Tennis Briefing: Davis Cup progress, unlucky Seoul tournament, two remarkably short matches

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 Davis Cup returned, there were two very short matches — in very different ways — and one women’s tournament bore the brunt of tennis schedule fatigue.

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What’s going on in the Davis Cup?

The final eight for the Davis Cup group stage finals were decided over the weekend, with Canada and the Netherlands joining Italy, Australia, Spain, Germany, Argentina and the United States as the qualified nations. The latter topped their group last week in Zhuhai, China, despite being without any of Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton.

Spain’s qualification will be a particular relief to the tournament organizers given the finals are taking place in the Spanish city of Malaga. Home fans can look forward to seeing the star quality of Carlos Alcaraz — and possibly Rafael Nadal — with the former looking much more like himself in Spain’s group matches against France and the Czech Republic. Alcaraz produced a consummate performance to beat France’s Ugo Humbert 6-3, 6-3 after his first appearance since losing early at the U.S. Open ended quickly on Wednesday when Czech opponent Tomas Machac was forced to retire with cramp at one set apiece.

After the match with Humbert, Alcaraz reiterated what he said in New York about his performances over the U.S. hard-court swing not being good enough: “I have tried not to do the bad things that I did on the American tour. I had been training well, but training is one thing and competition is another.”

Others who struggled in New York also had satisfying performances last week.

The Canadian pair of Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger Aliassime both went out of the U.S. Open in the first round but helped their country into the Davis Cup showpiece in November. Shapovalov recorded an impressive win over Great Britain’s Dan Evans 6-0, 7-5 in Manchester, England, on Sunday, while Auger-Aliassime won all three of his matches during the week, including a straight-sets success on Sunday against U.S. Open semifinalist Jack Draper. It was the first meeting between the two since the controversial ending to their match in Cincinnati last month when Draper won with a shot that video replays showed to have been illegal.

The Davis Cup group stage finals will take place in Malaga between November 19-24, with Italy looking to retain their title. Recent winners Great Britain, France and Croatia all failed to make the cut.

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Charlie Eccleshare

Thirteen games, 37 minutes, and one Benoit Paire

Scan those details of a men’s tennis match and a longtime tennis fan will likely think something like “Benoit Paire doing Benoit Paire things”. Paire, 35, is one of the most mercurial players in the sport, capable of drop volleys from heaven and tantrums from hell (spitting on a ball mark in a match against Francisco Cerundolo in 2021, packing his bag with at least one game left against Cameron Norrie at the 2022 U.S. Open, things of that nature.)

So look at a 6-1, 6-0 reverse to Britain’s Jacob Fearnley at the Blot Open in Rennes, France, and it’s easy to see all the same stuff. Well, not quite.

In reality, Fearnley got out of a 15-30 and then 30-30 service game in the first set, having broken Paire in the opening game. His misses were largely close to the lines, a few scary forehand returns into the lower part of the net notwithstanding. Make no mistake, this was a one-sided thrashing — it just wasn’t the histrionic kind easily associated with the Frenchman… Until the end. Blowing kisses to the crowd who jeered him to the handshake, Paire was not long off-court when he delivered his ultimate assessment of the match.

Fearnley went on to win the whole tournament, coming back from a thrashing of his own in the final. Quentin Halys won their first set 6-0, before Fearnley took the second on a tiebreak, cruising past the dispirited Frenchman in the third.

In Monastir, Tunisia, fellow Brit Sonay Kartal won her first WTA title, triumphing in the 250-level event against Rebecca Sramkova.

James Hansen

What follows 37 minutes? Thirty-eight minutes

One of the great things about the Davis Cup is the way players somehow bridge huge ranking differentials to pull off major upsets. Or at least find ways to be competitive against far more vaunted opponents.

And then you get matches like the one on Saturday in Belgrade between 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic and the world No. 770 Ioannis Xilas, of Greece.

Xilas was playing in the tie against Serbia after Stefanos Tsitsipas pulled out and won a solitary game in a 6-0, 6-1 defeat that lasted 38 minutes. In a sport where the average set lasts longer than that, it was an astonishingly one-sided rout. Though less so given the 766 places Xilas was giving up in the rankings — so maybe the surprise is that this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often.

The following day, Djokovic teamed up with Hamad Medjedovic to secure victory in the tie with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 win in the doubles rubber against Aristotelis Thanos and Petros Tsitsipas.

The win means Serbia will compete in next year’s Davis Cup qualifiers for a chance to return to the group-stage finals.

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How one unlucky tournament bore the brunt of tennis’ long summer

After she won the Seoul title in 2023, Jessica Pegula looked ahead to even better things in 2024.

“Hopefully, we can get even higher-ranked players and more girls to come here and play. The city is amazing and I’ve had so much fun here,” Pegula, who is half-Korean on her mother’s side, said after her victory over Yuan Yue.

The American, who reached the final of this year’s U.S. Open, was discussing the tournament’s elevation from 250-level to 500-level, beginning this year. But by the time it came around, world No. 3 Pegula had to pull out with a rib injury. Elena Rybakina, world No. 4, and Emma Navarro, world No. 8, also withdrew.

Jessica Pegula lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the U.S. Open final (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

And then the coup de grace, when world No. 1 Iga Swiatek informed tournament organizers she too would be skipping the event, citing fatigue. So, all four top-10 players are out in the first year of a newly-elevated tournament. The new top four seeds, Daria Kasatkina, Liudmila Samsonova, Beatriz Haddad Maia and Diana Shnaider will see great opportunity; the tennis calendar will see another example of its gruelling schedule doing more harm to the sport’s infrastructure than good.

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James Hansen

Shot of the week

Carlos Alcaraz looking a bit more like Carlos Alcaraz here.

Recommended reading:

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 ATP: 

🏆 Vit Kopriva (5) def. Andrea Pellegrino 7-5. 6-2 to win the Szczecin Open (Challenger 125) in Szczecin, Poland. It is the Czech’s fourth Challenger title.
🏆 Christopher O’Connell (1) def. Sho Shimabukuro 1-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) to win the Guangzhou Open (Challenger 100) in Guangzhou, China. It is his sixth Challenger title.
🏆 Jacob Fearnley (8) def. Quentin Halys (4) 0-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 to win the Rennes Blot Open (Challenger 100) in Rennes, France. It is Fearnley’s third Challenger title.
🏆 Learner Tien (3) def. Tristan Boyer (6) 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 to win the Las Vegas Tennis Open (Challenger 75) in Las Vegas. It is Tien’s second Challenger title.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Magdalena Frech (5) def. Olivia Gadecki 7-6(5), 6-4 to win the Guadalajara Open in Guadalajara, Mexico. It is Frech’s first WTA Tour title.
🏆 Sonay Kartal def. Rebecca Sramkova 6-3, 7-5 to win the Jasmin Open (250) in Monastir, Tunisia. It is the Brit’s first WTA Tour title.
🏆 Jil Teichmann def. Nuria Parrizas Diaz 7-6(8), 6-4 to win the Zavarovalnica Sava Ljubljana (125) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is her first WTA 125 title.

📈 On the rise

📈 O’Connell moves up 12 places from No. 87 to No. 75 after his title in Guangzhou.
📈 Camila Osorio rises 20 places from No. 81 to No. 61 after her run to the semifinals in Guadalajara.
📈 Fearnley ascends 35 spots from No. 164 to No. 129 after his title in Rennes.

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP 

📍Chengdu, China: Chengdu Open (250) featuring Lorenzo Musetti, Shang Juncheng, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Nicolas Jarry.
📍Hangzhou, China: Hangzhou Open (250) featuring Marin Cilic (WC), Holger Rune, Zhang Zhizhen, Brandon Nakashima.
📍Berlin: Laver Cup featuring Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV

🎾 WTA

📍Seoul: Korea Open (500) featuring Daria Kasatkina, Amanda Anisimova, Emma Raducanu, Diana Shnaider.
📍Hua Hin, Thailand: Tournament (250) featuring Wang Xinyu, Katerina Siniakova, Katie Volynets, Mayar Sherif.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)