Bill Simons
WIN ONE FOR ALTADENA: Tristan Boyer, whose childhood home was barely spared by LA’s Eaton fire, tweeted from the Australian Open, “Main draw in Melbourne. This one is for Altadena 🙏 thinking of our beautiful town and everyone who lost their homes.” Madison Keys has donated $20,000 to LA’s firefighters, and the Australian government has committed their support.
DEVIL-MAY-CARE ANALYSIS: Just before unseeded McCartney Kessler won the Hobart finals in Tasmania, Steve Weissman noted, “I know she’s a Florida Gator, but she’s playing like a Tasmanian devil!”
SAY IT ISN’T SO: Fabio Fognini almost dropped his partner in Italy’s version of Dancing With the Stars…Fans threw iceballs on court in freezing Auckland, New Zealand…In the middle of his match at the Next Gen Finals in Saudi Arabia, Jakub Mensik had to take a drug test.
DJOKOVIC CLAIMS HE WAS POISONED: In 2022 Novak Djokovic would not get a Covid shot and explained that he alone wanted to control his body. But during the pandemic, everyone in Australia was required to get a vaccination and Novak, amidst controversy, was detained and eventually deported.
Now, in an interview with GQ magazine, he asserted that he was poisoned during his 5-day detention at Melbourne’s Park Hotel. He said, “I was fed with some food that poisoned me…I never told this to anybody publicly, but discovering that I was. I had a really high level of heavy metal…I had…very high levels of lead and mercury.”
Djokovic said he had flu-like symptoms, and that back in Serbia he was treated by medical teams and underwent toxicity tests.
He also told the Herald Sun that he still had trauma from what happened three years ago, and this year he still felt stress while arriving at the airport.
Novak, who never did get a Covid vaccine, stated he was neither anti-vax nor pro-vax, and told GQ that his 2022 ban “had nothing really to do with the vaccine…It was just political. The politicians could not stand me being there.”
The Guardian reported that Dr Barbara Cardoso, a nutritional biochemist, said Australians had “relatively low exposure to lead and mercury…Mercury can be present in food, but the food with the highest…[but] it requires time for that mercury to accumulate in the body to cause poisoning. The food…[in Melbourne] is unlikely to cause poisoning.”
Another public health expert, Dr Catharine Fleming, said it was “hard to show causation between [Novak’s] acquisition of the heavy metal poisoning and the food.”
Food poisoning has a long history in tennis. For instance, Dominic Thiem at the US Open, Nick Kygios at Indian Wells and Grigor Dimitrov at Winston-Salem all pulled out due to the malady. Plus, there’ve actually been moments of humor. After being blown away by Ivan Lendl in San Francisco, Mel Purcell quipped: “Sure, on a given day I could beat him, but it would have to be a day he has food poisoning.”
UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR: Gael Monfils downed Belgium’s Zizou Bergs to win Auckland and became the oldest ATP champion in the Open Era. The 38-year-old said he was “quite old – a little bit.” BTW: our favorite understatement in the sport was Serena quipping, “I know how to play tennis.”
TOP FIVE FAVORITES: Sinner, Alcaraz, Djokovic, Fritz and De Minaur are the top five men’s betting favorites. Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Qinwen Zheng are the top five women favorites.
HAS WIMBLEDON CHAMP ELENA RYBAKINA BEEN ABUSED? After extraordinary reporting in The Athletic, much of tennis is concerned about 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. Last year, after reporting numerous maladies, the Kazakhstani pulled out of one tournament after another. Now Stefano Vukov, her previous coach, who started his five-year run with her when Elena was 19, has been provisionally suspended by the WTA pending an investigation. Elena claims Stefano “definitely never abused anyone.” But others wonder – is she protecting Vukov?
Commentator and former player Pam Shriver, who early in her career was abused by her coach Don Candy and is now a key leader against abuse, tweeted, “It’s time for our entire sport to finally stand up to known abuse and cult-like manipulations of players. This is a very sad situation and my prayers are with ER.”
