Sports
Why Rafael Jódar’s shoelaces are at the center of a debate over dark arts in tennis
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, there was a drama over footwear, a champion hit back at her critics and a sobering message from an all-time great.
If you’d like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, click here.
Why did broken shoelaces take over a match?
As Rafael Jódar dropped his racket to the ground and pointed to his ears, fans at the Cincinnati Open rose to acclaim a stunning comeback.
Jódar, the 19-year-old Spaniard who has cut a swath through the ATP Tour this year, recovered from 5-1 down in the deciding set of his second-round match against Canada’s Denis Shapovalov to record a thrilling 7-5, 4-6, 7-5 win. He had been cramping. He had appeared physically spent.
But most controversially, he had changed his shoes — twice.
Jódar’s shoelaces broke when he was 4-1 and 5-3 down in the final set. On the first occasion, Shapovalov was serving. On the second, Jódar was serving. The first stoppage was relatively quick, as Jódar slipped an insole into a fresh shoe and then laced it up, but the second took much longer, to Shapovalov’s chagrin, because of an issue with an insole that Jódar’s father and coach, Rafael Sr., ended up having to insert at the side of the court.
Why do tennis players change their rackets so often?
Tifo Sports
Equipment timeouts are allowed and playing on with a broken shoelace can be dangerous for players. If they slide on hard courts, the design of some shoes — Jódar’s are Adidas Adizero Ubersonics — means that the laces can scrape over the surface and thus wear down and then break. Jódar, who drags the side of his back foot when he slides forward, has a sliding technique that can exacerbate this.
But equipment timeouts also exist in the realm of tennis dark arts, because the sport is so subject to shifts in momentum. Slowing a match down, whether to fix a lace or some other damaged article of clothing or equipment, can be seen as breaking an opponent’s rhythm. Shapovalov was unimpressed not just by Jódar’s second shoelace change, but by the fact that he was towelling his face and drinking water while doing it, which is not permitted.
He then discussed the incidents with Jódar at their handshake — though any shoe-related controversy should not overshadow losing six games in a row against a tiring opponent.
Jódar is also a serial lace breaker, with the same issue happening at the D.C. Open against Taylor Fritz and the Canadian Open against Brandon Nakashima. After the win over Shapovalov, he pledged to have more shoes with fresh laces ready in the future, but it’s unlikely to stop the noise after the next incident.
— James Hansen
How did a champion answer her critics — and a couple of memes?
The eye-test and the numbers say that since 2022, when she is on, Iga Świątek is better at tennis than any woman on earth. Good luck to the rest of the field when she’s spotting her serve and not rushing to try to slam every ball and end every point as quickly as possible.
That was the version of Świątek that showed up at the Canadian Open last week. She took some time off after a tough third-round loss at Wimbledon to Alex Eala, and arrived on the practice court with her coach, Francisco Roig, ready to try to find her best tennis self once more.
“I came back on courts much fresher and much more open to trying new stuff,” Świątek said during a roundtable with journalists at the Cincinnati Open Friday afternoon.
“We had like, two weeks I would say and then I came to Toronto and the work that we’ve done there for sure was a key to play better at this tournament and to play a game that is more patient. I was able to grind more, be more solid, and at the end, that’s what paid off.”
It certainly did. Świątek mostly eased to the title, but when she faced adversity against Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina — two of the form players of 2026 — she found her solidity and let her opponents make mistakes, rather than making them herself by trying to be more aggressive.
Świątek commemorated her title with a number of social media posts, one of which saw her play along with a meme that the WTA Tour and Tennis Channel had deployed on social media last week. The tour and broadcaster used “kinda chic to …”, the online phrase of the summer, to celebrate women’s players, including Coco Gauff’s two Grand Slam titles and Aryna Sabalenka’s world No. 1 ranking.
In the case of six-time Grand Slam champion Świątek, who has more weeks at world No. 1 and more titles than either player, Tennis Channel wrote: “Kinda chic to be a Swiftie”, in relevance to Taylor Swift. The WTA chose to highlight Świątek’s use of “jazda”, the Polish version of “allez”, “vamos” and “let’s go.”
Świątek’s version was a little different:
Świątek, who is one of those players with so many weapons at her disposal and an ability to play so many different ways that she can have hard time figuring out the best way to win, has been trying to bring back the controlled aggressiveness that defined her early domination on the WTA Tour since late 2024, when she hired Wim Fissette as her coach.
They spent their time together trying to get her to play with more spin, shape and patience. Grind a little more, open up the court, and go for the high-margin targets. The strategy peaked last year at Wimbledon. Then, too, Świątek was open to a different approach because she had had so little success on the grass before.
