Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind last week’s stories in court. This week, the much-anticipated Masters 1000 in Rome ran its first week and the stories on the court were matched by its drama. Novak Djokovic came out, hit by a water bottle, Rafael Nadal took the next step in his return, and the spectacle on the court was overtaken by some strange umpiring.
And is everyone hurt now?
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Are all these injuries signal or noise?
Friday lunchtime in Rome and the Foro Italico was like an infirmary, as one medical bulletin followed another.
First, defending champion Elena Rybakina left due to illness, before finishing the first matches of the day at Campo Centrale and Pietrangeli court in retirement: Lorenzo Musetti (virus) in the first, Anna Blinkova (ankle) in the last.
Later, world No 7 Casper Ruud struggled with a back problem in his loss to Miomir Kecmanovic, who suffered a similar injury and said afterwards he had taken three types of pills to ease the pain.
The Italian Open has been seen two of the boys’ favorites, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, pulled out with fitness issues before it started. Defending champion Daniil Medvedev arrived with an issue with his upper leg. Elsewhere on Friday, Dominic Thiem has announced that he will retire next year because of his long-standing wrist problem.
So, does tennis have an injury issue?
It was talked about throughout the first week in Rome and Danielle Collinswho benefited from Blinkova’s retirement, said The Athletic after the match that this kind of situation is an occupational hazard because of the relentless tennis schedule.
Collins helped Blinkova before she retired (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
“It’s to be expected when we have so many tournaments back to back,” he said. “It’s a physical sport and when people go away and play a lot of matches, injuries and illnesses come up.
“I’m not surprised. It’s a long time — everyone deals with injuries or illnesses during the season.”
A few days earlier, Medvedev dismissed the withdrawals: “Injuries, in general, are coincidental unless it is the same injury for everyone.”
Grigor Dimitrov, the world No 10 and a relative veteran at 32, offered a different perspective: “We’ve seen more retirements in the last two and a half years because the sport is more demanding. “
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Can Kerber and Osaka make a comeback (on clay?)
Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber are really good tennis players, and giving birth won’t change that.
That’s not to say that coming back is easy. Tennis protects rankings during maternity leave, but unseeded players can be thrown into the balloons in the early rounds of tournaments and struggle to find wins when they need them. Osaka and Kerber have been dealing with it in recent months, showing flashes of their former Grand Slam-winning selves, but also periods of inconsistency that could doom the two- of-three-set tennis.
Osaka welcomed the clay this week (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
But in Rome, Kerber returns to another Masters 1000 round of 16, where she will have her work cut out against Iga Swiatek, the world No 1. Reaching the second week already counts as a victory for Kerber, who is in just five months. of his return. With his best career results on grass and hard courts, he is not a player any seed wants to face this summer.
Osaka coach Wim Fissette has set her the goal of returning to form for this year’s tough swing in North America, but Osaka is notoriously impatient and newly doubtful of the red stuff. Rome was probably her best week, with wins over Marta Kostyuk, one of the best players this year, and Daria Kasatkina, perhaps the smartest player in the world. Next up was Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen, who was 21 years old and enjoyed the match, beating the errant Osaka in straight sets.
That loss doesn’t detract from Osaka’s commitment to improvement on a surface she doesn’t typically enjoy. Osaka lost early in Madrid and went to Mallorca to train before Rome. “I watched some videos,” he said. “I watched Rafa. I watched Alcaraz. I watched Rublev, which is very inspiring. He’s smacking the ball and I thought, ‘I don’t want to have regrets when I leave the court’. In Madrid, I regret not swinging fully.”
No regrets? Looks nice.
Out in the tramlines: Should umpires be part of the show?
The rise of electronic line calling (ELC) means that umpires are becoming peripheral figures in tennis.
Clay is slightly different, with tournaments, including the Italian Open, still relying on them getting out of their chairs to check ball scores.
In a tight final set between British world No 67 Dan Evans and home favorite Fabio Fognini on Thursday night, Fognini scooped a forehand drive volley that was short and wide — too wide. The line judge responsible for the singles sideline first puts out an arm to rule that it is out; the Hawk-Eye evidence indicated it was out; umpire Mohamed Lahyani insisted that it was not.
“You can’t show me the score, the ball didn’t hit the f*****g line,” as Evans said.
Lahyani’s appetite for spectacle angered the players (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Lahyani insisted during the argument that the line judge had called the ball, which apparently was not the case. The incident comes a year after Evans’ compatriot Andy Murray clashed with Lahyani — against the same opponent and in the same tournament.
The back-and-forth continued, and Evans was given a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Some would argue that this is not entirely coincidental. Lahyani is happy to get involved in matches — sometimes too much, like six years ago when he gave Nick Kyrgios a mid-match pep talk, and was subsequently suspended from the ATP. In Rome, there’s the surreal scene of Lahyani having spectators in the grounds of the Foro Italico. Officials are generally disrespected in this way, and at last year’s tournament, Djokovic took the umpire to task, asking him “what’s the drama” and “are you acting” in a row about the call. on the score.
Perhaps this will become a thing of the past when the ELC takes over completely – the ATP says it plans to have the technology in all clay-court events next year – and umpires will be pushed even further to the margins. . A step forward, for some; for others, more evidence of tennis cleaning.
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Why did many people think someone threw a bottle at Djokovic?
Widespread speculation on Friday night that Djokovic had been hit with a water bottle on purpose rather than by accident was widespread for a number of reasons.
The first is that the original footage made its appearance.
The second, and more revealing, reason is that someone who hates Djokovic enough to balloon a bottle at him doesn’t seem too far off. And perhaps those preconceptions informed why so many assumed it was meant to be from the jump — not just his most dedicated fans, but tennis social media aggregators, figureheads, and Boris Becker.
Djokovic’s divisiveness is well documented, with an army of supporters and his litany of impressive achievements A large number of detractors are not believed. Without rehashing all of that here, the animosity originally stemmed from the rivalry he enjoyed with the beloved Nadal and Roger Federer.
It has intensified in the last few years.
Djokovic often finds humor in conducting partisan crowds (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
He arguably surpassed both in terms of success with relatively little fanfare; his decision not to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which he has always stressed is a personal choice, has invited opprobrium and inadvertently made him a poster boy for groups that believe that choice is a victory over the establishment.
There have been other controversies — at last year’s Australian Open, his father was pictured with Vladimir Putin’s supporters; in the first week of the French Open last year, he wrote “Kosovo is the (heart symbol) of Serbia” on a television camera in response to the violent clashes in Kosovo, putting himself once again in the middle of a conflict which has plagued the Balkans for nearly 1,000 years and has drawn accusations of aligning itself with fascism and philosophies that have led to ethnic cleansing.
Djokovic said they were both misinterpreted.
Fortunately Djokovic was not attacked on Friday and, the following day, he played down the incident, arriving at the Foro Italico wearing a bike helmet before his loss to Alejandro Tabilo.
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No shot of the week
Club players of the world: does this sound familiar?
left on purpose, @dThiagoMonteiro 😉#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/dEzRP3Mk8N
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 8, 2024
Shot of the week
World club players: in progress this similar?
Oh he didn’t… 😱@dThiagoMonteiro with one of the shots of the week in Rome!#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/4WB864fuZS
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 10, 2024
Recommended reading:
📅 Coming soon
🎾 ATP:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Stefanos Tstitsipas, Alejandro Tabilo, Thiago Monteiro, Grigor Dimitrov
📺 UK: Sky Sports; US: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; US: Tennis Channel
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments as the tours continue.
(Top photos: Mike Hewitt; Alex Pantling; Dan Isitene/Getty Images)
