In case all tennis lovers and fans were sitting on a very hot, clay baked oven at Roland Garros this week — or better yet, were sitting on their couches in London sweating through their shirts while watching the French Open wishing they could be at Roland Garros — and missed the news: World Team Tennis announced its reboot earlier this week.

Yes, now in its ∞ iteration, the co-ed, team-based U.S. tennis league co-founded by feminist tennis pioneer Billie Jean King in 1974, will return under Stephen Amritraj the former director of college tennis at the USTA, who bought WTT’s from its previous owners, Eric Davidson and Fred Luddy via his provate-equity fund, Intrepid Sports Group. The franchise will open in December — the typical off-season for the Top-100 — at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Already WTA No. 5 Jessica Pegula has signed on to compete; other “top 10, top 20″ players have also signed, Armitraj said.

“A team concept — mixed-gender, men and women on the same team, contributing equally to the score -- in tennis is something that is truly special,” Amritraj said. “(WTT) needed a sizable revamp for what the actual nuts and bolts of this were going to be.” World Team Tennis has not held a tour since an anaemic 2021 effort with the pandemic still in full-swing (in the U.S. anyway).

Why does this matter, and why does this matter during the middle of a Grand Slam? For the uninitiated, World Team Tennis not only brings together fierce competitors of both sexes who may otherwise not interact during the regular seasons, but it also gives Futures and Challengers players them much-needed exposure and competition at a higher level. Hailey Baptiste (WTA No. 26) — the latest American phenom to tear through the spring season and beat two-time Grand Slam champion Barbora Krejcikova (WTA No. 41) in her first round at Roland Garros (only to fall with left knee injuries during her second round) — played 2020 World Team Tennis for the New York Empire while still a fresh-faced 19-year-old about to embark on the “grind.” Current doubles specialist Marcus Willis (ATP Dbls No. 75) also played for the New York Empire during the 2017 season following his sensational 2016 romp through Wimbledon qualifiesr and a second-round, Centre-Court battle against Roger Federer; he eventually returned hungry for more action at age 33. And Exhibit No. 3: Brandon Nakashima (ATP No. 35) capped off his college career at the University of Virginia with a season for the Chicago Smash in 2020, while ranked ATP No. 786, two years before he took the ATP Next Gen championship.

“During that whole time off, when there was no tournaments, I was still training hard and working on my game to try to improve,” Nakashima said in 2021. “Once the tournaments started back up again in August, like everybody, I was excited and I was eager to play some competitive matches and just taking advantage of the opportunities when we’re ready to play.

“I’m just thankful to all the people that organized the tournaments to have us be able to play them.”

More on WTT, but First… Un résumé Francais.

Call it climate change; call it clay heat absorption with high walls and no breeze. But the City of Lights became the City of Barf in the 16th arrondissement at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.

Starting on Sunday with record temperatures across Europe, never-ending British hopeful Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 39) did not vomit during her first round match, but she ate a bagel before attempting a comeback set, ultimately losing 0-6, 0-7 (4-7) to Solana Sierra (WTA No. 68) and attributing the loss to a viral illness that has kept her out of the tournaments since March.

But the tell-tale signs came on a outer court when a ball girl almost fainted during Andrey Rublev's (ATP No. 13) four-set victory over Peruvian Ignacio Buse (ATP No. 31). The temperature had reach 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit). Illness didn’t strike many of the other women, but injury felled Anerican fan favourite Hailey Baptiste. Hades spared several other top Americans who have cruised through to the third round, including Madison Keys (WTA No. 19), Coco Gauff (WTA No. 4) and Amanda Anisimova (WTA No. 6). The Brits are now out, despite Katie Boulter (WTA No. 71) and Francesca Jones’ (WTA No. 102) stunning first-round wins, and the French still have Diane Parry (WTA No. 92) in the running. Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 3) won the battle of the Pols today against Magda Linette (WTA No. 73), who took out Swiatek’ kryptonite, Jelena Ostapenko (WTA No. 31 ) on her behalf. Lastly, Maria Sakkari (WTA No. 49) is having her best tournament since… Until today, of course, when she fell to Polish start-up Maja Chwalinska (WTA No. 113), after handling a French roll to her in the first set. Choke city of lights?

On the men’s side, the main champion was “ralph” as he nearly left Casper Ruud (ATP No. 16) shattered after his first round match, took out Jannik Sinner (ATP No. 1) in a shocking second round upset and the supposedly indefatigable Novak Djokovic (ATP No. 4) today, giving Brazilian hopeful Joao Fonseca (ATP No. 30) a shot at the Coupe des Mousquetaires (The Musketeers' Cup). The Brits Eurostar-ed back across the channel in the early rounds, while most of the Americans soon followed to prep for the grasscourt season (except for Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 22) and World Team Tennis veteran Nakashima. Alexander Zverev (ATP No. 3) may have his first real chance at winning his first slam if he stays healty and calm, while Matteo Berrettini (ATP No. 73) lurks once more and the French have pinned all their hopes on literal ATP Challenger Moise Kouame (ATP No. 318), the son of West African immigrants who is having his dream come true, much like Lois Boisson (WTA No. 43) last year. “Incredible match to be part of. Tough one for me to lose being two sets to love up,” said Djokovic after losing his chance to take home a 25th Grand Slam title. “But huge credit for Joao for really deserving to win the match. He without a doubt was the better player in the important moments.”

Back to Tennis Teaming.

Billie Jean King never had the chance to compete on a college team, although enrolled at Cal State Los Angeles, before she went pro. So in 1973 with a little bit of money and a bunch of guys backing her, including her then-husband Larry King, the feminist and WTA tour co-founder came up with a format: 16 teams playing a 44-team-match season over four months at large NBA and NHL arenas. Each match consisted of five sets (one set each) for men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles on a multi-coloured, block court sans lines. Just as she did for the women, King gave the big names, such as Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, prime spots on the various teams, but she also recruited young players with promise. Here are a few to jog some memories:

Margot Tiff counted on one of BJK’s early successes. A native of Cleveland, after finishing Cal State Los Angeles (BJK’s recent alma mater), Tiff became the first Black Cleveland teammate on World Team Tennis and then the first Black woman on the Virginia Slims tour — the first Black woman professional since Althea Gibson (at the time). And like Gibson, Tiff he vowed not to let racial pressures affect her performance on the court. “I want to be thought of as a tennis player first, not as a Black person who happens to play tennis.” Tiff said, according to Bustin’ Balls: World Team Tennis 1974–78, Pro Sports, Pop Culture, and Progressive Politics.“My aim is to be a good tennis player, not a good Black tennis player.”

Phil Dent was a young phenom in Australia, whose junior and professional tennis scene thrived in the 1970s and 80s — compared with a much scaled down presence today — Dent played World Team Tennis for the Detroit Loves in 1974 after making a run for several titles, including the 1975 Australian Open, which he lost to Jimmy Connors. After switching to doubles, Dent won the Australian Open in 1975 and the US Open Mixed in 1976 (with BJK). Reaching a career high of ATP No. 12, he helped lead Australia to victories in both the Davis Cup in 1977 and the World Team Cup in 1979. After retiring from his professional career, he became known as the “Serve Doctor” throughout the ATP and the WTA, helping both Maria Sherapova and Michael Chang with theirs

Kristien Shaw (Kemmer) stood out in So-Cal, winning 10 USTA national championships in singles and doubles and turned pro in 1969, age 17, although it took her another eight years on tour before she would climb to the career-high of WTA No. 10. During those years, Shaw played some of the season for the Denver Racquets as a key player for its inaugural 1974 season eventually switching to the Phoenix Racquets, where she gained a reputation for her aggressive left-handed gam. Shaw had several Grand Slam highlights, including reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in 1973 and 1974, the third round at the U.S. Open in 1973 and 1975, and a mixed doubles semifinal at the 1977 U.S. Open partnering with Butch Walts. After retiring from professional play at age 27 due to a back injury and well, probably exhaustion after nearly two decades on the road in 1979, Shaw settled in the Phoenix area following her time with the WTT franchise. Fun fact: Shaw and Chris Evert became the “It Girls” of the Phoenix Racquets.

While World Team Tennis espoused unity and progressive politics, sometimes those values didn’t exactly diffuse by osmosis in certain players. Case in point: Christopher “Buster” Mottram, a native of Southwest London. Practically growing up around Wimbledon, Mottram reached the finals of the junior French Open and junior Wimbledon in 1972, age 17; he prevailed on clay (the second ever British champion during his day) but not on grass, losing to Bjorn Born in three sets. Mottram also competed in Men’s Main Singles draw at Wimbledon that same year, losing in the second round to Dick Stockton. Drafted by BJK herself to play for the Philadelphia Freedoms, Mottram proved the team’s most effective men's singles player, helping lead the franchise to the Championship Series. The British No. 1 from 1978-1983, Mottram’s greatest success came at the Davis Cup where he thrived on “team spirit and is one of the few for whom the responsibility of playing for his country brings out the best in both his tennis and character.” It also later brought out Mottram’s fervent nationalism. In the 1980s, Mottram wrote a letter in support of then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher amid her battles with the trade unions, signing it on behalf of the Davis Cup team, and then supported for Enoch Powell, an infamous figure for his 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about mass immigration. Only in 2023 did Wimbledon react, permanent banning him from attending the Wimbledon Championships and All England Club grounds due to “further misdemeanours” related to his disruptive behavior and controversial political history. Can’t win ‘em all, Billie! But you can sure try.

RALLY SMASHES

Can a Smash also come from a Shank? Depends on physics, I suppose. Today it was reported that the French Open says it will impose a “significant” fine on Paraguayan player Adolfo Daniel Vallejo (ATP No. 70) after he made “unacceptable” and “sexist” comments about a female umpire. Vallejo, 22, said his second-round match to outlier Moise Kouame, 17, at Roland Garros should not have been umpired by Brazil’s Ana Carvalho as women do not have the “courage” to handle the crowd. After he lost to Kouame in a fifth-set tiebreak Vallejo told tennis website Clay, “This sort of match needs to be umpired by a man. It’s very difficult for a woman to do it,” the 22-year-old said. “It has to be refereed by a man, because it’s a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd.” French Open organisers said they “strongly condemn all sexist remarks,” and that “The outcome of a sporting event, whether positive or negative, can never justify or excuse such remarks.”

RALLY SHANKS

The WTA social media. Come on WTA, just hire a creative agency. Although an internal ATP Tour marketing team handles a good chunk of the exposure, its partners with several agencies and organizations to execute their digital content and social strategy, including M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, which is widely known for its tennis chops. The agency can even get grumpy ol’ Alexanders Zverev and Bublik to play along with its challenges.

TENNIS CLUB OF THE WEEK: Tennis Club de l’Aviron Bayonnais

For over eighty years, tennis at Aviron Bayonnais has been played on a unique site, the Vauban ramparts, revolutionary star-shaped fortifications and defense ridges designed by the legendary French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban during the reign of King Louis XIV. Twelve of these networks now form a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the club in Aquitaine is now one of the most prestigious in France, featuring 8 outdoor clay courts, 2 green set courts and 2 outdoor padel courts. It reminds Rally of a certain club in Malta played on the site of a former navy prison.

Wilson: Whoa, Wilson, way to kick it from the 1980s to the 21st century (!) and grab up several key players including Alex de Minaur (ATP No. 8 ), Jiri Lehecka (ATP No. 13), Karen Khachanov (ATP No. 15) and Anastasia Potapova (WTA No. 38). Back in January, De Minaur announced a “head-to-toe” sponsorship deal with Wilson, making him the latest Wilson “360 athlete” to use All Things Wilson — meaning apparel, footwear and rackets from the Chicago-based brand. De Minaur can thank Marta Kostyuk (WTA No. 15) for the re-introducing him and the tennis world to the new Wilson and helping it go from possibly ugliest kit to the most classic look since Federer left Nike for Uniqlo. The first totally sponsored Wilson athlete in possibly forever, Kostyuk also helped create the women’s-specific Intrigue Tour shoe and brought in 2025 breakout athlete Vicky Mboko (WTA No. 9), who rose from No. 300 to No. 18 during the 2025 season. High-fives all-round.

Uniqlo: With Roger Federer unable to model Uniqlo on court — and quite frankly, mostly working for ON Running these days — the Japanese brand decided to go for Britain’s once again top-ranked female tennis player, Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 30) (after taking three years to edge out Sonay Kartal (WTA No. 56) and Katie Boulter (WTA No. 60)) to debut its women’s collection. The company said Raducanu will — along with Federer and Cate Blanchett — “promote Uniqlo’s LifeWear philosophy,” with intangible value such as the “continuous pursuit of excellence, positive contribution to society, and support (of ) the next generation.” But the key piece of the deal: Raducanu will actively work on designs of her on-court apparel. Hopefully, she can test more of the functionality of the clothing sometime soon.

Under Armour: Just a year or so ago, Sonay Kartal (WTA No. 56) — aka “Super Sonay” or “Karts”, according to Tatler magazine — seemed to be quite enjoying her Adidas “throwback 1970s’ urban sports look.” She told the Times of London “I love that they’ve gone back to the old logo, gone a bit retro.” Adidas seemed very happy with Kartal, too, making Kartal the face of its “London Originals,” which paid homage “to the era-defining style of players including Stan Smith and Billie Jean King.” But Kartal possibly just wanted to be her own woman. Or she wanted to ensure Adidas would never make her wear skirts. Ever. Either way, by January, she had been wooed by Under Armour, the bankrupt and restructuring American sportswear maker founded by a former University of Maryland American football player. Will Kartal help the brand return to the hype it had in 2015, when its stock was soaring and it gained comparisons to Nike?

Rome Recap:

Somehow, somewhere, Naomi Osaka (WTA No. 16) thought she could attend the “Costume Art” themed annual Met Gala — otherwise known as “fashion’s biggest night out,” or a fundraising benefit for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art — on 4 May, fly to Rome, have her body adjust to the six-hour time difference, overcome her general ennui and defeat WTA No. 3, Iga Swiatek on her comeback tour. Osaka actually fared fairly decently, dispatching German up-and-comer Eva Lys (WTA No. 80) and Russian Diana Shnaider (WTA No. 20) before she ran out of steam, losing (6-1, 6-2) to Swiatek, who went down in a surprise upset to top mom, Elina Svitolina (WTA No. 10). Svitolina will play American Coco Gauff (WTA No. 4) who had a mixed week, almost losing in three sets to Argentinian Solana Sierra (WTA No. 72) in the second round and Mirra Andreeva (WTA No. 7) in the quarterfinals.

While the women’s final is set for Saturday, Jannik Sinner’s fate as the first Italian man to win the Italian Open in 50 years — and complete a career Golden Masters, or a sweep of all nine ATP Masters 1000 titles that only Novak Djokovic has achieved — still hangs in the balance, thanks to a rain delay in the third set. Sinner (ATP No. 1) sailed to a 6-2 win in the first set, struggled physically in the second and lost it 5-7 before officials suspended the match at 4-2 in the third. Either Medvedev (ATP No. 9) or likely Sinner will face Norwegian Caspar Ruud (ATP No. 25) in the final. Either way, Ruud — once ranked ATP No. 2 — has been on a comeback tour since suffering a downturn in 2025 due to an admitted depression and the grind of the tour. Ruud dropped only one set the entire tournament and will return to the Top 20 before entering the French Open in a week.

Meanwhile in Manhattan:

Venus Williams took a beat instead of a wildcard and stepped out as co-chair of the Met Gala (alongside Beyonce and Nicole Kidman) in a custom Swarovski crystal mesh gown by Giovanna Engelbert inspired by Robert Pruitt’s Venus Williams, Double Portrait, which hangs in the National Gallery. She accessorised the gown, a cheeky reference to the gala theme “Costume Art,” with her new husband, model, actor and director Andrea Preti, her sister Serena — in a custom silver and gold metallic Marc Jacobs mini-dress paired with gold gladiator heels — and a necklace modeled after the Wimbledon singles trophy. Osaka — in a move to upstage the Williamses or just to show the world her true, true feelings — turned up in another melancholy collaboration with couturier Robert Wun: a sculpted ivory coat, with open seams exposing red crystals from within (bled to death by a thousand cuts, anyone?), adorned with stripped feathers and fitted over a red crystallized gown featuring over 659,000 stitches of intricate embroidery. “Obviously, a lot of people know me for my tennis outfits, and the Met Gala is the Grand Slam of fashion,” Osaka told Vogue. “To have the opportunity to be here and express my style on this stage is something that’s really cool for me.”

Fashion Forward:

Lacoste: Since Lacoste lost its poster girl Anett Kontaveit (former WTA No. 2) at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships following her diagnosis of lumbar disc degeneration, it has been searching for someone to fill her sleeveless Lacoste tops and one piece tennis dresses. It found her in Ukrainian-born German professional tennis player Eva Lys (WTA No. 80) who reached the fourth round in the Australian Open and the second rounds of each consecutive Grand Slam in her breakthrough 2025 season. By signing Lys, whom Lacoste describes as “positive, creative, fiercely competitive,” Lacoste aims to balance its historically male-dominated tennis partnerships which include Medvedev, Djokovic and now Arthur Fils (ATP No. 17). Lys was the latest departure from Asics, which has been losing brand ambassadors left and right, leaving only Jasmine Paolini and its highest profile player. For Lacoste, securing Lys represents a bet on emerging talent rather than established stars — a profound shift in direction.

Vuori: Britain’s next great hope — hampered by shoulder and knee injuries since last fall — Jack Draper has made several big changes of late, including hiring friend Andy Murray as “consultant” coach, and leaving Nike for California-based athleisure brand Vuori. Draper, 23, has been with Nike since the start of his career; however, the expiration of his deal with the biggest sports brand in the world left him “free to pursue a bolder, more unconventional approach to his on-court style,” according to the company. Founded by former model-turned-accountant-turned-serial-entrepreneur Joe Kudla, Vuori means “mountain” in Finnish, reflecting Kudla's passion for mountain climbing. With his deeparture from Nike — which embarrassingly had several of its ambassadors in matching kits at the 2024 U.S. Open — Draper is the latest player leaving the big names like Nike and Adidas in favor of smaller or newer brands that offer players a seat at the design table. “The fact that [Vuori] put their belief and their trust in me as a player, as a person, to help grow this brand. I think we've got the mindset to do that,” Draper said. “I want to be the best tennis player out there. I want to be someone who is on the big stages all the time.” Might take another season.

Free People Movement: Speaking of big-name departures, Emma Navarro (WTA No. 35) signed with FP Movement, the activewear branch of Free People, a “timeless boho fashion brand for free-spirited women,” joining players Danielle Collins (WTA No. 134) and Sofia Kenin (WTA No. 74) who led the shift in 2022. As its highest-ranked player who has been in the Top 10 for the past two years, the brand is betting big on tennis as a key investment in its overall growth. The switch from big-name brands to virtual unknowns evidently offers players higher compensation and greater creative control for athletes to build their personal brands — something for which everyone strives in the Instagram age. Navarro previously sported Fila, the Italian-founded brand now headquartered in South Korea. “It’s really exciting to work with a brand that allows me to add my personal touch,” Navarro said. “I’ll be wearing outfits that I worked on designing — outfits that I’m really excited to wear and feel like myself in — and I’m excited for people to get a better sense of my style and personality through that.”

RALLY SMASHES:

Golden Age of Tennis: Launched in late 2020 by tennis fans Alistair Thomson and Peter Mullinand, the Golden Age of Tennis remakes clothing from the classic years when “the players had as much style as they had skill and panache.” By partnering with famous 70s and 80s brands such as Fila, Sergio Tacchini, Ellesse and Maggia, GAOT gives player hooked on classic looks and brands a way to get them without searching high and low through the vintage shops. The aim is not to dress in costume. The aim is to borrow the codes of the era and let them feel natural now, according to the founders.

RALLY SHANKS:

Carlos Alcaraz’s Mega Yacht: When he’s not skipping out on the French Open or flying to the U.S. to deliver a keynote for Infosys — an Indian multinational technology company that delivers many outsourcing services — Carlos Alcaraz can be found on the Mediterranean in his new mega-yacht, a bespoke 88-foot Sunreef Ultima catamaran. Just four years after crashing into the pro scene, the 23-year-old has left the world of the haves and entered the world of the “have-yachts,” which includex Jeff Bezos, David Beckham and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as a bunch of Russian oligarchs. In 2023 the Oxfam report Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99% found that the carbon emissions of the richest one percent of people are enough to cause 1.3 million excess deaths due to heat, more from flooding, earthquakes and other catastrophes of climate change.

From a distance, the strip of land along the East River — covered in pallets of cinder blocks, bits of orange piping and piles of sand — looks less like a park than a site for the latest, greatest apartment complex to hit New York City. Walk over the Houston Street overpass, down to FDR Drive street level, and climb over four-foot concrete barriers while dodging New York traffic, however, and an eager enthusiast can see — just over the chain-link parapet — a site New York tennis enthusiasts have licked their lips and dreamed abut for more than five years: six, freshly painted, newly netted tennis courts.

For years now, the tennis community that used to coalesce over the 12 original courts that used to make up the Brian Watkins Tennis Center on the East River Park has been wondering if the city gipped them of their promise to build 12 new courts on its $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency project (ESCR), the undertaking to protect New York’s East Side from coastal storms. But players who fix their gaze on the Williamsburg Bridge and move their heads straight below are rewarded with not only a pavilion area with chairs and tables, but also six more fresh courts, replete with new chain-link fencing around the complex. The classic Green-and-Oak-Leaf Parks and Recreation sign that designated the old Brian Watkins Tennis Center now hangs on the new one.

In that same way, everything old is new again: on a early Saturday afternoon, every single court was taken and lines of people stood around waiting for their frugal hour to end, one of their racquets stuck in the fence to indicate their position in the waiting line. “This queue is a bit ridiculous, as is the system,” said Jason, one of the players, pointing to the racquets embedded in black-coated hexagons. “Some people don’t know where the racquet line begins, so if they put their racquets on the left, it’s like ‘no, you have put this on the right side — at the end of the line.’ It gets a bit ridiculous.

“But that’s our only issue. It’s been good, otherwise. We love having these courts.”

On Memorial Day 2025 with barely even a press release (and no Mayor Eric Adams, by then in the middle of a fraud scandal), the City of New York opened to the public its phase one of the East River Park redevelopment. For the first time in four years, residents on the East Side — especially the housing projects that line one of the city’s major thoroughfares — tried out the new basketball and tennis courts, ate on picnic tables after grilling on BBQ stations, played on a large passive lawn and climbed several hundred new trees.

