Welcome to Monday's tennis briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind the stories of the last week on the court. This week, the coveted Rome Masters 1000 celebrated its first week and the stories on the court matched the drama off it. Novak Djokovic was hit by a water bottle, Rafael Nadal took the next step in his comeback and the spectacle on the court was surpassed by a strange referee.
And now everyone is hurt?
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Are all these injuries signal or noise?
Friday lunchtime in Rome and the Foro Italico briefly felt like an infirmary, as one medical bulletin followed another.
First, defending champion Elena Rybakina withdrew due to illness, before the first matches of the day on the Campo Centrale and Pietrangeli courts ended in abandonments: Lorenzo Musetti (virus) in the first, Anna Blinkova (ankle) in the second.
Later that day, world No. 7 Casper Ruud battled a back problem in his loss to Miomir Kecmanovic, who had a similar injury and said afterward that he took three types of pills to relieve the pain.
The Italian Open had already seen two of the men's favorites, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, withdraw due to fitness issues before it began. Defending champion Daniil Medvedev arrived with an upper leg problem. Elsewhere on Friday, Dominic Thiem announced that he would retire later this year due to his long-standing wrist problem.
So does tennis have problems with injuries?
It was a topic of conversation during the first week in Rome and Danielle Collins, who benefited from Blinkova's retirement, said The Athletic after the match that this type of situation is an occupational hazard given the unforgiving tennis schedule.
Collins came to Blinkova's aid before she had to retire (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
“It's to be expected when we have so many consecutive tournaments,” he said. “It is a physical sport and when people go far and play a lot of games, injuries and illnesses arise.
“I'm not surprised. It's a long season: we all deal with injuries or illnesses during the season.”
A couple of days earlier, Medvedev downplayed the withdrawals: “Injuries, in general, are coincidences, unless it's the same injury for everyone.”
Grigor Dimitrov, world number 10 and a relative veteran at 32, offered a different perspective: “We have seen many more withdrawals in the last two and a half years because the sport is much more demanding.”
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Can Kerber and Osaka make a comeback (on clay?)
Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber are really good tennis players and giving birth wasn't going to change that.
That doesn't mean returning will be easy. Tennis does not protect player rankings during maternity leave, so women can find themselves thrown to the wolves in the early rounds of tournaments and struggle for wins when they need them most. Osaka and Kerber have been dealing with it these past few months, showing flashes of their previous Grand Slam victories, but also periods of inconsistency that can spell doom in two-out-of-three-set tennis.
Osaka has embraced clay this week (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
But in Rome, Kerber returns to play another round of 16 of Masters 1000, where she will have a lot of work against Iga Swiatek, world number one. Getting to the second week already counts as a victory for Kerber, who is only in the fifth month. of his return. With career-best results on grass and hard courts, he is not a player any favorite wants to face this summer.
Osaka's coach Wim Fissette set her a goal of getting back into shape for this year's tough swing in North America, but Osaka is notoriously impatient and newly formidable in the red stuff. Rome has arguably been her best week, with wins over Marta Kostyuk, one of this year's best players, and Daria Kasatkina, perhaps the smartest player in the world. Next to face off was Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen, who is 21 years old and enjoyed the showdown, eliminating a bum from Osaka in straight sets.
That loss does not discredit Osaka's commitment to improving on a surface she normally doesn't like at all. Osaka lost early in Madrid and went to Mallorca to train before Rome. “I watched some videos,” he said. “I watched Rafa. I saw Alcaraz. I saw Rublev, which is very inspiring. He's hitting the ball and I thought, 'I don't want to regret it when I walk off the court.' In Madrid I regretted not having swung completely.”
No regrets? Sounds good.
On the tram tracks: Should referees be part of the show?
The rise of electronic line calls (ELC) means that referees are increasingly peripheral figures in tennis.
Clay is slightly different, as tournaments, including the Italian Open, still rely on them jumping out of their chairs to inspect ball markings.
