Why have the past two big tournaments been so chaotic?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tennis\u2019 two-week ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 events<\/a> have justifiably developed a reputation for taking an age to get going. The tournaments one rung below the Grand Slams give byes to seeded players, while their staggered starts mean it can be hard to keep track of what\u2019s a qualifying match and what\u2019s a main-draw one.<\/p>\n Not so at the Italian Open<\/a> last week, nor at the Madrid Open<\/a> a fortnight ago. In the Spanish capital, a sickness bug and a high pollen count wreaked havoc early; in Rome, the strangeness started in one of the city\u2019s storied piazzas.<\/p>\n At a promotional activity on the Saturday before the event, Iga \u015awi\u0105tek and her coach Francisco Roig<\/a> were having a hit on a temporary clay court in Piazza Popolo. Knowing Roig is excellent at the net, \u015awi\u0105tek challenged him to a volleying duel, with \u20ac100 ($118) at stake for the winner, and with \u015awi\u0105tek holding match point, the 58-year-old Roig tore his achilles stretching for a shot. \u201cYeah, I broke my coach\u2019s Achilles,\u201d a sheepish \u015awi\u0105tek told a few reporters five days later, after beating Caty McNally with her coach watching on with his right leg heavily bandaged.<\/p>\n A ball had still barely been struck when the women\u2019s world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka, lit a bonfire in the players\u2019 ongoing dispute with the Grand Slams over reforms like increasing prize money as a proportion of tournament revenue. Asked if a boycott of the majors<\/a> might be possible, Sabalenka said Tuesday: \u201cAt some point we will boycott. I feel like that\u2019s going to be the only way to kind of, like, fight for our rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina, both two-time Grand Slam champions, said in news conferences that they agreed with Sabalenka. An already eventful day ended with Emma Raducanu pulling out of the tournament<\/a> with post-viral illness, half an hour after telling reporters that she had \u201creally turned a corner\u201d and felt \u201cso much better.\u201d<\/p>\n There were more withdrawals to come. Amanda Anisimova pulled out Thursday due to an ongoing wrist issue; Victoria Mboko and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Mach\u00e1\u010d withdrew over the next couple of days because of illness. This was not the likes of the bug that swept through Madrid, but on Friday, 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic battled a stomach complaint as he was beaten in his first match in two months by the 20-year-old world No. 79 Dino Pri\u017emi\u0107<\/a>. \u015awi\u0105tek narrowly avoided an upset of her own against McNally, edging past the American in nearly three hours.<\/p>\n Come Saturday, Gauff fended one off too, recovering from a double-break deficit in the third set against Solana Sierra in a match littered with acts of self-flagellation from Gauff.<\/p>\n Some players were unable to escape. Defending champion and home favorite Jasmine Paolini was beaten by Elise Mertens despite holding three match points, new world No. 5 Ben Shelton fell to Georgian qualifier Nikoloz Basliashvili, and F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 4 seed on the men\u2019s side, went down to world No. 44 Mariano Navone in a grueling match that lasted just shy of three hours.<\/p>\n Auger-Aliassime was cramping so badly toward the end that he had to hit an underarm second serve when match point down. He somehow won the point, but eventually succumbed on the next one. That was followed by a late-night barnburner on the SuperTennis Arena, as Hamad Medjedovic defeated No. 27 seed Jo\u00e3o Fonseca in a final-set tiebreak. Medjedovic held match point when serving at 5-4 in the third, but a fan cried out as he set up to hit a forehand in the middle of the court and Medjedovic missed it wide by a whisker.<\/p>\n Fonseca duly broke Medjedovic for 5-5, before holding serve to go up 6-5 and put all the pressure on his opponent. But Medjedovic rebounded from his disappointment to win 11 of the last 12 points of the match, savoring the victory in front of a hostile crowd with a \u201cgoodnight\u201d celebration and saying in an interview with Tennis TV afterward that the crowd made him \u201clocked in\u201d for the final stages.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the No. 17 seed Madison Keys was beaten by the inspired lucky loser Nikola Bart\u016f\u0148kov\u00e1, a highly rated 20-year-old from the Czech Republic, before Jessica Pegula recorded the first double-bagel win of her career against the Swiss qualifier Rebeka Masarova. On a slow clay court in damp conditions, Pegula didn\u2019t face a break point all match.