The ATP Cup, the latest contraption striking a blow for men’s tennis, reached its climax in Australia this week. Set across ten days between the cities of Perth, Brisbane, and Sydney, the event played host to twenty-four competing nations, with six groups and a round-robin format preceding a knockout stage, ties decided over the course of best-of-three matches and best-of-three sets. As qualification was based on the ATP rankings, and ranking points as well as a prize pot of AU$22 million were at stake, most of the best players in the world were present – with the notable exception of Roger Federer, absent for family reasons – while Spain headed into proceedings as favourites thanks to the top-thirty trio of Rafael Nadal, Roberto Bautista Agut, and Pablo CarreƱo Busta.
The group phase of the event played out largely as expected, with Serbia, Spain, Great Britain, Russia, Argentina, and Australia claiming first place. Belgium and Canada snatched the coveted best runner-up slots, with France perhaps the surprise losers as GaĆ«l Monfils, BenoĆ®t Pare, and Gilles Simon finished third in a tough group behind Serbia and South Africa. The United States joined Chile, Uruguay, Moldova, and Greece as the teams who were squashed. On into the quarter-finals, and Nick Kyrgios helped Australia overcome Great Britain, who had already suffered the late withdrawal of Andy Murray, while Spain edged out Belgium and Serbia and Russia both handily progressed. In the semis, a close-fought victory for Novak Djokovic over Daniil Medvedev sealed victory for Serbia as they beat Russia 3-0, while Spain trounced Australia by the same scoreline despite a competitive doubles and an early scare in the singles for Nadal. So it was the world number one versus the world number two in the finals, and after Bautista Agut walloped DuÅ”an LajoviÄ, Djokovic squeezed past Nadal in three sets to set up a climactic doubles match. Pulling double duty, the team of Djokovic and Viktor Troicki beat out CarreƱo Busta and Feliciano LĆ³pez, allowing Serbia to triumph.
This first edition of the ATP Cup had already courted controversy, coming just a couple of months after the debut of the decidedly similar rebranded Davis Cup. As the Association of Tennis Professionals clashes with the International Tennis Federation over the future of international team competition – with the Laver Cup, pitting Team World against Team Europe, now in its third year also an ATP-affiliated event – Novak Djokovic has suggested ‘Looking long term, I don’t think that the two events can coexist six weeks apart’. During the course of the week the new event also provoked consternation among some of the women playing in the Brisbane International, with Maria Sharapova saying that the WTA Tour tournament felt ‘second-hand’ as the ATP Cup dominated centre court. KarolĆna PlĆÅ”kovĆ” defended her title in Brisbane with a three-set victory over Madison Keys, while over in Auckland Serena Williams won her first title in three years, defeating Jessica Pegula in the final and donating her prize money to the ongoing firefighting effort as the players prepare for the Australian Open in a couple of weeks.
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Beggars Group – the UK-based purveyor of alternative music, a collective of labels which includes the major independents 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, Young Turks, and XL – announced this week that it has parted ways with Warner Music Group’s Alternative Distribution Alliance after months of delayed shipments. Domino and Saddle Creek will join Beggars Group in a move to the North Carolina distributor Redeye, which from the start of January has been handling all of the labels’ physical distribution. Artists who release music through the affected labels include Grimes, The National, Big Thief, Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Princess Nokia, Algiers, Kurt Vile, Holly Herndon, Kim Gordon, FKA twigs, Kamasi Washington, and Thom Yorke.
Last April, Warner Music Group switched distribution from Technicolor in Nashville to Direct Shot in Indiana, consolidating the stock of all three major labels – Sony, Universal, and Warner – for the first time in one place. Soon thereafter, in the midst of the turnabout, independent record stores began to complain that they had failed to receive Warner releases in time for Record Store Day; and though Direct Shot was subsequently acquired by Legacy Supply Chain Services, a larger distribution network, stores have continued to suffer from delays as well as missing or incorrect shipments. The still surging vinyl market – which in 2019 was poised to surpass the market for compact discs for the first time since 1986 – is especially important for many independent labels, who rely to a greater degree on physical distribution over online streaming. Beggars Group founder Martin Mills said in a statement:
‘Historically, independent labels have always seen getting records into stores as the first business decision they need to make. But now that physical is such a small and decreasing part of the majorsā business, for indies, to whom physical, and especially vinyl, is so much more important, to partner with the majors for distribution has become arguably anachronistic. Beggars works with great, fully independent distributors everywhere else in the world, and believes in bringing the advantages of our scale to the sector; and much as weāre sorry to leave ADA, with whom weāve had incredible success, weāre very happy to be fully independently distributed at last in the USA.’
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From its origins as an offshoot of the Chicago Music Show, through a couple of location changes and the unveiling of the first ever videocassette recorder, Commodore 64, Windows Media Center, and Mega Man X, CES organised by the Consumer Technology Association has for a long time been the premier trade show in the realm of cutting-edge consumer electronics. Its lustre has faded a little in recent years, with many of the tech giants now hosting their own outsized events, but the fifty-third iteration of CES which took place this week boasted a rare appearance from Apple, ultramodern automotive technologies, and a controversial keynote speech from Ivanka Trump.
Alongside the latest trends in 5G wireless technology, MicroLED and 8K televisions, foldable laptops, and robotic vibrators, Samsung touted an ‘Age of Experience’ with an emphasis on personalised technology including augmented reality glasses, a rolling yellow robot companion named Ballie, and smart devices stretching from the home to the workplace, with innovations to aid firefighters, the visually impaired, and the physically disabled. Mercedes showcased their Vision AVTR concept car inspired by the blockbuster movie Avatar, and Sony unleashed a surprise of their own in the form of the camera and touchscreen-laden Vision-S. Impossible Foods unveiled their first plant-based pork substitutes, Impossible Pork and Impossible Sausage, the latter to be available in select Burger King restaurants in the United States while serving as a direct rival to Beyond Sausage, whereas the ground pork substitute aims to be both endlessly versatile as well as kosher and halal-friendly. And founders Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenburg – of eBay and Hewlett-Packard and DreamWorks respectively – launched Quibi, a video streaming service targeted at the mobile market. Limiting its shows to ten minutes in length, Quibi elaborated on the gimmick of ‘Turnstyle’ viewing, which will allow users to switch seamlessly between portrait and landscape modes. Already backed by more than $1 billion in funding, Quibi has already established partnerships with creators including Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Chrissy Teigen, Reese Witherspoon, and Bill Murray.
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In other assorted movie news this week, the 73rd British Academy Film Award nominees were outed as a typically myopic if surprisingly populist affair, as Joker led the way with eleven nominations while Cynthia Erivo, Awkwafina, Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Murphy, and Antonio Banderas were among the big names cut out of the acting awards, as the twenty acting nominees included no actors of colour. Hot on the heels of Joker were Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which picked up ten nominations apiece. Sam Mendes’s First World War drama 1917 was one place further back with nine nominations, and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite rounded out the Best Film nominees with Best Director drawing from the same pool, leaving no place for the acclaimed works of Greta Gerwig, Joanna Hogg, Lulu Wang, or Noah Baumbach.
Elsewhere A24 – the independent studio behind such films as Moonlight, Ex Machina, Lady Bird, Midsommar, and Spring Breakers, which has already attained its own fandom and is currently revelling in the success of the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems – dropped the trailer for their upcoming feature First Cow, a pastoral directed by the keenly inquisitive Kelly Reichardt. Set in the nineteenth century Pacific Northwest, the picture will star John Magaro and Orion Lee, with music by William Tyler. And on the theme of scores, two more Studio Ghibli soundtracks are coming to vinyl, with New York record store Turntable Lab set to oversee the release of Joe Hisaishi’s remastered scores for Kiki’s Delivery Service and Porco Rosso.
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Between the bustle and brusqueness of big-city fashion weeks in London, Milan, and Paris lies Pitti Uomo. The largest and most prestigious trade show in men’s fashion brings hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of boosters and buffs to the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, for a biannual event which depending on your perspective serves as a bastion of tradition or a prime spot for peacocks to roost. Soft shoulders, sprezzatura, and oxfords, brogues, and monks are the order of the day, in a festival of accessories and questionable colour combinations which increasingly strives for a modern edge.
Squeezed between men’s fashion weeks in London and Milan, the 97th edition of Pitti Uomo took place this week from Tuesday to Friday after a lavish opening ceremony on Monday night. More than 1,200 exhibitors and 21,400 buyers took part, with a focus through a series of public conversations on new materials and waste. Among the highlights in Florence, the Italian tailoring giant Brioni celebrated its 75th anniversary, Jil Sander served as the week’s special guest, and there were special showcases from Stefano Pilati, the former creative director of Yves Saint Laurent and Ermenegildo Zegna, for his latest project Random Identities, and from the unisex brand Telfar whose founder Telfar Clemens was making his Pitti debut. Much of the focus as always however centred upon the fashion choices of aspiring customers and clientele, intrepid adventurers, or those simply there to peek and be peeked.
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Sandycombe Lodge, the only surviving building designed by J. M. W. Turner, was built by the artist in 1813 on the edge of two large estates between Twickenham and Richmond Bridge, then the placid outskirts of London. Showing the influence of his close friend, the architect Sir John Soane, Turner lived, painted, and entertained at Sandycombe Lodge from 1814 to 1826, and when the building was sold it served as a rental and briefly as a shadow factory during World War II, before attaining Grade II* protected listing. In 2005, Harold and Ann Livermore, the longtime owners of the house, established the Sandycombe Lodge Trust, which became Turner’s House Trust, and between 2016 and 2017 with the aid of a Ā£1.4 million grant, Sandycombe Lodge underwent a Ā£2.4 million renovation before being opened to the public.
Now for the first time since 1826, paintings by Turner have gone on display at Sandycombe Lodge, in an exhibition opened on Friday by the broadcaster and naturist Sir David Attenborough. Turner and the Thames: Five Paintings brings together five oil paintings depicting the Thames as it was, in the environs of rural Sandycombe in the early 1800s. The paintings, rarely on display, have been loaned to the trust by the Tate. Attenborough, who remarked on his lifelong proximity to Sandycombe Lodge, called the house a ‘little gem’ and praised Turner as ‘one of the great figures of western painting’, while Turner’s House Trust director Ricky Pound said:
‘A few years ago this house was essentially falling down. It has been restored beautifully and now the icing on the cake is to have original Turner oil paintings here – in a house designed and lived in by Turner himself. It is the first time since 1826 that Turner paintings have graced these walls – that makes it incredibly special.’
