Tennis Mailbag: Forecasting a Potential Serena Williams Comeback

The plot thickens in a potential return to the court from the 44-year-old Williams. Plus, the equal prize money debate and why the sport is lacking variety in style of play.

The tennis world remains intrigued at a potential return from Serena Williams after multiple hints that she's prepping for a comeback. | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

Hey everyone …

• Here’s the latest Served podcast:

• Happy Indian Wells Day, to those who celebrate….

• Daniil Medvedev won the Dubai title, the 23rd of his estimable career. Which is good for him, but bad for one of tennis’s great statistical quirks. (No longer has he failed to win a title more than once.) More seriously, at this writing, he—and others—are still trying to get out of Dubai, after Iran’s attack on the UAE. Next week we can talk more about the increasingly busy intersection of tennis and geopolitics.

• AI is coming for us all. We have all seen the Tennis Simpsons, yes?

• Give Jarvis Landry his props:

• Felix Auger-Aliassime stopped by for a Q&A—we’ll post soon.

Onward….

Serena Williams’s comeback tour

• Make of this what you will, but the most popular tennis chatter lately seems to be Serena Williams’s potential comeback. She did not put in for an Indian Wells wild card as some suspected. Wise choice. The conditions are so variable, it’s a rough place to launch a return (Miami, on the other hand…). Let’s do this omnibus and try to incorporate as much as possible.

Top line: There is only upside here. Serena could reconsider this dalliance tomorrow, return to her full life post-tennis, and it was a fun jag. And the attention/serious treatment it received at age 44 says plenty about not just her popularity but her formidability. Other end of the spectrum: this could be the Tennis Story of the Year. This could be something in between. Either way, it’s welcome, it should be applauded, it makes such a strong statement, not least to her kids. 

Truth serum: I have mixed feelings here about the rollout. It’s a little … what? Unseemly is too harsh…but manipulative? These non-denial denials*. These cryptic posts. This double-speak. And yet:

• It’s Serena’s news to break how and when she wants. She owes the world no explanation, no roadmap and no itinerary.

• If nothing else, this is very much on-brand. A contemporary of hers reminded me that at the 2022 Canadian Open, she was asked about a retirement rumor. She flatly denied it. (Wildfire!) A day later, her retirement announcement dropped in Vogue.

• The parlor game is kinda fun and the speculation has captured so many in the Republic of Tennis, including current and former players. 

• I realize this is the inverse, but if this is like so many retirement decisions, so often the athletes themselves don’t truly know from one day to the next.

Here’s what I would say:

• Unless you’re fond of strangers waking you at 6 a.m. and then providing them with urine, you don’t put yourself in the doping protocols unless you really want to return. I made this point the other day on Tennis Channel and the mighty Andrea Petkovic raised me: You don’t put yourself in doping protocols unless you really want to return to play singles.

• Often as we gripe about the anti-competitive ickiness of wild cards, this is the precise situation for which they are deserved. Serena should be able to get automatic slots when she’s in her 60s. Point being: she can play whenever and wherever she pleases.

• I’ve heard multiple times that one of the factors here is unfinished business at Wimbledon. She didn’t like how—as a seven-time champ—she closed out her tenure at SW19. Visibly out of shape, she lost 7–6 in the third set to Harmony Tan of France. If part of this comeback is motivated by a desire to return to Wimbledon and a belief that grass gives her the best chances of success—a reasonable supposition—does she bother playing anything on clay?

• The U.S. Open mixed (and possibly doubles with Venus?) seems like an obvious tour stop.

*: Savannah Guthrie is beloved. I can’t think of someone in the notoriously competitive world of day-time television who is more well-regarded. From producers to pages, literally everyone speaks glowingly of her. What she is going through is almost unendurably awful. How strange that just a week or so before this tragedy, she was making news in tennis.

Q&A

Hey Jon,

I saw your tweet that Served will not be affected by Andy’s new deal at ESPN. Is there any association between the pod and ESPN at all now? Or are they completely separate?

Thanks.

Brendon K.

• Thanks. If you missed it last week, Andy will be heading to ESPN for Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, starting this summer. Speaking of/for Andy, we’re all really gratified by the response w/r/t Served. Yes, to be clear, they are completely separate. Served will continue as planned. This is a win-win.

Jon, are you the guy who wants equal prize money, but doesn’t want women to play best-of-five sets? Is that you?

Carlos

• New phone, who dis? Ah, the old chestnut, given new life after Craig Tiley’s remarks a few months back. I hate this discussion. But I recognize it’s a hot-button topic out there. I’ll cop to your allegation. Yes, I want equal prize money. Yes, I’m okay with the different set format. At a time of increased physicality—and decreased audience attention spans—I want shorter matches, not longer ones. No one attended the Australian Open women’s final—a match lasting longer than the average EPL, NBA or baseball match/game—and said, “What a rip-off. I demand another set or two!” If the male players—acting contrary to their rational interests; odd, especially in this age of load management—want to do the gladiatorial best-of-five thing, I say let them. But why should this set wage precedent? (And if the women said, “Hell, we’ll play best-of-seven,” should they then be paid more?”)

