Why tennis players find beating an injured or cramping opponent so difficult

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, yet another player could not put away a cramping opponent, a top star made positive moves on a crucial shot, and a college tennis program was axed as the name, image and likeness (NIL) era continues to impact the sport.

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How can tennis stars stay composed when an injured opponent is on the other side of the net?

Ugo Humbert is not the first player to lose to someone who can barely move around the court, and he will not be the last.

On Saturday at the Madrid Open, Humbert’s opponent, Térence Atmane, was sprawled on his back in agony, covered in brick dust, and two points from losing the second set in a tiebreak. That would have meant playing a third set, which looked entirely beyond Atmane. Humbert had sportingly provided a chair for his opponent before the tiebreak, perhaps in a moment of French camaraderie, and perhaps feeling that there was no chance he could lose the set.

Well: He could.

Serving up 7-6(3), 6-6(2-5), Atmane was so stricken that he could not even complete his service motion, swatting forehands into the service box instead of even trying to hit a regulation over- or underarm serve. It worked the first time …

… So he did it again, and it worked again. In reply, Humbert did what most tennis players do against an injured opponent. He played just as he might have done if Atmane could move properly, using the same shots and making the same errors. This dynamic plays out across tournaments, big and small, as the physically compromised player is forced to do as much as they can on every ball with minimum exertion, while the opponent can get lost in overthinking.

Keeping the ball in the court feels overwhelmingly important, so changing strategy — using more angles or drop shots — feels too risky. So after Atmane won both of his service points despite not hitting a proper serve at all, Humbert gathered himself to hit two of his own.

On the first point, he missed a first serve, made the second, but played too conservatively. In the second point, he made a first serve, but he played the rally too cautiously again and missed at the net.

That left Atmane serving at 7-6(3), 6-6(6-5), and by moving about during the previous two points, he had unlocked his muscles just enough to hit a real serve just when he needed one: On match point. He made it, ripped another backhand and Humbert missed again to lose the match. Then came an unsurprisingly cool handshake, before Atmane sheepishly held his hands palms to the ground, as if to apologize for the win.

Humbert had a case for complaint: Atmane was allowed to go well past the allotted 25 seconds between points on several occasions without a warning, committing enough time violations that he could have received a point penalty, or perhaps two. But when those points started, Humbert found his brain scrambled by what was going on across the net. While Atmane’s limited movement focused his mind on what he had to do, Humbert found himself with a buffet of tantalizing options, but was far more paralyzed than the opponent who had been writhing in the clay minutes before sealing a 7-6(3), 7-6(5) victory.

— James Hansen

Has Iga Świątek started to turn a corner on a shot that can limit her on the court?

At January’s Australian Open, Iga Świątek spoke about the difficulty of making fundamental changes mid-season. “I see Carlos Alcaraz, for example, changing his serve every year,” she joked in a news conference. For her, Świątek said, these things take “much longer.”

The seven-time Grand Slam champion was speaking after losing in the quarterfinals to Elena Rybakina, a match that showcased the difference between the two players’ serves. Rybakina’s serve gave her a platform to attack, or it simply won points outright; Świątek’s meant pretty much every point began at neutral. The disadvantage eventually took its toll in an unraveling straight-sets defeat, a recurring theme during Świątek’s uneven start to 2026.

She parted ways with coach Wim Fissette in March, only eight months after they had won Wimbledon together, and with new coach Francisco Roig in tow, Świątek has set about making a change she knew she needed, but that is so hard to implement during the relentless tennis season.

At the end of March, footage emerged of Świątek working on her serve before the Stuttgart Open, bending her right arm at the elbow earlier in her swing to abbreviate it, get more power, and reduce the number of places in the motion her kinetic chain can be interrupted.

After beating Daria Snigur to reach the third round of the Madrid Open, Świątek admitted that in Stuttgart, she had been caught between her old habits and serving the way she and Roig were working on, during a run that ended in a semifinal. But in her first match in Madrid, Świątek said she was properly implementing the changes for the first time. A 6-1, 6-2 win saw the world No. 4 make 70 percent of her first serves and win 78 percent of those points.

TC’s Alison Riske-Amritraj breaking down Iga’s slight service adjustment.

Biggest change is Iga’s starting position which gives her an earlier elbow bend in that serving arm. pic.twitter.com/nLqGNmOgO9

— Christian’s Court (@christianscourt) April 23, 2026

“I was supposed to serve like that in Stuttgart, but it was on and off!” Świątek told Sky Sports.

“So, the last few days on the practice court, I was really making sure my elbow was in the right position and today was the first match where I felt it was how I wanted.

“The serve was great. I need to get used to the movement and that was a good step forward.

“In Stuttgart, I thought it was going to be a bit easier for my body to remember it on its own but I realised that no, I still need to think about it a lot.

“I was naive to think that way because one week is not enough for the body to remember the movements.

