November 4, 2024 • 46 mins
The tennis world is returning to Canada, bar a few notable exceptions, and Simon and Devang are quite excited. On this week’s Open Era, the guys preview the National Bank Open in Toronto and Montreal, and preview the chances of the various Canadians including FAA, Milos, Bianca and Leylah. Then they dig into parting shots, where the takes remain scalding and smart. We’re a humble podcast.
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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 Era Podcast. My name
is Debg Decai and this week Simon and I are
off again. Simon is actually in Paris at the Paris Masters.
Was hoping to get a look at Carlos Alkerrez live
in the final, but unfortunately, as I speak, one of
the most cursed finals could be witnessed by Bush himself
(00:23):
this weekend, so we hope that didn't happen. We hope
we got to see some good tennis at Paris Bercy.
But in the meantime, we're going to look back at
the episode we did last year when we were both
in person in Toronto when Simon is in town, and
we talked about both the ADP and WTA after the
events in Canada, and also just got a chance to
(00:47):
catch up, which is always fun to do with Bush.
So enjoyed this episode, but we'll have a new one
next week and we'll talk to Simon about his experience
watching tennis live at the Paris Masters. So enjoy it
this week and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for
listening to Open Era.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hello and welcome to the Open Era podcast. My name
is de Vega Sai and I'm joined as always by
mister Simon Bush or Bush, they're finally off the clay courts.
It's over, is it? I believe Kitsch Fuel is the
last men's clay court tournament, leaving us fully in to
(01:37):
the hardcourt season as Washington has happened, and we now
look to the Canadian hardcourt swing. Any lasting memories from
clay before I ask.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
You about how you're doing what a time? I feel
like we're going to it. We'll have our memories of
this wonderful clay court swing that lasted all of twenty days,
no less than that fourteen days maybe, or you're asking
me of my opinions of the entire clay coursewing, not
just this ridiculous one that got shoved in after the
(02:08):
grass course.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I honestly, I wasn't asking you a true question because
I was trying to once again poke fun at the
ridiculous scheduling that we do see in the sport we love.
But yeah, I was trying to make a joke. Bush.
It might not have landed. But it is hardcourt season,
and it does feel like a weird time in the
calendar generally because this is kind of the end of summer, Bush,
(02:33):
But it does feel like we're just getting started. In
some ways, it does.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I'm actually curious to know the answer to a question
which has long puzzled me, which is what is the
reason for so many tournaments post Wimwooeden in this gap
before you get into the North American hard courts wing? Like,
why is there just all of this flurry of tournaments.
I guess it's a summer thing and a desire to
(02:58):
make use of the European summer, but like we've been
getting tournaments everywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, and this feels almost like the working class time
for most of the two I know Ego won a
title not too recently, but these are the people who
need these paychecks and they got to play, and that's
why these tournaments exist. But I do get what you mean.
I'm just watching the Hamburg Open and the lesson about
that better, but I just watching that it felt like
(03:25):
a big event, and I think, if you talk to
the German discord user, we have Torquette like it is
a signature event I think on the German tennis calendar,
so it makes sense why it has such festivities associated
with it. But then you zoom out slightly and you're like, Okay,
why is this happening. Now, who designed the calendar? Could
(03:46):
this be better? I know it's only going to get
a bit weirder as we go on in the years,
and these Masters events end up being longer Bush because
eventually these termans just won't exist. So maybe we should
enjoy the weirdness that is these.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Gas agreed, Yes, I feel like the less set about
Hamburg the better. But lets we forget, of course Hamburg
a previous one thousand event, not anymore. But yes, it's
an interesting tournament. I shouldn't I should not shit talk it.
It's a good it's a good event.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Trophy is still weird as hell. We just won't talk
about the winner very much. Washington well underway as we
record this Bush, we won't predict winners so we don't
look foolishly wrong when this comes out on your feed.
But getting a glimpse early at some sweet North American
hardcourt action, and now looking ahead to Toronto and Montreal,
(04:35):
I was curious to see how Felix would look as
we kind of zoom in on the Canadians who are
going to be playing in the Canadian Open. He didn't
look great, man, and he hasn't looked great for a while.
He was doing some press before the Washington Tournament talking
about his season and talking about how generally bad it's been,
and also the fact that he's been dealing with some injuries,
(04:56):
a few of them actually Bush, but this lost to
a lot of neukie into devastating tie breaks. I mean,
I feel badly for him in the sense that the
spotlight's only going to increase in Toronto and there will
be a lot more questions about his season so far.
But it doesn't feel like a turnaround is coming anytime quickly.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Certainly doesn't, does it. It's been such a rollercoaster of
emotions for him through twenty twenty three. I don't know, dude,
Like it's when you're sitting at literally five hundred in
terms of your win lost record. I think he's thirteen
and thirteen on the season. I think also maybe that
speaks to the fact that he's not really played a
whole lot. I know, twenty six matches is nothing to sniff,
(05:37):
all right, but at this stage of the season, I
think you kind of want a few more. I think
you want to have got a few more under your belt.
And speaks to some of the injuries and some of
the general struggles that he's had during the course of
this season. Dude, it like, what's going on. We're so
far removed, I think from when we were really thinking
(05:59):
he was turning a coin and that it was going
to be smooth siting that he was going to be
a consistent top ten, top five player, and it's not
really happened, has it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It hasn't. And I think to his credit, I think
he's saying all the right things. And I was reading
an article on the ATP website about how he's talking
through this season and kind of reflecting with gratitude about
the things that he was able to accomplish and the
fact that there's very few athletes that are able to
go through their careers without dealing with injuries and trying
(06:31):
to keep a positive attitude. But I do think you
see on the court when things do not go well,
it's it's hard to hide that feeling of pain that
you can see from him, and that makes it tough
to watch. But I mean, this guy's turning twenty three
in a few days. This is early doors still, But
I do think a conversation that Josh started on the
(06:55):
discord as well was interesting regarding Felix's long term out look,
and maybe the fact that Carl Zalcaaz coming on the
scene has maybe put a ceiling on what he thinks
he can do now now that there is someone that
is so clearly defined as the next one. But well,
the next one he's already there, So I wonder if
there's some psychological stuff there, as Josh mentioned, But it
does feel a bit nutty to me to think that
(07:18):
we're a year removed from Felix being as good as
he was and here we are with a bit of
a back to the drawing boards scenario. But this has
happened to a lot of players as well, Simon, So
I do think that the long term outlook remains positive,
but I do wonder what our our expectations are for him,
and maybe they've altered a bit.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I think the expectation still should be that he should
be competing from Grand slams. I don't think anything's ready
changed in that regard. Considering his overall talent level and
ability level, I don't think that has changed, and in
many ways I think he'd probably make the argument that
he should be coming more into his own with the
(07:59):
apps sense of a lot of the Big three. I
mean literally, one of them was retired, one of them
is almost certainly retired, and then one of them is
at best a part timer, at worst a fourth part timer.
So there's that side of things. I think there's also
a side of it, which is that I remember listening
(08:21):
to an interview that he was a felix ogilium. Asscene
was saying and almost saying that he's not really had
to deal with the whole lot of injuries during his
career and trying to battle against adversity for the really
first time and trying to get a sense of how
to overcome this and how to deal with being off
the court and not playing as many matches as possible.
(08:42):
I think that's the side of the spot that we
don't talk about enough, which is that the resilience it
takes and the drive to continue to come back from
these things. Big injuries are one thing, but small, niggling
injuries to play through them. So yeah, it's one of
those things where we will just have to watch and
see how the rest of this season unfolds. That twenty
three Mark is kind of curious because his counterpoint on
(09:04):
the women's side of Bianca Andrasca twenty three as well.
It's kind of crazy to believe. At the same age
we believe it.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Recorded an episode called Canadians Rising four years ago about
how this generation was coming in. Hey, Grand Slam was one,
so I have no regrets, no regrets about that episode
at all.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But a couple of Slam finals and a couple of
Slam semi finals.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, they've done quite well. They've done quite well. Felix
was at six in the world last year, right, so
it's yeah. The other thing that you made me think
of Simon is like, I'm actually going to all these events,
playing once and losing and then having to leave. And
I feel like he's done that a lot. And that
also must be a bit soul destroying. As you're traveling
(09:53):
around the world and practicing, practicing, practicing, play, lose, gone,
and you're you're on in the next place. I wonder
where that's like cannot be easy at all. I wanted
to talk about Chapo as well, Bush, because he will
not be playing in Toronto. You mentioned in our Wimbledon
recap his knee injury and how he didn't seem optimistic
(10:14):
about it, and it looks like you were correct, because
he will be out for at least the National Bank Open.
You know, before Wimbledon, push Dennis was having a similar
year to Felix in the sense that he was he
was having these stop starts and failing to really build momentum,
and it did feel like maybe something was happening for
him at Wimbledon. But this sucks because I think obviously
(10:37):
this tournament means a lot to him.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It does. He can take some solace in the fact
that he did get engaged during the last two weeks though,
So that's.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What I think.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It's not all bad, probably pretty good. He's been in
pretty good about life in general. At least I hope
he is. Jesus he got a hope.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So who knows what social media actually means and it's
all probably lies, But his Instagram seems generally okay. I
don't know I what to read into Instagram.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Three, what do you think exactly? Something around that? Can
I ask you a question to the Canadian Open as
we please switch gears and get into the actual tournament itself.
