September 23, 2024 • 52 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.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Open Air Podcast. My name
is Debang Desai, and this week Simon and I are
off once again, so we're going to replay an episode
from last year in November. It was actually our two
hundredth episode ever of Open Era, which is a crazy
number to think about, but also probably a true reflection
of how long we've been doing this whole podcasting thing,
(00:23):
Simon and I together. So we look back this week
at some Davis Cup action, but mainly we talked about
that Saudi Super League that became very much the topic
of discussion this time last year or around it about
we're beginning to see what that could mean, and we're
beginning to see maybe the influx of some new tournaments
(00:44):
that are drawing some of the bigger stars and not
just exos. So we thought we'd look back at this
one see if we predicted anything correctly, see if we
were onto anything that was to come.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But also just a fun time to look back at
episode two hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You're doing well, Hope you're enjoying the tennis right now.
Various action ongoing going on in Asia. Sorry, and we'll
talk to you soon on Open Era.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Take care, Hello.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And Welcome to the Open Era Podcast, Episode number two hundred. Simon,
we did it, sir. How are you? How are you feeling?
Episode two hundred. I don't know if this is actually
your two hundred episode. It probably isn't. We've probably done
a few more than those, to be honest, signment with
the special Epps and all that, But two hundred, man,
(01:45):
what a ride.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Sorry, dev I can't hear you over the noise of
the British crowd, like the drowning out this podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Dylan, please, please, can you help us get the sound down.
I don't know how many loggers they've consumed, probably enough
to take out an entire city the size of Aliga.
But yeah, no, two hundreds. The Brits are going nuts.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But losing, I think is the most important.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We'll get to Davis Cup. We'll talk about Italy, Italy,
I hope that's not offensive. In Italy doing the thing
in Malaga winning the Davis Cup thanks to the heroics
of Jonnick Sinner. We'll get to that. We'll get to
Novak Djokovic talking about the Brits and Novak as well
having an interesting end to the season. Get to some
(02:36):
Boris Becker quotes. Which are always fun. And then the
big news from John Werthheim dropping as you record on
Sunday about some chatter quote unquote including the Slams acquiring
the ten biggest events and forming a super tour that
would include Saudi Arabia getting an event and the ATP
and WTA left to pick up the pieces aka run
(02:58):
the five hundred events and the year and finals. So
that's a huge bombshell. We'll get to that in parting shots,
but first time in Davis Cup. I tried to gauge
your interest this week about Davis Cup when I told
you what time we would likely have to record on Sunday,
because I was thinking Canada was going to make a run.
(03:19):
It wasn't meant to be, but I was locked in
for this, and you know, I'm a hater and I've
been hating on grew Ardpeak and what they've done to
this tournament. But I think this week was as close
as we've got and since they destroyed Davis Cup to
what it kind of used to be. And for that,
I mean that the home team doing quite well was
(03:39):
a big part of that. But I think some of
the aways support surprised me, including Finland who traveled really well.
So I wanted to hate this week, but I found
myself getting locked in, especially when Canada is playing Filin
and then for the rest of the week. But I'm
curious how you felt this David's Cup went down.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I mean, firstly, thank you to everyone for two hundred episodes.
I know I cut it off with a level of
sarcasm in the opening, as you asked me in the
opening question, But in general, amazing.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
I can't believe.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Who mean, it's two hundred death astonishing, really crazy, so
many years, so much tennis, and yeah it still continues.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Everyone on the.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Flip side, Wait, Davis Cup happened this week?
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Dev Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Really, see, hater, I'm trying to grow and be different
and get beyond my my long held prejudices, including this
entire event. So don't you can't even find the scores normally,
it's like finding finding a treasure hunt to locate what
is happening where and when? But really, nothing, nothing caught
(04:39):
your eye, not even the beef quote unquote.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I watched enough of it to be prepared to come
on here and not sound like an idiot, is what
I will say about the Davis I watched enough with
the Davis Cup and followed it enough to be professional
enough to record a podcast with you and hopefully.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I mean honestly, there's at least you can do and
we love before it and to get into the actual
tennis part. Italy wins Simon and I do think it
is we're talking about this generation of players they have.
Yannick Sinner is the top and he is the class
of Italian tennis. And I think at twenty two we
saw him make the leap of leaps that we expected him,
(05:19):
you expected him to make for a while. Charlie Akers
talking about him going to number one one day did
seem like friendly banter between friends and pumping up your mate,
as they say. But also Simon, I think the last
few weeks convinced anyone else who might be a holdout
that he is definitely going to do this. I made
that comparison to Felix last week, I think, and Josh
(05:40):
rightfully pointed out on the discord like this is definitely different, right,
Like the combination of shots, the ability to ramp it
up when he needs to to be Novak 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.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
It's insane, isn't it. It's nice to see him growing
before our eyes into the player that I think we
all thought he could be when he first arrived on
the scene. And one thing you didn't say in that
long list of superlatives is his movement. He's one of
the best movements movers I think to ever grace to
tennis court. And I know that sounds like hyperbole, but
he's astonishing. His last or movement is amazing. He sounds
he looks so graceful out on a tennis court, his
(06:19):
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 back and forth to all the different stands as
you can possibly do. I'm surprised he's not thrown in
an under arm serve at some point over the last
two years, with all the ways that he's trying to
tinkle with it. But at the same time, I think
(06:40):
the biggest thing for me is his confidence level and
his brain as well, because tactically I think he's playing
much smarter tennis now and you can tell that. I
think some changes in the camp have held him and
then that belief to get across the line. You don't
beat Novak Djokovic if you're a bad tennis player. And
I think to do it as many times he has
done in the last eleven days goes to show he's
(07:02):
really really special and he's going to be really good
for a long time. And I think that that that base,
that flow that he has is just so high he's
gonna he's gonna be around at the top of the
toe for a very long time because you just can't
imagine that floor dipping a huge amount.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Dev No, I don't think he needs to do this.
But if if Darren k Hill needed to make an
Instagram real mix of his coaching abilities to present his
abilities to maybe a future client, what a real he
could show from when he's done with the Nix sitter
and and things on the court and off of it
as well. But I think the on the court things,
I mean, the things we're watching him do it is
(07:37):
it's pretty remarkable. I mean, Alex Debener, he owns Alex Debnaer,
and I feel like this right of this matchup is
just obviously not good for the Demon, but it was
pretty unnerving to see him hit past someone who is
almost impossible to hit past for some of the game's
best players, one of the best defensive players on the tour,
and it was no issue at all for someone who
(07:58):
has played a ton a ton of tennis, a ton
of pressure packed tennis. Obviously not being at home so
much maybe easing some of the burden. But it's a
Davis Cup tie, it's for a country. I mentioned the
other players. Simon Parattini Hurt not a part of this crew,
but Arnaldi, the guy who won the first match against Bopparin,
(08:20):
which was huge. I think whoever won that match, you're
probably looking at that that team being the favorite because
Australia was so good at the double. Simon, but that
match is insane. Arnaldi not playing super well but finding
a way, grinding it out. Some Italy at the Euros
kind of stuff. Simon to do another soccer analogy, but
finding away Lorenzo Muscetti, who didn't have his best stuff
(08:42):
here this week. Maybe is only twenty one. There's five
other Italians in the top two hundred under twenty two.
That's pretty nuts. Man they're probably going to be winning
the Davis Cupp or whatever the hell it's called going
forward a few more times.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Almost certainly, right, Like the level of of depth that
they have is astonishing. Does that make Max personal like
bacay Osaka in this situation or something like that. I
don't know how you would try and phrase this horrible
matterfold to work here?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Doesn't that doesn't work at all. And in fact, I
think you shoe hoarded arsenal player and just just a
jabby so I will parry it and move on. But
I did feel for the demon Bush quickly. They said
this a few times in the pot, but like I
watched him in person a couple of months ago, and
I really appreciate what he brings to the court, his
(09:34):
tenacity and his commitment. But you can see it when
when a player just doesn't have the weapons to compete
against someone at Sinner's level. And I don't know if
that's ever going to be a thing for a demon.
It probably won't be, and he's had a marvelous career
even without it. But you did see that there's levels
to this.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
There's levels, and there's also I think belief going into
the match, especially when he does. And I actually thought
there would be a bit of a level a level
of here being a Davis Cup tie. And I know
the Italian fans but were incredible and they traveled well.
Obviously it was very close for them as a nation
and as a fan group to make it there. But
I thought the Australians made some good noise as well,
(10:14):
and I thought they made themselves heard in this final.
The weapons thing is is it does demonstrate, doesn't it
how hard yeats and it hits the ball and his
ability to generate pace. He's the one of one of,
if not the cleanest ball strikers I've ever seen in
my life. And I know I'm throwing so much hyperbole
(10:35):
around in this episode, but I think there's also the
belief and just trying to give you some guidance 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 that it's the most technologically advanced,
the players are the best access to data and information,
it's the most professional ever, so for him to be
(10:57):
able to strike a tennis ball the way that he
does and hit through players who are inside 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 Excenter match gave us 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 think we're going to see a dynamite match between
(11:20):
those two off it happens in Melbourne Park. I really
can't wait for it to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Novak had three match points 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 you
have it against the goat? Do you have it? In
this situation in which Novak is obviously he's going to
bring it, but for Serbia he's bringing extra. That was nuts.
(11:47):
That was absolutely nuts, incredible spectacle and yeah, I mean
it worked out because you had this commitment from the
players and I think yan again Novak turning around from
the ATP Tour finals and comeing down to Malaga and
putting it on the line like this. It added to
this situation and it made it what it was, which
was really good theater and an excellent week for maligned tournament,
(12:10):
which will probably continue to shot on as we can
we go on in our year review. But it was great.
It was great theater. Congrat Italy once again. The other
players to beat Novak in consecutive week Simon Andy, Murray,
Ralfronidal but mckel Yushini stand up the head basher himself,
love it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I knew he was going to appear in this list.
