Hey everyone …
• The Professional Tennis Players Association filed a lawsuit against the ATP, WTA, ITF and ITIA on Tuesday. Here’s a breakdown of what the move means for the tennis landscape.
• Here’s the latest Served podcast:
Onward, as we wrap Indian Wells and make the turn to Miami, here are some bullet points from the desert:
• All hail Mirra Andreeva and Jack Draper, your BNP Paribas Open women’s and men’s champions. There are staggering differences between them: size, game, dominant hand, origin story. There were also some unmistakable similarities. Both young, ascending players—who reached a major semifinal in 2024—won the biggest title of their careers last week, overcoming a brutal draw, beating the defending champion in the semifinals, and then avoiding a letdown to win the final.
• Andreeva not only beat Aryna Sabalenka in a captivating final but defeated Elena Rybakina, Elina Svitolina and Iga Świątek to get there. Let’s calm down on the she will win Wimbledon hype. But let’s acknowledge that this is a real-deal star.
• Draper combines a high-octane lefty profile with a never-too-high-or-too-low disposition that serves him so well. His body breaks down too often? No worries. He’ll confront that and improve his durability. He has to play a raft of Americans? No worries, he’ll beat them and win the crowd’s respect. He has to play Carlos Alcaraz? No worries, he’ll beat him. And show up the next day for the final.
• What do you make of Sabalenka, who could retire tomorrow a Hall of Famer and is unbeatable when she is on? But she has a stubborn habit of losing close, late-in-tournament matches. If she had closed out Coco Gauff at the 2023 U.S. Open final, or Madison Keys in this year’s Australia final, or Andreeva Sunday … perhaps we start to think of her as an altogether player.
• Keys beat Sabalenka in a gripping match of the year candidate Australian Open final. Less than two months later, they met in the Indian Wells semis and Sabalenka won 6–1, 6–0. Tennis.
• He lost to Holger Rune in the semifinals, but it was nice to see Daniil Medvedev turn in a strong event. He’s entirely too good and versatile to be playing .500-level tennis, as has been the case for the past few months.
• The revelation of the tournament? The casual fan will say Andreeva. If you’re reading this column, you likely knew about her sumptuous and vast talent a year (two years? Three?) ago. How about a vote for Japan’s Yosuke Watanuki, who reached the fourth round, taking out Frances Tiafoe in the process? Ranked No. 349 before the event, he is the lowest ranked male to reach the fourth round since …. Tommy Haas (No. 882 in 2004), who is now, of course, the tournament director.
• Watanuki is perhaps an up-and-comer. But no young up-and-comer … he turns 27 in a few weeks.
• We are reluctant to give coaches too much credit. It is the players who are exposed, doing the heavy lifting and bearing the burden of an individual sport. But there are too many data points not to appreciate the outstanding work of Conchita Martínez. That she is a former major winner is just the beginning of her qualifications. She appears uniquely skilled at meeting players where they are, giving them straight talk without being confrontational, and tailoring her message beyond the “keep fighting,” “you got this,” and “be aggressive” bromides.
• Continue keeping Matt Van Tuinen in your thoughts/prayers.
• In keeping with a vow I made with one of you after a healthy, civil exchange—they exist!—let’s note the doubles results. Asia Muhammad and Demi Schuurs won the women’s title. Top seeds Marcelo Arévalo and Mate Pavić completed a week of knocking out teams of top-50 singles players when they defeated Sebastian Korda and Jordan Thompson to win the men’s title.
• The biggest piece of tournament news may well have been the announcement that BNP Paribas and the event have “renewed their vows” and reupped the sponsorship for another five years.
• Nice to see Jenson Brooksby back to playing top-shelf tennis. And this gesture—impromptu—from Draper was, as they say in the U.K., bloody menschy.
• RIP John Feinstein, who passed away unexpectedly last week. On a personal note: I first met John in the mid-80s when I was a middle school basketball nerd, and he was in my hometown writing the book that would become the runway bestseller A Season on the Brink. We reconnected (cough cough) years later in various press rooms and book events. He never missed an opportunity to mock tennis and its dysfunction and tell me how much I would prefer covering golf. Yet he also showed up at Wimbledon, the first round of the U.S. Open (and even wrote for the tournament program) and knew an awful lot of news and gossip for someone who swore the sport drove him crazy with its infighting and inaccessible players. There were, fittingly, no shortage of moving obits and remembrances last week. This one from Dan Steinberg nailed it. If you want to make your own tribute, I recommend buying/reading/rereading John’s tennis book Hard Courts, which holds up awfully well. Rest in peace to a sports media titan.
Onto some Q&A …
Jon,
I see the WTA has a new logo—AGAIN. Have they ever had the same logo two years in a row?
PR.
• Sometimes a rebrand is helpful and necessary. Other times, it’s a way for the folks in marketing to leave their mark, blame their predecessor or buy themselves more time. Like so much art, the logo is subjective. Some of you like the color. Others miss the purple. Some like the corporate font. Others wish for more playfulness.
My issue with this logo is that it has nothing to do with tennis. No ball. No racket. No Jerry West action of the sport in question. If I am not a hard-core tennis fan and I get an email or see a presentation with a generic WTA logo, do I not assume it’s “World Trade Association” or something similar and click delete?
