👋 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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Today’s tennis mood: Grave concern with a sense of relief.

Let’s tennis!

Four Points

🎾 Death by tennis?: Players on the Asian swing are challenging tennis’s moniker of “World’s Healthiest Sport.” Conditions of heat and high humidity have paved the way for many on-court visits from doctors, dozens of retirements and withdrawals, and, if they stayed on the court long enough to finish, subpar performances. On Tuesday, Novak Djokovic cleaned up his own vomit. But some players are questioning their very survival. “Do you want a player to die on court?” Holger Rune asked as he was treated by a doctor and a physio this week in Shanghai. “I hope the other matches will be scheduled at a time where girls can compete, rather than just die on the court,” Swiatek said in Wuhan, noting the heat on Monday was “too much for most of the players.”

🎾 First match back: As noted in The Daily Theory yesterday, Aryna Sabalenka was set to play her first match in a month on Wednesday — and against a tricky opponent, Rebecca Sramkova. And tricky it was. Sabalenka won 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Sramkova dominated the stats sheet in the first set with 19 winners to only 6 unforced errors and had a 68 percent first-serve percentage, winning 76 percent of those points. Then, Sabalenka took over.

  • What she said: “I knew it would be not easy after the break [following the U.S. Open] to get into my rhythm, but I am glad in the second set I found my game, I stepped in and I played really great,” Sabalenka said. “I have to say she played incredible tennis, especially in the first set, and there was not much I could do.”
  • Next: Sabalenka faces 16th seed Liudmila Samsonova on Thursday.

🎾 Coaching change: We’ve reached the part of the season when coaches are fired and hired in rapid succession. And perhaps because he’s on the sidelines recovering from injury, it only makes sense that Jack Draper has 2026 on his mind. The British world number eight has hired Andy Murray’s former coach, Jamie Delgado, as his lead coach.

  • Getting the band back together: Draper’s hiring of Delgado makes for the newest addition to the team that comes from Andy Murray’s former camp, which includes physio Shane Annum and trainer Matt Little.
  • Noteworthy: James Trotman, the coach who ushered in Draper’s rise to the top 10, will reportedly remain on the team.
  • Recently: Delgado just ended a three-year arrangement with Grigor Dimitrov.
  • Fun fact: Jamie Delgado holds the record for consecutive appearances at Wimbledon with 23 straight years.

🎾 A new game plan: The International Tennis Integrity Agency announced on Wednesday a new program that will provide aid in the form of legal help, counseling, or funds to players who are involved in doping or match-fixing investigations.

  • What they said: “We recognize the process can come at both a financial and emotional cost,” ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse said. “Individuals find themselves in these situations for a lot of reasons, and so no matter what those reasons are, and where the case ends up, they also deserve someone to talk to.”
  • The big picture: The ITIA came under heavy criticism for the appearance of a two-tiered system of justice when Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek received what many viewed as preferential treatment because of their status in the game and their considerable financial resources.
  • Noteworthy: The pseudo-union, the Professional Tennis Players Association, co-founded by Novak Djokovic, led the charge on much of that criticism and launched its own legal aid program earlier this year. The ITIA, which is named in the lawsuit the PTPA has filed against the governing bodies in tennis, may have launched this program to undermine the PTPA’s initiative — something the PTPA will most certainly promote as a win.