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- Week 8, 2025
Week 8, 2025
Gill Gross & Ben Ornstein
February 25, 2025
ATP Events This Week: Acapulco 500, Dubai 500, Santiago 250
WTA Events This Week: Merida 500, Austin 250
Inside The Settlement Between Sinner And WADA
Why It’s Interesting: The BBC spoke with both Sinner’s lawyer and WADA’s lead attorney in order to understand how and why the deal went down between the two sides.
Tennisnerd Theorizes on Tsitsipas Racquet Change
More: Tsitsipas cited the need to adapt to slowing of balls and courts as the reason for the switch. Matthew Willis chimed in with a great thread challenging the prevailing sentiment we’ve heard from players on slowing conditions.
International Scholarships Getting A Closer Look
Why It’s Interesting: According to the NCSA, college tennis has the highest percentage of international athletes among all D1 sports. The number was 61% in 2022.
FWIW, I've been hearing from multiple DC sources that the idea of "international athletes taking American athletic scholarships" is a concern gaining traction among conservative lawmakers. Don't be surprised to see this end up in a federal bill in the near future.
— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP)
9:51 PM • Feb 21, 2025
The Raducanu Incident In Larger Societal Context
Why It’s Interesting: Emma John offers scathing critique of the current state of harassment in female athletics.
Clara Tauson’s Non-Linear Path
Why It’s Interesting: She was a standout teenager. Her career went quiet. Now she appears to be back on track for stardom based on the first several weeks of 2025. Charlie Eccleshare drills into the story of Tauson’s ups and downs.
From Dubai, Rublev Provides Updates On Mental State
Quote: “I’m not in a good or bad place, but I’m not feeling any more stress, not having depression. I’m just neutral, not happy, not bad. At least I found the base, and that’s a beginning.”
Rafa Nadal To Receive Special Roland Garros Ceremony
👏🇪🇸🇫🇷 President of the FFT Gilles Moretton says Rafael Nadal will receive a ‘special’ ceremony Roland Garros, and that Rafa may become an official ‘ambassador’ of the tournament:
“There will necessarily be something for Rafael Nadal, a real tribute, very important. We are… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— Olly Tennis 🎾🇬🇧 (@Olly_Tennis_)
11:49 PM • Feb 21, 2025
Rohan Bopanna Defends Doubles
Context: It was presumably in response to this Reilly Opelka Instagram comment, which was heavily aggregated.
Thank you 🙏...
— Rohan Bopanna (@rohanbopanna)
10:05 AM • Feb 21, 2025
Happy Retirement, Fernando Verdasco - We Leave You With Forehands
On Monday Match Analysis, Gill breaks down Andrey Rublev's victory over Jack Draper in the Doha final. We'll discuss the close margins involved in the title run, Rublev's mental journey and tactics in the final. We'll then go over the final in Rio, where Sebastian Baez made it back-to-back titles in the Brazilian capital with a win over Alexandre Muller.
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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.