One of you made the interesting point that, at a time when the Tour returns hat-in-hand to China—which failed to acknowledge, must less accept, the WTA’s preconditioned demand for a full and thorough investigation into, effectively, a disappeared player—and … at a time when the WTA stages its flagship event in a country with an appalling human rights record, simply because said country writes the biggest check … maybe green is more appropriate than pink or purple. Enough with the social mission. We can be bought, and we are open for business.
Hi Jon,
I always enjoy your answers to readers' questions. Here's mine: Suppose [Jannik] Sinner spends his three-month suspension working on his clay and grass skills, as one supposes he will, then returns in time to play a warm-up tourney before the French. Will this be enough to put him over the hump at Roland Garros and Wimbledon? And if so, how strange might it be if he won a complete Grand Slam the same year he served a steroid suspension? How much will that taint his legacy and achievement? And how will other players feel about it? Curious for your thoughts.
Cheers, Jay
• A recently retired player made an adjacent point. Paraphrasing, but the thought was basically: Let me get this straight, he has three months off the grind of the tour and can use it to work on his clay court game, knowing he is still eligible for Rome and Roland Garros. Forget about doping. This scheduling break is a competitive advantage he will have over the rest of the field.
As for legacy and achievement, a lot of this rests with Sinner and his results. This is the fate of athletes in his position. If he is never the same player as before—note some of the baseball players, for instance, who were popped for steroids and never regained their swing thereafter—it will add to speculation. If he resumes his winning ways, it will likely help make the case that he gained no competitive advantage.
I also think his PR strategy will be interesting. When asked about this ordeal—as he inevitably will be—how does he balance contrition with defiance? We shall see. Some stains go away. Others are ineradicable.
Please look into your crystal ball and tell us which American woman has the better tennis future. Is it Ashlyn Krueger, Peyton Stearns or McCartney Kessler and the reason for your choice? Also, do you foresee a decent chance of [Sofia] Kenin ever making it back into the top 20 since she appears to have started 2025 fairly well?
Bob Diepold, Charlotte NC
• I try to make a rule of writing no one off. Will Kenin win another major? Unlikely. And she is often vulnerable to getting hit off the court. But can she get back to the top 20? With her taste for battle? Sure. I like all three of the other Americans you mention. They arrived at this point in three different ways. They play three different games. Under duress, I would probably take Krueger.
The [Nick] Kyrgios “defense” is gross garbage. “Like or dislike someone personally,” you say, as if our reactions to his admitted domestic abuse, constant remarks about WTA players or Twitter trolling is some “personal vendetta” we have against the dude. Get real.
@cheeseatnight
• Social media is poison. It amplifies the extreme views. It has become performance art. The initial benefit of “connection” has been overrun by trolls.
But here’s another: It militates against people holding two complicated—even contradictory—ideas at once. You can dislike Kyrgios’s trolling and treatment of women … AND wish him a recovery from his potentially career-threatening injury. You can be happy that the WTA players have some long-overdue maternity benefits and IVF funding … AND find it problematic that this program is being underwritten by a country with a well-established record of suboptimal women’s rights. You can appreciate Masters 1000 events … AND take issue with the way they spread over 12 days.
Hey Jon,
I hope all is well.
Another early loss for Novak [Djokovic] (at Indian Wells). In light of his results since the 2024 Paris Olympics, does that not make his achievement there that much more remarkable? I don’t think him winning the gold is underrated per se, but man, looking back, that run has to be one of the all time displays of heart and determination in the history of sport.
Best regards,
L.T. (Toronto)
• Interesting take. Most of us reflexively say, Don’t count out Novak. Just look at what he did at the Paris Olympics. Maybe the real take is: What an extraordinary—like, generationally extraordinary—achievement that was. North of age 37, coming off an injury incurred on the same damn court barely two months prior, he beat Alcaraz. After boldly proclaiming that mining this gold was his overarching goal for the year. That it came sandwiched between so many losses, before and after, only underscores how heroic this feat truly was.
Thank you for highlighting the passing of Fiery Fred. I recall watching an [Andre] Agassi/[Aaron] Krickstein match back in 1989 (Forest Hills). Agassi won 6–1 2–6 6–3. Late in the 2nd Set, Fred drops the classic commentary: “It looks like Andre Agassi has strapped on the goggles and flippers and is taking a dive.”
All the best , George
• Long as we are here, read Joel Drucker’s obituary of Fred “Fiery” Stolle.
A Fred Stolle story: When I was in college in the 1990s, I worked at the New Haven event. Stolle was there for broadcasting and, I believe, to play in a legends event. I noticed that he had lost his credential and handed it back to him. He responded to the effect of: “Thanks, Mate. Now, if you had picked up the one that read Drysdale, I’dda told you to give it a good washing off first. Who knows where that thing’s been.”
Shots, Miscellany:
- This week’s unsolicited book recommendation, Michael Mewshaw, of Ladies of the Court fame, is back with a new novel.
- Note that Premier Padel (and we should talk more about padel), camped out in Europe these days—I am increasingly convinced that it’s really an existential threat to tennis in a way that pickleball is not—is holding its first ever American event next week in Miami … the same week as the Miami Open? Hmmm.
- Good soldering: Fitz and the Tantrums will be playing at the International Tennis Hall of Fame ceremony.
ENJOY THE EARLY DAYS IN MIAMI EVERYONE!
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tennis Mailbag: Indian Wells 2025 Recap.