Alexander Bublik has delivered one of the most candid assessments of men’s tennis in the Sinner–Alcaraz era, admitting that he and much of the ATP field have effectively stopped believing they can win a Grand Slam while the world’s top two are fit.

Speaking to the German magazine Tennis Magazin, the world No. 11 said the gap at the majors had grown so wide that beating Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz over five sets was now closer to fantasy than a realistic target. “The other players have given up — me too,” Bublik said, explaining that the realisation had reshaped how he defines a successful tournament.

Rather than chasing a title, the Kazakh said his ambition at the biggest events had narrowed to reaching the quarter-finals or semi-finals — a result he can now go home content with. He framed the shift as realism rather than a collapse of self-belief: in his words, a player has to accept that he is “not Novak Djokovic” and will not win majors the way Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer did.

The remarks carry unusual weight because they come from a player who has actually beaten Sinner. At Halle in 2025, Bublik recovered from a set down to defeat the then-reigning No. 1 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on grass — one of the very few losses Sinner suffered across that stretch. Asked how he managed it, Bublik was disarming: he put it down to “a lot of luck,” and insisted he meant it seriously. He has previously described Sinner as a tennis “robot” built by artificial intelligence.

Bublik is no journeyman reaching for excuses. The 29-year-old climbed to a career-high world No. 10 in January, has won nine ATP Tour titles from 16 finals, and has enjoyed the most productive spell of his career over the past year. His best Grand Slam run remains a quarter-final at Roland Garros in 2025; this season he reached the fourth round at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon. When a player of that standing publicly concedes the majors are beyond him, it says as much about the summit of the game as it does about the man saying it.

The numbers behind his fatalism are stark. Sinner and Alcaraz shared all four Grand Slams between them in both 2024 and 2025 before Alexander Zverev finally broke the run, claiming his maiden major at Roland Garros this year. Alcaraz then underlined the duopoly’s grip in Melbourne, beating Djokovic in the Australian Open final to complete the career Grand Slam and become, at 22, the youngest man in the Open era to win seven majors. Sinner responded at Wimbledon, defending his title with a four-set victory over Zverev on 12 July for a fifth career Slam.

That leaves the rest of the tour competing, in effect, for what is left — and Bublik’s honesty exposes a psychological problem the ATP would rather not talk about. If a top-15 player believes the trophy is unattainable when the top two are healthy, the question at the majors is no longer simply who can challenge Sinner and Alcaraz, but how many of their rivals still genuinely think they can win.

Not everyone shares the surrender. Bublik acknowledged the dominance may not last forever, and pointed to an emerging generation — teenagers who have yet to accumulate years of defeats to the top two — arriving without that scar tissue. Prospects such as Joao Fonseca have already pushed Sinner at the Masters level without conceding an inch mentally. But for now, Bublik’s verdict stands as the bluntest summary yet of a two-man age.

The next examination comes on the North American hard courts. Sinner heads into the US Open swing as world No. 1, with Zverev second and Alcaraz third in the live rankings, and Alcaraz is targeting a comeback at the Cincinnati Open after a wrist injury. Whether anyone outside the top two arrives in New York believing they can lift the trophy — Bublik included — may prove the more revealing storyline of the summer.

Nick Kyrgios is back in front of a big crowd, back opposite one of the game’s hottest young names, and — for the first time in months — talking openly about where his comeback goes next.

The 2022 Wimbledon finalist headlines UTS Rio, Patrick Mouratoglou’s fast-format exhibition series, at the Maracanãzinho this weekend, and on Friday night he meets Brazilian teenager João Fonseca for the first time — a marquee collision between one of tennis’s biggest draws and the sport’s most exciting emerging star, staged in Fonseca’s home city.

“I’m feeling great,” Kyrgios told Tennis Majors. “I’ve been playing the last couple of weeks — Majorca, Halle, Stuttgart — and Wimbledon was great too. Just happy to be back at these events, and every week I’m able to play now is a bonus.”

The appearance is the latest checkpoint in a stop-start 2026 return from the wrist and knee injuries that have wrecked the Australian’s past three seasons. Once ranked as high as No. 13 in the world, Kyrgios has undergone multiple surgeries and slid down the rankings after playing barely a handful of matches across 2024 and 2025.

