Tennis Mailbag: Who Will Be the Next ATP World No. 1?

Submissions have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Hey everyone …

• Here’s this week’s Served podcast:

• There’s a long story behind this, but we ended up talking via Voice Memo because of travel incompatibility. However, I defy you to read this and not find Félix Auger-Aliassime good company.

• Another chapter in the sports gambling anthology. This is just chilling.

There were a lot of Indian Wells questions that are/will be obsolete by week’s end, so here’s a grab bag mailbag.

Onward …

What does Larry Ellison pay (I assume that’s the lure) to top players to get them to play dubs?

Skip Schwarzman

• I poked around on this before COVID-19, back in the days when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic routinely played with a partner in the desert. What was the inducement that got so many top stars to play in multiple draws?

A) Due to the extended format, the day off between singles matches and the dead time before Miami, players were inclined to play doubles.

B) All the more so, given the mild conditions. There weren’t going to be long matches played in 120° heat.

C) There’s something self-perpetuating here. By accident or design, it’s almost tradition for singles stars to veer from their usual ways and play doubles in Indian Wells. With each year, that tradition hardens.

D) If this is/was a way to repay Indian Wells and owner Larry Ellison for their extreme hospitality and investment, so much the better.

It is pleasurable to watch matches now with accurate electronic line calls instead of linesmen. No more of the Năstase/Connors like histrionics. Given that many matches swing on just a few points, have you asked any of the former pros if they recall matches that would have swung the other way with electronic line calling? Would Serena have reached 24? Would some Davis Cup ties have different results? Curious if you have explored this topic.

Cheers, Ken Wells
Levin, New Zealand

• There’s something … Malcolm Gladwell? Documentary? Senior thesis?… about how quickly we humans adjust to change. We are much more resilient than we think. They’re making us check ourselves out at CVS! Now, waiting in line for a cashier seems downright quaint. There are no paper tickets; we need to scan boarding passes on our phones and print our own luggage tags! Soon, it’s so old school to have a paper ticket. There are no more line judges! Soon, we not only adjust, but also wonder how many matches swung the wrong way on account of human error.

Ken raises an interesting point. Note that the botched calls in the 2004 U.S. Open match between Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati were often seen as the trigger for Hawk-eye. I suppose someone can or will go back and note the missed line calls from previous matches. Run, say Björn Borg–John McEnroe at Wimbledon and use AI to recall balls and strikes. My gut? Matches tend not to swing on one point, just as lucky/unlucky let cords seldom mark the difference between defeat and victory. Even with partisan Davis Cup judges, I’m not sure that results would have been markedly different.

But do keep an eye on the growing applications for AI in tennis, not just line calling, but for things like double-bounces. Just the other night, in Indian Wells, VAR found no evidence of hindrance on match point.

Hi Jon,

This is the writer’s story post the Australian Open on American “nationalism,” and it was published a day ago. In case you had missed it.

Russell

• Here’s the piece referenced above.

I would say that, agree or disagree, this is worth a read. We discussed political questions being asked at press conferences a few weeks back, but ...

A) If nothing else, this piece answers a question I had: Where was the story? For all the clips and social media chatter, where was the work product, the culmination of all these interrogations? Now we know.

B) Again, it seems to me there were better ways to approach this story than firing questions at players in a post-match press conference (where anything remotely controversial now gets clipped). Sometimes ambushing is necessary; sometimes it’s off-putting and exploitative. My experience is that everyone is much better off when there’s a moment to consider a question (and its answer), rather than the fear of a gotcha.

C) But the questions themselves were reasonable. So were the athletes’ responses, including the choice not to comment. I’ll take free speech and its occasionally uncomfortable alternatives. (Tennis questions only is an offense to us all. So is: That guy should have had his credential yanked.)

