Week 46, 2024

The 2024 tennis season is just about in the books. Davis Cup and then onto 2025! Here’s what we found interesting this week:

• Reporting From Turin on Jannik Sinner’s Stardom

  Golden Nugget: “Inter Milan played Napoli Sunday in a showdown of two of Italy’s biggest soccer clubs. The match drew 1.7 million television viewers in Italy. Sinner’s match against Alex de Minaur of Australia, hardly a glamor matchup, drew 2.27 million.”

  Speaking of Italy: ATP Finals Will Be in Turin For At Least 5 More Years.

• Berrettini Raises Eyebrows With Fitness Coach Hire

  Why It’s Interesting: According to testimony, Umberto Ferrara was responsible for purchasing the clostebol cream that caused Jannik Sinner to fail his doping tests in March.

• Longtime Tennis Umpire Carlos Bernardes Officially Retires

  More: From umpiring Rafa Nadal’s first ATP match to shaking hands with ATP Finals champion Jannik Sinner just a couple days ago, Bernardes has seen it all!

• Jim Courier Recaps The 2024 Tennis Season

  Podcast Topics: Where Alcaraz improved this year, why Zverev could be on the verge of a slam breakthrough, where Taylor Fritz can make gains, the next move for Novak Djokovic, and paying tribute to Rafa.

• In Admiration of Coco Gauff’s Off-Court Sensibilities

  Why It’s Interesting: Gauff navigated the complexities of playing in Saudi Arabia while advocating for women's rights.

• Mike Tyson Was In The News — Here’s Your Tennis Angle

  More: Check out this video where Milan hits with Patrick Mouratoglou from back in August.

• An Ode To Dingles

  Gill’s Take: Dingles will help you improve your tennis at a faster rate than live ball, while maintaining the essence of a more cardio intensive, socially stimulating, serve-less alternative to regular tennis sets. That’s mainly because playing crosscourt-only singles points, the way every Dingles point begins, is to your tennis game as chicken soup is to the soul.

• The One Thing Zverev and Medvedev Agree On

  Why It’s Interesting: We’ve often wondered why complaints about the tennis balls have gone up exponentially since Covid. Maybe it’s because the quality of tennis balls declined exponentially because of Covid.

• The Analytics Love Sinner’s Turin Run

• A Great Interview With Dimitrov & Tsitsipas

  Why It’s Interesting: The 2024 ATP Finals alternates make their contribution for the week by reminiscing on their respective championship runs at the event.

On Monday Match Analysis, Gill dives into Jannik Sinner's unplayable performance over Taylor Fritz in the championship match at the 2024 ATP Finals. He discusses Sinner's cumulative accomplishments in 2024, why he fares better against Fritz than Alexander Zverev, how his serve and dropshot made him unbeatable in the final, how the doping storyline enters the equation and finally how Taylor Fritz has separated himself in the crowded landscape of American men's tennis.

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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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