👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.
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Let’s tennis!
Three Points
🎾 Exhibition season: It’s that time of year when exhibition events start landing on calendars. And we have a new one this year. Carlos Alcaraz, Joao Fonseca, Amanda Anisimova, and Emma Raducanu will play the Miami Invitational later this year. The four will play at loanDepot Park, the home of the Miami Marlins, on December 8.
- The format: Two singles matches with a 10-point tiebreak for the third set.
- Missed opportunity: Mixed doubles! 🤦🏻♂️ Alcaraz and Raducanu have already played once together.
- Tickets: Presale begins on October 1.
🎾 We don’t have a “doubles problem,” okay?: One of my favorite stretches of the calendar is a handful of weeks in September and October when France hosts a series of ATP Challenger events. It’s like a homecoming for many of France’s best and favorite players. The tournaments attract some of the world’s top talent, too. Last week in Saint-Tropez, crowds watched some of those favorites in the middle of an idyllic vineyard. But more than the beauty of it all, fans show up. They really show up. Yesterday, on a Thursday afternoon in Orleans, a large audience showed up for men’s doubles. They’ll do the same today. There were no singles stars trying their hand at doubles. There’s no million-dollar paycheck. So, if a Challenger event can get that many fans to embrace doubles on a Thursday afternoon in a town of 115,000, we don’t have a doubles problem. We have a marketing problem. And it’s time for tennis to stop taking the lazy route of marketing our sport around just a handful of stars. </rant>
🎾 PSA: While we’re on the topic of Challenger events, did you know you can watch tons of matches every single day for free? The ATP and WTA Tours make the ATP Challenger Tour and the WTA 125 tournaments available on their websites for free. (Note: the WTA requires fans to sign up for a free WTA Unlocked account to watch.)
And, that’s game.
On The Radar
Matches we’re monitoring today:
Beijing - WTA 1000 (Hard)
- Iga Swiatek vs. Yue Yuan (2nd round)
- Emiliana Arango vs. Qinwen Zheng (2nd round)
- Ajla Tomljanovic vs. Jessica Pegula (2nd round)
- Naomi Osaka vs. Aliaksandra Sasnovich (2nd round)
- Emma Raducanu vs. Cristina Bucsa (2nd round)
- Anastasia Potapova vs. Victoria Mboko (2nd round)
- Sonay Kartal vs. Daria Kasatkina (2nd round)
- Liudmila Samsonova vs. Lois Boisson (2nd round)
- Camila Osorio vs. Anna Kalinskaya (2nd round)
Beijing - ATP 500 (Hard)
- Jannik Sinner vs. Terence Atmane (2nd round)
- Arthur Cazaux vs. Jakub Mensik (2nd round)
- Alex de Minaur vs. Arthur Rinderknech (2nd round)
Tokyo - ATP 500 (Hard)
- Jenson Brooksby vs. Luciano Darderi (2nd round)
- Brandon Nakashima vs. Marton Fucsovics (2nd round)
- Ethan Quinn vs. Holger Rune (2nd round)
- Carlos Alcaraz vs. Zizou Bergs (2nd round)
📺 Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.
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Read, Watch, Listen
- Jannik Sinner is predictably even-keeled about losing the number one ranking.
- This is what it’s like to be called up as a lucky loser when you were just about to doze off for a nap.
- Boris Becker is still struggling with the effects of winning Wimbledon at 17.
- Lots of players bring a notebook to the court, but Lin Zhu tells us what’s in hers.
- There is really no consensus on what players think they should wear to the player parties — or for their glamour shots.