I trying to genuinely remember when this happened. I have
seen to have blocked this round my memory. Amazing that
he did it, though, I mean, we can touch on usually,
but I think maybe just to stay on sinner for
a second, I think it's quite surprising to see Novak
(12:51):
Djokovic hurried sometimes or to make some of the errors
the errors that he did in these matches. And I
think both players were probably quite shagged as well, given
what's happened. But I think they were both equally as
shagged as well. I don't think one player was more
tired than the other. Potentially you could make the case
of Jokovic as the age and all that stuff, but
it's not seemed to stop him, or he hasn't looked
particularly old in the last few months. Has he given
(13:14):
his results, But it's just the testament to how good
of a player and how good of a bull striker
sin it is is that he does hurry him, he
does force him to hit shots that sometimes you think
are a little surprising. And one of the big tactical
things that I was going to bring up here is
that sort of backhand to backhand rally that Djokovic has
(13:35):
been so good at for so many years. It's just
pinning people on that side. There's been a bit of
a seed change this year, and you've seen the way
that both Karloszakaraz and Joanick Sinner have tried to step
around that forehand, not get pinned into that corner in
the way that Djokovic has been able to do it
with so many players, and not allow him to sort
of dictate off that side. And I thought Center did
(13:56):
a really good job, especially in that first set, of
just any sort of rally board that's slightly short on
that back end side, No, I'm going to step round
it and I'm going to fucking crush it to both
sides to keep him guessing. And I think that's like
something telling to keep an eye on for the twenty
twenty four season is like whether people A have the
weapons to do it and B have the sort of
guts to do it, because it does take a bit
(14:17):
of balls to step around that side against somebody with
the best back end of all time.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I saw this sentiment on X a few times during
the final, don't I know? But for Sinner and Alchoriz
and hold her Rune and whoever else is coming up now,
Like if you're getting a chance to play Novac and
you can be actually in the conversation and have this
experience to challenge him, how valuable is that? Like you
(14:44):
can't actually measure that. I feel like it's really really
special for them. So it's it's Yannix world.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
I think it's worth.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Just pointing out here as well as the three players
that you mentioned, and obviously you're throwing Danny Mepperdev as well.
It's not a and at this point is it not
to say Novakdjokovic is going to walk into a match
against any of the four of them and win. You
do have to stop and think about it for a second. Yeah,
Like we're not on the stage now, what's all dominant
and all powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
At Islam though at a Slam. Wait, at a Slam though,
I'm I used to are 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 every Slam final and probably what all of them.
(15:32):
I agree, all right, quickly, quickly on back the fans thing,
the British fans thing, did you make anything thing of that?
Simon Novak suggesting quote British fans should quote sorry, you
learn how to show respect before tell them to quote
shut up. The British fans were boorish and loaded up
(15:53):
to the gills with alcohol and yelling at several points,
including when he was trying to do his post batch interviews.
So I kind of get it that, being like, this
is the whole thing. It's David's cup, the crowd, the atmosphere,
that's what they want, The organizers want this. But I
found it interesting that Novak, who could have played for
Britain in an alternative one like we've discussed, was yelling
(16:13):
at his potential country.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
We also didn't touch on the fact that this was
actually a political event. Almost Benova Djokovic right, like he
had the eyes of Serbia on him, with eyes to
being prime minister president one day, he actually has to
bring it in this tournament. Does he not representing his
nation anyway?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It matters a lot. You could tell obviously this and
there was the thing that doping control. I don't know
if he saw this, but he refused a doping test
before the quarterfinals. Mark the Spanish tabloid. Not the most
reputable I would say that as someone who follows soccer
transfer rumors or used to with a horrible magnifying glass,
(16:49):
but not the most reputable source, I would say, but
Novac refusing a doping test. They can give you less
notice for when they test you. Apparently, Simon in this setting,
in this day was cupsetting, and Novak was serious because
he goes through as regular premat ritual stuff. But in
his defense, and I know, have I become an Ovak
(17:11):
Stan No, But I will say, to draw someone's blood
before a match, yeah, I could see how that might
not like make you feel like you're at your best physically.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
No level plan field for everyone I know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
But still in any case, I did find it hilarious
that in the same article at the very end. It's
like Serbia's current captain vik Detroitsky was banned for eighteen
months for refusing to provide a blood sample. In the
same article.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, as you know how a few months ago when
we were talking about Simona Halleck, when we were like, yeah,
doping is probably rife in the sport. It's just like
it's an open secret. I will refer you back to
my opinions on that one.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know. I don't know if Carol had intentionally
out of that line at the end, but chef's kiss,
it was fantastic. He is the current captain, Victor Troitsky,
so it makes sense to mention that. But terrific. Finally, Simon,
before we get to parting shots. I don't know if
you saw this Boris Becker back in the news. He's
ober Rune's coach or part of his team, talking about
(18:15):
the season or the tour and ober runees back from
his bad period. But did you see what he said
about Alcaraz I did.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Yeah, yeah, that was a bit a.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Bit harsh, but basically saying that Zverev stepped up, which
I mean, okay, Daniel Meba I found his form an
Actiender 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 your level. Anyone could have a
good tournament to a good year from time to time.
Maintaining that level over the years is the real challenge.
(18:48):
The locker room never sleeps. It means that other players
will realize how you have to play against Akaraz to
have a chance against him. That's what's happened. Other players
have developed and Ochoraz hasn't very harsh from Forrest Becker
year Simon, Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
This is this is click But I think this is
someone obviously looking for relevance.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Let's just have a quick look here. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
He did end the year as world number two. He
won a Grand Slam. Yeah that's right. How many Masters
did you win this year?
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Three? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
One?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Three? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
It's probably a fairly good year. All joking aside on
this one, dev I think there's some interesting parallels in
terms of looking at and not just because it's a
cheap parallel here, but just looking at the way that
Egish Fioncek sort of tried to find herself again after
winning that first Grand Slam in Paris, And I know
there slightly different circumstances, but how you sort of have
(19:45):
to adjust as someone who is being hunted every single week,
and how difficult it is to kind of climb that
mountain again once you've once you overcome it once. And
you know, so many players are like, oh I took
a set off nov Djokovic. Goodness, maybe I feel so
good about myself. Yeah, imagine how it feels when you
beat him in a ground slam final. Just trying to
(20:06):
find yourself. You've done everything and you need to remotivate
yourself and find something to keep going on it. I
think that's kind of where we all with Callas Alcarez as.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Well, And in Boris's defense, I think that's kind of
what he meant. Like he said this on a podcast,
so I think in print it sounds possibly more damning
than how he offered it because he said it out
a loud But I can kind of get what he's
getting that, so to speak, but only because you know
it's to me. Is when he mentioned how fast the
courts were at the atp finals, and like I said,
(20:35):
they were too fast almost, which not a red flag.
But I was like, hmm, okay, Like generally as a spectator,
I love that, but like, why for Carlos would that
not be a great thing? But I wonder if I
was just reading too much into a Hey, why doesn't
he like this style that's more suitable for the fan
experience or for better tennis when where his peers are
(20:58):
adapting better? Why can't he adapt as well?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Not fair enough, just gonna do it quick. I just
looked this up because I wanted to make 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 final, that was okay,
worry lost to Sapling?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right, right?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I think that's probably okay, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It seems okay, fine, it's fine, And yeah, they expect
it now that now he's measured against a crazy bar,
right because he's chasing just insane numbers. Because I think
the other thing going back is, I mean all these
guys have done is is the bar is so high?
Like if you want to be one of the greatest
quote unquote tennis going forward, Holy Hill, the numbers thing
is going to be a bit of a thing on
(21:47):
your back for a while. But can't win everything death, No,
And it doesn't matter that realistically, it doesn't matter like
it's not that's not the point really. In the end,
I don't think it is, and they in the sense
that it's an impossible number to reach. It won't have
to be the topic of every damn conversation, which is
(22:08):
honestly refreshing because it's been a while.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You lose a lot in tennis, and I think that's
one of the things that's difficult to adjust when you're
pro and coming up as a kid, is that you
spend so much time losing. We've had this ridiculous run
of all time great players on both the men's and
the women's side, that people have become accustomed to just
seeing someone dominate and win every single match they go into.
Just doesn't feel like that's going to be the case
(22:33):
moving forward, Like the separation requires to be just so
much better than head and field above the rest is
you know, I can't see that being the case over
the next 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 need to celebrate
that as well.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Twelve said sir, all right, we'll leave it there. When
we come back after the break, parting shots, we'll get
to that Super League bombshell from John murdeim new TV
deal for Wtacharlos Alcaraz and Chess next Gen Finals, all
of that coming up next. Welcome back to the Open
(23:15):
Era podcast. Simon Party shots on the news this week,
spicy spicy news. Let's talk about the supertur chatter quote unquote,
this is the tweet from John Wortheim. Quote. For what
it's worth, hearing more chatter about the Slams joining to
acquire ten biggest events, forming a supertur brackets, with Saudi
(23:38):
Arabia getting tenth event, leaving ATP and WTA to run
five hundreds and year end finals. A lot of hurdles
to clear, but this would be the proverbial game changer.
Stay tuned. He followed that up Simon saying the way
this has been viewed by the decision makers as sort
of a reset for tennis as they serve the landscape
(24:02):
in the sports world, including the North American sports world
where they're seeing other leagues sign TV deals. He mentioned
the NWSL, the women's soccer league in North America, as
some as a as a kind of a goal post
for them because they just signed a right steal. What
are your thoughts on I mean, on the surface, doesn't
(24:22):
feel great.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
This is this is huge news, by the way, and
all the things that we've ever covered on this podcast,
for the actual structural foundations of tennis itself, this has
got to be one of the biggest things we've have
a coped if it actually happens. There's all I mean,
there's a ton of stuff that's happened since we've done
this podcast on a sort of political and cultural level,
and I'm not kind of just you know, playing that down,
(24:45):
but this from an actual foundational level is enormous if
it does go through and is the way that it's written.
I wrote in our discord that I did not have
the Grand Slams taking over the you know, slicing off
a bigger piece of the pie on my bingo card,
and I think, looking back at it now, that seems
(25:07):
pretty naive on my behalf. I think if you were
looking at this through the long lens of history. This
actually feels quite obvious. Does that make sense? It kind
of feels like if we were so worried about Saudi
Arabia and an oil money state and all that sort
of stuff coming in and someone trying to, you know,
(25:28):
carve off their own section of the tour, there's already
these four massive players who are outsized and in terms
of their stature and in terms of their power, wouldn't
it make sense for them just to take 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 opposed to this on the basis
(25:51):
that I don't think tennis works the way it is,
and I think if this, if we're going to see
some change here, I'm curious to know what actually happens
after this runs for a year or two three. I
don't like the inclusion of Saudi state money on.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
This at all.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Think if this gives a bigger statue to the w
WTA and actually sort of from the ground up, breaks
the structural hold that these institutions have. I'm not opposed
to it. I don't think this is going to be
good in the long run, but I think that might
be in the short run a reasonable thing to shake
up the tour.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I'm of two minds, like when I see things like
we need an F one model, any dreams of maybe
moving the sport towards to maybe more open and welcome
in environmentally friendly way is just not happening, and it's
against fully the capitalist models. So I'm removing that pipe
dream for a second just to say, like, none of
these tours are making money, and like, especially the WTA
(26:46):
is in a real pickle financially, and we saw that
with how the boondog or played out with the WTA finals.
But I think, yeah, I think you're right in the
sense that, like when you look at it laid out
like this, and it seems obvious, and it makes sense
that the Slams, which have an outsized level of importance
in the wider media landscape in terms of the fan recognition.
(27:09):
If you're maybe an average tennis fan, you definitely know
about the Slams full stop. So I think this does
allow for them to maybe start over and try and
make some cash, which we know is the end game here,
and if you do have a unified players outfit, be
it the PTPA or whoever else, to negotiate with them
(27:30):
or work with them, 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 that like
the haves and that the top players will be taken
care of, and that Super League was the big clubs
will be taken care of. But I'm looking at the
rankings today and seeing events are still taking place all
over the world, including players who need to play to
(27:52):
get by. Players not too far out of the one
hundred signon, like players in the one hundred and tens
and one hundred and twenties. What happens to them with this? Right?
I guess the idea is like, what does this actually
look like? Who's in charge? What does it mean? Is
it a merger? Is it a whole new thing put together? Yeah,
(28:13):
obviously we don't know a lot, But I think this
reminds me a bit of the Super League that they
tried in soccer.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I think fundamentally this does not go well for players
ranked outside of the top hundred. I think this is
a terrible, terrible changing situation.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
This is going to be a litmus test for the BDPA.
So it really was, And I think.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's kind of where I'm I'm coming at it from
this perspective, which is that if you have this sort
of structural change, it's up to your labor body to
actually fight for you and make sure that that money
is distributed throughout the tour, because it's sure as shit
doesn't feel like that's going to happen here, like not
with a sort of fledgling union. That's maybe stamp of
(28:53):
rinker House and opinions on about it. But I think
if if this money was to ever actually be distributed
across the tour in general, this could be positive.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
I just have very.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Little faith that that will happen. So you will get
a situation where you have a lot of very very
well compensated people and players and a power structure which
is very very focused on the top and probably a
very very small number of people, which I don't think
(29:25):
is probably good for the game in general. All that
being said, dev tennis is such a mess. Could you
equally see this flaming out inside of two years? I
could equally see that. I guess the Grand slor never starting. Yeah, yeah,
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, I do think it's interesting, it's worth I'm who's
talking about this, Like it does feel like there's been
so much smoke and how disastrous the WTA Finals went.
I don't think it's any now. It's more like, Okay,
we've tried the Noble Act, we've tried the this goes
against our values thing, and we're not sure about this too.
(30:03):
We're a bit of a joke right now in terms
of our execution of events. How do we how do
we make ourselves legitimate once again and and non embarrass
our players who don't deserve this stuff, Like we have
Chris Everett tweeting on the day of the day's Cup
finyl saying my wish for next year is having a
legitimate WTA Finals where our players are celebrated. It's like, okay, like,
(30:25):
what are we protecting here? Not much? The system is bad,
it's terrible.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Well, like just putting this alongside the sort of new
TV deal that you have on the WTA side, and
also the profit sharing stuff that I mean, we didn't
talk about it because it happened while we were taking
a small break, But how does that get incorporated with
into this, with this within this program, because I think
it is interesting. But again, you take the long lens
of history and sort of take a step back from everything.
(30:52):
It's not really a surprise that a bunch of these things,
a bunch of these programs came into being. As soon
as the PTPA mysteriously showed up. Right, shockingly enough, we
start to see, you know, the ATP start to think
about potentially doing some programs that 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
(31:14):
it's one of those I mean we said I 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 compare it to other situations, which is that
poor people tend to get fucked and the rich tend
to do really well.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Out of it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, it's kind of where I mean, easy as Machine
in front of the show on Discord makes a good
points like at the current stage where we're going with
tennis is a slowish death to where we are going
to exhibition only five items, which I agree with.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
By the way, I think that is legitimately a good point,
Like it's dying before our eyes. Certainly the WTA is
unless you're going to start taking you know, directly money
from oil barons and from you know, the worst of
the worst. Like I think that is legitimately a fair
point to make.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Do you think that announcement about the new WTA television
deal with Sky and Canal PLU? You think it's kind
of weird that the ATP's mentioned so heavily in that release.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
What's going on? Like, I know none of these organizations
talk to each other, but like these are two massive
announcements that 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 like a bunch
of ten five hundred tournaments? Is that what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Like we're buying them by round. It's okay, I'll take
a quarter finals a row that's for twenty bucks final.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
It's astonishing. Like imagine imagine showing up to have a
rights discussion with in the footballing world and you're like, uh,
I mean this leave might not exist in like next year.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. This can we
sell ad to get this? What is our inventory?
Speaker 4 (33:04):
The FA Cup might not exist, so you can buy
the package, but like by the core final stage, it
might not be there anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
So yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
What a random situation to follow a sport dying and
also trying to figure out ways of resuscitate itself. And
I actually think Canary and the coal mine situation, just
given the state of the global financial situation, given the
bond market, and given the state of all of like
both public finances and another state of a lot of
(33:35):
like private companies as well who have over leveraged on
cheap got drunk on cheap money, who are now paying
the price for it. Is this going to be a
situation that goes into other sports as well? Are we
going to start seeing other organizations fall apart?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well, there's a huge television issue in North America with
all the regional sports networks going under and declaring bankruptcy.
So yeah, I mean yes, is the answer. The way
sports are consumed or like the way we watch has
already changed so significantly. But I do wonder what happens
(34:11):
when some of these companies that popped up in the
last five three five years go belly up really quickly
when it seemed like this was the new age.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
If we take into consideration that basically, like the version
of neoliberal capitalism exploded in two thousand and eight, right
like that system it failed, like it completely fell apart,
and since that moment we've been putting like we've resuscitated
it using the you know, the heart defibrillator, and then
(34:41):
we started putting band aids on it all over the place,
and it just kind of you know, things blew 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 see what how
happens after this?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
All right, shall we move on? WTA starts on vacation.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
So did you see this article?
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I did, Yes, I did WTA website trying to do
a roundup of where all these players are going in
their quote unquote off season.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
That's right, hours yeah, four hours of time off.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I mean it did lead me to ask the question of,
like how long do these players actually get off before
they going to Australia and starting 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
in November, before you're starting to go down to Australia
and start hitting again, what would you do?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think two weeks, I'd probably do South America. I'd
I think i'd do Chile or Peru for two weeks,
try and do that area, maybe dip down to Argentina.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
So which player would you be? Let's have a look.
We're going to do some mid two thousands BuzzFeed.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I think the Maldives is a popular choice. I've noticed
Bali of course. I think Caroline Garcia went to Antarctica,
which is kind of cool. Not looking so hot up
there melting wise saw some penguins though, so I mean
that's positive. But overall, yikes, overall, a lot of la shots,
(36:27):
you know, I found Simon and does you tell me this?
I feel like Brits especially, but Europeans love Los Angeles?
Los Angeles? Is it does it due to the lack
of sunlight?
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Yes? I think so.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
I think it also get glamorized as well, right, Is
this fair? Incredible? Every britt I've.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
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'm like, oh, because the sun is out for
more than twenty six minutes.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Talk about the places you could go in in North America,
especially in the United States, LA would not be close
to the top of the list for me.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Getting out of the airport. It's long enough where you're
like this this, but no Elle is good. I like La.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Actually, I enjoyed visiting it for e three, like the
twice that I went, and a couple of other times,
just for different work you're not doing.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think if you're going for a convention, it's way
different kind of atmosphere, right, Like it's it's a fake place,
but at a convention, good lord, you're you're just thinking
a whole different side.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Right.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
That is a city which I think is basically unsavable
from from all of the Empire.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But my sister's listening just to La, and I think
it's like, La is good. I like La, But I
feel like people who visit La make it worse by
what they think it is. Is that fair?
Speaker 5 (37:40):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I mean, if you take into consideration that we're trying
to undo all of the love and planning from the
nineteen forties onwards. I don't think LA's making huge strides
and doing that right. It's not a particularly walkable place,
not a particularly green place either.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
What's your pick for where'd you go?
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I thought about this long and hard, and I sort
of settled on I think I'm just an autumn person
in general, so I would try and find someone that
has a late autumn season. I kind of like some
of the shots that I saw with Madison Keys, just
a bit of lace. I like, just like a nice jacket,
a nice walk in some leafy forest somewhere.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You're in your your shacket, era? Is that what you're saying?
Your shack it? Era?
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Oh my god?
Speaker 4 (38:22):
What the hell has happened to me? Can I find
a demonstration of more thirty year old version of me?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Pumpkin spice hair shampoo utilized? Yeah, that's disgusting. Carlos Acres,
I'm been playing chess.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
What a world didn't know he was such a chess man.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, Luke, friend of the show, Luke on the discord,
there's a chesspot you can play against Carlos alcarez Ai
in which he's telling you about stuff you don't want
to talk about while you're playing chess. You know we will.
It's sick. It's okay, I guess you would say that,
but also play your next move. Sir See said exactly.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
I have very little to say about this story other
than it's kind of cool that he's playing chess.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This is marketing, baby, This is how you get. This
is my target, the chess market, the chess market. This
is we are missing the chess.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
I'd love to talk to Luca.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
He need more chess voice in antennis? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
It's like we need more bought license plates in the
gift shop, more chess.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You are missing out on the chess demographic. Five God damn.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think this is a conversation that I need to
have with Luke at some point. Is the chess demographic wealthy?