Known as the “berm,” or the Big U to neighbors and tourists, its construction has not been smooth sailing. Originally planned to begin in 2013, city contractors didn’t tear up the Mayor John V. Lindsay East River Park — a park it had barely completed right before Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012 — until 2021. But in about four years, workers have added eight feet of soil to nearly the entire park, while they built a 1.2 mile wall along the water to absorb and block hurricane-sized currents. Before and during the work, Lower East Siders participated in protests, court petitions, as well as sit-ins and angry town halls, demanding the city cease and desist at nearly every phase — even invoking the historic preservation of 1930s, WPA-era “comfort stations” to get a judge to stop it. Moreover, the Covid summer of 2020 — before construction started — brought contention to playing spaces as cramped, tetchy people looked for recreational activity. The East River Courts were full constantly, not monitored and has racially tinged fights breaking out over court times and the chaos.

But all, so far, has been forgiven with the new facilities.

“Today marks another important step forward in protecting and revitalizing our city’s waterfront,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a statement. “(The ESCR) shows what’s possible when we invest in both resilience and recreation…. we’re not just building infrastructure, we’re creating a greener, safer, and more accessible future for the East Side.

“Long gone are the days when a park was just a park; now everything must do double duty to protect against stronger and more frequent storms.”

News Break: The Sunshine Slam Under the Iranian War

The Sunshine Double — as the two early Spring hardcourt tournaments in the U.S. are called — were a little less brighter with Israeli and American missiles hitting Iran and Iran retaliating on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during the Middle East tennis swing of the season. While winners of the early February tournaments in Doha and Abu Dhabi, including Karolina Muchova (WTA No. 11), who won the Qatar Total Energies Open, made it to Palm Springs and the BNP Paribas Open without a hitch, Daniil Medvedev (ATP No. 10) and Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 1) — the winners of the Dubai Duty Free Open and Exxon Mobile Open, respectively — and 40 other ATP players were stuck for days waiting for the air space above the Middle East to clear. The Indian Wells tournament saw 19 competitors withdraw before Medvedev and Russian compatriots Andrey Rublev (ATP No. 16) and Karen Khachanov (ATP No. 15) “crossed the border, turned around and came back to the UAE (to retrieve the driver’s passport)… drove (back) to Oman, stayed there for a night… the next day we flew to Istanbul, spent the night in a hotel and flew to Los Angeles.”

The travel worked out for the Russian, who beat Alcaraz in the semifinals and gave the indefatigable Jannik Sinner (ATP No. 2) a considerable run around before losing in two tiebreaks. In fact, after two weeks of the dry desert and humid Gulf storms, both Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No.1) came away the victors of both Palm Springs and Miami, redeeming themselves after loosing the finals of the Sunshine Slam in Australia — the first man and woman to win both events since 2016 when Novak Djokovic (ATP No. 4) and Victoria Azarenka (WTA No. 204) earned Sunshine Double glory.

Back to the Berm

For once, the reviled Robert Moses might have done something good for the city when he embarked on changing the waterfront from shipping piers to public usage. Since the inception of New York, the banks of the East River had been a hub of slaughterhouses, power stations and railroad yards. Acquiring land for a park in the LES, however, proved prohibitively expensive and legally twisted. Instead, the city opted to fill in the waterfront, and in 1939, East River Park opened. It featured a running track, a track house, an amphitheatre for Joseph Papp’s productions of Shakespeare in the Park, and 12 tennis courts with a storage house and public toilets. Since then, however, the city has taken back parts of the park: to widen FDR; to extend South Street for tourists; and lastly, to prevent another Hurricane Sandy that could permanently put East River Park under water.

One of the more widely used courts in the city, the East River courts were renamed — a bit morbidly — the Brian Watkins Tennis Center in honor of a Utah tourist and University of Idaho tennis player who was slain in the subway while attending the 1990 U.S. Open. In 1991, the courts had a $1.7 million resurfacing and $30,000 donation to teach tennis to local children.Used nearly year-round, the courts had fallen into disrepair, with cracks filled with cement, downed windscreens, and nets held up, at times, with spare tennis balls, cans and anything leftover in racquet bags.

To try and keep the city’s citizens and tennis players happy with less of a price tag and a shorter lag time, the DeBlasio administration presented a more palatable $760 million plan which would have razed a smaller section of the park, built berms and marshland, and installed floodgates on FDR Drive. In the end, however, the engineers won out and the ESCR went forward. With one of the major tennis centers gone for three years, the city installed an extra set of tennis courts close to the ferry terminals downtown and other tennis associations braced for the spill over. “Fort Greene is very, very busy this season,” said Sam Burns of the Fort Greene Tennis Association in 2024. Fort Greene operates the closest set of two or more public courts next to the East River. “I know that the NYC tennis community will be extremely happy when they have access to public tennis courts again.”

Things RALLY Relished

For the Medvedev Fan: Nothing makes for a better sound bite than an inside-out, upside-down quote from Daniil Medvedev. The Russian, whose wife just had the player’s second daughter, could have withdrawn from Indian Wells after Trump started all-out war with Iran. But he didn’t. He made an epic trip to Oman, Turkey and finally, Los Angeles before reaching the final in Palm Springs. What did he have to say about it? A lot, surely. This six-panel embroidered hat features the epic ultimatum Daniil Medvedev gave to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the 2018 Miami Open< however: “Man you better shut your fu*k up, ok?” at front and the logo from The Second Serve on the back. Made in Brooklyn, of course.

Multiple Things RALLY Reproved

The Departure of Destanee Aiava: On Valentine’s Day, of all days, the Australian player of Samoan descent with whom we all fell in love in 2025 announced she would spend only one more season in a sport whose culture was “racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to anyone who doesn’t fit its mold,” she explained. “On court I’ve been called a ‘monkey’ and ‘transgender,’” Aiava, (WTA No. 320) told CLAY magazine. If you don’t exactly remember Aiava, she was the unsponsored player who dazzled the crowds with her curated vintage tennis outfits from eBay, Depop and Facebook Marketplace all the way through qualifiers to the second round, where she nearly beat a resurgent Danielle Collins. “I feel like we don’t really know how to put (the competitiveness) aside as well as the men do,” Aiava said. “They’ll play a match against each other and something would happen on court, and then 10 minutes later in the locker room they’re joking around with each other. That’s just not how women are. It felt very high school.” Bye, Destanee, we understand.

The Removal of the WTA Finals from Riyadh: While the men have been ensconced in either London or Turin for the last ten or so years, the women’s tour has seemingly roamed the earth looking for a place to hang its year-end Finals hat since, practically, it ended its partnership with Virginia Slim cigarettes. Fans and followers thought that once pundits got over the fact that a country which only recently permitted women to drive would host the season’s premier women’s tennis event, they could count on it staying put for… more than two years. Nope. Even though WTA chief executive Portia Archer indicated the WTA might even extend its stay in Riyadh — “We signed on for a three-year term; we’d actually enjoy being here for even longer than we have been, or than we are agreed to be here,” Archer told The Athletic last year — it seems as if the WTA will play its last Saudi Finals this year. Seems like Gdansk, Poland, or Charlotte, South Carolina are on the list as future destinations.

He had managed to find anything and everything to whack a tennis ball against the empty swimming pool’s end wall in Tehran’s Amjadieh Sports Club: frying pans, pieces of wood, a broom, and a 1950s Jack Kramer Wilson racquet without strings. Finally, Shirzad Akbari, a wealthy, Davis Cup player — the only kind allowed on the Amjadieh courts — gave the 12-year-old kid, Mansour Bahrami a proper racquet, a Slazenger racquet, his dream come true. Seeing some empty courts, the ball boy whose father worked the grounds of the Shah’s privileged club, snuck on and started hitting balls with abandon. It was the first moment of pure joy the young Bahrami had experienced since his father had lost his farmlands in Arak — 600 kilometers to the South — and his family had moved to a squat at Amjadieh.

That joy amounted to three minutes. A member alerted club security about the ball boy’s presence and before Bahrami could send another crosscourt forehand, a guard grabbed him and slammed him to the ground. As the boy watched, doubled-over, the guard took Bahrami’s Kramer and Slazenger racquets and split them over his knee.

About that time, however, Bahrami also benefitted from a stroke a luck: the Iranian Tennis Federation had run out of qualified players for its Davis Cup team. The federation head realized the ballboys had the best tennis skills. Moreover, by learning tennis through all the different apparati to practice, Bahrami stood out for his angles and chutzpah. Within a matter of months, the federation found patrons and Bahrahmi quit his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker to join the Davis Cup and follow his passion.

“The (club players) I liked best weren’t necessarily the ones who would give me (the best tips). I liked the good players. I just loved watching them,” Bahrami wrote in his autobiography, The Court Jester: My Story, published in 2009. “It was thanks to them that I could study different techniques — forehand, backhand, volley and service. I never went straight home after those hours of working.

“I held a piece of wood or a broom and hit balls against a wall. I copied the strokes I’d observed on the court and hit the balls with all my might.”

Fifty-five years later, Bahrami, who settled in France and largely stays out of Iranian politics, still travels the world forty weeks a year, entertaining crowds and playing the senior tour with the likes of McEnroe, Borg, Chang and the now retired Grand Slam champions. Although his never realised his dream of becoming a top player, Bahrami made use of his gifts honed at the bottom of the Amjadieh sports club pool and managed to forge a career as one of the most widely known tennis tricksters on court

“I never played tennis to make money or get rich. It was always about the joy of the sport,” Bahrami said. “It was always a game for me. I still perform in exhibition matches today because my tennis has always been a bit quirky.

“Or as Yannick Noah once said: ‘Luckily, Mansour never had a coach. Otherwise, he would have become just as boring a player as everyone else.’”

The Middle East Swing hits Qatar

While a lot of the tour stops don’t necessarily make sense, the Middle East swing (possibly more accurately called the Persian Gulf swing, but why quibble over borders?) actually does, as every player coming from Australia has to stop to change planes in the United Arab Emirates or Qatar. Why not pick up some ranking points?

And pick them up did some of the mid-level players, including Hailey Baptiste (WTA No, 39) who had her best run to date in Abu Dhabi, reaching the semifinals before losing to Ekaterina Alexandrova (WTA No. 10) in three sets and by a whisker. Qualifier Sara Bejlek (WTA No. 38), a 20-year-old Czech, snuck in like Ali Baba and decisively took the title from Alexandrova, leaving her with a breadstick in the second set.

Following Abu Dhabi, many players chose not to hop the 30-minute flight to Doha, but among the players to return and pay homage to the Al-Thani ruling family are defending champion Jelena Ostapenko (WTA No. 24), Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 2), who lost to a resurgent Maria Sakkari (WTA No. 52) on Thursday, as well as Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina (WTA No. 3) who fell to Canadian phenom Victorial Mboko (WTA No. 13). If they aren’t hanging out in Dubai, the guys shipped off to Dallas, Texas where American men are cleaning house, including Sebastian Korda (ATP No. 53) who beat Francis Tiafoe (ATP No. 31) and will next take on defending champion Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 7).

Back to Bahrami

In pre-Revolutionary Iran, as a Davis Cup and touring player, Bahrami began to enjoy the fruits of success, taking his parents travelling and even hitting the discotheques of Tehran, Vitas-Gerulaitis-style. But everything would change again for Bahrami in February 1979 when the Islamic Revolution ushered in the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, while guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed Pahlavi loyalists and took over the government. By that summer, the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi had been gone for six months and the Ayatollah (the Supreme Leader) Ruhollah Khomeinit hought tennis “pro-American, capitalist and decadent.” He banned the sport for a period of time until the masses grew restless. Even when the governement allowed the occasional tournament, “We felt sure the revolutionary committee would change its mind and that, even before the end of the first match, the revolutionary guards would pile in, give everyone a drubbing, stop the tournament and clasp the players in irons,” he wrote in The Court Jester. Between ages 21 and 24 Bahrami hardly played a match.

At 24, however, Bahrami decided to play something called the Revolutionary Cup. The prize: a round-trip ticket to Athens. Through a connection, Bahrami planned his true escape to France. He convinced Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the foreign minister and a close aide of the Ayatollah (later executed for allegedly plotting Khomeini’s assassination) to change the tickets to Nice. “I’m not sure if it was really what he was attending or if it was the help he gave to would-be exiles that cost him his life, but in any case… it’s thanks to him that I was able to leave Tehran..” Still, when the time came to say goodbye to his family, Bahrami had second thoughts. “…my father took me in his arms. It was the first time I saw him weep. I felt my strength failing, my heart giving out. Then I understood what I was about to do.” The next morning, Bahrami flew to Nice and never saw his father again.

Although abroad, Bahrami still believed his patrons would come through. They didn’t. More roadblocks materialised. He had to surrender his Iranian passport. Money didn’t come. He couldn’t leave France. Bahrami’s career. stalled. He shuffled among hotels, friends’ couches and tournament sites, hoping to pick up a bit of food and some luck. Sometimes, Bahrami just wandered the streets of Paris by night and slept in the locker room of Roland Garros during the day. After six years, however, Bahrami received his French residency and started traveling enough to reach No. 253 on the ATP tour. He gained a wilcard to the French Open, got through all six qualifying rounds and reached the second round, defeating a Frenchman to get there.

Having lost the best competitive years of his singles career, Bahrami switched to doubles, earning a berth into the French Open doubles final in 1989. Afterward, he joined the Seniors Tour and became an entertainer at exhibitions around the world. He settled down outside Paris, started a family and still managed to tour and travel 40 weeks a year, notably at Wimbledon where Bahrami still draws crowds. Soon, Iranian actor Amir Jadidi — known internationally for his lead performance in Asghar Farhadi’s 2021 Oscar-nominated drama A Hero — will play Bahrami in a biopic film. Mansour will capture Bahrami’s life in post-Revolutionary Iran, in exile and poverty in France, followed by fame on the international circuit. “Many people have told me over the years that my story is made for the screen but in fact it’s very humbling to think there will be a feature film of my life,” Bahrami said.

In the meantime, look for Bahrami at the majors between matches, serving underarm, trying new tricks and winning people over. “I recently played in Mexico for the first time. I didn’t know what to expect. But the people were already laughing their heads off before the show had even started. I just love that. There’s nothing better than entertaining an audience.

“As long as my body holds up. As long as I’m still good enough, and people want to see me, I’ll keep performing. If I get the impression that I’m getting too slow, or that people aren’t enjoying themselves anymore, I’ll stop.”

Things RALLY Relished.

Stan Wawrinka’s arm tattoo: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Might have to run it by an Islington tattoo artist.

Things RALLY Reproved.

PR guys who email interviews and stats but who really work for gambling companies. Three emails alone came this week from Better Collective, a sports agency that lists among its biggest clients: Canada Sports Betting, Playbook and Vegas Insider. Among the hottest stories on offer this week: “De Minaur and Fils slam Head tennis balls after Medvedev’s viral rant”, “Griekspoor on Russia criticism: I couldn`t care less”, and “Wawrinka: It was frustrating always losing against The Big 3.”

What’s a tennis Grand Slam to do when it no longer owns the broadcast rights to its own tournament? Why turn the players into Wii tennis avatars, of course.

While Tennis Australia has played off its decision to show a free Australian Open “live action” video game-like broadcast on YouTube as “attracting a new category of fans to sport… a technology-engaged online community,” the truth of the matter proves much more complex. By selling its television rights to dozens of broadcasters around the world, Tennis Australia has reached $600 million in revenue, and attracted a clutch player roster with more than $100 million in prize money, but lost permission to show its own players on its own channels

And what about the Wii players for thirty minutes of the paid-package broadcasts on TNT Sports or Eurosport or the Discovery network paid for by true fans? A loophole for the Sunshine Slam to have its tournament and avoid actually paying for it too.

The avatars are not alone. Rather, fans’ viewing — or in some instances, non-viewing (as the two-minute time delay causes appendage fade-in, fade out) of large-headed, cartoonish figures running or hitting balls — amounts to just one of many ventures Tennis Australia has undertaken to bring the sport back to life down under.

But first, the tournament run down…

Other than the surprise advancement of Zeynep Sönmez, the first Turkish woman to ever win a match at the Australian Open, to the third round, both the men’s and the women’s draws went almost exactly to plan. For the first time in the Open Era, the top six seeds reached the Australian Open quarterfinals, and both Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1), as well as Elena Rybakina (WTA No. 5), reached the final without losing a set. Madison Keys (WTA No. 9) the defending champion, lost to compatriot and tennis bestie, Jessica Pegula (WTA No. 6) in the fourth round, ending her dreams of back-to-back titles. But Sabalenka — a two-time Aussie champion — notched another record in her book, as the first woman to reach four consecutive women’s singles finals since Martina Hingis in 2000. Today’s contest will be a repeat of the 2023 championship match, won by Sabalenka — he first Grand Slam title after which she took her trophy on a long date.

Very few surprises awaited watchers of the men’s matches, as well — until, of course, today’s semifinals. Valentin Vacherot (ATP No. 30) became the first Monégasque (native of Monaco) singles player to reach the third round of a major in the Open Era, until American Ben Shelton (ATP No. 7) took him out in the third round. And while Learner Tien (ATP No. 29, age 20) was the youngest player to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals since Nick Kyrgios in 2015, a departing Stan Wawrinka (ATP No. 139, age 40) became the oldest player since Ken Rosewall in 1978 to reach the third round. But no one can recall Rosewall cracking open two beers on court to celebrate.

Earlier today, however, one of the favorites for the finals nearly got bumped off, while the other surprisingly fell to a man nearly twice his age. Hungrier for a Grand Slam title than a black bear for hiker’s rubbish, Alexander Zverev (ATP No. 3) went five hours and 30 minutes against Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 1) in a match that finished with three tight tiebreak sets before losing by two games in the final. Although the two players embraced after the match, Zverev had much to say about an illegal medical time-out Alcaraz received for a perceived pulled muscle, when a little pickle juice and a change-over rub down solved the problem. “Yeah, I mean, he was cramping, so normally you can’t take a medical time-out for cramping,” Zverev said at his post-match press conference. On court, Zverev was less introspective, shouting at a match supervisor in profanity-laden German. “I just said it was bullshit, basically,” he said later of the exchange, noting that Alcaraz finished running at full speed. On the other end of the bracket, old man Novak Djokovic (ATP No. 4), who lashed out at a journalist earlier in the week for a question asking how he felt “chasing Roger and Rafa” for 20 years and now chasing “Jannik and Carlos,” quashed any doubt that he wasn’t in it to win his 11th Australian Open title and 25th Grand Slam by defeating Jannik Sinner (ATP No. 2) for the fourth time in their eight matchups.

“I find it a little bit disrespectful that you kind of miss out on what happened in between, where the times when I started ‘chasing’ as you say, Rafa and Roger, and now that I’m ‘chasing’ Carlos and Jannik,” Djokovic said after his quarterfinal walkover against Lorenzo Musetti. “There’s probably about a 15-year period in between, where I was dominating the Grand Slams, so I think it’s important to put that into perspective. I don’t feel like I’m chasing, to be honest.”

Back to Australian Open money-makers…

While players remained relatively mum on their Nintendo-esque likenesses, in which some players’ skin appeared darker or yellower than normal, and their money-earning logos were remarkably absent, they had much to say about the Truman-esque show to which ournament administrators’ subjected them. While a whisper campaign might have been brewing, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek blew it open after hidden cameras caught Gauff smashing her racquet following her quarter-final defeat to Elina Svitolina. Quickly busted on social media, Gauff retorted “I tried to go somewhere where there was no cameras,” Gauff said. “I kind of have a thing with the broadcast. I feel like certain moments – the same thing happened to Aryna after I played her in the final of the US Open – I feel like they don’t need to broadcast.”

Swiatek backed Gauff’s sentiments after her own loss to Rybakina. ““The question is, are we tennis players, or are we animals in the zoo where they are observed even when they poop, you know?” Swiatek said in her press conference. While she acknowledged that a meme of a security officer asking for her player ID might have been a bit funny, “We’re meant to be watched on the court and in the press. That’s our job. It’s not our job to be a meme when you forget your accreditation.

“People have something to talk about, but for us, I don’t think it’s necessary.”

One other extra money-making scheme brought by the Australian Open lost momentum before it was even launched. Tennis Australia initially paired up with cryptocurrency platform Nexo to award $10 million to anyone who correctly predicts the winner of every match in either the men’s or women’s singles draw — an impossible total of 127 matches. If no-one managed to pick every winner, Nexo offered prizes to the highest-scoring brackets in each draw. The deal drew criticism from fans from both its futility and the look of a crypto company partnering with tennis. ‘Just simply not possible, pointless. Too many injury occurrences throughout the duration of two-week tournament of best-of-five set matches,” one fan said. “Basically they (AO) get a whole load of engagement and give nothing back in return,’ one person said.

Australian Open tennis administrators have been under pressure for years to raise their prize money pot after they falling horribly behind their Grand Slam rivals. Although AO prize money has increased 119 percent from $44 million in 2016 and has gone up more than 36 per cent in the past five editions, it still lags behind the other Grand Slams: the French Open at Roland Garros offered prize money of over $66 million dollars, with champions Alcaraz and Gauff collecting more than $3 million each; Wimbledon paid out over $4 million US dollars; and the US Open too it even higher by handing champions Alcaraz and Sabalenka $5 million in September.

But who ultimately pays the price for the rush for the top prize money stakes? While the Australian Open boasts of taking “the real into the unreal,” frustrated fans call television providers to ask what happened to their screens and how they can change them back. And the chatbots answer: “I completely understand your frustration, you’re paying £30+ to watch the semi-finals happening RIGHT NOW, and I would be just as upset in your position.

“Discovery+ is currently running an experimental feature where they’re showing the Australian Open matches in this Australian Open matches in this animated format to try and engage younger audiences. Unfortunately, this is how they’re broadcasting the tournament right now, and there isn’t a way to switch to traditional video coverage.”

I remember the first time I saw Courts magazine. I had been in London about a year having moved here following the disastrous Trump administration and during the Covid epidemic. My then girlfriend and I had made a sojourn to the Eastbourne International to see the 2022 edition of the Wimbledon warm-up and stopped at a tennis memorabilia/book booth around the Devonshire Park campus between matches. At first, I was amused at the spirited cover of Ken and Barbie dolls taking a needed break after a tennis match, as well as the noticeable riff on an American rival, Racquet. Next, I bought Courts instantly, paged through it and got in contact with its founder, Laurent Van Reepinghen, to both laud him for entering the boutique tennis magazine market, for giving Racquet — which wielded its dominance like a Sabalenka forehand — a bit of ​”le concours” and to ask if I could start writing for him.

