‘Second Service’ Tennis News: Simona Halep out for weeks due to nose surgery & Alcaraz unwilling to discredit himself after US Open trophy
Looking back on the big tennis news in our exclusive ‘Second Service’… Simona Halep will be out for weeks after revealing that ‘surgery was only solution’ for breathing problems and Carlos Alcaraz won’t discredit himself after his US Open triumph plus more…
To start, Simona Halep has undergone nose surgery following the US Open in an effort to ease breathing difficulties that worsened over the summer.
Now, Halep has announced she will be needing time off the court to recover from a procedure to help her fulfil her physical potential and restore her overall comfort.
“As some might already know, I have been struggling for a while with nose problems and it got worse during the summer especially in Washington,” she explained on Twitter. “This problem made it hard to breathe and even worse during the nights as I was going through [a] completely blocked nose. The only way to solve the problem was to undergo surgery.”
In other news, Carlos Alcaraz admits that while he has benefitted from the periodic absences of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, he deserves the accolade of being world number one.
While Alcaraz did not face any of the ‘Big Three’ to claim his US Open title, he feels he has got what he deserves through hard work.
“Look, I don’t want to take credit away from myself,” he told the New York Times. “But it’s true that Rafa, Djokovic, Federer, they were in a period when they were all playing. I had the luck or whatever you want to call it that Djokovic could not play.
Read what else he had to say here
Furthermore, the US Open has reported that the 2022 edition was its most attended in history as fans flocked to the Billie Jean National Tennis Center in their hundreds of thousands at the end of August and beginning of September.
New York hosted the final Slam of 2022, welcoming 776,000 fans through its gates over the course of the tournament. That surpasses the previous record of 737,000 coming in the pre-Covid 2019 event, where Rafael Nadal and Bianca Andreescu came through as men’s and women’s singles champions.
And lastly, Frances Tiafoe will take the place of world number 42, John Isner, as part of Team World for the fifth edition of the Laver Cup later this month.
The 24-year-old American, who is not part of the Team USA roster for the Davis Cup Group Stage, will make his third appearance at the tournament at London’s O2 as his first time back on court since the US Open semi-finals. Tiafoe failed to secure a win in either of the two singles matches he played in 2017 and 2018.
“I love Laver Cup competition,” Tiafoe said according to Eurosport. “It’s an incredible event and I hope I can win points for Team World in London this time. I know what to expect and I think we have a great chance this year of taking the title from Team Europe.”
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