📢 = Player Announcement/News

🤕 = Injury/Fitness Update

🏅 = Awards

🚨 = Controversy

📊 = Stats/Records

📱 = YouTube/Instagram/Snapchat

🤕 Pablo Andujar, who was the world No. 32 in 2015, has completed a stunning comeback into the Top 100, after three elbow surgeries derailed his career. In February this year Pablo was the No. 1824 in the world, but the Spaniard finished 2018 ranked No. 82. A brilliant (and probably underreported) achievement.

For more info on the years biggest ranking risers, click here.

🏅The ATP have announced their best slam matches of 2018 with some very questionable ordering and choices (The Racquet’s picks are coming next week):

Nadal vs Thiem - US Open Djokovic vs Nadal - Wimbledon Nadal vs Del Potro - Wimbledon Cilic vs De Minaur - US Open Federer vs Cilic - Australian Open (LOL)

Full list.

📢 Emmanuel Planque has announced that he’ll no longer be coaching Lucas Pouille, and instead will start working with Corentin Moutet. Moutet is 19 years old, and world No 150.

This isn’t that surprising given the two players recent trajectories. Pouille was No.10 in the world in March this year, but finished the season at No. 32 after a disappointing 2018. Moutet, on the other hand, is one of the brightest, French, next-gen, talents alongside Ugo Humbert (No.84).

It will be interesting to see who Pouille announces as his next coach. The 24 year old previously (and briefly) had Tommy Haas in his corner (although Haas is the current Indian Wells Tournament Director).

Pouille graciously wished the new partnership well:

🚨 Justin Gimelstob, the former player and current ATP Board member, is in the process of defending serious assault allegations (info here) against a Californian Venture Capitalist. This is the latest in a long line of Neanderthalic missteps from the former world No. 63, that have somehow failed to remove him from his positions of authority and influence in the sport. Some very worrying questions, about tennis’s organisational structure, emerge when you consider that an individual with such a stained track record has managed to not only keep his positions of power in tennis, but positively thrive in recent years. Gimelstob, before the most recent allegations, was apparently regarded as next in line to the ATP President role (currently occupied by Christ Kermode), according to the Telegraph.

The ten strong ATP Players Council (currently led by Novak Djokovic) would need only a 6-4 majority to remove Gimelstob from his ATP role. This Council is meeting imminently to make a decision.

Gimelstob’s most recent allegations revolve around assault accusations from his wife, a businessman (Kris Thabit), a paddle tennis player and the VC referenced above. That 4 separate people are accusing him of such things, all within the last few years, paints an incredibly poor picture of the former player.

📱 ATP Players asked who the best looking player on tour is. Dimitrov struggling not to say himself is pretty priceless.

📱 Jack Sock’s ranking drop excuse clearly didn’t fly with the doping control team. (Source):

— I’d probably be checking for stashed pop-tarts, rather than drugs tbh.

📱 Krygios taking a brief break from Basketball and Call Of Duty. (Source)

Nick while streaming:

“I'd rather play this (than tennis) to be honest.”

📱 The Iceman’s still got it.

📱 Eliot Loney with one of his classic Rafa impressions:

— “This is the Bernard Tomic: we gonna look at the beautiful dish, admire it… and then throw it in the bin, waste it.”

📱 doublefault28 (Tennis-Twitter GIF maker extraordinaire) ran down his best GIFS of the season. You can check them out here.

📱Kyle Edmund hanging out with Liverpool legend, Alan Hansen.

📢 Zhe Li, at the ripe old age of 32, has qualified for a Grand Slam main draw for the first time in his career. He beat Zhang Ze 1-6, 7-6, 6-4 in the Asia Pacific Wild Card Playoff Final.

📱You know it’s the off-season on r/tennis when…

📊 One of Rafa's more impressive consistency records. Despite multiple seasons where he missed approx half (or more) of the year’s points through injury, he still hasn't been outside the Top 10 since he entered it in 2005.

You’re all caught up! That’s everything that happened in tennis this week (off-season week 1 is always the quietest time of the year).

Racquet subscribers will be getting the ‘ATP vs ITF’ issue in the next day or two (I delayed it to make sure it’s thorough), as well as the ‘Matches Of The Season’ Issue.

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GAME, SET, MATCH 👋

— The Racquet is created, and written, by Matt.

— You can find me on Twitter here.