TENNIS TUESDAY: Thiem Beats Nadal, Wins Barcelona; Kvitova Wins Stuttgart, Reaches World #2; Gimelstob Sentenced

THIEM BEATS NADAL ON CLAY (AGAIN)
Dominic Thiem faced the 11-time champion Rafael Nadal at the Barcelona Open, a reprise of the final here two years before as well as the 2018 French Open final but this time the result was different, with a 6-4 6-4 victory for the Austrian. The last time Nadal reached this far into the tennis year without a title was 2004, and for the second week in a row the King of Clay failed to win a set in a semifinal on his favorite surface, having lost to Fabio Fognini last week in Monte Carlo.

THIEM WINS BARCELONA OVER MEDVEDEV
Dominic Thiem, the Prince of Clay, and heir apparent to Nadal won the Barcelona title without dropping a set, despite facing Nadal in the semifinals and Daniil Medvedev (who beat Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo) in the finals. Thiem lost the first three games of the final and then ran off a string of 12 of 13 games (5 in a row and then 7 in a row) to claim his 13th career title with a 6-4 6-0 victory. and join Federer as the only player on tour to have won two titles in 2019 (Indian Wells and Barcelona).

KVITOVA WINS STUTTGART, REACHES CAREER HIGH WORLD #2 (AGAIN)
Petra Kvitova has led the WTA tour in match wins (24) and tour finals (4) and now becomes the first player to win a second title in 2019 by defeating Anna Kontaveit 6-3 7-6(2) in Stuttgart. The streak of one-time winners this year was as high at 18 on the women's side and 15 on the men's. The 2019 Australian Open finalist lost to Kontaveit in the 3rd round of the 2018 French Open despite coming in as one of the players to watch after winning in Prague and Madrid last year. With the win, Kvitova is solidly atop the Race to has matched her career high ranking of World #2 and is less than 200 points away from World #1 Naomi Osaka.

GIMELSTOB PLEADS NO CONTEST, GETS THREE YEARS PROBATION FOR VIOLENT ASSAULT
Justin Ginelstob has pled "no contest" this week to the charges that he violently assaulted Randall Kaplan, a close friend of Gimelstob's ex-wife Cary Gimelstob on October 31, 2018. Gimelstob is a powerful figure in men's tennis, as a prominent commentator on Tennis Channel and controlling multiple seats on the ATP Players Council and a former coach of American men's #1 John Isner. Very few prominent people in tennis have spoken out against Gimelstob retaining his high profile in tennis but Andy Murray ("I don't see how he can maintain his position at the ATP") and The Tennis Podcast.

ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS MOVES TO TURIN, ITALY FOR 2021-2025
The ATP announced today that the year-end championships, now called the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals, which have been in London for the last several years, will be held in Turin, Italy for five years starting in 2021. So, the annual "Race to London" for the Top 8 players of the year will be rebranded as the "Race to Turin" I presume!

2019 INDIAN WELLS: Andreescu and Thiem Win Their Biggest Titles In Thrilling Upset Over Major Champs

Defying the predictions of many observers (including yours truly) Bianca Andreescu and Dominc Thiem won the women's and men's championships at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Sunday. Andreescu received a wildcard into the event, becoming the first wildcard to win the title and the youngest player since Serena Williams won it at age 17 in 1999. Andreescu beat 3-time major champion Angie Kerber 4-6 6-3 6-4 in a very compelling contest which was decided by the 18-year-old Canadian's power and determination to win against her opponents guile, stamina and defense.

In the men's championship, Roger Federer won the first set and looked to be extending his streak of winning finals after having won the first set from 20 to 21 when Thiem raised his intensity and the power of his strokes to simply overpower the 100-time ATP singles champion. The 25-year-old Austrian was the tour leader in 2018 with the average speed of his groundstrokes on both wings (depsite a one-handed backhand) and in the final with Federer he exceeded his 2018 average in the match. The final score was 3-6 6-3 7-5. At 4-5 30-30 Federer came within 2 points of his 101st title when he approached the net on a good, deep cross-court approach shot only to find Thiem blasting a backhand directly at him which was too much to handle. A quick service winner later and Federer was unable to hold his serve at 5-all, getting his service broken and allowing Thim to serve out the championship with little hesitation.