Who are defending champions? Could you do it? Off the
top of your head in men's and women's there is
I'm asking this is, and it's not to to show
(11:21):
you up or anything. I genuinely forgot the results of
this tournament.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I believe. I believe one of them is bands now
from the sports. So yeah here your training champ promptly
banned after winning in Toronto, not for the drugs, but
for appearing. No. Yeah, that that's this end she has
loved here. Oh it's huge Romanian support. I remember that
(11:48):
man the men's winner. Though it's gotta be not PCB,
it is PCB.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I did not remember this. Oh my god, I completely nothing.
They blocked this from my I though Danny Mevida was
a defending Shepard, but then I realized that was a
whole year road.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, PCB beat he we here catch in the final.
Dan Evans is in the semis last year. I'm I'm
glad Toronto is didn't get that one last year. Oh yo,
you know what? You know why we memory hold that
tournament because that was the day or the tournament where
Casa Rude just dummied Felix one six two in the corner. God,
oh god, that's why we blocked it out. We're gonna
(12:27):
get a better show this time around. Alcharaz is there
the men generally are all there. Chapo's not, Novak is not.
But outside of that, well attended Milosh is there. Bush.
The sentimentality factor is going to be through the moon
for this man and for his sake. Even though I
do not think this is his last tournament, he said
(12:49):
on match Point Canadian Tennis pod, give that a listen,
great show. He said that this is not his final tournament,
but God give me a cool Milosh moment during a
night session with the arm.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Sleeve and the bandana. Of course, I don't think that.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I think he's matured. He's matured out of it, really
and it makes me feel old. Yeah, I don't think
it's coming back.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Can we not say that he matured into it? Is
that not? Fine?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
No, that's true. It's true. Storylines though here Bush like
no Novak, so we're not going to get Carlos Novack again,
which is slightly disappointing. But I do think there is
something to be said about the Chase pack and like
who we consider part of it and with Alcarez, the
well defined Number one talked about Holgar Rune, A lot
(13:35):
talked about Yannick Center, A lot talked about Danil Medvedev.
A lot, and I mean Daniel Nevedev for some is
the favorite for a lot of these tournaments that we're
going to cover in the next few weeks. But who
are you most intrigued about, Simon to watch as we
as we head into the US Open.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So I think there was two very clear storylines to me,
one on the men's and one on the women's. On
the men's side, to me, the biggest storyline here is
how does Danny Meffit ever look on a hard court.
That's the one that's really really intriguing to me, because
last time we saw him in a hard court, he
looked utterly and completely dominant getting back on the blue stuff,
and I'm curious to see how he holds up if
(14:14):
he wins this tournament, and if he looks dominant, it
would not shock me. And I also don't think i'd
be shocked if he managed to beat Carlo Sakaraz in
this tournament. He doesn't have great record though, don't look
that up. But that being said, I'm very intrigued to
see how Nation redacted looks in this tournament. On the
flip side of that, the women's tournament, I think the
(14:36):
clear question for me is Sabalanca gonna get to world
number one and is she gonna look as good as
she has done on the rest of the season in
the transition to hard court, Because I think she's the
best player out of that top three on this surface,
and I'm very fascinated to see whether or not she
holds that standard at this first one thousand event of
(14:57):
the hard court summer, because I think she will. I
think she I think she's the favorite for this tournament.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Montreal's going to get a show I think the WTA
usually produces, but Ans is not going to be there.
That's disappointing. But you have just a pretty incredible crew
of wild cards. Bianca and Rescue needing a wild card
due to her ranking, Leila Fernandez who found magic in Washington,
which I think is a great sign heading into this tournament,
(15:22):
Rebecca Marino rounding at the Canadian trio, and then Venus
and Caroline Bosniaki. I mean, that's pretty cool. Jen Brady's back,
which is also very good to see that she's been
dealing with a crazy amount of injuries and man, she's
produced some of the best matches we've seen over the
last three or four years. It kind of not shocked
because I understand where they are at this point in
(15:46):
their season, but that Bianca and Layla both needed wild
card Simon. But if the State of thinks like the
highest ranked Canadians, I believe Beyonca down in the forties
somewhere in the forties four. I think she is forty fourth. Yeah,
Like that's it's interesting. I mean, we praise, praise, praise
the depth and it is true, there's nothing false about that,
(16:08):
but it also means it is tough sledding for these
players to get into these draws without needing wild cards
are to qualify.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Is it really depth when you've had three women basically
dominate the year so far or is that a different story?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Anyway, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And we're not praising Benjamin Bonzi that much for being
like the fifty and slugging it through because there's fourteen
frenchmen in the top one hundred. Yeah, I think that's fair.
Maybe I just do think that, like you're I mean,
in Leila's case, like you're having to play a hell
of a lot of masses just to get into the
draws in it perhaps for her this is a good
(16:46):
thing because of the struggle she's had right with consistency,
but she played the qualities that in Washington trounce Katie Boulter,
which was awesome and again an excellent sign. So maybe
it's a good thing that she has to play more
match is considering where her ranking is at. But I
just find it it's it's so hard to establish establish
(17:08):
yourself once you've you've fallen once. And I don't mean
to say that Layla's like fallen from grace, but she's
had a dip, like a visible dip, a bit of
a different dip than Beianca's had, and I think it's
going to be fascinating to see how she can respond
from that.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, definitely some slander towards Katie Bollert there by the
way you're talking to a British Cannadian here, I know
you can't can't fully go in.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
That directed pointed slander just to.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Kind of finish off on the Andrescu point, because she
was interviewed. She's didn't press around a lot of the
stuff going into Montreal, and National Broadcaster actually caught it
with both of them, both Fernandez Andresco. But I think
one of the quotes that was interesting out of that
was Andrescuo basically saying that she was hoping to play
until she was thirty, saying that she her body felt
(17:57):
good and she had the desire and the commitment to
keep going, and then I think she had at least
thirty was the actual quote. So I feel like she's
not done or anything. Phil has the belief and the
desire to keep going and nothing to be ashamed of
her being forty four in the world. I think the
other side of that as well, And part of that
interview was her saying that her patience was getting a
(18:18):
bit like thin in the sense that she felt like
forty four was a decent ranking and she felt like
a season was okay. But in general, when you've tasted
those highs and you've reached them, you feel like you
can achieve more. And I think she's definitely feeling that,
and I think you can get that sense as well
when you watch her on court, because she I think
she clearly believes she can be anyone in the world.
(18:38):
Although yeah, we'll wait and see on that front. I
think this actually could be an interesting tournament to it.
You could definitely see a scenario where she gets bounced
round one and doesn't look very good. And you could
also see a scenario where she actually does run deep
and uses the crowd and uses this as a bit
of a revitalization of her season because she's clearly capable
big time.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I don't know if you saw that there actually gets
cost chuck in the crowd, basically derailing Bianca in that match,
yelling out during her missus and her unforced errors and
during her server was brutal, and she she sent out
a sarcastic tweet just being like love this sport. And
I went and smiley faced, and I'm like, haha, maybe
(19:18):
not playing till thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I'd be surprised. Better chances, better chances, Ashbarty comes back
wins the slam, or Bianco plays all thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I think it's more likely that Andessica plays til thirty.
I still believe that at one point. I hope, so yeah,
and we can maybe touch on it and potting shots.
But like Washington and Hamburg both being men and women,
like combined tournaments. It's pretty cool, Like.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
It's pretty cool, pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Maybe we should do more of that, agreed.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I'd like to get to Washington. It looks like a
cool setup. Down there. Kevin Durant, also in attendance, watching
Chris Eubanks cool stuff. Canadian Open is going to be fun.
I'm going to be down there a bunch spoiler for
my one challenge remaining, but yeah, excited for this bush,
Excited for Live Tennis to once again get a glimpse
(20:09):
into how fast and hard professionals hit the ball.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Let's ask this question to sort of close this segment. Now,
what is the area of York like devang in Toronto?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Jeez, So it's it's York, It's North York slash Vaughn.
You're getting into Vaughan Territory. There's a large mall beside there.
There's obviously the school, residential communities. I was just there.
I was just there actually visiting a hospital that's for
side an amusement park. So there's a huge amusement park
(20:43):
called Canada's Wonderland up in that area as well. It's interesting.
It's uh, I don't know that. You know, the transit
in Toronto is quite awful, but they've extended the subway
line into that area of the city, so getting there
is no longer a hard and that's made I think
the experience at this event a lot better, so public
(21:06):
Transit please invest war.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well you've got a new mayor and everything in Toronto,
maybe you actually might have some of that stuff happening.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
We've got a lot of problems, man, I don't know what.
I don't know how Whish's going to start, but we
got a lot of problems. Sorry, we'll leave the graping there.
When we come back on Open Era, it's parting shots
planning to get through as always, join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Welcome back to the Open Air podcast. It's time for
parting shots Devang and we are back exactly Well, we
wanted to be the UTS. Baby, it was back. We
might have taken a week off, but get returned. Did
you see any of this with it?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Without you? I would have no idea. The UTS is back.
I love any time I hear about this. It's from you,
and I wore is my heart. But also actually the
only thing I saw was a quote from Wortaglu saying
the crowd is the third player in UTS, which I
laughed at. But did Taylor Fritz win? This is that
(22:16):
what happened?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
No, he absolutely did not. Witness Wu Ying Bing won
this tournament.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Wooh, that's right, Okay, okay, are you fully bought in
on this? This design now uts Los Angeles?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I think one of the things that stuck out to
me is the fact that there's actually two of these
events happening this year. Is this first one in LA
and there's a second one so I think it's in Europe,
isn't it or something like that. I can't remember how
little I know about this event. I don't know about
this whole thing. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna call
it what it is. I think this is a bit
of a shit show. Although one of the best things
(22:49):
about this whole event was the nickname for Alexander Publick.
