Tennis stars get Grand Slam wearable technology boost after Australian Open controversy

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

This week, there were statement wins on the clay on both the men’s and women’s tours, ahead of the first headline combined event on the red dirt: the Madrid Open.

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Why can stars now wear more than their hearts on their sleeves at majors?

The second Grand Slam of the year will not be adding more cameras to player areas, following privacy complaints from a number of tennis stars at January’s Australian Open.

Coco Gauff was filmed smashing her racket seven times, in what she thought was a private area, after losing in the quarterfinals to Elina Svitolina. During a news conference, Gauff said “maybe some conversations can be had, because I feel like at this tournament the only private place we have is the locker room.

“I kind of have a thing with the broadcast. I feel like certain moments don’t need to broadcast.”

In a news conference a day later, Iga Świątek asked “are we tennis players, or are we animals in the zoo?”

In another, Novak Djokovic said that he “was surprised that we have no cameras while we are taking a shower.” A Tennis Australia spokesperson said that “striking the right balance between showcasing the personalities and skills of the players, while ensuring their comfort and privacy, is a priority for the AO.”

In a virtual news conference Thursday, French Open tournament director Amélie Mauresmo said that while broadcasters had asked for more access to player areas, the tournament wants to “maintain the respect for their privacy.”

“They need to have a private area so we won’t change on that stance,” Mauresmo said.

“And we will not add cameras. This is the position we’ve decided to take, and we have taken this position for a few years. We want to maintain this and not change on that ground. This is for the service to players.”

The French Open will also respond to the Australian Open’s other player brouhaha: wearable technology.

Players will be allowed to wear approved devices that track biometric data on a trial basis at Roland Garros, and that trial will also be implemented at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

In Melbourne, Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner were all asked to remove their Whoop bands — a bracelet that tracks biometric data including heart rate variability, skin temperature and blood oxygen — before matches.

WTA and ATP Tour events have permitted them for years, and the International Tennis Federation, whose rulebook the majors follow, also allows them to be used. But the four Grand Slams are yet to individually approve wearables at their tournaments, once again drawing attention to how fractured the sport is between its multiple, often contradictory, governing bodies.

The ban drew also criticism from the players involved. Sabalenka, who is a Whoop ambassador, argued that they should have access to their own health data. It’s commonplace for athletes across sports to track biometric data to attempt to maximize performance from a training and recovery standpoint.

Information gathered from live matches can be particularly valuable because it’s impossible to reproduce the same conditions an athlete faces in competition on a practice court.

“There is certain data that we would like to track a little bit on court. It’s not for the live thing,” Sinner said at the Australian Open, countering the idea that wearables offer a tactical advantage. “It’s more about what you can see after the match. These are data that we would like to use also in practice sessions.”

Now, Grand Slam tennis is joining the ranks of the NBA, NFL, MLB, WNBA and professional golf, all of which permit wearable technology in some capacity — and Sinner will know exactly how much his heart rate fluctuates, should he find himself in another five-set marathon final against Alcaraz in Paris.

— Charlie Eccleshare and Ava Wallace

Who has showed up for the start of clay-court season?

With Alcaraz and Djokovic (both right arm) out of the Madrid Open due to injury, world No. 1 Sinner intends to play the ATP Masters 1000 when the main draw starts Tuesday. One of Sinner’s coaches, Simone Vagnozzi, said during the Monte Carlo Masters that he might miss the event too, but the Italian has traveled to the Spanish capital, where he could win a fifth ATP Masters 1000 tournament in a row.

With 2025 champion Casper Ruud and runner-up Jack Draper also doubtful due to right calf and right knee injuries respectively, players that found success in the clay-court tournaments this past week might fancy their chances in Madrid.

Ben Shelton might be one of them. When a big-serving American man pronounces high hopes for his performance on red clay, the rest of tennis typically rolls its eyes.

Shelton has been trying to flip that script, and he made a pretty big stride Sunday, when he won the ATP 500 Munich Open. It was the biggest title for an American man on clay since Andre Agassi won the Italian Open — in 2002.

“It’s slowly becoming one of my favorite surfaces to play on,” Shelton said after his 6-2, 7-5 win over Flavio Cobolli of Italy.

Shelton, 22, made the final in Munich last year. He notched some solid wins during the past week, including his defeat of João Fonseca Friday and Cobolli Sunday. Cobolli, who beat defending champion Alexander Zverev to reach the final, started cold, but found his rhythm and some more velocity on his forehand in the second set. Against a player whose ceiling can rise high but whose floor can sink quickly, Shelton stood his ground.

He used a nifty play that had worked all week – taking advantage of the high bounce in clay to hit down on balls and go on the attack. He’ll find that harder against a stronger field, and in different conditions.

“Each week is different, each tournament has different challenges, and each clay court surface is slightly different,” he said in response to questions asked via the ATP Tour.

