Tennis Mailbag: Olympics Fallout, Naomi Osaka’s U.S. Open Preparations and More

Jon Wertheim answers your questions from Cincinnati, unpacking the Paris Games and looking ahead to Flushing Meadows.

Osaka won the first of her two qualifiers in Cincinnati after advancing to the Round of 32 in Canada. / John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

Hey, everyone …

A quick column this week. We’ll have our U.S. Open hacks and tips column in a few days. Over 100 of you sent suggestions (“It’s bad form to glue yourself to the floor during the match”), but feel free to send others.

• Here’s this week’s Served podcast. Thanks to all of you who came to the Cincinnati live show. Matteo Berrettini was the guest. Sonder Brewing was the host. (Andy Roddick was an exemplary host as well.) That was good fun. We’ll have more live event announcements soon.

• Congrats to the Kalamazoo winners Matthew Forbes and Iva Jovic. Look for them at the U.S. Open. As always, Colette Lewis has you covered.

 A few questions and stab volleys at answers …

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What am I missing here? I'd give anything/skip anything for the experience of one Summer Olympics in my lifetime. Just as a spectator is grand enough. And you're telling me multiple tennis professionals are making “informed” decisions that are just the opposite?

Charith Nag

• Different players make different decisions. Some already had the Olympic experience. Some, perhaps, figured they’d have another chance at the Games in 2028. Some simply didn’t want the disruption of playing on clay—in Europe—after grass and before hard courts.

What’s been interesting to me is how the decisions have panned out. Ben Shelton has been quiet since Wimbledon. Same, to a lesser extent, for Frances Tiafoe, who—one would think, given his personality—would have loved the Paris experience. Sebastian Korda has flourished in D.C. and Montreal, outlasting Alexander Zverev in the Canadian Open quarterfinals. Andrey Rublev advanced to the Montreal final before falling to Australia’s Alexei Popyrin.

If given the chance, you (and I) might have prioritized playing in Paris and taking advantage of the Olympic experience. But this is a sport of independent contractors who make their own business decisions. And the default setting here—and in life—ought to be: Give great latitude to other people’s choices.

Tangentially—speaking of tennis players as independent contractors—here’s Taylor Townsend on her odyssey from Toronto to Cincinnati.

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Hi Jon!

I was impressed to see Naomi Osaka in the Cincinnati qualifying draw this weekend. Although it was a wild card, to me, it demonstrates that she's willing to do what's necessary to get back to the top of her game.  

Anyway, in looking at the main draw, I noticed that Caroline Wozniacki received yet another wild card. Frankly, I'm shocked that Osaka wasn't considered when main draw wildcards were being handed out! Am I missing something? Also, given it has been a year into Wozniacki's comeback, how much longer will tournaments continue to provide her with wild cards into their main draws if her ranking doesn't warrant direct entry?

Thanks,

Craig, Edmonton, Canada

• Let’s stick with Osaka. For the first time in five years, she was made to qualify for an event. (Update: she won her first match and then squandered a 3–1 lead, falling to Ashlyn Krueger.)

Bear in mind, this is a four-time major champion and, recently, the highest-earning female athlete in the world. When she returned from maternity leave, she vowed to play early (and hopefully, late) and often. And she has kept her word. One suspects she is not winning with the frequency she’d hoped. But:

A) Much credit to her for grinding.

B) We can name other players of lesser credentials who have foregone the indignity of qualifiers.

C) Woe unto the seeded opponent who must face her in New York.

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Williams last competed at the Miami Open, falling to Diana Shnaider in straight sets. / Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Jon, what is up with Venus Williams? She seems to be neither [fully active], nor retired!

Marlo, NYC

• Venus Williams, age 44, is ranked No. 533 and is 0–2 on the year. But as Marlo notes, she is still, technically, an active player. Suffice it to say tennis is not all-consuming for her. She was the keynote speaker at the third-annual UNMATCHED: Gender Equity in Sports Conference, kicking off gender equity events tied to the Tennis Canada events.

