Tennis is back. Did you miss it? The season resumes from today, December 27, with the United Cup opening proceedings in Perth, Australia.
The Athletic’s tennis writers Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare are here for the second of two mailbags, answering your questions submitted earlier this month. The first focused on tennis in 2024; this one will focus more on 2025 and the state of the sport, before a deeper look into storylines on the ATP and WTA Tours at the start of January.
Read on for their views on players to watch this year, the state of the political machinations at the top of tennis, and more.
Will H: Seems to be a generational transition brewing in the men’s game at the moment. Young guys like Jack Draper, Arthur Fils, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and Ben Shelton seem poised to break into the top 10 and knock some of the previous gen (Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Hubert Hurkacz) down a peg. Do you agree, who do you expect to make a real push next year, and are there other names you’d throw in?
Charlie Eccleshare: I think I agree. My only hesitation is that I don’t know if that agreement comes from a selfish perspective rather than an analytical one. That isn’t a knock on Rublev, Tsitsipas and Hurkacz; it’s just exciting to have new blood and there’s a sense with those three (and others of similar vintage) that it may never happen for them at the very top level.
Maybe the next generation, without the kind of baggage those in their mid-twenties have built up, can be a genuine threat at the sharp end of majors… But that’s what was said about Tsitsipas et al. when they were about to replace nearly men like Kei Nishikori, Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic. Dimitrov is still here and around the top 10!
All four of Draper, Fils, Mpetshi Perricard and Shelton have the weapons to be a genuine threat to the very best — they already are on their day — and they certainly have it in them to push for top-10 places next year.
Other names to look out for are the world No. 50 Shang Juncheng of China, who’s only 19 but possesses an excellent all-round game, and the exciting Brazilian Joao Fonseca (18), who looks like a star of the future. Belgian Alexander Blockx looks like one promising name of many on the Challenger Tour.
Of those slightly older, Flavio Cobolli (22 and ranked No. 32 after a breakthrough year) could make an impact, though he’s less explosive than some of his peers. World No. 25 Tomas Machac, 24, has serious weapons and could be a real threat if he can add some consistency to his game. Where does Holger Rune fit into all this I wonder? At 21, he’s younger than Draper and Shelton, but his trajectory makes it feel like he’s in the Tsitsipas category.
Matt Futterman: John Isner reached No. 8 and made the Wimbledon semifinals. He also banked $22.5million in prize money. That’s pretty good. Mpetshi Perricard may have more weapons and is smaller, so he likely moves better. I think we need to see him for another year before we figure out who he is.
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Anon: Which coaching shifts do you think will stand the test of time?
MF: I’m going to bet on Wim Fissette and Iga Swiatek, mostly on the basis of Swiatek’s talent and on Fissette being a pretty genial guy that everyone seems to get along with. Swiatek has a ton of weapons, some of which she has holstered for most of her dominance: when she first broke out, she could spin the ball as well as anyone and was volleying and hitting drop shots with aplomb.
If Fissette can help her unlock the closet where all that stuff has been stored the past couple years she should start winning Grand Slams outside of Paris and he will be a huge hit.
Christopher Z: For both tours, who had a down or absent year that you expect to make a comeback in 2025? Looking at the Australian Open entry list, some big names using their protected ranking include Pablo Carreno Busta, Nick Kyrgios, Reilly Opelka, Jenson Brooksby and Belinda Bencic.
CE: Bencic, the 2021 Olympic gold medalist in women’s singles, jumps out to me because when we spoke recently she sounded very serious about her chances of getting back to a really good level.
Of the others, it’s hard to imagine Kyrgios coming back from so long out and being a consistent factor on the tour, but I wouldn’t rule out him having enough to produce a magical moment or two. Of the others you mentioned, Brooksby at 24 looks like having the best shot at climbing his way back up the rankings next year.
The players to look out for might be the ones who began a comeback this year, like Naomi Osaka and Emma Raducanu and are looking to build on those foundations in 2025, ditto Karolina Muchova, who’s ranked No. 22 despite only returning from a nine-month absence in late June. Matteo Berrettini’s season only began in March because of injury so perhaps he’ll have a more settled 2025, though I fear at 28 he may have peaked already.
Otherwise, I’m excited by the prospect of a fit Denis Shapovalov after the long layoff he had, and how about Ons Jabeur? She hasn’t played since August because of a knee injury that wrecked her season, and surely everyone in tennis will be hoping that she can come back and be a factor next year.
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Kevin M: What’s the latest with the proposed changes to ATP/WTA scheduling?
MF: Two words: Not much. The leaders of the ATP like making their players play at least eight Masters 1000 tournaments. The WTA just secured equal pay down the road in exchange for mandatory attendance at the biggest tournaments. The only way any change happens is if players start refusing to show up at events after the U.S. Open. I don’t see a shorter season. Maybe the tours lose enough 250-level events that they gain back a week but it’s hard to see that anytime soon and it would harm tennis’ status as a global sport.
Tom J: Any news on the premium tour ideas that were floated earlier in the year? Has that just come to a temporary haunt until Indian Wells/Madrid again or is there behind-the-scenes progress?
MF: Tennis honchos keep referencing productive discussions. Players are fed up and feel like they are getting gaslit. The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) has hired a team of lawyers and litigation of various kinds could begin in 2025. That could force change — or at least some serious talks instead of happy talk and gaslighting.
