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More tennis, from more places, once again today.
(Hopefully they’re not scrolling Insta for the typical post-Wimbledon holiday content from some of their colleagues).
No. 1 seed Andrey Rublev in Bastad, No. seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in Gstaad and No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev in Hamburg get under way on Wednesday.
Seven of the eight seeds in Newport are on the docket, with eight grass-court singles matches featuring at least one American in each – in two of them, it’s All-American – with defending champion Adrian Mannarino in an extreme David-and-Goliath situation with the returning Reilly Opelka.
In Palermo, No. 2 seed Karolina Muchova, after finally returning to action (if briefly) on the grass, gets back on the clay in preparation for the Olympics. The last time she was on Court Philippe-Chatrier, she was vying for the Roland Garros women’s singles title and fell just short. In a few weeks, she’ll return and look for Olympic gold.
Wednesday’s women’s sked:
Wednesday men’s sked:
And, if you missed it yesterday, a piece on the US Open entry-list announcement.
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Late changes for BJK Cup finals
The path to iconic status never runs smoothly.
And so it is with the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly Fed Cup), which is relocating its finals at a relatively late date.
(Of course, with all the WTA Finals drama the last few years, our definition of “late” has changed a fair bit).
Originally planned for Sevilla, Spain from Nov. 13-20, the event will keep those dates, but will now move to … Málaga.
That happens to be where the men’s Davis Cup finals will be played.
It appears there is a two-day overlap – with the second women’s semifinal on Tuesday, Nov. 19 and the final on Wednesday, Nov. 20 – and only one arena, the Palacio de Deportes José Maria Martin Carpena (capacity about 11,000).
There would be men’s knock-out quarterfinals scheduled for those two days.
The original site in Sevilla was at La Cartuja Stadium – not in the football stadium, which has a capacity of nearly 60,000, but in a much smaller indoor venue with two different courts.

As it was, the BJK Cup Finals are scheduled a week later than previous years – extending an already grueling season that includes the Olympics. AND, they’ve also done a switch on the format. No more group stages; instead, it’s a straight knockout with the top four teams getting a bye into the quarterfinals.
This two-day overlap can only hurt the women. But what else is new. Those who are within driving distance, if history is any indication, will predominantly choose the men’s competition over the women’s and are unlikely to go to both.
The comments to their Tweet are … about what you’d imagine.
The Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge 2024 Finals will relocate from Sevilla to nearby Malaga and take place alongside the men’s Davis Cup Final 8 in November.
— Billie Jean King Cup (@BJKCup) July 17, 2024
More information: https://t.co/sqcSQQKex5 pic.twitter.com/h3iU5Qg7UC
The event says that the relocation was “required by the event’s host partner, Junta de Andalucía, and supported by the City and Diputacion of Málaga.” And that the move “ensures the events’ continuity and creates a unique opportunity for tennis fans to experience the world’s best women’s and men’s players competing for their respective national teams to be crowned world champions in one city over two weeks.”
There are lots of other official quotes here.
Málaga is about 200 km. from Sevilla, about a 2 1/2-hour drive.
Anyone who has already bought tickets can either exchange their tickets for the same sessions in Málaga (with different arenas and capacities, that should be interesting). Or they can opt for a refund. The event says it will be “be providing transport options to travel from Sevilla to Malaga”. There’s no indication – at least in the news release – that those options will be free of charge although you would expect they would.
It’s hard to fathom, though, that people who may have prepaid a hotel in Sevilla will spend … five hours on a bus each day to go to Málaga for the matches. Not to mention people who decide not to go because of the venue change, but can’t get their flights refunded.
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It’s 2:10 a.m. in Palermo, are your kids still up?

The aim of the rules change was to – whenever possible – not have players competing until the wee hours of the morning.
But it’s not hard and fast. So in the case of a tournemant like Palermo – which, like Acapulco and others, deals with steamy hot temperatures and humidity – sometimes it can’t be helped.
So it was that Lucia Bronzetti of Italy and Elsa Jacquemot battled until 2:10 a.m. Wednesday morning, before Bronzetti prevailed 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 to advance to the second round.
Because of the weather in Palermo, the matches start in the late afternoon.

This match started before midnight – perhaps around 11:45 p.m. or so, the fourth in an order of play that began with a doubles match at 4 p.m., through a three-setter by Arantxa Rus over Martina Trevisan, and then a straight-sets win by No. 1 seed Zheng Qinwen over Sara Errani.
That said, even at 1 a.m. it was still 27C (81F) with 75 per cent humidity.
On the secondary court, which began at 4:30 p.m., three straight three-setters meant that the final match between Erika Andreeva and Darja Semenistaja was postponed to Wednesday.
The third court managed to get through four singles matchs – three of them rather routine straight-setters.
And no, it’s not ideal. Not for the players, or the young ballkids. Italian BJK Cup captain Tathiana Garbin, who sat there three the travails of three of her players, stifled only the occasional yawn as she was in it until the end.
The question is if there are better options considering the playing conditions. And if so, what they are.
Today’s Centre Court schedule begins at 5:30 p.m., with three singles matches.
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Double the seeds in the doubles draws

In addition to all the other things they’ve been trying out to … we think … speed up the doubles (no sitdowns, variable serve clock times depending on length of the point), the ATP Tour has added another new wrinkle this week as proceedings get back under way after Wimbledon.

