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batsplat · 4 months ago

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hello!! i think you don't talk that much about tennis here, but this year i’ve been watching singles matches from roland garros and wimbledon and omg, it’s super fun!!! my grandfather used to be a big tennis fan and to be honest, i only started paying attention this year because i deeply miss him but omg!!! i've been missing in one of the best sports!!

well, my question is if you have any advice on how to start watching tennis! like, I know how the scoring system works, but for example, are there basic things you feel one should know? lore? matches that everyone absolutely should watch?

i know it’s a lot of work to answer all this, but thank you whether you respond or not! prob everyone tell you this, but wow you really are fantastic!

your brain >>>

i can’t even count how many things i’ve learned since following you!! at the risk of sounding parasocial, i really do have a lot of love for you <3

oh everything about this ask is so sweet!! I'm glad you've had fun watching the slams this year, I think it's quite easy for me to get down on the sport but it really is fantastic. and oh yeah absolutely, this is like. my speciality topic. forget all the other shit, when it comes to tennis I know my stuff

because of the disparate nature of tennis, it's hard to just give easily distilled lore, though I will be peppering a bunch of information and like, infamous matches + moments throughout the post that are quite common touchstones within the tennis fan community. this should also be quite a good time to get into the sport: we have a few smaller tournaments, then the olympics, and then it's immediately big tournaments leading up to the last slam of the year, the us open. the general aim of this post is to just provide a little bit of context for what you're seeing, some useful bits and bobs to get started, without delving too much into the actual tennis itself - but please feel free to ask about those bits too!!

I'll also give a little bit of history on the key players in both tours, starting at the inception of the open era. modern tennis as an actual professional sport has existed since 1968 (though obviously tennis has a far more extensive history we're not going to get in here) - and since then, we've had the gradual development of the formalised elements of the sport like the introduction of a rankings system in 1973, the creation of the women's tennis association also in 1973, the constant tension with the four slams, and so on and so on. which, yeah, all of this is plenty interesting, but in this post I'll mostly limit myself to providing a general lineage of the big name players of either gender from the inception of the open era onwards. the 1920s wills/lenglen one-match rivalry is a conversation for a different day

so yeah, a multi-part guide with a bunch of stuff I think should be useful. these parts can all be read independently, so really just take out whatever's useful for you - no need to read the whole thing:

how it works: the basic details of how the tours and calendar are set up

where to watch: a broad overview of where you can access tennis

how to get started: some general stuff about how to navigate the sport

women: a very, very quick who's who of women's tennis in the open era, kinda the biggest names and then a little more on the top of the game right now

men: you'll never guess

matches to watch: this is not necessary to get into the sport, but I have still provided a few picks from youtube that felt like they fit the general remit

in conclusion: got to have one of those y'know

I've also put a few other things below the cut:

some non-match tennis content and resources, a mix of more fun + casual stuff and where to go for a little more analysis of what you're watching

me going through the women's rankings and giving like, the first thing that pops to mind about the first 35 names

me doing the same with the men but trailing off after 20

just a list of players I think could be fun to look out for

I'm aware that my 'please don't feel overwhelmed' guide may feel overwhelming. again, you do not need to know or remember all of this when you are starting out. the most important thing is to watch matches and to figure out what you enjoy - none of this is mandatory. tennis is very much a buffet sport. pretty much everyone keeps up with the slams, but beyond that you will find fans who are super into challenger tennis, those who are dedicated to supporting every british scrub from rank 28 to 428 in the world, those who consider themselves specialists on two matches from the early 1980s. some are super big doubles fans, which is unfortunately something I will mostly leave out in this guide but is absolutely worth checking out! lastly, and this is really important: you do not need to keep up with tennis all the time! again, most fans generally will tune in for the slams, probably for the masters/1000s, but if you're not keeping up with every 250 it is fine. it isn't homework, the commentators are there to provide context for everything you've missed. all the information I've provided below will hopefully be useful in following the sport more closely but none of it is necessary. there is no required viewing in tennis, just find the bits you vibe with and go from there

HOW IT WORKS

right, thank god we're not starting with the scoring system, but the macro organisation of the sport is also *rubs temples*. once more with feeling, you do not need to remember most of this stuff to enjoy the sport. the rankings points per round thing? honestly, especially how often they faff about with the specific number of points for stuff, I too have to look these up a lot of the time. I usually just check the live rankings sites after certain rounds like everyone else (best site for this for both genders is an unofficial one because of course it is, if you want to find men's entry lists for various tournaments then go to 'dartsranking.com' here (don't ask) and if you want to find women's entry lists then they will come to you in a dream when you are ready to perceive them)

the tldr here is that you have the four slams, you have a bunch of tour-level events, the most important of which are the masters/1000 events and the tour finals, and then you have other stuff going on. also, the tours are thinking about completely uprooting and quite frankly vandalising this whole system so don't get too attached to it

right so, basically the main organisations in tennis are: international tennis federation (itf), association of tennis professionals (atp), and women's tennis association (wta)

the itf is basically like... it technically is responsible for the four grand slams, aka australian open, roland garros, wimbledon and the us open, but those four slams also all have a lot of individual power because they're the most important events in the sport. it's also stuff that's below tour-level tennis (aka atp/wta) but above national level competition... plus they're responsible for team events like the davis cup (men) and the billie jean king cup (formerly fed cup, women)

(atp matches are shorthand for men's matches and wta for women's, even when we're talking about slams. nobody cares that much)

slams are best of five sets for the men and best of three sets for the women. all other events these days are best of three. why is there this gender disparity in format in slams? because pretty much nobody is interested in changing it :) sucks because it's such a unique aspect of men's slam tennis but that's where we are

the atp is responsible for all the other events for the men, and the wta is responsible for all the other events for the women. so basically you have slams, which are the most prestigious things you can win the sport. below that, you have several different tiers of events that the 'top' players still play but aren't quite as important. the slams and all these other events do contribute to the same ranking system though

so the four slams give you 2000 points apiece if you win one of those bad boys (you get points for each round you win, so for instance 400 points if you get to the quarterfinal), and provide you with atp/wta points. it's seven rounds to win a slam, 128 player main draw, plus there's also a three round qualifying for lower ranked players. these are two week events and they're the ones players dream of winning when they're wee shits with delusions of grandeur

the next tier is masters events on the men's side and wta 1000 on the women (honestly often colloquially they're referred to as masters there too). the winner gets... you guessed it, a thousand points (last year we still had events called '1000' that provided '900' points and 500 events that gave you 470 and 250 that gave 280 points, because the wta does literally hate us). they used to mostly be one week but now we're getting more and more two week masters, for reasons. some of these events include both genders, some are for just one of the genders, some are in canada (they do the men in montreal and women in toronto one year and then switch the next)

then you've got 500 events, then 250 events. they're still plenty prestigious for most players, but of course it depends... for some players, winning a 250 is the best day of their life - for others, it's really just a warm up event for something more important

anything lower than that may still be handled by the tour but it's not a 'tour-level event' and top players won't play them. so on the women's side you have 125s and on the men's side you have *drum roll* challengers

if YOU are in the top eight of the year's rankings at the end of the season (referred to as 'the race') then you get to go to the year end championship technically more complicated than this in the atp but let's not!! also called the tour finals. this one's got a round robin system followed by semis and a final, you get points per match for a maximum of 1500. it's kinda a reward for consistency too, not as valuable as a slam but it's the next tier

there's also the olympics, which is like? almost all players would rather win a slam tbh - but I think for a lot of players olympic gold would be the next big thing. it depends though! it's very individual how much that means to you in tennis, and for instance this year because it's on clay between the grass and hard court swings, a lot of players are skipping it. you don't get ranking points for them either

ranking points are updated on a rolling basis, so they drop off after 52 weeks. the official rankings are released every monday (though obviously there's also the live rankings) and they determine what players can enter what event... plus seedings

the points distribution, ta da:

so the thing about tennis is that it's basically just... always on. no break! starts in january, the tour finals are october/november-y - and if you're REALLY feeling withdrawal symptoms, itf's are going on all the time. especially the top players (who expect to go deep in the events they enter) won't enter events every week, and you generally expect weeks right before or after slams to have fields with lower rankings. the 'big titles' are slams, masters/1000s and tour-level finals - and when those are on, that's the only tour-level event happening. most of the masters/1000 are 'mandatory' for players of a certain ranking, but there's a bunch of exceptions there we're not going to get into. 250s and 500s are often happening in the same weeks as other 250s and 500s. a normal amount of tournaments for top players per year is like... 17 to 25 I'd say

the other big element of the tennis calendar is the surfaces, which the tours are organised around. now, basically throughout the year, you do have hard and clay events going on at itf/challenger/125-level - but at the tour-level, it's more regimented than that. let's start with what the surfaces are:

hard - has increasingly become the 'default' surface for tour-level tennis, though it was not always thus. made out of... hard stuff... asphalt, concrete, y'know. lot of different types of hard court, in various colours too, for both indoors and outdoors tennis. you've got very slow and very fast ones and everything in between. tricky to slide on, though men do that a lot these days

clay - made out of crushed brick. generally orange, but can be grey. generally the slowest and highest bouncing surface, though again there's also variation there. in geographical terms, players from continental europe and south america generally grow up on this stuff - if you're from elsewhere, it's usually hard. you can slide on this stuff!! it gets everywhere

grass - used to be the tennis surface but now is kinda novelty value and confined to a small stretch of the calendar. the fastest surface, low bouncing. you can slide on this - but beware, players don't really grow up playing on this (even the bri ish) so is extra likely to cause injuries

and the way it maps onto the tennis calendar in like... very rough terms...