Do we actually want to attract him into the sport?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I have a whole episode. 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.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Yeah, It's it's enormous and I recommend actually going and
looking at the ATP website because they like, is this
all redundant? Though, Like, I don't know what is the
world that we're living in at this point.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
There's a asterix that says MBS will decide to tank
this you wants.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I mean, that's the other thing that we didn't mention
about that opening segment is how involved like who's running it?
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Like which which figure? Which yeah, yeah, where's the money
money coming from?
Speaker 4 (40:10):
From that perspective, so the this is a good article
like because it's it's dealing with all of the the
quote unquote one vision strategic plan, which again is quite
shady in terms.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Of they take isn't that what the Soundi's called there?
What's going on here? They take the branding too, yes,
and a lot of it here is fluff. But one
of the things I think I thought was interesting in
the middle of the article was it was basically talking
about how the media revenue that Tennis gets is exceptionally low.
(40:43):
I come up with the language they use. They use
something that I was that I looked at and thought,
the fuck are you saying that in public? Forain because
it was like I think it was like media revenue
is low in comparison to other sports, which is like
one of the most honest truths I think I've ever
seen from the a TP we down bad.
Speaker 5 (41:01):
Please help us.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
We don't know what we're doing. We're trying nothing ever,
roll out of ideas.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I'm imagining Watt's an IBM robots saying this in the
computer being like, well, I'm not contabulating service speed. I
do our profit reports.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
We have solely targeted people who watches table television who
are in the sixty to ninety demographic and have tried
nothing else.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
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
deal is happening potentially to shake it all up.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I thought it was a fascinating read. I really did, like,
if you're a proper nerd when it comes to the
tora or understand the quote the supposed changes that are
coming to I thought it was one of the more
interesting things that I've seen in a long time.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
If you're googling sphere fifty profit sharing formula Q and
a on the ACP tour dot com website. So yeah,
check that out. Published November seventh. A lot of info
in there could be all moot though once this new deal,
once the chatter develops into something else. Speaking of Saudi Arabia, Simon,
we end with the next Gen Finals. I mentioned there's
(42:21):
a bunch of Challenger events going on all over the world,
but in terms of the ACP, the last last thing,
so called thing on the calendar the next Gen Finals
in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I'll ask you a question about this, dev So we
were in Saudi Arabia for 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
rights and the laws that it sort of it's exclusionary,
pick any number of isms that you want in terms
of it's.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
It's it's record.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
And then there's also the money and where does the
money come from as well. I feel like it is
worth saying off the top on this one that the
Saudi people themselves. I feel like we don't have to
say this, but like there's nothing against the Saudi people,
and I feel like we need to make that abundantly clear.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
They don't them are in these photos either. I noticed
from the website. There's someone from Saudi Arabia really around
any of these guys as they do the tour in gender.
Isn't that a bit strange?
Speaker 5 (43:27):
It is a little strange.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yes, Like there's no one around, There's no one there.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I make that point because of all the sort of
feces thrown at Jordan Henderson, I think quite rightly so
is that we always talk at like these organizations, the
institutions do it to say like it's for the good
of the people, right, We 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,
(43:52):
so it's not spreading the game, It just isn't in
that capacity.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Who has the access to this kind of stuff, Who.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Has the access and who benefits from this? I think
that's the biggest thing that I'm curious to see what
comes out of this Next Gen Finals because this is,
you know, again, this is a really interesting litmus test
where tennis is going.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
As always, they're trying some new rules at this event,
which I think is the best thing they do for
the next Gen Finals Simon, but these some of these
are very interesting. No on court warm up matches start
immediately after the coin toss a second serve shot clock,
which will be eight seconds between first and second serve.
Novak not rafa. All these players are disqualified. Basically if
(44:33):
this z ever came in, reduced time between points down
from twenty five to fifteen seconds following an ace, double
faultered unreturned serve, reduced changeovers, no change events after the
first game. So those are the big 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 this faster. But I also feel like we're hope.
(44:53):
We're basically like, well, don't get injured, guys, because we're
gonna go way faster.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Good luck.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Again, I've said this before, like it's the it's the
boomer marketing mentality, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
All these kids, there's TikTok.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Way faster whatever you do. Listen, if they had a
sniper in the crowd with a red dot on someone
and a player going too slow, I wouldn't be surprised
if that was an idea here, because holy crow, like
I get it, I get they want to make things
faster and then uts is getting at some of these things,
but too.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
Louder than that. Okay, lots of.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
One of you just want to call it a day
and we'll just say, like they go one.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
How are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Some of the other stuff. Simplified scoreboard produce height umpire
chair height, which I find very interesting. I guess that's
for like the fans behind.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
How is that an innovation? This is another one of
those we've worked in demometery. Did I find something to
pat out? The pr.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Is that so that players losing their mind well assaulted
lionepire accidentally free fan movement? So I guess they can
move around when points are going on, do whatever they want.
So yeah, I don't know. How do you feel about
this stuff?
Speaker 5 (46:11):
It's a meaningless tournament, do it?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Honestly? Pray for all these kids. Bless these boys who
will be subjected to these hunger games in the next
gen finals.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Oh man, what a great idea on the on the
eve of the next one coming out, right, it might
be as already in the cinemas already good time as
Italian think about it next year, people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Arthur Fee is curious to watch him. Dominic Stricker most
punishable face in the game. We got calling right now.
He's a lovely lad. Okay, Alex Nicholson. I think he'll
be pretty good too.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Not a big fan of his dad. Have to say, Phil,
is it Phil Nicholson? There's no way who wins this tournament?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Probably Arthur feels King Arthur as his fans call him.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
How did you crush the earlier pronunciation in French and
then call him Phil's?
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, King Arthur because that's his new nickname going forward.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
That's why Phil Phil.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Himself fill it up. I think van Ash wins this.
I think I okay, l v A va. We just
can't call him his name.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
There's I love how there's like there's we just mentioned
those guys and there's like forty Italians they are coming. Man.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Cobody's good as well. I think that kid's really talented.
Keep an eye on him.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Awesome, Okay, we did a good job that tournament. Actually,
I'm being serious. That was good stuff, Simon. Finally, two
challenges remaining. What do you got sir?
Speaker 3 (47:43):
This week?
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Can I shout out the lock picking Lawyer channel on YouTube?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
Have you ever watched this?
Speaker 2 (47:49):
That sounds fascinating? Oh? What is it is.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
Literally what it sounds like. It is a lawyer locks
if I can't sell this to you in the next
thirty second and doing a bad job.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
But why what is this like? He's so people are
asking him to do it.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
His big thing is basically like lock, so locks, mechanical
physical locks and security has not evolved in like seventy
or eighty years. And the companies are who are running
it are pulling the wall over people's eyes by claiming
that their stuff is more secure than it actually is.
So his big thing is to demonster any of the locks. Buying.
(48:29):
Big lock is keeping under lock and key that all the.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Secrets always suspected them.
Speaker 5 (48:34):
I always suspect that.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Wow, okay, I'm going to check this out. Interesting.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
I thought it was fascinating, especially I fell onto I
stumbled onto it, sorry with in search of a new
good bike lock. And the conclusion that I came away
from it is if a thief wants your bike, they
will get your bike, no matter what you think.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
So terrifying.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
Okay, just think of your bike lock as one part
of a wider package of security.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
It's a healthy amount of fear mongering. Kill you our
listeners at the time, and thank you very much for that.
Uh listener, hold onto your bike at all costs. Mine
is about Black Friday sales. Simon, you want a boomer take,
here's mine. It's not a sale on Black Friday. If
it's twenty five percent, get the hell out of here.
If you're offering a Black Friday sale for twenty five percent,
(49:18):
I saw twenty percent, Simon, what have you? No shame?
It's not a sale.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
What do you classify as a sale?
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Then at least forty percent on Black Friday on quote
unquote Cyber Monday, that's not a deal twenty percent?
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Can we can we continue this boomer take by saying
Black Friday shouldn't have started two weeks ago either, Like what,
what's too bad?
Speaker 5 (49:42):
It's all bad?
Speaker 2 (49:42):
We said that terrible football game happen called the Black
Friday Game. It's bad, man, It's bad.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Is there anything more? North American? Trying to shed a
load of shit that you have overstalked on to a
bunch of ravenous people. I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
A single to your emergence from my eye as I
sing the American anthem, it's beautiful?
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Do you buy anything on Black Friday?
Speaker 2 (50:05):
By the way that I bought a backpack.
Speaker 5 (50:07):
Yeah, then you need a new backpack.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 5 (50:11):
What happened to your old one?
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I bought it in Vancouver when I still lived there,
for twenty dollars after my EA backpack was stolen at
a restaurant.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, do you remember that I do? That bag that
I bought for twenty bucks lasted like six years. It's
pretty good. That's pretty good, Roi, as they say in
the investment streets, right.
Speaker 4 (50:31):
I feel like the one thing that I have of
Vancouver on myself is a hershel Hershel bag, which I've
had for like six years now, and it's still going strong.
It's faded considerably, but it's still going strong.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
I love hearing stories.
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Like that, life people.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
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 years that lasted. Obviously,
you sucks, okay. Join us on Patreon, dot com, Forward
slash open Era, get the show early on Sundays, get
an ad free plus join us on the Discord where
(51:10):
chat tennis all the time. She has to my sister
ERMI for joining the discord most recently. I think she's
been a long time Patreon member, but she has just
joined the discord. So that's cool. SI family takeover, Simon,
it's happening. We're also on Twitter dot com, slash x
open air Pod. Every now and then some tweets will
(51:32):
come out, but yeah, what a terrible place that's become
these days. Not great and also fair. Simon was on
the ground floor of this as well, and he was right.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
I wrote a deck back just as an aside before
we close the episode.
Speaker 5 (51:48):
I wrote a deck back in twenty.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
Seventeen saying that Twitter was a disaster, published it to
a big company.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
They didn't listen to the prophet, they turned their backs
on him, and look where we are now. Producer d
for Producer on The Ones and Tuesday, and for Simon.
Thank you so much for listening to Open Eera. We'll
talk to you next week.
