September 9, 2024 • 54 mins
What’s old is new again, with a bit of a twist..
On this week’s Open Era, Simon and Devang unpack the ending of the 2024 US Open. Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner ended this grand slam season the way they started it: on top.
The guys discuss both champions, Sinner’s run in with the doping authorities, the American wave that fell just short plus plenty more on a Championship edition of Open Era!
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Come join the Patreon family for bonus content, access to the exclusive discord server and ad free episodes.
Follow @OpenEraPod on Twitter! While you're there say hello to @DesaiDevang or reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@openera.ca
If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store.
If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Open Era 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
On this week’s Open Era, Simon and Devang unpack the ending of the 2024 US Open. Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner ended this grand slam season the way they started it: on top.
The guys discuss both champions, Sinner’s run in with the doping authorities, the American wave that fell just short plus plenty more on a Championship edition of Open Era!
Sick of hearing all the ads? Subscribe to Soda Premium on Apple Podcasts to get rid of them!
Come join the Patreon family for bonus content, access to the exclusive discord server and ad free episodes.
Follow @OpenEraPod on Twitter! While you're there say hello to @DesaiDevang or reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@openera.ca
If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store.
If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Open Era 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello and welcome to the Open Air Podcast. My name
is Deven de sign I'm joined as always by mister
Simon Bush or Bush another Championship Sunday. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm doing all right. Yeah, I sound perhaps a little
more hoarse and gruff than I usually do. I was
out volunteering at the Fringe Festival bar last night and
things got a little loud as I was attempting to
yell over the sound of a large brass band that
was playing to take drinks orders and things. But it
was good fun and our listeners will just have to
(00:46):
listen to me sounding like a smoke twenty a day
for the last ten years.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
For one episode, it sounds you've got gravitas. So you
sound like you've taught a few seminars in your day
with this voice. Were you were you the bartender?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I was the bartender? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Wow? How was that experience?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It was great? Yeah. I think I so often miss
like manual, blue collar work sometimes given the line of
work that I'm in where I spent so long staring
at a screen and speaking abstract terms, that actually getting
to have direct connection to my work was quite nice.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Love that the less time spent talking about National Football
League action, the better. But I also will say that
I'm glad we had the US Open as a distraction
from the NFL coming back on Sundays, because I stayed
away and stuck to the action in New York, hoping
(01:44):
for a bit of an epic, a bit of a
long one, even an American win, which even as a
tailor Fritz Day one er Simon, I still don't back
the Yankee doodle Dandy with all my heart most of
the time, but I was hoping for a bit more
of something on Sunday. That being said is there's something
(02:05):
to be said that both finals were kind of similar,
like we got glimpses maybe at the end of what
Fritz and Jpeg could do, and by golly, they're very
good players. But there's levels to this, and there's a
reason why Sablenka and Center are cut above, and there's
a reason why randing this season and how we started it.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think that's probably true. Yeah, I think levels is
the description that I had in my head watching both
of these finals, which is ultimately I don't think anyone
maybe that's not true. I was going to say, maybe
not what anyone believed for a minute that either of
the American players could win these finals during the course
of it. But there was a moment I think Jpeg
(02:46):
was in a position where during that second set, she
was competitive, the crowd was behind you could see Saboleanca
was started to go a little awry. Fritz kind of
had that as well in the third set. So yeah, nice,
nice mirror imagery and some capait. I must admit, through
watching both of these finals, I never thought that either
the US players stood a chance. I just thought both
of the players they were playing were considerably heading shoulders
(03:09):
above them, and I think, unfortunately for the US, it
ended up that way.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, I felt a bit sad for the players in
a way because you could you could really sense the crowd.
It was desperate for them to find something, find some momentum,
keep them there a bit longer, make those those tickets
may be worth a bit more, but it simply wasn't there.
Let's start with them with the women's final, then, Simon
and talk about Arena Sablanca digging deep in front of
(03:37):
a very partisan crowd. You know, when you get those crowds,
when they're cheering Faults, it's gonna be it's gonna be
a bit spicy and uncomfortable at times, and I think
Arina Sablanca gave some openings to Jpeg and co. I
don't think she was her imperious best, but in the
big moments, she clearly was the better player on this day,
(03:59):
and in the big moments throughout the last few weeks
she has been that way. The forehand ferocity, it's just
a ridiculous shot. And you think you must have seen
by now the radar gun measurements that she had the
fastest forehand of any player over the last couple of
weeks at the US Open. But I feel like that
(04:20):
shot itself needs its own thirty for thirty simon, because
it's just an absolute gun. And I had such a
time watching that shot poll people the various degrees over
the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It was really fun watching it, wasn't it. I think
she served incredibly well during this tournament, especially during this final.
I think the moments that she got into trouble is
when some of the old problems came back to sort
of haunter. He just being a little too erratic and
first of going awry, but my goodness, we said this
during her US Open sorry, and during her Australian Open win,
(04:53):
and I think it speaks especially true here as well,
which is that so much credit needs to be paid
to her and to her for the improvement in her
mental game and also that stability that's been brought to
her serve as well. We are so close to I
think we forget sometimes how not far away and a
(05:15):
little removed we are from her suffering from serving yips
and completely falling apart and getting into the territory of
double faults on almost every single serve. To go from
that to her being a two time Grand Slam champion
and in the big moments her served really looking imperious,
not being not being scared of the moment that she
(05:36):
found herself in and really attacking first serves and big points.
She's a worthy, worthy winner of this tournament. I think
she's truth be told, the worthy world number one on
the women's side. I think it's a discussion that we
can get onto in a moment, just the way that
this season's going to end and the tournaments that are
coming up to see who's going to end with that
year end ranking. To me, she's been the best player
(05:57):
on tour. I know she's had an up and down
season with injuries and the tournaments that she's played, but
when she's had at best and she's hit the heist
that she has, I don't think there's any one of
the women's store that can compete with.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Her for her one hundredth career major match. It serves
as an excellent place to stand and maybe look back
at how far she has come, because you're definitely right Bush,
like last year she was leading Coco of course, could
not close that she lost in the semis the two
years before that, and to go from that to seemingly
(06:30):
feeling automatic at times, which yeah, time is something crazy
because yeah, it did not feel like something possible not
long ago. But tennis is kind of really really cool
for that because you get to see these evolutions happen
really quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I think there's many things that we can make and
I think a lot of people are going to circle
in on the final and maybe even the semi final
just to go through Navara and Pagoola the way that
she did and have to run the US gauntlet in
using those two players. But her quarter final win over
Qwan Jeng was a demolition job against a very I mean,
(07:05):
what can we say, right, like someone who who'd performed
so well at the Olympic Games, someone who I think
a lot of people expected big things off on this
surface to run deep, and it wasn't even a match.
It wasn't even close at any point. And I think
that is the definition of how good in a Sabolenka
(07:26):
has been on a hard court this season. Because that
was a demolition job.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She finishes eighteen and one in the Majors, was tied
with j Pow Jason Pelini for most major wins among
women this year. In the final, Simon down five three
in the second set. She won sixteen of the matches
final twenty three points. He could hear and feel the
air kind of deflight amongst the crowd, as it felt
(07:53):
sort of inevitable that Sabolenka wasn't going to let Jpeg
fight back in that second set and take it to
a third. She was the better player in the longer points,
winning twelve of the fifteen rallies that lasted. Nine shots
are more, but you talked about the hardcore dominance. Simon
forty third match win in a hardcourt Natures is twenty
twenty one, most by any man or women over that span.
(08:16):
So this is someone cementing their dominance. I think if
you were a betting person, you probably felt comfortable backing
Seblenca going into Saturday, and then even with some curve
balls like it was raining cats and dogs, it sounded
hella weird in the stadium, that was weird. And then
everyone in the crouchyre against you, like, I mean, your
(08:37):
coach has also got a tiger on his head for
some reason. Like a lot of weird stuff happening. She
had a moment when I definitely wondered about the old
Seblenka and the commentator is desperately craving it, Chris Everett,
desperately willing this on. I'm so happy that she didn't
get to see that. I'm so happy Sebolenka refused her
(08:59):
that joy.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
There was definitely some talk it into existent stuff that
was going on, right or not shut out.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The level of coaching effort was trying to do it
to Pegula was super weird to me because obviously she
can't hear what you're saying, so addressing the person is
Jesse repeatedly as if she's like there beside you was eft.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I feel like, well, you work in sports media, and
I feel like I am, you know, adjacent to it
and have works in it previously. And I definitely sound
like an old man on this stuff. But if you're
a commentator, do not refer to the players for their
first name, come on, first roll of thumb. Maybe it's
the whole BBC stuff that still burned into my brain.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
First name aka like a nickname, as if like you're
her aunt or something like it was. I don't know, man.
I had to mute it very early and at times unmuted,
but it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I was wondering. I was chatting with my partner during
this final as we were watching it, and I think
one of the phrase that I said during it was,
I don't know. There's many other players in world tennis
where the entirety of the match revolves around the single player,
where the opponent really is kind of like secondary to them,
(10:16):
and I kind of feel that way with Savlenca, where
it's chaos. Every point is kind of riding on what
she is going to do as opposed to whether or
not her opponent is going to force an issue. All
that kind of stuff, and I think that's testament to
just how she plays. Like she's going for a shots
all the time. You're going to get big serves, you're
(10:37):
going to get big mistakes, you're going to get massive winners,
You're going to force the issue on every single ball,
and I think that makes for really exciting tennis. Honestly,
I don't know that it's everyone's cup of tea. I'm
not entirely sure that's how you would coach it. And
let's be honest, you have to be an incredible physical
specimen to be able to do that and also have
(10:57):
the mentality to do that as well. But it makes
for so so exciting tennis to have one player that
just goes for everything constantly. We need more of this
in the game.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Well said. She also had one of the few kids
that wasn't awful as well at the US Open, so
I would like to thank her for that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I like the shoelaces. I thought they were really nice,
a nice touch to match the dress.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And the power of the doppelganger. That young girl should
also take credit for winning the US Open because she
definitely helped.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Should we touch on despite robbing her over a moment
of her coach wearing the xxx Y hat to touch
on some you know, deeply problematic, disturbing politics and rise
of that kind of movement in the world. It's not
great to see that. Not even there's no smoke without fire,
Like it's very blatantly on display in terms of what
some of the coaching staff have been wearing during the
(11:47):
course of the two weeks. It's not just a bad look,
it's just you know, terrible. It has to be said.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Can I also say, on that note, the coaches wearing
veil crowbl sponsor batches that look like they were glued
on the morning before. It's so gaost, Like, what are
we doing here?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because we've gone this
is our first first full year of now on court
coaching taking place, and you've seen a steady rise in
the quantity of patches and you know, just like literal
camera time for these coaches in a way that like
they're almost on screen every single at the end of
(12:29):
every point or between every service game, or even during
points sometimes like if they're really cutting aggressively, which is
wild to think about from where we were two years ago.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It kind of sucks Hey, I don't like it that much.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think in an individual sport, you get into a
scenario where you ask the question of how much is
the coach responsible for what they're doing? And I think,
I think, maybe let's just chalk this up for tennis
coverage and TV coverage just desperately in search of something
interesting and storylines to go on during the course of
a match, and I think you're going to find the
most drama of the relationship between the player and the
(13:08):
coach because they're constantly in dialogue. You're also hearing much
more of it being picked up on microphones now as
well and trying to read into what's going on. I
thought that was interesting. I mean, we've got we have
got it a lot during the course of the year
and even at the back end of last year of
the last US Open. But I still, as someone who
you know, comes from the era where on core coaching
was banned, the idea of having ESPN have the hot
(13:29):
mic up to all of these coaches so you can
hear just about everything of what's going on and being said,
I still find very jarring.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, I mean, was it Draper's coach. I think you
could see him like using the iPad or whatever was
in his box like in real time, and then talking
to Draper and discussing like real time tactics. Yeah, it's
fascinating to see how far we've come in that regard.
