Week 5, 2024

It was the week after the Australian Open, but the tennis world wasn’t quiet. Here’s what we found interesting.

• Dominic Thiem opened up about his uncertain future this week.

  Why It’s Interesting: The comments put Dominic Thiem’s 2024 season in a whole new light. He’ll forgo the sunshine double to increase his ranking in challengers across Europe.

• A terrific feature on 43 year old Rohan Bopanna, who won his first doubles major of his career at the Australian Open.

  Why It’s Interesting: He won it after 61 previous attempts with 19 different partners. This phenomenal piece is rich in information on his long and sometimes turbulent journey. Also: Hsieh Su-Wei’s doubles triumph at AO had some similar storyline appeal. Here is Courtney Nguyen’s feature.

• Andy Roddick released a new podcast called ‘Served’.

  Why It’s Interesting: Here at The Draw, we like to shine a light on the little guys. (Joke). We feel fairly confident saying Roddick immediately becomes the biggest name in tennis podcasting/YouTubing in addition to being an extremely talented tennis talker. Find it on your preferred platform here.

• Tennis Abstract with a deep dive into the roller coaster ride that is Dayana Yastremska.

  Why It’s Interesting: The Australian Open qualifier ➡️ semifinalist provides an opportunity to take a data-driven look at streakiness in tennis. Is momentum real? Does it depend on playstyle? When Jeff Sackmann writes in the TennisAbstract blog, we read.

• Speaking of data… is the rise of analytics in tennis pushing current pros towards more offense?

  Why It’s Interesting: Veteran journalist Steve Tignor seems to think the answer is yes. You may or may not agree with every part of this column, but we certainly appreciate the conversation starter when it comes to stylistic trends in tennis.

• Alexander Bublik becomes the first man this century to win a title after coming back from a set down in every round en route to a title:

  Why It’s Interesting: You never know when Bublik is going to bring the chaos. Even in a week of post-major 250s, history can be made.

• Four of the top-7 ATP players in the world, plus Nadal, will play this exhibition. Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

  Why It’s Interesting: Saudi involvement in tennis will continue to develop as one of the most impactful stories of 2024.

• Is this the tightest 2nd serve you’ve ever seen?

  Why It’s Interesting: Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, like every other tennis player on Earth, feels the pressure serving up set point.

• Federico Delbonis announced his retirement this week. We’re gonna miss that ball toss.

  Why It’s Interesting: He won two titles, got to #33 in 2016. He can tell his grandkids he beat Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka.

• Monday Match Analysis took a rare week off, but the latest mailbag was megafied:

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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