Who was this American journalist and who did she think she was, I assumed Laurent must have thought. After all, my New-York-style crash landing into pomp and polite English society had not usually gone well for me. Instead, Laurent wrote back immediately, encouraged my involvement and asked for some ideas. He made clear: Courts was French; it was not English, nor did it want to be English. Laurent also said he wanted to maintain a certain aesthetic: the beauty of the game itself, as well as the culture surrounding it. He didn’t necessarily want “dirt” or scoops on players, or to pick fights and unnecessarily criticise the governing bodies, associations or other entities surrounding the sport — for a lawyer, Laurent hated to fight. He was a gentleman first, a tennis player and enthusiast second, and a barrister way, way, way down on the list. Laurent did, however, encourage any fair story about potentially controversial social, psychological or economic aspects of the game, particularly about those grinding it out in “minor leagues” of tennis. Four months later, I published my first story for Courts: a eulogy to Nick Bollettieri, the famed, pugnacious American tennis coach and entrepreneur. I followed with a few dozen more over our two-year working relationship, which became a true friendship.

Little did I expect that three years later, I would be writing a eulogy for my friend Laurent van Reepinghen — the complete opposite personality of the brash Bollettieri. Laurent unexpected died in late October 2025, age 49, after a years-long battle with depression. A fellow freelance writer once told me that to actually make it in the journalism business, one had to have either a) a trust fund or b) a wealthy spouse (or at least a spouse with a well-paying job). Laurent had neither. He used his own savings from working several years at law firms and for the Brussels government to start Courts, keep it running for six years, and for one last-ditch effort — an art exhibition in April 2024 — to raise enough money to save it. In the end, Laurent lost his apartment, his livelihood, his beautiful magazine — and sadly, probably his perspective. The last time I saw him in July 2024, he was a wraith of himself, needing €45,000 to pay off debt for printing and taxes — to the average person, a good chunk of money, but in the world’s grand scheme, not worth a life. The last time he posted on Instagram — exactly a year ago this week — it was to mourn his beloved mother, who had just died.

Laurent van Reepinghen wasn’t exactly a mouse in the Wimbledon shop, but he definitely wasn’t a big personality, Benoit Paire-type, either. When I first met Laurent in person, in late winter 2023, he was slightly stressed, yet hopeful for his magazine. He had travelled to London to have a look around and talk to the management of the Hotel du Vin in Wimbledon about events for the upcoming AELTC Championships. Laurent wanted to make a splash — nay, more of a ripple — in the tennis media that year and at least pay the printer and ever-faithful designer, Mona Habibizadeh, a Flemish-Iranian graphic artist. He planned a low-key reception or two, but mostly cared about putting his magazine into the hands of readers and prospective advertisers. He couldn’t afford renting a nearby house — or a Rockefeller Center-esque spot in Covent Garden — for a week, like many of the bigger names circling the tennis hemisphere. But Laurent wasn’t a cult of personality, either. For him, the product did the talking; he was happy to stay behind the scenes, although he admitted to a love of rubbing elbows with Federer and Nadal at the end of their careers, as well as the up-and-comers, especially the French players Diane Parry, Arthur Fils, Lois Boisson and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

When Wimbledon rolled around four months later, Laurent wasn’t sleeping or eating very much. He was tired, he told me over coffee near the Wimbledon train station, and wasn’t going to stay for much of the tournament. His enthusiasm for the sport had diminished greatly after circling Europe, trying to both keep up with the news of the tour, sell his magazine and pull his life together. He couldn’t wait for a vacation, some time on a beach, away from the sport. Laurent was in full-on burnout; I had seen it — and felt it — myself: after covering the 9/11/2001 terror attack on New York, cris-crossing the country for a never published book about post-Reconstruction America and keeping an income flowing during the chaos of Covid. Journalism wasn’t like law, I reminded him. By that time, I had been in the business for 25 years and knew the great-highs of a cover story, the low-lows of making a printed error, the never-finished long-form piece, the gratitude that is never expressed — or heard — for pouring your life into something creative, yet that constant thrum of “you’re only as good as your last story.” Laurent wasn’t as familiar, but he was starting to get it. That said, I was just waiting for long-overdue cheques to pay my own bills, not to keep a magazine shop running with people depending on me. I had always dreamt of having my own magazine; seeing Laurent disabused me of that notion.

By winter 2024. Laurent was still publishing magazines, but otherwise barely existing. He was losing money hand-over-fist and working nonstop — by then a true magazine journalist, but with a lawyer’s obduracy, refusing to ask for help or investment or relinquish any sort of control, even though he badly needed it. I had seen it hundreds of times before in the resolve of my own attorney parents. He had started a French Kickstarter-esque campaign, KissKissBankBank (for Laurent, a shy, dignified professional, a nearly unthinkable fate) which raised enough money to put out one last issue and hold the art show to hopefully, make some needed capital. In the meantime, I was writing for Courts for the promise of an income, and even imagining new ways to attract readers, including writing a story and making a short, time-lapsed film on the team of stringers working behind-the-scenes during the English Lawn Tennis Association’s grass swing.

But in addition to keeping the professional players forever on the go, with little support for the anyone below the Top-100, the associations continue to impose restraints on journalists trying to do their jobs, file their stories or enjoy any aspect of the game. My dust-up with an LTA press official over an unknown rule about requesting selfies with players, even friends, had Laurent — already a nearly beaten man — begging for forgiveness on my behalf under threat of relinquishing his much-needed Wimbledon access, one of the hardest, yet absolutely necessary, press passes to get. Because along with the players on tour, follow a melange of people from agents and managers to a full press pool who have been generally been consigned from the side of the court to a room of televisions and computers. But at least a pass is free and allows tennis writers to roam.

A week later, Laurent and I fought for the first time. I told him to stand up to the system and fight for his place in it. He told me to stop using the sharp elbows I had acquired in New York, adapt to the customs of Europe and stay in the lines. Both of us had fair points; both of us conceded them. Laurent broke down and cried, a man at the end of the line. I stood in my apartment speechless, in shock and dismay that a sport we both loved so much, which was supposed to be a respite and even a joy, had caused two comrades and friends to tear at each other. We apologised; we took a break. The last meeting I had with Laurent, I was sitting across the table with my business partner trying to see how we could come up with any investment to merge with our startup and save Courts. A month later, my heart fell into my stomach when I saw a Facebook post of Laurent’s furniture and other possessions for sale and Courts’ last story on the website.

Friends did intervene in the end and bought Courts for an unknown portion of its value. We all hoped that Laurent would take a break, start practicing law again, earn an income and revive both himself and possibly his publication — in some form. Because in a world inundated with trash magazines, depressing American politics and the same ol’, same ol’ story for weeks on end, seeing a beautiful, lovingly crafted publication gives both journalists and fans a much-needed serotonin hit. And when a friend uses his hard-earned money to take a risk on a dream, instead of hoarding it away or gambling on the stock market or other, it’s a cause worth not only supporting, but cheerleading. Courts had a good run, too, putting out nearly 20 issues at 20,000 copies distributed per book, hundreds of stories published and people picking up Courts at 250 newsstands in France, Belgium, Switzerland, England, the U.S. and Luxembourg. Laurent couldn’t see his success, however. Once, I mentioned to him my opinion that some participants in the tennis media might be in “it” for the wrong reasons — for access, influence, self-aggrandizement or just to chase validation. On one of our last calls, Laurent said he believed he was receiving his karmic comeuppance because, indeed, he felt that he had pursued his dream for those reasons, as well. I told him that was bunk. Enjoying what little perks that come with the job these days didn’t make Courts an ego-centric, glory-hungry pursuit — that he made something that brought happiness into the lives of many people with every issue. I added that even if he had to drive a taxi for a little while — possibly a lawyer’s worst nightmare but a respite Laurent occasionally mentioned — he could return fresher and stronger and possibly with a new angle to hit. If only he had listened. But sometimes, the wider court just takes up too much mind-space.

Right now, the future of Courts — and the tennis media — remains uncertain. Substack, once a platform for legitimate writers to earn an income, has become a marketing platform for every book author, including Salman Rushdie, as well as the latest craze for everyone else when Facebook or X cuts off the character limit. Several former-and-current tennis players, as well as tennis journalists, have started Substacks. Racquet split up fairly publicly into two competing publications; a new magazine, Bagel, seems to have attracted the attention of the English; and the tours continue to block journalists, but allow betting companies and fans to beat up on players over social media. It’s all a bit insane — Laurent would have hated the mess. But had he been able to keep Courts running, I’m certain he would have found something elegant among the detritus — and tried to make it known.

Things RALLY (Will) Relish:

Stan the man’s last dance. This past week, that OTHER Swiss player, Stan Wawrinka, the never-say-die, one-fisted backhander who fought for every title, including his 2106 U.S. Open trophy, announced that 2026 will be his last on tour. “I’m good with my decision… but I’m not doing a year just to say goodbye,” Wawrinka told ATPTour.com. “I’m a competitor. I want to push my limit, I want to still fight against good players. I want to still win matches. I want to try to be back at the Top 100 at 40 years old.” We would expect nothing less.

Things RALLY Reproved: Kenyan Wildcards

Tennis Kenya walked back a wildcard it issued to a beginner player for an ITF Futures-level tournament in Nairobi after her 6-0, 6-0, thrashing from German world No 1,026, Lorena Schaedel, went viral. Hajar Abdelkader, a 21-year-old Egyptian, served 20 double faults and lost all but three points in a match lasting less than half an hour. “At the time, Ms Abdelkader was the only other player who had requested a wildcard,” the Kenya Federation said, and granted it “in the interest of maintaining a full and balanced draw while supporting the development of tennis in Africa.” Those of us who follow the lower ranks of the tour closely know what likely took place, however, as pro players at the top make more and more money and pros on the bottom rung continue to suffer more and more indignities such as low prize money, constant travel, poor accommodation, coercion from match-fixers and tournament directors who trade “favours” for wild cards.

Just when the Asian swing ends and everyone breathes a sigh of relief (including the journalists who follow the sport), the ATP hits everyone with plans for a new Masters 1000 event (in Saudi… in addition to the Six Kings exhibition), the women take off for their second tournament of a three-year WTA Finals deal in Riyadh and the Top 100 start to prep their deals for the 2026 season, including Taylor Fritz and Morgan Riddle, who graced the cover of GQ with dish on restricted “branding” (see below).

Here’s the rundown:

• Saudi Arabia has taken cues from UAE and Qatar, diving head first into tennis sponsorship with first, the Six Kings, next, the WTA Finals and now, the 10th ATP Masters 1000s event. It will join the existing nine tournaments (Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Rome, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris) in 2028. While many women are still divided on a “sportswashing” motive for the Kingdom, ATP Chairman, Andrea Gaudenzi said that the desert kingdom “has shown a genuine commitment to tennis — not just at the professional level, but also in growing the game more broadly at all levels…. we believe fans and players alike will be amazed by what’s coming.” But amid the groans of yet another tournament — and another in a human-rights-challenged country — there were also shrugs, as a reluctant Chris Evert (who with Martina Navratilova opposed the WTA move) admitted ,“We were a much smaller group of people and if Martina or I said we didn’t want something to happen, it didn’t happen. Martina and I disagreed with that decision on Saudi Arabia and we spoke out about it,” Evert told Tennis365. “Now the decision has been made, that’s it. We won’t keep coming back saying we don’t agree with it. That’s not my role any more.”

  

  

  RALLY has launched! Find a court, book a coach and get ready for more tennis features to come, including a ProTips section, mental coaching, stringing and more.

• Still in Saudi, the WTA Finals kicked off on Sunday (the first day of the week in MENA) with the group stage. Making the cut was Jasmine Paolini (WTA No. 8) over Mira Andreeva (WTA No. 9) by six rankings points, as well as Elena Rybakina, Madison Keys and Paolini squeaking in just 10-15 points behind Madison Keys (WTA No. 7). On Monday, Amanda Anisimova (WTA No. 4) shook off her Wimbledon and U.S. Open Finals losses (much like Ons Jabeur in 2023) and bested Keys in three sets. (Keys pulled out of the tournament today “due to illness” before her final round-robin match against Elena Rybakina (WTA No. 6).) Rybakina smoked Iga Świątek on Monday with a breadstick-bagel in the final two sets of the match (with no handshake to the chair from Iga — for no apparent reason) and is through to the semi-finals along with Coco Gauff (WTA No. 3), Anisimova, and Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1) who eliminated Jessica Pegula (WTA No. 5), but not without a fight. Four of the eight singles finalists going in were American — the first time since 2002 — before Gauff was born. Two have made through to the last round.

  

• Taylor Fritz, known as a sweet, handsome, kind-hearted introvert who gets on with everyone on tour, is taking some influence from girlfriend Morgan Riddle. Although difficult to cut through the slush pile these days, they nonetheless did it with GQ’s Inside the Modern Courtship of Taylor Fritz and Morgan Riddle. In the article, the pair reveals their Type A-”Type-B boyfriend” ying-yang, her effort to raise the player’s profile, as well as his game (“I think doubles helps him work on his net game too,” Riddle adds. “My net game sucks,” Fritz admits) and how

  “Tennis WAGs in the past were relatively private,” she says. “Not only WAGs, but players too—the travel, the hotels, the players’ lounges, it was very walled off to everyone. All those private spaces were really private, and I started blasting them on TikTok. People were interested in it.” One other tidbit: at the top of Morgan’s to-do list for every arrival is calling down to reception to request 30 clothes hangers.

The Courts of New Jersey

Around the time of the U.S. Open, the New York Times and several other tennis publications point out the best places to play in the five boroughs of New York City. Little do they know, however, that in 15-30 minutes, they can be on a PATH or a Ferry to play on their choice of red clay, acrylic and even grass in… New Jersey! Here are several clubs and community centres that will change the minds — and help keep some dollars in the wallets — of all die-hard NYC court doyens.

Arlington Players Tennis Club: Originally founded as a theatre club, a group of local thespians eventually ceded their clubhouse and grounds to group of tennis enthusiasts in 1909, as the new lawn tennis sport swept the country. First used by the Brits to protect grass courts from heat and wear on the French Riviera, crushed terracotta from local factories — a durable and readily available material — eventually became the go-to for Europeans. Arlington Players Club is now one of the oldest active red clay tennis clubs in the States, with seven assiduously maintained red clay courts, which the club attests offer “… a softer surface that allows for longer rallies, better control, and less strain on the body.” (A few of the pros who slip and slide during the run-up to the French Open might disagree with that last point.) For clay lovers, however, APC hosts the prestigious New Jersey National Red Clay Championship, drawing top players the Mid-Atlantic region.

Orange Lawn Tennis Club: While it’s not exactly true that the Orange Lawn Tennis Club is one of the “few remaining grass court clubs” in the world (England, West Side, anyone?), grass is, indeed, dwindling as a sustainable surface. Too little care for the future in the Gilded Age? Perhaps. But the Orange Lawn Tennis Club, just a bit west of Newark, has many surface choices, including Har-Tru and good ol’ acrylic. This little haven in West Orange also offers cardio tennis workouts to intermediate and advanced instruction, clinics and tournaments. In other words, it’s like an traditional neighbourhood English tennis club, only about ten times more expensive, as all American “country clubs”. Still, the club is bubbled in winter, membership discounts apply and the club claims to have “produced legends including John McEnroe and other luminaries of the game.” @JohnnyMac care to comment?

Leonia Tennis Club: Note to website master and club photographer, these images and the website doesn’t do justice to this tennis haven five minutes from the GW Bridge (on the NJ side). Maybe players want to keep it that way; most New Yorkers covet their little hidden tennis spaces. But to blow it wide open for all of us proletariat who will bicycle, walk, skateboard or otherwise for court time, the Leonia tennis club has five beautiful Har-Tru tennis courts and a small clubhouse with locker rooms and showers. Bonus: Leonia is one of the least expensive tennis clubs in the area. Perfect for those of us who like to bang it out for a match, shower, have a drink and head back to the city in about two hours, depending on time. Email leoniatennisclub@gmail.com for more information, or just turn up! Leonia is very welcoming.

Fort Lee Racquet Club (Tennis Prime): This a no-muss, no-fuss kind of tennis club, but just five to ten minutes from the GW Bridge, the Fort Lee Racquet club gets the job done — at about 30 percent less than the BJK Tennis Center in Queens, probably the least expensive option in the city. Built in the early 1970s, the Fort Lee Racquet Club has nonetheless maintained its five “Deco Turf” acrylic courts and added LED lighting, as well as a lounge. As far as coaching and competition, Fort Lee has recently added the services of Tennis Prime, a high-performance, mostly junior-oriented school of tennis led by Ivan Krcelic, a good-looking, good-natured Argentinian who has helped juniors win championships, secure scholarships and excel in top tournaments. But Fort Lee, a community tennis center open to all, also helps pickleball-adverse adults.

Englewood Field Club: When they walk beyond the lawn bowls and the basketball courts, die-hard tennis court hunters find nine Har-Tru arenas, as well as two acrylic and six Padel, as the upper crust seems to prefer that over pickleball. But in addition to excellent racquet sports, EFC members can look out from the Palisades over the Hudson River and proclaim victory over New York Tennis, as they have found possibly the closest thing to an affordable place to regularly play and socialise. EFC also has on offer: clinics, round robins, top quality instruction for all age groups and even a little cardio tennis mixed in.

Upper Ridgewood Racquet Club: Founded more than 100 years ago, the Upper Ridgewood Tennis Club looks more like a country club than a neighborhood tennis club. That said, the slightly longer drive rewards the persistence. Not to be confused with its more modern neighbour to the Southeast, the Ridgewood Racquet Club (an indoor tennis center), the Upper Ridgewood Club has 15 finely groomed Har-Tru tennis courts, including six floodlit, in addition to seven Padel courts. But the true “Europe” feel of Upper Ridgewood comes after the match: the Court 16 Bar. Just like every good German local club has one, as well as most English, Polish, Czech, Italian and other European clubs, Upper Ridgewood features a spacious “cathedral ceiling” pub with seating, a balcony deck and live streaming of the other matches on court. If those don’t meet entertainment expectations, a warming hut, Tennis TV and a Sonos sound system should comfort tired bones. Doubtful that “Miss Grace Kent and Miss Helen Gesner” ever envisioned this when they started the club in 1914 (and waited until probably the 1960s, although it is not known, to become members), but they would surely be pleased with their club’s multiple championships in Bergen County!

Things RALLY Relished: The “Full Western” (credit to Bagel Magazine)

As a tech start-up with a magazine heart, RALLY loves anything put together in print and by hand. This little chapbook, The Full Western, of photos from the Portland Tennis Courterly by local photographer and tennis enthusiast, Jake Arvidson. “It’s about the different environments of tennis that have shaped my experience of the sport,” Jake told BAGEL. “You look at the tennis that’s being played in the park, you look at your classic tennis club, then you look at what’s going on on tour. It’s all tennis, but it’s a completely different energy, a completely different type of community…” Nothing like IRL for us.

Things RALLY Pondered (and likely Reproved): Battle of the Sexes

It’s hard to know where to come down on this one — it’s 2025, not 1973 — yet Nick Kyrgios wants some Bobby Riggs cosplay and stoke that old myth that women still can’t compete with men. Yet another “Battle of the Sexes” is now set for exhibition in Dubai on 28 December, just before the 2026 season begins in Australia. Despite being off tour for at least two years with wrist injuries and general Kyrgios ennui, the perpetual discontent maintains men (especially him) “still have a technical advantage over women. She’s not going to beat me,” Kyrgios told fellow professional Alexander Bublik on the Tea with Bublik podcast “Do you really think I have to try 100 per cent? I will try because I’m representing the men’s side… (But) our serves. Women can’t really return those. And then we can just chip and drop-shot.” Kyrgios has estimated that he wins 6-2. If you can get past those blistering 75mph forehands, Nick.

Will we watch? Most likely. It is entertainment. Will we be cheering Sabalenka? Without a doubt.

A tennis tournament is one thing in Europe; its quite another in the United States. In Europe, a Grand Slam is a stately tradition, full of kings and princesses, (both King Felipe of Spain and the Prince and Princess of Wales attended the Wimbledon final in mid-July) in a Coliseum watching their best players dual. Maybe President Donald J. Trump was going for a bit of that grandiosity when he caused the spectacle at the Men’s Final on Sunday. And for a good chunk of its existence, a group of well-heeled Gilded Age industrialists wanted their U.S. National (Lawn Tennis) Championships just like the English had theirs: manicured grass, fancy cakes, Scotch (not Gin), and pomposity. After a few summers at the Newport Casino, they found a house in the upscale Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens and hosted the tournament Windsor-style for 63 years.

But New York has always eventually done its own thing, usually as a significant “fuck you” to its colonial roots and the rest of the world. So in 2025, nearly 50 years since moving from a country club tournament at the West Side Tennis Club to an international event at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, the U.S. Open went full-on, five-borough.

To begin with, the party: All Grand Slams and even Masters 1000s have qualification rounds to the tournament — and both Wimbledon and the French Open have used those to attract crowds as a sort of pre-tournament or “bonus” round. In 2025, however, the USTA took its qualifiers and Arthur Ashe Kids Day — in addition to the Mixed Doubles and the “Legends” exhibitions — and mashed it all into a week of festivities on the tournament site, including dining, street dance parties with a live DJ, pet adoption sessions with the pros and a mish-mash of every cultural spin on tennis. With all the ancillary events happening downtown, in Brooklyn, at the South Street Seaport, in Harlem and even in Grand Central, it would probably be fair to say the Open enveloped the city.

Next up: the zeitgeist of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Althea Gibson featured prominently in the marketing of the U.S. Open this year, as she was the first African-American to transition from the formerly all-Black American Tennis Association to the formerly segregated USLTA, now the United States Tennis Association (USTA) 75 years ago. As much as Althea might have enjoyed the veneration, neither she nor Arthur Ashe set out to change the course of history — they just wanted to play tennis like everyone else. Althea eventually tired of being the poster girl, while Arthur leaned into the activism 20 years after his female colleague and trailblazer. That said, the U.S. Open draws a crowd of young, old, Black, white, Asian, Indian, country-club types and the so-called “riff-raff” that can only afford the public courts. Each competitor, especially the African-Americans, have made the U.S. Open possibly the most diverse tennis competition in the world — and the South Americans especially show up for the Slam closest to their continent. 2025 brought a display of athleticism on the acrylic rarely matched — and Juan Martin Del Potro even made an appearance.

Lastly, every year, the Open hires roughly 9,000 people — 1,800 seasonal staff and approximately 7,000 contract workers — to put on the tournament. As the players, these workers —from security and servers to the public relations people and player reps — come from every borough, many different countries and a heap of cultures to make the tournament full-flavoured. The result: US Open Fan Week welcomed a record 239,307 fans, buoyed by packed to the rafters crowds at the reimagined U.S. Open Mixed Doubles Championship and more than 50,000 fans on the grounds for Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day. All these people raked in $1.2 billion in economic impact for NYC — more than Mayor Eric Adams and the NYC Economic Development Corporation projects the New York Yankees and Mets produce during the entire 2025 season. Sure, all the tech bros, the corporates and the Connecticut Gold-coast types turn up for their Honey Deuces, so yes, the U.S. Open contradicts itself — just like New York’s adopted poet, Walt Whitman. The U.S. Open is large; it contains multitudes.