He reopened his 2026 account at the Brisbane International in January, losing his opening singles match, then skipped the Australian Open singles draw, saying his body was not ready for best-of-five-set tennis. A grass-court campaign followed in June: he beat Corentin Moutet in Stuttgart before losing in the second round, withdrew from Halle with a knee complaint, fell in the first round in Mallorca, and played the Wimbledon doubles alongside Alexander Bublik.

Rio is an exhibition — UTS matches carry no ATP ranking points — but for Kyrgios it is competitive court time and, just as importantly, a stage. “It’s gonna be a circus, a lot of fun,” he said of a schedule that pits him against two home players, Fonseca and 17-year-old junior Grand Slam champion Guto Miguel. “I know it’s going to be a zoo on Friday night, something crazy. I’m really looking forward to that.”

The Fonseca meeting is the headline. The 19-year-old — who turns 20 next month — has broken through this season, stunning Novak Djokovic from two sets down at Roland Garros before reaching his first Grand Slam quarter-final, a run that lifted him to a career high inside the world’s top 25. He is now Brazil’s top-ranked player and, in Kyrgios’s view, a future major champion.

“Fonseca has the potential to win multiple Grand Slams,” Kyrgios said. “I look at his level, what he’s been able to produce, how quick his transition has been — he’s definitely got that X-factor. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re seeing him be a multiple Grand Slam champion.”

Playing the young Brazilian on his own turf, Kyrgios added, “is one of the greatest things you can do in tennis and in sport.” For all the exhibition trappings, the most significant line for the tour may be about what comes after Rio. Asked to map out the rest of his season, Kyrgios pointed to the United States.

“Honestly, not too sure. I take it a week at a time,” he said. “After this I’m going to Washington, that’s all I know right now. Not too sure about much more than that, but we’ll see how we go.” Washington is a happy hunting ground. Kyrgios lifted the DC Open title there in 2019, beating a then-emerging Daniil Medvedev in the final for one of the biggest trophies of his career.

The ATP 500 also opens the North American hard-court swing that builds toward the US Open — historically among his most productive stretches. He offered no timeline beyond that stated intention, and stopped short of confirming any further tournaments. Kyrgios, who said he has enlisted friend and Grand Slam doubles champion Bruno Soares to work the UTS coaching card in Rio — “I haven’t had a coach in years,” he noted — also reflected on his changing relationship with the sport and its crowds.

“Earlier in my career I loved being the villain,” he said. “But now I just enjoy every part of it. People know that I’m here to compete, but also to create an atmosphere that’s enjoyable and electric.” Whatever the Rio result, the takeaway is simpler: one of tennis’s most magnetic figures is back on court, healthy enough to talk about a schedule again — and pointing toward Washington.

A gamble on the appeals process cost Samuel Bensoussan more than a year of his career. The former French pro challenged his match-fixing suspension at sport’s highest court — and walked away with a ban more than 50% longer than the one he was trying to shrink.

When a player is handed a suspension for corruption, the appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is supposed to be the safety net. For Samuel Bensoussan, it became a trapdoor.

The 34-year-old Frenchman, who reached a career-high ranking of World No. 405 in June 2018, had been suspended for one year and 11 months after being found to have fixed singles and doubles matches on the lower rungs of the professional tour. Rather than serve it, he took his case to CAS in Lausanne. The panel not only rejected his challenge — it extended the ban to a full three years, siding with the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (ITIA) argument that the original punishment was too lenient.

It is the kind of outcome that will be studied by anyone considering a fight with tennis’s integrity authorities: appeal the ruling, and you risk handing the sport’s watchdog a second chance to ask for a heavier sentence.

The appeal that backfired

Bensoussan’s original sanction stemmed from his involvement in manipulating matches at low-level events, the tier of the sport where prize money is thin and the temptation to take a payment for losing a set — or a match — has proven hardest to police. Investigators alleged he received just €1,000 for helping fix one of the matches at the center of the case.

