Ben Shelton Makes History, Holger Rune Wins Barcelona, and More

Written By Anastasia Folorunso

This week, it’s just Anastasia on the mic for a quick solo catch-up on everything that’s gone down on the tour.

We’re talking:

• Ben Shelton making American clay-court history 🧱🇺🇸

• Jelena Ostapenko continuing her mental hold over Iga Swiatek 😳

• Carlos Alcaraz reaching back-to-back finals… but it’s Holger Rune who steals the show in Barcelona 🏆

• And yes—Alexander Zverev might just have his mojo back after winning Munich 👀

It’s a short, sharp dose of stories, energy, and opinion—everything you need to stay in the loop this week.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

For more like this, subscribe to Ground Pass and don’t miss our full-length episodes every other week!

Relevant Links:

• Jelena Ostapenko won the Abu Dhabi Open WTA 500 in doubles with Ellen Perez

TRANSCRIPT

Anastasia Folorunso (00:00)

you

Anastasia and this week we

No Nick today, just me. It's gonna be a shorter episode. And yeah, what a week in tennis it was. Before we start, I mean, if you're watching this, you are in my new office setup. Let me know what you think about it in the comments. If you're not watching, just listen along on YouTube, on, you know, wherever you are listening or whatever. But I did wanna show,

this. This and sorry for the glare you're seeing all reflections but this is a really cool print that I got from Will Beggar. I think that's how you pronounce it but he made this print for the Arizona tennis classic which was a challenger held in the second week of Indian Wells and the moment I saw it it was being sold at the tournament and I didn't go but the moment I saw this print I was like

I must have it. And I was able to reach out to him, contact him and get a copy. So I'm really excited because I plan to add it somewhere in this little office setup. So to the tennis, what happened this past week in the world of tennis? A lot. If the first two days of last week were a little chaotic, if you don't follow us on Instagram, on TikTok,

You really should because I did a little bit of a video breakdown on our coffee catch up this past week. We have our coffee catch up every single Friday and it was a lot. I'm not gonna run through everything here because it will be longer podcasts than I would like. But let's just say to Harriet Dart, please do not call your opponent smelly.

especially when you are losing six love, six three. That to me was the wildest moment I have ever seen on a tennis court. Save it for the locker room, you know, it was just, anyway, don't do that. I have my notes in front of me here, so if I look down, that's what I'm looking at. ⁓ But yeah, really wild start to the week, but there are a few stories that I would like to touch on that happened last week.

first and foremost being a stat that I was shocked by. And I really love the conversations that I had with people online because I think I was not the only one shocked by this stat. But Ben Shelton got to the finals of the Stuttgart Open, not Stuttgart, sorry. That was the other German tournament. No, he got to the final of the Munich Open. And he is apparently the first

American to do so to get to the semi-finals of an ATP 500 level clay court tournament. I thought that was wild. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. And I think there needs to be some asterisks to that stat because talking to people online about this stat, you realize, well, the sort of 1,500, 250,

ranking of tournaments that we have now didn't start until 2009. So that's when that started. So before then, we did have some Americans get to the later rounds of clay court tournaments, but it also wasn't as prevalent. Like Americans just are not that great on European clay. It's kind of a a trope.

You say they kind of skip that part of the of the lessons that they go through. ⁓ So it's not entirely surprising, but at the same time, I was kind of blown away. just tennis has been going on for years and years and years. We're in 2025. How is he the first one? But there needs to be some sort of qualifications to that stat. Either way, he's doing

phenomenal on the European clay right now. He made the choice this year to not go to the Houston Open, which is the clay court tournament in the States that he won last year. And I, at first, I found that surprising. I was like, why isn't Ben Shelton going to go defend his points? And then he turned up at the UTS exhibition in France, which was a glorious event. If you have not seen footage of that tournament and the stadium,

or coliseum that it was held in, I will put links below in the show notes so you can go take a look. But he did that and then he went to Monte Carlo. He didn't do too well in Monte Carlo. He was out in the first round in singles, but he got far in the doubles. But either way, I think he was, he decided to prep early on the European clay, which I admire a lot because he gets to the final of the Munich Open, which is a phenomenal

just, you know, it's definitely growth for him. I think last year was his first full season, definitely on European clay and he looked like a deer on ice in most of it. It does take some practice and, you know, time to get better on clay, which especially on the European continent is a little bit slidey, slippy slidey. And most players...

