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What Does The Future Hold For Ekaterina Alexandrova?

The anomalous story of a Russian tennis player who perfected her game in Czechia and now has reached a crucial moment in her career.

Published

2 years ago

19/01/2021

AGF

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CAREER BEGINNINGS AND THE MOVE FROM MOSCOW TO PRAGUE

Ekaterina Alexandrova was born on November 15, 1994 in Chelyabinsk, a Siberian city of about 1.2 million inhabitants located to the East of the Urals, close to the border with Kazakhstan. In order to have more information, I visited Wikipedia: founded at the end of the 1700s around a military fortress, the city began to grow rapidly by the early 20^th century as a result of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and later on became a major industrial centre under the Soviet Union. Two more relevant events about the city need to be mentioned: a serious nuclear accident occurred in 1957 at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant near the city, which led to the region to be inaccessible to visitors until 1992; and a meteor struck in 2013. By then, however, Ekaterina has already left her hometown.

Alexandrova discovered the game during a holiday in Spain, when she was five years old; she went with her parents to the court, and she started playing. She immediately enjoyed it and improved rapidly. Throughout the years, she got better and better, but being based in Chelyabinsk is not ideal for those who aim to compete at a high level. Ekaterina moved first to Moscow and then to Prague with her father and coach, Evgeny Alexandrov, to devote herself to her game.

She shared her story during two interviews in 2016 and 2017: “I used to train in Moscow, but once my whole family and I came to a tournament in Prague, and we immediately loved the place in all respects; there were many courts, and it’s also a beautiful city. We were simply charmed, and we decided to move to Czechia.” When the journalist asked her how long she had lived in Prague, she replied: “I think we have been here for about ten years, maybe a little more.” Given that she didn’t specify when the move happened exactly, we suppose that it must have occurred in 2007, when Ekaterina was about 13-14 years old. However, in 2009 she played a junior tournament in Prague; if we consider that moment as a starting point, it means that she moved to Czechia when she was a little older.

Since she moved to Prague, she faced a very particular condition. She couldn’t be a player of national importance for the Czech federation because she’s not from there – in addition, she couldn’t attend any meeting or training organized by the federation. However, she could train and improve her skills in an environment characterised by a historically great tennis culture (especially for women in recent years), with many top players. She travelled to several European tournaments with father Evgeny, and, when not on the road, she also trained with local coaches, such as former world N.138 Petr Kralert.

Due to her unique national condition, in the early years Ekaterina couldn’t be awarded any wildcards for major tournaments. Therefore, she missed opportunities to play against high-level opponents. Nevertheless, she could play in the Czech Extraliga, the Czech club competition. All the local top players took part in the competition (Kvitova, Pliskova, Strycova, Siniakova, Vondrousova, etc), as well as some foreign players like Sevastova – the Latvian has been her clubmate since 2017 for the “RPM Oaza Ricany” team (Oaza Ricany is a town located about 13 miles from Prague).

Moreover, she benefited from another typical perk of Bohemian tennis: it is well-known that physical and technical training takes place on two surfaces, clay during the summer and fast indoor courts during the cold season. Alexandrova has always stated that she does not like very much playing on clay and that she prefers fast courts, which allow her to keep the rally under his control and reduce the defensive phase.

One more anomaly is that she skipped the junior career. In fact, in the early years of her career Alexandrova played a limited number of junior tournaments (only 20 official matches), deciding to focus on ITF tournaments. Her first appearance in the rankings was in 2012, at 17 (N.782), and from then onwards she has experienced a steady progression, with just a couple of stumbles. Here are her end-of-season rankings from 2012 onwards: 782, 380, 228, 234, 108, 69, 71, 35, 25 (at the end of 2020). During the first years on the ITF circuit, she won tournaments that are not particularly renowned, but in some of these, she played and beat well-known opponents such as Bacsinszky, Paszek, Muchova.

A big breakout occurred in the 2016 season. In June, she was ranked around the 230^th spot in the WTA rankings and she was about to take the first step in the biggest events, since her ranking finally granted her the opportunity to play the Grand Slam qualifiers at Wimbledon. To be honest, she was the first alternate in the original entry list, but due to the withdrawal of one player in the entry list, there was a spot for her in the Roehampton draw (Wimbledon’s qualies are not played on the grasscourts of Church Road, to safeguard their conditions). In the first round, she won against Ons Jabeur (the Tunisian is the same age as Ekaterina), then in the second round she defeated Stephanie Vogt 6-4 4-6 14-12 after saving a match point at 11-12. Without a rest day, it would have been tough to play the deciding match, but the rain came to help her, and every scheduled game was postponed by a day. The match against the local player Harriet Dart turned into another marathon: 2-6, 7-5, 13-11. She won after saving another match point at 10-11.

