👋 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.
Let’s tennis!
Four Points
🎾 More Open: U.S. Open organizers announced on Wednesday that the tournament will expand to 15 days by starting a day earlier. The move follows Roland-Garros and the Australian Open, both of which started main draw matches on Sunday in recent years. On social media, there was a split between those who lamented the move as a cash grab and others who appreciated the effort to make more tennis available — especially on television for non-enthusiasts. In general, accommodating record-breaking crowds seems like an indicator of healthy growth in our sport. Let’s keep those people engaged!
🎾 Leveling the playing field: The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), the pseudo-union for pro players established by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil in 2020, has launched a pro bono legal defense program for players facing allegations of doping or corruption. It’s a welcomed response to the discrepancy between how, say, a Jannik Sinner can fight doping allegations with all of his financial resources versus a player ranked 200 in the world, where they’re lucky to break even in any given week.
🎾 When the shoe fits: On Wednesday, Wilson unveiled its first high-performance shoe designed specifically for women. Instead of adapting a men’s shoe or engineering men’s and women’s models side-by-side, the development of the Wilson Intrigue started with a study of women’s feet and consulting current world number 22 Marta Kostyuk, who will be the face of the shoe on the WTA Tour. This may not seem like revolutionary stuff, but it marks a clear shift in thinking about how brands think about women competitors and consumers.
🎾 A sign things still aren’t quite right: Stefanos Tsitsipas has accepted a wild card into the ATP 500 ABN AMR Open in Rotterdam next week. The announcement came after abruptly withdrawing from playing for Greece in Davis Cup later this week. The whole episode is a strange last-minute decision for a top player — and a sign things are still off-kilter in his career and camp.
