What's New, What's Not, What's Next? (Feb. 03)

This past week, three tour events were won by Félix Auger-Aliassime, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Elise Mertens, while 13 nations booked their place in the next stage of Davis Cup qualifying. Here's a quick roundup of the week's key stories.

What's new?

Emma Raducanu is coachless

Emma Raducanu was given a wildcard into the Abu Dhabi draw this week, upgraded from her initial qualifying wildcard. However, she will be without a coach in her player box, as Nick Cavaday stepped away from the role and the rigours of the tour to focus on his health.

This isn't great timing for Raducanu, as she tries to find her footing on the WTA tour after an up and down last year returning from injury. She previously tried a number of coaching partnerships before returning to Cavaday, who she had worked with since juniors. If stability and familiarity were the reasons Raducanu chose to return to Cavaday, his decision to step aside will be the last thing she needed.

Hameltion, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her start to the season hasn't exactly been smooth. She lost early and heavily in Melbourne to Iga Świątek last month. Last week, travelling coachless for the first time this season, she lost in the first round in Singapore to Cristina Bucsa in a gruelling three-hour match. For now, fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura will be travelling with her, but she'll want to find a new coach soon if 2025 is going to be the year she settles into a more stable routine on the WTA tour.

Davis Cup winners and losers

The first round of Davis Cup qualifiers took place last week, with 13 nations advancing to join the Netherlands in the final qualifying stage. The teams that won their ties were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Japan, the USA, Czechia, Denmark, Spain, Croatia and France. Notable teams knocked out include Britain, Canada, Norway, Serbia and Brazil.

Perhaps the biggest story was a bizarre end to the tie between Belgium and Chile, where Chile ended up losing as a result of accumulated time violations after Cristian Garin refused to resume play at the end of his match against Zizou Bergs. The incident was sparked when Bergs celebrated winning a crucial break point to go up 6-5 in the third by bouncing energetically back towards his bench, and crashed into Garin at the net, making contact with his face. Garin was checked out by doctors who cleared him to continue, but he refused to continue playing as the Chilean team felt Bergs should be defaulted. It was a pretty unique situation, and not really a great look for anyone involved.

The next round of Davis Cup action is not until September, so more on those ties later in the year.

What else?

Elise Mertens won her ninth singles title and her first since 2023 this week in Singapore. In truth, this was a fairly straightforward week: Mertens was the second seed, and only dropped one 7-6 set en route to a deserved title. In the final, Mertens beat Ann Li, who made the final after top seed Anna Kalinskaya retired from the semi final. Li has started the year strong, and the 24 year old's run to the final in Singapore takes her ranking up to 61, the highest it's been since she won her first and only title in Tenerife in 2021.

In Linz, two-time runner up Ekaterina Alexandrova finally took home the newly 500-level title, her fifth title overall and first since 2023. She came through a fantastic final against Dayana Yastremska, who battled back from a rough first set to push Alexandrova to a tight third which the Russian won 7-5 on her fifth match point. A tough end for Yastremska, who had a good week overall, beating Maria Sakkari and Clara Tauson along the way.

One other story to note is that the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) has announced a scheme to offer pro bono legal help to players facing doping charges. I noted in my season preview that there was a lot of discontent surrounding the way that Jannik Sinner and Iga Świątek's cases were handled, with one of the key complaints being that less high profile players aren't able to defend themselves as quickly and quietly as those stars, causing lasting financial and reputational damage. The PTPA's new Athlete Counsel & Equity Program seems designed to address this point directly, and marks probably the biggest initiative from the PTPA since it was formed in 2020.

What's not?

Félix Auger-Aliassime is back to winning indoors

Few players have started the season as well as Félix Auger-Aliassime, who is knocking on the door of the top 20 again. Auger-Aliassime won his second title of the year in Montpellier over the weekend, which marks his seventh title overall, and his sixth on an indoor hard court.

After his win in Adelaide, I mentioned the impressive way that Auger-Aliassime has turned around what was a brutal 0-8 ATP finals record, but it's worth highlighting it again. It's now three years since Auger-Aliassime lost an ATP final below Masters level. Since losing to Andrey Rublev in Marseille in February 2022, he's won six of his seven finals - the exception being last year's Madrid Masters event where he was also beaten by Rublev in the final.

Skyscraper2010 / Peter Arnold, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The final itself was another battle for Auger-Aliassime against first-time ATP finalist Aleksandar Kovacevic. Auger-Aliassime looked well on top when he took the opening set 6-2, and he seemed to have Kovacevic on the ropes. However, the 26 year old from the States managed to regroup and locked down his serve in the second set, saving two match points in the tie break before forcing a deciding set.

Although Auger-Aliassime ended up winning the final set breaker, this was still the best week of Kovacevic's career so far. Kovacevic came through qualifying and then went on a tear in the main draw, beating Goffin, Bublik and Rublev along the way. Kovacevic's ranking has jumped from outside the top 100 to 75, just below his career high. Seeing his aggressive and swashbuckling game this week, which features an impressive topspin single-hander, it's hard to believe he hasn't had runs like this before. Let's see whether he can use this momentum to climb further than he has in his career to date.

What's next?

This week, ATP500 events are underway in Dallas and Rotterdam, while the WTA is in Abu Dhabi for a 500-level event and Cluj-Nipoca, which is a 250. Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton are the top seeds in Dallas, while Rotterdam has a stacked draw including Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Alex De Minaur and Holger Rune. Dubai features Elena Rybakina, Paula Badosa, Daria Kasatkina and Ons Jabeur, while Anastasia Potapova, Olga Danilovic and Peyton Stearns are the top seeds in Transylvania.

Note: This post originally incorrectly referred to Linz as a WTA250 event, though it is actually a WTA500 event this year. This was corrected after publication, along with some typos.