And I understand why the coaches are doing this in
(13:56):
the sense of bell crowing companies to themselves, because every
dollar counts and the costs of this traveling circus are many,
and it's not the player footing the bill. Sometimes it's
people paying their own way. So I get it. But also,
holy cow, like it's it's something, it's something else. But
(14:17):
I mean, that's kind of what the US Open is. Like,
I feel like I've commented before on this about this
tournament and like how it is kind of a celebration
of capitalism in some ways, and like that is heavily
intertwined with tennis. But maybe that's a conversation for a
different episode. Do you have anything else on the women's site.
We'll talk about EGA in parting shots Bush if you
want to save the who is the number one talk
(14:39):
for then?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh god? Yeah. Just a shout out to Kearny and Macova.
A great two weeks for her. It's good to see
her Matt. Good to see her playing well and she
had the chances in that semifinal. She's going to look
back at that second set and where she was in
the match and could have thought what could have been?
But a great two weeks for her. You think she's
(15:00):
gonna I think she's gonna win a Slam. I think
one day. Really she has the game for it. Yeah,
she has everything going for her. It's just can she
finally break through?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
But there's always one one unforeseen thing that happens. I
feel like that derails everything. Unfortunately, She's a hell of
a player.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
That's it. Though, good tournament for the women's side, an
overall a worthy winner despite all of the things I
said about the dodginess of her camp and coaches around her.
Four mark. She deserves this tournament. She deserved the Australian Open.
She's been the best hardcourt player all year. You know,
absolutely hats off to her, fully well deserved.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
On the men's side, Yannig center one the Australian Open.
He's won the US Open, something that a few have
done before him Bush I think it was three players
bat Swedlander did it once and then Novek and Roger
each did it three times, but it's still very rare,
and I think it's a testament to how how good
(16:01):
you've got to be, how consistent you have to be
to to win both Slams in the same year. The
Annick Center has been that person. I think we talked
about this in the discord, but he has the lowest
floor in the sense that his normal game is good
enough to beat most players because he's just so damn
rock solid, and he was that over the last two weeks.
(16:24):
Bush to win his second Slam, dispatching a relatively game
tailor Fritz. I mean, I think you could tell Fritz
was I mean, I never thought he had a huge
chance in this match, but the way the first it
ended felt kind of like a death knell.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, this was This was a final which was perhaps
not for the celebrities in the house. Find this tennis enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
To who the whole old Taylor, Swift and Mahomes were there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think Mahomes was there with his wife. I
think my understanding I don't know, but the loose understanding
that I have is that Mahomes and Kelsey and the
respective partners are good friends with each other. So I
also realized that's probably the first time anyone's ever referred
to Taylor Swift as someone's partner. So you said it
(17:25):
exactly with disdain. But I think I think they hang
out as I don't bloody, you know. I think they
hang out as a unit, or at least they were
hanging out in the bar. At least at least Pat
Mahomes was out there watching the game.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Jason Tatum was there, Jasey Austin and e Rodic together,
which is, Oh, it's great. A lot of stars in attendance.
You're right desperate to see Tatum.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Usher was there, Matthew McConaughey was there, the guy who
owned Quist?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, who's the Who's the celebrity that you can name
that shouldn't have been there, that wasn't ask an up star?
Do you think that you saw.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Tim Henman, Crany Roddick.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Please, sir, please? All right? Well, I am a card
carrying member of the Taylor Fritz fan club since day one.
That being said, I think this is probably his ceiling
in the sense of Slam finalist Bush. That probably makes sense.
Very good player, I mean, excellent win over Tiaffo. He
(18:29):
outlasted France's pretty pretty much. But he also did us
the great service of taking out ZERIV and a great
match for him. I thought that was an excellent moment
for Fritz and also a good match. I think Josh
said this on the discord as well, but Spa is
not usually involved in great matches. But I thought overall
that was a good match.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I think Fritz has he has the unfortunate role here,
which is that he's gonna need a good draw to
win one of these slams, because he's gonna need to
try and to a final against a player that he
matches up well against or manages to get through a
bunch of players who can't neutralize him in a certain way.
I think he just ran into a player who unfortunately
(19:12):
for what Fritz does, which is which is incredible, Like
he's an incredible server. He is pretty consistent for a
guy of his size in the way that he moves,
which is not great by sort of a top twenty standard.
He's all right. His backhand's pretty solid, he's okay and
is obviously his fourhand is a huge weapon in terms
(19:32):
of what he's going for, the problem is that that
doesn't match up well against Johannick Sinner. It doesn't match
up well against karlas Akraz, it doesn't match up well
against Danny Medvedev, it doesn't really match up very well
against Novak Djokovic. So he's sort of running the gam
But you're going to need to not play one of
those players in a final, even against someone like, you know,
Alex Demano, even someone in like an Alexander Zavere who
(19:54):
we managed to get the better off here, and I
think four you know, like you were saying, a good match,
but four tight sets as well. That's that's kind of
who he should be aiming for. If you can get
that as a final, then maybe he has a chance
to win one of these. But the problem is, like
the players that I mentioned, they kind of just better
than him at everything, and that's going to make it very,
very challenging for to win the Slam.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Do you feel the same way about Draper Jack Draper
making the surprise semifinal run here after cheating in Cincinnati. No,
I won't let that go, but that was a shock.
I mean, he put his guts out in that semi final,
but that I mean that the semi against Sinner kind
of felt like all the things he does are good,
but Sinner does them better.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, I do. I think that's that's a They're very
similar players right in terms of what the floor and
what the ceiling is for them as well, So I
think that's a good comparison.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Sin.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's just a night for these big for these big
dudes who hit big shots and the weaknesses if you're
ever going to trap them in a rally or make
them come forward and make them hit awkward shots. Sin,
it was just a complete nightmare for both of those dudes,
and I think it showed up during this final as well.
It was very obvious anytime that Cinner and Fritz were
(21:07):
trapped in a backhanded, backhand rally, You're like, oh, good night, sorry, Taylor,
the point for you?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, this is good end badly for you. So oh god, yeah,
like I want to do. I watched some of this match,
not all of it. I had it unmuted at times,
but I watched some of it muted, and when those
long rallies happen, I kind of watch. I watched players movement,
not the ball sometimes just to see how they are
moving and where their anticipation lies or how fresh they seem.
(21:36):
And I mean towards the end, how can you fault
Fritz or find kind of feeling like it's a it's
a losing game, like he's not gonna he's not gonna
be able to come through it, right, so he goes
long or he goes big and he loses the point.
So I think this was a great tournament for him.
Like I said, I mean it felt I felt kind
of bad for him as well because the Tiaffo match,
(21:58):
I mean, everyone felt kind of shocked by how it
ended and how Francis kind of went away at the
end Bush so like that wasn't necessarily the most uplifting scenario,
but the way the crowd was backing him today, I
was hoping for a third set, but Cinner's that good
and I think a deserve champion here. That being said,
(22:19):
the doping stuff, do you think it was talked about enough?
Because it does feel like Brianca mentioned on the discord
and everyone has moved on very quickly, and they didn't
mention it much at all in the final. I know
I had it meaning the times, but it didn't seem
like that was a topic of conversation very much. And
to go from a few weeks ago when we were
talking about Tribe Egles coming down and then Shady going
(22:41):
on to here we are today, was like, yep, he's
he's the most consistently great player on the tour and
he's rice are with Carlos if not ahead to be
the face of the game. Like to go from def
Con one to here, it's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think the end of the season will be fascinating
to watch of how things shake out because he has,
in pr terms, managed to move the story on, has
he not When the fact that he's won this title,
people are going to be talking about this as opposed
to the fact that whether or not he is guilty
(23:18):
of the charges that were laid before him. I saw
Roger Federer was talking about this during the course of
the week as well, and I think he did the
thing that Roger Federer does, which he came out entirely
squarely in the middle of the fence on it, like
the side is saw from the splinters of how firmly
he's sat on it.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
He's literally Swiss smid.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
He is very Swiss, yes, incredibly neutral on it. I
am a little shocked as well that we've managed to
move the conversation as far forward as we have done,
and it's not seemingly not sticking to him. It seems
like for all the things that we want to say
about the situation of how the Tribuno and how the
powers that be handled this situation, it's kind of what
(24:01):
was the phrasing that we used a couple of weeks ago,
that his his legal team have played a blinder. I
feel like everyone involved him has rallied around to make
sure that this is protected and he seems to have
come out of this all right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Well, he's got the right friends, right, He's got the
right people looking out for him in the tennis establishment,
including Darren k Hill, who everyone loves and deservely so
because he seems like a lovely man. And I get it,
But like if this was someone who wasn't maybe a
favorite son of the tennis tour, does it play out
the same way? Probably not. And I think what Dennis
(24:35):
Schafvaalov said still is true that the rules maybe aren't
the same for everyone involved, and it kind of played
out that way, like I I don't know, I felt
like I was I was ready to not count how
I watched him the same anymore? Like I was ready
(24:55):
to do that, and how much has really changed from
now to or from then to now, you know, like
I think I've maybe eased up a bit, and my
criticism of how it went down and whether or not
I think he's doping, like do I? I don't think so,
but also I don't know. I'm unsure and now maybe
(25:17):
I cast as versions to a wider net of players.
