What to Make of Naomi Osaka’s Australian Open Showing

Osaka made her major return after missing all of 2023. Plus, John McEnroe backlash and the latest season of Netflix’s ‘Break Point.’

Editors’ note, upon publishing: Questions in this mailbag were lightly edited for brevity.

As it is written, Wednesday is Mailbag Day ...

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Jon, what is your impression of Naomi Osaka’s Australian Open? I honestly thought she looked far from her best, and wonder if she’ll ever get back. What do you think?

Carlos, New York

Big picture: This is a player who gave birth in July. Balancing sensitivity with newsworthiness, there are clearly some family matters consuming her mental bandwidth. Even before her maternity leave, Osaka was, by her own admission, struggling with the mental health challenges that can accompany being a competitive athlete and international celebrity.

For her to return to a major and lose a tight match against a top player in Caroline Garcia is hardly a crisis. She struck the ball fairly cleanly. She was not moving like she was in 2021 when she won her most recent major. Confidence, match toughness and decision-making will come. But it starts with conditioning. You wonder whether someone on her team might say, “Let’s skip Dubai and instead devote the time to a training block, so we’re ready to roll at Indian Wells.”

In her first major appearance in more than a year, Osaka lost in the first round of the Australian Open :: Mike Frey/USA TODAY Sports

All in all, this result is about what you might expect. Her showing in Australia was neither a blazing embarrassment nor a resounding success. When you’ve won a major title (twice), it’s disappointing to lose in the first major of the year. (Especially when you’ve had little success at the next two.) When you’re back from maternity leave and losing 6–4, 7–6 to the No. 16 seed, you can’t be too upset.

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There were a lot of questions and comments about the most recent season of Break Point. A few scattered thoughts:

1. A reminder: This is supposed to be a mainstream show for people who aren’t already tennis fans. The idea is to grow the pie. As I see it, anything designed to expand tennis’s appeal, demystify a sport still stigmatized as elitist and seek a broader audience is a force of good and gets the benefit of most doubts.

2. As a result of this approach, it’s easy for hardcore tennis fans to nitpick. (O.K., I’ll join the fray: How do you frame an entire episode around Maria Sakkari’s shortcoming and self-doubt, and not include this clip?) But the overall access of Break Point is excellent. The cameras—and, by extension, we—are in locker rooms, training sessions, hotel rooms and courtesy cars. For this behind-the-cordoned-off-areas access alone, it’s worth your time.

3. How often in popular culture is tennis portrayed as the preserve of elitist jerks? (I just cringed at the tennis scene in Dumb Money, the latest entry that includes everything from Fletch to Trading Places to The Royal Tenenbaums.) By accident or design, this series does a great job of celebrating tennis’s diversity, including its economic diversity and diversity of origin stories. Jessica Pegula is the daughter of a billionaire. Frances Tiafoe’s father was a maintenance worker. Taylor Fritz is a child of privilege. Though disappointingly thin on details—referencing only “challenging times”—Tommy Paul clearly is not.

4. This season has the feel of the GOP debates with Donald Trump in absentia. Or an NBA game on the night the team rests its stars. Or the E Street Band without Bruce Springsteen. What do I mean? Novak Djokovic—the story of tennis right now—is scarcely mentioned, much less featured. The next biggest male star is Rafael Nadal. Then Carlos Alcaraz. None of them were featured. Which means none of them decided to cooperate. On the women’s side, Iga Świątek is scarcely mentioned, and Coco Gauff clearly didn’t want to participate, either. That’s their prerogative. It’s not necessarily the filmmakers’ fault. But these glaring absences make for an awkward watch. At some point, don’t we get to hear from the players who actually, you know, win the big events?

5. The Alexander Zverev episode is a disgrace. The idea that they would choose to feature a player with multiple domestic violence charges hanging over him is curious. The idea that they would fail to mention these accusations—one of which he will stand trial for beginning May 31—is appallingly indefensible. I cannot, for the life of me, conceive of the rationale for this. Leaving morality and journalistic responsibility out of it, it’s just bad business. It has rightly enraged most tennis fans. And, I’m not the first to make this point, but imagine a nonfan getting invested in Zverev after watching Break Point and then looking up more info on him only to discover what’s been left out. It’s such a glaring omission that it renders everything that follows suspect.

6. We all like duality. We all like contrasts. Heroes need villains, and villains need heroes. But (spoiler) the idea that Daniil Medvedev—whom virtually everyone in tennis embraces as a benign and fun presence and endearingly offbeat—is a nefarious cheater, and the player who does this, while facing multiple accusations of domestic violence against women, is cast as the good guy? That goes beyond merely an unforced error.

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Hi Jon. I recall in the Fall lots of chatter about scheduling matches too late and how it was bad for fans and players. Now I see the Australian Open added an extra day, which I assumed was meant to help avoid scheduling compression but I see lots of commentators describing it as a simple cash grab.

Is it for better scheduling, a cash grab or something else/in between?

Thanks, Joel G.

I wish Tennis Australia would have been honest. Something like: “We are losing money on the United Cup and still in some financial pain from COVID-19. We found an additional stream of revenue by adding a Sunday session. It’s great because, as a tentpole event, all the majors should include as many weekend sessions as possible. Those are days that are coveted by television. Those are the days most convenient for fans to attend. We will share this additional revenue with the players.”

