👋 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 and a touch under the weather, so forgive the slightly abbreviated issue of The Daily Theory today.
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Let’s tennis!
Four Points
🎾 Which Sinner: The question on everyone’s mind today is: Which Jannik Sinner will arrive on the court today against Ben Shelton? The number one player in the world was lucky to escape his previous match when Grigor Dimitrov collapsed to the ground with a pectoral injury. Lucky because he had his own injury from falling in the first set. The Italian was set to have an MRI on his elbow on Tuesday and reportedly had just a 20-minute hitting session later in the day.
🎾 Qualified: The year is only half over, but Aryna Sabalenka has been so incredibly dominant in 2025 that she has already qualified for the WTA Finals in Riyadh after defeating Laura Siegemund in three stressful sets of tennis. With 47 match wins this year, she has earned 6,615 points in the race to the WTA Finals — more than 2000 points ahead of her closest competitor, Coco Gauff.
🎾 Change of heart: Has Iga Swiatek had a change of heart on the grass? Coming into Wimbledon, she seemed to have made a shift in her overall mindset on the court that was lacking throughout the clay season. But she’s also hitting the ball cleaner on the faster, skiddier surface than she has in previous years. Could this be the year for a run to the final? Why not? The draw is more open than ever. But she’ll have a real test against Liudmila Samsonova, who took out a few top players in Berlin.
🎾 Finito: In an emotional press conference at Wimbledon, Fabio Fognini calls it a career.
And, that’s game.
What They Said
That was a real test. I need some time to cool down and recover after this...She pushed me so much. After the first set I was looking at my box and thinking, ‘book the tickets, we are about to leave this beautiful place.’ She played an incredible tournament and match. I’m just super happy with the match and win.
-Aryna Sabalenka after her narrow quarterfinal escape against Laura Siegemund.
On The Radar
The tennis matches we’re monitoring today:
Wimbledon - WTA (Grass)
Mirra Andreeva vs. Belinda Bencic (Quarterfinals)
Iga Swiatek vs. Liudmila Samsonova (Quarterfinals)
Wimbledon - ATP (Grass)
Flavio Cobolli vs. Novak Djokovic (Quarterfinals)
Jannik Sinner vs. Ben Shelton (Quarterfinals)
📺 Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.
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Read, Watch, Listen
If there’s one thing the British media will do, it’s make the last British player standing feel bad for lasting that long.
Electronic line calling has another fault.
But the Brits shouldn’t feel bad. Cyclops failed, too.
Fans like to talk about serving on grass, but the players are more concerned with the return.
Taylor Fritz credits his girlfriend Morgan Riddle with helping him rise to the top of the game.
Mirra Andreeva cheers on her coach Conchita Martinez during her Legends Invitational mixed doubles match — crazy Wimbledon hat, sign, and all.
Maria Sharapova calls out The Wall Street Journal for their awful Sabalenka headline.
