Drama all around

OLYMPICS
Drama all around

The tennis at the Games hasn’t started, but the drama is already in place.

Novak Djokovic - Rafael Nadal in a potential second round. I don’t think I need to say more. You need more? Watch Matthew Ebden’s reaction to what’s happening to his life: getting in the men’s draw as an alternate, just to draw Djokovic, and, if a miracle happens, potentially take on Nadal after.

By the way, Nadal is staying at the Olympic Village with the rest of the Spanish athletes, sharing a place with Carlos Alcaraz and being the center of all the attention. Novak Djokovic said “absolutely not” to the Olympic Village this time.

In the women’s draw, the first round between Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber will surely be one to watch, along with Leylah Fernandez against Karolina Muchova or Caroline Garcia against Qinwen Zheng. At the same time, Iga Swiatek seems to have a trickier draw than Coco Gauff.

You can find the doubles draw and the mixed doubles draw here.

We thought we were done adding to the injury list, but Paris 2024 decided to say hold my champagne glass. In a massive blow to the men’s draw, Jannik Sinner withdrew on Wednesday because of illness (tonsilitis). The Italian and World No.1 had chosen to opt out of the Games in 2021, but now he will miss the Olympics for the second time in a row, and it’s rough. His immune system has sent him clear distress signals since Wimbledon (where he was already sick). A real pity for him and for that draw because having Sinner, Djokovic, and Alcaraz in there was a huge part of the storyline. In another blow to the potential of that men’s draw, Holger Rune lost his race against the time to be ready for the Games.

I guess this time, the denial is over: Andy Murray will retire this year. Well, he actually will retire in the coming week, as he has announced that the Olympics will be the last professional event of his career. Murray has also withdrawn from singles in order to focus on doubles. (Scroll until the end to watch Murray’s interview about this now-looming retirement.) He will not be the only player to retire after the Olympics, as Angelique Kerber announced that she would be done with the sport for good after Paris.

We cannot end this Olympics section on this bittersweet note, so instead, we’ll end it on Coco Gauff’s reaction when she found out she’d be the US flag bearer along with LeBron James. Gauff becomes the first tennis athlete to get to do that.

ENTERTAINMENT
“The passion, the drive, the commitment: it’s inspiring”

Executive producer Wendy C. Goldberg is walking us through the new Amazon Prime tennis documentary, “Uninterrupted’s Top Class Tennis,” made in collaboration with LeBron James’ company SpringHill and Sloane Stephens, also serving as executive producer. It’s a compelling series following juniors in the last stretch to their goal of the year, the Orange Bowl. Ariana Anazagasty-Pursoo, Stiles Brockett, Joseph Oyebog Jr., Stephanie Yakoff, and their families are opening the doors to what it means to train at this level. The pressure, the stakes, the juggling with school, the mental health struggles. I was honestly glued to it.

After an illustrious career as a College of Fine Arts professor and as a director, Wendy C. Goldberg launched her entertainment company in 2019, TheFrontOffice. She’s a busy woman who served as Chair of the Jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2020 and as a jury member for the Pulitzer Prize in 2019. But none of this could, in the end, prevent her from going back to her tennis player roots and her love for the game.

So you got back to your first love in the end: tennis.
I played in the same sort of American junior system. I grew up in the Midwest, right outside of Detroit. It was not focused so much on the international players then. Then, the Orange Bowl became one of the first opportunities for young American players to play against international players. I always wanted to make a story about it somehow. Then it was 2017, and I just looked up and saw two American women at the US Open final: Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys. I thought, “This is the time” that I should really do the show and figure out how we got here and what happens in order to be able to be a champion. Also, when I first began working on the story, that was the year Coco Gauff started her rise. So, I knew I wanted to focus on players who would hopefully be professional players one day and show how difficult that was.

How did you end up working with LeBron James and Sloane Stephens?
I was actually working on another documentary (about basketball coach Jim Calhoun). Through that process, I met LeBron’s company, but they didn’t end up buying the show, and we didn’t end up making the show. So I went back to them with the tennis show, and they were actually quite interested, and that’s how it happened. They asked me what I’d think to make it part of the Top Class franchise. I said: ‘At this point, anything that will get the show made, and it feels like a great idea if Amazon wants to do that.’ It all made sense. The show was originally called “On The Rise,” but it has the same concept.

As for Sloane, one of the formulas of the company, which is a good one, is to get a professional player involved, and honestly, she stepped right up. Unlike a lot of these people who would just lend their name to a project, she wanted to help. I had laid out all the ideas, and she said, ‘I really think the tournament you should focus on is Orange Bowl.’ She helped us get some other people, like Ariana, who she said would be a really good fit. Sloane is also so close with her mom, and both Sloane and Sybil (Smith, Sloane’s mother) have been so involved and agreed to the interviews. Overall, we were the perfect company to make it because we knew tennis and also understood how to work with athletes and their families. Now they’re all very close.