Munich’s altitude, which is just over 1,700 feet, likely gave Shelton a little lift, allowing his power strokes the send balls through the air a little faster than at sea level. He will have that advantage later this week at the Madrid Open, which is a few hundred feet above Munich at just under 2,200.

Another might be Arthur Fils, who won the Barcelona Open Sunday 6-2, 7-6(2) against Andrey Rublev. Fils, 21, has reached two finals, a semifinal and a quarterfinal in his four biggest events of 2026 so far. After missing half of 2025 and the start of 2026 to rehab a stress fracture in his lower back, he has returned with a more compact forehand and all of the intensity that makes him such a compelling player to watch. Fils and Shelton, along with the rising Spaniard Rafael Jódar and Fonseca, look well-placed to do some damage at the Madrid Open.

Jódar, 19, proved his credentials in Barcelona not with a statement top-10 win built on his fearsome forehand, but with a routine dismissal of the difficult Cameron Norrie, taking the ball early time and again against a player whose forehand loop and backhand skid drive so many to distraction. It took a three-set win from Fils to take him out.

On the WTA Tour, Elena Rybakina again thrived on the indoor clay at the Stuttgart Tennis Grand Prix, to win her second title there in three seasons. She recovered from being broken when serving for the opening set against Karolína Muchová to win it 7-5, before cruising through the second 6-1 in Germany.

The win gives Rybakina, the world No. 2, separation in the WTA rankings from No. 3 Coco Gauff, and with world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka defending one title (Madrid), one runner-up (French Open) and one quarterfinal (Italian Open) in the coming weeks, Rybakina has an opportunity to make a push toward the top spot.

In Sabalenka’s absence, Rybakina was top seed at the Stuttgart Tennis Grand Prix. In France, top seed Marta Kostyuk won the Rouen Open over teenage Ukrainian compatriot Veronika Podrez, who qualified for the main draw after a run of wins on the third-tier World Tennis Tour.

Kostyuk’s 6-3, 6-4 win made her the seventh top seed in a row to win a WTA Tour event, a streak that started with Sabalenka’s BNP Paribas Open win over Rybakina in Indian Wells, Calif.

There have been several withdrawals from the WTA event in Madrid, too. Muchová pulled out following her run to the final in Stuttgart, while Grand Slam champions Barbora Krejčíková and Emma Raducanu are also out, along with top-30 American Emma Navarro.

— Matt Futterman and James Hansen

What does another Murray tennis retirement look like?

Either side of the French Open revealing Thursday that it will honor Gaël Monfils, who will retire at the end of this season, there were two more retirement announcements in men’s tennis.

First, on Wednesday, former doubles world No. 1 Jamie Murray announced that he was calling it quits aged 40, while former world No. 9 Roberto Bautista Agut, who is 38, confirmed Thursday that this would be his last year on the tour.

Murray won two men’s doubles Grand Slams and five in mixed, despite the almost unfathomable disadvantage of being unable to hit a topspin forehand after a junior coach made tweaks to the shot in his early teens. “The coach… made some changes to Jamie’s forehand in the first couple of weeks which were completely destabilizing,” his mother Judy wrote in her autobiography. Prior to that Murray had been a precocious singles talent and considered by many to be a better prospect than his younger brother Andy, who retired with a fair amount more of both fanfare and angst in 2024

After assessing his options, Jamie turned his attention to doubles and won his first mixed Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 2007, with Jelena Janković. After a five-and-a-half-year fallow period, Murray said that he could not see a future in professional tennis at the 2013 Australian Open. But after reuniting with doubles coach and guru Louis Cayer, he got his career back on track, and in 2016 he won the Australian and U.S. Opens with Brazil’s Bruno Soares, leading to Murray becoming the world No. 1 in doubles for the first time.

Murray also helped Britain lift the 2015 Davis Cup, winning the doubles rubber in the quarters, semis and final with his brother Andy.  Jamie made up for his lack of a conventional forehand with an outstanding net game, and his success paved the way for the current men’s doubles golden age that Britain is enjoying. Since Murray became Britain’s first ever world No 1, four compatriots — Joe Salisbury, Neal Skupski, Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash – have topped the men’s doubles rankings, while Henry Patten has reached No. 3.

Bautista Agut has been a similar maximizer. Not blessed with huge weapons, the Spaniard reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2019, winning 12 ATP Tour titles in all and playing a key role in Spain’s 2019 Davis Cup triumph.

When Bautista Agut beat Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime in the opening rubber of that year’s final just three days after his father had passed away, teammate Rafael Nadal said: “For me, what he did was something almost (super) human.”

Ranked No. 93, he is still ranked high enough to receive automatic entry for next month’s French Open.

— Charlie Eccleshare

How do two South American tennis stars see its future?

From Tuesday to Sunday last week, Roland Garros ran the fifth South American edition of its Junior Series by Renault competition.