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Alex H: Do you think Jack Draper or Katie Boulter will continue to have another great year? Who is your tip for the next crop of Brits to emerge?
CE: If Draper can stay healthy then I see no reason why he can’t make the top 10. In tennis circles in Britain and outside it, the feeling is that Draper has top-five potential.
Boulter’s progress has been steady over the last few years, but the big question mark is whether she can deliver at the Grand Slams. She’s never reached the second week of a major, and last year didn’t even go beyond the second round. Improvement, or lack of it, at the biggest events will decide whether Boulter continues being a very solid top-30 player or something more.
Britain’s No. 2 Raducanu has had a very different career, winning a shock Grand Slam at 18 but struggling for the kind of consistency that’s been Boulter’s hallmark since. That’s what she’s striving for now, and with Maria Sharapova’s former trainer Yutaka Nakamura joining her team Raducanu is hopeful that she can stay fit and get back towards the top of the sport. A word also for Sonay Kartal, 23, who won her first title and cracked the world’s top 100 in 2024, having ended 2023 ranked world No. 235.
From the next generation, there is a lot of excitement about the British women coming through. The huge-serving Mika Stojsavljevic (16) won the U.S. Open juniors in September and came agonizingly close to a first tour-level win at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. She is arguably the pick of the bunch. There’s also Hannah Klugman (15), who won last year’s international under-18s tournament, the Orange Bowl, and came within a match of qualifying for this year’s Wimbledon. Keep an eye out also for Mimi Xu, a 17-year-old with excellent technique, if not the easy power of Stojsavljevic.
The boys are not at quite the same level, though Henry Searle, 18, became the first Brit in 61 years to win the Wimbledon boys’ singles title in 2023. Charlie Robertson, also 18, has had a promising year and is mentored by Andy Murray, but standing at a possibly generous 5ft 8in he’ll likely need to do some growing to make it on the ATP Tour. Oliver Bonding (18) and Viktor Frydrych (17) both went out early in the Orange Bowl last week, but are considered decent prospects.
Julian G: How do you see the popularity of tennis in the United States evolving over the next few years? It feels like other sports are making breakthroughs (F1 “Drive to Survive”, Golf with the popularity of YouTube), while tennis is at a standstill with the flop of Netflix’s “Break Point”.
MF: If USTA numbers are to be believed, tennis participation continues to rise, though outside New York City and some other urban centers where courts are scarce, I do see a lot of empty courts. As for television ratings, if the stars can keep making finals and breaking through with the help of their sponsors, that can help make up for the failure of Break Point. Plus, we’ll all be watching Zendaya and her boys on “Challengers” streams for a long time. Sequel? Please?
James Hansen: This theme is connected to the below questions, so I’ll put them in before answering more widely…
Anon: As always, my question is about the effect of tennis’ subpar broadcasting on the sport. The hideous light tan or pink court surrounds making the ball impossible to see as it bounces; the still too-high camera angle leaves calling slices or topspin up to the announcers; hardly showing the final handshake while loving ‘the box”, while sometimes not ID’ing who they are.
Sarah Bordeaux: What’s the latest and/or future of tennis broadcasting in the US? Tennis Channel (Plus) is now a standalone product, are there any potential suitors coming for Grand Slams or other broadcast rights, including for the Challengers/NCAA tournaments/etc, and what exactly is behind the Tennis Channel deal?
Sinclair has been very open about its desire to explore ‘strategic alternatives’ for the Tennis Channel, whether selling a stake or the whole property. Its move to direct-to-consumer suggests a willingness to try and keep up with a changing media landscape tennis is yet to really get to grips with.
ESPN will pay $2.04billion (more than £1.5bn) to air the U.S. Open through 2037 in a deal signed this year, while Wimbledon’s broadcast deal with ABC and ESPN networks comes in at $52.5million (£40.3m) per year as of 2024, according to SP Global. Broadcast rights remain gold dust, even as cable TV revenues decline and direct-to-consumer alternatives can, to date, only vainly attempt to make up the shortfall. Those broadcast rights — which are converted into the broadcasting that many fans, like Anon above, feel is often subpar — are important to Grand Slams because their value is tied to in-person attendance. If you are a huge tennis fan who can watch a tournament for free where you live, you are less often going to pay for a ticket to be there in person.
To keep that balance, the broadcast rights are very restrictive. Any footage cut up and put on YouTube or social networks like X, Bluesky and TikTok will get copyright-striked and taken down in short order, whether it is posted by a player who wants to reach their own fans or a fan just having some fun as part of the online tennis community.
This is where popularity comes in. A sport cannot grow if it cannot be discovered. A fan in the U.S. who sees a Coco Gauff TikTok or a meme about “Challengers” and wants to learn more about the world currently can’t watch highlights except on official channels and can’t watch much tennis at all without several subscriptions. A player who wants to engage people by documenting their life on tour can’t post highlights of their own matches. And in sanctioned media properties — whether documentaries produced by stars, or something like Break Point — tennis has largely failed to show fans why they should care about anyone outside the biggest stars where Formula One and golf have turned players further down their rankings into compelling personalities. Then, if they do make it, they already have an audience invested in their journey.
As cable in the U.S. gets less and less profitable, these lucrative media rights are, eventually, going to get less lucrative. If tennis doesn’t change its relationship with discoverability, it is going to get a big and bad shock when they do. Expect much more coverage of this here in 2025.
(Top photo of Jack Draper: Getty Images; top photo of Karolina Muchova: Associated Press)
