Tennis Briefing: Davis Cup Progress, Unlucky Seoul Tournament, Two Remarkably Short Matches
Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletics will tell the stories behind the stories of the past week on the track.
This week was the Davis Cup again, there were two very short matches – in very different ways – and one women’s tournament took the full brunt of the fatigue of the tennis schedule.
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What happens in the Davis Cup?
The last eight for the Davis Cup group stage finals were decided over the weekend, with Canada and the Netherlands joining Italy, Australia, Spain, Germany, Argentina and the United States as the qualified nations. The latter finished top of their group in Zhuhai, China last week, despite missing Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton.
Spain’s qualification will come as a particular relief to tournament organisers, given that the finals are being held in the Spanish city of Malaga. Home fans can look forward to the star quality of Carlos Alcaraz — and potentially Rafael Nadal — with the former looking much more like his old self in Spain’s group matches against France and the Czech Republic. Alcaraz produced a consummate performance to beat Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-3, 6-3 after his first outing since his early loss at the US Open ended quickly on Wednesday when Czech opponent Tomas Machac was forced to retire with cramp at a set apiece.
After the match with Humbert, Alcaraz repeated what he said in New York about his performance on the American hardcourt swing not being good enough: “I tried not to do the bad things I did on the American tour. I trained well, but training is one thing and competition is another.”
Carlos Alcaraz helped Spain qualify for the Davis Cup with stunning tennis (David Aliaga/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Others who struggled in New York also performed satisfactorily last week.
Canadian duo Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger Aliassime both exited the US Open in the first round but helped their country reach the Davis Cup showpiece in November. Shapovalov recorded an impressive 6-0, 7-5 victory over Britain’s Dan Evans in Manchester, England, on Sunday, while Auger-Aliassime won all three of their matches this week, including a straight-sets victory over US Open semifinalist Jack Draper on Sunday. It was the first meeting between the two since the controversial outcome of their match in Cincinnati last month, when Draper won with a shot that video replays showed was illegal.
The Davis Cup group stage finals will take place in Malaga from 19 to 24 November, with Italy hoping to retain their title. Recent winners Great Britain, France and Croatia all failed to make the cut.
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Thirteen games, 37 minutes and one Benoit Paire
Scan those details of a men’s tennis match and a die-hard tennis fan will likely think something like, “Benoit Paire doing Benoit Paire things.” Paire, 35, is one of the most erratic players in the game, capable of volleys from heaven and fits of rage from hell (spitting on a ball marker in a 2021 match against Francisco Cerundolo, packing his bag with at least one match remaining against Cameron Norrie at the 2022 US Open, things like that.)
So watch a 6-1, 6-0 defeat to Britain’s Jacob Fearnley at the Blot Open in Rennes, France, and it’s easy to see the same thing. Well, not quite.
In reality, Fearnley was coming from a 15-30 and then 30-30 service game in the first set, having broken Paire in the opening game. His misses were largely close to the lines, apart from a couple of terrifying forehand returns into the lower net. Make no mistake, this was a one-sided punishment – it just wasn’t the theatrical kind easily associated with the Frenchman… Until the end. Blowing kisses to the crowd who booed him after the handshake, Paire wasn’t off the court for long before he gave his final assessment of the match.
😂😂😂
— paire benoit (@benoitpaire) September 11, 2024
Fearnley won the entire tournament, after suffering a punishment of his own in the final. Quentin Halys won their first set 6-0, before Fearnley won the second set on a tiebreak, edging past the dispirited Frenchman in the third.
In Monastir, Tunisia, Britain’s Sonay Kartal won her first WTA title, beating Rebecca Sramkova in the 250-meter tournament.
James Hansen
What’s next 37 minutes? Thirty-eight minutes
One of the great things about the Davis Cup is the way in which players somehow overcome huge ranking differences to pull off major upsets, or at the very least find ways to be competitive against much more vaunted opponents.
And then you get matches like Saturday’s in Belgrade between 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic and world number 770 Ioannis Xilas of Greece.
Xilas played in the draw against Serbia after Stefanos Tsitsipas withdrew, winning a solitary game in a 6-0, 6-1 defeat that lasted 38 minutes. In a sport where the average set lasts longer, it was a surprisingly one-sided defeat. Although less so, given the 766 places Xilas has dropped in the rankings — so perhaps the surprise is that this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often.