The event, which took place in São Paulo, Brazil, offers 16 boys and 16 girls from the continent the chance to earn a wild card for the French Open juniors. The winner of the inaugural event, in 2022, was João Fonseca. Fonseca, who was 15 at the time, has since gone on to claim a place in the world’s top 30 and be considered one of the future stars of the sport. Entries for the Junior Series are open to players born between Jan. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2012 from the South American countries and Mexico, with 12 decided on junior ranking and four wild cards awarded.

The event is part of the desire from the Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT) to grow the sport beyond Europe and North America, with last year also seeing the first edition of the Junior Series event in Asia.

As well as the potential golden ticket to Roland Garros, the South American Junior Series sees the youngsters receiving advice and mentorship from Juan Martin del Potro and Gabriela Sabatini. They are the last man and woman from the continent to win a Grand Slam singles title, and its place in the wider tennis world is under more pressure than ever.

Despite the huge passion for the sport and the big crowds at the events that take place there, as well as the vast number of South Americans that travel all over the world, the new ATP Masters 1000 event in Saudi Arabia is expected to take place in February, from 2028. On the current ATP Tour calendar, that coincides with when the Argentina Open, Rio de Janeiro Open and Chile Open take place, as well as the Mexican Open in Acapulco, a 500 event like the Rio de Janeiro Open (Argentina and Chile are 250s, the lowest rung of the ATP Tour). The Athletic reported last month that the ATP is in talks to reacquire the licenses for the Argentina Open and the Mexican Open.

“South American fans love tennis. They don’t care if it’s a Challenger or 500 tournament. People will be following any tournament in any country of South America,” del Potro, who won the 2009 U.S. Open, said during a video interview.

“I think (the) ATP has to be smart and listening about this because we have a fantastic story in the sport, and we’re always travelling so much to the big events, and as a South American people, it’s so difficult and very expensive to pay for flights and hotels. So I think they have to do something smart for our tennis. And I know they’re working hard on that, but I don’t know what it’s gonna be.

“I think (the) ATP has to listen to the players as well, because all players want to have South American fans cheering for them. I remember when I played against Djokovic or Federer, they always say, ‘What is this crowd for you?’”

In a separate video interview, Sabatini, who won the U.S. Open in 1990, said she was inspired by great South American players growing up. She described the potential reduction of South American ATP events as “a concern.”

“It’s difficult because they have been doing so well — full houses every day. And I think this is the best test to show what tennis means here. I just hope that the (Argentina Open) tournament remains here. We really need it. ”

On the WTA side, there were nine tournaments in 2025 (seven at Challenger 125 level and two 250 events in Bogotá, Colombia and São Paulo), up from a total of four in 2023.

The ATP Tour declined to comment, but in March a spokesperson said that the tour “has been clear about its ongoing work to optimise the calendar, a long-term process aimed at building a stronger and more balanced schedule from 2028 onwards. This work remains ongoing and forms part of the ATP’s broader strategic vision for the tour.”

Back in São Paulo, the youngest player in the event’s history won the girls’ singles, as Brazil’s Eduarda Gomes, 13 beat 15-year-old Maria Carbone, also of Brazil, in the final.

Brazil’s Leonardo Storck, 17, won the boys’ singles, beating Juan Bolivar of Colombia, 16.

— Charlie Eccleshare

Shot of the week

Corentin Moutet is never far away from a ridiculous point, but bringing this out to win a match against Ignacio Buse at the Barcelona Open is special even for him:

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 ATP: 

🏆 Arthur Fils (9) def. Andrey Rublev (5) 6-2, 7-6(2) to win the Barcelona Open (500) in Barcelona, Spain. It is his fourth ATP Tour title.

🏆 Ben Shelton (2) def. Flavio Cobolli 6-2, 7-5 to win the Munich Open (500) in Munich. It is his fifth ATP Tour title.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Elena Rybakina (1) def. Karolína Muchová 7-5, 6-1 to win the Stuttgart Tennis Grand Prix (500) in Stuttgart, Germany. It is her 13th WTA Tour title.

🏆 Marta Kostyuk (1) def. Veronika Podrez (Q) 6-3, 6-4 to win the Rouen Open (250) in Rouen, France. It is her second WTA Tour title.

📈📉 On the rise / Down the line

📈 Veronika Podrez moves up 62 places from No. 209 to No. 147 after her run at the Rouen Open.

📈 Rafael Jódar ascends 13 spots from No. 55 to No. 42, to enter the top 50 for the first time.

📈 Zeynep Sönmez moves up 12 places from No. 79 to No. 67.

📈 Hamad Medjedovic rises 20 spots from No. 88 to No. 68.

📉 Stefanos Tsitsipas falls 13 places from No. 67 to No. 80.

📉 Jelena Ostapenko drops 18 places from No. 22 to No. 40.

📉 Holger Rune falls 12 spots from No. 27 to No. 39.

📉 Dalma Gálfi moves down 24 spots from No. 93 to No. 117.

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP 

📍Madrid: Madrid Open (1,000) featuring Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Arthur Fils, Ben Shelton.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV

🎾 WTA

📍Madrid: Madrid Open (1,000) featuring Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Iga Świątek, Coco Gauff.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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