\u2022 Rafael Nadal speaks about his new book<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0Onward \u2026<\/p>\n \ufeffHow can Tennis Australia stoop this low? They hired a new CEO and tournament director who hardly knows anything about tennis. He calls Jannik Sinner \u201cJacob\u201d <\/a>and mispronounced [Elena] Rybakina\u2019s name and suggested that the Australian Open could be best out of three sets. He must have zero respect from the people working for him.<\/p>\n Sunny, Philadelphia<\/p>\n \u2022 If you missed it, the new tournament director of the Australian Open, Andrew Abdo\u2014who decamped from the world of rugby\u2014declared himself excited to watch \u201cJacob Sinner\u201d and referenced the excellent defending women\u2019s champion, \u201cElena Robakina.\u201d No amount of spin can mask this as anything but a brutal unforced error, one that undermines confidence and erodes respect.<\/p>\n And yet, so often, tennis is afflicted by groupthink: executives and insiders with the equivalent of lifetime appointments, recycling old business plans and operating in the tennis ecosystem without a sense of innovation and strategy found in other sports. If you want to hire executives from the outside\u2014as tennis should\u2014you must accept that there\u2019s a learning curve. (The same is true for the media, by the way. If a popular ESPN college football ace joins tennis coverage and calls Coco Gauff \u201cCoco Graf,\u201d it\u2019s unfortunate, but I see it as a small price to pay for a new, well-regarded voice at the desk and in the sport.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s a balance. Let\u2019s keep doing this, because it\u2019s how we\u2019ve always done it is not a strategy. But hiring an outsider who had success elsewhere? It means dealing with someone who might not know how to pronounce the name of the world No. 1. Ideally, Abdo bones up on his tennis, and he is given some grace as he does.<\/p>\n Alexander Zverev defeated Ben Shelton to win the U.S. Open. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters<\/p>\n Hello Jon,<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a while since I wrote to you, hope you\u2019re doing well.<\/p>\n Anyway, just figured an interesting stat: [Alexander] Zverev, who will finish the year as dominant Year-end No. 1 has gone 2\u20138 against top 10 opponents, while [Novak] Djokovic, who is currently outside the elite 10 has gone 6\u20132. Now, this is not say that Zverev doesn\u2019t deserve his ranking and GS success (he won all his matches fair and square), but it has to be pointed out that his road to No. 1\u00a0 and GS titles has been greatly influenced by obvious candidates (Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz) being sidelined and the next best player (Djokovic) struggling with Father Time. Thanks to the results of this season, the German has a HoF career now. Have there been others so fortunate as Zverev?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Kind regards, \u2022 In a word: yes. Zverev shouldn\u2019t be penalized for beating the seven players put before him in his two majors, even if Alcaraz and Sinner weren\u2019t among them. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s a student getting straight A\u2019s because he picked easy classes. Players have no agency in draws. The agency comes from beating the opponents on the other side of the net. Zverev executed that agency and should be commended for it.<\/p>\n And yes, it is strange\/lucky\/noteworthy that we have a No. 1 player who has fared so poorly against his best colleagues. Or that Djokovic\u2014a 39-year-old part-timer\u2014had more top-10 wins last week than Zverev had all year. Should Zverev be punished for this? No. Objectively, the math is the math. But should we ignore this statistical quirk? No.<\/p>\n Two tangential points:<\/p>\n A) Top players always hate this idea because it gives opponents more incentive, but rankings could award bonus points for upsets and weight opponents\u2019 strength. There are models where beating a qualifier\u2014or Flavio Cobolli in the finals of a major\u2014would result in a different points haul than beating Sinner and Alcaraz.<\/p>\n B) Some of this is due to the ATP injury-o-rama. We talk about injuries hurting top players, with Sinner and Alcaraz both missing huge chunks of the season (i.e., more than 100 days of action). This trickles down. When the top two players are not in the draw, it stands to reason that lesser players will not only win, but do so with less than formidable draws.<\/p>\n Hi Jon. As always, I enjoyed all the wisdom in your 50 thoughts after the U.S. Open. In general, I think doubles has been getting a bad rap for a while, but the two American winners in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s doubles events are great poster children for doubles. Christian Harrison was out of tennis for 10 years, needing eight surgeries during that time. He\u2019s now fully back and won two majors this year! Taylor Townsend is now No. 2 in the world in doubles, and although she plays with the No. 1 player, she\u2019s more than held her own on the court, especially when [Kate\u0159ina Siniakov\u00e1]\u2019s serve goes sideways. She\u2019s more than redeemed herself since her junior days when the then USTA head of player development, Patrick McEnroe, chastised her for not being fit enough. Great stories from great doubles players. We should really celebrate them!\u00a0<\/p>\n Thanks, Naomi M.<\/p>\n \u2022 Thank you for that. You were right on both counts. Early in his career, Christian Harrison was known as Ryan\u2019s little brother. He spent the middle chunk of his career mostly injured. And in the third act, he\u2019s evolving into an elite doubles player, a real testament to persistence, but also to talent.