The next day, Djokovic and Hamad Medjedovic won the doubles match 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 against Aristotelis Thanos and Petros Tsitsipas.
This victory means Serbia will qualify for next year’s Davis Cup qualifiers and have a chance to return to the group stage finals.
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How an unlucky tournament fell victim to the long summer of tennis
After winning the title in Seoul in 2023, Jessica Pegula looked ahead to even better times in 2024.
“Hopefully we can bring more higher ranked players and more girls here to play. The city is amazing and I had so much fun here,” Pegula, who is half-Korean on her mother’s side, said after her win over Yuan Yue.
The American, who reached the final of this year’s US Open, discussed moving the tournament from the 250-level to the 500-level starting this year. But when the time came, world No. 3 Pegula was forced to withdraw with a rib injury. World No. 4 Elena Rybakina and world No. 8 Emma Navarro also withdrew.
Jessica Pegula lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the US Open final (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
And then came the final blow when world No. 1 Iga Swiatek informed tournament organizers that she too would be skipping the event, citing fatigue. So all four top-10 players will be out in the first year of a new tournament. The new top-four seeds, Daria Kasatkina, Liudmila Samsonova, Beatriz Haddad Maia and Diana Shnaider, will see great opportunities; the tennis calendar will see yet another example of the gruelling schedule that does more harm than good to the sport’s infrastructure.
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Photo of the week
Carlos Alcaraz looks a bit like Carlos Alcaraz here.
Recommended reading:
🏆 The winners of the week
🎾 ATP value:
🏆 Vitamin Kopriva (5) extended Andrea Pellegrino 7-5. 6-2 to win the Szczecin Open (Challenger 125) in Szczecin, Poland. It is the Czech’s fourth Challenger title.
🏆 Christopher O’Connell (1) extended Sho-Shimakuro 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) to win the Guangzhou Open (Challenger 100) in Guangzhou, China. It is his sixth Challenger title.
🏆 Jacob Fearnley (8) extended Quentin Halys (4) 0-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 to win the Rennes Blot Open (Challenger 100) in Rennes, France. It is Fearnley’s third Challenger title.
🏆 Student Ten (3) extended Tristan Boyer (6) 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 to win the Las Vegas Tennis Open (Challenger 75) in Las Vegas. It is Tien’s second Challenger title.
🎾 WTA class:
🏆 Magdalena Frans (5) extended Olivia Gadecki 7-6(5), 6-4 to win the Guadalajara Open in Guadalajara, Mexico. It is Frech’s first WTA Tour title.
🏆 Sonay Kartal extended Rebecca Sramkova 6-3, 7-5 to win the Jasmin Open (250) in Monastir, Tunisia. It is the Briton’s first WTA Tour title.
🏆 Jil Teichmann extended Nuria Parrizas Diaz 7-6(8), 6-4 to win the Zavarovalnica Sava Ljubljana (125) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is her first WTA 125 title.
📈 On the rise
📈 O’Connell rises 12 places, from No. 87 to No. 75 after his title in Guangzhou.
📈 Camila Osorio rises 20 places from No. 81 to No. 61 after her journey to the semi-finals in Guadalajara.
📈 Fear rises 35 places from No. 164 to No. 129 after his title in Rennes.
📅 Coming Soon
🎾 ATP
📍Chengdu, China: Chengdu Open (250) with Lorenzo Musetti, Shang Juncheng, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Nicolas Jarry.
📍Hangzhou, China: Hangzhou Open (250) with Marin Cilic (WC), Holger Rune, Zhang Zhizhen, Brandon Nakashima.
📍Berlin: Laver Cup with Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; USA: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA
📍Seoul: Korea Open (500) with Daria Kasatkina, Amanda Anisimova, Emma Raducanu, Diana Shnaider.
📍Hua Hin, Thailand: Tournament (250) with Wang Xinyu, Katerina Siniakova, Katie Volynets, Mayar Sherif.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; USA: Tennis Channel
Tell us in the comments below what you noticed this week now that the men’s and women’s tours are underway.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
