Serena Williams’ Super Bowl appearance with Kendrick Lamar ends a Drake tennis culture feud

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Serena Williams’ Super Bowl appearance with Kendrick Lamar ends a Drake tennis culture feud

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.

This week, Daniil Medvedev’s slump continued, another tennis tournament confirmed it was getting longer, and an American reached her first 500-level final after a strange week for her compatriots. But then Serena Williams appeared at Super Bowl LIX with Kendrick Lamar, bringing the hammer down on Drake once more.

Why Serena Williams joined Kendrick Lamar at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans

Serena Williams upstaged Taylor Swift, the Kansas City Chiefs and Drake at the Super Bowl halftime show Sunday night, bringing down the curtain on one of the more unlikely feuds in tennis culture. The 23-time Grand Slam champion, widely regarded as the greatest women’s player of all time, appeared during Kendrick Lamar’s performance of “Not Like Us.” Television cameras twice cut to Williams crip walking, in a reprise of her dance on Wimbledon’s Centre Court at the London 2012 Olympics.

After the show, Williams recalled the criticism she received in 2012. “Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon. Ooh, I would’ve been fined,” she said on social media.

Williams, 43, and Lamar, 37, are both from Compton, LA, but the meaning behind Williams’ appearance runs much deeper. “Not Like Us” is the latest instalment in a 12-year feud between Lamar and Drake that exploded in May 2024, when the two men released a string of diss tracks littered with accusations and attacks “regarding race, appropriation, sexual and physical abuse, body image, misogyny, hypocrisy, generational trauma and more.” “Not Like Us” was already perceived as the definitive diss track before Lamar’s victory lap Sunday night in New Orleans; one line goes “better not speak on Serena”, in reference to Drake and Williams’ history.

Drake closely followed Williams throughout her 2015 season, appearing not just at majors but at WTA 1000 tournaments like the Cincinnati Open, having been seen at her matches in 2011. Though neither have ever publicly confirmed that they dated, Drake claimed that he wrote “Too Good” about Williams in studio footage released in summer 2024.

In 2022, Drake referred to Williams’ husband, Alexis Ohanian, as a “groupie” on “Middle of the Ocean,” to which Reddit co-founder Ohanian, 41, responded that “being the best groupie for my wife and daughter” was the reason he stays winning. Williams’ contribution to the fleeting beef was just a string of loved-up emojis — until the 59th edition of the biggest cultural showcase in American sports. Between Lamar and Williams, Drake will be waking up sore.

What’s eating Daniil Medvedev?

Another disappointing week for Daniil Medvedev, who has dropped to No. 8 in the rankings and appears lost on the court. His thrilling run to the 2024 Australian Open final, where he was a set away from winning the title, feels a long time ago.

American qualifier Learner Tien knocked Medvedev out of Melbourne this year and last week another qualifier, Mattia Bellucci, knocked Medvedev out of the Rotterdam Open. Medvedev has won just 27 of his 47 matches against top-50 players in the last 52 weeks; he is 8-15, 4-8 and 1-8 against top-20, top-10 and top-five players in that time. With semifinal, final and semifinal points to defend in Dubai, Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami, Fla. in his next three events, the Russian could be out of the top 10 for the first time since July 2019 by the time clay-court tennis starts in April. He does not enjoy the clay.

Medvedev, a former world No. 1 and U.S. Open champion who turns 29 on Tuesday, seems to be in free fall and has been for some time. During Wednesday’s defeat to Bellucci, he produced the weird, distracted performance that has become a hallmark of late. Bellucci exposed his deep return position with a couple of underarm serves, while a dismal drop shot landed in the bottom of the net when a two-handed backhand put away looked the easier shot. In the final game, he threw his racket in the air like a bored schoolchild. Then he dropped it.

At the heart of Medvedev’s recent decline is an ongoing shoulder injury that troubled him during the Shanghai Masters in October and forced him to miss the Vienna Open later that month. Medvedev has generally played down the significance of the injury, but after losing to the world No. 1 Jannik Sinner in Shanghai, said: “I had pain in my shoulder. It didn’t let me serve the way I wanted.”

Medvedev’s tentacular defense and incredible court coverage have always relied on free points behind his serve, allowing him to blunt big-serving opponents while coasting through his own service games. Take those points away and he loses much of his potency. So far this year, Medvedev has been broken twice, nine times, twice and three times in his four matches. Bellucci feasted on Medvedev’s second serve on Wednesday, winning 58 percent of points played behind it.

Medvedev puts some of his struggles down to the balls: he is one of many players to complain about their slowness. When combined with fast courts, the balls’ heaviness allows big servers to dominate and make any rallies that do break out feel impossible to escape. Medvedev has been particularly forthright about his belief that only Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner have the power necessary to end a rally from neutral, citing his backhand as a shot that no longer does any damage.

His attempts to rediscover his best form and motivation after being thwarted so many times by Alcaraz and Sinner over the last year will be one of the ATP Tour’s most gripping subplots for the rest of the season.

