Submissions have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
As it is written, Wednesday is mailbag day …
• Here’s the Served podcast’s “2025 U.S. Open Re-Draw Special”:
Onward …
Jon, I heard you and Andy [Roddick] talking about no lets on serves. How would this work exactly and what do the players think?
Charles, 317
• First, some backstory. Perhaps you noticed that at the 2025 U.S. Open—and at other majors before this—there has been no technology on the court to determine if a let should be called. Instead, the calls fall to the chair umpires. Why? There is a patent dispute with the company that holds the technology.
The upshot: The majors have discussed using this as an opportunity to do away with the let entirely. A ball clips the tape and lands in the box? Just play it out as you would within a rally. There would be a few cheap points to the server, a serve clipping the net and dribbling over. There would be a few cheap points to the receiver, as a ball clipped the tape and turned into an easy sitter. The thinking? The luck would even out. The absence of the let would speed up play. And there would be no controversies, especially since we are now lacking technology.
What do the players say? I will ask around in the next few days. But there are no lets in college tennis or in the juniors. And I’m told that, after a brief adjustment period, it’s no longer an issue and everyone has adapted.
Hi Jon, I know there are a lot of questions swirling around about the [Jeļena] Ostapenko/[Taylor] Townsend words. Ostapenko addressed this slightly in her post the other day but when I heard the words “no education” as a Spanish speaker I would have interpreted that as “no manners” as opposed to uneducated. It’s still an insult and sour grapes but if the meaning in Latvian is similar to Spanish and other languages it may give more context to the words.
Regardless, as many have noted, Ostapenko should change her on court attitudes significantly before criticizing someone else’s and Ostapenko was the one who took an extended bathroom break to try (unsuccessfully) to break Townsend’s momentum.
I’ve been a fan of Townsend for many years and kudos to her for her mature handling of this matter and for the public to give her much deserved support.
Regards, Brian (Weston, FL)
• Read into this what you will, but most of the questions this week were not about Carlos Alcaraz in full flight, Barbora Krejčíková beating Townsend in one of the best matches of 2025 or the steady excellence of Jannik Sinner. It was about Ostapenko. Part of me doesn’t want to fuel this, especially at the expense of the tennis. Part of me feels like I need to be faithful to you all and address the most popular topic. So, some residual points on Ostapenko …
A) Let’s start with a positive. If nothing else, this incident exposed what tennis connoisseurs have known for years: Townsend is a treasure, both in the way she comports herself and, not insignificantly, the way she plays tennis. If this is what it took to showcase her excellence, so be it.
B) Ostapenko was wrong. She apologized (belatedly, not directly to Townsend, etc.), but still, she apologized. At some point, we have to give some grace, no?
C) At last year’s Wimbledon, the Tennis Channel aired this segment with Ostapenko, and we gave her a lesson in the firm handshake. She totally played along and was not remotely offended or sniffy. This is a player who gets caught up in the heat of competition and has plenty of beef with plenty of players. This is a player who could stand to improve her sportsmanship, but this is not a nefarious person.
D) Accusing anyone of lacking in education is harsh and, likely, ironic. (As one recently retired player told me, “Even most of the college players didn’t graduate. Lot of glass houses out here!”)
Jon, are you willing to admit that you overhyped João Fonseca? I know y’all need some new heroes after [Roger] Federer, [Rafael] Nadal and [Novak] Djokovic but is this really the guy?
Bruno
• You mean the kid—and he is a kid; he just turned 19 last week—who won at least one match at every major this year? Without declaring him a future Hall of Famer, let’s also pump the brakes on using words like “overhyped.”
I saw you on Tennis Channel talking about Novak Djokovic’s statistics. Do you really think his second serve is THAT relevant? Especially given his experience and [aura]?
Todd B.
• So, yes, with a nod to Craig O’Shannessy (who used to work with Djokovic) I noted that, through four rounds (not including Djokovic’s quarterfinal win over Taylor Fritz), among the men remaining in contention, he had the lowest percentage of unreturnable second serves at just 13%. (Compared, for instance, to Alcaraz’s 31%.)
We’ve talked about the imperfection of tennis statistics. Who did Djokovic play? Were they accomplished returners? Was he spot serving? Still, we can look to the data for cues. And it’s clear that if he wants to win this title he’ll need more cheap and free points on his second serves.
Dear Jon,
Please explain to us the economic rationalization of ESPN’s U.S. Open coverage. Specifically, why does the network, without fail, assume that tennis/sports fans always value big names over interesting matches that are well underway? For example, instead of sticking with the third set of a compelling match featuring an American ([Amanda] Anisimova), they switch the beginning of [Iga] Świątek’s third round match against an under matched opponent straight. They cut from [Adrian] Mannarino vs. [ Jiří] Lehečka, a fun match heading into the fourth, to bring us Alcaraz’s Round of 16 match, because god forbid we see anyone but the highest seeds play tennis. Yes, I know I have the option of paying for ESPN+. But why not mix things up and put Alcaraz and Świątek’s on ESPN+? Surely fans would be more likely to pay to see them than Mannarino? Are people really turning off a good match because they don’t recognize or consistently root for the players? Doesn’t ESPN realize that I’d rather maintain my righteous indignation than give the streaming services another red cent?
