First of all, sorry for the dead air patch on this channel the last few days. I have a bunch of stories spinning on different burners in the Rebounds kitchen and, unfortunately, several of them took much longer than expected to cook to completion while I waited for the delivery of a missing ingredient or two. But I hope that the wait will be satisfied and even more, because I hope that many tasty dishes will quickly arrive at your table.
In the meantime, I was delighted to receive many interesting questions from Rebounds subscribers of the recent call for questions. A few of those not covered in this dispatch might inspire stand-alone projects Rebounds articles in the near future, particularly on the theme of the tennis calendar, the subject of many questions. (I also have one on tennis documentaries, and I’m wondering if people would be interested in a more comprehensive review of the new Naomi Osaka documentary I watched this month?)
I’d still love to hear more questions from you to fill future mailbags – and there are still a few in my hopper that will feature in the next edition – so if you’d like to send any, please don’t hesitate. You can send your questions as a message on Substack, by sending me a DM on Instagramor a send me an email.
Speaking of planning, a quick programming note:
Next month Rebounds Zoom chat for Double Bounce (Founder) level subscribers will be this Saturday, October 25 at 2 p.m. ETwhich will hopefully be feasible for European subscribers as well as North Americans. The first one was a fun time and I hope more people can participate in the second one as well. (I plan to continue alternating time slots in hopes of finding an elusive Goldilocks period). I will send a message to these subscribers with a Zoom link shortly before we begin, but you can put it in your calendars now, I hope you can make it happen!
And for subscribers of all levels: like Rebounds is entering its second year, many of you have renewed or will soon be renewing your annual subscription for the first time. Renewals are essential to maintain Rebounds on track for 2026 and beyond, so I sincerely hope that many of you will stay on board and help continue this journey.
And now let’s move on to the first set of your questions. Topics include possible gay players in men’s tennis, Australian Open mixed doubles plans, an increase in surprise runs this year, losing hope in Sebastian Korda, what Li Na is up to lately and how tennis players handle normal life things like jury duty.
Don’t hesitate to subscribe to read everything!
Without giving anyone away, are there any ATP players who are known within the tour to be gay but don’t come out publicly? I always wonder how few gay players there are on the ATP Tour and wonder what that says about the culture of the tour or the advice managers or others give players about their public persona.
It’s true that this has been a fairly frequent topic of conversation – among fans, media and even players – for as long as I’ve been in tennis, although almost always unofficially and behind the scenes.
Here is what I know and what I can tell you:
