Tennis has a participant downside – too many stars like Coco Gauff and Emma Raducanu decide and select their moments for a break: INSIDE TENNIS

The defining image of the Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers was Marta Kostyuk, tears rolling down her cheeks, singing the Ukrainian national anthem alongside Elina Svitolina.

‘The glory and will of Ukraine have not yet perished… our enemies shall melt away, like the dew in the sun.’ It is no wonder those lyrics wrung such emotion from the world No 25.

Kostyuk and Svitolina have been fierce and graceful advocates for their country since the Russian invasion began in February 2022 and together sent their country to its first ever Billie Jean King Cup finals.

That is the power of international sport, and it stood in great contrast to the general shrug with which so many top players greeted this qualifying week.

For exhibit A, see the team which 18-time champions USA put out for their group stage games against Denmark and Slovakia.

When the squad was announced there was no Coco Gauff, no Emma Navarro, no Madison Keys and no Amanda Anisimova (she is injured).

Then just a few days before their first tie against Denmark, it was announced that Jessica Pegula, Danielle Collins and McCartney Kessler – that’s the top three players in the five-women team – were pulling out. Captain Lindsay Davenport was left high and dry.

Bernarda Pera was preparing to play in Rouen and then ‘got a call from Lindsay saying they needed a player’. What a farce – it sounds like the second team captain of my village tennis club back home ringing round to cobble together a team, not the pinnacle of international competition.

By the time this ‘selection process’ was complete, USA ended up fielding a team without any of the top TEN Americans.

The pleasing element of this is that Pera (world No 76, US No 14) and Hailey Baptiste (world No 86, US No 16), each won both of their matches to qualify. An amazing week for them and they have earned their country a trip to Shenzhen for the finals in September – when they will be booted out of the team by whichever of the stars ranked above them can be bothered to show up.

‘It wasn’t easy coming into this tie,’ said US captain Lindsay Davenport. ‘Eventually I was left with players that really wanted to be here and really wanted to play for your country. That’s really all you can ask for as a captain.’

If that was a veiled dig at Pegula and Co, there was nothing veiled about French captain Julien Benneteau’s reaction to his side’s defeat by Belgium. French No n2 Caroline Garcia and No 3 Diane Parry withdrew from the squad and after Clara Burel was injured, Benneteau was forced to throw in 35-year-old Alize Cornet for just her fourth match since coming out of retirement.

‘This week, some players were exemplary, while others did not take responsibility,’ said Benneteau. ‘Caro (Garcia) was bothered by her back, but at some point, you have to ask yourself: “What is my pain threshold? What does the French team represent?” I’m not just talking about Caroline, there’s also Diane. None of them told me: “It’s going to hurt, it’s going to be tough, but I’ll go for it”.

‘When I played in the Davis Cup, it was such an honour. And it didn’t matter if it ruined my next tournament. The girls play 30 or 35 tournaments a year—the French team is just two weeks out of that.’

None of this is to pick on individuals because the problem is endemic. Iga Swiatek did not feature for Poland and Emma Raducanu favoured a training block over helping Great Britain qualify from their group stage in the Hague.

Raducanu has had a busy and tumultuous season. She needed a break and, as we have seen, she is far from alone in skipping her country’s matches. But one feels it is not a decision Katie Boulter, the hero alongside Jodie Burrage in the finals doubles rubber, would have made. In Indian Wells I asked Boulter, who was struggling with a foot injury, how she would weigh the Cup alongside the need for rest.

‘I prioritise it over a lot of things,’ she replied. ‘I will always put Billie Jean Cup first. I want to win for the girls. It is truly important to me.’

In the Netherlands, GB captain Anne Keothavong told the BBC: ‘It’s tough for every nation to put out their best players in each tie.

‘The tennis circuit is brutal – you go from one week to the next and there’s not much time to rest and recover.

‘You have to pick and choose your moments, but it’s not a player problem – it’s a tennis problem.’

Keothavong is half right: the schedule is full to bursting and there is little space for players to take a breather. That is a tennis problem. But what is certainly a player problem is that so often when they ‘pick and choose their moments’ for a break, it is representing their country which takes a back seat.

The International Tennis Federation, who organise the Billie Jean King Cup, could not have done more to make timings convenient for the players. This qualifying round was placed after the American Sunshine Double and two weeks before the first big clay court event in Madrid – infinitely more convenient that the two Davis Cup weeks, which fall immediately after the Australian and US Opens.

And this year’s BJK Cup Finals in Shenzhen have been moved from November to September, in order to dovetail with the Asian swing.

It is certainly true that the tennis calendar is in urgent need of reworking. Players are vastly overworked and increasingly at risk of injury.

Kostyuk herself picked up a knock on national duty and that has forced her out of this week’s event in Stuttgart.

Remembering her glistening cheeks and closed eyes as she sang of a time when ‘fate shall smile once more’ on Ukraine, one imagines she will consider that injury a price worth paying.

Too soft for singles

Italian doubles player Andrea Vavassori is not competing in Barcelona this week due to ‘a rib injury that happened at the beginning of the match’ in Monte Carlo, against Rohan Bopanna and Ben Shelton. Vavassori moaned at the end of that defeat about a Shelton drive forehand volley which caught him amidships – and now appears to be claiming the blow hurt him so much he is unable to take the court.

Utterly pathetic. Shelton was unrepentant and rightly so, calling Vavassori ‘so soft’ to his face after the match. ‘It’s a tennis ball not a baseball,’ said the former high school pitcher.

Doubles is in a precarious place with the US Open’s carve up of the mixed event – for which Vavassori, as the reigning champion, was vociferous in his opposition.

Yet his behaviour will do little to quieten the stereotype that doubles specialists are just guys who can’t handle the pace and power of singles.

The less said, the better! 

The six minutes of near silence from CBS commentators after Rory McIlroy won the Masters was one of the great passages of sports broadcasting – a recognition that no words could add anything to the eloquence of those images.

The nearest comparison I can make is the wonderfully minimalist commentary from John Barrett on the 20-minute tiebreak in the fourth set of the 1980 Wimbledon final between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe.

That was the style back in the day, and the CBS masterpiece was a throwback from a time when broadcasters trusted viewers to be able to use their eyes and ears.

It is a lesson modern tennis commentators would do well to learn: there is far too much rabbiting on, stating the obvious and parroting stats. Let the action breathe, let us hear the sounds of the crowd and feel the emotions of the players.

A personal bugbear is when a player is getting into it with the umpire, we viewers are trying to listen in – and the commentators start talking! Turn up the on-court microphones and shut up!

One to watch

Diego Dedura-Palomero

The first player born in 2008 to win an ATP Tour match certainly seems like a character. The 17-year-old German leftie earned the final lucky loser spot into the Munich draw after Gael Monfils pulled out and played superbly to take the first set against Denis Shapovalov.

The Canadian threw in the towel, citing illness, trailing 3-0 in the second set. The etiquette after an opponent retires is to give a muted celebration. Not a bit of it. Dedura-Palomero roared and capered around the court, drew a cross in the clay and lay down on it in what, for want of a better explanation, seemed like a nod to the crucified Christ.

A player to keep an eye on, for more reasons than one.