Budding Rivalry Between Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek Should Help Women’s Tennis

The geopolitical tensions surrounding the top two players in the world, as well as their contrasting personalities and styles, will only elevate fan interest.

• RIP, Tony Graham.

• A devastating tennis tragedy on Long Island. One hopes there will be some sort of tribute at the U.S. Open.

• The Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program holds its gala later this month. Reserve seats here.

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Would you agree that Aryna Sabalenka winning Madrid is one of those results that is good for tennis?

Jose O.

• Sure. In the sense that anytime a top player wins, solidifying the top level of the sport’s parfait, it’s good. … Any time the winner of the most recent major sustains their winning ways (on a difference surface) it’s good. … Any time a charismatic, free-wheeling star in their mid-20s wins big, the sport benefits.

What I really like? The rivalry that has developed and hardened between Sabalenka and Iga Świątek. Credit to Courtney Nguyen for this factoid: “No. 1 Swiatek and No. 2 Sabalenka are squaring off in their second successive final, having met last month in Stuttgart, where the Pole triumphed in straight sets. By contrast, between 2016 and 2022, the WTA’s No. 1 and No. 2 players faced each other on just two occasions.”

Sabalenka won her first major singles title at this year’s Australian Open and could soon overtake budding rival Świątek as the No. 1–ranked player in the world :: Susan Mullane/USA TODAY Sports

Rivalry is sports’ jet fuel. It elevates interest. It elevates stakes. It elevates the performance of the principals. The more, the better. Immediately after the match there were suggestions that Sabalenka is the true No. 1 and is having the best 2023. (Hard to argue.) There were countersuggestions that this was a one-off, a clay event played at altitude and Świątek remains the favorite to win at Roland Garros. (Also, perhaps true.) But fans have picked lanes, and they care.

Apart from the contrast in styles, the contrast in personalities, the No. 1 versus No. 2, you also have this geopolitical backdrop. You think the U.S. dislikes barbarous Putin (and, by extension, vile Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko)? Spend some time in Europe, particularly countries bordering Russia. At most government buildings, the Ukraine flag flies at the same height as the national flag. Świątek, from Poland, opposes Russia. So much so she takes the court wearing a Ukrainian flag pin on her hat and speaks openly and admirably about her stance. Sabalenka, of Belarus, has, to put it mildly, not condemned the invasion. That makes for a kind of current that run their matches and only adds context and stakes. 

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Hi Jon,

Carlos Alcaraz will be this year's Roland Garros champion. Arguments against?

Mark

• Um … one guy has won it 14 times (including the most recent vintage) and perhaps deserves to be called the favorite until proved otherwise. Another player presumed to be in the field will have 22 majors, two of them in Paris. But, based on recent form and health, Alcaraz is your betting favorite. 

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Hello Jon,

We're writing this after watching Jan-Lennard Struff make his first Masters 1000 semifinal. A very decent guy from what we've seen, and possibly having the tournament of his life. Could you remind us what surface they play on in Madrid? All the power plays, first-strike tennis, points decided in the forecourt. Maybe they are redrawing the tournament in the new (ish) director's image? And will it continue in Rome?

Thanks,
David and Sherrie, California

• I did not start the week anticipating multiple questions about Jan-Lennard Struff. But here we are. Or hier sind wir. Struff is a fine player. A big German who takes big cuts, shows precision at the net—which makes him a fine doubles player as well. We try to avoid the demeaning term “journeyman” but he’s played 35 majors and been beyond the third round twice. He is not, perhaps, the ATP’s most graceful mover. That his breakthrough performance came on clay—as a 33-year-old lucky loser!—makes this magical week all the more unlikely. Good for you for noting that tournament director Feliciano Lopez (who’s had a rough week) was the rare Spaniard who turned in better results on grass and on clay. And it was noted that Struff benefited from the altitude of Madrid, which makes it less conventional and predictive than other clay events. 