okay. okay so we start on hard court! for the australian swing, leading up to the australian open in like january-ish. there's also generally some events going on in asia in the lead-up to ao

then... right. february, you've got men's events indoors hard in europe and outdoor clay in south america. and there's women's events indoors hard in europe and outdoors hard in the middle east. look. ignore february for now

then everyone goes to the sunshine double (indian wells/miami), back to back masters in the states for four weeks starting in march. outdoor 'hard' (indian wells is infamously slow)

then it's clay season! so ignoring those like. three events at the start, almost all of this happens in europe. all of the events apart from the wta 500 stuttgart is outdoors. and then you've got roland garros in may/june!

and then we switch to grass, where there's only three weeks to lead up to wimbledon! these events are in britain, germany and the netherlands

and then. okay. so. you've got one more grass event but you ALSO have the july clay swing. this doesn't lead up to any big events, it's just sort of there. they're trying to get rid of july clay because #they hate whimsy and fun

also you have the olympics during that time when they're on, typically on hard but this time on clay

then you also start having hard events at the same time, and eventually everyone goes to two masters, first in canada then cincy. outdoor hard

and THEN you get the us open, the final slam of the year, again on hard court, in like august/september

and then. and then. everyone just goes wherever. asia, america, europe, indoor hard, outdoor hard... even a rogue wta event on clay scattered in there

and eventually there's the tour finals! so on the men's side, it's in turin, where they've got a longer term contract - the tour finals move around, but only every few years

on the women's side, they're now in saudi arabia, which... discussion for another day, at least they're polite enough to let us know where it's happening more than two days in advance

as an example, here's what wta events are going on in july:

so, generally speaking there has been a process of surface homogenisation over the last few decades, where court speeds and all that have become more similar to all the other courts... like unless you're casper ruud, if you're a top player on one surface you will be able to perform to a reasonable standard on all of them. but it does matter! every player has courts where they're better or worse, preferred conditions and places where they're relatively weak - even the greats of the sport. relatively dominant world number one iga swiatek just flopped out of wimbledon. 24 slam winner novak djokovic kinda sucks at monte carlo. this is a question of playstyle and how it interacts with the conditions, of weather, ability to move on certain surfaces... etc etc. and the tennis does look different... this is one of those things you do just get the more you watch it I reckon

it's even just very basic stuff! because grass is faster than clay, serves are more dangerous there - and also it's harder for players to make it to the ball in time, so rallies are on average shorter. it used to be super extreme that grass was the territory of servebots and super aggressive players, and clay was ultra defensive grinders. now it's more complicated than that but *wiggles hand* everybody still has their Thing

youtube

HOW TO WATCH

*sigh* yeah this is the tough one

okay. so this really depends on where you are, and unfortunately there's no getting around the fact that the rights situation is an absolute disaster in this sport. first of all, each of the slams are their own thing, and often have different deals with different networks/streaming services. so for instance in britain, you can can watch the australian open and roland garros on discovery plus and wimbledon on the bbc and the us open using vpn to a different european country's more affordable streaming service in a language you can speak on sky sports. my understanding is the situation in the states is a nightmare

with the tours, which is most of the year, regardless of location you can watch men's tennis on tennistv, their custom streaming service that also provides replays of... almost all matches in the last few years and a strong selection of matches from the years before. it's not exorbitant fees, but it's also not cheap. again, depending on location, there may be other options available like tennis channel *sigh* and skysports *stares into the middle distance*. with the women......... okay, so you can use vpn to select countries (or just live there I suppose) and then buy wta.tv, which is quite possibly the worst streaming site to have ever been created. they do also have a list of broadcasters by country

I don't really know how to sugarcoat this because like... it's a nightmare. it just is. and if you want to watch a player you like in qualifying, well then, good luck. I do have to bring up for completist's sake that you can use betting sites where you pay in a one-time fee of like ten quid to watch any match live without commentary, including the ones that are otherwise available nowhere else but apparently do have cameras on them. which is.... obviously terrible. but well, icl, I do use it. for below tour level, challengers tv on the men's side does actually exist and works great! no commentary though in almost all cases. for 125 events... I do think they're mostly on wta.tv now? which. about time. some itf events are available on the itf website. the other option we all have to go for sometimes is... alternative streams. the way to go about this for the uninitiated is googling 'reddit sports streams', go to a recent-ish post, click on one of the links they provide, and work from there. of course, you can't watch replays with this - but especially as an entry level fan, that's often the place to start unfortunately

you can also watch match highlights! men's tour-level highlights posted by the tennistv youtube channel are generally speaking quite good. the highlights that the wta compiles are. *takes deep breath* *stares into distance* well. they do exist. sometimes. with slams it's all over the place, so like the australian/us open actually provides great 'extended highlights' quite regularly (and even uploads full matches!!) whereas the roland garros youtube channel might as well be telling you 'fuck you' in french for two and a half minutes for all the viewing value you get out of their highlights. wimbledon is almost as bad an offender - and both also relentlessly copyright strike anyone who is rude enough to attempt to advertise their product for them

^one of the best slam matches in years. an instant classic. exactly three minutes of highlights. the blandest caption on this planet. let's all kill ourselves in french

another thing that's worth bringing up: start times on a tennis schedule are very much vibes. you can generally trust the first match of the day on any given court to start when it's supposed to, except if the weather has something to say about it. there's also some 'not before' times or evening sessions, where generally the schedulers hope that all the preceding matches will already have finished by then. otherwise, you are dependent on how long the players before that have decided to take. this can be frustrating, especially when you're setting an alarm for 4 am and were kinda hoping you didn't do so for nothing. match notifications aren't a bad idea!! and sometimes you just have to see if you can vibe with whatever's on. also, anon you said you were watching roland garros and wimbledon.... okay, look, this can always be an issue (except in indoor tournaments obviously), but I PROMISE you the rain situation isn't usually THAT bad

listen. the thing about tennis is that it doesn't necessarily want you to watch it. but you can beat it

youtube

HOW TO GET STARTED

okay, the obvious one, and the bit you've already done: just start watching some matches!! slams are a good gateway drug. also, the next few months are gonna be super hectic - you don't even have the relative 'lull' of july clay because it's all prep for the olympics. then you've got two masters leading directly to the us open. there's plenty of matches to watch!! most of the top players will be at the olympics, basically everyone will be at the masters and then at the us open

for one week events, you have a lot of matches at the start of the week before the field gradually thins out, and then you get just the final on sunday. for two weeks, it's a bit more complicated than that, but you still generally will end up with a final on sunday

again, you don't need to watch everything! seriously, I imagine the number of matches can feel a bit overwhelming, but there's plenty of tournaments where I watch like. one match on a thursday and nothing else that week, and if it's on the main feeds then the commentators will tell me all I need to know about what's been going on

and yeah, pick a few players. if you've got a bit of a range - especially in terms of their ranking - they're also likely to be competing in different events and give you someone to get invested in most weeks if you so choose. plus, if you're just there for one player, they may just flop for six months and go on a seventy match losing streak. can get pretty dire. give yourself a few players to orientate yourself week by week... I used to have scoring notifications turned on for a bunch of players (also to let you know when they start), now I just let their results come to me in a dream

we'll be getting into this in a moment, but with the men it's always important to remember that legally speaking, only three men are allowed to win a slam at any single point in time. which means that for your sanity it's probably a good idea to just pick one of those blokes to be a fan of so you have someone to actually provide you some joy in life. the other top ten players are kinda filler material in terms of the Big Narratives of the sport, but some of them do make it to late stages of slams quite regularly and have even been known to win some masters, so you might want to pick from that pool too. beyond that, you're getting into territory where there's a lot of fun blokes who generally have a big run in them somewhere, but it's also considerably less predictable and they are more likely to just. lose a lot. but also, the small successes there are more fun to celebrate!!

with the women... well, listen, we're in a situation where the big events on a tour level currently do feel a bit more dominated by top players than the slams do - cf how we've had two matches this year between the worlds numbers one and two and none of them have come at the majors. given the wta has more or less left its chaos era, you're quite unlikely to have 'random' players winning slams, though generally speaking they may be more likely to make the late stages of the slams than on the men's side. what this tour really has plenty of is depth! I'd still recommend getting into one of the top 3-4 players on tour, all of whomst are slam winners - but there's only two multiple slam winners you feel relatively confident about racking up at least a few more, whereas the other two still have a bit more to prove in that regard. beyond that, you do have to embrace a little more volatility to enjoy the women's game to the fullest extent. if you've watched the channel slams, you'll have been introduced to a player who would have been considered a 'scrub' a year ago (a term of endearment, at least to me) but made back to back slam finals in the midst of her strongest career season. #realtennisunderstanders will know this didn't completely come out of nowhere, but for a lot of viewers it will have!! the beautiful thing about this tour is that you can hope for something that isn't just more of the same - you too can pick a random scrub and experience the thrill of them making a round four in a slam out of nowhere

basically, with both genders, my suggested approach would be finding a realistic slam contender who might actually win shit for you, find maybe one or two lost causes you can get upset about whenever they give you false hope, and then pick up a bunch of scrubs at random because they charmed you that one time they won a three and a half hour match in the first round of a 250

there's also a bunch of non-match tennis content that you can check out! I shoved it under the 'read more' because this was getting too long, but you have a mix of youtube channels, podcasts, writers to check out, specific pieces, websites... that kinda thing. I'll say this again below but really my number one rec is daria kasatkina's tennis vlog to get the insight into what life is like for a top twenty player. plus, her and her girlfriend are lovely. so

youtube

WOMEN

right, first a brief history of the big names, starting from the open era (1968):