During a tight final set between British world number 67 Dan Evans and home favorite Fabio Fognini on Thursday night, Fognini scored a short forehand volley wide, too wide. The linesman responsible for the singles sideline initially extended an arm to stipulate that he was out; Hawk-Eye evidence indicated it no longer existed; Referee Mohamed Lahyani insisted no.
“You couldn't show me the mark, the ball didn't hit the damn line,” as Evans said.
Lahyani's appetite for spectacle has irritated players (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Lahyani insisted during the discussion that the linesman had called the ball, which appeared not to be the case. The incident came a year after Evans' compatriot Andy Murray had a similar argument with Lahyani, against the same opponent and at the same tournament.
The exchange continued and Evans received a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Some would say this was not entirely a coincidence. Lahyani is happy to get involved in matches, sometimes too much, like six years ago when he gave Nick Kyrgios a mid-match pep talk, which subsequently earned him a suspension from the ATP. In Rome, there was a surreal sight of Lahyani being mobbed by spectators on the grounds of the Foro Italico. Referees are generally not revered in this way, and at last year's tournament, Djokovic berated the referee for it, asking him “what's the drama?” and “are you performing here?” during a discussion about marking the score.
Perhaps this will become a thing of the past once ELC takes over completely (the ATP says it plans to have the technology at all clay court events next year) and referees are pushed further to the sidelines. A step forward, for some; for others, more evidence of the disinfection of tennis.
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Why did so many people think someone threw a bottle at Djokovic?
The widespread assumption on Friday night that Djokovic had been hit deliberately and not accidentally by a water bottle occurred broadly for a couple of reasons.
The first was that the original footage made it seem that way.
The second, and more telling, reason is that someone hating Djokovic enough to throw a bottle at him didn't seem particularly far-fetched. And perhaps those preconceptions explained why so many assumed it was deliberate from the start: not just his most dedicated fans, but also tennis social media aggregators, figureheads and Boris Becker.
Djokovic's split is well documented, with an army of supporters and his litany of astonishing achievements that do not contradict a large number of detractors. Without relitigating all of that here, the hostility originally arose from the rivalry he enjoyed with the much-loved Nadal and Roger Federer.
It has intensified in recent years.
Djokovic often finds humor in leading partisan crowds (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
He has arguably surpassed both in terms of achievements with comparatively little fanfare; His decision not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, which he always highlighted as a personal choice, has drawn opprobrium and unknowingly made him a model for groups who believe the election is a victory against the establishment.
There have been other controversies: at last year's Australian Open, his father was photographed with supporters of Vladimir Putin; In the first week of last year's French Open, he wrote “Kosovo is the (heart symbol) of Serbia” on a television camera in response to the violent clashes in Kosovo, placing himself once again in the middle of a battle that has plagued the Balkans. for almost 1,000 years and has faced accusations of aligning with fascism and philosophies that led to ethnic cleansing.
Djokovic said they were both misunderstood.
Fortunately, Djokovic was not attacked on Friday and, the next day, he made light of the incident, arriving at the Foro Italico wearing a cycling helmet ahead of his loss to Alejandro Tabilo.
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No-shot of the week
Club players of the world: does this sound familiar?
Left on purpose, @dThiagoMonteiro 😉#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/dEzRP3Mk8N
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 8, 2024
Photo of the week
Club players of the world: right? this Look familiar?
Oh no, he didn't… 😱@dThiagoMonteiro with one of the shots of the week in Rome!#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/4WB864fuZS
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 10, 2024
Recommended reading:
📅 Coming soon
🎾 ATP:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Stefanos Tstitsipas, Alejandro Tabilo, Thiago Monteiro, Grigor Dimitrov
📺 United Kingdom: Sky Sports; USA: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff.
📺 United Kingdom: Sky Sports; USA: Tennis Channel
Let us know what you noticed this week in the comments as the tours continue.
(Main photos: Mike Hewitt; Alex Pantling; Dan Isitene/Getty Images)
