September 8, 2025 • 50 mins
No, that wasn't just for a very disruptive US Open men's final guest that nobody wanted who made everyone wait, it was for pretty much everything else, from the scintillating second half of the singles tournament to the nail-biting wheelchair finals that gave Tokito Oda a career golden slam. We break down the resurgent FAA and Naomi Osaka campaigns, the finals that weren't for Sinner and Anisimova, and of course discuss the Carlitos haircut that started it all as well as an undeniable Sabalenka. We're toasting THREE WEEKS of US Open coverage with a hearty Ranch Water. Thanks for joining!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
This episode of the Renee Stubs Tennis podcast is brought
to you by Lalo Tequila.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Lalo's Tequila Blanco represents.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The truest and purest spirit on earth. All Right, all right,
(00:29):
it's Tubsy. Thanks for having me over Sunday night. The
tennis is over. I just poured myself a ranch water
that a little La Loo tequila, little Topo Chico, little lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Very nice, not bad.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
What was mine?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm making it?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh, thanks, appreciate it because it's been a wild nineteen
days for me. This is so long, not even like
not even like two weeks, you know back in the
day when we're like wolf, that's a that's a that's
a that's a good two weeks of work. No, no,
nineteen days because of the first five days of qualies.
Which it's funny because a lot of people have texted
(01:05):
me and they're like, man, do you need a break?
Like you gotta have you gotta be sleeping for days.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Go.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Actually the second week was kind of easy for me.
It's the first week that did me in totally. I mean, honestly,
on the Sunday of the first week, I was exhausted
to the point that I didn't even see a third
set of one of the best women's matches with Coco
in her first or second round. It was like one
(01:32):
all on the third and I went to bed that's
at like nine thirty in the morning because I could
not keep my eyes open. And that was literally because
of the first week, with the qualities and with the
mixed doubles and with the stars of Tonight or whatever
it was at the Open. It was just nuts that
first week, and maybe I wasn't in sort of work
mode yet. Second week was obviously pretty tough, but the
(01:55):
third week was just like piece of cake, no problem.
I actually feel fine.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
This is it's weird. On one hand, I'm very over tennis.
I'm like, oh god, I've got enough tennis for my life.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It's me from you.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
On the other hand, I'm so happy because so many
people cared about this tournament, so many people watch this tournament.
So many people famously came to this tournament, you know,
from daehard fans, to a lot of new fans, to
a lot of influencers, which we can sort.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Of also talk about.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
But I have to say, like, this is our super Bowl,
this is our biggest evend of the year. It's not
my favorite tournament of the year. It's probably not yours.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Either, but it goes as the French we know, I
mean yours is Wimbledon. I get it, But.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Australia, no, Listen. It's funny when I if I have
to really think about it, it's like, what's your favorite
Grand Slam? I do say Wimbledon most of the time,
only because I just it's just I don't know, there's
something serene and surreal and amazing about Wimbledon. Every time
I walk through the gates. It's like, I think, it's
a different feeling when it's what's your favorite place to
(02:57):
go to as opposed to what's your favorite thing to work?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, So there's, without a doubt my favorite tournament to work,
even though I'm exhausted, is the US Open. Like the
energy from the crowd, the energy from you know, the
work that we do at ESPN. We're covering at World
of Wall Wimbledon. We're finished at eleven o'clock, right, I
mean we could be going as we were at the
US Open until midnight, one two am, right, So it's
(03:22):
kind of like it's a little bit it's a different beast.
It's like a beast. The US Open and just the crowd.
We're always around the people, you know, Wimbledon was sort
of sequestered away from the crowds. We're in our studios
and we go from our studios basically to maybe one
or two places to call matches. But we're sort of
not with the people, you know what I mean, we
(03:42):
kind of like very quickly. And then Australian Open again
we're not really with the people. Were sort of in
the players area, and more so obviously the French we
don't call it so the US Open. I mean, I
see I walk into people all the time there. I
was like we love you, nay, or thanks for this,
or I love.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The podcast, like we hate your name.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Or you suck or what. But it's like we're around
people all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The accessibility is right there.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, so it's like, I don't know, it just feels
like it's I feel alive doing the US Open.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, it does feel like you were a little bit
of an adrenaline junkie knowing you now for a decade
and this is definitely the time and place if that's
your thing, which is just like I feel for me.
It's like we launched an issue. We have ten days
of parties at the Seaport. We had a bag with
missed the Seaport man the tournament from a perspective of
(04:33):
engaging with the community, giving people a free place to
play on the Seaport, which was amazing, having amazing live
podcasts like you and Peco, doing like Daniel Collins did
with our friends at Tennis Insider. You know, just Babaad
had a party. Carlos came, you interviewed him. You can
watch that exclusive interview on Tennis Channel.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes you can, and if you missed it, it is
on Tennis.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Channel to walk and Talk pre haircut.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It's a walk and talk pre haircut and pre victory.
And I did see Carlos after the semi final win
and I said to him, I looked at him. You
know you can't see this, but I'm doing my I'm
looking at you thing. And I looked at him and
I go, I remember what you said. Yeah, we're going
to get a tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
If he gets a tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge because
of your walk and talk that we did together with
the Seaport.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
He said, I promise, I remember what you told me,
and I said, okay, well just think about that. And
so when he won yesterday, and listen, FYI, everybody knows
how I feel about Yannick, Like there is no loser
for me with those two, Like whoever wins between those two,
I'm just happy for them. I'm grateful for the runner
up because they handle it so beautifully. And yesterday was
(05:37):
no different. It looked to me that Yannick was a
little I don't know. He didn't have the fire, he
didn't have the he didn't have the thing he had
at Wembledon. But we'll get to that later. But I
just have to say, Carlos Alcirez, I see you, and
if I don't see a Brooklyn Bridge on you, I'm
going to be highly disappointed in you. And I did
tell a couple of people around him last night that
(05:57):
I expect to see that Brooklyn Bridge somewhere on him.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So one thing we should also talk about while we're
talking about the aesthetics of Carlos alcraz And I think
a lot of people don't know this, maybe who listened
to the show, which is his buzz cut appeared because
he had a haircut gone wrong. His brother, his brother
messed up the clippers. Yeah, and he had to get
an emergency haircut.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Now he is I don't think it was an emergency haircut.
I think he just said listen in Spanish, I don't
know how to say this, but you fucked it up,
so now just shave this shit off.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Okay, it seems like that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And how do you say that in Spanish?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I own ah me murremra his wall of style.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That Hey, you go ahead, haven't that.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But those of you that speak Spanish, you're allowed to
tweet to me and tell me how bad that.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Was or how great or how great it was. So
should we get into it? The match is let's go
uh starting with the men? Yeah, no loser. I thought
the Felix Oje ali Asim storyline for me personally, not
only because he is from my hometown of Montreal, but
(07:05):
also because to me, this was the tournament where he
reclaimed his swag. We haven't seen in years from him
in years.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, and he it was perisally close to taking Jarnick
to five sets, and he showed tennis in that match.
That was something pretty spectacular. Now one step back, you
did hear me on the pot say that I thought
Alex Dimnoir was going to make the semip and frankly
he should have.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
He was up a set in a break, Yeah, he
was up a mini break in the tie break he
served for the fourth set. I believe it was a
fourth set. He should have been in the semi finals.
So we just put that out there. Alex, you let
me down because I would have looked like a friggin
legend because you hadn't won a quarter final. So I'm
a little disappointed in you. But having said that, the
way that Felix served, the way that he showed up
(07:55):
on the fourhand side, on everything, he just he looked relaxed.
I think the thing that stopped him beating Yanick was
the fact that he just didn't truly believe in himself.
And people say, well, what do you mean, But it's true.
It's like a subconscious I've talked about this on the
pod all the time, subconscious conscious mind, and the conscious
mind is like, yeah, I can win this match, and
the subconscious mind's like, can you, Felix, can you really
(08:15):
not really think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not really
as good as this guy. I mean, even the pre
match interview, he said, you know, someone brought up the
fact that he had a winning record over Yanick. He's like, well,
you know, that was a lot of years ago. Yeah,
and it's just like, no, dude, you should be like, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I do, and I'm his ass to reinforce it today.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And he's so nice that he's actually honest about being like, well,
that was a couple of years ago before Yanick turned
into like this ai project of a human being on
the tennis squad and it never loses. But that should
have showed me a little insight into his brain going
out to that court, and I was like, oh, man,
if there was ever a time to bet the house,
it would have been on that one.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And I think one of the things that I was
so pleased about in watching Felix beat Zverev, in beating
Rubelev and then beating do you minure in the match prior,
is that when he won those matches, it didn't look
like he was surprised.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
It wasn't a ferocious outpouring of emotion. It was yes,
I expect to be here, I expect to be performing
this way. I expect to be taking the initiative in
these points and bringing the fight to the player. And
I think a lot of us who've watched him for
a long time, especially his record on indoor hard courts,
you know how comfortable he is in certain certain conditions,
like that outsized record of being really comfortable in that space.
(09:27):
To me, it was exciting because it's sort of indicated
that that confidence has now seeped into another surface, frankly
one that's a lot more you know, there's a lot
more outdoor hardcore matches than there are indoor hardcore matches.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And then yeah, but every major in a court now
is like literally covered sort of semi by a roof true,
there's not a lot of wind and conditions like this,
and he should take a lot of confidence to get
I hope.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We see this Felix for now, Yeah, for a while,
because I think he's a top ten player. I think
he needs to be in the later stages of slams,
and I think he needs to be comporting himself with
confidence and maybe to your point about the pre match
in or believing that this is only going to be,
you know, another victory as opposed to something that he
needs to kind of Couch.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A lot of people say that he's just too nice,
and you know, you could say, Carlos and Yannik two
of the nicest young men you could ever.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Meet, but they'll kill you.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
But they want to win so badly and they truly
believe in themselves. That's what's the difference maker. So anyway, Felix,
get out there and really start believing yourself, because my god,
your tennis is certainly it was outstand and standing. Yeah,
Novak Djokovic ran out of steam again semi finals, just
got crushed by Carlos.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That wasn't a competitive match, not really.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
No, Uh, there was a pat.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Of the second set Tabreak.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I feel like he just kind of was like, my
legs are gone and I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
At the start of the match, I just immediately saw
a heavier ball from Carlos. Immediately, it was immediately heavier, immediately,
just on top of Novak, pushing him back from the baseline.
The legs. The speed from Carlos was so evident to see.
Was is Novak still arguably the third fourth best player
in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Certainly, Yeah, he's.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Been everybody else, but when he plays against these guys
and he's admitting it in press. He's admitting that he
just doesn't have quite the same legs and you know,
endurance and all that sort of stuff against these young
guys anymore. And listen, the guy is still incredible thirty
eight years of age. But there was one point in
(11:26):
the tie break and I was sitting next to Sam
Query and the ESPN booth upstairs in our studio, and
Carlos played an amazing point hit the drop shot, and
then Novak hit a drop shot, and then Novak hit
this beautiful lob over his head and it was incredible
point that Novak won. And go back and watch that tiebreak.
Novak won that point, and Sam looked at me and goes,
(11:48):
I don't care. And then I think, I believe Carlos
lost his two service points after that to go five
to four. So I think it might have been five
to one point four or five to two in the tiebreak,
and Carlos one of his service points, and Sam Query
looked at me and he goes, I don't care if
he loses one or two of his service points here,
it's over, because he literally after that point had no legs.
(12:10):
And Carlos could have played another five hours and you
could see even though Novak won the point and he
got the crowd involved and all that sort of stuff,
you could tell that Carlos was like, so big deal,
like I'm here for for Mara.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That's old.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And you know, eventually Carlos ended up winning that tie
break and then that was over. And so to me,
and I said this on the coverage after the match
was done, I feel like this Train Open. I've said
it over and over. I feel like that's going to
be his last major to play. I don't think he
wants to keep playing after that and have to go
through you know, the French Open. Clay's never been his Like,
(12:45):
I mean, he's so good on every surface, but I
can't see him beating these guys over five sets on
clay and then to go to Wimbledon again. It's just
I feel like this Train Open would be a great
way for him to finish his career. It's where his
Grand Slam total started. We know the mercurial side of
the Strain Open and what it's meant to him. It's
been love or hate and it's sort of like perfect
(13:05):
for his career in a lot of ways. But it's
a place that he's dominated ten times, and I feel
like he probably feels like that's the one place he
can maybe get that next Slam. If he didn't do
it at Wimbledon this year, he's I don't think he's
going to hang around another year for it because he
got crushed by Yannick. I think that he has incredible
support in Australia and he played incredible last year being Carlos.
It was the only final Carlos didn't make at the
(13:27):
Train Open, and so I think that he feels like
he can I can bring that type of tennis again.
Maybe I have a shot, And if I don't, it's
probably where he'll close the book. But you know, look,
I mean I'm only guessing. Yeah, but I think I
think it would be the place for him to go
out because of just the history of the Train Open.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah. And I think one thing that I think about
I've sort of shifted my view through the years where
it's like it's not on me or us to say like,
well they should retire. It's like they can do whatever
they want. But I do think he does seem like
the tape of person who would want to go out
while he was still in a competitive form. I don't
see him being in Andy Murray, who's like content to
just play tennis regardless of whether he's in a five.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Set battle and he was gone play challenges.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Andy feels like he would like be removed from the
court only when dead, whereas Novak chok which I feel
like he would like the pomp and circumstance of a
farewell ceremony.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So I don't think.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's crazy to think that he gives Craig Tiley, for example,
a heads up and is like, hey, this is it
for me, just so you know, and then gives the
Australian open time to kind of like do what you know.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, I mean he's part of it for.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Rafa, which is make a big sort of moment happen,
and I think, you know, the tennis crowd wants these moments.
Novak is a little bit of a divisive character for
all the reasons we've talked through the years, but I
also think that's part of his nature and he kind
of likes that, And I think for that reason in
the Australian would be a nice place thematically.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Certainly, Yeah, would be kind of like I don't know,
I sort of like random not random It would be
sort of awesome in some respects that the Strine Open
did do a statue for him.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I mean a ten time Astraina champion deserves to have
some kind of memorabilia that's on that because I don't
think it well, I don't think we'll see ten time champion.
I think we could see a four or five, six
time champion, maybe a Sinner or an al Karaz, But
I don't know if we're going to have ten times.
I mean, that's just incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We just have to hope that they make him a
better statue than the French mide one.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, Rafa, that is truly one of the stupidest persons.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He did Suebirds because Sue Birds was awesome in Seattle recently,
soet fly her down to Australia and just have her
do it.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, the quality of your commemorative statue really varies. The
Althea one at THEOSO been really good.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
The Rafa one at.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
The French Open, it looks he so good and it's
so good, you know, he's so good, He's so good. Yeah,
So you know, very quality can vary. I do like
that the French Open put his name on the cord
and the thing with the yeah, that is amazing. They
made up for the bad statue.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But you know, Sodistra and put it out there, should
really get yourself organized to maybe do something commemorative for
Novak Jokovic, whatever it is, because he certainly deserves it.
But having said that, let's say about the final. Yeah,
the final. Listen, every time they play, you want to
have this epic, incredible five set drama, match points left
(16:14):
and right. I did laugh at the fact that when
Carlos got match point, a couple of match points and
I went back to deuce, I was like, it's a
part of them that's going Wow. I know exactly how
Yanick feels now because exactly where Yanick was at the
French Open. And I said it yesterday and I'm surprised
the commentators didn't say anything yesterday. But at two sets
(16:34):
to one, kind of kind of comfortable, you know, up
five three, you know has you know, has an opportunity
to close the match out in four sets by breaking serve.
I'm like, surely someone's going to bring up the fact
that this is exactly where Janick Sinner was at the
French I mean, nobody in their right mind would have
thought Janick is not winning that French Open match. I mean,
if you'd said to me, if you'd paused it at
(16:56):
a two sets to one, three five love forty, who wins?
I'm like, what do you mean? Who wins? Yannick wins.
He's got three match points, and not only that, he's
gonna serve for the match. Yeah, I've been serving so dominantly,
which Carlos was yesterday. I'm like, there's no way Yanick's losing.
Guess what. Then Yannick wins the game. It's five fur it.
Then Carlos gets two match points and I'm like and
(17:18):
then it gets back to Juice.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And you're like, oh, Carlos wins.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I don't know if it was that point or the
one that he won. I can't remember to have to
go back and look at it. But Carlos smiles up
to his players box so big, and I'm thinking, to myself,
is the is he thinking about the French Open and
what happened?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I actually remember that smile distinctly, and I remember thinking, Oh,
he's calm, he's playful, he's not panicked, he knows.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Not trying to pretend it's not happening.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
But also I don't even know, do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Though, Like he's not I don't think.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
He was thinking about it. You do you think he
was thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
A great question that when I do see him, I
will ask him.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I wonder it didn't look like it. It looked
like he was treating this as a brand new canvas
upon which to pay something.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Kind of yeah, And I think and he did ats point,
he was incredible, He was calm, call collected.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
He played a Greek dewse point and that he had
just an incredibly fast ease up the because.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
He had not served well in that game and he
was serving on. But there was a difference maker in
this match, yea, was the fact that Carlos's serve was
so dominant and Yanix was not. Now a lot of
people have talked about it. I'm not bringing this up
out of just randomness. We saw what happened in the
semi finals. He went off the court, he was definitely
had something in his left side of his abdomen area.
(18:35):
Did he have an abstrain or some kind of issue
going on there. He definitely was not serving the way
he normally does, so could have there have been an
issue there. We don't know, but his miles per hour
had definitely dropped off considering all the previous matches, so
there was obviously a little bit maybe something. But Carlos's
serving was outstanding. So it was kind of funny that
(18:58):
the game when he served, just like Yanick, he did
not serve a good game to serve out the French open.
He was missing serves left and right. Carlos same thing,
couldn't get a first serve in the ga little wobbly
was it was a little bit wobbly. I mean Yanick
kid that returned down the line to go back to juice.
It was like, because that was a bit of a
woosy serve, that's right, and then gully he just steps
up on match point and goes, now, fuck, this just
(19:19):
goes for the serve that was working for him all night,
which was that big wide serve to Yannick's backhand, And yeah,
it was it was kind of like I do I
this part of me thinks that he was thinking about
the French and he probably thought, I don't want to
get like Yanick did and get tired. I got to
go for it, and he did.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I think the smile indicated to me, whether he was
thinking about it or not, that he was enjoying the
moment and he was playing his tennis, and that really,
to me, was the story of the match. Maybe there
was a little bit of a of a concern with
the abdomen. To me, it wasn't a classic match in
the sense that they both played incredible. It was a
(19:55):
little bit, uh, it was a little bit up and down.
I think in that second set Carlos.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Was it was all over the place.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It was all over the place.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But the thing that I thought was the best takeaway
from the match and the thing that I am actually
the most excited about, not being a massive fan of
Yennick Sinner's game style, that game style is a little
less ain't subtractive, you know, And I think that that
ai kind of a spot kind of commentary comes in
because it's a it's very efficient, it's very beautiful. I
(20:25):
have no nothing bad about to say about the guy.
But you know, Carlos's appeal is so obvious. It's so fun,
it's so creative, it's so inventive. That Spanish it's Spanish, right,
it's emotional.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And you could say, well, he's Italian. Well, he's he's
very different.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
He's yeah, he's definitely a teutonic kind of flavor. But
I think what I was so excited about is hearing
him talk in the press conference after the match, Yannick
Sinner said, one of the things that I need to
work on is my predictability. I was very predictable. I
played patterns. Carlos didn't. He was like, I didn't do
the serv and valley, I didn't go to the drop shot.
(21:02):
I didn't give variety. And I think that's something that
I'm excited to see from him because one of them.
I mean, he's won multiple Grand.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Slams, and he can serve and volley.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He can and he's won.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Multiple Grand Slams not throwing the entire toolbox at his
opponents because he hasn't had to, because he's so strong
and controlled and measured and thoughtful from you know, from
the ground and from his serve. So for me, one
thing that I think we get excited about these great
rallies and these great rivalries is not only that these
players push each other, but they add they force each
other to add dimensionality to their games. And I would
(21:33):
love to see you ONIX cent Or Serve and Volley Moore.
I would love to see him, you know, take chances.
And I think that is an exciting prediction of Yeah,
what might be in the next chapter here.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well, I mean, listen, we've seen it through the years
with Roger, Raff and Novak, is that they all realized
that they needed to add things to their game to
beat each other. And you know, Mary, Joe Fernandez and
all of us at the ESPN have also talked about
the fact that these two are setting the bar for
each other, that's only each other, like, yeah, they are
so much better than everybody else. And so you know,
(22:04):
just like Rafa used to practice to beat Novak, just
like he used to practice to beat Roger, And just
like Roger had to improve his backhand because Rafa was
taking advantage of it with the lefty fourhand, YadA YadA.
It's like these two are, now, how do I beat him?
It's not how do I beat everybody else? How do
I beat him? Because if I beat him, I'm beating
everybody else easily.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah. So, I mean I think about Andy Murray all
the time, which is like imagine being the third best player,
or in some cases the fourth best player in the world,
beating everybody, going into every match with an advantage in
terms of your work ethic and your game, and knowing
that there's still three guys out there that have no
problem with your game and you have to treat to
give them.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Hey, that's why we give Andy did a lot of
credit because he beat most of the time, he beat
the best in the finals. He beat Novak a couple
of times in major finals. He beat Roger be He
beat Roger in the Olympic gold medal match. Like, you know,
that's the thing about Andy that you know, people like,
what are you keep talking about? It's not the Big four,
it's a Big three. Yeah, okay, the Big three won
(23:03):
all of these titles. But look who they beat in
the final like eight or nine of those times, and
it was Andy Murray. But anyway, listen, it was it was.
There was great points, there was great parts of the match.
The one part of the which I know we want
to talk about, you particularly want to talk about, is
the reason and the fact that the match started like
a fucking hour late because of some particular human being
(23:25):
that decided to piss everybody off and come to the tennis.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So I'm going to put this.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
In the words of a person on Twitter called Owen
Costa Kanu is this person's handle saying pushing back the
sort of an event that everybody wants to watch in
order to accommodate somebody that nobody wants.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
To be there sort of sums it up.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
That's so perfect.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Everybody tunes in two pm expecting a final Yeah, about
an hour before we get to.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Imagine what it was like for tv TV. I mean,
n hap dancing. ESPN were literally filling for like forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Dude, So friends of mine.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Kudos to Chris mckendrey, Yeah, Christmas Hendry and everyone. I mean,
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
They went to the tea.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
People at home don't understand how hard it is to
fill for forty minutes when you have no intention of
doing that. So you got to pull every video, you
got to pull every interview, you got to pull every
you know. Thank god, ESPN does these great vignettes of
like stories and shit. They had to throw all of
it against.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
The wall unexpectedly with no word prep. Whilch is like,
and I thought they did an admirable job, but you
could tell it was an unexpected snafu. Also friends of mine,
people who you know, maybe as an anniversary present. I
know two of my friends, uh one had bought tickets
to the final for her husband. They were like, cool,
(24:43):
we spent how much?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Ungodly?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Some tell me I think their tickets were ten k
each and can you imagine? And she was like, we've
been here for two hours. The line is insane. We're
going to miss a chunk of the match because of this.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, people miss the again.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yes, it's a little bit of a bougie problem to
spend ten k on a ticket, but still the idea
that you are accommodating somebody who again nobody wants to
be there. The crowd reaction was not mixed. No one
was happy to see this person. There were thunderous booze
every time that's been reported from people within the stadium,
other journalists, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
To me again, I chose not to go to the tennis.
I didn't have to work that day because I didn't
have to. But you know, I'm under normal circumstances. I
may have gone out just to watch the match, because
obviously I have the ability to go go and watch
any match from my position at ESPN, but I was like,
hell no. And another thing is we all had to
be there incredibly early just because of all the security,
(25:43):
So we were told to be there like before nine
point thirty a m. I was like, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Oh that's it. I'm going to sit on my name
and watch these tennis totally and for me, look, Rolex
invaded him.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
We don't known the circumstances under which tariffs presumably business interests,
because now we just live in an age of grift
where everyone is just trying to.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I have a couple of Rolexes gifted to me, so
I don't like to pretend I'm some bougie bitch. Okay,
I won one and now that almost as a present,
and I feel sort of a little upset about it
because I love my Rolexes.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
The UH.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The fact that this tournament started by celebrating ALTHEA Gibson
and ended with UH a fascist is not great.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's not a great look.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I get that the USCA had Mccanklescaco tits. I get
that the USA had no control over who gets invited,
especially if it's this suite that said sending out an
email instructing people not to cover the booze is bush league.
Not only is its censorship, but also like I can
get why you wouldn't want this to be the main
(26:55):
focus of the tournament. They barely barely glancingly covered this guy.
You're we're not going to say his name, but it
can't be a conversation. The people running media at the
USTA are are in over their heads. That's kind of where.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I'm I mean, listen, and I don't blame any of them. Honestly,
I don't blame the media side of it at all.
I'm not saying that because I work for ESPN. You know,
they're put between a rock and a hard place. I
don't know how difficult the answer or the question would
have been posed of do we tell the President of
the United States he cannot come? I mean, how do
you do that, Caitlin, Like I'm asking you as a journalist, like,
(27:35):
I don't think you can. I think they're put in
between a rock and a hard place. And I would
suspect I don't know this. I did not talk to Stacy,
I did not talk to any of the USTA people
about this, So I'm not telling you anything out of
school or behind the scenes. I would imagine it was
a fucking nightmare for them. And I'm sure when they
(27:55):
got this request they were like, fuck no. Now in
a lot of us, listen, is it a great thing
when the president decides to come. It hadn't happened since Hilary,
since Hillary Clinton. That that was a Freudian slip. It
hasn't happened since Bill Clinton. And I don't remember what
that was like. I what year was that.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I mean it would have been the nineties.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
I mean I was obviously playing, but maybe I wasn't
there anymore. I don't know, But I don't remember what
that was like to get into the stadium. But I
just you know, the amount of resources to put all
that together, and then the poor people standing in lines
for like two hours plus there were still people getting
trying to get into the stadium. At three fifty is
when it all cleared. I heard three fifty, So they
(28:38):
missed an hour tennis. I mean I would have been
I would have been so pissed.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, well, thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Thanksully a lot, mctarco, m ankles, mctarco, tits and reason.
I say that it's because of my friends and again,
I've had it, podcasts came.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I don't blame the tournament, no. I think the tournament's
comms department is, for a lot of reasons, in over
their heads. They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
You just think that you and I talked about this earlier,
the email that went out that got leaked. You're saying
that it should have been probably more verbal.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But I think asking your networks to censor a news
event is not a great look. I think it's the
right to do it. I thought ESPN handled it correctly,
which is acknowledging that this is happening and also not
making the focus of the day this.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Other d They showed him twice and during anthem, that's right,
and they showed him briefly in the third or fourth set.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Both times he got booed loudly.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You could hear not only in the stadium from what
I've heard, but also clearly on TV. And again, I
just think the comms department, who they credentialed this year,
who they didn't credential, they wouldn't let Andy Broddock's podcast
do their own ads because they don't know how ads work.
They gave fifty extra credentials for influencers, which you know,
just Yakes, you can't have that office be in Orlando
(30:03):
and get Bush League talent to run it. It's just
it's a bad look and it's a bad part of
what should be a world class organization.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Anyway, that's not I don't know any of that. Behind
the scenes, you do because you have to do this way,
get credentialed, and I go work for ESPN and I'm
a last eight club member, so yeah for me. All right,
(30:30):
So anyway, let's stalk by the women. Let's talk about
the women. An incredible tournament. My god, the two.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Semimen really carried the tennis.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The two semi finals were the.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Women really carried the tennis.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
They did, And we've been very they have for a
lot of they have, but we've been honest that the
men have carried a couple of other tournaments of late,
the women haven't been so great in the semis and finals.
But the matches at the women's were incredible. I want
to go back to Amanda Anasimova and her victory over
Eagerson Tech. Look, I picked to Eager win the tournament.
(31:00):
At the start of the tournament, I thought she was
playing the best coming in playing so well in Cincinnati,
obviously being incredibly confident after winning Wimbledon, and she's one
that you was open before, so I thought, listen, she's
gonna really push. We talked about the possibility of Amanda
and Eager playing in the quarters, and I was like,
I'd be surprised if she could beat her after losing.
Oh and oh, I think that's just it's damaging most
(31:24):
in your mind. But my god, Amanda and a Samova
way to go. Now there's a little suspicion about, you know,
the foot for Eager. She was struggling a little bit
with her foot. I haven't heard much since, but having
said that, wow, oh wow, when this kid leaves Wimbledon
after not winning a game in the finals, is embarrassed,
(31:47):
is just overwhelmed. But the way she handled that speech,
and she got so many new followers and fans because
of the way she handled that loss. Then on top
of it, she comes out and plays on file in
that match with all the pressure on her to get
to that match. Right, So everyone's yeah, she's one when
you know, got to the finals and women, I'm playing
(32:08):
all this now, she's coming to us sop and with
a ton of pressure. And I did every single one
of her matches, and trust me, she was fighting herself
emotionally every single match and then she turns up against Eager.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And just goes not today, not today, not today.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
I love. That was an incredible display by her to
win that match against arguably the player that was hottest
coming into the tournament.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Agree, I thought, she first of all, has the game
to disrupt an eager obvious and to beat anybody, and
to beat anybody if she's firing on all cylinders. She
has the game to beat anybody. But would she be
able to get herself together mentally? And I was one
of those new fans after the Wimbledon match and hearing
her talk and hearing how thoughtful she was. You know,
I liked her story and I was excited to see
(32:50):
her get to the finals of Queen's before that, Like,
I'm not rooting against to men at an Easimova, but
actually I thought the way she handled it was beautiful
and really amazing and to me indicated like, oh, there's
a well of like you know, humanity here, But would
she be able to put it aside and make it
count on the tennis court, Like, no way did I
see this coming. The other thing that I thought was
amazing is in a very very high pressure moment the
(33:12):
very next match against the Ameyosaka, who arguably was playing
probably certainly the hottest coming in from from kind of
out of well.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
She made for Canada. Yeah, knows how to win the
US Open. It's arguably her best slam. She has something
to prove stray and Open maybe, but those dazzled.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Things were taking all of the heat off of her
being a bad sport in Canada, which I hate those
little toys. And now she apparently has like a million
bajillion dollar deal. Like the less said about that, the better,
But like, that's a match, and that was a match
that was arguably the best match of the women's tournament.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I thought I had the pleasure of being courtside for
that match with ESPN, and there was part of me
after the Sablanca Jess Pagoula match, which we will get
to when we talk about SOUTHCA, but that was like damn.
You know, you always as a commentator, you're like, oh man,
it's my match going to be shitty now, because you
want to be involved in a great match sure, for
(34:09):
not only the point of just like being involved in it,
it's watching it. I'm sitting in the court side. I
want to watch a great match, you know what I mean?
Because I feel like I get paid to watch tennis,
so I want to watch great tennis. So I'm like, damn,
I hope this match is good. It starts out, Amanda
comes on the court. You can tell she's nervous. She
gets down love too, like immediately, and I'm like, oh
(34:30):
my god, this is not going to happen again, is it?
Because there has to be some part of it that
goes am I going to lose O and O again?
And the only reason I say that is because her
game is predicated on hitting winners. And if all of
a sudden she's a little bit off and the feed
aren't moving like they weren't at Wimbledon, and she freezes
a little bit, her ball is flying yea, and if
it's not going in, it's not going in. She's just
rolled in.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So that needs a confident game.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
That backhand. She's not all in that thing, and that's
going to be a winner. It's going to be out.
And I was like, oh my god. Then she got
down love forty, and I was like, oh, oh my god, no,
please God. And also I'm thinking I'm going to sit
here and have to commentate this match and want her
so badly to compete, and she's going to get crushed again. No,
not tonight. She gets down Love forty, comes back, wins
(35:13):
the service game. It's two to one. Completely different match
from that moment on now. It was like a battle
battle battle. And if you were listening to my coverage
at five six down in the second set, when she
had opportunity after opportunity to close out the second set
after breaking a couple of times at five six down
when she has to serve to state in the match,
(35:33):
I said on the coverage, I don't know what just happened.
She won the first point, and I said, she just relaxed.
I don't know what just happened. But literally, her whole
demeanor just changed. She's got this, I'm in the zone.
Fuck this, not tonight. I'm not going to get pissed anymore.
Because she was very demonstrative from time to time on
her service games, and it was like she just said, Amanda,
(35:55):
stopping a brat, stopping a whiner, and just play, and
it was like all of a sudden, she wins the game.
I think to love at five six down, she wins
the tie break like seven to one or seven to two. Unbelievable.
Hitting in the ball was like she became Amanda and
a Samova the great tennis player. Unbelievable. And then she
never looked back. Even when she had to serve out
(36:16):
the match, she didn't. She had a couple opportunities to
close it out at five three on her serve and
she didn't. And you know, you could her disappointment in
herself could have shown in that game, but she didn't
allow it and she closed it out. Unbelievable. It was
incredible match to watch.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The level was high.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I thought Naomi Osaka played it lights out. She played well,
she played really well. No no, no shame in that
performance at all. And Anisimova, yeah, really like dug in
and I thought, consolidated what she had, the statement she'd
made against eager to me being able to compete through
that was incredible. Now looking ahead to the final, I
(36:56):
thought she didn't fully show up.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Why she was nervous.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I get why maybe there was a little PTSD being
in her second grandslame final the year, which is also
like in and of itself, incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
A year ago she was playing qualifiers, qualifying, lost in colleies.
That's nuts lost. This year she makes two Ransom finals.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Doing online classes this time last year.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Respect the hell out of the fact that in a
year's time, what a difference we are seeing in this person.
She didn't fully show up for the funnel.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
No, before we get to the final. I do want
to just backtrack to Sabolenka. I did not pick Sabolenka
to win this match. In this tournament, she was not
playing great coming into it was I was watching her
in practice. She was missing balls by twenty feet. She
was missing balls in the bottom of the net. I
spoke about it on air. I was watching her practices.
She was not happy. There was like and her game
(37:43):
again is predicated on hitting winners. And if you're not
hitting winners and you're not confident and they're going out
by twenty feet, it's hard to like reel it back in.
That's right. And you know, we saw what happened to
Coco Golf, which we didn't really even talk about, but
you know, Coco's capitulation with the serv and the fourhand
over I hope she takes the rest of the year
off and works on that. But you know, Sablenka did
(38:04):
not look great and she had not won a big
match this year, like when you really look at the
big matches for her Finals of Australia, finals of the
French Open, and she is the first to say she
her emotions got the better of her, and yeah, I
mean just she was not winning the big matches, winning
a lot of matches and arguably the most consistent player
(38:24):
on tour, but she was losing big matches. And then
to lose to Amanda Anisimova at this Wimbledon and the
semifinals again like not, I mean Amanda played great, but
not showing up when it really mattered. Had had to
start taking a dent on her. And that's why I
didn't pick her to win the tournament. But pick against
your own peril, because Sabolenka knows how to win at
(38:46):
the US Open, and she loves There's something about this
crowd and this court that sort of gets She's kind
of like Novak. It just fuels her to just want
to be like to keep my shit together, and she
talked about it, I had to keep my shit together,
and she did because she could have flown off the
handle in the semi and the final. I want to
give props to jess Beagouola to come back and make
(39:06):
the semis, not get to the final again, but to
make the semis and her effort to excuse me, that's
just my TV going off, to actually get back to
the US Open semifinals and play the way she did
in that semi finals.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yes, bloody amazing, she played great.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
I just I hope if Jess ever listens to our podcast,
I hope jess really starts thinking, just like Amanda, I
can win these matches, like, don't have the subconscious overtake
the conscious, Like the subconscious has to say I'm good enough.
Because there were there were shots and points that she
missed right towards the end that if she makes it's
a different outcome.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I mean, I think, to me, jessicagoula great tournament, phenomenal year.
As she twiteted she was the only person to beat
Carlos out My god.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
That Jessica Bogula is the funniest person on Twitter and
she loses. I love that.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I would like to see her kind of take a
page at Yannic Center's book and say, okay, I am
going to dimensionality to my game. She can hit big
roundies with everybody, which is amazing because she's not as
big as most of that.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
But her ball striking is so pure, her hand eye
is bananas. Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
How well she volleys, We know how well she plays
doubles get better, but I think we can we can, like,
and I think it's tied to the confidence thing, which
is like, have the confidence in not only being able
to back up a finals run this year with a
really strong semi final showing, but also like, where are
dimensionality components to your game that you can improve on?
And I think that unpredictability I think maybe would be
(40:47):
helpful for her.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
I think she's I know that she's probably working on that,
because you can't not work with Mark Knowles and Mark
Merkle and her two coaches and not work on that.
Mark Knowles in particular was like serve and volley and
chips and slices and create, so I'm sure he's trying
to get that involved in her game, but that takes
a little bit of time. Actually, somebody we didn't talk
about is marketev Androsova.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I think if markettev Androsova, who played incredibly well the
matches past, will remember that marketev Androssova has a Wimbledon TATA.
She looked as good this year at the US Open
as she did in that Wimbledon tatl run to me
her dismantling of Eleanor Rakina, who was playing very.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Good, Yeah, very good. She was the hottest player in
the tournament, serving unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And marketev Androsova the serv and one just easy handling
of the piece, an amazing court sense. Played an entire
tournament up until that practice court injury causes her to
with drug and sabileca to me, she beats Sabaleka.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I think she must have had that injury before she
went on the practice court, because when she did go down,
her coach walked over to her and put his arm
on her back. Immediately they knew. So she's obviously done
something in the match against the Rebakina and then tried
to give it a day and then come back and
hit some balls and see how it felt and just couldn't.
It was obviously it was the knee. I think it
was her right knee from the looks of the bandage.
(42:12):
On her leg after. But man, it's just like Carolina Mukhova,
who also was hampered in her loss. These two, you
can not catch a break with the injury. Liked, damn it,
Come on tennis, God's give these two a break. Vondrossova
and Mokhova, these two Czech amazing women who have such
(42:33):
beautiful variety in their game. It's like they can't catch
a break physically. I don't know if it's I don't
know if it's mental and it's affecting their body. And
it's just incredible to me because Vondrossova's win over Rabakkin
it was such good tennis. It was played so late
because it was after another amazing match prior, and so
it was quite late. And then you know, for her
(42:53):
not to step on the court was brutal, and I
actually thought that was maybe going to hurt Sabalanca in
a way, but it didn't because getting through that match
against Jessica. But you know, I just want to throw
out just a big marquetta. You know, let's go get back.
You're certainly because she can't catch a break. Even once
she won Wimbledon, she had to withdraw like a couple
months later and didn't play forever, and then came back
(43:14):
after that injury and hurt herself in Australia before the
US train Open, and after playing well and getting to
like the semis of Adelaide and then now this.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
It's just like but if she doesn't pull out, I
don't know that Seblink was a tournament. I mean that,
I think the entirety of the tournament changed when MURKIDEFN
Drisberg had to pull out of that quarter.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, well, she would have certainly gone into it feeling very,
very confident because Rebakian, as you said, was arguably the
best player.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Going and I think Sebolenka's I think Sebolenka had her
opportunity presented to her. I think Jess Pagoula is a
very formidable opponent, but not the toughest opponent you can
face in a semi. And I think in the in
the final, her experience shot shot one through. I mean,
she had with great match. I'll credit to her. Obviously,
Anisimova did not bring as much fate to hers as
(44:00):
I think I think she would have. She listen again,
credit to her. I want to see her in more finals,
and I think these get better. Like she said, the
trending is in going the red direction.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I didn't like that. She said that she felt like
she didn't give herself, like she didn't fight enough, and
I disagree with that. I think, look, I think she
handled it the best way she could at the time,
and she's only going to learn from Wimbledon final and
US Open final. And if you look back on that
match Caitlin in the final, the first game was massive, Okay,
(44:33):
Anisimova had a bunch of break points. I think she
even had love foot thirty in that game. She had
a bunch of breakpoints in that game. If she breaks
and goes up one love, I think we have a
completely different Amanda. I think we have a completely different
possible outcome. Amanda has a winning record over Sabalanca. She
beat her previously at Wimbledon, so we know that she
can be I know it's different in a semi to
(44:54):
a final, but yeah, you might be right. I think
her breaking serve there is so big. Instead, she us
is the game and then goes down and loses her
own service game and now it's love too. And you
don't tell me that Wembledon is not entering your mind.
There at Love two down sure, like in front of
twenty thousand people that you know have paid maybe ten
thousand dollars or a ticket to be there for you.
(45:16):
And thankfully it went to one, and then she actually
got up three too, and she had her opportunities. But
I hope that Amanda walks away from this and goes okay,
lessons learned. Yeah, I'm not gonna I don't think she
froze at the US Open. She froze at Wemblen for sure.
A question. She could literally pick up her feet. She
was that nervous US Open. She had moments. I think
(45:37):
she wins the second set again, I think we also
might have a different outcome. Agree with albergoon nuts and
she started to really see it, and maybe she would
have had that same feeling she had against Naomi of
fuck this, I'm not going to let it beat me today.
So maybe if it goes three, it's a different story.
But credit to Sablenca because she knew I cannot lose
my shit like I did at the French like I
(46:00):
did at Wimbledon, and I have to keep my shit together.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
And she did and she did, and I think she
really needed this one she was slamless and had lost.
As you said, all of the big matches. Are we
done talking about the women?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
I just want a very brief reatown shout out.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
We have a cover story on the incredible anniversary twenty
years of the Wheelchair Tennis division. We interviewed pretty much
all of the who's who, and our cover boy is
Tokito Ota, who at age nineteen, he is nineteen years old,
has a golden career slam. He now won yesterday in
(46:33):
a epic epic finals against his doubles partner, down five
match points, third set, tiebreak.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
If you are not.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Watching wheelchair tennis, I'm telling you it is unbelievable. Most
of you would lose to these wheelchair athletes, no doubt
I would probably lose to most of them. It's certainly
the men's singles finals, the squad, the juniors. The USTA
has done a phenomenal job actually leading on this and
for those of us who are not paying ten dousand
(47:02):
dollars a ticket for other ash but coming to leader
stage as tournaments. You can see juniors, you can see legends,
you can see wheelchairs. Go and cheer and watch tennis
in all of its forums it's an unbelievably important part
of the game.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Everyone can play tennis, and it's unbelievable and the joy
that these people get watching and playing the sport of
tennis is awesome. And it's more on.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
The edge of my seat watching the two Key Toyoda
Fernandez final than I was watching either of the singles finals,
which is not to say that they aren't.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Were all you did you call me? I was like,
this exciting thing, so my heart was raising. It was
kind of like the Wheelchaan Tannis men's doubles from Wimbledon
a bunch of years ago, where it came down to
like it was like sixteen fourteen in the match Top
Rex something. It was just unbelievable. So yeah, so yeah, listen,
we love tennis obviously, and it doesn't matter who plays it.
When you're hitting the ball over the net and in
the court, it's exciting. Shout out to all the juniors
(47:55):
as well that that won their events. I saw some
great tennis with those. My friend Wells Newman who got
to the third round of Junior's keep an eye out
for her on an American standpoint with the girls, and yeah,
I mean, it's just a lot of fun just overall
being at the US Open. Shout out to all the competitors.
(48:17):
Three weeks. The mixed doubles was a success. I hope
they tweak it a little bit. I hope that they
give the opportunity for a couple of other Grand Slam winners.
This is my thought. The winners of the Australian Open,
Wimbledon and the French Open get an automatic wildcard into
the US Open, unless clearly they're the defending champions like
Bavasori and Irani, who are going to get another wildcard,
(48:37):
probably into the mixed doubles next year, as they should should.
But my thought process is if you've won a mixed
title that year, you get automatically entered into the US Open.
A million dollars to the winner, a million dollars to
the doubles champions as well. God damn it, don't think
Lisa Raima wasn't texting me going back in our day.
But anyway, huge success.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Well, one housekeeping item, A lot of you guys have
noticed that we did a special issue with Melissa Cobe,
who's an artist who did an amazing, amazing Lino type
of althea Gibson that is only available at the New
York City location, and don't get on me as to why.
Sometimes this is the only way we can bring you
(49:20):
nice things is by creating exclusive deals. And so if
you want it, it is for sale at the Starbucks
Reserve Road Street in the Meatpacking District. To send somebody
you know to mill you one if you don't live here,
and really renee like, what a great three weeks again,
I'm exhausted, you're exhausted. I'm gonna enjoy this ranch water.
Thank you Lala Tequila for hooking it up. And I
(49:40):
guess I got one on my own now, I.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Mean, we'll guess. We'll just see you in Asia.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
We'll see you over the next couple of weeks and
we'll bring you more tennis updates and everything. But it
was a joy. It was a joy to bring it
all
Speaker 1 (49:53):
To you, and thanks and listening for us today, all right,
thank you, Bye b
This episode of the Renee Stubs Tennis podcast is brought
to you by Lalo Tequila.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Lalo's Tequila Blanco represents.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The truest and purest spirit on earth. All Right, all right,
(00:29):
it's Tubsy. Thanks for having me over Sunday night. The
tennis is over. I just poured myself a ranch water
that a little La Loo tequila, little Topo Chico, little lamb.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Very nice, not bad.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
What was mine?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm making it?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh, thanks, appreciate it because it's been a wild nineteen
days for me. This is so long, not even like
not even like two weeks, you know back in the
day when we're like wolf, that's a that's a that's
a that's a good two weeks of work. No, no,
nineteen days because of the first five days of qualies.
Which it's funny because a lot of people have texted
(01:05):
me and they're like, man, do you need a break?
Like you gotta have you gotta be sleeping for days.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Go.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Actually the second week was kind of easy for me.
It's the first week that did me in totally. I mean, honestly,
on the Sunday of the first week, I was exhausted
to the point that I didn't even see a third
set of one of the best women's matches with Coco
in her first or second round. It was like one
(01:32):
all on the third and I went to bed that's
at like nine thirty in the morning because I could
not keep my eyes open. And that was literally because
of the first week, with the qualities and with the
mixed doubles and with the stars of Tonight or whatever
it was at the Open. It was just nuts that
first week, and maybe I wasn't in sort of work
mode yet. Second week was obviously pretty tough, but the
(01:55):
third week was just like piece of cake, no problem.
I actually feel fine.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
This is it's weird. On one hand, I'm very over tennis.
I'm like, oh god, I've got enough tennis for my life.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It's me from you.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
On the other hand, I'm so happy because so many
people cared about this tournament, so many people watch this tournament.
So many people famously came to this tournament, you know,
from daehard fans, to a lot of new fans, to
a lot of influencers, which we can sort.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Of also talk about.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
But I have to say, like, this is our super Bowl,
this is our biggest evend of the year. It's not
my favorite tournament of the year. It's probably not yours.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Either, but it goes as the French we know, I
mean yours is Wimbledon. I get it, But.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Australia, no, Listen. It's funny when I if I have
to really think about it, it's like, what's your favorite
Grand Slam? I do say Wimbledon most of the time,
only because I just it's just I don't know, there's
something serene and surreal and amazing about Wimbledon. Every time
I walk through the gates. It's like, I think, it's
a different feeling when it's what's your favorite place to
(02:57):
go to as opposed to what's your favorite thing to work?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, So there's, without a doubt my favorite tournament to work,
even though I'm exhausted, is the US Open. Like the
energy from the crowd, the energy from you know, the
work that we do at ESPN. We're covering at World
of Wall Wimbledon. We're finished at eleven o'clock, right, I
mean we could be going as we were at the
US Open until midnight, one two am, right, So it's
(03:22):
kind of like it's a little bit it's a different beast.
It's like a beast. The US Open and just the crowd.
We're always around the people, you know, Wimbledon was sort
of sequestered away from the crowds. We're in our studios
and we go from our studios basically to maybe one
or two places to call matches. But we're sort of
not with the people, you know what I mean, we
(03:42):
kind of like very quickly. And then Australian Open again
we're not really with the people. Were sort of in
the players area, and more so obviously the French we
don't call it so the US Open. I mean, I
see I walk into people all the time there. I
was like we love you, nay, or thanks for this,
or I love.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The podcast, like we hate your name.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Or you suck or what. But it's like we're around
people all the time.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The accessibility is right there.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, so it's like, I don't know, it just feels
like it's I feel alive doing the US Open.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, it does feel like you were a little bit
of an adrenaline junkie knowing you now for a decade
and this is definitely the time and place if that's
your thing, which is just like I feel for me.
It's like we launched an issue. We have ten days
of parties at the Seaport. We had a bag with
missed the Seaport man the tournament from a perspective of
(04:33):
engaging with the community, giving people a free place to
play on the Seaport, which was amazing, having amazing live
podcasts like you and Peco, doing like Daniel Collins did
with our friends at Tennis Insider. You know, just Babaad
had a party. Carlos came, you interviewed him. You can
watch that exclusive interview on Tennis Channel.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes you can, and if you missed it, it is
on Tennis.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Channel to walk and Talk pre haircut.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It's a walk and talk pre haircut and pre victory.
And I did see Carlos after the semi final win
and I said to him, I looked at him. You
know you can't see this, but I'm doing my I'm
looking at you thing. And I looked at him and
I go, I remember what you said. Yeah, we're going
to get a tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
If he gets a tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge because
of your walk and talk that we did together with
the Seaport.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
He said, I promise, I remember what you told me,
and I said, okay, well just think about that. And
so when he won yesterday, and listen, FYI, everybody knows
how I feel about Yannick, Like there is no loser
for me with those two, Like whoever wins between those two,
I'm just happy for them. I'm grateful for the runner
up because they handle it so beautifully. And yesterday was
(05:37):
no different. It looked to me that Yannick was a
little I don't know. He didn't have the fire, he
didn't have the he didn't have the thing he had
at Wembledon. But we'll get to that later. But I
just have to say, Carlos Alcirez, I see you, and
if I don't see a Brooklyn Bridge on you, I'm
going to be highly disappointed in you. And I did
tell a couple of people around him last night that
(05:57):
I expect to see that Brooklyn Bridge somewhere on him.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So one thing we should also talk about while we're
talking about the aesthetics of Carlos alcraz And I think
a lot of people don't know this, maybe who listened
to the show, which is his buzz cut appeared because
he had a haircut gone wrong. His brother, his brother
messed up the clippers. Yeah, and he had to get
an emergency haircut.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Now he is I don't think it was an emergency haircut.
I think he just said listen in Spanish, I don't
know how to say this, but you fucked it up,
so now just shave this shit off.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Okay, it seems like that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And how do you say that in Spanish?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I own ah me murremra his wall of style.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That Hey, you go ahead, haven't that.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But those of you that speak Spanish, you're allowed to
tweet to me and tell me how bad that.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Was or how great or how great it was. So
should we get into it? The match is let's go
uh starting with the men? Yeah, no loser. I thought
the Felix Oje ali Asim storyline for me personally, not
only because he is from my hometown of Montreal, but
(07:05):
also because to me, this was the tournament where he
reclaimed his swag. We haven't seen in years from him
in years.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, and he it was perisally close to taking Jarnick
to five sets, and he showed tennis in that match.
That was something pretty spectacular. Now one step back, you
did hear me on the pot say that I thought
Alex Dimnoir was going to make the semip and frankly
he should have.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
He was up a set in a break, Yeah, he
was up a mini break in the tie break he
served for the fourth set. I believe it was a
fourth set. He should have been in the semi finals.
So we just put that out there. Alex, you let
me down because I would have looked like a friggin
legend because you hadn't won a quarter final. So I'm
a little disappointed in you. But having said that, the
way that Felix served, the way that he showed up
(07:55):
on the fourhand side, on everything, he just he looked relaxed.
I think the thing that stopped him beating Yanick was
the fact that he just didn't truly believe in himself.
And people say, well, what do you mean, But it's true.
It's like a subconscious I've talked about this on the
pod all the time, subconscious conscious mind, and the conscious
mind is like, yeah, I can win this match, and
the subconscious mind's like, can you, Felix, can you really
(08:15):
not really think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not really
as good as this guy. I mean, even the pre
match interview, he said, you know, someone brought up the
fact that he had a winning record over Yanick. He's like, well,
you know, that was a lot of years ago. Yeah,
and it's just like, no, dude, you should be like, yeah,
I do.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I do, and I'm his ass to reinforce it today.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And he's so nice that he's actually honest about being like, well,
that was a couple of years ago before Yanick turned
into like this ai project of a human being on
the tennis squad and it never loses. But that should
have showed me a little insight into his brain going
out to that court, and I was like, oh, man,
if there was ever a time to bet the house,
it would have been on that one.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And I think one of the things that I was
so pleased about in watching Felix beat Zverev, in beating
Rubelev and then beating do you minure in the match prior,
is that when he won those matches, it didn't look
like he was surprised.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
It didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
It wasn't a ferocious outpouring of emotion. It was yes,
I expect to be here, I expect to be performing
this way. I expect to be taking the initiative in
these points and bringing the fight to the player. And
I think a lot of us who've watched him for
a long time, especially his record on indoor hard courts,
you know how comfortable he is in certain certain conditions,
like that outsized record of being really comfortable in that space.
(09:27):
To me, it was exciting because it's sort of indicated
that that confidence has now seeped into another surface, frankly
one that's a lot more you know, there's a lot
more outdoor hardcore matches than there are indoor hardcore matches.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And then yeah, but every major in a court now
is like literally covered sort of semi by a roof true,
there's not a lot of wind and conditions like this,
and he should take a lot of confidence to get
I hope.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
We see this Felix for now, Yeah, for a while,
because I think he's a top ten player. I think
he needs to be in the later stages of slams,
and I think he needs to be comporting himself with
confidence and maybe to your point about the pre match
in or believing that this is only going to be,
you know, another victory as opposed to something that he
needs to kind of Couch.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A lot of people say that he's just too nice,
and you know, you could say, Carlos and Yannik two
of the nicest young men you could ever.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Meet, but they'll kill you.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
But they want to win so badly and they truly
believe in themselves. That's what's the difference maker. So anyway, Felix,
get out there and really start believing yourself, because my god,
your tennis is certainly it was outstand and standing. Yeah,
Novak Djokovic ran out of steam again semi finals, just
got crushed by Carlos.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That wasn't a competitive match, not really.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
No, Uh, there was a pat.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Of the second set Tabreak.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I feel like he just kind of was like, my
legs are gone and I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
At the start of the match, I just immediately saw
a heavier ball from Carlos. Immediately, it was immediately heavier, immediately,
just on top of Novak, pushing him back from the baseline.
The legs. The speed from Carlos was so evident to see.
Was is Novak still arguably the third fourth best player
in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Certainly, Yeah, he's.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Been everybody else, but when he plays against these guys
and he's admitting it in press. He's admitting that he
just doesn't have quite the same legs and you know,
endurance and all that sort of stuff against these young
guys anymore. And listen, the guy is still incredible thirty
eight years of age. But there was one point in
(11:26):
the tie break and I was sitting next to Sam
Query and the ESPN booth upstairs in our studio, and
Carlos played an amazing point hit the drop shot, and
then Novak hit a drop shot, and then Novak hit
this beautiful lob over his head and it was incredible
point that Novak won. And go back and watch that tiebreak.
Novak won that point, and Sam looked at me and goes,
(11:48):
I don't care. And then I think, I believe Carlos
lost his two service points after that to go five
to four. So I think it might have been five
to one point four or five to two in the tiebreak,
and Carlos one of his service points, and Sam Query
looked at me and he goes, I don't care if
he loses one or two of his service points here,
it's over, because he literally after that point had no legs.
(12:10):
And Carlos could have played another five hours and you
could see even though Novak won the point and he
got the crowd involved and all that sort of stuff,
you could tell that Carlos was like, so big deal,
like I'm here for for Mara.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That's old.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And you know, eventually Carlos ended up winning that tie
break and then that was over. And so to me,
and I said this on the coverage after the match
was done, I feel like this Train Open. I've said
it over and over. I feel like that's going to
be his last major to play. I don't think he
wants to keep playing after that and have to go
through you know, the French Open. Clay's never been his Like,
(12:45):
I mean, he's so good on every surface, but I
can't see him beating these guys over five sets on
clay and then to go to Wimbledon again. It's just
I feel like this Train Open would be a great
way for him to finish his career. It's where his
Grand Slam total started. We know the mercurial side of
the Strain Open and what it's meant to him. It's
been love or hate and it's sort of like perfect
(13:05):
for his career in a lot of ways. But it's
a place that he's dominated ten times, and I feel
like he probably feels like that's the one place he
can maybe get that next Slam. If he didn't do
it at Wimbledon this year, he's I don't think he's
going to hang around another year for it because he
got crushed by Yannick. I think that he has incredible
support in Australia and he played incredible last year being Carlos.
It was the only final Carlos didn't make at the
(13:27):
Train Open, and so I think that he feels like
he can I can bring that type of tennis again.
Maybe I have a shot, And if I don't, it's
probably where he'll close the book. But you know, look,
I mean I'm only guessing. Yeah, but I think I
think it would be the place for him to go
out because of just the history of the Train Open.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah. And I think one thing that I think about
I've sort of shifted my view through the years where
it's like it's not on me or us to say like,
well they should retire. It's like they can do whatever
they want. But I do think he does seem like
the tape of person who would want to go out
while he was still in a competitive form. I don't
see him being in Andy Murray, who's like content to
just play tennis regardless of whether he's in a five.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Set battle and he was gone play challenges.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Andy feels like he would like be removed from the
court only when dead, whereas Novak chok which I feel
like he would like the pomp and circumstance of a
farewell ceremony.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So I don't think.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's crazy to think that he gives Craig Tiley, for example,
a heads up and is like, hey, this is it
for me, just so you know, and then gives the
Australian open time to kind of like do what you know.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, I mean he's part of it for.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Rafa, which is make a big sort of moment happen,
and I think, you know, the tennis crowd wants these moments.
Novak is a little bit of a divisive character for
all the reasons we've talked through the years, but I
also think that's part of his nature and he kind
of likes that, And I think for that reason in
the Australian would be a nice place thematically.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Certainly, Yeah, would be kind of like I don't know,
I sort of like random not random It would be
sort of awesome in some respects that the Strine Open
did do a statue for him.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
I mean a ten time Astraina champion deserves to have
some kind of memorabilia that's on that because I don't
think it well, I don't think we'll see ten time champion.
I think we could see a four or five, six
time champion, maybe a Sinner or an al Karaz, But
I don't know if we're going to have ten times.
I mean, that's just incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We just have to hope that they make him a
better statue than the French mide one.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Well, Rafa, that is truly one of the stupidest persons.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He did Suebirds because Sue Birds was awesome in Seattle recently,
soet fly her down to Australia and just have her
do it.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, the quality of your commemorative statue really varies. The
Althea one at THEOSO been really good.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
The Rafa one at.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
The French Open, it looks he so good and it's
so good, you know, he's so good, He's so good. Yeah,
So you know, very quality can vary. I do like
that the French Open put his name on the cord
and the thing with the yeah, that is amazing. They
made up for the bad statue.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But you know, Sodistra and put it out there, should
really get yourself organized to maybe do something commemorative for
Novak Jokovic, whatever it is, because he certainly deserves it.
But having said that, let's say about the final. Yeah,
the final. Listen, every time they play, you want to
have this epic, incredible five set drama, match points left
(16:14):
and right. I did laugh at the fact that when
Carlos got match point, a couple of match points and
I went back to deuce, I was like, it's a
part of them that's going Wow. I know exactly how
Yanick feels now because exactly where Yanick was at the
French Open. And I said it yesterday and I'm surprised
the commentators didn't say anything yesterday. But at two sets
(16:34):
to one, kind of kind of comfortable, you know, up
five three, you know has you know, has an opportunity
to close the match out in four sets by breaking serve.
I'm like, surely someone's going to bring up the fact
that this is exactly where Janick Sinner was at the
French I mean, nobody in their right mind would have
thought Janick is not winning that French Open match. I mean,
if you'd said to me, if you'd paused it at
(16:56):
a two sets to one, three five love forty, who wins?
I'm like, what do you mean? Who wins? Yannick wins.
He's got three match points, and not only that, he's
gonna serve for the match. Yeah, I've been serving so dominantly,
which Carlos was yesterday. I'm like, there's no way Yanick's losing.
Guess what. Then Yannick wins the game. It's five fur it.
Then Carlos gets two match points and I'm like and
(17:18):
then it gets back to Juice.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And you're like, oh, Carlos wins.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I don't know if it was that point or the
one that he won. I can't remember to have to
go back and look at it. But Carlos smiles up
to his players box so big, and I'm thinking, to myself,
is the is he thinking about the French Open and
what happened?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I actually remember that smile distinctly, and I remember thinking, Oh,
he's calm, he's playful, he's not panicked, he knows.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Not trying to pretend it's not happening.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
But also I don't even know, do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Though, Like he's not I don't think.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
He was thinking about it. You do you think he
was thinking about it?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
A great question that when I do see him, I
will ask him.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I wonder it didn't look like it. It looked
like he was treating this as a brand new canvas
upon which to pay something.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Kind of yeah, And I think and he did ats point,
he was incredible, He was calm, call collected.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
He played a Greek dewse point and that he had
just an incredibly fast ease up the because.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
He had not served well in that game and he
was serving on. But there was a difference maker in
this match, yea, was the fact that Carlos's serve was
so dominant and Yanix was not. Now a lot of
people have talked about it. I'm not bringing this up
out of just randomness. We saw what happened in the
semi finals. He went off the court, he was definitely
had something in his left side of his abdomen area.
(18:35):
Did he have an abstrain or some kind of issue
going on there. He definitely was not serving the way
he normally does, so could have there have been an
issue there. We don't know, but his miles per hour
had definitely dropped off considering all the previous matches, so
there was obviously a little bit maybe something. But Carlos's
serving was outstanding. So it was kind of funny that
(18:58):
the game when he served, just like Yanick, he did
not serve a good game to serve out the French open.
He was missing serves left and right. Carlos same thing,
couldn't get a first serve in the ga little wobbly
was it was a little bit wobbly. I mean Yanick
kid that returned down the line to go back to juice.
It was like, because that was a bit of a
woosy serve, that's right, and then gully he just steps
up on match point and goes, now, fuck, this just
(19:19):
goes for the serve that was working for him all night,
which was that big wide serve to Yannick's backhand, And yeah,
it was it was kind of like I do I
this part of me thinks that he was thinking about
the French and he probably thought, I don't want to
get like Yanick did and get tired. I got to
go for it, and he did.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I think the smile indicated to me, whether he was
thinking about it or not, that he was enjoying the
moment and he was playing his tennis, and that really,
to me, was the story of the match. Maybe there
was a little bit of a of a concern with
the abdomen. To me, it wasn't a classic match in
the sense that they both played incredible. It was a
(19:55):
little bit, uh, it was a little bit up and down.
I think in that second set Carlos.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Was it was all over the place.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It was all over the place.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But the thing that I thought was the best takeaway
from the match and the thing that I am actually
the most excited about, not being a massive fan of
Yennick Sinner's game style, that game style is a little
less ain't subtractive, you know, And I think that that
ai kind of a spot kind of commentary comes in
because it's a it's very efficient, it's very beautiful. I
(20:25):
have no nothing bad about to say about the guy.
But you know, Carlos's appeal is so obvious. It's so fun,
it's so creative, it's so inventive. That Spanish it's Spanish, right,
it's emotional.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And you could say, well, he's Italian. Well, he's he's
very different.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
He's yeah, he's definitely a teutonic kind of flavor. But
I think what I was so excited about is hearing
him talk in the press conference after the match, Yannick
Sinner said, one of the things that I need to
work on is my predictability. I was very predictable. I
played patterns. Carlos didn't. He was like, I didn't do
the serv and valley, I didn't go to the drop shot.
(21:02):
I didn't give variety. And I think that's something that
I'm excited to see from him because one of them.
I mean, he's won multiple Grand.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Slams, and he can serve and volley.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
He can and he's won.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Multiple Grand Slams not throwing the entire toolbox at his
opponents because he hasn't had to, because he's so strong
and controlled and measured and thoughtful from you know, from
the ground and from his serve. So for me, one
thing that I think we get excited about these great
rallies and these great rivalries is not only that these
players push each other, but they add they force each
other to add dimensionality to their games. And I would
(21:33):
love to see you ONIX cent Or Serve and Volley Moore.
I would love to see him, you know, take chances.
And I think that is an exciting prediction of Yeah,
what might be in the next chapter here.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well, I mean, listen, we've seen it through the years
with Roger, Raff and Novak, is that they all realized
that they needed to add things to their game to
beat each other. And you know, Mary, Joe Fernandez and
all of us at the ESPN have also talked about
the fact that these two are setting the bar for
each other, that's only each other, like, yeah, they are
so much better than everybody else. And so you know,
(22:04):
just like Rafa used to practice to beat Novak, just
like he used to practice to beat Roger, And just
like Roger had to improve his backhand because Rafa was
taking advantage of it with the lefty fourhand, YadA YadA.
It's like these two are, now, how do I beat him?
It's not how do I beat everybody else? How do
I beat him? Because if I beat him, I'm beating
everybody else easily.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah. So, I mean I think about Andy Murray all
the time, which is like imagine being the third best player,
or in some cases the fourth best player in the world,
beating everybody, going into every match with an advantage in
terms of your work ethic and your game, and knowing
that there's still three guys out there that have no
problem with your game and you have to treat to
give them.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Hey, that's why we give Andy did a lot of
credit because he beat most of the time, he beat
the best in the finals. He beat Novak a couple
of times in major finals. He beat Roger be He
beat Roger in the Olympic gold medal match. Like, you know,
that's the thing about Andy that you know, people like,
what are you keep talking about? It's not the Big four,
it's a Big three. Yeah, okay, the Big three won
(23:03):
all of these titles. But look who they beat in
the final like eight or nine of those times, and
it was Andy Murray. But anyway, listen, it was it was.
There was great points, there was great parts of the match.
The one part of the which I know we want
to talk about, you particularly want to talk about, is
the reason and the fact that the match started like
a fucking hour late because of some particular human being
(23:25):
that decided to piss everybody off and come to the tennis.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So I'm going to put this.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
In the words of a person on Twitter called Owen
Costa Kanu is this person's handle saying pushing back the
sort of an event that everybody wants to watch in
order to accommodate somebody that nobody wants.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
To be there sort of sums it up.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
That's so perfect.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Everybody tunes in two pm expecting a final Yeah, about
an hour before we get to.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Imagine what it was like for tv TV. I mean,
n hap dancing. ESPN were literally filling for like forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Dude, So friends of mine.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Kudos to Chris mckendrey, Yeah, Christmas Hendry and everyone. I mean,
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
They went to the tea.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
People at home don't understand how hard it is to
fill for forty minutes when you have no intention of
doing that. So you got to pull every video, you
got to pull every interview, you got to pull every
you know. Thank god, ESPN does these great vignettes of
like stories and shit. They had to throw all of
it against.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
The wall unexpectedly with no word prep. Whilch is like,
and I thought they did an admirable job, but you
could tell it was an unexpected snafu. Also friends of mine,
people who you know, maybe as an anniversary present. I
know two of my friends, uh one had bought tickets
to the final for her husband. They were like, cool,
(24:43):
we spent how much?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Ungodly?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Some tell me I think their tickets were ten k
each and can you imagine? And she was like, we've
been here for two hours. The line is insane. We're
going to miss a chunk of the match because of this.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, people miss the again.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yes, it's a little bit of a bougie problem to
spend ten k on a ticket, but still the idea
that you are accommodating somebody who again nobody wants to
be there. The crowd reaction was not mixed. No one
was happy to see this person. There were thunderous booze
every time that's been reported from people within the stadium,
other journalists, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
To me again, I chose not to go to the tennis.
I didn't have to work that day because I didn't
have to. But you know, I'm under normal circumstances. I
may have gone out just to watch the match, because
obviously I have the ability to go go and watch
any match from my position at ESPN, but I was like,
hell no. And another thing is we all had to
be there incredibly early just because of all the security,
(25:43):
So we were told to be there like before nine
point thirty a m. I was like, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Oh that's it. I'm going to sit on my name
and watch these tennis totally and for me, look, Rolex
invaded him.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
We don't known the circumstances under which tariffs presumably business interests,
because now we just live in an age of grift
where everyone is just trying to.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I'm gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
I have a couple of Rolexes gifted to me, so
I don't like to pretend I'm some bougie bitch. Okay,
I won one and now that almost as a present,
and I feel sort of a little upset about it
because I love my Rolexes.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
The UH.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The fact that this tournament started by celebrating ALTHEA Gibson
and ended with UH a fascist is not great.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's not a great look.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I get that the USCA had Mccanklescaco tits. I get
that the USA had no control over who gets invited,
especially if it's this suite that said sending out an
email instructing people not to cover the booze is bush league.
Not only is its censorship, but also like I can
get why you wouldn't want this to be the main
(26:55):
focus of the tournament. They barely barely glancingly covered this guy.
You're we're not going to say his name, but it
can't be a conversation. The people running media at the
USTA are are in over their heads. That's kind of where.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I'm I mean, listen, and I don't blame any of them. Honestly,
I don't blame the media side of it at all.
I'm not saying that because I work for ESPN. You know,
they're put between a rock and a hard place. I
don't know how difficult the answer or the question would
have been posed of do we tell the President of
the United States he cannot come? I mean, how do
you do that, Caitlin, Like I'm asking you as a journalist, like,
(27:35):
I don't think you can. I think they're put in
between a rock and a hard place. And I would
suspect I don't know this. I did not talk to Stacy,
I did not talk to any of the USTA people
about this, So I'm not telling you anything out of
school or behind the scenes. I would imagine it was
a fucking nightmare for them. And I'm sure when they
(27:55):
got this request they were like, fuck no. Now in
a lot of us, listen, is it a great thing
when the president decides to come. It hadn't happened since Hilary,
since Hillary Clinton. That that was a Freudian slip. It
hasn't happened since Bill Clinton. And I don't remember what
that was like. I what year was that.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I mean it would have been the nineties.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
I mean I was obviously playing, but maybe I wasn't
there anymore. I don't know, But I don't remember what
that was like to get into the stadium. But I
just you know, the amount of resources to put all
that together, and then the poor people standing in lines
for like two hours plus there were still people getting
trying to get into the stadium. At three fifty is
when it all cleared. I heard three fifty, So they
(28:38):
missed an hour tennis. I mean I would have been
I would have been so pissed.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, well, thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Thanksully a lot, mctarco, m ankles, mctarco, tits and reason.
I say that it's because of my friends and again,
I've had it, podcasts came.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I don't blame the tournament, no. I think the tournament's
comms department is, for a lot of reasons, in over
their heads. They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
You just think that you and I talked about this earlier,
the email that went out that got leaked. You're saying
that it should have been probably more verbal.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
But I think asking your networks to censor a news
event is not a great look. I think it's the
right to do it. I thought ESPN handled it correctly,
which is acknowledging that this is happening and also not
making the focus of the day this.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Other d They showed him twice and during anthem, that's right,
and they showed him briefly in the third or fourth set.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Both times he got booed loudly.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You could hear not only in the stadium from what
I've heard, but also clearly on TV. And again, I
just think the comms department, who they credentialed this year,
who they didn't credential, they wouldn't let Andy Broddock's podcast
do their own ads because they don't know how ads work.
They gave fifty extra credentials for influencers, which you know,
just Yakes, you can't have that office be in Orlando
(30:03):
and get Bush League talent to run it. It's just
it's a bad look and it's a bad part of
what should be a world class organization.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Anyway, that's not I don't know any of that. Behind
the scenes, you do because you have to do this way,
get credentialed, and I go work for ESPN and I'm
a last eight club member, so yeah for me. All right,
(30:30):
So anyway, let's stalk by the women. Let's talk about
the women. An incredible tournament. My god, the two.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Semimen really carried the tennis.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The two semi finals were the.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Women really carried the tennis.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
They did, And we've been very they have for a
lot of they have, but we've been honest that the
men have carried a couple of other tournaments of late,
the women haven't been so great in the semis and finals.
But the matches at the women's were incredible. I want
to go back to Amanda Anasimova and her victory over
Eagerson Tech. Look, I picked to Eager win the tournament.
(31:00):
At the start of the tournament, I thought she was
playing the best coming in playing so well in Cincinnati,
obviously being incredibly confident after winning Wimbledon, and she's one
that you was open before, so I thought, listen, she's
gonna really push. We talked about the possibility of Amanda
and Eager playing in the quarters, and I was like,
I'd be surprised if she could beat her after losing.
Oh and oh, I think that's just it's damaging most
(31:24):
in your mind. But my god, Amanda and a Samova
way to go. Now there's a little suspicion about, you know,
the foot for Eager. She was struggling a little bit
with her foot. I haven't heard much since, but having
said that, wow, oh wow, when this kid leaves Wimbledon
after not winning a game in the finals, is embarrassed,
(31:47):
is just overwhelmed. But the way she handled that speech,
and she got so many new followers and fans because
of the way she handled that loss. Then on top
of it, she comes out and plays on file in
that match with all the pressure on her to get
to that match. Right, So everyone's yeah, she's one when
you know, got to the finals and women, I'm playing
(32:08):
all this now, she's coming to us sop and with
a ton of pressure. And I did every single one
of her matches, and trust me, she was fighting herself
emotionally every single match and then she turns up against Eager.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And just goes not today, not today, not today.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
I love. That was an incredible display by her to
win that match against arguably the player that was hottest
coming into the tournament.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Agree, I thought, she first of all, has the game
to disrupt an eager obvious and to beat anybody, and
to beat anybody if she's firing on all cylinders. She
has the game to beat anybody. But would she be
able to get herself together mentally? And I was one
of those new fans after the Wimbledon match and hearing
her talk and hearing how thoughtful she was. You know,
I liked her story and I was excited to see
(32:50):
her get to the finals of Queen's before that, Like,
I'm not rooting against to men at an Easimova, but
actually I thought the way she handled it was beautiful
and really amazing and to me indicated like, oh, there's
a well of like you know, humanity here, But would
she be able to put it aside and make it
count on the tennis court, Like, no way did I
see this coming. The other thing that I thought was
amazing is in a very very high pressure moment the
(33:12):
very next match against the Ameyosaka, who arguably was playing
probably certainly the hottest coming in from from kind of
out of well.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
She made for Canada. Yeah, knows how to win the
US Open. It's arguably her best slam. She has something
to prove stray and Open maybe, but those dazzled.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Things were taking all of the heat off of her
being a bad sport in Canada, which I hate those
little toys. And now she apparently has like a million
bajillion dollar deal. Like the less said about that, the better,
But like, that's a match, and that was a match
that was arguably the best match of the women's tournament.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I thought I had the pleasure of being courtside for
that match with ESPN, and there was part of me
after the Sablanca Jess Pagoula match, which we will get
to when we talk about SOUTHCA, but that was like damn.
You know, you always as a commentator, you're like, oh man,
it's my match going to be shitty now, because you
want to be involved in a great match sure, for
(34:09):
not only the point of just like being involved in it,
it's watching it. I'm sitting in the court side. I
want to watch a great match, you know what I mean?
Because I feel like I get paid to watch tennis,
so I want to watch great tennis. So I'm like, damn,
I hope this match is good. It starts out, Amanda
comes on the court. You can tell she's nervous. She
gets down love too, like immediately, and I'm like, oh
(34:30):
my god, this is not going to happen again, is it?
Because there has to be some part of it that
goes am I going to lose O and O again?
And the only reason I say that is because her
game is predicated on hitting winners. And if all of
a sudden she's a little bit off and the feed
aren't moving like they weren't at Wimbledon, and she freezes
a little bit, her ball is flying yea, and if
it's not going in, it's not going in. She's just
rolled in.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So that needs a confident game.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
That backhand. She's not all in that thing, and that's
going to be a winner. It's going to be out.
And I was like, oh my god. Then she got
down love forty, and I was like, oh, oh my god, no,
please God. And also I'm thinking I'm going to sit
here and have to commentate this match and want her
so badly to compete, and she's going to get crushed again. No,
not tonight. She gets down Love forty, comes back, wins
(35:13):
the service game. It's two to one. Completely different match
from that moment on now. It was like a battle
battle battle. And if you were listening to my coverage
at five six down in the second set, when she
had opportunity after opportunity to close out the second set
after breaking a couple of times at five six down
when she has to serve to state in the match,
(35:33):
I said on the coverage, I don't know what just happened.
She won the first point, and I said, she just relaxed.
I don't know what just happened. But literally, her whole
demeanor just changed. She's got this, I'm in the zone.
Fuck this, not tonight. I'm not going to get pissed anymore.
Because she was very demonstrative from time to time on
her service games, and it was like she just said, Amanda,
(35:55):
stopping a brat, stopping a whiner, and just play, and
it was like all of a sudden, she wins the game.
I think to love at five six down, she wins
the tie break like seven to one or seven to two. Unbelievable.
Hitting in the ball was like she became Amanda and
a Samova the great tennis player. Unbelievable. And then she
never looked back. Even when she had to serve out
(36:16):
the match, she didn't. She had a couple opportunities to
close it out at five three on her serve and
she didn't. And you know, you could her disappointment in
herself could have shown in that game, but she didn't
allow it and she closed it out. Unbelievable. It was
incredible match to watch.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
The level was high.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I thought Naomi Osaka played it lights out. She played well,
she played really well. No no, no shame in that
performance at all. And Anisimova, yeah, really like dug in
and I thought, consolidated what she had, the statement she'd
made against eager to me being able to compete through
that was incredible. Now looking ahead to the final, I
(36:56):
thought she didn't fully show up.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Why she was nervous.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I get why maybe there was a little PTSD being
in her second grandslame final the year, which is also
like in and of itself, incredible.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
A year ago she was playing qualifiers, qualifying, lost in colleies.
That's nuts lost. This year she makes two Ransom finals.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Doing online classes this time last year.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Respect the hell out of the fact that in a
year's time, what a difference we are seeing in this person.
