👋 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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Let’s tennis!

Three Points

🎾 Semifinals day: This tournament has been a wild ride since Day One. But now we’ve reached the first of two semifinal days.

  • Aryna Sabalenka vs. Amanda Anisimova: This has the potential to be the match of the tournament if Anisimova brings her A-game. She won’t be scared of Sabalenka’s power, but she just might feed it if she’s not sharp and confident. Meanwhile, Sabalenka hasn’t been the dominant force we’re used to seeing. Will she break free today?
  • Belinda Bencic vs. Iga Swiatek: This Wimbledon has been a sort of rebirth for Swiatek by bringing the competitor back out and displaying some very solid grass court tennis. But if there’s one thing Bencic is good at doing, it's dragging a player back down until she can play some offense of her own. This one could get messy.

🎾 New WTA CFO: The WTA has announced Marcy Withington as the organization’s new chief financial officer. Prior to this appointment, Withington has been the CFO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since 2018. Before that, she had positions at the Mystic Seaport Museum, Viacom, and the Nickelodeon Network. According to a press release, Withington will work alongside WTA Ventures CFO Marijn de Wit to grow both sides of the WTA business and women’s tennis as a whole.

🎾 Another cruel injury: In 2022, Tim van Rijthoven, the Dutchman who was ranked outside the top 200, caught all of our attention by storming his home tournament at ’s-Hertogenbosch and taking the title by defeating three top 20 players, including world number two Daniil Medvedev. He then went on to win three rounds at Wimbledon, taking out two seeds before losing to Novak Djokovic in four sets. Now, during the same season in which he did so well, van Rijthoven announces his retirement due to a persistent elbow injury.

  • What they said: “With a heavy heart, I have to share something today that I have been trying to process for a long time: My professional tennis career is forced to end. Due to a stubborn elbow injury that, despite all the rehabilitation and medical journeys, fails to recover, I am forced to say goodbye to the sport I’ve lived my entire life,” he posted on Instagram. “I would have liked to see it differently. I would have liked to say goodbye on my own terms, with a racquet in hand and the audience in the stands. But sometimes the body decides differently than the head.”