Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown

OLYMPICS
Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown

It was way too much in the end for Iga Swiatek. The World No.1 and Queen Of Clay showed once again that it’s very rough to win the gold when you’re the overwhelming favorite. That week in Paris also had the Coco Gauff example to keep proving the point made by Novak Djokovic since his bronze medal in 2008. That pressure is the (rare) one to break them.

And so Iga Swiatek went down on Thursday against Qinwen Zheng (6-2, 7-5) despite being a double break up (4-0) in the second set. It’s her first loss at Roland-Garros since 2021. Swiatek made history for Poland by reaching the quarter-finals here, but even this didn’t free her from what you could see as tremendous pressure on her shoulders since Day 1.

It was already tough when she got through that Roland-Garros draw, as she explained after clinching the title. It became unbearable this time. 36 unforced errors kind of unbearable. Swiatek found a way until this semi-final and may have found a way through it hadn’t she faced Zheng, whose game was the worst-case scenario on this day: the nerves and a player who kept rushing her. Swiatek hates being rushed. Zheng, who had never beaten Swiatek until now, became the first Chinese to reach the final at the Olympics. Finalist at the Australian Open, she has another chance this year to win big. “I started to realize I should be proud of myself”, she told me in Doha. And yes, Qinwen, you should.

It’s awfully rough for Iga Swiatek, who was in tears, but it also proves she’s a human being and not a clay machine, in case people had forgotten. She’s not used to losing big on clay, so it remains to be seen if this defeat will have any emotional impact in the months to come (even if she wins the bronze).

It also remains to be seen how Coco Gauff will bounce back after mentally taxing Games. The loss in singles against Donna Vekic despite being 5-2 up in the first set, the tears and umpiring controversy, and the close matches lost in the doubles and mixed doubles. Gauff dreamt so hard of doing well here and gave so much of her heart on the court. She’s very young, but it’ll still hurt for a while. Jasmine Paolini was the other favorite for a medal who didn’t find a way to perform as they could under the Olympics pressure.

Sometimes, you want to give a “prize of the heart” to players who still lost. I feel this way for Elina Svitolina, Barbora Krejcikova (still in the doubles), and Angelique Kerber, who played some of the best matches of the week in singles and showed how much being there mattered to them. They’re still very much in the draw, but I’d also already give that prize to Donna Vekic, who was close to retiring from the game before Roland-Garros and has since been one of its most stunning competitors, and Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, who has an insane week in Paris.

And then what to say about Rafael Nadal. Gosh, he and Carlos Alcaraz got the electricity going in doubles but couldn’t get to the semi-finals. Was it Rafa’s last match at Roland-Garros? He hasn’t said so yet, but… Finally, some tears are beautiful to watch and it was the case when Andy Murray let it all go after clinching another crazy win in doubles.

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OLYMPICS 
Things Got A Little Wild

That was my reaction when reading these quotes from Emma Navarro about Qinwen Zheng. And then when getting a round two with these Danielle Collins’s quotes about Iga Swiatek.

When they keep telling you that now the WTA locker room is all peace and love… The mood in Paris? Gloves off, Claws out. Usually, we’d be saying, “Yay, bring the popcorn in.” But here? I mean, if you want to get me into this, at least give me a proper start of a reason as to why now and what for.

It is not Iga Swiatek’s “let’s be BFF” era. In Wimbledon, we had Yulia Putintseva calling out Iga Swiatek for a toilet break that was too long for her liking. And now, in Paris, we have Danielle Collins dragging the World No.1 because… Well, we’re not that sure. But it seems she’s blaming her for being fake. Well, first of all, Putintseva, out of all people, calling out anybody for gamesmanship is hilarious. So we passed on that Wimbledon baby drama real quick. But Danielle Collins here? I paused and tried to understand. Failed. So here are the quotes if anybody gets what the hell happened. “I told Iga she didn't have to be insincere about my injury. There's a lot that happens on camera, and there are a lot of people with a ton of charisma and come out and are one way on camera and another way in the locker room. I just haven't had the best experience, and I don't really feel like anybody needs to be insincere. They can be the way that they are. I can accept that, and I don't need the fakeness."

It made it to People, guys. “It's better to ask her because, honestly, I don't know what happened there,” said Swiatek - who got hit by Collins at the net during the match - in response. And, like, same.