D) Keep politics out of sports is some combination of hopelessly naïve and in bad faith. Politics and sports form an increasingly busy intersection. Saudi Arabia uses sports to burnish and repair its image, and now hosts the WTA’s biggest event. Peng Shuai remains disappeared. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had all sorts of impacts on tennis, including players declining to shake hands. The U.S./Israel war with Iran has all sorts of implications, including extracting players from Dubai. It is totally understandable that some athletes would wish to avoid charged topics. Other athletes—I recently wrote about Ukrainian heroine Elina Svitolina, who once specifically asked to have a geopolitical question lobbed her way—wish to use their platform. All of this is healthy. But the idea that sports and politics are somehow divorced? That’s become almost too disingenuous to be taken seriously.

Elina Svitolina has been outspoken about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. | Mike Frey-Imagn Images

E) I was talking about this topic with a longtime friend and colleague recently. I think a lot of the problem rests with the format and the imperfections of the press conference. It wasn’t the questions per se. A similar line of inquiry—eliciting a variety of responses and nonresponses—were posed to NBA players, Olympic athletes and UFC fighters. The issue is taking athletes after a win at a major, still sweaty, still basted in stress hormones, asking about forehands and backhands, then asking about ICE and forever wars.

Hi Jon,

Regarding the ongoing five set vs. three set debate ...

The advantage of five sets is the better player wins more often due to the larger sample size. The disadvantages are the viewers’ short attention spans and the increased injuries.

What about a compromise? Four sets plus a super tiebreak in lieu of a fifth set? This would still give the majors the gravitas they deserve and (slightly) reduce the physical burden.

Your thoughts?

Tom Fink
Tipp City, Ohio

P.S. Pls bring Served back to Cincinnati!

• A) Note to selves: You are right, we should totally do another Served live show in Cincinnati, hometown of Producer Mike. That was such good, clean, Midwest summer fun.

B) And you are right about best-of-five matches. The mid-ranked players like them for the gladiatorial aspect. The top players like them because they understand probability and regression to the mean. One of the first Australian Opens I covered, I remember Andre Agassi lost the first set to Andrew Ilie, a local shotmaker. Agassi went on to win the match. Afterwards, he said words to the effect of, I knew he could get hot for an hour but eventually he’d cool off. I remember thinking: hot for an hour? In a best-of-three match, that could be the end of it. In best-of-five, it’s totally different math. The bigger the sample size, the more likely the regression to the mean. (Flip a coin 10 times, you might get eight heads. Flip it 100 times, you’re much less likely to get 80 heads.)

C) Best of four with a shootout tiebreak if we’re knotted at 2–2? That’s not bad. It differs from best-of-three but lacks the injury-inducing, schedule-clogging, soporific drawbacks of best-of-five. Well done.

D) I used to have stronger feelings about this. Best-of-three matches in Week 1and best-of-five matches in Week 2 seemed like an obvious compromise. But so few male players seem interested in change—again, at a time when athletes in so many other sports are seeking to reduce workload—I’ve defaulted to the (cowardly?) position of: Hey, if that’s what they want, why fight it?

Downright frightening to say the least and another example, from pandemic on forward that tennis takes place amidst the world’s conflict. Any chance to report on players in Dubai and whether they have gotten to safety? What a surreal situation for [Daniil] Medvedev, [Andrey] Rublev and many others. This undoubtedly scrambles the calendar and many lives in and beyond the tours— certainly their lived reality and the background context of a major new funder of pro tennis. Any thoughts on what this means going forward? Flight to safe countries for tournaments? Players changing schedules?

Andrew Miller
Silver Spring, Maryland

• This question was, obviously, from last week. Now, of course, we know the players found passage to safety. Andy Roddick and I made this point on the Served podcast, but it’s worth noting that this was not some far-flung outpost. Dubai is a place where many players (and former players) have a base. If nothing else, this reinforces the need for both tours to solidify extraction plans and policies.

There’ve been 29 men ranked No. 1; who do you predict will be the 30th, and when? Today, it’s tough to imagine anyone toppling the Sincaraz duopoly. Does Jack Draper find full health, double-bag Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and squeak out No. 1 next year? Or will Carlos adios and Jannik panic so a ready [Lorenzo] Musetti or an always A-team Auger-Aliassime can hopscotch to the top spot? Maybe a current Zoomer—Jakub Menšík, Learner Tien, João Fonseca—by 2028? A Saudi in 2031?
Happy weekend, Jdubs!