<\/p>\n As for Taylor Townsend, first, full disclosure: We sometimes work together at Tennis Channel, which is a joy. She has a good aura and an absence of inhibition. As for the tennis itself, what a wildly entertaining, lefty, attacking game. She is on the short list of this generation\u2019s best volleyers. And there\u2019s her partner: Kate\u0159ina Siniakov\u00e1, put simply, is a pro\u2019s pro. As I said last month, she\u2019ll get my Hall of Fame vote. The career slam Naomi notes? Siniakov\u00e1 had a career slam with other partners. (Now Townsend owes her a visit in the Czech Republic, and we will not stop nagging her until she goes there and drinks the beer.)<\/p>\n Hi Jon,<\/p>\n I was interested to get your take on British tennis and where it\u2019s at right now. Being positive, we have [Emma] Raducanu (a slam winner no less) and Jack Draper (as high as four in the world) able to hang with their best when not injured. We\u2019ve also just made the final eight in the Davis Cup and only got knocked out by a supremely talented Czech team in the final eight of the Billie Jean Cup. However, for the fourth time in five majors, there was no British interest in the second week. I know Arthur Fery made an unlikely but impressive semis at Wimbledon, but the other 14 Brits failed to reach even the third round.\u00a0<\/p>\n Do you see British tennis improving? What do you think it could do better?\u00a0<\/p>\n Thanks as always, \u2022 You\u2019ve answered a good question well. It\u2019s hard to gauge the success\/shortcomings of British tennis because of injuries. Eighteen months ago, Jack Draper seemed poised to break up the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly. He\u2019s scarcely played since. And Emma Raducanu, too, has shown flashes of brilliance but also spends more time rehabbing and recovering than playing.<\/p>\n As for bright spots, you note Arthur Fery, who, catapulted by his Wimbledon success, is currently a top-40 player. Katie Boulter has had some recent success. Cameron Norrie is still winning matches. The doubles draws (and college rosters) come studded with Brits. Hannah Klugman, 17, was briefly the No. 1-ranked junior. Her fate will go a long way towards any assessment of British tennis.<\/p>\n Lucky enough to host a major\u2014and thus reap hundreds of millions in revenue that can be applied to development\u2014the bar is (and should be) higher for the U.K. than most other nations. Then again, you\u2019re talking about a country of 70 million people with a \u201ccrap climate,\u201d as the Brits would say. So having a few players at the top of the game would mark an achievement. All of which is to say I have no good answer, but let\u2019s revisit in, say, six months?<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu has struggled since winning the 2021 U.S. Open. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n Tangentially, five years and zero additional titles since the 2021 U.S. Open, we\u2019re getting close to being able to say, authoritatively, that Raducanu makes for one of the strangest tennis stories ever written. Now 23, she has a losing record at WTA 1000 events. Imagine winning a major as a teenager without dropping a set and then having the career of, say, (sorry for the stray) Liudmila Samsonova.<\/p>\n A caveat: Just because a player is from Country X doesn\u2019t mean they were a product of the system. Some players avoided their country\u2019s federation. Some succeeded despite it.<\/p>\n Hi Jon, Can you please use any influence you have to change TV tennis coverage for the better?\u00a0 See below.\u00a0<\/p>\n 1) Have the predominant view be from behind the receiver of service instead of the ridiculous bird\u2019s eye view where you can\u2019t tell if the ball\u2019s going over the net.\u00a0 This way the viewer is able to see what it would be like to play at this level.\u00a0 Occasionally, you\u2019ll see this angle on the coverage, but it\u2019s only about 1% of the time.<\/p>\n 2) After the match is over, keep the coverage on the players, not the crowd.\u00a0 I want to see the emotion between the players, before, during, and after the handshake. I don\u2019t subscribe to the Tennis Channel to see the crowd. If you must show the crowd\u2019s reaction, show it on a replay.<\/p>\n 3) Tell the commentators not to say \u201che\/she\u2019s not really sorry\u201d when they hit a lucky shot and raise their hand or racquet. It\u2019s not an apology; it\u2019s an acknowledgment that it was lucky.<\/p>\n Thanks, \u2022 Thanks, though asking me to use my influence to change tennis TV is like asking Tom Cruise to use his height to get a jar from the top shelf.\u00a0<\/p>\n 1) I\u2019m not sure I like \u201cpredominant,\u201d but I agree it\u2019s often a revealing angle that gets used too seldom.<\/p>\n 2) Amen. Amen. Amen. We\u2019ve seen two players locked in combat for hours, and the minute it ends and we get resolution, you go to\u2026 random people in the crowd? Or little-known, sunglass-shrouded members of the camp exchanging awkward hugs and high fives? No. Stay on the damn players!<\/p>\n 3) Point taken.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve said this before, but regarding the first two points, note that there is usually an in-house feed or a world feed that networks and broadcast partners use. It\u2019s not as though Tennis Channel or ESPN sends its own courtside cameras to Shanghai or Rome.\u00a0<\/p>\n Shots<\/p>\n \u2022 Tennis is coming to New Mexico.<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 New York readers take note of this fundraiser.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE!<\/p>\n![\"Alexander](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01m4w8fg3tmmeqtmh7tj.jpg\" "\\"Alexander")
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Milo\u0161 from Zaje\u010dar, Serbia<\/p>\n
Alex<\/p>\n![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01m4w8j9ybdhy0cvrawr.jpg\" "\\"Emma")
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Enjoy the Mailbag and your commentary.
Mark Averett<\/p>\n
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