Week 44, 2024

That’s all for Masters 1000s. Welcome to finals season. Here’s what we found interesting this week:

• Rybakina Re-Emerges

  Why It’s Interesting: The WTA Finals is her first event since withdrawing from the US Open. There’s a lot to catch up on, so we think it’s worth reading the transcript of her opening press conference.

  ICYMI: Goran Ivanišević, winner of one slam as a player and nine slams as Novak Djokovic’s coach, will be Rybakina’s next coach starting this off-season.

• A Different Look At Karue Sell

  Why It’s Interesting: Karue is usually the narrator of his own story on his YouTube channel. This time, it’s LA Times’ Connor Sheets profiling the recent top-300 debutant from an outside lens.

• Charting The WTA’s Best and Worst Drop-Shotters

  Why It’s Interesting: Powered by Tennis Abstract’s Match Charting Project, we can now put a visual to Marketa Vondrousova’s excellent dropshot. Jeff Sackmann’s full piece is focused on Aryna Sabalenka’s increased usage of the dropper. Sackman wasn’t the only person to write on the topic last week. Charlie Eccleshare of The Athletic wrote a wide-ranging piece on the current No. 1, including her view on the dropshot.

• No More Hooking

  TLDR: The PlayReplay Electronic Line Calling system will be available for challenges in singles and doubles.

• Images Of WTA Finals Attendance In Riyadh Are Striking

  Perspective: As the WTA noted in a recent statement, it’s not rare to see sparse attendance at events during the work week, which in Saudi Arabia runs Sunday to Thursday. Does that let Riyadh off the hook for having less than 500 people at 1-1 of Gauff vs. Pegula?

• Saudi Closing in on 10th ATP Masters

  Why It’s Interesting: This significant report from Wertheim flew under the radar last week. A 10th Masters 1000 in Saudi Arabia appears to be a ‘when not if’ at this point.

• Alcaraz & Ferrero Academy Hardcore ATP Finals Preparation

  Last Week: Alcaraz was caught off guard by the speediness of conditions in Paris-Bercy.

• Jim Courier’s Holger Rune Analysis

  Why It’s Interesting: We’re appreciative for Christian’s transcription here, because Courier is one of the best analysts we have and Rune remains one of the toughest puzzles to solve in the tennis analysis world.

• Tennis Movie Alert

  Why It’s Interesting: It will feature another financially burdened sub-main tour tennis player, but it sounds nothing like Challengers. Instead we’re getting a crime thriller here featuring a violent match-fixing ring… it sounds more like Ozark.

• Liza’s WTA Portrait Review

itselizasworld

View more on Instagram

🎙️ Commentary: Gill is on Tennis Channel for coverage of Metz following the WTA Finals this week through Saturday.

On Monday Match Analysis, Gill rewinds to Ugo Humbert's R16 win over Carlos Alcaraz at the 2024 Paris Masters before diving into Alexander Zverev's title triumph in the final against Humbert. He also looks ahead to next week's finale of the ATP Race and compares Alex De Minaur's and Andrey Rublev's seasons.

🎾 We’re thrilled to announce a great new way to support The Draw. All you have to do is sign up for TennisTV, the official ATP streaming service, using this link: https://tnn.is/gillgross

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.

Want to sponsor this newsletter? Reach out to [email protected].

Want to send us content? Send an email to [email protected]