Welcome and welcome back. We just crossed into May and already it’s been quite a year at Sports Illustrated. Happily, we seem to have landed softly in the hands of a responsible and ethical new steward. In tennis terms, we’ve gotten a reset.
SI lives.
The mailbag lives.
• Thanks for your assorted comments, questions and concerns during an uncertain period for the enterprise.
• A few of you asked: you can send questions via social media or the old school email: jon_wertheim@yahoo.com.
• If you want the mailbag link sent directly to your inbox, we can make that happen. Just email your address.
• Andy Roddick and I are having a lot of fun with Served. Your comments, suggestions, observations, objections to the cursing, and objections to the bleeping are welcome. Here’s the latest podcast episode.
• Comedy Central had a go at the tennis vs. pickleball war. (Takeaway: who knew Patrick McEnroe had this level of comedy chops?)
Onward …
Let’s start with a toast. The ghoul pool is awfully deep these days. Rafa, Andy, Stanislas, Venus. Gael … the players whose career obits are being written in advance right now, who are unlikely to finish 2024? They are sufficiently well known that no surnames are required. Then, last week, another future Hall of Famer called it a career. Already on hiatus, Garbiñe Muguruza announced that she was tapping out.
First, let’s dispense with the Hall of Fame talk. She’s in. It’s not a close call. No challenges to the chair, please. We can debate the Hall’s precedents and standards for admission. But given the state of play, Muguruza qualifies. Multiple majors. Other deep runs at majors. A stint in the rankings penthouse. As we’ve written before, prize money—normed for present value—tends to be a good indicator of success. Her $25 million speaks volumes.
There comes a point in any discussion when we must trot out two of our favorite tennis factoids/quirks. And it is this: Muguruza won 10 career titles. Eight came on hard courts. The others? Wimbledon and Roland Garros—of course, the two biggest events not played on hard courts. The other: she beat both Serena and Venus Williams in the two major finals she won. (Nerding out: she hit a match point ball on the line to beat Serena; on match point against Venus, she won a challenge.)
The retirement announcement was, at once, surprising—she’s only 30; she’s only a few years from winning the WTA Finals; she is/was an athletic player who could heat up as fast as she could cool off—and not at all surprising. She had spoken openly about the lack of fulfillment the sport had brought her recently. (Less openly, it must be noted that a former coach bleached some of her joy from the sport.) This was a player who, you suspected, had achieved enough for her liking and was looking forward to pivoting to a more conventional life. Good on her.
Another omnibus … We’ve gotten a lot of questions/takes/quests for clarity on the great tennis rivalry of 2024: CEO of Tennis Australia Craig Tiley versus ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi … the Premier Tour versus what I am calling “Tours Marry—and the Saudis fund the reception and honeymoon.”
All signs suggest that starting in 2026, pro tennis will look considerably different. The question is how so? And who is happier at the handshake?
This is a fluid story, but here are some quick points:
A. The Masters 1000s hold most of the cards. Will they decide to break free of the tours and partner with the majors? Or will they elect to stick with the tour format?
B. If the Premier Tour prevails, what happens to the tours? And what happens to the 100-plus events that will, effectively, be downgraded? What happens to the players outside the 100? (Conversely: What happens when the majors take the unusual step of banding together, creating an alternative entity to kneecap the tours … and don’t prevail?)
C. At some level, we ought to applaud the Premier Tour’s boldness. For decades everyone has complained about tennis’s verkakte structure and governance and balkanization. The Premier Tour addresses this head-on. “We are shaking this s--- up!” …. But the more one pokes, the more holes emerge. The generously compensated consultants may have helped with PowerPoints and impressive financial projections. But there are still so many unanswered (or insufficiently answered) questions that come trailing inconveniently, like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. This plan was clearly conceived first as defense (Tiley insistent on keeping his Aussie January intact). Then it became offense (the majors form an alliance and put their hip-high boots on the necks of the tours). But so many details were glossed over or ignored altogether.
D. Though Tiley was in Madrid, right now it’s advantage, Gaudenzi. But he (and the ATP) has a real problem. Where to put the Saudi 1000 event, on which so much financing is conditioned? How does he repair the damage with the Dubai and Doha events, who wonder, not unreasonably, Wait, I’ve been paying dues here since the 90s. And the Saudis jump the line? Where’s the loyalty? Putting the Saudi event in Week 1 is an act of war against Tiley and Tennis Australia.