Unhappy with the near-two-year ban, Bensoussan appealed. But the ITIA cross-appealed, arguing the suspension should be far longer — pushing for a ban of six-and-a-half years. The CAS panel landed in the middle: it dismissed Bensoussan’s bid to reduce the sanction, agreed the original penalty was insufficient, and set the ban at three years. The judges did throw him one small concession, declining the ITIA’s request that he repay the €1,000 he allegedly pocketed.

The net result is stark. A player who went to court hoping to cut his suspension left with 13 additional months added to it.

Part of a much bigger picture

Bensoussan’s case matters less for who he is than for what he was connected to. His name surfaced as part of one of the most sprawling corruption investigations tennis has ever faced — a scheme run out of Belgium by an organized crime syndicate.

According to the findings referenced by CAS, that operation corrupted at least 181 players around the world and manipulated a minimum of 375 tennis matches. The syndicate’s ringleader was sentenced to five years in prison by a Belgian criminal court. Bensoussan is one thread in that web, a reminder that the players who get banned are frequently the visible surface of a far larger, professionally run enterprise targeting the sport’s most financially vulnerable competitors.

That is where the real story sits. Grand Slam champions and top-20 stars are not the target of these networks; the fixers go where the money is smallest and the desperation is greatest — the ITF and Challenger-level events where a four-figure payment can outweigh a week’s realistic earnings. Every case like Bensoussan’s underscores how exposed the base of the professional pyramid remains, even as the ITIA racks up sanctions.

Why the ruling sends a message

For the ITIA, the outcome is a public-relations win as much as a legal one. By successfully arguing for a longer ban on appeal, the agency has demonstrated that challenging its decisions is not a low-risk move. A player weighing an appeal now has to price in the possibility that CAS agrees with the integrity body rather than the defendant — and that the number goes up, not down.

For the broader sport, the case keeps the uncomfortable spotlight on low-level match-fixing at a moment when tennis is otherwise dominated by the Alcaraz–Sinner era at the top. The glamour is at the majors; the vulnerability is three or four tiers below, and cases like this one are the clearest evidence that the problem has not gone away.

Bensoussan’s three-year ban runs its course regardless. But the precedent — appeal and you may pay more — is likely to outlast the suspension itself.

The question our readers have been asking all year — will Novak Djokovic retire? — finally has the man himself on the record. And the short answer, at least for the summer of 2026, is no. Days after his Wimbledon semifinal loss to Jannik Sinner, Djokovic pushed back on the growing wave of retirement speculation, confirming he intends to play the US Open and signalling he wants at least one more run at the All England Club.

Asked directly whether he could see himself back at Wimbledon in 2027, the 39-year-old did not hedge into vagueness: “I’d like to. At least one more time. Let’s see.” It is the clearest window yet into a decision the tennis world has been trying to read for months — and it moves the story on from the open-ended “if” that dominated the conversation earlier this season to a more concrete “how much longer, and where.”

The season that reframed the debate

Djokovic’s 2026 has been the kind of year that fuels exactly this sort of speculation. A deep run to the Wimbledon semifinals — where he was ultimately outclassed by the sport’s new standard-bearer in Sinner — sat awkwardly alongside a startling early exit at Roland Garros, where teenage sensation João Fonseca knocked him out in the third round. The 24-time Grand Slam champion remains stuck on that number, with the elusive 25th major looking harder to reach each passing tournament as Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz trade the game’s biggest prizes between them.

That is the tension Djokovic himself now openly admits to living with. By his own account, the struggle is less physical than psychological: the gap between the standards that built the most decorated career in men’s tennis and the reality of chasing 20-somethings at 39. He acknowledged that reaching the latter stages of majors would satisfy almost any other player — but that “almost any other player” has never been the bar he sets for himself.

What he’s actually committing to

Stripping away the philosophy, here is what Djokovic has committed to on the record:

He will play the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the year and a tournament where his blend of experience and returning brilliance can still trouble anyone over best-of-five sets. What remains genuinely uncertain is the hard-court lead-up — the Masters 1000 stops in Montreal and Cincinnati — where he has left the door open to a lighter schedule to protect his body for New York. That selective approach, load-managing the smaller events to peak for the majors, has quietly become the blueprint of his late career.