Bill

• Good question. Right now, you need to squint awfully hard to see players not named Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner sneaking in a major, much less racking up the requisite points to overtake them at No. 1. Injuries are, as always, the great variable. But yikes—and this is not meant as shade—is it hard to see Alexander Zverev, Alex De Minaur or Taylor Fritz becoming No.1 over those two titans. Maybe Ben Shelton (yes, I type this the day after his Indian Wells defeat). The serve. The lefty-ness. The athleticism. The mix of intensity and levelheadedness. But, really, I have to say someone born in 2005 or later. That would include (Shelton defeater) Tien, and Fonseca. One of the kids who has a few years to build up, Djokovic-style, and prepare for the takedown. But that’s projecting years down the road.

Preempting the next female No.1, isn’t Elena Rybakina the obvious pick? She has two majors, aptitude on all surfaces, a solid record against the two players ahead of her and is still only 26.

How would you answer the question you asked Félix Auger-Aliassime. Who are your favorite players to watch?

Charlie D.

• Notice that Felix wisely picked two retired players, offending/embarrassing no one he might see in the locker room. Well played, Garkel. Me? Who among us doesn’t like watching Alcaraz? Not just the flourishes, the Alcaraz razzle dazzle, if you will—and I hope you will. But the variety of entertainment. Power but also touch—backcourt and frontcourt. Making hard look easy, but also making the easy look hard. Others? Alexander Bublik. Medvedev. I’m prone to lefties like Corentin Moutet, Marketa Vondrousova and Taylor Townsend. Also athletes. Arthur Fils. Flavio Cobolli. Victoria Mboko. But I’m more about specific matches than specific players. The context—a decisive set, players with beef, a storyline rematch—often matters more than the specific player.

(Can this be right, no pun intended? As of this week, the highest-ranked lefty woman was No. 20, Diana Shnaider.)

Regarding your recent mailbag on the homogenization of playing styles, I like for there to be variety, and that’s how I play, on purpose. However, I’m not a pro. When it’s your career and your paycheck varies immensely based on winning, then doing whatever it takes to win would take priority.

Whether it’s the best strategy or not would depend on each player. But related to that, I happened across this quote of Jimmy Connors in 2011: “Because the variety of opponents is not like it was, I would think that being able to play longer would be a little bit easier now. You don’t have to deal with playing McEnroe one way and then Lendl one way and then Borg another way and then Eddie Dibbs another way. Every match that you played, you had to take two or three different ways out to the court to play in case one didn’t work. The way the guys are playing now, their styles are mostly all the same.”

I wonder what Roddick thinks about it. (hint, hint)

At the pro level, I remember when Dustin Brown beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2015, and afterward Nadal said, “Without having rhythm at all. I didn’t hit three balls in a row the same way. Then, when you need to hit that ball, extra ball, you don’t have the confidence to do it.”

If your timing is off even just slightly, it makes a huge difference when the margins are so small.

Chad, AR

• Great post. You said it more eloquently than I did last week, but we are making the same point. At some point—and maybe we are there now—homogenization will be exploitable. That is, there will be a competitive advantage for disruption and for presenting a different model.

I hope you’re watching this Adrian Mannarino–Matteo Berrettini match at IW. The BNP Paribas logo is so bright and so white, both players are losing the ball in it. They’ve both complained to the umpire to no effect. At the same time, Djoker’s hired some buzzy airplane to circle the stadium to advertise something called Novak X Incrediwear and the droning engine noise is also driving everyone insane.

I’m glad for all this! I wouldn’t want tennis to interfere with my ability to see some advertising!

P.R.

• As long as you brought that match up. This is an incredible video. Talk about the mind-body connection. Literally within seconds of winning—i.e., crossing the finish line—Berrettini’s body knew it was now okay to cramp.

Leaving EVERYTHING on the court 🤯@MattBerrettini comes back to defeat Mannarino 4-6 7-5 7-5 as he ends the match with full body cramps #TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/wui9YfEhAP
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) March 5, 2026

ENJOY THE BUSINESS END OF Indian Wells EVERYONE!

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