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It’s another busy week on the ATP and WTA Tours – even though the Olympics are looming and you know that anyone taking part wants to get to Paris.

Two clay-court events on the men’s side – Kitzbuhel and Umag – and two on the women’s side – Iasi, Romania and Prague.

Add to that, the start of the North American hard-court season, the series finale of Atlanta.

Monday ATP sked here:

ATP Tour – Monday, July 22, 2024 final results

Monday WTA sked here:

WTA Tour – Monday, July 22, 2024 final results

Annnnnnd … a special “Olympic” edition of the Daily Drill today.

The Daily Drill: Olympics update edition

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Switcheroos on the WTA Tour

It’s hard to tell, because the WTA website can’t really be tweaked to show it, but there has been more than just change of weeks with this bit of the WTA Tour schedule.

This week’s WTA 250 tournament in Iasi, Romania is “new”, in the sense that there have only been two previous editions of the event, and both were at the WTA 125 level. This year, it’s upgraded.

It’s also a week later. The WTA 250 in Hamburg, Germany won by Arantxa Rus a year ago disappeared, although it’s back on the schedule for 2025 (in the post-Wimbledon week).

The Lausanne tournament on clay, won by Elisabetta Cocciaretto last year and played every year since 2016 with the exception of 2020, is … gone.

And the beleaguered tournament in Warsaw won by Iga Swiatek in 2023 (whose father was involved in the operation of it) is downgraded to a WTA 125 this year.

In 2022 and 2023, that tournament was on hard court in Warsaw. In its first edition in 2021, it was in Gdynia – on clay. This year, it appears to replace a WTA 125 new last year that was held opposite the Canadian event last year – in a city called Hozerki, about a 45-minute drive southwest of Warsaw.

Meanwhile, fhe … very versatile Prague Open, which was on hard court a year ago during the same week as the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., is this week. And it’s … on clay. It’s been on clay before. And it’s on clay again.

If you can’t keep track of all this, you’re not alone.

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Junior Davis Cup and BJK Cup relocated

Yes, we remember those glowing press releases about the revamped Billie Jean King Cup, that the Andalucia region would be hosting not only it and the Davis Cup (in Málaga), but the junior versions too. Which would create great synergy, and be thoroughly inspiring for the girls and boys who one day aspired to represent their country in the biggest national team competition in the world.

So in 2023, the juniors played in Cordóba, Spain. And a feature of the girls’ event was that they quickly made the trip to Sevilla and were able to interact with the “big girls” and watch some tennis.

For 2024, the BJK Cup format was changed to a knockout format back in April and moved back a week. But the junior versions of the event, and the Davis Cup, were also confirmed to be in the Andalucia region again.

Last Wednesday, it was announced that the women would not be playing in Sevilla. Rather, they would be moved to Málaga, where the Davis Cup Finals will be held. Not emphasized was the fact that the events will have a two-day overlap – the price of which will, as is often the case, be paid by the women.

There was no mention of the junior events.

Well, lo and behold on Friday, the International Tennis Federation announced that those events would … not be held in Andalucia. It was one and done.

Rather, they will be back in Belek, Antalya, Turkey, where they were held in 2021 and 2022.

(Canada will take part in the junior BJK Cup final; not so on the junior Davis Cup side).

It’s a long way from 2015, when Team Canada won the junior Davis Cup. But the venue was … the Caja Magica in Madrid.

It’s all, well, the expression in French is “du n’importe quoi”. Which basically means that it’s whatever, all over the place.

Seems as though the officials in Andalucia overpromised, and undelivered in a major way and are forcing the ITF to scramble, big time.

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Canadian Carol Zhao gets hitched

Canadian pro Carol Zhao, 29, married her longtime boyfriend Andy Fang last weekend in picturesque Florence, Italy.

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It looked like an absolutely stunning weekend. Zhao’s Instagram chronicles some of it.

And Zhao had a pretty Canadian tennis-themed bridal party: Genie Bouchard, Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe – all rising juniors at about the same time – were part of it.

How long have these women known each other? Half their lives, basically.

Here are some flashbacks.

Rebecca Marino also was in attendance, before jetting off to play a $100K ITF in Portugal.

Dabrowski and Routliffe and headed to Paris for the Olympics.

Zhao and Fang met when the Canadian was studying and playing college tennis at Stanford nearly a decade ago. And it’s been love ever since.

You KNOW it’s love when your partner sits out there, at 11 p.m. at night, freezing his *#*@^ off at Roland Garros in October, to support you.

 

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 Book it: Sabalenka Thursday night in Toronto

For planning purposes, Aryna Sabalenka is already scheduled for Thursday night in Toronto.

That’s Aug. 8; think of it as a “Wednesday night” match in a regular year, as the Canadian events begin on Tuesday and end on the following Monday in 2024.

What it means is that if Sabalenka (or anyone else scheduled for Thursday) wants to win the tournament, they’ll have to play five matches in five days.

Leylah Fernandez is already locked in for the Wednesday night session.

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Townsend over Stephens in Atlanta exho

It was supposed to be Sloane Stephens vs. Venus WIlliams. But the 44-year-old withdrew with an injury she said she suffered in practice.

But the Atlanta Open annual women’s exhibition got another Wimbledon champion to fill in – 2024 women’s doubles champ Taylor Townsend.

(She wasn’t yet the champion when she was called upon to sub in).

What a crowd, too, to see this match, which took place Sunday just before the start of the men’s event.

Epic tennis. Epic crowd. ✨

Thank you @ups, @TaylorTownsend, @SloaneStephens, Atlanta ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZTakZjPgPY

— Atlanta Open 🎾 (@ATLOpenTennis) July 22, 2024

The match, delayed an hour by rain, was won by Townsend 7-6, 6-3.

Lots of great photos here in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s wrapup.

 

 

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