Framing this as a way to unclog and decompress the schedule is disingenuous to an insulting degree. A few players might benefit from an added day between the first and second rounds. But other than that, it’s hard to see how this does much. You still have to put on two day matches and two night matches, and as long as the men continue to play best-of-five, you still run the risk of matches running comically late. Just call it what it is. No one will be mad.

Note that the common sense rule changes for starting matches earlier and prohibiting matches to start late apply to only the ATP and WTA, not the majors.

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Jon, What do you make of this latest John McEnroe controversy and criticism that he doesn’t know players except for the stars? To me it’s a sign of disrespect and that he is just getting by on his name recognition. But maybe I am being naïve.

Jeff, Albany

I see this even made the New York Post. I have a hard time generating much outrage here. Caveat emptor. You’re not hiring—or listening to—McEnroe for his depth of knowledge on players or his close following of ATP 250 results. He’s there to react, to take questions from the analyst, to be an honest broker (the early Sunday start is a naked and cynical cash grab!), to (hopefully) rope in casual fans, to (hopefully) make smart and counterintuitive observations.

Does McEnroe come armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of the ATP and WTA personnel? He does not. A particularly stark recent example I recall: Last year at Wimbledon, he said something to the effect of “keep an eye on this Nicolás Jarry,” as if stumbling upon this revelation, this obscure prospect destined for success. Except that Jarry was already a top-30 player, and had already been a part of a Laver Cup team—one that was coached by, you guessed it, John McEnroe!

Seven-time major champion McEnroe caught some flak for his perceived lack of knowledge about certain players during the Australian Open :: Andy Marlin/USA TODAY Sports

I get the complaint that it is disrespectful to players outside the top 20 and the audience. I can tell you this is an exception. I am working this event with Lindsay Davenport, who takes to her phone on commercial breaks to look up obscure facts that she will impart. Also Jim Courier, who knows the data on the court speed and will do shoe-leather reporting, talking to coaches and trainers, in service of being maximally informed.

But I put McEnroe’s knowledge gaps in the same category as Charles Barkley telling you he falls asleep during NBA games and can’t pull off pronunciations. All part of the deal. All part of the appeal?

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Hi Jon. What is going on with Roberto Bautista Agut and Denis Shapovalov? They both seem to have fallen off the radar.

Thanks, Kelly G.

Louisville, KY

Well, let’s first note that they are more than a decade apart in age. Bautista Agut, a talent maximizer, is not only 35, but also coming off an injury sustained during an incident involving his horses. You’ll recall a horse trampled his foot, causing him to miss time in 2023. Bautista Agut is back but is clearly not 100% and, given his age and how essential movement is to his game, you wonder whether this isn’t the autumn of an admirable career.

The good news for Shapovalov: He is still only 24. The less good news: He is a long way from the player who once cracked the top 10. Back from knee surgery last summer, he is outside the top 100 in the rolling rankings. He is still trying to get his game back. Last week, losing to Sebastian Ofner, Shapovalov double-faulted 11 times in nine service games. This week, he lost in Round 1 in straight sets to Jakub Menšík.) He also recently took some criticism from a former coach. I don’t disagree that he’s fallen off the radar. But, now more than even, the arc of a career is long. Shapovalov has much shotmaking talent and has improved his emotional maturity (he also got engaged during his injury hiatus). I wouldn’t write him off.

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Where does Andy Murray go from here?

Sam S.

Yes, a year ago, Murray was the toast of Week 1, winning two stirring matches (against Matteo Berrettini and Thanasi Kokkinakis) before falling to Bautista Agut. Fair enough. This year, he couldn’t muster a set against Tomás Martín Etcheverry. Aside: Etcheverry is an excellent player, a big ball striker and athlete coming into form at age 24.

As for Murray, I hate the career ghoul pool. If he’s able and still finding fulfillment, he should play till he’s 100. But realistically, he’s not still playing—crossing oceans, spending weeks away from his family, putting his body through hell—if he’s not competing for majors. He has said as much. If I had to guess, he’ll play Wimbledon and perhaps the Olympics. And then, next stop, Newport.

Finally, we had some chatter on X (formerly known as Twitter) of Marin Čilić’s Hall of Fame credentials. Again, given precedent, I say he is in. A major win, two other major finals appearances (at Wimbledon in 2017 and Australia in ‘18) and a semifinal at Roland Garros in ‘22. Twenty titles. More than $30 million in prize money. In.

One of you mentioned that he never got higher than No. 3 in the world. Fair. But if your career corresponds with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, it’s understandable. And a doping ban isn’t a virtue, but neither is it disqualifying.

Shots

The USTA announced that Lisa Cradit, “an innovative and results-focused thought leader in impact-driven strategic communications, has been named the USTA’s managing director, head of communications and content. This newly formed position will be based out of the USTA National Campus in Orlando, and Cradit will report to Andrea Hirsch, the USTA’s chief operating officer and general counsel. Cradit has more than 30 years of communications experience in the U.S. and globally.”

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The International Tennis Hall of Fame announced that the “Infosys Hall of Fame Open, the organization’s ATP 250 tournament, has achieved carbon-neutral status. All carbon emissions generated by the 2023 tournament have been offset by the ITHF through the purchase of carbon credits.”