Carlos Alcáez, for example, they grew up on clay. That was their first surface. ⁓ Ben probably first played on hard court. So it's really nice to see him do well in Munich and get as far as he did. He's definitely the American clay dog, as they say. I always put that title on ⁓ Tommy Paul. Tommy Paul hasn't played much since...

actually hasn't played at all. He hasn't played at all since the Houston Open, which he participated in. I think he got to the semifinals there. So would be nice to see Tommy Paul back ⁓ soon at the next tournament that's happening in Europe. Next, head-to-heads. One of my favorite things in tennis is tennis head-to-heads because they can be so complex.

One of the reasons why I started ground pass was because I was at the US Open and watching a match and you just heard the comments from people where they assumed that one of the players because they had a higher ranking was gonna win the match. With tennis, it's not like that. Just because you have a higher ranking doesn't mean you match up very well with the player across the court. And that is the case with Eges Fjontek and Jelena Ostapenko.

They, right now, Yelena leads the head-to-head six love because she won their match at Stuttgart, which was the 500 level WTA tournament that happened last week. Actually finished today, why I'm recording late. Because I just wanted to, I was like, I might as well just watch the finals and then record after that. But yeah, like they have this really askew head-to-head.

with Iga losing has never won a match against Elena Ostapenko, even though she is by all metrics, the better player. She has more titles, she's higher in the rankings, she has great variety and style. But when it comes to the tennis, it's sort of what works best against someone else might not work with another player.

And what Ega's Fiontech does, does not work for Yelena Ostapenko. There is a podcast that I will put below. It's called Tennis Inside In, hosted by my friend Mitch Michaels, where a few episodes ago, he interviewed Andrea Petkovic, who I love. I love Petko. She is a really great commentator in the space of tennis. She also has another podcast with Renee Stubbs that I love.

But I will link this episode where she talks specifically about the Egas Fiontek and Jelena Osepengo head to head. I do not know the technicalities of things. I don't really study the technicalities of the tennis. I do know their matchup doesn't work. And she had such a great way of explaining why Egas game is actually something that Jelena loves to play against. ⁓

So there's definitely that aspect of it. What I can speak to though is I really do think there is a mental aspect to it too. Watching this match, Iga just didn't look hungry. She didn't look like, you know what, I'm going to dig my heels in and not leave this court until I win. She just didn't have that edge. At least I didn't see it.

On the other side of the court, Yelena was having the best time of her life. I think she lives to play Igor's Fiontec. You could just see the sort of like the little sparkle in her eye every time she won a point and she had this little smirk, this little smile she does. She is very mischievous, I think, Yelena Ostapenko is. So I do think that showing that contrast, you almost knew who was going to win.

someone's having fun and someone's not having fun. And the person having fun usually is the one who comes out on top. I will leave it there because I'm going to talk about Elena Ossipenko later on in this episode, but that head-to-head is really, really fascinating. And it looks like in the next tournament, they might be meeting again, which part seven of this matchup, will be, if it happens, I will be there watching.

the next story, well, I'll actually just jump right into the next thing with Yelena Ostapenko, but she won the tournament. Yelena Ostapenko was the champion in Stuttgart. She defeated Irina Samalenka, the number one player in the world to win the title. Yelena Ostapenko is an enigma, I think. She hasn't been playing well in singles this year.

Doubles on the other hand, she's been crushing it. She got to the finals of the Australian Open. She ⁓ has already won a tournament this year in Doubles. I believe it was one of either Dubai or Doha 1000 level events that happened earlier on right after Australia. Don't quote me on it, but look it up. I'll put it in the show notes if I find which one it was. But she's been doing awesome.

in doubles, in singles, not so much. But you're looking at someone who is a former Grand Slam champion. She won the French Open a while ago, which I loved because she made comments about it ⁓ on her on-court interview after she beat Iga. And she was like, yeah, know, a lot of people say Iga is good on clay, but hey, I am also a Roland Garros champion. So am I. So.

When she's playing like this, Yelena Ostapenko is like a top five player. She hits the ball big, she's super smart on court and just, and super athletic as well. Like she's such a great player. It's just about the consistency. She doesn't always have the consistency. And here she is making waves on clay. Now, are we gonna say Yelena Ostapenko is the favorite? One of the favorites, I think, of the French Open? Maybe, maybe not.

