In the wake of gruelling conditions in the Melbourne Park cauldron, home of the Australian Open, top players have flown north to compete in a handful of indoor hard court tournaments in cooler climes in the build-up to the Indian Wells Masters 1000.
The most sought after is the ATP Ambro Masters 500 in Rotterdam, where considerably more ranking points are on offer than at the Challenger 250 events and the WTA Qatar Masters 1000 in Doha.
World No 4 and Qatar defending champion Amanda Anisimova, despite reaching the Australian Open quarters, failed to get off to a flying start in the desert.
The American was forced to retire through illness in the third set of her opening match against former No 1, Czech Karolina Pliskova.
Unfortunately, Anisimova will forfeit the hefty 1,000 points she was due to defend, and given players exiting in round 1 are reduced to collecting a mere 10 points, she is bound to plummet in official rankings and to hand back the US No 1 spot to Coco Gauff.
As fate would have it, Gauff herself stumbled in round 2, capitulating in straight sets to Italian lucky loser Elisabetta Cocciaretto.
Attempting to mitigate the resulting shock waves, she claimed she is “just not showing up mentally at the moment” — referring to her disappointing last 8 exit in Melbourne, where she was ousted by lower-ranked Ukrainian veteran Elina Svitolina.
It took the world No 5 30 seconds to destroy her racket thereafter. The American can take cold comfort from the fact she is not the only former US Open teenage champion not entirely “showing up” — Britain’s Emma Raducanu withdrew from her opening match in Qatar against No 80 Camila Osario, citing illness.
One suspects Raducanu’s split from coach Francisco Roig immediately after losing to Austrian Anastasia Potapova in Melbourne is the greater contributing factor to her ensuing inability to win another title, let alone a Slam.
The bigger problem is the Australian Open is the second successive Major where Britain has failed to have representation in week two in either the men’s or women’s singles.
The last man standing in round 3 at the 2026 AO was veteran and former British No 1 Cameron Norrie, who was born in South Africa, emigrated to New Zealand and then to England, before becoming a direct product of the US college system.
Norrie has just been knocked out of the Rotterdam Open by Australian Chris O’Connell in round 2, underlining the extent to which Britain is currently punching well below her weight.
After three-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray’s retirement, there appeared cause for optimism: British No 1 Jack Draper made it to the 2024 US Open semis, picked up the 2025 Indian Wells trophy and broke into the top 10, while Raducanu made steady progress in her first season post a hiatus with a wrist injury.
However Draper, as prone to injury as Raducanu, picked up a shoulder injury on the eve of the 2025 US Open, withdrew and has been sidelined ever since.
He was due to make his ATP comeback in Rotterdam this week, having played one rubber in the Davis Cup in Oslo against Norway, when he demolished Viktor Durasovic. However he withdrew yet again, reluctant to play back-to-back matches, and is now scheduled to compete in Dubai.
Norrie, when questioned about the future of British tennis as he exited Melbourne, was of the conviction, “There are so many great coaches — in the UK — there is no reason why we won’t have more players in the Top 100.”
Well, what about those already in the top 50 who have fallen out of the top 10 and who will soon be onto coach No 11?
Surely this revolving door of coaches and assorted injuries is a contradiction of that noble theory? Regardless of whether the British conveyor belt is still intact and the fact there is a population deficit in comparison to the Americans, the Italians and the Spanish, they seem more consistent in producing mentally and physically tougher singles players, who progress to the latter stages of Slams.
Raducanu’s reason for dumping Roig is that she wants to return to her grassroots game of powerful corner hitting, as opposed to the more varied game he is adamant she has to adopt.
She would do well to observe Australian champion Elana Rybakina’s resurgence in form, all attributed to Croatian coach Stefanos Vukov’s insistence that the Kazakhstani vary her shot-making repertoire — namely to come into the net and volley more — on the back of a more powerful and consistent serve.
If entrenched baseline players, world No 3 and 4, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev, by their own admittance are also trying to volley more, be it at the tail end of their respective careers, then Raducanu should respect Roig’s wisdom in identifying the trend leading to success.
That said, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the UK. Jack Pinnington, ranked No 181 and a qualifier at the Dallas Masters, has caused a major upset in thrashing world No 20, Italian Flavio Cobolli, in straight sets, 6-2 6-2.
Perhaps Norrie’s positive prophecy may yet pay dividends.
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