And then there is the tantalising line about 2027: a wish, not a promise, to walk out at Wimbledon “at least one more time.” For a player who has spoken for years about the Championships as the tournament he treasures most, it reads less like a farewell being scheduled and more like a man refusing to let someone else pick the date.

The verdict

So, will Djokovic retire? Not this summer, and — if his own words carry weight — not before he has taken at least one more swing at Wimbledon. The retirement question hasn’t been closed so much as it has been reframed: this is no longer about whether the end is coming, but about a champion negotiating the terms of his own exit, one Grand Slam at a time.

What is clear is that the sport should not write the final chapter for him just yet. Djokovic has spent two decades making a habit of answering doubts on his own schedule. On the evidence of this week, he intends to keep doing exactly that.

Matteo Berrettini has been diagnosed with chronic hip pain and will withdraw from the ATP events in Gstaad and Kitzbühel on medical advice, the Italian confirmed in a statement posted to his social media accounts, choosing rest over competition to give himself the best chance of being fit for the North American hard-court swing and the US Open.

The 2021 Wimbledon runner-up, who reached the third round at the All England Club this year before his grass-court summer was cut short, said the call came after consultations with his medical team. The decision removes one of the sport’s most recognisable names from two tournaments that have carried personal significance across his career, and reframes the rest of his season around a single objective: arriving in New York healthy.

“Hi all, just wanted to share an update that unfortunately I will no longer be playing Gstaad and Kitzbuhel,” Berrettini wrote. “After discussions with my doctor and team, I’ve been diagnosed with chronic hip pain and advised the best course of action is to withdraw and rest in order to be ready for the US swing. Thank you for your continued support and see you on the hard courts.”

The diagnosis puts a name to a problem that has shadowed Berrettini since early June. The 30-year-old was forced to retire from his Roland Garros quarter-final against compatriot Matteo Arnaldi, trailing 7-5, 5-2, after being unable to move freely on a hip issue he described at the time as unlike anything he had experienced before. He told reporters in Paris that he did not yet know exactly what the injury was and would wait on scans, adding that he hoped stopping when he did had protected the rest of his season.

He recovered sufficiently to compete at Wimbledon, where he won his opening matches before exiting in the third round. A follow-up medical examination after the tournament indicated the underlying problem had not fully resolved and that rest was required — the assessment that has now been formalised as chronic hip pain and has taken him out of the Swiss and Austrian clay events.

For a player whose career has been repeatedly interrupted by physical setbacks, the latest diagnosis lands as both a blow and, in a narrow sense, a form of clarity. Berrettini rose as high as world No. 6 and reached the 2021 Wimbledon final, but recurring injuries have made sustained runs difficult in the seasons since. His 2026 campaign had offered genuine encouragement before Paris, including a return to a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time since the 2022 US Open, evidence that his level remains high when his body cooperates.

The timing frames the story around a countdown. The US Open main draw begins on Sunday, 30 August at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, leaving Berrettini roughly six weeks from his announcement to recover, rebuild and re-enter competition on the North American hard courts that precede it. He has strong history on the surface, having reached the US Open semi-finals in 2019, and the medical guidance to rest now is explicitly aimed at protecting that window rather than risking further damage in the European summer.

His absence also feeds into a thinning field at Gstaad, where he is among several names to have come out of the draw in the days around the tournament — a reminder of how heavily the post-Wimbledon calendar can be reshaped by fitness in a congested stretch of the season.

What happens next depends on the scans and on how his hip responds to a period without matches. Berrettini has spoken openly this year about his weariness with injury-forced stoppages, having said after his Roland Garros retirement that he is “tired of retiring” and does not want to keep making that choice. The framing of this withdrawal is deliberately different: not a mid-match capitulation but a planned pause, taken early enough that recovery, rather than damage limitation, is the goal.

For now, the Italian’s season narrows to a single line of sight. The clay events in Switzerland and Austria go on without him, and the question that follows Berrettini into August is the one his own body keeps posing — whether rest can buy him a clean run at the Grand Slam he has always played well.