A Global Sport in Trump’s America…

The irony of this year’s Open was the appearance of anti-immigration President Trump attending the Men’s Final with two players from Europe, among a sea of legal and even illegal immigrants pumping money into the U.S. economy and making its tennis world-renowned. Had he attended the day before — for the women’s final — he would have seen Amanda Anisimova, the daughter of two Russian émigrés who started her tennis journey just across the Hudson from the Trump Tower and whose older sister, Maria, played college tennis for the University of Pennsylvania while attending Wharton’s undergraduate business school — just like the president and all of his offspring. Anisimova lives in Miami Beach, Florida and trains at the Miami Beach Tennis Center about two hours away from the Trump compound at Mar-a-Lago.

Anisimova is just the one of the latest first generation or immigrant players who have come to America, stayed in America, chosen to represent America on the international scene and show off the “American” work ethic, strength and ability to overcome adversity. Over the past six weeks, the North American swing has shown how migrants, whether they are asylum seekers, economic refugees, or recruits to elite academies, have buttressed the infrastructure of tennis and even raised the stakes globally. Sure, everyone wants to hometown hero to win their local competition. That said, without a tariff-free, wall-free country, America might not have ever inherited tennis to dominate in 2025, with five American women in the WTA Top 20 and 16 in the Top 100; as well as three American men in the ATP Top 20 and 14 in the Top 100.

A quick rundown of other immigrant players in North America:

If anyone is going to question the ability of players whose parents come from the continent of Africa or other “s-hole countries,” as the president likes to call them, they should take a look at Victoria Mboko (WTA No. 23) and her come-from-nowhere command of the 2025 Canadian Open. Mboko could have been an Amercian phenom. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2006 to Cyprien Mboko and Godee Kitadi — refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s never-ending war — the Mboko family moved to Toronto for better opportunities when Victoria was two months old. The youngest of four started playing tennis at the age of three in Toronto after her sister Gracia, and brothers Kevin and David, had already took up the sport thanks to their father’s affection for it. “My friend and I, back home in the Congo, would watch [Andre] Agassi, [Jim] Courier, [Steffi] Graf and all the other great players,” he told a Canadian tennis magazine. “Tennis was good exercise for our children, but I must have bought about 1,000 balls from Walmart and they all seemed to end up in the bushes. At that point, we decided to see about some coaching.” Mboko’s sister and older brother played college tennis in the States.

Born and raised in Quebec (Montreal and Quebec City), Felix Auger-Aliassime (ATP No. 13), is the former 19-year-old who burst on the scene in 2019 after five years already playing the tour. Auger-Aliassime’s dad, Sam Aliassime, a tennis instructor from Togo, came to Canada in search of work. Togo — officially the Togolese Republic in West Africa — borders Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin. It is one of the least developed countries in the world meaning that jobs are few, poverty is high and industry is nascent. Auger-Aliassime, with BNP Paribas, created #FAAPointsForChange, a program that benefits children in the Kara region of Togo with scholarships to the University of Lomé in the capital city. An Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award Winner by the ATP, when it came between his foundation and the 2024 Davis Cup final, he chose to go to Togo.

Lastly, practically everyone knows the story of Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 29) from Sierra Leone. Born in Maryland in 1998, along with his twin brother Franklin — now a key member of the team of Haitian-American player, Hailey Baptiste (WTA No. 49) — the brothers Tiafoe lived in the office of their father Constant, a day laborer, then custodian at the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park for five days a week for 11 years. When they weren’t at the tennis center playing, they stayed with their mother, Alphina Kamara, a night-shift nurse. When not helping members of their JTCC “family,” including Baptiste, Tiafoe’s biggest motivations is “to get more black people playing tennis... But I'm just trying to inspire everyone, doesn't matter what race... especially younger people.”

Brandon Nakashima, ATP No. 33, is the son of a Vietnamese refugee and a Japanese-American.

Learner Tien, ATP No. 49, was born in Irvine, California to Vietnamese refugees Khuong Dan Tien and Huyen Tien, a math teacher who inspired his first name. Tien has a sister, Justice, who is named for his father’s profession. Take a guess?

Marcos Giron, ATP No. 51, has parents from Argentine and Ecuador.

Aleksandar Kovacevic, ATP No. 70, is a native of New York of Bosnian and Serbian descent. His mother, Milanka, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and his father, Milan Kovačević, of Serbia met at a table tennis tournament during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. They emigrated to the United States in 1998 after the bloody Bosnian war.

Denis Shapovalov (CAN), ATP No. 26, is rarely seen at a tournament without his mother, Tessa Shapovalova, a Ukrainian tennis player who competed for both the former USSR and Israel, where she moved during the collapse of the Soviet Union. In August 2020, Shapovalov debuted his first rap single, “Night Train”, under the name “Shapo”. The song chronicles his life as a athlete, with a focus on overcoming those who had doubted him becoming a professional.

Gabriel Diallo (CAN), ATP No. 35, has a Guinean father and Ukrainian mother who is a former handball player.

Sofia Kenin, WTA No. 31, was born in Moscow, Russia, to Alexander and Svetlana Kenin. Her parents had $286 when they first moved to the United States. Kenin eventually made her way to Florida where she trained with Rick Macci and Nick Bolletierri. “Back then [when Kenin was five], I came right out and said Sofia was the scariest little creature I’d ever seen,” Macci has said. “It was unique: the hand-eye coordination and her ability to take the ball immediately right after the bounce. I have a lot of kids do that, but it was almost like it was baked in already.”

Ann Li, WTA No. 46, Li was born into a Chinese sports family. Her aunt was a professional speed skater in China, while her father played soccer and her mother ran track in college. In her spare time, Li plays the ukulele.

Iva Jovic, WTA No. 73, age 17, also had parents caught in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Father, Bojan and mother Jelena, were ethnic Serbs who also fled the Bosnian war and settled in California.

Things Rally Relished: Taylor Townsend

Taylor Townsend won some major match-ups during the 2025 Open, showing she’s a singles threat as well as doubles champ. Moreover, she handled Jelena Ostapenko’s “no class, no education” offensive with style. “Race hung over this whole grim episode. And that felt appropriate actually I thought — the non-explicitness of it all — because that’s so rarely what racism looks like, right?,” Townsend said. “It’s so rarely someone intending to sound overtly racist. Far more often it’s insipid or unconscious or carries a good amount of plausible deniability with it. But when you’re a white woman talking to or about a black woman, it’s incumbent upon you to understand the dynamics at play, that casually accusing somebody of having no education — which is a pretty popular genre of racist assumption by the way — is simply unacceptable.”

Things Rally Reproved: WTA “Highest Mover” rankings feature.

Yes, this again. Each week the WTA finds it compelling to highlight its top-ranked player (Sabalenka looking very saucy in her official photo), its “highest riser” — and if it does the climb, it, of course, has to cover the “biggest faller,” despite the awkward terminology. The ATP doesn’t do this; neither does the ITF. The WTA thinks it adds to its new website, rolled out in January. Highlighting biggest losers, even with nicer but even more wince-worthy language, such as “significant shift” up or down doesn’t repair self-esteem or deter gamblers from match fixing, WTA. Be a winner and lose the clickbait.

For tennis fans (and players), the seasons, especially now, offer no such things as bank holidays. No Valentines’ Days. No St. George’s Days. No Memorial Days. Until, of course, the first day of a Grand Slam rolls around. Four times a year, it’s Christmas for two weeks, Hanukah writ large. There is a pall, therefore, after each Wimbledon, when our brains tell us the modern tennis season is actually getting nowhere close to over, yet our hearts feel sadness as if we’re through Christmas and just waiting for New Year’s (or the U.S. Open) to put away our logo’ed towels and hats and other accoutrement gathered over the years.

However, while the Australian and the French stay mostly understated as we ease into the year, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — the deep summer Slams — keep getting bigger and bigger and the demand greater. To meet that demand, therefore, the Slams have started promoting the qualifying rounds as a kind of bonus, as regular tournament tickets become out-of-bounds expensive and corporate boxes grow with CEO salaries. Wimbledon started advertising its qualifying rounds at its National Tennis Centre in Roehampton at least three or four years ago to keep the fresh grass from taking too much abuse from the growing crowds in SW19, and then announced a much maligned expansion across the street and into the Wimbledon Park Golf Course. The Lawn Tennis Association, the All-England Tennis Club and its sponsors have also set up big screens all over London, designating them as “watch zones,” including one on Henman Hill ,where fans can get closest to the action without spending thousands of pounds. Voila! Wimbledon exclusivity remains in tact.

Not so across the Atlantic in New York — the commercial capital of the world. Anything that will make more money for the USTA, bring more people to eat and drink out in Flushing, Queens and convert more city-dwellers into tennis fans, is not only not off-limits, it is encouraged.

But the U.S. Open wasn’t always this “common people” friendly. When the tournament moved from the quiet, lush West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows, and built two gigantic stadiums on a former dumping ground fans did not come. Not right away. So the USTA had to take more action to bring them. First, came Arthur Ashe Kids’s Day, the weekend before the tournament start, followed by expansions and redesigns of the stadiums, and then creating more opportunities to see players, even if they are just practicing. In 2023, the U.S. Open began to creep on to an entire three weeks of fans’ calendars, keeping them full of ancillary activities to do in-and-around four out of the five boroughs for basically, U.S. Open Month, (18 August through 8 September). Here are a few of the events happening around the city, but first, some tennis news from Canada:

Wimbledon, which wrapped two weeks ago, seems to have been both the anomaly and the status quo for some of the elite players in 2025, as the early-round knock outs just keep on coming for the Top Ten. Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 3), who usually falters on grass and kills on clay and acrylic courts, became the latest seed to fall at the Canadian Open in Montreal at the hands of Denmark’s Clara Tauson (WTA No. 19) in the fourth round. She follows top seed Coco Gauff (WTA No. 2) two-time defending champion Jessica Pegula (WTA No. 4) and Mirra Andreeva (WTA No. 5) for an earlier-than-expected trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, to practice for the upcoming Western & Southern Open. “I’m getting more confidence in this kind of level and feeling like I belong here a bit more,” Tauson said. Tauson will next play Madison Keys (WTA No. 8) in the quarter-finals after the Australian Open champ saved two match points and took a tight win 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 over Czech Karolina Muchova (WTA No. 14). Meanwhile, in a Freakier Friday switch, Naomi Osaka (WTA No. 49), who now has Swiatek’s old coach, Poland's Tomasz Wiktorowski (while Swiatek continues to adjust to Wim Fissette, Osaka’s own former coach), has put forth possibly her first credible challenge for a major title since returning from maternity leave in 2024.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, Alex de Minaur (ATP No. 8) resisted a mid-match surge from Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 12) and advanced 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals of the National Bank Open. From a set and a break down, Tiafoe began to land more blows on the forehand equalising at a set apiece. But while Tiafoe went big, De Minaur defended with pizazz, seizing the moment at crucial points to defeat the American 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Andrey Rublev (ATP No. 11) was just two points from defeat against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, but rallied to win the second set before the Spaniard was forced to retire in the third to reach his first Maste’s 1000 quarterfinal since the 2024 Western & Southern. This leaves him and fellow Russian Karen Khachanov (ATP No. 16), three Americans (a pugnacious Ben Shelton, ATP No. 7, Taylor Fritz, ATP No. 4, and newcomer Alex Michelson, ATP No. 34), two Australians (De Minaur and Alexi Popyrin, ATP No. 26) and one Alexander Zverev (ATP No 3) to face off in the final three rounds for the cup, with the coast clear for Zverev to claim his first Masters 1000 title this year. However, Popyrin believes Toronto still belongs to him. “The conditions are favorable for my game, because the court is quite fast and gets even faster when it’s hot,” Popyrin said. “During the day it's harder to control the ball, but in the evening, everything is perfect.”

The Open’s draw outside the Main Draw

Meanwhile, in New York, last minute preparations are underway for the Big Dance — and all the little balls surrounding it. Here is a rundown of the best things to do in the Big A when not at the Open:

“Tennis in Harlem: On the Block,” 16 August, 10am to 6pm, 120th Street, Free Featuring pop-up courts, coaching sessions and family-friendly games along with surprise appearances and brand demos from Wilson and On, All-Love Racquet Club is “flipping the script on what tennis can look like,” said Erika Bond, its founder. Designed to welcome all levels of interest and ability, “Tennis in Harlem” also kicks off All‑Love’s three-part U.S. Open Series with “Love to Dream Youth Clinic” on 21 August, followed by a session for grown-ups on the Upper East Side on 23 August. Both feature DJ Moma (of Everyday People fame) and open community play. “This is about building culture, making the game accessible and showing that joy and athleticism belong on every block — starting in Harlem,” Bond said. RSVPs required.

Pro-Shop NYC, 16 Crosby Street, T-F, 11-7; S-S, 10-6, Free: Rackets. Rare balls. David Foster Wallace. What do these things have in common? Pro-Shop NYC, part hands-on museum, part love-letter to the late writer, all NYC SoHo aesthetic. Designer and photographer Vincente Munoz has curated both vintage and current collections of the essentials: grips, balls, racquets, and of course, clothing all in one place for the duration of the Open. Fans can come have their sticks strung or just browse the collectible magazines and books picked out by The Second Serve’s Dave Shaftel, half of the still-feuding duo that made up Racquet Mag. No word yet on another Rockefeller Center party for Racquet.

Squawkin’ Sports: Tennis Edition, 19 August, 7pm. DSK Brooklyn, $14: An ongoing series featuring book chats with authors who write about playing games, this month’s U.S. Open edition features comic and Daily Show host Michael Kosta, author of Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy, and Defector media founder and tennis journalist Giri Nathan, who wrote Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis. While Lucky Loser tells the story of Kosta’s adventures from pro tennis to pro comedy, Changeover follows the epic rivalry of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the new Federer and Nadel.

Arthur Ashe Stadium Experience, 18 August, 10am to 5pm, BJK Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, US Open Fan Access Pass: A unique opportunity for a pre-U.S. Open glimpse of top players practicing on the main stage throughout Fan Week.

US Open Qualifying Tournament, 18-23 August, 11am to… BJK Tennis Center, Courts 4-17, US Open Fan Access Pass: Featuring 128 men and 128 women competing for one of the final 16 spots in the US Open Singles Main Draw, spectators may even catch the next Emma Raducanu, who came through qualifying in 2021 to win the entire tournament.

2025 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship, 19-20 August, 11am + 7pm, BJK Tennis Center, Arthur Ashe Stadium, $250+: One of the biggest changes for the 2025 Open was the much-bemoaned or much-lauded change to the Mixed Doubles Championship. Instead of feeding in doubles specialists on the back courts during the course of two weeks, the Open decided to boost the profile of Mixed by pairing top players together for Fast-4, no-Ad, 10-point third-set tiebreak matches over the course of two days during Fan Week. The Open teased the change in the spring by announcing the pair-ups, which many people thought was a hoax, but proved true last week. In the span of a morning, tickets went from $30 to $90 to now more than $250. They even let in a few of the former doubles champions to stem the rukus surrounding the change.

Stars of the Open, 21 August, 6pm, BJK Tennis Center, Arthur Ashe Stadium, $30+: The legends of tennis return to the Open for various exhibition matches, showcasing the talents of Andre Agassi, Venus Williams, Andy Roddick, John McEnroe and fan favourite, Juan Martín del Potro. A portion of the ticket proceeds will support the USTA Foundation, which provides tennis and educational programs to under-resourced communities.

U.S. Open Block Party, 22 August, 8pm, BJK Tennis Center, US Open Fan Access Pass: What is New York City if not one big Block Party? After lighting up the stage last year, legendary NYC artist, producer and DJ D-Nice returns to headline this fan-favorite, festival-style celebration. Joining him is the iconic Beverly Bond — world-renowned DJ, author, entrepreneur and founder of Black Girls Rock.

Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, 23 August, 9:30am, BJK Tennis Center, US Open Fan Access Pass: Arthur Ashe Kids' Day returns on Saturday to let the little ones meet top players, watch them practice, and enjoy a variety of family-friendly entertainment and activities throughout the grounds of the BJK all with the aim of getting kids excited about tennis.

Things Rally Relished: The Return of Venus Williams

She is a millennial with the heart of a Gen-Xer. At age 45, Venus Williams returned to the tour for the first time in more than a year by accepting a wildcard to the Citi Open in Washington, DC. A longtime friend of Mark Ein, the tournament’s owner and former World Team Tennis booster, Williams beat a stunned Magda Frech before losing in the second round. She is truly a VW engine.

Things Rally Reproved: Ben Shelton’s Machismo

After one heated exchange at the net, Ben Shelton spent an additional minute in front of ATP Ref James Keothavong shirt off, muscles in full display, to debate a gesture made by Italian Flavio Cobolli after Cobolli missed Shelton’s ace to the corner in a third-set tiebreak. Shelton confronted Cobolli as they approached the net for their post-match handshake, thinking the unconfirmed finger was directed at him, when Cobolli was just blowing off steam. Yo Ben, not everything is about you; keep your fluorescent On kit over your body.

Immediately after Jannik Sinner kissed the Champions Cup on Centre Court after the man’s final at Wimbledon on Sunday afternoon, famed sports commentator Andrew Castle said to his BBC audience, “this is it folks. Time to give the grass a long rest for another year,”

Hardly, Andrew. The All-England Tennis Club stays continuously busy, hosting Play Your Way to Wimbledon, exhibition matches and of course, allowing all those new members a hit. But Wimbledon begins its post-season almost immediately by hosting the Inter Services Team Championships — the hotly contested competition between the UK’s Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Not only is the AELTC’s granting of its courts for the Armed Forces a gigantic thank-you for all the military stewards during the Grand Slam (and keeping those champagne corks under control), it’s also another English tradition that stretches back at least eight decades.

“The Armed Forces have a long-standing tradition of supporting The Championships, Wimbledon,” said Tony Grattan-Cooper, a former Royal Navy captain, tennis champion and the referee of the match. “Since 1946, personnel from the British Armed Forces assisted with crowd management and providing support to spectators — it’s a visible and respected part of the event.

“And in return, we get to use these hallowed grounds for our own event.”

Initially, the Armed Forces arrived at the AELTC to protect the place. During the 1940 Blitz, the Luftwaffe dropped 40 bombs across the city, including on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, which had become a de facto military base. The bomb destroyed part of the roof and enough seats to reduce capacity by more than 1,000.

But towards the end of the war, the AELTC had returned to a tennis club. U.S. soldiers and those from British Empire countries played exhibition matches to raise money for the Mayor of Wimbledon's Resettlement Fund and the Churchill family’s Aid-to-Russia Fund. Wimbledon also hosted the finals of the Europe-wide U.S. forces’ tennis championship — it was the first tennis tournament played there for six years, following the cancellation of Wimbledon and the French Championships due to the war.

But First, the Topsy-Turvy Wimbledon Finals:

There’s always a little bit of a melancholy sigh in London’s air following the end of Wimbledon. Although the club is nowhere near Central London — in fact, it’s about seven miles away in the SW19 quadrant — big screens are set up at bars and restaurants across the city for patrons and fans to watch. On Saturday, many people were relieved not to have paid the £300+ to watch a piece of the action on Centre Court or the grounds after a tired, nervous American Amanda Anisimova (WTA No. 7, and up five spaces) double-bageled her loss to an amped-up, zoned-in Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 3) in 57 minutes.

From nearly the beginning of the match, Anisimova — tight, nervous and still exhausted from her three-setter against Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1) on Thursday. As Anisimova aimed for the corners and missed by feet and not inches, commentator John McEnroe doomed and gloomed, while Tracy Austin tried to drum up sympathy for the rattled player, who was playing his first Grand Slam and who cried in her after-match speech, thanking her mother for all her sacrifices. “My mom is the most selfless person I know. She’s done everything to get me to this point in my life,” Anisimova said after breaking down. “Thank you for being here and breaking the superstition of flying in. It’s definitely not why I lost today.

"I’m so happy I get to share this moment and for you to witness this in person.”

The next day, ATP No. 1 Jannik Sinner sought to avenge his French Open loss to ATP No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz — after holding three championship points on the red clay — and finally ended his losing streak against the Spaniard in about three hours, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Many tournament officials and others had expressed concern about Sinner’s elbow — strapped with a white sleeve for the final and the fourth-round, two-sets-down, near-miss against an pectoral-torn Grigor Dmitrov (ATP No. 21) — but emerged both dynamic and intent. Sinner had previously lost five matches in a row against Alcaraz and is now looking to reverse that streak in his favour. “I keep looking up to Carlos, because even today, I felt like he was doing couple of things better than I did,” Sinner said in the post-match conference. “So that’s something ... we will work on and prepare ourselves, because he’s going to come for us again.

But Alcaraz was not humble about his and Sinner’s places within the tour. “I’m just really, really happy about having this rivalry with him. It’s great for us, and it is great for tennis. Every time we play against each other, our level is really high,” Alcaraz said. “We don’t (see) a level like this, if I’m honest with you. I don’t see any (other players) playing against each other (and) having the level that we are playing when we face each other.”

Back to the Military Tennis

When The Championships resumed in 1946, the AELTC used service personnel to help direct people past the bomb damage. Somehow the idea of using the military as ushers stuck, and every year since then, more than 450 members of the military have worked as unpaid volunteer stewards at The AELTC Championships each year. Competition for spots in the usher draw remains fierce, however, and is given to military personnel that have exceeded their duties in some way. Members of the military working as unpaid volunteer stewards, as do around 200 volunteers recruited from the London Fire Brigade, who also take unpaid leave. “This is one of those stand-out experiences you get as a Royal Navy Reservist. You’re part of something special, helping ensure the safety and success of a world-class event,” said HMS Eaglet’s Warrant Officer 1 Gary Doke.

The Inter-Services players, who compete a week after the pros, however, have earned their stripes competing among their clubs in Aldershot, Portsmouth and Halton. Appearing for British Army Tennis at the end of the month will be Lance Corporal Warwok Rai and Officer Cadet Milly Wood, both of whom lifted the trophies for the very first time. At the Navy Championships in Portsmith, AET Ciaran Losh followed his father, Steve Losh's footsteps to become men's singles champion, while Commander Katharine Armstrong will make appearances for the Navy and the RAF have yet to determine their team.

In 2024, the RAF men's team won their first Inter-Services team title in 11 years, while the Army ladies team secured their fifth consecutive title. Players can invite family members to the AELTC support and spectate for the championships, providing a unique opportunity for not just serving personnel but their loved ones to experience Wimbledon also. “I would never have the chance to play at Wimbledon if I was not in the military. The sporting opportunities are so unique,” said Navy Lieutenant Henry Warrender competed in his first Inter-Service Tennis Championships at Wimbledon in 2023.