Emma Navarro walking to the net after losing to Qinwen Zheng to tell her she cannot stand her was the start of this whole sequence. Followed by Coco Gauff’s umpiring controversy and tears. And then by Collins coming for Swiatek. Again, no idea what triggered it but clearly Navarro had a lot of bad vibes on her chest regarding the Chinese.

Here are the quotes, good luck with that. “I just told her I didn’t respect her as a competitor,” Navarro said of the clash at the net. I think she goes about things in a pretty cutthroat way. It makes for a locker room that doesn’t have a lot of camaraderie, so it’s tough to face an opponent like that, who I really don’t respect. But, kudos to her, she played some good tennis there at the end. She played better than me, so congrats to her.” Zheng confirmed the incident: “She told me she doesn’t know how I have a lot of fans. It looks like she’s not happy with my behaviour towards her. If she’s not happy about my behaviour, she can come and tell me. I would like to correct it to become a better player and a better person.”

QUESTION OF THE DAY 
Big Brother, is that you?

As you’ll read if you scroll down a bit, the ATP has decided to try to put microphones on players to spice things up in doubles. What do you think?

BUSINESS / MEDIA 
The highest-paid athletes in Paris? Not tennis and not women

NBA is stealing the show when it comes to who are the Olympians earning the most dough in Paris. Sportico did the ranking of the Top 20 highest-paid Olympians (through the last 12 months), and, with no surprise, it’s all about the orange ball. 12 out of 20 on the list are NBA players, but LeBron James ($127,7M) still loses the top spot as golfer Jon Rahm ($210M) leads that list.

Are you asking what about tennis? Obviously, you are. Well, there are only two tennis players in that Top 20: Carlos Alcaraz (#13) with $45M and Novak Djokovic (#18) with $38,7M. If you’ve ever talked to a tennis player about the amount of money they make, the chance is you have regularly heard that despite being a lot of money, they couldn’t get why they were still not making as much as the NBA and the golf. “Sure, but look at the NBA and the golf…” is one of the sentences I surely have heard the most while covering tennis. And here we go again. Well, they should add football/soccer as they’re also beating tennis players in Forbes’ highest-paid athletes of 2024 list (no tennis player in that Top 50).

Are you now asking about the women? Sure. Hum. There’s actually not a single female athlete in that Sportico Top 20 list. Not one. But if one looks at a list of women’s sports, then it’s a bright day for tennis as Coco Gauff ($25,6M), Iga Swiatek ($23,9M), and Naomi Osaka ($15M) lead the way.

WTA, maybe send an invite to Michele Kang?

I mean, the more the merrier, no? Michele Kang, already the owner of the Washington Spirit, the Olympique Lyonnais (women), and the London City Lionesses announced the launch of Kynisca Sports International, “the first multi-team global organization dedicated to women’s soccer.”

How much is Kang investing? $50M. Sweet. That money will be spent on top training and playing facilities, staff hiring, and research. “With so little investment in sports science focused on women, we have only begun to unlock the potential of female athletes on the pitch,” Kang said in a statement. “Kynisca Innovation Hub will become a pioneer of female performance research—so we can stop training women as if they are simply small men—and unlock their true potential.”

Where does the name of the company come from? From Cynisca of Sparta, the first woman to score a win at the (ancient) Olympic Games.

So many eyeballs!

The opening ceremony of Paris 2024 was a big hit at the box office. Actually the biggest one for the Games since London 2012. It brought 28,6 million cross-platform viewers for NBCUniversal. “That’s the biggest audience for a Summer Olympics opening since 2012 in London (40.7 million viewers), surpassing both 2016 in Rio de Janeiro (26.5 million) and 2021 in Tokyo (17.9 million).” And you know which athletes were front and center of that ceremony? Tennis players. #HumbleBragMomentPlease

Talking about #HumbleBrag, Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff have been selected by Boardroom* for their Boardroom’s Enterprising Eight (sports and business stars under 25), along with names like Angele Reese, Caitlin Clarke, and Kylian Mbappé.

If you’re interested in more sports business news, you should sign up for The Scouting Report, The Athlete Exec, Bottom of the Ninth, and/or Front Office Sports. You can also check other newsletters that I recommend here.

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SOME BREAK POINTS… 
Break-ups and mic’d-ups

• Things are over (again) on the coaching front between Patrick Mouratoglou and Holger Rune. It’s been a bit of a wild ride between the French coach and the Danish tennis star, but for now, we’re back at on again - off again.