We needed a ballot to measure either to a) put to rest the tired best-of-five vs. equal pay false dichotomy or b) start charging everywhere for duration, so we see how absurd this argument is. A game goes to overtime and there’s a surcharge. We take Apple Pay. Movies are priced according to run time. Meals are priced solely on how long they took to prepare. Uber rates are pegged to the duration of the ride.

Alcaraz completed the career Grand Slam by knocking off Novak Djokovic in this year's Australian Open final. | Mike Frey-Imagn Images

Can we just declare Carlos Alcaraz the SMOAT? Shot Maker Of All Time? 

He's gone to a level which just hasn't been seen before...

What’s more astonishing is...unlike Sinner or Federer or Nadal who want to dominate from shot No. 1 and win, Alcaraz starts at Djokovic mode where he's dancing with you to see what you bring to the court, then adapts,  then goes into Fedal mode, then Carlitos mode...where he'll actually create something ridiculous off of what you throw at him!! Like a chef catching all ingredients thrown at him in the kitchen, and dishing out tasty plates on the fly!! That's SMOAT level stuff! Go Chef Carlos!

Cheers, VJ

• When SMOAT enters the sports lexicon, let it be known that VJ gets credit. Same for Chef Carlos. That’s a strong analogy. It’s not just shotmaking on the fly; it’s the variety. Sometimes it’s the backspin-drizzled drop shot. Sometimes it’s the running forehand. Backhand overheads. That angled backhand flick. Right now, this is tennis at its most elevated.

Hi Jon! Huge fan of your work with SI and the Served podcast. Always look forward to both especially around the Slams. I have a question that I would love for you to dive into: How did the Russian Tennis Federation miss on their scouting of Elena Rybakina so badly? It seems shocking to me that they let a prospect like that walk, especially one that, as Andy put it, is a “No. 1 draft pick.” It seems like she had solid junior results, so I’m just curious if you have any insights into what was going on between the Russian Tennis Federation and Rybakina when she decided to switch to Kazakhstan? Thanks so much! Keep up the great work!

Oliver K.

• Great question. I spoke to someone from Kazakhstan in Australia and, quite reasonably, they take credit for their talent evaluation. But who was Nico Harrison here? At some level this was clearly financial. If Russia says, “We’ll contribute X to your training and development” and Kazakhstan says, “We’ll make that 3x,” then this is more about balance sheets and negotiations than good and bad eyes for spotting talent.

Tangential point I heard raised in Australia: Last year Daria Kasatkina—openly uncomfortable about competing as a representative of Putin’s Russia—changed her nationality to Australia. Tennis Australia helped facilitate this under Craig Tiley. Now that he is with the USTA, will the U.S. be more aggressive in effectively recruiting talent? Or at least give sanctuary and support to players who might wish to represent a different country?  There is, of course, a rich history in tennis of players switching countries. And so many players from all over have bases in the U.S.

Jon, I was watching Tennis Channel the other day and kept thinking I was seeing the same match again and again. The players played the same. Big serves and big forehands. Good but not great backhands. Only coming to the net when they had to. It was hard to tell players apart based on strokes. I know you have spoken about this, but sometimes they even wore the same outfit. Don’t worry! I still love tennis! But where oh where has the variety done?

Enrique, CHI

• In the words of Arnold Drummond, Willis and Kimberly: It takes Diff’rent Strokes*. Or does it? I understand the visceral desire for variety—in all sorts of contexts. But I never quite get this complaint in tennis/sports. Athletes play to win, not to be aesthetically pleasing or make a contribution to variance of style. If serving-and-volleying isn’t in service of winning, it doesn’t make sense to serve-and-volley. No matter how deeply it appeals to the salon. Same for the one-handed backhand. (Though note Lilli Tagger’s wild card into Indian Wells!) And Steffi Graf-like slicing. And topspin lobs. And underarm serving….

Ideally, all this uniformity creates a sort of arbitrage opportunity, an incentive to zig where others zag. Homogenization creates the opportunity to disrupt and differentiate. It’s Nadal bringing a biting never-seen-before lefty serve-and-forehand combo. It’s Alcaraz weaponizing the drop shot. It’s Monica Seles slugging with two hands on both sides. It’s my man, here, using a different hand on both sides.

But we’re not talking about artists or writers or musicians here. There is a scoreboard that is the ultimate arbiter of success. If playing like everyone else gives you the best chance of posting the largest integers in the scoreboard, you’re almost duty-bound to go with that.

*: Can we discuss the elided “E” in the title. Was that really necessary? Is it really a nod to urban cred to pronounce “different” as a two-syllable word? Did someone in the writers’ room really think: People might be confused that they’re all Upper East Siders, but let’s go with “diff’rent” and THEN they’ll get the whole fish-out-of-water conceit.

Hi Jon,

When Novak Djokovic won his first gold medal in his fifth Olympic games, I thought, “Well, that's a feat we’ll never see repeated." Then this happened. 

Cheers, Ted Cornwell, Minneapolis

• I’ll stick with Djokovic as the more impressive feat. But point taken.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE!