Week 15, 2024

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Gill Gross & Ben Ornstein
April 16, 2024

Why didn’t anyone throw hats on court for Tsitsipas? Third title and all. Here’s what we found interesting this week:

  • 2nd Serve Gets 25 Minutes with Tsitsipas Post-Monte Carlo

    Why It’s Interesting: This is the kind of timely longform interview all too rare in tennis. Tsitsipas is the story of the week. Geoff, Jason and Nick ask him all the right questions and enjoy Paula Badosa’s match together live.

  • The Female Coach Advantage For Marta Kostyuk

    Why It’s Interesting: Just 5% of the women’s field at last year’s Wimbledon had a female coach. Kostyuk’s coach, Sandra Zaniewska, fell into coaching accidentally and found her ‘tennis soulmate’.

Listening to women: The slow rise of female tennis coaches

Female player-coach duos are still a rarity in tennis, but they work — just ask Marta Kostyuk and Sandra Zaniewska

theathletic.com/5406034/2024/04/12/tennis-womens-coaches-billie-jean-king-cup

  • Rune Not Happy With ATP Social Media

    Gill’s Take: I hope Holger never changes the way he uses X--- sending whatever is on his mind, even if it’s something any agency or PR firm would ax immediately. That said, this caption from the ATP was nothing unusual. Any time a player produces a highlight, they get pom-pom waving from the official account.

  • Dubai Incident Lingers For Rublev

    Further Development: Rublev lost in the 2nd round to Alexei Popyrin in Monte Carlo as defending champion. Now World No. 8.

  • Rune Overperforms in Tiebreaks, Rublev Underperforms

    Why It’s Interesting: There should be a positive correlation between match win percentage and tiebreak win percentage. This graph of the current ATP top-15 shows most players falling roughly where they should, but there are a couple exceptions.

  • Shelton Takes Over As American No. 1

    Golden Nugget: In his junior days, Ben Shelton asked his father about traveling outside the country to compete on the ITF circuit… Bryan Shelton, answered with a question of his own."He asked me if I was the best player in the United States." I told him, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘So why would we go to another country when you’re not the best player here?’

Ben Shelton makes more history as new No. 1 American man

Ben Shelton, 21, becomes the youngest American No. 1 in the ATP singles rankings since Andy Roddick in 2004.

www.usta.com/en/home/pro/pro-media---news/ben-shelton-no-1-american-man.html

  • Frances Tiafoe X Coach Diego Moyano Is No More

    Context: Tiafoe ended a highly successful years-long partnership with Wayne Ferreira at the start of this year.

  • Hilarious Tennis Impressions in Monte Carlo

On this week’s Monday Match Analysis, Gill highlights Tsitsipas’ winning tactics, Casper Ruud’s abysmal record in finals (0-8), the unfortunate umpire call in Tsitsipas’ semifinal against Sinner, and more.

Hey everyone, Gill Gross here. While I’m grateful for any amount of success I’ve had talking tennis on the internet for the past half decade, I believe we should all be doing better in this sport as creators and as fans. The tennis content economy is far behind other sports by metrics of engagement and popularity. This newsletter is our effort to DRAW the great things we find in tennis every week- we search for content that teaches us, makes us think, makes us laugh and ultimately makes loving this sport the best possible experience. Our vision is to speed up the growth of a robust content economy in tennis, for the benefit of fans, players and creators alike.

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