Week 39, 2024

Beijing is bringing the heat! Here’s what we found interesting this week:

• Gauff’s New Coaching Setup

  Why It’s Interesting: Gauff says “subtle” changes have already led to “drastic” improvements under new Coach Matt Daly.

• Billie Jean King Receives Congressional Gold Medal

  Why It’s Interesting: It is the highest civilian award in the United States alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Only eleven individual athletes (as well as the 1980 US Olympic team) had received the honor previously, and King is the first female among them.

• Wimbledon Expansion Gets the Green Light

  Why You Might Care: the plans include building a third large stadium court at the All England Club. Plus, the addition of 39 (!) outer courts would make way to move qualifying from Roehampton and hold it on site. Here’s what it would look like.

• WADA Is Fighting The Sinner Ruling, Seeking 1-2 Year Ban

  Jannik Sinner’s Statement: See Here

  The ITIA’s Statement: See Here

  Full Writeups On The News: From The Guardian and The Athletic

• Picturesque Estoril Will Return To ATP Calendar in 2026

• The Greatest Tennis Promo Of All-Time

  Bold Claim: The regular format of our sport is a marketing nightmare; we usually learn who is playing who on about 24 hours notice. Not enough time to shoot a Marvel-quality trailer laced with stunning CGI cinematography! Battle of the Kings has no such problem and the Saudi Arabian PIF has a stratospheric budget. This is the result.

• Tennis - World’s Healthiest Sport?

  More: Research shows tennis can add nearly 10 years to life expectancy. The study, covering players from five major tennis nations, also found that 45% play for health reasons, while 40% value the social aspects.

• ATP Accelerator Program Bridging The Gap

  Why It’s Interesting: The ATP's Junior Accelerator Program fast-tracks top ITF juniors to Challenger tournaments and provides financial support. It’s a major step in leveling the playing field for juniors with less resources and lower finances.

On this week’s Mailbag, Gill Gross brings on Mark Petchey to answer all of your Andy Murray comments, in honor of his great career coming to an end. They cover what it's like coaching Murray, how he defended so well without sliding, why he struggled to close the gap against the Big 3, how his on-court demeanor should be interpreted, if his play style has influenced the next generation and much more.

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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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