Tennis Mailbag: Andrey Rublev’s Self-Flagellation, Daniel Nestor’s HoF Snub and More

Submissions have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Hey everyone…

• Here’s the latest episode of the Served podcast. This is a fun one.
• Here’s Bob Uecker. He’s 90 years old and still at it.
• We have entered the Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard era.

While congratulating the good people of South Dakota for hosting a successful pro event …

Let’s start with Andrey Rublev. His temper triggered this … Which triggered a bevy of late questions on Tuesday. One sample from @wingedscorpion:

I always liked Rublev tennis-wise and off of the court. But these repeated instances of aggressive self-harm have made me change my opinion. I say to myself, would I want my child to watch this? To be like this? NO! NEVER!

• This is the latest in a distressingly fat dossier of Rublev-on-Rublev incidents. Hit yourself with your racket in frustration once, it’s a meme. By the sixth, seventh or eighth time, we have a serious problem, best handled by a therapist or sports psychologist.

Part of the issue: Rublev is known as a good guy, so perhaps this isn’t regarded with the gravity it should be. Part of the issue: There is a history of players—disproportionately Russian players—self-flagellating, so perhaps this isn’t regarded with the gravity it should be. Part of the issue: We view attacks on the self far differently from attacks on others … so perhaps this isn’t regarded with the gravity it should be.

I get the fans’ anger and disappointment here. But my prevailing emotion is concern. It’s uncomfortable to watch someone beat themselves up like this. And clearly, there is a lot beneath the surface here. To traffic in cliché: I hope Rublev gets the help he needs. As Daniil Medvedev once put it, “I want him to like himself more.”

There’s an interesting discussion here about the role of the ATP tour. Within a conventional sports structure, the team or league could order mandatory counseling. When athletes are individual contractors, demanding counseling reads as paternalistic (and legally questionable). One angle I can think of is if the rulebook regarded these attacks the way it would regard attacks on another figure—acts of harm, not self-harm—perhaps there would at least be scoreboard pressure that would deter one from turning oneself into a one-man Fight Club.

Dear Jon,

I always enjoy the Mailbag, thanks for your great writing!

What are your thoughts on Daniel Nestor being passed over for the Tennis Hall of Fame? He was World No. 1 for 108 weeks, has 12 slam titles (eight men's doubles and four mixed doubles), Olympic gold, four ATP Finals titles and a total of 91 doubles titles. In contrast, Leander Paes (also one of my favorites so no shade intended) was selected last year with only 39 weeks at No. 1, zero ATP Finals titles, and 18 slam titles (eight men's and 10 mixed). It seems to me that there is way too much focus on the slam count and not enough on a player's complete body of work. Nestor's snub, in my opinion, is pretty egregious and should be rectified.

Thanks again, Joel

• We had several of these. A few thoughts:

A) The idea of anonymous voting for the Hall of Fame doesn’t sit well with me. Don’t vote if you’re not willing to own it. For the record, I voted for each of the four nominees in 2024.

B) There’s a great line from literature that I want to attribute and can’t find. Someone says Your standards are out of date. The wit responds: That’s why they are called standards. The inverse: It’s very hard to move off precedent. If Player X is in the Hall of Fame with XX credentials it’s awfully hard to deny Player Y with XX credentials—much less superior ones.

C) To me, Nestor wasn’t a particularly close call. Joel lays it out well. A player with more than 100 weeks at No.1, eight majors and almost 100 titles isn’t worthy of the Hall of Fame? O.K.

D) Some players might get a boost from pioneering credentials. I suspect that Paes got a boost as a player who helped popularize tennis in the Indian subcontinent. Michael Chang unquestionably was recognized for his impact on Asia. Apart from her doubles credentials, surely Pam Shriver’s leadership, media roles and overall presence factored into her candidacy. This is fine and in keeping with the values of a Hall of Fame that takes the full measure of a player’s contributions. But I would submit that Nestor’s role in kindling this era of Canadian tennis (a major champion, a major men’s finalist, a major women’s finalist and two additional top ten men) should not be ignored.

E) The Bryan brothers did Nestor no favors. Given their unrivaled credentials, I suspect some voters short-changed Nestor. And perhaps others were reluctant for three of four inductees to come from doubles.

