0:00

Hey

0:06

everybody, welcome to another

0:08

week of served Grass

0:11

Court edition. After

0:14

having watched the tournaments this

0:16

week in Halle, in Queens, the

0:18

women in Berlin, Birmingham and elsewhere.

0:21

I'm gonna say something really controversial, guys,

0:24

straight off the top. We

0:27

are so stupid for

0:29

not having a longer grass court season.

0:31

We are absolute morons in our sport

0:33

for not having a

0:35

lead in, a service

0:38

that lends itself to playing different

0:40

styles, not the same monotony, where

0:43

we just run side to side for hours

0:45

upon hours upon hours. There's

0:48

nuance to it. There is many, so the fact

0:50

that we don't have a Masters 1000 in the

0:52

lead in to Wimbledon and

0:54

we have three leading in to Roland Garros

0:56

and we have an eight week clay court

0:58

season, you could literally play seven events on

1:01

clay before you get to Roland

1:03

Garros. It's just not the case and it

1:05

puts a huge premium on having to

1:08

play well and get matches. We're

1:12

gonna get into the racket rundown brought to you by Wilson. Right

1:15

now, obviously, Sinner looked fantastic in

1:18

Halle, but let's put this scenario here. Right

1:20

now, we're gonna get to the part where

1:22

we all agree with each other and nod

1:24

around in a circle to the

1:26

room of Sinner,

1:28

best preparation he could possibly have

1:30

in Wimbledon and now is probably

1:32

co-favorite depending on what

1:35

news we get from Novak Djokovic this

1:38

week. Sinner

1:41

also lost the first set of the tournament, 7-6. That

1:43

could go sideways and then we would be like, oh, the hip,

1:45

I don't know. There's

1:48

just such a premium on grass court tennis

1:50

and we'll take a deeper dive. But

1:53

first, I mentioned Novak.

1:55

I want to get into two

1:58

icons of our sport. And

2:01

time is seemingly coming

2:03

for both of them, Novak and

2:06

Andy Murray. I

2:09

was very concerned about Novak's knee

2:11

a couple weeks ago when you heard that

2:13

he had surgery post Roland

2:15

Garros after his round of 16 match, which was a long

2:18

five setter. Any operation at

2:20

that age, I was super concerned about. I

2:22

was, I didn't think

2:24

Wimbledon was a possibility

2:28

based on history of

2:30

earth and knee operations two weeks

2:32

before Wimbledon. JW, have

2:34

you seen any of the videos that

2:36

he's been putting out as far

2:38

as a recovery? I'm stunned. It's just like, it's the

2:40

most Novak thing I've ever seen where we're doubting him.

2:42

It's him against the world. And all of a sudden

2:44

he's doing one legged hops on a knee

2:47

that he just had surgery on. I mean, am

2:49

I crazy impressed? Is that normal to you

2:52

after having been around him forever or for

2:54

a bunch of stories? You

2:56

underestimate this guy at your peril. No, I

2:58

got a text Sunday saying Novak's gonna use

3:00

Monday as his day to see if he's

3:02

fit for Wimbledon. And I didn't put it

3:04

out there. I didn't retweet. I didn't, it

3:07

seems so preposterous given what

3:09

at least our dinosaur braids know about what knee

3:12

injuries tended to be like. And then all of

3:14

a sudden you see him Monday and he's on

3:16

the grass. And if you did not know that

3:18

this person had surgery within the last three weeks,

3:20

he never would have known it from this video.

3:22

I mean, I don't know. It sounds crazy. You

3:24

sort of laid this out and game it out.

3:27

You say 37 years old at his last event,

3:29

he literally got surgery in the middle of the

3:31

tournament on a knee. We're

3:33

talking about him at Wimbledon. Are you crazy?

3:35

And I don't know. I mean, I think

3:38

as we record this, he probably plays. And as

3:40

long as he plays, he's a

3:42

contender. So we've gone from surgery

3:45

in Paris, the

3:47

first week of June to July

3:49

1st, this guy will be a contender at the next

3:52

major. You know what, just

3:54

sidebar. This is why it's also silly to compare eras.

3:56

I mean, this would be a ridiculous conversation and

3:58

muscle-less. I mean, We talk

4:01

about strings, we talk about rackets and technology. You

4:03

know what? Medical science

4:05

has also made it pretty silly to

4:07

compare Andre and Pete to Rod Giroff

4:09

and Novak. But anyway, I'm agree with

4:11

you. Let's, if he's in the draw,

4:13

he's a contender. And if he wins

4:15

this event, I think you could very

4:17

well make a credible case. This is

4:19

the greatest male grass-court player of

4:21

all time. Yeah. I

4:24

think that's spot on. The point about surgery and

4:26

comparing generations is not something I have thought of.

4:28

And you're absolutely right. When

4:31

you used to have a knee operation, you had a

4:33

six-inch scar running down the front of your body. And

4:37

you might be cooked forever, and you're definitely

4:39

cooked for six to nine months. And

4:42

you're losing range of motion, everything else. So this

4:45

is fantastic. And also, showing

4:48

up on Monday, I'm gonna say another crazy

4:50

thing. You ready? You

4:52

ready for this? This is just gonna make

4:54

my life living hell. Showing

4:58

up on a Monday, and

5:00

hopping around, and

5:03

maybe on Tuesday he goes and hits some balls,

5:05

and maybe on Wednesday, come

5:08

Thursday, the reality of

5:11

five sets and sprinting. If

5:15

he hasn't, hopping is

5:17

different than sprinting side to side and

5:19

having a 22-ball rally on a slippery

5:22

surface. So hopping and

5:24

showing up is not

5:26

the same as playing

5:28

the highest level tennis in

5:31

the hardest sport in the world in its biggest venue.

5:35

Crazy, right? Isn't that nuts?

5:38

Isn't that nuts? Isn't that

5:40

just, wow, crazy? I'm

5:43

really, I'm really, I'm

5:45

firing on all cylinders today.

5:49

I hope Novak plays. I'm amazed

5:52

that we're seeing what we're seeing. And I

5:54

also got in trouble for saying, basically

5:57

saying it's his choice to put out videos, which...

6:00

Obviously brings attention,

6:02

brings speculation. We talk about it more based

6:04

on the information we have. He is providing

6:07

a lot of information right now. Is

6:10

that crazy? There

6:12

is a world where he would have wanted to

6:14

be secretive about it. He's showing us, he's wanting

6:16

to present an image

6:19

of strength and health going

6:21

into this off week. That is a

6:24

choice. We could, if there

6:26

are no videos and no commentary, we don't

6:28

know anything. And maybe our conversations are the

6:30

same as they were two weeks ago. He

6:33

is inviting us in for a look into

6:35

his recovery through putting

6:38

out content. Isn't that

6:40

crazy for me to say? The

6:44

one minor pushback. Okay, great. He's practicing

6:46

at Wimbledon. So in theory, anyone with

6:48

a media credential, anyone could in theory,

6:51

Sure. have still photos. The

6:54

videos were coming out five days before he arrived

6:56

at Wimbledon. Right. No, I

6:58

mean, one thing that's weird about this whole story is

7:00

that I was,

7:02

I mean, he said this to my face. I

7:04

mean, this is not just gossip. The

7:07

Olympics were the priority this year. He

7:09

hasn't won that gold medal that he wanted to. This

7:11

was to be, I don't

7:13

think it was at all a given that

7:15

he was gonna play Wimbledon even at peak

7:17

health. Oh, I disagree. Play rolling

7:20

Garros. I, you know, he's going, I mean,

7:22

I know. There are financial reasons, there are

7:24

legacy reasons, but if you are hell bent

7:27

on winning an Olympic gold and it's a

7:29

clay tournament, anyway,

7:33

I think it's extraordinary that he's back. I

7:35

think you raised a good point too, though.

7:37

I mean, best of five tennis going backwards

7:39

and forwards. We saw all week players slipping

7:41

around on the grass as one tends to

7:43

do. Those videos

7:45

were a great source of encouragement. And I

7:47

think not that anyone doubted Novak and his

7:50

resilience, you know, five years ago, much less

7:52

two weeks ago. I mean, it's not surprising

7:54

at all, but I do think that, you

7:58

know, when he takes that first slip. going

8:01

side to side on wet grass,

8:03

it makes you a little, it's

8:06

a cringe moment. Yeah, I think so too.

8:09

Listen, I would, I

8:11

mean this absolutely 100%,

8:17

there's not even, like all I

8:19

want is to be wrong with my

8:21

concern about his knee. I would

8:23

love that. I would honestly love

8:25

that because the tournament is better

8:29

when our greatest champion is participating

8:31

in it in any tournament. I

8:34

want to see his brilliance on grass. I think he

8:36

is so, so

8:38

much further along IQ wise on grass than

8:41

all but three people in the entire tournament.

8:43

And he has the skillset to

8:45

turn that IQ into results, right?

8:47

I want to see that. 1000%,

8:50

I cheer for health with every

8:52

single player on tour, especially people

8:54

that move the needle and make

8:56

the interest in tennis greater. End

8:59

of story. A weird story around

9:02

one of my favorite players

9:05

to watch, my

9:08

respect for those players, Endless. Andy

9:11

Murray played a

9:13

great first round match and then he came out against

9:16

Jordan Thompson in Queens and it just

9:18

didn't look right. Like his body looked

9:20

like, it looked like he

9:22

had just discovered feet. Like it just didn't,

9:24

it didn't look normal. He

9:27

came off and said, like, I just didn't really

9:29

have control. To me, as I was digesting what

9:31

he was saying, the symptoms were I'm going, oh,

9:33

that's a, it's probably a nerve issue, right? Shooting

9:35

pains, numbness, like, but that can

9:37

be worked out in

9:40

a pretty short amount of time, adjustments, treatment,

9:43

everything else. He

9:45

ended up having a surgical procedure to

9:47

remove a cyst from his back. So,

9:53

tread cautiously here after the last

9:55

week of my life but I

9:58

just, that's, And

10:00

I, all I wanted was

10:02

all I want, continue to want is

10:05

for Murray to have the send off at

10:07

Wimbledon, because I don't think people understand even

10:10

casual tennis fans, how

10:13

monumental him winning

10:15

Wimbledon in that

10:17

country was at the time that he wanted. And all

10:20

I want is for this extended,

10:25

extended respect to have that moment to say

10:27

goodbye on his terms. And as

10:31

of now, it doesn't look like it's

10:34

going to happen based on this procedure

10:37

on his back that he had this week. The

10:40

timeline, I'll say this, the timeline

10:42

seems very short for

10:45

him to be able to participate in Wimbledon.

10:47

And I know he'll do everything he possibly

10:50

can. Unlike Novak, I don't

10:52

think he needs to be perfect to

10:54

have a send off. I don't think it's like I

10:56

need to feel like I can win the tournament or

10:58

I'm not participating. I don't think that would be his

11:01

mindset. It's purely projection. I don't know. He's

11:04

earned the goodbye. He's earned every

11:06

possible advantage,

11:08

scheduling, anything that they

11:11

can do to

11:13

accommodate him, I think should

11:16

happen. Judy Murray sent out an

11:19

interesting tweet and I won't read

11:21

it verbatim, but the gist of it was they

11:25

didn't want the news of Murray's injury getting

11:27

out. That was not by design. Apparently,

11:31

the way she said it was, it

11:33

sucks when someone's private medical information gets

11:35

leaked by someone that we trusted. I

11:40

don't know who that is. I don't know what that

11:42

is. I do know

11:44

that you have to be pretty pissed off too. And

11:47

rightfully so, by the way, if that's

11:49

information that is in-house on your team and

11:52

all of a sudden it's

11:54

for consumption, and

11:56

also people listening, you don't understand the

11:58

microscope he is under. That

12:00

tournament as a Brit. I remember I played him the semis

12:02

in 09 The

12:05

first six pages of the sports section were all

12:07

about Murray What he ate

12:09

he had a banana 37 minutes into his

12:11

practice His miss lippies

12:13

car is green He

12:16

likes to drink milk at lightning anyways There's like four

12:18

people out there that love Billy Madison that are laughing

12:20

their asses off at that reference Yeah

12:24

Anyways, so that's that sucks And I

12:26

hope whoever leaked that information gets called

12:28

out in a very very public manner

12:31

because that's just frankly kind of fucked

12:33

up My email am I missing anything

12:35

with on that JW. Did you

12:37

hear anything differently? No,

12:39

I couldn't tell if she was

12:41

upset with the journalist or

12:44

somebody within the camp for betraying

12:46

a confidence Judy Murray we

12:48

should also point out is this this force of good

12:50

in tennis. This is not some hothead tennis

12:52

parents This is someone who's very informed very well

12:54

regarded. She clearly was upset to have written that

12:57

I you know I mean, I think

12:59

you really have to be careful with injuries

13:02

a it's It's

13:04

personal its personal autonomy We

13:08

have laws in this country about revealing

13:10

information about about medical health The flip

13:12

side is if you're the journalist and

13:14

Andy Murray's body is preventing him from

13:16

playing Wimbledon That's that's newsworthy. So I'm

13:18

not sure where the sort of breach

13:20

of confidence came The whole

13:22

thing is just really unfortunate I mean if anyone

13:24

deserves to go out and go out

13:26

on his terms and it you know I think

13:28

this is one I think this is sort

13:30

of one consequence of players playing older right that

13:33

Roger beats Pete Sampras at Wimbledon And it's a

13:35

passing of the torch moment and Andy Roddick wins

13:38

The US Open the same year that Pete

13:40

Sampras doesn't play and sort of we have

13:42

these natural sort of lineages And I think

13:44

that when you play to your late 30s

13:47

You don't have these torch passing moments so much

13:49

as you have players saying my body is preventing

13:51

me from Defending my title my

13:53

body is preventing me from entering the draw

13:55

which is unfortunate I you know if Andy

13:57

Murray deserves anything. It's a grand ceremony I

14:00

think we're all sort of working under the assumption this is

14:02

his last Wimbledon. So if in fact

14:04

he's not able to play, it's quadruply

14:06

unfortunate. But yeah,

14:09

I just think we all need sometimes to

14:11

be a little more graceful. A, with retirements,

14:13

which you and I have spoken about a

14:15

lot, and B, with health

14:17

and physical injuries. It's deeply personal. A lot

14:19

of times the athlete themselves doesn't know. I'm

14:23

not sure why a member of his team would

14:25

have sort of leaked

14:28

something of this nature, but

14:31

again, like you said about Novak, I mean, you

14:34

can have your favorite player. You can root for player

14:36

X and against player Y, but I think we all

14:38

ought to be in agreement that we should

14:40

all root for optimal health. And in this

14:42

case, you hope, I mean, it does

14:45

seem like she left the door open that Andy might

14:47

in fact play and that the information wasn't accurate. So

14:49

maybe that's what we should hang on to. This

14:51

seems like there is still a chance he'll be

14:53

out there. Yeah, she said FYI not ruled out

14:55

yet at the end of the tweet. Yeah,

14:57

they came out after this news broke. And the

15:00

way I read it was that it wasn't going

15:02

to happen. And

15:05

they came out and released from

15:07

her side, his side, basically

15:10

saying he has not pulled out of the event yet. So

15:13

he's not officially out, but

15:15

it seems as if it's

15:18

a toss up. It's seemingly at best

15:21

right now for that. I hope Murray gets

15:23

his moment. If

15:26

we have some American sports fans and we're talking

15:28

about like the Red Sox finally winning, the Cubs

15:30

finally winning, this is that times 20

15:34

as far as the way that this country digested

15:36

his win when he finally broke through for the

15:38

first time since the twenties and

15:40

won that tournament. We're talking about

15:42

Trafalgar Square, full of people, public

15:44

viewing areas, Hyde Park screens up,

15:47

hundreds of thousands or millions

15:50

of fans showing

15:52

up to watch huge screens around

15:54

the country. And this guy delivers

15:57

against Novak Djokovic. delivers

16:00

the Wimbledon title that they haven't had

16:02

on the men's side. Obviously, Virginia Wade

16:05

has won and is a great champion. But

16:08

the seismic moment

16:13

when he won cannot be

16:15

understated. He deserves

16:18

the farewell, the thank you, the respect.

16:20

And another thing that's worth noting, right,

16:23

is we think we always

16:25

make up our minds very early about

16:27

people based on their encore personas. Early

16:31

on in Andy Murray's career, Cramudgeon

16:35

argued with the umpire, yell at

16:37

the box, break stuff.

16:40

He would win and he was British

16:43

and he would lose and he's Scottish

16:45

depending on the tone. And

16:48

now I think we forget

16:50

that there was like this polarizing five years

16:53

for Andy Murray before

16:55

he became the statesman of sanity

16:57

in our sport. Whether

17:00

it's a social justice issue or

17:02

he's not scared to give his

17:04

opinion and whether or not you agree

17:06

with it, it's

17:08

an informed opinion and it's based

17:11

on some collection of facts and

17:14

it's not just emotion and bullshit.

17:16

So the

17:20

fact that he has changed into

17:22

this person who's universally respected and

17:25

we've gotten to know him past his

17:27

petulance on court, I

17:29

want that moment for him too, right?

17:32

Because maybe we didn't like him when we

17:34

had to celebrate his winning Wimbledon, especially

17:36

in his own country. And now he's

17:39

adored and rightfully so. Knighted, Sir

17:41

Andy Murray, we hope that you have health and

17:44

that you get your moment. I'm sure you're very,

17:46

very appreciative because you're 100% not

17:49

listening to this right now, but we

17:51

respect you and anything else there, John? That's

17:55

very well said. Sometimes the

17:57

media and public perception get it right and sometimes

17:59

they with and the Andy Murray we

18:01

all knew from the start was nothing like

18:03

the perception. Do you want to

18:05

make it a trifecta? If Murray

18:07

and Djokovic do not post, and

18:09

of course we hope they do, it will mean

18:12

there will be one former Wimbledon men's

18:14

champion in the draw, and it's the guy

18:16

who won it last year and is still

18:18

quite young. But we

18:20

haven't talked about Rafa who announced

18:24

he probably wasn't playing Wimbledon. It means he

18:27

probably will never play again, and

18:29

yet he is playing a clay event in Sweden

18:31

in a lead-up

18:33

to the Olympics. What

18:37

do we make of his absence, especially if he

18:40

now knows he wouldn't have to go through Novak if he were

18:42

going to win a third title?

18:44

Yeah, and as far as Rafa

18:47

goes, I

18:49

mean, I didn't have Bo Stad on my bingo

18:51

card. You know, you rewind to where we're

18:54

talking about him three months ago, and I'm like, okay,

18:56

he's probably going to wrap it up at Roland Garros,

18:58

the Olympics. I get Bo Stad because he

19:00

needs some match play between first round

19:02

of Roland Garros and the Olympics. So

19:06

in a micro decision, it makes a lot of

19:08

sense where I can't

19:10

say I'm frustrated, but where I'm like, oh,

19:12

man, like opportunity missed for

19:14

us. Like I'm super selfish as a

19:17

fan right here because this

19:20

is going to get clicks, and it's going to... His

19:25

fluency and his IQ on grass, we

19:27

quickly forget that two years ago, a

19:31

lot of people had him penciled in the final. He

19:33

was supposed to play a semifinal against Nick Kyrgios. He

19:35

tore an ab muscle against Taylor Fritz, still

19:38

gutted through two sets to grind out that

19:40

match against Taylor Fritz. Kyrgios

19:44

gets the walkover and plays that final that

19:46

we remember him playing against Novak. What's often

19:48

forgot is that he didn't

19:50

win a match in the semis,

19:52

and Rafa was rolling people that

19:55

tournament. He had won the first two slams of the

19:57

year, was in the semis of the third

19:59

one. going for like the calendar

20:01

year slam. There was conversations of that. Wimbledon

20:06

with the way that he knows how

20:08

to play on it and with the lack of expertise,

20:11

because it is such a short timeline

20:13

for surface and nobody grows up on it, right?

20:16

No one has been playing on grass since they

20:18

were five. You don't learn on grass, because the ball doesn't bounce.

20:21

So, like,

20:23

I think Rafa's like, possibly

20:26

his best shot to get to like

20:28

a semi or final or like have

20:31

a day could be Wimbledon. Like, his

20:34

backhand, he can just rip. He doesn't play

20:36

those extended points on grass. He can control

20:38

the middle of the court more. He forces

20:40

himself to step in on returns. All of

20:42

the things that he has to do by

20:46

virtue of his body not working as much anymore,

20:48

shortening points and all that, those are all the

20:50

adjustments he already made on grass. So,

20:53

I hate it that it looks like he's not gonna be a

20:55

part of it. He hasn't officially pulled out. He will. Go

20:58

ahead, Mike. I was just gonna

21:00

say after, you know, Roland Garros, after his loss

21:02

in Roland Garros, he had talked about how it'd

21:04

be hard, you know, given what's been going on

21:06

with his body to transition from clay to grass,

21:08

but then to make the transition back.

21:12

You know, can you kind of give some insight

21:14

into that, especially going through what he's going through

21:16

physically? So, here's the thing. With

21:18

him, his hip, everything else, confidence

21:21

and movement. People like, clay is softer on

21:23

your body. You know, you're gonna get less

21:25

injured for all of us chuckers, right? For

21:28

me, that's not the case, because I don't slide well.

21:30

I'm not a natural mover on clay. Maybe it's softer,

21:32

but like, I can predict what's

21:34

gonna happen when I move on a hard court

21:36

or a grass court. I just, it makes sense

21:38

to me. My body works, the instincts are there.

21:41

So, I don't know if it's

21:43

just a matter of Rafa feeling

21:45

completely confident with movement on a

21:47

surface versus obviously, the most unsure

21:49

surface is grass. So,

21:52

maybe it's just, I'm not gonna give

21:54

up a look to play on my

21:56

beloved surface, which is totally understandable. None

21:58

of my opinions about... Rafa

22:00

still being great on grass, mean

22:03

that I disagree with his decision. I

22:05

can't speak to his body, right? I can't do that.

22:08

I'm just saying, I think he could win matches and

22:10

make a run at Wimbledon if

22:12

he chose to play. But I

22:14

get it, like switching surfaces sucks in the body,

22:16

right? All of a sudden you go from

22:18

building up reserves on clay,

22:22

grinding out matches, your body

22:24

work, and then all of a sudden you're dealing with like lower back

22:27

issues on grass, because you're bending and it's twisting and

22:30

that's not native to him. So listen,

22:32

he made the right decision, but

22:34

in my mind I'm going, I have had the thought.

22:36

I don't know if I fully believe it, but like

22:39

that might be his best bet to like

22:41

win a slam or get to like a

22:43

last four right now, even

22:45

including clay. You know,

22:48

so it's based on what his

22:50

body's capable of doing in the movement, speed, gets

22:53

a little help on a serve, all

22:55

the adjustments that he has to make for

22:58

his body now are kind

23:01

of adjustments he has to make on grass anyways. So we'll see him in

23:03

bow shot. I'm just happy we're going to get to see him again. I'm

23:05

going to enjoy that. That'll

23:07

be great. I hope we see Novak

23:09

at Wimbledon. I hope we see Murray. I hope he gets

23:11

to say goodbye. At this

23:13

point, nobody's worried about saying goodbye to Novak. We're

23:16

going to see him play more. And

23:18

it looks like he's on his way to health quicker than

23:21

I could have ever anticipated. And that is just,

23:23

that's great. Any more parting

23:25

thoughts as far as those three, JW? No,

23:28

that was great. Let's get around.