at this time, the big names were billie jean king (known dyke, one of the key figures in founding the wta, cf 'the original 9') and margaret court (known homophobe, statpadded her slam count total with a bunch of australian open titles when nobody bothered to make the trip to australia which still feeds into some deeply annoying modern goat debates). you've got the breakthrough of goolagong (one of the most important players in the 1970s, from an aboriginal family back in the time when the government was removing aboriginal children from their families - really would recommend reading up on her story). these players all won a bunch of slams, very successful

in the late 1970s you get the emergence of navratilova and evert, who have the most prolific rivalry in tennis history - and they are the dominant names throughout the 1980s. interesting and layered rivalry, both in terms of their interpersonal relationship (which has gotten very warm since they've retired) and in terms of the tennis - with navratilova the attack-oriented serve and volleyer taking on evert the defensive baseliner. unfortunately, they now spend much of their time being transphobic on twitter dot com

the next big name to break through is one of the contenders for the title of goat, steffi graf, miss forehand who started winning slams in the late 1980s. a bit shy, a bit introverted, a bit withdrawn with a father who can politely be described as 'a piece of work', she was dominating the sport to an insane extent - she's still the only player to have won a 'golden slam', all four slams + olympic gold in a single year, which she did in 1988. then comes monica seles, even younger, a power player with two hands on the forehand as well as the backhand and seemingly the player who could finally take on graf. seles won three out of four slams in 1992 (she lost wimbledon in the final to graf) - but then, in 1993, she was stabbed while playing a match by a fanatical graf fan. while she survived the attack and was eventually able to return to the tour, even managing to secure one more slam, the crime irrevocably altered the course of her career. it's still considered the single biggest 'what if' in tennis history. graf dominated for most of the nineties... the other big names are sanchez vicario, who won a bunch of slams but also lost a lot of slam finals vs graf + seles, as well as hingis, an extraordinarily precocious talent with a few fun controversies and plenty considerably less so, who ended up having her career marred by injuries

turn of the century is when we get the emergence of the williams sisters, venus and serena, both of whomst are all time greats - and serena has perhaps the strongest goat case of any single player in the women's game. the two made a huge impact on the sport both on-and off-court and they are in that rare categories of athletes who can be considered 'bigger than the sport'. of course, we're not going to do that history justice here - and there's all manner of talking points like the indian wells boycott as a result of how the crowd treated their family (allegations of match fixing with obvious racist under/overtones) and how instrumental venus in particular was in bringing about equal pay in slams. on the court, both separated themselves from the pack in their athleticism in all domains - venus has the all court game with the mix of aggression and craftiness, and serena is a powerful baseliner with probably the best serve of all time in the women's game. beyond their singles slam tallies, they also are one of the all time great doubles pairings, winning fourteen slams as a team (this did used to be more common, cf navrat's doubles slam count)

many wta fans consider the noughties pretty much... peak of the sport, a golden age - this is the bit people tend to get nostalgic about. it's partly the tennis itself, partly the state of the competition, the Big Characters and all their drama.... apart from the williams sisters, you had the belgian rivals: henin, who was seen as cold and ruthless and a bit of a cheat, with a lethal one handed backhand, quick feet and a great serve considering her height, and clijsters, with her big groundstrokes and her distinctive way of sliding on hard court and how she was considered cheery and kind but also flaky and too much of a choker to ever finish the job. those two had a whole history with each other, as childhood friends from opposite sides of the belgian linguistic divide who became very much not friends.... were on very different on-court and off-court trajectories. then you've got a few more americans, many of whomst were also active in the nineties... davenport who smacked the ball like crazy, capriati who was known for being a semifinal choker until she wasn't - one of those players who captivates you with how much of themselves they leave on court. then kuznetsova, with a fun if inconsistent game and some banger matches, particularly memorably vs serena, mauresmo who had a stunner of a one handed backhand, these days she's making herself unpopular as roland garros' tournament diector, sharapova, the prodigy to break through and suddenly beat serena in a wimbledon final (basically never beat her again lol) who... uh. yeah! lore! she's got plenty of that! also jelena jankovic, who was world number one but never won a slam. still known for the single most important reaction image in the sport:

you use this attached to some dumb fake quote, typically about how players today just don't cut it. an important element of sports discourse is, of course, nostalgia for some kind of mythical era vastly superior to the present - get in on the game early

the 2010s is like... a mess... serena is still super successful, sharapova is still a major factor, but you also have a bunch of other big names. muguruza! halep! azarenka! wozniacki! kerber! kvitova! in no particular order! some are still around, some have retired recent-ish, some are now back after having been suspended for doping. as a cohort, I feel like they're generally treated as kind of underachievers, but all the ones I listed DO have at least one slam to their names. also many Characters in this camp!

next big thing is naomi osaka, who is currently on four slams (first sealed at us open 2018). her first slam was sealed in a massively controversial final against serena that is hard to summarise in a pithy way - but the controversy is all about officiating and serena's disagreement with the sanctions the umpire was applying. it had nothing to do with osaka - who is a fun character with a great understated sense of humour, but also is a bit of an introvert and ended up quite overwhelmed in the situation with the vocal crowd response. since then, osaka's torn up a few more hard court slam draws, though her other results aren't like,,, really in line with those slam results? and she ended up a bit disillusioned with tour life, which is tied to another big controversy we're not getting into here about her refusal to attend press conferences at rg '21. then she got pregnant, but this year she's back! jury's out about whether she'll become a regular feature at the top of the game again, but her recent r2 at roland garros against swiatek was promising in that regard. one of those players where the sheer power of her groundstrokes can make you gasp, one hell of a serve, so so much raw talent that she's now attempting to coax out again

for a while, the most important player in the woman's game was ash barty, who ended up on three slams and a good run of weeks at the top of the rankings. an australian with obscene amounts of natural talent at all manner of sports, she was short enough to make her serve freakishly good, a powerful forehand and a nasty slice... but always with a complicated relationship to the sport. after winning the australian open in 2022, she retired out of the blue, in what has to be one of the shocking announcements we've had, like... ever. given the sport had been fairly chaotic in recent years, there was a bit of an expectation that the world number one ranking was going to be beset by similar levels of chaos. with barty gone, removed from the top of the rankings after the very next event, were we going to get another five different number ones in the year to come? was it just going to be a free-for-all? will we all be number one for 15 minutes?

well, no. off the back of her third consecutive tournament win, iga swiatek ended up inheriting the title. she'd already won a roland garros title as a teenager (the weird covid-y autumn 2020 one where she just like... terrorised the field, scary scorelines) - and after a slightly rockier 2021, she was already in the process of putting together a fearsome 2022. there was always the concern the new pressure of becoming world number one might affect her... but if anything, it spurred her on even further. she ended up accumulating a 37 match win streak, the longest in the women's game in the 21st century - which also took her to her second roland garros title. she's on five slams total now

she's been number one since then except for a brief period late last year when aryna sabalenka briefly replaced her

which brings us to the current game:

especially on the non-slam level, there are definitely a few big names right now who you'll see win a lot of titles - or at least show up in the late stages. I've already mentioned iga (igatha) and aryna (sabs, sublanko) (long story)

iga is a class apart from the field outside of slams, has by now won a shit ton of titles, often by like... brutalising the field. her biggest asset is her phenomenal movement, best in the game. the forehand is... unusual (odd grip and with very high topspin by women's standards), big big weapon but can fall apart - but on the plus side that's meant people are finally paying attention to her very lovely backhand. can be a bit tactically rigid, generally too few in-match adjustments

very intense on court! less so off it, kinda an introvert, big on reading, tiramisu, that kind of thing. her polish fanbase can be a teensy bit. insane. (honestly the non-polish ones are also a lot.) on clay she's in a class of her own - four of her five slams are at roland garros, and I fully expect her to reach the double digits at that particular slam. her slam results have been a bit disappointing outside of that, minus her one us open title in 2022, which in itself is a reflection of the expectations people have for her. she's also very good on hard, though the grass situation is currently a bit sketch. always a force to be reckoned with, though! struggles the most with big flat hitters (rybs, penko, noskova, alexandrova, kalinskaya, idk, that type. apart from those first two who are consistent Problems, generally speaking she does get the better of them more often than not)

^our current numbers two and one, sabs on the left and igatha on the right. I quite like iga's top because from the right angle it looks a bit like a piano and I like pianos - but on running doesn't believe philosophically in providing people a chance to 'buy' their 'product', so to the best of my knowledge this kit was never available to buy. tennis: a sport that is so profoundly shit at capitalism it comes around to being kinda marxist

sabs is a POWER player, but with a fair amount of spin to her strokes when compared to many of the other wta 'bashers'. smooth and elegant and easy power production is overrated as shit - sometimes you want to see a player who is visibly putting effort into smacking that ball. she puts so much of herself into every single shot, and you do NOT want to be that ball when she's on it. very expressive on court, a fun character off it, the type of player to really show her emotions. for her, the mental side of the game tends to be a massive talking point. despite her current slam tally of two (ao '23, '24), a lot of her fans would very much feel she should be on several more than now - and a big reason for that is a pattern of underperforming/choking in big matches late in slams, typically in the semis but also in last year's us open final. the tennis is there, but the ability to always deliver on it? eh. it's a cruel sport

the other massive hurdle for her was her serve. she developed such a severe case of serving yips that during the australian swing of 2022, she ended up clocking double digit numbers of double faults in single matches. she ended up working with a biomechanics specialist to fix the issue - and it's still one of the sport's loveliest fairy tale stories in recent years that she ended up winning her first slam in the place that had caused her such heartache the year before. she started the final with a double fault, and went on to win it in the best slam final (either gender) we've had this decade. she might still be fighting her demons, but at least you do know she won't stop fighting

