Is anyone having fun in Cincinnati?
Not unless your name is Térence Atmane. Plus, Adidas Y-3 debuts a US Open collection we actually want to look at.
The Replay
Cincinnati Open, it was the worst of times?
There’s been a lot of hype around the $260 million renovation of the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, where this week’s Cincinnati Open takes place. The site has expanded from 20 acres to 40, with 13 new courts (including a new 2,300-seat stadium), a new clubhouse, outdoor pavilion, operations center, and indoor tennis center with six courts. The interiors are more reminiscent of a minimalist-chic hotel than a sports complex. Hell, they even put out a four-part docuseries about the legacy and transformation of the event that’s streaming on YouTube and regional channels—the audience for which is unclear.
Unfortunately, this facelift couldn’t control for all variables this week, leaving us with a tournament that everyone, from the players to the fans, has seemed sort of over with from the start.
First, there was the weather, with players battling through a 90+ degree heatwave for the first few days, leading to an uptick in general crankiness and mid-match retirements. Daniil Medvedev, our resident court jester, literally stuck his head into a cooler on the sidelines while en route to losing his first match against Adam Walton, after which he just sat on his bench in a daze rather than bolting off court like most (and himself the week prior). Alejandro Davidovich Fokina retired from a match for the second time in two weeks while facing João Fonseca, citing physical exhaustion and burnout. Arthur Rinderknech collapsed in a pocket of shade during his third-round match against Felix Auger-Aliassime. Retiring soon after, he took to Instagram to express his concerns about the brutal conditions on court for tennis players, ballkids, fans, and the umpires. His opponent was feeling the pain, too. “It feels like we’re in an oven, even for the fans,” Auger-Aliassime said after the match.
Injuries also took their toll, starting with Danielle Collins, who unraveled on court during her second round match in mysterious and heavily-debated fashion until she clarified on Instagram that she was struggling with a disc herniation (which I can confirm royally suck). Camilo Ugo Carabelli, Luciano Darderi, Frances Tiafoe, Dayana Yastremska, and Marta Kostyuk followed suit with mid- or pre-match retirements.
But even for the players who lasted, there was a general vibe of “Get me the fuck out of here,” with many looking low energy and burned out on court, as well as uncharacteristically fighting with the umpires over a cornucopia of enemies: the serve clock, water bottles, drunk people, and fan’s camera flashes (Taylor Fritz, but I can’t find a video). You know it’s bad when sweetiepie Carlos Alcaraz gets pissed not once, but twice.
Even babies caught strays and, frankly, they deserved it. During the epic 3-hour-long match between Emma Raducanu and Aryna Sabalenka, in which a baby’s constant wail sounded a bit like someone dying in the stands, an iconic exchange unfolded between Raducanu and the umpire Miriam Bley. After Raducanu complained that it had been going on for 10 minutes, the umpire said, “It’s a child. Do you want me to send the child out of the stadium?” Raducanu and the fans (including me on my couch) replied with an empathic, “Yes.”
That should have been a harbinger of things to come, as things really imploded later that evening when a local power outage caused broadcast streams to go down at 5:20 pm ET in the middle of two matches (Taylor Fritz vs. Lorenzo Sonego and Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Benjamin Bonzi), leading both matches to eventually pause play until 6:35 pm ET. I’m still recovering from having to face my thoughts during those endlessly slow 75 minutes.
When Jannik Sinner and Gabriel Diallo faced each other later that day, we got further confirmation that the day was cursed as they played through a fire alarm and a flickering LED scoreboard doing what it does best—failing at its job. Even the ice king Sinner couldn’t stop laughing about it.
Net Gains
Meet your new fave, Térence Atmane
The one person who is having a good time at this tournament is Térence Atmane, a player who you likely hadn’t heard of before this week unless you’re deep in the Challenger trenches (to which I say, respect). Ranked 107 in the world before the tournament started, the Frenchman came through qualifying to go on a truly impressive run of his life, beating Flavio Cobolli, João Fonseca, Taylor Fritz, and Holger Rune to make it to the semifinals against world No. 1 Jannik Sinner. In whatever the opposite of a small feat is, he’s jumped to 69 in the live rankings.
His win over the world No. 4 Fritz brought him to tears, and after beating Rune last night, he said: “It’s pretty insane, I can’t believe it. Being here in the semifinal of a Masters 1000, breaking into the top 100…it’s also a lot of money for me, so it’s going to be very helpful for my career. It means a lot to me, I’m very emotional about it.”
The 23-year-old’s game is frightening in its aggressiveness, with a powerful forehand that, this week at least, seems to soar past everyone as it just barely catches the line. While that style of play comes with a lot of risk, it’s made some of the best players in the world look absolutely helpless at this tournament. If he keeps up this level for his match against Sinner tomorrow, we could be in for an absolute banger, and I don’t think it’s far-fetched to imagine an upset. The question is whether Atmane, who has been known in the past to crash out mentally on court, can stay level-headed under such bright lights.
Kitted
Adidas Y-3 blesses us with something nice to look at
It appears that the tennis fashion gods have heard my whining. Adidas’ dull kits from this year are finally being replaced by a fashion-forward offering from their Yohji Yamamoto-designed sub-brand Adidas Y-3, and they’ll make their official debut on-court at the US Open.
But a new campaign shot by Michael Hauptman gives us an early look at what’s to come. Featuring Adidas tennis athletes like Jessica Pegula, Iva Jovic, Maria Sakkari, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Jakub Menšík, the moody images are meant to evoke late-night training sessions and showcase the 18-piece collection, which includes shirts and shorts with Japanese-inspired ink prints designed to look like fossilized amber, jumper-style dresses that layer over cropped tanks (a personal fave), and Y-3’s spin on Adidas’ tennis sneakers, including the Defiant Speed 2, the Avacourt 2, the Adizero Ubersonic 5, the Barricade 13, and the Adizero Cybersonic 2.
While there are some staple solid-color pieces (in a rich plum and, in typical Yamamoto fashion, black and white), many of the items really do feel fresh, and I’m excited to see how each player rocks them on court. If you’re itching to up your own on-court style, the collection is available to shop now.
Thanks for reading! If you have tennis news or tips to share, email jessica@hard-court.com.