{"id":88068,"date":"2025-08-03T22:11:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=88068"},"modified":"2025-08-03T22:11:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:11:52","slug":"tennis-news-weekly-roundup-zverev-picks-between-the-big-3-djokovic-becomes-part-owner-of-football-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/08\/03\/tennis-news-weekly-roundup-zverev-picks-between-the-big-3-djokovic-becomes-part-owner-of-football-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis News Weekly Roundup: Zverev Picks Between The Big 3, Djokovic Becomes Part-Owner Of Football Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every week, countless stories and news emerge in the tennis world that don\u2019t always make headlines but are too intriguing to overlook. These can be on-court or off-court developments that go under the radar due to bigger storylines from the past week. This week, we had two fascinating stories and news, which are featured in this edition.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Tennis News Weekly Roundup<\/h2>\n<h4>Novak Djokovic now Part-Owner of Le Mans FC<\/h4>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2197134753\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2197134753?et=7AuX8OoVT1VT3JCE3wqk4Q&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=-6vRwsJNlPCSSeP1sfj7OLtiu8d7Gn3dVSZkQoljuvM=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On August 1, 2025, tennis legend Novak Djokovic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/novak-djokovic-le-mans-football-club-france-b2800563.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">became<\/a> a part-owner of Le Mans FC, a French Ligue 2 football club, alongside former Formula 1 drivers Felipe Massa and Kevin Magnussen. The investment is being spearheaded by OutField, a Brazilian private equity group co-founded by Pedro Olivera, and includes Georgios Frangulis, founder and CEO of the health food brand OakBerry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Le Mans FC, founded in 1985, was recently promoted to Ligue 2 after finishing second in the third division. The club praised Djokovic as &#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the most successful player in history, whose mental strength and unique approach will bring considerable added value.&#8221; No financial details have been disclosed yet. The Serbian star has always been a football enthusiast, and this will allow him to get closer to the sport. Associating<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with a football club also enhances Djokovic\u2019s global brand beyond tennis, potentially opening doors to new endorsements or business ventures.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Zverev Picks Between the Big 3 as his Hypothetical Coach<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After an early exit at Wimbledon 2025, world No.3 Alexander Zverev spent time training under Toni Nadal\u2019s guidance at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca. In the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/lD2x4T6y7Ng?si=nEFelcB6GuLSwIXG\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">episode<\/a> of &#8216;Nothing Major Show&#8217; podcast, which is hosted by former tennis players John Isner, Sam Querrey, Jack Sock and Steve Johnson, Zverev revealed he also spent time with Rafael Nadal in Mallorca, including late-night dinners where the Spaniard gave some valuable insights and analysed his game.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2155022877\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.66667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2155022877?et=b5CcQd1PSFNbvzqBtSnYtA&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=ds49TH703EhzP6qgUdZDj5OD_fzIBmGM5-T5urSr0po=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>When asked in the podcast about a hypothetical <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">scenario of choosing a coach from the Big 3 (Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, or Roger Federer) for a year, Zverev said: &#8220;Before spending the week with Rafa and Toni in Mallorca, I would probably have said Novak. Because I had the most conversations with him, and he kind of gave me a lot of advice. But spending the week in Mallorca, the intensity that Rafa played at, that&#8217;s the intensity he coaches at. It was unbelievable. He came to court with me and started showing me forehands and trying to improve my forehand. So I&#8217;ll probably pick Rafa right now.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every week, countless stories and news emerge in the tennis world that don\u2019t always make headlines but are too intriguing to overlook. These can be on-court or off-court developments that go under the radar due to bigger storylines from the past week. This week, we had two fascinating stories and news, which are featured in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5086,"featured_media":83965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,9],"tags":[85,43212,43215,118,412,43213,43217,22,43214,135,114,466,83,6457,15305],"class_list":["post-88068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-atp","category-news","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-felipe-massa","tag-georgios-frangulis","tag-jack-sock","tag-john-isner","tag-kevin-magnussen","tag-le-mans-fc","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-pedro-olivera","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-roger-federer","tag-sam-querrey","tag-steve-johnson","tag-tennis-news","tag-toni-nadal"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88068"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88096,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88068\/revisions\/88096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}