This was not the end of her dream run. Her match in the first round of the main draw was against Ana Ivanovic, N.25 in the rankings. It was Ana’s last year on the WTA Tour and she smarted from some wrist problems. Ekaterina, ranked 223^rd, won the match against all odds, 6-2 7-5. She finally lost in the second round to Anna Lena Friedsam, but she earned 110 WTA points and roughly $76,000 in just one tournament, more than her total career prize money at that time. In November 2016, Alexandrova won the WTA125K at Limoges, defeating three French Top 100 players such as Parmentier, Cornet and Garcia. The Limoges tournament would then become her favourite, with two more titles in 2018 and 2019, further proof of how well she plays on indoor courts.

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Danil Medvedev sets up all-Russian semifinal against Karen Khachanov in Miami

Published

7 hours ago

31/03/2023

sampaolo

Danil Medvedev edged US qualifier Christopher Eubanks 6-3 7-5 in a rain disrupted match to reach the semifinals at the Miami Open for the first time.

Medvedev has reached the semifinals at a fifth consecutive ATP tournament after winning three consecutive titles in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai and reaching the final in Indian Wells. Medvedev has won 22 of his past 23 matches.

Medvedev saved break points in the fourth game. The match was delayed by rain for half an hour. As the match resumed Medvedev reeled off the next four games to close out the first set 6-3.

Medvedev broke serve in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead. Eubanks broke straight back for 3-4. Medvedev broke again in the 12^th game as Eubanks mishit a return on the third match point.

“I did not play my best tennis before the rain delay. The rain helped go out and have more energy. It helped me and I only played better and better, apart from one bad game on my serve, but it happens”, said Medvedev.

Medvedev set up a semifinal clash against his compatrion Karen Khachanov, who edged past Francisco Cerundolo 6-3 6-2. Khachanov reached his first ATP Masters semifinal since 2019.

Cerundolo earned the first break of the match in the fifth game of the first set, but Medvedev broke straight back in the sixth game to draw level to 3-3. Khachanov broke for the second time in the eighth game to close out the first set 6-3.

Khachanov broke twice in the first and fifth games to win the second set 6-2. Cerundolo won just four of 18 points and made 22 unforced errors. Khachanov hit 22 winners to Cerundolo’s 19.

Cerundolo entered this match with a 8-1 record at the Miami Open after reaching the semifinal in last year’s edition.

Khachanov has moved up to 11^th in the ATP Live Ranking and will return to the top 10 if he wins the title. He reached the semifinal at the Australian Open last September.

“At the end of the day it was a question of finding rhythm. At the beginning, it was pretty windy and I could not where the wind was coming through. I then started to hit through the ball more and I felt better and better. After I broke him back I felt I was on a good rise and felt that I could not miss. That is good feeling to have during a match”, said Khachanov.

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World Tennis Conference 3: The high-level training for tennis coaches is back

Published

19 hours ago

30/03/2023

Kingsley Elliot Kaye

The third edition of the world conference for tennis coaches, organized by GPTCA and Segal Institute, with ATP as institutional sponsor, will be held from 30^th of March to 2^nd of April. Many big names in the world of tennis are among the speakers, including Toni Nadal, Sergi Bruguera, Brad Gilbert, Gilles Cervara, Magnus Norman and Vincenzo Santopadre. And also Ubitennis.

Published by Ubitennis.com on 21 March 2023, translated by Massimo Volpati

A well-established high-level training for tennis coaches, teachers and instructors. We are talking about the World Tennis Conference (WTC), the online conference for tennis coaches from all over the world, now at its third edition, which will be held from 30^th March to 2^nd April 2023. The organization is managed by GPTCA – Global Professional Tennis Coach Association, the world association of tennis coaches recognized by ATP which deals with the training and updating of tennis coaches at an international level, and by SI – Segal Institute, an organization that provides advice and services in the field of tennis. The high quality of the event is confirmed by the presence, for the third consecutive year, of ATP as institutional sponsor, which together with GPTCA certifies the conference as a professional development event for coaches.