Stuttgart is an indoor clay tournament, which I think plays a little bit differently than Roland Garros does. Everyone kind of uses Rome as a litmus test for who might do well at Roland Garros. I don't know, but it is so fun to see Yelena Ossipenko back on top winning tournaments because she's such a fun character. And when she's in the mix,

It's exciting. It's just absolutely, I love it. I love her little outburst on court when she has, you know, it's really funny because now that electronic line calling is just everywhere now, it's on clay, it's on all the surfaces. You've kind of taken away a little bit of what Yulian Olsipenko used to live on, which was ⁓ arguing about line calls and things like that. So.

really love her personality and there is no one like Elena Osepenko on tour and I'm really excited that she won this and she's doing well. In Arena's case, I don't know. I think with Arena and why she didn't particularly maybe do well in this final, rhythm might be part of it. She weirdly did not play a match in this tournament till the quarterfinals.

She was supposed to play, who was it? I'm spacing out right now on who she was supposed to play, but her opponent in the second round, because she got to buy in the first round, withdrew due to illness. my God, was Anastasia Potofova. It was me. ⁓ No, but it was Anastasia Potofova who withdrew and then that just put Irina Sabalenka into the quarterfinals, which means she was sitting around.

for a very long time doing pretty much nothing. ⁓ I mean, not nothing. She was probably training and doing all that stuff, but I do think she maybe lacked a little bit of a rhythm coming through the tournament fully. ⁓ So that might be a thing. She has wanted to win Stuttgart for so long. I remember she She was in the finals maybe two years ago against EGOSFIONTECH.

and Ego won and the big thing about Stuttgart is that one of the prizes is a car. It's a Porsche. And she made this joke of almost trying to smash the window when Ego won it once. ⁓ And she's wanted to win it and she just hasn't gotten over the line yet. So maybe, maybe one day soon she will get her Porsche. That was pretty much most of what happened ⁓ on the WTA.

I will say Alex Ayala made her comeback to the tour. She was playing at a WTA 125 in Orias and in Portugal. I hope I'm saying that right. Orias, which is in Portugal. The one thing I'll say about this tournament, I didn't watch much. I watched Alex Ayala's match, but she lost. She won the first round. She lost in the second. But this tournament was just rained out. They eventually finished it, but

the delays were endless. So I didn't really get to watch a lot of this tournament. I will say though, the location is gorgeous. Just looking at the photos of the court, I'll put some here. It's just so beautiful. It was a beautiful, beautiful court. ⁓ I heard, I reached out to a journalist who was working the event and it looks like that's where Estoril, which is a very popular tournament in Portugal, it is

this year gonna be a challenger. We'll talk about it when it comes up, but Estoril used to be held at this location and I can see it. It's like a really, really gorgeous, gorgeous spot. So Alexayala is back. She's back on tour. Her next tournament is going to be the Madrid Open. And I just saw the draw and her first round match is Egos Fiontic, which that's tough. That is tough because I know you're all thinking,

Alex Ayala won a match against Iga in Miami. Miami is not Madrid. And Miami is also on hard court, which is not clay. And clay is Iga's home. So unless something miraculous happens, I think Iga is gonna be taking that one. But let's see, who knows? Crazier things have happened. So that's the WTA. Jumping on really quickly to the ATP. We already talked about Ben Shelton.

But we've got to talk about Barcelona. Barcelona was a really, really fun tournament. I really enjoyed Barcelona. I really enjoyed their TikTok. They were hilarious on TikTok. ⁓ lately, Groundpass hasn't really been on TikTok a lot, but lately I've been getting into it ever since the Miami Open. And it's just so much fun talking to people on there and, you know, a lot of new tennis fans, like...

We blew up on TikTok because of Alex Ayala and got a whole bunch of new followers and so many of them are super curious. So I'm actually really enjoying being on TikTok and posting videos there. So if you don't follow us on TikTok, you should. It's really fun. But yeah, Barcelona was super fun and Carlos Alcaraz made it to the final. I think he is trying to shake off the cobwebs a little bit. It's really hard for me sometimes to

jump on the sort of like, ⁓ Carlos isn't playing really well bandwagon because he's a four time Grand Slam champion and has done so much already in his young career. But yeah, he's not winning every single match. Like he maybe, like most people maybe expect him to. So it's very interesting kind of following along with his journey, but he came straight from Monte Carlo.

won that tournament and came to Barcelona. And I personally was, this is a very busy time for a player like Carlos who does really well on clay because you have Monte Carlo, Barcelona followed very quickly by Madrid, Rome and straight into Roland Garros. It's back to back to back. And, you know, I always wonder when do these players take a break? When do they take the rest? And he almost...

