Perfect Match?

We're back after an unplanned week off (Bryan went to the beach) with thoughts about Wimbledon, hardcourt season, Venus Williams, Genie Bouchard and a bunch of other random tennis shit.

It's summertime and the livin' is easy. Enjoy the show!

As always tell your friends, rate this podcast in your app, and send us feedback at https://www.perfectmatchpodcast.com/

You can also follow us on Bluesky at @perfectmatchpodcast.com or @s...

As Wimbledon plans to add 39 more courts and 8,000 more annual visitors, residents of the surrounding London hamlet sue to prevent the tournament's expansion. How do we balance the needs of a world famous sporting event with long time residents' needs? And what to do with recent transplants who both love the tournament and also want it to always stay exactly as it is today? (We ignore them.)

Also:

• ESPN coverage of Wimbledon s...

Michele describes Wimbledon the way some people describe Christmas: "the most wonderful time of the year". She's not entirely wrong! This week we run down some Wimbledon updates, some controversies and random thoughts about why Brits don't believe in room fans.

Also:

• Bryan goes to Pride and his battery runs out at the after party
• Why Fahrenheit is a better way to measure air temperature than Celsius
• A Wimbledon Final watch ...

On September 2, 1990, after attending the US Open, Brian Watkins and his family got on the subway at 53rd St. and 7th to go to dinner in the West Village. While waiting for the train, 8 teenagers allegedly attacked Watkins’ father with a boxcutter and kicked and attacked his mother. Brian intervened and was then stabbed in the chest by one of the teens. 

Brian died in the ambulance on his way to St. Vincent’s hospital, over...

Grass Season: players slipping and sliding! serve and volley winning matches! five weeks and then the Most Important Slam in Tennis (Wimbledon)!

This time, Michele explains to Bryan some things! The grass surface, some grass history, the schedule and what it means for Wimbledon 2025.

Also:

• Stefanos Tsitsipas' dumb newsletter
• The Williams Sisters' dubious podcasting platform

As always tell your friends, rate this pod...

Our dreams came true: Carlos Alcaraz won the French Open Men's Final and Coco Gauff won the Women's. But more than just winning, they demonstrated the intrinsic magic in how they move through the world. They bring joy wherever they go, they are on hero journeys and they uplift us all.

Also, this is our first full episode we recorded on video! Bryan had Covid this week, so we had to record remotely, so why not put up an annoying ...

The US Open can no longer be trusted to police ticket scalpers. Within minutes of the 2025 US Open tickets going on sale, only reseller tickets were available at over double the face value. We've had enough!

Luckily there is a bill working its way through the NY State Legislature that would ban this kind of naked profiteering off of event tickets. If you live in New York State, please contact your state Senator and tell them to ...

Just prior to the French Open kicking off, the US Open announced a big plan to "reimagine" Arthur Ashe Stadium for the 21st Century. In a highly self-congratulatory post, the USTA laid out its plans to double the space for Courtside and Suite ticket holders ($$$) by removing seats from everybody else. But hey, they are adding a couple of bathrooms for the cheap seats. Does this align with their mission and the legacy of Billie Jean...

The French Open is almost here, so we dug up our conversation with Katya Rogers, Executive Producer of WNYC's On The Media about the classic cinéma vérité movie The French. The conversation tackles the tough questions around the 1981 French Open, the 80s in general, athletes who smoked, and perhaps inappropriate girl crushes on much older men.

Enjoy!

Also, if you are in New York on May 31st, we are hosting our first ever Perf...

Common throughout Spain and the Middle East, sometimes a bunch of snacks constitutes dinner. Similarly, in podcasting you can throw together a bunch of loosely related tidbits and you have an episode. Particularly when your original topic kind of falls apart an hour before you want to start recording!

We cover the new tennis-loving Pope, pay disparity at the Italian Open, formerly Russian player Daria Kasatkina gets some love fr...

We are still grieving our late, beloved cat Dusty, so we looked at how grief has affected professional tennis players at different moments in their careers. From Iga's recent loss of her grandfather tanking her run at the Madrid Open to Barbora Krejčíková's 2021 French Open title in tribute to her deceased coach Jana Novotna, death affects us all...and keeps affecting us.

We are fully in the clay season ("playing in the dirt", a...

We are back to Alcaraz, specifically his (now fully released) 3-part DocuSeries about his grappling with the expectations around him versus his human need to enjoy life. Surprisingly personal and unexpectedly profound, My Way asks the big questions: How much do we owe those around us and what do we owe ourselves? Where do we set boundaries with those who are most invested in us? And so on...

Also, T2 is bad and Bryan applies to ...

Monogamy vs. Polygamy: these days it’s more of a choice than a default; a discussion rather than an assumption. But how does this new openness relate to tennis and who we root for? Does the true fan root for only one player or is it better to dip our toes into different waters?

This week we reveal our tennis fandom polycules and their organizing principles. Michele also reminisces about her time as Roger Federer's cuckquean fan,...

We've all heard about the importance of "work/life balance". We definitely advocate for the "life" side of that balance, but if you're one of the world's top tennis players, is there room for having a life?

In the forthcoming Netflix documentary "Carlos Alcaraz: My Way", Carlos makes it clear that he's interested in more than just winning as much as possible. We see him vacationing with family, eating his mother's cooking and ha...

Ostensibly an outing to poke fun at an NYU dorm-adjacent tennis-themed bar/restaurant, we came away from this experience questioning our cynicism, close-mindedness and life choices. Sometimes it's best to just enjoy the martinis and happy hour wings and leave your skepticism at the door.

Thanks to the staff at 30 Love for their hospitality! This is not a sponsored post!

As always tell your friends, rate this podcast, and ...

The Miami Open has always been an unusual tournament: the second half of the "Sunshine Double" (Indian Wells being part one), it used to be held not in Miami at all. Now they've moved it to Miami's Hardrock Stadium and its surrounding parking lot. This feels a bit trashy!

And with the ground shifting underneath the dynamic of the players (particularly on the Men's side), this year saw a number of upsets, a deep run by an unknown...

Okay, we know. Politics! There is too much of it, and it is a complete bummer. However! When we root for a player, we are rooting for more than their playing style; we are also invested in the player as a person. When they say and do political things, it matters. Today, we deliver verdicts on a number of top players (with sound effects). Spoiler alert: Djokovic: no, Draper: no, Gauff: yes, Osaka: yes, etc. Enjoy!

As always tell ...

In which we try (and kind of fail) to be Zen about the rapid change in professional tennis and the world. Next-Gen is out; Next-Next-Gen is on a rampage. With wins from 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva and relative newcomer Jack Draper at Indian Wells, we dissect the coming wave of players, and what it means for Alcaraz, Sinner, Swiatek and Sabalenka. Is it a blip on the radar or something more permanent? Either way, the only constant is...

We braved connecting flights, "gate checked" bags and a literal desert storm to bring you this postcard from our trip to "Tennis Paradise", the 2025 Indian Wells Open in California's Coachella Valley. Follow us to the bars, the tournament, the condo and the jacuzzi, as we recap our annual trip, warts and all!

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As always tell your friends, rate this podcast, and send us feedback at https://www.perfectmatchpodcas...