👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.

On tap today: Carlos Alcaraz goes from zero to W, Billie Jean King Cup yields finalists, a men’s rankings shake-up, Alexandre Muller takes on Alexander Zverev, plus more in today’s tennis news.

Let’s tennis!

Four Points

🎾 Sunday roller coaster: The Monte Carlo final between Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Musetti kicked off with something of a shocker: Musetti snatching the first set 6-3 with some brilliant clay court tennis, drawing 14 unforced errors from Alcaraz. But then his body began to fail him. The next two sets went by in a blink of an eye, 6-1, 6-0, with Musetti unable to run for a ball by the time it was over.

  • Notable: Up to this point, Alcaraz had not won a single match at Monte Carlo, making this quite a leap forward (and a jump up a spot in the rankings to number two). As for Musetti, his incredible week at a 1000 event means he’s up to number 11 and just 15 points shy of overtaking Casper Ruud to make the top 10 for the first time.
  • What he said: “This is the first tournament of the clay season, the first tournament on clay. I knew that it was going to be really difficult, I was going to face difficult moments, and in those situations, I had to stay positive,” Alcaraz said after the match, adding “I think that changed a lot, because in the matches, you have to face [difficult moments], not be worried about them, not be afraid of them. When you realize and you accept it and you face it, everything is going the right way.”
  • And what he said: “The thing is that, as you probably saw, I couldn’t finish the match properly, but, you know, in a final, I didn’t want to retire,” Musetti said after the match, noting that it was unclear exactly what ailed him but expected exams in the upcoming days to find answers. He added: “Probably, you know, the toughness of the long week and the long matches that I played, at the end it cost me a little bit today.”
  • Looking forward: “This week gave me the confidence to be more ambitious even in bigger tournaments like this one or, for example, in French Open,” said Musetti. “That’s a massive point of the season, for me really important, which I don’t have so many points to defend. So hopefully I can be prepared, you know, to do some great things there.”

🎾 Moving on: Last week, eight teams qualified for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen in September. The U.S., China, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Spain, and Ukraine all made it out of the qualifiers. And, several other countries advanced in the group stages for a shot in the November playoffs and a chance at getting into the top level next year.

🎾 Rankings report: After last week’s 1000 event in Monte Carlo, there’s quite a shake-up at the top of the rankings.

  • Carlos Alcaraz jumps up one spot to #2, replacing Alexander Zverev.
  • Alex de Minaur goes up three spots to #7.
  • Andrey Rublev ticks up one slot to #8.
  • Daniil Medvedev is back in the top 10 at #9.
  • Casper Ruud slides down three spots from #7 to barely hold in the top 10.
  • Lorenzo Musetti jumps up 5 spots to #11, just 15 points shy of the top 10.
  • In the biggest move, Stefanos Tsitsipas backslides 8 spots to #16 after failing to defend his title.

🎾 Deal of the day: More players are showing up to the practice court and at tournaments with their pets. So you know what that means: A chance for another sponsorship. The ATP Tour has signed a deal with Purina PRO PLAN to be the Official Pet Nutrition Partner of the ATP Tour.