E. We were told that the “open bid” for the 1000 event only yielded two takers: Saudi Arabia and Dubai. (Neither Doha nor Tennis Australia submitted.) The Saudi bid was higher. Where would a Saudi Masters 1000 go on the clogged artery that is the calendar? (There are only two real choices: the first week of the year and sandwiched between the French Open and Wimbledon—which is impractical.)
F. Rare tennis consensus: mixed events are the way to go. Two-week mixed events are too long. If this can be addressed in the process, great.
G. Where are the players? We seem to be proceeding on the assumption that, like Willie Sutton, they will go where the money is. But given not only the tremors but the vast range of outcomes, it’s remarkable to me that we are not hearing more … objections, support, lobbying, questions and concerns from, you know, the folks most immediately impacted.
H. When does the WTA announce its new CEO? We hear it’s are down to two candidates. But given that Steve Simon relinquished his CEO position in December (he shrewdly, remains chairman) it’s been a long succession period.
I. CVC has already won. Private equity (almost) always wins.
Jon, I have noticed you and others referring to the French Open more and more as Roland Garros? Am I imagining this? If not, when did this become a thing?
Jess, NY
• You are not imagining. I would say maybe five years ago word came down that the preferred nomenclature was Roland Garros. Not sure why. You imagine the hommes and femmes gathered in the marketing meeting. We can refer to this event as a national title, the way two other majors do. Or we can start using the name of the obscure World War I pilot—who had nothing to do with tennis and died more than 100 years ago.
We’ll take porte numero deux!
Part of me feels icky being co-opted into this marketing strategy. But, ultimately, I feel about this, the way I do people who get honorary degrees and thereafter insist on being called “doctor.” That is, “Your name, your choice. If that’s what you prefer to be called, why would I not try and oblige?”
Have you seen the film Challengers? If so, should I?
Mark P., UK
• I got an advanced screening in New York way back when. I’ll have a review and conversation with Zendaya later this week. There’s a lot to recommend here. I commend the risk-taking—by the director, by the screenwriter, by Zendaya in one of her first leading roles. With the exception of a few pedantic nitpicks, they nail the tennis. If not the ball striking, then the rhythm, body language and levels of the game. Laura Robson was quick to note they even nod to the Applebee’s scene in Cincinnati.
My one sweeping caveat: this is not a sugary protagonist-overcomes-obstacles-and-wins-in-the-third act sports film. Heed the “R” rating. The director, Luca Guadagnino, is the guy who made Call Me By Your Name. It’s possible this film has a higher volume of suggestive content. Know that going in. Leave the kids home. But this is real cinema. And well worth your 130 minutes. All the more so if you like tennis. But even that is not a prerequisite.
What does “good people” have to do with anything?
Name withheld
• This was in reference to Muguruza, and the suggestion her Hall of Fame credentials—already airtight—benefit from her disposition. “Good people” is:
A) Obviously, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
B) Subjective.
C) Unquantifiable.
But a Hall of Fame takes inventory of a sporting career. And, along with wins, losses and titles, I would argue that good—not perfect, but good—citizenship is a necessary requirement. Tennis is hardly alone here, but it has had to confront players who qualified based on numbers but whose conduct made them unworthy. I would vote for Maria Sharapova, but I know others who find an athlete’s doping suspension to be disqualifying.
In Muguruza’s case, she’s in with the track record. And her comportment—her professionalism, the way she went about the job—only adds sheen to her candidacy.
Is it just me or does almost nobody care about HoF outside of the US, players excluded...its just not something that gets a mention at all here in Aus anyway.
• Respectfully, it’s you. Maybe a decade ago, I would have agreed with you. But no more. Short of big news events—Serena Williams retiring, a Novak Djokovic-gets-deported level controversy—no topic gets more attention from readers, everywhere. Last week I visited Simona Halep in Romania. She wondered to me how her doping suspension might impact her Hall of Fame candidacy. I know one player who won a major, played in the final of another, and part of the disappointment in losing stemmed from the fact that her Hall of Fame status would not be automatic.
I asked Kim Clijsters about this when she was being inducted in 2017. Paraphrasing, when she met her husband she asked him to explain the sports Hall of Fame and why Americans are so obsessed. By the time she retired, she grasped it. She is now a HoF executive. It’s as good a metaphor as any.
