Break Points is a daily roundup of tennis news, videos, links, and tweets. If you have something you think I should include, email me at amy@changeovertennis.com.
Today’s notable results:
- Halle: Tommy Haas d. Ernests Gulbis, 7-6(5), 6-4
- Queen’s Club: Lleyton Hewitt d. Sam Querrey, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4
- Queen’s Club: Andy Murray d. Nicolas Mahut, 6-3, 7-6(4)
- Queen’s Club: Feliciano Lopez d. Julien Benneteau, 7-6(5), 6-4
- Queen’s Club: Benjamin Becker d. Alexandr Dolgopolov, 7-6(5), 7-5
- Birmingham: Madison Keys d. Mona Barthel, 6-3, 6-2
- Birmingham: Donna Vekic d. Maria Sanchez, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2
- Nuremberg: Andrea Petkovic d. Annika Beck, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5
News and Links:
Check out the GIFs of the day from today’s action, starring Juan Martin del Potro (aka The Human GIF), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Tommy Haas, and Ernests Gulbis.
In case you were wondering what Roger Federer eats for breakfast, intrepid tennis journalist Pippa Middleton has you covered.
Brian Baker continued his blog series over at USA Today, giving us another update on his recovery from the knee injury he suffered at the Australian Open:
I’m continuing to work hard on strengthening my right quad and keeping the knee loose. I really don’t even think about my knee anymore while I’m practicing, which is always a nice hurdle to overcome. Sometimes the hardest thing to achieve is getting the confidence to push a repaired body part without having fear of reinjuring it.
This Ravi Ubha piece on Juan Martin del Potro is tremendous. I love this intense quote from Del Potro:
“I felt O.K. at home and I said, ‘I’ll come here to practice and be on the circuit again, to get back to the locker room, to be alive again.’ ”
Lleyton Hewitt, who was scheduled to play doubles with Bernard Tomic at the Queen’s Club before they pulled out at the last minute, spoke about his fellow Aussie yesterday:
Q. You’re playing doubles here with Bernie. Are you surprised how well he seems to roll through things, despite everything else going on around him?
LLEYTON HEWITT: I haven’t really spoken to him, so I don’t really know. You know, I have messaged him a lot. Obviously playing doubles here, but I haven’t really seen him, to tell you the truth, so mentally I don’t really know where his head is at. He takes everything, as I said before, in his stride pretty well the whole time anyway. I think to him this is, you know, no different, I guess, in some ways.
This quote from Ernests Gulbis on Gael Monfils is unintentionally hilarious:
“Gaël, I always respected the way he plays,” Gulbis said Wednesday. “This guy has a very big potential. I wish that he would fulfill it, you know? The way he plays, the way he can play, everybody knows it. I think in France, also, everybody is waiting for him to have some clicks in his brain and to do the right things. And for sure he has the potential to be, in my understanding, top five, for sure.”
Tennis on Twitter:
Courtesy of Darren Cahill, a blast from the past:
Remember this? Haas def Agassi @Wimbledon 15 yrs ago. The dude continues to kick butt. I totally blame @saramfoster pic.twitter.com/zCpnAhHGwp
— Darren Cahill (@darren_cahill) June 13, 2013
16-year-old Donna Vekic made her second career WTA quarterfinal.
You know things get serious when @wta tweets about you
— Donna Vekic (@DonnaVekic) June 13, 2013
Tomas Berdych went literary on us:
And Maria Kirilenko and her fiance Alex Ovechkin continued to be entertaining on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ovi8/status/345227863361978368
*shakes head at Gulbis*