The Monthly Maestro #25 - Two Years of Maestros
The full list.
A few weeks ago, Federer said something funny.
He admitted that he’s training again, and has reportedly said that he’d “love to fill stadiums again”. Not with a comeback on tour, but with exhibition matches of the caliber of the Battle of the Surfaces and the Match for Africa.
He wasn’t kidding.
For a brief moment, the planets in our Milky Way seem aligned. The possibility of seeing the living legend play tennis live got me off my chair, to say the least. Boy, what it would mean for tennis when he would start setting the bar for audience entertainment again.
Also, it served as the perfect reminder of why I started this newsletter in the first place two years ago: a monthly search for the same glimpses of genius.
This Year’s Maestro
May marks the annual moment to look back on the past season and crown a new Year’s Maestro. It feels like the ideal moment to share (for the first time ever) an overview of all 25 prior Maestros, inclúding those from the first year for reference.
So here we go:
History until the first Monthly Maestro: Roger Federer
2023
May: Lorenzo Musetti
June: Lucas Pouille
July: Novak Djokovic
August: Carlos Alcaraz
September: John Isner
October: Andrey Rublev
November: Ben Shelton
December: Jannik Sinner
2024
January: Rafael Nadal
February: Jannik Sinner (2)
March: Joao Fonseca
April: Grigor Dimitrov
→ Up to this point, the first-ever Yearly Maestro was crowned in the shape of Carlos Alcaraz (especially for his majestic win over Djokovic in the 2023 Wimbledon final)
May: Rafael Nadal (2)
June: Alexander Zverev
July: Carlos Alcaraz (2)
August: Novak Djokovic (2)
September: Alexei Popyrin
October: Carlos Alcaraz (3)
November: Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard
December: Wesley Koolhof
2025
January: Nick Kyrgios
February: Jannik Sinner (3)
March: Rohan Bopanna
April: Jakub Mensik
Unlike last year, I feel like there are not three, but four names in the running for this year’s title:
Sinner
Alcaraz
Nadal
Djokovic
Let’s start with Federer’s long-time rivals Novak & Rafa. The Serb won his missing piece in the trophy wardrobe, the Olympic Gold Medal. Although he didn’t win any major this past year, Djokovic inspired millions with his run in Paris.
Nadal deserved a better farewell. He returned, he got his tribute in Madrid, but his body didn’t cooperate. The timing wasn’t there, the form wasn’t there, the goodbye he should have had simply wasn’t there. But his impact to the game still is, and so his legacy is too.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, played the kind of tennis only he can in 2024 and 2025. The guy is turning 22 today (!) and he already has a Sinatra-like documentary about his life. Week after week, he proves why that’s not premature. There’s an unpredictability in his game that makes him nearly impossible not to love.
Three great contestants.
But I believe it has to be Jannik Sinner this time. Not just because of his sheer dominance on the hard courts at the US & Australian Open, but also because of the nonsense he had to endure in the lead-up to his suspension. Too many people (like the Nick Kyrgioses of this world) were quick to paint him as a cheater, while the case against him was blown up disproportionally in the media.
So yes, this feels like the perfect time to hand him the title. And to Alcaraz (I know it's your birthday): I hate to show up empty-handed, but something tells me you'll survive.
This Month’s Maestro
The clay season is in full swing. Alcaraz won Monte-Carlo, and his former junior’s double partner Rune won the event at Barcelona. Great victories, for sure, but this time I want to shine a light on the Norwegian Casper Ruud. For 1. because he won the Madrid Masters, defeating a Jack Draper who has really been crushing it lately. But 2. he spoke up and told Iga Swiatek to keep her head up after her loss against Coco Gauff. Sportsmanship and leadership worthy of a Maestro, if you ask me.
Internship Openings
It felt kind of surreal to activate the purple Hiring button on LinkedIn, while I had its green counterpart of Open to Work a few years ago on my profile. As we’re on the verge of launching our first English course about Skill Transfers for tennis coaches with the Thirty Love Academy, I’ve opened up applications for internships in two key areas:
Growth Marketing
Brand Strategy
If you want to learn more, or might know a student in the Amsterdam area who might fit the bill, go and check out the details below.
Links worth checking out
Close call - Zverev did not trust one bit of the new automatic line calling system in Madrid. We already knew it didn’t work on clay as well as on other surfaces, but this call hits different.
Ruud & Korda - 26 years after their dads matched up, the rest of the bloodline fought it out in Madrid this time.
Best,