Sports
Tennis Briefing: Djokovic water bottle conspiracy? Over-eager umpires? Why so many injuries?
Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind the stories from the last week on court. This week, the coveted Masters 1000 in Rome ran its first week and the stories on court were matched by the drama off it. Novak Djokovic exited, struck by a water bottle, Rafael Nadal took the next step in his comeback, and the on-court spectacle was overtaken by some strange umpiring.
And is everybody injured now?
If you’d like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, please click here.
Are all these injuries signal or noise?
Friday lunchtime in Rome and the Foro Italico briefly felt like an infirmary, as one medical bulletin followed another.
First, defending champion Elena Rybakina withdrew because of illness, before the first matches of the day on the Campo Centrale and Pietrangeli courts ended in retirements: Lorenzo Musetti (virus) on the former, Anna Blinkova (ankle) on the latter.
Later in the day, world No 7 Casper Ruud battled a back problem in his defeat to Miomir Kecmanovic, who had a similar injury and said afterwards that he took three kinds of pills to numb the pain.
The Italian Open had already seen two of the men’s favourites, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, pull out with fitness issues before it had begun. Defending champion Daniil Medvedev arrived carrying an issue in his upper leg. Elsewhere on Friday, Dominic Thiem announced he would retire later in the year because of his long-standing wrist problem.
So, does tennis have an issue with injuries?
It was a talking point throughout the first week in Rome and Danielle Collins, who benefited from Blinkova’s retirement, told The Athletic after the match that this kind of situation is an occupational hazard given tennis’s relentless schedule.
Collins came to Blinkova’s aid before she had to retire (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
“It’s to be expected when we have this many tournaments back to back to back,” she said. “It’s a physical sport and when people are going far and playing lots of matches, injuries and illnesses will pop up.
“I’m not surprised. It’s a long season — everyone deals with injuries or illness during the season.”
A couple of days earlier, Medvedev played down the withdrawals: “Injuries, in general, are coincidence unless it’s the same injury for everyone.”
Grigor Dimitrov, the world No 10 and a relative veteran at 32, offered a different perspective: “We’ve seen a lot more retirements in the last two and a half years because the sport is a lot more demanding.”
GO DEEPER
How to fix tennis
Can Kerber and Osaka crack the comeback (on clay?)
Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber are really good tennis players, and giving birth wasn’t going to change that.
That doesn’t mean coming back is easy. Tennis doesn’t protect player rankings during maternity leave, so women can get thrown to the wolves in the early rounds of tournaments and struggle to find wins when they need them most. Osaka and Kerber have been dealing with that these past months, showing flashes of their past Grand Slam-winning selves, but also periods of inconsistency that can spell doom in two-of-three-set tennis.
Osaka has embraced clay this week (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
But in Rome, Kerber is back in another Masters 1000 round of 16, where she will have her work cut out against Iga Swiatek, the world No 1. Reaching the second week already counts as a victory for Kerber, who is only in month five of her comeback. With her best career results on grass and hard courts, she’s not a player any seed wants to face this summer.
Osaka’s coach, Wim Fissette set her the goal of returning to form for this year’s hard swing in North America, but Osaka is famously impatient and newly redoubtable on the red stuff. Rome has arguably been her best week, with wins over Marta Kostyuk, one of the best players this year, and Daria Kasatkina, maybe the world’s smartest player. Next up was Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen, who is 21 years old and relished the match-up, taking out an errant Osaka in straight sets.
That defeat doesn’t discredit Osaka’s commitment to improving on a surface she normally doesn’t relish at all. Osaka lost early in Madrid and went to Mallorca to train before Rome. “I watched some videos,” she said. “I watched Rafa. I watched Alcaraz. I watched Rublev, which is very inspiring. He’s smacking the ball and I thought, ‘I don’t want to have regrets when I leave the court’. In Madrid, I did have regrets of not swinging fully.”
No regrets? Sounds good.
Out in the tramlines: Should umpires be part of the show?
The rise of electronic line calling (ELC) means that umpires are increasingly peripheral figures in tennis.
Clay is slightly different, with tournaments, including the Italian Open, still relying on them popping off their chairs to inspect ball marks.