speaking of the ao '23 final: elena rybakina (lena, ryba, rybs), the player sabs beat to win it. ryba is... I don't think it's fair to say she came out of nowhere to win wimbledon in 2022 because she had reached a slam quarter the year before, but she certainly was a bit of a surprise. a little bit of controversy surrounding that title, given ryba is a russian-born citizen of kazakhstan who switched nationalities because she was promised support by the kazakh tennis federation - and wimbledon that year had banned russians and belarusians (this was a one time thing, and in the end no other tournament went the same way). there was also a little bit of... *sigh* discourse? about how little she emoted when winning the title, which kinda led to a weird set of presser exchanges where she ended up crying when the emotion finally overcame her and she kinda went 'well you got what you wanted' and then everyone clapped? like, literally

anyways, she backed it up by reaching the ao '23 final, won a couple more big titles last year, and seems to be particularly lethal when facing iga. that being said, her other slam results have been quite poor since then - and she was seen as the clear wimbledon favourite this year in the second week but failed to convert it into another slam. she's also been hampered by various illnesses, remains to be seen if that remains a consistent problem in her career. still feels like she's got a little bit to prove in that regard. she's very tall, an icy demeanour on the court with an excellent serve and big, flat groundstrokes that are particularly effective cross court. also she has a sister who tags along sometimes and very much emotes

and then there's coco gauff, who had her main tour breakthrough very very young and is still only twenty. had her big title breakthrough last summer in the american hard court swing, won a lot of matches and ended up winning that us open. since then it's been... a bit more of a mixed picture. she's a great athlete, very very fast, and that athleticism is her single biggest strength. the backhand is a thing of beauty. the forehand is not a thing of beauty. partly due to her unorthodox grip, it's a bit of a catastrophe at times - very liable to breaking down entirely, and her slam was won working around that weakness. iga has a painful 11-1 head to head against her in large part for that reason. coco's also got a powerful serve, but it's... not in great shape right now I don't think? but the other big thing she's got going for her is how damn tough she is - like especially this year when the tennis hasn't always been there, she's managed to knuckle down and get a lot of incredibly gritty wins. she's survived a lot of 'ugly' matches, has somehow scrapped and clawed her way through plenty of them... though yeah, doesn't seem like she's particularly happy with her camp at the moment. no question about her dedication or talent, but it remains to be seen whether the forehand will end up imposing a ceiling on her ultimate potential

barbie k has earned a promotion to this bit of the post by just winning her second slam at wimbledon! you get to this section if you win two slams this decade, I reckon, and barbora krejcikova (barbie, barbs, mother krej) is now a multiple slam champion in singles as well as doubles (where she is very, very successful). she's a late-ish bloomer who really only started performing in singles in 2021, and still remains a bit of a mystery in her performance patterns. czechia is a powerhouse in the women's game that has produced a lot of top players, some crafty ones with a ton of variety and some bashers - and krej is in the former camp. she has a real fun game in part as a result of her doubles expertise: she slices! she moonballs!! a LOT!! kinda quirky way of hitting her forehand, a lot of arm extension, but the backhand is the real beauty. clever player even when she can't string it together consistently on the singles court... had a dip in results after winning a final against igatha early last year (her second time doing so in a matter of months - given iga's fearsome reputation in finals in particular, this is particularly impressive). who knows, she might disappear again after this... but well, you always know she has this kind of a run in her. she's a proper fan of the sport herself and you'll frequently spot her watching women's matches from the stands in her off time

in conclusion, the current women's game is great. I have no clue who's going to win the us open. there are about a million fun and interesting players I've left out of this narrative summary. pick up your local scrub today

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MEN

again, starting with a broad historical overview:

right right around the switch to the open era, the biggest name is rod laver, who is still the only bloke to win a calendar slam (all four slams in one year). the main stadium at ao is named after him, as are a bunch of other things. they trotted him out in 2021 when it looked like djokovic would win the calendar slam, but, well, he did not. there's also rosewall who won a bunch of slams... the era also includes arthur ashe, the first black man to win a slam title (did it three times). eventually, in the mid seventies you get the emergence of jimmy connors, who ended up being around forever and ever - famously a dickhead, one of the backhands of all time and an early adopter in the two handed squad

you also get the emergence of bjorn borg, the iceman, who was like. super popular with his looks and magazine shoots and exorbitant exhibition fees, very very intense about his tennis, steely baseliner. eventually burned himself out and retired young, which also negatively affected his rival - the tempestuous young john mcenroe, known for his temper tantrums (he of "you cannot be serious") and being a magician on the court, who tended to behave himself around borg and borg alone. he believes he never quite recovered from borg deserting him so early, though he did amass quite a nice collection of slams

early eighties and we're throwing in a mats wilander into the mix, a baseline grinder in the classic mould who you may be familiar with if you've ever followed tennis through eurosport - plus boris becker, who won wimbledon ridiculously young, a highly gifted serve and volleyer, who spends his days now going to prison for tax evasion. two more eighties players while we're at it: the hardy ivan lendl, a man with a big forehand and an icy demeanour which is SUCH a cliche I hate myself for using it, and stefan edberg, the best type of serve-and-volleyer because he really was more about the volleys than the serve

and then!! the nineties!! well, a little bit before the nineties, actually, is when a new crop of american talent come through - four players who were going to define that decade of men's tennis. michael chang was the first one to break through, and did so very young - still the youngest slam winner in the men's game at seventeen years old. a short bloke who based his defensive game around his speed and consistency, he never quite managed to replicate that initial success, but was still a major factor in the game for the decade after that. also, check out chang's autobiography if you want to learn more about nineties tenn- oh, what's this I'm hearing? really? huh, that's not what I was expecting going in, but fair enough! right, okay then. let me try this again: check out chang's autobiography to learn about how to live a good christian life and why sex before marriage goes against the teachings of jesus christ our lord and saviour (and also a little bit of tennis). then you've got jim courier, an american who excitingly did not suck at clay (funnily enough three of these four did win one slam on clay, it's really just sampras who SUCKS), big fighter, one of those americans with big forehands, y'know how they are. also one of the best retired player commentators and interviewers, really knowledgeable and good at explaining shit. courier also used to be in the same training academy as agassi and was kinda the less favoured one so he loved to beat agassi in a five set final to win his first slam

the other two are wunderkind andre agassi who hated the sport most of the time, and pete sampras, a genius of the game who had a far healthier relationship with the concept of tennis. the world's best returner against the world's best server, the intrepid baseline with the fearsome running forehand versus the cool serve-and-volleyer with one of the greatest serves in the game. sampras defeated agassi when everyone thought agassi would finally win his first slam, and he became a bit of a professional bogeyman for agassi. very much the rivalry of the decade, big contrast in personality as well as style. sampras won fourteen slams (but was very much not one of those americans who could play on clay), agassi had a bit of a messier time of it but still ended on a respectable eight - and remains the only man in history to win a 'career super slam', aka all four slams, olympic gold and the year end championships (nadal was missing yec, federer and djokovic gold - these olympics are presumably djo's final chance to complete the set)

agassi and graf eventually got their happy ending with each other. when he retired from the sport, agassi focused on his true calling and became a professional wife guy

anyways, they did also need someone to win the clay slams in that era, for which you do get a bunch of different blokes - but the most successful of these is kuerten, who brought a lot of aggression to his clay court game (this would become way more common since). big heavy groundstrokes, lots of topspin, you know how it is

early noughties is a bit chaotic, sampras and agassi are still winning a bit, there's a few names who are kinda limited to being successful on clay, lleyton hewitt looks like's gonna be the next big thing but isn't (still wins two slams). eventually you get the emergence of the big three/four

the first guy to show up is roger federer, who was kinda seen as a very talented flop, lots of potential he wasn't delivering on, until he finally put it all together and started winning absolutely everything. one of the serves, especially given his height, all time great flat forehand, very good slice. got even better at the net in his later years. the one handed backhand is a shot people like for aesthetic purposes, but it could be a liability. swiss. after he got rid of the ponytail, he was eventually seen as sort of synonymous with like. elegance. gentleman's sport idk

after a few years of federer winning everything, rafa nadal emerged as an ultra good teenager. kinda became the federer kryptonite. he's especially good on clay... okay, yeah, understatement, greatest of all time on the men's side on that surface, a lot of records that are going to take a lot of beating. like it's hard to overstate how good he is at roland garros, won the thing fourteen times. lefty, seen as a big fighter, got the sleeveless shirts, big big forehand with big big spin, fast. did branch out from the whole clay thing to also win all the other slams a bunch

that was the big rivalry for a while, until two players shoved themselves into the conversation (born a week apart): novak djokovic (nole) and andy murray. djokovic wasn't quite as early a bloomer as nadal, struggled a bit more physically early on, won a slam in 2008 and was consistently at the top but it really clicked in 2011 when he just won like. basically everything that year. didn't lose a match until roland garros. from serbia, childhood affected by the war... prone to some pretty dubious nationalism. a counterpuncher with one of the all time great backhands, ridiculously flexible, also ridiculous mental strength. was unpopular as the intruder in that nadal/fed rivalry that a lot of tennis fans seem to really be into, also federer in particular used to be real bitchy about him (kinda faded over the years). but like, don't bother booing him! it makes him better!

has won some insane matches against fed - crowd against him, fed with matchpoints, all that shit... us open 2011! and of course, wimbledon 2019, that infamous final where federer had two championship points and that lady in the crowd held up one finger (one more point) and djo ended up winning. another beloved meme in the community (well, not with fed fans)