Both youngsters came from behind in the match to win their biggest titles of their career. Of the two, Andreescu's was the more surprising result. Thiem has been known as a clay-court specialist, having reached (and lost) two Masters 1000 finals in Madrid and the 2018 Roland Garros final but with  a signature win over Federer (playing in his 9th Indian Wells final) on a hard court, Thiem showed he is  developing into an all-court player. Andreescu was playing in only her second WTA tour-level final and career earnings of $300,000; she earned $1.3 million on Sunday. There were echoes of last year when now World #1 Naomi Osaka was unseeded and won her first career title and then went on to win two consecutive hardcourt majors.

2018 FRENCH OPEN: Men's Final Preview (and Semifinals Review)

Rafael Nadal (ESP) [4] vs. Dominic Thiem (AUT) [7].

Here are my predictions for the men's final at the 2018 French Open. Last year I correctly predicted Rafael Nadal would defeat Stan Wawrinka in the 2017 final. This year I correctly predicted 4 of 4 women's quarterfinals, 2 of 2 women's semifinals, 2 of 2 men's seminfinals and 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals.

MEN'S FINAL PREVIEW

Rafael Nadal (ESP) [1] d. Juan Martin del Potro (ARG) [5] 6-4 6-1 6-2.  Surprisingly, this match was less competitive than the match Nadal played against a different Argentine, the diminutive Diego Schwartzman, in the previous round. Del Potro apparently suffered a hip injury midway through the first set and the ruthless Spaniard took advantage of the diminished mobility to punish and pummel Del Potro into submission.


Dominic Thiem (AUT) [7] d. Marco Cecchinato (ITA) 7-5 7-6(10) 6-1. nThis was a surprisingly competitive match between the #8 player in the world and someone barely into the Top 100. That is a strong statement in support of the play of the Italian, who had an almost magical run here in Paris which was just barely stopped before he could reach the final, but not before he has won several hundred thousamd Euros as an unseeded 2018 Roland Garros finalist.

MEN'S FINAL PREVIEW

Thiem is the only player to have won 2 sets on clay against Nadal in the same match in the last three years. He did it twice (2018 Madrid quarterfinals and 2017 Rome quarterfinal) and is clearly the second best clay court player in the world. However, the distance between the best player and the second best is huge, as Nadal has demonstrated time and time again. Nadal joins his nemesis/frenemy Roger Federer in the record books as the second man to play in 11 major finals on the same surface. (Federer has done it at Wimbledon, of course and is 8-3 with 1 loss to Nadal in 2008 and 2 losses to Novak Djkokovic in 2015 and 2016). Nadal is 11-0 in finals (and semifinals!) at Roland Garros and has only ever lost two matches there: 4th round to Robin Soderling in 2009 and in the quarterfinal of 2015.) It's hard to imagine  a more prohibitive favorite than Nadal. Amazingly, it would mean that for the second year n a row Federer and Nadal would have split the first two majors of the year between them.

MadProfessah's pick: Nadal.

Austria Approves Civil Union Legislation

Austria's parliament approved a civil unions bill by a vote of 110 to 64 this week.

The bill, slated to become law Jan. 1., will give same-sex couples a series of rights enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts, including access to a pension if one partner dies and alimony in the event of a split. It bans the adoption of children or artificial insemination.

"We are living in the 21st century and I'm very glad this step is being taken today," Justice Minister Claudia Bandion-Ortner said during parliamentary debate leading up to the vote.

Christian Hoegl, co-president of the Homosexual Initiative Vienna, Austria's oldest group of gays and lesbians, agreed.

"It's a relief, a big success and a reward for two decades of lobbying," Hoegl said.

Bizarre that it bans adoption or artificial insemination at the same time that it offers all the other rights and responsibilities of marriage that the state can provide. I know that equivalent federal legislation would be an unacceptable compromise to most LGBT advocates in the United States.