in the final Roode had the better service game in the final this time getting a lot more from his first and second serves and he was also a lot more aggressive on the return too csas however had the better start to the match breaking Roode in the very first game but the Norwegian needed to do this this to break back oh yes firing on all cylinders I was blown away with rud's backhand the shot execution and placement was a massive step up from last week's final and it paid off big time I mean look at this point right here and in The crucial last game in the first set we saw an improved backhand on full display again a rude awakening for tisas excused the pun as rude stole the first set at the death entering the second set tisas was already running on fumes while rud's forehand was at its lethal best his backhand down the line continued to impress me more than anything else and after 89 minutes of highquality clay Court action from two Specialists Barcelona had a worthy Champion 75 63 your final score and he's done it it is the biggest title of Casper roode's career rud's Idol Nadal who we're also going to be talking about later on would have been proud of that one it's the biggest title of rud's career so far and boy has it been a long time coming because he was 0 and seven in finals outside of 250s before now the icing on the cake is that he Avenged his Monte Carlo loss to tias at least in some way 2024 is becoming rude's year and let me blow your mind with some of the craziest stats he's put up so far rude is now a staggering 26 6-0 this year when he wins the first set you ain't coming from behind to beat him that's for sure rude is now 4-1 against top 10 players this year rude has also been in a tour leading four ATP finals this year during a postmatch interview back in Monte Carlo rud said his goal for the clay season was to reach at least the quarterfinals of every event and he's been delivering with 29 match wins Casper has now also won more matches in 2024 than any other player on tour at this point but The Best Is Yet To Come an 11th ATP title and the 10th on clay for Roode and his first title win since esteril in April 2023 Roode is now the new number three in the ATP finals race to Turan it's also crazy because rude was a finalist in 2022 but then got kicked out of the top 10 the following year and didn't make the cut but now he's back with some Viking energy he now leads his rivalry with csas 3 to2 he's definitely back in business take a plunge Casper I'm actually here meeting with a bunch of tournament directors and with the WTA so we can keep getting access to these really awesome events to bring you the court side content over the next few months but honestly the best part of being here in Madrid has just been the overwhelming amount of support I've had from everybody here everybody's super friendly I mean right guys but while Casper has finally gotten the 250 monkey off his back CA still hasn't quite been able to tip the scales in his favor at least at the ATP 500 level I'm pretty sure Steph wouldn't be too happy with a disastrous 0 And1 record in ATP 500 finals and 0 and4 in in Barcelona but I'm not sure it matters so much seeing that Steph has so many big titles to his name just a random fact anyway after reaching back-to-back finals in Barcelona and Monte Carlo csas had already spent more than eight hours on court which was two hours more than rude coming into the final csas played more than two hours in each of his last two matches even saving match points against fundo Diaz aosta in the quarterfinal there was a feeling that fatigue could be a factor in the final so I wasn't too surprised to see Steph run out of gas in the second set but that said I'm pretty sure he would be happy with his performance over the last two weeks just like Casper Steph went 10- one between Monte Carlo and Barcelona before his 10- match winning streak tias was 25th in the race to Turnin and had lost six of his last seven matches against top 20 players he also had no top five wins since 2022 but now it already seems like such a long time ago because he's now fifth in the race to turn what a turnaround Who's down for a Casper at csas Trilogy in Madrid this year last week tisas revealed that he won't play mixed doubles with Maria Saker and the Olympics if he qualifies for doubles with his brother Petro setting priorities right speaking of priorities one of the best players in WTA history decided to call it quits because their priorities changed Garbin mugara reached the top of the WTA rankings won two grand slam titles at Roland garos and Wimbledon reached the final of the Australian Open won the year- end championships and three WTA 1000 titles a future Hall of Famer for sure garbino was one of the players who could match Serena Williams power and she did beat both Williams sisters in Grand Slam finals in her prime garbino was almost Untouchable until her priorities began to change we made a video about the two-time Grand Slam Champion not too long ago talking about her decision to walk away from the sport and now we know for sure that we won't be seeing her compete professionally anymore after she announced her retirement officially ending her career at 30 years old and confirming the Open Secret garbino played her last match in February 2023 and said that she made the decision to retire after taking some time off to rest during which she noticed that she felt a lot better in her retirement spe she said quote I realized that what I want most is to look at my next chapter and not so much at tennis end quot when asked what the future holds for her the Spaniard said a thousand things professional tennis deprives you of many things I want to make up for that lost time a little do common things like being with my family or my friends I have plans to form a family getting married having a dog I want to continue being involved in the world of tennis I've been commentating involved with my sponsors I'm not a person who sits back and does nothing end quote and the truth is that the life of a professional tennis player comes with a lot of sacrifices but while one player was retiring another one was coming out of retirement IMA retired last year following the announcement of an 18-month suspension for violating anti-doping rules in July 2023 2023 was a weird year for the swed because he hit a career high breaking into the top 50 and he also reached the third round of Wimbledon coming from two sets down to beat Taylor Fritz a few weeks before his big win over Fritz Emer had a meltdown in leyon against Arthur Fe and he got defaulted after after lashing out here and Mika well he's going to be gone here I think this is done he had been left frustrated after what he thought was a wrong call from an Umpire who refused to give him any benefit of the doubt I've never witnessed that a ref says I'm not going to go down and check the Mark eer was back on track until the news of his suspension came in Emer allegedly said that he missed a drug test because he was sleeping in after he had to take care of his sick brother whom the CIS found out was playing a tournament in Finland CIS upheld the suspension and Emer retired a month after but not before posting a lot of weird stuff on his social media which he since deleted with about 8 months left to serve Emer would be hoping to start a new chapter in his career meanwhile Simona halop had to withdraw from the Madrid Open for health reasons which kind of sucks because her comeback hasn't been working out as planed so far but halop isn't the only one who pulled out of Madrid arer Kazo rolled his ankle in Barcelona in his match against arnaldi and is now set to miss Madrid but perhaps the biggest name on the withdrawal list is Novak jokovic to be honest I saw this one coming because although the clay season is a priority for him jokovic is looking to balance his schedule keeping not just the grand slams in mind but also the Olympics Andy Murray was among the first players to withdraw from the Masters 1000 after sustaining an ankle injury during his loss to Tomas mahat in Miami but let's now skip to the good part and talk about someone who just won the first ATP title of his career Jan lonard Stu wins the first title of his career in Munich 4 days before his 34th birthday day it's crazy to think that Stu turned Pro in 2009 and was already inside the top 50 in 2014 such a long time ago unfortunately for the German he's been grinding away on tour for the last decade I couldn't be more excited for him though last season was Stu's best and he came close to winning a title holding Match Point against Francis TFO in the Stuart final and also pushing alcaraz to three sets in Madrid really it couldn't have happened to a better person Stu won the title without dropping a set all while facing some of the toughest opponents in Felix J Al aim holar Runa and Taylor Fritz in the final one thing about Stu's game is that it comes with explosive power he has beautiful technique on the befor forehand and is capable of powering through anyone from the Baseline that's exactly what he did in Munich in front of a vocal home crowd against two-time defending Champion hogar Runa who was 11-0 in Munich entering into the semi-final Stu's excellent First Strike Power Tennis was on full display as he won 95% of his points on his first serve yes that stat is not a mistake Stu didn't just beat Runa he annihilated the defending Champion with his power and precision this is magical stuff 62 six love the match was over in 45 minutes and I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed Stu entered into the final with an 0 and3 record in ATP finals and he wasn't going to have it easy against Taylor Fritz more so with temperatures dropping to 37° F Fritz did a great job making stu play the extra ball and held three set points in the first first but Stu saved them all in Sensational fashion the German eventually took care of business winning the next 11 points in a row to take the first set before entering god mode in the second one thing I noticed was how he kept attacking Fritz's second serves Fritz could only win nine out of his 27 second serve points and that proved to be a major deciding factor in the outcome of the final for Stu it's a first tour level title a second top 20 win in the week for the German he's now become the third oldest firsttime ATP title winner in history at 33 years and 11 months after Paulo Lorenzi won kitle at 34 years and 7 months in 2016 and Victor estrea Bergos won Kito at 34 years and 6 months in 2015 for Fritz he's back to being the American number one and he's now reached a first tour level Final on Clay not a bad accomplishment if you ask me before now Fritz had lost all six of his previous tour level semi-finals on Clay but after beating Gan in straight sets in the Munich semi-final he might want to take some solace in his performance