January and February are in the books already, which means the Sunshine Double is just around the corner. The last of the golden swing tournaments wrapped up this week, as did a few of the pre-Indian Wells events. Read on for a look at all the action on and off the tennis court this week.
Champions corner
There were a couple of events played this week both on the ATP Tour and on the WTA Tour. On the ATP Tour, we had Stefanos Tsitsipas return to the champions corner. He played his best event in a very long time to make the final in Dubai and finally got it done.
It was the third final he played at the event and the first time he won it by beating Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-3. It was the first final since April of last year for Tsitsipas and his first trophy in essentially a year. A hugely significant win that will see him return to the top 10.
In Acapulco, Tomas Machac continued his strong play in recent times by making the final and then beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-6(6) 6-2. The win sent Machac to the top 20 for the first time in his career.
In Santiago, it was Laslo Djere who snapped Sebastian Baezโs winning streak to win the trophy. The win take Djere back into the worldโs top 100, and is his first title for almost five years.
On the womenโs side, we had two events in Merida, Mexico, and Austin, USA.
The latter one was won by Jessica Pegula who bested compatriot McCartney Kessler in the final 7-5 6-2 while the Merida one was won by Emma Navarro who won 6-0 6-0. Thatโs not a score you see often – she became just the sixth player to win a final without dropping a game since 2000.
Daniil Medvedev goes on a rant in Dubai
Medvedev hasnโt been enjoying much success on the tennis court lately and his frustrations have been showing for a while. After the occasional rant here and there, the Russian leveled up in Dubai essentially accusing an umpire of having an anti-Russian bias.
Egyptian umpire Adel Nour didnโt take kindly to that and he got into a shouting match with Medvedev who in the end refused to shake the umpireโs hand. Similar rants and clashes with umpires have happened often with Medvedev in the past but itโs been happening more and more as his level has been all over the place in the past couple of months.
The never-ending Jannik Sinner saga continues
It doesnโt continue officially because itโs done and dusted; however, a very prominent journalist named David Walsh, known for exposing Lance Armstrong and his activities, provided a comment in the form of an article for the New York Times on the whole Jannik Sinner saga.
Walsh didnโt imply that Sinner intentionally doped but he did note that the whole story to him seemed to be rather neat and its conclusion so as well. One of the quotes from the piece phrased it like this: โAnd a story that was always too neat to be entirely believable ended with the neatest suspension of all.โ
Former player Barbara Schett talks Rybakina situation
Former player Barbara Schett, who still works in tennis media and is around players regularly, shared her thoughts on the suspension of Stefano Vukov, who is the former coach of Elena Rybakina.
She noted in her commentary that it was good for him to be banned from the WTA after he essentially abused Rybakina for years as her coach. While the player has defended him and announced his return to her team, he wonโt because he was suspended by the organization.
โIn my opinion, he subjected Elena to complete brainwashing. I think itโs right that he was banned from the WTA.โ
Itโs become known that Rybakina and Vukov are in a personal relationship on top of that, which was confirmed by her former coach Goran Ivaniลกevi? who briefly worked with her before leaving what he described as a very messy situation.
Whatโs coming up next
Finally, letโs talk about what is coming up next. We have the Indian Wells Masters coming up next as the event will stretch for two weeks. It is a massive celebration of tennis with all the best players playing, and it features both men and women competing at the event.
Itโs the first leg of the two events in the US which bridge the clay season starting with the Monte-Carlo Masters in April. The defending champions are Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek.
The draw is released later today, so keep an eye out for our preview of the event shortly here on TN.