During a tight final set between British world No 67 Dan Evans and home favourite Fabio Fognini on Thursday night, Fognini scooped a forehand drive volley short and wide — too wide. The line judge responsible for the singles sideline initially put out an arm to stipulate it was out; the Hawk-Eye evidence indicated it was out; umpire Mohamed Lahyani insisted it was not.
“You couldn’t show me the mark, the ball didn’t hit the f*****g line,” as Evans put it.
Lahyani’s appetite for spectacle has irked players (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Lahyani insisted during the argument that the line judge had called the ball in, which appeared not to be the case. The incident came a year after Evans’ compatriot Andy Murray got in a similar argument with Lahyani — against the same opponent and at the same tournament.
The back-and-forth continued, and Evans was given a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Some would argue this wasn’t entirely coincidental. Lahyani is happy to get involved in matches — sometimes too much, like six years ago when he gave Nick Kyrgios a mid-match pep talk, subsequently earning a suspension from the ATP. In Rome, there was the surreal sight of Lahyani getting mobbed by spectators on the grounds of the Foro Italico. Officials are generally not revered in this way, and at last year’s tournament, Djokovic took the umpire to task for it, asking him “what is the drama” and “are you acting here” during a row over calling the score.
Maybe this will become a thing of the past once ELC completely takes over — the ATP says it plans to have the technology at all clay-court events next year — and umpires get pushed even further to the margins. A step forward, for some; for others, more evidence of sanitising tennis.
GO DEEPER
Rublev’s default in Dubai is exactly why tennis needs electronic line calling
Why did so many people think someone threw a bottle at Djokovic?
The widespread assumption on Friday night that Djokovic had been deliberately rather than accidentally struck by a water bottle broadly came about for a couple of reasons.
The first was that the original footage made it look that way.
The second, and more revealing, reason is that someone hating Djokovic enough to lob a bottle at him didn’t seem especially far-fetched. And maybe those preconceptions informed why so many assumed it was deliberate from the jump — not just his most dedicated fans, but tennis social media aggregators, figureheads, and Boris Becker.
Djokovic’s divisiveness is well-documented, with an army of supporters and his litany of staggering achievements not belying a huge number of detractors. Without re-litigating all that here, the hostility originally stemmed from the rivalry he enjoyed with the largely beloved Nadal and Roger Federer.
It has intensified over the last few years.
Djokovic often finds a sense of humour in conducting partisan crowds (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
He has arguably surpassed both in terms of achievement with comparatively little fanfare; his decision not to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which he always stressed was a personal choice, has invited opprobrium and unwittingly made him a poster boy for groups who believe that choice is a victory against the establishment.
There have been other controversies — at the Australian Open last year, his father was pictured with Vladimir Putin supporters; in the first week of last year’s French Open, he wrote “Kosovo is the (heart symbol) of Serbia” on a television camera in response to violent clashes in Kosovo, putting himself once more in the middle of a battle that has plagued the Balkans for nearly 1,000 years and drawing accusations of aligning himself with fascism and philosophies that led to ethnic cleansing.
Djokovic said both were misinterpreted.
Thankfully Djokovic wasn’t attacked on Friday and, by the following day, he was making light of the incident, arriving at the Foro Italico wearing a bike helmet before his defeat to Alejandro Tabilo.
GO DEEPER
Novak Djokovic was a lightning rod a year ago – now he is royalty
No-shot of the week
Club players of the world: does this look familiar?
Left on purpose, @dThiagoMonteiro 😉#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/dEzRP3Mk8N
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 8, 2024
Shot of the week
Club players of the world: does this look familiar?
Oh no he didn’t… 😱@dThiagoMonteiro with one of the shots of the week in Rome!#IBI24 pic.twitter.com/4WB864fuZS
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 10, 2024
Recommended reading:
📅 Coming up
🎾 ATP:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Stefanos Tstitsipas, Alejandro Tabilo, Thiago Monteiro, Grigor Dimitrov
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA:
📍Rome, Italian Open (1000) second week, ft. Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments as the tours continue.
(Top photos: Mike Hewitt; Alex Pantling; Dan Isitene/Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
-
World1 week agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Wisconsin3 days agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Maryland4 days agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Florida4 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Denver, CO1 week ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Massachusetts2 days agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Oregon6 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling