Updates on Draper, the ATP Race, Vondrousova's Ban & Shelton's Development | Mailbag

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**Gill Gross** (1:30)
Hey, everyone, Gil Gross here, and it is time for another Mailbag brought to you by Fitnexa. We're answering your questions, observations, hot takes, and ultimately your comments about tennis or anything else. We're mid-Cincinnati at the moment, although many of the comments I pulled are more general about things that have happened in the tennis world this year over the course of the last several weeks. After all, it has been a few weeks since we did our last Mailbag. So I'm excited to get into it. And let's not waste any time. First one is from Matthew.
Hi, Gill, what do you think is the path forward for Jack Draper? Should he shut down his season? Does he just have to learn to play through some amount of pain and learn to tolerate and fight with it better? I'm not sure what he should do to be honest. Thanks for all the amazing tennis content you provide. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if Jack knows what to do about it. This is a very tricky situation, hard situation, difficult to watch at times. Just overall and all around unfortunate. That stuff goes without saying. He, in terms of solutions, other than not seemingly having a really, you know, rock-solid medical solution, he has looked towards the racket technology, softer string, more forgiving frame. I think that's a good move, although perhaps it has affected his confidence a bit. Perhaps it is something that Jack resents having to do in the first place.
Here's what he hasn't done. The only thing that I can say from this position that he hasn't done is go to the lower levels to try to work things out. Because, right now, tennis is a brutal sport this way. You are so exposed. You are naked. You are absolutely naked in front of millions and millions of people. And if you don't feel like yourself out there, and especially with somebody with as high standards, the high standards that Jack has, and if there are a lot of demons rattling around in the head, and there's fear and there's emotions around it, like there clearly are, again, it's just, there's no hiding in tennis.
There is a degree of hiding, a degree of it, if you go down to play tournaments that don't have such a microscope on them, so that you're not in this fishbowl playing in the largest stadiums in the world against the best players in the world. And maybe that could offer Jack some relief or at least some time to figure himself out, you know, with a little bit less pressure, fewer eyeballs, less media, worse opponents. You know, I can think of a lot of benefits. So that's what I will offer up in response to this question, just an idea for Jack, something to consider if he feels like he's having trouble making progress at the highest level of the sport. And if he feels like he's struggling with the mental components of even attempting to do that, maybe look towards going down to the challenger level. That would be my only idea at the moment. Next one is from Top Spin Pigslayer, if I read that correctly. What a username. A little unrelated to Cincinnati, but recently I saw that Sinner had qualified for the ATP Finals. Who are your favorites to occupy the other seven spots at this point? Are there any players who have surprised you either good or bad with their performance so far this season? I think the last time I did this, it may have been April, I want to say, when we did a little check on the race. And one thing that I definitely remember saying is, I put my hand up and I was like, I was wrong about Medvedev before the year.