23:30

Racket rundown. Racket rundown brought to you by

23:35

Wilson. Our friends

23:38

at Wilson. Listen, it

23:40

was an exciting week. I love the

23:42

grass court season. I request

23:44

on tennis channel to cover Queens just because

23:46

I love talking about grass court tennis. I

23:49

love the changes. I love the adjustments you

23:51

have to make. It's

23:53

fun watching people learn in real time, which is

23:55

what you feel like you watched Yannick

23:58

Sinner do this week in Halle. Three

24:00

setters, first three matches, then rolled

24:03

the last two, Bijiang in the semis, and

24:05

then a very, very capable, probably like, I

24:08

don't think it's hyperbolic to say Hercach is

24:10

top five or six grass quarters in the

24:12

world. Beats

24:15

him in the final in straight sets as well.

24:18

How he is moving aggressively,

24:22

I know, Halle is the slipperiest grass court there is,

24:25

because it's half indoors. It's like

24:27

a domed roof where you have

24:29

to have direct sunlight

24:31

for a grass court to be perfect. Halle

24:34

doesn't have that benefit, right? It rains,

24:36

they have to protect, they have to put

24:38

an event on. So the back of Halle

24:40

is a slip and slide. And

24:42

how hard

24:45

Sinner was moving in the corners, sliding

24:47

into shots, and then turning on a

24:49

dime, like we all know he was a former

24:52

skier when he was young, and I was actually playing

24:55

golf with Kevin Anderson this morning, and he

24:57

goes, that ski thing has

24:59

to matter on grass when you're

25:01

kind of getting in and out of cuts. He goes, that's just

25:03

like a natural thing for him. He

25:06

looked great, he's holding at an insane clip,

25:08

the serve wide, like even if you know

25:11

he's serving wide on the dew side, what

25:14

do you do? You cover it, you firm it up. If

25:17

you're not going line, which is like a low percentage

25:19

shot, he's in the middle, and he's taking you the

25:21

other way, and he can square it up. Couldn't

25:24

have been more impressed with the run that

25:26

Sinner put together in Halle. Tommy

25:29

Paul was fantastic in Queens, well

25:31

deserved, US number one now,

25:35

winning that final against Lorenzo Musetti, who everyone

25:37

predicted was gonna be in that final. Am

25:39

I right, John? Because

25:42

of that Italian tennis run we're on. Interesting,

25:45

I mean, you know, and Tommy Paul really earned

25:47

that. There was some interesting results. He lost to

25:49

Corda last week, then he comes back and beat

25:51

Corda. That's a nice title for Tommy Paul. I

25:54

think Musetti's, I don't think that's a

25:56

crazy, I don't think that's a crazy finalist,

25:58

but no, I think, you

26:00

know, just one other, you know, do you think so? On

26:02

grass, sort of slick, not

26:04

the worst, over one-handed backhand. No,

26:08

you know what, you know what

26:10

else? There's some years where the

26:12

number of tiebreak sets played on

26:14

grass is 30% higher than other

26:16

surfaces. Sinner and Tommy Paul as well to

26:19

either win tiebreak sets or to lose

26:21

a tiebreak set and then reset, which

26:23

is what Sinner especially did

26:26

really well. I think some

26:28

of these are about, you know, Tommy

26:30

Paul, great athlete, not a big surprise

26:32

that Tommy Paul performs well on grass.

26:36

But I also think, I think there's more mentally that

26:38

goes into winning grass court matches. I mean, you know

26:40

this yourself. I mean, you stand up

26:42

there and it's six games all and the

26:45

next four minutes is going to

26:47

determine whether what we did for the previous 70

26:49

minutes was a positive or a negative. Tommy

26:52

Paul, some nice tennis. I saw some

26:54

nice, you know, I watched the, you

26:56

know, I saw Draper, but what I

26:58

also saw was a lot of some

27:00

nice mental toughness, which we haven't always

27:02

seen from him at majors, especially. Yeah,

27:05

and Tommy Paul deserves so

27:07

much credit. Okay. The book on

27:09

Tommy five years ago, frankly,

27:14

I'll say it. Yeah, it was, he

27:17

was full of talent and

27:19

didn't treat this like a job. You

27:22

know, was, was, was Tommy good time, right? Like

27:24

that, that, and then Brad Stein, Tommy, not go

27:26

ahead. It's the way they called him. Yeah. So,

27:29

but like, let's give credit work. And that's not

27:31

the only reason I would mention the negative is

27:33

to point out the progress. Right.

27:35

He is such a pro now.

27:38

You never worry about him being tired

27:40

in matches. His body holds it. Your

27:42

body doesn't hold up. When

27:45

all of a sudden you're winning more matches than you ever

27:47

have because it's unprepared. Your

27:50

body holds up, switching services, semi

27:52

and Indian Wells, semi and

27:54

Rome winning Queens. This

27:57

is a well-rounded player. This

27:59

is someone who. who can play defense, this is

28:01

someone who can transition forward, this is someone

28:03

who doesn't, he's not Tyson from the late

28:05

80s, he doesn't just walk up and

28:07

start throwing haymakers. He has

28:10

learned this nuance, how to

28:12

deal with his own game, how to

28:14

be the most effective version of himself, and

28:17

he is an absolute professional

28:19

now. Not a

28:21

lot of guys figure that out midstream.

28:25

A lot of guys have regrets when they start out

28:27

the way that Tommy Paul did. A

28:29

lot of guys look back and say, gosh, you know what, I

28:31

should have done X, Y, and Z. Credit

28:33

to him, huge props to

28:35

Brad Stein. Not

28:38

even just like saying, it's easy to tell someone to work hard,

28:41

it's harder to do it in a way

28:43

that is communicative and to get buy-in, and

28:45

to get buy-in over an extended

28:48

period of time. This wasn't,

28:50

like they started, Tommy was, I don't know, he was around

28:52

180, I don't know what it was. But

28:55

certainly not someone you looked at and go, yeah,

28:57

he has the discipline to be top And

29:00

now it looks like he is going

29:02

to be top 10 because of that discipline.

29:05

JW? Yeah, Brad Stein's track

29:07

record speaks for itself. You

29:09

see the correlation and causation. But I think that's

29:11

a really good point you raised, which is credit

29:14

to the player too. Part

29:17

of it is the player's the one who's got to execute. But

29:19

also, credit Tommy Paul. I'm sure

29:21

there were a lot of mornings with Brad Stein

29:23

that weren't nearly as much fun as he had

29:25

had six months, 18 months prior. I'm

29:27

sure there were a lot of things Brad Stein

29:29

said that weren't as nice to hear as other

29:31

people you could surround yourself with. When there is

29:34

a relationship like that, you credit the coach, there

29:36

was, you know, you sort of do the math,

29:38

graph it out on, you know, Darren Cahill's and

29:41

Sinner. You can sort of just look at the

29:43

results. But I also think the players

29:45

ought to get a lot of credit,

29:47

especially young ones, for sticking with coaches

29:49

that are hardasses and don't

29:51

always tell them what they want to hear. And this

29:53

is, yeah, it's really, this is

29:55

really sort of an unsung run for Tommy

29:57

Paul. You know, made the semis in Australia.

30:00

year and a half ago, but he hasn't

30:02

had that one crazy result. It hasn't won Indian

30:04

Wells the way Taylor Fritz has, hasn't had the

30:06

Francis run at the open where he sort of

30:08

hijacks the place for a few days. He's

30:11

done this steadily. He's done this with

30:13

really sort of versatile tennis on a

30:15

variety of surfaces. He's done this sometimes

30:17

after really bad losses. This is really

30:20

an underrated American tennis story. And

30:22

not to mention, he busted his

30:24

ankle in Miami. He had a

30:26

speed bump in the middle of his year. Right?

30:29

So to come back and it just, I'm

30:31

going to be effusive with praise for Tommy

30:33

Paul right now because there

30:35

was definitely a time in his career where

30:38

I would have gone, this guy's just never going to get it. Hashtag

30:43

invoke. Mike,

30:45

you're the only one that got it. But

30:49

there was a time where definitely I was like, this is

30:51

going to be, this is going

30:53

to be, you know, a fun time guy. I've always

30:55

liked Tommy. I've known him since he was a kid.

30:59

Great guy. Even when I

31:01

was disagreeing with his decision making for

31:04

being the best tennis player he could possibly be.

31:06

I've always liked Tommy. He's the nice, one of

31:08

the nicest guys, easiest guys. You won't hear anyone

31:10

say like, he, oh, he will. He's like kind

31:12

of an, you know, an ass in

31:14

the locker room. He's just a great guy. He's

31:16

just a nice laid back guy,

31:19

good sense of humor. But

31:22

now he's put the pieces together and I'm really

31:24

happy for him. I really am. I'm really, really

31:26

happy for Tommy Paul. I'm glad

31:28

he got that American number one. I hope

31:30

he gets to the top 10. I hope

31:33

that the next step is developing into someone

31:36

where it's not even a pleasant surprise when

31:38

he's in the semis of a

31:40

major event. And I think that's

31:42

a reality. I love what they've done.

31:44

Props to, props to Brad Stein.

31:46

You mentioned Jack Draper. He was a huge

31:48

story, obviously in London. Before

31:52

I mention him, because I also want to get to

31:54

Al Kharraz and how I don't care that he lost

31:56

in Queens. That affects my, my Wimbledon,

32:02

I guess, predictive thing for him, zero.

32:06

So you mentioned like, there are gonna be some listeners who

32:08

are like, wait, players don't like it when their coaches are

32:10

hard-ass? No one's like that. I literally

32:12

had, so my old

32:14

coach was, my last coach was

32:16

Larry Stefankey. I had a

32:19

woman player who was at the

32:21

time, maybe had had like a run where

32:23

there was a lot of successful majors. And

32:26

then I wanna say she

32:29

was still top 10 or thereabouts, but like

32:31

a big star and called

32:33

and was like a text and said, hey, I'd

32:35

like to talk to you about about Larry. And

32:38

Larry ended up going for a day, but I

32:41

wanna talk to you about Larry. And the question was, I was

32:43

like, oh yeah, Larry's great. And she got, and the question was,

32:45

yeah, but is he like, is he

32:47

like super hard? Cause

32:50

I don't know that, like, that's not really what I

32:52

like. And I'm going, well, what

32:54

are your goals? Like,

32:56

what do you want? And they're like, oh no, some of the,

32:58

like, I don't wanna like, if I don't really wanna practice for

33:01

a couple of days, I don't want someone who's like, you

33:03

know, being a hard-ass about it. I'm like, okay,

33:06

well, I

33:08

think differently after this conversation. I said, I gave

33:10

him, I don't know, you'd give him a try,

33:12

but he might not be the guy for you.

33:14

Cause yeah, he's coached for former

33:17

number one. So he's gonna expect a certain level

33:19

of give a shittedness. There's

33:22

a t-shirt for you, Mike. So

33:27

moving off the guys, and we'll get to the

33:29

women's draw. Berlin

33:31

was strange, a lot of stops and

33:34

starts in the matches. You

33:37

know, Saba Lenka played

33:39

one match against Kazatkina, looked great, and then was

33:42

in the middle of the match and said, nope,

33:44

I'm done, Rabakana. I

33:46

don't know if it was, she said abdominal pain. I don't

33:48

know if it was stomach issue. 3-1,

33:52

Ripcord, Jabour, lose the first

33:54

set to Coco, says, nope. So

33:59

all of a sudden the final. We have Jess Pagula

34:01

beats Coco. Pagula obviously

34:03

has had a rough start to the year. And

34:06

she told me when

34:09

we were kind of chatting earlier in the year when she had a

34:11

lot of things going on

34:13

as far as switching coaches, everything else, she

34:17

was asking my opinion on things and basically what

34:19

mistakes have you made, which I thought was a

34:21

really great question. And

34:24

I was happy to share, but kind of has

34:27

had a bunch of stops and starts, found

34:29

some momentum Charleston played pretty well, but

34:32

was still searching. I think Jess Pagula,

34:35

the fit for her game on grass is phenomenal. And

34:37

I said it five days ago on Tennis

34:39

Channel before she won Berlin. I'm like, she

34:42

is going to be tough to deal with. She

34:44

can control the middle of the court. Ball flight

34:46

can distribute both ways. Props to her

34:50

for getting back winning. This is a big title.

34:52

Beating Coco, beating Colin Skaia,

34:54

who was frankly on one this week,

34:56

like just crushing the ball, saving

34:59

four match points in that final. This was

35:01

the exact type of week

35:04

that Jess Pagula needed to get through to feel

35:06

like she was a part of the tour again.

35:09

Like I am in it. There are rain delays. I have

35:11

to come out, sleep on a three-one

35:14

lead in a breaker, a four-one lead in a

35:16

breaker against Coco, come back, finish that off, start

35:18

the final 25 minutes later. It

35:21

was random, lots of questions asked. I

35:23

thought Jess Pagula was

35:25

great. I love the way

35:27

that her game fits on grass. We conveniently

35:30

forget that she was

35:32

up four-one in the third set last

35:34

year in the quarters against the

35:36

person who ended up winning the tournament. I

35:40

love Jess. I hope that she

35:42

feels great going into Wimbledon. I think she

35:44

could be a real threat on

35:47

the surface. And on another cool story,

35:49

Ayla Tomjanovic has also been hurt a

35:51

bunch, played a

35:54

challenger last week. Something

35:56

that Sophie knows something about because she's watched

35:58

the movie Challenger. She's an expert

36:02

in it, but comes back, makes

36:04

final after a bunch of stops

36:06

and starts. She has battled

36:09

injuries through her career, but especially the

36:11

last year. Great story, makes the final,

36:13

can't quite get over the hump, was 0-5 in

36:15

finals going in. It's probably the

36:17

best player that hasn't won a title on either tour. Hopefully

36:21

she gets it, but props to Putin Seva, who

36:24

said before this week she didn't really like grass. I

36:26

think she likes it a little bit more now with

36:28

that title in hand in

36:30

Birmingham, JW. It's

36:33

interesting to me what sort of has predictive

36:35

value and what doesn't, right? So I'm with

36:37

you, like Carlos Algaraz loses to Draper, talented,

36:39

lefty. I don't care. News don't

36:42

care, right? Nope. But there are

36:44

other grass events where you look at context and you

36:46

look at where a player's been or what this has

36:48

done or what they've showed you at a match. You

36:51

know, Jesse Pekula beating, actually she beat the both

36:53

the doubles team, right? Didn't she beat? She beat

36:55

Siniakova too. Siniakova and then she beats Coco. That

36:57

has more predictive value. I think it's interesting there

37:00

that some of these results in tune ups and

37:02

also, I mean, I think as

37:04

these majors get more and more important, it

37:06

means that the tune ups have much, you

37:08

know, there's a variety of meetings for different

37:10

players. Some players just want matches. Some players

37:12

don't want to get dinged up before the

37:14

big show. But

37:17

it's interesting to me what you just said, because what you're

37:19

saying, and I think it's really valued, but it's really nuanced,

37:21

is that different results have

37:25

different significance for different players. So Carlos Alcaraz, you're not

37:27

going to rip up your draw because he lost to

37:29

Jack Drake, but Jesse Pekula, all of a sudden, someone

37:31

in need of wins and got a bunch of good

37:33

ones. Hey, maybe we should look at her as the

37:35

top 10 seed she's going to be. Yeah,

37:38

totally. Alcaraz

37:40

is he learned how to, he needed Queens last

37:43

year. He didn't, I watched his first round and

37:45

then I watched his third round of Queens a

37:47

year ago. When I watched his

37:49

first round, I'm going, this guy doesn't, he doesn't

37:51

know how to play on grass yet. And

37:54

this phenom, by

37:57

third round, I'm going, oh, okay, well that was easy

37:59

for him to finish. figure out, right?

38:01

He needed that last year going into Wimbledon because

38:03

there is this aha moment. Pete Sampras talks about,

38:05

he's like, I thought I hated grass and then,

38:08

then it clicked and

38:10

I got it. I understood it. I wasn't frustrated by

38:12

it. Bad bounces. I knew how to play. I knew

38:15

what to do. I knew how to move. I knew

38:17

when to press. I knew when to not, and it

38:19

all clicked very quickly. It's center made the semis last

38:21

year. So it's not as exact as

38:23

if he didn't know how to do it, but

38:25

this week was different. Like I, you saw him

38:28

problem solving for grass in real

38:30

time. Carlos Alcaraz played a

38:32

great first round against Surrondolo, looked

38:34

amazing floating around the court, doing

38:36

all of the Alcaraz

38:38

things. Goes up against Draper who had

38:40

won the week before. Draper served him off the court,

38:43

right? Carlos still finding his footing. He,

38:47

like he should have, he went to Ibiza after

38:50

Roland Garros and hopefully partied his ass off

38:52

because- Yeah, don't worry about that. Good, because

38:55

he deserved it. Because he deserved it and

38:57

he didn't need the grass preparation like he

38:59

did last year. He knows how to play

39:01

on the surface. He is the defending Wimbledon

39:03

champion. He needed to go get a couple

39:05

of matches. I'm not saying like if

39:08

he wins Queens, fantastic, even better. I'm

39:11

just saying that tournament is not

39:13

nearly to John's point. That tournament is

39:15

not nearly as important to him as

39:17

it is to Jess Pagoula who knows she can

39:19

play well on the surface. She

39:21

knows the same things we do,

39:24

but you need to create that

39:26

confidence. Confidence is king. Confidence is

39:28

queen. She needed that

39:30

tournament more than someone like Alcaraz

39:32

needed Queens this time. Simple

39:35

as that. So props to our

39:38

winners. This has been a racket

39:40

rundown brought to you by Wilson. We are going

39:42

to take a quick break and on the other

39:45

side of this, we are

39:47

going to get into Wimbledon. I'm

39:49

going to tell you why it

39:52

is probably my favorite place on

39:54

planet earth. And I still

39:56

get sick to my stomach when I walk through the gates. But

39:59

we're going to get to that after. We're going to tell you all

40:01

the greatest things which makes it which make

40:03

it in my mind the greatest sporting

40:05

venue In the history of the

40:07

world. I just love it that much

40:10

JW would tell you what it's like from

40:12

his perspective I'll tell you what it's like

40:14

from mine and we'll get to that

40:16

after the break. Thanks for listening to surf And

40:23

now we get to the part of the

40:25

show where we discuss Wimbledon

40:28

and kind of I guess the best

40:30

way to describe the way I'm thinking about this is

40:32

why it gives us the feels That

40:35

it that it gives us It's

40:38

just it's so perfect

40:42

Everything about it in my mind is is

40:44

perfect the courts when you walk in and

40:46

they haven't been played on They're mode a

40:48

certain way. They smell a certain way You

40:52

see the same people working at the tournament because

40:54

they're members of the club You

40:57

feel that and not in a stuffy way in

40:59

like a welcome to our home Welcome to our

41:01

living room type of way and oh by the

41:03

way, we're gonna play the biggest

41:06

tournament in tennis also. I Just

41:10

fell in love with it Very

41:13

very quickly. I just

41:15

I absolutely Love

41:18

it there I think my favorite day of the

41:20

year would be the first day that you

41:22

get to Wimbledon and and I always Kind

41:25

of played pretty well at Queens and so I would

41:28

always consciously stay in central London for

41:30

Queens Because I wanted

41:33

Them to feel like separate events some most

41:35

players when they get to Wimbledon They rent houses

41:38

and you're all around Wimbledon Village and I could do

41:40

30 minutes only on Wimbledon Village being the best place

41:43

on earth I Wanted

41:45

to feel separate and I wanted to feel like moving

41:47

day on that Monday where we're going to Wimbledon that

41:49

excitement that buzz I Didn't

41:51

want to burn those feelings during Queens.

41:53

I wanted them to feel like a

41:55

very very distinct change Other

41:58

people did it differently late in here Hewitt would

42:00

also, he also won Queens

42:02

four times. He would rent the house

42:05

out of Wimbledon and drive back and forth

42:07

to Queens. So from central London with

42:10

no traffic, I don't even want to know why people say that because

42:12

there's always traffic there. About a half hour,

42:14

45 minutes outside of London with traffic, who knows?

42:16

It could be an hour and a half. Just

42:18

take the tube, it's easier. But

42:21

it's just, it's just,

42:25

it's just magic. The

42:27

traditions, the players, the winners,

42:31

the rules they have, but then someone telling

42:33

you a rule in a very friendly tone.

42:36

Like I got called in to the, I

42:38

used to call it the principal's office. It was Alan

42:41

Mills, God rest his soul. One of my favorite people

42:43

who was the term a referee forever.

42:45

I rebalked, had made me some shoes. There

42:48

was too much black on them. And I was

42:50

like, I got nothing. Like I can, I can put white

42:52

out on them and I can adjust it. That probably won't

42:54

look as good. And he goes, he

42:56

goes, what did he say? He always had

42:58

the amazing way of putting stuff and he would call me

43:01

in and like, he kind of had this, you know, smirk

43:03

that, you know, I think he knew that I could

43:06

take a joke. And he

43:08

goes, well, you know, contrary

43:11

to popular belief, we're

43:13

not completely irrational. Just

43:16

don't do it next year. I was like,

43:18

I love you so much. You're the best. Like, it's

43:20

just, it's that type of thing. And I think people

43:22

view it as this like, you know, stuffy

43:25

place. It's just, they have these traditions and

43:27

I never felt intimidated by them. It

43:30

felt like a warm hug to me. I always thought

43:32

it was cool. How

43:34

do you feel when you walk through the JW?

43:37

Did you just say this was the greatest

43:39

sports venue in the world? Yeah,

43:41

I did. I did that very cavalierly. No,

43:44

I mean, I said that and I'm like, oh shit,

43:46

well, what could top that? And I'm like, you know

43:48

what? I don't

43:50

know if you, I think that's a

43:52

defensible position. Yeah. Maybe you like,

43:54

maybe you like the masters or maybe you like

43:56

Lambeau field or maybe you like Wrigley field or

43:59

maybe you like. a soccer stadium

44:01

that I've never been to, but

44:04

there's no way you can definitively

44:07

think what I'm saying is nuts. In

44:11

a world where apparently everything I say can be

44:13

considered nuts, that can't be considered nuts, even if

44:15

you don't agree with me. I fully

44:17

believe it. I'm tired of

44:20

your Churchill Downs disparagement. No, I think

44:22

you're totally right. I think, one

44:24

of my hot takes on Wimbledon is that, I

44:27

mean, it's tremendous. Nobody goes to Wimbledon and

44:30

says, eh, people go to the Indy

44:32

500 and they say, okay, I can check that off my

44:34

list and now my ears are ringing and I smell like

44:36

smoke and I don't need to do that again. Nobody goes

44:38

to Wimbledon and says, nah, didn't live up to the hype.

44:40

But I always, can

44:42

you name me another property that

44:45

passes up more money in revenue,

44:47

right? So there's no naming rights.

44:49

There's no McLaren on center court.

44:51

There's no crazy secondary ticketing market

44:53

where, I mean, they pass up

44:55

so much revenue prioritizing

44:58

tradition. And I feel

45:00

like that makes it more valuable. So the fact that

45:02

it is not the, Barclays

45:04

Bank Center Court, I'm

45:06

sure they could get $25 million a year if

45:09

center court were sponsored, easy. I'm

45:11

sure court side signage, I'm sure letting you

45:14

wear your black shoes. But

45:16

I feel like it's almost more

45:18

valuable because of the money they pass up. And

45:20

it's also sort of weirdly, you mentioned

45:23

the masters, or we talk about some of these

45:25

sort of elegant events and it's

45:27

weirdly populist. Like you can wait in line

45:29

in a queue and

45:32

spend 29 pounds, which is way

45:34

over 40 bucks and

45:36

sit two rows back of Roger Federer.

