WTA Tour Finals begin, ATP ‘Race to Turin’ concludes and Ugo Humbert celebrations draw ire

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.

This week, the WTA Tour Finals debuted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while the ATP Paris Masters left Bercy for the last time before it moves to La Defense Arena west of the French capital from 2025. Here’s everything you need to know from the past seven days in tennis.

RIYADH — Two days of play at the WTA Tour Finals in Saudi Arabia have brought two very different vibes on court.

On Saturday, the tournament felt alive, thanks largely to the raucous support for Zheng Qinwen from Chinese fans in the crowd. They roared on Zheng during her 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in an atmosphere reminiscent of the Wuhan Open final a few weeks ago when Sabalenka again beat Zheng, on that occasion in three sets.

Zheng has taken advantage of having a locker room to herself by singing a pre-match song with her team — by Taylor Swift, for those wondering. And the vibes kept coming from her after the match as she remained upbeat despite the loss.

As happens at many events, the arena emptied out after Zheng’s match – which was perceived as the headline. Jasmine Paolini and Elena Rybakina took to the court to a smaller but still involved crowd, with Paolini calling out Italian support after her 7-6(5), 6-4 win. The crowd was even thinner for the doubles match that ended the day between U.S. Open champions Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko and Wimbledon champions Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova, which the latter pair took in a match tiebreak.

Sunday, which is a working day in Saudi Arabia, was altogether different, with around only 400 in the crowd despite the cheapest tickets going for 32.50 Riyals ($8.66 / £6.66). The 5,000-capacity arena felt eerily empty, in contrast to Saturday when it had been around three-quarters full.

Iga Swiatek, who at the French Open in May asked for the crowd to be less vocal during points after her win over Naomi Osaka, said she quite enjoyed the tranquility of the near-empty stadium on Sunday during her 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 win over Barbora Krejcikova. She also paid tribute to the vocal Polish support she received. Coco Gauff then beat fellow American Jessica Pegula 6-3, 6-2 in a pretty flat match, though neither blamed the lack of atmosphere for that. Pegula said: “We’ve played many matches where there’s not many people. We’ve played all through Covid where there was nobody.”

Gauff said that it would take time for the event to generate greater interest in Saudi, drawing comparisons with the WNBA (women’s basketball league) in the United States, and calling Sunday’s challenges “growing pains.”

This chimed with the view of the WTA, who said in a statement: “It’s important to remember that this is the first time a WTA event has been held in Saudi Arabia, so we’re bringing tennis to a new audience and that takes time to build.

“Our aim is to grow the WTA Finals and build attendance over the term of the three-year partnership. What we are sure of is that everyone who comes will enjoy exciting tennis and a great experience.”

The statement added: “We’re pleased with the strong attendance at the opening day of the WTA Finals with thousands watching from the stands. We always anticipated lower attendance with the start of the Saudi working week on Sunday but anticipate that numbers will build as we approach the weekend. There is a great atmosphere and support from the fans.”

Not everyone in tennis is so sure. In a Zoom interview last week, leading WTA coach Patrick Mouratoglou said he hoped the finals would be a success but expressed frustration at a perceived missed opportunity to better promote the marquee event on the women’s tour: “If it’s half empty and with no atmosphere like it was in some other places before, I don’t think it’s a great promotion for our sport. If I was running the ATP or WTA, I would look at that — where to put the events so there is some more passion about tennis.”

All eyes will be on Belgrade, Serbia and Metz, France this week. Two small tournaments on the calendar — with only 250 points and $700,000 in prize money on offer — will decide the fate of the four players battling for the last two (or three) spots at the ATP Tour Finals in Turin.

Grigor Dimitrov, Casper Ruud, Andrey Rublev and Alex De Minaur are all hunting for results, and with them a spot in the finals. De Minaur and Dimitrov looked like they might lock things up in Paris, but then they both lost in the quarter-finals to miss out on a big points haul.

De Minaur looks like he might have made a smart call here. He’s headed to Belgrade, where he is the top seed. His biggest competition would have been Tommy Paul, world No. 12, but the American withdrew because of illness. The other three are headed to Metz, where potential cannibalization awaits. Then there’s the question of Novak Djokovic, who currently has the fifth spot but is yet to confirm that he will even play.

Maybe this is the way the ATP Tour wants it, but some sort of straight playoff with all involved for any open spots in the last week of the regular season might not be the worst idea, especially at a time of year when tennis tournaments are generally fighting a losing battle for eyeballs.

A quick gaze at the women’s rankings produces a pretty clear case for America being the favorite at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, with the event getting underway next week in Malaga, Spain.

The U.S. has three players ranked in the top eight — Coco Gauff at 3, Jessica Pegula at 6, and Emma Navarro at 8. All three would have made the Tour Finals in Riyadh, but Navarro fell victim to the rule that allowed Barbora Krejcikova to qualify since she won a Grand Slam title (beating Jasmine Paolini in the Wimbledon final) and finished the year ranked inside the top 20.

That looks like the backbone of a pretty good team, and that’s before you get to Taylor Townsend, ranked No. 9 in doubles.

Problem is, Gauff, Pegula and Navarro have all decided to take a pass on the event. Pegula withdrew this week. Navarro, who withdrew from the Ningbo Open (on Hangzhou Bay, south of Shanghai) with an illness, is apparently done for the year.

