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 European clay swing kicked off in earnest across the ATP and WTA tours, with tournaments in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Romania. The four best women’s players faced off in Stuttgart, Barcelona witnessed the return of Rafael Nadal, and we saw a serve from zero gravity.
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Are the WTA and ATP tours swapping their metas?
For the past year, there’s been some chatter about a ‘Big Four’ forming in women’s tennis. It was a ‘Big Three’, comprised of Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka, but then Coco Gauff won the U.S. Open and became a seriously consistent presence in the business end of tournaments, including the semi-finals of the Australian Open. She also climbed to No 3 in the rankings. At the same time, the rapid emergence of Carlos Alcaraz, succeeded by the slower burn of Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev being Daniil Medvedev, and the elastic continuity of Novak Djokovic forged new rivalries on the ATP tour.
The last few months have thrown a wrench into that thinking. Despite being without a Grand Slam title since last year’s French Open, Swiatek…