So frankly like it's one of those things that will
probably change my affection for the sport going forward. And
at the time it didn't feel great to say that,
but it played out where I could feel myself almost
not feeling like as impacted by this match, butch and
(25:40):
I think it's kind of related to that.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Well. To play ar'mchre psychologist and indeed to front and
foremost the parasocial relationship here. If you look at the
body language of Jon Extenter upon winning the Australian Open
versus winning this US Open title, it is night. And
I clearly do buy one hundred percent that this has
(26:03):
had a huge impact on the Onick Center because he
did not look overly excited to win this match. And
I think there's many jokes that you can make about
that's why he always looks he always looks like a
robot on court. He doesn't. I think that is actually
a little bit of a disservice to him. He is
somewhat more emotional than I think people give him credit
for him, and I think he actually smiles a lot
more on court when he is enjoying things. He was
(26:27):
not smiling at the conclusion of this match. He was
not smiling during the trophy celebration and did not look
over I think the emotion that looked the most prominent
to me was just complete relief. Yeah, that this was
done and that he can move on with his life,
maybe cross that bridge later on.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Probably he beat the charges like he passed.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, from a human level, I definitely buy that this
has had an impact on him. You can definitely raise
the question of whether or not this is self inflicted
and whether it's deserved. That is entirely up to you
to make that, you know, to settle that debate. But yeah, absolutely,
from watching him, this did not look like a guy
who was overly happy to win.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah. He's just such an important person for this sport
going forward. And I mean, like you said, the way
they handle this, I guess the in terms of their perspective, like,
well played, Holy cow for them to get this right,
these guys who have not necessarily been masters of execution. Yeah,
(27:28):
I'm it's all, frankly a bit stunning and shocking and
here we are Cianic Center US Open champion. That's it. Okay,
we'll talk a few other men's tidbits in parting shots
with Bush. Do you have any other general men's thoughts
before we take a break.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Pretty spectacular collapse from Francis TrFO in that from with
the position that you found himself and talk about sliding
doors moments and wanting things back. Goodness, gracious me, we're
all the money in the world. I thought it was
going to be Francis TFO in this final and then
just a spectacular collapse. Absolutely fair play to Taylor Fritz
for handling the moment, and also absolutely fair play for
(28:09):
Franci's TFO for what his comments were afterwards and admitting
the feeling the pressure and feeling the nerves to it.
Nothing wrong with that, we all feel that, but it's
also kind of refreshing to hear someone actual professional athletes
say that as well. So you know, I just wanted
to shout that out to say, you know, it's always
it's shocking to see a player fall down like that
because you think they can They've dealt with these things
(28:30):
enough times that they could they could find a way
through it. But at the same time wanted to acknowledge
that it's nice to hear from a sort of male
positivity and the opposite direction of toxicity. It's nice to
see someone expressing it in a positive way.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It felt like Francis was the one guy left and
could maybe give Centner a problem in the final if
he could draw on the crowd and produce something. Just
because of his affinity for the court and in as
far as for the tournament, it felt like it could
be him. But that was tough to watch. It happened
so quickly. I feel like the text I was getting
(29:04):
on Friday night, We're like, what happened? Like what I
looked away for like ten minutes. Yeah, I was shocking,
But that's tennis man, all right. When we come back
after the break, we talk about more US Open stuff,
Egastrian Tech's tournament, some PTPA stuff, plus two challenges remaining
coming up next. Welcome back to the Open Air Podcast. Simon.
(29:37):
The women's tour after these last two weeks shaken up
a bit. I kind of foreshadowed we'd be talking about
this now, but the state of the tour, I think
Egastrion Tech definitely did not have the US opening that
we expected. I think you were pretty harsh in the
(29:58):
discord regarding your thought on her tournament. But her lead
is still pretty sizable as the world number one, but
she definitely does not feel like the world number one
at the moment. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Perhaps perhaps that's not fair. I think my criticism within
the discord was more in the scatter gun erratic nature
of the way that she lost to Jessica Bagulla in
that quarter final, where I think sometimes we have very
high expectations of the world number one, just given the
(30:37):
track record and given the performance and a former champion
here and five time slam champion, all of these things.
To see the manner in which.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
She was so.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Outside the lines in that quarter final made me wonder,
how often do you see a world number one come
into a match with the expectation on her and just
kind of not deliver in that capacity. So I think
that's where my criticism was more coming from I think
it's still been a great year for her and I
think she's still I mean, the ranking doesn't lie, right,
(31:13):
the points don't lie in the fact that she's deserving
of the world number one. I think the heights that
Sable Anchor has reached would probably challenge that to a
lot of people, and I think she might overtake her
in terms of the way that the number one points
schedule rank will shake out for the rest of the season.
But it was a very odd match, a very very
odd match, and I think even a comments post match
(31:34):
indicated that maybe we will watch this space and this
tournament for her again in the future, because we know
how good she is on clay. We feel like very
confident that she's going to win every French Open that
she walks into. But it's definitely become more of a
gamble to figure out what she's going to do in
(31:56):
some of these other major tournaments, which is something that
I think is quite a bit different than where we
were at the back end of last year.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, I mean it's intriguing to say like maybe she's
a specialist. I think it's very harsh and unfair and
I know you're not saying that but I know the
haters have been saying that, so this is fodder for them,
but I think that's fair. Like just looking at the
rest of the top ten Simon after this tournament, jes
(32:23):
Spegula into the top three now, which I think is
also fair based on merit, just based on how solid
she's been over the course of the year, but also
Evan of Rros into the top ten, which also feels worthy.
I wanted to quickly talk about the billionaire stuff bush.
I know we talked a lot about this on the
discord and also privately, but both Jpeg and Emmin of
(32:48):
Rrow coming from wealthy families was the topic of discussion,
but like kind of in a way that I thought
was a bit funny because it felt like the commentators
were also trying to be like, you know what, she's
wealthy or they're wealthy, but they still work their ass off,
and like they're not like those kind of wealthy people,
like they take the subway, etc. Etc. I feel like
some rehabilitation on billionaires sharing these broadcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, I really enjoyed the discussion on a discord. I
think it was mostly me just trying to work through
my own thoughts on this whole thing about how the
nature of supporting wealthy people in sports. More broadly, whether
or not it is an attractive proposition for people to
support some of these athletes, and what does it say
about the individual who is who is supporting them, What
(33:35):
does it say about the more broader sporting community of
whether or not they're supported. I think the harshest criticism
of this is people basically realizing that I don't know harshest.
I think maybe just the reality of this is that
even hard work is a different kind of hard work
when you're rich dev So I don't think that just
(33:57):
like these two athletes have, you know, heart and determination
and hard graft and all this sort of stuff is
a particularly compelling narrative. So everyone works hard to start with.
But the thing is that you are able to spend
more time with coaches, You're able to stick this out longer,
You're able to have the best sports science, the best medicine,
(34:20):
all those things are available to you. So hard work
does look different when you're a billionaire or the daughter
of a billionaire son of a billionaire than it does
for a regular person. And I strongly suspect the more
broad argument is that it's just not that fun of
a storyline to have people who are coming from wealthy
families reach the final of sporting events, because it feels
(34:42):
like sport is this last bastion of what we consider
to be purity and meritocracy, where it is people can
come from anywhere and win on sporting achievement alone without
all the other things behind it. Unfortunately, we just got
done with the Olympics, and if you want to check
the ranking system there of who were awarded medal spoilers
the rich countries. So it already exists in different capacities.
(35:05):
But I think we want the illusion dev I think
that's the thing here.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, li to me, glat to me with some grace
at least. Yeah, I think I think that's right. I
think I think Luke said it really well in a
discord as well, in the sense of like Antennas, you
can't really hide like you have to prove it. You can't,
you can't bullshit your way into these spots. And I
think in that sense, like I respect running towards the
(35:31):
graft in JPEG's case, like I don't know too much
about the em and of r history, but it felt
like Jpeg wanted to quote unquote like make it in
a in a in a real way to the point
where like they mentioned, she travels alone, and like she
doesn't travel family. But I also like to your point,
like she travels alone because you can't like in the
(35:53):
sense of like why some other two players are traveling
with their seventh cousins or like their entire distant families,
because like maybe they have or maybe there's there's a
whole different deal going on here. So the advantages are
the advantages. And I think the way it was discussed
is a bit funny because it was like the accommentators
and the broadcasters were apologizing on their behalf maybe sensing
(36:18):
the temperature in the room, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well, yes, perhaps. I think it is not a surprise though,
that you have two daughters of billionaires playing tennis, Like
why this sport? Why does it end up being this
particular situation, or why do you look around at some
of the other locations and say, like why do you
have a billionaire billionaire's daughter in a question for example,
(36:44):
or in formula one if you want, any of these
other examples of high profile athletes who come from very
very wealthy families follow the money on these things, and
I think it probably speaks more to what tennis is
than anything else.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Are you floating? Are you floating a favorite hobby horse
of yours, the billionaire child band.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
That's the policy I'm going for. That's what I secretly
really want.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Billionaire child man in athletics, No, in professional sports. I laughed.
I left it at the last part.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
You know how we've become so accustomed to like neoliberal
means testing on the reverse side of it. Fuck it,
we're going the other way. Dev How about that.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I have a taste of this, Suckers.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
We spent the entire Olympics talking about like different genetic power.
All right, how do you like this to one? Folks,
you have more than one comma in your earnings for you, you're
not allowed to compete. That's a real competitive disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, definitely an interesting conversation. I recommend joining our discord
because we have a bunch of those with smarter people
than us. But yeah, I think that was definitely an
interesting side plot. The Olympics is as well as Simon
in a for a way, I think we can't get
around the fact that both people who won didn't go like.
I have a hard time moving past that either. It
(38:07):
played a huge role in this summer swim.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Well, I think we always knew that, didn't we. I
think we knew that just the how condensed the schedule was,
and perhaps the fact that we're moving between three different
surfaces within the space of eight weeks, nine weeks, I
want to say, on the tour. It obviously caught up eventually,
So it's not really particularly surprising the way that the
summer shook out. All that being said, it is funny, though,
(38:33):
isn't it that we ended up with the same US
Open and Australia and Open champion on the men's and
women's side, and on the men's if you want, I
know this is going to be obvious, and I'm going
to say it anyway, just so we're all on the
same page about it. If you wanted a moment or
a lion in the sand about a transitional year from
where we were historically. I don't think we can do
any more than having Cinner and Karlak Lakara as a win,
(38:56):
all four Grand Slams, but.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
A sprinkle and Novak gold for the for the old fogies. Yeah,
that feels about right. It feels like a yeah, good
way to end it or good way to transition also
into this funky year end of tennis, which is always
clumsy and weird and fun for the tennis Sikosh and
Gus like ourselves. All right, quickly, Simon, I just wanted
(39:19):
to talk about the PTPA. Andy Rottick was talking about
it in an interview. I love how careful he was
to mention this because he knew the Novak fans would
come after him, and they did. They did, definitely half
of the Indian Twitter population, of course, seizing on this
story because that's what Twitter is now, just a bot
farm full of half of India. But Vashik Paspasol responding
(39:45):
to Andy rotic erotic, saying like it's listen, like he
gets the good intentions, et cetera. Novak can't do this
though it's his full time job be the PTA p
a head and play tennis like there's too much work
going into it. What if they've done, show me what
they've done. And then Vashtik responded on on Twitter saying
a few of the things that they've done now, some
of them, I mean, sound very legit they're all I
(40:06):
think legit in the sense that I think Vashik is
proud of them, and I think that's totally fair. That
being said, some of them didn't necessarily seem like huge
winds to get like Hilton Axis at stops in every city,
you know, like things like that. So I'm curious where
you sat on this. It seems like Rodick is right
in the sense that Novak can't be the head of
(40:28):
both playing and being the figurehead of this PTPA or
as well past Basil and co. Are doing some things
and like they seem to be putting the right people
in place so far.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, see Reuter's right. And I cut about this. During
the course of the week, I saw this being picked
up by a bunch of news aggregators, and I was
kind of curious of why this particular moment has been
an inflection point for this story. Like, obviously Rodick talking
about it is one thing, but I think where is it?
