Surprise, delight, and deterioration in DC
Venus returns, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Leylah Fernandez shine, and the American boys implode.
It’s been a week of delightful surprises and surprising lows in the tennis world, and amidst it all, I’ve been battling a stomach infection that may or may not be rotting my brain. As such, I’m going to keep this a little simpler than normal (oops, I still wrote too much). Here’s what you need to know from this past week.
The Replay - DC Open
Venus returns
One of the bright spots of the week was Venus Williams' return to the court after a 16-month-long hiatus and a winless streak since 2023. No one really knew what to expect from the 45-year-old, and at the start of her first match against fellow American Peyton Stearns (35), things looked shaky when she was immediately broken. Were we about to watch one of the icons of our sport get a beatdown? Please, no. But she quickly locked in and, outside of being understandably slower than her younger self, looked like the Venus forever etched in our minds. With her convincing 6-3 6-4 win over Stearns, she became the oldest woman to win a WTA Tour singles match since Martina Navratilova at age 47 in 2004. In the post-match interview, she charmed the crowd in textbook fashion by saying that she came back to tennis for the insurance. “They informed me this year that I’m on COBRA, so it’s like, I got to get my benefits on,” she laughed. Though she lost her next match to Magdalena Frech (24), Williams’ return highlighted something of a void in tennis right now — a star that truly transcends the sport. Lucky for us, she received another wildcard to the Cincinnati Open, and it seems highly likely that this is all leading up to a wildcard at the US Open.
Hard court struggles
Some early-round losses in DC highlighted the work still needed for certain rising players to adapt their game to hard courts.
Lorenzo Musetti (7), who’s having a career-best year, lost in the first round to Cam Norrie (41) and will drop down to number nine in the rankings on Monday as a result. Though he won the first set convincingly, his performance in the last two was reminiscent of his R16 match against Novak Djokovic (6) in Miami earlier this year — playing too passively and spraying errors off his one-handed backhand, which gets rushed on this surface.
Two of the biggest servers in the game right now, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (45) and Gabriel Diallo (45), also lost in the early rounds. Mpetshi Perricard’s first-round loss to Aleksandar Vukic (105) was pretty shocking on paper, but when you look a little closer at his match history, it starts to make sense. Despite thriving in indoor conditions, he has only a 40% win rate outdoors, which he’ll need to work on if he wants to hang with top players year-round. Diallo’s loss to Ben Shelton (8) in round two wasn’t as surprising given Shelton’s ranking and strength on the surface, but I was expecting him to put up much more of a fight than he did. Diallo’s main weapon, his serve, never locked in, and he kept overcooking his shots, with the 6-3 6-2 match wrapping up in just over an hour.
A fever dream of a match
When Taylor Fritz (4) and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (26) walked on court late Saturday night after weather delays pushed their match back, I was struggling to stay awake. Fritz came out swinging, playing a sharp service game and then breaking Fokina (who he beat twice in a row during grass season) right away. I thought the sleep gods would bless me with a quick match, but then everything went haywire. The intense heat and humidity quickly got to both players, and Fritz lost his serve in a way I don’t think he’s ever lost it before—he kept telling his coach and the umpire that the court lighting was so bright he couldn’t see. “It’s like staring into the sun,” he said. For those of us watching, it was like a totally different person had inhabited his body. In the first set, which he lost in a tiebreak after failing to serve it out at 5-3, he had an abysmal-for-him 57% first serve percentage. He went on to win the second and seemed likely to take the third when the momentum shifted, an exhausted Fokina snapped awake, and Fritz’s body cramped up to the point where he was limping. It was an ugly 3-hour-long dogfight from both guys, ultimately won by ADF, and as I stayed up until the wee hours of 1:30 am watching, I couldn’t help but question my sanity.
A little 2021 nostalgia
One of the delights of this week was seeing the 2021 US Open finalists Emma Raducanu (46) and Leylah Fernandez (36) back in great form after a rocky few years. Both made it to the semifinals in DC, with Fernandez pulling off a tight, gutsy win over Elena Rybakina (12) and Raducanu losing in straights to Anna Kalinskaya (39). “I think it takes hitting rock bottom to realize how you really want to do things moving forward, reaching that point where you don’t know if you’re going to continue,” Raducanu said in a press conference before the semis about how she managed to reset mentally after a disappointing few years. “I think you need to really dig deep when you're on your own with your thoughts and realize, okay, I don't want to do it anymore like this.” Regardless of the semifinal or final results, I consider it a win for both women who have been faced with constant questioning and doubts about their ability to recreate that early success. Based on what we saw this week, they’re back in business.
What the Shel(ton)?
Depending on who you ask, Ben Shelton (8) is either the next great American hope for a Slam champion or too inconsistent to fulfill the dream. His run in DC gave each party some material to chew on, but for me, the end result of losing handily to Davidovich Fokina felt pretty unsurprising. He wasn’t really challenged in the early rounds until reaching his pal Frances Tiafoe, who he still beat pretty confidently in two sets (a heartbreaking loss for hometown hero Foe, who I would love to see get a big win ASAP). Then, against ADF, he lost his first serve (his most important weapon) and returned horribly. Shelton does make deep runs at Slams, but he also rarely faces an opponent inside the top 20, so it’s hard to make much of that from my vantage point. He has the second worst ELO ranking (which ranks players based on who they beat, aka their ranking, rather than the round or tournament in which they win) at #21 of the top 20 players in the ATP; compare this to the ELO rankings of Jack Draper (#4), Alexander Zverev (#5), and Taylor Fritz (#6) which are much more closely aligned with their ATP rankings. He also relies more on on-court coaching than any current player on the ATP tour, which doesn’t strike me as Slam-winning behavior. Yes, it’s legal now, but notice how few other top players rely on it. Everyone has an off night, so in isolation, Shelton’s poor performance against Davidovich Fokina in the semi-finals isn’t that big of a deal, but when you look at it through the broader lens of his career so far, it feels representative of how much work he has left to do to live up to the hype. The upside is that at age 23, he still has a lot of time.
What’s On
The singles finals in Washington feature two players gunning for their first-ever tour-level titles: Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Anna Kalinskaya. Despite my appreciation for their opponents, Alex de Minaur (13)and the aforementioned Leylah Fernandez, I’ll be rooting for them both to take the trophy home today. Who doesn’t love the emotions of a first-time title?
The ATP and WTA Masters 1000 tournaments in Canada started today, and I’m personally very excited to be rolling right into more tennis. With some of the top seeds sitting these out, particularly on the ATP side, we’re sure to be in for some chaos. But I’m not making any proclamations just yet—I’ve gotta stop jinxing my faves.
Off-Court
Jannik Sinner (1) made another head-scratching decision to rehire Umberto Ferrara, the fitness coach he fired for his role in the doping case. I respect Sinner for being in his I-don’t-give-a-fuck era, but from a PR perspective, it’s…not great.
Wimbledon’s fraught expansion plans got the go-ahead to proceed after a judge dismissed a legal challenge from the campaign group Save Wimbledon Park, but with appeals and further hearings in the pipeline, there’s still a long road ahead.