Coco Gauff Was Right. Medvedev Was Defaulted. Are Tennis Rules Fair?

Tennis Rules can feel so subjective depending on the tournament or the umpire in the chair. Coco Guaff and Daniil Medvedev bore the brunt of these rules last week in different ways that could have been avoided.

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This week on the podcast we are looking into two tennis rules that dominated the headlines last week. Video Review and Ball Abuse violations were back in the headlines and not for the right reasons. Tennis rules can seem either obscure or subjective which doesn’t seem ideal in a sport where things normally land in the black-or-white column; here we had many shades of gray. Nick and Anastasia get into these rules, what they are, how they are implemented and if more clarity is needed.

We also get into Qinwen Zheng winning the China Open, Novak Djokovic surviving, Jannik Sinner ending his season which means Zverev ends the year as number 1 and does having fun make Carlos Alcaraz unstoppable?

Chapters

00:00 Intro

03:51 Part 1 - Know the Rules - How tennis complicates itself

04:41 Video review in Tennis and how it changed in 2026

06:53 The Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev Case

11:39 The Coco Gauff v Sun Xinran Case

18:58 The fallout of the Gauff incident

26:58 Ball abuse rule and recent incidents

39:52 Part 2: The News - Qinwen Zheng wins in Beijing

45:36 Mirra Andreeva is the New World no. 3

48:41 Carlos Alcaraz is back with a mustache

52:25 Survive and Advance the Novak Djokovic story

54:58 Jannik Sinner is out for the season

59:21 Players of the fortnight - Arthur Gea and Nikola Bartunkova

01:04:12 Upcoming tournaments and local events

01:06:22 Outro

Links:

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• Eurovision song (its real!!!) Moustache (France) 2014 - https://youtu.be/hWJFfnHNOWI?si=rp9y0tGo31NfatKK

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About Us: Ground Pass is a tennis podcast for the rest of us. Hosted by Anastasia Folorunso and Nick Carter, it breaks down the pro tour for casual fans and anyone new to the sport, no jargon, no gatekeeping. From Grand Slam drama to the players you should know, we make tennis easy to follow and fun to obsess over.

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