talked about it a little bit, spoiler, he lost in the final, but he mentioned in press that he is almost more impressed now by Rafa Nadal who year after year would win Monte Carlo and go straight into Barcelona and win that again. He's realizing now after finally getting past a first round, know Monte Carlo is a tournament that he hasn't really played that much.

played it once before, just one round and lost in the first round. And then he skipped a few years due to injury or whatever else it was. And this was the first year he was back and actually won the tournament. But he's so impressed by that turnaround and what it takes to back to back win Monte Carlo and Barcelona. So it's a new challenge for him. Let's see how he does in future years. But he lost in the final to Holger Runa. Yes, Holger Runa.

former member of the Baby Big Three.

Why do we love three in tennis? But either way he this week played like the old whole Garouna He's actually he's had flashes of this in in at Indian Wells He also had that sort of old whole Garouna vibe and it seems like this year Something's changed whether it's him going back to his old coach, but something's changed where

he is definitely kind of regaining that level that he was at. What was that, 2023 when everyone was like, baby big three, Senor Alcaraz and Runa, you know, and Holger just kind of fell off a lot, really, if you think about it. But this was his first win in two years.

That's a long time. So it's nice to see him back playing well. He beat some really great people. He beat Caspar Roode who was the winner last year. He also beat Karen Hatchenoff in a phenomenal match. was lights out. He was not giving an inch in that match. he played against Carlos in the final. Carlos, it was a good first set. It went to a tie break. And in the second set, it seems like Carlos might have picked up a bit of an injury.

Hopefully not considering he's going to be trying to defend Roland Garros, but maybe he was a little bit compromised there, but either way, the week that Holgeruna put together was very impressive and it's nice to see him playing this way again. Now it's can he keep it up? Can it be consistent? So fingers crossed because he is someone I love to see at the top of the game. He's fun. I love fun characters. Yelena Osepenka, Holgeruna.

fun characters at the top of the game is great. And that was pretty much it this week. know, want to keep this episode short because it's just a mini pod. So let's talk about what's happening. Let's see what's happening this week. Or let's just run through the winners a little bit. So ATP, had Holgeruna in Barcelona. We had Alexandre Zverev.

In Munich, I talked about Ben Shelton getting to the final. His opponent was Alexander Zverev, who is back winning again. He has had a tough time coming out of the Australian Open loss. He just has not been able to get his mojo back. And maybe this was it. Maybe he's now going to be able to sort of regain confidence, because I think he very much is a confidence player. When he gets low, it seems to affect his tennis.

a lot. So he's back winning on the WTA. We had Elena Ostapenko at Stuttgart and we had Elena Svitolina in Rwanda. I did not watch this tournament at all. Not at all. I saw Deodorant Gate, which came out of this tournament. But other than that, I had too few eyeballs to watch all of the tennis. So unfortunately, I did not get to watch this, but it's lovely to see Elena Svitolina winning again.

What's coming up, the Madrid Open? The Madrid Open is a thousand level tournament. It is one of my favorite. I just posted before recording this a new series that we have. So we've got coffee catch up, which we catch up on the week. That's every Friday. And now every Monday, I'm going to be doing a this week in tennis. And I did a little quick video about the Madrid Open. It's definitely a tournament with a lot of controversy.

But if you know, know. ⁓ But it's one that I love a lot. Like I really enjoy the way the tournament covers themselves. They put so much content out there for fans who are not able to be there in person. And sure, even for those who go, you know, they wanna see all these interviews and...

things live and I really love what they do. So check out the video I put, it's on Instagram and TikTok. But otherwise, everyone is at the Madrid Open. The only big name who's not gonna be there is Sinner. And we will talk about him next week because he is on his way back. Videos have already started coming out. He's back, he's allowed to start training again with other ATP players. So he was training with Jack Draper in Monaco recently. ⁓ So yeah.

He is on his way back. So that's it. That's all I have for you today. I hope you're all doing well. If you don't follow us on social media, you should. That's where I kind of have daily updates on what's going on in the world of tennis to keep you up to date. I watch all the tennis so you don't have to. I do watch an excessive amount of tennis.

But yes, if you're listening to this on your podcast, streamer of choice, please give us a five star rating, a like, a subscribe, whatever else you need to do. Leave us a comment, send us an email, carry a pigeon, all of the above. Other than that, I hope to see you somewhere on the grounds.

Anastasia Folorunso
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