“I don’t care that it is the middle of the season because maybe it wasn’t that visible but we adjusted my serve a few times a year last year and it wasn’t a comfortable situation for me when I constantly needed to change something.

“But still, the changes weren’t what we wanted in the end, they were just steps forward. Now I have made a big change, but I can stay with it if it goes well and adjust little things, so I have much more belief in it.

“I did not feel comfortable in Indian Wells and Miami with my serve, so that was the best time to change it, just because of the feeling. I did not care it was before the clay, I wanted to feel good on my serve.”

Improvements to Świątek’s serve would make a substantial difference to her prospects. Yes, she has a complex game, but the serve is absolutely fundamental for any player. When she won Wimbledon last year, Świątek won points on her first serve more frequently (78 percent) than any other player who played more than one match.

— Charlie Eccleshare

What did a huge celebration mean for Stefanos Tsitsipas?

On the face of it, a 27-year-old two-time Grand Slam finalist beating an unheralded world No. 90 would not be a cause for big celebration.

But when that former Australian Open and French Open finalist is Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has almost dropped out of the world’s top 100, every victory feels like a major success.

Tsitsipas was within a set of winning the 2021 French Open but is now the world No. 80, and hadn’t won a match on clay this year until he beat American lucky loser Patrick Kypson Thursday. He did so by the narrowest of margins, eking out a 3-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(4) win to reach the second round of the Madrid Open.

When it was over, Tsitsipas yelled before raising his arms aloft. After shaking Kypson’s hand, he put his finger to his ear, asking the crowd for more noise. He then gestured for more and raised his hand again in celebration.

Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable to see Tsitsipas wildly celebrating progress to the second round of an ATP Masters 1000. Even needing to play a first-round match at an event like this would have been hard to imagine, given that the 32 seeded players are given a bye. That was always Tsitsipas, until his ranking dropped from No. 30 to No. 80 over a couple of months from late February to last week, as points from last year fell off his total.

A chronic back injury, uncertainty over his best racket and a loss of confidence have combined to leave Tsitsipas a long way from the days when he was tipped as a major champion in the making as a teenager. He admitted a few months ago that in 2025, those persistent lower back problems forced him to consider retirement.

Celebrating so passionately against Kypson can be seen as a reflection of how far Tsitsipas has fallen, but few would begrudge him the moment after a rough year. Victory did not come easily, either, and he could be seen berating his father, Apostolos, during a change of ends. Apostolos was also given an all-too-common coaching violation.

But his son backed up the win by beating the increasingly consistent Alexander Bublik 6-2, 7-5 in the following round and setting up a match against Spanish qualifier Daniel Mérida.

Charlie Eccleshare

Why did one college sports program axe tennis?

So much of the talk around college tennis these days centers on what a great training ground it is for the professional tours.

With the new rules of college sports allowing athletes to get paid, promising tennis players in their late teens and early 20s can make money, face solid competition, not worry about paying for rent or food or a coaching staff, and train in top-notch facilities while getting an education, if they are interested in doing so.

The flip side of all that is an increasingly competitive and expensive system for sustaining a top-level tennis program. As the revenue sports (football and basketball) adopt a similar approach, competing meaningfully in those already expensive sports becomes even pricier. Consequently, resources can be pulled into them from elsewhere in colleges’ programs.

Some top tennis programs have benefactors who can help cover the costs. The programs without outside investment struggle to compete — or, in the case of the University of Arkansas, decide they don’t want to anymore.

“After considerable reflection and thoughtful discussion, we have made the very difficult decision to discontinue our men’s and women’s tennis programs,” vice chancellor and director of athletics Hunter Yurachek announced late last week.

“We understand the disappointment and emotion this news will bring to many. The landscape of college athletics continues to evolve, requiring us to make challenging choices as we balance competitive opportunities, resources and the long-term sustainability of our department.”

Razorback tennis, which produced a bevy of players with pro tour rankings points, will disappear at the end of the current season. The decision has sparked an outcry that college sports in general, and college tennis specifically, have already reached an inflection point. John Isner, who played for the University of Georgia, said that the post-name, image and likeness (NIL) “college landscape is out of control” on X.

“Flat out ruining college sports and now a very proud men’s and women’s program is being cut altogether because of all this BS. This is a travesty.”

Patrick McEnroe, who led player development at the U.S. Tennis Association from 2008 to 2014, described the situation as “very serious”.

Current players at the University of Arkansas will have their scholarships honored through the completion of their degree programs if they choose to remain at the university, Urachek said. They will also continue to have access to the support services. They just can’t play intercollegiate tennis anymore.

— Matt Futterman

Shot of the week

Aryna Sabalenka described this single-handed backhand winner as the “shot of her life.” She probably isn’t wrong:

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP 

📍Madrid: Madrid Open (1,000) featuring Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Casper Ruud, Rafael Jódar.

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

🎾 WTA

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

📺 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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