Casper Ruud holding his first Masters 1000 trophy in Madrid. (Getty/Jose Breton) For Casper Ruud, returning to the Madrid Open this week should feel like a celebration of a career breakthrough. Instead, it shapes as something far more consequential. Twelve months ago, Ruud claimed the biggest title of his career in Madrid, defeating Jack Draper in a hard-fought final. It was the big final win he had been chasing for years. He had lost three Grand Slam finals, an ATP Finals de

Mirra Andreeva learning from her coach, Conchita Martínez. (Getty/Tim Clayton) Can former players be decisive for current players when it comes to long-term success, and how does the dynamic in current partnerships work between coaches and former players turned coaches in relation to their players?  The landscape of tennis coaching in professional tennis across both the WTA and ATP tours has evolved drastically over the decades. One facet of said coaching has always been the

(Getty) Former Wimbledon champion Markéta Vondroušová has been charged by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for failing to attend a doping test after an "acute stress reaction". According to the ITIA conditions, a player is deemed to be non-compliant if they "evade simple collection or refuse or fail to submit to sample collection without compelling justification after notification by a duly authorised person." Listen to The First Serve Live every Monday at 8pm

French Open tournament director, Amélie Mauresmo. (Getty/Mustafa Yalcin) The French Open will be the first Grand Slam to ban cameras in the players' area to protect privacy amid criticism at this year's Australian Open. After Coco Gauff's quarter-final defeat to Elina Svitolina at Melbourne Park, the American let out her frustration by smashing her racquet in the Rod Laver Arena tunnel, not knowing that she was being filmed. Listen to The First Serve Live every Monday at 8pm

Tennis has a problem. It is slowly losing ground to pickleball and padel. Not because tennis is a worse sport, but because those sports have figured out something we haven't. They've figured out how to make people feel part of something. If you have a friend who plays pickleball, you'll see it. Medals on Facebook. Division wins on Instagram. Monthly tournaments. Constant engagement. There's always something happening. Tennis, by comparison, has gaps. We've got fixtures sorted

(Getty/Cameron Spencer) The whispers around a potential return of Serena Williams have grown louder in recent months, shifting from nostalgic hope to something far more tangible. And few have tracked those developments as closely as American tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, whose reporting via his online newsletter Bounces has offered rare insight into what may be unfolding behind the scenes. Speaking to Rothenberg, the sense is not that a comeback is guaranteed — but that

(Getty/Francesco Scaccianoce) The 2028 grass court season will include a new ATP tournament in Italy, as the country continues to dominate the sport. Already hosting the ATP Finals and Davis Cup Finals in November, along with the Rome Masters on clay before Roland-Garros, Milan's San Siro, which hosts famous football clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan, with a capacity of over 75,000, is expected to be the destination. "There's still time to decide where to play it," Italian feder

Dubai has been impacted by the ongoing war in the Middle East. (Getty/Muhammad Owais Khan) For the better or worse, the nature of tennis' global tour sees it often find itself in the midst of events – celebratory, political, or crises.   The top-flight tour alone visits various cities almost every week of the year, and the tiers below – Challenger and ITF tours – span multiple continents every day. There are simply no athletes that travel quite like tennis players.   It hit m

(Yana Bokyo/X) The Monte-Carlo Masters might be over, but a storm is brewing behind the scenes involving a Ukrainian illustrator and the tournament. Yana Boyko, an illustrator and designer who states in her X bio that she is open to collaboration, was left "shocked" after discovering that the tournament was selling merchandise in stores featuring her illustrations without her consent. Listen to The First Serve Live every Monday at 8pm AEDT in its 18th year on the SEN Network/

(Getty Images - Team GB came and conquered) For the second year running, Sam Stosur's team won't feature in the world's best eight teams in September's Billie Jean King Cup Finals, after Great Britain crushed Australia in their qualifier in Melbourne. Trailing 0-2 coming into today's cut throat doubles encounter, Australia, led by Storm Hunter and Ellen Perez, couldn't rally to keep the tie alive, taken down by Harriet Dart (after her big singles win on Day 1) and Jodie Burra