F) For kicks, I looked up Nestor’s singles record. A top-60 ranking and a career win against Stefan Edberg ain’t bad. And, as long as you brought up Paes, Nestor’s singles career compares favorably to Paes’s.

G) Many were expecting controversy over Maria Sharapova and the doping ban that clouded her career. That obviously didn’t materialize. Who predicted Nestor’s omission as the Hall of Fame controversy of 2024?

H) We were prepared for a top-shelf trivia question: Who was the first player born in Belgrade admitted to the Tennis Hall of Fame? (Nestor was born in Belgrade more than a decade before Novak Djokovic was.)

I) Maybe this is a Mary Pierce scenario, where he gets in on a second ballot. But this was an unforced error by the voters. If Nestor isn’t worthy, Priam has no shot. Seriously, if Nestor isn’t worthy, the list of who is just got a lot shorter.

Jon, I thought of you after hearing a home run described as a “dinger.” What’s the worst tennis cliché out there?

Mark, LA

• So many choices, so little time. I am hardly indemnified here. Especially on live TV—without the luxuries of time, the delete key and an editor—I plead the fifth to “meet the moment” and “serving bombs” and “a lot of tools in the toolbox” and so on.

She got to the finals but didn’t play anyone to get there. Really? She still had to win six matches. She still had to win a semifinal against a player riding a five-match win streak.

Also, statistics that don’t add value. Break points converted is the big one. If we play 10 deuces and you break my serve, you may be a lowly 1-for-10 on break points converted; but you are ecstatic and I am dispirited. “Time on court” doesn’t always reveal much. Were there long points or short points? Did someone take a 10-minute bathroom break? Did someone in the crowd need medical assistance? Winners-to-errors don’t often reveal much, especially when aces are counted as winners.

And as we ponder this … here comes Michael from Western Carolina:

Hey Jon,

Whenever I see a headline urgently declaring how one player “stuns” another on the tennis court, I remind myself that you have, more than once, informed readers that reporters often don’t write the headlines. And I deeply appreciate colorful copy. Still, the word “stun” leaps out at me every time I read it in a tennis context. 

Often, it seems to be applied to straightforward victories, and very often, to mild upsets and matches that go the distance, feature a tiebreak, or are otherwise tight contests resulting in, inevitably, a happy winner and a disappointed loser. It’s as if, in tennis reporting, “stun” is synonymous with “defeat.” 

“Stun” defined by Merriam-Webster:

1: to make senseless, groggy, or dizzy by or as if by a blow
2: to shock with noise
3: to overcome especially with paralyzing astonishment or disbelief

So. Did Novak Djokovic “stun” Roger Federer, who was serving at 5–3, 40–15 in the fifth set in the 2011 U.S. Open semifinal? Definitely. 

Four years later, also at the U.S Open, did Roberta Vinci “stun” Serena Williams? Sure. 

The headline after Coco Gauff was methodically eliminated by Emma Navarro 6–4, 6–3 in London last summer? “Emma Navarro stuns Coco Gauff at Wimbledon.”

Then, today I read this—in the story: “Ben Shelton stormed into his fifth semifinal of 2024, stunning Andrey Rublev, 7–5, 6–7 (3), 6–4 at the Swiss Indoors Basel.”

These two are merely the instances at my fingertips. I am quite certain there are dozens if not hundreds, more. You’ve been around a while. You’ve got some clout.

Can you do something about this? 

Michael, Asheville, NC

• Amen, Michael. It’s an absurd descriptor in the best of times. (And Shelton beating a slumping Rublev on a fast indoor court is not the best of times.) I read stun and think of a cattle prod. There’s this high-voltage mechanism being applied … to a humdrum tennis result?

Hi Jon, don't forget these contributions from Rafael Nadal to tennis. And we may be still scratching the surface of how fearsome his game was in his prime and how significant his contributions are.

1. He single-handedly hunted the one-handed backhand to near extinction. A species that was alive and well in the top 100 and top 10 is now almost extinct and may never recover.

2. He pulled tennis out of the country club nonsense. Now it is seen as a sport for Iron Man endurance athletes rather than country club softies.