Sport has always been a vital part to the British Armed Forces, and not just the elite academies. Used to help shape “native” peoples into British “models” of manliness and efficiency, the branches have also taken inspiration from abroad, adopting sports like polo and popularising them back in Britain. While football is the most popular sport in the world thanks to the Army’s influence, the Army especially played lawn tennis wherever stationed, including India and Australia, making it incredibly well-liked.

RAF, Army and Navy tennis teams regularly travel abroad to train and compete. Recent years have seen the Performance Teams up against NATO allies in Holland, Belgium and Sardinia as well as host NATO compatriots at the Halton Tennis Club, the home to Royal Air Force Tennis since 1929. Performance Teams have also trained at the world famous IMG Bollettieri Academy in Florida and on the grass of the Stuttgart Open. Top players also compete in prestigious fixtures against Wimbledon AELTC, Surbiton LTC and The Hurlingham Club. The Wimbledon Inter-Services tournament takes place the last week of July.

Things Rally Relished:

Watching the Wimbledon Championships on the big screen at Kings Cross and Covent Garden. The houseboats on the Regents Canal provide a unique backdrop to the gigantic tennis big screens. Fans are also less likely to get hit by a champagne cork; this crowd drinks Pimm’s and cans of Stella.

Things Rally Reproved:

Vogue’s rating of the five “fittest” players at Wimbledon. When done by a gay man, it seems chic, cute and playful. But lesbians choosing the five “fittest” female athletes would be seen as either a) creepy or b) more objectification. This article raises more questions than answers about who has the right to judge the sexiness of others — even tennis players.

The week before Wimbledon, the Instagrams of tennis players started to light up. First came the apologies — for missing the premier tennis event of the year — then the withdrawals. And lastly, the record number of seeds that exited in the first round.

But none spoke louder than that of Australian player Daria Saville (WTA No. 137), who stated that now she had reached the ripe old age of 31 with 19 majors under her belt, her priorities had changed. Living in Australia — thousands of miles away from home — didn’t help being on the road nearly 40 weeks a year, either.

“Tennis players are taking mental health breaks. Honestly, so many players are struggling, including myself. I have not been enjoying hitting tennis balls; I have not been enjoying the process; I have not been enjoying the grind, the travel,” Saville stated on her early June Instagram post “Some people say that we are becoming soft, I don’t know. In previous years, I would just keep on grinding and feeling unhappy. But now I understand that to keep grinding is the easier thing to do and breaking the cycle of being unhappy is the hardest thing to do.

“Maybe we all just need a Jet2 Holiday.” Saville finished by lip syncing the overly familiar Jet2 Holiday advert music — a joke laced with her own truth.

I mean, who turns down Wimbledon? What player in their right mind would deny the pomp, the splendor, the grass, the notoriety of having just played there? As it turns out, a very burned out player — and Saville was not the only one. Although they showed up — and some ITF Futures and Challenger players, who have a week-in, week-out schedule that has them playing nearly 52 weeks a year have been grinding in qualifiers, too — many pros dropped like the bees high on Wimbledon flower pollen.

The carnage started with well-favoured, Coco Gauff (WTA No. 2), who had a shocker of a loss to Dayana Yastremska (WTA No. 42). But instead of three weeks of grass warm-ups, she had decided to take some time in New York and celebrate her French Open win. “Trying to get this right is like “a puzzle,” Gauff, 21, said, who had never before exited stage left in the first round of Grand Slam. “It’s the quick turnaround. You spend a long clay season, most of the seeds are going deeper in Roland Garros, and then you have to come and try to adjust to grass. It’s a tricky thing.”

But is that it, Coco? The season for the top players now stretches across 11 months, with the men’s and women’s ten best playing upwards of 60 matches across 17 tournaments (more if you’re lower ranked, as more tourneys equal more points). Casper Ruud (ATP No. 15) played 25 tournaments — the second most in the ATP year-end top 10 last season — with Alex De Minaur (ATP No. 11) third place at 23. “What’s not normal is that for the last three or four years I've had two days off, gone straight into pre-season and straight into the new season again,” De Minaur told the BBC. “Once you start, you don't finish until late November. It's just never ending. That's the sheer fact of it.”

De Minaur has a point. It used to be that the season effectively ended after the U.S. Open, but about 15 years ago, China — with its thousands of developing academies and players — wanted in on the tour, and so an Asian swing was festooned following the American hardcourt season. Add to that the Davis and Billie Jean King Cup country matches, and then the Laver Cup exhibition for men. Even if players don’t make the WTA and ATP Finals, they don’t finish until mid-October. With pre-season starting in December and the ATP and WTA Tours resuming immediately after Christmas, the total number of weeks off has fallen from about 12 to about four.

"You feel like you lose a lot if you don't show up and play — both economically, points-wise, rankings-wise and opportunity-wise," said Ruud, who has dropped about ten places this year after making the year-end tour finals for the past three years. But instead of trying to wrap up a knee injury at the All-England Club and move on, Rudd, along with French upstart, Arthur Fils (ATP No. 16), simply dropped out. “I know these weeks and months are really important for the remainder of the year and for my career. Of course, if my leg is broken, I won't play. But it's tough.”

The tours are maybe, kind of starting to get it, with the ATP saying it “understands” why its leading players are Instagramming more and more about the length of their seasons. “We’re focused on strengthening the sport by building a more premium product — one that creates more prize money, and more opportunities for players,” the ATP explained in a statement. “A key part of that vision is calendar reform. Creating a longer off-season for the players is a key objective, and we're actively exploring ways to make that a reality.”

The Wimbledon Heat/No Heat Wave:

But before the bit about ATP plans, a recap of the first week of Wimbledon, which kicked off with an unusual heat wave gripping London. Okay, a heat wave for the Brits. For the rest of Europe, facing mid-30s temps, the high-20s didn’t seem so bad. But the lack of air conditioning in England took its toll. While the higher-ranked can have comfortable air-con houses just a few blocks away from the All-England Club, many lower-ranked players stay in hotels sans the cool air. An audible sign of relief hit SW19, when a chill started coming through the window at about 11pm on Tuesday and on Wednesday, the wind changed direction.

But the weather shift was needed sooner — physically and metaphorically. “Players are getting injured,” said Reilly Opelka, former world No. 17, who endured two years of wrist surgeries before coming back just a year ago. He lost in the second round. “I was talking to Tommy (Paul) about it. Tommy got penalised for not playing Queen’s. He had a pretty serious injury at Roland Garros and couldn’t make it to Queen’s, yet he still got hit with a heavy ranking penalty. That’s why he dropped to No. 15. Because for those players, 500-level tournaments are mandatory,”

“I think a lot of guys are carrying injuries just to avoid losing their bonus or getting deductions from the bonus pool,” Opelka continued. Super-Seed Drop Monday bore out Opelka’s prediction. Stefanos Tsitsipas left London struggling with his back and without now ex-girlfriend Paula Badosa, questioning the Greek chorus whether he should continue playing. Lorenzo Musetti couldn’t get over his left adductor injury, attained on the clay. Holger Rune had knee issues. But if they made it to Day Two, nerves got the best of them. Qualifier Oliver Tarvet (ATP No. 733) lost on Centre Court against Carlos Alcaraz in the biggest match of his life, echoes of 2016 Marcus Willis and Roger Federer in the air. Katie Boulter (WTA No. 43 and now British No. 2) came out on top in the first round defeating Paula Badosa (WTA No. 9) but lost out in the second round to lucky loser Solana Sierra (WTA No. 101).

But one of the biggest surprises of all was the dropping of Jack Draper (ATP No. 4) losing to 36-year-old Marin Cilic (ATP No. 83), eight years after Cilic was runner-up here to Roger Federer. Draper could only ponder the reasons all three of his Wimbledon campaigns have foundered by the second round handshake. But the Brits still had good ol’ stalwart Cam Norrie (ATP No. 61) to take their hopes into the fourth round, which he did today by eeking out a win over Chilean Nicolás Jarry (ATP No. 143). But although Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 40) reclaimed her British No. 1 spot and put up a good fight against Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1) she couldn’t get the job done. Neither could Sonay Kartal (WTA No. 51) and hot on Emma’s heels. She lost to the more experienced Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (WTA No 50), who struggled more with the electronic line calling.

And in a day of more Wimbledon-esque play before the quarterfinals begin, Andreeva defeated Emma Navarro (WTA No. 10); Iga Świątek (WTA No. 4) returned to some form over Clara Tauson (WTA No 22); and both Sabalenka and Belinda Bencic (WTA No 35) gained entry into the final eight. On the men’s side, Ben Shelton (ATP No. 10) and the eternal Novak Djokovic (ATP No. 8) advanced with Taylor Fitz (ATP No. 5) and Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 2), while a hopeful Grigor Dmitrov (ATP No. 21) had a two-set lead over Jannik Sinner (ATP No. 1) before injury descended again forcing him to retire. Of course, the Brits will be pulling for Norrie, who needs un milagro to dispense with Alcaraz tomorrow.

Burnout Beckoning?

Back to the tennis exhaustion. The ATP said there are "protections in place" for injured players, pointing to its Baseline programme. Coming into effect with the start of the 2024 season as part of a three-year trial, the initiative is comprised of three key pillars to ensure a greater number of players can make a sustainable living. Even if they get hurt or can’t bring themselves to take enter another airport (PTSD?). The first pillar of the programme is Minimum Guarantee, which grants Top 250-ranked singles players a minimum income level each season. If a player's prize money earnings finishes below the guaranteed threshold, the ATP covers the shortfall with an end-of-year, top-up payment. The ATP says this will empower players to plan their seasons with greater certainty, focus on their game and invest in their coaches and personal physios, as well as travel.

The ATP has Income Protection, as its second pillar — an initiative to provide support to players who play fewer than nine ATP Tour and Challenger Tour events in a season due to injury. Earnings thresholds are set at $200,000 (Top 100), $100,000 (No. 101-175) and $50,000 (No. 176-250). The ATP said this will give players financial security allowing them to focus on recovery. The last pillar, Newcomer Investment, gives $200,000 to players breaking into the Top 125 for the first time, paid in advance of the following season and offset against ATP Tour and Challenger Tour prize money earnings. Twenty-three new(ish) competitors met the Newcomer Investment criteria at the end of the 2024 season.

But ultimately, it comes down to not only money, but also pride and rankings, which affect everything from yearly earnings, to sponsorship deals, to exhibition matches, to desirability after retirement. Nineteen events count towards ATP rankings every year, while the eight best players of the season also receive points at the season-ending ATP Finals. These include four Grand Slams, eight mandatory Masters, or ATP-1000 events, and seven 'best other' tournaments — including the ATP 500, ATP 250 and Challengers. The WTA rankings are based on 18 tournaments, but the leading athletes play at least 20, including all of the Grand Slams, ten WTA-1000 events and six WTA-500 tournaments.

But again, is money or bragging rights everything? Many athletes are thinking “no” and maybe quietly quitting (or holidaying). Ons Jabuer, who took off most of the second-half of the 2024 season, seems to have enjoyed her break from tennis, so much so, that her ranking slid from the Top-Ten to WTA No. 59. Her best showing this year has been to the quarterfinals at Eastbourne two weeks ago, the Berlin Open and before that, the Qatar Total-Energies Open. Jabeur retired during her first-round Wimbledon match because of difficulty breathing.

“I wasn't expecting not to feel good. I have been practicing pretty well the last few days. But I guess these things happen,” Jabeur said. “I'm pretty sad. Doesn't really help me with my confidence and what I keep pushing myself to do even though it was a very tough season for me. I hope I can feel better.”

Things Rally Relished: New Tips for Queueing for Wimbledon

This year, hard-core fans without hook-ups to tickets entered the queue at 2 am or earlier and were able to get some of the last of the 1700 or so made available. Compared to two years ago when those setting up tents at 4am received into the 1500s, the demand has taken an upswing. So the BBC offered some handy tips on Instgram for future Queuemasters:

1. Try to get as much sleep as possible, but don’t expect any sleep.

2. Bring as much water as possible and make sure snacks are handy. Brits don’t like “hangry” foreigners.

3. Treat the queueing experience as a day out, not a line for tickets.

4. Bring cards and play cards with neighbours.

5. Trust the stewards; they know what they are doing.

6. Bring good mates, a spikeball net and a gootball.

Things Rally Reproved:

The breakup between Tsitsi-Dosa, chronicled extensively on Instagram. Tsitsipas admitted he had work to do in order to “recalibrate my mental state” and that it was on him to find solutions for his current psychological woes. “The last couple of years, especially the last two years, I feel like I have been very stressed and anxious and I only realised that now that all of this is really adding to me and it just doesn't feel like me when I'm out on the court,” he said. “I need to manage moments of uncertainty and figure it out on my own. I don't want to have external stuff that are causing those types of things. So I need to soulfully be focused on my own individuality, my own self, and let anything outside not allow any of this to distract me.” The day after he made his comments, Spanish tabloid HOLA revealed that Badosa and Tsitsipas has reached its conclusion. Although neither of them has spoken, they stopped following each other on social media — a sure sign of romance loss — and thus, ruining their mixed doubles chances at the U.S. Open. Oh Shakespeare, where art thou?

For the first time in recent memory, the middle Saturday of Wimbledon will take place during the LGBT Pride Parade, leaving some of the current crop of LGBT professional players and SW19 regulars, including Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Daria Kasatkina, Rennae Stubbs and Geet Minnen, torn: watch the greats have a go on grass in SW19 or party hearty about seven miles away along Oxford Street.

Although Open-Era LGBT players have the freedom to choose the latter, those pre-70s and 80s, including those whose careers ended in disgrace, had no choice: play at Wimby and never dream of being “Open”. May ‘Toupie’ Lowther, a woman whose story could fill the pages of a novel, was among the earliest group of gay players who was a regular participant at Edgbaston, Queen’s, the German Ladies Championships (held at the prestigious Bad Homburg Tennis Club) from 1896–1901, and Wimbledon.

As far as the ATP records book indicate, however, only two openly gay men have played at an elite level, both before World War II. The first, Gottfried (Baron) von Cramm, a German aristocrat noted for his gentlemanly conduct and fair play, won the 1934 and 1936 French Open before the German government arrested him in 1938 for having a gay affair with a Jewish actor. He was jailed for six months before marrying a heiress, endured a ban from Wimbledon after the incident, was conscripted by the German Army and unwillingly fought in World War II. The second, Bill Tilden, an American, won 14 Major singles titles, including 10 Grand Slams, before he was arrested on Sunset Boulevard by the Beverly Hills police for having sex with an underage male in November 1946. Tilden was sentenced to a year in prison, served seven months and received parole conditions so strict that they virtually erased all his income. After having another encounter with a 16-year-old hitchhiker, he was arrested again in January 1949 and was incarcerated for another 10 months. In both instances, Tilden believed his celebrity, privileged background and friendships with the Los Angeles elites would keep him from both detention and social death. It didn’t. Tilden died alone, broke and likely drunk in LA in 1953 at age 60.

Lastly, one of the most notable at the time and least-mentioned players, was Dr. Renée Richards (formerly Richard Raskind) an American ophthalmologist and former tennis player who competed on the professional circuit in the 1970s — the first openly trans women to fight to the United States Tennis Association (USTA) for a spot in the 1976 U.S. Open. Raskind, a product of New York’s Jewish upper-middle class and Yale University — where he captained the men's tennis team — started dressing as a woman in college and by the 1970s, had considered sex-reassignment surgery, ultimately receiving it in 1975. After that, she started competing as a women, largely in California. Local TV anchor Richard Carlson (the father of Tucker) outed Richards before the beginning of the Open, which had been requiring all female competitors to verify their sex with a Barr chromosome test. Richards refused, and thus was not allowed to compete in the Open, Wimbledon, or the Italian Open in the summer of 1976. She the sued the USTA and took the Barr body test, which came out as ambiguous. But in 1977, a judge ruled the USTA had committed “grossly unfair, discriminatory… violation of her rights.”

But it didn’t seem to matter much. By then, Richards was in his 40s and lost to a much younger Virginia Wade in the first round of the singles competition. But partnered with Betty Ann Stuart, Richards made it all the way to the doubles finals, losing to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stove. After retiring four years later, Richards became one of the first professional spokesperson for transgender people in sports, ultimately opposing her onetime protege, Martina Navratilova, whom Richard coached to two Wimbledon titles.

Yet, as Billie Jean and Martina were embracing their sexuality — after being “outed” by paternity suits — many openly LGBT tennis clubs and associations started forming, especially in England. The following is a round-up of the gays who play. But first, an Eastbourne Grass Check-in, a favourite of the LGBT crowd due to its proximity to Brighton, the gay hub of coastal England.

The Ageon… no, now Lexus Eastbourne Open 2025:

It’s almost a bit of too much grass, like a deliberate English ploy to induce hay fever — or a delirium for Wimbledon: four weeks of grass season. But this year, there was a bit of a switch up. After two weeks for the men and women at the Queen’s Club grass, some of the men departed for Spain for their last green warm-ups, while the women headed off to either Nottingham, Bad Homberg or Eastbourne before they enter the grounds of All-England Lawn Tennis Club for its annual championships, aka Wimbledon. Although the tourney has changed names — and sponsors — no fewer than five, six, seven times (Lexus took over from, Rothesay International, the UK's largest pensions insurance specialist, which took over from Viking the cruise line, which took over from AGEON, etc., etc., one thing is certain: the Brits always want one of their own to kiss the “Rothesay trophy.” Or this year, the Lexus trophy?

Although the LTA officially downgraded the Eastbourne International to a WTA 250 from a WTA 500, yet kept the men at the ATP 250 level, the quality of its tennis on show proved just as high as previous years. Top British players appearing in Sussex included Emma Radacanu, Jodie Burrage, and Brighton local, Sonay Kartal, while reigning Wimbledon champ Barbora Krejcikova was top seeded. But none of the Brits endured and the final tomorrow will consist of two virtually unheard of Challengers from the South Pacific: the Philippines’ Alexandra Eala (WTA No. 74 ) facing Australia’s Maya Joint (WTA No. 51). This comes immediately before an all-American battle on British soil between defending champion Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 5) and Jenson Brooksby (ATP No. 149) — the first time in tournament history, a lucky loser (and openly autistic player) — has reached the final.

The Gays who play… tennis:

The first lesbian and gay tennis groups started to form in American Cities such as Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston as early as 1979. And by the time Martina was dominating the pros, an informal gay and lesbian tennis circuit had formed. By the late 1980s gay tennis organizations were hosting tournaments that drew players from around the U.S. To compete with the 1990 Gay Games in Vancouver, the diverse groups formed the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance in 1991 to oversee more than 80 gay and lesbian clubs around the world and host LGBT tournaments with some of the most decorative trophies and punniest names known to the tennis world. Here are the most active groups:

The United Kingdom:

The North London Lobsters: Based in Finsbury Park, North London, the Lobsters are “all about” top-notch facilities, epic events and forging lifelong friendships over the LGBT shared love for the game. Founded in 2022, the Lobsters have grown from small social doubles to coaching sessions to ongoing ladders and competition among its 400 members.

The Geordie Grandslammers: The North East’s only LGBTQ+ tennis club, the Grandslammers is also one of the country’s newest, having former in 2022. It hosts sessions at the Northumberland Club, as well as a World AIDS Day tournament.

The South London Smashers: Founder Ryan Watson set up the South London Smashers after he found that continuously explaining his identity to new people and clubs had grown tiresome. “The main thing for us was trying to find a space that was safe to play in where anyone could come and just be themselves,” he said. “We’ve opened the door to allow so many new players to come and play with us who have never felt comfortable enough to pick up a racket before.” The Smashers have so far arranged hitting sessions and court time, but bigger things are in the works.

The United States:

Metropolitan Tennis Group (MTG): For over 30 years the MTG has organized and hosted the Liberty Open, a premier tournament on the GLTA World Tour at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York. Active since 1987, the MTG also offers leagues, ladders, tournaments and other playing opportunities for all levels from beginners to Open players.

Capital Tennis Association (CTA): Formed in 1994 as a not-for-profit group to coordinate tennis among the adult DC LGBTQ, the Capital Tennis Association has more than 300 active players and members. The org hosts leagues, in-house tournaments and social-and-drill sessions. Every summer the CTA participates in the Atlantic Cup, a quad-city competition between LGBT tennis groups in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and DC, with each city taking turns as host.

Gay & Lesbian Tennis Federation (GLTF): In 1981 San Francisco, a group of group of gay softball players decided they would like to play tennis too, and thus — with 12 members — the GLTF hosted theUnited States Gay Open (USGO), one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious gay tennis tournaments in the world. The GLTF now has more than 500 members who play tennis and pickleball tournaments around the bay areas and all across California, including the Cal Cup, the Pac Cup and the West Coast Cup.

Europe:

Smashing Pink (Amsterdam): Founded in 1996 on the back of 1994 Gay Games in New York, Smashing Pink is an official club of the Royal Dutch Lawn Tennis Association (KNLTB). It has about 275 club members covering all the gender and sexual identities, as well as global nationalities, who have happened to have settled in The Netherlands.

Things Rally Relished: Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabelenka’s Make Up Dance

The duo is finally over their French Open tiff about who had the bad luck; not that Coco ever really complained about the wind conditions — or the crowd.

Things Rally Reproved: The Duet Polvere e Gloria featuring Jannik Sinner and Andrea Bocelli

First he is becoming buddy-buddy with the Pope, now he is singing with the blind opera impresario Andrea Bocelli — a Las Vegas staple — to prove his Italian bona fides? Explore a career change should doping accusations rear their ugly heads again? Bad advice from an agent? We just don’t understand the release of the pair’s song Polvere e Gloria (Dust and Glory), and includes Sinner, 23, repeating parts of his winning and losing speeches as Bocelli sings.

Before Tim Henman with his hill at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) and Andy Murray with the new arena named for him at the Queen’s Club, there was John Lloyd, otherwise known as Mr. Chris Evert. But while the luminaries of the sport were busy racking up their wins, John Lloyd got busy acquiring stories for his punditry and resources for his family’s power over the LTA.

In his time, however, John Lloyd did manage to outshine the rest of the Lloyd family on court: the handsome boy from 1960s Westcliff Hard LTC near Southend-on-Sea, Essex reached a career-high ATP ranking of 23 in 1978, and became England’s top player from1984-85 — the handsome Jack Draper of his time.

It was Lloyd’s good humor, charm and ability to tell a story that convinced the sports punditry world to take him on air when he retired from the tour in the late 1980s. But John Lloyd, while not exactly having a poker face, held an ace in the hole: his brother, David. For John’s stunning good looks, David had the smarts. For John’s mastery of strokes, David had the strategy to win. For John’s charm, David had the vision and the business sense.

Although both Lloyds were members of Great Britain's Davis Cup squad, (David played on-and-off between 1972 and 1980 — part of the first British team to reach the final since 1937), John claimed the name fame, while David worked behind the scenes. He retired from professional tennis and became a tennis coach in Canada. Later, at the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), he turned a young Tim Henman from an Oxford-born-and-bred descendant of Wimbledon greats to a Wimbledon hero himself.

But even before he found Henman,David Lloyd had already founded a gym-and-tennis empire: the David Lloyd Leisure Clubs, with a focus on not only tennis, but also the general fitness needed for tennis. That empire has come to define English tennis.

David Lloyd opened his first club near Hounslow in West London in 1982. It’s growth from there is the stuff of English legend — even more so than Buster Mottram’s “shanked” serve into the Royal Box in 1978. By 1995, all 18 David Lloyd Leisure clubs were acquired for £200 million, and David Lloyd, together with his son Scott, created the Next Generation David Lloyd fitness clubs and sold those in a separate deal worth £925 million. By 2019, David Lloyd’s name was on 89 UK and European Leisure Clubs, joined by two Harbour Clubs and five David Lloyd Studios, with a membership of around 440,000. Tennis plays a large part in most.

But the Lloyds were not happy with a chain of fitness clubs loosely associated with tennis. They wanted English tennis domination. They wanted to run, if not own, the LTA. But first…

The Women Return to become Queen’s:

For the first time in 52 years, the LTA — now run by David' Lloyd’s son, Scott Lloyd (more on that later) — has given women a platform at the prestigious and pristine grass courts at the Queen’s Club in the high-flying west London neighbourhood of Baron’s Court. It marks a sea change in the effort to get more women to play the grass court warm-ups in the UK over Germany and some of the other European cities. Before 2025, the women had mostly lower-tier events — just a slot above Challenger (or minor league) in Nottingham and Birmingham — while the men were wined and chillaxed at the Queen’s legendary Victorian clubhouse. Not since 1973 had pro women touched Queen’s grass, where Russian Olga Morozova won the last Women’s London Grass Court Championships and Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals took the doubles title, just months before BJK’s “Battle of the Sexes” — the exhibition that sent her star beyond the earth’s atmosphere.

And who else besides Andy Murray, champion of women’s tennis and for whom Queen’s named its show court, could kick off the beginning of the historic event, engineered by pal and tournament director, Laura Robson. Following a slightly awkward coin toss and mock game with two LTA youth, former Eastbourne champ and returning mother Petra Kvitova (WTA No. 574) got off to a strong start, but was eliminated in the first round by Beatriz Hadad Meier (WTA No. 22). A newly patriated and freshly engaged Daria Kastakina (WTA No. 16) also exited in the first, with a loss to Brit Sonay Kartal (WTA No. 50) — look out Katie and Emma or “Boultercanu” (their doubles nickname). American Amanda Anisimova (WTA No. 15) gave Jodie Burrage (WTA No. 162) a glimmer of hope before cleanly knocking her all the way to the Tower of London.

But by the end of the week, it was “Boultercannot” as the pair lost in doubles and each team member lost their singles, including Raducanu’s defeat at the hands of Qinwin Zheng (WTA No. 6), who informed English pundits of yet another new way of pronouncing her name. Predictions have an all-American final of Madison Keys (WTA No. 8) against Anisimova, despite the presence of another Queen-killer, 37-year-old Tatiana Maria (WTA No. 86), as the surprise Sunday roast.

Back to the Lloyds:

In addition to the rethink and reshuffle of tournaments, the LTA has experienced its own top-tier whirlwind in recent years. As the David Lloyd Club teams began their ascent toward the yearly championships — Raynes Park, Sunderland, Bristol and Finchley — often competing with the likes of pro players from Sutton, Roehampton, Edgbaston Priory, West Hants and Cumberland, so did heir to the Lloyd throne, Scott Lloyd, overtake the LTA’s CEO spot. Although technically running a non-profit organization and a national governing body for tennis in Great Britain whose “primary goal is to develop and promote the sport,” Scott Lloyd, has approached the job with the bottom line in mind — and making sure his Brits to Back get their lion’s share of resources.

The LTA has also awarded David Lloyd clubs and its coaches significant accolades. David Lloyd - Long Ashton won club of the year in 2023, David Lloyd Southampton won the award in 2009, and many others win the regional awards. Meanwhile, David Lloyd Leisure advertises for tennis coaches on the LTA website and David Lloyd Club coaches frequently win High Performance coach of the year and other kudos.

In 2018, Lloyd launched the LTA’s vision of Tennis Opened Up with a five-year strategy to grow the game and reverse the decline in participation. By December 2023 annual participation had grown by 44 percent (a Covid boost can’t be discounted), nine British players were in the Top 100 — the most since 1978 — and the LTA’s database of tennis fans had tripled to 1.5 million. The organisation also embarked on a major project to improve 3,000 tennis courts in parks across Britain by issuing “tennis kits” to would-be coaches if they want to gather up some local kids for a hit. Meanwhile, the David Lloyd Clubs looked to profit heavily in the recent Padel tennis explosion to hit London.

Two years later, the LTA has the new Andy Murray in Jack Draper, (ATP No. 5 and the son of Roger Draper, another former LTA CEO) and only three British men and three British women in the Top 100. This compares to 18 American women and 13 American men in the same set of rankings — not to mention three American women and two American men in the Top 10. Although Lloyd has acknowledged the LTA still has “a long way to go” in building a more diverse sport, he also told Sky Sports that “the diversity of our player base broadly reflects the ethnic diversity in this country, and we’re also proud of the fact that gender equality in tennis has led the way relative to many sports.” Yet of three female Brits in the top 100, two are of mixed race, while six of the 18 American women identify as Black, including Hailey Baptiste, a proud Haitian American and the initial product of a tennis and education programme in her native Washington. Of the 13 American men in the ATP Top 100, two are Black and two are Asian. All the three British men in the Top 100 are white.

Moreover, in 2019, Scott Lloyd who agreed to terminate many interests in the David Lloyd Clubs when he became LTA chief, was still drawing a salary and holding 0.4 per cent stake in the David Lloyd clubs, despite a LTA salary of £421,000 per year from the publicly-funded body. Lastly, per an agreement with the AELTC, the 2024 Wimbledon Championships delivered a “record surplus” of nearly £50 million ($68 million) for British tennis — or 90 percent of its profits. But where did the money go? In 2024, the LTA reported an operating expenditure of £109 million ($150 million) — a decrease from £113.7 million ($154 million) in 2023 — for the supposed benefit of approximately 10 million players.

In comparison, in 2024, the US Open brought in $560 million in revenue, only four times more money than the LTA in a country that is five times larger than the UK. This revenue is then used to fund various USTA programs, including community tennis support, high-performance development and lower-level tournaments for an American population of 25 million tennis players. Without pointing to the obvious, in a significantly smaller country (68 million people in the UK where about one in seven people play tennis, compared with roughly 300 million in the U.S. where one in 12 people play), the UK should have more and better players at the top end. It is, after all, the country that gave birth to lawn tennis.

But is this worrying the Lloyds? Or more specifically, the most famous Lloyd? The face that launched a thousand Centre Court commentaries? “After Australia, John Barrett, my mentor and the BBC’s voice of Wimbledon, told me, ‘There are two ways you can go now. You have jumped up the rankings and are making a lot of money,” John Lloyd told the telegraph in 2022. “You can either take the next step and work harder — or ease back the throttle and enjoy what you’ve achieved.’ I chose the latter.”

Next week the women head off to the Nottingham 250 event to play Robin Hood in their never-ending fight for equal prize money, while the men take over Queen’s. Will the grass hold its shape?

Things Rally Relished this week: A made-up Coco Gauff doing the town with her “miniature” French Open trophy. She was shot all over New York toting her new companion, comparing it to the extra-large glass laurels of other sports.

Things Rally Regretted this week: Yet again, the WTA’s new “Rankings Roundup.” Yes, we are very happy that Aryna is still No. 1 and Lois came up an astonishing 296 spots, but is it really necessary for the WTA to highlight the “Biggest Faller”? Moreover, the Cambridge dictionary defines “faller” as “something such as a share price or currency whose value has gone down during a particular period.” An interesting and likely unfortunate misuse of the term. Perhaps if insulting a player’s reduction in points due to injury, motherhood, mental health reasons or other, Greatest Descender might roll off the tongue better. Or maybe let’s just scrap the shame designation, WTA?

For the first 22 years of its existence (1897 to 1924, aside from World War II), French women dominated the French Open, sort of like the Brits commanded Wimbledon and the Yanks cleaned up at the U.S. Open. But since 1968 (the Open era), only one tenacious French woman had victory belong to her at Roland Garris: Mary Pierce, and technically, she was from Quebec, Canada. Prior to Pierce, Françoise Dürr, from French Algeria took the clay Grand Slam in 1967, and prior to Dürr, — not to be pedantic — Belgian transplant Nelly Adamson Landry grabbed the title.

In reality, the last truly French-born, French-raised woman to kiss the Suzanne-Lenglen cup was Parisian Raymonde Veber Jones in 1944. But it wasn’t actually the French Open — it was the Tournoi de France, a tournament set up by the WWII Vichy government to replace the French Championships. Strictly speaking, Simonne Mathieu, whose garden court draws thousands every year, was the last woman named French Champion — and that took place in 1939, 13 short years after Lenglen captured the hearts and minds of French tennis fans forever.

So imagine the excitement when Lois Boisson, from Dijon, age 22, came from the ITF Futures circuit as the 24th-ranked French player — where she has been grinding it out (and taking deodorant insults from Brits) since 2021 — and bested two Top-10 players to reach the semifinal round. Did she pull an Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 37) and sail through qualifying to win it? No, Boisson accepted a wildcard entry and skipped qualies — as most other countrywomen on their home turfs. But when the WTA rankings come out on Monday, Boisson will rise almost 300 places to WTA No. 65 and be within striking distance of Raducanu (WTA No. 41), who has neither spent a week in the minor leagues of tennis, nor taken stinky insults from Harriet Dart.

“I think every kid who plays tennis has the dream to win a grand slam,” Boisson said before her semifinal match against American Coco Gauff (WTA No. 2). “More for French players to win Roland Garros, for sure. It's a dream. For sure I will go for the dream, because my dream is to win it, not to be in the semi-final. So I will try to do my best.”

In typical Paris style, many, many debates arose during the 2025 French Open. The first: whether it was unfair to put business interests (longer matches with men’s best-of-five instead of women’s best-of-three) over women’s visibility for the night session. The second: opting for old-skool line judges and clay markings instead of the high tech Hawkeye line calling, as the rest of the majors. Last: when the chair umpire needs to call “assez” to the French crowds, who keep getting louder and more rumbustious every year, despite the banning of Aperol Spritzes and other sweet, boozy drinks on the Roland Garros grounds.

“I find it completely disrespectful that they don’t stop singing and interrupting. They won’t let the match flow. When the match heats up, they don’t let you serve, and between serves they keep doing nonsense to distract you…” said Jaume Munar (ATP No. 57) after his match against local favorite, Arthur Fils (ATP No. 14).

On court, however — besides Boisson — the tennis was a bit more predictable and hewed fairly closely to the seeding. Gauff ultimately ended Boisson’s incredible run in the semi-final after a lackluster quarterfinal match against fellow Yank Madison Keys (WTA No. 8), while a re-emerging Iga Świątek (WTA No. 7) came within striking distance of Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1) before the Sabalenka forehand sent the former French champ back to Poland with a bagel in the final set.

On the men’s side, it ultimately came down to form over fitness as Jannik Sinner (WTA No. 1) ended Novak Djokovic’s dream of a 25th Grand Slam just a couple of weeks after he won his 100th title at the Gonet Geneva Open. Djokovic ran his fingers through the clay before hinting at retirement: “…if this was the farewell match of the Roland Garros for me in my career, it was a wonderful one in terms of the atmosphere and what I got from the crowd,” he said. “Do I wish to play more? Yes, I do. But will I be able to play in 12 months’ time here again? I don’t know.” Meanwhile, Lorenzo Musetti (ATP No. 7) gave Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 2) a close call before retiring — and kicking a ball into a line judge— yet avoided the uneven code violation calling from the chairs. So on Saturday the women’s No. 1 will play the women’s No. 2 and Sunday’s men’s final features the same set up — making it the first time both championship matches will be decided between the world’s Top 2 players since the 2013 US Open when Serena Williams defeated Victoria Azarenka and Rafael Nadal bested Djokovic.

Playing his first Grand Slam tournament since serving a three-month anti-doping suspension, Sinner roared into his first Roland Garros final, becoming the man to conquer the 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic four times in a row. In order to get there, however, he finished off surprise quarterfinalist Alexander Bublik in three. “I almost got him guys,” said an unusually chipper Bublik, (ATP No. 62), who bested two top-10 players en route to his first Grand Slam quarter-final. “I made good money this week and booked a flight to America. Boobie needs a vacation.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

Back to Boisson…

While it’s now the British Raducanu’s turn to skip the qualifiers for grass season wildcards in England, Boisson’s French feat may not clear her for entry into Wimbledon and her plans remain undetermined. For the officials of the most noted grass Grand Slam, rules are rules: the cut-off point for Wimbledon direct entry passed a month ago, and in May, Boisson was a long, long, long way from entry even into the All-England Club qualifiers. Now, she may have a shot at those.

Boisson was supposed to make her Grand Slam debut at the 2024 Roland Garros. But the power baseliner tore a knee ligament just a few weeks before its start and wound up out of the game for nine months following ACL and meniscus surgery. But that’s nothing new for a Grinder on the tour. Veterans of the ITF hardly say die when chasing the dream — in 2024 there wasn’t a week from January 2 to December 25 in which there was not an ITF Women’s tournament. Providing a “professional pathway” between the ITF Junior World Tennis Tour and the WTA Tour, the ITF offers approximately 500 tournaments across 65 countries per year — Boisson has played many Futures, but went into the French tying an Open Era record of playing the fewest WTA tour-level matches (two) before reaching a Grand Slam semifinal. She is also the first wildcard to reach the women’s semifinals at Roland Garros.

After watching week-by-week-by-week beating of the Futures, through which up-and-comers travel to cities only known to locals and UN employees, to compete for anywhere from 15 to 100 points and a total prize purse ranging from $15,000 to $100,000 split a dozen ways, it’s no surprise that Boisson suffered injury before eminence. “The research shows that playing more than three to four events in one block isn’t good for you," said ITF physiotherapist Nicky Dunn. Despite the cautionary tales — and some age restriction limits — there are some athletes who play five or six weeks in a row to tally more rankings points and qualify for higher-paid events.“They don’t identify the symptoms they’re having, like aching or poor performance or not sleeping well due to the fact they need a break from tennis,” Dunn said.

However, money remains one of the main sticking points for everyone on the ITF Tour. Tennis may seem like an elitist, lucrative sport, especially when you consider it dishes out around $280 million in prize money each year. But according to the ITF, 60 percent of that figure goes to the top one percent of men and women on the ATP and WTA tours. For the average professional tennis player it’s feast or famine — unless he or she is sponsored, and that may only cover the costs of equipment, maybe some travel and lodging.

The daughter of basketball player Yann Boisson, who played in France in the 1980s, Lois Boisson didn’t step on a tennis court at TC Nice Giordan until age eight — a bit late for an aspiring tennis champion. Still, Boisson, who made more money ascending to the semis at Roland Garros than at all of her previous tournaments combined, is now in the running for more money — and more opportunity — than she has ever had in her career. “I don't think it's a miracle,” Boisson said. “For sure, I have a little bit of luck also, but I think it's just the hard work that I put since I started playing tennis and also last year with my rehab and everything. It's the result of hard work. Nothing else.”

After her surgeries, Boisson posted about her rollercoaster month on Instagram: “I was going to play the tournaments that I have dreamed of since I started playing tennis. In the space of a week I went from ‘collapsed’ to the ground, the joy of winning my first WTA title, to ‘collapsed’ to the ground because my knee gave out and the pain was immense. The shock is violent, I didn’t imagined the rest of the season this way…But this is the path that life has decided to give me, now it’s time for discipline to get back to the top !”

Things Rally Relished at Roland Garros: The “dance-offs” between Novak “@djokernole” Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka. Also French player Gael Monfils’ moves on court.

Things About Which Rally Has Been Ruminating Since Roland Garros: Former star player, Jennifer Capriati’s re-emergence on the Twitter feed. This week’s commentary: “Bublik doing the same to Draper as what Draper did to Fonseca. so many drop shots where draper has been caught dead in his tracks and not run but not once have I heard the commentators say he is not trying like they said for Fonseca. They were picking on him (sic).” Will she pull an Agassi return soon? Gen-Xers are hoping!

Arthur Ashe may still be the most well-known African-American player and Civil Rights activist for crashing the Apartheid-sponsored South African Open in the early 1970s. Still, nothing — neither Ashe’s press conferences, nor his grandstanding — did more for French or African tennis than Ashe’s spotting of a 10-year-old Yannick Noah whacking tennis balls with a homemade racquet against the wall at the Tennis Club de Yaoundé Cameroon. Ashe, on yet another U.S. State-Department supported whistle-stop tour of sub-Saharan African, offered a to have a hit with “our next Great Black Hope” and then phoned Philippe Chartrier, president of the Fédération Française de Tennis, to notify him of “a colonial subject” who could play. “First he serves right down the middle past me. Then he whaps one clean into the open court,” Ashe said in a 1980 Sports Illustrated article. “Here was this little chocolate-colored person knocking the absolute hell out of the ball. I say to myself, what is this?”

Even though Noah, the son of a Cameroonian footballer, was born in France and brought back to Cameroon at a young age, Ashe ensured Noah had passage back for a spot at the Académie Française de Tennis in Nice. Noah went on to win the French Open in 1983 — still the last French man to do so — and later became captain of both France's Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup teams after capturing 23 singles titles. And although Noah never publicly recognized the Cameroonian Tennis Federation (“They want me to say they helped me,” he said. “It is too late. I have no responsibility to a race or to a country. Just to my family.”), one contemporary of his believed from the end of his career to his dying day this past week that Cameroon (and Africa) was the future of tennis.

Joseph Oyebog Sr., who died on Tuesday due to complications from pancreatitis, was a son of relative African privilege exposed to tennis at a young age, who carved out a successful career after moving to the United States in 1994 to coach at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (now IMG Academy). After five years working with players such as the Williams’ sisters and brushing shoulders with the likes of Andre Agassi and Jim Courier, Oyebog collected used balls, fixed broken tennis racquets and scraped together unused court time at exclusive clubs in Yaoundé to establish the Oyebog Tennis Academy (OTA). “This all began from my personal story,” Oyebog told the USTA for an article in 2024 “Most of my friends weren’t allowed to play tennis growing up, and I wanted to expose underprivileged kids to tennis and help change their lives.”

With consistent fundraising, Oyebog purchased land in 2011 and built nine hard courts, six clay courts, dorms, a healthcare facility and a school in nearby Souza, elevating the academy to international standing. Since its humble beginnings, however, with a hitting wall and dirt court, OTA has sent more than 20 players to the U.S. on college scholarships and even helped launch the tennis careers of his own children, Joseph, Jr., who trains at his father’s alma mater, the IMG Academy in Florida, and Lucy. “When we started, it was a place where boys and girls could play, forget about war, malaria and just wanted a playground for something fun,” Oyebog said. “Of course I prayed we could do it as long as we could, but I did not expect 25 years. It has had a ripple effect where kids are giving better lives to their families, and that’s where our biggest accomplishment lies,”

French Open Second Round

The dirt season finishes over the next two weeks with Back the Brits being loudly heard over Ally with the Americans and possibly (again) Forget the French? Jack Draper (ATP No. 5), Jacob Fearnley (ATP No. 55) and Cam Norrie (ATP No. 81) continue their Tale of Two Surfaces battle by advancing into the second rounds with defeats over qualifiers, as well as Norrie’s five-set assault on Daniil Medvedev (ATP No. 11). But while Norrie got a break in a second round match against an unknown Argentinian to advance to the third — possibly his best record in a year — the Roland Garros draw put Fearnley and Draper against two popular veteran Frenchmen, Ugo Humbert (ATP No. 21) and crowd-pleaser Gael Monfils, (ATP No. 42), respectively. And the 38-year-old rubber band man showed no signs of disappointing on his home turf, despite his four-set, hard-fought loss, even if his 23-year-old adversary ran a lesser risk of pulling… something.

Top American Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 4) went out in the first round, while hard-court contemporaries, Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 16), Sebastian Korda (ATP No. 24), Ben Shelton (ATP No. 13) (with a walkover) and Tommy Paul (ATP No. 12) in a five setter weren’t out to make allies with anyone in Europe. Jannik Sinner (ATP No. 1) re-asserted his dominance and ended fellow 38-year-old Frenchman Richard Gasquet’s playing career, after his reputation as the “fifth greatest single-hander (backhand) of the Open era,” had long faded.

On the women’s side, all the Brits were done before anyone could cry out to “back ‘em.” The biggest disappointment (or greatest joy, depending on nationality) came when resurgent former golden child Emma Raducanu was demolished by Iga Swiatek, 6-1, 6-2, in the second round, as the Polish player looked to find her mojo again after sliding from the WTA’s Top 3 slots for the first time in like… forever. Katie Boulter remained stoic, yet unable to prove that she could win much outside her own island nation with a 6-1, 6-3 loss to an older and wiser Madison Keys (WTA No. 8). Lastly, underdog favourite, Sonay Kartal (WTA No. 56) went out in round two to Czech qualifier.

For the French, the first round proved another Waterloo, with captain of French hearts, Caroline Garcia (WTA No. 144) losing in straight sets (it was her last French Open) to American Bernard Pera, 6-4, 6-4, just a few days after announcing her retirement from tennis. Diane Parry (WTA No. 93), now the top French player, couldn’t advance either, losing to an American unknown. By the second round, only French Challenger dwellers Elsa Jacquemot (WTA No. 138) and Lois Boisson (WTA No. 361) gave “'les grenouilles” some hope by notching impressive wins over American Alycia Parks (WTA No. 52) and Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina (WTA No. 113). In addition to Keys, Americans Sofia Kenin (WTA No. 30), Coco Gauff (WTA No. 2) Hailey Baptiste (WTA No. 70) and Jessica Pegula (WTA No. 3) advanced.

Back to the Late Oyebog’s Legacy

While it’s hard to determine how or why Oyebog developed severe pancreatitis, a last-ditch effort was made to fly the beloved coach out of Cameroon and to the United States for medical care as late as Monday night. Friends also set up a GoFundMe initially o raise money for Oyebog’s evacuation to a major healthcare facility in Connecticut, which his wife of nearly 20 years and his four children call home. The page remains, only this time to fund funeral costs, to support his four children and help sustain the academy. So far, it has raised nearly $72,000 in a matter of just a few days.

