Welcome to the Monday tennis briefing, where Athleticism will explain the big stories from the past week on the ground.
This week the Madrid Open ended with Andrey Rublev and Iga Swiatek winning the singles tournaments. Asking for Rafael Nadal’s jersey, Danielle Collins said, “Let’s go” (and sadly left) and Daniil Medvedev summoned Dan Brown’s energy.
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Have you heard the one about Iga Swiatek and tie-breaks?
Swiatek is the world number 1. She has 20 WTA Tour titles, four Grand Slam titles and more than 100 weeks as the world’s best player.
Now she has also won a decisive tie-break.
In a titanic final against world number 2 Aryna Sabalenka, the Pole saved three match points en route to victory, extending her head-to-head against her closest ranking rival to 7-3 in her favor. In her entire career so far, Swiatek had played two deciding tie-breaks and lost them both: against Jelena Ostapenko in Dubai in 2022 and against Martina Di Giuseppe in a $50,000 event in Prague in 2018 . his entire professional career in a Masters final against his world number 2 is a mind-boggling thought.
Swiatek’s ability to convert a single break or a few-game lead into unwavering dominance is his calling card. She is less experienced in close matches – not because of her inability to do so, but because her abilities are so high that she rarely needs to think about them except against her closest rivals. It was a resounding victory in a match that saw both players culminate in one of the best competitions on the WTA Tour in recent years and is as good an advertisement for the quality of women’s tennis in 2024 as the fans and tournament organizers might want it.
It was a final that deserved to go as far as possible. It made. Swiatek won his case. “This will give me some wisdom,” she said afterward.
GO FURTHER
Iga Swiatek’s 100 weeks as world number 1: the streak, the slams, the bagels
How will tennis resolve its struggle between propriety and drama?
It’s not exactly earth-shattering news to mention that people around tennis can cling to a bit of decorum. All whites at Wimbledon. “SILENCE PLEASE” Better not to say bad words on the pitch. Fans can only get their seats back every other game. And so on.
So there was quite a story last week when Pedro Cachin, a fellow Argentine, asked Rafael Nadal for one of his sweaty playing jerseys after their three-hour, three-set duel which Nadal won 6-1, 6 -7. , 6-3.
That just doesn’t happen in tennis.
It’s true that this doesn’t happen often, but is it serious? Cachin, 29, said playing against Nadal had been “a dream”. He wanted the kind of souvenir that footballers get all the time. He plans to frame the shirt and put it on the wall in his house.
“Watching him all these years at Roland Garros, playing with him here was incredible,” he said at the end.
This made many journalists a little hot and bothered. However, most players apparently had no problem with this.
“If I ever played against Rafa, I would definitely ask him for his jersey,” said Swiatek, world No. 1 and perhaps Nadal’s No. 1 fan.
There is precedent. Hugo Dellien of Bolivia asked Novak Djokovic for a jersey after Djokovic blew him out 6-2, 6-2 at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Djokovic happily agreed. “Thank you @djokernole for making this day even more special for me,” Dellien wrote at the end on Instagram.
Daniil Medvedev said he thought it was a classy move by Cachen and that a player once asked him for a shirt at the Australian Open. Like almost everything with Medvedev, the situation was a bit bizarre. He wanted to give her one, he said, but he felt a little light. “I was in Australia and I only had five jerseys,” Medvedev said. “Wet weather. Very sweaty. I told him to contact me after the tournament.
Medvedev found himself in another one of those bizarre situations earlier in the week, wondering if the “Illuminati” controlled weather decisions in Madrid. The clip was hilarious and attracted huge attention to tennis online – before being hit with copyright protection.
QUIET PLEASE
GO FURTHER
No silence please – Australian Open court with bar and lots of noise
How did Danielle Collins construct her sequence?
Danielle Collins never understood what the problem was with her 15 fight winning streak.
“I’ve already had streaks,” she said last week in Madrid before losing in the quarter-finals in three difficult and hard-hitting sets to Aryna Sabalenka. “I was a top 10 player.”
She’s certainly been playing like one since mid-January. Collins is 23-6 since the start of the Australian Open. Four of those defeats came to the world’s top three players – twice to Swiatek and once to Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina. She withdrew with injury in another defeat. Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova eliminated her in the quarterfinals in Doha in the other defeat.
Much has been made of Collins announcing she would retire after the season, that it somehow freed her up to play her best tennis. Collins shrugs at the thought. Being healthier than she has been in years is likely the biggest reason for these results. His rheumatoid arthritis has been somewhat under control for the past few months. It helps – a lot – and it shows in the data. Comparing her 2024 streak to her next record, 12 consecutive wins in 2021, she posts slightly better numbers and takes decisive control of matches.