3. He rendered moot an entire generation's “expertise”... including John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, and Andre Agassi. Roger Federer himself at times who didn't know what he was doing was the future of tennis. Now an entire generation of top players regard him as a hero who changed the game itself.

4. Federer had to change his game to beat him, yet Nadal has more majors. The GOAT Djokovic put himself through extremes of fitness and diet to overcome Nadal and now has more majors than him. He was the most feared opponent of top 10 players.

All in all, Nadal is the most significant player of this century. 

Vijay K
Houston TX

• Okay in order:

1) Nadal didn’t kill the last wooly mammoth. But, yes, he hastened the demise of the one-hander. That somersaulting topspin, high into the backhand, is brutal for the one-handed opponent.

2) This is a longer conversation for another time. But the country club reputation has stuck to tennis like honey. And while it might be (slightly) true on a recreational level, for decades, top players—the Williams sisters, Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors, Martina Navratilova, Ivan Lendl, Yannick Noah, Pat Rafter, Agassi … we can keep going—hardly came from patrician origins. And yes, Nadal is proof that tennis is a brutal, bellicose, muscular, dirty and sweaty sport. 

3) You lost me on this one.

4) One component of the Big Three rivalry that gets overlooked: Each pushed the other to add dimensions and innovations. But you could as easily make the case that Federer (as first mover) set a threshold that pushed Nadal and Djokovic. Or Djokovic pushed Federer and Nadal.

We can argue “most significant,” but there’s a case to be made for Nadal for sure. One irony: Few, if any, players will be emulating his game and mechanics. (Yes, buy a racket with a child’s grip, hold it with your left hand way over here, and drench your shots in sidewinding spin). And countless players will be emulating his attitude, his work ethic, his sportsmanship and his mode of being.

Hi Jon,

I just wanted to comment on something you wrote in the mailbag, and Roddick has said on the podcast about the Jannik Sinner incident, but really about doping testing in general.  

You wrote that only a trace amount of the drug was found on the test, and that this small amount could not have had a performance-enhancing benefit.  I'm not sure you can really make that inference.

Yes, a low concentration on a drug test would be consistent with only a small amount of the drug having entered his system. But a low concentration would also be consistent with a larger amount of the drug having been administered a longer while before the test. In the latter case, the test is picking up a trace amount because most of the drug has been metabolized and cleared out of his system. 

I just don't think you can infer just from the concentration on the test how much of the drug was originally introduced into his body without knowing when it entered his system. I am definitely not an expert in this but that is my understanding anyway.

Thanks, Tobin

• Thanks. I don’t recall saying quite that, but your point is taken. I recall pointing out that the amount was (literally) infinitesimally small. And, I recall saying that while this could be indicative of a false positive, this could just as easily be construed as an athlete cycling off a drug. I would not read too much into the quantity. (Especially when it was given as a function of grams which is a strange, potentially misleading, denominator for a doping case.)

Again, it’s easy to have a reflexive hot take about Sinner and his guilt or innocence. Accusing an athlete of doping is about as serious an allegation as one can level and shouldn’t be made lightly. At the same time, we could be here until breakfast naming athletes who have categorically denied doping only to admit guilt later. (Digression: If I am an accused athlete I despise Lance Armstrong who has sown such cynicism, professing innocence to the point that he sued accusers and upended their lives … only to later admit he was wrong and the accusers were right.)

Having read the initial Sinner report, I don’t take issue with the conclusion that his positive test(s) was absent intent or personal negligence. However, I am open to reconsidering after reading the appeal. Which everyone hopes arrives soon.

Why do the Big Ten refs suck? How do they compare to the SEC?
Exhibit 1: Watch the Nebraska vs. (THE) Ohio State game.
Can't spot the ball?
OPI Really?
Since when can the ground cause a fumble—Incomplete pass?
What say the Big Ten Conference about their crews? 
Ron L.

• Wrong mailbag, I fear. But, A) I am always happy to discuss Big Ten officiating over a beer and have my opinion here, especially when Indiana is adversely impacted. B) This is a good reminder that tennis is not alone in officiating controversies and cynicism.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE!