Daniil Medvedev, allegedly not round<\/a>, tennis balls have come in for all kinds of criticism.<\/p>\nTennis’ latest controversy: Are the balls round?<\/p>\n
Charlie Eccleshare<\/p>\n
The ATP Tour has responded by moving to centralize ball distribution at tournaments, bidding to have each swing \u2014 a run of tournaments in the same part of the world, on the same surface type \u2014 using the same ball by 2029. It is now trying something else: Changing one of tennis\u2019 longest-held rules.<\/p>\n
At present, players start a match with new tennis balls. The balls are changed after seven games. From then on, they are changed every nine games. This system means players adjust their tactics (and often their string tensions on their rackets) through each stretch. Balls fly fastest and bounce highest when they are new; as they get hit repeatedly, their felt fluffs up, increasing air resistance on them and making them less lively.<\/p>\n
But at a Challenger Tour event (one rung below the main tour) next month, there will be a trial of changing balls sooner, initially after five games and then after every seven, a spokesperson for the tour confirmed.<\/p>\n
Medvedev, a former world No. 1 and the 2021 U.S. Open champion, is one of the most outspoken critics of the balls used on the ATP Tour. French Open champion Alexander Zverev and world No. 10 Taylor Fritz have also pushed for change. Players have attributed matches feeling longer and points feeling harder to end to slower and heavier balls, though tour data shows that rallies have remained stable or shortened over the past five years and whether a ball feels slow or not can be dependent on court conditions and a player\u2019s game style.<\/p>\n
This trial, if implemented across the tour, would have more impact on balls that get fluffier, faster \u2014 and would also mean that tournaments would require more balls per event. But if it shrinks the ball quality spectrum that players have to account for during matches, it is likely to be well-received.<\/p>\n
How did players who have spent time in the tennis wilderness thrive in the same week?<\/p>\n
It was so nearly a perfect Greek tennis weekend. Its two stars of the sport, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari, who have spent time in their own versions of the tennis wilderness in the past year or two, both reached their first finals in over a year \u2014 and one of them did it in their nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
That was Sakkari, who had not been to a final in over two years before she met Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 at the Athens Open, as women\u2019s tennis returned to the Greek city for the first time since the 2004 Olympic Games. This Athens Open was the first WTA Tour event in Greece since 1990, and it carried a special connection for Sakkari beyond that: Her mother, Angelik\u00ed Kanellopo\u00falou, reached the final in 1986.<\/p>\n
Even as she lost the final 7-6 (5), 6-3, and gave an emotional speech in Greek to her home crowd, the run felt like something of a victory for Sakkari.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been through so much, we\u2019ve done great things. I never thought I\u2019d be standing today playing in front of this crowd \u2026 You (coach Tom Hill) my family, my grandfather and everyone, you\u2019ve made me a player and have made this career possible. Thank you for believing in me like no one else,\u201d she said during her on-court interview.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286134518-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Stefanos Tsitsipas won his first ATP title in over a year. (Fabrice Coffrini \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Tsitsipas, who has been through injury turmoil and a cycle of hiring and firing his father, Apostolos, as his coach, took the Swiss Open title in Gstaad, defeating Belgium\u2019s Rapha\u00ebl Collignon 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3 to win his first title in over a year.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s Andrey Rublev, another member of the men\u2019s tennis Sandwich Generation caught between the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic triumvurate and the emergence of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, won the Swedish Open title in B\u00e5stad by defeating Italy\u2019s Luciano Darderi.<\/p>\n
Back on the WTA Tour, Egypt\u2019s Mayar Sherif won the Ia\u015fi Open in Romania after Paula Badosa, who has come through several years of injury setbacks, retired in the final when 6-4 4-0 down.\u00a0The final was postponed to Monday after heavy rain washed out Sunday\u2019s play.<\/p>\n
Will more clay always mean more electronic line calling drama?<\/p>\n
After Wimbledon ends, tennis takes a couple of weeks to return to clay courts in Europe before getting into hard-court season in earnest. That means a return to the sport\u2019s favorite new conflict: The one between the ball mark and the electronic line calling system.<\/p>\n
On his way to reaching his first tour-level final in eight years, Damir D\u017eumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina ran into it during his quarterfinal against Italy\u2019s French Open semifinalist Matteo Arnaldi.<\/p>\n
Arnaldi hit a serve that was called in as an ace. D\u017eumhur saw the mark wide. D\u017eumhur complained to the chair umpire, John Blom. The umpire said he could not intervene because ball marks are not to be considered when electronic line calling is in use, and the ELC system had verified that the ball had clipped the line.<\/p>\n
D\u017eumhur ultimately prevailed 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 7-6(4) in three hours and 42 minutes, but the incident was another example of players not yet getting to grips with how ELC works. There is a small margin for error of around 3 millimeters, though the mark D\u017eumhur said was the one left by Arnaldi\u2019s serve appeared to be further out than that.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/HNXYYVMXcAAZQnD.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The ATP and WTA Tours have also explained to players that ball marks on clay can provide a false impression of either where a ball bounced, or whether or not it nicked a line, because clay is a live surface with different amounts of red brick dust in different parts of the court. This is why chair umpires cannot inspect ball marks when ELC is in use \u2014 the two ways of adjudicating where a ball has bounced to not align with each other.<\/p>\n
Similarly, chair umpires and line judges can be undermined by television replays which use a non-official version of ELC to show fans watching at home an impression that may not line up with a ball mark when inspected.<\/p>\n
Players have been told all this \u2014 they just won\u2019t necessarily remember it when a call happens in the heat of the moment.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfc6\u00a0The winners of the week<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfbe\u00a0ATP:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfc6 Andrey Rublev\u00a0def. Luciano Darderi 6-4, 6-3 to win the Swedish Open (250) in B\u00e5stad, Sweden. It is the Russian\u2019s second title in B\u00e5stad and first ATP title since February 2025.
\ud83c\udfc6 Stefanos Tsitsipas def. Raphael Collignon 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-3 to win the Swiss Open (250) in Gstaad, Switzerland. It is the former world number three\u2019s first ATP title in 16 months.
\ud83c\udfc6 Daniel Merida def. Damir D\u017eumhur 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 to win the Umag Open (250) in Umag, Croatia. It is the Spaniard\u2019s first ATP title in just his seventh ATP tournament.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfbe WTA:<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfc6 Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 def. Maria Sakkari 7-6(5), 6-3 to win the Athens Open (250) in Athens, Greece. It is the Czech\u2019s first win since Wimbledon in 2024.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcc8\ud83d\udcc9 On the rise \/ Down the line<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcc8 Andrey Rublev\u00a0moves up one place to No. 13 after his victory at the Swedish Open.
\ud83d\udcc8 Ben Shelton descends two spots from No. 6 to No. 8 but is still the highest-ranked American player in the ATP rankings.
\ud83d\udcc8 Francisco Cerundolo enters the top 20 after rising two spots from No. 22.
\ud83d\udcc8 Novak Djokovic rises two spots from No. 7 to No. 5.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcc9 Mayar Sherif is the highest riser in the WTA rankings, moving up 24 places to No. 73 after reaching the final of the Ia\u0219i Open (250).
\ud83d\udcc9 Anna Bond\u00e1r drops the furthest, down 24 places to No. 97.
\ud83d\udcc9 Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 moves up six spots to No. 26 after winning the Athens Open.
\ud83d\udcc9 Emma Navarro moves down one spot from No. 26 to No. 27.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcc5 Coming up<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfbe\u00a0ATP\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udccdKitzb\u00fchel, Austria: Austrian Open Kitzb\u00fchel (250) featuring Flavio Cobolli, Alexander Bublik, Valentin Vacherot, Arthur Rinderknech.
\ud83d\udccdEstoril, Portugal: Estoril Open (250) featuring Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Alexander Blockx, Nuno Borges, Stan Wawrinka.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcfa UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel \ud83d\udcbb Tennis TV<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfbe WTA<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udccdPrague: Prague Open (250) featuring Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1, Nikola Bart\u016f\u0148kov\u00e1, Tereza Valentov\u00e1, Alina Korneeva.
\ud83d\udccdHamburg, Germany: Hamburg Ladies Open (250) featuring Oleksandra Oliynykova, Yulia Putintseva, Anna Bond\u00e1r, Paula Badosa.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udcfa UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel<\/p>\n
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tours continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic\u00a0will explain the stories behind the stories from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,569,82,575,593],"class_list":["post-816467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-culture","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}