David Ferrer’s determination to qualify for the season-ending ATP World Tour finals is such is he has opted to play in the Vienna Open for the first time in 10 years.
The 32-year-old top seed has decided to compete in the Austrian capital, like British No. 1 Andy Murray, as they search to accrue enough points to get in the top eight and grab a place in the finals next month.
Ferrer and Murray are ninth and 10th respectively in the race for London, with three spots remaining.
Canadian Milos Raonic — who is playing in the Kremlin Cup this week — is eighth, with Spain’s Ferrer just 35 points adrift of him and the Briton 95 in arrears.
Ferrer, who will play either Simone Bolelli or Tobias Kamke after he benefited from a first-round bye, said he would battle until the end to secure his place.
“Of course it is my goal, I’m fighting for [it],” said Ferrer, who played in Shanghai last week, losing to Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals. “It’s important for me. We don’t have too many tournaments. We have only three tournaments more to be in London.”
Murray, seeded second, springs into action in Vienna today against Canadian Vasek Pospisil.
Murray, who flew into Vienna on a private jet after receiving a wild-card entry, is due to compete in Valencia on another wild-card entry next week, as well as the Paris Masters.
Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Stanislas Wawrinka have already qualified for the finals, while another spot will go to Grand Slam winner Marin Cilic.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
The Major League Baseball World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan. People milled around local train stations yesterday morning in Tokyo as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees. The 30-year-old is a national hero in Japan whose face adorns billboards and TV adverts all over the country. Ohtani this year became the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and
WORLD SERIES: ‘The individuals that were involved in that last night was a very small segment of the east Los Angeles community,’ the Los Angeles county sheriff said Rowdy crowds took to the streets of Los Angeles after the LA Dodgers won the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series, setting a city bus on fire, breaking into stores and lighting fireworks. A dozen arrests were reported by police on Thursday, but officials said that most fans celebrated peacefully. Video showed revelers throwing objects at police in downtown LA as sirens blared and officers told them to leave the area on Wednesday night after the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the MLB World Series at Giants Stadium in New York. Another video showed someone standing atop