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Today’s Daily Drill features a player who was just coming into her own last summer when injury hit – again.
It feels as though Karolina Muchova is the most star-crossed talent on the WTA Tour, sometimes.
But she’s back.
Also: Olympic announcements as we wait for the Canadian squad to be announced.
Protected rankings are taking over tennis.
And Coco Gauff, “CSO”.
For previous editions of the Daily Drill, click here.
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Karolina Muchova is BACK, baby
It’s been nearly a year. But Karolina Muchova is back.
The 27-year-old, who reached her career high of No. 8 after making the US Open semifinals last September, hadn’t competed since because of a bad wrist injury and surgery.
Until she arrived in Eastbourne to face her first-round opponent, Elina Avanesyan.
Muchova caught a break through Avanesyan’s misfortune, as she only had to play four games before the Russian retired with a left thigh injury.
On Wednesday, she backed that up with a routine win over the solid Magda Linette of Poland and is into the quarterfinals. There, she’ll face a real test against defending champion Madison Keys.
As Muchova heads to Wimbledon, here’s a flashback to an interview we did with her at the Bronx ITF, just before the 2019 US Open.
The previous year in New York, ranked outside the top 200, Muchova had qualified and upset No. 12 Garbiñe Muguruza in the second round before running out of gas against Ashleigh Barty. But as as so often been the case with Muchova, she played just one match the rest of the season.
But by Wimbledon 2019, she was up to No. 68 and went all the way to the quarterfinals, a run that included an upset over No. 3 seed Karolina Pliskova, 13-11 in the third set, in the fourth round.
We spoke to her in the Bronx, at a short-lived but charming WTA 250 the week before the US Open that year. She’d taken a long break after Wimbledon and played just this one event before the US Open.
Four years later, at age 27, she was a US Open semifinalist and a top-10 player. But it’s been such a roller-coaster.
Hopefully she can have a healthy run. Because she’s a top-shelf, quality all-around player.
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FAA at the Boodles v Tsitsipas
Félix Auger-Aliassime had been a “Hurlingham Club” guy, when it came to exhibitions the week before Wimbledon.
But this year, he’s at the “Boodles”, where he’ll play Stefanos Tsitsipas in an exhibition match on Wednesday.
Auger-Aliassime’s grass-court prep wasn’t the best this year, as he slipped on the fresh grass in Halle in his first match and quickly retired in the second set. He withdrew from the following week’s event. So the exhibition matches this week will be the only *real* tennis he really plays before the big event.
Auger-Aliassime’s knee wasn’t … great a year ago at the All-England Club, where he lost in four sets (the first three tiebreaks) to American Michael Mmoh.
So there’s everything to gain for him in 2024.
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Olympic News – Australia
As we (still) await the announcement of the Canadian Olympic tennis announcement, the Aussies have announced their squad for next week’s Olympics in Paris.
And it’s a pretty full one.
Swinging into Paris 🎾
— TennisAustralia (@TennisAustralia) June 26, 2024
2024 @AUSOlympicTeam, let’s gooooo!
#GoAussies #AllezAUS pic.twitter.com/qe3KBsSzyC
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On the men’s singles side, Team Aussie is led by top-10 player Alex de Minaur, joined by Alexei Popyrin (No. 47), Rinky Hijikata (No. 75 with a bullet this week) and Chris O’Connell (No. 76).
Notably absent is the No. 2 Aussie, Jordan Thompson (No. 39 in singles and a career-high No. 32 in doubles).
On the women’s side, it’s a little thinner with Daria Saville (No. 82) and Ajla Tomljanovic (No. 135, but with a protected ranking).
They’ve also added world No. 1 doubles player Matthew Ebden and John Peers, who is No. 5 in the Australian doubles rankings behind Ebden, Max Purcell, Thompson and Hijikata but whose doubles resumé is illustrious. Those two will pair up.
Ellen Perez, currently in the top 10 at No. 9, is also nominated and will play doubles with Saville, as she had wanted to do.
Perez sits in sharp contrast with her regular doubles partner, Nicole Melichar-Martinez, who is also ranked No. 9 but not only can’t choose who she wants to partner with at the Olympic – Melichar-Martinez wasn’t even selected.
De Minaur qualified for Tokyo. But – like American Coco Gauff – he tested positive for COVID just before the games and had to miss it. He’ll play doubles with Popyrin.
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Olympic News – Argentina
Argentina will be a team to watch this Olympics, in large part because the event will be played on the red clay at Roland Garros.
But the most pleasant surprise is the nomination of TWO women, in a nation that has scrambled since the days of Gabriela Sabatini to get she-people into the upper echelons of the game.
Here’s the announcement.
Sebastián Báez, Francisco Cerúndolo, Mariano Navone, Tomás Etcheverry, Nadia Podoroska, Lourdes Carlé, Andrés Molteni y Máximo González, la nómina argentina para desembarcar en París 2024 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/WC0HMRSrRT
— Asociación Argentina de Tenis (@AATenis) June 25, 2024
All four of their men’s singles nominees are in the top 32 this week, which leaves players like Facundo Diaz Acosta and Federico Coria, who would have made the cut rankings-wise, out.