*extremely cold take voice* REAL fans know the 2019 final is overrated and 2014 fed/djo is the superior one. djo won that one too, tended to do that a lot in that rivalry

oh obviously also gotta mention that djokovic had the entire covid 'oh I don't want to get vaccinated look at me get deported from australia' thing going on. which means a lot of like, free speech anti-establishment nuts are super into him now. so beyond the vaccine scepticism, it also means that now any time he gets bitchy about crowds, you can't really enjoy it because it immediately sparks super weird discourse

anyway then there's sir andrew murray who was part of the 'big four' as an era and was always there but was losing a lot of semis and finals against these guys. far, far better than his three slams sound, one of the greats who got unlucky in the era he played in. moody scottish bloke, pepperidge farm remembers the english used to hate him. counterpuncher, lovely lovely backhand, the forehand was sometimes a bit. eh. and the second serve *stares into middle distance*. very smart and crafty and tactical player. just retired this wimbledon

wawrinka also won three slams in this period..... powerful one handed backhand, kinda peaked at exactly the right time because the rest of his record is not three slam worthy. interesting taste in shorts. used to have beef with fellow swiss bloke fed and also his wife? but unfortunately they patched things up years ago. dated teenage vekic when he was late twenties - there are rumours that relationship may have started when she was underage, but either way she was definitely very young. reaching the end of his career

basically, look, the big three won pretty much everything for so so so long. unprecedented length of domination by three blokes. all of them have deranged fanbases, though each of them is a different flavour of deranged? single slam winners who are either retired or close to it are del potro (insanely talented, very injury blighted), cilic (when he's on, he sure is on), thiem (the guy who the big three feared for a while, insane one handed backhand, won a silly slam final in 2020 and then was kinda struggling mentally before his wrist got fucked)

andddd let's get to the current state of the game, what the vibes are like right now:

we are. finally. I think. mostly done with the big three? federer's very much retired, nadal's on the brink, djokovic... *wiggles hand* he's been deeply mid most of this year until roland garros, where he got injured. then he came back very quickly and admittedly got bitch slapped in the wimbledon final but also, like, 63 players allowed him to reach that final? anyway the thing about the big three is you can't really trust them to actually stay down, but tentatively I do think it's mostly #over

first bloke to get through the big four stranglehold on the number one ranking since. uh. 2004 I believe? a long time. was daniil medvedev (meddy, med), who it's fair to say was a bit of an Unexpected contender for that spot. he's very tall, part of a new generation of very tall players who can actually move, used to have a good serve... unconventional technique, especially on the forehand side. unique return position (think very far back), commonly compared an octopus with his lanky limbs in odd places. a pusher who likes to win by outlasting his opponents in rallies to exhaustion/madness. smart bloke, head case on the court - quite marmite where either you enjoy the antics or think he's a dick who's apologised for his behaviour more than he's changed it. has reached a lot of slam finals, did win one (us open 2021) but also. the manner of some of his late stage slam losses is what his fans would consider 'a little bit painful'

he was part of the og nextgen... basically you had the golden gen, which was the big four and co, then the lost gen, dimitrov, thiem, all those fuckers who didn't replace the gold gen, then the next gen which was like a marketing campaign to finally replace the big three (med, AZ, tsitsipas, rublev)... still didn't work so now we're on the next next gen

the big name here is carlos alcaraz (carlitos, charlie, charlitos), this wunderkind who is known for his big forehand and dropshots and creative game and general air of like, joy on the court, also for not being a talentless flop (and came in at just the right time to not get a shit ton of scar tissue courtesy of the big three). alcaraz had a mini breakthrough us open 2021, and then the proper one 2022... a season Of All Time by a teenager. won a lot of stuff that year and then eventually won the us open, ended year number one. 2023 has brought another slam, 2024 two more slams and counting... very much the next big thing in the sport, loads of fans. he's got basically everything, offensive all-court game with a lot of tools that make him successful on all surfaces, a mix of power and finesse. sometimes his number of options can trip him up and he can be a bit of a slow starter, has also been criticised for his over-reliance on coach ferrero in terms of his tactical flexibility - but crucially he's very very good, has won a lot, will continue to win a lot

then you've got jannik sinner, an italian from south tyrol (y'know, the bit that's right next to austria, kinda pasty looking, his fans have this whole carrot situation going on). he's number one now, after winning his first slam start of the year... bit older than alcaraz but only became a shoo-in as a slam contender this year. bit more of a linear, straightforward game than alcaraz, big big forehand and big big backhand, high margin aggression but more emphasis on the 'aggression' than for either prime djo or nadal. like alcaraz, an elite returner, plus his serve has massively improved in the last year and it's now pretty lethal. has sometimes been quite physically frail, jury's still out whether he's completely overcome those issues looking at his losses this year. the alcaraz rivalry is a whole thing now.... for a while, sinner was still kinda mid against the field but always played alcaraz super close and got some big wins. now he's very good against the field too, still plays alcaraz close

just as a recommendation: if you want to get into men's tennis and want to have a good time for the next decade, you probably want to try to get into one of those two guys

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MATCHES TO WATCH

this is kinda trickier to do than with motorsports because it really depends on what you're looking for? like I wouldn't say there's really any 'recommended viewing' and also because tennis is going on literally ALL the time, really the best way to get into it is just watch the new shit as it comes out.... also most tennis fans aren't watching that many replays lbr. now obviously there are freaks who are way too into old matches they weren't old enough to experience live and could provide you with detailed match recs from the nineties if you were interested, but they're very much in the minority in the fanbase and can safely be ignored

that being said! you asked for recs so I will provide recs, all from stuff that's available in youtube. weirdly enough this is like, the one thing that is better for women's tennis than men's tennis, so for new-ish matches the only men's matches uploaded on youtube are a few slam ones. I'm gonna give like, 3-4 older matches from each gender (all from this century don't worry) that jumped out at me when I checked what was available, then add a few newer ones. all easily searchable on youtube dot com

historical matches:

okay. look. I don't want to sound like I have some fixation with the concept of '2003' specifically. but if I can give you one match, just one older match to watch. it's the us open 2003 semifinal between capriati and henin. this is a match with literally everything... incredible tennis between two very different players, stylistic contrast, a crazy atmosphere, ridiculous momentum shifts all three sets, officiating controversy, booing, a player fighting through cramps, choking, a super dramatic finish, narrative implications... like it's so worth it I PROMISE

um... apart from that, let's go serena/clijsters australian open 2003, really cool match though a BRUTAL third set to watch on a psychological level. like oof... again the narratives around this match that emerged for one player specifically... cruel!! tennis sucks!! hm I'm aware this is also a 2003 match but kinda an iconic season in women's tennis idk what to tell u!!

gonna refrain from reccing henin/serena rg 2003 though if you want something super controversial...

venus/davenport wimbledon 2005!! one of THE all time great slam finals. this is a match that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go until the bitter end. real back against the wall stuff, going beyond your limits to somehow turn it around.... absolute classic

oh idk let's toss in serena/henin 2010 ao, I'm gonna stop myself there but it is a fun match-up lol

men!! men. I mean, if you want to get 'caught up' then I'd probably better give you some big three recs

well, look, if there's one classic men's match everyone will tell you to watch, it's wimbledon 2008 federer/nadal. icl I haven't watched it in years and can't really remember it particularly well, but I'm sure it's perfectly lovely

from the matches available on youtube..... hm well australian open 2012 djokovic/nadal is also a classic! partly because it's Very Very Long but yeah nah this one's definitely fun

oh oh federer/djokovic matches I'd go wimbledon 2014 and us open 2011! especially the latter one, along with wimby 2019 I think those are kinda the matches that define the rivalry in the popular consciousness? also it was the FIFTH consecutive uso in which they played each other, which is inherently narratively potent

they uploaded nadal/djokovic roland garros 2021! that one's great yeah, the... third set I believe is one of THE all time great sets of tennis. also again interesting arc there because it's only a few months after the rg '20 final where nadal like, bagelled djokovic in the first set

and more recent matches:

well first of all, they have the ao 2023 ryba/sublanko final on youtube and yes, OBVIOUSLY watch that. fantastic match! best slam final this decade thus far, what a classic. also, read up just a little bit more about sabalenka's 2022 australian swing before watching it to get a sense for just How Bad the double fault situation was (I'm sure the commentators do also discuss it). like again!! what a journey!!

the wta full matches playlist is an absolute blessing here. iga/aryna 2023 madrid final!! still... well okay madrid this year is also in the conversation, but certainly one of the best matches they've played. as an introduction to the pair of them and how much fun that rivalry can be to watch, definitely the place to start! yeah, what a match man

they have!!! iga vs krej!!! ostrava!!! 2022!!! final!!! I miss ostrava!!! such a good vibes tournament, important to note that iga was almost unbeaten in finals going in (apart from one final when she was still like, a toddler) - this one's a real journey and also really works to show how cool barbie k's game can be when she's actually playing well. lovely stylistic contrast, lots of quirky momentum shifts, again you're getting introduced to current players of relevance. also ostrava!!!

