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

This week, the Madrid Open’s beautiful weather created a classic tennis media problem, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka kept eking out wins and Casper Ruud showed that he contains multitudes.

The curious case of the disappearing tennis player?

After a Madrid Open at which the power went out and players raged about ball marks on the clay not aligning with electronic line calling (ELC), another issue occupied the minds of many fans who watched the tournament on television.

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During several daytime matches at the Caja Mágica, sections of the broadcast feed — sometimes one quadrant of the court, sometimes half the picture — were flooded with dazzlingly bright light. So bright that the players and the ball would disappear whenever they entered it, making the sun seem like a portal to another dimension and making the match borderline unwatchable.

This is part of a wider problem in tennis, whereby the architecture of certain venues — especially ones that aren’t purpose-built for the sport — turns what should be a spectacle into an eyesore. The orientation of the court, the position of television cameras and retractable roofs can all become problematic, leaving watching fans baffled as to how the elite level of a sport can fail so basically. Perhaps even more baffling is the extent to which the very obvious problem of players disappearing from view goes unmentioned by commentators. Drawing attention to a negative experience is not desirable for broadcasters, but pretending it’s not happening is also doing a disservice to the people watching.

Away from Madrid, tournaments in Halle and Berlin, both in Germany, and the Italian Open, in Rome also suffer from the shadowy court patterns, some from stadia and some from overhanging flora but all of which draw ire from fans.

Short of redesigning courts, introducing awnings for broadcast or only playing tennis at venues used exclusively for the sport, not a lot can be done. But with tennis competing with so many other sports for eyeballs, these issues are really not welcome.

How sustainable is Sabalenka’s form?

The sign of a good player or team being that they win when playing badly is the haughtiest of sporting clichés; it also comes into conflict with the idea that results will catch up with mediocre performances.

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How then to parse world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka’s 2025?

Sabalenka has been comfortably the best player on the WTA results-wise, winning or reaching the final in six of her eight events, including taking the Madrid Open title against Coco Gauff. Her performances, though, have often been patchy. In the Spanish capital, she made hard work of winning the first set against qualifier Anna Blinkova, played poorly to drop the opener against Elise Mertens, was constantly in trouble on serve against Peyton Stearns and then dug out straight-sets wins in far from straightforward matches against Marta Kostyuk and then Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Still, she won the title.

It’s impossible to play at top form all the time and Sabalenka is winning titles without doing so, which suggests her rivals have plenty to fear if she starts to click into top gear. The WTA Tour also has such a depth of talent that even apparently routine matchups may not play out as expected. But Sabalenka’s numbers suggest she is defying the law of averages, especially when it comes to escaping adversity behind her serve.

Sabalenka is 10th in the WTA top 50 for 2025 when it comes to break points faced per match, according to data from Tennis Abstract, but third for service games lost per match. In 29 matches played, world No. 2 Iga Świątek has faced 145 break points; Sabalenka has faced 186 in 30 matches. But where Świątek has saved just over 55 percent of those 145, Sabalenka has saved over 63 percent of her 186. The average for the top 50 is 56.5 percent.

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This is partly because Sabalenka has one of the best serves in the women’s game — but at the moment, it is saving her from adversity as much as it is preventing her from getting into it.

The two sides of Ruud (that aren’t so different)?

During Świątek’s one-sided defeat to Coco Gauff in Madrid, she shielded her face with a towel as she tried to cope with the emotion of the defeat — after which it was confirmed by Świątek’s team that her grandfather had passed away just prior to the event.

Waiting with some encouragement was Ruud, who went on to win the Madrid Open title by beating Jack Draper in three sets.