Culture
Jannik Sinner’s tennis ban does ranking no harm as rivals falter in Sunshine Double
Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, the Miami Open crowned its champions, with Aryna Sabalenka and Jakub Menšík taking the singles titles. Elsewhere, men’s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner had a great hard-court swing while playing just one tournament, the sun did not shine on home players and Mirra Andreeva used doubles to keep her feet on the ground.
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How did Sinner’s absence leave him untroubled as world No. 1?
Adding up the ranking points earned by men’s players at this year’s Australian Open, BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open, the highest tally belongs to someone who participated in only one of those events. The big ATP winner from the first Grand Slam of 2025 and then the post-Melbourne ‘Sunshine Double’ in California and Florida is Sinner, who played neither of the latter two tournaments because of his three-month anti-doping ban.
While the back-to-back Australian Open champion was getting some training reps in before his return to the tour in May, his rivals all failed to capitalize on his absence. It’s almost guaranteed now that Sinner will still be No. 1 when he begins his comeback in five weeks on home clay at the Italian Open in Rome.
The nominal world No. 2 Alexander Zverev was also last seen playing proper tennis in Melbourne — the difference between him and Sinner is that he has played in five events since. But the German has looked like a shadow of himself from the moment Sinner beat him in that Australian Open final, and after losing his first match in Indian Wells, he went out to Arthur Fils in the Miami Open round of 16, despite having been a break up in the final set.
Sinner’s main rival, Carlos Alcaraz, was beaten in his first match in Miami. In Indian Wells, he had failed to recover from a first-set horror show in the semifinals, losing to eventual champion Jack Draper. Alcaraz occasionally looked lost during both matches — as he did when losing in the Australian Open quarterfinals to an injured Novak Djokovic.
Djokovic looked refreshed in Miami after his own early exit in Indian Wells, but didn’t have to beat a top-14 player to get to the final. When he got there, he lost precisely the kind of match he’s made a career of winning. His opponent in that final, Menšík, was superb in a 7-6(4), 7-6(4) win, but neutralizing big servers and winning tiebreaks have long been two of Djokovic’s calling cards.
Menšík, 19, had a breakthrough tournament, as did Draper in Indian Wells, but among Sinner’s established rivals, it’s generally been a pretty challenging month.
Sometimes in sport, players’ most helpful results come when they are not even present.
March 2025 undoubtedly strengthened Sinner’s position at the pinnacle of men’s tennis, without him playing a single point.
Charlie Eccleshare
How is Andreeva using doubles to keep her grounded?
It was a sunshine double of sorts for Andreeva too, who followed up her Indian Wells singles title by winning the Miami Open doubles, with her close friend and compatriot Diana Shnaider.
Andreeva, the 17-year-old Russian, is unusual among the world’s top 10 in continuing to play regular doubles, and long may it continue — because the benefits go beyond just her tennis.
She and 20-year-old Shnaider play together with the kind of levity that is generally non-existent in the one-on-one combat of singles, and can only be beneficial to two youngsters getting to grips with the grind of professional tennis. The timeline of the WTA Tour is littered with prodigies burning out because of the sport’s suffocating pressure.
The pair’s sense of humour came in handy Sunday, during the lengthy rain delay that interrupted their 6-3, 6-7(5), 10-2 final win over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa and Miyu Kato of Japan.
It is Andreeva and Shnaider’s second title as partners, having first joined forces when they laughed their way to Olympic silver medals in August. Since then, both have spoken about how much they enjoy playing together and the way it benefits them.
Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva with the Miami Open doubles trophy. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
“When we play doubles, we both don’t like when it’s very tense,” Andreeva said in an interview at Melbourne Park in January. “So, for example, when the score is 5-4 and we have to serve for the match, we’re both at the same time trying to say some jokes or just chill a bit.
“We always make fun of ourselves, so if she hits an amazing shot. I’m like, ‘Have you seen that? Are you Roger Federer? I mean, come on, stop it.’ And then after that, I feel like she’s fired up and she makes even better shots. And when I play a good shot, she’s always like, ‘My God, what are you doing? I mean, if you play like this, we’re going to win a slam.’”
Shnaider, who is having a tricky singles season after a breakthrough 2024, also feels the benefits and said in an interview in New York before last year’s U.S. Open: “I need some jokes on court. I need some smiles. I need to have some talks with a partner enjoying doubles. Because for me, I’m just getting released from the stress and some tightness.
“And I knew that she’s a very open person. She’s very emotional. She loves to talk, loves jokes and loves smiling. So I was like, ‘This is the right fit’.”
Before their doubles win in Miami, Andreeva had endured a stressful singles defeat to Amanda Anisimova in the third round, while Shnaider lost to Anna Blinkova in the second.
They could have both packed up and left Miami then for some rest or practice. Instead, both found something more valuable on the doubles court.
Charlie Eccleshare
Not the ‘Sunshine Double’ the American men were hoping for
A couple of months ago, this looked like it could be a pretty special Indian Wells and Miami swing for American men.