kerber/juvan strasbourg 2022 look you do not need to get into angie kerber in the year 2024 but... well I saw it on the youtube playlist and I can't NOT include it. it's a 250 final, it's right before roland garros, this isn't relevant to greater narratives or anything else, this is just two players fighting it out for hour after hour, leaving their absolute all in the dirt. I could marry the matchpoint

leylah/osorio monterrey 2022... again, I'm not saying they're big names or some shit, but I can't not. two of the all time great tusslers in the women's game like there are women who tussle and then there are women who TUSSLE. amazing amazing atmosphere, some ridiculous drama, scamming, lights fixtures failing, these two women going at it… they're both SUCH characters, such energy, such vibes, never give up… this slaps!!! my favourite matches are the ones that really take you on a journey

speaking of. any match in the leylah us open 2021 run lol like they've got her vs naomi vs svitolina vs angie vs sublanko.... still one of the most bonkers slam runs in recent times, if perhaps overshadowed by what was going on on the other side of the draw. but yeah truly one match of peak drama after the other, what joy

scrolling through the ao matches that have been uploaded and tried to refrain from reccing coco/kostyuk but in the fondest way possible if you want to see some awful tennis... there's nothing more beautiful on this planet than genuinely horrendous matches. like again when I say 'abysmal' it's meant as a term of endearment

(I feel bad for just including a terrible coco match so of the ones on youtube the one I'd rec is maybe us open 2022 vs zhang? but like her coach's catchphrase is 'winning ugly', it really isn't a bad thing or meant as a drag)

from last year's rg, muchova/sabs and muchova/igatha are both very much worth a watch, both for the drama and the tennis

moving on to the men... well look, again, it's just a few of the slam matches on youtube not the tour level, which does kinda limit the ones I can offer you. probably the one I'd go for first and foremost is alcaraz/sinner uso 2022? defo the best match those two have played, super high quality, big big big momentum shifts, the third match between the two of them in fairly short succession which really helped in terms of like. narratives and shit. and again, these two are definitely The Guys going forwards, so you kinda want to be vibing with one of them I reckon

uh.... okay sure, alcaraz/djokovic wimbledon final last year. I still think there's a little bit of gaslighting in the tennis community about how good this match actually was (not as bad as what people do with their cincy match last year, mind) but well it's long and dramatic and long! also you do have like, the generational contest and all that stuff... it's A FINAL FOR THE AGES according to wimbledon's youtube account and who am I to argue with them

man these men's matches.... there's some sentimental faves for me personally but I shall not include them. apart from that, the youtube selection is honestly quite poor. maybe alcaraz/tiafoe 2022 us open

lmao altmaier/sinner roland garros 2023, sure, that was funny. making that one of like ten matches you've uploaded... never change roland garros, never change (please do change)

anyway listen there's a lot of fantastic men's early slam rounds that clearly nobody ever bothers to upload, I'm not really feeling any of the choices they have here. if you have tennistv and access to actual tour matches, then I'm more than happy to give recs for some of my faves there

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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

congratulations! you are now caught up on 'tennis'. you've done it! that's all there is to know. job done

anyways, look. like I said at the top, it's tough to give a sort of concise 'lore' intro, because the thing about tennis is that there's always going on. and the 'always' element is the good bit!! it really is all about the variety, it's going into tournaments with an open mind, it's definitely not just gravitating around a few top players. we could get into plenty of old matches and old drama and old unsung heroes... an endless litany of minor beef, both very recent and slightly less recent, that may one day be lost to time. like tears. in the rain

last point as I wrap up this worryingly long post - obviously, if you have any questions on anything technical or historical or just like. hot takes. please feel free to send an ask. talking about tennis is fast and free and easy if you've been a part of that world for way too many years. but the main thing is to just watch and forge your own hot takes! it's easier to get the hang of than it looks from the outside - and from my years of observational studies, once it hooks you, it sure does hook you. have fun!!

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congratulations! you have accidentally clicked to find the 'read more' section!

this is the section of 'shit I decided would make the main post not streamlined enough, but still felt like was relevant enough to include here'. basically, what I've thrown in here is a bunch of non-match stuff you can check out in your journey getting into the sport, my quick fire 'hey here's some players you can check out' list, as well as a relatively brief take on some players I haven't already covered above. like a teensy little intro.

anyway, to the non-match content:

dasha's vlog: okay. so daria kasatkina is currently ranked top fifteen in the world and for the past year or so her and her girlfriend (retired figure skater natalia zabiiako) have been releasing a vlog of her life on tour. genuinely dasha is doing more than the troops (certainly more than the wta) to actually promote the tour... the vlogs consist of like. her travelling, her training, her and her girlfriend chatting to other players and interviewing them (mainly women but men too depending on the event), the matches... and also dasha and natalia just being incredibly cute. they're in a mix of english and russian with english subtitles. fun, gives you a sense of both how fun and how not fun life can be for professional tennis players (plenty of depressing losses), an inside look in pretty much all the major tournaments... and you do get introduced to a smattering of other players. she recently won eastbourne so happy ending to that one!!

various tennistv videos: unfortunately, the wta does not produce similar content. they have a lot of match highlights, but they also have like. compilations. 'meme' videos for a given value of the word. 'funny moment' compilations. these vary in quality, some stuff will make you cringe, but unlike Certain Organisations at least they're trying. so for instance you have a video from rome 2021 that's a mix of people falling over on clay and throwing racquets and complaining about shit and also djokovic staring out at the endless rain. or specific features like atp players reacting to videos of amateur players playing tennis, y'know, that sort of thing

gill gross: so you want to learn a little more about how tennis works, maybe some match tactics or common discourse points? gill is a good place to start I think, most of it should be relatively accessible and watchable. there's monday match analysis videos, which tend to be the finals of the week before on the men's side, individual match analysis videos especially during slams, and mailbag episodes - those are the ones I'd start with. unfortunately, most of the content is focused on men's tennis, though gill does also talk about women's tennis in the mailbag episodes. available both in youtube form and podcast version

tennis abstract: this isn't really 'content' per se, but it's the resource that I thought I might as well include here and does include a very interesting blog proponent and some very eclectic content. basically, tennis kinda sucks in providing you with stats, so some enterprising minds just do it themselves... tennis abstract might not be the friendliest website to get on with at the start, but I think it's worth checking out just to give yourself a bit of a sense of what's out there. how you measure tennis! you can compare players by a bunch of different metrics, like how many return games they're winning per match or average time per match. there's also the individual player sections, which lets you filter their results by various criteria... and then there's the individual match charts and the data based of those, which is entirely volunteer-produced match coding to give you far more in-depth stats than the general tour product (which I have done a bit of myself, it's fun!!)

tennis podcasts: right, I'm gonna be honest I'm not really a regular listener to any of these for various reasons so I can't REALLY vouch for them. you have no challenges remaining, quite well-known journalists with that; there's the tennis podcast, which... controversial, they easily annoy me too, but around slam times the media day + daily podcasts are pretty good content, quite surface level but good entry level probably? there's the body serve, which I think is quite good, it's just got an editorial slant towards certain players I'm not big on. there's backhands and compliments, which is a fan podcast by female fans... just about atp tennis though. I'm not really the target audience for this one, but if you want something quite casual and fun, think this could be good! tennis & bagels is pretty good, they're only this low down because they're not currently regularly posting. talking tennis is very much a mix of content but one I regularly check out, again more on the analysis side of things, but yeah!

I also can't really vouch for this content myself - but I should mention that morgan riddle, the girlfriend of top twenty atp player taylor fritz, is a social media influencer on both instagram and tiktok. I'm not active on either platform so I only really see what she posts second hand, but well it'll be stuff relating to her boyfriend and also fit checks for watching tennis, I suppose? I do know people who enjoy her stuff, think it's quite good!

tennis majors: I'm a little loathe to include this because the site is basically a patrick mouratoglou pr outlet that moonlights as a serious news site? and look. mouratoglou we are not getting into here, but he's a very annoying famous coach. site's got some good content though. also tennis.com which is another news website that's like. fine. I don't really check it a lot tbh, good as a starting point I reckon

players tribune has a few pieces by tennis players - iga, jpeg, foe... obviously not that many but the ones who have contributed a piece are well worth checking out!! for a bit more thoughtful content

popcorn tennis: this is a blog that updated irregularly with a mix of opinion pieces, player profiles, and match reports. another one where I easily get irritable at a lot of these pieces, but that's sort of the point with think pieces innit

some more technical analysis on thread of order, which unfortunately again is heavily biased towards men's tennis. there's match analyses, generally of big finals, but also some really interesting pieces on technique. this one on forehands is probably like... a bit much for entry level fans, but it should be quite accessible as a read! then you've got the sadly discontinued matt racquet blog, which still has an archive worth checking out - mix of match analyses and more big picture think pieces. here's a good accessible one on the early 2022 men's top ten with their strengths and weaknesses displayed in a video game-y way, obviously a bit out of date both in terms of who it includes and what it says about them, but... good as a starting point of how to think about this stuff. also, I love radar charts

on the same site, there's also this on the equal pay debate with regards to best of five versus best of three at slams, and what still remains the best analysis out there of why alcaraz's drop shots are so incredibly effective. again, less on women unfortunately, but some pieces that withstand the test of time on why iga is so damn good (x, x). also, the good old What's Wrong With Tennis piece from 2020, many of the same things are still wrong with tennis now

as long reads go, this piece on federer from the time of his retirement is pretty hard to beat in terms of what tennis writing is out there. does a good job of capturing why people go so crazy about the guy, a very engaging read. also liked this piece in the guardian about return positions from last year, and back when 538 was a thing they had a few interesting tennis articles. and yeah, again, tennis abstract is a super useful site but the blog is also fun analysis, good up to date stuff especially on players who are finding more success and like... explaining what's changed, the pieces on demon and boulter this year for instance are worth checking out. and here's an essay on talent and prodigies and losing again and again.... not too long but quite thoughtful and I vibe with a lot of it. plus giri nathan of the defector is one of the best current tennis writers

and if you're on twitter, the number one follow recommendation I'd give is @/josephwofford - when he's active, he does a lot of fantastic live analysis of matches and post-match threads. definitely not a neutral fan, but the passion and eclectic selection of faves is the best element. plus, you'll never believe this, there's actually a pretty much fifty fifty gender balance. here, giri nathan did an interview with him entitled 'an interview with the biggest tennis sicko I've encountered at the us open'. my type of guy

there's also like, fan-produced wta content on youtube, but it's a real mix between stuff that's done with love for the tour with all its quirks and stuff that feels very mean-spirited, misogyny central, so it goes. not always easy to distinguish between wta drama (fond) and wta drama (look at these bitches). anyway there is some kinda nice stuff out there.... like idk naomi osaka 'funny moments' or iga swiatek 'being a meme for 4 minutes straight' or aryna sabalenka 'funny moments', that sort of thing

not going to get into a tennis bibliography here, but if I had to recommend one tennis-related book it'd always be agassi's autobiography. will probably always be my favourite sports autobiography, and I promise you that you do not need much of a tennis background to find it a worthwhile read

