Tennis stops for nothing. THE ATP Next Gen Finals The event continues in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, while various pre-Christmas exhibitions keep the players busy before the season resumes from December 27 with the United Cup in Perth, Australia.
There is still time to think about 2024, and tennis writers Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare are here for the first of two mailbags, answering your questions submitted earlier this month. This will focus on the season that just ended; the next one will focus more on 2025.
Read on for their views on how to challenge Jannik sinner And Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s game; the timetable for equal pay between WTA and ATP Visits; whether or not tennis is becoming boring and whether the sport is plunged into a doping crisis.
Anonymous : Federer, Nadal and Djokovic put the Grand Slam in trouble for 15 years. What will current players do (and/or can do) to prevent Sinner and Alcaraz from doing the same? What lessons were learned?
Charlie Eccleshare: The “Big Three” were bizarre in their consistency. Even the greatest of all time usually have off days, some of which cause them to prematurely leave one or two majors per year. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal And Novak Djokovic Most of the time, even that has been avoided, but Alcaraz in particular seems prone to surprises (witness the US Open this year, although it was after a particularly grueling run that included two Grand Slam titles and an Olympic final ).
Sinner currently occupies a higher tier and is much less inclined to play a few listless sets in a row; uncertainty of a different kind surrounds him due to the possibility of a doping ban of up to two years. But if they both remain available and reasonably consistent, then the rest of the field will have a major problem.
Casper Ruud summed it up at the ATP Tour Finals last month when he explained that the way Sinner and Alcaraz play had rewritten the book of tennis tactics he grew up with. Patience is no longer required with these two: to beat them, the pursuers will have to learn to be more aggressive even if it does not come naturally. Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz look for the most current top 10 challenge.
Where Alcaraz and Sinner are reminders of the hegemony of the Big Three is the way their alien talent forces players to play outside of themselves to beat them. It’s not enough to hit big serves and forehands and hope that will do the trick. Players must claim the front of the court before Alcaraz and capture the baseline before Sinner – and throw a little from the opposite to keep them off balance. For an entire match at a time.
Matt Futterman: At the moment, I don’t see Sinner and Alcaraz sharing all the Grand Slam tournaments for a decade. It’s much more difficult to do this with two players than with three or four, and they are the only ones at their level – apart from the version of Djokovic who won Olympic gold in Paris.
They will have to deal with injuries. Sinner could be suspended for two years. Things are happening. Others hope to fill the gaps.
Dana L: What will it take to have equal pay for women on the tour? Why is there still such a big gap below the Grand Slam level?
MF: The short answer is TV contracts. Women’s tour contracts bring in about one-seventh of what men’s tour contracts bring in. Sponsorships are also much cheaper. In many cases I attribute this to poor management and marketing. The WTA is taking low-hanging fruit and selling out tournaments in places where attendance is terrible and seats are empty. What media or marketing person is going to call a match and say, “This is where I want to be?” »
THIS: The short answer: a real commitment from the different stakeholders of tennis to ensure true equality. It’s amazing how quickly things can happen when there is a will. The WTA has committed to achieving equal prize money in combined events by 2027 and in non-combined events by 2033, but this remains a very hot topic. When I spoke to Aryna Sabalenka to the WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia she cited the need for equal rewards as one of the sport’s biggest problems.
Max Y: Why is there so little variety on the ATP and WTA tours in terms of playing style? The ATP Finals in Turin perfectly summed up how similar and downright boring the way today’s top players play is: it’s just big baseline games, consistent two-handed backhands and very little variety, making it a pretty boring competition.
MF: Rest assured, it’s better than before, at least on the ATP circuit. Alcaraz forced everyone to start thinking about the entire tennis court, not just the area along the baseline. Additionally, with Alcaraz and Sinner playing so aggressively, players increasingly have to attack before being attacked. This will force them to come on the pitch more and create variety.
As for women, many of us wish Karolina Muchova could clone itself 50 times. That said, Sabalenka is using the drop shot more and more. Coco Gauff is working hard to improve at the net. A wave of serve-and-volley players seems unlikely, but we’ll take what we can get.
Throw away Turin. It’s unique. Indoors, on a very fast pitch, with no sun or wind, players can sit back and go all out. This won’t happen as much in Australia and certainly not on organic surfaces from April to mid-July. One-handed backhands seem like a terrible idea until you see Lorenzo Musetti thrive at Wimbledon with that killer slice and the ability to roll it in at the last second. Additionally, Alcaraz is a shooter. To borrow the expression from basketball, shooters have to shoot. As long as he’s around, he’ll try all sorts of crazy things, and others will try to follow.
Anon: When are we going to stop describing men’s tennis as boring baseline battles? Variety (net approaches, ground shots, serve/volley, unexpected shot selections) seems to be the norm now, not the exception. I feel like no one is recognizing/celebrating one of the most exciting periods in men’s tennis; all top players must now use the entire field.
James Hansen: A dissenting voice is always welcome. The young players in the top 15-40 seem a bit more willing to experiment, perhaps being less entrenched than the players mentioned above who grew up on Nadal and Djokovic’s complete mastery of basic tennis. We might disagree on the idea that the best players should use the whole court. They do – but most of them can’t and don’t, especially when under pressure. Sinner and Alcaraz’s ability to play like they do in the tightest of moments, especially in the stratospheric tiebreak at the China Open final in Beijing, is what sets them apart even more.
Christopher Z: Is there anyone who peaked this year that we plan to take a step back from? Are Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz really in the top 5?
THIS: That’s an interesting question. I kept thinking that Paolini would surely come back to earth at some point last year, and yet she continued to produce. Maybe she won’t have the same impact as this year, but I would expect her to stay in the top 10 and challenge for a few titles.
As for Fritz, his progress seems very lasting to me. He is not someone who suddenly burst onto the scene, but rather continued to make incremental improvements. You could say 2024 was a breakthrough year for him, but he’s been knocking on the door for a while and it was striking to hear him say he didn’t even think he’d played that well to reach the final of the US Open. This was more than an opportunity presented itself, and he was strong enough to seize it.
Someone I would expect to take a step back is Alejandro Tabilo, who started the year ranked 85th in the world, reached a career-high ranking of 19th and currently sits at 23rd. The 20-year-old Chilean had one of those periods where everything seemed to be falling into place, winning the Auckland 250 in January as a qualifier and then knocking out an ailing Djokovic from Rome on the way to the Italian Open. semi-finals. I would be surprised if it reaches similar highs in 2025.
Parva S: Why is there an increase in doping in tennis or is it just recency bias?
MF: As my colleague Charlie Eccleshare reported in November, the number of tests and the number of anti-doping rule violations have remained fairly stable over the past few years according to the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA). The agency sanctioned 12 people for doping offenses in 2022, compared to 13 last year, but two world numbers 1 sanctioned in the same year is extraordinary. As tests become more sophisticated and detect smaller and smaller amounts of foreign substances in blood and urine, it stands to reason that positive tests will increase.
Katherine W: What do you think of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown? Here to stay or disappear?
THIS: I think it has its place, and players seem to enjoy it and feel like it’s useful fitness work because of how explosive it is. The chance to win thousands of dollars probably helps too. The fans seem to enjoy it as well and there is something to be said about events that guarantee – or almost – see the players participating in the event, unlike most ATP and WTA tournaments where there are always a risk that your favorite player comes out. early or not playing on a given day.
Certain rules, such as having only one serve, should also make tennis think about whether there are elements of the UTS that would work well on the main tour. Co-creator Patrick Mouratoglou It certainly seems very committed to making this a success, so I’d be surprised if that happens anytime soon.
Patrick L: Is Andy Murray training Djokovic on a one-off basis or are they looking for a long-term arrangement?
THIS: For the moment, the Murray-Djokovic The partnership is a short-term deal, but if things go well in Melbourne, it’s hard to imagine either party walking away. Certainly not Djokovic, but also Murray: can we really see someone as competitive as him turning his back on a winning ticket?
He’d like to spend some time at home at some point, but that was true when he accepted the opportunity to work with the 24-time Grand Slam champion and longtime rival from the 2010s. I suspect that Murray will love the thrill of coaching and being back in a Grand Slam environment, especially if they reach the latter stages where Murray hasn’t been for eight years. If things go wrong, that’s a different story.
This article was originally published in Athletics.
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