Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, the place The Athletic will clarify the story behind the tales from the final week on courtroom.
This week, the coveted Masters 1000 in Madrid ran its first week and the tales on courtroom have been matched by the drama off it, because the Grand Slams and tennis excursions proceed their magnificence pageant for the way forward for the game.
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Can ‘assurances’ on participant security in Saudi Arabia ever be sufficient?
Daria Kasatkina, the best ranked overtly homosexual participant in ladies’s tennis, was requested Sunday how she felt concerning the WTA opting to carry its Tour Finals for the subsequent three years in Saudi Arabia, a rustic, the place homosexuality is against the law that may be punished by dying.
Only the highest eight gamers qualify for the Tour Finals. Kasatkina is at present world No 11.
“Look, if I qualify, it means that I’m top eight in the world,” Kasatkina stated after advancing to the spherical of 16 in Madrid. “It’s great news for me.”
Then she took a deep breath. “We see that the Saudis, now they are very into the sport. They want to develop the sport, and as long as it gives the opportunity to the people there and the young kids and the women, too, you know, we see that sport and specifically tennis, it’s actually so close so that they can watch it. They can play, they can participate in this, I think it’s great.”
Asked how she thinks the setting could be for homosexual gamers and people in identical intercourse relationships as she is, and whether or not she has obtained assurances about having the ability to maybe, share a room with a associate, Ksatkina as soon as extra paused pensively.“I’ve been given assurances that I’m going to be fine,” she stated.
Does it matter if Aryna Sabalenka desires to observe males’s tennis?
Sabalenka precipitated a little bit of a stir final week when she instructed a Spanish media outlet that she doesn’t watch a lot ladies’s tennis and prefers the boys’s recreation, saying it was extra fascinating. That wasn’t the sort of buzz the ladies’s tour is in search of from its high gamers.
Sabalenka clarified these feedback after successful her first match in Madrid, explaining that sitting down to observe her opponents isn’t how she prefers to spend her free time.
“I play against all of them, and I just want to change the picture, and because I watch lots of women’s tennis before I go to the match, I watch my opponents, I watch lots of women’s tennis,” she stated. “It’s not like I don’t like it or I try to offend what I do. I was trying to say that because I’m playing there and it’s too much for me, I’m trying to watch men’s tennis. It’s more fun than watching probably my future opponents in the tournament.”
A wonderfully comprehensible clarification. Tennis, and watching it, is figure for the highest gamers on this planet, women and men. Baseball gamers don’t watch a lot baseball of their free time.
(Full disclosure, this may be true for tennis writers, as effectively.)
It’s a delicate subject across the tour, particularly as a result of it wasn’t way back that Amelie Mauresmo, the French Open match director and a former world No 1, described males’s tennis as extra interesting to justify her choice to let males dominate the match’s nightly featured match.
Women have sufficient of an issue with males degrading their sport. Fairly or unfairly — in all probability the latter — that forces them to be further cautious when speaking about their favourite variations of the game. No one will get on Daniil Medvedev or some other male participant once they fess as much as not watching their sport until they’re in the course of a match.
GO DEEPER
Listening to ladies: The sluggish rise of feminine tennis coaches
Has an arm harm really helped Carlos Alcaraz?
Few issues fear the tennis world greater than the well being and wellbeing of Carlos Alcaraz. His magical play and dynamic fashion have captivated tennis followers and the remainder of the sports-consuming public. He is a kind of gamers who comes alongside not so typically and transcends the sport, offering a possibility for tennis to interrupt by way of the morass.
He additionally will get harm lots, and has missed some medium-sized chunks of his early seasons as an expert which have value him an opportunity to play in necessary tournaments — the ATP Tour Finals in 2022 and the Australian Open in 2023 high that listing.
GO DEEPER
Carlos Alcaraz is making magic once more. Watch out.
So it was a little bit alarming when Alcaraz pulled out of Monte Carlo and Barcelona this month with an harm to his forearm. Competing in Madrid was touch-and-go till his remaining apply the day earlier than his first match, which he performed carrying a sleeve. His efficiency, a near-flawless 6-2, 6-1 win over Alexander Shevchenko of Kazakhstan, eased numerous worries, nevertheless it additionally showcased one other aspect of Alcaraz, who stated he by no means went for broke on his cannon forehand to guard his arm.
“I hit it softer than I used to, but it helped me stay relaxed,” he stated. “I think more.”
The information (beneath) reveals that Alcaraz is hitting it softer (a three-mile-per-hour distinction may not look like a lot, however over 78 toes, it’s lots) and with “less quality,” however he’s nonetheless successful.
Far be it for anybody to criticize the play of a two-time Grand Slam champion at 20 years previous, but when there was a weak spot for Alcaraz, it’s his tendency to typically play pictures fairly than factors — particularly when below stress — and put collectively a spotlight reel fairly than merely win by enjoying strong, unspectacular tennis. If there’s a silver lining to this newest harm, it may very well be that it forces Alcaraz to turn into a extra restrained however more practical participant, nonetheless with loads of highlights besides.
Two bagels for you Coco, you go Coco!
Coco Gauff has performed many spectacular issues in her tennis profession, however the so-called ‘double-bagels’ are typically not her factor. She’s come shut earlier than, most lately final 12 months within the WTA Finals towards a hobbled Ons Jabeur. With Gauff, although, there’s normally a time in each match when the forehand will get wobbly or the serve goes on the skids.
Then got here Madrid, and an opening-round match towards Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands. Fifty-one minutes and a 51-18 level differential later, and Gauff had her first double-bagel. In her second match, towards Dayana Yastremska, Gauff sprinted to a 4-0 lead and seemed like she would possibly get three in a row, however settled for a 6-4, 6-1. Breadsticks are good gasoline, too.
Gauff is nearly as good an athlete as there may be within the recreation and may play all evening if she must, however each participant likes to be as scientific as she will be wherever doable. If Gauff can determine how to do this, particularly within the early rounds of tournaments, the remainder of the sphere higher be careful.
Is the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup crossover a good suggestion?
Legend of the game Billie Jean King has lengthy wished a “Tennis World Cup” — and now she’s received it… type of.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) this week introduced adjustments to the schedule and format of the annual occasion, creating per week of cross-over between the BJK Cup and the boys’s equal, the Davis Cup, with the second semi-final and remaining of the ladies’s match overlapping the primary two days of the boys’s match in late November this 12 months.
The ladies’s match has additionally moved to emulate the knock-out construction of its counterpart, changing a round-robin finals with a straight shoot-out between eight of the ultimate twelve groups. The 4 seeded nations — who, on present kind, could be the Czech Republic and Australia, alongside 2023 winners and runners-up Canada and Italy — will obtain a bye straight to the quarter-finals.
Rune and Navone have Madrid on strings
If Medvedev’s future is in his strings, then Holger Rune’s is likely to be lacking a weave.
During his unnecessarily up-and-down victory over rising Argentinian Mariano Navone, he came to visit to the umpire at 5-3 in his favor (though, a couple of minutes beforehand, it was 5-1).
“The tournament is trying to cheat me,” he stated. “They missed a string on my racket.” He then pushed away a digital camera earlier than repeating his grievance. It seemed extra like a cross-string had been mis-weaved, fairly than lacking a complete line.
Rune had been 5-6, 15-30 down on Navone’s serve within the second set, on the verge of exiting the match, earlier than Navone tightened as much as hit two yomping double faults and a backhand error that hardly landed within the tramlines to surrender a tiebreak. Rune surged away with it, and the subsequent six video games to go 5-1, however the racket incident destabilised him fully and he ended up needing 5 match factors earlier than prevailing 6-4 in a remaining service recreation that swung like a pendulum.
Stringing Navone alongside, maybe.
Shots (fired) of the week
Alexander Bublik will do Alexander Bublik issues each time he desires. Roberto Carballes Baena isn’t a fan.
Lo que hace aquí Carballes Baena es para que le metan una buena sanción y no pueda pisar un torneo un buen tiempo.
Se pica porque Bublik hace el tonto ( lo hace siempre ) y a continuación busca darle un pelotazo con su saque dos veces seguidas.
Vergonzoso es poco pic.twitter.com/B7VAFtMekW
— Miguel_cmm (@Miguelcmm1) April 28, 2024
Recommended studying:
Coming up
ATP:
Madrid, Mutua Madrid Open (1000) second week, ft. Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Rafael Nadal, Daniil Medvedev.
UK: Sky Sports; US: Tennis Channel Tennis TV
WTA:
Madrid, Mutua Madrid Open (1000) second week, ft. Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff.
UK: Sky Sports; US: Tennis Channel Tennis TV
Tell us what you observed this week within the feedback because the excursions proceed.
(Top pictures: Clive Brunskill/Julian Finney/Getty Images)
https://theathletic.com/5450073/2024/04/29/tennis-briefing-kasatkina-saudi-arabia-alcaraz-injury/