With world No. 1 Sinner sidelined and the sport’s best-ever Djokovic something of a question mark and about to turn 38, it seemed like there could be an opening for a group of rivals who are often at their best on home soil. The top Americans are hard-court players who aim to make hay during the North American hard-court swings — especially this one, which precedes a three-month trip to Europe and its organic surfaces.
Ben Shelton was coming off a run to the Australian Open semifinals. Taylor Fritz wasn’t far removed from being a finalist at last year’s U.S. Open, being runner-up at November’s ATP Tour Finals and winning the United Cup with his country in January. Tommy Paul was a top-10 player. Frances Tiafoe always gets fired up for the home fans.
When it was over, Fritz, still battling a right abdominal injury, had the best showing across the two events, falling to Menšík in the Miami semifinals in a third-set tiebreak. He managed to lose while not having his serve broken all night. A couple of bad decisions in the first and third-set tiebreaks kept him out of the final.
Shelton fell in the quarters of Indian Wells to eventual champion Draper. Not bad, and he seemed to have found his groove on the gritty, high-kicking hard courts in California. But then, in Miami, he lost his opening match to a wild card, Coleman Wong of Hong Kong.
Paul disappeared during his round of 16 match in Indian Wells against Daniil Medvedev. In Miami, he lost his second match to Francisco Cerundolo. He’s 7-4 since entering the top 10. Tiafoe? He went 2-2 in the Sunshine Double, with losses to Fils and Yosuke Watanuki.
And on it went.
Learner Tien didn’t win a match. Alex Michelsen won just one.
Not good weather for the home players in March.
Matt Futterman
Danielle Collins gets a win
Danielle Collins couldn’t retain her title in Miami, but ended up coming away with a different kind of trophy.
Collins came upon a dog that had been hit by a car during her time in the city. She pulled over, took the animal to a local veterinary hospital and saw to it that it got the care it needed, through surgery and five days on oxygen.
With the pup pulling through, Collins announced that she had adopted it and named it “Crash.”
“His breathing is back to normal, his wounds are healing, and he is definitely enjoying all the love he is receiving,” Collins shared on Instagram, showing the newest addition to her family snuggling with her in bed. Crash joins Quincy, who has accompanied Collins on the tour for some time now.
“He is curious, affectionate, and grateful for a second chance at life. It was so incredibly painful to witness a dog in so much pain after being hit by a car, and left in the middle of the road with so many people driving by his curled-up body. I’m just grateful I was able to be there and get him the care he needed.”
Perhaps not another trophy. But maybe something better. And a good thing for Crash that Collins decided not to retire at the start of this season.
Now she has another title to defend this week in Charleston, S.C., where she’ll be looking to stay inside the world top 32 and get a seeding for the next Grand Slam in Paris next month.
Matt Futterman
Recommended reading:
🏆 The winners of the week
🎾 ATP:
🏆 Menšík def. Djokovic (4) 7-6(4), 7-6(4) to win the Miami Open (1,000) in Miami. It is his first ATP 1,000 title.
🎾 WTA:
🏆 Sabalenka (1) def. Pegula (4) 7-5, 6-2 to win the Miami Open (1,000) in Miami. It is the Belarusian’s 19th WTA Tour title.
📈📉 On the rise / Down the line
📈 Eala moves up 65 places from No. 140 to a career high of No. 75 after her run to the Miami Open semifinals.
📈 Menšík ascends 30 spots from No. 54 to No. 24 after winning the Miami Open.
📈 Tereza Valentová moves up 41 places from No. 211 to a career high of No. 170 after winning the ITF W75 event in Murska Sobota, Slovenia.
📉 Medvedev falls three places from No. 8 to No. 11, leaving the ATP top 10 for the first time since 2019.
📉 Caroline Garcia drops 27 places from No. 74 to No. 101, leaving the WTA top 100 for the first time since 2013.
📉 Thiago Seyboth Wild tumbles 15 spots from No. 96 to No. 111, leaving the ATP top 100.
📅 Coming up
🎾 ATP
📍Houston: U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship (250) featuring Paul, Tiafoe, Michelsen, Tien.
📍Marrakech, Morroco: Grand Prix Hassan II (250) featuring Tallon Griekspoor, Lorenzo Sonego, Otto Virtanen, Pavel Kotov.
📍Bucharest, Romania: Tiriac Open (250) featuring Sebastian Baez, Gabriel Diallo, Botic van de Zandschulp, Nishesh Basavareddy.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻
🎾 WTA
📍Charleston, S.C.: Charleston Open (500) featuring Pegula, Madison Keys, Zheng Qinwen, Belinda Bencic.
📍Bogotá, Colombia: Copa Colsanitas Zurich (250) featuring Marie Bouzkova, Camila Osorio, Iva Jovic, Alycia Parks.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.:
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.
(Top photo: Patrick Hamilton / AFP via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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