Did you see what his nickname was? What his introduction was?
Because you've got this general like rubbish stuff. So Benoir
pere as the rebel.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, the great wall Woo Woo is who's a genius?
He came up with Woo's god Bublic. I can only imagine, No,
what is it book? Okay, they called Ben Shelton the Mountain.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What I don't know. Public Enemy number one is really
quite good.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
That is good. Listen, that is good. That is good.
And I give them full praise.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
All of this being said, the UTES in its in
its entirety should only exist if all of these players
had puns as the introduction. That's the only way that
they should be allowed to carry on in this tournament.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, I feel like this is right up our alley, though,
These these horrible nicknames are something that we could support,
and I will, you know what, write mark this down,
dear listener. I'm gonna praise Patrick Wartagalu for a second,
but when he came up with this, this is like
peak pandemic, right, Like, things were looking real bad and
we desperately needed some some saney tennis and he provided
(23:59):
it to us with that ugoesque tennis game.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So I think one of the selling points for the
UTS is it's almost TikTok ivocation slash. It's very grammable
in the sense that you have these points which have like,
you know, dramatic things that could happen on them. So
there's something that's slightly outside of the norm. So you
have like your trap card or something being played, and
(24:25):
your point system and all that kind of stuff. So
I did take two the uts's TikTok feed to see
how it was going to go during the course of
the week. I thought it was kind of shit. I
would like to give you better information and I would
like to, you know, have a stronger point on this,
but like overall, it did nothing for me, and it
(24:45):
kind of feels like this is not working. I mean,
it's not working for me. I think it's more is
more accurate here.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
In the pickupball wares. You gotta you gotta support your allies.
And even though this is a weird, weird amalgamation of tennis,
I feel like this is a net positive. The quarters
are weird, the quarters are strange. I don't necessarily think
all of the tweaks are good, but it's not the
worst thing I've seen.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
I didn't send I should have taken this photo. I'm
sad that I missed it because I was down at
a tennis court in Vancouver, which you know, think about
the demographic of people that are playing tennis in Vancouver.
It is of an older crowd, I will say. And
on a homemade sign, damn, I'm so so sad I
didn't take a photo of this. It said on like
(25:35):
it's just a white a four piece of paper with
like almost comic sands level of black font on it.
No to pickleball, No to boomer ball.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
How did you not take a photo of that? It
feels like the only reason they made cameras on phone.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's such good fodder for our discourse, and I missed
out on the opportunitia phbit oh dear. Anyway, I thought
it was very funny.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I enjoyed it great stuffy. I started lambasting uts Andy
you for bringing it up, and now I am saying,
it's the last the last things standing between us pickleball.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, don't flatten that. We don't want anything to do
with pickleball anyway. Whatever, let's move on slightly. You also
open happen during the course of the week. You mentioned
it in segment one. I guess we're gonna take one
this tournament. It was a home tournament. She managed to
fit in another bagel. So anyone who's keeping track of this,
it's starting to get up there. She's very very she's
(26:37):
flirting with it. It has to be said, she's going
to get very close to this, to this record by
the end of the season. It was cool to see
he'll win this tournament, and I think it cements her
place at the top of the rankings. And also I
think it also reminds us of just how good she
is coming out of the grass court season. I think
(26:57):
struggling a little bit, right, I think, looking more human
than we expected her to. And then did you see
this comment about her hat? Were you aware of?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I did? I did?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I did. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Do you believe that her hat is causing problems about
her marketability?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I don't. I don't. I honestly I didn't. I didn't
see this one coming in the in the grab bag
of eager things that EGA is not good for or
like the eager hater the Rito ball. I didn't expect
this chip to come out. But I don't think it's good.
I don't think it's a good one at all. At first,
I thought it was a troll and not real. But yeah,
(27:37):
I mean people, I just don't. I don't. I don't
know what people want exactly, Like she's literally perfect for
tennis in so many ways, like do you not understand
what we have here?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
But not being said, let's move on slightly. We mentioned
it in the first segment as well. It was cool
to see some joint tournaments, to see Hamburg being a
joint event between the men and the women, the same
thing with Washington as well. I think I would like
to see you more of this and I'd like to
see more of the tour being combined together. And it's
a reminder that it's actually makes the sport much more
(28:14):
accessible and I think really does help both tours. So
I'm excited to see more of the stuff happening.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Dev.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it's good, and I poked fun at the schedules
being terrible and jumbled and having finals on at the
same time, and I stand by those comments, but it
does feel like there is some positive steps being taken
in the sense of having these joint events. And I
know whenever these things happen, especially as slams, we like
(28:42):
to rail on to schedule at the events. I think
that's the next step here, Like, if we're going to
have these joint events, then it's imperative that we schedule
the show courts accordingly and give people what they want
to see, not what you think they want to see,
And that to me is the organized there's goal where
it should be.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So as we transition to the block of the show
that we I think comes up certainly once a week,
it's to do with handshakes and it's to do with
Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Mir Andreva was caught in the
headlines during the course of the week seeing liking posts
both on Instagram and Twitter in regards to seemingly pro
(29:24):
Russian accounts.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I told you it was three percent real notes.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Is this what I was saying?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's ninety seven, She's sixteen years old, liking post on
Instagram and this is the.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Okay, yeah, we I feel like not to slaughter the
poor girl here. We've all made questionable decisions when we're sixteen.
I don't think, and I think one of the things
that I've seen pointed out on this one, which is
that she's lived long enough in another country to know
that this is probably not a viable thing to do
(29:58):
and not really the correct thing to be doing here
at all. You know, still sixteen, but not a great look.
In fact, a pretty shitty look across the board that
combined together with a handshake gait making its way into fencing.
Did you see this during the course of the last
two weeks as well? Chev, I don't know. I know
little about fencing other than this person received a black card?
(30:21):
Is that right? Is that it's like virgins of territory
that I don't know anything about.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It sounds very yeah, I mean, and I am now
well versed in fencing rules, but that sounds about right. Correct.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I just made a huge faux part. No black card,
that's right. I am correct. I've seen enough of the
things at the Olympics, and I've seen enough eurosport in
my life that I'm know I'm talking about here. Obviously
we've been dealing with on our own sport, but it
was kind of interesting to see the fallout and see
some very high profile press covering this as an event.
And of course it did lead to questions about the
(30:53):
WTA and protection about like how they were going to
monitor this and how they were going to whether they're
going to put any legislations and place. It turns that
they didn't during the course of this week, and it
leaves us in a really weird position, I think, going
into the hard course wing to have.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I was also reading she might be switching to French
citizenship and trying to follow the Gritsheva model basically, which Andreva.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, apparently really interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
They're reporting on this is super sketch. But apparently she's
also going to be in Breakpoints season two.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
So are we're going to have to like do a
Mia Colpo. We're gonna have to come back on this
podcast in like two weeks time and check our facts
against this.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
It's possible, It's possible. I mean again, I'm disputing my
own sourcing here, but if you trust Tennis World USA
dot org, then it's possible that you're Andreva is attempting
a switch of nationality, which wouldn't be the first player
from Russia to do that, right, I think we've seen
it quite a few times.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So indeed, so let's transition away from you know, a
pretty awful story in a pretty awful event, award event
that continues to happen, and talk about something a little happier,
corlins Karis's new haircut, Devang, did you see the fade
the beautiful faces?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
A champion's favous champions?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
It was a champion's fade. I thought he looked fantastic.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Genuinely stunned to see him at the Hartmin Cup after
doing like what are you doing there? What's going on?
And why? But it's great. I mean, this guy, what
can you say? What can you say? I was also
reading uh Andy Murray talking about filming though Wimbledon final.
Did he mean like he was filming it on his
(32:38):
own device, which I believe is not against It's not
within the rules of what's that? What's that? What's that? Thing?
They show after every sporting event, express written consent. Did
he have that? Did he have that? Is my question?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Still imagine him filming or the handheld camera.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Like a game style. That would be cool. That would
have been awesome. But I thought that was funny. You're
not funny, but pretty cool to see anybody talking about
picking up stuff from Charlie's game, because I mean, it
doesn't matter how old you are. And apparently this family
has got some otherworldly tennis geens, because there's another one
(33:18):
coming that that levable scoundrel scamp no scamp that we
saw in the player's box for Carlos.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, it turns out, how me Alcaraz is really really
good as well, and shockingly enough, he also might be
a very very good player. He's so he won a
tournament at the Raffer Academy. I believe I think this
he follows in the footsteps of his brother, who also
won the same tournament. I must admit I don't know
I've not heard a huge amount of buzz about himI
(33:47):
Alcaraz and terms of digging into it, but following this win,
I'm kind of curious to dig into see what the
potential is behind him. I would be shocked if he's
not going to be really good though, like at least
how this pedigree, obviously in relation to his brother, but
also winning this tournament. There's no joke that these kids
at this age, you're able to win at this level,
like it's it's usually a pretty good sign.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Super rare though, for both brothers to be good, right,
like no ex brother Stefanos's brother. Trying to think of
other like top guys you've had, which Andy Murray's brothers excellent,
but war in the Devil's sphere.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I mean we have some who knows. I guess the
Lows are pretty good together there the like there's there's
definitely president for this happening, Bob and Mike Bryan.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Of course he's twelve then or eleven? Oh god, yeah,
I think he's turning twelve this year. Geez always let's see, yeah,
let's let's see where it goes. I mean, you you're
on the nose or pretty inaccurate predicting Carlo Zakraaz is
going to be great. So I'll wait for you to
give the final seal of approval on him.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Absolutely, no one should be waiting for that. Do not
bet your house, Absolutely, do not do this. Let's transition
from the younger end of the spectrum in Himiacharaz into
the older end of the spectrum of the tour and
Stana's Lava Rinka. I made it to the final of
a neumark lost. Devastating, devastating, absolutely devastating. I heard a
(35:21):
phrase I've been listening to a lot of wrestling recently
and Jim Ross back in the day, when commentating on
Attitude WWF Attitude Era referred to a wrestler as as
tough as weak old bread, and I think that is
a perfect description of Stanislava Rinka. So it was it
(35:44):
was good to see a bit of emotion in him,
because when you think about him, you don't tend to
think of tears. You tend to think of someone who
has stony faced with a finger pointing to his temple,
playing like the greatest player of all time.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's wonderful. You're listening to wrestling, even watching it, or.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I am so think of the retrospectives that we do.