On the women’s side, Nadia Podoroska (No. 65) and the rising Maria Lourdes Carlé (No. 86) are on the squad.
The veterans Maximo Gonzalez (40) and Andres Molteni (36), both ranked in the top 20 in doubles, are nominated as a team. Argentina does have a top, top doubles guy in 39-year-old Horacio Zeballos. At No. 2 in the rankings, he could theoretically have picked his partner. But with a six-player limit that would have cut one of the other guys.
Also possible he didn’t want to play this time, or that there’s some federation drama. Everything is open when it comes to this stuff.
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When the new rules go horribly awry
Imagine how badly Brit Katy Dunne feels today, after thinking she had won her first-round qualifying match at Wimbledon on Tuesday.
Dunne clearly had forgotten in the heat of the moment, or the umpire hadn’t clearly announced (this has happened too often since the advent of the super tiebreak in Grand Slams) that the deciding tiebreak was first to 10 points, not first to seven.
Having won the seventh point to lead 7-5, Dunne fell to the court. Only to be told by countrywoman Katie Swan (there supporting) that no, in fact, she hadn’t won as opponent Tena Lukas of Croatia confirmed the format with the chair umpire.
#Wimbledon QR1: Absolutely gutted for (WC) Katy Dunne, who battled from 3-5 down in the 3rd set, saving match point, only to be edged out y Tena Lukas CRO WR 224 (CH 200 in 2022) 6-7(6) 6-4 7-6(8), she’s understandably distraught 🙁 pic.twitter.com/Tq2aX6GP7F
— Steven (@GBtennis) June 25, 2024
She got up with a smile on her face, per some video that was on Twitter yesterday but has since been deleted. But Dunne won just one more point after that.
Dunne, a 29-year-old who was a top-10 junior but has struggled at the pro level with both her mental and physical health, is ranked No. 331 in singles (a career high of No. 212 came back in 2018) and got a wild card into the qualifying.
She won her first $25K level ITF tournament only last summer.
Dunne has had plenty of Wimbledon qualifying wild cards before, as is her luck being a Brit – six in a row between 2012 and 2017, with two match wins to show for it. In 2018, she got a main-draw wild card and lost to Jelena Ostapenko in the first round.
But she hadn’t been back until this year – not even in qualifying.
Dunne was out the start of the 2021 season to July, 2022. And she’s been absolutely grinding it out on the ITF circuit since then to try to get her ranking back up.
In between floods of tears (which I’m definitely not going to show!), @katydunne is still finding the time to sign autographs for young fans. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/kOB76OBVa3
— Steven (@GBtennis) June 25, 2024
It would have meant everything to her.
Qualifying stories are without a doubt the most poignant.
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Coco, the “Chief Smoothie Officer”
A fun endorsement for 20-year-old American Coco Gauff, who is now the “Chief Smoothie Officer” for the Naked smoothie brand.
She told Forbes that she likes to have sugar on court, and that she “constantly tries to take a couple of bites of fruit.” That’s actually true; we often see her picking from a container of fresh fruit during changeovers.
The piece announcing this sponsorship is here, in Forbes.
These Forbes pieces are typically almost gushy advertorials for various brands, written in an exchange for access to top athletes. But there’s still some interesting stuff in there.
(My question is about the negotiation involved in getting her Head tennis sponsorship in the pic with the racquet, but – at least not in this photo – a big New Balance logo for her clothing deal).
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Protected rankings abound at Wimbledon
There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight in terms of the number of players on both the men’s and women’s sides who are out with long-term injuries.
The number of protected rankings at Grand Slams these days mean that even being No. 100 in the world is no guarantee you can even get straight into the draw. Which in a 128-player draw, is pretty crazy when you think about it.
No. 100 Botic Van de Zandschulp just slid in to the Wimbledon list, after the deadline but just before the start of qualifying.
On the women’s side, the last one straight in was American Emina Bektas at No. 98.
Here are the protected rankings in the women’s entry list:
Paula Badosa (No. 34); Zhang Shuai (No. 48); Irina-Camelia Begu (No. 49), Lauren Davis (No. 59), Bianca Andreescu (No. 64); Kateryna Baindl (No. 86), Wang Qiang (No. 94) and Alison Van Uytvanck (No. 97).
That list doesn’t even include Naomi Osaka, Ajla Tomljanovic, Angelique Kerber and Emma Raducanu – all of whom have been playing on protected rankings but who received wild cards into Wimbledon. And Caroline Wozniacki, who was out too long to even qualify for one.
That’s literally 10 percent of the draw. That’s … a lot.
It’s not quite as dire on the men’s side:
Pablo Carreño Busta (No. 18); Denis Shapovalov (No. 27), Kei Nishikori (No. 48), Soonwoo Kwon (No. 80) and Dominic Stricker (No. 94) are entered.
That list doesn’t include Milos Raonic, who has a protected ranking of No. 33 but, per the ATP rules, can only use it one time at each Grand Slam. Raonic had to use it a year ago at Wimbledon when he didn’t get a wild card. He didn’t get one this year, either.
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Just want to say I always look forward to reading these! Detailed and great info and I appreciate that you throw in explanations on the rules since I don’t always know them 🙂