Are we two years, three years removed from its inception
(41:03):
at the US Open. It's been a while anyway. It
kind of this whole story reminded me of the judge
Judy tapping the watch gif of just like we we
kind of want to see a little more. I think
the outside public is not seeing perhaps the movement that
they wanted to see on this one, And I think
also perhaps expectations setting about.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
What is.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
What is likely to happen from this kind of movement,
and whether or not that power struggle that's occurring behind
the scenes has been communicated well enough to the more
broader tennis public. If I had to guess on this stuff,
it seems like it's just locked in a I'm trying
to think of a better, more less kind of like
(41:48):
dramatic way of saying, a pissing contest behind the scenes
of just everyone what's what do they say in public?
Factional maneuvering is the is the terminology that gets used
here where everyone is just kind of backing into their
own corner and trying to secure power. Kind of feels
that way to me. And in those situations, it's very
unlikely you're going to do a whole lot of communication
to the outside world. So I have no doubt that
(42:09):
things are going on watch this space. I always say, who.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Knows that is fair? That that hilarious phrase is definitely
fair for that, But I know I think that's that's interesting.
I the PDPA has to be well placed when this
whole thing is shaken up and the Jeda Invitational is
installed and we get a fifth Slam and we get
eighty more tournaments, so we get a new pseudo tour
(42:37):
like they have to have some teeth. So I hope
they are prepared for that. Let's see, Okay, anything else
Bush US Open before two challenges are rating?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. Will
we be your overall assessments of this tournament in general?
Just given we had some new names at the back
end of these tournaments, despite who won them, we had
some first time finalists, we had some first time semi
finalists and quarter finalists. I think we can perhaps choke
this one up to being a to being a good
(43:09):
tournament overall.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I enjoyed it, Yeah, I think I. I might say,
out of the four slams, of which I consumed a
lot of, I might have watched the most of this tournament.
And it's like, I don't think I missed a day
at all. And I think the us O ME does
a lot of things right. I think they, I mean
(43:31):
they have the benefit of the roofs, which is mega helpful.
But I also think that they get it in the
sense of like what they try to do with who's
placed where and who gets proper shine and and generally
like what people want to see the presentation. I mean,
you take it a leave, and I complain so much
about the broadcasting and commentating, but I also love the
(43:55):
comforting sounds of certain broadcasters and and just the visuals
of the sports. So like, overall, I think I enjoyed it,
but I do wish the presentation was less, Like I
didn't need to see Ni Karios that often. I mean,
I'm not a Nick Carrios fan, but I get what
(44:16):
they're trying to do. That being said, like it's I
don't know, he's still on Twitter acting like an idiot
and deleting stuff and making defense to comments, and then
he's interviewing players in the tunnel, and like, I just
doesn't feel good and I'm not trying to be a
hell love joy about it, but it just felt stupid
(44:37):
and forced, you know, and like they have other they
have other people to lean on. I think U Banks
was fantastic. I think having a current player who who
wants to talk about the game, and also add insight
is definitely worth having and a huge plus. But I
think there's others in curios.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I just think he's not good enough to justify all
the biggers that it comes with him as a broadcaster.
He's not doesn't really add a whole lot. I don't
think he's even that big of a draw. I mean,
how could he be a draw to, certainly from a
women audience perspective, Like given someone who has been, you know,
allegedly accused of domestic violence on multiple occasions, and then
(45:17):
all the stuff during the course of the week, like
all the second serve stuff on the Kalin Skayer post
and all that kind of stuff, it reeks of someone
who is incredibly insecure, small time still acting like a
fifteen year olds, just someone who doesn't make for a
particularly attractive person, either in real life or on a broadcast.
(45:37):
So I would encourage ESPN, another broadcaster to just get
rid of this dude. He's not worth it.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I'm curious to see how they go from here with
that partnership, but yeah, perhaps they'll double down, That's my guess.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Not to overstate the curios thing or folk about it
too much, but I feel like we knew who Nick
Cares was and then to see this kind of post
that happened during the course of the week talking about
another person's partner and all that kind of stuff. Really,
I think soured a lot of people to the point
of recognizing that this is just someone who is a
(46:17):
what the correct phrasing is, someone's just never really grown up,
someone who is just like completely and utterly stuck in
the headspace of nineteen ninety And it's really kind of honestly,
it's it's not very good to see. It's kind of disgusting.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I think if they let fifteen year old me on TESPN,
i'd probably were Arsenal here too, or like whatever my
favorite team was. I don't care why he's wearing Boss
and Celtics stuff all the time. Fight it very again,
not endearing, and I'm the target for this. I find
a lot of stuff endearing Bush, but not this.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, I kind of you gotta be a little careful
on this side of things to be like, you know,
take your fucking hat off on TV where it's like,
you know whatever, who cares all?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Yeah, right, Like I don't believe that wear whatever hat
you want to wear. It's strange to me though, then
it's the suck. Anyways, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I don't go in for the like you know, you
gotta wear a suit on TV, like, take your hat off,
take your hoodie off, you know, take your airing like
any of this. So I don't go in for any
because I think it's obviously like coding a bunch of
you know, shitty stuff. But also, you know, don'tnate like
a fifteen year old on Twitter and professional ager and
your day job when you're being paid by someone. You know,
there are small things there. Not to sound like a
business shill or anything, but you can tell. Yeah, I
(47:34):
think you can tell.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I still the pair of us still come from broadcast
in some capacity. Whereas, like you know, there was there
was a slight responsibility that you have here despite all
of the ship that we talk about the media.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Wear an NBA hat where you know Rob blows NFL hat.
Just wear an NBA hat, Wear an NBA sweater. Okay,
that's all.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
We have a slight piece of professionalism and not be
a complete another twat that that would be okay.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Crow bel crow. This all it takes logo on like
a sponsor tag, like you're a coach, Okay to challenges
are real excitement. What do you got this week?
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Uh? Yeah, this one? Okay, my just to bring the
tone down slightly and just to in the course of
the week, I was going to do like a I
was gonna do like a nice one on the Oasis
and the Lincoln Park story. I was kind of like,
it's interesting that you have two bands reviving and you know,
coming back and doing all this stuff. There's probably a
through line there. And then I, you know, I saw
(48:32):
all the news about Grenfell and read the report and
all that kind of stuff and the reporting about it,
and it's just one of those for our international, non
UK listeners. This is a horrendous story. It's harrowing. It's
the Grenfell Tower fire which occurs in West London. Still
the families of everyone involved and the survivors looking for
(48:52):
justice out of this fell by literally every single institution
in the United Kingdom, whether that be you know, main government,
local government and the fire service, the tendancy associations, the
business associations, the building manager, you name it, like you
can go down the list and everyone is completely and
utterly at fault for this and has made a colossal
fuck up. It is a story of immense sadness. It's
(49:15):
a story of greed, it's a story of neoliberal capitalism,
and it's destruction of a community and whittling down of
services and safety nets. It's so awful that it defies belief.
You know it's bad when you have the chairman of
the inquiry and the people that are sitting on the
board of the inquiry literally in fucking tears as they're
(49:36):
reading out the sentencing and the things that have been
concluded out of the inquiry. So not to end on
a darren note from my perspective, but I think it's
important to keep the people who lost their lives and
also this story at the front of our brains and
in our hearts because it should never happen again. And
the fact that this happened to begin with in the
United Kingdom is a complete shocking and stain on the country.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Well said sir. Also, if I want to look into
who that new Lincoln Park lead singer is, I think
there's been some some new reporting on that which is
not great either.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Scientology's fine, right, I think completely fine.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I was like, why is Danny Masterson trending? Like Okay,
so it's related to that. Okay, good lord, no, really
well said. I did some reading on it as well.
After we talked. I was aware of the story, but yeah,
holy cow, definitely follow up on that. If you are
so inclined, I'm going to go with. I had a
(50:35):
few different options. I was gonna talk NFL, like I
told you, Simon, I wasn't gonna watch today, and I
didn't for the most part because we had the final
and like I was doing some reading. But I still
did watch and I feel like they got me again,
which feels unwell, but I'll shout out TIFF Toronto International
Film Festival. Friend of mine helped write one of the
(50:57):
films there, Shook, which got excellent reviews, which is greats
shows to odd no On for doing that. I'm gonna
check it out myself. But yeah, it is still cool
that we have this year. It's definitely changed and I
think it's no longer that indie film festival that was
able to create runaway hits or runaway trophy winners like
(51:18):
this this film festival has in the past. It's definitely
been corporatized, but it's nice that it's maintained or like
it's surviving because I think the arts in general and
the city are having a very tough time, and I
know tiff it is one of those places. And by
no means is a perfect by evidence of some of
(51:38):
the reactions to the protests we've seen so far. But yeah,
I enjoy that it's here and that it's happening.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, it's my time in two weeks for vif over
on my side of the country, so I'm looking forward
to watching a bunch of stuff. I was going to
ask you before we signed off, what did you make
of the Guardian cap wearing in the NFL starting I
saw it referred to as a that I saw written
on the internet is the equivalent of replacing a Toyota
Corolla with a hummer instead, Like you're just replacing one
(52:08):
thing for another, so it's not improving anything. Gutting cap
is like it's a squidgy thing that people wear on
top of the helmet in the NFL. So it's supposed
to be better for brain injuries, but in general, you're
still doing the action.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
I mean, I've seen some reporting that like it is better,
and I mean they should be all wearing it if
that's the case. But yeah, I haven't really noticed them
stand out. Like, I know people are afraid that it
would look like big heads, but I've seen sub linemen
wearing it. It's fine. I mean I at this point, God, Like,
I watched some college game the other day and saw
(52:41):
some of the hits that I mean deliver and I'm like, oh, no, Like,
it's just it's the deal you make. It's the deal
with the devil basically. And I said I wasn't going
to watch today, and here I am watching Jim Harby
yell at someone. So I think I have probably to
the problem. As per usual, we will leave it there though,
and let you get back to it. But as always
a reminder, we are on patreon dot com Forward slash
(53:04):
Open Era. Join us Dick at the show at free
get It early on Sundays. Plus, join that great discord
that we mentioned so many times today because it is
great and during tournaments like this it shines. So join
us at Patreon dot com Forward Slash Open Era for
producer Greg on the ones and two you stand for Simon.
Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you
(53:25):
next time. The Ben
Hello and welcome to the Open Air Podcast. My name
is Deven de sign I'm joined as always by mister
Simon Bush or Bush another Championship Sunday. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm doing all right. Yeah, I sound perhaps a little
more hoarse and gruff than I usually do. I was
out volunteering at the Fringe Festival bar last night and
things got a little loud as I was attempting to
yell over the sound of a large brass band that
was playing to take drinks orders and things. But it
was good fun and our listeners will just have to
(00:46):
listen to me sounding like a smoke twenty a day
for the last ten years.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
For one episode, it sounds you've got gravitas. So you
sound like you've taught a few seminars in your day
with this voice. Were you were you the bartender?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I was the bartender? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Wow? How was that experience?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It was great? Yeah. I think I so often miss
like manual, blue collar work sometimes given the line of
work that I'm in where I spent so long staring
at a screen and speaking abstract terms, that actually getting
to have direct connection to my work was quite nice.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Love that the less time spent talking about National Football
League action, the better. But I also will say that
I'm glad we had the US Open as a distraction
from the NFL coming back on Sundays, because I stayed
away and stuck to the action in New York, hoping
(01:44):
for a bit of an epic, a bit of a
long one, even an American win, which even as a
tailor Fritz Day one er Simon, I still don't back
the Yankee doodle Dandy with all my heart most of
the time, but I was hoping for a bit more
of something on Sunday. That being said is there's something
(02:05):
to be said that both finals were kind of similar,
like we got glimpses maybe at the end of what
Fritz and Jpeg could do, and by golly, they're very
good players. But there's levels to this, and there's a
reason why Sablenka and Center are cut above, and there's
a reason why randing this season and how we started it.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think that's probably true. Yeah, I think levels is
the description that I had in my head watching both
of these finals, which is ultimately I don't think anyone
maybe that's not true. I was going to say, maybe
not what anyone believed for a minute that either of
the American players could win these finals during the course
of it. But there was a moment I think Jpeg
(02:46):
was in a position where during that second set, she
was competitive, the crowd was behind you could see Saboleanca
was started to go a little awry. Fritz kind of
had that as well in the third set. So yeah, nice,
nice mirror imagery and some capait. I must admit, through
watching both of these finals, I never thought that either
the US players stood a chance. I just thought both
of the players they were playing were considerably heading shoulders
(03:09):
above them, and I think, unfortunately for the US, it
ended up that way.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, I felt a bit sad for the players in
a way because you could you could really sense the crowd.
It was desperate for them to find something, find some momentum,
keep them there a bit longer, make those those tickets
may be worth a bit more, but it simply wasn't there.
Let's start with them with the women's final, then, Simon
and talk about Arena Sablanca digging deep in front of
(03:37):
a very partisan crowd. You know, when you get those crowds,
when they're cheering Faults, it's gonna be it's gonna be
a bit spicy and uncomfortable at times, and I think
Arina Sablanca gave some openings to Jpeg and co. I
don't think she was her imperious best, but in the
big moments, she clearly was the better player on this day,
(03:59):
and in the big moments throughout the last few weeks
she has been that way. The forehand ferocity, it's just
a ridiculous shot. And you think you must have seen
by now the radar gun measurements that she had the
fastest forehand of any player over the last couple of
weeks at the US Open. But I feel like that
(04:20):
shot itself needs its own thirty for thirty simon, because
it's just an absolute gun. And I had such a
time watching that shot poll people the various degrees over
the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It was really fun watching it, wasn't it. I think
she served incredibly well during this tournament, especially during this final.
I think the moments that she got into trouble is
when some of the old problems came back to sort
of haunter. He just being a little too erratic and
first of going awry, but my goodness, we said this
during her US Open sorry, and during her Australian Open win,
(04:53):
and I think it speaks especially true here as well,
which is that so much credit needs to be paid
to her and to her for the improvement in her
mental game and also that stability that's been brought to
her serve as well. We are so close to I
think we forget sometimes how not far away and a
(05:15):
little removed we are from her suffering from serving yips
and completely falling apart and getting into the territory of
double faults on almost every single serve. To go from
that to her being a two time Grand Slam champion
and in the big moments her served really looking imperious,
not being not being scared of the moment that she
(05:36):
found herself in and really attacking first serves and big points.
She's a worthy, worthy winner of this tournament. I think
she's truth be told, the worthy world number one on
the women's side. I think it's a discussion that we
can get onto in a moment, just the way that
this season's going to end and the tournaments that are
coming up to see who's going to end with that
year end ranking. To me, she's been the best player
(05:57):
on tour. I know she's had an up and down
season with injuries and the tournaments that she's played, but
when she's had at best and she's hit the heist
that she has, I don't think there's any one of
the women's store that can compete with.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Her for her one hundredth career major match. It serves
as an excellent place to stand and maybe look back
at how far she has come, because you're definitely right Bush,
like last year she was leading Coco of course, could
not close that she lost in the semis the two
years before that, and to go from that to seemingly
(06:30):
feeling automatic at times, which yeah, time is something crazy
because yeah, it did not feel like something possible not
long ago. But tennis is kind of really really cool
for that because you get to see these evolutions happen
really quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I think there's many things that we can make and
I think a lot of people are going to circle
in on the final and maybe even the semi final
just to go through Navara and Pagoola the way that
she did and have to run the US gauntlet in
using those two players. But her quarter final win over
Qwan Jeng was a demolition job against a very I mean,
(07:05):
what can we say, right, like someone who who'd performed
so well at the Olympic Games, someone who I think
a lot of people expected big things off on this
surface to run deep, and it wasn't even a match.
It wasn't even close at any point. And I think
that is the definition of how good in a Sabolenka
(07:26):
has been on a hard court this season. Because that
was a demolition job.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She finishes eighteen and one in the Majors, was tied
with j Pow Jason Pelini for most major wins among
women this year. In the final, Simon down five three
in the second set. She won sixteen of the matches
final twenty three points. He could hear and feel the
air kind of deflight amongst the crowd, as it felt
(07:53):
sort of inevitable that Sabolenka wasn't going to let Jpeg
fight back in that second set and take it to
a third. She was the better player in the longer points,
winning twelve of the fifteen rallies that lasted. Nine shots
are more, but you talked about the hardcore dominance. Simon
forty third match win in a hardcourt Natures is twenty
twenty one, most by any man or women over that span.
(08:16):
So this is someone cementing their dominance. I think if
you were a betting person, you probably felt comfortable backing
Seblenca going into Saturday, and then even with some curve
balls like it was raining cats and dogs, it sounded
hella weird in the stadium, that was weird. And then
everyone in the crouchyre against you, like, I mean, your
(08:37):
coach has also got a tiger on his head for
some reason. Like a lot of weird stuff happening. She
had a moment when I definitely wondered about the old
Seblenka and the commentator is desperately craving it, Chris Everett,
desperately willing this on. I'm so happy that she didn't
get to see that. I'm so happy Sebolenka refused her
(08:59):
that joy.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
There was definitely some talk it into existent stuff that
was going on, right or not shut out.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The level of coaching effort was trying to do it
to Pegula was super weird to me because obviously she
can't hear what you're saying, so addressing the person is
Jesse repeatedly as if she's like there beside you was eft.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I feel like, well, you work in sports media, and
I feel like I am, you know, adjacent to it
and have works in it previously. And I definitely sound
like an old man on this stuff. But if you're
a commentator, do not refer to the players for their
first name, come on, first roll of thumb. Maybe it's
the whole BBC stuff that still burned into my brain.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
First name aka like a nickname, as if like you're
her aunt or something like it was. I don't know, man.
I had to mute it very early and at times unmuted,
but it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I was wondering. I was chatting with my partner during
this final as we were watching it, and I think
one of the phrase that I said during it was,
I don't know. There's many other players in world tennis
where the entirety of the match revolves around the single player,
where the opponent really is kind of like secondary to them,
(10:16):
and I kind of feel that way with Savlenca, where
it's chaos. Every point is kind of riding on what
she is going to do as opposed to whether or
not her opponent is going to force an issue. All
that kind of stuff, and I think that's testament to
just how she plays. Like she's going for a shots
all the time. You're going to get big serves, you're
(10:37):
going to get big mistakes, you're going to get massive winners,
You're going to force the issue on every single ball,
and I think that makes for really exciting tennis. Honestly,
I don't know that it's everyone's cup of tea. I'm
not entirely sure that's how you would coach it. And
let's be honest, you have to be an incredible physical
specimen to be able to do that and also have
(10:57):
the mentality to do that as well. But it makes
for so so exciting tennis to have one player that
just goes for everything constantly. We need more of this
in the game.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Well said. She also had one of the few kids
that wasn't awful as well at the US Open, so
I would like to thank her for that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I like the shoelaces. I thought they were really nice,
a nice touch to match the dress.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And the power of the doppelganger. That young girl should
also take credit for winning the US Open because she
definitely helped.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Should we touch on despite robbing her over a moment
of her coach wearing the xxx Y hat to touch
on some you know, deeply problematic, disturbing politics and rise
of that kind of movement in the world. It's not
great to see that. Not even there's no smoke without fire,
Like it's very blatantly on display in terms of what
some of the coaching staff have been wearing during the
(11:47):
course of the two weeks. It's not just a bad look,
it's just you know, terrible. It has to be said.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Can I also say, on that note, the coaches wearing
veil crowbl sponsor batches that look like they were glued
on the morning before. It's so gaost, Like, what are
we doing here?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because we've gone this
is our first first full year of now on court
coaching taking place, and you've seen a steady rise in
the quantity of patches and you know, just like literal
camera time for these coaches in a way that like
they're almost on screen every single at the end of
(12:29):
every point or between every service game, or even during
points sometimes like if they're really cutting aggressively, which is
wild to think about from where we were two years ago.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
It kind of sucks Hey, I don't like it that much.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think in an individual sport, you get into a
scenario where you ask the question of how much is
the coach responsible for what they're doing? And I think,
I think, maybe let's just chalk this up for tennis
coverage and TV coverage just desperately in search of something
interesting and storylines to go on during the course of
a match, and I think you're going to find the
most drama of the relationship between the player and the
(13:08):
coach because they're constantly in dialogue. You're also hearing much
more of it being picked up on microphones now as
well and trying to read into what's going on. I
thought that was interesting. I mean, we've got we have
got it a lot during the course of the year
and even at the back end of last year of
the last US Open. But I still, as someone who
you know, comes from the era where on core coaching
was banned, the idea of having ESPN have the hot
(13:29):
mic up to all of these coaches so you can
hear just about everything of what's going on and being said,
I still find very jarring.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, I mean, was it Draper's coach. I think you
could see him like using the iPad or whatever was
in his box like in real time, and then talking
to Draper and discussing like real time tactics. Yeah, it's
fascinating to see how far we've come in that regard.