The overarching goal, per the ATP, is to “increase the exposure and marketing appeal of the doubles game by creating new narratives and storylines for fans, a better on-site experience at tournaments and enhanced product for broadcast.”
They said they would communicate the other planned changes “in due course”. But we haven’t seen anything about this.
At Eastbourne and Mallorca the week before The Championships, there were the regular doubles draws and four seeds.
This is the normal amount of seeds for a 16-team draw. Since time immemorial, at any level, that has been the case.
But suddenly, this week, that’s changed.
This week, there are now … eight seeds in the 16-team draw. Which means that every first-round match has a seeded team in it.
Except for Bastad. Which apparently … didn’t get the memo? Or was it because they had the all-star team of Rafael Nadal and Casper Ruud in the draw and wanted to increase their chances of getting a lower-ranked team?
Perhaps this dovetails with the experiments in Madrid where, in theory, up to half of the 32-team draw could enter with their singles rankings. With those duos being unseeded in doubles that would ensure, say, that two “all-singles” pairings with audience appeal wouldn’t end up meeting in the first round. But we don’t know for sure.
We’re efforting on answers. Will update if we get them.

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Vogue is the tennis place to be
The best way for tennis to grow is for it to expand its reach beyond social media and blogs and dedicated podcasts.
So when the sport hits the high-fashion world, everyone wins.
And this month is great for that, as two players are prominently featured in their country’s editions of Vogue.
The smiling Jasmine Paolini is the cover girl for this pre-Olympics edition of Italian Vogue.

And in the Balkans, Novak Djokovic also graces the cover.
It’s “Vogue Adria”, a relatively new edition of Vogue that only started coming out last March. It covers Bosnia and Herzogovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, with the print edition published in Croatian and Serbian. The online edition adds Slovene and English.

This is the fifth edition of the magazine, and it’s dedicated to sports – again, ahead of the Olympics.
In addition to the covers (which have three different incarnations and can be purchased on their website for about $6.50 USD – two of them are sold out), there’s also a feature, written by a massive Djokovic fan. So his fans will absolutely love it.
There are also more great photos, with a “throwback” feel including a wooden racquet and a 1980s’ vintage Walkman.
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RG in full tennis mode!
The Olympic flame stopped by Court Philippe-Chatrier on Monday, and you can already see that Court Philippe-Chatrier will look quite different festooned in the official Olympic colours.
That blue will be everywhere, replacing the deep green that usually accents the decor.
It will be far less jarring, though, than all the Olympic purple that absolutely desecrated the pristine lawns of Wimbledon during the 2012 Olympic event (if the best-of-three set format on the men’s side didn’t already do that). That one was harder to process visually.

We see Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Julien Benneteau and, of course, the ubiquitous Gilles Moretton (who has never met a photo op he didn’t like) among the French tennis icons pictured here.
La terre battue, symbole de feu 🔥
— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) July 15, 2024
Au Stade Roland-Garros, la flamme est venue illuminer les athlètes de ce lieu emblématique du tennis français. Hâte de retrouver les meilleurs joueurs du monde cet été sur le central !
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Clay courts, a symbol of fire 🔥
At Roland-Garros… pic.twitter.com/dGGi2YO6Ti
This is familiar, though. Behind the draw board (in English, saviez-vous), you can see that iconic apartment building, which sits right behind Court 6.

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LA ’28 tennis plans take shape
The 2016 tennis venue in Rio had a quaint charm to it, even if it was rather makeshift. It was in the Olympic Park. And while this overhead shot looks … pretty barren, it was colourful, if a bit tattered, when you were inside it.

There will be no such iconic imagery in Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympic event.
While the golf event will be held at the historic and prestigious Rivera Club, the tennis will take place outside Los Angeles, at the USTA tennis training centre in Carson. That complex will also have track cycling, field hockey on the MLS Galaxy’s training pitch, and rugby Sevens.

This is what the complex, located about a half-hour drive (in good traffic) south of downtown L.A. looks like now.

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BJK Cup winners to be honoured in Toronto
The victory tour will continue for the Canadian Billie Jean King Cup champions, as the squad will be honoured in Toronto before the Tuesday night session of the National Bank Open, on Aug. 6.
With the slightly delayed start this year because of the Olympics, Tuesday will actually be “opening night” this year.
They’ll have Leylah Fernandez, Rebecca Marino, Marina Stakusic, Gabriela Dabrowski and … Genie Bouchard!! on court to receive their championship rings.

Bianca Andreescu and Katherine Sebov, who were part of the team for the qualifier in Vancouver against Belgium the previous April, also will get rings. Andreescu, though, hasn’t actually played BJK Cup since 2022. The support staff at the finals will also get rings.
There will be an on-court ceremony in Montreal as well; that will take place on Sunday, Aug. 11.
That one will have former BJK Cup (then Fed Cup) competitors who hail from la belle province: Aleksandra Wozniak, Françoise Abanda, Marie-Ève Pelletier, RDS broadcaster Hélène Pelletier and former captain Sylvain Bruneau. Perhaps Bouchard will make an appearance there as well.

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