David Haggerty (zimbio.com)

The upcoming Davis Cup reform vote has received some strong opposition and criticism from Tennis Australia and Tennis Europe. 

The vote is set to take place on the 16th of August, where federations will vote to change the 118 year old format to a one week season finale at the end of the year. The proposed move by Kosmos, has received fierce criticism and will need a two-thirds majority in order for it to be approved.

However with the vote just two weeks away Tennis Australia has been among the federations to oppose these reforms and have pushed this even further as they have wrote a letter expressing their discontent at the idea. The letter has been signed by the likes of John Newcombe, current Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt and Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley.

The letter raises the following concerns, “We have written and spoken to the ITF President for several months now requesting clarity on the proposal from Kosmos, but this has not been forthcoming,” explained the letter, which is even signed by former ITF president Brian Tobin.

“Very large numbers are being referenced, but there is not enough detail to give us confidence this proposal will genuinely deliver enough additional value to players and the nations to offset the loss of home and away camaraderie and all the local marketing, facility investment and player development benefit that comes with those ties. In the absence of such important information, we have no choice other than to vote against the proposed amendments.”

However Tennis Australia isn’t the only federation to be against this move as Tennis Europe, who represent more than 50 member nations have also expressed their concern at the idea, “I am particularly concerned that there is hardly any information received from the ITF regarding bank guarantees for the proposed US$120 million per year which would be the $3 billion deal over 25 years, according to the original proposal,” President Vladimir Dimitriev explained in a separate letter.

“I have not yet seen a final and feasible explanation on how the business model or the governance structure will be either.”

The ITF do have the backing of Germany and France ahead of the move though with the AGM meeting set to take place in Orlando, Florida between the 13th and 16th of August.

Serena Williams (zimbio.com)

Former world number one Serena Williams has withdrawn from the Coupe Rogers in Montreal next week as she deals with some personal issues. 

The American suffered the worst defeat of her career last week when she lost 6-1 6-0 to Johanna Konta in San Jose. The 23 grand slam champion clearly wasn’t at her best and it now turns out that she had personal problems to deal with as this is the reason for her withdrawal in Montreal next week.

The recent Wimbledon finalist also felt that she could not play Montreal and Cincinnati in back to back weeks as she continues her comeback from pregnancy. The tournament director, Eugene Lapierre, admits that he is disappointed but still recognises the high quality field that is left, “Of course, we are disappointed that Serena will not be joining us, Fans were very much looking forward to seeing her in action,” explained Eugene.

“But beyond the disappointment, the tournament, as a whole, remains a high-level competition. The entire Top 10 is here, along with 22 of the Top 25. There are exciting matches in store from the outset.”

The American was set to play in Canada for the first time since 2015 before withdrawing today. The 23 time grand slam champion has played five events since returning from pregnancy and the results have been mixed as you can see below:

Indian Wells – Third Round

Miami – First Round

Roland Garros – Fourth Round

Wimbledon – Final

San Jose – First Round

Tatjana Maria will now replace Serena Williams in the main draw and the German faces Alize Cornet in the first round.

Alexander Zverev (zimbio.com)

Defending champion, Alexander Zverev became the third youngster to reach the Citi Open semi-finals after a three set win over Kei Nishikori as the Washington rain causes WTA chaos. 

The top seeded German beat Kei Nishikori 3-6 6-1 6-4 to reach the last four in Washington for the second successive year. As a result he is the third semi-finalist at this year’s tournament to be aged at 21 years old or younger joining Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex De Minaur. The Grrek youngster, Tsitsipas reached the semi-finals by demolishing David Goffin in straight sets while De Minaur benefited off an Andy Murray withdrawal.

However the young generation doesn’t stop there as 20 year old Russian, Andrey Rublev can complete the clean sweep of Next Gen stars with a victory over Denis Kudla today. Should Rublev win his quarter-final, it would be the first time since Buenos Aires 1995 that all four semi-finalists will be 21 or under at an ATP event. It is quite a feat given the dominance of some of the older players such as Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in recent times.

The winner of the last ATP quarter-final will play Alex De Minaur in the semi-finals in the evening, while the day session semi-final sees Alexander Zverev take on Stefanos Tsitsipas in an exciting match on paper.

Washington Rain Causes WTA Chaos.

The WTA event though is in chaos as rain halted progress of many of the women playing at the Citi Open. The state of play sees Andrea Petkovic into the semi-finals after her epic three set win over Belinda Bencic and will play the winner of Svetlana Kuznetsova’s match with Yulia Putintseva. The Russian currently leads 6-2 2-2 with the match set to re-start at 12:00 local time.

The other two quarter-finals have yet to be completed as well with 7th seed Donna Vekic currently leading Magda Linette 3-0 in the first set while Allie Kiick’s match with Saisai Zheng is yet to start. The three remaining quarter-finals as well as the semi-finals have to be completed on Saturday.

Not only has the Washington rain affected their own tournament but it has also impacted the Montreal qualifying event with five players, who are in Washington, set to begin their Montreal qualifying campaigns today. The following players will have to make a choice between Washington and Montreal qualifying:

• Donna Vekic
• Magda Linette
• Yulia Putintseva
• Ysaline Bonaventure (Washington Doubles)
• Saisai Zheng

Those players’ matches are set for 16:00 local time in Montreal as some of them will have to miss out on the chance of qualifying for one of the biggest tournaments on the WTA calendar.