<\/p>\n Between all that came one of the most shocking results of the year so far. Sabalenka suffered her earliest defeat at a tournament for 15 months<\/a> with a three-set, third-round loss to the 36-year-old world No. 27 Sorana C\u00eerstea Saturday. Sabalenka, who led by a set and a break, was by the end nursing a lower-back and hip injury and unsure of the immediate prognosis, with the French Open two weeks away.<\/p>\n It was that kind of week in the Italian capital.<\/p>\n \u2014 Charlie Eccleshare<\/p>\n How did the oldest and youngest players in the men\u2019s rankings fare when they met?<\/strong><\/p>\n Anyone who saw the film \u201cChallengers\u201d two years ago knows that strange things happen in the lower levels of tennis. Sometimes journeymen players show up in terrible plaid shorts.<\/p>\n Strange of a different sort occurred in Florida last week at the Mardy Fish Children\u2019s Foundation Championships Pro Circuit event, in Vero Beach, Fla. At this World Tennis Tour event, which is the third rung of professional tennis, the oldest and youngest players with ATP rankings points as of last week met for a classic duel between youth and experience.<\/p>\n The young was Teodor Davidov, at the time the world No. 1594. Davidov is a 15-year-old Floridian, who plays ambidextrously by hitting forehands with both hands and serving on whichever side he chooses.<\/p>\n The old was Ryan Haviland, at the time the world No. 1954. He\u2019s 45, with a career-high ranking of No. 516 and $30,393 in career winnings.<\/p>\n Haviland said during an interview last week that he long ago gave up his dreams of the top 100. He\u2019s a coach who still loves to compete, and there\u2019s no better way to scout young talent than to play them. He\u2019s used to playing guys half his age, but playing someone one-third his age is taking some getting used to.<\/p>\n He said he was pretty skeptical that Davidov could hold his own against him by switching hands with his racket. Haviland can still crank a serve close to 130 mph. Going in, he thought there was no way Davidov could make his tennis work on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n After barely surviving in a match tiebreak and winning 6-7(2), 6-3, 10-6, Haviland had other thoughts.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s really good,\u201d Haviland said. \u201cThere\u2019s no question he serves way better right-handed than left-handed. I think he\u2019s going to have to choose on that shot. But everything else, I was seriously impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Haviland lost the next day in two tiebreaks to Justin Roberts, the world No. 975. Speaking during his 7-hour drive home to Greenville, S.C., he said it hurt just as bad as any loss he\u2019d experienced.<\/p>\n \u201cI was up 5-4, 40-0 in one of the sets and lost,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s ever happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Strange things happen at the lower end of pro tennis.<\/p>\n \u2014 Matt Futterman<\/p>\n How did a tournament\u2019s surroundings inspire creativity?<\/strong><\/p>\n Most tennis tournament sites try to draw inspiration from their surroundings, imbuing the architecture of the grounds, the food selection or the on-site decor with local flavor. Indian Wells, in the Coachella Valley, is all palm trees and sun-bleached stone. Miami is punchy colors and international food drawn from the city\u2019s diaspora.<\/p>\n But perhaps no tournament outside of the Grand Slams embodies its host city as much as the Italian Open.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not surprising, considering Rome\u2019s global cultural status. The tournament\u2019s home base, the Foro Italico, is a relic of Italian Fascist architecture, built under Mussolini as a monument to sport, art and to evoke previous ideas of Empire. The tennis spills outwards into the city, where there was a late-night light show on the fa\u00e7ade of the Trevi Fountain during the tournament and a pop-up clay court<\/a> installed nearby at the Piazza Popolo, where fans could watch players including Iga \u015awi\u0105tek and Novak Djokovic practice in front of one of the more stunning backdrops you\u2019ll find in sports.<\/p>\n The court was open to the public for mini-tennis, too. Hopefully no one other than\u00a0Fransisco Roig<\/a>, \u015awi\u0105tek\u2019s coach, tore their achilles.<\/p>\n The Italian Open inspires other parts of the tennis ecosystem. Last year, Coco Gauff wore one of her three tournament kits that were a collaboration between New Balance and Miu Miu in Rome. The announcement of Pope Leo XIV was beamed on the screens at the complex \u2014 fitting for a pontiff who loves the sport, and has a Vatican City tennis court<\/a> on which to play it.