👋 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: Venus Williams is also confused, Jack Draper’s fitness woes, Mirra Andreeva knows who to thank, and a look at today’s tennis matches.

Let’s tennis!

Three Points

🎾 Venus was never ‘in’ at Indian Wells: Venus Williams was apparently just as surprised as the rest of us when tournament organizers at Indian Wells announced her wild card into the singles draw last week. The former world number one told an audience in Denmark on Sunday that she would not participate in the Sunshine Double event in California next month.

  • What she said: “Actually, I found the announcement super amusing because, I don’t know, people seem to be happy, so I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll just go with it, I don’t know.’ I’m actually not going. I’m going to be overseas. I’m not going to be [there] ... I just had a player text me today too, like, ‘Can you play doubles?’ [But] I’m not playing.”
  • What Indian Wells is saying: Not much. There might be some embarrassment on this.

🎾 Draper’s fitness woes continue: Jack Draper pulled out of Dubai on Sunday, saying that he needed to “prioritize” his body and recovery following his run to the final in Doha, where he lost to Andrey Rublev. In that Saturday match, Draper hit the wall in the third set, losing it 6-1 after trading a pair of 7-5 sets. It’s not the first time Draper’s fitness has determined the outcome of a critical match. At 23 years old, it’s a critical juncture for Draper at which fitness absolutely must be worked out not just in terms of endurance but also staving off injuries.

  • Recently: In the offseason, Draper hired a breathing coach to help with his nasal breathing to help with his point-by-point recovery.
  • A consideration: Draper plays with the force of a big power player and the mindset of a grinder. That’s an untenable combination. Enlisting the help of any one or two of the former best short-point players in the world would go a long way toward helping him resolve the fitness problem.

🎾 It’s a social issue: After last week’s incident of a stalker harassing Emma Raducanu, the WTA is calling on social media platforms to step up their efforts to protect women playing on the tour.

  • What she said: “I absolutely believe social media companies owe a great deal more to their users to better protect them – especially female athletes who we know are a primary target for this type of mistreatment,” Lindsay Brandon, the organization’s director of safeguarding, told the Guardian. “Unfortunately I think in our current climate we’re seeing deregulation, loss of fact-checking, certain protections for some users and not for others.”
  • The problem: There’s nothing incorrect with what Brandon said. It’s an obvious truth. But it runs congruent with another truth that the WTA seems to recognize: the social media platforms have little interest in prioritizing the safety of children, never mind adults with security details.