She didn't fully show up for the funnel.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
No, before we get to the final. I do want
to just backtrack to Sabolenka. I did not pick Sabolenka
to win this match. In this tournament, she was not
playing great coming into it was I was watching her
in practice. She was missing balls by twenty feet. She
was missing balls in the bottom of the net. I
spoke about it on air. I was watching her practices.
She was not happy. There was like and her game
(37:43):
again is predicated on hitting winners. And if you're not
hitting winners and you're not confident and they're going out
by twenty feet, it's hard to like reel it back in.
That's right. And you know, we saw what happened to
Coco Golf, which we didn't really even talk about, but
you know, Coco's capitulation with the serv and the fourhand
over I hope she takes the rest of the year
off and works on that. But you know, Sablenka did
(38:04):
not look great and she had not won a big
match this year, like when you really look at the
big matches for her Finals of Australia, finals of the
French Open, and she is the first to say she
her emotions got the better of her, and yeah, I
mean just she was not winning the big matches, winning
a lot of matches and arguably the most consistent player
(38:24):
on tour, but she was losing big matches. And then
to lose to Amanda Anisimova at this Wimbledon and the
semifinals again like not, I mean Amanda played great, but
not showing up when it really mattered. Had had to
start taking a dent on her. And that's why I
didn't pick her to win the tournament. But pick against
your own peril, because Sabolenka knows how to win at
(38:46):
the US Open, and she loves There's something about this
crowd and this court that sort of gets She's kind
of like Novak. It just fuels her to just want
to be like to keep my shit together, and she
talked about it, I had to keep my shit together,
and she did because she could have flown off the
handle in the semi and the final. I want to
give props to jess Beagouola to come back and make
(39:06):
the semis, not get to the final again, but to
make the semis and her effort to excuse me, that's
just my TV going off, to actually get back to
the US Open semifinals and play the way she did
in that semi finals.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yes, bloody amazing, she played great.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
I just I hope if Jess ever listens to our podcast,
I hope jess really starts thinking, just like Amanda, I
can win these matches, like, don't have the subconscious overtake
the conscious, Like the subconscious has to say I'm good enough.
Because there were there were shots and points that she
missed right towards the end that if she makes it's
a different outcome.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I mean, I think, to me, jessicagoula great tournament, phenomenal year.
As she twiteted she was the only person to beat
Carlos out My god.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
That Jessica Bogula is the funniest person on Twitter and
she loses. I love that.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I would like to see her kind of take a
page at Yannic Center's book and say, okay, I am
going to dimensionality to my game. She can hit big
roundies with everybody, which is amazing because she's not as
big as most of that.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
But her ball striking is so pure, her hand eye
is bananas. Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
How well she volleys, We know how well she plays
doubles get better, but I think we can we can, like,
and I think it's tied to the confidence thing, which
is like, have the confidence in not only being able
to back up a finals run this year with a
really strong semi final showing, but also like, where are
dimensionality components to your game that you can improve on?
And I think that unpredictability I think maybe would be
(40:47):
helpful for her.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
I think she's I know that she's probably working on that,
because you can't not work with Mark Knowles and Mark
Merkle and her two coaches and not work on that.
Mark Knowles in particular was like serve and volley and
chips and slices and create, so I'm sure he's trying
to get that involved in her game, but that takes
a little bit of time. Actually, somebody we didn't talk
about is marketev Androsova.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I think if markettev Androsova, who played incredibly well the
matches past, will remember that marketev Androssova has a Wimbledon TATA.
She looked as good this year at the US Open
as she did in that Wimbledon tatl run to me
her dismantling of Eleanor Rakina, who was playing very.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Good, Yeah, very good. She was the hottest player in
the tournament, serving unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And marketev Androsova the serv and one just easy handling
of the piece, an amazing court sense. Played an entire
tournament up until that practice court injury causes her to
with drug and sabileca to me, she beats Sabaleka.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I think she must have had that injury before she
went on the practice court, because when she did go down,
her coach walked over to her and put his arm
on her back. Immediately they knew. So she's obviously done
something in the match against the Rebakina and then tried
to give it a day and then come back and
hit some balls and see how it felt and just couldn't.
It was obviously it was the knee. I think it
was her right knee from the looks of the bandage.
(42:12):
On her leg after. But man, it's just like Carolina Mukhova,
who also was hampered in her loss. These two, you
can not catch a break with the injury. Liked, damn it,
Come on tennis, God's give these two a break. Vondrossova
and Mokhova, these two Czech amazing women who have such
(42:33):
beautiful variety in their game. It's like they can't catch
a break physically. I don't know if it's I don't
know if it's mental and it's affecting their body. And
it's just incredible to me because Vondrossova's win over Rabakkin
it was such good tennis. It was played so late
because it was after another amazing match prior, and so
it was quite late. And then you know, for her
(42:53):
not to step on the court was brutal, and I
actually thought that was maybe going to hurt Sabalanca in
a way, but it didn't because getting through that match
against Jessica. But you know, I just want to throw
out just a big marquetta. You know, let's go get back.
You're certainly because she can't catch a break. Even once
she won Wimbledon, she had to withdraw like a couple
months later and didn't play forever, and then came back
(43:14):
after that injury and hurt herself in Australia before the
US train Open, and after playing well and getting to
like the semis of Adelaide and then now this.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
It's just like but if she doesn't pull out, I
don't know that Seblink was a tournament. I mean that,
I think the entirety of the tournament changed when MURKIDEFN
Drisberg had to pull out of that quarter.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, well, she would have certainly gone into it feeling very,
very confident because Rebakian, as you said, was arguably the
best player.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Going and I think Sebolenka's I think Sebolenka had her
opportunity presented to her. I think Jess Pagoula is a
very formidable opponent, but not the toughest opponent you can
face in a semi. And I think in the in
the final, her experience shot shot one through. I mean,
she had with great match. I'll credit to her. Obviously,
Anisimova did not bring as much fate to hers as
(44:00):
I think I think she would have. She listen again,
credit to her. I want to see her in more finals,
and I think these get better. Like she said, the
trending is in going the red direction.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I didn't like that. She said that she felt like
she didn't give herself, like she didn't fight enough, and
I disagree with that. I think, look, I think she
handled it the best way she could at the time,
and she's only going to learn from Wimbledon final and
US Open final. And if you look back on that
match Caitlin in the final, the first game was massive, Okay,
(44:33):
Anisimova had a bunch of break points. I think she
even had love foot thirty in that game. She had
a bunch of breakpoints in that game. If she breaks
and goes up one love, I think we have a
completely different Amanda. I think we have a completely different
possible outcome. Amanda has a winning record over Sabalanca. She
beat her previously at Wimbledon, so we know that she
can be I know it's different in a semi to
(44:54):
a final, but yeah, you might be right. I think
her breaking serve there is so big. Instead, she us
is the game and then goes down and loses her
own service game and now it's love too. And you
don't tell me that Wembledon is not entering your mind.
There at Love two down sure, like in front of
twenty thousand people that you know have paid maybe ten
thousand dollars or a ticket to be there for you.
(45:16):
And thankfully it went to one, and then she actually
got up three too, and she had her opportunities. But
I hope that Amanda walks away from this and goes okay,
lessons learned. Yeah, I'm not gonna I don't think she
froze at the US Open. She froze at Wemblen for sure.
A question. She could literally pick up her feet. She
was that nervous US Open. She had moments. I think
(45:37):
she wins the second set again, I think we also
might have a different outcome. Agree with albergoon nuts and
she started to really see it, and maybe she would
have had that same feeling she had against Naomi of
fuck this, I'm not going to let it beat me today.
So maybe if it goes three, it's a different story.
But credit to Sablenca because she knew I cannot lose
my shit like I did at the French like I
(46:00):
did at Wimbledon, and I have to keep my shit together.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
And she did and she did, and I think she
really needed this one she was slamless and had lost.
As you said, all of the big matches. Are we
done talking about the women?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
I just want a very brief reatown shout out.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
We have a cover story on the incredible anniversary twenty
years of the Wheelchair Tennis division. We interviewed pretty much
all of the who's who, and our cover boy is
Tokito Ota, who at age nineteen, he is nineteen years old,
has a golden career slam. He now won yesterday in
(46:33):
a epic epic finals against his doubles partner, down five
match points, third set, tiebreak.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
If you are not.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Watching wheelchair tennis, I'm telling you it is unbelievable. Most
of you would lose to these wheelchair athletes, no doubt
I would probably lose to most of them. It's certainly
the men's singles finals, the squad, the juniors. The USTA
has done a phenomenal job actually leading on this and
for those of us who are not paying ten dousand
(47:02):
dollars a ticket for other ash but coming to leader
stage as tournaments. You can see juniors, you can see legends,
you can see wheelchairs. Go and cheer and watch tennis
in all of its forums it's an unbelievably important part
of the game.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Everyone can play tennis, and it's unbelievable and the joy
that these people get watching and playing the sport of
tennis is awesome. And it's more on.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
The edge of my seat watching the two Key Toyoda
Fernandez final than I was watching either of the singles finals,
which is not to say that they aren't.
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Were all you did you call me? I was like,
this exciting thing, so my heart was raising. It was
kind of like the Wheelchaan Tannis men's doubles from Wimbledon
a bunch of years ago, where it came down to
like it was like sixteen fourteen in the match Top
Rex something. It was just unbelievable. So yeah, so yeah, listen,
we love tennis obviously, and it doesn't matter who plays it.
When you're hitting the ball over the net and in
the court, it's exciting. Shout out to all the juniors
(47:55):
as well that that won their events. I saw some
great tennis with those. My friend Wells Newman who got
to the third round of Junior's keep an eye out
for her on an American standpoint with the girls, and yeah,
I mean, it's just a lot of fun just overall
being at the US Open. Shout out to all the competitors.
(48:17):
Three weeks. The mixed doubles was a success. I hope
they tweak it a little bit. I hope that they
give the opportunity for a couple of other Grand Slam winners.
This is my thought. The winners of the Australian Open,
Wimbledon and the French Open get an automatic wildcard into
the US Open, unless clearly they're the defending champions like
Bavasori and Irani, who are going to get another wildcard,
(48:37):
probably into the mixed doubles next year, as they should should.
But my thought process is if you've won a mixed
title that year, you get automatically entered into the US Open.
A million dollars to the winner, a million dollars to
the doubles champions as well. God damn it, don't think
Lisa Raima wasn't texting me going back in our day.
But anyway, huge success.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Well, one housekeeping item, A lot of you guys have
noticed that we did a special issue with Melissa Cobe,
who's an artist who did an amazing, amazing Lino type
of althea Gibson that is only available at the New
York City location, and don't get on me as to why.
Sometimes this is the only way we can bring you
(49:20):
nice things is by creating exclusive deals. And so if
you want it, it is for sale at the Starbucks
Reserve Road Street in the Meatpacking District. To send somebody
you know to mill you one if you don't live here,
and really renee like, what a great three weeks again,
I'm exhausted, you're exhausted. I'm gonna enjoy this ranch water.
Thank you Lala Tequila for hooking it up. And I
(49:40):
guess I got one on my own now, I.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Mean, we'll guess. We'll just see you in Asia.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
We'll see you over the next couple of weeks and
we'll bring you more tennis updates and everything. But it
was a joy. It was a joy to bring it
all
Speaker 1 (49:53):
To you, and thanks and listening for us today, all right,
thank you, Bye b
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