Week 7, 2025

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Gill Gross & Ben Ornstein
February 18, 2025

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ATP Events This Week: Doha 500, Rio de Janeiro 500

WTA Events This Week: Dubai 1000

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Locked On. We have you covered with tennis, but if you want to stay up to date with the NBA, Locked On’s daily newsletter is a must read.

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  • Schwartzman’s Self-Written Retirement Essay

    More To Read: Our favorite Schwartzman piece is from 2020, from Giri Nathan

    Diego’s Final Point: A beautiful sendoff from the Buenos Aires crowd. See here.

Diego Schwartzman: How my small body gave the biggest players bad moments | ATP Tour | Tennis

Diego Schwartzman is retiring from professional tennis after competing this week at the Argentina Open in his hometown of Buenos Aires. Before saying his farewell on the court, Schwartzman wrote his goodbye to the fans, detailing in a first-person essay why he decided to retire, the lessons he has learned and plenty more.

www.atptour.com/en/news/diego-schwartzman-retirement-my-point

  • Jannik Sinner And WADA Settle

    Gill Gross Argued Settlement Delivered Wins For Both Sinner & WADA: See here.

    David Kane Got WTA Player Reactions From Doha: See here.

    Jon Wertheim Scrutinizes The Process: See here.

    Novak Djokovic’s Expansive Remarks: See here.

WADA agrees to a case resolution agreement in the case of Jannik Sinner  

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that it has entered into a case resolution agreement in the case of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, with the player accepting a three-month period of ineligibility for an anti-doping rule violation that led to him testing positive for clostebol, a prohibited substance, in March 2024.   In September, WADA lodged an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the case of Mr. Sinner, who had been found by an Independent Tribunal to bear no fault or negligence.  

www.wada-ama.org/en/news/wada-agrees-case-resolution-agreement-case-jannik-sinner

  • Rothenberg Argues In Favor Of US Open’s Radical Mixed Doubles Change

    Why It’s Interesting: The USTA identified an opportunity to turn mixed doubles into a showcase event to bolster Fan Week. There are casualties; full-time doubles players and decades of tradition.

    Dissenters: 2024 US open mixed doubles champions Andrea Vavassori & Sara Errani expressed their disappointment. They hope the other slams don’t follow. The Australian Open has already said they’ll keep the status quo for 2026.

Mixed Results - The Second Serve

Instead of taking place during the final week of the tournament, the mixed doubles competition at the U.S. Open will be an amuse-bouche before the main draw.

www.thesecondserve.com/mixed-results/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  • Murray Podcast Feature — Coaching Novak, Retirement & Much More

    Note: Full podcast link is in the X post.

  • Stefano Vukov Banned From Coaching For One Year Per Athletic Source

    Why It’s Interesting: The WTA kept the details of the investigation under wraps, but The Athletic obtained leaks that reveal the extent of problematic interactions between Elena Rybakina and Vukov. Eliza Wastcoat also summarizes this reporting in a reel.

WTA bans Stefano Vukov, Elena Rybakina’s former coach, for one year after code of conduct investigation

Vukov had been provisionally suspended from coaching while under investigation; Rybakina maintains that he “never mistreated” her.

www.nytimes.com./athletic/6035283/2025/02/11/stefano-vukov-wta-ban-report-elena-rybakina-coach

  • Zverev Exclusive Interview on Tennis.com

    Why It’s Interesting: Zverev speaks on the Australian Open, the golden swing, and even the NBA.

    Notable: The current world number two expressed regret for his self-deprecating “not good enough” comments after the Australian Open final.

Alexander Zverev 'regrets' Australian Open final comments, calls Roland Garros 'main focus' for 2025 | Tennis.com

The world No. 2 also discusses the recent NBA trade deadline and his upcoming reunion with Jannik Sinner in Las Vegas.

www.tennis.com/news/articles/exclusive-alexander-zverev-regrets-australian-open-final-comments-clay-roland-garros-vegas-nba

  • Lawsuit Could Get College Players Paid For Lost Prize Money

    What Happened?: Reese Brantmeier and co-plaintiff Maya Joint are challenging NCAA rules that forced them to give up a portion of prize money from professional tournaments in order to maintain college eligibility.

  • The Italian Tennis Federation Dreams For A Fifth Slam

    Why It’s Interesting: The feasibility and probability of this happening at this point is completely unknown, and while we’d rather not deal in rumor, this was too big not to share.

    TLDR: The FITP looks to buy out IMG (current owners of the Madrid Open) in hopes to expand the length of the Rome Masters to two full weeks. This tournament length is currently reserved solely for grand slams.

REPORT: Italian Tennis Federation Launches Bid To Acquire Madrid Masters - UBITENNIS

Tennis Focus, Hot Topics One of Italy's most prestigious newspapers has claimed that efforts are underway for the country's tennis federation to buy the rights to a rival event in

www.ubitennis.net/2025/02/report-italian-tennis-federation-launches-bid-to-acquire-madrid-masters/?feed_id=14299&_unique_id=67b3716eae56b

  • Leaving You With A Take You’ll Agree With

On Monday Match Analysis, Gill dissects Joao Fonseca's win over Francisco Cerundolo for his first ATP title triumph in Buenos Aires. He also covers another French indoor hard court title for Ugo Humbert. Lastly, we cover Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s loss against Miomir Kecmanovic, who won his 2nd career title in Delray Beach.

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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.