I'll think of the chronicle.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Oh, I'd like those perfect Okay, right, ask what that
is because I love that. Okay, that's great, man. I
was crying on court watching that Stan had it had
a lot of chances in that third set as well
Popper and made a speech that made me quite sad. Well,
he's just basically saying I was cheering for you the
(36:27):
whole time growing up. In all those finals, against all
those giants, it was always Stan, and I thought that
was very sweet. It's been a while since Stan went
a title, though, we're talking about this. For all we've
said about Andy being like ones he gonna hang it out,
or like why is he still doing this? He's won
a few titles recently. I think for Stan, obviously the
pastion remains and he's making finals, but it would have
(36:49):
been wonderful to see him get a title. Alas we move.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Forward, It's true, let's talk about the nick carry Pokemon
tattoo on his back during the rounds. Actually made a
two ESPN this week, which I thought was of course,
it's quite unbelievaborus. The one thing that I saw about
this and being commented on, which I thought was slightly unfair.
Was the fact that you two had penises for fingers.
(37:15):
Did you see this floating around in terms of some
of the things that were being mentioned about.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh my god, Oh my god. No, I was now okay,
I was asna say if I didn't know who's back
it was, and I'm like, wow, that's pretty this guy
really likes Pokemon. But now that i'm a bit more
information is coming out, I'm shocked at.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Paul didn't know he was such a big Pokemon Unite head,
like Stan, I didn't know he was that into the
whole thing. But you know, fair play, fair play Pokemon,
except people from all over the place, all over the
political spectrum.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Curious curios is twenty eight. Yeah, I think he probably
falls into that dead age group because I remember, like,
if you're like twenty eight to threughly four thirty five,
Pokemon was was pretty huge. So it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
I guess in some some respect, who was your favorite
Pokemon from the original one fifty one?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Oh? I was.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I was a big charmante guy, and you had to
love the squirrel A gang for their high jinks in
their sulass unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
But one one squirdle with those not the round sunglasses,
those bread the hip man.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, the designing, yeah, the designer. But uh yeah, I
mean put me down for a hypno?
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Maybe hypno?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Christ fully off the board, put me down for one hypno? Please?
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Oh dear Well, I feel like at some point it's
like a an article that you might see on the
worst of the of the Internet where it's like, which
Pokemon is this top ten tennis player? We have to
do that at some point.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Oh, that's happening.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Okay, it has to Okay, finally, finally, finally to use
aid Jim Ross terminology. Well, I'm too deep in the
resting at the moment. Christ. Sorry, everyone UN's listening. Yes,
send help, send help, send help. Indeed, Kenya is Angela
(39:17):
katoy We have spoken about her last year. We did
have an interview with BBC correspondent talking about Katoye's rise
in her ability to sort of be a trail blazer
for the country of Kenya and not for African tennis
as well. Well, don't you know it, dev Arkatoya became
Kenya's first IF World Tennis Tossingles champion this week. She
(39:39):
did win. It wasn't at a very high level, but
she won her first tour title or pro title sorry
not tortile pro title, which is still pretty damn cool.
And I'm glad that we're on the ground level of
this because it's a really really cool story, very cool.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I love.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I love when we see this like someone we talked about,
like pops up and winning something. It's like, yes, yes,
this is in Tunisia, right, Yeah, and she was a
wild card, which is even cooler. I also do like
how in all caps, hard work does pay off and
then my first pro title and not the last. Yeah,
(40:15):
I love it. Pretty wicked. I mean, so it's Africa
and Nigeria making it to the knockout rounds, the word
windsor World Cup. It's pretty awesome, cool stuff happening in
African sport.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Let's transition to two challenges remaining. I do have it
to I have one which I will come into it
a second dev but I will say I feel.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I feel like the women's woke up and being in
Australia has basically made it impossible for me to see
anything on the West Coast. It is creadful in terms
of timing, so It's been one of the most strange
major tournaments I think I can ever think about in
my adult life, where like I just can't seem to
get into it on the basis that it's hard to
(41:00):
watch it, and I think there's a lot to be
said for that, on the basis that it's not accessible
for live the live sport itself, then it makes it
very difficult to feel like you're a part of that
part of the tournament.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, it's fair, I mean it's I guess the late
match over there wasn't that bad for us on the
East Coast, like it started at like eight am or
six am. But yeah, overall, I mean it's a grind,
but I've some awesome stuff to wake up to you
and if you like me and wake up at the
crack of dawn, it's a good way to start your morning,
(41:34):
especially post Wimbledon when I was needing my early morning viewing.
So I've been loving it. Canada, though, Canada crashing out,
Brazil crashing out, USA almost crashing out. Tide might be turning.
But yeah, what is that your challenge?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
My challenge is something slightly different, and it is test
cricket to value what a series Wow, an incredible, a
great advertiser.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Brody do you guys do you call him Brody Big
stew or Stete, Yeah, I will say that. To go
out in your career and this is Stewart, broad English
legend who retired during this ashes. To go out by
hitting a six and then taking a wicket is insane
(42:27):
and wonderful English cricket.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I don't know what's going on where you guys are
producing some like Hallmark worthy stuff amidst all the racism.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
But you, yeah, English cricket doing well in some regards.
Don't look at some of the other things are happening
out of the surface. Definitely nothing to see here. It
was a great series. You could have legitimately, it could
have been one of the all time greatest comebacks had
the British weather not gone in the way and led
to a draw. And if that is not the most
cricket thing you've ever heard in the world, then I
(42:57):
don't know what it is.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
So the IPL five, I almost got rained out because
the second day as well it was raining and I'm like,
there's no way you're going to abandon this right because
there's no other alternative. I was stunned by that, but I.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Thought it was fantastic. Maybe I'm just so watching the
or reading some of the comments around, Like after the
Test it all traffic got washed out because of the rain,
and there was a bunch of thought pieces written in
the British press of like how to reinvent test cricket
where you can get five days but you always have
to have a winner, And I was like, holy fuck,
are they actually proposing that you have to have a
(43:30):
certain number of overs and no matter what, there has
to be a winner. In the middle of the British summer.
You could be playing for weeks at a time trying
to get this thing finish.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, I mean it's almost nice. I almost like, how
uh traditional? Maybe not. I was about to say almost,
like how traditional it is when I have to start
myself because I can't see that. No, it was great.
I watched some of it. I watched Australia early. It's
(43:59):
not the car divers see you with the the dude
in the dude kind of getting grunt out when you
shouldn't have and all that kind of stuff. But y ashes,
if you're like cricket adjacent and there's cricket going on
in Toronto actually right now, some T twenty stuff, but
that was fun to watch for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
What is your one challenge for me?
Speaker 2 (44:20):
National Bank Open. I'm gonna be doing some stuff down
there for my day job, doing some shows on the
scene Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
You're gonna be on TV.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Not on TV, but on radio online as well. So
if you're at the event in Toronto, come find the
radio booth that's on site and say hello, because it
should be fun. We get you on talking tennis, talking
other sports. See be cool, be cool, but yeah, it
should be fun. Should be fun. I mean, I got
(44:53):
into this turn of my whole life and this will
be a new experience, but looking forward to it. So yeah, Tennis,
I've catch the taste, catch the fever.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I'll jump on the plane and join you very shortly.
I promise you, deev, you will be here sorely, which
is hilarious, but just after so maybe I just cool
the whole thing off. Wedding or no wedding script, it's
not happening. I think got to go to tennis and stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
We should probably leave it there. We'll talk to you
post Canadian Open, post National Bank open but a reminder,
we are on Patreon, dot com, forward slash Open Era.
Join us there, get the show at free plus, get
it early on Sundays, and best of all, you get
access to the Discord or richat and Tennis all the time.
(45:39):
We're still on Twitter or x if you're foolish enough
to call that, I don't know, but we're still on there.
I'm hardly tweeting on our open Air account because yeah,
but if you like us, give us a follow on there.
But if you like us more importantly, give us a
rating or a review wherever you get the chance to do.
That's a lot. Gets the pot up the feeds, gets
(46:02):
the pot up the charts, So yeah, please do that.
