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- Week 35, 2024
Week 35, 2024
Gill Gross & Ben Ornstein
September 04, 2024
The last week of major championship tennis in 2024 is upon us. Here’s what we found interesting this week:
Inside Ben Rothenberg’s Legal Battle With Alexander Zverev
Why It’s Interesting: Rothenberg’s muckraking reporting style has ruffled feathers in the tennis world for over a decade. This latest conflict embodies the reason why there have never been many tennis journalists like him, and why he’s considering alternate careers.
US Open 🤝 ESPN
More: ESPN will continue broadcasting the U.S. Open through 2037 under a new 12-year contract starting in 2026, expanding its streaming rights and including coverage on ABC. ESPN has aired U.S. Open matches since 2009, having fully taken it over in 2015.
Tennis’ Pickleball Problem
Why It’s Interesting: There have been one million articles about this in the last couple years. This one is particularly notable because it reveals the USTA’s stance on pickleball through an interview with President Dr. Brian Hainline. Hainline and the USTA have chosen the adversarial path, planning to battle Pickleball with the expansion of “red ball tennis.”
ATP-WTA Merger Gaining Steam (Again)
What you need to know about the potential merger between the ATP and WTA 👀⤵️
#TCLive | @jon_wertheim
— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel)
2:30 PM • Sep 2, 2024
Carlos Bernardes Retiring After 40 Years As Umpire
Why It’s Interesting: From sneaking into tennis clubs in Brazil, to umpiring US Open finals. Congratulations on an amazing career!
US Open Men’s Quarterfinalists Season-Long Shot Quality
More: See return, forehand, and backhand quality here!
When the Honey Deuce Hits
These two ladies had too much of honey deuce
— Rachel | Iga USO champion PLEASE (@rafacharliga)
5:35 AM • Sep 2, 2024
On this week’s special edition of Monday Match Analysis from New York, Gill does his 3rd round notebook dump, beginning with Novak Djokovic's elimination at the hands of Alexei Popyrin, Frances Tiafoe's revenge win over Ben Shelton, a popcorn matchup between Brandon Nakashima and Lorenzo Musetti, Tommy Paul's win over the young Gabriel Diallo, Alex De Minaur outlasting Dan Evans 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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