ATP Bogota
Australian bad boy Bernard Tomic has shrugged off his Miami arrest and banishment from the Davis Cup team to successfully defend his ATP title in Bogota.
Tomic was accused of hitting “rock bottom” by Tennis Australia’s high performance chief Pat Rafter after being charged for resisting arrest and trespass in relation to a noisy hotel room party he hosted earlier this month.
However, the negative attention does not appear to have affected the controversial 22-year-old’s tennis.
He battled past Frenchman Adrian Mannarino 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 in Sunday’s final of the Claro Open to join Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic as the only players born in the 1990s to win three tour titles.
“It’s been a very good year,” Tomic said on the ATP website.
“I started at No 70 and am now close to No 20. It’s been a good seven months.
“I’ll try to play well the next three months and have the chance to be in the Top 15.”
Tomic, whose ranking has improved to 25 from 29, was kicked out of the Davis Cup team after a tirade against Tennis Australia (TA) officials at Wimbledon.
Australia won their quarter-final tie against Kazakhstan without him but want him back in the side for the semi-final against Britain in September.
TA offered peace talks with Tomic to facilitate that but he rejected the overture last week and said the feud would continue as long as the governing body declined to fund his sister’s development.
Sara Tomic plays mostly second-tier ITF tournaments but TA cut her funding, citing the uncooperative attitude of her father.
Bernard Tomic slammed TA’s decision at Wimbledon and publicly criticised a number of Australian officials in an extraordinary outburst.
WTA Istanbul
Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, ranked 71 in the world, won her first WTA tournament, the Istanbul Cup on Sunday, when she defeated Poland’s Urszula Radwanska 7-5, 6-1.
The 26-year-old from Kiev was competing in her first final while Radwanska, the younger sister of Agnieszka, falls to 0-2 in championship matches after losing to Russian Nadia Petrova in the s’Hertogenbosch final in 2012.
Radwanska, the world No 99, wasted three set points with Tsurenko serving at 5-4 down in the opener before the Ukrainian reeled off seven games in a row to take control of the match.
ATP Umag
Austria's Dominic Thiem won his second career title on Sunday when he defeated Portugal's Joao Sousa 6-4, 6-1 in a Croatia Open final watched by world No 1 Novak Djokovic.
The 21-year-old Thiem prevailed in 62 minutes to add the Umag crown to his maiden title from Nice on the eve of the French Open in May.
Thiem had eliminated top seed Gael Monfils in the semi-finals and carried over that form into the final against Sousa who he has now defeated three times in as many meetings.
WTA Bad Gastein
Former US Open champion Samantha Stosur came from a set down to win the Bad Gastein WTA Open on Sunday with a 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2 triumph over Italian Karin Knapp.
The 31-year-old Australian triumphed over Knapp who was playing her second match of the day after defeating compatriot and No 1 seed Sara Errani 7-6 (7/4), 4-6, 7-5 in the semi-finals.
That match had been held over since Saturday because of rain.
“It was a very hard match today,” said Stosur after her eighth career title.
“I was getting completely outplayed in that first set, and even though she was up in the second set too, I started to feel like I was doing a little better.
“Obviously she served for the match (5-4 in the second set) but I hung in there, got that set then played better and better from there.
“It’s not ideal to be playing a semi-final and final in one day, a two-and-a-half-hour match in the morning then another two and a half hours in the afternoon, but unfortunately that’s just what happens with the weather sometimes. And she did serve for the match, so she wasn’t doing too badly either.”
ATP Bastad
Frenchman Benoit Paire won the first ATP Tour title of his career at the Bastad Open on Sunday, defeating Spanish veteran Tommy Roberdo 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 in the final.
The victory brought the curtain down on a fine week on the claycourts for the Frenchman, ranked 62nd in the world at the start of it.
He defeated four higher-ranked players in top seed David Goffin of Belgium, Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan and defending champion Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay before seeing off Robredo.
Paire saw his 2014 season ruined by injuries but the win on Sunday will boost his ranking and he should get close to his best-ever position of 24th in the world.
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