We love doing the pod and we love reading those reviews,
so yeah, drop a line for us there. I think
that's it for producer Dylan on the Once in Ties
and for Simon, thank you so much for listening to
Open Era. We'll talk to you next week.
Hello and welcome to the Open Era Podcast. My name
is Debg Decai and this week Simon and I are
off again. Simon is actually in Paris at the Paris Masters.
Was hoping to get a look at Carlos Alkerrez live
in the final, but unfortunately, as I speak, one of
the most cursed finals could be witnessed by Bush himself
(00:23):
this weekend, so we hope that didn't happen. We hope
we got to see some good tennis at Paris Bercy.
But in the meantime, we're going to look back at
the episode we did last year when we were both
in person in Toronto when Simon is in town, and
we talked about both the ADP and WTA after the
events in Canada, and also just got a chance to
(00:47):
catch up, which is always fun to do with Bush.
So enjoyed this episode, but we'll have a new one
next week and we'll talk to Simon about his experience
watching tennis live at the Paris Masters. So enjoy it
this week and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for
listening to Open Era.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Hello and welcome to the Open Era podcast. My name
is de Vega Sai and I'm joined as always by
mister Simon Bush or Bush, they're finally off the clay courts.
It's over, is it? I believe Kitsch Fuel is the
last men's clay court tournament, leaving us fully in to
(01:37):
the hardcourt season as Washington has happened, and we now
look to the Canadian hardcourt swing. Any lasting memories from
clay before I ask.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
You about how you're doing what a time? I feel
like we're going to it. We'll have our memories of
this wonderful clay court swing that lasted all of twenty days,
no less than that fourteen days maybe, or you're asking
me of my opinions of the entire clay coursewing, not
just this ridiculous one that got shoved in after the
(02:08):
grass course.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I honestly, I wasn't asking you a true question because
I was trying to once again poke fun at the
ridiculous scheduling that we do see in the sport we love.
But yeah, I was trying to make a joke. Bush.
It might not have landed. But it is hardcourt season,
and it does feel like a weird time in the
calendar generally because this is kind of the end of summer, Bush,
(02:33):
But it does feel like we're just getting started. In
some ways, it does.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I'm actually curious to know the answer to a question
which has long puzzled me, which is what is the
reason for so many tournaments post Wimwooeden in this gap
before you get into the North American hard courts wing? Like,
why is there just all of this flurry of tournaments.
I guess it's a summer thing and a desire to
(02:58):
make use of the European summer, but like we've been
getting tournaments everywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, and this feels almost like the working class time
for most of the two I know Ego won a
title not too recently, but these are the people who
need these paychecks and they got to play, and that's
why these tournaments exist. But I do get what you mean.
I'm just watching the Hamburg Open and the lesson about
that better, but I just watching that it felt like
(03:25):
a big event, and I think, if you talk to
the German discord user, we have Torquette like it is
a signature event I think on the German tennis calendar,
so it makes sense why it has such festivities associated
with it. But then you zoom out slightly and you're like, Okay,
why is this happening. Now, who designed the calendar? Could
(03:46):
this be better? I know it's only going to get
a bit weirder as we go on in the years,
and these Masters events end up being longer Bush because
eventually these termans just won't exist. So maybe we should
enjoy the weirdness that is these.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Gas agreed, Yes, I feel like the less set about
Hamburg the better. But lets we forget, of course Hamburg
a previous one thousand event, not anymore. But yes, it's
an interesting tournament. I shouldn't I should not shit talk it.
It's a good it's a good event.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Trophy is still weird as hell. We just won't talk
about the winner very much. Washington well underway as we
record this Bush, we won't predict winners so we don't
look foolishly wrong when this comes out on your feed.
But getting a glimpse early at some sweet North American
hardcourt action, and now looking ahead to Toronto and Montreal,
(04:35):
I was curious to see how Felix would look as
we kind of zoom in on the Canadians who are
going to be playing in the Canadian Open. He didn't
look great, man, and he hasn't looked great for a while.
He was doing some press before the Washington Tournament talking
about his season and talking about how generally bad it's been,
and also the fact that he's been dealing with some injuries,
(04:56):
a few of them actually Bush, but this lost to
a lot of neukie into devastating tie breaks. I mean,
I feel badly for him in the sense that the
spotlight's only going to increase in Toronto and there will
be a lot more questions about his season so far.
But it doesn't feel like a turnaround is coming anytime quickly.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Certainly doesn't, does it. It's been such a rollercoaster of
emotions for him through twenty twenty three. I don't know, dude,
Like it's when you're sitting at literally five hundred in
terms of your win lost record. I think he's thirteen
and thirteen on the season. I think also maybe that
speaks to the fact that he's not really played a
whole lot. I know, twenty six matches is nothing to sniff,
(05:37):
all right, but at this stage of the season, I
think you kind of want a few more. I think
you want to have got a few more under your belt.
And speaks to some of the injuries and some of
the general struggles that he's had during the course of
this season. Dude, it like, what's going on. We're so
far removed, I think from when we were really thinking
(05:59):
he was turning a coin and that it was going
to be smooth siting that he was going to be
a consistent top ten, top five player, and it's not
really happened, has it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It hasn't. And I think to his credit, I think
he's saying all the right things. And I was reading
an article on the ATP website about how he's talking
through this season and kind of reflecting with gratitude about
the things that he was able to accomplish and the
fact that there's very few athletes that are able to
go through their careers without dealing with injuries and trying
(06:31):
to keep a positive attitude. But I do think you
see on the court when things do not go well,
it's it's hard to hide that feeling of pain that
you can see from him, and that makes it tough
to watch. But I mean, this guy's turning twenty three
in a few days. This is early doors still, But
I do think a conversation that Josh started on the
(06:55):
discord as well was interesting regarding Felix's long term out look,
and maybe the fact that Carl Zalcaaz coming on the
scene has maybe put a ceiling on what he thinks
he can do now now that there is someone that
is so clearly defined as the next one. But well,
the next one he's already there, So I wonder if
there's some psychological stuff there, as Josh mentioned, But it
does feel a bit nutty to me to think that
(07:18):
we're a year removed from Felix being as good as
he was and here we are with a bit of
a back to the drawing boards scenario. But this has
happened to a lot of players as well, Simon, So
I do think that the long term outlook remains positive,
but I do wonder what our our expectations are for him,
and maybe they've altered a bit.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I think the expectation still should be that he should
be competing from Grand slams. I don't think anything's ready
changed in that regard. Considering his overall talent level and
ability level, I don't think that has changed, and in
many ways I think he'd probably make the argument that
he should be coming more into his own with the
(07:59):
apps sense of a lot of the Big three. I
mean literally, one of them was retired, one of them
is almost certainly retired, and then one of them is
at best a part timer, at worst a fourth part timer.
So there's that side of things. I think there's also
a side of it, which is that I remember listening
(08:21):
to an interview that he was a felix ogilium. Asscene
was saying and almost saying that he's not really had
to deal with the whole lot of injuries during his
career and trying to battle against adversity for the really
first time and trying to get a sense of how
to overcome this and how to deal with being off
the court and not playing as many matches as possible.
(08:42):
I think that's the side of the spot that we
don't talk about enough, which is that the resilience it
takes and the drive to continue to come back from
these things. Big injuries are one thing, but small, niggling
injuries to play through them. So yeah, it's one of
those things where we will just have to watch and
see how the rest of this season unfolds. That twenty
three Mark is kind of curious because his counterpoint on
(09:04):
the women's side of Bianca Andrasca twenty three as well.
It's kind of crazy to believe. At the same age
we believe it.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Recorded an episode called Canadians Rising four years ago about
how this generation was coming in. Hey, Grand Slam was one,
so I have no regrets, no regrets about that episode
at all.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But a couple of Slam finals and a couple of
Slam semi finals.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, they've done quite well. They've done quite well. Felix
was at six in the world last year, right, so
it's yeah. The other thing that you made me think
of Simon is like, I'm actually going to all these events,
playing once and losing and then having to leave. And
I feel like he's done that a lot. And that
also must be a bit soul destroying. As you're traveling
(09:53):
around the world and practicing, practicing, practicing, play, lose, gone,
and you're you're on in the next place. I wonder
where that's like cannot be easy at all. I wanted
to talk about Chapo as well, Bush, because he will
not be playing in Toronto. You mentioned in our Wimbledon
recap his knee injury and how he didn't seem optimistic
(10:14):
about it, and it looks like you were correct, because
he will be out for at least the National Bank Open.
You know, before Wimbledon, push Dennis was having a similar
year to Felix in the sense that he was he
was having these stop starts and failing to really build momentum,
and it did feel like maybe something was happening for
him at Wimbledon. But this sucks because I think obviously
(10:37):
this tournament means a lot to him.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It does. He can take some solace in the fact
that he did get engaged during the last two weeks though,
So that's.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What I think.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It's not all bad, probably pretty good. He's been in
pretty good about life in general. At least I hope
he is. Jesus he got a hope.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So who knows what social media actually means and it's
all probably lies, But his Instagram seems generally okay. I
don't know I what to read into Instagram.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Three, what do you think exactly? Something around that? Can
I ask you a question to the Canadian Open as
we please switch gears and get into the actual tournament itself.
