Any light at the end of the tunnel?

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Nadal comes back, Osaka pushes through

This time, we have a date. Rafael Nadal was announced in Spain’s squad for the Davis Cup Final 8 in November (19-24) in Malaga. Nadal, who hasn’t played since the Olympics, joins Carlos Alcaraz, Roberto Bautista Agut, Pablo Carreno Busta and Marcel Granollers. Spain will open the Final 8 against the Netherlands on November 19.

After Rafa pulled out of the Laver Cup, it was starting to look like we may not see him play again this season or ever. Now, the question on everyone’s lips is going to be whether he’ll use the Davis Cup as a farewell event.

Carlos Alcaraz already gave his thoughts about the situation: "It's always great having Rafa around. I miss him. I'm not going to lie, I missed him in the Laver Cup. Obviously, as much time as I can spend with him, it's a privilege for me. I don't want to think that it's a potential last dance for him in Malaga. I just want to enjoy seeing him on court as much as I can. It's great support having him in the team. He can bring a lot of experience to the Davis Cup."

Naomi Osaka hired Patrick Mouratoglou because of FOMO. The Japanese, who won her first match in Beijing with the French coach, explained why she made that drastic coaching change after the US Open. “Wim is one of my favorite people and coaches. It wasn't anything personal. Like nothing crazy happened. I just felt like I needed a change. It sucks because I wanted to lift trophies with him. I know we went into that relationship wanting to do that together. I'm at a stage in my life where I don't want to have regrets. I'd rather pull the trigger on something and I don't want to say 'fail', but I feel like I really need to learn as much as possible in this stage of my career. Patrick seemed like the guy with I guess the information that I wanted to learn from.”

Curiously, the fact that Serena Williams worked with Mouratoglou was, for Osaka, a reason not to want to work with him at first. “The fact that he was Serena's coach for me made me want to avoid him just because his persona is so big. This isn't rude because I found out it's not true, but I didn't know - this sounds so bad - I didn't know if he was a good coach or if he coached Serena. Does that make sense? I'm like, I'm just going to do my own thing. Then I met him, talked to him, worked with him on the court. He absolutely is a really good coach. I'm really glad that he's, I guess, taking this project on, as well. I would say I'm still a little nervous around him. I kind of look to the floor when he looks at me. I think I do need a lot more time to spend together with him. I'm getting a little more comfortable day by day.”

Osaka confirmed that this association is a long-term one, as she doesn’t want to "get into relationships with people for short-term. I try to think of it as a long-term commitment. I like the way he coaches. I think it's going to be really interesting.” As far as her goals for the end of the year, there’s actually just one: “I would love to avoid Caroline Garcia,” she said. How? By being seeded at the next Australian Open, she says. “For me, the Asian Swing is full of possibilities. I've always done really well at the end of the year. I always look forward to it. Especially with the two tournaments in Japan, for me, it's kind of the time to dig deep and try to get really good results. My goal now, I think to be seeded in Australia. I would really love that. I would love to avoid Caroline Garcia (smiling). Yeah, just being seeded. But not putting too much pressure on myself. I'm just trying to take it day by day.” Please, nobody tells her that Garcia’s ranking has dropped to #36.

QUESTION OF THE DAY 
Will he stop there?

You were 85,71% to think that Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka would have a showdown for the year-end World No.1.

Now:

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO 
The Rybakina Mystery Gets Darker

It’s been obvious to everyone this year that something was wrong with Elena Rybakina. She’s been sick more than anyone else on the Tour combined, withdrawing from events with little transparency about what was happening. Yet, officially, everything was still fine: she kept winning big or going deep in tournaments, so there was surely nothing to worry about. Well, maybe there was something after all… Maybe we weren’t all making things up…

Now that Rybakina abruptly terminated her coaching relationship with Stefano Vukov and opted out of the entire Asian swing (back injury), echoes of what Pam Shriver denounced last year (“I hope she finds a coach who speaks and treats her with respect at ALL times and does not ever accept anything less,” said Pam Shriver) are coming back through a report from Russian journalist Sofya Tartakova. “All these difficulties that she [currently] faces, she faces because of a lot of very heavy pressure associated with her former coach Vukov,” she reported.

“They say that Stefano actually came to the US Open, that he was in New York, was ready to continue working with her, but Lena decided that they would break up because of a very difficult… I don’t want to say big words, not quite the correct attitude of her mentor towards her. That is, he “ate” her all the time, as people who surrounded Lena say. Rybakina’s parents stood up for her, because she could not break this vicious circle. On one hand, this is the coach who worked with her since (a young age), and she herself, together with her family, chose him. It is clear that they were very close, she won the main achievements of her career thanks to their joint work, [but] her parents insisted that Lena change something in her tennis life, because there was pressure, and insults, and bad words said to her. They were constantly from Vukov’s lips. And now Elena Rybakina is suffering and trying to get rid of psychological problems. So the situation is, of course, very difficult for her, but we’ll see.”

One can imagine the WTA has been on the case to see exactly what’s been happening, as the Tour has options to help players who might be going through these situations and ban coaches if needed. If Rybakina comes back for the WTA Finals, let’s hope she’ll be in a safe place to do so.

BUSINESS / MEDIA 
Women’s sports take over podcasting too

• They’re all over your screen and more and more in your ears. What? Women’s sports. 2024 is proving to be a watershed moment for women’s sports, finally getting their dough due, and it shows on the media side, too. The boom also includes podcasts hosted by women that cover men's and women’s sports. In a report, Marketing Brew says that “there’s been a recent explosion of sports podcasts by, for, and about women, and interest from media companies, listeners, and advertisers only continues to push the category forward.” 
  

