👋 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.

On tap today, we’ve got: another failed attempt in the Slams-WTA-ATP triangle, a lame excuse from Novak Djokovic, a very understanding fired coach, Miomir Kecmanovic vs. Casper Ruud, plus more tennis news.

Let’s tennis!

Four Points

🎾 Djokovic comes up lame: Novak Djokovic faced questions on Thursday about why he wasn’t listed among the plaintiffs in the PTPA lawsuit against the ATP, WTA, ITF, and ITIA. His answer: he wants younger generations to step up.

  • What he said: “In general I feel like I don’t need to sign the letter because I want other players to step up,” he said. “I’ve been very active I think in tennis politics so to say. I think I’m towards the end of my career, and a lot of players have been relying on me to speak up and talk about these issues...I don’t mind, but I would like to see the current leaders of the respective tours and future generations that are going to lead this sport for the next decades take a leap and understand that these issues are important for them.”
  • The problem: That’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not how lawsuits work. This just doesn’t pass the sniff test. You don’t keep your name off the legal filings to encourage others to “step up.” That’s especially true for this fledgling organization he co-founded just five years ago. Further, among the plaintiffs are players who are retired, near retirement, or MIA altogether, like Vasek Pospisil, Tennys Sandgren, and Nick Kyrgios. In other words, they’re far from the “future generations that are going to lead this sport.”
  • And another thing: If you want the future generation of tennis stars to step up, perhaps the PTPA should consider informing them of the lawsuit. Carlos Alcaraz, Coco Gauff, and others said they learned about the lawsuit on social media after it was filed.

🎾 Exactly why there’s a PTPA lawsuit: If the PTPA needed a case study for the absolute dysfunction among the governing bodies, here it is. Last week, the WTA and ATP presented yet another plan to fix the tour — a response to the proposal put forth by the majors almost exactly one year ago. The Slams have now rejected that proposal. It is the slowest, most painful round of negotiations known to man.

🎾 Did we call it, or did we call it?: In The Daily Theory yesterday, we called out the Joao Fonseca vs. Learner Tien match. And. It. Delivered. For nearly two-and-a-half hours, these two battled hard in front of a crowd massive Brazilian crowd that made the match feel more like an away Davis Cup match for Learner Tien, instead of a tour-level match on his home soil. So much so that in the end, Fonseca wrote on the lens: “Am I in Brazil?”

🎾 One very understanding coach: As noted in The Daily Theory yesterday, Emma Raducanu fired another coach — the eighth in less than four years — after just one match. That coach, Vladimir Platenik, is much more understanding of the situation than most would be.

  • What he said: “[F]or me it’s absolutely understandable that she’s under a lot of pressure. She told me she was feeling stressed...There are no hard feelings from my side. She finished the relationship in a fair way, maybe too quickly, but this is tennis, this is sport. We need to respect that...She was not feeling OK, and that was her decision. I didn’t want to go into deeper communication about that. I think the player needs to feel good, and the player needs to make a decision. Sometimes you make a good decision, and sometimes bad."
  • An open door: “If she comes back in six months and says ‘Vlado, I made a mistake because actually it was working and I just needed to try to find myself,’ it’s OK — this is life,” he said.

And, that’s game.

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Watch This!

🔥 Casper Ruud vs. Miomir Kecmanovic (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami): On paper, these two are a couple levels apart. But this is a match-up that’s a struggle for Casper Ruud. Expect Miomir Kecmanovic to go full throttle while Ruud spends the whole match trying to keep the ball out of the Serb’s strike zone. Who wins this one? Hard to say. But it mostly depends on whether or not Kecmanovic is landing his punches.

  • The record: Miomir Kecmanovic leads the head-to-head record over Casper Ruud 3-2, after taking their most recent meeting almost a year ago on the red clay of Rome.
  • On the line: For Kecmanovic, he’s looking to even out his season a bit from the wild oscillation between first-round exits and late rounds at other events, including a title in Delray Beach. Meanwhile, Ruud is trying to get his 2025 season started. In his four tour-level tournaments, he reached the final of Dallas but he’s 2-3 in the other three events.

On The Radar

  • Caroline Garcia vs. Iga Swiatek (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Rinky Hijikata vs. Novak Djokovic (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)
  • Madison Keys vs. Elina Avanesyan (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Emma Navarro vs. Emma Raducanu (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Bernarda Pera vs. Jessica Pegula (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Grigor Dimitrov vs. Federico Cina (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)
  • Karolina Muchova vs. Victoria Azarenka (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Victoria Mboko vs. Paula Badosa (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • McCartney Kessler vs. Linda Noskova (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Belinda Bencic vs. Elina Svitolina (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Sebastian Korda vs. Eliot Spizzirri (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)
  • Alexandra Eala vs. Jelena Ostapenko (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Lorenzo Musetti vs. Quentin Halys (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)
  • Alex Michelsen vs. Camilo Ugo Carabelli (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)
  • Elise Mertens vs. Peyton Stearns (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami)
  • Gael Monfils vs. Jiri Lehecka (2nd round ATP 1000 - Miami)

📺 Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.

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Which matches are you watching? What news caught your eye today? Hit the comments below!