45:38

I mean, it's not, it's very elegant

45:40

and tasteful, but there's also this kind

45:42

of rowdy open to the public. Everyone

45:45

that wants to watch tennis should be able to, they

45:48

have a great program where you can leave your ticket

45:50

on the way out. So somebody that waits in line

45:52

can then take it and take your spot. It's

45:55

weirdly not elitist. It's in the old

45:58

version of populist in the pre. 2016

46:01

version of populist it's weirdly a people's event for

46:03

all the elegance. I also love the three at

46:05

one point I think there were three signs and

46:07

it was it was the brand of the

46:10

tennis ball it was Rolex

46:13

had some deal and they had the official clock

46:15

and it was something called Robinson's

46:17

barley water I don't know what

46:19

barley water quite is it's it's

46:22

Louis finally got to one of the parts

46:24

of Wimbledon that isn't great Robinson sucks all

46:27

right but they're not sorry

46:29

I just they're not gonna sponsor like well I would I

46:32

would rather I mean the fact that like if you gave

46:34

me if you

46:37

gave me it like ollie pop is obviously fantastic

46:39

if you gave me an ollie pop and you

46:41

put it outside and filled half

46:43

of it with lake water I would still drink

46:45

it over Robinson's it's someone said

46:47

it was like what you take before your have

46:49

you had a colonoscopy yeah no I was hoping

46:53

I was actually gonna make that the next episode

46:55

so you go you look at the

46:57

US Open right and you get these emails sometimes and they

46:59

say you know we have a special you know

47:02

non-alcoholic craft beer sponsorship category it's the official

47:04

tequila of the US Open you know the

47:06

players it's hot and all of a sudden

47:09

outcome the Continental Airlines umbrellas and there are

47:11

about 80,000 pieces

47:13

of signage and brands it's just a different way

47:15

to run an event but Wimbledon

47:18

for all it's sort of you know everyone

47:20

thinks it's it's nudie and it's elegant this

47:22

tradition it's actually a really cool people's event

47:25

it's no I I think the

47:27

grass is part of it I think the

47:30

fact that I think what you said is really

47:32

interesting there are a lot of rules but they're

47:34

not obnoxious they're just sort of you sort of

47:36

go with the tradition but you're not considered like

47:38

a Philistine if you if you run a fowl

47:41

of something it's it's sort of

47:43

the perfect distance from London where it feels like

47:45

you're in the English countryside but you say it's

47:47

it's 25 minutes on the tube if you have

47:49

to get to Hyde Park the

47:52

fact that I'm not curious just talk more about your

47:54

experience as a player is you're not there as someone

47:56

who's made a bucket list trip you're there to do

47:58

work what what do you think differentiates it

48:00

most from your run of the

48:03

mill event as someone who's actually there

48:05

to work and not there because they're a

48:07

fan. For me, it was like, so

48:09

some of this is based in nostalgia and memory

48:11

for me. I remember, you know, for me, it

48:13

was a tradition watching stateside.

48:15

It was breakfast at Wimbledon and it was

48:18

always a massive deal in our house. It

48:21

was even seven years old.

48:23

I understood it. I got the gravity of it.

48:25

I knew the champions that had won it. I

48:30

completely bought in on the history of it.

48:34

It's a weird thing because my relationship

48:36

with Wimbledon ended up being a

48:39

fantastic one. I think I

48:42

probably got along more with the fans there than

48:44

I did in New York sometimes. On

48:50

paper, it shouldn't have worked. You

48:52

got the brash American who breaks and

48:55

yells at people and wears

48:57

his hat backwards sometimes. It was

49:00

an unlikely relationship

49:04

that ended up being so positive.

49:06

All I wanted was that. Can

49:12

I ask you a question before we go further and you can confirm

49:14

or deny this or cut it out? Were

49:18

you invited to be a member despite not having won the

49:20

title? Did I hear that right? Yes,

49:23

I was. Yeah,

49:26

shockingly. The rule

49:28

is for those of you, if you win Wimbledon, you

49:30

become a member of the All England Club. People think,

49:32

you know, Wimbledon is the tournament

49:35

and that's how it exists. The All England

49:37

Law and Tennis Club is a year-round

49:40

club that people use, like

49:42

a sports club. It

49:44

just happens to, you know, you play Wimbledon

49:46

there. Similar to the Masters is the tournament

49:49

and Augusta National is the club. Wimbledon is

49:51

the tournament and All England Club

49:54

is the host. They host Wimbledon. If

49:57

you win, you become a member.

50:00

forever. And so that's kind of

50:02

the way it works. You win, you're in,

50:05

you don't, you're not. And

50:07

so, you know, I lifelong

50:09

dream I would have loved to have been a member

50:11

there. You know, obviously you win the tournament, you come

50:13

close and it doesn't quite happen. So

50:16

I got a call in, I remember

50:19

I was staying at Fish's house in LA actually. I don't

50:21

know why we were out there, but we were out there

50:24

and I had a call, I think

50:26

Tim Henman texted me and said, Phil Brooks would like

50:28

to talk to you, who was the chairman of the

50:30

Allianz Club at the time. And

50:34

said he'd like to talk to you, you know, just tournament

50:36

and whatever. And so in my mind, I'm like, oh,

50:38

okay, this is cool because I'm

50:40

now close enough to the game. I

50:43

think I had been out of it a year

50:45

and a half, maybe, I think it was about then it was

50:47

early 2014. And

50:50

so I was like, oh, he's, you know, he's probably going to ask me

50:53

surfaces, locker rooms, player

50:56

experience. I'm not biased anymore. He

50:59

knows that I absolutely love this tournament and

51:01

this venue. I

51:03

was certainly never shy about, you know,

51:05

telling that to anyone. And

51:10

so I get on the phone, I was like, okay, you

51:12

know, random phone call, but I think

51:14

I could probably add value. He wasn't crazy to

51:16

think that he would call and, you

51:18

know, want some time. And he asked

51:20

if I would like to be, no, he asked, what

51:23

was it? Would you be a

51:25

fan? He was sensitive to the fact

51:27

that I hadn't won it,

51:29

obviously. And he's basically in spite

51:31

of tradition, would you

51:33

consider being a member of the All England Club

51:35

and you know, all along long times club. And

51:39

I was stunned. One of the

51:41

happiest moments of my life. Like I was absolutely

51:43

stunned. It's not something I use enough. It's not,

51:46

it still hurts to go there sometimes. I'm

51:49

going to go there casually just as a member

51:51

to hit some balls in late August, which will

51:53

be great. But

51:57

yeah, and I started learning that

51:59

I developed. a really good friendship

52:01

with, so like the locker room, the head

52:03

locker room attendant during Wimbledon and the champions

52:05

locker room, which the seated players can use,

52:09

is a friend of mine named Doug. And,

52:11

you know, he was always, he's this English

52:13

guy who was into baseball scores. And so

52:15

we'd come in, I'd talk about my fantasy

52:17

team, we'd, you know, bullshit, I'd hit putts,

52:19

rain delays. You

52:21

know, for three weeks every year, you

52:24

know, we would, we would ham it up.

52:26

And I just really enjoyed him. He became a good

52:28

friend of mine. And I learned

52:30

after the fact that he really pushed that

52:32

for me, kind of from the

52:34

inside. And so you never know who's watching.

52:36

You never think that, you know,

52:38

Doug is going to be able to push you, you

52:41

know, in that direction. And so I was

52:43

pretty humbled. I was even more humbled when I found out

52:45

I was from, not from

52:47

him, because I don't think he had the decision-making

52:49

power, but apparently

52:52

he had a, you know, voiced his support,

52:54

which was, which was, which was really nice

52:56

for me, you know, because he's the one

52:58

who's looking at players when

53:00

there are no cameras, right? And he kind of sees the

53:02

balls and strikes of it. So I was, I was pretty

53:04

honored. You know,

53:06

I don't know that my life would be

53:08

much different if I wasn't, frankly, but

53:11

I sure as hell am happy and honored

53:13

that I am, you know, and it's still

53:16

weird to me that I could get jump

53:18

on a plane and go there

53:20

and hit balls anytime. But

53:23

it's, you know, it's certainly a place that, you

53:25

know, it's pretty nice to walk through. If you

53:27

see any of your analysts when you're watching with,

53:30

you know, a pin on their

53:32

jacket, like a Wimbledon pin, that's a members pin.

53:34

So they've, they're members, you

53:37

know, so that's, it's a pretty cool thing. A

53:40

great story. And just how cool is

53:42

it, but also how nicely does it speak of

53:44

Wimbledon that the fact that the locker room attendant

53:46

lobbied for you clearly had some, some heft and

53:48

some weight? Great

53:50

story. I hope you, I hope you make more use

53:52

of it. Yeah, me too. And

53:54

also I gotta say someone else who was like

53:58

the ultimate. gentlemen

54:02

throughout that whole process was Tim Henman. Obviously

54:05

a member has a big voice in the room there,

54:08

however many times, semi-finalists. He

54:12

was great about walking me through the protocols

54:14

and I knew it for a long time and

54:16

then I played an event at Royal Albert Hall

54:18

where all of a sudden it was made public

54:21

later that year in the fall while I

54:23

was over there and so I got to take Brooke, my

54:26

wife, there to

54:29

have a meal with the chairman and walk

54:32

her. So the walk that I had made a million

54:34

times from the locker room to center court where you're

54:36

walking through a club, it's not like an arena like

54:38

the US Open where you're underneath kind of the underbelly

54:43

of the stadium and concrete and this

54:45

and that and she got to

54:47

see like I got to walk, like the walk that you

54:49

do when you play in a final where

54:52

the famous quote, the door's open, we got

54:55

to make that walk together, which was really

54:57

cool and I think it was a cool

54:59

experience for her to see as well. I

55:01

love that day. I hope to do

55:04

it more I think as hopefully as my kids start

55:07

understanding it a little bit more, they'll

55:09

think it's as cool as I do. Do

55:12

you pay dues? I don't know. All

55:15

right, so the reason I don't wanna pick up on

55:17

you. I don't know. I really don't know. No, but

55:19

in keeping with our theme about how cool this place

55:22

is, the dues are like less than my YMCA. I

55:24

mean the dues. I mean the

55:26

fact that I don't know means that if I am paying and that it's

55:28

not really causing me much stress. And

55:30

I love, I think people don't realize that,

55:32

that you're right, they use this as a

55:34

club year round. So the interview room, which

55:36

is quite nice, in November that's where they're

55:38

gonna show whatever, Billy Madison, that's like the

55:40

movie night for the club. You

55:43

sort of forget that like Mrs. Nussbaum

55:45

plays doubles on court 18 a

55:47

few days after the tournament's over.

55:50

It's a really, that's a great story.

55:52

I'd never heard that. Yeah, yeah, it was, I

55:54

listen, I think there's two other, two other, if

55:56

I'm in, gosh, I hope I don't get this

55:59

wrong, but I'm nine. I'm right and we can

56:01

edit it if not, so you'll never hear it if I'm wrong. Two

56:05

other players, Ken Rosewall and Lendl

56:08

were invited to join the club,

56:10

even though they didn't win the singles. I think

56:12

that's right. Anyways,

56:15

so that's Wimbledon. I think I

56:17

kind of flirted with it and then didn't do

56:19

it. My single favorite day

56:21

of the year is the first practice

56:23

day. So as the tournament's

56:25

going on, the grounds are

56:27

heaving. There's Henman Hill. You walk through the outer

56:30

courts, you can just walk up to most of

56:32

them. Like there's a side with

56:34

stands and then there's like between

56:37

courts, you can walk between them and just kind of hang

56:39

out between and check out the matches. It's

56:43

like equal parts, the

56:46

most perfect place you've ever seen. And then it's

56:48

like a tennis festival in some parts where you

56:51

can hang out on the Hill and watch the

56:53

big screen. And they just, the way that they

56:55

are able to balance tradition with, I

56:58

don't know, experience where you don't feel uptight when

57:01

you're there. And maybe

57:03

my experience isn't everyone's experience, but that's always the way

57:05

I felt. Like you can buy a grounds pass, go

57:07

to Henman Hill, have a day at Wimbledon, see

57:10

the entire venue. Like you're watching the screen

57:12

outside of court one, you look, you know,

57:14

45 degrees to your right and you see

57:18

the shape of center court. It's

57:21

just so cool. And so the

57:23

first day you get there for practice, you

57:25

normally get an hour if you're a seated player

57:27

to hit on site and then over

57:30

at a rangy park, which by the way, another nice touch

57:33

to hit at a rangy park, you don't have to wear all

57:35

white. So all of your warmups, all your practice sessions, it's

57:38

not as if you're, you know, taking your starchy whites out

57:40

to, you know, to, to go warm up for a match.

