👋 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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On tap today: Emma Raducanu takes more lazy punches from the British media, it’s American Women’s Day at Roland-Garros, Stefanos Tsitsipas assesses his maturity, Novak Djokovic takes on Corentin Moutet, plus more in today’s tennis news.

Let’s tennis!

Three Points

🎾 Cue the British press: There’s no other way to put it: Iga Swiatek throttled Emma Raducanu on Wednesday. In the 6-1, 6-2 victory, Swiatek rattled off 32 winners and dominated Raducanu’s second serve points. The British press, per usual, rang the alarms, letting everyone know that the FORMER U.S. CHAMPION had lost...again. But one went further than all the others. Oliver Brown, the chief sports writer at The Telegraph, piled on harder and higher than the others, saying it was time for everyone to stop tiptoeing around Raducanu and that he was there to deliver the truth.

  • What he said: “And yet no sooner had Raducanu been ground into the crushed brick of Roland Garros than Tim Henman declared that she could leave the season’s second major with a ‘lot of positives.’ What, that she had taken three games off Swiatek, as opposed to the one she managed in Melbourne in January? That she carved out a break point in the opening game?”
  • Lazy criticism: The column comes off as something that Brown kept meaning to publish over the last two years and didn’t. So much of the criticism that he wages (that she isn’t winning, that she can’t step up against top players, that she suffers from an inferiority complex, etc.) is being actively addressed by Mark Petchey and is noticeably improved since reaching the quarterfinals in Miami.
  • To be clear: It feels strange to defend Raducanu in this way after previously offering critiques in The Daily Theory. But when things are on the right track, they’re on the right track — and that deserves to be registered, too. What Brown did was nothing short of punching down with some outdated criticism at a time when things are actually going more right for Raducanu than they have in a few years.

🎾 American Women’s Day: It’s not an official day at Roland-Garros. But with nine U.S. women in singles action today (including two facing each other), it might as well be.

  • Naming names: Ann Li takes on Jessica Pegula, and then we’ve got Coco Gauff, Madison Keys, Ashlyn Krueger, Hailey Baptiste, Alycia Parks, Robin Montgomery, and Sofia Kenin.

🎾 Another early exit: Stefanos Tsitsipas became the latest seed to fall in the men’s draw at Roland-Garros after a surprise loss to Matteo Gigante, the 167th-ranked player (yes, you read that correctly).

  • What he said: “I expected bigger things from myself these two weeks,” Tsitsipas said after the match. “I seemed to be playing immature sometimes during the match. I wasn’t fully present in the moment. So I would describe that (as) immaturity, not knowing how to handle those situations.” He added: “I’m an optimistic person. I don’t want to use any excuses or anything like that, so my entire focus is on how can we come to solutions, solve certain things. It’s a constant puzzle. I’m ambitious, and I want to prove it on the tennis court. Things have definitely changed over the last couple of years, and I know that I find myself in a completely different position now. I just need to use my experience a little bit more wisely, I would say. My experience sometimes kind of stabs me I feel like, instead of utilizing it in a more professional and profound way.”
  • The numbers: Tsitsipas began the clay season in Monte Carlo ranked number eight. Each week since then, his ranking has dropped precipitously, and he will be approximately 25 once the next rankings come out.