Carlos Alcaraz says he is ready to resume his ‘beautiful’ battle with Novak Djokovic for the No.1 ranking in men’s tennis. 

The two-time Grand Slam champion is set to return to competitive action later this week in Beijing at the China Open where he is the top seed. Alcaraz hasn’t played a match since his semi-final defeat to Daniil Medvedev at the US Open. So far this season, the Spaniard has won six Tour titles with the most prestigious of those being at Wimbledon. 

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, the 20-year-old says returning to the top of the standings is one of his main priorities. Last year Alcaraz became the youngest player to end a season in the No.1 sport in ATP rankings history. Overall, he held the position for 36 weeks. 

“For me, the number one spot is one of the main goals for me,” said Alcaraz. “In these great tournaments, I’m looking to do great to be able to close or recover that number.”

Standing in his way of achieving this goal is Djokovic who has opted not to play in Beijing this week but is expected to return to action at the Shanghai Masters. Opening the door for Alcaraz to close the points gap between him and the Serbian. It is possible that he could exit the Asian swing as No.1 depending on how he and Djokovic performs. 

“We have a really beautiful battle for the number one spot after the great performance Djokovic had in the American season,” he told AFP news on media day.

This week is the first time in Alcaraz’s career that he has played a professional tournament in China. No ATP events were held in the country between 2020-2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this period there were also no WTA tournaments held but their reason for doing so was also due to concerns that former player Peng Shuai was being censored by authorities after accusing a former government official of sexual assault. 

Alcaraz’s first match at the China Open will be against Yannick Hanfmann of Germany. 

South Korea’s sports authority says they will take appropriate measures to address Soonwoo Kwon‘s racket-smashing incident at the Asian Games.

Earlier this week, Kwon suffered a shock exit from the tournament after losing 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to Thailand’s Kasidit Samrej in the second round who is ranked more than 500 places lower than the world No.112. The 25-year-old was seeded fourth in the draw and considered a strong contender to win a medal.

Immediately after losing that match, a video went viral of Kwon repeatedly smashing his racket on the ground out of anger. He also ignored efforts made by Samrej to shake hands with him on the court and instead walked off. The behavior prompted swift criticism from many in the sport and South Korea’s vice minister of culture, sports and tourism branded his reaction as “regretful.”

Following the incident, Kwon visited Thailand’s training case to apologise for his actions. The tennis player has also issued a letter of apology on social media for what he describes as a ‘careless act.’

“I sincerely apologise to all the Korean people who support the national team and to the fans at the stadium. I’m sorry,” he wrote.
“I once again sincerely apologise to Samrej, who would have been offended by my rude behaviour.
“I sincerely regret it and am reflecting on my actions after the match.”

However, this may not be the end of it for Kwon with his country’s Olympic sporting body pondering if they need to take any additional action. The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee (KSOC) hasn’t ruled out the prospect of possibly implementing a penalty of some sort on Kwon following a review into the matter.

“We will take appropriate measures for the situation through a comprehensive review after the Games come to an end,” the KSOC said in a statement.

Kwon has been ranked as high as No.52 in the world and has won two ATP titles with the most recent of them being this year at the Adelaide International. He is the first player from his country to have won multiple trophies on the ATP Tour in the Open Era.

The coach of former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina has accused the WTA of failing to communicate their rules regarding performance byes. 

At this week’s Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, a rule is in place where players are awarded a bye in the first round based on their recent results on the Tour instead of their ranking. Therefore Guadalajara Open champion Maria Sakkari and semi-finalist Caroline Garcia have been awarded byes despite being ranked lower than Rybakina who missed out on getting one. 

“Thank you for changing the rules [at the] last moment,” Rybakina recently wrote in an Instagram story on top of a screenshot of the Tokyo draw. “Great decisions as always @wta.”

The use of performance bye’s is nothing new in the sport and they have been in the official rulebook since 2009 when WTA Premier events (now called WTA 1000’s) were introduced. Furthermore, doubles player Nicole Melichar-Martinez has challenged Rybakina’s claim of a last-minute introduction of the policy on X (formerly known as Twitter) by saying that it was outlined in the tournament fact sheet. 

Nevertheless, Rybakina’s mentor has also vented his frustration on social media. Stefano Vukov claims that there is no official definition provided by the governing body of women’s tennis and argues that a player’s ranking should be taken into account regarding performance. Although his player has failed to win back-to-back matches at her two most recent tournaments in Cincinnati and the US Open. 

“Just to make things clear, there is no explanation of what a performance bye is. What does this mean? Do we add byes to help performing players? Or do we take away ranking earned byes? And isn’t ranking itself a sign of performance? Last year we came from a final in Europe and played in Japan 2 days later and performance byes nowhere to be found,” Vukov wrote on Instagram.
“The issue is always the same lack of communication. This will also apply from Tokyo 500 to Beijing 1000 next week. 4 performance byes will be awarded.” He added. 

Vukov, who has coached Rybakina since 2019, has also suggested that players who have secured their place in the WTA Finals are only playing some tournaments because they face the risk of being fined if they chose not to. He also took a swipe at the WTA’s ‘terrible’ marketing department over their decision to post on social media that Rybakina had qualified for the year-end championships days after she had done so. 

“We need transparency. All players need to understand what is going on. Stop blaming players for mistakes made by the system itself,” he concluded. 

Rybakina has since pulled out of playing Tokyo this week but has insisted that her reason for doing so was because of an injury and has noting to do with her recent criticism. 

“The WTA topic is another topic, on which I have my opinions and will clearly voice them in future.” She concluded.