The players and families you found for the show are quite fascinating…
We were really looking for interesting stories, and we talked to a lot of families before we landed on these particular families. I’ve become so close to them. The whole point was to try to inspire more kids toward the sport and to get them excited about it, to see the potential in what it is to be training at this level and how you could put that into your life in other ways.

What is very clear, too, through the show is the pressure on these young players and their families. The path to professional tennis is a tough one…
There’s pressure, and there’s a commitment from the whole family. For somebody like Joseph, who even said it: he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. So that’s interesting, too.

Yet, we don’t see here the horror stories about tennis parents…
No horror stories here, indeed. I actually wanted to steer clear from parents who felt like they were driving their children, that here it felt more like the children were driving the process and that they had a passion for what they were doing. We’ve seen that story a million times with dysfunctional, crazy parents, and I was more interested to see when you’re in this situation and trying to be level-headed and smart about it. Not feeling that anyone is pushing them, that they really want to do their best and they have people supporting them.

Stephanie is now at Harvard, Ariana at University of Texas, for example: College tennis has become a legit path to professional tennis.
They’re creating opportunities for these athletes through the teams that didn’t exist before because it was a very black-and-white system. Small tournaments are also popping up for them. I love it, and it’s great for them to get this experience. Hopefully, College will just enhance their games.

Tennis is everywhere this year, from fashion to the movies; you have surely felt it too behind your documentary…
Yes, and I feel so happy that it’s happening. We probably took the longest out of all those projects to happen and get on the air. I felt there was a lack of understanding, but now it feels like it’s everywhere. And Coco Gauff is going to be the flag bearer at the Olympics with LeBron James!

Does it all mean that we can hope to see a season 2?
That is the magic question! We will not know much until probably the end of August. At this point, everyone wants one. I think that we have to just see how it performs. I’m hoping we had a really good first week. But I’m so happy, because we’ve received some very positive feedback and people seem to be enjoying it.

What do you wish people get after watching it? How difficult is the path?
I think it’s important to understand how difficult it is, but I also think that it’s important to understand what it means to be growing up in a culture where these sorts of decisions about the athletes happen at such an early age. How does one navigate that as an adolescent? But also, how does one navigate that as a parent? The passion, the drive, the commitment: it’s inspiring. So, my goal was to get people inspired and get people to pick up a racquet at any level.

QUESTION OF THE DAY 
Are you into this?

You ALL told me you watch, read, and/or listen to content about women's sports. I salute you.

BUSINESS/MEDIA
“Finally, we’re looked at as an investment, not a charity,” says BJK

• In an interview with Reuters, Billie Jean King saluted the progress made and shown regarding gender equity in Paris for the Olympics. These Games will indeed be the first ones “to see an equal split of the quota places between female and male athletes.” "It's been a real progression. And I really feel fortunate that I'm alive to see this," she told Reuters. I think about the women and the people that cared about us, women's sports, back in the old days, and they're not alive today. I wish they were. (…) These Olympics giving so much focus on equality this year is exactly what the dream would be.”
  

• The ITF said yes to the dress. They indeed announced on Wednesday that they had concluded an “Official Clothing Supplier agreement” with Uniqlo. The brand will “provide clothing for the match officials at ITF events, including the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, as well as the Paris 2024 Olympic Tennis Event and Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Event.” The ITF will use Uniqlo’s LifeWear collection. “Each item under the agreement is finished with the ITF logo and the logo of the tournament where it will be worn,” a statement says. 
  

• Jannik Sinner is out of the Olympics, which is just another bad news for Gucci. Not the worst news though, as the withdrawal of their ambassador can’t really be more of a “omg no” moment than seeing their sales drop 19% in the second quarter, after already falling from 18% in the first. Kering, the group owning the brand, “said net profits dropped 50 percent in the first half of 2024.” François-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chairman and CEO, said, “In a challenging market environment, which adds pressure on our top line and profitability, we are working assiduously to create the conditions for a return to growth.”

EDITOR’S PICKS 

READ: The Olympics are all about sports…and business. Paris 2024 won’t be different, and the Marketing Brew compiled everything you need to know about how and why brands will be all over the event in the coming weeks. “Local luxury brand powerhouse LVMH paid a reported €150 million ($163 million) to sponsor the games;”

WATCH: Andy Murray tells Dan Roan from the BBC that it is the "right time" for him to retire.

LISTEN TO: The Independent has compiled a list of podcasts to listen to during the Olympics.