Chili Bites: Don’t look up.

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• I’m coming to you during a short rain delay on Monday at the Cincinnati Open, where Iga Swiatek and Flavio Cobolli just survived three-setters. Here are some quick weekend notes:
  • Novak Djokovic (l. Tirante) and Ben Shelton (l. Faria) bowed out, making this yet another wide open men’s tournament. The men’s top seed also had to go three to slide past Cam Norrie at like 2am the other night. We gonna see! (ATP)

• After the loss – which saw Novak struggling to breathe and appeared to vomit on an MTO – Novak said it’s due to a medical “condition” that he has been dealing with for the last couple of years. (The Guardian)

• Elina Svitolina saved seven match points in her opening win over Teresa Valentova:

• Italian press reporting that Jannik Sinner will only go to New York if he is 100 percent, which would appear to cast some more doubt on the whole shebang. (Gazzetta)
• This from Cheryl Murray does seem to be the overall sentiment I’m hearing: "I have been a tennis fan for 30 years, and I cannot remember a quieter lead-up to the US Open than this one.” (Tennis Grandstand)

• My friends, it is now time for me to unleash my most controversial (apparently) opinion yet:
• As I’ve been detailing in the FD Discord, all the hate directed at Rafael Jodar for his TENUOUSLY alleged tennis crimes is only turning me into a Jodar defender. Which is weird because I literally don’t care. It’s just how I’m hardwired. If I see a mob going after some introverted weirdo, I will come running with my whistle and bottles of water to wash away the tear gas.
• Because I’m sorry, do people REALLY think he INTENTIONALLY BROKE HIS SHOELACES. Against Shapavalov, the first time it happened he had just won a point. The second time it happened, where the break was longer, it was 15-15 and he himself was serving.

• As for being not warm and cuddly with ballkids, sure he could be nicer to them. But the way y’all talk I thought when I pulled up the footage he’d be passive aggressively directing ballkids like Victoria Azarenka used to do, or staring down a ballkid like Yulia Putintseva, or he was just a full-on ass like Fernando Verdasco was that one time. (YouTube)

• It just feels like people are being awfully quick to project behaviors on a 19-year-old dude to just add to some sort of villain narrative. That’s all fun and games when the player is kind of in on the joke or even embracing it, but I just haven’t seen anything that would indicate that Jodar is actually trying to be the bad guy he’s being painted out to be. Minor lapses in judgment at times? Sure! He’s frickin’ 19 years old! It’s going to happen! He also seems like a quiet guy who’s just fully in his own bubble, and I suspect that over time he’ll loosen up on that. Just give the kid some grace. Direct your ire at the people who have actually done things to deserve it.
• Also: It remains incredible soft to let a bathroom break or MTO or whatever rattle you. Shapo led 5-1 and lost six straight games. Be serious.

• Serena and Venus are set to play their first doubles match tonight in the first night-match on Grandstand court. On Stadium Court at the same time will be the ATP’s reigning French Open champion top seed here. Grandstand – which is an intimate and awesome court that includes a load of general admission seats – is going to be an absolute zoo, with both day session AND night session GA tickets eligible for seats.
• This could end up being one of the coolest, most unique, most memorable experiences if we get a packed out and raucous Grandstand absolutely wildin’ over Serena and Venus. Can’t wait to see how it all goes down.

• Colin Salo reports that a vote is coming soon to ease the mandatory requirements around top players and 500 events. He got the scoop from tournament director and member of the WTA Tour Architecture Coucil member Bob Moran. (Front Office Sports)

When we came out with circuit structure a couple of years ago, it was trying to get players to play more 1000s and 500s,” Moran said. Outside of the Grand Slams, the most prestigious tournaments every year are 1000-level events like Indian Wells and Miami Open) followed by 500 tournaments such as the DC Open).

“They have to play 1000s, but more of the 500s, and rules were put into place to do that. And one of the things was they have to play six 500s. We heard from the players that that has been difficult. I’m very confident that at the US Open, you’ll see that number come down.”

• Per Moran, Salo also reports that the change could impact the WTA’s goal of equal prize money by 2033:

"If we’re going to sit in a room and talk, something has to give,” Moran said. “If you want commitment to go down, then that prize money growth is going to have to slow a little. Because if the commitment is going to be less, and you’re going to play less 500s, it’s going to be hard to ask 500s that might not be getting the fields that we want them to get to keep going up.”

• This is rough for the WTA 500s – getting top players is essential for so many of them to be profitable – but now that the 1000s have gone the two-week route, you can understand the crunch on the players. I don’t blame the players for the demand, but I do blame anyone and everyone involved in the decision to go to extended Masters/1000s. This is yet more collateral damage, at a time when 250s and 500s are dying out. The result of course will be the rich 500s (to the extent those exist) will have to pay bigger appearance fees to secure top players, which means those top players – who may have had to play the event as a mandatory for free – will now make more money AND have more flexibility. Again, I get it and I’m all for the players making as much money as they can. But this continues to be a situation that the tours and governing bodies are creating.

• The healthiest scenario would have been what we had – more one-week 1000s, giving more rest weeks and easier schedules to incorporate more 500 requirements. That leads to a healthier tournament ecosystem, where tournaments at all levels are supported. But just as in the real world, all these greedy changes are just further enlarging the gulf between the haves and have-nots. But enjoy that money, I guess. Heaven forbid anyone considers making less now in exchange for long-term health and stability. Fuck the future, right?

• Coco Gauff has executive produced two mini-docs that will air on Tennis Channel ahead of the US Open. One is on Zina Garrison. (Awful Announcing)
• Holy cannoli: Terence Atmane was tracked to his hotel by a fan using an AirTag????(Punto de Break)
• Venus Williams is nearing history and probably not in the way she wanted. (Women’s Tennis Blog).

• There was a heist of four renaissance paintings in Sicily! I remain confused as to how you sell these things. Do rich people just have, like, private vaults? You can’t show it to anyone after you buy it. (NY Times)

• Listened to this episode of NPR’s Throughline on the history of Monopoly and goddammit another case of awesome lady invents a thing for altruistic reasons only for it to be stolen by failure dude who was rewarded by capitalism. Many such cases. The book sounds awesome, too (NY Times):

• I’ve been doing A LOT of driving over the last month – more than I would probably do in like a six-month span – so I’ve been listening to a lot of radio. One of my favorite stories is about a Bay Area Armenian musician who plays the duduk, one of the most haunting and sad-sounding instruments in the world. This is just a great example of a top-tier radio story. It’s so well engineered, written, and edited, and Khachadour Khachadourian’s speaking voice is just mesmerizing. I was driving on Interstate 5 down to LA last month and was locked in when the story popped up and then immediately replayed it when it was over. Just a fantastic piece of audio:

• Bop of the Day: Hey remember when the internet was a place for whimsy?