GO FURTHER
Danielle Collins is on fire. Either way, she will stop playing tennis at the end of the year.
How did Andrey Rublev change the game?
In addition to being a very good tennis player, Rublev is one of the great characters on the ATP circuit. Essentially beloved in the locker room, the “nicest” player in tennis, according to Medvedev, who asked Rublev to be his daughter’s godfather, Rublev is prone to the kind of outbursts that can be difficult to watch. He bloodied his knee with his racket during the ATP Tour final in Turin in November.
The past six weeks have brought a rare slump for Rublev, who had finished in the top eight for four straight years. Everyone knows where it started – after he was kicked out of his semi-final in Dubai for allegedly shouting obscenities in Russian at a linesman. He didn’t and the ATP essentially admitted that the tournament supervisor made a mistake, allowing him to keep his money and ranking points.
GO FURTHER
Rublev’s Dubai default is exactly why tennis needs electronic calls
Rublev is, however, a sensitive soul. He said he doesn’t recognize the person he becomes on the field when he loses his temper, usually at himself. He lost four of his next five matches.
“There was something that blocked me for a few weeks,” Rublev said last week in Madrid. “I can’t say if it was that situation or not.”
The ultimate tennis cliché is that one week can change everything. Even the player ranked No. 250 in the world says it. He only has a few good matches left to get back into shape and get his game and his life on the right track.
It’s a cliché because it’s true and Rublev showed why this week in Madrid. This is what he kept repeating to himself after the defeats of Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo and Barcelona. Even after three consecutive victories in Madrid, he was not ready to declare the week a real turnaround.
“If I play as well as I do now, the weeks will get better and better,” he said. He then beat Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals and Taylor Fritz in the semifinals, then Félix Auger-Aliassime to win the title.
“You lose in the first round, then there are more chances,” he said after beating Fritz 6-4. 6-3.
“Next week you have a better chance of winning a few matches. So in the end, I guess that was the week.
It was, Andrey, the week that was going on.
GO FURTHER
Andrey Rublev: a tennis hothead in desperate search of peace
The shot of the week
One-handed, assemble (maybe not like that).
🚨BREAKING:
Sinner, Jabeur, Shelton, Haddad Maia and a host of big stars moved to the one-handed backhand
🤭 #MMOPEN
pic.twitter.com/2LeNvAcIaG– Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 3, 2024
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🏆 Winners of the week
🎾 ATP:
🏆 Andrei Rublev def. Happy Auger-Too 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 to win the Mutua Madrid Open (1000) in Spain. This is Rublev’s second Masters 1000 title.
🏆 Alexandre Tabilo def. James Munar 6-3, 6-2 to win the Aix Provence Crédit Agricole Open (Challenger 175) in Aix-en-Provence. This is Tabilo’s ninth Challenger title.
🏆 Mariano Navone def. Lorenzo Musetti 7-5, 6-1 to win the Sardinian Open (Challenger 175) in Cagliari. This is Navona’s sixth Challenger title.
🎾 WTA:
🏆 Each Swiatek def. Aryna Sabalenka 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(7) to win the Mutua Madrid Open (1000) in Spain. This is the 20th title for the world number 1 on the WTA circuit.
🏆 Lois Drink def. Chloe Paquet 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-3 to win the 35 St Malo Open (125) in St Malo, France. This is Boisson’s first career title.
🏆 Katerina Siniakova def. Sheriff Mayar 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to win the Catalan Open (125) in Lleida, Spain. This is Siniakova’s sixth singles title.
📈📉 Rising / Falling
📈 Félix Auger-Aliassime gains 15 places from No. 35 to No. 20.
📈 Jiri Lehecka climbs eight places from No. 31 to No. 23.
📈 Mariano Navone gains four places, going from No. 20 to No. 16.
📉 Aryna Sabalenka remains No. 2 but loses 350 points. His gap with Coco Gauff at No. 3 is now only 185 points, after a swing of 405 points.
📉 Veronika Kudermetova loses six places in the top 20, from No. 19 to No. 25.
📉 After progressing last week, Jan-Lennard Struff drops 17 places, from 24th to 41st, after losing his points in the Madrid final last year.
📅 Coming soon
🎾 ATP:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) May 8-19 with Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andrey Rublev
📺 United Kingdom: Sky Sports; United States: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) from May 8 to 19. Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Mirra Andreeva
📺 United Kingdom: Sky Sports; United States: Tennis Channel
Let us know what you noticed this week in the comments as the tours continue.
(Top photos: Clive Brunskill; Jean Catuffe; Julian Finney/Getty Images)