French player Mathieu Montcourt passes away at 24

French media are reporting that Mathieu Montcourt had died at the age of 24.

The cause of death was said to be "pulmonary embolism".

Montcourt, ranked no.119 in the world was reported found dead by his girlfriend in front of the door to his ground floor apartment in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt on Monday night.

"The French Tennis Federation (FFT) is literally in shock on learning of the death of Mathieu Montcourt," a Federation statement said.

"His sudden loss plunges the whole tennis family into immense sadness," the statement added.

FFT technical director Patrice Dominguez said: "Mathieu was a young and promising talent who was really on the way up. "He was a hard-working, serious and clean-living lad. We are devastated and our first thoughts are with his family."

Montcourt's last tournament was in the Croatian town of Rijeka late June where he reached the semi-final of a Challenger Tour event.

His career was badly hit in August last year when he was banned for eight weeks and fined 12,000 dollars for betting on the Internet on the outcome of tennis matches.

Updates:
Initial autopsy results indicate Montcourt died of cardiac arrest, according to French police.

"Based on preliminary findings, we conclude the death was from natural causes. We are awaiting the toxicology results, which should be available next week, to be completely certain," a police source told AFP.

(Via pr-inside.com, AFP)

Defending champ Caroline Wozniacki returns to Bastad

Caroline Wozniacki is probably my second biggest WTA crush after Maria Sharapova.

She's back in Bastad to defend her title and has been getting tonnes of attention from the media there.

Last Sunday, Wozniacki attended a joint opening ceremony between the Collector Swedish Open Women and Catella Swedish Open.

She played in an exhibition teaming up with Swedish Sofia Arvidsson and Ellen Allgurin as Team Collector.

On the men's team, Team Catella was made up of Thomas Johansson, Magnus Gustafsson and Andreas Vinciguerra.

There was the lacoste team which was filled with Dominika Cibulkova, Daniel Berta and Anna Brazhnikova.

At the end of the event, Wozniacki had the priviledge to officiate the opening of the tournament together with former junior French Open champion Daniel Berta.

Here are more pictures of Wozniacki at Bastad.


(Images via women.swedishopen.org)

Glitz and glamour at the Wimbledon Champions Party 2009

Here's an inside look at the Wimbledon Winners Party held at Hotel Intercontinental, London yesterday.

Those who attended the function include Sir Cliff Richard and Hall of Famers like Rod Laver and Virginia Wade.

Amazingly, Mirka's water did not break during the nerve-wreaking final on Sunday. She looked radiant and healthy at the party beside her 15-Grand Slam hubby.

I totally love the stage - the shimmery blue and silver backdrop created a dramatic effect when champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams walked out with their precious trophies.

(Images by Simon James/Getty Images Europe)

ATP pays tribute to Roger Federer, named 'living legend'

ATP saluted Roger Federer's feat of winning a 15th Grand Slam and placed him on top of legends like Pete Sampras, Roy Emerson (why he's not at Wimbledon?), Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver.

Check out the tribute web page here.

If you want to join the celebration, why not place these desktop wallpapers on your computer screen or on your iPhone?

It's available for download here (scroll down to the bottom of the page).


(Images by Getty Images, ATP)