Carlos Alcaraz made a perfect start to his clay-court season this past week, winning the Monte Carlo title for the first time in his career. Having missed the Masters 1000 event last year, he adds a clean 1,000 points to his ranking now, going from 6,720 to 7,720. And with

When he stepped to the line to serve at 4-3 in the second set against Richard Gasquet today, Nikolay Davydenko had not been broken in Doha all week. He’d held 43 consecutive times. Two more and he would have his 22nd career title. He didn’t hold. To that point, a

After squandering two match points against Novak Djokovic for the second consecutive year in the U.S. Open semifinals, 16-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer says that Djokovic’s forehand service return winner on the Swiss' first match point at 5-3 in the fifth set was “lucky.” Djokovic scalded a cross-court winner

We know that certain points mean more than others in tennis. Sometimes, if they’re long enough and exhausting enough, and they come at just the right time, they can send a match off into an entirely new direction. In Rafael Nadal’s 6-4, 6-1 win over Dominic Thiem in the Barcelona

On Monday in Miami, Simona Halep came out swinging and held off a late surge to beat Venus Williams, 6-3 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals of the Miami Open for the fourth time in the last five years. Halep reeled off the first three games, winning nine points in a

Should Davis Cup captains devote two of their four roster spots to a doubles pairing? It's a question that's been debated for some time. At most, doubles accounts for one-third of the points in a tie, and if the countries go the distance, that fraction dips to one-fifth. But slotted

Last week, Rafael Nadal withdrew from Montreal to “give a few more days before starting to compete” after ongoing issues with an abdominal injury that caused his withdrawal from Wimbledon—but this week he announced he’s ready to go. “Very happy to play again in Cincy,” he posted on Instagram on

It appears as if chair umpires at the Australian Open will not be calling time violations as strictly as ATP officials have been in recent weeks. ATP tournament rules permit players to take 25 seconds in between points, while the Grand Slam events have a 20-second rule. Australian Open tournament

Count it: 406. No, not the number of seconds Rafael Nadal takes between points in a Wimbledon match, lest some detractors be believed. Rather, it is the number of times he can bounce a tennis ball in a row on the edge of his Babolat racquet before dropping it. Witness

Placing a white towel in front of her seat like a welcome mat, Agnieszka Radwanska spent time on changeovers tapping her toes on the cloth. Even when she wasn't busy playing points, Radwanska looked like a woman going places. She then reeled off six straight games to close a comprehensive

Roger Federer, who lost four times last year after holding match points, on missing triple match point against Gilles Simon before winning: "I was like, This can't be true, right? I've had some tough losses last year. Obviously they're in the past and I've had a wonderful last six months.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Soaked with sweat and clinging desperately for survival, Maria Sharapova was only a point from victory when Australian Open organizers finally decided that the searing heat was extreme enough to suspend matches. The four-time major winner was serving at 5-4 in the third set, 2 hours and

Two-time former champ Jelena Jankovic is back in the final of Rome after saving a match point to defeat Serena Williams in a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(5) thriller in the semifinals. It was a match of momentum swings. Williams produced some powerful winners to grab the first set before Jankovic worked

PARIS(AP) Serena Williams is usually the one who saves match points, not wastes them. Who seizes control of an exchange, not cedes it. Who turns up her game at Grand Slam time. Except at the French Open, the lone major tournament she's won only once and where she's now gone

When it comes to reaction time, Twitter may be Novak Djokovic's only rival. During his 45th career match against Roger Federer in the Australian Open semifinals, it took less than a minute for amateur video of this incredible point to surface:

TOKYO -- Sam Stosur knocked two-time champion Maria Sharapova out of the Pan Pacific Open on Thursday, reaching the semifinals with a 6-4, 7-6 (10) victory over the Russian. Stosur broke Sharapova to go up 5-3 in the second set but then lost nine straight points as the Russian sent

Novak Djokovic had just won Wimbledon for a fifth time, in an agonizingly intense five-hour classic against Roger Federer. He had saved two match points and survived a final-set tiebreaker. He had lost more points, hit fewer winners and at times appeared to lose his way on Centre Court. But

WATCH: Leylah Fernandez chats with Tennis Channel after winning her fourth-round meeting with Amanda Anisimova at Roland Garros.

The U.S. Open will experiment during its qualifying rounds this year with scoreboard clocks to limit how much time elapses between points and how long pre-match warmups or mid-match clothing changes can last. Also set to be tried out at Flushing Meadows in August's qualifying matches: letting coaches communicate with

Roger Federer says that tying Pete Sampras’ record of seven Wimbledon titles is on his mind. Federer, a 16-time Grand Slam champion, has not won a major since the 2010 Australian Open. "There's always something on the line at this point when I play the Grand Slams just because I