Hello, and welcome to the Open Air Podcast. My name
is Debang Desai, and this week Simon and I are
off once again, so we're going to replay an episode
from last year in November. It was actually our two
hundredth episode ever of Open Era, which is a crazy
number to think about, but also probably a true reflection
of how long we've been doing this whole podcasting thing,
(00:23):
Simon and I together. So we look back this week
at some Davis Cup action, but mainly we talked about
that Saudi Super League that became very much the topic
of discussion this time last year or around it about
we're beginning to see what that could mean, and we're
beginning to see maybe the influx of some new tournaments
(00:44):
that are drawing some of the bigger stars and not
just exos. So we thought we'd look back at this
one see if we predicted anything correctly, see if we
were onto anything that was to come.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But also just a fun time to look back at
episode two hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You're doing well, Hope you're enjoying the tennis right now.
Various action ongoing going on in Asia. Sorry, and we'll
talk to you soon on Open Era.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Take care, Hello.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And Welcome to the Open Era Podcast, Episode number two hundred. Simon,
we did it, sir. How are you? How are you feeling?
Episode two hundred. I don't know if this is actually
your two hundred episode. It probably isn't. We've probably done
a few more than those, to be honest, signment with
the special Epps and all that, But two hundred, man,
(01:45):
what a ride.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Sorry, dev I can't hear you over the noise of
the British crowd, like the drowning out this podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Dylan, please, please, can you help us get the sound down.
I don't know how many loggers they've consumed, probably enough
to take out an entire city the size of Aliga.
But yeah, no, two hundreds. The Brits are going nuts.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But losing, I think is the most important.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We'll get to Davis Cup. We'll talk about Italy, Italy,
I hope that's not offensive. In Italy doing the thing
in Malaga winning the Davis Cup thanks to the heroics
of Jonnick Sinner. We'll get to that. We'll get to
Novak Djokovic talking about the Brits and Novak as well
having an interesting end to the season. Get to some
(02:36):
Boris Becker quotes. Which are always fun. And then the
big news from John Werthheim dropping as you record on
Sunday about some chatter quote unquote including the Slams acquiring
the ten biggest events and forming a super tour that
would include Saudi Arabia getting an event and the ATP
and WTA left to pick up the pieces aka run
(02:58):
the five hundred events and the year and finals. So
that's a huge bombshell. We'll get to that in parting shots,
but first time in Davis Cup. I tried to gauge
your interest this week about Davis Cup when I told
you what time we would likely have to record on Sunday,
because I was thinking Canada was going to make a run.
(03:19):
It wasn't meant to be, but I was locked in
for this, and you know, I'm a hater and I've
been hating on grew Ardpeak and what they've done to
this tournament. But I think this week was as close
as we've got and since they destroyed Davis Cup to
what it kind of used to be. And for that,
I mean that the home team doing quite well was
(03:39):
a big part of that. But I think some of
the aways support surprised me, including Finland who traveled really well.
So I wanted to hate this week, but I found
myself getting locked in, especially when Canada is playing Filin
and then for the rest of the week. But I'm
curious how you felt this David's Cup went down.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
I mean, firstly, thank you to everyone for two hundred episodes.
I know I cut it off with a level of
sarcasm in the opening, as you asked me in the
opening question, But in general, amazing.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
I can't believe.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Who mean, it's two hundred death astonishing, really crazy, so
many years, so much tennis, and yeah it still continues.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Everyone on the.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Flip side, Wait, Davis Cup happened this week?
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Dev Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Really, see, hater, I'm trying to grow and be different
and get beyond my my long held prejudices, including this
entire event. So don't you can't even find the scores normally,
it's like finding finding a treasure hunt to locate what
is happening where and when? But really, nothing, nothing caught
(04:39):
your eye, not even the beef quote unquote.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
I watched enough of it to be prepared to come
on here and not sound like an idiot, is what
I will say about the Davis I watched enough with
the Davis Cup and followed it enough to be professional
enough to record a podcast with you and hopefully.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I mean honestly, there's at least you can do and
we love before it and to get into the actual
tennis part. Italy wins Simon and I do think it
is we're talking about this generation of players they have.
Yannick Sinner is the top and he is the class
of Italian tennis. And I think at twenty two we
saw him make the leap of leaps that we expected him,
(05:19):
you expected him to make for a while. Charlie Akers
talking about him going to number one one day did
seem like friendly banter between friends and pumping up your mate,
as they say. But also Simon, I think the last
few weeks convinced anyone else who might be a holdout
that he is definitely going to do this. I made
that comparison to Felix last week, I think, and Josh
(05:40):
rightfully pointed out on the discord like this is definitely different, right,
Like the combination of shots, the ability to ramp it
up when he needs to to be Novak 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.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
It's insane, isn't it. It's nice to see him growing
before our eyes into the player that I think we
all thought he could be when he first arrived on
the scene. And one thing you didn't say in that
long list of superlatives is his movement. He's one of
the best movements movers I think to ever grace to
tennis court. And I know that sounds like hyperbole, but
he's astonishing. His last or movement is amazing. He sounds
he looks so graceful out on a tennis court, his
(06:19):
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 back and forth to all the different stands as
you can possibly do. I'm surprised he's not thrown in
an under arm serve at some point over the last
two years, with all the ways that he's trying to
tinkle with it. But at the same time, I think
(06:40):
the biggest thing for me is his confidence level and
his brain as well, because tactically I think he's playing
much smarter tennis now and you can tell that. I
think some changes in the camp have held him and
then that belief to get across the line. You don't
beat Novak Djokovic if you're a bad tennis player. And
I think to do it as many times he has
done in the last eleven days goes to show he's
(07:02):
really really special and he's going to be really good
for a long time. And I think that that that base,
that flow that he has is just so high he's
gonna he's gonna be around at the top of the
toe for a very long time because you just can't
imagine that floor dipping a huge amount.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Dev No, I don't think he needs to do this.
But if if Darren k Hill needed to make an
Instagram real mix of his coaching abilities to present his
abilities to maybe a future client, what a real he
could show from when he's done with the Nix sitter
and and things on the court and off of it
as well. But I think the on the court things,
I mean, the things we're watching him do it is
(07:37):
it's pretty remarkable. I mean, Alex Debener, he owns Alex Debnaer,
and I feel like this right of this matchup is
just obviously not good for the Demon, but it was
pretty unnerving to see him hit past someone who is
almost impossible to hit past for some of the game's
best players, one of the best defensive players on the tour,
and it was no issue at all for someone who
(07:58):
has played a ton a ton of tennis, a ton
of pressure packed tennis. Obviously not being at home so
much maybe easing some of the burden. But it's a
Davis Cup tie, it's for a country. I mentioned the
other players. Simon Parattini Hurt not a part of this crew,
but Arnaldi, the guy who won the first match against Bopparin,
(08:20):
which was huge. I think whoever won that match, you're
probably looking at that that team being the favorite because
Australia was so good at the double. Simon, but that
match is insane. Arnaldi not playing super well but finding
a way, grinding it out. Some Italy at the Euros
kind of stuff. Simon to do another soccer analogy, but
finding away Lorenzo Muscetti, who didn't have his best stuff
(08:42):
here this week. Maybe is only twenty one. There's five
other Italians in the top two hundred under twenty two.
That's pretty nuts. Man they're probably going to be winning
the Davis Cupp or whatever the hell it's called going
forward a few more times.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Almost certainly, right, Like the level of of depth that
they have is astonishing. Does that make Max personal like
bacay Osaka in this situation or something like that. I
don't know how you would try and phrase this horrible
matterfold to work here?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Doesn't that doesn't work at all. And in fact, I
think you shoe hoarded arsenal player and just just a
jabby so I will parry it and move on. But
I did feel for the demon Bush quickly. They said
this a few times in the pot, but like I
watched him in person a couple of months ago, and
I really appreciate what he brings to the court, his
(09:34):
tenacity and his commitment. But you can see it when
when a player just doesn't have the weapons to compete
against someone at Sinner's level. And I don't know if
that's ever going to be a thing for a demon.
It probably won't be, and he's had a marvelous career
even without it. But you did see that there's levels
to this.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
There's levels, and there's also I think belief going into
the match, especially when he does. And I actually thought
there would be a bit of a level a level
of here being a Davis Cup tie. And I know
the Italian fans but were incredible and they traveled well.
Obviously it was very close for them as a nation
and as a fan group to make it there. But
I thought the Australians made some good noise as well,
(10:14):
and I thought they made themselves heard in this final.
The weapons thing is is it does demonstrate, doesn't it
how hard yeats and it hits the ball and his
ability to generate pace. He's the one of one of,
if not the cleanest ball strikers I've ever seen in
my life. And I know I'm throwing so much hyperbole
(10:35):
around in this episode, but I think there's also the
belief and just trying to give you some guidance 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 that it's the most technologically advanced,
the players are the best access to data and information,
it's the most professional ever, so for him to be
(10:57):
able to strike a tennis ball the way that he
does and hit through players who are inside 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 Excenter match gave us 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 think we're going to see a dynamite match between
(11:20):
those two off it happens in Melbourne Park. I really
can't wait for it to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Novak had three match points 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 you
have it against the goat? Do you have it? In
this situation in which Novak is obviously he's going to
bring it, but for Serbia he's bringing extra. That was nuts.
(11:47):
That was absolutely nuts, incredible spectacle and yeah, I mean
it worked out because you had this commitment from the
players and I think yan again Novak turning around from
the ATP Tour finals and comeing down to Malaga and
putting it on the line like this. It added to
this situation and it made it what it was, which
was really good theater and an excellent week for maligned tournament,
(12:10):
which will probably continue to shot on as we can
we go on in our year review. But it was great.
It was great theater. Congrat Italy once again. The other
players to beat Novak in consecutive week Simon Andy, Murray,
Ralfronidal but mckel Yushini stand up the head basher himself,
love it.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
I knew he was going to appear in this list.