A bright spot in a bewildering week for American players

The week was set up to be a slam dunk for the Americans on the ATP Tour: a home tournament on indoor hard courts, with most of the top 20 either in Europe or resting. Instead, the Dallas Open turned into an away banker, with world No. 4 Taylor Fritz, No. 14 Ben Shelton and No. 18 Frances Tiafoe all suffering surprise defeats. Fritz lost to a resurgent Denis Shapovalov from a set up; Shelton was surprised by Jaume Munar, who has added more aggression to his gameplan on hard courts for 2025; Tiafoe was beaten in three sets against Yoshihito Nishioka.

Tommy Paul, the world No. 9, and Reilly Opelka, down at No. 121 as he returns from injury, then had to play each other in a quarterfinal. Paul made it through, leaving just one American in a final four that looked ready for a clean sweep at the start of the week.

Step forward Dallas native Ashlyn Krueger, who bucked the trend and reached the first WTA 500 final of her career at the Abu Dhabi Open. Krueger, 20, showed signs that she was ready for this kind of run in Adelaide, before the Australian Open. Entering as a lucky loser, she beat Marta Kostyuk and Paula Badosa before losing to compatriot Jessica Pegula in the quarterfinals. In Abu Dhabi, she defeated Daria Kasatkina, Leylah Fernandez and Linda Noskova, taking her record against top-50 players to 5-1 for 2025. At last year’s Cincinnati Open, she beat Naomi Osaka, then followed it up with a victory against Mirra Andreeva at the U.S. Open.

In the Abu Dhabi final, Krueger won the first set against Belinda Bencic before the 2021 Olympic gold medalist took over the match, beating the American 4-6, 6-1, 6-1. Bencic, who returned to tennis in November 2024 after giving birth to her first child, Bella, played two non-WTA events and one WTA 125 (a rung below the main tour) to give herself match practice. It has paid off, with a run to the Australian Open fourth round preceding this title win.

It remains an impressive week for Krueger — and the best result for any American player, with Paul falling to eventual champion Shapovalov in the Dallas semifinals.

More Masters 1000, more problems?

The increase in two-week ATP and WTA 1,000 events, the rung just below the Grand Slams, has been unpopular with fans and players. For fans, there is a dilution in quality and an often strange schedule. For the players, longer events mean more time in competition and less rest. An early defeat also leaves no chance to earn ranking points for longer.

At last year’s Cincinnati Open in Ohio, current world No. 2 Iga Swiatek cited how unforgiving the schedule is. That tournament has become the latest to extend, alongside the National Bank Open in Toronto and Montreal that directly precedes it. The Cincinnati tournament will now start on a Tuesday and end on a Monday, while the finals in Canada will be played on a Thursday. For fans, this will be a less-than-optimal experience.

Cincinnati tournament director Bob Moran agreed with the ATP Tour in a press release announcing the change, claiming that “the added days will help players compete at their peak due to additional rest between matches.” Those players more often say that dragging out the tournaments with one-day breaks is less beneficial than having shorter tournaments with more dedicated rest.

Two-week events also “give our fans more opportunities to see the world’s top tennis talent in more matches, practices and special experiences across more days on-site,” according to Moran, which from a ticketing (and revenue) perspective is accurate. The long gaps and larger draws (Cincinnati and Toronto / Montreal will expand from 56 players to 96 players) stand in contrast to one-week 1,000 events, with a packed schedule and matches between players with solid rankings right from the get-go even on outside courts.

The expanded 1,000 events do come with more prize money and for players ranked between 100 and 150, it’s an opportunity to qualify and earn decent cash. With the Monte Carlo Masters and Paris Masters standing together as one-week tournaments on the ATP Tour and events in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Doha, Qatar and Wuhan, China the remaining one-week tournaments on the WTA Tour, it remains to be seen whether the holdouts will be converted.

The 15-year-old talent providing a bright spark for women’s tennis in India

Fans at the WTA 125 tournament in Mumbai, India found themselves cheering a home player all the way to the semifinals — at just 15. Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi got through qualifying and then three main-draw matches in her fifth professional event, losing to Jil Teichmann — a former top-30 player — in the last four.

Rajeshwaran Revathi is based in Coimbatore, the second-largest city in the state of Tamil Nadu, but told the WTA Tour that this month she will move to Menorca, Spain, for a year at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy. Sumit Nagal, the current ATP world No. 105, trained in Canada and Germany before joining the ATP Challenger circuit. India’s tennis authorities focus on national excellence — the Olympics, essentially — over and above individual achievements, and its lineage of successful doubles players has never translated into high-profile singles talent thanks, in part, to its attitude towards player development.

Rajeshwaran Revathi’s next target is performing well at the junior Grand Slam tournaments.

Shot of the week

Olga Danilovic upstages Carlos Alcaraz’s behind-the-back defense with a drop shot out of nowhere.

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 ATP:

🏆 Carlos Alcaraz (1) def. Alex De Minaur (3) 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 to win the ABN Amro Open (500) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It is his first indoor title.

🏆 Denis Shapovalov def. Casper Ruud (2) 7-6(5), 6-3 to win the Dallas Open (500) in Dallas. It is his first ATP 500 title.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Belinda Bencic (WC) def. Ashlyn Krueger 4-6, 6-1, 6-1 to win the Abu Dhabi Open (500) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It is Bencic’s second Abu Dhabi title.

🏆 Anastasia Potapova (1) def. Lucia Bronzetti 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 to win the Transylvania Open (250) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It is her third WTA Tour singles title.