Who are defending champions? Could you do it? Off the
top of your head in men's and women's there is
I'm asking this is, and it's not to to show
(11:21):
you up or anything. I genuinely forgot the results of
this tournament.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I believe. I believe one of them is bands now
from the sports. So yeah here your training champ promptly
banned after winning in Toronto, not for the drugs, but
for appearing. No. Yeah, that that's this end she has
loved here. Oh it's huge Romanian support. I remember that
(11:48):
man the men's winner. Though it's gotta be not PCB,
it is PCB.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I did not remember this. Oh my god, I completely nothing.
They blocked this from my I though Danny Mevida was
a defending Shepard, but then I realized that was a
whole year road.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, PCB beat he we here catch in the final.
Dan Evans is in the semis last year. I'm I'm
glad Toronto is didn't get that one last year. Oh yo,
you know what? You know why we memory hold that
tournament because that was the day or the tournament where
Casa Rude just dummied Felix one six two in the corner. God,
oh god, that's why we blocked it out. We're gonna
(12:27):
get a better show this time around. Alcharaz is there
the men generally are all there. Chapo's not, Novak is not.
But outside of that, well attended Milosh is there. Bush.
The sentimentality factor is going to be through the moon
for this man and for his sake. Even though I
do not think this is his last tournament, he said
(12:49):
on match Point Canadian Tennis pod, give that a listen,
great show. He said that this is not his final tournament,
but God give me a cool Milosh moment during a
night session with the arm.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Sleeve and the bandana. Of course, I don't think that.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I think he's matured. He's matured out of it, really
and it makes me feel old. Yeah, I don't think
it's coming back.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Can we not say that he matured into it? Is
that not? Fine?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
No, that's true. It's true. Storylines though here Bush like
no Novak, so we're not going to get Carlos Novack again,
which is slightly disappointing. But I do think there is
something to be said about the Chase pack and like
who we consider part of it and with Alcarez, the
well defined Number one talked about Holgar Rune, A lot
(13:35):
talked about Yannick Center, A lot talked about Danil Medvedev.
A lot, and I mean Daniel Nevedev for some is
the favorite for a lot of these tournaments that we're
going to cover in the next few weeks. But who
are you most intrigued about, Simon to watch as we
as we head into the US Open.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So I think there was two very clear storylines to me,
one on the men's and one on the women's. On
the men's side, to me, the biggest storyline here is
how does Danny Meffit ever look on a hard court.
That's the one that's really really intriguing to me, because
last time we saw him in a hard court, he
looked utterly and completely dominant getting back on the blue stuff,
and I'm curious to see how he holds up if
(14:14):
he wins this tournament, and if he looks dominant, it
would not shock me. And I also don't think i'd
be shocked if he managed to beat Carlo Sakaraz in
this tournament. He doesn't have great record though, don't look
that up. But that being said, I'm very intrigued to
see how Nation redacted looks in this tournament. On the
flip side of that, the women's tournament, I think the
(14:36):
clear question for me is Sabalanca gonna get to world
number one and is she gonna look as good as
she has done on the rest of the season in
the transition to hard court, Because I think she's the
best player out of that top three on this surface,
and I'm very fascinated to see whether or not she
holds that standard at this first one thousand event of
(14:57):
the hard court summer, because I think she will. I
think she I think she's the favorite for this tournament.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Montreal's going to get a show I think the WTA
usually produces, but Ans is not going to be there.
That's disappointing. But you have just a pretty incredible crew
of wild cards. Bianca and Rescue needing a wild card
due to her ranking, Leila Fernandez who found magic in Washington,
which I think is a great sign heading into this tournament,
(15:22):
Rebecca Marino rounding at the Canadian trio, and then Venus
and Caroline Bosniaki. I mean, that's pretty cool. Jen Brady's back,
which is also very good to see that she's been
dealing with a crazy amount of injuries and man, she's
produced some of the best matches we've seen over the
last three or four years. It kind of not shocked
because I understand where they are at this point in
(15:46):
their season, but that Bianca and Layla both needed wild
card Simon. But if the State of thinks like the
highest ranked Canadians, I believe Beyonca down in the forties
somewhere in the forties four. I think she is forty fourth. Yeah,
Like that's it's interesting. I mean, we praise, praise, praise
the depth and it is true, there's nothing false about that,
(16:08):
but it also means it is tough sledding for these
players to get into these draws without needing wild cards
are to qualify.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Is it really depth when you've had three women basically
dominate the year so far or is that a different story?
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Anyway, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And we're not praising Benjamin Bonzi that much for being
like the fifty and slugging it through because there's fourteen
frenchmen in the top one hundred. Yeah, I think that's fair.
Maybe I just do think that, like you're I mean,
in Leila's case, like you're having to play a hell
of a lot of masses just to get into the
draws in it perhaps for her this is a good
(16:46):
thing because of the struggle she's had right with consistency,
but she played the qualities that in Washington trounce Katie Boulter,
which was awesome and again an excellent sign. So maybe
it's a good thing that she has to play more
match is considering where her ranking is at. But I
just find it it's it's so hard to establish establish
(17:08):
yourself once you've you've fallen once. And I don't mean
to say that Layla's like fallen from grace, but she's
had a dip, like a visible dip, a bit of
a different dip than Beianca's had, and I think it's
going to be fascinating to see how she can respond
from that.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah, definitely some slander towards Katie Bollert there by the
way you're talking to a British Cannadian here, I know
you can't can't fully go in.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
That directed pointed slander just to.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Kind of finish off on the Andrescu point, because she
was interviewed. She's didn't press around a lot of the
stuff going into Montreal, and National Broadcaster actually caught it
with both of them, both Fernandez Andresco. But I think
one of the quotes that was interesting out of that
was Andrescuo basically saying that she was hoping to play
until she was thirty, saying that she her body felt
(17:57):
good and she had the desire and the commitment to
keep going, and then I think she had at least
thirty was the actual quote. So I feel like she's
not done or anything. Phil has the belief and the
desire to keep going and nothing to be ashamed of
her being forty four in the world. I think the
other side of that as well, And part of that
interview was her saying that her patience was getting a
(18:18):
bit like thin in the sense that she felt like
forty four was a decent ranking and she felt like
a season was okay. But in general, when you've tasted
those highs and you've reached them, you feel like you
can achieve more. And I think she's definitely feeling that,
and I think you can get that sense as well
when you watch her on court, because she I think
she clearly believes she can be anyone in the world.
(18:38):
Although yeah, we'll wait and see on that front. I
think this actually could be an interesting tournament to it.
You could definitely see a scenario where she gets bounced
round one and doesn't look very good. And you could
also see a scenario where she actually does run deep
and uses the crowd and uses this as a bit
of a revitalization of her season because she's clearly capable
big time.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I don't know if you saw that there actually gets
cost chuck in the crowd, basically derailing Bianca in that match,
yelling out during her missus and her unforced errors and
during her server was brutal, and she she sent out
a sarcastic tweet just being like love this sport. And
I went and smiley faced, and I'm like, haha, maybe
(19:18):
not playing till thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I'd be surprised. Better chances, better chances, Ashbarty comes back
wins the slam, or Bianco plays all thirty.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I think it's more likely that Andessica plays til thirty.
I still believe that at one point. I hope, so yeah,
and we can maybe touch on it and potting shots.
But like Washington and Hamburg both being men and women,
like combined tournaments. It's pretty cool, Like.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
It's pretty cool, pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Maybe we should do more of that, agreed.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I'd like to get to Washington. It looks like a
cool setup. Down there. Kevin Durant, also in attendance, watching
Chris Eubanks cool stuff. Canadian Open is going to be fun.
I'm going to be down there a bunch spoiler for
my one challenge remaining, but yeah, excited for this bush,
Excited for Live Tennis to once again get a glimpse
(20:09):
into how fast and hard professionals hit the ball.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Let's ask this question to sort of close this segment. Now,
what is the area of York like devang in Toronto?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Jeez, So it's it's York, It's North York slash Vaughn.
You're getting into Vaughan Territory. There's a large mall beside there.
There's obviously the school, residential communities. I was just there.
I was just there actually visiting a hospital that's for
side an amusement park. So there's a huge amusement park
(20:43):
called Canada's Wonderland up in that area as well. It's interesting.
It's uh, I don't know that. You know, the transit
in Toronto is quite awful, but they've extended the subway
line into that area of the city, so getting there
is no longer a hard and that's made I think
the experience at this event a lot better, so public
(21:06):
Transit please invest war.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Well you've got a new mayor and everything in Toronto,
maybe you actually might have some of that stuff happening.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
We've got a lot of problems, man, I don't know what.
I don't know how Whish's going to start, but we
got a lot of problems. Sorry, we'll leave the graping there.
When we come back on Open Era, it's parting shots
planning to get through as always, join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Welcome back to the Open Air podcast. It's time for
parting shots Devang and we are back exactly Well, we
wanted to be the UTS. Baby, it was back. We
might have taken a week off, but get returned. Did
you see any of this with it?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Without you? I would have no idea. The UTS is back.
I love any time I hear about this. It's from you,
and I wore is my heart. But also actually the
only thing I saw was a quote from Wortaglu saying
the crowd is the third player in UTS, which I
laughed at. But did Taylor Fritz win? This is that
(22:16):
what happened?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
No, he absolutely did not. Witness Wu Ying Bing won
this tournament.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Wooh, that's right, Okay, okay, are you fully bought in
on this? This design now uts Los Angeles?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
I think one of the things that stuck out to
me is the fact that there's actually two of these
events happening this year. Is this first one in LA
and there's a second one so I think it's in Europe,
isn't it or something like that. I can't remember how
little I know about this event. I don't know about
this whole thing. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna call
it what it is. I think this is a bit
of a shit show. Although one of the best things
(22:49):
about this whole event was the nickname for Alexander Publick.
