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- Week 50, 2024
Week 50, 2024
Gill Gross & Ben Ornstein
December 17, 2024
ATP Events This Week: Next Gen ATP Finals
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Thank you for reading The Draw this year. We are so grateful for feedback, high open rates and few cancelations. That tells us that this idea that we put into action at the end of January this year was a decent one. You can look forward to next season’s first edition of The Draw on January 31st, 2025!
Week 6: The Best Video Of The Year Goes To The ATP’s Satirical Reveal
Why It Was Interesting: The concern was that everyone who subscribes to The Draw had already seen this. It was, by tennis standards, mega-viral. That said, any best content list that doesn’t include this is wrong.
Week 7: In Tibet, tennis balls explode on impact (altitude)…
Why It Was Interesting: This story was unheralded but truly incredible. Read about how Fnu Nidunjianzan, the first ever Tibeten to earn ATP rankings points, is thriving for Princeton Tennis.
Week 8: The Magic 54%
Why It Was Interesting: By week 8 of the season, Jannik Sinner was already off to a dominant start. What percent of total points was he winning? The answer to that question is something every recreational player could learn from.
Week 9: The Greatest Serving Era Is Now
Why It Was Interesting: One of our favorite big-picture data nuggets of the year. Was the serve-volley era more serve dominant than today’s tennis? Myth: busted.
It's always interesting that the 1990's are nostalgised as a serve dominant era in men's tennis relative to now. Especially because on average holding serve, 1st serve points won, 2nd serve points won, aces per match, serve speed all increased significantly over the last 30 years
— Matthew Willis (@mattracquet)
6:23 PM • Mar 1, 2024
Week 19: Tumaini Carayol Surveyed Pros
Why It Was Interesting: Sometimes the simplest questions are the ones that provoke the most insightful answers. This piece is about what adjustments pros make to play on clay. We hear from Naomi Osaka, Andrey Rublev, Daniil Medvedev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Maria Sakkari… and even Sascha Bublik.
Week 24: Alcaraz Has Secured The Bag ($15-20 Million Per Year)
Why It Was Interesting: Nike Tennis has been largely in retreat since Roger Federer’s 2018 departure, losing the likes of Grigor Dimitrov, Andrey Rublev, Marta Kostyuk, Marketa Vondrousova, Sloane Stephens, Ajla Tomljanovic and Leylah Fernandez thereafter. This 2025 move from Nike demonstrated they’re still interested in the elite star class. We’re still waiting for the Carlitos logo though?
Week 26: Edited Extract From Book The Racket: On Tour With Tennis’s Golden Generation — And The Other 99% by Conor Niland
Why It Was Interesting: A vivid portrait of social dynamics in the lower ranks of pro tennis, with some interesting nuggets featuring Dimitrov, Agassi, Federer, and Johnny Blaze (If you know you know).
Week 33: Big Foe Is Tapped In
Why It Was Interesting: This piece from Giri Nathan was a terrific window into the “Tiafoe Conundrum,” and how new coach David Witt looks to tackle it. Tiafoe went on to make the Cincinnati final and the US Open semis after this was published.
Week 34: The Story Behind Sabalenka’s Surge
Why It Was Interesting: She considered the shoulder injury that kept her away from Wimbledon a blessing in disguise and, after this piece was published, won the US Open.
Week 36: The Biggest Boardroom Newsbreak Of The Year
Why It Was Interesting: We spent the first half of the season following rumblings of a Saudi-inflicted shakeup of the tennis tours. Those scenarios fizzled out. But, after the US Open, Daniel Kaplan’s reporting made it clear that the way tennis is run at the top is still in line for a significant shift in the near future.
More C-Suite Stories: The ITF-run Davis Cup announced yet another major format change and the PTPA lawyered up in its strongest action yet.
Week 39: The Greatest Tennis Promo Of All-Time
Why It Was Interesting: 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.
Djokovic @DjokerNole, Nadal @RafaelNadal, Alcaraz @carlosalcaraz, Sinner @janniksin, Medvedev @DaniilMedwed, and Rune @holgerrune2003
6 Kings 👑 One Throne 🎾 Who will emerge victorious in the ultimate battle at this Riyadh Season? 🔥🇸🇦
The Venue 📍
October 16 - 17 - 19 🗓️… x.com/i/web/status/1…— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh)
11:17 AM • Sep 28, 2024
Bonus Story: Djokovic’s Tips For Tennis Psychology
Why It’s Interesting: Consider this a bonus piece, since we missed it in the last week of the season. The GOAT of mental strength has some words of advice.
On Monday Match Analysis, Gill and Alex Gruskin discuss the essential questions for every top ATP player heading into 2025. Part 2 covers players ranked 9 through 21: Alex de Minaur, Grigor Dimitrov, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tommy Paul, Holger Rune, Ugo Humbert, Jack Draper, Hubert Hurkacz, Lorenzo Musetti, Frances Tiafoe, Karen Khachanov, Arthur Fils and Ben Shelton.
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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.