I trying to genuinely remember when this happened. I have
seen to have blocked this round my memory. Amazing that
he did it, though, I mean, we can touch on usually,
but I think maybe just to stay on sinner for
a second, I think it's quite surprising to see Novak
(12:51):
Djokovic hurried sometimes or to make some of the errors
the errors that he did in these matches. And I
think both players were probably quite shagged as well, given
what's happened. But I think they were both equally as
shagged as well. I don't think one player was more
tired than the other. Potentially you could make the case
of Jokovic as the age and all that stuff, but
it's not seemed to stop him, or he hasn't looked
particularly old in the last few months. Has he given
(13:14):
his results, But it's just the testament to how good
of a player and how good of a bull striker
sin it is is that he does hurry him, he
does force him to hit shots that sometimes you think
are a little surprising. And one of the big tactical
things that I was going to bring up here is
that sort of backhand to backhand rally that Djokovic has
(13:35):
been so good at for so many years. It's just
pinning people on that side. There's been a bit of
a seed change this year, and you've seen the way
that both Karloszakaraz and Joanick Sinner have tried to step
around that forehand, not get pinned into that corner in
the way that Djokovic has been able to do it
with so many players, and not allow him to sort
of dictate off that side. And I thought Center did
(13:56):
a really good job, especially in that first set, of
just any sort of rally board that's slightly short on
that back end side, No, I'm going to step round
it and I'm going to fucking crush it to both
sides to keep him guessing. And I think that's like
something telling to keep an eye on for the twenty
twenty four season is like whether people A have the
weapons to do it and B have the sort of
guts to do it, because it does take a bit
(14:17):
of balls to step around that side against somebody with
the best back end of all time.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I saw this sentiment on X a few times during
the final, don't I know? But for Sinner and Alchoriz
and hold her Rune and whoever else is coming up now,
Like if you're getting a chance to play Novac and
you can be actually in the conversation and have this
experience to challenge him, how valuable is that? Like you
(14:44):
can't actually measure that. I feel like it's really really
special for them. So it's it's Yannix world.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
I think it's worth.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Just pointing out here as well as the three players
that you mentioned, and obviously you're throwing Danny Mepperdev as well.
It's not a and at this point is it not
to say Novakdjokovic is going to walk into a match
against any of the four of them and win. You
do have to stop and think about it for a second. Yeah,
Like we're not on the stage now, what's all dominant
and all powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
At Islam though at a Slam. Wait, at a Slam though,
I'm I used to are 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 every Slam final and probably what all of them.
(15:32):
I agree, all right, quickly, quickly on back the fans thing,
the British fans thing, did you make anything thing of that?
Simon Novak suggesting quote British fans should quote sorry, you
learn how to show respect before tell them to quote
shut up. The British fans were boorish and loaded up
(15:53):
to the gills with alcohol and yelling at several points,
including when he was trying to do his post batch interviews.
So I kind of get it that, being like, this
is the whole thing. It's David's cup, the crowd, the atmosphere,
that's what they want, The organizers want this. But I
found it interesting that Novak, who could have played for
Britain in an alternative one like we've discussed, was yelling
(16:13):
at his potential country.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
We also didn't touch on the fact that this was
actually a political event. Almost Benova Djokovic right, like he
had the eyes of Serbia on him, with eyes to
being prime minister president one day, he actually has to
bring it in this tournament. Does he not representing his
nation anyway?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It matters a lot. You could tell obviously this and
there was the thing that doping control. I don't know
if he saw this, but he refused a doping test
before the quarterfinals. Mark the Spanish tabloid. Not the most
reputable I would say that as someone who follows soccer
transfer rumors or used to with a horrible magnifying glass,
(16:49):
but not the most reputable source, I would say, but
Novac refusing a doping test. They can give you less
notice for when they test you. Apparently, Simon in this setting,
in this day was cupsetting, and Novak was serious because
he goes through as regular premat ritual stuff. But in
his defense, and I know, have I become an Ovak
(17:11):
Stan No, But I will say, to draw someone's blood
before a match, yeah, I could see how that might
not like make you feel like you're at your best physically.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
No level plan field for everyone I know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
But still in any case, I did find it hilarious
that in the same article at the very end. It's
like Serbia's current captain vik Detroitsky was banned for eighteen
months for refusing to provide a blood sample. In the
same article.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, as you know how a few months ago when
we were talking about Simona Halleck, when we were like, yeah,
doping is probably rife in the sport. It's just like
it's an open secret. I will refer you back to
my opinions on that one.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I don't know. I don't know if Carol had intentionally
out of that line at the end, but chef's kiss,
it was fantastic. He is the current captain, Victor Troitsky,
so it makes sense to mention that. But terrific. Finally, Simon,
before we get to parting shots. I don't know if
you saw this Boris Becker back in the news. He's
ober Rune's coach or part of his team, talking about
(18:15):
the season or the tour and ober runees back from
his bad period. But did you see what he said
about Alcaraz I did.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Yeah, yeah, that was a bit a.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Bit harsh, but basically saying that Zverev stepped up, which
I mean, okay, Daniel Meba I found his form an
Actiender 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 your level. Anyone could have a
good tournament to a good year from time to time.
Maintaining that level over the years is the real challenge.
(18:48):
The locker room never sleeps. It means that other players
will realize how you have to play against Akaraz to
have a chance against him. That's what's happened. Other players
have developed and Ochoraz hasn't very harsh from Forrest Becker
year Simon, Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
This is this is click But I think this is
someone obviously looking for relevance.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Let's just have a quick look here. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
He did end the year as world number two. He
won a Grand Slam. Yeah that's right. How many Masters
did you win this year?
Speaker 5 (19:20):
Three? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
One?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Three? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
It's probably a fairly good year. All joking aside on
this one, dev I think there's some interesting parallels in
terms of looking at and not just because it's a
cheap parallel here, but just looking at the way that
Egish Fioncek sort of tried to find herself again after
winning that first Grand Slam in Paris, And I know
there slightly different circumstances, but how you sort of have
(19:45):
to adjust as someone who is being hunted every single week,
and how difficult it is to kind of climb that
mountain again once you've once you overcome it once. And
you know, so many players are like, oh I took
a set off nov Djokovic. Goodness, maybe I feel so
good about myself. Yeah, imagine how it feels when you
beat him in a ground slam final. Just trying to
(20:06):
find yourself. You've done everything and you need to remotivate
yourself and find something to keep going on it. I
think that's kind of where we all with Callas Alcarez as.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Well, And in Boris's defense, I think that's kind of
what he meant. Like he said this on a podcast,
so I think in print it sounds possibly more damning
than how he offered it because he said it out
a loud But I can kind of get what he's
getting that, so to speak, but only because you know
it's to me. Is when he mentioned how fast the
courts were at the atp finals, and like I said,
(20:35):
they were too fast almost, which not a red flag.
But I was like, hmm, okay, Like generally as a spectator,
I love that, but like, why for Carlos would that
not be a great thing? But I wonder if I
was just reading too much into a Hey, why doesn't
he like this style that's more suitable for the fan
experience or for better tennis when where his peers are
(20:58):
adapting better? Why can't he adapt as well?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Not fair enough, just gonna do it quick. I just
looked this up because I wanted to make 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 final, that was okay,
worry lost to Sapling?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right, right?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
I think that's probably okay, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
It seems okay, fine, it's fine, And yeah, they expect
it now that now he's measured against a crazy bar,
right because he's chasing just insane numbers. Because I think
the other thing going back is, I mean all these
guys have done is is the bar is so high?
Like if you want to be one of the greatest
quote unquote tennis going forward, Holy Hill, the numbers thing
is going to be a bit of a thing on
(21:47):
your back for a while. But can't win everything death, No,
And it doesn't matter that realistically, it doesn't matter like
it's not that's not the point really. In the end,
I don't think it is, and they in the sense
that it's an impossible number to reach. It won't have
to be the topic of every damn conversation, which is
(22:08):
honestly refreshing because it's been a while.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
You lose a lot in tennis, and I think that's
one of the things that's difficult to adjust when you're
pro and coming up as a kid, is that you
spend so much time losing. We've had this ridiculous run
of all time great players on both the men's and
the women's side, that people have become accustomed to just
seeing someone dominate and win every single match they go into.
Just doesn't feel like that's going to be the case
(22:33):
moving forward, Like the separation requires to be just so
much better than head and field above the rest is
you know, I can't see that being the case over
the next 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 need to celebrate
that as well.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Twelve said sir, all right, we'll leave it there. When
we come back after the break, parting shots, we'll get
to that Super League bombshell from John murdeim new TV
deal for Wtacharlos Alcaraz and Chess next Gen Finals, all
of that coming up next. Welcome back to the Open
(23:15):
Era podcast. Simon Party shots on the news this week,
spicy spicy news. Let's talk about the supertur chatter quote unquote,
this is the tweet from John Wortheim. Quote. For what
it's worth, hearing more chatter about the Slams joining to
acquire ten biggest events, forming a supertur brackets, with Saudi
(23:38):
Arabia getting tenth event, leaving ATP and WTA to run
five hundreds and year end finals. A lot of hurdles
to clear, but this would be the proverbial game changer.
Stay tuned. He followed that up Simon saying the way
this has been viewed by the decision makers as sort
of a reset for tennis as they serve the landscape
(24:02):
in the sports world, including the North American sports world
where they're seeing other leagues sign TV deals. He mentioned
the NWSL, the women's soccer league in North America, as
some as a as a kind of a goal post
for them because they just signed a right steal. What
are your thoughts on I mean, on the surface, doesn't
(24:22):
feel great.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
This is this is huge news, by the way, and
all the things that we've ever covered on this podcast,
for the actual structural foundations of tennis itself, this has
got to be one of the biggest things we've have
a coped if it actually happens. There's all I mean,
there's a ton of stuff that's happened since we've done
this podcast on a sort of political and cultural level,
and I'm not kind of just you know, playing that down,
(24:45):
but this from an actual foundational level is enormous if
it does go through and is the way that it's written.