last week we could say the same for Rafael Nadal too Rafa stepped on clay for a professional match for the first time in 681 days the 12-time Barcelona Champion had a 66 and4 record in his home tournament and man did we see some beautiful trademark shots in his first match against caboi oh what a comeo Rafa eventually bowed out to Alex De Manor in the following round and that will likely be the last time we'll see him play in Barcelona Rafa's physicality and serve may not be where he wants it to be at the moment but we still have a month before the French Open and the goal would be to get there in one piece but let's face it Rafa might no longer be a favorite for the Roland garos title which is even difficult for me to say considering everything he's done on clay and in tennis and I know that's not going to be a popular take but just judging from a physicality standpoint and what I saw from him on the practice courts in Madrid winning the title may be a little farfetched at this point that being said 4 weeks is a long time to put things in order and I have no doubt that Rafa is going to bring the heat and go out with a bang seeing him healthy enough to play is a massive win for all of us but we also need to mention some of the other interesting story lines from last week Martin fuvi won a second career title at 32 years old beating Mariano Noone 6475 to take the trophy in Bucharest and this is what it means to be an ATP Champion again after 2,157 days I mean this dude is in better shape than 99.99% of the tour what stands out for me in fi's game was seeing him hit lots of backhand Top Spin shots with his open stance rather than his usual backhand slice and I'm eager to see how he performs with his backhand in the bigger clay tournaments Alexander Zev however has had a bit of a slow start to the clay season this year he lost to Christian garan for the second time in Munich with garan becoming the first player ranked outside the top 100 to defeat Zev in straight sets since 2015 Z will now be looking to get back to his winning ways in Madrid which happens to be one of his favorite tournaments the WTA also had plenty of action last week Clay is my favorite surface and I decided to come and start a little bit early this year in the clay season just to get matches and adjust 2018 Roland Goos finalist Sloan stens beat Magna Lynette in three sets in the final and Ruan to lift her first title in 784 days and her eighth WTA title overall I've always been impressed by Sloan's fluidity as a tennis player and it's great to see her back in the winner circle and of course playing some incredible tennis but while Stevens was celebrating her title in France Elena rebaka was busy winning a $200,000 Porsche in stut guard despite not having a driver's license you can hit the ball very fast is this the way you drive as well well guys I actually don't have driver license rebaka became the first player to beat igas fanch in the semi-final in Stuart rebaka went on to claim her eighth tour level title and her third title of the year and she's now second in the WTA final race less than 150 points away from cantech rebaka has now become the first player to reach five finals in the first four months of the year since Victoria Azarenka did it in 2012 just another crazy stat the world number Four's Flawless serving was on full display throughout the tournament and coupled with her calm confidence no one could stand in her way rebaka has now won 26 of her 30 matches this season which is a staggering 86.7% win rate if my math is correct and who did she beat in the final Marta costu could only win four games against rebok in the street guard final but she would no doubt be proud of her performance the entire week I mean I don't think a lot of people know but I started my career La 14 against top 10 players just a while ago kostuk was 0 and4 against top 10 players but after taking down three top 10 players in the past week we have an idea of just how good the Ukrainian can be kostuk was pushed to three sets by Laura Sigmund in the opening round she then went on to save five match points against Jang chinen down a break in the third set against KOCO gof with gof serving for the match kostuk again turned the tables and managed to defeat Goff after eight match points she would then beat marqueta vusa in straight sets to reach her second final ever on the WTA tour but unfortunately cost's brilliant movement was no match for rebaka his Brute Force kostuk had already played almost 6 hours in the first two rounds alone in stutgart and after defying All Odds to get to the final rebaka turned out to be a bridge too far to cross for cuk but on the bright side it's also the best season of her career she's knocking on the door of the top 20 and is currently number seven in the WTA race we might want to keep an eye on her I should also mention that igos fanch is now into her 100th week as world number one and only eight other women in history have been able to reach that Milestone last week in tennis was a complete unraveling and we're seeing more players now making statements of intent on the clay who are the best players to beat on clay and what are your predictions for the clay season the Madrid Open comes up next with much higher stakes and you surely don't want to miss out on any of the action if you loved this video hit that subscribe button and if you missed out on last week's videos I've got you covered right here