• He wants to quit. But will they free him? That’s now the question for Ivan Ljubicic as he offered his resignation from his role as manager of Team France at the French federation. Now it remains to be seen if the boss, Gilles Moretton, will let him off that hook. Ljubicic, though, is not asking to quit his other major role in French tennis as head of the high performance. It all comes after the rather weak showing of the French players at the Olympics, despite Paris 2024 being one of the main reasons Ljubicic had been brought on board. “Results are a disaster. It’s the reality, and it’s crucial to be held accountable.” Yet, he explained that, between the captains and the coaches, he wasn’t even able to talk to the players, so there was no way for him to change things.

• Have you always wanted to know what players tell themselves or each other on the court? Well, Washington said we’re here to serve! As a part of the different trials run by the ATP to hype its doubles, they’re now going to tell players to get mic’d up. “This innovation, part of the 2024 ATP Doubles Trial, aims to enhance the fan and broadcast experience, while also amplifying the profiles of the players. (…) You can listen to NBA players chatting in their huddle, Formula 1 drivers speaking to their race engineers, and MLB players sharing their thoughts mid-play. Now you can also hear tennis players live during the action,” says the ATP.
  
  Harri Heliovaara, the Wimbledon doubles champion who had THAT instant classic celebration moment, was the first player ever to try it. And he seemed to have had a blast. “I was happy to do it. I think the main thing is we want to market the doubles, we want to market the doubles players, so we need personalities, and this is an excellent way to make those personalities more visible to the fans,” Heliovaara told ATPTour.com. “What's more intimate? What's more interesting than that? I don't think anything... I want to try to make doubles bigger, so I'm more than happy to be part of it. Honoured to be the first one ever to do it. The technology didn't bother me at all. I was wearing a belt and the receiver and the cord and everything, but that didn't bother me at all,” he said.

But not everybody is willing to try and give up on their potentially not suited for the public thoughts or tantrums. Ben Shelton, for example, simply rejected the offer, as he explained in a press conference. "I'm not getting mic'd up, man. Yeah, I think it's really cool for a consumer. I think it's a good idea. The guys who consent to it, I think there will be some funny stuff that comes out from that happening. For me, I like my career (Smiling). I'm not saying that I say crazy stuff on the court. I can be a wild card at times. I don't say things out loud, but when the mic is right there, anything can happen (smiling). I'm going to keep those thoughts and those under-the-breath sayings to myself. I hope everyone who does it enjoys it and doesn't say anything too bad."

PLAY HARD, TRAIN HARD, DRESS THE PART 
Prada, what about tennis?

I’m just saying. I mean… Why not? The entire luxury market is going down, but not Prada, so one would think they’d be the next one tennis could try to convince now. 

“Prada continues to outpace the market, with sales up 17 per cent year-on-year to €2.55 billion in the first half of 2024, which ended 30 June. In comparison to industry peers, such as Kering, LVMH and Richemont, the group has defied the ongoing slowdown in the luxury market,” reports Vogue Business. Sales at Miu Miu grew 93%. 93%. Can’t Miu Miu get into tennis-core?

The Business Of Fashion has, by the way, this very good piece about how fashion brands have had to learn how to work with athletes who already have partnerships that will take space (Nike, Rolex, etc.). “Fashion houses couldn’t understand how an athlete’s world works (…) They thought they could take these athletes and brand them head to toe and they couldn’t understand why an athlete had to shoot wearing a Nike or an Adidas T-shirt. It caused many deals to fall through,” said Roman Di Somma, head of international talent at CAA Sports.

Tony Wang, founder of luxury consultancy Office of Applied Strategy, has this perfect quote in that same piece. “All brands want powerful images. The problem with a fashion image is you have to work hard to create a story. With sports the story is made for you, and reality is the ultimate art director.”

EDITOR’S PICKS 

WATCH: ABC News's “By the Numbers: Great athletes, empty wallets” video gets straight to the heart of the matter.
WANDER AROUND: If you happen to be in Paris or plan to go soon and need your dose of sport, HypeArt has a full list of the exhibitions currently happening in the city that mix art and sports.
READ: You’re in NYC but not off to the Hamptons, yet you’re in need of some “me time.” I just came across this article from Travel + Leisure, and that luxury wellness retreat seems nice.
READ more: Are you a women’s football fan? Then Goalside Gossip* is the newsletter you need in your inbox!
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