I wrote in our discord that I did not have
the Grand Slams taking over the you know, slicing off
a bigger piece of the pie on my bingo card,
and I think, looking back at it now, that seems
(25:07):
pretty naive on my behalf. I think if you were
looking at this through the long lens of history. This
actually feels quite obvious. Does that make sense? It kind
of feels like if we were so worried about Saudi
Arabia and an oil money state and all that sort
of stuff coming in and someone trying to, you know,
(25:28):
carve off their own section of the tour, there's already
these four massive players who are outsized and in terms
of their stature and in terms of their power, wouldn't
it make sense for them just to take 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 opposed to this on the basis
(25:51):
that I don't think tennis works the way it is,
and I think if this, if we're going to see
some change here, I'm curious to know what actually happens
after this runs for a year or two three. I
don't like the inclusion of Saudi state money on.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
This at all.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Think if this gives a bigger statue to the w
WTA and actually sort of from the ground up, breaks
the structural hold that these institutions have. I'm not opposed
to it. I don't think this is going to be
good in the long run, but I think that might
be in the short run a reasonable thing to shake
up the tour.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I'm of two minds, like when I see things like
we need an F one model, any dreams of maybe
moving the sport towards to maybe more open and welcome
in environmentally friendly way is just not happening, and it's
against fully the capitalist models. So I'm removing that pipe
dream for a second just to say, like, none of
these tours are making money, and like, especially the WTA
(26:46):
is in a real pickle financially, and we saw that
with how the boondog or played out with the WTA finals.
But I think, yeah, I think you're right in the
sense that, like when you look at it laid out
like this, and it seems obvious, and it makes sense
that the Slams, which have an outsized level of importance
in the wider media landscape in terms of the fan recognition.
(27:09):
If you're maybe an average tennis fan, you definitely know
about the Slams full stop. So I think this does
allow for them to maybe start over and try and
make some cash, which we know is the end game here,
and if you do have a unified players outfit, be
it the PTPA or whoever else, to negotiate with them
(27:30):
or work with them, 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 that like
the haves and that the top players will be taken
care of, and that Super League was the big clubs
will be taken care of. But I'm looking at the
rankings today and seeing events are still taking place all
over the world, including players who need to play to
(27:52):
get by. Players not too far out of the one
hundred signon, like players in the one hundred and tens
and one hundred and twenties. What happens to them with this? Right?
I guess the idea is like, what does this actually
look like? Who's in charge? What does it mean? Is
it a merger? Is it a whole new thing put together? Yeah,
(28:13):
obviously we don't know a lot, But I think this
reminds me a bit of the Super League that they
tried in soccer.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I think fundamentally this does not go well for players
ranked outside of the top hundred. I think this is
a terrible, terrible changing situation.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
This is going to be a litmus test for the BDPA.
So it really was, And I think.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's kind of where I'm I'm coming at it from
this perspective, which is that if you have this sort
of structural change, it's up to your labor body to
actually fight for you and make sure that that money
is distributed throughout the tour, because it's sure as shit
doesn't feel like that's going to happen here, like not
with a sort of fledgling union. That's maybe stamp of
(28:53):
rinker House and opinions on about it. But I think
if if this money was to ever actually be distributed
across the tour in general, this could be positive.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
I just have very.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Little faith that that will happen. So you will get
a situation where you have a lot of very very
well compensated people and players and a power structure which
is very very focused on the top and probably a
very very small number of people, which I don't think
(29:25):
is probably good for the game in general. All that
being said, dev tennis is such a mess. Could you
equally see this flaming out inside of two years? I
could equally see that. I guess the Grand slor never starting. Yeah, yeah,
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, I do think it's interesting, it's worth I'm who's
talking about this, Like it does feel like there's been
so much smoke and how disastrous the WTA Finals went.
I don't think it's any now. It's more like, Okay,
we've tried the Noble Act, we've tried the this goes
against our values thing, and we're not sure about this too.
(30:03):
We're a bit of a joke right now in terms
of our execution of events. How do we how do
we make ourselves legitimate once again and and non embarrass
our players who don't deserve this stuff, Like we have
Chris Everett tweeting on the day of the day's Cup
finyl saying my wish for next year is having a
legitimate WTA Finals where our players are celebrated. It's like, okay, like,
(30:25):
what are we protecting here? Not much? The system is bad,
it's terrible.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Well, like just putting this alongside the sort of new
TV deal that you have on the WTA side, and
also the profit sharing stuff that I mean, we didn't
talk about it because it happened while we were taking
a small break, But how does that get incorporated with
into this, with this within this program, because I think
it is interesting. But again, you take the long lens
of history and sort of take a step back from everything.
(30:52):
It's not really a surprise that a bunch of these things,
a bunch of these programs came into being. As soon
as the PTPA mysteriously showed up. Right, shockingly enough, we
start to see, you know, the ATP start to think
about potentially doing some programs that 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
(31:14):
it's one of those I mean we said I 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 compare it to other situations, which is that
poor people tend to get fucked and the rich tend
to do really well.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Out of it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, it's kind of where I mean, easy as Machine
in front of the show on Discord makes a good
points like at the current stage where we're going with
tennis is a slowish death to where we are going
to exhibition only five items, which I agree with.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
By the way, I think that is legitimately a good point,
Like it's dying before our eyes. Certainly the WTA is
unless you're going to start taking you know, directly money
from oil barons and from you know, the worst of
the worst. Like I think that is legitimately a fair
point to make.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Do you think that announcement about the new WTA television
deal with Sky and Canal PLU? You think it's kind
of weird that the ATP's mentioned so heavily in that release.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
What's going on? Like, I know none of these organizations
talk to each other, but like these are two massive
announcements that 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 like a bunch
of ten five hundred tournaments? Is that what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Like we're buying them by round. It's okay, I'll take
a quarter finals a row that's for twenty bucks final.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
It's astonishing. Like imagine imagine showing up to have a
rights discussion with in the footballing world and you're like, uh,
I mean this leave might not exist in like next year.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. This can we
sell ad to get this? What is our inventory?
Speaker 4 (33:04):
The FA Cup might not exist, so you can buy
the package, but like by the core final stage, it
might not be there anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
So yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
What a random situation to follow a sport dying and
also trying to figure out ways of resuscitate itself. And
I actually think Canary and the coal mine situation, just
given the state of the global financial situation, given the
bond market, and given the state of all of like
both public finances and another state of a lot of
(33:35):
like private companies as well who have over leveraged on
cheap got drunk on cheap money, who are now paying
the price for it. Is this going to be a
situation that goes into other sports as well? Are we
going to start seeing other organizations fall apart?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well, there's a huge television issue in North America with
all the regional sports networks going under and declaring bankruptcy.
So yeah, I mean yes, is the answer. The way
sports are consumed or like the way we watch has
already changed so significantly. But I do wonder what happens
(34:11):
when some of these companies that popped up in the
last five three five years go belly up really quickly
when it seemed like this was the new age.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
If we take into consideration that basically, like the version
of neoliberal capitalism exploded in two thousand and eight, right
like that system it failed, like it completely fell apart,
and since that moment we've been putting like we've resuscitated
it using the you know, the heart defibrillator, and then
(34:41):
we started putting band aids on it all over the place,
and it just kind of you know, things blew 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 see what how
happens after this?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
All right, shall we move on? WTA starts on vacation.
Speaker 5 (35:06):
So did you see this article?
Speaker 4 (35:08):
I did, Yes, I did WTA website trying to do
a roundup of where all these players are going in
their quote unquote off season.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
That's right, hours yeah, four hours of time off.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I mean it did lead me to ask the question of,
like how long do these players actually get off before
they going to Australia and starting 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
in November, before you're starting to go down to Australia
and start hitting again, what would you do?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think two weeks, I'd probably do South America. I'd
I think i'd do Chile or Peru for two weeks,
try and do that area, maybe dip down to Argentina.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
So which player would you be? Let's have a look.
We're going to do some mid two thousands BuzzFeed.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I think the Maldives is a popular choice. I've noticed
Bali of course. I think Caroline Garcia went to Antarctica,
which is kind of cool. Not looking so hot up
there melting wise saw some penguins though, so I mean
that's positive. But overall, yikes, overall, a lot of la shots,
(36:27):
you know, I found Simon and does you tell me this?
I feel like Brits especially, but Europeans love Los Angeles?
Los Angeles? Is it does it due to the lack
of sunlight?
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Yes? I think so.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
I think it also get glamorized as well, right, Is
this fair? Incredible? Every britt I've.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
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'm like, oh, because the sun is out for
more than twenty six minutes.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Talk about the places you could go in in North America,
especially in the United States, LA would not be close
to the top of the list for me.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Getting out of the airport. It's long enough where you're
like this this, but no Elle is good. I like La.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Actually, I enjoyed visiting it for e three, like the
twice that I went, and a couple of other times,
just for different work you're not doing.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think if you're going for a convention, it's way
different kind of atmosphere, right, Like it's it's a fake place,
but at a convention, good lord, you're you're just thinking
a whole different side.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Right.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
That is a city which I think is basically unsavable
from from all of the Empire.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But my sister's listening just to La, and I think
it's like, La is good. I like La, But I
feel like people who visit La make it worse by
what they think it is. Is that fair?
Speaker 5 (37:40):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I mean, if you take into consideration that we're trying
to undo all of the love and planning from the
nineteen forties onwards. I don't think LA's making huge strides
and doing that right. It's not a particularly walkable place,
not a particularly green place either.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
What's your pick for where'd you go?
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I thought about this long and hard, and I sort
of settled on I think I'm just an autumn person
in general, so I would try and find someone that
has a late autumn season. I kind of like some
of the shots that I saw with Madison Keys, just
a bit of lace. I like, just like a nice jacket,
a nice walk in some leafy forest somewhere.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You're in your your shacket, era? Is that what you're saying?
Your shack it? Era?
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Oh my god?
Speaker 4 (38:22):
What the hell has happened to me? Can I find
a demonstration of more thirty year old version of me?
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Pumpkin spice hair shampoo utilized? Yeah, that's disgusting. Carlos Acres,
I'm been playing chess.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
What a world didn't know he was such a chess man.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, Luke, friend of the show, Luke on the discord,
there's a chesspot you can play against Carlos alcarez Ai
in which he's telling you about stuff you don't want
to talk about while you're playing chess. You know we will.
It's sick. It's okay, I guess you would say that,
but also play your next move. Sir See said exactly.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
I have very little to say about this story other
than it's kind of cool that he's playing chess.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This is marketing, baby, This is how you get. This
is my target, the chess market, the chess market. This
is we are missing the chess.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
I'd love to talk to Luca.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
He need more chess voice in antennis? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
It's like we need more bought license plates in the
gift shop, more chess.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You are missing out on the chess demographic. Five God damn.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I think this is a conversation that I need to
have with Luke at some point. Is the chess demographic wealthy?