^dasha and natalia... look up photos of them I promise you it's a good scrolling experience

and here's my lil list of players I'd consider giving a watch, see what you vibe with. I haven't included any top five players - you will be brute force introduced to that lot anyway - and generally not players that I consider... surefire bets to reach/remain at the top of the game. they're still mostly relatively high profile! a bunch of different playstyles, career trajectories, personal stories, and so on... again, this is just a bit of a random list and only very loosely correlates to players I myself root for, but I reckon I still stand by the names here in terms of giving you a good range of interesting players with interesting stories:

paolini, kasatkina, zheng, krecjikova, fernandez, collins, ostapenko, svitolina, m. andreeva, garcia, kenin, andreescu, osorio, haddad maia, avanesyan, bouzkova, putintseva

davidovich fokina, de minaur, musetti, tiafoe, korda, etcheverry, baez, machac, arnaldi, norrie, sonego, hanfmann, munar, berrettini

okay, some more wta players - so so many you could get into here but I've just tried to give the top 35 like. a few lines of summary (not including anyone already featured above):

this would feel like a bizarre sentence to type out a year ago, but I suppose the first player you have to mention here is jasmine paolini! how did that happen! at age 28, her game has suddenly Clicked and she's won a 1000 title, plus become one of the few players in history to have gotten to back to back slam finals at roland garros + wimbledon (the 'channel slam'). short, somehow generates some crazy power, plus she's such a scrapper and grinder, a lot of determination and spirit to her game.... she's having fun, you're having fun watching her, who knows what she does from here

jessica pegula/jpeg - billionaire's daughter, late bloomer, perpetual slam quarterfinalist, injury blighted season, plays doubles with gauff a lot, big fighter, deceptively good... like you don't always know what makes her so dangerous, she's not super powerful or super fast or super anything really. but the strokes are consistent and fairly powerful and she's incredibly tenacious

qinwen zheng - reached her first slam final at ao this year, and she's been tipped as a big star for a while now, also very much got the celebrity juice and lovely magazine shoots and all that. the results are still quite inconsistent though, we'll have to wait and see. tall with a quirky serve motion, big forehand, really likes to take the ball on and step in, still trying to kinda bring it all together

maria sakkari - the most beautiful biceps in the game, very fit (in every sense of the word), also kinda quirky technique that's like... effortful, quite tense. renowned for being a massive choker but won her second title last year. she's one of those players it's super rewarding and fun to be a hater of, less rewarding and fun to be a fan of. so don't do that

danielle 'danyell' collins - announced her retirement so she's going to be gone by end of the season, but since then she's had some very impressive results including a 1000 title. plus a lot of great matches. she's a bit of an underdog hero, no sponsor and all that, also a number of physical ailments that makes it hugely impressive what she's achieved. struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis. known for her powerful game and her KAMANNN yells

jelena ostapenko (aljona/penko) - 2017 rg champion. don't try and predict her results, you just won't know. WHACKS at the ball, amazing angles, distinctive return position (way way too close sometimes lol), can generally be counted on to generate some drama. gets into a lot of fights with electronic line calling. very much a force of chaos in the women's game, check her head to head with world number one iga swiatek. doesn't have a sponsor and comes up with some memorable outfits

daria 'dasha' kasatkina - I Was A Fan Before I Knew She Was A Dyke. a pusher, little firepower but WILL run for every ball, loops and slices it back. very very very slow serve, great returner though. it's a very sad serve. tends to get overpowered especially by top players, and is probably a bit too defensive these days. it's definitely not a game for everyone, but idk if you're into different ball flight trajectories and a lot of running, she's a good watch. plus she does play some very long matches. when you have players who are shite at serving and great returners, you tend to get a lot of matches where they're either handing out or on the receiving end of bakery products (6-0, 6-1 sets) (because the serve becomes little more than a neutral point starter on average, so the bit that matters is who's winning off the ground)

ludmilla samsonova (samsung/samsonite) - ... she's top twelve? oh, I checked and I'd forgotten she reached two 1000 finals last year, those were great runs fairs. another player who's quite honestly a mystery, goats some stretch of the calendar and then has a series of horrific chokes. big power player, I like the shape of her groundies

madison keys (madi) - she brings a certain kind of 'approaching tennis like it's baseball' vibe to the tour, going by some of her balls' trajectories, got to rate it. boy can she smack that ball though, pretty cool when she's actually getting it between the lines. has broadly underachieved career expectations, got to one slam final that was Not a good experience for her, seems lovely as a person so a lot of people root for her. retired from the best match of the tournament this wimbledon :( (against paolini)

emma navarro - another billionaire's daughter, possibly didn't exist before last year. honestly, I haven't watched enough of her matches to have a great read on what her deal is... but now she's top twenty

ons jabeur - trailblazer as a tunisian tennis star, reached three slam finals and didn't really show up for any of them. (like, psychologically, she didn't literally skip them.) a magician on court with a game that some would call creative and others undisciplined. got nicknamed the 'minister of happiness' in tunisia and outside of it, but has been fighting a lot of demons - injuries, the slam final chokes, her desire to become a mother and so on. a lot of people are cheering for her but her window may have passed (dude, seriously, not a good fan experience, don't get invested)

anna kalinskaya - oh yeah another flat hitter who igatha has struggled with. got to a 1000 final this year... look I hate to do this but I suppose I should mention one of the main associations people have with her right now is that she started dating men's number one sinner this year

marketa vondrousova (maky) - another mystery. has some big runs in big tournaments and then disappears. won wimbledon last year, has barely won a match on grass before or since... one of those crafty czech players, y'know. fun game to watch when it's on! lovely lovely slice, just an incredible amount of tools at her disposal, some of those angles pheww.... really likes her cat

marta kostyuk - had a breakthrough very very young, things have been tougher for her since then... not made easier by the impact of the russian invasion of ukraine. outspoken on the subject. last year things increasingly clicked in her game, started winning against t10 players, deep run at ao this year. bit of a messy game at times but she's a fighter

victoria azarenka (vika) - two time ao winner, already got mentioned above. fantastic returner, spottier server, lovely lovely backhand. gotten involved in some classic wta drama over the years. still goes on some deep runs, but reaching the end of the career

donna vekic - breakthrough young, had a hard time since, now 28 and was a first time slam semifinalist this wimby. a few things you could get into here which would take more time, but really an engaging watch. some of her down the line and inside out shots... man, they can make you gasp

beatriz haddad maia - do you want to watch four hour long matches with fifty thousand momentum shifts? boy do I have a tennis player for you. pusher with a serve, definitely a fighter, makes for some epic matches... not having a great season. a Dedicated brazilian fanbase

leylah fernandez - us open 2021 runner up as a teenager... her run to the final was genuinely bonkers, one three set classic after the next. it's all been messier since then and with her height and game the worry is she'll always be underpowered. she is SUCH a vicious fighter with a charming grin after the fact... a great character and a henin fan (taste) but yeah... can be frustrating

caroline 'caro' garcia - okay so look. she has her good seasons and her off seasons and her last good season was 2022. she's very aggressive, very.... uncompromising, including in her return position, sometimes it works out and.... it may also not. had past familial coaching drama. mentally a bit up and down. when she wins she has this whole 'fly with caro' thing where she runs around like a plane. but so help me lord I resisted leading with this - quite possibly one of the hottest women on this planet and when she speaks with that french accent paired with one of history's cutest smiles... in the most feminist way possible. call me

dayana yastremska - she's top thirty...? another mystery, had a breakthrough young and then struggled, ukrainian also impacted by the war, also a character you can sometimes get some quality Drama out of

linda noskova - still very young... very powerful, beat iga at ao, one of a million good czech players. jury's out as to what her potential is

ekaterina alexandrova - madrid specialist! well, no, not really, but she's definitely a bit of a peaky player.... flat hitter, very nice stroke production

diana shnaider - still quite young, HUGE forehand (like. huge. huge), bandana!! looks cool, cool kid, left college to turn pro, still need to see where the ceiling is

yulia putintseva (poots) - again, her results.... nobody can explain them, but boy can she be a joy to watch. also, and I cannot stress this enough, A Character. beat iga at wimbledon (she did also win a warm up event so not completely random). sometimes gets involved in the messiest matches on the planet

elina svitolina - bit of an old school pusher! a counterpuncher, even! very strong record against her fellow pushers. she came back from having a kid last year, been having quite a successful comeback though she would have been hoping to win last wimbledon (got to the semis). underpowered, felt like her ceiling was slam semis but y'know... great fighter and match player. also vocal on ukraine

mirra andreeva - baby goat! younger sister to erika, who is currently still in scrub land. mirra made rg semis, she's had some big runs. very much a Tennis Fan who studies a lot of old matches, very crafty, tactical game, deeply charming but also has a temper and is not adverse to the odd tantrum. might lack the weapons to 'make it'

anastasia pavlyuchenkova (pavs) - kinda a perpetual slam quarterfinalist, but she made the rg '21 final. she really works at it, I suppose quite workman-like game (some creative descriptions here)... out with injury for most of 2022 but she was back at it last year. she's sweet!