But here’s my take: Pro tennis, men’s and women’s, is really deep. There are a lot of strong, versatile players. We’ve been spoiled and statistically distorted by Federer, Djokovic, Nadal and Serena. They are the outliers. Not the solid, hard-serving 15-year pro who reaches the final of a big event. 

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Jon, 

I noticed you did not weigh in on “cakegate” in Madrid. Care to do so now?

Peter G., New York

• For those who missed it, Sabalenka and Alcaraz both celebrated birthdays on May 5. Shockingly, the cake the Madrid organizers had ordered for the Spanish player (and defending champion) was larger and, presumably, contained more icing and sprinkles. 

My initial reaction: As the kids say, I just can’t. There is a tennis analogy here. Just as a player can be aggressive without going for winners on every shot, or hitting only first serves … can we be vigilant about injustice without making every gesture or act of commission or omission a sign of rampant [blank]ism and toxic masculinity and latent bias? 

To paraphrase Freud, “Sometimes a birthday cake is just a birthday cake.” (As reader Betty Scott noted, “Does anyone honestly think that if Serena had a birthday during the USO, she'd get the same size cake as anyone else in the tournament having a birthday during those two weeks?”) When every gesture gets parsed like this, it has the effect of diluting and trivializing the real injustices and outrages.

Then aforementioned Madrid organizers made a mess of things, in the manner of a child smearing birthday cake. When Sabalenka joked about the cake at the trophy presentation ceremony, they were clearly displeased. While the men’s doubles champs were able to speak at their trophy ceremony, the women were not extended that courtesy, leading to this.

And suddenly a silly cake slight was of a piece (no pun intended) with something greater, more serious and more deserving of criticism. Including …

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Jon,

I cannot believe the Madrid Open is still using models as ball kids. I thought they tried this years ago and was criticized so much they stopped. I guess I was wrong.

Anonymous

• Discouragingly, the models-as-ball kids gimmick is, shockingly, still a thing. Encouragingly, the unforced error seemed to get more attention this year. Spain's secretary of state for equality, Soledad Murillo, weighed in. The money quote: Using models “contributes to fomenting clear discrimination towards women who appear as simple objects of decoration and amusement.”

It’s not only sexist; it’s also just so … anachronistically pathetic. It’s like the equivalent of a Playboy bunny-ears swizzle stick. Or calling the flight attendant “hon.” Or going to Hooters. Or boxing’s ring card girls. The “novelty” of employing grown women in skirts to fetch serves that hit the net? Only for men’s matches, by the way? Really, we’re doing this? In 2023? And really, the folks at IMG—owners of the Madrid event; reps to many WTA players including Serena Williams, and female athletes and entertainers—are O.K. with this?

Minor point: It’s remarkable how many players—Federer among them—were once ball kids at the local pro tournaments. “Have to see it to be it” and all. It’s disappointing that these positions are being transferred from actual tennis-playing kids to “models.” Time to consign this to the same dustbin as the blue clay. 

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I am much more harsh on Fabio Fognini than you are. But allow me to ask: Do you have ambivalence about at least some of Jimmy Connors's career achievements? Or is it that once a player has proven himself a Slam winner, then when playing on home soil he is given a much wider birth on his breaches of decorum and civility?

Thank you for answering.
Joy Fleming, Toronto

• You mean Fabio Fognini, who apologized for using a racist slur against Filip Krajinovic? Or, wait, the Fabio Fognini who was suspended from the U.S. Open after he called the female chair umpire a whore? Or the Fabio Fognini cited for using an anti-LGBTQ slur during the Olympics—and courageously blaming it on the heat? That charmer? I gave him a wide berth. He exceeded the dimensions.

