Wim fissette biography of abraham

DUBAI: World No. 2 Iga Swiatek was sensationally knocked out of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in straight sets on Thursday as the talented teen Mirra Andreeva made history to book a place in the WTA 1000 semifinal for the first time in her career.

With the win, Andreeva becomes the youngest player to reach the final four since the emirate’s tournament began in 2001.

When world No. 1 and top seed Aryna Sabalenka crashed out of the tournament on Wednesday night, Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam winner, looked favorite for a maiden Dubai crown.

Yet less than 24 hours later, the Polish star was also packing her bags after a stunning performance by Andreeva, who claimed a 6-3, 6-3 victory to become, at 17 years and 297 days, the youngest semifinalist in the 25-year history of the Dubai women’s event.

Andreeva, who admitted she was nervous beforehand, struggled in her first service game of the opening set, but managed to save three break points before breaking her opponent’s serve to take the lead.

Covering the court well while also reading Swiatek’s shots, she broke once more with a powerful forehand down the line.

Swiatek rallied to establish a 3-1 lead in the second set, but Andreeva refused to surrender. Following a brief on-court conversation with her coach, the teen went on to win five games in a row to secure the win.

The victory proved sweet revenge for the three-set defeat she suffered in her only other meeting with Swiatek in Cincinnati last year.

“Last time we played, (it) was a close match — tough, intense,” Andreeva said. “This time, I just tried to tell myself to go for my shots, to be aggressive, to not hesitate.”

She added: “That helped me to win in a way. I just tell myself, if I’m here, I play my best, I try to play my best, I go for my shots, fight for every ball. It doesn’t matter what’s happening on the court.

“If I lose 6-0, 5-0 or I win 7-5

Naomi Osaka has appointed Belgian Wim Fissette as her new coach as she continues her preparations to try and defend her Australian Open title in January 2020.

The two-time major champion has moved on to her fourth coach in less than a year, hiring Fissette, who has worked with several Grand Slam winners in the past.

The former professional guided Kim Clijsters to three Grand Slam titles between 2009 and 2011 and has also worked with major winners Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova and Angelique Kerber.

Osaka has been without a coach since September, when she split with Jermaine Jenkins following a disappointing defence of her US Open title.

[Source: Sky Sports]

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Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka’s coach said she is using her superstar status to force change with her controversial media boycott at the French Open.

“Naomi has the opportunity to use her status to address problems and to initiate things,” Osaka’s Belgian coach Wim Fissette told German magazine Der Spiegel.

“In the United States, the subject is very topical at the moment, as athletes want more freedom in dealing with the press. So that they are simply not threatened right away with punishment if they don’t feel well for a day.”

On Sunday, officials at Roland Garros threatened Osaka, the world No 2, with disqualification if she persists in boycotting media press conferences, which she claims are detrimental to her mental health.

The 23-year-old was fined $15,000 for refusing to attend a press conference after her opening 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) victory over Romanian world number 63 Patricia Maria Tig.

Following her win, Osaka agreed only to a cursory on-court TV interview.

Osaka has likened traditional post-match press conferences to “kicking people when they’re down”, but French Tennis Federation president Gilles Moretton has described her vow of silence as “a phenomenal error”.

However, following her win over Tig, Osaka stood firm by tweeting: “Anger is a lack of understanding. Change makes people uncomfortable.”

In the Spiegel interview, Fissette also insisted Osaka “knows it’s important to talk to the press” and is not boycotting the media “for herself alone”, but is “concerned with fundamental issues – she wants to bring about change”.

Earlier this year, the Japanese superstar won the fourth Grand Slam title of her career at the Australian Open, but has never got past the third round of the French Open.

Editor's note: At the height of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation to encourage Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer.” Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving each year since.

We present Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation in the spirit of this important American holiday.

By the President of the United StatesA Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield