Tennis Players News

Sixth-seeded Jarkko Nieminen of Finland beat Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 6-3, 6-1 Monday to reach the second round of the Power Horse Cup, a clay-court tuneup for the French Open.

Only the intrepid and the desperate play the week between a Masters 1000 tournament and a major, where the 250 events in Nice and Dusseldorf fall.

ITALY's Mauro Santambrogio took the stage victory but overall leader Vincenzo Nibali was the big winner, as poor weather dominated Stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia. ANDY MURRAY intends to wait until the middle of the week before making a final decision whether to play in the French Open.

LEIGH HALFPENNY fears his brilliant form for Wales has made him the No.1 target for the Wallaby hitmen this summer.

Venus and Serena Williams have never been held to the same standards as other athletes in their sport.

In the 30th meeting between the tennis greats, Nadal controlled the final from the start and won 6-1, 6-3 Sunday for his seventh Italian Open title.

The clay-court tournament replaced the World Team Cup to become the warm-up event for next week's French Open.

Ricardas Berankis was a first-round winner Sunday at the $530,000 Nice Open, a final clay-court French Open tune-up. Berankis topped Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin, the No.

Anyone hoping to put an end to Rafael Nadal 's French Open dominance has to be disappointed with his Rome Masters performance.

Russian soldiers sleep at a military vehicle before a rehearsal for the military parade at Dvortsovaya Square in St.Petersburg, Participants of the rally of lonely women at a Hyde Park in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure in Moscow.

World number one Serena Williams said she hoped to improve her game for the French Open after easing into the Rome Open final with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Simona Halep which ended the qualifier's dream week in the Italian capital.

PINS, France, May 19 AAP - Australian tennis coach Josh Eagle is confident the lure of grand slam tennis will ensure Bernard Tomic casts aside recent drama and fronts up at the French Open.

FORMER Australian Open junior champion Brydan Klein has told of his gut-wrenching decision to switch allegiances to Great Britain.

Dudi Sela, Israel's premier tennis player who is ranked 110th in the world, has catapulted to the finals of the Busan Open ATP challenger tournament, in Busan, Korea.

Defending champion Rafa Nadal recovered from losing the opening five games against Ernests Gulbis to book his place in the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters on Thursday.

It's hard to choose a standout accomplishment in the legendary playing career of Swiss superstar Roger Federer - whether it's capturing the most Grand Slam singles titles, sitting atop the rankings for more than 300 weeks or the multiple double-digit winning streaks.

Novak Djokovic can't seem to find any consistency on clay courts. And with French Open less than 10 days away, he will enter Roland Garros coming off two early losses.

Serena and Venus Williams celebrate a point during their women's doubles match at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in August 2012.

Tomas Berdych staged a stunning comeback to knock top seed and world number one Novak Djokovic out of the Internazionali d'Italia at the quarter-final stage.

French tennis has certainly picked up the pace in recent years -- well, on the men's side anyway -- and the latest of its quality ball-strikers is Benoit Paire.