And I understand why the coaches are doing this in
(13:56):
the sense of bell crowing companies to themselves, because every
dollar counts and the costs of this traveling circus are many,
and it's not the player footing the bill. Sometimes it's
people paying their own way. So I get it. But also,
holy cow, like it's it's something, it's something else. But
(14:17):
I mean, that's kind of what the US Open is. Like,
I feel like I've commented before on this about this
tournament and like how it is kind of a celebration
of capitalism in some ways, and like that is heavily
intertwined with tennis. But maybe that's a conversation for a
different episode. Do you have anything else on the women's site.
We'll talk about EGA in parting shots Bush if you
want to save the who is the number one talk
(14:39):
for then?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh god? Yeah. Just a shout out to Kearny and Macova.
A great two weeks for her. It's good to see
her Matt. Good to see her playing well and she
had the chances in that semifinal. She's going to look
back at that second set and where she was in
the match and could have thought what could have been?
But a great two weeks for her. You think she's
(15:00):
gonna I think she's gonna win a Slam. I think
one day. Really she has the game for it. Yeah,
she has everything going for her. It's just can she
finally break through?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
But there's always one one unforeseen thing that happens. I
feel like that derails everything. Unfortunately, She's a hell of
a player.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
That's it. Though, good tournament for the women's side, an
overall a worthy winner despite all of the things I
said about the dodginess of her camp and coaches around her.
Four mark. She deserves this tournament. She deserved the Australian Open.
She's been the best hardcourt player all year. You know,
absolutely hats off to her, fully well deserved.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
On the men's side, Yannig center one the Australian Open.
He's won the US Open, something that a few have
done before him Bush I think it was three players
bat Swedlander did it once and then Novek and Roger
each did it three times, but it's still very rare,
and I think it's a testament to how how good
(16:01):
you've got to be, how consistent you have to be
to to win both Slams in the same year. The
Annick Center has been that person. I think we talked
about this in the discord, but he has the lowest
floor in the sense that his normal game is good
enough to beat most players because he's just so damn
rock solid, and he was that over the last two weeks.
(16:24):
Bush to win his second Slam, dispatching a relatively game
tailor Fritz. I mean, I think you could tell Fritz
was I mean, I never thought he had a huge
chance in this match, but the way the first it
ended felt kind of like a death knell.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, this was This was a final which was perhaps
not for the celebrities in the house. Find this tennis enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
To who the whole old Taylor, Swift and Mahomes were there.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, I think Mahomes was there with his wife. I
think my understanding I don't know, but the loose understanding
that I have is that Mahomes and Kelsey and the
respective partners are good friends with each other. So I
also realized that's probably the first time anyone's ever referred
to Taylor Swift as someone's partner. So you said it
(17:25):
exactly with disdain. But I think I think they hang
out as I don't bloody, you know. I think they
hang out as a unit, or at least they were
hanging out in the bar. At least at least Pat
Mahomes was out there watching the game.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Jason Tatum was there, Jasey Austin and e Rodic together,
which is, Oh, it's great. A lot of stars in attendance.
You're right desperate to see Tatum.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Usher was there, Matthew McConaughey was there, the guy who
owned Quist?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, who's the Who's the celebrity that you can name
that shouldn't have been there, that wasn't ask an up star?
Do you think that you saw.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Tim Henman, Crany Roddick.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Please, sir, please? All right? Well, I am a card
carrying member of the Taylor Fritz fan club since day one.
That being said, I think this is probably his ceiling
in the sense of Slam finalist Bush. That probably makes sense.
Very good player, I mean, excellent win over Tiaffo. He
(18:29):
outlasted France's pretty pretty much. But he also did us
the great service of taking out ZERIV and a great
match for him. I thought that was an excellent moment
for Fritz and also a good match. I think Josh
said this on the discord as well, but Spa is
not usually involved in great matches. But I thought overall
that was a good match.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
I think Fritz has he has the unfortunate role here,
which is that he's gonna need a good draw to
win one of these slams, because he's gonna need to
try and to a final against a player that he
matches up well against or manages to get through a
bunch of players who can't neutralize him in a certain way.
I think he just ran into a player who unfortunately
(19:12):
for what Fritz does, which is which is incredible, Like
he's an incredible server. He is pretty consistent for a
guy of his size in the way that he moves,
which is not great by sort of a top twenty standard.
He's all right. His backhand's pretty solid, he's okay and
is obviously his fourhand is a huge weapon in terms
(19:32):
of what he's going for, the problem is that that
doesn't match up well against Johannick Sinner. It doesn't match
up well against karlas Akraz, it doesn't match up well
against Danny Medvedev, it doesn't really match up very well
against Novak Djokovic. So he's sort of running the gam
But you're going to need to not play one of
those players in a final, even against someone like, you know,
Alex Demano, even someone in like an Alexander Zavere who
(19:54):
we managed to get the better off here, and I
think four you know, like you were saying, a good match,
but four tight sets as well. That's that's kind of
who he should be aiming for. If you can get
that as a final, then maybe he has a chance
to win one of these. But the problem is, like
the players that I mentioned, they kind of just better
than him at everything, and that's going to make it very,
very challenging for to win the Slam.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Do you feel the same way about Draper Jack Draper
making the surprise semifinal run here after cheating in Cincinnati. No,
I won't let that go, but that was a shock.
I mean, he put his guts out in that semi final,
but that I mean that the semi against Sinner kind
of felt like all the things he does are good,
but Sinner does them better.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, I do. I think that's that's a They're very
similar players right in terms of what the floor and
what the ceiling is for them as well, So I
think that's a good comparison.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Sin.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's just a night for these big for these big
dudes who hit big shots and the weaknesses if you're
ever going to trap them in a rally or make
them come forward and make them hit awkward shots. Sin,
it was just a complete nightmare for both of those dudes,
and I think it showed up during this final as well.
It was very obvious anytime that Cinner and Fritz were
(21:07):
trapped in a backhanded, backhand rally, You're like, oh, good night, sorry, Taylor,
the point for you?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, this is good end badly for you. So oh god, yeah,
like I want to do. I watched some of this match,
not all of it. I had it unmuted at times,
but I watched some of it muted, and when those
long rallies happen, I kind of watch. I watched players movement,
not the ball sometimes just to see how they are
moving and where their anticipation lies or how fresh they seem.
(21:36):
And I mean towards the end, how can you fault
Fritz or find kind of feeling like it's a it's
a losing game, like he's not gonna he's not gonna
be able to come through it, right, so he goes
long or he goes big and he loses the point.
So I think this was a great tournament for him.
Like I said, I mean it felt I felt kind
of bad for him as well because the Tiaffo match,
(21:58):
I mean, everyone felt kind of shocked by how it
ended and how Francis kind of went away at the
end Bush so like that wasn't necessarily the most uplifting scenario,
but the way the crowd was backing him today, I
was hoping for a third set, but Cinner's that good
and I think a deserve champion here. That being said,
(22:19):
the doping stuff, do you think it was talked about enough?
Because it does feel like Brianca mentioned on the discord
and everyone has moved on very quickly, and they didn't
mention it much at all in the final. I know
I had it meaning the times, but it didn't seem
like that was a topic of conversation very much. And
to go from a few weeks ago when we were
talking about Tribe Egles coming down and then Shady going
(22:41):
on to here we are today, was like, yep, he's
he's the most consistently great player on the tour and
he's rice are with Carlos if not ahead to be
the face of the game. Like to go from def
Con one to here, it's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think the end of the season will be fascinating
to watch of how things shake out because he has,
in pr terms, managed to move the story on, has
he not When the fact that he's won this title,
people are going to be talking about this as opposed
to the fact that whether or not he is guilty
(23:18):
of the charges that were laid before him. I saw
Roger Federer was talking about this during the course of
the week as well, and I think he did the
thing that Roger Federer does, which he came out entirely
squarely in the middle of the fence on it, like
the side is saw from the splinters of how firmly
he's sat on it.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
He's literally Swiss smid.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
He is very Swiss, yes, incredibly neutral on it. I
am a little shocked as well that we've managed to
move the conversation as far forward as we have done,
and it's not seemingly not sticking to him. It seems
like for all the things that we want to say
about the situation of how the Tribuno and how the
powers that be handled this situation, it's kind of what
(24:01):
was the phrasing that we used a couple of weeks ago,
that his his legal team have played a blinder. I
feel like everyone involved him has rallied around to make
sure that this is protected and he seems to have
come out of this all right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Well, he's got the right friends, right, He's got the
right people looking out for him in the tennis establishment,
including Darren k Hill, who everyone loves and deservely so
because he seems like a lovely man. And I get it,
But like if this was someone who wasn't maybe a
favorite son of the tennis tour, does it play out
the same way? Probably not. And I think what Dennis
(24:35):
Schafvaalov said still is true that the rules maybe aren't
the same for everyone involved, and it kind of played
out that way, like I I don't know, I felt
like I was I was ready to not count how
I watched him the same anymore? Like I was ready
(24:55):
to do that, and how much has really changed from
now to or from then to now, you know, like
I think I've maybe eased up a bit, and my
criticism of how it went down and whether or not
I think he's doping, like do I? I don't think so,
but also I don't know. I'm unsure and now maybe
(25:17):
I cast as versions to a wider net of players.