Iga Swiatek expressed similar sentiments in withdrawing from the event that year, criticizing the WTA and International Tennis Federation (ITF) for scheduling the two events so close in the calendar but so far away from each other geographically.

“I’m disappointed that tennis governing bodies didn’t come to an agreement on something as basic as the calendar of tournaments, giving us only one day to travel through the globe and changing the time zone,” she wrote on Instagram.

“The situation is not safe for our health and could cause injury. I’m going to talk to the WTA and ITF in order to change something.”

Those withdrawals and skips have left captain Lindsay Davenport perusing the ladder. Danielle Collins, world No. 10, was always going to be there. But losing the three players above her in the rankings has opened up space for Peyton Stearns and the latest addition, 20-year-old Ashlyn Krueger, who is No. 65 in the singles rankings.

Krueger, an Orange Bowl champion as a junior, has never played in the Billie Jean King Cup before. Stearns has, and like Collins, she has experience with team tennis from her time at the University of Texas.

It’s a solid team, though Krueger has only made it past the first round of a Grand Slam once, at this year’s U.S. Open. It’s just not Gauff, Pegula and Navarro, which would have been pretty dreamy. Perhaps not as good as the 2003 squad featuring the Williams sisters or the 1998 one with Davenport and Monica Seles, but pretty darn good.

Speaking in a news conference in Riyadh, Gauff said that she loves team events but that the turn from the 2022 WTA Tour Finals in Fort Worth, Texas to the BJK Cup Finals, that year in Glasgow, was too much. “I didn’t want to put myself in that position,” she said.

Nothing has changed just yet. Next year perhaps — or some year when playing the event doesn’t mean losing a week of off-season rest or training.

‘See you next time’ is a pretty evergreen sentiment in tennis. Players develop head-to-head rivalries throughout their careers, whether defined by the pursuit of titles, a contrast in styles, or just some good needle.

When Karen Khachanov said it after losing to Ugo Humbert in three sets in Paris, it was all about the needle.

After a tight two and a half sets, the Russian world No. 19 took a medical timeout. He spent the remainder of the match in increasing discomfort, collapsing to his knees on a couple of occasions and at times failing to run for balls. This didn’t deter Humbert for celebrating every point like it was his last, beating his chest, saluting the crowd, roaring and grunting louder than is typical during shots — as he has done all week in front of a baying home crowd.

Khachanov was not impressed.

“No idea how to behave. I always play fair and I will congratulate him if he behaves like a normal person,” Khachanov told Netherlands TV channel .

“Jumping and screaming ‘Come on, Allez!’ every point? You think it’s OK? You can celebrate after, no problem… But to hit once one guy is on the ground? OK, see you next time.”

Humbert’s reaction to facing an injured player was atypical — exchanges in which one player is healthy and the other cannot move often descend into tentative hitting contests through the middle of the court, with the fit player seemingly unable to break out of set patterns. When Jasmine Paolini faced a clearly injured Madison Keys at Wimbledon, she hit just one drop shot and then stopped, despite it being a winner, seemingly out of pity.

Humbert said he wanted to “give something back to the crowd” on his post-match interview and credited the 15,000 fans for giving him a “second wind” when Khachanov was suffering. It is easy to understand why a player would get whipped up in front of a home crowd, but it’s also easy to see why such intense celebrations in front of a player with no response to even the most middling shot come across as disrespectful.

While everyone was looking at Bercy, Corentin Moutet was making magic in Metz.

🎾 ATP: 

🏆 Alexander Zverev (3) def. Ugo Humbert (15) 6-2, 6-2 to win the Paris Masters (1000) in Paris. It is Zverev’s second ATP title of the season.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Diana Shnaider (1) def. Katie Boulter (2) 6-1, 6-2 to win the Hong Kong Open (250) in Hong Kong. She is the only WTA player to win a title on all three surfaces in 2024.

🏆 Viktorija Golubic def. Rebecca Sramkova (2) 6-3, 7-5 to win the Jiangxi Open (250) in Jiujiang, China. It is Golubic’s second WTA Tour title of her career.

🏆 Zeynep Sonmez def. Ann Li 6-2, 6-1 to win the Merida Open (250) in Merida, Mexico. It the first WTA Tour title of her career.

📈 Alexander Zverev overtakes Carlos Alcaraz as world No. 2, while Daniil Medvedev unseats Novak Djokovic as world No. 4.

📈 Diana Shnaider ascends two spots from No. 14 to No. 12 after her title in Hong Kong, for a new career high.

📈 Zeynep Sonmez moves up 36 places after her title in Mexico, rising to a new career high of No. 91 from No. 127.

📉 Andrey Rublev falls two places from No. 7 to No. 9 in the ‘Race to Turin,’ putting him out of the ATP Tour Finals as it stands.

📉 Sara Errani falls out of the top 100, dropping 15 places from No. 89 to No. 104.

📉 Alexander Bublik drops 40 points from last year’s Paris Masters, pushing him from No. 33 to No. 34 and further away from an Australian Open seeding.

🎾 ATP 

📍Belgrade, Serbia: Belgrade Open (250) featuring Alex De Minaur, Hamad Medjedovic, Francisco Cerundolo, Marin Cilic.