An open field gives us two first-timers

Mboko and Shelton win maiden Masters titles, Draper says see ya to the Swoosh, and a potential player podcast.

The Replay

Although there are many subtypes, I’ve learned that there are essentially two broad categories of tennis fans: those who only care if the tippity top players are involved and… the rest of us. Obviously, the second group is way more legit. In the lead-up to the ATP Masters 1000 in Toronto, there was a lot of online whining about what a bust it would be without Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz (not to mention Djokovic, who some people are holding onto with such desperation it makes me wonder if they even like the larger sport). God forbid we have any intrigue over who takes the title, right?

But the results this week on both the ATP and WTA side underscored the beauty of a more open field. (The WTA is less predictable in general, which I love, and world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka opting out of the Masters in Montreal only added to that.) We have two first-time and very well-deserved Masters 1000 winners in Victoria Mboko and Ben Shelton. Watching them rise to the occasion despite the pressure and the doubts breathed new life into a sport that can get stale when the same few people win. It was moving and exciting: two young, hot prospects who may well be future greats of the sport. What’s so boring about that?

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Net Gains

The Mboko Show

If you’re a tennis fan who wasn’t following Victoria Mboko before this week, you are now. While her fellow countrymen in the ATP lost in rapid-fire succession in the early rounds of Toronto, the 18-year-old Canadian surged into her first Masters 1000 final at the WTA tournament in Montreal, beating the likes of Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina along the way. I haven’t felt this excited by a young player in a while—she plays with a delicious mix of variety and power, is super speedy, and has a stone-cold demeanor on-court that belies her age. In the final, after Osaka took the first set handily at 6-2, you might’ve expected someone so young to crumble. Instead, she stayed calm, reset, and often looked like the more experienced player as Osaka’s emotions got the best of her over the next two sets. Ranked 85 before the tournament started, she now jumps all the way to the 24th spot. For all the hyperbolic chatter we’ve heard about some of the young ATP players this year, I think it’s Mboko who’s actually proven deserving of that kind of hype.

If you want to dive deeper into her story, I highly recommend Carole Bouchard’s reporting over at Tennis Sweet Spot—she seemed to see what was coming for Mboko before most.

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Kitted

Draper Makes Moves

After lots of online murmurs and fan photos of him practicing without a Swoosh in sight, I got a tip this week that Jack Draper is indeed planning to leave Nike for the San Diego-based Vuori. The partnership is expected to be announced at the US Open, where Draper will play for the first time since healing from an unknown post-Wimbledon injury. The specifics of the exit are unclear, and surely a bigger paycheck factored in, but it’s not surprising that a rising top-10 player like Draper would want a more specialized partnership after regularly showing up to matches where the guy across the net was in the same uninspired kit. Just look at the Indian Wells final between him and Holger Rune for a perfect example—the best Nike could do to differentiate their looks was give them different-colored shorts, but the boring blue color-blocked tops were the same. I impatiently await the day they retire that design.

This move comes on the heels of Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe leaving Nike for BOSS and Lululemon, respectively, over the past two years. There was lots of outrage on Twitter from stans who felt I was wrong to say Nike “lost” these players, since they have the golden children in Sinner and Alcaraz. I never said Draper’s absence leaving was going to affect Nike’s bottom line, but it’s one of many missed opportunities. I think it’s a loss for tennis that Nike has so clearly divested itself from the sport, putting even the best players in the world in kits that are either forgettable or memorable only for being ugly. On the bright side, it presents a big opportunity for brands with less name recognition than Nike to step up.

It will be interesting to see what Vuori does with Draper. They currently dress less-hyped players like Marcos Giron and Tristan Boyer in tasteful but fairly dull neutrals. There’s nothing wrong with a little minimalism (never forget Darth Fed), but this is their biggest get yet, so I hope they do something to spice it up.

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Unstrung

The Boys Go Bravo

It was a great week for those of us who sit at the center of the Bravo-Tennis matrix, as Ben Shelton and Flavio Cobolli delivered up an episode of The Real Housewives of the ATP Tour. The details aren’t entirely clear to those of us on the outside, but after Cobolli made some sort of gesture regarding a “lucky” point from Shelton, Shelton confronted him at the net after he won and kicked off a mess we could not look away from. Cobolli, reeling from defeat after failing to serve out the match, understandably struggled to explain himself in his non-native English but was determined to try. Shelton, who had already taken his shirt off to change—adding to the hilarity of the situation—stood there trying to understand. In the middle was umpire James Keothavong, ostensibly trying to mediate but mostly looking like the hostage of a situation he wanted no part of. The boys apparently made peace in the locker room, but we thank them for their brief time as drama queens.

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Off Court

Pegula Hints at a Podcast

Is the player content universe expanding into the podcast realm? Over the last few years, players like Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka, and Daria Kasatkina have started publishing their own vlogs to give fans a behind-the-scenes look into life on tour. This weekend, Jessica Pegula hinted that podcasts might be next when she asked her followers what they might want to see from a podcast featuring tennis players. Given the growing popularity of podcasts by former pros like Served and Nothing Major, it’s easy to imagine that one hosted by an active player would do well if executed correctly. To me, that would have to involve honest insights into being a pro tennis player that are less surface-level and PR-speaky than what we often get in media interviews. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for further developments.

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Thanks for reading! If you have tennis news or tips to share, email jessica@hard-court.com.