Currently, hopes rest on his son, Joesph Junior, one of the top-ranked African juniors in the world and a rising star in the U.S. who, before moving to Florida, commuted three hours per day from Fairfield, Connecticut to train at he John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall’s Island in the City. Like so many before him, however, Junior learned to play at the famous hitting wall his father set up for him in Bonaberi.

“I was part of the academy back home but wasn’t great there. The other kids were better than me so I’d go home and cry,” Junior has said. “But that’s honestly what kept me going. I wanted to be as good as them or better.

“Having (my dad) understand the journey of what it’s like and what it takes, is refreshing. As long as you give 100 percent and keep fighting and digging, he’s happy. Results may not come now, but they’re going to show up sooner or later,” Junior said. “Not every day does someone get to have a dad that’s supportive and helps you follow your passion. I wouldn’t exchange it for anything.”

For the 25th anniversary celebration of the Oyebog Academy in February 2024, the big man decided to leave a larger-than-life impression. He gathered nearly 1,500 students on the courts of his academy and set the Guinness World Record for the largest tennis lesson of all time, nearly doubling the previous record. Before the lesson, he honored tennis legend and longtime friend and supporter, Yannick Noah.

“This clinic not only will help bring attention to the program but help step up tennis in Africa,” Oyebog said. “Some of the greatest tennis ambassadors of tennis have completely forgotten about Africa, so we did this to show them we’re here and need their support to continue to grow.”

In the summer of 2020, everyone was struggling, but the professional tennis players on tour — whether ATP/WTA Professional/Challengers or the ITF Futures (the minor leagues of tennis) — were in deep. Their events were cancelled; courts at clubs and even in public parks were closed; and travel without a $80 Covid test and heightened restrictions proved nearly impossible. But in the middle of the summer, amid a cancelled Wimbledon (for the first time since World War II), a delayed French Open and before a strange and empty U.S. Open, was one shining little light: World Team Tennis.

Then headed by Carlos Silva, a veteran of the sports industry, World Team Tennis managed to engineer a closed, Covid-friendly, fun and relaxing two weeks at The Greenbrier, a five-star resort and country club set among West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains. Among the players who signed up — a who’s who of current Top-20 fixtures, including Taylor Fritz, Brandon Nakashima, Jessica Pegula, Tommy Paul, Sofia Kenin and Danielle Collins, as well as veterans Venus Williams, Bethany Mattek-Sands, the Bryan Brothers and Kim Clijsters (trying her third comeback) — was a friendly Haitian-American 17-year-old girl named Hailey Baptiste.

Baptiste, whose long, wavy black hair, when down from her classic head-band, frames her wide face, large brown eyes and huge smile, had been invited as part of World Team Tennis’ development program for aspiring pros. Baptiste was on the roster of the New York Empire, but was only there to sub for any player injured or otherwise unable to play, same as Ulises Blanch, another teenage prodigy who warmed the bench for the same team the year before. But Baptiste, a one-time product of the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation who had come with her father, knew that the WTT was a means to achieve a dream, and not the dream itself. Still, she didn’t mind the falconing, horseback riding, golf, bowling, biking, skeet-shooting or other activities available to the players in their off-court hours, nor did she shy away from hanging with her comrades in a collegial atmosphere.

Cramming a month’s worth of tennis that usually takes players across about five U.S. cities into a week of stadium play was no easy feat, but the players committed and even enjoyed themselves, commenting regularly on the hospitality and fun away from the stress of the tour or worrying about when they could return to the tour (except for Danielle Collins, who took a side sojourn to visit old mates at the University of Virginia). Baptiste, however, took notes, and as soon as she was able, hit the Futures, working her way through the Challenger circuit and then settled in every tennis pundit’s third eye until her 2025 breakthrough, when she started rising and rising trough qualifers and into the second round of Indian Wells, to the third round of Miami (losing to Naomi Osaka (WTA No. 48) ), and just this past week in Italy, where she cruised through qualifiers (again) and then to the third round where she took Elina Svitolina (WTA No. 14) to three sets before exiting and heading straight to France for a Roland-Garros warm-up.

“It’s pretty crazy playing the same tournaments as all of them (the players she knew as a youngster). To see what they’re doing now is really cool, and it's motivating for me because I know I can do it, too,” Baptiste, now 23, told a USTA newsletter. Her pal, Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 16) has been a bit more bold in his expectations of Baptiste: “Remember my little sis name, she finna be a problem,” he wrote on social media in 2019 about her. “They’re from my area in the DMV, and there’s nothing I pride more than D.C., Maryland, and Virginia… I always want to see (Hailey) win.”

And Now to the Eternal City: Rome Open Update…

This week near the Vatican City, Sinners came for redemption, and prayers were uttered all over the Foro Italico, while the commentators fell over themselves lauding the stadium that Mussolini built to land the 1940 fascist Olympic games (hey, I think it’s fascinating, too — that stadium once called the Foro Mussolini…). During ATP No. 1 Jannik Sinner’s first tournament back, the player was more lean and buoyant than ever, visiting the new Augustinian Pope Leo XIV, gifting him a new Head tennis racquet and appearing perfectly saintly in a photo op. In the afternoons, however, he was back slinging dirt at anyone who had the misfortune to catch him on their way to the final, with the Northern Italian not dropping a set until Friday night’s semi-final match against American Tommy Paul (ATP No. 12) in a lopsided 1-6, 6-0, 6-3 defeat. The night before, Casper Ruud (ATP No. 7) was practically begging for mercy during his bagel-breadstick quarter-final loss. “It doesn't feel so bad,” Ruud said in the presser after the match. “Honestly, I think it was more fun than anything, even though I lost 0,1. You just look at the guy and say: ‘Wow, this is kind of next level shit.’”

Speaking of the heavens, all of the holy water in Rome couldn’t save Baptiste (WTA No. 90) from her exit, as one way or another she would face the equally effervescent Italian Jasmine Paolini (WTA No. 5). But now it’s up to Coco Gauff (WTA No. 3) from American Southern Baptist land to steel her nerves against the hometown favourite. Will Paolini’s fans play nice and not throw Cacio e pepe at her, despite that horrible blasphemy she uttered against carbonara following her quarterfinal win? Let’s hope not, as Gauff has gotten through on a wing and a prayer with tiebreak squeakers against new fan fav Mirra Andreeva (WTA No. 7) and then one in a semifinal third set dogfight with the apostle of stoicism Qinwen Zheng (WTA No. 8). With both players soaring in popularity, it’s a choice only Christ himself could make.

Back to Baptiste…

After Baptiste made her WTA Tour main-draw debut at the 2019 Citi Open in DC by notching a win over U.S. Open finalist, Australian Open champion and much-loved tour vet, Madison Keys, she disclosed in a television interview that she had been attending the tournament for years — through the back door, sans ticket. “I knew some of the people who used to work here,” she said, “so they’d let me in…”

The D.C. native, and daughter of Haitian-Americans, Shari and Quasim Baptiste, grew up just five minutes away from the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center and Hailey began playing tennis at age four through the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation. Like the Kings County Tennis League in Brooklyn, New York, the WTEF provides tennis instruction, academic programs and wellness courses to the children of hardworking parents who may not be able to afford the expense of a tennis prodigy. Baptiste stood out immediately, however and moved over to training at the William Fitzgerald Tennis Center at Rock Creek Park. Baptiste outgrew that quickly and the family of modest income had to made a decision: keep their daughter on the least expensive road or bring her to the USTA’s regional training Junior Tennis Champions Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, — “the Harvard of programs,” according to mother Shari, “but how could we… afford to have her there?”

The family tightened its racquet strings and sent her to the lower-level program for beginners at age seven. Within 18 months, the JTCC invited Baptiste to the full-time program where she quickly befriended Tiafoe, the child of Sierra Leonean immigrants who literally grew up at the center where his dad served as head of maintenance. “The adjustment from regular school to the college-like atmosphere at JTCC was hard for Hailey,” said Shari Baptiste in a Go Fund Me page from 2017, when the family needed money for the increasing number of tournaments the youngster needed to play. “She struggled to keep up in the classroom and with fitting in with the other student-athletes. Most of the kids that play tennis on this level are wealthy, this is not our family.”

Once Baptiste decided to forego college and aim for the pros in 2016, however, the family asked for quick cash as the young Baptiste recognized that she performed her best when she and her parents travelled as a team. “We thought that she would be ok traveling with the coaches but she's accustomed to us all being together so thats what’s comfortable for her,” Shari explained on the site. “Hailey’s dream is to turn pro at 16, and we know that she can do it. Once you have seen her play & witness the dedication & commitment she exudes, there’s no way I would't do all that I can to help her reach her goal.

“Hailey is an amazing tennis player but more importantly, shes an amazing person. She shows poise & integrity on & off of the court and has the most fun-loving personality… It's so exciting to watch her on this journey, please help us in fulfilling her destiny.”

So far, the plan is working out, and although the Go Fund Me only raised about $6,700 for the teenager, she gained endorsements from Nike and Wilson as well as Morgan Stanley, Rolex, and Gillette Venus. But not even Leo can keep up with the adulation of Tiafoe. “Lil sis hit the big naaasssstyyy 😂😂 Big dub proud of you @hailrybaptiste,” he wrote after her third round run at Miami. “No lies told, sis. Proud of you, young queen ✊🏿✊🏿@haileybaptiste.”

Likes of the Week:

If the Pope forgives the Sinner, then can’t we all. And btw, how the hell did the Vatican get the Davis Cup trophy from wherever Italy, which remains the reigning champion, keeps it to the halls of another inner sanctum.

Serious Peeves of the Week:

Hating on Ons Jabeur, the Minister of Happiness in Tunisia, one of the kindest players on tour and an advocate for the UN on behalf of the children of Gaza. The WTA and the ATP supposedly pay millions of dollars to protect their players from online hate speech, and yet it still makes its way through the socials. Yalla, Ons, keep going.

With features such as the “Rankings Roundup” on the revamped WTA website, let’s just go back to the old logo and everything else. No player needs to have their drop in rankings highlighted for the world to have a gawk. And that it’s Mayar Sherif, another Arab and North African player who is also climbing steadily, ala Ons, after finishing a fantastic college run in America, which makes this even more shameful.

The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay by Christopher Clarey: John Murray (15 May 2025), 368 pages

Does the world really need another book about Rafael Nadal, I thought to myself as I saw that The Master tennis writer Christopher Clarey, formerly of the New York Times, would be releasing his second book about number two of the big three: The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay just three years from writing his pièce de résistance about Roger Federer. A recent count on Amazon.com pulled up no fewer than a dozen biographies of Nadal, including a ghostwritten biography, children’s books, Japanese anime, and advice tomes on how to play like the man himself (turn those water bottles in a certain direction, or maybe adjust the Nike shorts a certain way?) Yet, Clarey’s is pitched as “an intimate, original biography… the first to cover his entire career.” Fair play… now that the career is over.

But Clarey is one of the tennis world’s Prince ball cannons, and if anyone knows anything about the trade publishing world, he likely has a multi-volume book deal to fulfil. Kudos to “one of the world's pre-eminent tennis writers,” however, after his parent New York Times merged with The Athletic and essentially eliminated the Times’ entire sports department. Clarey, unfortunately, hit that ball too soon and resigned before the takeover — an unforeseen choke. Yet, he nonetheless fought back and emerged on top doing his best Delpo. So who else but Clarey can note that when the ambidextrous young Nadal — who was actually taught by the legendary Uncle Tony to play with his left hand to give him an advantage — arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for men's singles titles at the French Open stood at six. In 20 years, Nadal has notched fourteen titles on that bull-logo-ed Nike bandana of his, evidently one of the greatest sporting achievements in history. Clarey, ever the gentleman tennis writer who actually leaves the press conference room where inane questions fly like overhit forehands, has covered Nadal since he was age 17 and uses source material that stretches back 20 years, including clipped and raised-eyebrow interviews with the red-dirt man himself, as well as with Uncle Tony and his rivals (Federer, Djokovic and some of those other guys on tour…). Is it really that groundbreaking? Not to tennis followers — Nadal might be a bit tired of the overexposure himself. Is it a fast, fun and quick read as clay season pile drives into our television sets, however. Most definitely. Does it provide insight into the reasons every tennis coach everywhere wants to now teach that wrist-destroying, whipping Nadal forehand? No. Maybe in the paperback edition. And what is next for Clarey? The Conquerer: Djokovic and His Fiefdom of Fitness? Title up for grabs.

And Now to the Kissing City: Madrid Open Update…

Will villa y corte (Town and Court), aka Madrid, ever live down that cheek-grabbing women’s football kiss seen round the world? The one in which former president of the Spanish soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, took forward Jenni Hermoso, a lesbian, by the head and planted a big one on her lips against her will during the 2023 Women’s World Cup championship awards ceremony? What about his crotch-grabbing while standing near Spain's Queen Letizia and Princess Sofia after the semi-final? Not to mention, hmmm, 2023 Madrid birthday cake-gate, during which Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka received different tiers of birthday cakes? Or the midriff ball-girl uniforms? And the court-speech dis of Victoria Azarenka and her doubles partner, Beatriz Haddad-Maia, after the pair defeated Americans Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula in the same year’s doubles final? “I don’t know what century everyone was living in when they made that decision,” the refreshingly straight-talking Pegula said during her presser. “To be honest, it kind of spoke for itself….”

So far, so good for 2025, aside from a few logo mishaps and some massive and unexpected thrashings. The little holiday that Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 2) took earlier in the Spring didn’t really help much, as in Friday afternoon when the women’s top player received a 6-1, 6-1 thrashing from the steely, young Coco Gauff (WTA No. 3). On Saturday afternoon, Gauff, once just a really good 15-year-old prospect, will test her mettle against who else but Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1)? However, stateswomen, Ukrainian survivor and veteran mother-on-tour, Elina Svitolina (WTA No. 17), came within 13 points of defeating Sabalenka, 6-3, 7-5.

With Jannik Sinner conveniently out of the way for a few more weeks, British No. 1 and the toast of England, Jack Draper (ATP No. 6), continues tearing up the acrylic and clay courts with a win over Italian No. 1, Lorenzo Musetti (ATP No. 11). After securing that win, Draper became the first English man to reach the Madrid Open final — and he celebrated with a full-throttle yell and several fist pumps (exuberance for an English citizen). On the other end of the final on Sunday, Draper faces Casper Ruud (ATP No. 15) who has been, thus far, doing “a slow, dumb show” for fans and sliding down the rankings. The bookies likely have Draper at incredible odds, but nice guy, heartthrob Rudd could still Norwegian in there and take the title.

Back to the Early Summer Reads

The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis: Liesl Herbst’s Journey, from Vienna to Wimbledon

By Felice Hardy, Ad Lib Publishers Ltd., (3 July 2023),‎ paperback, 286 pages.

Talk about loving tennis — and tennis loving one back. Publishers and agents hate it when writers do niche books that won’t necessarily sell, but this meticulously researched gem of a book somehow flew under the radar in 2023, likely because these are love, not lucrative, projects. They receive practically zero marketing budgets. Nonetheless, author Felice Hardy’s love letter to her mother and grandmother makes no mention of GOATs (just some other farm animals), but gives readers a moving an account of her grandmother, Liesl Herbst’s, celebrity rise to Austrian National Tennis Champion in 1930, at the age of twenty-seven. However, when those damn Nazis arrived, Liesl, her husband David and their daughter Dorli settled in England following a terrifying escape from Vienna in 1939 that involved smuggler boats and an 18-mile crawl through the snowy mountains to Warsaw. In London, though initially stripped of their Austrian passports and rendered stateless, both Liesl and her daughter, Dorli, resumed tennis. and competed at Wimbledon — the only mother and daughter ever to have played doubles together at the famed club. Liesl’s grand-daughter (Dorli’s daughter), Hardy, tells the story, making it as much a search for her own identity, as for her own children and grandchildren to ensure that their remarkable family history is never lost again.

Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy

By Michael Kosta, Harper Influence (11 March 2025), hardcover, 304 pages.

Which tennis lover hasn’t seen the Daily Show’s Michael Kosta’s hilarious piece on the turf wars between tennis and pickleball, in which Kosta recruits former pro and sports commentator, Patrick McEnroe, to pundit an epic pickleball showdown between Kosta and Ronny Chieng and The Pickleball Twins? You’re welcome. Reminding everyone in the episode, that Kosta was once a professional tennis "star," the lofty heights of the ATP as the No. 864 ranked men's singles player in the world (and that it’s better than your world ranking) — in Lucky Loser, he tells the true tales of life as a jobbing tennis pro, travelling across the globe, competing in such exotic locales as the backwaters of the Netherlands, Tokyo, and even rural Illinois. He teaches tennis lessons such as how to properly discard an unwanted European hard-boiled egg, giving CPR to your dead grandpa, cringe-worthy "sex" in the Red Light District, crying so hard in a car that strangers call the cops. But there is happy stuff in there, as well, such as that warm fuzzy when dreams come true — and how, unlike in comedy, no one in tennis puts a gun on the table as they count out your earnings in twenty-dollar bills at the end of the night.

Ace, Marvel, Spy: A (Historical) Novel of Alice Marble

By Jenni L Walsh, Harper Muse (13 February 2025), paperback, 336 pages.

(Reminder: this is a novel.)At the tender age of 17, Alice Marble had no formal tennis skills, but wicked strength that could likely compare to Aryna Sabalenka in today’s game. She also had Coco Gauff’s willingness to take that extra stroke to prove herself. With steadfast determination, Marble toured the world, impressing the tennis club dons and doyennes to eventually become one of the top-ranked players in the world. With the outbreak of war with Germany, however, Marble’s tennis career and life come to a screeching halt, and as she seeks to understand her new place in the world order, a telegram arrives from overseas with heartbreaking news. Then another one from the U.S. Army lands on her doorstep: under the guise of playing in international tennis exhibition games in neutral Switzerland, send back information. In other words, become a spy for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the U.S. precursor of the CIA, except Marble agrees to a challenge far more difficult than anything she ever faced on court. Author Walsh worked for a decade as an award-winning advertising copywriter before becoming an author with a passion for transporting readers to another world and time.

The Racket: On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation — and the other 99%

By Conor Niland (Winner of the 2024 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award), Sandycove (6 Jun. 2024), hardcover, 320 pages.

Brits may like this supposedly darkly comic tome by Niland, now a well-known and regarded coach in the UK and Ireland, but Americans may pick up on notes of sour grapes. For sure, however, Niland knows his “Ciaos, bonjours and hellos when the greats of the ATP walk into the locker room,” and he has had the “exquisitely terrible” experience of suffering food poisoning on the court’s biggest stage facing down Novak Djokovic. But mostly, The Racket tells the tales of the ITF Future and ATP Challenger circuits where pro tennis’s pinch hitters roam the globe week-in and week-out, trying to get their numbers up in hope of making it to the bigger dances. The Racket also covers the widening gap between a few dozen super-rich players — travelling with coaches and physios — and the lonely touring pros whose earnings hardly cover their expenses. With word strokes and flourishes that paint a vivid picture of the social dynamics on tour, the economics of the game, and the growing underworld of gambling and doping, The Racket at least gives interested parties a unique look into the minor leagues of tennis. Did someone also mention it won the 2024 winner of sports gambling parlor, William Hill’s Book of the Year Award?

The Tennis Court: A Journey to Discover the World’s Greatest Tennis Courts

By Nick Pachell, Artisan (12 Sept. 2024), hardcover, 336 pages.

Who likes to see pretty tennis courts? Most people. Who likes to geek out on them? Serious players. Every one of the world's half a million tennis courts is an identical blank canvas: a 78-foot by 36-foot rectangle, divided by a 3-foot-high net in its centre, and marked with eleven straight lines. But depending on how or where it is installed, in addition to the accoutrements surrounding it (quirky statues, signs, trophy cases and all matter of magpie treasures like vintage racquets), a tennis court becomes a unique work of art. And some are masterpieces. Player and photographer Pachelli has shot thousands of these places, profiling 200 of the world's most beautiful, iconic, significant, alluring, and idiosyncratic tennis courts from across the globe (most according to the standards of the well-heeled), including Wimbledon's All England Lawn Tennis Club, Arthur Ashe, and Court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland-Garros, but also the Waiheke Tennis Club in New Zealand — only accessible by plane, ferries and automobiles — and the Tennis Club de Belgique, with its skylights illuminating the court and leaving the spectators in the shadows.

Courtship: For the Love of Tennis Hardcover

By Laura Bailey (Author), Mark Arrigo (Author), Rizzoli International Publications, hardcover (15 April 2025), 240 pages

Yet another photographic ode to the most beloved of racquet sports — for a tennis fan one is never enough. And the quest for a court and a game on the road is eternal. Bailey and Arrigo have documented a range of tennis courts, from iconic European showcourts to hidden gems in city and country settings, capturing the spirit and locale of each court and club in evocative photographs shot exclusively for this book, from the chic of the Riviera to the inner-city brutalist Barbican. While Bailey contributes an essay that depicts her life on the court, expressing the joy and the moments of enlightenment she has experienced through tennis, Arrigo helps along with the photographs a selection of quotes and short stories from heroes of the game, as well as curated photographs evoking the legends and lore of this most stylish of sports.

It was the thud heard round the world as the 163-page document hit the docket on March 18 in the United States District Court in Southern New York against the four main bodies of tennis, followed by a back-spin drop shot two days later, which prevents those associations from speaking to any players they represent.

As the Miami Open carries on in Florida, the real action concerning the future of tennis is taking place in Manhattan where the Professional Tennis Players' Association (PTPA) — a players “union” led by Novak Djokavic and Vasek Pospisil — filed a rather large motion asserting that the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Association (ITIA), alleging that all four groups ran a “rigged game,” which grants its players “limited control over their own careers and brands.” The lawsuit also criticises the schedule, ranking systems and control over image rights. The gut serve came on Friday, when the PTPA sought an additional court order to prevent the ATP from engaging in "improper, coercive or threatening communications" with players, alleging that the ATP has tried to force players into signing statements saying they had no prior knowledge of the PTPA’s legal action.

The main lawsuit cites “anti-competitive practices and a blatant disregard for player welfare” — among other matters — while the PTPA’s follow asked Judge Margaret Garnett to issue an order which prevents representative of all four defendant groups from communicating with players about their involvement in the process. The motion also accuses the ATP of taking action to reduce prize money and pension contributions to offset the legal fees it will rack up from fighting the case — the PTPA called it “flagrant interference” on the court’s jurisdiction.