<\/p>\n This year, the WTA partnered with tennis player-turned filmmaker Manu Molesini\u00a0<\/a>to produce a visual series featuring five different players casual fans might not see as often on their social media feeds \u2014 Zeynep S\u00f6nmez,<\/a>\u00a0Linda Noskov\u00e1<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Caty McNally<\/a> were among those featured. The videos were delightful, distinctive and felt like a bite-size pieces of Italian cinema. Brava, WTA. That\u2019s exactly the type of creative promotion its players often say they want to see more of from tour organizers.<\/p>\n \u2014 Ava Wallace<\/p>\n How will tennis respond to the Olympic recommendation on Belarusian athletes?<\/strong><\/p>\n The executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Thursday that it no longer recommends restrictions on Belarusian athletes or teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n No sport is as affected by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine (in which Belarus has been a strategic ally) as tennis<\/a>, and in Sabalenka, no sport has a bigger Belarusian star. But so far, nothing has changed for Sabalenka and her compatriots.<\/p>\n The women\u2019s and men\u2019s tours are yet to decide whether or not they will align with the IOC. The International Tennis Federation, which oversees the sport\u2019s international team competitions \u2014 the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup \u2014 said in a statement Friday: \u201cThe International Tennis Federation confirms that the IOC\u2019s announcement does not change its existing position regarding the Belarus and Russian Tennis Federations\u2019 suspensions, which remain in place.<\/p>\n \u201cThe membership status of the Belarus Tennis Federation will be considered at the ITF Annual General Meeting in October by the ITF\u2019s voting member nations (\u201cThe AGM Council\u201d) in accordance with ITF constitutional process.\u201d<\/p>\n The ITF also oversees tennis at the Olympic Games, along with the IOC.<\/p>\n Like all Russian and Belarusian players, four-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka plays without a flag next to her name. She missed the 2024 Paris Olympic Games over scheduling concerns, but had she played, she would have had to do so as an individual neutral athlete (AIN).<\/p>\n In 2028, she will be able to represent her country, something she said Thursday would make her \u201csuper proud.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRepresenting such a small country and the hard work that I had to do to get to the top and it\u2019s just like guys, it\u2019s incredible, it is a small country and to make it all the way here means a lot to me,\u201d Sabalenka said in a mixed zone at the Italian Open.<\/p>\n Asked if she thought the WTA would alter its policy on Belarusian athletes in light of the IOC\u2019s recommendation, Sabalenka said: \u201cI don\u2019t know, what\u2019s going to stop them from that? I really hope they\u2019re gonna give us our flags back.\u201d<\/p>\n Other players have taken different stances following the IOC\u2019s statement. In mixed zone interviews at the Italian Open, Russia\u2019s Diana Shnaider said that she was \u201chappy\u201d to hear the news of the IOC\u2019s changed stance, while Ukraine\u2019s Oleksandra Oliynykova<\/a> disagreed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we are speaking about Russia and Belarus, we need to understand that these are countries which are turning everything into propaganda,\u201d said Oliynykova, who has directly criticized Russian and Belarusian players, including Sabalenka. \u201cThey\u2019re turning sports, cinema, music, culture. In this country, everything is working for the regime, which is horrible. So that\u2019s why I believe the Russian and Belarusian athletes should be banned from competing.\u201d<\/p>\n Elina Svitolina, the world No. 7 and leading Ukrainian player, said in a mixed zone interview Sunday that \u201cthe war is still ongoing, still rockets are coming to Ukraine and those two countries are still considered as aggressors and for us it\u2019s very sad and very painful to see that this is even considered as (something) they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very heavy topic, I have a lot to say, but I think now is not the best time, but I\u2019m definitely not supporting (it).\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Charlie Eccleshare and\u00a0Ava Wallace<\/p>\n
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