Connors, on the other hand … my outrage generator is broken here. If hired as counsel, I would wage a two-pronged defense of Connors. First, different era, different standards. If a player today called an official an “abortion,” as he did at the 1991 U.S. Open, it would rocket around social media before the next point started. Fans would be offended, he would be fined and would (no doubt using the Notes app) apologize. That’s fine. But when Connors did it, the commentators didn’t mention it. The crowd didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t asked about it in the postmatch interview. 

Connors at the 1981 U.S. Open :: Lou Capozzola/USA TODAY Sports

You can condemn Connors for behavior that was offensive today and, in a vacuum, might be awful. But when there are few social cues that he was offending anyone … also, if we’re being honest, this is a towering champion. Fair or unfair, there’s a sliding scale here. The geometry changes, a line-cross become “edge.” Win championships and belts and majors and off-color becomes color, fits of pique becomes passion, McEnroe’s rants become part of his “temperamental genius” narrative. (Another point, perhaps inadmissible, in Connors’s defense: His son is a prince of a guy. The middle-aged man in me says, “Anyone who raises someone like that has to be O.K.” Which is to say, Federico Fognini, the pressure to restore you father’s honor is on.)

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While the occasional controversy over marks may add some spice to the game— think Maestro Federer’s repartee in 2008 with Djokovic’s parents who were sitting in the stands in Monte Carlo or Holger Rune’s recent rub off of the mark in Madrid—is there any legitimate reason why electronic line calling is not utilized on what Fernando likes to call “The Surface of Truth”—clay? 

Fernando

• Two answers, believe whomever you like. It’s either insufficiently reliable on clay—we’ve all seen video where the mark says one thing and the electronic image says another—or it’s insufficiently priced, which gives the tournament the incentive to say it’s insufficiently reliable. Again, I am sensitive to the idea that electronic line-calling is putting people out of work. I am wholly not sensitive to the “spice up the game” argument, the notion, in keeping with that analogy, that we lose flavor when we don’t have human error and, therefore, human-to-human confrontation. We’re trying to make accurate calls here, not “punch up” a script.

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Tennis roasts, you say? Sometime in the early 80s I attended a roast of Arthur Ashe by his late 60s, early 70s Davis Cup teammates, held here in Philly at the Four Seasons. I cannot be sure, but my guess is that the beneficiary was either the Tennis Patrons Association (local to Philadelphia) or what was then known as the Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis Center, which was supported by the Patrons.

Aside from the obvious warmth shared among all of them—Donald Dell was there, as well—I clearly remember one story, which was actually told by Ashe himself: He and Dennis Ralston were playing the 1971 Wimbledon doubles final against Roy Emerson and Rod Laver. Ashe described how he was a dedicated doubles-non-talker, while Ralston was naturally more chatty. Nonetheless they had had their successes. I suppose it was in the fifth set and Ashe was getting ready to serve the next game. Ralston pulled him aside and said, “Just get your first serve in.” Needless to say, Ashe couldn’t find the box.

P.S. Emerson and Laver won, 4–6, 9–7, 6–8, 6–4, 6–4. To more tennis roasts. 

Skip Schwarzman, Philly

• Hear, hear.

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Hi Jon,

A modest proposal for pro tennis brand extension: assign someone to get tennis points on ESPN SportsCenter’s daily “top 10.” I am not a regular viewer, but I have rarely seen tennis featured there. What an opportunity missed to get exposure for our new young stars!

John Rossitter, Middletown CT

• Tennis Channel, friend. “Best of the Best.” Branded and everything …

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Shots:

• The USTA today announced that Liz McSorley, a seasoned management consultant and executive leader, has been named the USTA’s managing director, strategy and innovation. This newly created position will be based in Orlando, and McSorley will report to Craig Morris, the USTA’s chief executive, community tennis.

• The International Tennis Hall of Fame’s new exhibit, Transcending Tennis: “50 Years of the WTA” is now on display in Newport, R.I. Celebrating 50 years of women’s professional tennis, “Transcending Tennis” joins “Hit Me With Your Best Shot!” as the second new exhibit on display at the ITHF this year.