👋 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, we’ve got: Holger Rune owns Stefanos Tsitsipas, Mirra Andreeva drums Elena Rybakina, Ugo Humbert hires a chef, Jack Draper takes on Taylor Fritz, plus more tennis news today!
Let’s tennis!

Four Points
🎾 Holger Rune can’t lose: Not to Stefanos Tsitsipas, anyway. Even as Rune is in the middle of a dry spell and Tsitsipas has rekindled some magic in recent weeks, the young Danish player has maintained a perfect record against the Greek — now 4-0 after his Tuesday straight-set win.
- One shot: Rune hit 22 winners, but this is the shot everyone is talking about. After the match, Rune joked about the discrepancy between how the shot felt and what it looked like when he watched the replay. “You know, I kind of, you know, had the expectation that I looked like Roger Federer when I hit it, and I didn’t quite do that. So that was disappointing, you know. Definitely felt better,” he said.
🎾 Court Theory review: In The Daily Theory yesterday, we called out the Mirra Andreeva vs. Elena Rybakina match as the match to watch. That, as it turned out, was a runaway match for the Russian teen, 6-1, 6-2 that lasted just over an hour. Rybakina donated a shocking number of unforced errors for such a short match — more than eight games worth — and hit only four winners. She also hit no aces. For her part, Andreeva stayed more even with 22 winners and 19 unforced errors.
- What she said: Andreeva partly credited the crowd for her win, saying, “Yeah, I don’t know why people are supporting me this much, because honestly, when I was playing in U.S., my results were not great. You know, last year here I lost in the first round. At the U.S. Open, twice I lost in the second round. So I don’t know why people are supporting a lot for me, but no, it feels great...I don’t know, something about United States is people are so energetic, and when I play a match and some people are supporting me, I just kind of feel their energy. It kind of lights me up a little bit, and after, it’s actually a bit easier to play, as well.”
🎾 Avoiding unforced errors: All the top players take their diet seriously, but Ugo Humbert is taking it to a new level during the Sunshine Double by hiring his own personal chef to bypass what he views as substandard food in many American restaurants.
- What he said: “In the United States, I always have trouble eating, I refer mainly to the quality. In restaurants, they serve you plastic salads, and I always end up with a stomachache.”
- Recently: Other players may be looking to follow Humbert’s lead after a rash of food poisoning on the tour. Notably, food poisoning took out Holger Rune, Casper Ruud, and Tommy Paul in Acapulco right before Indian Wells began.
🎾 When there’s a bigger fight than the score: After defeating Jessica Pegula in three sets on Tuesday, Elina Svitolina expressed some deep gratitude for the support she’s received from Americans, given the recent political stunt at the White House.
- What she said: “I feel like since that meeting in the Oval Office, I got a lot of messages of support from the American people and a lot of people here when I arrived at the tournament, giving love and support to Ukrainians for people back at home,” she said. “Also the massive support that I got taking in consideration that I played three American girls back-to-back. It’s amazing, really special to get that, taking into consideration all the stress that all Ukrainians are facing right now back at home.”