World Tennis Conference is designed for tennis coaches from all over the world with the aim of providing, in four intense days of training in e-learning mode, the most exhaustive possible picture of the knowledge, skills and competences that a tennis coach should develop. This edition will feature for the first time the “NextGen Tennis Coaches programme”. This is an initiative that wants to support the entry of young people into the coaching profession world. This year twelve young coaches, aged not over 30, will be offered a free participation in the event.

The names of the speakers featured at WTC 2023 well illustrate the commitment of GPTCA and Segal Institute to making the conference a key reference event for the training of professional tennis coaches. In fact, 68 speakers – mainly tennis coaches, physical trainers, mental coaches and top-level sports scientists – will take the floor on the virtual stage of WTC.

By sharing their experiences and skills, they will highlight the fundamental aspects required for obtaining excellent tennis performances. Just to mention but a few: famous coaches such as Toni Nadal and Alberto Castellani, Grand Slam champions such as Sergi Bruguera and Pat Cash, as well as former top ten players such as Brad Gilbert, Jimmy Arias, Magnus Norman, Rainer Schuttler and Tommy Haas.

And speaking about current top players coaches, as well as Toni Nadal (who currently is following Auger-Aliassime), WTC 2023 will host Sergi Bruguera (since last year with Zverev), Vincenzo Santopadre (Berrettini’s lifelong coach), Gilles Cervara, Daniil Medvedev’s coach, Frederic Fontang, head coach of Aliassime, and Michael Russell, Taylor Fritz’s coach. And last but not least, when it comes to excellent performances, the physical trainer of Novak Djokovic: Marco Panichi.

The conference aims to train coaches at 360 degrees, thus also dealing with the skills a coach should develop outside the canonical technical, tactical, physical and mental areas, in order to be able to support his player even more effectively and better organize his manifold activities. Hence the focus on relations with media and external communication, Topics which, were already discussed during the first edition.

This time also Ubitennis will take part in the virtual stage of WTC. In fact, the Live Panel “Communications Training” will see among the Special Speakers our Director Ubaldo Scanagatta, with his decades of experience as a journalist, reporter and correspondent at over 160 Grand Slams, but also former director of the ATP tournament in Florence, from 1974 to 1979, and our collaborator Ilvio Vidovich, member of the Scientific Committee and press officer of ISMC (International Sports Mental Coach Association).

The event will take place on the CoachTube e-learning platform. Further information is available on the event website https://worldtennisconference.com/.

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Draw of the Davis Cup Finals Group Stage announced in Malaga

Published

20 hours ago

30/03/2023

sampaolo

The Draw of the Davis Cup Finals Group Stage took place in Malaga on Wednesday afternoon.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has confirmed the host nations for the 2023 Davis Cup Finals Group Stage.

The Unipol Arena in Bologna (Italy) and the Pabellon Municipal Fuente de San Luis in Valencia will return as host venues after staging successful events in 2022.

Host team Italy will take on defending champions Canada, who won the Davis Cup Trophy for the first time in history beating Australia. The Group A will also feature Sweden and Chile.

Italy features a potential strong team that includes Jannik Sinner, who reaches the Indian Wells and Miami Open semifinals and the Rotterdam final this year, and 2021 Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini.

Felix Auger Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov helped Canada beat Australia in the final in Malaga last November.

“In 2022 our unbelievable run in Malaga was a dream come true, and I am extremely proud of what the team and our country managed to accomplish. As we get set the launch our title defence, we expect the pressure to be on us, and we can’t wait to prove to the world that we truly belong at the top. Back-to-back champions has a nice ring to it, and we will do everything we can to keep the Davis Cup in Canada”, said Canadian Davis Cup captain Frank Dancevic.

Spain will fight for a spot in the knock-out stage against Serbia, Czech Republic and South Korea in Group C in Valencia. The draw set up a possible match-up between the top two players Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, who won the US Open in 2022 and the Australian Open in 2023. Spain beat Serbia in last year’s group stage, when neither Rafa Nadal nor Novak Djokovic took part

Manchester will host Davis Cup matches for the first time since July 1994, when Great Britain took on Romania at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club. The O2 Arena in Manchester will host the Group B which features Great Britain, last year’s finalists Australia, France and Switzerland.

Croatia will be Group Stage host nation. The venue will be announced soon. Two-time Davis Cup champion Croatia will play against the USA, the Netherlands and Finland. The Finals Group Stage takes place on 12-17 September 2023. The top two teams from each group will reach the Final 8 knock-out stage at the Palacio de Deportes José Maria Martin Carpena in Malaga. On 21-26 November 2023.