What's New, What's Not, What's Next? (Feb. 10)

This week we had two top seeds winning indoor 500 events and two unseeded players winning outdoors. Here are the main stories from the week in tennis.

What's new?

Carlos Alcaraz finally has an indoor title

For all the mind-boggling things that Carlos Alcaraz has achieved already in his tennis career, there was one thing he had yet to do: make it to the final of an indoor tournament. Well, add that one to his impressive resumé too, as Alcaraz converted his top seeding in Rotterdam last week into a 17th career title.

Alcaraz beat Alex de Minaur in the final, meaning that De Minaur has now lost back-to-back Rotterdam finals to the top seed. It was a good effort from De Minaur though, who somehow managed to push Alcaraz to a third set despite clearly struggling with illness. Alcaraz was able to ride out the Australian's spirited fight back, and eventually stabilised his own level while De Minaur ran out of steam.

Alcaraz hasn't lost a tour-level final now since the epic battle against Novak Djokovic in Cincinatti in 2023. He's pretty good, huh?

Simona Halep retires from tennis

After a first-round defeat in her home tournament this week in Romania, former world number one Simona Halep announced her retirement from tennis. It wasn't a huge surprise, considering that Halep has won only one match since her return from a long and controversial doping violation ban.

Tatiana, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Between the missed seasons and a number of injuries, Halep admitted on court that at 33 years old, she no longer feels she can get back to a competitive level. Halep is a two-time Grand Slam champion, five time major finalist, and ends her career with 25 titles. She spent 62 weeks as the top-ranked player in the world. These are incredible achievements, but whether the tennis world will remember her career for the tennis or the ban remains to be seen.

What else?

Elsewhere, top seed Anastasia Potapova took home her third career title in Transylvania, beating Lucia Bronzetti in three sets in the final. Perhaps the story of the tournament was the unseeded Bronzetti's run to the final, which saw her beat aforementioned former world number one Simona Halep followed by three consecutive seeds without dropping a set. She carried that momentum into the final, taking the first set impressively and looking like she might be on track for her first hard court title. However, Potapova was able to weather the storm and her top level ended up proving too much for the Italian to handle, with Potapova only dropping 3 more games in the final two sets. Potapova's ranking is now sitting at 31, so she has a good chance of getting herself seeded for Roland Garros.

Also, let's give a moment of appreciation for 23 year old Italian Mattia Bellucci, who started the year outside the top 100 and just made it to the semi-final of an ATP 500 event. Bellucci was absolutely box office this week, storming through qualifying in Rotterdam before beating Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the main draw. In the end, he was beaten comfortably by Alex De Minaur, but he still put on a show, hitting multiple completely unneccessary trick shots. Hopefully Bellucci can turn this week into a platform for more success on the main tour, because he's a lot of fun to watch.

What's not?

Denis Shapovalov can still be very good

Perhaps the surprise of the week is that Denis Shapovalov just won the biggest title of his career in Dallas. Based on what we've seen from Shapovalov in the last year or two, this one felt like it came out of nowhere.

It's not new that Shapovalov has the ability to pull off a result like this, and a game that can hurt anyone. But his career seemed to have stalled, and his game seemed to be stuck in a pattern of over-hitting, poor shot selection and a general lack of control.

Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Not this week in Dallas. Shapovalov took out the top three seeds (Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Casper Ruud, who he overwhelmed in the final) as well as Tomas Machac, winning his final 8 sets of the week with some massive tennis. The shot-making off both wings was on full display, and he managed to harness his big serve without letting the double faults creep in as they have in recent years.

But most impressive was the mentality and discipline that he showed, winning several big tie-breaks and always managing to get right back to his game whenever he faltered. When he plays like he did this week, Shapovalov is a joy to watch. It's hard to think of another player who plays with the sheer aggression that he does, relentlessly hitting massive ground strokes and following them into the net (where he was solid all week). Let's see whether he's ready to sustain this level over a longer period.

Belinda Bencic is doing a lot of winning

When Belinda Bencic made it to the round of 16 at the Australian Open, a lot of people were probably surprised to see her back on a tennis court, let alone winning. Bencic gave birth to her daughter in April of last year, and the AO was only her third tour-level event back since then. Now, in her fourth tournament back, she's just won the Abu Dhabi title for the second time in her career.

The title in Abu Dhabi made Bencic the first mother to win a tour-level title since Elina Svitolina's Strasbourg title ago years ago. Like Svitolina, Bencic has seemingly returned to something close to her best right away, which is remarkable.

The former world number 4 took out two former Wimbledon champions in Marketa Vondrousova and Elena Rybakina along the way, before beating the USA's Ashlyn Krueger 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the final. This was her ninth title overall, and her first since winning the same event two years ago. Not a bad return for a wildcard!

What next?

The first WTA 1000 event is underway today in Doha, with all the big names in the draw, including Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Świątek and Coco Gauff.

Meanwhile, there are three ATP250 events this week to keep across. The indoor hard event in Marseille has past champions Daniil Medvedev, Ugo Humbert and Hubert Hurkacz in the draw, while the outdoor hard event in Delray Beach is headlined by two-time defending champion Taylor Fritz. The South American swing also starts this week on the clay in Buenos Aires, where Alexander Zverev is the top seed and Holger Rune and Lorenzo Musetti also feature.