57:43

So again, a touch that

57:46

they get perfectly right. A

57:48

rangy park is, you know, basically

57:51

a big row of grass

57:53

and they're all together. There's no space between

57:56

them. And that's where the players

57:58

want to practice everything else. But

58:00

during the tournament, to

58:02

get from our locker rooms are kind

58:04

of in center court, right? So

58:07

like second level center court, you

58:09

walk down this long staircase, a couple of

58:11

flights, and all of a

58:13

sudden you walk underneath all of Wimbledon. So

58:16

there's 30,000 people

58:18

up above you, a floor

58:21

above you, you're walking underneath them to

58:23

a Rangi Park through, you

58:25

know, the kitchen doors open up when you're

58:27

walking, like it's where all the, you know,

58:29

deliveries are, the infrastructure, 18 wheelers parked down

58:31

there, that's how they get the whole thing.

58:34

And there's, you know, the

58:36

players can walk down below there and then you

58:38

walk up the stairs and there's

58:40

tons of fans hanging over the entrance to

58:42

a Rangi Park when you're coming from underground.

58:45

And it's so much fun because you'll be practicing on

58:47

like court one right there, one of the first couple

58:49

of courts where the public can

58:52

watch practice. It's so cool. But

58:54

then you'll hear the fans just

58:56

start going nuts. Like it's like the Beatles in

58:58

her big Serena and that first fan who sees

59:01

the person who's walking up and then all the

59:03

fans just start going crazy. It's like this tell

59:05

because all of a sudden you're underground and you

59:07

peak up and all of a sudden your face

59:10

is showing and you just see, you

59:12

look up and you just see the sea of people kind

59:14

of leaning over the railings just going crazy. So

59:17

it's weird because you have this like the traditional

59:19

space of center court where there's decorum tradition and

59:21

then you go to a Rangi Park and

59:24

it's the Beatles, right? It is the

59:26

seeing your favorite players up close. You have

59:28

to walk directly in between all

59:30

of the fans. Like you're on a staircase and

59:32

they're on both sides and you're walking right through

59:34

high fiving, doing the whole thing. So

59:37

that's during the tournament before the tournament. I

59:40

took the, I'm a pretty quick walker. I'm a fidgety

59:42

person. I can focus on something for

59:44

about four seconds. You're going to

59:46

walk from outside of center court

59:48

where you walk down where the public will be five

59:51

or six days from then. The

59:54

slowest walk through Wimbledon when there's not anyone

59:56

on site. There's not a

59:58

person there besides the players. And players

1:00:00

alone can't fill that place. It can't make it

1:00:03

feel full. That slow walk

1:00:05

through Wimbledon, past Henman Hill, past the

1:00:08

video board, over to Orangi

1:00:10

Park, just casually walking into Orangi Park, and

1:00:12

you know that that feeling is gonna go

1:00:14

away and be replaced by something

1:00:16

that's magic also. Five

1:00:19

or six days later is just

1:00:21

maybe the best walk in all

1:00:23

of tennis. And I say

1:00:25

that with respect to walking

1:00:28

out through the clubhouse for the finals, which is

1:00:30

also, I could talk for a half hour about

1:00:32

how special that is. But

1:00:35

it's just amazing. They get so many

1:00:37

of the notes right. It's

1:00:40

the place of my biggest heartbreak in

1:00:43

this sport. And it simultaneously

1:00:45

makes my heart full every time I think about

1:00:47

it. I

1:00:50

think we have to do a special episode on more behind

1:00:52

the scenes. This is great. You've been there a million years,

1:00:54

but I haven't heard of half of this. It's like half,

1:00:56

you're describing like half, half

1:00:59

opera, half minor league baseball game. I

1:01:02

guess that's right. Producer Mike. I was

1:01:04

just gonna ask about the dress code. Can you

1:01:06

talk about the history behind the kind of all

1:01:08

whites? Like why? I

1:01:11

don't know. It's just not always been that way, huh? It never bothered

1:01:13

me, so never really thought to ask why. Like I just kind of

1:01:15

liked it. I know there was some, Andre

1:01:18

didn't like it at first, and I'm sure he came around after he

1:01:20

won in 92. He literally wouldn't go play

1:01:22

there a couple of times because

1:01:25

he was anti dress code and he was the rebel. And

1:01:27

they even won, he won them over and

1:01:29

Wimbledon won him over. I

1:01:32

know he speaks with reverence about it now. I

1:01:35

just, most of the time, and I've said it

1:01:37

on this podcast before, doing something just

1:01:39

because that's the way it always been done, I

1:01:42

think is normally dumb. And

1:01:46

in Wimbledon, it's just perfect

1:01:50

to me. I don't know why. What did

1:01:53

Alan Mills say to you though? Because I think there's

1:01:55

something there too. They're not unreasonable. There

1:01:57

was a tradition of having that open.

1:02:00

Sunday and now they're no longer

1:02:02

is and they've made some concessions, especially, uh, understandably

1:02:05

to female players about all white. They've bent a

1:02:07

little bit on that. And I think the players,

1:02:09

you know, the players wear different shoes and the

1:02:11

players give a little, and I think the club

1:02:14

gives a little too. And it's

1:02:16

actually a very nice kind of meeting

1:02:18

of reasonable people. Um, I've got, wait,

1:02:20

shit, I've got to, uh, I got to

1:02:22

bounce. You know what this means. It means I'm going

1:02:24

to have to wait till next time to congratulate you

1:02:26

on the serving up dreams award. You're going

1:02:28

to get the first night of the U S open. Uh,

1:02:31

I got, I got to jump on this other call. Sounds

1:02:33

like a good time for you to just sign off. Like,

1:02:36

are we, do we run a, do we run a show

1:02:38

now producer Mike where people just just fucking

1:02:40

leave whenever they want. See you later

1:02:42

guys. Yeah. All right. Cool.

1:02:44

Big gulp. So well, see you later. And

1:02:47

there he goes. Jeez. And then he's gone. Like, I mean,

1:02:49

this question is a workout that could be, didn't work 16

1:02:51

hours a day. To

1:02:53

button up the white thing. I just googled it real

1:02:55

quick. A lot of people alluded to the

1:02:57

fact that in the 18 eighties, when the rules

1:02:59

were written, you know, it was a, because it was,

1:03:02

so people didn't sweat to death, you

1:03:05

know, because it was unseemly to see the sweat

1:03:07

stains, but also I can't, they were probably playing

1:03:09

in like wool. You

1:03:11

know, it's probably the cooler way to play. It's horrible.

1:03:13

It was all whites, but I think it looks pretty

1:03:15

good. I like it too. I think it's awesome. And

1:03:17

over time, to John's point, like you used to be

1:03:19

all white, white, white, and now then they were like,

1:03:21

allow a little stripe and then they would allow a

1:03:23

little. So it's, it's

1:03:25

a, it's almost like a Ben don't

1:03:27

break defense on, on everything. Anyways, I

1:03:30

love, I love Wimbledon. Um, someone else

1:03:32

who loved Wimbledon right in my face,

1:03:35

oftentimes, uh, one Roger

1:03:39

Federer, um,

1:03:42

lost to him in three finals. He wanted a million

1:03:44

times. Uh, something that's

1:03:46

interesting about this podcast and I'll say this, and

1:03:48

then we'll go to break is

1:03:51

that producer,

1:03:53

Mike social Sophie before

1:03:56

this podcast, it's funny cause we're

1:03:58

watching like tennis fandom expand. real

1:04:00

time, right? To where

1:04:02

like, you know, Mike now knows

1:04:04

how to say labor cup, which is cool.

1:04:07

Maybe, which is, well, he

1:04:09

knew whether or not he does it. He knows the right way

1:04:11

to say it now. But

1:04:15

social Sophie on the other side of this

1:04:17

break back with another movie

1:04:19

review. She did challenges. She

1:04:22

watched the Roger Federer documentary. We have not

1:04:24

talked about it. We don't actually, we kind

1:04:26

of have the framework and skeleton of a

1:04:28

show when we write it, but

1:04:30

we always want the first conversation to actually

1:04:32

be when we've pressed record. So 99% of

1:04:35

the things you hear are the first

1:04:37

time that we have talked about it with the group. Social

1:04:40

Sophie back on the other

1:04:42

side to review the Roger

1:04:44

Federer documentary. Dun dun dun. We'll

1:04:46

be right back. All

1:04:51

right. Welcome back to served. It's

1:04:55

like she's Cisco and she's Ebert

1:04:57

dated reference for anyone under 30,

1:04:59

but Mike understands I'm sure shots

1:05:02

fired. I

1:05:05

don't even know the name of this documentary. I just call

1:05:07

it the Roger Federer documentary. I know it's the last 12

1:05:09

days leading into a lover

1:05:12

cup, otherwise known as

1:05:14

labor cup. Uh, and when he

1:05:16

retired and my memories of that

1:05:18

going in before social Sophie goes

1:05:20

into it. Um, one of

1:05:23

the moments that, uh, caused me

1:05:25

actual human tears, um,

1:05:28

was just Rafa flying

1:05:30

in for a doubles match to play with Roger, to

1:05:33

be a part of the goodbye them literally

1:05:35

sitting on a bench, the

1:05:37

whole world watching. It's as if no one was

1:05:39

there just crying

1:05:43

out of respect for each other and out

1:05:45

of respect for kind of their

1:05:47

outsized presence in each other's lives.

1:05:49

Um, that meant so much

1:05:51

to me. I had to go on air on TC

1:05:54

live right after that, and I almost didn't make it

1:05:56

through the show. Like it was, it was, it was

1:05:58

very hard. And, uh, I think They're

1:06:00

both gems of humans. As

1:06:02

much as I kind of joke about Roger,

1:06:06

him kicking my ass, lighthearted, we

1:06:09

have a friendship that will live on forever.

1:06:13

We still text, we check in. He

1:06:15

has done many, many things outside of

1:06:18

the lens of the camera, you know,

1:06:20

for me, charity events, you

1:06:24

know, different things here and

1:06:27

there, just always an extremely thoughtful,

1:06:29

present person who

1:06:31

I imagine it would be

1:06:34

very easy to get lost in the tornado

1:06:37

of being Federer, right? I've seen

1:06:39

it, I've had a first row seat to it.

1:06:42

I can imagine what his reality is like.

1:06:45

But Social Sophie watched it, and

1:06:48

I'm curious because I know, like all

1:06:50

of our history, Sophie doesn't, she's

1:06:52

heard, I think she's heard about our history, but wasn't

1:06:54

there for it, wasn't a tennis fan during it, is

1:06:57

probably too young to have given a

1:06:59

shit about it in real time. But

1:07:03

I'm curious, Social Sophie,

1:07:05

what did you think of it not

1:07:07

having kind of knowing, I

1:07:11

guess Federer's reputation, having seen him, not having

1:07:14

been a real time fan of his when

1:07:16

he was playing? Well, they

1:07:19

really set the scene when it opens

1:07:21

with a shot of him like right in front of

1:07:23

his trophies, and you're like, okay, he's probably really good

1:07:25

at this thing that this documentary is about.

1:07:28

It's just him standing in front of them. That's

1:07:31

the opening shot after the shot of him destroying

1:07:33

you at Wimbledon. They kind of open it with-

1:07:35

Oh, they open with that? Is that true? Oh, great.

1:07:37

I didn't even know that I made an appearance. Great,

1:07:39

that's fantastic. But those two things, you're kind of like, maybe he's good at this thing.

