Antonio Conte is set to stay at
Tottenham Hotspur for next season
and will target as many as six players to
improve his squad.
The Italian head coach met Totten-
ham’s managing director Fabio Paratici
in Turin on Thursday and the club are
now preparing for next season with
Conte at the helm. The 52-year-old,
who signed a 1½-year contract when he
replaced Nuno Espírito Santo in
November, has secured Champions
League qualification for Tottenham but
had threatened to walk out if he was not
backed in the transfer market.
Spurs made a resounding statement
that they would back Conte after the
club’s majority shareholder, Enic
Sports, injected £150 million this week.
Conte’s main targets include Aless-
andro Bastoni, the 23-year-old Inter
Milan centre back valued at £54 million
by his club, and his Croatian team-mate
Ivan Perisic, the 33-year-old winger.
Spurs are also interested in their
former playmaker Christian Eriksen,
whose short-term deal at Brentford
expires next month, and Leicester
City’s central midfielder Youri
Tielemans. Another possible target is
Filip Kostic, the Serbian left wing back,
who plays for Eintracht Frankfurt.
It is thought that Conte’s decision to
stay will revive the chances of Harry
Kane signing a new contract at Totten-
ham. The England captain wanted to
move to Manchester City last summer
but Pep Guardiola’s side have now
signed Erling Haaland from Borussia
Dortmund to fill their vacancy up front.
Kane, 28, had planned to wait until
the end of the season to see if Conte
would stay and if Tottenham would be
playing in the Champions League
before deciding whether to re-open
contract talks. His present deal, which
he signed in 2018, expires in 2024.
Spurs will face José Mourinho this
summer for the first time since he was
sacked days before he was due to take
charge in the Carabao Cup final. As an
added spice to the friendly match with
Roma in Israel, on July 30, Mourinho
has a long-running feud with Conte,
who achieved what the Portuguese
could not by taking Tottenham into the
Champions League.
Mourinho, 59, left Tottenham six
days before they played Manchester
City at Wembley in April last year, with
the team seventh in the Premier
League. He had taken charge in
November 2019, with Spurs 14th, and
guided them to a sixth-place finish that
season when football restarted after the
Covid-enforced break.
Mourinho and Conte began their
feud six years ago when Manchester
United, with Mourinho in charge, were
beaten 4-0 by Conte’s Chelsea. Mouri-
nho remonstrated with the Italian
about his behaviour on the touchline.
Tottenham will play Roma at the
Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa as the
last friendly of their pre-season. They
play two matches in South Korea and
then meet Rangers at Ibrox on July 23.
Conte to stay on as Spurs plot swoop for Perisic and £54m Bastoni
Gary Jacob
world No 9 from Canada, he quickly
asked Nadal for his blessing. The pair
split on good terms in 2017 when Toni
decided to take time away from the tour
and instead focus on coaching
youngsters at Nadal’s academy in
Mallorca, but the lure of helping Auger-
Aliassime proved too great.
Given it was likely that Toni would
eventually find himself in the opposite
corner during a match, he respectfully
checked whether Nadal was comfort-
able with him doing so.
That awkward showdown has finally
arrived. Soon after Auger-Aliassime
had defeated Serbia’s Filip Krajinovic
7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-2), 7-5, Nadal set up this
fascinating encounter by comfortably
seeing off the Netherlands’ Botic van de
Zandschlup 6-3, 6-2, 6-4. In the imme-
diate aftermath, Nadal found Toni in
the locker room to ensure there would
be no bad blood.
“I already talked with Toni after my
match,” Nadal said. “It’s very simple,
he’s my uncle. I don’t think he will be
able to want me to lose, without a doubt,
but he’s a professional and he’s with
another player.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,
if he’s going to stay in the box or not, but
I don’t care. I have zero problem with
that, so it’s not a story at all for me. I
know the feelings that we have between
each other.
“I know he wants the best for me.
Now he’s helping another player. But
honestly, for me, it’s zero problem.”