(Getty/Daniel Pockett) Before Day 1 of Billie Jean King Cup qualifying commenced, Australia were heavy favourites to knock off Great Britain. Now, not so much. The Aussies, captained by Sam Stosur, hosted the Brits at Melbourne's John Cain Arena in the first of two-day ties, with a spot in September's BJK Cup Finals in Shenzhen, China, up for grabs. Australia's top-ranked player, Maya Joint, was made unavailable due to a back injury, while Great Britain has been made to do wi

The great Billie Jean King in attendance for the 2025 BJK Cup Finals. (Getty/VCG) As Billie Jean King once told Lindsay Davenport during a Fed Cup tie in 2000, "pressure is a privilege". To represent your country in any capacity is a privilege. Wearing your nation's colours should be a spine-tingling occasion, no matter if it's a debut or a 100th appearance. Not to say that players aren't invested or that they don't care at all, but it's getting to the point where the Billie

(Getty/Hanne Vandewinkel) I have spoken quite a bit over the last year about Australia's talent stocks going forward, and the jury is very much out long term whether we can produce a decent group of players to reach the top 100 in the next 5-10 years on both the men's and women's sides. But for you, the tennis fan, your eyes and interests are also global as we are all curious about the names that will rise through the ranks and make their mark on the game going forward. Looki

(Getty/Quality Sport Images) As the toxic nature of betting continues to be a cause for concern on social media for professional players, it's no different on court. World No.301 Abdullah Shelbayh was subjected to threats and racist comments from a group of spectators during his ATP Challenger match in Madrid on Tuesday. The Jordanian qualifier, who lost in three sets to fifth seed Zsombor Piros, temporarily halted play trailing 0-3 in the deciding set, as he pleaded with the

(Getty/Jean Catuffe) Renowned coach Patrick Mouratoglou has issued a chilling warning about the future of tennis, predicting that "there won't be anymore tennis" if the sport's lack of interest from young fans continues. Mouratoglou, who has previously coached the likes of Serena Williams, Simona Halep, and Naomi Osaka, created the concept of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS), a shortened, faster-paced game aimed at attracting a new audience. The exhibition event was recentl

(Getty) There is no denying it. Australians currently find themselves in uncertain times. Cost of living and inflation (expected to rise as high as six per cent as the war in the Middle East drags on) are taking a stranglehold on households. Rising fuel and supermarket prices, along with an uptick in interest rates, have forced many families across the country to be extra cautious about how they spend their hard-earned cash. When it comes to sports subscriptions in a mad-lovi

(Getty/Tim Clayton) Just days after former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanišević defended his extraordinary comments about Stefanos Tsitsipas' professionalism, the Greek star has told his side of the story. Ivanišević, who famously coached Novak Djokovic to 12 Grand Slam titles, joined Tsitsipas' team as coach before the grass court season last year. That period was a disaster for Tsitsipas, retiring after two sets in his first round match at Wimbledon because of a chronic back

Marco Trungelliti. (Getty/Clive Bunskill) At 36 years and 64 days old, Argentina's Marco Trungelliti will next week officially debut in the top 100, becoming the oldest man in the Open era to do so. In 2018, he lost in qualifying at Roland-Garros and decided to head back home to Barcelona, with his 90-year-old grandmother coming to visit. But when he was called up as a Lucky Loser, with no trains running, he drove 10 hours by car with his mother, brother and grandmother to co

Jiří Lehečka celebrates in Miami. (Getty/Rich Storry) Czech player Jiří Lehečka made headlines recently by reaching the final of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Miami. It was the best result of his career and lifted him to a career-high ranking of world No.14. From the outside, it looks like a breakthrough, but from a Czech perspective, it looked almost like regular programming. For a nation of just over 10 million people, this kind of result is no longer surprising. Czech

(Getty/Ricardo Ceppi) Throughout part of the 1970s, Guillermo Vilas was the best tennis player in the world.   Fifty years ago, he should have begun the 1976 season as men's world No.1 tennis player. And yet decades on, he's still yet to be recognised with the title.   I've asked family and colleagues about Vilas in this era. Aside from memories of that hair, he was understandably an icon: a man who elevated tennis' status among global sports and one who brought South Americ