Did you see what his nickname was? What his introduction was?
Because you've got this general like rubbish stuff. So Benoir
pere as the rebel.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, the great wall Woo Woo is who's a genius?
He came up with Woo's god Bublic. I can only imagine, No,
what is it book? Okay, they called Ben Shelton the Mountain.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What I don't know. Public Enemy number one is really
quite good.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
That is good. Listen, that is good. That is good.
And I give them full praise.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
All of this being said, the UTES in its in
its entirety should only exist if all of these players
had puns as the introduction. That's the only way that
they should be allowed to carry on in this tournament.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, I feel like this is right up our alley, though,
These these horrible nicknames are something that we could support,
and I will, you know what, write mark this down,
dear listener. I'm gonna praise Patrick Wartagalu for a second,
but when he came up with this, this is like
peak pandemic, right, Like, things were looking real bad and
we desperately needed some some saney tennis and he provided
(23:59):
it to us with that ugoesque tennis game.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
So I think one of the selling points for the
UTS is it's almost TikTok ivocation slash. It's very grammable
in the sense that you have these points which have like,
you know, dramatic things that could happen on them. So
there's something that's slightly outside of the norm. So you
have like your trap card or something being played, and
(24:25):
your point system and all that kind of stuff. So
I did take two the uts's TikTok feed to see
how it was going to go during the course of
the week. I thought it was kind of shit. I
would like to give you better information and I would
like to, you know, have a stronger point on this,
but like overall, it did nothing for me, and it
(24:45):
kind of feels like this is not working. I mean,
it's not working for me. I think it's more is
more accurate here.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
In the pickupball wares. You gotta you gotta support your allies.
And even though this is a weird, weird amalgamation of tennis,
I feel like this is a net positive. The quarters
are weird, the quarters are strange. I don't necessarily think
all of the tweaks are good, but it's not the
worst thing I've seen.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
I didn't send I should have taken this photo. I'm
sad that I missed it because I was down at
a tennis court in Vancouver, which you know, think about
the demographic of people that are playing tennis in Vancouver.
It is of an older crowd, I will say. And
on a homemade sign, damn, I'm so so sad I
didn't take a photo of this. It said on like
(25:35):
it's just a white a four piece of paper with
like almost comic sands level of black font on it.
No to pickleball, No to boomer ball.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
How did you not take a photo of that? It
feels like the only reason they made cameras on phone.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's such good fodder for our discourse, and I missed
out on the opportunitia phbit oh dear. Anyway, I thought
it was very funny.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I enjoyed it great stuffy. I started lambasting uts Andy
you for bringing it up, and now I am saying,
it's the last the last things standing between us pickleball.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, don't flatten that. We don't want anything to do
with pickleball anyway. Whatever, let's move on slightly. You also
open happen during the course of the week. You mentioned
it in segment one. I guess we're gonna take one
this tournament. It was a home tournament. She managed to
fit in another bagel. So anyone who's keeping track of this,
it's starting to get up there. She's very very she's
(26:37):
flirting with it. It has to be said, she's going
to get very close to this, to this record by
the end of the season. It was cool to see
he'll win this tournament, and I think it cements her
place at the top of the rankings. And also I
think it also reminds us of just how good she
is coming out of the grass court season. I think
(26:57):
struggling a little bit, right, I think, looking more human
than we expected her to. And then did you see
this comment about her hat? Were you aware of?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I did? I did?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I did. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Do you believe that her hat is causing problems about
her marketability?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I don't. I don't. I honestly I didn't. I didn't
see this one coming in the in the grab bag
of eager things that EGA is not good for or
like the eager hater the Rito ball. I didn't expect
this chip to come out. But I don't think it's good.
I don't think it's a good one at all. At first,
I thought it was a troll and not real. But yeah,
(27:37):
I mean people, I just don't. I don't. I don't
know what people want exactly, Like she's literally perfect for
tennis in so many ways, like do you not understand
what we have here?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
But not being said, let's move on slightly. We mentioned
it in the first segment as well. It was cool
to see some joint tournaments, to see Hamburg being a
joint event between the men and the women, the same
thing with Washington as well. I think I would like
to see you more of this and I'd like to
see more of the tour being combined together. And it's
a reminder that it's actually makes the sport much more
(28:14):
accessible and I think really does help both tours. So
I'm excited to see more of the stuff happening.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Dev.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it's good, and I poked fun at the schedules
being terrible and jumbled and having finals on at the
same time, and I stand by those comments, but it
does feel like there is some positive steps being taken
in the sense of having these joint events. And I
know whenever these things happen, especially as slams, we like
(28:42):
to rail on to schedule at the events. I think
that's the next step here, Like, if we're going to
have these joint events, then it's imperative that we schedule
the show courts accordingly and give people what they want
to see, not what you think they want to see,
And that to me is the organized there's goal where
it should be.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So as we transition to the block of the show
that we I think comes up certainly once a week,
it's to do with handshakes and it's to do with
Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Mir Andreva was caught in the
headlines during the course of the week seeing liking posts
both on Instagram and Twitter in regards to seemingly pro
(29:24):
Russian accounts.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I told you it was three percent real notes.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Is this what I was saying?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's ninety seven, She's sixteen years old, liking post on
Instagram and this is the.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Okay, yeah, we I feel like not to slaughter the
poor girl here. We've all made questionable decisions when we're sixteen.
I don't think, and I think one of the things
that I've seen pointed out on this one, which is
that she's lived long enough in another country to know
that this is probably not a viable thing to do
(29:58):
and not really the correct thing to be doing here
at all. You know, still sixteen, but not a great look.
In fact, a pretty shitty look across the board that
combined together with a handshake gait making its way into fencing.
Did you see this during the course of the last
two weeks as well? Chev, I don't know. I know
little about fencing other than this person received a black card?
(30:21):
Is that right? Is that it's like virgins of territory
that I don't know anything about.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It sounds very yeah, I mean, and I am now
well versed in fencing rules, but that sounds about right. Correct.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I just made a huge faux part. No black card,
that's right. I am correct. I've seen enough of the
things at the Olympics, and I've seen enough eurosport in
my life that I'm know I'm talking about here. Obviously
we've been dealing with on our own sport, but it
was kind of interesting to see the fallout and see
some very high profile press covering this as an event.
And of course it did lead to questions about the
(30:53):
WTA and protection about like how they were going to
monitor this and how they were going to whether they're
going to put any legislations and place. It turns that
they didn't during the course of this week, and it
leaves us in a really weird position, I think, going
into the hard course wing to have.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I was also reading she might be switching to French
citizenship and trying to follow the Gritsheva model basically, which Andreva.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, apparently really interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
They're reporting on this is super sketch. But apparently she's
also going to be in Breakpoints season two.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
So are we're going to have to like do a
Mia Colpo. We're gonna have to come back on this
podcast in like two weeks time and check our facts
against this.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
It's possible, It's possible. I mean again, I'm disputing my
own sourcing here, but if you trust Tennis World USA
dot org, then it's possible that you're Andreva is attempting
a switch of nationality, which wouldn't be the first player
from Russia to do that, right, I think we've seen
it quite a few times.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So indeed, so let's transition away from you know, a
pretty awful story in a pretty awful event, award event
that continues to happen, and talk about something a little happier,
corlins Karis's new haircut, Devang, did you see the fade
the beautiful faces?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
A champion's favous champions?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
It was a champion's fade. I thought he looked fantastic.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Genuinely stunned to see him at the Hartmin Cup after
doing like what are you doing there? What's going on?
And why? But it's great. I mean, this guy, what
can you say? What can you say? I was also
reading uh Andy Murray talking about filming though Wimbledon final.
Did he mean like he was filming it on his
(32:38):
own device, which I believe is not against It's not
within the rules of what's that? What's that? What's that? Thing?
They show after every sporting event, express written consent. Did
he have that? Did he have that? Is my question?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Still imagine him filming or the handheld camera.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Like a game style. That would be cool. That would
have been awesome. But I thought that was funny. You're
not funny, but pretty cool to see anybody talking about
picking up stuff from Charlie's game, because I mean, it
doesn't matter how old you are. And apparently this family
has got some otherworldly tennis geens, because there's another one
(33:18):
coming that that levable scoundrel scamp no scamp that we
saw in the player's box for Carlos.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, it turns out, how me Alcaraz is really really
good as well, and shockingly enough, he also might be
a very very good player. He's so he won a
tournament at the Raffer Academy. I believe I think this
he follows in the footsteps of his brother, who also
won the same tournament. I must admit I don't know
I've not heard a huge amount of buzz about himI
(33:47):
Alcaraz and terms of digging into it, but following this win,
I'm kind of curious to dig into see what the
potential is behind him. I would be shocked if he's
not going to be really good though, like at least
how this pedigree, obviously in relation to his brother, but
also winning this tournament. There's no joke that these kids
at this age, you're able to win at this level,
like it's it's usually a pretty good sign.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Super rare though, for both brothers to be good, right,
like no ex brother Stefanos's brother. Trying to think of
other like top guys you've had, which Andy Murray's brothers excellent,
but war in the Devil's sphere.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I mean we have some who knows. I guess the
Lows are pretty good together there the like there's there's
definitely president for this happening, Bob and Mike Bryan.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Of course he's twelve then or eleven? Oh god, yeah,
I think he's turning twelve this year. Geez always let's see, yeah,
let's let's see where it goes. I mean, you you're
on the nose or pretty inaccurate predicting Carlo Zakraaz is
going to be great. So I'll wait for you to
give the final seal of approval on him.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Absolutely, no one should be waiting for that. Do not
bet your house, Absolutely, do not do this. Let's transition
from the younger end of the spectrum in Himiacharaz into
the older end of the spectrum of the tour and
Stana's Lava Rinka. I made it to the final of
a neumark lost. Devastating, devastating, absolutely devastating. I heard a
(35:21):
phrase I've been listening to a lot of wrestling recently
and Jim Ross back in the day, when commentating on
Attitude WWF Attitude Era referred to a wrestler as as
tough as weak old bread, and I think that is
a perfect description of Stanislava Rinka. So it was it
(35:44):
was good to see a bit of emotion in him,
because when you think about him, you don't tend to
think of tears. You tend to think of someone who
has stony faced with a finger pointing to his temple,
playing like the greatest player of all time.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's wonderful. You're listening to wrestling, even watching it, or.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I am so think of the retrospectives that we do.