Taylor Witkin, Malden, MA
• Here’s the TV dance. Hardcore fans say, Why are you showing me this blowout involving a star when, say, Jenson Brooksby and Flavio Cobolli are having a gripping battle. The network executives say, You are armed with data showing fans like stars. Why are we airing Cobolli vs. Brooksby when Sinner is playing? Which is TV criticism distilled to its essence. One person likes broadcaster X for her modesty, while another says she is boring and predictable. One person likes the courtside reporter. Another says they are distracting. More doubles! Why are you polluting my Labor Day afternoon with doubles!
Any complaint, as Taylor notes, is met with: Download the app or register for the plus channel, check out our direct-to-consumer option, and you can watch any match, anytime. (You just have to pay for it.)
Here’s my overarching television criticism. Most sports have become niche, tennis included—disintermediation and all. Fewer people pick up a remote control and happen to come across tennis. Fans are there intentionally. For the U.S. Open coverage—never mind the Australian Open coverage at unholy hours—most are hardcore. Treat them like the aficionados they are. The storylines are presented broadly and blandly. (Rafael Nadal retired, but there is a new Spanish bull! The U.S. Open is an asphalt jungle! Something is in the water in Italy. Djokovic is battling Father Time.) Telling the same anecdotes again and again and again? (Alexander Bublik went to Vegas! The dad is Corey, so she goes by Coco! Jessica Pegula is a Bills fan because her dad owns the team!) It insults the audience and seems to me to be a fundamental misreading of media consumption in 2025.
Hi John—just a comment—did you see much of the Tommy Paul vs. Bublik match? One of the best tennis matches I’ve ever seen! (And I’ve seen a lot!) Bublik is a wizard—28 winners on drop shots! Has not been broken once in the first three matches/11 sets. The level was INSANE. What a pity that this match—the best match of the tournament so far in terms of both quality and entertainment—was on so late that most people missed it. But if you read the comments made on the highlight video put out by the USTA, you’ll see that many people echo my feelings. Hope you’re well. And I love the podcast you do with Andy! Cheers!
Dr. Mark
• Thanks much. Yes, as I write this on Labor Day, Bublik has been one of the revelations of the tournament. After a disappointing Wimbledon—everyone’s hot pick lost in the first round (to Jaume Munar)—he is back to Roland Garros form. What a level of tennis, especially his serving. What a wonderfully strange tennis mind, with some of the wildest shot selection you’ll encounter. What a sui generis personality.
Hot take (meant not as shade but as praise to the greats): Bublik is also valuable in that he underscores the consistency of Sinner and Alcaraz (and the Big Three before them). If tennis were simply a matter of talent they would be Bublik—capable of breathtaking tennis but also moody, mercurial results. It’s talent plus commitment that separates the fun-to-watch comets from the week-in-week-out winners.
(Ed: A few hours after composing this answer, Bublik lost to Sinner 6–1, 6–1, 6–1 in roughly the time it takes to read this column. So it goes.)
Hi Jon,
The Sunday start/extra day only benefits the USTA’s bottom line.
Because of the extra day for the first round, there is one less match on the show courts. As a result, [Arthur] Ashe empties out at 2:30 p.m. until 7 p.m., causing the fat cats there to flood out into the outside courts, where we real tennis/grounds pass fans then can’t get into see [Gaël] Monfils on Court 5 or [Stefanos] Tsitsipas on Court 7, two places the Ashe well heeled crowd would never before have ventured.
Keep them entertained in the Colosseum, I say. Leave the real tennis fans patrolling the grounds in peace.
Respectfully,
Dominic Ciafardini
NY
• Yeah, a few of you hammered me for giving the Sunday start an “A” mark in my midterm grades column. My thought: Not everyone can take a day off from work to watch tennis, either in person or on TV. So why not load up weekend sessions? The extra (Sun)day gives fans an additional opportunity to come or watch. The three-day first round still offers plenty of matches and it gives some players an extra day off. It means more money, yes, for the tournament, but also, in theory, for the competitors.
I get the impression my enthusiasm—or benign indifference—is not shared. Regarding Dominic’s specific complaint, we really need three matches on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Here’s what happened again and again last week: At 11:30 a.m. ET, the $39.50 lobster roll crowds came to Ashe for the start of play. The matches were either not competitive or fast, or both. By 2:00 p.m. ET, the $26 chicken nuggets crowd tired of Ashe and began to take to the grounds. Ashe emptied. The connoisseurs got crowded out. And by 3:30 p.m. ET or so, there was no more tennis inside the sport’s biggest venue.
ENJOY THE BUSINESS END OF THE 2025 U.S. OPEN, EVERYONE!
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tennis Mailbag: Lets, Meltdowns and More From the 2025 U.S. Open.