November 27, 2023 • 51 mins
Episode 200! Simon and Devang return for their monumental 200th episode of Open Era. On this week’s show: Davis Cup reaction, Novak Djokovic yells at some Brits, Jannik Sinner makes some history, a new Saudi Super League in Tennis beckons as the WTA and ATP may change forever and we get into plenty more on Parting Shots.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Open EraPodcast, Episode number two hundred. Simon,
we did it, sir, Howare you? How are you feeling?
Episode two hundred. I don't knowif this is actually your two hundred
episode. It probably isn't. We'veprobably done a few more than those to
be on a signment with the specialapps and all that. But two hundred,
(00:34):
man, what a ride. SorryDeff, I can't hear you over
the noise of the British crowd,like the drowning out this podcast. Dylan,
please, please can you help usget the sound down. I don't
know how many loggers they've consumed,probably enough to take out an entire city
(00:55):
the size of Aliga. But yeah, no, two hundreds are The Brits
are going nuts, But losing,I think is the most important. We'll
get to Davis Cup. We'll talkabout Italy, Italy, I hope that's
not offensive. In Italy doing thething in Malaga winning the Davis Cup thanks
(01:15):
to the heroics of Jannick Sinner.We'll get to that. We'll get to
Novak Djokovic talking about the Brits andNovak as well having an interesting end to
the season. Get to some BorisBecker quotes, which are always fun.
And then the big news from JohnWerthheim dropping as you record on Sunday about
some chatter quote unquote, including theSlams acquiring the ten biggest events and forming
(01:40):
a super tour that include Saudi Arabiagetting an event and the ATP and WTA
left to pick up the pieces akarun the five hundred events in the year
end finals. So that's a hugebombshell. We'll get to that in parting
shots. But first, simon DavisCup. I tried to gauge your interest
this week about Davis Cup when Itold you what time we would likely have
(02:02):
to record on Sunday, because Iwas thinking Canada was going to make a
run. It wasn't meant to be, but I was locked in for this,
and you know, I'm a haterand I've been hating on drew Ardpeak
and what they've done to this tournament. But I think this week was as
close as we've got and since theydestroyed Davis Cup to what it kind of
(02:23):
used to be. And for that, I mean that the home team doing
quite well was a big part ofthat, but I think some of the
aways support surprised me. Including Finlandwho traveled really well. So I wanted
to hate this week, but Ifound myself getting locked in, especially when
Canada is playing Filin and then forthe rest of the week. But I'm
(02:43):
curious how you felt this David's Cupwent down. I mean, firstly,
thank you to everyone for two hundredepisodes. I know I cut it off
with a level of sarcasm in theopening, as you asked me in the
opening question, but in general,amazing. I can't believe who meant it's
two hundred death astonishing, really crazy, so many years, so much tennis,
and yeah it still continues. Everyoneon the flip side. Wait,
(03:05):
Davis Cup happened this week? DevYeah? Really, see, hater,
I'm trying to grow and be differentand get beyond my my long held prejudices,
including this entire event. So don'tyou can't even find the scores normally,
it's like finding finding a treasure huntto locate what is happening where and
when? But really, nothing,nothing caught your eye, not even the
(03:30):
beef quote unquote. I watched enoughof it to be prepared to come on
here and not sound like an idiot, is what I will say about the
Davisup. I watched enough with theDavis Cup and followed it enough to be
professional enough to record a podcast withyou and hopefully, I mean, honestly,
there's at least you can do,and we love before it. But
(03:50):
I to get into the actual tennispart. Italy wins Simon and I do
think it is we're talking about thisgeneration of players they have. Yannick Sinner
is the top and he is theclass of Italian tennis. And I think
at twenty two we saw him makethe leap of leafs that we expected him,
you expected him to make for awhile. Charlie Akers talking about him
(04:13):
going to number one one day didseem like friendly banter between friends and pumping
up your mate, as they say. But also Sian, I think the
last few weeks convinced anyone else whomight be a holdout that he is definitely
going to do this. I madethat comparison to Felix last week, I
think, and Josh rightfully pointed outon the discord like this is definitely different,
right, Like the combination of shots, the ability to ramp it up
(04:38):
when he needs to, to beatNovak Djokovic twice in one day in back
to back weeks to beat him,something I think only three other players have
done. It's pretty mad. It'sinsane, isn't it. It's nice to
see him growing before our eyes intothe player that I think we all thought
he could be when he first arrivedon the scene. And one thing you
didn't say in that long list ofsuperlatives is this movement. He's one of
(04:58):
the best movements I think to evergrace the tennis court. And I know
that sounds like hyperboly, but he'sastonishing. His last oral movement is amazing.
He sounds he looks so graceful outon a tennis court, his ability
to defend going side to side,and I think he's made some small technical
changes to his game. Obviously,the server is the most prominent thing.
That He's flip flopped, gone backand forth to all the different stands as
(05:20):
you can possibly do. I'm surprisedhe's not thrown in an under arm serve
at some point over the last twoyears, with all the ways that he's
trying to tinkle with it. Butat the same time, I think the
biggest thing for me is his confidencelevel and his brain as well, because
tactically, I think he's playing muchsmarter tennis now and you can tell that.
I think some changes in the camphave held him and then that belief
(05:43):
to get across the line. Youdon't beat Novak Djokovic if you're a bad
tennis player. And I think todo it as many times he has done
in the last eleven days goes toshow he's really really special and he's going
to be really good for a longtime. And I think that that base,
that flaw that he has is justso high he's gonna he's gonna be
around at the top of the tollfor a very long time because you just
can't imagine that floor dipping a hugeamount. Dev No, I don't think
(06:06):
he needs to do this. Butif if Darren k Hill needed to make
an Instagram real mix of his coachingabilities to present his abilities to maybe a
future client, what a real hecould show from when he's done with the
nix citter and and things on thecourt and off of it as well.
But I think the on the courtthings, I mean, the things we're
watching him do it is it's prettyremarkable. I mean, Alex Deboner,
(06:29):
he owns Alex debonaher and I feellike this right with this matchup is just
obviously not good for the Demon,but it was pretty unnerving to see him
hit past someone who is almost impossibleto hit past for some of the game's
best players, one of the bestdefensive players on the tour, and it
was no issue at all for someonewho has played a ton a ton of
(06:50):
tennis, a ton of pressure packedtennis. Obviously not being at home so
much maybe easing some of the burden. But it's a he was keup tie.
It's for a country. I mentionedthe other players, Simon Parattini hurt
not a part of this crew,but Arnaldi, the guy who won the
first match against Bopparin, which washuge. I think whoever won that match,
(07:13):
you're probably looking at that that teambeing the favorite because Australia was so
good at the double Simon, butthat match is insane. Arnaldi not playing
super well but finding a way grindingit out. Some Italy at the Euros
kind of stuff. Simon to doanother soccer analogy, but finding away Lorens
and Mussetti, who didn't have hisbest stuff here this week. Maybe is
(07:33):
only twenty one. There's five otherItalians in the top two hundred and under.
Twenty two. That's pretty DUTs man. They're probably going to be winning
the Davis Cupper whatever the hell it'scalled, going forward a few more times,
almost certainly, right, Like thelevel of depth that they have is
astonishing. Does that make Max persallike macay Osaka in this situation or something
(07:58):
like that, I don't know howyou eat try and phrase this horrible matter
form to work here? Doesn't thatdoesn't work at all. And in fact,
I think you shoe hoarded arsenal playerin just just a jabby, so
I will parry it and move on. But I did feel for the demon
Bush quickly, they said a fewtimes in the pot, but like I
watched him in person a couple ofmonths ago, and I really appreciate what
(08:22):
he brings to the court, histenacity and his commitment. But you can
see it when when a player justdoesn't have the weapons to compete against someone
at Sinner's level. And I don'tknow if that's ever going to be a
thing for a demon. It probablywon't be, and he's had a marvelous
career even without it. But youdid see that there's levels to this.
(08:43):
There's levels, and there's also Ithink belief going into the match, especially
when he does. And I actuallythought there would be a bit of a
level a level of here being aDavis Cup tie. And I know the
Italian fans but were incredible and theytraveled well. Obviously it was very close
for them as a as a nation, as a fan group to make it
there. But I thought the Australiansmade some good noise as well, and
(09:03):
I thought they made themselves heard inthis final. The weapons thing is is
it does demonstrate, doesn't it howhard yanitsin it hits the ball, and
his ability to generate pace. He'sthe of one of, if not the
cleanest ball strikers I've ever seen inmy life. And I know I'm throwing
(09:24):
so much hyperbole around in this episode, but I think there's also the belief
and just trying to give you someguidance of why I think this is this
is the best eurr of tennis ever, Like this is the belief that I
hold obviously just on the basis thatit's the most technologically advanced. The players
are the best access to data andinformation, it's the most professional ever,
(09:45):
so for him to be able tostrike a tennis ball the way that he
does and hit through players who areinside of the world's top twenty in the
way that he does is remarkable.It really is remarkable. I actually thought
the Novak Djokovic on Nixcinner match gaveus a pretty good indication of what it's
going to be like in Australia.Is a quick coll It wasn't actually surprisingly
quick court indoors, and I thinkwe're going to see a dynamite match between
(10:09):
those two of it happens in MelbournePark. I really can't wait for it
to happen. Novak had three matchpoints against Ciner. Cinner was serving at
four or five love forty boy,Oh boy, you're talking about stress and
do you have it? Do youhave it against the goat? Do you
have it? In this situation inwhich Novak is obviously he's going to bring
(10:33):
it, but for Serbia he's bringingextra. That was nuts. That was
absolutely nuts, incredible spectacle And yeah, I mean it worked out because you
had this commitment from the players andI think yan again Novak turning around from
the ATP Tour finals and coming downto Malaga and putting it on the line
like this, it added to thissituation and it made it what it was,
(10:56):
which was really good theater at anexcellent week for Malign turn Mint,
which will probably continue to shot onas we can we go on our year
review. But it was great.It was great theater. Congrat Italy once
again. The other players to beatNovak and consecutive week Simon Andy, Murray,
Rafronidal, but Mikhail Yushin, youstand up the head basher himself,
(11:20):
love it. I knew who wasgoing to appear in this list. I'm
trying to genuinely remember when this happened. I seem to have blocked this round
my memory. Amazing that he didit, though, I mean, we
can touch on usually, but Ithink maybe just to stay on sinner for
a second, I think it's quitesurprising to see Novak Djokovic hurried sometimes or
(11:43):
to make some of the errors theerrors that he did in these matches.
And I think both players were probablyquite shagged as well, given what's happened.
But I think they were both equallyas shagged as well. I don't
think one player was more tired thanthe other. Potentially you could make the
case of dracovis just the age andall that stuff, but it's not seemed
to start him or he hasn't lookedparticularly old in the last few months,
(12:03):
has he given his results. Butit's just the testament to how good of
a player and how good of abull striker sin it is is that he
does hurry him, he does forcehim to hit shots that sometimes you think
are a little surprising. And oneof the big tactical things that I was
going to bring up here is thatsort of backhand to backhand rally that Djokovic
(12:24):
has been so good at for somany years. It's just pinning people on
that side. There's been a bitof a seed change this year, and
you've seen the way that both CarlosZakaraz and Joanick Sinner have tried to step
around that forehand, not get pinnedinto that corner in the way that Jokovic
has been able to do it withso many players, and not allow him
to sort of dictate off that side. And I thought Cinta did a really
(12:46):
good job, especially in that firstset, of just any sort of rally
ball that's slightly short on that backhandside, No, I'm going to step
round it and I'm going to fuckingcrush it to both sides to keep him
guessing. And I think that's likesomething telling to keep an on for the
twenty twenty four season. Is likewhether people A have the weapons to do
it and B have the sort ofguts to do it, because it does
(13:07):
take a bit of bass to steparound that side against somebody with the best
back end of all time. Isaw this sentiment on X a few times
during the finals, don't I know? But for Sinner and Alchoriz and hold
her Rune and whoever else is comingup now, Like, if you're getting
a chance to play Novac and youcan be actually in the conversation and have
(13:30):
this experience to challenge him, howvaluable is that? Like you can't actually
measure that. I feel like it'sreally really special for them. So it's
it's Yannix world. I think it'sworth just pointing out here as well as
the three players that you mentioned,and obviously you're throwing Danny Mepidev as well.
It's not a given at this point, is it not? To say
Novak Djokovic is going to walk intoa match against any of the four of
(13:54):
them and win. You do haveto stop and think about it for a
second. Yeah, like we're noton the stage now dominant and powerful at
Islam though at a Slam. Waitat a Slam though, I'm I used
to you that at a Slam.I think the conversation is still lopsided until
next year when I'm proven other right, dude won three, Dude was in
(14:18):
every Slam final and probably what allof them. I agree, all right,
quickly quickly on Novak the fans thing, the British fans thing. Did
he make anything thing of that?Simon Novak suggesting quote British fans should quote
sorry, you learn how to showrespect before tell them to quote shut up.
(14:39):
The British fans were boorish and loadedup to the gills of alcohol and
yelling at several points, including whenhe was trying to do his postmatch interviews.
So I kind of get it thatbeing said, like, this is
the whole thing. It's Davis Cup, the crowd, the atmosphere, that's
what they want, The organizers wantthis. But I found it interesting that
Novak, who could have played forwritten in an alternative one like we've discussed,
(15:01):
was yelling at his potential country.We also didn't touch on the fact
that this was actually a political event. Almost Benovac Jokovic right, like he
had the eyes of Serbia on him, with eyes to being prime minister president
one day. He actually has tobring it in this tournament? Does he
not representing his nation anyway? Itmatters a lot. You could tell obviously
this and there was the thing thatdoping control. I don't know if you
(15:22):
saw this, but he refused adoping test before the quarterfinals Mark the Spanish
tabloid. Not the most reputable Iwould say that as someone who follows soccer
transfer rumors or used to with ahorrible magnifying glass. But not the most
reputable source, I would say,but Novac refusing a doping test. They
(15:46):
can give you less notice for whenthey test you. Apparently, Simon in
this setting, in this day wascupsetting, and Novak was surious because he
goes through as regular premat ritual stuff. But in his defense, and I
know, have I become an ovakstanNo, But I will say, to
draw someone's blood before a match,yeah, I could see how that might
(16:11):
not like make you feel like you'reat your best physically, no level playing
field for everyone, I know.But still in any case, I did
find it hilarious that in the samearticle at the very end, it's like
Serbia's current captain vik Detroitzky was bannedfor eighteen months for refusing to provide a
blood sample in the same article.Yeah, as a you know how a
(16:32):
few months ago when we were talkingabout Simona Hallep, when we were like,
yeah, doping is probably rife.In the spot, it's just like
it's an open secret. I willrefer you back to my opinions on that
one. I don't know. Idon't know if Carol intentionally out of that
line at the end, but chef'skiss it was fantastic and he used the
current captain, Victor Troitsky, soit makes sense to mention that but terrific.
(16:55):
Finally, Simon, before we getto parting shots, I don't know
if you saw this Boris Becker backin the news. Uh, he's ober
Rune's coach or part of his team'stalking about the season or the tour and
ober runees back from his his badperiod. But did you see what he
said about alcaraz I did. Yeah, Yeah, that was a bit a
(17:15):
bit harsh, but basically saying thatZverev stepped up, which I mean,
okay, Daniel member I found hisform. Annic Sender took a huge step
forward, but Alcarez seemingly didn't.Why is that dueling with Novak winning Wimbledon's
most difficult thing is to maintain yourlevel. Anyone could have a good tournament
to a good year from time totime. Maintaining that level over the years
(17:36):
is the real challenge. The lockerroom never sleeps. It means that other
players will realize how you have toplay against a Choraz to have a chance
against him. That's what's happened.Other players have developed, and Ochoraz hasn't
very harsh from Boris Becker year Simon, Yeah, this is this is click
But I think this is someone obviouslylooking for relevance. Let's just have a
(17:59):
quick look here. Yes, that'sright. He did end the year as
world number two. He won aGrand Slam. Yeah that's right. How
many Masters did he win this year? Three? Is that right? One?
Three? Yeah? I think it'sprobably a fairly good year. All
joking aside on this one, devI think there's some interesting parallels in terms
of looking at and not just becauseit's a cheap parallel here, but just
(18:23):
looking at the way that egist Fionceksort of tried to find herself again after
winning that first grund Slam in Paris, And I know there slightly different circumstances,
but how you sort of have toadjust as someone who is being hunted
every single week, and how difficultit is to kind of climb that mountain
(18:44):
again once you overcome it once.And you know so many players are like,
oh, I took a set offNovak Djokovic. Goodness me, I
feel so good about myself. Yeah, imagine how it feels when you beat
him in a ground slam final.Just trying to find yourself. You've done
everything and you need to remotivate yourselfand find something to keep going on it.
I think that's kind of what weall with Callas Alcaas as well,
and in Boris's defense, I thinkthat's kind of what he meant. Like
(19:06):
he said this on a podcast,so I think in in print it sounds
possibly more damning than how he offeredit because he said it out a loud
But I can kind of get whathe's getting that, so to speak,
but only because you know it's thereto me. Is when he mentioned how
fast the courts were at the ATPfinals, and like I said, they
were too fast almost, which nota red flag, but I was like,
(19:30):
hmm okay, Like generally, asa spectator, I love that,
but like, why for Carlos wouldthat not be a great thing? But
I wonder if I was just readingtoo much into a Hey, why doesn't
he like this style that's more suitablefor the fan experience or for better tennis?
When where his peers are adapting better, why can't he adapt as well?
Not fair enough. I'm just goingto do it quick. I just
(19:52):
looked this up because I wanted tomake the point on the podcast. So
his twenty twenty three season win,final win, semi win, win,
semi win win, quarter final,semi semi second round, goodness me,
okay, worry loss to Sapling?Right right? I think that's probably okay,
(20:14):
isn't it. It seems okay,fine, it's fine, and yeah
they expect it now that now he'smeasured against a crazy bar, right because
he's chasing just insane numbers. BecauseI think the other thing go back is
I mean all these guys have doneis is the bar is so high?
Like if you want to be oneof the greats quote unquote tennis going forward,
Holy Hill, the numbers thing isgoing to be a bit of a
(20:36):
thing on your back for a while. But can't win everything death, No,
And it doesn't matter that realistically,it doesn't matter. It's not that's
not the point really in the end, I don't think it is. And
maybe in the in the sense thatit's an impossible number to reach, it
won't have to be the topic ofevery damn conversation, which is honestly refreshing
(20:59):
because this is been a while.You lose a lot in tennis, and
I think that's one of the thingsthat's difficult to adjust when you're pro and
coming up as a kid, isthat you spent so much time losing.
We've had this ridiculous run of alltime great players on both the men's and
the women's side, that people havebecome accustomed to just seeing someone dominate and
win every single match they go into. Just doesn't feel like that's going to
(21:22):
be the case moving forward, Likethe separation requires to be just so much
better than head and field above therest is. You know, I can't
see that being the case over thenext ten years. He's going to lose
a lot, and that's fine.He's also going to win a significant amount
of matches and I think we needto celebrate that as well. Twelve said
sir, all right, we'll leaveit there. When we come back after
the break, parting shots, we'llget to that Super League bombshell from John
(21:45):
Rudeim, new TV deal for WTA, Carlos Alcaras and Chess next Gen finals,
all of that coming up next.Welcome back to the Open Era podcast.
(22:07):
Simon Party shots on the news thisweek, spicy spicy news. Let's
talk about the supertur chatter quote unquote, this is the tweet from John Worthheim
quote for what it's worth, hearingmore chatter about the Slams joining to acquire
ten biggest events, forming a superturbrackets, with Saudi Arabia getting tenth event,
(22:30):
leaving ATP and WTA to run fivehundreds and year end finals. A
lot of hurdles to clear, butthis would be the proverbial game changer.
Stay tuned. He followed that upSimon saying the way this has been viewed
by the decision makers as sort ofa reset for tennis as they surveyed the
landscape in the sports world, includingthe North American sports world, where they're
(22:55):
seeing other leagues sign TV deals.He mentioned the NWSL, the Women's soccer
league in North America, as someas a as a kind of a goal
post for them because they just signeda right steal. What are your thoughts,
Simon. I mean, on thesurface, doesn't feel great. This
(23:15):
This is huge news, by theway, and in terms of all the
things that we've ever covered on thispodcast, for the actual structural foundations of
tennis itself, this has got tobe one of the biggest things we've ever
covered. If it actually happens.There's all I mean, there's a ton
of stuff that's happened since we've donethis podcast on a sort of political and
cultural level, and I'm not kindof just you know, playing that down,
but this from an actual foundational levelis enormous if it does go through
(23:37):
and is the way that it's written. I wrote in our discord that I
did not have the Grand Slams takingover the you know, slicing off a
bigger piece of the pie on mybingo card, and I think, looking
back at it now, that seemspretty naive on my behalf. I think
(24:00):
if you were looking at this throughthe long lens of history, this actually
feels quite obvious. Does that makesense? It kind of feels like if
we were so worried about Saudi Arabiaand an oil money state and all that
sort of stuff coming in and someonetrying to, you know, carve off
their own section of the tour,there's already these four massive players who are
(24:22):
outsized and in terms of their statureand in terms of their power. Wouldn't
it make sense for them just totake it on board? And I'm not
arguing one way or another on that, I'm just saying that seems obvious to
me, like this seems duh,Like why wouldn't this have happened? On
the flip side, I'm not opposedto this on the basis that I don't
think tennis works the way it is, and I think if this, if
(24:45):
we're going to see some change here, I'm curious to know what actually happens
after this runs for a year ortwo or three. I don't like the
inclusion of Saudi state money on thisall. Yeah, but I think if
this gives bigger statue to the WWTAand actually sort of from the ground that
breaks the structural hold that these institutionshave. I'm not opposed to it.
(25:07):
I don't think this is going tobe good in the long run, but
I think that might be in theshort run a reasonable thing to shake up
the tour. I'm of two minds, like when I see things like we
need an F one model, anydreams of maybe moving the sport towards the
maybe more open and welcome and environmentallyfriendly way is just not happening, and
it's against fully the capitalist models.So I'm removing that pipe stream for a
(25:32):
second just to say, like,none of these tours are making money,
and like, especially the WTA isin a real pickle financially, and we
saw that with how the boondog orplayed out with the WTA finals. But
I think, yeah, I thinkyou're right in the sense that, like
when you look at it laid outlike this, and it seems really obvious,
and it makes sense that the Slams, which have an outsized level of
(25:55):
importance in the wider media landscape interms of the fan recognition. If you're
maybe an average tennis fan, youdefinitely know about the Slams full stop.
So I think this does allow forthem to maybe start over and try and
make some cash, which we knowis the end game here. And if
you do have a unified players outfit, be it the PTPA or whoever else,
(26:18):
to negotiate with them or work withthem, I think that's good.
But I guess I do wonder this. It does remind me a bit of
the Super League in the sense thatlike the haves and that the top players
will be taken care of, andin that super League it was the big
clubs will be taken care of.But I'm looking at the rankings today and
seeing events are still taking place allover the world, including players who need
(26:41):
to play to get by. Playersnot too far out of the one hundred
signon, like players in one hundredand tens and one hundred and twenties.
What happens to them with this?Right? Like, I guess the idea
is like, what does this actuallylook like? Who's in charge? What
does it mean? Is it amerger? Is it a whole new thing
put together? Yeah, obviously wedon't know a lot, but I think
(27:07):
this reminds me a bit of theSuper League that they tried in soccer.
I agree with you, I thinkfundamentally this does not go well for players
ranked outside of the top hundred.I think this is a terrible, terrible
changing situation. This is going tobe a litmus test for the BDPA.
So it really was, And Ithink that's kind of where I'm coming at
it from this perspective, which isthat if you have this sort of structural
(27:27):
change, it's up to your laborbody to actually fight for you and make
sure that that money is distributed throughoutthe tour, because it's sure as shit
doesn't feel like that's going to happenhere, like not with a sort of
fledgling union. That's maybe Stanma Wrinkerhouseand opinions on about it. But I
think if if this money was toever actually be distributed across the tour in
(27:52):
general, this could be positive.I just have very little faith that that
will happen. So you will geta situation where you have a lot of
very very well compensated people and playersand the power structure which is very very
focused on the top and probably avery very small number of people, which
(28:14):
I don't think is probably good forthe game in general. All that being
said, dev tennis is such amess. Could you equally see this flaming
out inside of two years, Icould equally see that. I guess the
Grand slor never starting. Yeah,yeah, that's the thing. Yeah,
I do think it's interesting, it'sworth I'm who's talking about this, Like
(28:37):
it does feel like there's been somuch smoke and how disastrous the WTA finals
went. I don't think it's anynow. It's more like, Okay,
we've we've tried the Noble Act,we've tried the this goes against our values
thing, and we're not sure aboutthis too. We're a bit of a
joke right now in terms of ourexecution of events. How do we how
(28:59):
do we make ourselves legitimate once againand and non embarrass our players who don't
deserve this stuff like we have ChrisEverett tweeting on the day of the day's
Cup final saying my wish for nextyear is having a legitimate WTA finals where
players are celebrated. It's like,okay, like, what are we protecting
here? Not much? The systemis bad, it's terrible. Well,
(29:19):
like just putting this alongside the sortof new TV deal that you have on
the WTA side, and also theprofit sharing stuff that I mean, we
didn't talk about it because it happenedwhile we were taking a small break.
But how does that get incorporated withinto this, with this within this program,
because I think it is interesting.But again, you take the long
lens of history and sort of takea step back from everything. It's not
(29:41):
really a surprise that a bunch ofthese things, a bunch of these programs
came into being as soon as thePTPA mysteriously showed up, right, oh,
shockingly enough, we start to see, you know, the ATP start
to think about potentially doing some programsthat might benefit the players. Does that
all go up and smoke with this? I don't know, man, Like
it's super interesting and I think it'sone of those I mean we said I
(30:07):
said at the top, right,I think this is one of the biggest
structural changes that could happen in tennis. I don't have any clue how this
plays out other than like to compareit to other situations, which is that
poor people tend to get fucked andthe rich tends to do really well out
of it. Yeah, it's kindof where I mean, easy as Machine
in front of the show on Discordmakes a good points, like at the
(30:29):
current stage where we're going with tennis, is a slowish death where we are
going into exhibition only FI items,which I agree with. By the way,
I think that is legitimately a goodpoint, like it's dying before our
eyes. Certainly the WTA is unlessyou're going to start taking you know,
directly money from oil barons and fromyou know, the worst of the worst.
(30:49):
Like I think that is legitimately afair point to make. Do you
think that announcement about the new WTAtelevision deal Sky and Canal Plu? You
think it's kind of weird that theACP's mentioned so heavily in that release.
What's going on? Like I knownone of these organizations talk to each other,
(31:11):
but like these are two massive announcementsthat got made with the profit showing
stuff and also this new TV deal. How does this get incorporated? Did
they sign a deal just for likea bunch of ten five hundred tournaments?
Is that what's going on here?Like they're buying them by round. It's
okay, I'll take a quarter finalsa row that's for twenty bucks final.
(31:33):
It's astonishing. Like imagine imagine showingup to have a rights discussion with in
the footballing world and you're like,uh, I mean, let's leave might
not exist in like next year.Fine, it's fine, it's fine,
listen, it's fine. Against this. Can we sell ad to get this?
What is our inventory? The FACup might not exist, so you
(31:56):
can buy the package, but likeby the court of stage, it might
not be there anymore. So yeah, that's good stuff. What a random
situation to follow a sport dying andalso trying to figure out ways of resuscitate
itself. And I actually think Canaryand the coal mine situation, just given
(32:16):
the state of the global financial situation, given the bond market, and given
the state of all of like bothpublic finances and another state of a lot
of like private companies as well whohave over leveraged on cheap got drunk on
cheap money, who are now payingthe price for it. Is this going
to be a situation that goes intoother sports as well? Are we going
to start seeing other organizations fall apart? Well, there's a huge television issue
(32:42):
in North America with all the regionalsports networks going under and declaring bankruptcy.
So yeah, I mean yes,is the answer. The way sports are
consumed, like the way we watchhas already changed so significantly. But I
do wonder what happens when some ofthese companies that popped up in the last
(33:04):
five three five years go go bellyup really quickly. When it seemed like
this was the new age, ifwe take into consideration that basically like the
version of neoliberal capitalism exploded in twothousand and eight, right like that system
it failed, like it completely fellapart, and since that moment we've been
putting like we've resuscitated it using theyou know, the heart defibrillator, and
(33:30):
then we started putting band aids onit all over the place, and it
just kind of you know, thingsblew up all over the place, and
we kept putting band aids on it. Maybe this is just Tennis's version of
it. The thing has been walking. It's been a dead man walking for
a long time. So let's seewhat happens after this, all right,
(33:52):
shall we move on? Stars onvacation? So did you see this article?
I did, Yes, I didWTA website trying to do a roundup
of where all these players are goingin their quote unquote off season. That's
right, hours yeah, four hoursof time off. I mean it did
(34:13):
ly been to ask the question oflike how long do these players actually get
off before they're going to Australia andstarting their preparation. It's probably not very
long. And if it's two weeks, where would you go. Dev look
at the end of a season inNovember, before you're starting to go down
to Australia and start hitting again,what would you do? I think two
weeks, I'd probably do South America. I think i'd do Chile or Peru
(34:40):
for two weeks, try and dothat area, maybe dip down to Argentina.
So which player would you be?Let's have a look. We're going
to do some mid two thousands BuzzFeed. I think the Maldives is a popular
choice. I've noticed Bali of course. I think Caroline Garcia went to Antarctica,
(35:02):
which is kind of cool. Notlooking so hot up there melting wise
saw some penguins though, so Imean that's positive, but overall, yikes.
Overall, a lot of la shots, you know, I found Simon
and does you tell me this?I feel like Brits especially, but Europeans
love Los Angeles. Los Angeles thisit does it due to the lack of
(35:25):
sunlight, Yes, I think so. I think it also glamorized as well,
right, is this fair incredible?Every britt I've known who's like gone
to La, He's like, may, this is the greatest thing I've been
seeing in my life. And I'mlike, oh, because the sun is
out for more than twenty six minutes. Talk about the places you could go
in in North America, especially inthe United States, La would not be
(35:46):
close to the top of the listfor me. Getting out of the airport
is long enough where you're like thisthis, but no, Hella is good.
I like La. Actually, Ienjoyed visiting it for e three,
like the twice that I went,and a couple of other time. It's
just for different work you're not doing. I think if you're going for a
convention, it's a way different kindof atmosphere, right, Like it's it's
(36:08):
a fake place, but at aconvention, good lord, You're you're just
thinking a whole different side. Right. That is a city which I think
is basically unsavable from from all ofthe Empire. But my sister's listening just
La, and I think it's like, La is good. I like La,
but I like people who visit Lamake it worse by what they think
(36:29):
it is. Is that fair?Yeah? I think so I mean,
if you take a consideration that we'retrying to undo all of the love and
planning from the nineteen forties onwards,I don't think LA's making huge strides in
doing that right. It's not aparticularly walkable place, not a particularly green
place either. What's your pick forwhere'd you go? I thought about this
long and hard, and I sortof settled on I think I'm just an
(36:52):
autumn person in general, so Iwould try and find someone that has a
late autumn season. I kind oflike some of the shots that I saw
a Madison keys, just a bitof lace. I like, just like
a nice jacket, a nice walkin some leafy form somewhere. You're in
your your shacket, era? Isthat what you're saying? Your shack it?
Era? Oh my god? Whatthe hell has happened to me?
(37:13):
Can I find a demonstration of morethirty year old version of me? Pumpkin
spice hair shampoo utilized? Yeah,that's disgusting. Carlos Alcaraz, I've been
playing chess. What a world didn'tknow he was such a chess man.
Well, Luke, friend of theshow, Luke on the discord, there's
a chess bot you can play againstCarlos alcarez Ai in which he's telling you
(37:36):
about stuff you don't want to talkabout while you're playing chess. He's like,
you know, we will It's sick. It's okay, I guess you
would say that, but also playyour next move, sir, see exactly.
I have very little to say aboutthis story other than it's kind of
cool that he's playing chess. Thisis marketing, baby, This is how
you get. This is not atarget the chess market, the chess mark.
(38:00):
This is we are missing the chess. I'd love to talk to Lucia.
You need more chess voice in antennis? Are you kidding me? It's
like we need more bought license platesin the gift shop, more chess.
We are missing out on the chessdemographic thirty five. God damn. I
think this is a conversation that Ineed to have with Luke at some point.
Is the chess demographic wealthy? Dowe actually want to attract them into
(38:22):
the sport? I have a wholeepisode. We'll see damn it, because
I'm obsessed with this now, Okay, profit share quit. We missed this,
Simon, but definitely up our alley. Yeah, it's it's enormous,
and I recommend actually going and lookingat the ATP website because they like,
is this all redundant? Though,like I don't know, what is the
(38:43):
world that we're living in at thispoint. There's asterix that says MBS will
decide to tank this if if hewants. I mean, that's the other
thing that we didn't mention about thatopening segment is how involved like who's running
it, like which which figure?Which yeah, yeah, where's the money
money coming from? From that perspective, so the this is a good article
(39:05):
because it's it's dealing with all ofthe the quote unquote one vision strategic plan,
which again is quite shady in termsof they take isn't it what the
sound he's called there? What's goingon here? They take the branding too,
Yes, and a lot of ithere is fluff. But one of
the things I think I thought wasinteresting in the middle of the article was
(39:27):
it was basically talking about how themedia revenue that Tennis gets is exceptionally low.
I come up with the language theyuse. They use something that I
was that I looked at and thought, the fuck are you saying that in
public? For again, because itwas like, I think it was like
media revenue is low in comparison toother sports, which is like one of
the most honest truths I think I'veever seen from the a TP, we
(39:50):
down bad. Please help us.We don't know what we're doing. We're
trying nothing ever, roll out ofideas, I'm imagining. What's an IBM
ROB saying this in the computer beinglike, well, I'm not contabulating service
speed. I do our profit reports. We have solely targeted people who watch
(40:10):
chess table television who are in thesixty to ninety demographic and have tried nothing
else. Very interesting. No,yeah, there's a lot of information here
that I do find eye opening.But yeah, I mean good, the
transparency is good. But also wow, I wonder the steal is happening potentially
(40:32):
to shake it all up. Ithought it was a fascinating read. I
really did. Like, if you'rea proper nerd when it comes to the
TORA or understand the quote the supposedchanges that are coming to I thought it
was one of the more interesting thingsthat I've seen in a long time.
If you're googling it. Fifty tofifty profit sharing formula Q and a on
(40:52):
the atp tour dot com website.So yeah, check that out. Published
November seventh. A lot info inthere could be all moot though once this
new deal, once the chatter developsinto something else. Speaking of Saudi Arabia,
Simon, we end with the nextGen Finals. I mentioned there's a
bunch of Challenger events going on allover the world, but terms of the
(41:15):
ACP, the last last thing,so called thing on the calendar, the
Next Gen Finals in Saudi Arabia.I'll ask you a question about this,
dev So we were in Saudi Arabiafor the Next Gen Finals. So there's
a couple of parts to this.There's obviously like the state itself, so
the government itselfs record on human rightsand the laws that it sort of it's
(41:37):
exclusionary, pick any number of ismsthat you want in terms of it's it's
it's record. And then there's alsothe money and where does the money come
from as well. I feel likeit is worth saying off the top on
this one that the Saudi people themselves, I feel like we don't have to
(41:57):
say this, but like there's nothingagainst the Saudi people, and I feel
like we need to make that abundantlyclear. Them are in these photos either.
I noticed from the website there's someonefrom Zaudi Arabia. Really around any
of these guys as they do thetour in Gedda isn't a bit strange.
It is a little strange. Yes, like there's no one around, there's
(42:20):
no one there. I make thatpoint because of all the sort of feces
thrown at Jordan Henderson, I thinkquite rightly so is that we always talk
at like these organizations, the institutionsdo it to say like it's for the
good of the people, right,We're like, we're spreading the game to
a new corner of the world.And then Jordan Henderson's playing in front of
like fucking six hundred people, Like, so it's not spreading the game,
(42:43):
It just isn't in that capacity.Who has the access to this kind of
stuff, Who has the access andwho benefits from this? I think that's
the biggest thing that I'm curious tosee what comes out of this Next Gen
Finals, because this is, youknow, again, this is a really
interesting litmus test where tennis is goingas always, They're trying some new rules
at this event, which I thinkis the best thing they do for the
(43:05):
next Gen finals, Simon, butthese some of these are very interesting.
No on court warm up matches startimmediately after the coin toss, a second
serve shot clock, which will beeight seconds between first and second serf Novak
not Rafa. All these players aredisqualified. Basically if this z ever came
in. Reduced time between points downfrom twenty five to fifteen seconds following an
(43:28):
ace double fall to unreturned served,reduced changeovers, no change events after the
first game. So those are thebig ones, and then a whole lot
of innovation Simon. But I mean, this is all geared up at moving
this stuff along right and making thisfaster. But I also feel like we're
hope. We're basically like, well, don't get injured, guys, because
we're gonna go way faster. Now. Good luck Again. I've said this
(43:49):
before, right, like the it'sthe boom of marketing mentality, isn't it.
All these kids' fucking tech took out, go way faster whatever you do.
Listen, if they had a sniperin the crowd with a red dot
on someone and a player going tooslow, I wouldn't be surprised if that
was an idea here, because holycrow, like I get it. I
(44:12):
get they want to make things faster, and then UTS is getting at some
of these things, but too louderthan that. Okay, lots of one
of you just want to call ita day and we'll just say, like
where they go one. Some ofthe other stuff. Simplified scoreboard produce height
umpire chair height, which I findvery interesting. I guess that's for like
(44:35):
the fans behind. How is thatan innovation? This is another one of
those we've worked a demometery? DidI find something to pat out? The
Is that so that players losing theirmind won't assaulted lumpire accidentally? Free fan
movement? So I guess they canmove around when points are going on,
(44:55):
do whatever they want. So yeah, I don't know. How do you
feel about this stuff? It's ameaningless tournament, do it? Honestly?
Pray for all these kids. Blessthese boys who will be subjected to these
hunger games in the next gen finals. Oh man, what a great idea
on the on the eve of thenext one coming out? Right, it
(45:17):
might be as already in the cinemasalready good time as Italian think about it
next year people Arthur Fee is curiousto watch him dominic stricker, most punishable
face in the game. We gotcalling right now. He's a lovely lad.
Okay, Alex Nicholson. I thinkhe'll be pretty good too. Not
a big fan of his dad.Have to say Phil is Phil Micholson.
(45:39):
No, it can't be. There'sno way. Who wins the tournament.
Probably Arthur feels King Arthur as hisfriends called him. How did you crush
the earlier pronunciation in French and thencall him Phil? Yeah, King Arthur
because that's his new nickname going forward. That's why Phil fill himself filling up.
(46:01):
I think van Ash wins this.I think okay, l v A
va. We just can't call himhis name. There's I love how there's
like there's we just mentioned those guysand there's like forty Italians they are coming.
Man. Cobolly's good as well.I think that kid's really talented.
(46:21):
Keep an eye on him. Awesome, Okay, we did a good job
you doing that tournament. Actually,I'm being serious. That was good stuff,
Simon. Finally, two challenges remaining. What do you got sir?
This week? Can I shout outthe lock Picking Lawyer channel on YouTube?
Have you ever watched this that soundsfascinating. Oh what is it is?
(46:42):
Literally what it sounds like. Itis a lawyer Hicks locks. If I
can't sell this to you in thenext thirty second, I'm doing a bad
job. But why what is thislike? He's so people are asking him
to do it. His big thingis basically like lock. So mechanical physical
locks and security has not evolved inlike seventy or eighty years. And the
(47:07):
companies are who are running it arepulling the wall over people's eyes by claiming
that their stuff is more secure thanit actually is. So his big thing
is to demonstter any of the locks. Buying a big lock is keeping under
lock and key, that all thesecrets always suspected them. I always suspect
them. Wow, okay, I'mgoing to check this out. Interesting.
(47:27):
I thought it was fascinating, especiallyI fell onto I stumbled onto it,
sorry with in search of a newgood bike lock. And the conclusion that
I came away from it is ifa thief wants your bike, they will
get your bike, no matter whatyou think. So terrifying. Okay,
just think of your bike lock asone part of a wider package of security.
It's a healthy amount of fear mongering. Kill you our listeners at Timon,
(47:47):
Thank you very much for that listener, Hold on to your bike at
all costs. Mine is about BlackFriday sales, Simon that you want to
boo retake, here's mine. It'snot a SI on Black Friday. If
it's twenty five percent, get thehell out of here. If you're offering
a Black Friday sale for twenty fivepercent, I saw twenty percent sidon?
(48:09):
What have you? No shame?It's not a sale. What do you
classify as a sale? Then atleast forty percent on Black Friday on quote
unquote Cyber Monday, that's not adeal twenty percent? Can we can we
continue this boomer take by saying BlackFriday shouldn't have started two weeks ago either,
(48:30):
Like what? What doesn't too bad? It's all bad. We said
that terrible football game happen called theBlack Friday Game. It's bad, man,
It's bad. Is there anything more? North American? Trying to shed
a load of shit that you haveoverstalked on to a bunch of ravenous people.
I love it so much. Asingle to your emerges from my eye
(48:52):
as I sing the American anthem it'sbeautiful. Do you buy anything on Black
Friday? By the way, thatI bought a backpack? Yeah, the
you need a new backpack? Yeah? I did. What happened to your
ope one? I bought it inVancouver when I still lived there, for
twenty dollars after my EA backpack wasstolen at a restaurant. That's right.
Yeah, do you remember that Ido? That bag that I bought for
(49:14):
twenty bucks lasted like six years.It's pretty good. That's pretty good,
ROI, as they say in theinvestment streets, right, I feel like
the one thing that I have ofVancouver on myself is a Hershel Hershel bag,
which I've had for like six yearsnow. It's still going strong.
It's faded considerably, but it's stillgoing strong. I love hearing stories like
(49:34):
that whole life people. Okay,let's leave it there. Well, I
cry well, I cry about well. I get sentimental about a pair of
socks I had for for eight yearsthat lasted. Ob miss you socks.
Okay. Join us on pageon dotcom Forward Slash open Era, get the
(49:54):
show early on Sundays. Get anad free plus. Join us on the
discord to richat and tennis all thetime. She has to my sister Ermy
for joining the discord most recently.I think she's been a long time Patreon
member, but she has just joinedthe Discord. So that's cool. SI
family takeover, Simon, it's happening. We're also on Twitter dot com,
(50:16):
slash x Open Air Pod. Everynow and then some tweets will come out,
but yeah, what a terrible placethat's become these days. Not great
and also fair. Simon was onthe ground floor of this as well,
and he was right. I wrotea deck back just as an aside before
(50:37):
we close the episode. I wrotea deck back in twenty seventeen saying that
Twitter was a disaster, published itto a big company. They didn't listen
to the prophet. They turned theirbacks on him, and look where we
are now. And for producer Dylan, for producer Dylan on the Ones and
Tuesday, and for Simon, thankyou so much for listening to Open Era.
We'll talk to you next week to
Hello and welcome to the Open EraPodcast, Episode number two hundred. Simon,
we did it, sir, Howare you? How are you feeling?
Episode two hundred. I don't knowif this is actually your two hundred
episode. It probably isn't. We'veprobably done a few more than those to
be on a signment with the specialapps and all that. But two hundred,
(00:34):
man, what a ride. SorryDeff, I can't hear you over
the noise of the British crowd,like the drowning out this podcast. Dylan,
please, please can you help usget the sound down. I don't
know how many loggers they've consumed,probably enough to take out an entire city
(00:55):
the size of Aliga. But yeah, no, two hundreds are The Brits
are going nuts, But losing,I think is the most important. We'll
get to Davis Cup. We'll talkabout Italy, Italy, I hope that's
not offensive. In Italy doing thething in Malaga winning the Davis Cup thanks
(01:15):
to the heroics of Jannick Sinner.We'll get to that. We'll get to
Novak Djokovic talking about the Brits andNovak as well having an interesting end to
the season. Get to some BorisBecker quotes, which are always fun.
And then the big news from JohnWerthheim dropping as you record on Sunday about
some chatter quote unquote, including theSlams acquiring the ten biggest events and forming
(01:40):
a super tour that include Saudi Arabiagetting an event and the ATP and WTA
left to pick up the pieces akarun the five hundred events in the year
end finals. So that's a hugebombshell. We'll get to that in parting
shots. But first, simon DavisCup. I tried to gauge your interest
this week about Davis Cup when Itold you what time we would likely have
(02:02):
to record on Sunday, because Iwas thinking Canada was going to make a
run. It wasn't meant to be, but I was locked in for this,
and you know, I'm a haterand I've been hating on drew Ardpeak
and what they've done to this tournament. But I think this week was as
close as we've got and since theydestroyed Davis Cup to what it kind of
(02:23):
used to be. And for that, I mean that the home team doing
quite well was a big part ofthat, but I think some of the
aways support surprised me. Including Finlandwho traveled really well. So I wanted
to hate this week, but Ifound myself getting locked in, especially when
Canada is playing Filin and then forthe rest of the week. But I'm
(02:43):
curious how you felt this David's Cupwent down. I mean, firstly,
thank you to everyone for two hundredepisodes. I know I cut it off
with a level of sarcasm in theopening, as you asked me in the
opening question, but in general,amazing. I can't believe who meant it's
two hundred death astonishing, really crazy, so many years, so much tennis,
and yeah it still continues. Everyoneon the flip side. Wait,
(03:05):
Davis Cup happened this week? DevYeah? Really, see, hater,
I'm trying to grow and be differentand get beyond my my long held prejudices,
including this entire event. So don'tyou can't even find the scores normally,
it's like finding finding a treasure huntto locate what is happening where and
when? But really, nothing,nothing caught your eye, not even the
(03:30):
beef quote unquote. I watched enoughof it to be prepared to come on
here and not sound like an idiot, is what I will say about the
Davisup. I watched enough with theDavis Cup and followed it enough to be
professional enough to record a podcast withyou and hopefully, I mean, honestly,
there's at least you can do,and we love before it. But
(03:50):
I to get into the actual tennispart. Italy wins Simon and I do
think it is we're talking about thisgeneration of players they have. Yannick Sinner
is the top and he is theclass of Italian tennis. And I think
at twenty two we saw him makethe leap of leafs that we expected him,
you expected him to make for awhile. Charlie Akers talking about him
(04:13):
going to number one one day didseem like friendly banter between friends and pumping
up your mate, as they say. But also Sian, I think the
last few weeks convinced anyone else whomight be a holdout that he is definitely
going to do this. I madethat comparison to Felix last week, I
think, and Josh rightfully pointed outon the discord like this is definitely different,
right, Like the combination of shots, the ability to ramp it up
(04:38):
when he needs to, to beatNovak Djokovic twice in one day in back
to back weeks to beat him,something I think only three other players have
done. It's pretty mad. It'sinsane, isn't it. It's nice to
see him growing before our eyes intothe player that I think we all thought
he could be when he first arrivedon the scene. And one thing you
didn't say in that long list ofsuperlatives is this movement. He's one of
(04:58):
the best movements I think to evergrace the tennis court. And I know
that sounds like hyperboly, but he'sastonishing. His last oral movement is amazing.
He sounds he looks so graceful outon a tennis court, his ability
to defend going side to side,and I think he's made some small technical
changes to his game. Obviously,the server is the most prominent thing.
That He's flip flopped, gone backand forth to all the different stands as
(05:20):
you can possibly do. I'm surprisedhe's not thrown in an under arm serve
at some point over the last twoyears, with all the ways that he's
trying to tinkle with it. Butat the same time, I think the
biggest thing for me is his confidencelevel and his brain as well, because
tactically, I think he's playing muchsmarter tennis now and you can tell that.
I think some changes in the camphave held him and then that belief
(05:43):
to get across the line. Youdon't beat Novak Djokovic if you're a bad
tennis player. And I think todo it as many times he has done
in the last eleven days goes toshow he's really really special and he's going
to be really good for a longtime. And I think that that base,
that flaw that he has is justso high he's gonna he's gonna be
around at the top of the tollfor a very long time because you just
can't imagine that floor dipping a hugeamount. Dev No, I don't think
(06:06):
he needs to do this. Butif if Darren k Hill needed to make
an Instagram real mix of his coachingabilities to present his abilities to maybe a
future client, what a real hecould show from when he's done with the
nix citter and and things on thecourt and off of it as well.
But I think the on the courtthings, I mean, the things we're
watching him do it is it's prettyremarkable. I mean, Alex Deboner,
(06:29):
he owns Alex debonaher and I feellike this right with this matchup is just
obviously not good for the Demon,but it was pretty unnerving to see him
hit past someone who is almost impossibleto hit past for some of the game's
best players, one of the bestdefensive players on the tour, and it
was no issue at all for someonewho has played a ton a ton of
(06:50):
tennis, a ton of pressure packedtennis. Obviously not being at home so
much maybe easing some of the burden. But it's a he was keup tie.
It's for a country. I mentionedthe other players, Simon Parattini hurt
not a part of this crew,but Arnaldi, the guy who won the
first match against Bopparin, which washuge. I think whoever won that match,
(07:13):
you're probably looking at that that teambeing the favorite because Australia was so
good at the double Simon, butthat match is insane. Arnaldi not playing
super well but finding a way grindingit out. Some Italy at the Euros
kind of stuff. Simon to doanother soccer analogy, but finding away Lorens
and Mussetti, who didn't have hisbest stuff here this week. Maybe is
(07:33):
only twenty one. There's five otherItalians in the top two hundred and under.
Twenty two. That's pretty DUTs man. They're probably going to be winning
the Davis Cupper whatever the hell it'scalled, going forward a few more times,
almost certainly, right, Like thelevel of depth that they have is
astonishing. Does that make Max persallike macay Osaka in this situation or something
(07:58):
like that, I don't know howyou eat try and phrase this horrible matter
form to work here? Doesn't thatdoesn't work at all. And in fact,
I think you shoe hoarded arsenal playerin just just a jabby, so
I will parry it and move on. But I did feel for the demon
Bush quickly, they said a fewtimes in the pot, but like I
watched him in person a couple ofmonths ago, and I really appreciate what
(08:22):
he brings to the court, histenacity and his commitment. But you can
see it when when a player justdoesn't have the weapons to compete against someone
at Sinner's level. And I don'tknow if that's ever going to be a
thing for a demon. It probablywon't be, and he's had a marvelous
career even without it. But youdid see that there's levels to this.
(08:43):
There's levels, and there's also Ithink belief going into the match, especially
when he does. And I actuallythought there would be a bit of a
level a level of here being aDavis Cup tie. And I know the
Italian fans but were incredible and theytraveled well. Obviously it was very close
for them as a as a nation, as a fan group to make it
there. But I thought the Australiansmade some good noise as well, and
(09:03):
I thought they made themselves heard inthis final. The weapons thing is is
it does demonstrate, doesn't it howhard yanitsin it hits the ball, and
his ability to generate pace. He'sthe of one of, if not the
cleanest ball strikers I've ever seen inmy life. And I know I'm throwing
(09:24):
so much hyperbole around in this episode, but I think there's also the belief
and just trying to give you someguidance of why I think this is this
is the best eurr of tennis ever, Like this is the belief that I
hold obviously just on the basis thatit's the most technologically advanced. The players
are the best access to data andinformation, it's the most professional ever,
(09:45):
so for him to be able tostrike a tennis ball the way that he
does and hit through players who areinside of the world's top twenty in the
way that he does is remarkable.It really is remarkable. I actually thought
the Novak Djokovic on Nixcinner match gaveus a pretty good indication of what it's
going to be like in Australia.Is a quick coll It wasn't actually surprisingly
quick court indoors, and I thinkwe're going to see a dynamite match between
(10:09):
those two of it happens in MelbournePark. I really can't wait for it
to happen. Novak had three matchpoints against Ciner. Cinner was serving at
four or five love forty boy,Oh boy, you're talking about stress and
do you have it? Do youhave it against the goat? Do you
have it? In this situation inwhich Novak is obviously he's going to bring
(10:33):
it, but for Serbia he's bringingextra. That was nuts. That was
absolutely nuts, incredible spectacle And yeah, I mean it worked out because you
had this commitment from the players andI think yan again Novak turning around from
the ATP Tour finals and coming downto Malaga and putting it on the line
like this, it added to thissituation and it made it what it was,
(10:56):
which was really good theater at anexcellent week for Malign turn Mint,
which will probably continue to shot onas we can we go on our year
review. But it was great.It was great theater. Congrat Italy once
again. The other players to beatNovak and consecutive week Simon Andy, Murray,
Rafronidal, but Mikhail Yushin, youstand up the head basher himself,
(11:20):
love it. I knew who wasgoing to appear in this list. I'm
trying to genuinely remember when this happened. I seem to have blocked this round
my memory. Amazing that he didit, though, I mean, we
can touch on usually, but Ithink maybe just to stay on sinner for
a second, I think it's quitesurprising to see Novak Djokovic hurried sometimes or
(11:43):
to make some of the errors theerrors that he did in these matches.
And I think both players were probablyquite shagged as well, given what's happened.
But I think they were both equallyas shagged as well. I don't
think one player was more tired thanthe other. Potentially you could make the
case of dracovis just the age andall that stuff, but it's not seemed
to start him or he hasn't lookedparticularly old in the last few months,
(12:03):
has he given his results. Butit's just the testament to how good of
a player and how good of abull striker sin it is is that he
does hurry him, he does forcehim to hit shots that sometimes you think
are a little surprising. And oneof the big tactical things that I was
going to bring up here is thatsort of backhand to backhand rally that Djokovic
(12:24):
has been so good at for somany years. It's just pinning people on
that side. There's been a bitof a seed change this year, and
you've seen the way that both CarlosZakaraz and Joanick Sinner have tried to step
around that forehand, not get pinnedinto that corner in the way that Jokovic
has been able to do it withso many players, and not allow him
to sort of dictate off that side. And I thought Cinta did a really
(12:46):
good job, especially in that firstset, of just any sort of rally
ball that's slightly short on that backhandside, No, I'm going to step
round it and I'm going to fuckingcrush it to both sides to keep him
guessing. And I think that's likesomething telling to keep an on for the
twenty twenty four season. Is likewhether people A have the weapons to do
it and B have the sort ofguts to do it, because it does
(13:07):
take a bit of bass to steparound that side against somebody with the best
back end of all time. Isaw this sentiment on X a few times
during the finals, don't I know? But for Sinner and Alchoriz and hold
her Rune and whoever else is comingup now, Like, if you're getting
a chance to play Novac and youcan be actually in the conversation and have
(13:30):
this experience to challenge him, howvaluable is that? Like you can't actually
measure that. I feel like it'sreally really special for them. So it's
it's Yannix world. I think it'sworth just pointing out here as well as
the three players that you mentioned,and obviously you're throwing Danny Mepidev as well.
It's not a given at this point, is it not? To say
Novak Djokovic is going to walk intoa match against any of the four of
(13:54):
them and win. You do haveto stop and think about it for a
second. Yeah, like we're noton the stage now dominant and powerful at
Islam though at a Slam. Waitat a Slam though, I'm I used
to you that at a Slam.I think the conversation is still lopsided until
next year when I'm proven other right, dude won three, Dude was in
(14:18):
every Slam final and probably what allof them. I agree, all right,
quickly quickly on Novak the fans thing, the British fans thing. Did
he make anything thing of that?Simon Novak suggesting quote British fans should quote
sorry, you learn how to showrespect before tell them to quote shut up.
(14:39):
The British fans were boorish and loadedup to the gills of alcohol and
yelling at several points, including whenhe was trying to do his postmatch interviews.
So I kind of get it thatbeing said, like, this is
the whole thing. It's Davis Cup, the crowd, the atmosphere, that's
what they want, The organizers wantthis. But I found it interesting that
Novak, who could have played forwritten in an alternative one like we've discussed,
(15:01):
was yelling at his potential country.We also didn't touch on the fact
that this was actually a political event. Almost Benovac Jokovic right, like he
had the eyes of Serbia on him, with eyes to being prime minister president
one day. He actually has tobring it in this tournament? Does he
not representing his nation anyway? Itmatters a lot. You could tell obviously
this and there was the thing thatdoping control. I don't know if you
(15:22):
saw this, but he refused adoping test before the quarterfinals Mark the Spanish
tabloid. Not the most reputable Iwould say that as someone who follows soccer
transfer rumors or used to with ahorrible magnifying glass. But not the most
reputable source, I would say,but Novac refusing a doping test. They
(15:46):
can give you less notice for whenthey test you. Apparently, Simon in
this setting, in this day wascupsetting, and Novak was surious because he
goes through as regular premat ritual stuff. But in his defense, and I
know, have I become an ovakstanNo, But I will say, to
draw someone's blood before a match,yeah, I could see how that might
(16:11):
not like make you feel like you'reat your best physically, no level playing
field for everyone, I know.But still in any case, I did
find it hilarious that in the samearticle at the very end, it's like
Serbia's current captain vik Detroitzky was bannedfor eighteen months for refusing to provide a
blood sample in the same article.Yeah, as a you know how a
(16:32):
few months ago when we were talkingabout Simona Hallep, when we were like,
yeah, doping is probably rife.In the spot, it's just like
it's an open secret. I willrefer you back to my opinions on that
one. I don't know. Idon't know if Carol intentionally out of that
line at the end, but chef'skiss it was fantastic and he used the
current captain, Victor Troitsky, soit makes sense to mention that but terrific.
(16:55):
Finally, Simon, before we getto parting shots, I don't know
if you saw this Boris Becker backin the news. Uh, he's ober
Rune's coach or part of his team'stalking about the season or the tour and
ober runees back from his his badperiod. But did you see what he
said about alcaraz I did. Yeah, Yeah, that was a bit a
(17:15):
bit harsh, but basically saying thatZverev stepped up, which I mean,
okay, Daniel member I found hisform. Annic Sender took a huge step
forward, but Alcarez seemingly didn't.Why is that dueling with Novak winning Wimbledon's
most difficult thing is to maintain yourlevel. Anyone could have a good tournament
to a good year from time totime. Maintaining that level over the years
(17:36):
is the real challenge. The lockerroom never sleeps. It means that other
players will realize how you have toplay against a Choraz to have a chance
against him. That's what's happened.Other players have developed, and Ochoraz hasn't
very harsh from Boris Becker year Simon, Yeah, this is this is click
But I think this is someone obviouslylooking for relevance. Let's just have a
(17:59):
quick look here. Yes, that'sright. He did end the year as
world number two. He won aGrand Slam. Yeah that's right. How
many Masters did he win this year? Three? Is that right? One?
Three? Yeah? I think it'sprobably a fairly good year. All
joking aside on this one, devI think there's some interesting parallels in terms
of looking at and not just becauseit's a cheap parallel here, but just
(18:23):
looking at the way that egist Fionceksort of tried to find herself again after
winning that first grund Slam in Paris, And I know there slightly different circumstances,
but how you sort of have toadjust as someone who is being hunted
every single week, and how difficultit is to kind of climb that mountain
(18:44):
again once you overcome it once.And you know so many players are like,
oh, I took a set offNovak Djokovic. Goodness me, I
feel so good about myself. Yeah, imagine how it feels when you beat
him in a ground slam final.Just trying to find yourself. You've done
everything and you need to remotivate yourselfand find something to keep going on it.
I think that's kind of what weall with Callas Alcaas as well,
and in Boris's defense, I thinkthat's kind of what he meant. Like
(19:06):
he said this on a podcast,so I think in in print it sounds
possibly more damning than how he offeredit because he said it out a loud
But I can kind of get whathe's getting that, so to speak,
but only because you know it's thereto me. Is when he mentioned how
fast the courts were at the ATPfinals, and like I said, they
were too fast almost, which nota red flag, but I was like,
(19:30):
hmm okay, Like generally, asa spectator, I love that,
but like, why for Carlos wouldthat not be a great thing? But
I wonder if I was just readingtoo much into a Hey, why doesn't
he like this style that's more suitablefor the fan experience or for better tennis?
When where his peers are adapting better, why can't he adapt as well?
Not fair enough. I'm just goingto do it quick. I just
(19:52):
looked this up because I wanted tomake the point on the podcast. So
his twenty twenty three season win,final win, semi win, win,
semi win win, quarter final,semi semi second round, goodness me,
okay, worry loss to Sapling?Right right? I think that's probably okay,
(20:14):
isn't it. It seems okay,fine, it's fine, and yeah
they expect it now that now he'smeasured against a crazy bar, right because
he's chasing just insane numbers. BecauseI think the other thing go back is
I mean all these guys have doneis is the bar is so high?
Like if you want to be oneof the greats quote unquote tennis going forward,
Holy Hill, the numbers thing isgoing to be a bit of a
(20:36):
thing on your back for a while. But can't win everything death, No,
And it doesn't matter that realistically,it doesn't matter. It's not that's
not the point really in the end, I don't think it is. And
maybe in the in the sense thatit's an impossible number to reach, it
won't have to be the topic ofevery damn conversation, which is honestly refreshing
(20:59):
because this is been a while.You lose a lot in tennis, and
I think that's one of the thingsthat's difficult to adjust when you're pro and
coming up as a kid, isthat you spent so much time losing.
We've had this ridiculous run of alltime great players on both the men's and
the women's side, that people havebecome accustomed to just seeing someone dominate and
win every single match they go into. Just doesn't feel like that's going to
(21:22):
be the case moving forward, Likethe separation requires to be just so much
better than head and field above therest is. You know, I can't
see that being the case over thenext ten years. He's going to lose
a lot, and that's fine.He's also going to win a significant amount
of matches and I think we needto celebrate that as well. Twelve said
sir, all right, we'll leaveit there. When we come back after
the break, parting shots, we'llget to that Super League bombshell from John
(21:45):
Rudeim, new TV deal for WTA, Carlos Alcaras and Chess next Gen finals,
all of that coming up next.Welcome back to the Open Era podcast.
(22:07):
Simon Party shots on the news thisweek, spicy spicy news. Let's
talk about the supertur chatter quote unquote, this is the tweet from John Worthheim
quote for what it's worth, hearingmore chatter about the Slams joining to acquire
ten biggest events, forming a superturbrackets, with Saudi Arabia getting tenth event,
(22:30):
leaving ATP and WTA to run fivehundreds and year end finals. A
lot of hurdles to clear, butthis would be the proverbial game changer.
Stay tuned. He followed that upSimon saying the way this has been viewed
by the decision makers as sort ofa reset for tennis as they surveyed the
landscape in the sports world, includingthe North American sports world, where they're
(22:55):
seeing other leagues sign TV deals.He mentioned the NWSL, the Women's soccer
league in North America, as someas a as a kind of a goal
post for them because they just signeda right steal. What are your thoughts,
Simon. I mean, on thesurface, doesn't feel great. This
(23:15):
This is huge news, by theway, and in terms of all the
things that we've ever covered on thispodcast, for the actual structural foundations of
tennis itself, this has got tobe one of the biggest things we've ever
covered. If it actually happens.There's all I mean, there's a ton
of stuff that's happened since we've donethis podcast on a sort of political and
cultural level, and I'm not kindof just you know, playing that down,
but this from an actual foundational levelis enormous if it does go through
(23:37):
and is the way that it's written. I wrote in our discord that I
did not have the Grand Slams takingover the you know, slicing off a
bigger piece of the pie on mybingo card, and I think, looking
back at it now, that seemspretty naive on my behalf. I think
(24:00):
if you were looking at this throughthe long lens of history, this actually
feels quite obvious. Does that makesense? It kind of feels like if
we were so worried about Saudi Arabiaand an oil money state and all that
sort of stuff coming in and someonetrying to, you know, carve off
their own section of the tour,there's already these four massive players who are
(24:22):
outsized and in terms of their statureand in terms of their power. Wouldn't
it make sense for them just totake it on board? And I'm not
arguing one way or another on that, I'm just saying that seems obvious to
me, like this seems duh,Like why wouldn't this have happened? On
the flip side, I'm not opposedto this on the basis that I don't
think tennis works the way it is, and I think if this, if
(24:45):
we're going to see some change here, I'm curious to know what actually happens
after this runs for a year ortwo or three. I don't like the
inclusion of Saudi state money on thisall. Yeah, but I think if
this gives bigger statue to the WWTAand actually sort of from the ground that
breaks the structural hold that these institutionshave. I'm not opposed to it.
(25:07):
I don't think this is going tobe good in the long run, but
I think that might be in theshort run a reasonable thing to shake up
the tour. I'm of two minds, like when I see things like we
need an F one model, anydreams of maybe moving the sport towards the
maybe more open and welcome and environmentallyfriendly way is just not happening, and
it's against fully the capitalist models.So I'm removing that pipe stream for a
(25:32):
second just to say, like,none of these tours are making money,
and like, especially the WTA isin a real pickle financially, and we
saw that with how the boondog orplayed out with the WTA finals. But
I think, yeah, I thinkyou're right in the sense that, like
when you look at it laid outlike this, and it seems really obvious,
and it makes sense that the Slams, which have an outsized level of
(25:55):
importance in the wider media landscape interms of the fan recognition. If you're
maybe an average tennis fan, youdefinitely know about the Slams full stop.
So I think this does allow forthem to maybe start over and try and
make some cash, which we knowis the end game here. And if
you do have a unified players outfit, be it the PTPA or whoever else,
(26:18):
to negotiate with them or work withthem, I think that's good.
But I guess I do wonder this. It does remind me a bit of
the Super League in the sense thatlike the haves and that the top players
will be taken care of, andin that super League it was the big
clubs will be taken care of.But I'm looking at the rankings today and
seeing events are still taking place allover the world, including players who need
(26:41):
to play to get by. Playersnot too far out of the one hundred
signon, like players in one hundredand tens and one hundred and twenties.
What happens to them with this?Right? Like, I guess the idea
is like, what does this actuallylook like? Who's in charge? What
does it mean? Is it amerger? Is it a whole new thing
put together? Yeah, obviously wedon't know a lot, but I think
(27:07):
this reminds me a bit of theSuper League that they tried in soccer.
I agree with you, I thinkfundamentally this does not go well for players
ranked outside of the top hundred.I think this is a terrible, terrible
changing situation. This is going tobe a litmus test for the BDPA.
So it really was, And Ithink that's kind of where I'm coming at
it from this perspective, which isthat if you have this sort of structural
(27:27):
change, it's up to your laborbody to actually fight for you and make
sure that that money is distributed throughoutthe tour, because it's sure as shit
doesn't feel like that's going to happenhere, like not with a sort of
fledgling union. That's maybe Stanma Wrinkerhouseand opinions on about it. But I
think if if this money was toever actually be distributed across the tour in
(27:52):
general, this could be positive.I just have very little faith that that
will happen. So you will geta situation where you have a lot of
very very well compensated people and playersand the power structure which is very very
focused on the top and probably avery very small number of people, which
(28:14):
I don't think is probably good forthe game in general. All that being
said, dev tennis is such amess. Could you equally see this flaming
out inside of two years, Icould equally see that. I guess the
Grand slor never starting. Yeah,yeah, that's the thing. Yeah,
I do think it's interesting, it'sworth I'm who's talking about this, Like
(28:37):
it does feel like there's been somuch smoke and how disastrous the WTA finals
went. I don't think it's anynow. It's more like, Okay,
we've we've tried the Noble Act,we've tried the this goes against our values
thing, and we're not sure aboutthis too. We're a bit of a
joke right now in terms of ourexecution of events. How do we how
(28:59):
do we make ourselves legitimate once againand and non embarrass our players who don't
deserve this stuff like we have ChrisEverett tweeting on the day of the day's
Cup final saying my wish for nextyear is having a legitimate WTA finals where
players are celebrated. It's like,okay, like, what are we protecting
here? Not much? The systemis bad, it's terrible. Well,
(29:19):
like just putting this alongside the sortof new TV deal that you have on
the WTA side, and also theprofit sharing stuff that I mean, we
didn't talk about it because it happenedwhile we were taking a small break.
But how does that get incorporated withinto this, with this within this program,
because I think it is interesting.But again, you take the long
lens of history and sort of takea step back from everything. It's not
(29:41):
really a surprise that a bunch ofthese things, a bunch of these programs
came into being as soon as thePTPA mysteriously showed up, right, oh,
shockingly enough, we start to see, you know, the ATP start
to think about potentially doing some programsthat might benefit the players. Does that
all go up and smoke with this? I don't know, man, Like
it's super interesting and I think it'sone of those I mean we said I
(30:07):
said at the top, right,I think this is one of the biggest
structural changes that could happen in tennis. I don't have any clue how this
plays out other than like to compareit to other situations, which is that
poor people tend to get fucked andthe rich tends to do really well out
of it. Yeah, it's kindof where I mean, easy as Machine
in front of the show on Discordmakes a good points, like at the
(30:29):
current stage where we're going with tennis, is a slowish death where we are
going into exhibition only FI items,which I agree with. By the way,
I think that is legitimately a goodpoint, like it's dying before our
eyes. Certainly the WTA is unlessyou're going to start taking you know,
directly money from oil barons and fromyou know, the worst of the worst.
(30:49):
Like I think that is legitimately afair point to make. Do you
think that announcement about the new WTAtelevision deal Sky and Canal Plu? You
think it's kind of weird that theACP's mentioned so heavily in that release.
What's going on? Like I knownone of these organizations talk to each other,
(31:11):
but like these are two massive announcementsthat got made with the profit showing
stuff and also this new TV deal. How does this get incorporated? Did
they sign a deal just for likea bunch of ten five hundred tournaments?
Is that what's going on here?Like they're buying them by round. It's
okay, I'll take a quarter finalsa row that's for twenty bucks final.
(31:33):
It's astonishing. Like imagine imagine showingup to have a rights discussion with in
the footballing world and you're like,uh, I mean, let's leave might
not exist in like next year.Fine, it's fine, it's fine,
listen, it's fine. Against this. Can we sell ad to get this?
What is our inventory? The FACup might not exist, so you
(31:56):
can buy the package, but likeby the court of stage, it might
not be there anymore. So yeah, that's good stuff. What a random
situation to follow a sport dying andalso trying to figure out ways of resuscitate
itself. And I actually think Canaryand the coal mine situation, just given
(32:16):
the state of the global financial situation, given the bond market, and given
the state of all of like bothpublic finances and another state of a lot
of like private companies as well whohave over leveraged on cheap got drunk on
cheap money, who are now payingthe price for it. Is this going
to be a situation that goes intoother sports as well? Are we going
to start seeing other organizations fall apart? Well, there's a huge television issue
(32:42):
in North America with all the regionalsports networks going under and declaring bankruptcy.
So yeah, I mean yes,is the answer. The way sports are
consumed, like the way we watchhas already changed so significantly. But I
do wonder what happens when some ofthese companies that popped up in the last
(33:04):
five three five years go go bellyup really quickly. When it seemed like
this was the new age, ifwe take into consideration that basically like the
version of neoliberal capitalism exploded in twothousand and eight, right like that system
it failed, like it completely fellapart, and since that moment we've been
putting like we've resuscitated it using theyou know, the heart defibrillator, and
(33:30):
then we started putting band aids onit all over the place, and it
just kind of you know, thingsblew up all over the place, and
we kept putting band aids on it. Maybe this is just Tennis's version of
it. The thing has been walking. It's been a dead man walking for
a long time. So let's seewhat happens after this, all right,
(33:52):
shall we move on? Stars onvacation? So did you see this article?
I did, Yes, I didWTA website trying to do a roundup
of where all these players are goingin their quote unquote off season. That's
right, hours yeah, four hoursof time off. I mean it did
(34:13):
ly been to ask the question oflike how long do these players actually get
off before they're going to Australia andstarting their preparation. It's probably not very
long. And if it's two weeks, where would you go. Dev look
at the end of a season inNovember, before you're starting to go down
to Australia and start hitting again,what would you do? I think two
weeks, I'd probably do South America. I think i'd do Chile or Peru
(34:40):
for two weeks, try and dothat area, maybe dip down to Argentina.
So which player would you be?Let's have a look. We're going
to do some mid two thousands BuzzFeed. I think the Maldives is a popular
choice. I've noticed Bali of course. I think Caroline Garcia went to Antarctica,
(35:02):
which is kind of cool. Notlooking so hot up there melting wise
saw some penguins though, so Imean that's positive, but overall, yikes.
Overall, a lot of la shots, you know, I found Simon
and does you tell me this?I feel like Brits especially, but Europeans
love Los Angeles. Los Angeles thisit does it due to the lack of
(35:25):
sunlight, Yes, I think so. I think it also glamorized as well,
right, is this fair incredible?Every britt I've known who's like gone
to La, He's like, may, this is the greatest thing I've been
seeing in my life. And I'mlike, oh, because the sun is
out for more than twenty six minutes. Talk about the places you could go
in in North America, especially inthe United States, La would not be
(35:46):
close to the top of the listfor me. Getting out of the airport
is long enough where you're like thisthis, but no, Hella is good.
I like La. Actually, Ienjoyed visiting it for e three,
like the twice that I went,and a couple of other time. It's
just for different work you're not doing. I think if you're going for a
convention, it's a way different kindof atmosphere, right, Like it's it's
(36:08):
a fake place, but at aconvention, good lord, You're you're just
thinking a whole different side. Right. That is a city which I think
is basically unsavable from from all ofthe Empire. But my sister's listening just
La, and I think it's like, La is good. I like La,
but I like people who visit Lamake it worse by what they think
(36:29):
it is. Is that fair?Yeah? I think so I mean,
if you take a consideration that we'retrying to undo all of the love and
planning from the nineteen forties onwards,I don't think LA's making huge strides in
doing that right. It's not aparticularly walkable place, not a particularly green
place either. What's your pick forwhere'd you go? I thought about this
long and hard, and I sortof settled on I think I'm just an
(36:52):
autumn person in general, so Iwould try and find someone that has a
late autumn season. I kind oflike some of the shots that I saw
a Madison keys, just a bitof lace. I like, just like
a nice jacket, a nice walkin some leafy form somewhere. You're in
your your shacket, era? Isthat what you're saying? Your shack it?
Era? Oh my god? Whatthe hell has happened to me?
(37:13):
Can I find a demonstration of morethirty year old version of me? Pumpkin
spice hair shampoo utilized? Yeah,that's disgusting. Carlos Alcaraz, I've been
playing chess. What a world didn'tknow he was such a chess man.
Well, Luke, friend of theshow, Luke on the discord, there's
a chess bot you can play againstCarlos alcarez Ai in which he's telling you
(37:36):
about stuff you don't want to talkabout while you're playing chess. He's like,
you know, we will It's sick. It's okay, I guess you
would say that, but also playyour next move, sir, see exactly.
I have very little to say aboutthis story other than it's kind of
cool that he's playing chess. Thisis marketing, baby, This is how
you get. This is not atarget the chess market, the chess mark.
(38:00):
This is we are missing the chess. I'd love to talk to Lucia.
You need more chess voice in antennis? Are you kidding me? It's
like we need more bought license platesin the gift shop, more chess.
We are missing out on the chessdemographic thirty five. God damn. I
think this is a conversation that Ineed to have with Luke at some point.
Is the chess demographic wealthy? Dowe actually want to attract them into
(38:22):
the sport? I have a wholeepisode. We'll see damn it, because
I'm obsessed with this now, Okay, profit share quit. We missed this,
Simon, but definitely up our alley. Yeah, it's it's enormous,
and I recommend actually going and lookingat the ATP website because they like,
is this all redundant? Though,like I don't know, what is the
(38:43):
world that we're living in at thispoint. There's asterix that says MBS will
decide to tank this if if hewants. I mean, that's the other
thing that we didn't mention about thatopening segment is how involved like who's running
it, like which which figure?Which yeah, yeah, where's the money
money coming from? From that perspective, so the this is a good article
(39:05):
because it's it's dealing with all ofthe the quote unquote one vision strategic plan,
which again is quite shady in termsof they take isn't it what the
sound he's called there? What's goingon here? They take the branding too,
Yes, and a lot of ithere is fluff. But one of
the things I think I thought wasinteresting in the middle of the article was
(39:27):
it was basically talking about how themedia revenue that Tennis gets is exceptionally low.
I come up with the language theyuse. They use something that I
was that I looked at and thought, the fuck are you saying that in
public? For again, because itwas like, I think it was like
media revenue is low in comparison toother sports, which is like one of
the most honest truths I think I'veever seen from the a TP, we
(39:50):
down bad. Please help us.We don't know what we're doing. We're
trying nothing ever, roll out ofideas, I'm imagining. What's an IBM
ROB saying this in the computer beinglike, well, I'm not contabulating service
speed. I do our profit reports. We have solely targeted people who watch
(40:10):
chess table television who are in thesixty to ninety demographic and have tried nothing
else. Very interesting. No,yeah, there's a lot of information here
that I do find eye opening.But yeah, I mean good, the
transparency is good. But also wow, I wonder the steal is happening potentially
(40:32):
to shake it all up. Ithought it was a fascinating read. I
really did. Like, if you'rea proper nerd when it comes to the
TORA or understand the quote the supposedchanges that are coming to I thought it
was one of the more interesting thingsthat I've seen in a long time.
If you're googling it. Fifty tofifty profit sharing formula Q and a on
(40:52):
the atp tour dot com website.So yeah, check that out. Published
November seventh. A lot info inthere could be all moot though once this
new deal, once the chatter developsinto something else. Speaking of Saudi Arabia,
Simon, we end with the nextGen Finals. I mentioned there's a
bunch of Challenger events going on allover the world, but terms of the
(41:15):
ACP, the last last thing,so called thing on the calendar, the
Next Gen Finals in Saudi Arabia.I'll ask you a question about this,
dev So we were in Saudi Arabiafor the Next Gen Finals. So there's
a couple of parts to this.There's obviously like the state itself, so
the government itselfs record on human rightsand the laws that it sort of it's
(41:37):
exclusionary, pick any number of ismsthat you want in terms of it's it's
it's record. And then there's alsothe money and where does the money come
from as well. I feel likeit is worth saying off the top on
this one that the Saudi people themselves, I feel like we don't have to
(41:57):
say this, but like there's nothingagainst the Saudi people, and I feel
like we need to make that abundantlyclear. Them are in these photos either.
I noticed from the website there's someonefrom Zaudi Arabia. Really around any
of these guys as they do thetour in Gedda isn't a bit strange.
It is a little strange. Yes, like there's no one around, there's
(42:20):
no one there. I make thatpoint because of all the sort of feces
thrown at Jordan Henderson, I thinkquite rightly so is that we always talk
at like these organizations, the institutionsdo it to say like it's for the
good of the people, right,We're like, we're spreading the game to
a new corner of the world.And then Jordan Henderson's playing in front of
like fucking six hundred people, Like, so it's not spreading the game,
(42:43):
It just isn't in that capacity.Who has the access to this kind of
stuff, Who has the access andwho benefits from this? I think that's
the biggest thing that I'm curious tosee what comes out of this Next Gen
Finals, because this is, youknow, again, this is a really
interesting litmus test where tennis is goingas always, They're trying some new rules
at this event, which I thinkis the best thing they do for the
(43:05):
next Gen finals, Simon, butthese some of these are very interesting.
No on court warm up matches startimmediately after the coin toss, a second
serve shot clock, which will beeight seconds between first and second serf Novak
not Rafa. All these players aredisqualified. Basically if this z ever came
in. Reduced time between points downfrom twenty five to fifteen seconds following an
(43:28):
ace double fall to unreturned served,reduced changeovers, no change events after the
first game. So those are thebig ones, and then a whole lot
of innovation Simon. But I mean, this is all geared up at moving
this stuff along right and making thisfaster. But I also feel like we're
hope. We're basically like, well, don't get injured, guys, because
we're gonna go way faster. Now. Good luck Again. I've said this
(43:49):
before, right, like the it'sthe boom of marketing mentality, isn't it.
All these kids' fucking tech took out, go way faster whatever you do.
Listen, if they had a sniperin the crowd with a red dot
on someone and a player going tooslow, I wouldn't be surprised if that
was an idea here, because holycrow, like I get it. I
(44:12):
get they want to make things faster, and then UTS is getting at some
of these things, but too louderthan that. Okay, lots of one
of you just want to call ita day and we'll just say, like
where they go one. Some ofthe other stuff. Simplified scoreboard produce height
umpire chair height, which I findvery interesting. I guess that's for like
(44:35):
the fans behind. How is thatan innovation? This is another one of
those we've worked a demometery? DidI find something to pat out? The
Is that so that players losing theirmind won't assaulted lumpire accidentally? Free fan
movement? So I guess they canmove around when points are going on,
(44:55):
do whatever they want. So yeah, I don't know. How do you
feel about this stuff? It's ameaningless tournament, do it? Honestly?
Pray for all these kids. Blessthese boys who will be subjected to these
hunger games in the next gen finals. Oh man, what a great idea
on the on the eve of thenext one coming out? Right, it
(45:17):
might be as already in the cinemasalready good time as Italian think about it
next year people Arthur Fee is curiousto watch him dominic stricker, most punishable
face in the game. We gotcalling right now. He's a lovely lad.
Okay, Alex Nicholson. I thinkhe'll be pretty good too. Not
a big fan of his dad.Have to say Phil is Phil Micholson.
(45:39):
No, it can't be. There'sno way. Who wins the tournament.
Probably Arthur feels King Arthur as hisfriends called him. How did you crush
the earlier pronunciation in French and thencall him Phil? Yeah, King Arthur
because that's his new nickname going forward. That's why Phil fill himself filling up.
(46:01):
I think van Ash wins this.I think okay, l v A
va. We just can't call himhis name. There's I love how there's
like there's we just mentioned those guysand there's like forty Italians they are coming.
Man. Cobolly's good as well.I think that kid's really talented.
(46:21):
Keep an eye on him. Awesome, Okay, we did a good job
you doing that tournament. Actually,I'm being serious. That was good stuff,
Simon. Finally, two challenges remaining. What do you got sir?
This week? Can I shout outthe lock Picking Lawyer channel on YouTube?
Have you ever watched this that soundsfascinating. Oh what is it is?
(46:42):
Literally what it sounds like. Itis a lawyer Hicks locks. If I
can't sell this to you in thenext thirty second, I'm doing a bad
job. But why what is thislike? He's so people are asking him
to do it. His big thingis basically like lock. So mechanical physical
locks and security has not evolved inlike seventy or eighty years. And the
(47:07):
companies are who are running it arepulling the wall over people's eyes by claiming
that their stuff is more secure thanit actually is. So his big thing
is to demonstter any of the locks. Buying a big lock is keeping under
lock and key, that all thesecrets always suspected them. I always suspect
them. Wow, okay, I'mgoing to check this out. Interesting.
(47:27):
I thought it was fascinating, especiallyI fell onto I stumbled onto it,
sorry with in search of a newgood bike lock. And the conclusion that
I came away from it is ifa thief wants your bike, they will
get your bike, no matter whatyou think. So terrifying. Okay,
just think of your bike lock asone part of a wider package of security.
It's a healthy amount of fear mongering. Kill you our listeners at Timon,
(47:47):
Thank you very much for that listener, Hold on to your bike at
all costs. Mine is about BlackFriday sales, Simon that you want to
boo retake, here's mine. It'snot a SI on Black Friday. If
it's twenty five percent, get thehell out of here. If you're offering
a Black Friday sale for twenty fivepercent, I saw twenty percent sidon?
(48:09):
What have you? No shame?It's not a sale. What do you
classify as a sale? Then atleast forty percent on Black Friday on quote
unquote Cyber Monday, that's not adeal twenty percent? Can we can we
continue this boomer take by saying BlackFriday shouldn't have started two weeks ago either,
(48:30):
Like what? What doesn't too bad? It's all bad. We said
that terrible football game happen called theBlack Friday Game. It's bad, man,
It's bad. Is there anything more? North American? Trying to shed
a load of shit that you haveoverstalked on to a bunch of ravenous people.
I love it so much. Asingle to your emerges from my eye
(48:52):
as I sing the American anthem it'sbeautiful. Do you buy anything on Black
Friday? By the way, thatI bought a backpack? Yeah, the
you need a new backpack? Yeah? I did. What happened to your
ope one? I bought it inVancouver when I still lived there, for
twenty dollars after my EA backpack wasstolen at a restaurant. That's right.
Yeah, do you remember that Ido? That bag that I bought for
(49:14):
twenty bucks lasted like six years.It's pretty good. That's pretty good,
ROI, as they say in theinvestment streets, right, I feel like
the one thing that I have ofVancouver on myself is a Hershel Hershel bag,
which I've had for like six yearsnow. It's still going strong.
It's faded considerably, but it's stillgoing strong. I love hearing stories like
(49:34):
that whole life people. Okay,let's leave it there. Well, I
cry well, I cry about well. I get sentimental about a pair of
socks I had for for eight yearsthat lasted. Ob miss you socks.
Okay. Join us on pageon dotcom Forward Slash open Era, get the
(49:54):
show early on Sundays. Get anad free plus. Join us on the
discord to richat and tennis all thetime. She has to my sister Ermy
for joining the discord most recently.I think she's been a long time Patreon
member, but she has just joinedthe Discord. So that's cool. SI
family takeover, Simon, it's happening. We're also on Twitter dot com,
(50:16):
slash x Open Air Pod. Everynow and then some tweets will come out,
but yeah, what a terrible placethat's become these days. Not great
and also fair. Simon was onthe ground floor of this as well,
and he was right. I wrotea deck back just as an aside before
(50:37):
we close the episode. I wrotea deck back in twenty seventeen saying that
Twitter was a disaster, published itto a big company. They didn't listen
to the prophet. They turned theirbacks on him, and look where we
are now. And for producer Dylan, for producer Dylan on the Ones and
Tuesday, and for Simon, thankyou so much for listening to Open Era.
We'll talk to you next week to
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