Rybakina then said Shriver didn’t reach out to her, didn’t know her and should stick to coaching Donna Vekic and her commentary work.
GO FIGURE: Djokovic said his dad is trying to get him to retire…Sinner, Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev are all coming into the Aussie Open without having played a warm-up tourney…There are 29 collegians in the AO singles draw.
THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE NOT FOR: Jessica Pegula was an honored guest at Madison Keys’s wedding in November. So you’d think that she’d be kind to her friend. But despite another mid-match leg injury, Keys beat Pegula, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, in the Adelaide International warm-up tourney, winning her ninth WTA title.
THE CLOSE-BUT-NO-CIGAR CLUB: Tommy Paul remains in a curious club – elite Americans who’ve had fabulous careers, but have fallen just a bit short of the Top Ten. Tommy, Sam Querrey, and Mal Washington all have career high rankings of No. 11. Of course, Paul is just 27, so he probably will break through.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’: It used to be that players would travel the world alone without any support team. Now, the top stars have huge entourages that sometimes include coaches, hitting partners, trainers and massage therapists, as well as mental coaches, spiritual advisors and brand managers.
Similarly, it used to be that a reporter would just show up for an interview. Now, teams of photographers and sound technicians sometimes track players. A recent Novak Djokovic media session with GQ included a production manager, a stylist, a grooming expert, a tailor, a set designer, and a yacht supervisor.
SINNER DOPING HEARING SET: In the short run, it seems that Jannik Sinner is lucky. After a tricky first round against Chilean Nicolas Jarry, he has a fairly easy draw and won’t have to face Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic until the final. But in the long run, his fans say he’s unlucky. The World Anti-Doping Agency is challenging last year’s decision by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) not to suspend Sinner for what it judged was an accidental contamination by a banned steroid last March.
Now the Court of Arbitration for Sport has scheduled a closed-door hearing for April 16-17, at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. It might take six or eight weeks for them to make a decision, and, if Sinner is suspended for 60-90 days, as some imagine, he might not play the French Open or even Wimbledon.
MAYBE CANADA SHOULDN’T BE AMERICA’S 51ST STATE: Apparently Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, No. 29, is not fond of the proposal to make Canada the 51st US state – of late he’s been punishing Americans. Earlier this year, he beat Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul. Saturday he downed Floridian Seb Korda 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Korda is now 1-7 in his last eight finals. Since the start of 2023, Auger-Aliassime is 8-0 against Americans. But that’s nothing: Djokovic has a 85-11 record against US players. Yet early in January the Serb fell to Reilly Opelka in Brisbane.
WHAT A WAY TO WIN: Czech Tomas Machac had a massive meltdown and quit against Taylor Fritz mid-match to hand America a victory in the semifinals of the United Cup in Sydney. The US then downed Poland to win their second straight United Cup.
CIVIL WAR BATTLES: In the opening round, Ben Shelton will face his fellow American, Brandon Nakashima, in the first round, and ex-collegians Emma Navarro and Peyton Stearns will face off. France’s Gael Monfils will play his countryman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. In an all-LA battle, USC product Yannik Hanfmann will face UCLA’s Marcos Giron.
FARMERS DOWN UNDER: There are two players in the Aussie Open draw who played at Stanford: Nishesh Basavareddy and Tristan Boyer.
BASAVAREDDY FOR PRIME TIME: Basavarredy has moved from Orange County, California to Carmel, Indiana to Stanford to almost being in the ATP’s Top 100. The 19-year-old won challengers in Fairfield and Puerto Vallarta, and in Auckland beat his longtime friend Alex Michelsen, before losing in the semis to Gael Monfils. But Basavareddy, now No. 106, can hardly rest. He’ll play Novak Djokovic tongiht.
SMOOTH SAILING: Czech Jiri Lehecka won Brisbane, but didn’t even have to finish his last two matches. Opelka and Grigor Dimitrov both pulled out.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Djokovic could face Carlos Alcaraz in the fourth round.