• Tennis Channel has a new boss in town. After firing Ken Solomon, its longtime CEO, Sinclair, Inc. has named an interim president. So who’s the winner? Bill Simon, who has been an executive at the network since 2005.
  

• We talked about how Roku was thinking about getting into the sports rights battle, and now here we go with Netflix saying they might now be ready to go for some major sports streaming rights. Amazon, you have some competition coming for you. Of course, it seems the NFL and the NBA will be the first choices, but who’s to say that tennis will be left aside? After all, Netflix has already started to put a foot in the sport with several documentaries (and more to come).
  
  Co-CEO Greg Peters told Deadline that “having Thursday Night Football or the NBA or things like that, we’d love to do those things. It would be amazing. We also want to do it in a way that works for the business and those have been typically challenging deals to go and do and make it work for the business. (…) Certainly we’re poking at the edges of a full-scale live sports component. Maybe we’ll figure out a way but we haven’t figured out a way yet.” (With most major rights locked up for several more years), “there’s not really the opportunity for quite some time,” he noted. “Nevertheless, I’ve learned from advertising and all these other things that you should not rule out these things categorically. There may come a time, but no plans at this point.”
  

• Post Laver Cup blues. Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev haven’t really reassured tournaments being scheduled after the Laver Cup. The Greek lost in his first match in Tokyo, while the German has withdrawn from the China Open after being diagnosed with pneumonia. The rest of the Laver Cup field? Not much better: Frances Tiafoe lost in the first round in Tokyo against Brandon Nakashima, Taylor Fritz did the same but against Arthur Fils, Alejandro Tabilo was also sent packing right away in Tokyo, by Holger Rune, Jan-Lennard Struff and Grigor Dimitrov withdrew from the China Open. ATP Tour, what do you say?

SOME BREAK POINTS… 
Bend It Like A Cilic Comeback

• Marin Cilic, as if he never left. In just his third tournament since last February, Marin Cilic was already the second lowest-ranked player (#373) to reach an ATP final. And he pushed it one more step by clinching the title for his 37th final, beating Zhang Zhizhen in straight sets (7-6(5), 7-6(5)), and so becoming the lowest-ranked player to ever win a Tour title. Winning this title n°21 was for sure feeling different for Cilic after so many struggles with that knee injury. "It has been a difficult period for me in the past few months. I lost my ranking, and I didn't play too much," Cilic said. "So a big thank you to the organising team for giving me the opportunity [with the wild card],” Cilic said.
  

• Zhang Shuai breaks the curse. The Chinese player hadn’t won a single match on the WTA Tour since January 2023 (!!), but she put an end to that 24 losses in a row streak at home at the China Open. "I think that this is the perfect timing," Zhang told WTA Insider after the win. "My first win at a WTA tournament was 15 years ago at China Open, and then the next day I beat the No.1 player [Dinara Safina in 2009]. (…) Nobody cared how many matches I lost because everybody said you play so well. (…) When I came back, I played Daria Saville in Miami. After the match, she said you're still at the top, even better than before when you were ranked in the Top 30. So keep playing, the win will come. I have a lot of motivational feelings from my friends because I feel everybody is my friend. I don't feel they are my opponents. If you play good, I am happy for you. But you also show me how much I can improve. We inspire each other. That is the big family in the WTA Tour. I like it. That's why I continue to keep playing," she told the WTA Insider.
  
  For this, she beat McCartney Kessler in a first-round thriller (7-6(5), 7-6(1)). “In the Open Era, only one player has ever lost more than 24 matches in a row on the tour, excluding the Billie Jean King Cup,” the WTA said. “That came in the early days of the tour, when Madeleine Pegel lost her first 29 WTA matches from 1968 to 1972.”
  

• They’re done. We keep telling you that this is split season… Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram will no longer play doubles together. Through their six-year association, they’ve won four Grand Slam titles (Australian Open 2020 and three consecutive titles at the US Open in 2021, 2022, and 2023). Salisbury hasn’t been left standing for too long, as it’s already been announced that he’ll now play with Neal Skupski.
  

• A 99-year-old threatens to chain herself to Wimbledon grounds in protest. Well, we told you things would get tense again around that Wimbledon expansion… The Guardian reports that actor Thelma Ruby (99) is vowing to chain herself to the grounds if the plan to build 39 courts in Wimbledon Park is approved this Friday.
  
  “Thelma Ruby, who has appeared in Coronation Street and on stage alongside Orson Welles and Judi Dench, and lives in a flat overlooking the club, said she was determined to take a stand on environmental grounds. Asked whether she was worried about being arrested, Ruby replied: ‘No, I’m 99. Let them arrest me.’” I mean… Are we sure she’s not French?
  
  Christopher Coombe, of Save Wimbledon Park, also vowed to keep fighting the project. “The GLA stage was always the third set, with Merton the first and Wandsworth the second,” he told the Guardian. “It’s not a done deal. We are just entering the third set tiebreak, and have plenty of aces to serve. The fourth set is the secretary of state and the fifth the courts. We are in it for the long haul.” Well, hold the Pimm’s…

PLAY HARD, TRAIN HARD, DRESS THE PART 
Winning Points For Cuteness

Surely, they wouldn’t be able to play like that, but these outfits still kinda slay. And not even their sponsors tried to put a logo on that. Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz took a stroll inside the Forbidden City in Beijing before the start of the China Open.

EDITOR’S PICKS 

You can find other picks here, including my go-to newsletters for anything tech*, anything backstage* or professional sports*, and the one for everything NIL*. If you’re a solopreneur, you might like this one, by the way. I also have a sweet spot for The Creator Spotlight*, which provides examples of other creators’ journeys.

READ: Does spraining your ankle hurt your brain, too? This is an interesting question that relates to neuroscience and how it helps athletes, astronauts, and regular people.

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