1:07:42

So you get that right away, and like you

1:07:44

said, it's a lot less about his career

1:07:47

and more about his retirement. Like they're counting

1:07:49

down those final 12 days until

1:07:52

the labor cup. And it kind of just

1:07:54

takes you through this like

1:07:57

agony that he's going through of like, I really

1:07:59

don't- Technically, A, have to retire. It's

1:08:03

a choice, but I know it's the best thing. I really

1:08:05

don't want to do it, but it's like what's best for

1:08:07

me. And you

1:08:09

really see him kind of like bear the weight of he

1:08:13

knows his role in tennis

1:08:15

as this sort of like,

1:08:18

I don't even know what the word is. Like he's the

1:08:20

biggest. Yeah, he's the biggest guy. He

1:08:22

knows it, but he also carries it really humbly,

1:08:24

but he's very aware. And so he

1:08:26

knows I need to make this statement in

1:08:29

a way that respects my fans, respects the

1:08:32

sport, respects all the people that I played.

1:08:34

And he does that really, really well. And

1:08:36

like his announcement that he makes and then

1:08:38

every move that he makes until the labor

1:08:40

cup and then beyond. And

1:08:43

so watching anyone

1:08:46

love something that much like it could have been about river

1:08:49

dancing for all I care. Like watching

1:08:51

someone love anything that much is so

1:08:53

interesting. I feel, I feel, I feel

1:08:55

like a reach him to say maybe it's

1:08:58

maybe a little reach like big, big

1:09:00

flat river. Why big, big flatly guys here?

1:09:03

But you know, I'm going to watch like if it

1:09:05

was someone who looked at that much, that's

1:09:08

that's the shit that I know it. I

1:09:10

know it's a hundred percent true. The

1:09:13

lead river dance guy, the best river, the Federer of

1:09:15

river dancing, the Novak of river dancing is Michael Flatley.

1:09:17

How do you know that? I don't know. It gets,

1:09:19

it goes in and it doesn't go out. I'm so glad I said

1:09:21

that. That's crazy. Look it up. Confirm.

1:09:25

It's Michael. I don't have to because immediate

1:09:27

believe you. Anyway, sorry. But no,

1:09:29

if the guy's that good at it and they love it

1:09:32

that much, like it's just, it was like addicting to watch.

1:09:34

I watched it twice. You guys give like the best homework.

1:09:36

I was like, I watched it Friday night and then I

1:09:38

watched it last night again. And

1:09:42

then it takes you through what I thought

1:09:44

was really interesting was that his kids were

1:09:46

also touring with him through maybe like the

1:09:48

last half of his career, I guess, which,

1:09:51

which just all I really know about tennis is

1:09:53

you and that wasn't the case with you. And

1:09:56

so it was interesting to see like his kids

1:09:58

really go through the process as well. balling

1:10:00

crying blubbering at the labor cup and it's because

1:10:03

they were so much a part of it and

1:10:05

I thought that was really really

1:10:07

nice to see and he honored his wife

1:10:10

so well just kind of saying you know she she

1:10:12

really could have stopped me and probably wanted to stop

1:10:14

me years and years ago but she didn't because I

1:10:17

love this thing and we both love this thing and it's

1:10:19

been the center of our

1:10:21

whole lives and then obviously there's the

1:10:24

Rof angle where they're

1:10:28

just again blubbering the entire time I really wanted them

1:10:30

to show the shot where they're like holding hands and

1:10:32

crying but they never did that was that's like my

1:10:34

one qualm with the whole thing is that I never

1:10:36

got the shot of them holding hands and

1:10:39

crying but

1:10:41

beyond Rafa like he also does the same

1:10:43

thing with Novak and Andy Murray and even

1:10:46

the players that are coming in behind them all

1:10:48

like he really pays so much respect a

1:10:51

lot of the times it like wasn't about him

1:10:53

the documentary that was about him which

1:10:55

is probably just a testament to who he is yeah

1:10:58

I read I read a quote

1:11:00

from them from the documentary and it's

1:11:03

probably something that we

1:11:07

all are guilty of in that generation

1:11:09

he said someone on the

1:11:11

lines of I didn't give Novak the respect he

1:11:13

deserved when he was younger I don't

1:11:16

think I did either you know when

1:11:18

when he came in he was the guy breaking up

1:11:21

the Beatles right like he was he

1:11:23

was this new guy who didn't

1:11:26

care that these guys were great he wanted to take

1:11:28

their lunch like he was there to steal titles from

1:11:30

them and I like that Roger

1:11:32

said it out loud you know I made

1:11:35

the same mistake you know it's just you

1:11:38

know someone comes in I I probably

1:11:40

early in my career presented badly

1:11:44

to some people too like I just did

1:11:46

I probably pissed some people off I probably

1:11:48

got in the faces of veterans

1:11:51

of tour during matches and did things that

1:11:53

I wouldn't have done or didn't do six

1:11:55

years later I like

1:11:58

that he showed the humility in

1:12:00

even a documentary about him. These

1:12:03

are all the things that I got right.

1:12:05

They're very obvious, but also we're all flawed.

1:12:07

This is what I got wrong. And I

1:12:10

like that he said it out loud. Yeah,

1:12:12

he pretty much said exactly that. And then they

1:12:14

show him having kind of

1:12:16

this moment with Novak at the end where you don't know

1:12:18

what he told him, but Novak kind

1:12:21

of breaks down crying. And

1:12:24

it's really, it's really sweet. He's, you know, kind

1:12:26

of whispers in Andy Murray's ear, whispers in Rafa's

1:12:28

ear, whispers in Novak's ear, and then he

1:12:30

sort of breaks down. And I think he

1:12:33

probably said exactly, maybe exactly that, like he

1:12:36

kind of proved him wrong in the end. Yeah. Sorry,

1:12:40

go ahead. Sorry, I just, I'm thinking out loud here. And

1:12:42

I think just, and

1:12:44

I know I was bitter Betty earlier in this

1:12:46

episode, just

1:12:48

with, there's, you know, certain

1:12:50

sects of, of sects, S-E-C-T-S,

1:12:53

not, not S-E-X. There

1:12:56

are certain sects of, of fandom. Where

1:13:00

the word fanatic exists for a reason.

1:13:02

And I hate

1:13:04

it. My number one thing that I hate

1:13:08

online about tennis is

1:13:11

that because you like someone better, you

1:13:13

feel the need to drag down others.

1:13:16

When the players don't view it

1:13:18

that way. Obviously there

1:13:20

are peaks and valleys. The

1:13:23

intensity involved. I've had

1:13:25

run-ins with people that have, I've

1:13:27

had run-ins on the court with Marty Fish, who's like a

1:13:29

brother to me. Like you

1:13:32

need to understand as fans that

1:13:34

there is a certain, there's

1:13:37

a silo of people on earth

1:13:39

who fully understand what you

1:13:42

do, what you're going through, how

1:13:44

you go about it and how hard it

1:13:47

is to be elite at a worldwide global

1:13:49

sport. So you can

1:13:51

not like someone's

1:13:54

entourage. You can not

1:13:56

like people in the

1:13:58

orbit of these. insane rivalries,

1:14:02

respect wins. It

1:14:05

always wins. You can disagree with

1:14:07

someone, you can yell at someone, you can say things

1:14:09

that you mean in the moment that

1:14:11

you get over later. The

1:14:14

fact that the moment you're describing

1:14:17

of Roger saying something to Novak and

1:14:20

Novak having the respect for Roger and

1:14:23

they've had bumpy moments, they're well

1:14:26

documented. If

1:14:29

those two can push everything aside and

1:14:32

say you were great, you're a reason why

1:14:35

I was great, why the

1:14:37

fuck can't fans do it too? If

1:14:40

you wanna support your guy, support the

1:14:42

things that your guy respects. Support

1:14:45

the people that he respects. You don't have to

1:14:47

like him. Respect

1:14:49

needs to be a baseline. You

1:14:52

cannot say, I like

1:14:55

this person, this person's a piece of shit

1:14:57

loser. That's just not true. It's

1:14:59

not true. It's not true,

1:15:01

I know these people. It's not true. Save

1:15:04

the shit, it's not me against

1:15:07

you, it's us and

1:15:09

we are all better for it. Go

1:15:11

ahead, Sophie, how does this end? How do his

1:15:14

kids go through it? What are his takeaways

1:15:16

post-labor cup? I'm sure they had like an

1:15:18

exit interview. And

1:15:21

then I'll just give a couple of my thoughts. They

1:15:23

say in the beginning, or he says when

1:15:26

he's about to make this announcement that he

1:15:28

wants to make it really clear that

1:15:30

he's not saying I'm retiring

1:15:32

and I have no idea what's next, I'm retiring and

1:15:34

maybe you'll see me again, maybe you won't. He wants

1:15:37

to make it really clear that he

1:15:39

wants his role in tennis, whatever that

1:15:41

means to continue on and

1:15:43

he wants to stay so involved. And

1:15:45

so they do leave it pretty unknown

1:15:47

to be fair other than

1:15:49

what I just said, that like he wants to

1:15:51

stay in the sport in whatever capacity he possibly

1:15:53

can. But

1:15:56

I mean, they did leave it kind of open-ended. Yeah,

1:15:58

I mean, he's... part of the ownership

1:16:01

group, he created Labor Cup with

1:16:03

his agency. That was really interesting. Yeah,

1:16:06

so he's there forever. And props to like,

1:16:08

with Tony Godsek, who's also a friend of

1:16:10

mine, who's Roger's agent, lifelong

1:16:13

agent. They

1:16:16

created a really special entity. And like

1:16:18

the fact that this documentary, that's almost

1:16:20

the perfect venue for this documentary to

1:16:22

follow because they started Labor Cup literally,

1:16:24

and this isn't their opinion, this

1:16:26

isn't their thesis, this is my opinion of

1:16:29

what I've seen from the event. It

1:16:32

feels like they started with what

1:16:35

will be the best possible TV

1:16:37

product that doesn't need

1:16:39

to chew up three weeks of the season. Three

1:16:42

days, all the superstars played

1:16:46

around the globe, inside

1:16:48

access, listening to Rafa

1:16:50

coach Novak on a switch over, like it

1:16:52

doesn't get better than that. And

1:16:55

vice versa, it just doesn't get better than that.

1:16:58

The game will forever need Roger. They

1:17:00

just will. He's the biggest crossover star that I've witnessed in

1:17:05

tennis. He's like, it's impossible for your Q

1:17:07

rating to be as gigantic as his was.

1:17:10

And also not find anyone

1:17:13

who dislikes him. You can

1:17:15

find someone who dislikes everybody. And a

1:17:17

lot of that's based on team sports.

1:17:20

I like the Yankees, therefore I hate any great

1:17:22

Red Sox. I like this,

1:17:24

so I hate that. Fine.

1:17:28

At a certain moment in time, my

1:17:30

fans didn't hate Roger. And all he

1:17:33

did was ruin my life for 10 years on court.