She listened. It worked. But she and Fissette also went through the hardest part of changing style — trying to override ingrained habits and instincts under pressure — and it resulted in some difficult losses. Roig came in early in 2026, and has built on the work between Fissette and Świątek even further.
— Matt Futterman
What makes Ben Shelton a force to be reckoned with in Canada?
Brandon Nakashima earned himself some major brownie points with the Canadian Open crowd in Montreal Thursday, by saying in his runner-up speech that he prefers the French-speaking city to Toronto.
Ben Shelton has no such partiality. As the back-to-back champion, he’s perfectly happy to beat up on his competition in either city.
Shelton said Canada suits his game because as far as hard courts go, they’re fairly slow in both Toronto and Montreal (the cities alternate hosting the men and women’s events of the tournament every year) which makes his lefty serve particularly troublesome way for his opponents. They also give him more time from the baseline, but Shelton said after defeating Nakashima that during his win last year in Toronto, he didn’t feel like he had that time.
This year in Montreal felt much more like a step toward where he wants to be.
“I think last year I definitely won the tournament the hard way. I wasn’t focused the whole time. I had ups and downs throughout the week, throughout different matches. Had my back against the wall a lot of times. I found a way to scrap it out. I was doing a lot of running back at the back fence,” he said in a news conference Thursday.
“This win is a lot more satisfying. Obviously last year, to fight the way I did was pretty crazy to end that tournament with a title. I’m not exactly sure how it ended up that way. But to do it the way I did it this year, without a shadow of a doubt, feels a lot better.”
The cornerstone of Shelton’s game is his cracking serve, but he knows that in order to one day win Grand Slam titles, he has to become a better returner. In Montreal, he returned better than he has all year thanks in part to a more aggressive baseline position and, according to Shelton, better focus.
He won 33 percent of his return games in Montreal according to analytics compiled by Courtside Advantage, a whopping improvement compared to 14 percent over the last 52 weeks (the ATP tour average is 19 percent). He won 41 percent of his return points, up from 35 percent on the rest of the year and 34 percent of return points against his opponents’ first serves, up from 23 percent.
That was in large part because he was taking a bigger cut at his opponents’ serves and hitting more returns deeper into the court than usual. That helped him in another category — he won 51 percent of break points compared to 37 percent on the year, which is also the tour average.
As for his groundstrokes, Shelton did more damage from the back of the court while staying true to his all-court game, winning 56 percent of points where both players were standing on the baseline at the end compared to his 48 percent average for the year.
The field in Montreal was softer than what he’ll face at a Grand Slam — the highest-ranked player Shelton played was then-No. 17 Jakub Menšík — but in a situation where conditions were perfect for Shelton to dominate, he did, and he did so playing exactly the game he wanted.
Shelton hadn’t been able to do that all year, despite the three trophies he’d won before arriving in Canada. That should be a big boost of confidence with the U.S. Open looming.
— Ava Wallace
And how will Novak Djokovic arrive at this year’s U.S. Open?
Novak Djokovic knows opportunities when he sees them.
Carlos Alcaraz hasn’t played since April because of an injured wrist. Jannik Sinner’s knee forced him to pull out of the Cincinnati Open. This could be a wide-open U.S. Open.
So there was Djokovic in southern Ohio last week for the first time in three years. The last time he played Cincinnati, he won it — and also won the U.S. Open — defeating Carlos Alcaraz in a sweat-soaked endurance test for the ages in the former final.
“As far as my preparation goes for New York, this is great. Being able to participate at least in one tournament — a strong tournament — play one or more matches, hopefully more than one, get myself going,” a tanned and rested Djokovic said in a roundtable Thursday afternoon.
Well, that didn’t go so well.
Djokovic started strong Saturday, but world No. 50 Thiago Tirante of Agrentina came back and got the better of him, winning 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Djokovic appeared to vomit twice, with a service hold that took nearly 18 minutes early in the second set sapping much of his energy,
After the match, Djokovic, 39, said that an unspecified “health condition”has been exacerbating the impact of heat stress on his body and on his tennis in recent years.
Now what? It’s doubtful Djokovic will rush into a spot at the ATP 250 Winston-Salem Open in North Carolina next week. He’s scheduled to play mixed doubles with Sabalenka in the U.S. Open competition, which starts on Aug. 25. That might just be the best place to get going.
— Matt Futterman
Shot of the week
The revving forehand that defines Iga Świątek’s best tennis was on full display at the Canadian Open, including during the final against Elena Rybakina. This looping winner caught the world No. 2 by surprise …
But for sheer artistry, Mattia Bellucci’s no-look underarm serve against Jakub Menšík is the winner. The Italian did it with such sprezzatura that his Czech opponent didn’t even move:
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.
>