News from the Miami Open

It’s been the tournament of Americans and upstarts in Miami, as upstart Hailey Baptiste (WTA No. 98) nearly took out three-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka (WTA No 61) in three sets in the third round — the young Haitian-American’s best major tournament result to date. American Amanda Anisimova (WTA No. 17) ruined Mirra Andreeva’s (WTA No. 6) chance at winning the “sunshine slam” in three sets; Jessica Pegula (WTA No. 4) prevailed over Anna Kalinskaya (WTA No. 33); and Danielle Collins (WTA No. 15) put off retirement for another week by beating Swiss player Rebeka Masarova (WTA No. 168), who also had the best run of her career, in three sets. Italian Jasmine Paolini (WTA No. 7) helped an injured Ons Jabeur (WTA No. 30) off the court after the Tunisian pulled her calf — “The evil eye haunts Jabeur: she abandons in Miami after getting injured against Paolini” was one headline — and in a surprise turn of events the other Polish player, Magda Linette (WTA No. 34) advanced into the Round of 16 along with Brit Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 60).

But on Monday, all the Americans, including Coco Gauff (WTA No. 3), fell except Jessica Pegula, who will play Raducanu today. Filipino qualifier Alexandra Maniego Eala (WTA No. 339) has been playing the tennis of her life, notching easy wins over Jelena Ostapenko (WTA No. 35) and Madison Keys (WTA No. 5), but today faces the punishing spin of Iga Świątek (WTA No. 2). The other Pol in the quarterfinals (yes, I said that correctly) Linette is up against Paolini, and lastly, Aryna Sabalenka (WTA No. 1) will be exchanging a frosty handshake — win or lose — with Qinwin Zheng (WTA No. 9).

On the men’s side, Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 4) led a small field of Americans into the fourth round, which include Brandon Nakishima (ATP No. 32) and surprisingly, Seb Korda (ATP No. 25), as hoepfuls Francis Tiafoe (ATP No. 17) and Reilly Opelka (ATP No. 114), who is still mounting a comeback after nearly two years off the tour, ended their rund in the third round. Meanwhile, with Jannik Sinner still out of the running until the Italian Open in May, Australian Alex de Minaur (ATP No. 11) continued his steady climb toward the top by besting new kid in town, Joao Fonseca (ATP No. 60). Frenchman Gael Monfils (ATP No. 46) is still going strong and headed into the Round of 16 against Korda, while there is no English man left standing with both Jack Draper (ATP No. 7) — the Indian Wells champion — and Jacob Fearnley (ATP No. 83) taking a beating from Alexander Zverev (ATP No. 2).

Back to the lawsuit…

The Djokovic-endorsed class-action lawsuit — a legal proceeding where one or more individuals sue a defendant on behalf of a larger group (the “class”) who have suffered similar harm — so far names 12 players: “established superstars, journeymen, and relative newcomers from around the world.” The most conspicuous name missing on the actual complaint, however, is Djokovic, who has said through PTPA Executive Director Ahmad Nassar, that he has chosen to put the focus on the players instead of him. The PTPA filed similar lawsuits in the UK and the EU to end what it considers the “unchecked authority of the sport's governing bodies”

"Tennis is broken," Nassar told the BBC in October, while hinting that the PTPA would not shy away from taking their demands from tournaments to a higher court. “Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardises their health and safety. We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts.”

Friday's motion claims that after the ATP learned of the lawsuit, personnel initiated a series of meetings and conversations at the Miami Open. It asserted “the ATP officials have threatened players with adverse consequences for participating in this action.” The PPTA say an expedited decision — to prevent defendants communicating with players — is necessary so players can make "informed decisions about their participation in this case, and fully and freely pursue their legal rights without undue influence by the same parties who control their pay cheques…”

In summary, the PTPA lawsuit accused the WTA, ATP, ITF and ITIA of the following:

Collusion to Reduce Competition, saying all associations have entered into agreements and arrangements to suppress competition between and among tournaments that could provide players with increased earning opportunities.

Fixing Prize Money and Suppressing Player Earnings, accusing all associations of colluding to cap the prize money that tournaments award and limit players’ ability to earn money off the court, rather than allowing a free market to dictate the amounts that players earn. It added that two billion people across 200 countries watched professional tennis matches last year, yet top tennis players earn 17 percent of revenues as compared to other sports, such as golf, basketball, and American football, which range between 35 and 50 percent. It cited the U.S. Open “Honey Deuce” cocktail, as an example, a Grey Goose Vodka drink that made $12.8 million for the tournament, or more than it paid to both singles champions combined.

Ranking Points Mandates, asserting that the various associations impose a draconian system of “Ranking Points” that dictate which tournaments players can compete in, how much compensation they earn, and whether they receive certain sponsorship opportunities. “The system funnels players away from any alternative events that could exist in a free market, and forces them to compete only in Defendants’ tournaments if they are to play professional tennis at all, the complaint states.

A tour video on Instagram by Jessica Failla showing the conditions at an ITF Futures tournament in Delhi India.

Forcing an Unsustainable Schedule, claiming that he professional tennis season stretches 11 months of the year, leaving little to no room for players to rest and recover. “The unsustainable schedule requires players to travel on their own dime and handle their own logistics to participate in dozens of tournaments across six continents. Spending time with family or recovering from injuries requires forfeiting opportunities to earn a living and earn coveted rankings points,” the lawsuit states, adding another reason for the lawsuit as player disregard, adding that in 2024, players were forced to compete in 100-degree heat, endure matches that ended at 3 AM, and play with different and injury-inducing tennis balls depending on the week, leading to chronic wrist, elbow, and shoulder injuries.

Exploiting Players Financially and Violating Privacy Rights, accusing the WTA, ATP and ITF of forcing players forced to sign over their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights for zero compensation, allowing governing bodies to profit from their identities while preventing them from securing certain independent sponsorships, and baselessly limiting the number of sponsors that they may have. It adds that the ITIA subjects players to invasive searches of personal devices, random middle-of-the-night drug tests, and interrogations without legal representation. “The ITIA has suspended players without due process based on flimsy or fabricated evidence. Players’ phones are confiscated and searched without consent—a gross invasion of privacy which violates the law and further demonstrates the stranglehold the Defendants have over the market.”

Another tour video on Instagram by Jessica Failla showing the accommodations at an ITF Futures tournament in Delhi, India.

So what does the PTPA want from these various associations? “… fairness, safety, and basic human dignity,” Pospisil said “I’m one of the more fortunate players and I’ve still had to sleep in my car when traveling to matches early on in my career — imagine an NFL player being told that he had to sleep in his car at an away game.”

Essentially, the players are saying that they are contract employees who have been treated poorly by their “bosses” — the WTA, the ATP, the ITF and the ITIA for years. Citing antitrust violations under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, the lawsuit demands that the monopoly — or as it has said, a “cartel of tour organizers and tournament operators” — be stopped from operating over the services of professional tennis players and that the players are properly compensated for the injuries they’ve suffered. The most likely outcome is a starting point for negotiations and a settlement favourable to players.

In the meantime, however, the ATP has accused the PTPA of “consistently chosen division and distraction through misinformation over progress” adding that it “remains committed to working in the best interests of the game.” A spokesperson added: “We are aware of the request for an additional court order being sought by the PTPA and refute its assertions. At the heart of ATP is our commitment to players. As this is now a legal matter we have no further comment to make.”

The WTA said it will defend its position and said in a statement the legal action is "both regrettable and misguided,” said the WTA. “Contesting this baseless legal case will divert time, attention, and resources from our core mission, to the detriment of our players and the sport as a whole."

The math teacher sat and watched the veteran broadcaster mesmerised. Bud Collins, still relatively early in his tennis commentating — but not new to the Boston sport scene — was hosting a television program about the Open Era on the U.S. Public Broadcasting System (PBS). She liked his enthusiasm, but most of all, she was inspired by the way the man in his blue balzer and yellow pants could paint a picture with his words.

By then an amateur photographer, Carol Newsom pulled out her cameras and started taking snaps at local tournaments. With a spot of luck and some sheer will at a World Team Tennis Boston Lobsters event, she met Billie Jean King. The photog wanted a gig; the upstart pro team tennis league needed a chronicler. Kismet. Newsom became the official photographer of the Lobsters and then the Longwood Cricket Club, one of the Brahmin City’s oldest tennis outfit.

Newsom had talent, precision, something noticed by King and her close Rosie Casals. In the days before digital cameras, Newsom would run through rolls and rolls of film, and still come through with dozens of incredible shots — the ball on the racquet, players in the air, those special interactions between competitors and friends. She began traveling the country to cover the action on and off the court in the fledgling WTA and Virginia Slims Circuit and in 1980 became the first women photographer to earn Wimbledon Centre Court press credentials in 1980.

“She broke a barrier. Now when you see a woman photographer, you don’t even think about it. She was the first one there,” says Martina Navratilova in an episode of the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s (ITHF) YouTube show Tennis Worthy. “She was a pioneer.”

On March 22, the ITHF will open a Carol Newsom retrospective Hit Me with Your Best Shot, featuring a collection drawn from Newsom’s archive, containing more than a million images, which had been gifted to the ITHF’s permanent collection by the estate of her husband, David G. Newsom. Newsom’s photos are in the process of complete digitization by the ITHF for use in the museum, educational initiatives and public access.

News from the Miami Open

American women fared well in the first round of their second home tournament of the swing, with Washington, DC, Haitian-American upstart Hailey Baptiste winning her first round in three sets, as well as Taylor Townsend, Sofia Kenin, Lauren Davis, Ashlyn Krueger and Peyton Stearns, who knocked out British No. 1 Katie Boulter. The 28-year-old had lost to Stearns (WTA No. 43) on their previous two meetings. Egyptian player Meyer Sherif, a Pepperdine University player who has struggled to match her college success on the tour, also made it to the second round in a tight three-setter. In the second round, Townsend again advanced, as did Krueger in a surprise win over Elena Rybakina, who has been travelling nonstop since January. Coco Gauff took out Kenin and Ons Jabuer squeaked out a win over Kateřina Siniaková

On the men’s side, Nick Kyrgios re-emerged for the first time since Australia winning his first-round match over American McKenzie McDonald in three sets, but Jensen Brooksby prevailed, as did a rehabbed Reilly Opelka. With Brit Jack Draper taking a break after winning the Sunshine Slam in Palm Springs last weekend, fellow countryman Jacob Fearnley prevailed while former British No. 1, Cameron Norrie exited in the first round — one in a string of early losses that has left him out of the good graces of the LTA. Tomorrow (Friday) with former ATP No. 1, Jannik Sinner still suspended for doping, the Top Ten come into action, as tennis scions Casper Ruud and Seb Korda see action, along with Tommy Paul, Lorenzo Musetti and Grigor Dmitrov, ready to dive for balls again.

Back to Newsom, the photographer

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts to an upper-middle class family, Newsom gradiated from the prestigious Girls Latin School before attending Boston University where she graduated with a degree in mathematics. She went on to a steady, yet mundane career as a high school math teacher at Milton High School, a nearby suburb of the city.

When she turned his mathematical exactitude to photography, her late 1970s ournament and Lobster photos were soon being picked up by international wire services, such as United Press International, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the Associated Press. She started to travel, documenting both the women's and men's professional tennis circuits and events around the world, and regularly attended the French Open, Wimbledon, US Open championships, and other significant tennis tournaments in England and the United States from 1980 until her death in 2003. "I believe that if I keep my eyes open, I'll find a shot. Sometimes you just feel the magic,” Newsom often told fellow photographers,

Worldwide publications, such as Sports Illustrated, Tennis Week and others also featured Newsom’s work.

“Hit Me With Your Best Shot! documents some of tennis’ most historic moments as seen through Carol’s lens.he captured the legendary rivalry between Björn Borg and John McEnroe, ‘Super Saturday’ at the 1984 US Open, Steffi Graf’s Golden Slam, the early years of the Williams sisters’ careers, and much more,” says Julianna Barbieri, an ITHF's Senior Vice President. “Carol’s passion, professionalism, and kindness served to inspire a generation of the sport’s photographers… we look forward to sharing her talent with the world."

By 1991, Newsom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but nonetheless prevailed with her work by controlling the disease with medication that affected her vision. She still managed to take some of the best photos of her career. In 2000, Newsom was diagnosed with breast cancer, yet she still continued her grueling schedule, attending tennis events across the globe. "I have two jobs — pictures and fighting [the cancer],” she told friends and colleagues at the 2002 U.S. Open. “It's a good fight.” Despite plans to attend all the majors in 2003, including the French Open, to keep on working, she succumed to breast cancer on March 13, 2003.

‘We loved Carol. Carol was so easy to be around. She was completely dedicated to the tour, to taking photographs, to getting the best photographs that she could,” said Tracy Austin. Veteran player Pam Shriver concurs. “She was one of these photographers who could kind of blend in and you wouldn’t even necessarily know she was there, which I think the best photos come when you don’t even know you’re being photographed.”

“She was one of the few photographers you were happy to see,” continues Navratilova on the ITHF 2022 Tennis Worthy. “Most of them you run away from, but with Carol it was like, ‘hey Carol, how’s it going?” All three players took pains to describe how much they relied on Newsom to tell their stories accurately in the days before the Internet and Social Media. “She loved the sport; she loved interacting with the players and she was just really good at what she did,” Navratilova says.

Below are a few more of Newsom’s best shots that will be on display at the ITHF and online beginning next week.

Daria Kasatkina was in a rush. Having reached the quarterfinals of the 2024 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo and lost to Sofia Kenin, the Russian player found herself in the midst of a logistical nightmare. She and girlfriend, former Olympic figure skater Natalia Zabiiako, had bags to pack, visas to obtain and flights to book before their next stop: Beijing for the WTA 1000 China Open. And oh, Kasatkina still needed to practice.

Nonetheless, the pair found it a perfect time to pull out a camera phone and film. “I played in Tokyo last night and it was impossible to fly in the evening,” Kasatkina explains in one of her popular editions of What the Vlog entitled, Problems In Tennis. “So I needed to fly the next day, fight at 10AM. I needed to arrive earlier, so I have time to practice because on Sunday, tomorrow, I have to play.

“Honestly, I’m fucking knackered,” continues Kasatkina. “Fuck tennis. The game of tennis itself is the simplest thing we do. Everything else is just completely fucking bullshit.”

It was not one of Kasatkina’s most cheerful videos, but the straight-talking women from the industrial city of Tolyatti, doesn’t mince words whether she is joyful or frustrated with the particulars of her pro sport. That’s possibly one of the greatest aspects of What the Vlog, as she and Zabiiako have become the free-talking, free-spirited premiere documentarians of life on the WTA tour at a time when social media posts are sliced, diced, screened and triple-vetted before they hit the Interwebs. The pair, with Zabiiako in the role of general cinematographer, upload regular vlogs featuring recaps of the sport’s biggest events, player interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage of their travels, including recent billiards games and cafe tours with the nearly equally outspoken Mirra Andreeva. “All these parts are always behind the scenes,” Kasatkina has said. “Nobody knows about it: 95 percent of the fans; they see us as tennis players on the tennis court. They don't know who we are outside of the court and how we live and what's going on, actually, behind the tennis court doors.” And although the pair generally shies away from the political situation between Russia and Ukraine, they chronicle their adventures as two free female athletes totally in love — their own middle fingers to Putin.

More on Kasatkina, who even plugged her 50,000-view strong YouTube channel during a U.S. Open interview, following a run-down of the action in Palm Springs California during the last few days of the BNP Paribas Open. In one of the biggest wins of his career, Jack Draper (ATP No. 14) reached the Indian Wells quarter-finals for the first time by sending hometown favorite Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 4) who was sent back to LA after a nail-biting match, 7-5, 6-4. Draper then followed that with a similarly scored victory over Ben Shelton (ATP No. 12). “I want to play against the best players in the world so I can show what I'm all about,” Draper said.

Meanwhile, Daniil Medvedev (ATP No. 6) had a bit of a wobble, but ultimately pulled through to overcome the inspired Frenchman Arthur Fils (ATP No. 21) to reach the semi-finals in Indian Wells once again, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(7) — victory on his third match point. “I lost a lot of tight matches this year where I could have won, should have won maybe… and the more it goes like that, the more you can lose confidence in the tight moments,” Medvedev said. Holger Rune (ATP No. 13) finally ended unseeded Dutchman’s Tallon Griekspoor’s (ATP No. 43) phenomenal run, while Carlos Alcaraz (ATP No. 3) defeated Girgor “the Diver” Dmitrov (ATP No. 15) in an uninspiriting 6-1, 6-1 match.

On the women’s side, Aryna Sabalenka (ATP No. 1) ended the very lucky loser run of English up-and-comer Sonay Kartal (ATP No. 83) with a 6-1, 6-2 victory, although Kartal should jump about 30 ranking spots next week to put her within ball-striking distance of childhood rival, Emma Raducanu (WTA No. 55). Defending champion Iga Swiatek (WTA No. 2) cruised past an unrelenting China's Zheng Qinwen (WTA No. 9) in straight sets. She will play Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva (WTA No. 11) in the semifinals. Former Olympic champion Belinda Bencic (WTA No. 58) continued her post-maternity punishings with Coco Gauff (WTA No. 3) as her most recent victim and reached the quarter-finals in three, 3-6, 6-3 ,6-4. She will face Australian Open champion Madison Keys (WTA No. 5), who beat Donna Vekic (WTA No. 22) 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3 for her 15th consecutive win since January. Imagine if Keys and coach/husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, had a child, took maternity leave and returned — bakery aisle, anyone?

While Kastakina coceded defeat in the second round of Indian Wells, shortly after, she was back in the players cafe with Vlog regular and newly emerging personality, Andreeva, doing a survey of the pasta on offer. Zabiiako, who used to video with her phone, captured the footage with her new(ish) DJI Pocket. After a practice, Andreeva shows Kasatkina the burrito bowls and the salad bar, commenting on the price of the $15 salad, but nothing compared to the Nobu sushi. “They are expensive like my kidney,” a worldly Andreeva comments, to which Kasatkina dryly replies “special price for you.” The denouement of the episode comes when Kasatkina, like a seasoned pundit, asks Andreeva how she spent her days after winning Dubai. “I had three days off and then one day of fitness, but (Andreeva points to her mother) she just lie by the pool with her doggy while I do…” she mimics pull ups. Kasatkina then soaks up the mock admiration of Andreeva who eventually compares her brown eyes to a tree, and then her entire physique to a “flexible” tree.

If this sounds like standard naval gazing, it’s not. It’s fairly revolutionary. Women’s tennis (and the WTA in general) was once portrayed as snarling, biting bitch fest, in which all female players either disdained, actively avoided, or hated each other, their competitors and rivals, as described in John Feinstein’s (who died today at age 69) Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tour, while the men were all pals. Now, aside from Qinwen, players like Kasatkina, Ons Jabeur, Sakkari, Sabalenka, Pegula, Gauff and others are seen as friends among competitors, leaving their beefs on court. Even Jelena Ostapenko, a childhood rival of Kasatkina, regularly appears. "Sometimes they come out of nowhere!" Ostapenko told the WTA tour PR team. “When I don't expect them, they're right there. That's the fun part because you're not expecting an interview, you can be yourself. Sometimes they have serious questions but sometimes they're just, like ... opening the water in Madrid and Dasha says, 'Oh cheers, we're getting some beer.'

“You have to make jokes because it's not easy to be on tour and always be very serious. Sometimes you can get nuts being too serious. They make it a more relaxed atmosphere,” Ostapenko added. Of the players Zabiiako most wanted to feature was, in fact, Ostapenko. “Dasha and her were not in a good relationship,” Zabiiako said. "I was like, ‘No, we need to do this.’ I had to go to her to ask questions and I was so scared the first time."A couple of appearances and the junior discord was a thing of the past. “They were young and stupid,” Zabiiako said. “Now they are mature.”

Zabiiako added that the project helps Kasatkina chill out a bit during the tour mayhem. “During competitions she thinks a lot and it’s really tough,” she said. “It helps her take her mind off tennis.” And everyone feels less isolated. While What The Vlog initially featured Kasatkina’ closest friends, its popularity means that she's become friendlier with more and more players.

Kasatkina, who goes mostly by Dasha, grew up in Tolyatti, an industrial city between Moscow and the remote region of Kazakhstan. Her father, a former hockey player, worked as an engineer at the Volga Automotive Factory, while her mother, a serious Athletics competitor, became a lawyer. Kasatkina’s older brother, Alexander introduced her to the sport at age six and talked her parents into getting her lessons. As a junior, Kasatkina climbed to No. 3 in the world and in 2017 won her first career singles title at the Charleston Open shortly before turning 20 years old. She defeated Ostapenko.

In a 2021 interview with a Russian TV broadcaster, Kasatkina made comments that people presumed to be discussing her bisexuality. But by that time, Zabiiako, a former figure skater, had seen Kasatkina play on TV and sent her a message, after which they met in person when Kasatkina came to Moscow for the Kremlin Cup. The couple has pretty much been together since and in 2022, Kasatkina, came out as lesbian, and she and Zabiiako posted photos together on Instagram. Zabiiako, who retired after her 2019 World Championship bronze and a silver medal from the 2018 Winter Olympics, now travels with Kasatkina full-time and the couple lives in Dubai, where Kasatkina trains.

The blog started almost as an accident. Zabiiako mistakenly deleted her old YouTube channel and had to start over, she suggested that the pair chronicle their lives on tour. Although Zabiiako has no formal media or camera training — and says she sometimes feels a bit weird with her compact handheld device, while a roaming cameraman focuses around them with large lenses — the skater can seemingly work a lot of magic with Instagram and photoshop, making cutouts or players and eye-catching headlines and graphics to promote the videos. “We're not trying to make everything look glamorous or to break our ass to make it look super-interesting if it's not. What we're doing is just to show how we live,” Kasatkina said. “To show people into the tennis kitchen.” Zabiiako and Kasatkina have never gone into tournaments with an advance plan for the vlog. But every vlog is original.

“We are learning while doing,” Kasatkina said. "Platforms like YouTube give you a lot of freedom to do what you want and just see how it goes. You can experiment, you are independent."

Although the couple prefers to keep the blog light, quirky and funny — with players’ dogs especially being fussed over — Kasatkina has said that she “found living in the closet impossible” and has also used What the Vlog to speak out against discriminatory attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and the restrictions of their rights within Russia. In the same episode, Kasatkina condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has called for an end to Russian aggression, expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Kasatkina has added that she is unsure of the consequences if she chooses to return to Russia to see her friends and family.

And while Kasatkina plays down her skills as an interviewer and interviewee — “Basically, I am just saying some rubbish on the camera and Natasha is doing everything else,” she said — but, as most sardonic people or comedians, the laughter shines a light on the bigger issues of life and the tennis world. During the 2023 US Open, the pair attended a French bulldog meet-up at the Carl Schurz Small Dog Park along the East River. Seemingly offhandedly, Kasatkina, in a Nirvana t-shirt from the early 1990s, said in Russian, “Look at so many dogs… different breeds ,different nations. and they all love each other… no one infringe anyone.

“Some of them have curly wool, some have short wool. Someone has long paws and someone shuffles his belly on the floor. They all walk and talk to each other. We have a lot to learn from dogs.”