katie boulter - bri ish. uh. kinda been having good results this past year.... hate to do this again but she's dating de minaur. very low margin game and now does hit the court a few more times? um. bri ish. beef with fellow brit harriet dart

elise mertens - round three streak slam goat!! unfortunately the streak is very much broken, and she's - uh I thought she was old but apparently she's only 28 oh god. never mind! hugely successful doubles player, kinda fun creative game

karolina muchova (karo, mucky) - dude. if only she could not be injured for more than two minutes. reached the roland garros final last year, lovely matches against sabs in the semi and then against iga in the final. this is for the connoisseurs, you can get all pretentious here, really for the lovers of slices and lovely looking strokes and nice touch and feel and unfulfilled potential and all that shit. crafty czech player y'know. plays guitar, should be playing for our team (dykes)

okay I think that's probably enough for now

youtube

I'll do a few of the men too... this one's got fewer main protagonists so I'll limit it to twenty. the problem with men's tennis is that these guys are all relevant but basically none of them are likely to win a slam like. ever. just to warn you

right. first one we haven't covered in the rankings is alexander zverev. the main thing you should know about zverev is that he has been accused of domestic violence by two different women. one of the women never went to the authorities, the other ended up settling in german courts. the atp has done nothing about this, the players haven't spoken out - and if anything, the most prominent players in the sport, the beloved big three, have either defended him or said it wasn't any of their business. quite a few of the most popular players, including rublev and thiem, are close friends with him. many have explicitly declined to speak out. as a player, he's tall, big serve, great backhand, mediocre forehand, should use his offence more but resorts to a lot of pushing. he used to be seen as a sure fire world number one and slam winner, and came within a set in the 2020 us open where he was up two sets to love (this was a while before the allegations came out). he got injured badly in 2022, last year was his comeback season, this year he's been playing well but losing slam matches from winning positions. one of the most tedious strains of tennis discourse equates his playing style/mental strength to his morality or attributes his lack of slams to karma, but I have no interest in doing so. he's a very good player who may win a slam, he might have too much mental scar tissue and might be gatekept away from them. if I had to bet on any player I've listed here to snatch one, it'd be him. he also shouldn't be allowed to play

alex de minaur (demon) - dude he's? tf do you mean he's number six? I've really not checked the rankings in a while, bloody hell. yeah, he used to be the next big australian sensation, the new lleyton hewitt... but like, he didn't quite have the game. very very fast, not necessarily much in the way of firepower, some midcourt finishing attempts that make you wince. used to have an awful record against top players, it's looking up now and he's using his forecourt game a lot better these days (still not great at being aggressive off the ground but he's always been quite handy at the net, just needs to get there)... having the best season of his career. got injured match point of his round four wimbledon, so had to withdraw next match - rough rough luck if he has to withdraw from the olympics too. dating katie boulter

hubert hurkacz (hubi, hubertus, I feel like I'm not really distinguishing between 'real' nicknames and 'things I personally call these players' but whatever): very tall. very very good serve. polish. not as good as iga, obviously. gets bullied a lot by polish fans (in a fond way) (I think), seen as a bit crap. comes across as nice and normal but has had a slightly mental exit in the last two slams where. well. some interesting behaviour there. lovely backhand, extremely non-lovely forehand. poor returner. a good mover, not med/AZ levels though. keeps playing longer matches than he should. very tragicomic vibes

andrey rublev: has a lot of fans, plus a lot of neutrals who also have a soft spot for him (including journalists one feels). one-dimensional game, mainly reliant on the big forehand... very poor second serve, which is one of the main thing other players exploit. got the record for the most slam quarters reached without winning one. uh, he's quite cheery off the court, vaguely emo-lite vibes I suppose, but also he does have... issues on the court with managing his temper. he takes this out on himself a lot of times, like bashing his knee and head with his racquet. fun quirk of the tennis rules: you're not allowed to damage your racquet or the court but apparently you're allowed to do whatever you want with your limbs. quite close friends with med, godfather to his daughter. he's had a poor year apart from winning madrid kinda out of nowhere (since then he's gone back to losing). a lot of like, the fun quirky videos the atp produces heavily feature him, he's very good at them

casper ruud: la la la la la la la casper ruud.... seen as a 250 clay merchant, but he won a 500 this year so it's all fixed. very much a hard work pays off kinda guy, had his breakthrough 2022 where he reached two slam finals... big forehand, great serve, the other bits of his game aren't always up to scratch, not fantastic defensively (though he's actually made Proper Improvements to the backhand, apparently it's possible) (and he's not like, taylor fritz slow). this year he's really committed to being aggressive and going after his shots and it's helped him get over last year's slump. comically, comically disinterested in playing on grass. gets involved some of the funniest and most random drama, like jaaaaaa gate (he was accused of shouting 'jaaaaa' in another player's face by said other player). big nadal fan. seems nice and normal and should be drama free but is also like? judgy. maybe that explains it

grigor dimitrov: ah yes, lostgen. there's one guy on twitter who always calls him a 'bisexual balding bulgarian', quite possibly the funniest slander name I have ever come across. he's had the balding issue fixed at least. bit of a style over substance player, the one hander is a nice shot though.... decent slice, at times flaky forehand, a lot of natural talent and a good watch in terms of athleticism. used to be called baby federer, bit of a cursed nickname. dated sharapova for certain, rumoured to have dated serena too. he's kinda nice I suppose, low drama, but like. don't bet your life savings on him actually delivering in a match is what I'll say

taylor fritz: oh he's the american number one again... also quite a one dimensional game, big forehand big backhand good serve... worst mover at the top of the men's game. also in the variety department he's sometimes a bit... yeah. he's got one type of ball trajectory and it's a good type, just don't expect him to switch it up too much. one of the og nextgen lot. in the most polite way possible, he's probably around where his ceiling is. tennis influencer girlfriend

stefanos tsitsipas: super og nextgen, he was really seen as one of The Guys back in the day... beat federer at a slam back in 2019, won the tour finals that year.... he's reached two slam finals and he's been within a set of winning one but. yeah. not happening. game's stagnated since his breakthrough - he's big on the forehand and serve but the one handed backhand is super exploitable. and the thing is, if you have a one hander it's a good idea to actually develop a slice as your defensive tool which he did... not do. deeply dysfunctional familial coaching situation. also too likely to be posting a misogyny on social media. dating fellow player and former world number two paula badosa

tommy paul: another american. he showed up drunk to a us open doubles match he had a wild card for years and years back, and the national federation cut his support. rockier rise to the top! there's like... a lot of nice bits to his game, like it's good shot making, but it's missing the top player x factor (that forehand in particular can be a liability). has reached a slam semi (that bit of the draw collapsed is all I'll say)

ben shelton: another american, but he's younger and he's seen as super promising, was a very successful college player. so might be worth investing in! he's very energetic, plays to the crowd a lot, big on vibes... big big serve. small warning, I personally think that's not a game that'll take you to the top of the men's game these days and I'm not convinced by the package, but who knows! a lot of people would disagree with me

ugo humbert: fifteen??? FIFTEEN in the world????? the fuck. well. um. he's got big weapons! he's also got french brain. french tennis players, especially the men, are known for.... uh. I don't want to say it's a nation of chokers, but I wouldn't say they're seen as the mentally sturdiest? well anyway I'm not sure how humbert got this ranking, good on him though, very good watch when he's on

lorenzo musetti (lore): oh thank god, finally a one handed backhand that's better than the forehand. stylish game. lovely slice. a working father. quite young, he's still kinda known for that 2021 roland garros match where he was up two sets to love against djokovic and ended up retiring in the fifth when he was... losing badly... listen, again, I wouldn't buy the musetti slam stocks and he is NOT consistent throughout the year, but absolutely a good watch

holger rune (holgah): sheesh, seventeenth? well, he was higher a while back! listen, he's super marmite. very close to alcaraz's age, also super promising junior, absolutely a brat, has had some very exciting early success like beating djokovic in the paris final in 2022... incredible drama queen, as are his mum and coaching set up. got a lot going on in his game, has no clue what to do with it. he's... yeah he's a character. at the moment he's not looking like he's part of the same category as sinner and alcaraz, but some would feel he'd be a welcome presence at the top of the game. accused casper ruud of screaming 'jaaaaaa' in his face. you'll either love him or hate him, but at least he's never boring

felix auger aliassime: still quite young, but god did people used to think he was gonna achieve great things... big serve, big forehand, great athlete, unfortunately the backhand is... yeah. he was also dealing with a bunch of injuries last year. had this whole coaching set up with nadal's uncle.... anyway, look there's been a lot of stagnation there. also some real scar tissue

sebastian baez (sebi): argentinian clay court specialist, from a country that produces quite a few of those especially on the men's side. very watchable tennis! quite short, not much in the serving department, uses his forehand a lot and grinds away from the back of the court proper clay court fashion. tends to be quite streaky, but boy can he put together some title runs (we're talking 250s and now one 500) - then sometimes he disappears for months

alejandro tabilo: omg he's top twenty, good for him!! already in his late twenties and like... this is probably the ceiling as his rankings goes, but it's so cool he's made top twenty. beat djokovic this year. his strongest surface is clay, but weirdly his two tour-level titles are on hard and grass. lefty, I do quite like his backhand motion, very compact. good underdog to root for who's having a career best season!