Do we actually want to attract him into the sport?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I have a whole episode. 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.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Yeah, It's it's enormous and I recommend actually going and
looking at the ATP website because they like, is this
all redundant? Though, Like, I don't know what is the
world that we're living in at this point.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
There's a asterix that says MBS will decide to tank
this you wants.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I mean, that's the other thing that we didn't mention
about that opening segment is how involved like who's running it?
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Like which which figure? Which yeah, yeah, where's the money
money coming from?
Speaker 4 (40:10):
From that perspective, so the this is a good article
like because it's it's dealing with all of the the
quote unquote one vision strategic plan, which again is quite
shady in terms.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Of they take isn't that what the Soundi's called there?
What's going on here? They take the branding too, yes,
and a lot of it here is fluff. But one
of the things I think I thought was interesting in
the middle of the article was it was basically talking
about how the media revenue that Tennis gets is exceptionally low.
(40:43):
I come up with the language they use. They use
something that I was that I looked at and thought,
the fuck are you saying that in public? Forain because
it was like I think it was like media revenue
is low in comparison to other sports, which is like
one of the most honest truths I think I've ever
seen from the a TP we down bad.
Speaker 5 (41:01):
Please help us.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
We don't know what we're doing. We're trying nothing ever,
roll out of ideas.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I'm imagining Watt's an IBM robots saying this in the
computer being like, well, I'm not contabulating service speed. I
do our profit reports.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
We have solely targeted people who watches table television who
are in the sixty to ninety demographic and have tried
nothing else.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
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
deal is happening potentially to shake it all up.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
I thought it was a fascinating read. I really did, like,
if you're a proper nerd when it comes to the
tora or understand the quote the supposed changes that are
coming to I thought it was one of the more
interesting things that I've seen in a long time.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
If you're googling sphere fifty profit sharing formula Q and
a on the ACP tour dot com website. So yeah,
check that out. Published November seventh. A lot of info
in there could be all moot though once this new deal,
once the chatter develops into something else. Speaking of Saudi Arabia, Simon,
we end with the next Gen Finals. I mentioned there's
(42:21):
a bunch of Challenger events going on all over the world,
but in terms of the ACP, the last last thing,
so called thing on the calendar the next Gen Finals
in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I'll ask you a question about this, dev So we
were in Saudi Arabia for 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
rights and the laws that it sort of it's exclusionary,
pick any number of isms that you want in terms
of it's.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
It's it's record.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
And then there's also the money and where does the
money come from as well. I feel like it is
worth saying off the top on this one that the
Saudi people themselves. I feel like we don't have to
say this, but like there's nothing against the Saudi people,
and I feel like we need to make that abundantly clear.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
They don't them are in these photos either. I noticed
from the website. There's someone from Saudi Arabia really around
any of these guys as they do the tour in gender.
Isn't that a bit strange?
Speaker 5 (43:27):
It is a little strange.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yes, Like there's no one around, There's no one there.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I make that point because of all the sort of
feces thrown at Jordan Henderson, I think quite rightly so
is that we always talk at like these organizations, the
institutions do it to say like it's for the good
of the people, right, We 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,
(43:52):
so it's not spreading the game, It just isn't in
that capacity.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Who has the access to this kind of stuff, Who.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Has the access and who benefits from this? I think
that's the biggest thing that I'm curious to see what
comes out of this Next Gen Finals because this is,
you know, again, this is a really interesting litmus test
where tennis is going.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
As always, they're trying some new rules at this event,
which I think is the best thing they do for
the next Gen Finals Simon, but these some of these
are very interesting. No on court warm up matches start
immediately after the coin toss a second serve shot clock,
which will be eight seconds between first and second serve.
Novak not rafa. All these players are disqualified. Basically if
(44:33):
this z ever came in, reduced time between points down
from twenty five to fifteen seconds following an ace, double
faultered unreturned serve, reduced changeovers, no change events after the
first game. So those are the big 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 this faster. But I also feel like we're hope.
(44:53):
We're basically like, well, don't get injured, guys, because we're
gonna go way faster.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Good luck.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Again, I've said this before, like it's the it's the
boomer marketing mentality, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
All these kids, there's TikTok.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Way faster whatever you do. Listen, if they had a
sniper in the crowd with a red dot on someone
and a player going too slow, I wouldn't be surprised
if that was an idea here, because holy crow, like
I get it, I get they want to make things
faster and then uts is getting at some of these things,
but too.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
Louder than that. Okay, lots of.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
One of you just want to call it a day
and we'll just say, like they go one.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
How are you feeling.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Some of the other stuff. Simplified scoreboard produce height umpire
chair height, which I find very interesting. I guess that's
for like the fans behind.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
How is that an innovation? This is another one of
those we've worked in demometery. Did I find something to
pat out? The pr.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Is that so that players losing their mind well assaulted
lionepire accidentally free fan movement? So I guess they can
move around when points are going on, do whatever they want.
So yeah, I don't know. How do you feel about
this stuff?
Speaker 5 (46:11):
It's a meaningless tournament, do it?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Honestly? Pray for all these kids. Bless these boys who
will be subjected to these hunger games in the next
gen finals.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Oh man, what a great idea on the on the
eve of the next one coming out, right, it might
be as already in the cinemas already good time as
Italian think about it next year, people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Arthur Fee is curious to watch him. Dominic Stricker most
punishable face in the game. We got calling right now.
He's a lovely lad. Okay, Alex Nicholson. I think he'll
be pretty good too.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Not a big fan of his dad. Have to say, Phil,
is it Phil Nicholson? There's no way who wins this tournament?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Probably Arthur feels King Arthur as his fans call him.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
How did you crush the earlier pronunciation in French and
then call him Phil's?
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, King Arthur because that's his new nickname going forward.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
That's why Phil Phil.
Speaker 4 (47:10):
Himself fill it up. I think van Ash wins this.
I think I okay, l v A va. We just
can't call him his name.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
There's I love how there's like there's we just mentioned
those guys and there's like forty Italians they are coming. Man.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Cobody's good as well. I think that kid's really talented.
Keep an eye on him.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Awesome, Okay, we did a good job that tournament. Actually,
I'm being serious. That was good stuff, Simon. Finally, two
challenges remaining. What do you got sir?
Speaker 3 (47:43):
This week?
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Can I shout out the lock picking Lawyer channel on YouTube?
Speaker 5 (47:47):
Have you ever watched this?
Speaker 2 (47:49):
That sounds fascinating? Oh? What is it is.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
Literally what it sounds like. It is a lawyer locks
if I can't sell this to you in the next
thirty second and doing a bad job.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
But why what is this like? He's so people are
asking him to do it.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
His big thing is basically like lock, so locks, mechanical
physical locks and security has not evolved in like seventy
or eighty years. And the companies are who are running
it are pulling the wall over people's eyes by claiming
that their stuff is more secure than it actually is.
So his big thing is to demonster any of the locks. Buying.
(48:29):
Big lock is keeping under lock and key that all the.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Secrets always suspected them.
Speaker 5 (48:34):
I always suspect that.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Wow, okay, I'm going to check this out. Interesting.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
I thought it was fascinating, especially I fell onto I
stumbled onto it, sorry with in search of a new
good bike lock. And the conclusion that I came away
from it is if a thief wants your bike, they
will get your bike, no matter what you think.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
So terrifying.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
Okay, just think of your bike lock as one part
of a wider package of security.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
It's a healthy amount of fear mongering. Kill you our
listeners at the time, and thank you very much for that.
Uh listener, hold onto your bike at all costs. Mine
is about Black Friday sales. Simon, you want a boomer take,
here's mine. It's not a sale on Black Friday. If
it's twenty five percent, get the hell out of here.
If you're offering a Black Friday sale for twenty five percent,
(49:18):
I saw twenty percent, Simon, what have you? No shame?
It's not a sale.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
What do you classify as a sale?
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Then at least forty percent on Black Friday on quote
unquote Cyber Monday, that's not a deal twenty percent?
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Can we can we continue this boomer take by saying
Black Friday shouldn't have started two weeks ago either, Like what,
what's too bad?
Speaker 5 (49:42):
It's all bad?
Speaker 2 (49:42):
We said that terrible football game happen called the Black
Friday Game. It's bad, man, It's bad.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Is there anything more? North American? Trying to shed a
load of shit that you have overstalked on to a
bunch of ravenous people. I love it so much.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
A single to your emergence from my eye as I
sing the American anthem, it's beautiful?
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Do you buy anything on Black Friday?
Speaker 2 (50:05):
By the way that I bought a backpack.
Speaker 5 (50:07):
Yeah, then you need a new backpack.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 5 (50:11):
What happened to your old one?
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I bought it in Vancouver when I still lived there,
for twenty dollars after my EA backpack was stolen at
a restaurant.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, do you remember that I do? That bag that
I bought for twenty bucks lasted like six years. It's
pretty good. That's pretty good, Roi, as they say in
the investment streets, right.
Speaker 4 (50:31):
I feel like the one thing that I have of
Vancouver on myself is a hershel Hershel bag, which I've
had for like six years now, and it's still going strong.
It's faded considerably, but it's still going strong.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
I love hearing stories.
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Like that, life people.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
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 years that lasted. Obviously,
you sucks, okay. Join us on Patreon, dot com, Forward
slash open Era, get the show early on Sundays, get
an ad free plus join us on the Discord where
(51:10):
chat tennis all the time. She has to my sister
ERMI for joining the discord most recently. I think she's
been a long time Patreon member, but she has just
joined the discord. So that's cool. SI family takeover, Simon,
it's happening. We're also on Twitter dot com, slash x
open air Pod. Every now and then some tweets will
(51:32):
come out, but yeah, what a terrible place that's become
these days. Not great and also fair. Simon was on
the ground floor of this as well, and he was right.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
I wrote a deck back just as an aside before
we close the episode.
Speaker 5 (51:48):
I wrote a deck back in twenty.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
Seventeen saying that Twitter was a disaster, published it to
a big company.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
They didn't listen to the prophet, they turned their backs
on him, and look where we are now. Producer d
for Producer on The Ones and Tuesday, and for Simon.
Thank you so much for listening to Open Eera. We'll
talk to you next week.
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