Good morning, Court Theorists! ☕️
Today’s tennis mood: Charged up + ready to go with a little “please cease and desist, sir.”
Let’s tennis!
-Allen
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🎾 See you at practice: If there was one moment that stood out yesterday from the grounds at Indian Wells, it wasn’t during a match. It happened on the practice courts. Coco Gauff and Leylah Fernandez were on one court, and right next to them were Carlos Alcaraz and Casper Ruud. Just four players practicing. No biggie. Except for the massive draw of fans that rivaled some of the stadiums.
Noteworthy: They all, of course, had their sizable entourages. On the Alcaraz team, however, there is still the absence of Juan Carlos Ferrero. That’s not keeping him out of the headlines, however. The world number one’s former coach is trying to explain that he unfollowed Alcaraz and the team to give himself distance (but still wants a meeting with his former charge).
What he said: “Besides, if I look at Instagram, he pops up everywhere. In the end, I haven’t achieved anything,” Ferrero said. “I didn’t do it out of spite. I want to see him and give him a hug. To normalize everything that’s happened, I think we still need to have a conversation. I’d like that.”
🎾 Interesting take: I watched Emma Raducanu practice as the evening set in on Wednesday. It looked like a perfectly solid session with her team, even if it’s a temporary one with Mark Petchey pitching in during Indian Wells. Now, in an interview with BBC Sport, Raducanu says that at the top of her priority list is to bring back her style of play, which might require more than one coach.
What she said: “I want to come back to my natural way of playing. That takes time to relearn because that’s something that has been coached out of me a little bit,” Raducanu told BBC Sport. “I have had a lot of people telling me what to do, how to play, and it hasn’t necessarily fit. I don’t necessarily want to have one coach in the role because anyone I bring in is straight away going to be scrutinized – even if it’s a trial.”
Intriguing: For a player who has run through so many coaches in such a young career, this was striking for no shortage of reasons: “I might feel the pressure to stick with them, even if it’s not necessarily the right decision,” Raducanu said, adding “I would love to have a coach that works well, but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be easy to find one person and they are going to check every box.”
🎾 ICYMI: Not to pull a muscle patting myself on the back, but did we call it or what with that Shapovalov-Tsitsipas match? It was allllll the competitive drama we hoped for, not to mention: how often do we get to see two one-handers go toe-to-toe anymore? Somewhat surprisingly, there were only three aces — and they all belonged to Shapovalov. And here was my view of the match from the Topnotch Tennis Tours suite. Seriously, there’s no better all-in-one experience. Book with them soon and often.
🎾 One to watch: Venus Williams vs. Diane Parry (1st round - WTA 1000 - Indian Wells): As we’ve said before, we don’t miss “Venus Williams Is Playing Today” days.
The record: This will be the first time Venus Williams and Diane Parry face each other.
On the line: For Venus Williams, this is about getting a win on the board this year after several close first-round losses in a row. For Parry, this is a big opportunity to pull her ranking up with some 1000-level points.
And that’s game.