Nadal is still the heavy favourite to go
through to the quarter-finals, where a
blockbuster clash against Novak
Djokovic potentially awaits. The world
No 1 from Serbia comfortably defeated
Aljaz Bedene, the Slovenian who
formerly represented Great Britain,
6-3, 6-3, 6-2, and now plays Argentina’s
Diego Schwartzman in the round of 16.
Djokovic was watched by Arsène
Wenger, and said: “It’s an honour to
have these legends of the football world
coming to watch myself. Most of the
tennis players, we are fans of football.”
The 35-year-old also said that he
hoped to play in next year’s Australian
Open, having been barred from the first
grand slam of the year in January
because of his refusal to have the Cov-
id-19 vaccination.
Carlos Alcaraz became the first teen-
ager to reach the fourth round at Ro-
land Garros since Djokovic in 2006.
The Spaniard, 19, recorded an impress-
ively efficient 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win against
America’s Sebastian Korda to remain a
potential semi-final opponent for Djok-
ovic or Nadal.
British representation in the French
Open singles draws came to an end last
night when Cameron Norrie fell one
step short of the second week once
again. The country’s leading male
singles player suffered his fifth defeat in
the third round of a grand-slam tourna-
ment, though this was undoubtedly the
most disappointing so far.
Having encountered Rafael Nadal
twice and Roger Federer once at this
stage, the prospect of overcoming the
world No 25, Karen Khachanov, did not
feel so daunting for Norrie, 26. But he
strangely never quite found his range
for most of his three hours and 37 min-
utes on Court Simonne-Mathieu,
hitting 59 unforced errors during a 6-2,
7-5, 5-7, 6-4 defeat.
At least Norrie battled hard to the
end. After a tame start, during which he
missed several break-point opportuni-
ties, he broke his opponent’s serve to
extend the match into a fourth set. He
saved three match points when
Khachanov failed to serve out the
victory at 5-2, but the Russian’s power
helped take him through, in the end,
with a love hold at 5-4.
Norrie has ultimately still not quite
delivered on his potential at the sport’s
four major tournaments. He is a reliable
performer on the regular tour, winning
his fourth ATP title as recently as last
week at the Lyon Open, but he has
failed to clear the last-32 hurdle in 18
grand-slam appearances. Another
opportunity will come along in four
weeks’ time, at Wimbledon.
Nadal has conquered so many obsta-
cles throughout his glittering career at
Roland Garros but next he must pre-
pare himself for the unusual challenge
presented by his own family. Uncle
Toni, who helped his nephew win ten of
his record thirteen French Open titles,
is plotting his downfall as the coach
of his fourth-round opponent, Felix
Auger-Aliassime.
Immediately after Toni had received
an offer in April last year to mentor the
Below-par Norrie
fails to deliver on
the big stage again
Stuart
Fraser
Tennis Correspondent,
Paris
Norrie shows his frustration during a disappointing four-set defeat by Khachanov
Rising stars
Stuart Fraser
Best known in the UK for being the
runner-up to Emma Raducanu in last
year’s US Open final, Leylah Fernandez
showed once again yesterday that she
too is likely to become a grand-slam
champion one day. The 19-year-old
Canadian reached the last 16 of the
French Open by overcoming the reign-
ing Olympic gold medallist, Belinda
Bencic, in three tight sets.
It was a good day for rising stars as the
youngest player in the women’s draw
knocked out the oldest. Coco Gauff, 18,
defeated Kaia Kanepi, the 36-year-old
Estonian, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the fourth
round for the second year in a row.
Neal Skupski has had to return a
ticket to watch his beloved
Liverpool in the Champions League
final tonight because of his run in
the doubles. The world No 12 has
reached the third round of the men’s
event with his partner, Wesley
Koolhof, and decided yesterday that
he could not risk wasting a seat at
the Stade de France because of a
potential schedule clash. “I’m going
to be watching it in the hotel room,”
the Liverpool-born Skupski, 32, said.
“I wouldn’t want to take the ticket
away from some other Liverpudlian.
It’s very difficult for me to pass up
on this opportunity.”
Skupski gives up ticket
Guess who Carlos Alcaraz
6 2GS Saturday May 28 2022 | the times
Sport French Open
Gauff stretches
for the ball
on her way to
a straight-sets
win over the
veteran Kanepi