So frankly like it's one of those things that will
probably change my affection for the sport going forward. And
at the time it didn't feel great to say that,
but it played out where I could feel myself almost
not feeling like as impacted by this match, butch and
(25:40):
I think it's kind of related to that.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Well. To play ar'mchre psychologist and indeed to front and
foremost the parasocial relationship here. If you look at the
body language of Jon Extenter upon winning the Australian Open
versus winning this US Open title, it is night. And
I clearly do buy one hundred percent that this has
(26:03):
had a huge impact on the Onick Center because he
did not look overly excited to win this match. And
I think there's many jokes that you can make about
that's why he always looks he always looks like a
robot on court. He doesn't. I think that is actually
a little bit of a disservice to him. He is
somewhat more emotional than I think people give him credit
for him, and I think he actually smiles a lot
more on court when he is enjoying things. He was
(26:27):
not smiling at the conclusion of this match. He was
not smiling during the trophy celebration and did not look
over I think the emotion that looked the most prominent
to me was just complete relief. Yeah, that this was
done and that he can move on with his life,
maybe cross that bridge later on.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Probably he beat the charges like he passed.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, from a human level, I definitely buy that this
has had an impact on him. You can definitely raise
the question of whether or not this is self inflicted
and whether it's deserved. That is entirely up to you
to make that, you know, to settle that debate. But yeah, absolutely,
from watching him, this did not look like a guy
who was overly happy to win.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah. He's just such an important person for this sport
going forward. And I mean, like you said, the way
they handle this, I guess the in terms of their perspective, like,
well played, Holy cow for them to get this right,
these guys who have not necessarily been masters of execution. Yeah,
(27:28):
I'm it's all, frankly a bit stunning and shocking and
here we are Cianic Center US Open champion. That's it. Okay,
we'll talk a few other men's tidbits in parting shots
with Bush. Do you have any other general men's thoughts
before we take a break.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Pretty spectacular collapse from Francis TrFO in that from with
the position that you found himself and talk about sliding
doors moments and wanting things back. Goodness, gracious me, we're
all the money in the world. I thought it was
going to be Francis TFO in this final and then
just a spectacular collapse. Absolutely fair play to Taylor Fritz
for handling the moment, and also absolutely fair play for
(28:09):
Franci's TFO for what his comments were afterwards and admitting
the feeling the pressure and feeling the nerves to it.
Nothing wrong with that, we all feel that, but it's
also kind of refreshing to hear someone actual professional athletes
say that as well. So you know, I just wanted
to shout that out to say, you know, it's always
it's shocking to see a player fall down like that
because you think they can They've dealt with these things
(28:30):
enough times that they could they could find a way
through it. But at the same time wanted to acknowledge
that it's nice to hear from a sort of male
positivity and the opposite direction of toxicity. It's nice to
see someone expressing it in a positive way.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It felt like Francis was the one guy left and
could maybe give Centner a problem in the final if
he could draw on the crowd and produce something. Just
because of his affinity for the court and in as
far as for the tournament, it felt like it could
be him. But that was tough to watch. It happened
so quickly. I feel like the text I was getting
(29:04):
on Friday night, We're like, what happened? Like what I
looked away for like ten minutes. Yeah, I was shocking,
But that's tennis man, all right. When we come back
after the break, we talk about more US Open stuff,
Egastrian Tech's tournament, some PTPA stuff, plus two challenges remaining
coming up next. Welcome back to the Open Air Podcast. Simon.
(29:37):
The women's tour after these last two weeks shaken up
a bit. I kind of foreshadowed we'd be talking about
this now, but the state of the tour, I think
Egastrion Tech definitely did not have the US opening that
we expected. I think you were pretty harsh in the
(29:58):
discord regarding your thought on her tournament. But her lead
is still pretty sizable as the world number one, but
she definitely does not feel like the world number one
at the moment. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Perhaps perhaps that's not fair. I think my criticism within
the discord was more in the scatter gun erratic nature
of the way that she lost to Jessica Bagulla in
that quarter final, where I think sometimes we have very
high expectations of the world number one, just given the
(30:37):
track record and given the performance and a former champion
here and five time slam champion, all of these things.
To see the manner in which.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
She was so.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Outside the lines in that quarter final made me wonder,
how often do you see a world number one come
into a match with the expectation on her and just
kind of not deliver in that capacity. So I think
that's where my criticism was more coming from I think
it's still been a great year for her and I
think she's still I mean, the ranking doesn't lie, right,
(31:13):
the points don't lie in the fact that she's deserving
of the world number one. I think the heights that
Sable Anchor has reached would probably challenge that to a
lot of people, and I think she might overtake her
in terms of the way that the number one points
schedule rank will shake out for the rest of the season.
But it was a very odd match, a very very
odd match, and I think even a comments post match
(31:34):
indicated that maybe we will watch this space and this
tournament for her again in the future, because we know
how good she is on clay. We feel like very
confident that she's going to win every French Open that
she walks into. But it's definitely become more of a
gamble to figure out what she's going to do in
(31:56):
some of these other major tournaments, which is something that
I think is quite a bit different than where we
were at the back end of last year.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, I mean it's intriguing to say like maybe she's
a specialist. I think it's very harsh and unfair and
I know you're not saying that but I know the
haters have been saying that, so this is fodder for them,
but I think that's fair. Like just looking at the
rest of the top ten Simon after this tournament, jes
(32:23):
Spegula into the top three now, which I think is
also fair based on merit, just based on how solid
she's been over the course of the year, but also
Evan of Rros into the top ten, which also feels worthy.
I wanted to quickly talk about the billionaire stuff bush.
I know we talked a lot about this on the
discord and also privately, but both Jpeg and Emmin of
(32:48):
Rrow coming from wealthy families was the topic of discussion,
but like kind of in a way that I thought
was a bit funny because it felt like the commentators
were also trying to be like, you know what, she's
wealthy or they're wealthy, but they still work their ass off,
and like they're not like those kind of wealthy people,
like they take the subway, etc. Etc. I feel like
some rehabilitation on billionaires sharing these broadcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, I really enjoyed the discussion on a discord. I
think it was mostly me just trying to work through
my own thoughts on this whole thing about how the
nature of supporting wealthy people in sports. More broadly, whether
or not it is an attractive proposition for people to
support some of these athletes, and what does it say
about the individual who is who is supporting them, What
(33:35):
does it say about the more broader sporting community of
whether or not they're supported. I think the harshest criticism
of this is people basically realizing that I don't know harshest.
I think maybe just the reality of this is that
even hard work is a different kind of hard work
when you're rich dev So I don't think that just
(33:57):
like these two athletes have, you know, heart and determination
and hard graft and all this sort of stuff is
a particularly compelling narrative. So everyone works hard to start with.
But the thing is that you are able to spend
more time with coaches, You're able to stick this out longer,
You're able to have the best sports science, the best medicine,
(34:20):
all those things are available to you. So hard work
does look different when you're a billionaire or the daughter
of a billionaire son of a billionaire than it does
for a regular person. And I strongly suspect the more
broad argument is that it's just not that fun of
a storyline to have people who are coming from wealthy
families reach the final of sporting events, because it feels
(34:42):
like sport is this last bastion of what we consider
to be purity and meritocracy, where it is people can
come from anywhere and win on sporting achievement alone without
all the other things behind it. Unfortunately, we just got
done with the Olympics, and if you want to check
the ranking system there of who were awarded medal spoilers
the rich countries. So it already exists in different capacities.
(35:05):
But I think we want the illusion dev I think
that's the thing here.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, li to me, glat to me with some grace
at least. Yeah, I think I think that's right. I
think I think Luke said it really well in a
discord as well, in the sense of like Antennas, you
can't really hide like you have to prove it. You can't,
you can't bullshit your way into these spots. And I
think in that sense, like I respect running towards the
(35:31):
graft in JPEG's case, like I don't know too much
about the em and of r history, but it felt
like Jpeg wanted to quote unquote like make it in
a in a in a real way to the point
where like they mentioned, she travels alone, and like she
doesn't travel family. But I also like to your point,
like she travels alone because you can't like in the
(35:53):
sense of like why some other two players are traveling
with their seventh cousins or like their entire distant families,
because like maybe they have or maybe there's there's a
whole different deal going on here. So the advantages are
the advantages. And I think the way it was discussed
is a bit funny because it was like the accommentators
and the broadcasters were apologizing on their behalf maybe sensing
(36:18):
the temperature in the room, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Well, yes, perhaps. I think it is not a surprise though,
that you have two daughters of billionaires playing tennis, Like
why this sport? Why does it end up being this
particular situation, or why do you look around at some
of the other locations and say, like why do you
have a billionaire billionaire's daughter in a question for example,
(36:44):
or in formula one if you want, any of these
other examples of high profile athletes who come from very
very wealthy families follow the money on these things, and
I think it probably speaks more to what tennis is
than anything else.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Are you floating? Are you floating a favorite hobby horse
of yours, the billionaire child band.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
That's the policy I'm going for. That's what I secretly
really want.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Billionaire child man in athletics, No, in professional sports. I laughed.
I left it at the last part.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
You know how we've become so accustomed to like neoliberal
means testing on the reverse side of it. Fuck it,
we're going the other way. Dev How about that.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I have a taste of this, Suckers.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
We spent the entire Olympics talking about like different genetic power.
All right, how do you like this to one? Folks,
you have more than one comma in your earnings for you, you're
not allowed to compete. That's a real competitive disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, definitely an interesting conversation. I recommend joining our discord
because we have a bunch of those with smarter people
than us. But yeah, I think that was definitely an
interesting side plot. The Olympics is as well as Simon
in a for a way, I think we can't get
around the fact that both people who won didn't go like.
I have a hard time moving past that either. It
(38:07):
played a huge role in this summer swim.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Well, I think we always knew that, didn't we. I
think we knew that just the how condensed the schedule was,
and perhaps the fact that we're moving between three different
surfaces within the space of eight weeks, nine weeks, I
want to say, on the tour. It obviously caught up eventually,
So it's not really particularly surprising the way that the
summer shook out. All that being said, it is funny, though,
(38:33):
isn't it that we ended up with the same US
Open and Australia and Open champion on the men's and
women's side, and on the men's if you want, I
know this is going to be obvious, and I'm going
to say it anyway, just so we're all on the
same page about it. If you wanted a moment or
a lion in the sand about a transitional year from
where we were historically. I don't think we can do
any more than having Cinner and Karlak Lakara as a win,
(38:56):
all four Grand Slams, but.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
A sprinkle and Novak gold for the for the old fogies. Yeah,
that feels about right. It feels like a yeah, good
way to end it or good way to transition also
into this funky year end of tennis, which is always
clumsy and weird and fun for the tennis Sikosh and
Gus like ourselves. All right, quickly, Simon, I just wanted
(39:19):
to talk about the PTPA. Andy Rottick was talking about
it in an interview. I love how careful he was
to mention this because he knew the Novak fans would
come after him, and they did. They did, definitely half
of the Indian Twitter population, of course, seizing on this
story because that's what Twitter is now, just a bot
farm full of half of India. But Vashik Paspasol responding
(39:45):
to Andy rotic erotic, saying like it's listen, like he
gets the good intentions, et cetera. Novak can't do this
though it's his full time job be the PTA p
a head and play tennis like there's too much work
going into it. What if they've done, show me what
they've done. And then Vashtik responded on on Twitter saying
a few of the things that they've done now, some
of them, I mean, sound very legit they're all I
(40:06):
think legit in the sense that I think Vashik is
proud of them, and I think that's totally fair. That
being said, some of them didn't necessarily seem like huge
winds to get like Hilton Axis at stops in every city,
you know, like things like that. So I'm curious where
you sat on this. It seems like Rodick is right
in the sense that Novak can't be the head of
(40:28):
both playing and being the figurehead of this PTPA or
as well past Basil and co. Are doing some things
and like they seem to be putting the right people
in place so far.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, see Reuter's right. And I cut about this. During
the course of the week, I saw this being picked
up by a bunch of news aggregators, and I was
kind of curious of why this particular moment has been
an inflection point for this story. Like, obviously Rodick talking
about it is one thing, but I think where is it?