There is something both endearing and symbolic about this. From the jump, Venus was a trailblazer who looked askance at conventional wisdom and did things her way. She didn’t feel like fulfilling her commitment to tournaments? She wasn’t going to do it. She didn’t like the Nike or Reebok deal terms? She’d design her own clothes, thanks. She didn’t like getting paid less than men? She’d fight for equal pay.

Here she is at the end of a singular career, and, still, she brooks no conventions. She’s not doing a retirement tour. She’s not game for a career death watch followed by the on-court ceremony and tribute video. She’s playing this at her pace. Maybe she’ll never officially retire. Maybe she’ll post an announcement tomorrow. Keep ‘em guessing. 

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Hi Jon,
You have declared the GOAT debate settled based on the number of slams. In other [men’s] (basketball, baseball, soccer, golf …) and [women’s] (tennis, basketball, soccer, track and field …) sports there is still and will always be debating about who the GOAT is, and the reflection is more nuanced than just considering the absolute number of individual awards or championships.

One has to take into account the global impact on the development of the sport, behavior on and off the court, etc. Do I want my kids to adopt [Roger] Federer’s or [Rafael] Nadal’s values, or [Novak] Djokovic’s (rejecting vaccine science, lives in Monaco in order to not pay taxes in his beloved Serbia, at times disrespectful towards opponents and the public, his magic potion*…)

Best regards,
Daniel

• This is the beauty and defect of this debate, such as it is. There are no agreed-upon definitions, much less sliding scales or conversion charts. Some will say, This is sports. Not art. You win or lose. There is a scoreboard. Said scoreboard removes ambiguity. For the GOAT discussion, let us only consider that which can be measured.

For others—often in service of bolstering their player—GOAT will contain dimensions like personality, global impact and goodwill. The question then becomes one of proportion. I would like my kids to adopt the ways of, say Chris Eubanks and Daria Kasatkina. That does not offset the inconvenient fact they have won zero majors. Even the most die-hard Federer fan must ask, Does his good-guy-ness overcome a four-major deficit?

To me, the debate is over. But if others are uncomfortable anointing Djokovic and can rationalize another option … that’s life’s rich pageant.

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Hi Jon,

Loved your post-Olympics recap. Although lasting just two sets, it was one of the best matches of the year in my view, not sure if you agree with that. Heading into the 2023 French Open, if anyone had told me that [Djokovic] would win twice on Court Philippe Chatrier vs. Carlos [Alcaraz] and the latter would twice beat [Djokovic] on Wimbledon Center Court, I would have thought that person was crazy and yet here we are. What an unlikely rivalry between these two with such an age gap! May it last for some more time now that we seem to have brought the curtain down on rivalries involving the Big Four. Your partner Andy Roddick said it just right—I have not ever seen [Djokovic] play a two-setter with more focus and intensity from the first point to the last—not a single moment of lapse in concentration. [Djokovic] knew what [Alacaraz] was capable of, obviously! 

VK

• Roddick and I were discussing this the other night. So often other athletes—quite reasonably—seek to minimize pressure. Hey, it would be nice to achieve X; but if it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be. Not Djokovic. He took full ownership. Djokovic has been saying for months that gold was his goal. He goes to Paris, at age 37, less than two months removed from knee surgery, without a title in 2024, and says simply, I am not leaving this court anything but a winner.

Djokovic defeated Alcaraz in straight sets to claim gold at the Paris Olympics. / Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

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Jon, should Dominic Thiem get a U.S. Open wild card, as a former champion?

• Should he get a wild card? Yes. Will he? No. A former finalist who will go nameless—Kei Nishikori—may not even get a qualifying draw wild card. And he is coming off a win against Stefanos Tsitsipas. Thiem, ranked No. 211 and 2–7 on the year, has, sadly, played his last U.S. Open it seems.

The vertiginous decline of Thiem has been a tough watch. Four years ago, he won the spectator-less COVID-19 U.S. Open. In the retelling, this was the outlier event. Federer and Nadal weren’t there. Djokovic, famously, self-sabotaged. There were no fans. In a low-quality final, Thiem was lucky when Zverev melted down and couldn’t close despite being up 2–0 sets and a break in the fifth set.

Here’s a more favorable spin: here was a major played amid COVID-19 restrictions. In addition to the stress and strain of a major, you had all these protocols and bubbles and impediments. With no fans in attendance, players had to generate their own energy and motivation. To triumph in that extraordinary event says plenty about a player’s professionalism and constitution.

Anyway, that was a breakthrough for Thiem. It was also the last title he won. Injuries and the attendant mental stress did him in. Still, he will always be a major champion. And tennis is deficient in his absence.

Thiem advanced to the final of the Australian Open and French Open before breaking through at the 2020 U.S. Open. / Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports

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Hope the Paris Olympics spirit continues to do wonders for us all this sweltering summer (speaking of which, did anyone catch the synchronized diving? It was awesome!). I was surprised recently to see some hint of a different kind of spirit on the women's tour, an admission that players even have lunch together (egads!) and practice together (what!) before facing each other (yikes!). See Spain's Paula Badosa's recounting before her match this week with Britain's Emma Raducanu: 

“You're kind of an ambassador in the locker room in a lot of ways. For her to win a Grand Slam, then splash onto the scene, it can be a little bit tricky being on tour. Do you get to talk to her very much when you practice? What is that vibe and what are those conversations like?”

PAULA BADOSA: Look, it sounds that I'm friends with everyone. I'm pretty good with everyone, I'm not going to lie. There's some players that I'm not. I'm going to be honest. But because of them, not me (laughter). With her, honestly we spoke a lot. We had chats even off-court. We went for lunch, for breakfast. … It's nice that we can share our own experiences. Okay, now it's time for her to lose the next match (smiling). I wish her always the best, yeah."

Much as it's been expressed that pro tennis is a bit of an isolated world, even as players travel far and wide for points, winnings and trophies, this is still nice to see and a bit of a departure from years past (see [Maria] Sharapova comments in the 2000s, or any WTA rivalry). Is this again the pro tour we never see and that is on the cutting room floor or somewhere buried in a reporter's notebook, or just a testament to the individual nature of the sport for better or worse?  

Andrew Miller, Silver Spring, MD

• I try to be aware of not sounding like an old man. Or sexist. But since I’ve been covering tennis, I have noticed a real change in culture with regard to collegiality. In, say, 2000, there was beef galore. Agro. Friction. Tension. Irina Spîrlea disparaged Serena and Venus Williams. And the Williamses disparaged Martina Hingis. And Hingis disparaged Anna Kournikova. Billie Jean King once posited to me that men were socialized at a young age to compete in sports, learning that competitors can be friendly, even fraternal. Girls and women, denied so many opportunities to compete, did not always experience that an opponent needn’t be an enemy. An oversimplification, perhaps. But not without some truth. Some might assert that another happy offshoot of Title IX is that women have more opportunities to encounter the full range of competition.

Lately, there is much more of a sense of sisterhood on the WTA Tour. Players vacation together in the offseason. They salute each other on social media. Vehicles like Kasatkina’s vlog help promote collegiality. What was it Emma Navarro said of Zheng? “I think she goes about things in a pretty cut-throat way. It makes for a locker room that doesn’t have a lot of camaraderie.”

Remarks like that fight the point. (You want a less cut-throat locker room? Don’t air your grievances in public like that.) But overall, my sense is that there is much warmth in the locker room and on the court. There is a recognition that We are colleagues in this kooky traveling circus, fellow travelers, sisters. (I also wonder if there isn’t a recognition that aggro and agita are inconsistent with optimal tennis. Why give your opponent personal motivation? Why devote bandwidth to a feud?)

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Hi Jon,

I’ve complained to you a couple of times about the absence of court-level tennis views on TV coverage of tennis whether tennis.com or ESPN. I’ve noticed that this has now been remedied, but only to show a couple of points a set! Why? Last week YouTube showed 4:41 minutes of Zverev-[Hoger] Rune, all court level (google it). It was exciting, virtually a linesman’s view of the action, much better than the traditional view. Question for you this week and for Served next week—why don’t we get a lot more of this (if not every point)? I suspect Andy [Roddick] will be in my corner.

John R, Middletown, CT

• Done.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK EVERYONE AND ENJOY CINCY!