World No. 50 Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard on Sunday overpowered Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) in Basel, Switzerland, to claim his first ATP 500 title.
The 21-year-old Frenchman took less than an hour and a half to add the title to the ATP 250 tournament he won in Lyon, France, in the spring. He is lowest-ranked champion in Basel since it became a ATP Tour-level event in 1975.
“It’s amazing to win a tournament like this. A 500 for the first time for me,” said Mpetshi Perricard, who rose to a career-high No. 31 in the new rankings published yesterday. “I just can be happy with myself, with what I did today and the past five days. It’s amazing to win here. It was a tough month for me, but it’s always good when the victories are there.”
Photo: AFP
On the eve of the Paris Masters, where the two finalists are both scheduled to play, 2.03m tall Mpetshi Perricard built his victory on an exceptional service game, hitting 22 aces on Sunday, and 109 across the five matches he played in Basel.
Mpetshi Perricard, who defeated two-time defending champion Felix Auger-Aliassime and fourth seed Holger Rune on his run to the final, broke Shelton in his second service game before holding on to take the first set in less than 40 minutes.
The second set was tighter, with each player holding serve before Shelton cracked at 4/4 in the tiebreak.
Mpetshi Perricard easily took the next two points to claim the second trophy of his career.
Both players now head to Paris, where Mpetshi Perricard is to face Frances Tiafoe of the US, ranked 15th in the world, in the first round.
Shelton is to face world No.1 Jannik Sinner if he gets through his first round against French qualifier Corentin Moutet.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For