Are we two years, three years removed from its inception
(41:03):
at the US Open. It's been a while anyway. It
kind of this whole story reminded me of the judge
Judy tapping the watch gif of just like we we
kind of want to see a little more. I think
the outside public is not seeing perhaps the movement that
they wanted to see on this one, And I think
also perhaps expectations setting about.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
What is.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
What is likely to happen from this kind of movement,
and whether or not that power struggle that's occurring behind
the scenes has been communicated well enough to the more
broader tennis public. If I had to guess on this stuff,
it seems like it's just locked in a I'm trying
to think of a better, more less kind of like
(41:48):
dramatic way of saying, a pissing contest behind the scenes
of just everyone what's what do they say in public?
Factional maneuvering is the is the terminology that gets used
here where everyone is just kind of backing into their
own corner and trying to secure power. Kind of feels
that way to me. And in those situations, it's very
unlikely you're going to do a whole lot of communication
to the outside world. So I have no doubt that
(42:09):
things are going on watch this space. I always say, who.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Knows that is fair? That that hilarious phrase is definitely
fair for that, But I know I think that's that's interesting.
I the PDPA has to be well placed when this
whole thing is shaken up and the Jeda Invitational is
installed and we get a fifth Slam and we get
eighty more tournaments, so we get a new pseudo tour
(42:37):
like they have to have some teeth. So I hope
they are prepared for that. Let's see, Okay, anything else
Bush US Open before two challenges are rating?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. Will
we be your overall assessments of this tournament in general?
Just given we had some new names at the back
end of these tournaments, despite who won them, we had
some first time finalists, we had some first time semi
finalists and quarter finalists. I think we can perhaps choke
this one up to being a to being a good
(43:09):
tournament overall.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
I enjoyed it, Yeah, I think I. I might say,
out of the four slams, of which I consumed a
lot of, I might have watched the most of this tournament.
And it's like, I don't think I missed a day
at all. And I think the us O ME does
a lot of things right. I think they, I mean
(43:31):
they have the benefit of the roofs, which is mega helpful.
But I also think that they get it in the
sense of like what they try to do with who's
placed where and who gets proper shine and and generally
like what people want to see the presentation. I mean,
you take it a leave, and I complain so much
about the broadcasting and commentating, but I also love the
(43:55):
comforting sounds of certain broadcasters and and just the visuals
of the sports. So like, overall, I think I enjoyed it,
but I do wish the presentation was less, Like I
didn't need to see Ni Karios that often. I mean,
I'm not a Nick Carrios fan, but I get what
(44:16):
they're trying to do. That being said, like it's I
don't know, he's still on Twitter acting like an idiot
and deleting stuff and making defense to comments, and then
he's interviewing players in the tunnel, and like, I just
doesn't feel good and I'm not trying to be a
hell love joy about it, but it just felt stupid
(44:37):
and forced, you know, and like they have other they
have other people to lean on. I think U Banks
was fantastic. I think having a current player who who
wants to talk about the game, and also add insight
is definitely worth having and a huge plus. But I
think there's others in curios.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I just think he's not good enough to justify all
the biggers that it comes with him as a broadcaster.
He's not doesn't really add a whole lot. I don't
think he's even that big of a draw. I mean,
how could he be a draw to, certainly from a
women audience perspective, Like given someone who has been, you know,
allegedly accused of domestic violence on multiple occasions, and then
(45:17):
all the stuff during the course of the week, like
all the second serve stuff on the Kalin Skayer post
and all that kind of stuff, it reeks of someone
who is incredibly insecure, small time still acting like a
fifteen year olds, just someone who doesn't make for a
particularly attractive person, either in real life or on a broadcast.
(45:37):
So I would encourage ESPN, another broadcaster to just get
rid of this dude. He's not worth it.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I'm curious to see how they go from here with
that partnership, but yeah, perhaps they'll double down, That's my guess.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Not to overstate the curios thing or folk about it
too much, but I feel like we knew who Nick
Cares was and then to see this kind of post
that happened during the course of the week talking about
another person's partner and all that kind of stuff. Really,
I think soured a lot of people to the point
of recognizing that this is just someone who is a
(46:17):
what the correct phrasing is, someone's just never really grown up,
someone who is just like completely and utterly stuck in
the headspace of nineteen ninety And it's really kind of honestly,
it's it's not very good to see. It's kind of disgusting.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I think if they let fifteen year old me on TESPN,
i'd probably were Arsenal here too, or like whatever my
favorite team was. I don't care why he's wearing Boss
and Celtics stuff all the time. Fight it very again,
not endearing, and I'm the target for this. I find
a lot of stuff endearing Bush, but not this.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, I kind of you gotta be a little careful
on this side of things to be like, you know,
take your fucking hat off on TV where it's like,
you know whatever, who cares all?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Yeah, right, Like I don't believe that wear whatever hat
you want to wear. It's strange to me though, then
it's the suck. Anyways, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I don't go in for the like you know, you
gotta wear a suit on TV, like, take your hat off,
take your hoodie off, you know, take your airing like
any of this. So I don't go in for any
because I think it's obviously like coding a bunch of
you know, shitty stuff. But also, you know, don'tnate like
a fifteen year old on Twitter and professional ager and
your day job when you're being paid by someone. You know,
there are small things there. Not to sound like a
business shill or anything, but you can tell. Yeah, I
(47:34):
think you can tell.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I still the pair of us still come from broadcast
in some capacity. Whereas, like you know, there was there
was a slight responsibility that you have here despite all
of the ship that we talk about the media.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Wear an NBA hat where you know Rob blows NFL hat.
Just wear an NBA hat, Wear an NBA sweater. Okay,
that's all.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
We have a slight piece of professionalism and not be
a complete another twat that that would be okay.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Crow bel crow. This all it takes logo on like
a sponsor tag, like you're a coach, Okay to challenges
are real excitement. What do you got this week?
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Uh? Yeah, this one? Okay, my just to bring the
tone down slightly and just to in the course of
the week, I was going to do like a I
was gonna do like a nice one on the Oasis
and the Lincoln Park story. I was kind of like,
it's interesting that you have two bands reviving and you know,
coming back and doing all this stuff. There's probably a
through line there. And then I, you know, I saw
(48:32):
all the news about Grenfell and read the report and
all that kind of stuff and the reporting about it,
and it's just one of those for our international, non
UK listeners. This is a horrendous story. It's harrowing. It's
the Grenfell Tower fire which occurs in West London. Still
the families of everyone involved and the survivors looking for
(48:52):
justice out of this fell by literally every single institution
in the United Kingdom, whether that be you know, main government,
local government and the fire service, the tendancy associations, the
business associations, the building manager, you name it, like you
can go down the list and everyone is completely and
utterly at fault for this and has made a colossal
fuck up. It is a story of immense sadness. It's
(49:15):
a story of greed, it's a story of neoliberal capitalism,
and it's destruction of a community and whittling down of
services and safety nets. It's so awful that it defies belief.
You know it's bad when you have the chairman of
the inquiry and the people that are sitting on the
board of the inquiry literally in fucking tears as they're
(49:36):
reading out the sentencing and the things that have been
concluded out of the inquiry. So not to end on
a darren note from my perspective, but I think it's
important to keep the people who lost their lives and
also this story at the front of our brains and
in our hearts because it should never happen again. And
the fact that this happened to begin with in the
United Kingdom is a complete shocking and stain on the country.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Well said sir. Also, if I want to look into
who that new Lincoln Park lead singer is, I think
there's been some some new reporting on that which is
not great either.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Scientology's fine, right, I think completely fine.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
I was like, why is Danny Masterson trending? Like Okay,
so it's related to that. Okay, good lord, no, really
well said. I did some reading on it as well.
After we talked. I was aware of the story, but yeah,
holy cow, definitely follow up on that. If you are
so inclined, I'm going to go with. I had a
(50:35):
few different options. I was gonna talk NFL, like I
told you, Simon, I wasn't gonna watch today, and I
didn't for the most part because we had the final
and like I was doing some reading. But I still
did watch and I feel like they got me again,
which feels unwell, but I'll shout out TIFF Toronto International
Film Festival. Friend of mine helped write one of the
(50:57):
films there, Shook, which got excellent reviews, which is greats
shows to odd no On for doing that. I'm gonna
check it out myself. But yeah, it is still cool
that we have this year. It's definitely changed and I
think it's no longer that indie film festival that was
able to create runaway hits or runaway trophy winners like
(51:18):
this this film festival has in the past. It's definitely
been corporatized, but it's nice that it's maintained or like
it's surviving because I think the arts in general and
the city are having a very tough time, and I
know tiff it is one of those places. And by
no means is a perfect by evidence of some of
(51:38):
the reactions to the protests we've seen so far. But yeah,
I enjoy that it's here and that it's happening.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, it's my time in two weeks for vif over
on my side of the country, so I'm looking forward
to watching a bunch of stuff. I was going to
ask you before we signed off, what did you make
of the Guardian cap wearing in the NFL starting I
saw it referred to as a that I saw written
on the internet is the equivalent of replacing a Toyota
Corolla with a hummer instead, Like you're just replacing one
(52:08):
thing for another, so it's not improving anything. Gutting cap
is like it's a squidgy thing that people wear on
top of the helmet in the NFL. So it's supposed
to be better for brain injuries, but in general, you're
still doing the action.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
I mean, I've seen some reporting that like it is better,
and I mean they should be all wearing it if
that's the case. But yeah, I haven't really noticed them
stand out. Like, I know people are afraid that it
would look like big heads, but I've seen sub linemen
wearing it. It's fine. I mean I at this point, God, Like,
I watched some college game the other day and saw
(52:41):
some of the hits that I mean deliver and I'm like, oh, no, Like,
it's just it's the deal you make. It's the deal
with the devil basically. And I said I wasn't going
to watch today, and here I am watching Jim Harby
yell at someone. So I think I have probably to
the problem. As per usual, we will leave it there though,
and let you get back to it. But as always
a reminder, we are on patreon dot com Forward slash
(53:04):
Open Era. Join us Dick at the show at free
get It early on Sundays. Plus, join that great discord
that we mentioned so many times today because it is
great and during tournaments like this it shines. So join
us at Patreon dot com Forward Slash Open Era for
producer Greg on the ones and two you stand for Simon.
Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you
(53:25):
next time. The Ben
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