I'll think of the chronicle.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Oh, I'd like those perfect Okay, right, ask what that
is because I love that. Okay, that's great, man. I
was crying on court watching that Stan had it had
a lot of chances in that third set as well
Popper and made a speech that made me quite sad. Well,
he's just basically saying I was cheering for you the
(36:27):
whole time growing up. In all those finals, against all
those giants, it was always Stan, and I thought that
was very sweet. It's been a while since Stan went
a title, though, we're talking about this. For all we've
said about Andy being like ones he gonna hang it out,
or like why is he still doing this? He's won
a few titles recently. I think for Stan, obviously the
pastion remains and he's making finals, but it would have
(36:49):
been wonderful to see him get a title. Alas we move.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Forward, It's true, let's talk about the nick carry Pokemon
tattoo on his back during the rounds. Actually made a
two ESPN this week, which I thought was of course,
it's quite unbelievaborus. The one thing that I saw about
this and being commented on, which I thought was slightly unfair.
Was the fact that you two had penises for fingers.
(37:15):
Did you see this floating around in terms of some
of the things that were being mentioned about.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh my god, Oh my god. No, I was now okay,
I was asna say if I didn't know who's back
it was, and I'm like, wow, that's pretty this guy
really likes Pokemon. But now that i'm a bit more
information is coming out, I'm shocked at.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Paul didn't know he was such a big Pokemon Unite head,
like Stan, I didn't know he was that into the
whole thing. But you know, fair play, fair play Pokemon,
except people from all over the place, all over the
political spectrum.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Curious curios is twenty eight. Yeah, I think he probably
falls into that dead age group because I remember, like,
if you're like twenty eight to threughly four thirty five,
Pokemon was was pretty huge. So it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
I guess in some some respect, who was your favorite
Pokemon from the original one fifty one?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Oh? I was.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I was a big charmante guy, and you had to
love the squirrel A gang for their high jinks in
their sulass unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
But one one squirdle with those not the round sunglasses,
those bread the hip man.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, the designing, yeah, the designer. But uh yeah, I
mean put me down for a hypno?
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Maybe hypno?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Christ fully off the board, put me down for one hypno? Please?
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Oh dear Well, I feel like at some point it's
like a an article that you might see on the
worst of the of the Internet where it's like, which
Pokemon is this top ten tennis player? We have to
do that at some point.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Oh, that's happening.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Okay, it has to Okay, finally, finally, finally to use
aid Jim Ross terminology. Well, I'm too deep in the
resting at the moment. Christ. Sorry, everyone UN's listening. Yes,
send help, send help, send help. Indeed, Kenya is Angela
(39:17):
katoy We have spoken about her last year. We did
have an interview with BBC correspondent talking about Katoye's rise
in her ability to sort of be a trail blazer
for the country of Kenya and not for African tennis
as well. Well, don't you know it, dev Arkatoya became
Kenya's first IF World Tennis Tossingles champion this week. She
(39:39):
did win. It wasn't at a very high level, but
she won her first tour title or pro title sorry
not tortile pro title, which is still pretty damn cool.
And I'm glad that we're on the ground level of
this because it's a really really cool story, very cool.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I love.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I love when we see this like someone we talked about,
like pops up and winning something. It's like, yes, yes,
this is in Tunisia, right, Yeah, and she was a
wild card, which is even cooler. I also do like
how in all caps, hard work does pay off and
then my first pro title and not the last. Yeah,
(40:15):
I love it. Pretty wicked. I mean, so it's Africa
and Nigeria making it to the knockout rounds, the word
windsor World Cup. It's pretty awesome, cool stuff happening in
African sport.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Let's transition to two challenges remaining. I do have it
to I have one which I will come into it
a second dev but I will say I feel.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I feel like the women's woke up and being in
Australia has basically made it impossible for me to see
anything on the West Coast. It is creadful in terms
of timing, so It's been one of the most strange
major tournaments I think I can ever think about in
my adult life, where like I just can't seem to
get into it on the basis that it's hard to
(41:00):
watch it, and I think there's a lot to be
said for that, on the basis that it's not accessible
for live the live sport itself, then it makes it
very difficult to feel like you're a part of that
part of the tournament.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, it's fair, I mean it's I guess the late
match over there wasn't that bad for us on the
East Coast, like it started at like eight am or
six am. But yeah, overall, I mean it's a grind,
but I've some awesome stuff to wake up to you
and if you like me and wake up at the
crack of dawn, it's a good way to start your morning,
(41:34):
especially post Wimbledon when I was needing my early morning viewing.
So I've been loving it. Canada, though, Canada crashing out,
Brazil crashing out, USA almost crashing out. Tide might be turning.
But yeah, what is that your challenge?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
My challenge is something slightly different, and it is test
cricket to value what a series Wow, an incredible, a
great advertiser.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Brody do you guys do you call him Brody Big
stew or Stete, Yeah, I will say that. To go
out in your career and this is Stewart, broad English
legend who retired during this ashes. To go out by
hitting a six and then taking a wicket is insane
(42:27):
and wonderful English cricket.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I don't know what's going on where you guys are
producing some like Hallmark worthy stuff amidst all the racism.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
But you, yeah, English cricket doing well in some regards.
Don't look at some of the other things are happening
out of the surface. Definitely nothing to see here. It
was a great series. You could have legitimately, it could
have been one of the all time greatest comebacks had
the British weather not gone in the way and led
to a draw. And if that is not the most
cricket thing you've ever heard in the world, then I
(42:57):
don't know what it is.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
So the IPL five, I almost got rained out because
the second day as well it was raining and I'm like,
there's no way you're going to abandon this right because
there's no other alternative. I was stunned by that, but I.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Thought it was fantastic. Maybe I'm just so watching the
or reading some of the comments around, Like after the
Test it all traffic got washed out because of the rain,
and there was a bunch of thought pieces written in
the British press of like how to reinvent test cricket
where you can get five days but you always have
to have a winner, And I was like, holy fuck,
are they actually proposing that you have to have a
(43:30):
certain number of overs and no matter what, there has
to be a winner. In the middle of the British summer.
You could be playing for weeks at a time trying
to get this thing finish.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, I mean it's almost nice. I almost like, how
uh traditional? Maybe not. I was about to say almost,
like how traditional it is when I have to start
myself because I can't see that. No, it was great.
I watched some of it. I watched Australia early. It's
(43:59):
not the car divers see you with the the dude
in the dude kind of getting grunt out when you
shouldn't have and all that kind of stuff. But y ashes,
if you're like cricket adjacent and there's cricket going on
in Toronto actually right now, some T twenty stuff, but
that was fun to watch for sure.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
What is your one challenge for me?
Speaker 2 (44:20):
National Bank Open. I'm gonna be doing some stuff down
there for my day job, doing some shows on the
scene Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
You're gonna be on TV.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Not on TV, but on radio online as well. So
if you're at the event in Toronto, come find the
radio booth that's on site and say hello, because it
should be fun. We get you on talking tennis, talking
other sports. See be cool, be cool, but yeah, it
should be fun. Should be fun. I mean, I got
(44:53):
into this turn of my whole life and this will
be a new experience, but looking forward to it. So yeah, Tennis,
I've catch the taste, catch the fever.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I'll jump on the plane and join you very shortly.
I promise you, deev, you will be here sorely, which
is hilarious, but just after so maybe I just cool
the whole thing off. Wedding or no wedding script, it's
not happening. I think got to go to tennis and stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
We should probably leave it there. We'll talk to you
post Canadian Open, post National Bank open but a reminder,
we are on Patreon, dot com, forward slash Open Era.
Join us there, get the show at free plus, get
it early on Sundays, and best of all, you get
access to the Discord or richat and Tennis all the time.
(45:39):
We're still on Twitter or x if you're foolish enough
to call that, I don't know, but we're still on there.
I'm hardly tweeting on our open Air account because yeah,
but if you like us, give us a follow on there.
But if you like us more importantly, give us a
rating or a review wherever you get the chance to do.
That's a lot. Gets the pot up the feeds, gets
(46:02):
the pot up the charts, So yeah, please do that.
We love doing the pod and we love reading those reviews,
so yeah, drop a line for us there. I think
that's it for producer Dylan on the Once in Ties
and for Simon, thank you so much for listening to
Open Era. We'll talk to you next week.
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