1:17:35

I had this weird, when he made

1:17:37

that announcement, I

1:17:42

remember being on Tennis Channel. And the one thing that I

1:17:44

said, and I still mean it to this day, is

1:17:47

I think the biggest compliment you can give

1:17:49

someone after you've been a father is, I

1:17:51

hope my kids grow up

1:17:55

and act like this person. Not

1:17:57

famous, not as successful, just

1:17:59

treat. people with the level of respect that

1:18:01

he does and I saw it. I mean a

1:18:03

couple of examples like I

1:18:05

watched him one year at Wimbledon before one

1:18:07

of our finals and

1:18:10

I'm like a nervous wreck and

1:18:12

he's like you know playing fucking games on his

1:18:14

phone like couldn't be calmer which was annoying in

1:18:16

its own way but you

1:18:18

know you have you know a couple

1:18:21

of players who aren't as good maybe they're like

1:18:23

in a mixed doubles final or they're not Federer

1:18:25

at Wimbledon like they can go to Starbucks right

1:18:28

they can go to Starbucks in Wimbledon village and

1:18:30

probably be left alone regrip their

1:18:32

rackets in the training room which everyone sears the same training

1:18:34

room when you're stretching and doing all that bunch of tables

1:18:36

lined up one entrance

1:18:38

one exit regripping

1:18:41

rackets and then they just drop their trash on the

1:18:43

floor and walk out and I watch

1:18:45

him having a conversation with some see that and

1:18:48

just casually go over and pick up you know

1:18:50

three old grips in a bunch of plastic and

1:18:52

just throw them away while maintaining his

1:18:55

conversation not saying like you know I would have been

1:18:57

like I would have done it but I would like

1:18:59

these fucking pricks like I would have had some commentary

1:19:01

about it which was bitter casually

1:19:04

did it he just did it put it

1:19:06

away I'm Roger Federer I've won this tournament

1:19:08

seven times already six times already whatever it

1:19:10

is and he consistently

1:19:12

did stuff like that he knew the name of the person

1:19:14

who was looking after the tournament in the locker room each

1:19:17

week right he just he

1:19:19

just carried himself with a certain grace and

1:19:21

a certain that I always get

1:19:23

asked you know are you jealous

1:19:26

I'm generally not really a

1:19:28

jealous person like I don't I'm happy for

1:19:30

people's successes I wish I would have done

1:19:32

things but I don't look back and say

1:19:34

I wish I would have won 10 grand

1:19:37

slams and maybe that's why I didn't but

1:19:40

I look back I'm like I would have loved one more right

1:19:43

I just but in people said are you jealous

1:19:45

of Roger no the only thing

1:19:47

I'm jealous of in the history of our

1:19:50

relationship and all the titles and the lopsidedness

1:19:52

of our general

1:19:54

being was his ease

1:19:58

of operation and how he could do these

1:20:00

things and be in a good mood. And

1:20:02

there's no chance he was in a good mood every

1:20:05

day, but he faked it better than any person I've

1:20:07

seen him and Rafa, frankly. Um,

1:20:10

but Roger had to

1:20:12

carry more of the burden. He could give press conferences

1:20:14

in like 18 languages, right? He

1:20:16

was the first one. He was the greatest

1:20:18

before the other two came and became the

1:20:21

greatest and then the greatest. Right.

1:20:24

And so I think he had a lot of

1:20:26

that and he was the guy that was immediately

1:20:28

the, the statesman after Pete Nandre. Like

1:20:30

he had to carry that, that burden and

1:20:32

he had other personalities and then the youngsters

1:20:34

and the Rafa comes along and you

1:20:37

know, I play a lane of this brash American, but

1:20:39

I'm nowhere near, no one, no one's near him. No

1:20:41

one, even for a moment in time, um,

1:20:44

is, is, is near him. Um, and

1:20:48

I'll tell you this, go ahead,

1:20:50

please. No, I can tell anecdotal stories all

1:20:52

day. There's just a funny moment in the locker

1:20:54

room where it's like team Europe at the labor cup

1:20:56

and, um, it's Roger

1:20:59

Rafa, Baratini, I think

1:21:01

sits bosses and they're all just kind of like chatting in the

1:21:03

locker room and they get on the subject of that Rafa

1:21:05

Sanago match where he calls him to the

1:21:08

net about his kind of delayed grunting. Do

1:21:10

you remember that? Surely. Um,

1:21:13

and Baratini is saying, Oh no, he doesn't do it on

1:21:15

purpose. He doesn't do it on purpose. Trust me. Like I

1:21:17

played with him since I was a kid. I know him

1:21:19

really well. He doesn't do it on purpose. And he's sort

1:21:22

of like arguing back and forth with Rafa and Rafa's like,

1:21:24

no, no, for me, he did it on purpose. Like I

1:21:26

promised for me. And it was just a funny little glimpse

1:21:28

into the locker room. Like they're kind of going back and

1:21:30

forth out of it. Still being super respectful. It was just

1:21:32

like a nice little glimpse into, into that. And

1:21:35

that, that those are the conversations that go round and round where

1:21:37

if there was a camera, people would,

1:21:39

you know, they'd create a beef between the two

1:21:41

differing opinions, like it's just so stupid. Like, you

1:21:44

know, I didn't do it on purpose. Maybe it does a little

1:21:46

on purpose. Yeah. You know, it's a little bit, a little

1:21:48

on purpose, you know, and maybe it's a little on purpose. Uh,

1:21:51

we'll do this and I could tell, you know, nice

1:21:53

gesture, Roger story. Uh, for an

1:21:55

entire episode. Um, I'm, I can't wait

1:21:58

to watch it. I wanted to, you know, let, let. watch

1:22:00

it and kind of just speak from my own personal experience.

1:22:03

I'll tell you, I got inducted into the

1:22:05

Hall of Fame in 2017 and with

1:22:08

our good friend, Kim Klysters

1:22:10

amongst others. I'll

1:22:15

give you one guess. When

1:22:17

the first text message, the day that I

1:22:19

got inducted, was

1:22:21

waiting for me when I woke up and it

1:22:24

was from? Broader.

1:22:26

It was three paragraphs. It wasn't a have

1:22:29

a fun day. It was three paragraphs, art

1:22:32

history, I appreciate your friendship, this

1:22:34

is well deserved, yada, yada,

1:22:36

yada. First one out of

1:22:38

the shooter. He

1:22:41

shouldn't know the day that someone's getting inducted.

1:22:45

He knows that in the morning, it's

1:22:47

not an accident, you start early, enjoy

1:22:50

the day. Like it was just, and there's a lot

1:22:52

of examples of that. So I'll forever, I

1:22:56

can't even be a little bit bitter about

1:22:58

Roger. I just can't. He's

1:23:01

proven to me too many times, the

1:23:03

person that he is. I'm happy that a

1:23:05

lot of other people, including new fans like

1:23:08

Social Sophie, are getting a

1:23:10

look behind the curtain at

1:23:14

him and the way that he exists.

1:23:18

Anyways, I can't wait to watch it now. Social

1:23:21

Sophie, do you have any closing thoughts

1:23:23

about it? What's your biggest takeaway from

1:23:26

this doc or if you have a couple, shoot

1:23:29

your shot. I mean,

1:23:31

first of all, I don't know if this was their intention,

1:23:33

but it really made me want a documentary

1:23:35

docu-series on his career. It made you

1:23:37

want more of him and so hopefully,

1:23:39

maybe they'll do something like that in

1:23:42

the future. Takeaway is, I mean,

1:23:44

he talks a lot about being a ball

1:23:47

kid and Basel and

1:23:52

it's inspiring and you go like, I mean, I guess

1:23:54

you really can do anything if you're extremely good at

1:23:56

the thing that you love and

1:23:58

also work extremely. hard like you did

1:24:00

and it's I mean it sort of leaves you with

1:24:03

that sort of inspirational taste in your mouth of like

1:24:05

wow he really did just love this thing so much

1:24:07

work extremely hard and now he's

1:24:09

the face of tennis so

1:24:11

yeah how many stars how

1:24:13

many little and erotic faces do you give it out of

1:24:15

five there's no

1:24:17

reason not to give it five like there's nothing

1:24:20

bad about there's nothing bad about it like they

1:24:22

they do that if they call well maybe the

1:24:24

only reason is that you're gonna get fired yeah

1:24:33

yeah just like an earlobe yeah yeah

1:24:36

yeah we'll put that on the screen

1:24:39

the best moment truly is when they're about to

1:24:41

make the announcement and his

1:24:43

agent first calls Anna Wintour

1:24:45

to warn her that the announcement is gonna

1:24:47

go out and I just love that she's

1:24:50

a it's she's you know

1:24:52

rightfully so a massive Roger

1:24:55

fan I got to see that whole vortex to like

1:24:57

the Roger hosted Met Gala last

1:25:00

year and then again

1:25:02

a gracious thing invited

1:25:06

Brooklyn and I which like obviously we weren't

1:25:08

you know Brooks been before but I've obviously

1:25:10

never been invited and

1:25:12

we sat like he's hosting and we literally sat

1:25:14

at the next table but like our chairs backed

1:25:17

up to each other so inevitably we end up

1:25:19

leaning back and talking about you know God knows

1:25:21

what it was but it's just thought it's just

1:25:23

thoughtful and so I've

1:25:25

always I've always certainly appreciated those

1:25:28

gestures and

1:25:30

I can't wait to can't wait to watch it I love I

1:25:33

love that there were those

1:25:35

moments between our greats

1:25:38

including anybody by the way talk

1:25:41

about him there's so much he's phenomenal I

1:25:43

mean it's just it respect wins

1:25:47

there are moments we don't like

1:25:49

each other there are moments where we disagree

1:25:53

we play for some pretty big things respect

1:25:57

wins at the end of the day you

1:25:59

look back respect wins, I'm

1:26:02

glad they caught those moments because maybe people will

1:26:04

believe us when we say things like respect wins

1:26:07

and we make mistakes, we judge things the

1:26:09

wrong way, we also extend grace to each

1:26:11

other because we

1:26:13

realize we need each other and the

1:26:15

most important parts of our work lives

1:26:18

involve those people and that should always

1:26:20

remain special. I was gonna do a

1:26:22

whole thing about

1:26:27

sleepers on the men's side for Wimbledon, how

1:26:30

I think the women's draw is open and

1:26:32

there's 20 names that could potentially win, where

1:26:34

does E.G.I.S.S.Fiantek stack up? What we will

1:26:36

do, producer Mike, I

1:26:38

think if you'll approve this, is

1:26:43

I think we start with that for a quick conversation before

1:26:45

we do our live draw show which will be out on

1:26:47

Saturday on T2 so

1:26:49

I'm gonna spend, you've been so nice and

1:26:51

I think it feels wedged in because we've

1:26:53

kind of gotten to this Wimbledon and to

1:26:55

Roger thing and there's a certain tone

1:26:58

to it to get back to balls and strikes feels

1:27:00

a little weird so I'm not gonna do it but

1:27:02

with your permission, I think we start before I actually

1:27:04

look at the draw, I think I'm

1:27:06

gonna tell you these are the names I'm looking for, I'm

1:27:08

really interested where they're gonna fall and

1:27:11

then we let it rip, Tater Chip. What do you think, producer Mike?

1:27:13

I think it sounds like a great idea. Yeah and so

1:27:16

the T2 show will be 52 minutes but

1:27:19

then the full extended draw

1:27:21

special because we will go longer than

1:27:23

52 minutes. Yeah. That'll be on YouTube

1:27:25

and where you get your podcast. Yeah

1:27:27

so just for those of you that

1:27:29

didn't catch our Roland Garris preview show,

1:27:32

we do it a little bit differently. Most people digest

1:27:34

the draw, look at it, have a day with it.

1:27:38

You're getting our first raw reaction look so

1:27:40

worth having a look at it, I'll

1:27:43

look at it, then we start filling

1:27:46

in our winners and all of a sudden we're at the

1:27:48

quarters and it's like oh okay well, all

1:27:51

right so these are my eight quarter and then we walk

1:27:53

it through so the first time that I'm looking at the

1:27:55

draw, you will have the ability to

1:27:57

listen and then we will fill them out to the best

1:27:59

of our knowledge. Sounds like I'll do a

1:28:01

quick little preview of these are the names. I want to

1:28:03

know where Baratini is going to land in the draw. I

1:28:05

want to know, you know, X,

1:28:07

Y, and Z. Sini

1:28:10

Akaba is going to end up in the draw. Katie Bolter is going to end

1:28:12

up in the draw. Who's going to play? So we'll go through all that stuff.

1:28:14

We'll spend five or 10 minutes on it. And then, we are

1:28:18

going to get into the live draw show. I will

1:28:20

be doing it remotely. I will be traveling with, with,

1:28:23

with our family. So the

1:28:25

background won't quite look the same, but

1:28:27

the content will be just as average, I assure

1:28:29

you. So thank you

1:28:31

so much. Social Sophie, great job. Thank

1:28:33

you for watching. Appreciate you breaking it

1:28:36

down for us. Sounds

1:28:38

like it's a rave review. Everyone should go

1:28:40

watch the Roger Doc and

1:28:43

we will catch you next time on serve. Thanks

1:28:45

for listening.