Live from Fanatics Fest: Issue No. 25 & Foster Kamer

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I don't think he's okay. He's not okay. Well, my current vidness is okay. After that that final of the Olympics.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: All right, we're rolling all right, Thanks everyone, and welcome to Fanatics. First, for us, it's the first time we're here, and thank you so much to iHeart Radio and of course Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. This is our first official show of the new Women's Sports Audio Network, the first ever audio platform dedicated to women's sports. So thank you so much iHeart for having us on this network.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: We are so happy to be here, and it is.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: A wild in here today, and I want to welcome back to the show.

00:00:45
Speaker 1: Caitlin Thompson.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: It's been a minute I've appeared on this show, and I'm thrilled to be joining you here on stage. We have a lot to catch up on. We have a whole summer's worth. Turns out we do still know each other. We have been traveling parallel pads and it feels so good Renee here we are. Look at us now.

00:01:03
Speaker 2: I would sing, but I've got to save that for my karaoke.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: Days later on.

00:01:08
Speaker 2: We want to get into so many stories that have happened over the summer of course the Olympics. What's going now on in the hardcourt season leading up to the US Open, which is so close away, it's only a week away. Well, and actually Fan Week is coming up.

00:01:24
Speaker 3: I want to get to that because you're gonna be calling it. ESPN is showing it. It is the Qualities Fan Week. There's programming every night. It is in absolute festival, and I believe it is free or it is not free, very very inexpensive to attend to. Anybody who's a fan of tennis and is in the area and is hurting in the wallet department, go to Qualities. Even if you're not hurting in the wallet department, go to Qualities. It's such a good show. There are so many things that happen in Fan Week.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: There's going to be some exhibitions on Tuesday night, on Wednesday night, so you know our little podcast here is going to go out on Monday, so you have no excuses, so you know that it's happening on Tuesday Wednesday.

00:02:00
Speaker 1: So we're very.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: Excited about bringing of course the Qualities to you guys on ESPN throughout the whole week, and then of course the US So I've been starting on the twenty six?

00:02:10
Speaker 1: Is it twenty six? I should know that, mon But anyways, it's the Monday.

00:02:13
Speaker 3: You guys know, extreme racket fans who are fervent listeners of the show can get at me. We have a few VIP listener spots available for our Giant Racket House experiential activation. We're back in Rockfeather Center for the third year in a row. It's gonna be amazing, is.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: That how o'pen to the public. It will be open to the public for a few days.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: They can sign up, go to our website, subscribe to our newsletter. We will be saving a few spots for people to come up and play on that beautiful court that we have made in thirty Rock Plaza with our friends at Rock Center and Tischman Spuyer, and we will be having giant parties and some panels and maybe some live podcasting.

00:02:51
Speaker 1: So sounds awesome. Get at me, all right? So today on the show, we're reunited. We have so much to catch up on.

00:02:56
Speaker 3: The last show we did together was Roland Garros, so we have that to talk about. Yeah, and then also we are going to be talking to story journalist, founder of futurism, the bad boy of Substack and the author of Racket's forthcoming issue number twenty five cover story, which those of you in the audience can get a preview of at this moment. It's a beautiful piece on Andre Agassi by Foster Kmer. He's going to come up to us on stage talk about media, talk about reporting, and of course this piece he did.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Okay, but first let's catch up. Yeah, let's catch up. We did an Olympics.

00:03:30
Speaker 3: Podcast with NBC, co hosted with you and Sam Query. Yeah, ten episodes from Paris to Paris.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: Talk about it.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: How was it? What a good co host he was. He was so fun and funny. Sam is such a great follow on Instagram as well. He's got the funniest sense of humor.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was really nice.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: We did a little package there for NBC just highlighting the fact that Roland Garros was played and then clearly the Olympics were going back to rolling Garris for the Olympics.

00:03:58
Speaker 1: So that was amazing to be a part of.

00:04:00
Speaker 2: But I have to say, like, you know, watching the tennis over the last couple of weeks and watching the tennis at the Olympics was it was just awesome.

00:04:09
Speaker 1: You know, some people still.

00:04:10
Speaker 2: To this day say oh, tennis shouldn't be in the Olympics, and I'm like, do you see how much it means to these players.

00:04:15
Speaker 1: I mean, look what Novak Djokovic.

00:04:17
Speaker 2: His reaction when he won the semifinals, not even the gold medal, when he won the semi final and had the opportunity to get into the final and actually play for a gold medal, his reaction.

00:04:28
Speaker 1: Is something I've never seen in my entire life in any tennis any any stage of any tournament.

00:04:33
Speaker 2: Normally, when someone as good as Novak Djokovic wins the semi final, he's like, Okay, big deal, it's the semifinals. Nobody cares about I expect to win the tournament, right, the guys won x, you know, X amount of Grand Slam.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: So for him to fall down on the ground, and his initial reaction to me was like, oh my.

00:04:52
Speaker 2: God, like wow, this means so much to him. So it was it was nice to see him have the opportunity. I mean, the guy's done everything. And also, Caitlin, it's his fifth Olympics. Like a lot of tennis players, good point Americans that didn't go to the Olympics.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's like, eh, I mean, I have to.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: Say they're all paying the price a little bit now because none of them have done well in Cincinnati. No, you're right, but at some point, you know, a lot pulled out of the tournament in Canada as well. But when you see that Novak Djokovic has achieved everything in his career and on his fifth Olympics, that's five times.

00:05:26
Speaker 1: That's a long time. It's twenty eight times.

00:05:28
Speaker 3: It's twenty years worth of attempts. Yeah, and he had had a bronze.

00:05:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:05:32
Speaker 3: You know, Raphael Nadal is the only other member of the Big three who has a singles gold medal. All right, Agacy has his singles gold medal. Pete Sampras, one of the greats of the game, does not have a singles gold medal. Like this is not it's rare air and it was kind of the only thing missing from miss trophy case. There was an interview with him over the summer. Hey, Novak, you know what tournaments would you like to win?

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Still? And he couldn't think of any Yeah, because they'd have to make.

00:05:57
Speaker 3: New tournaments for him to figure out which ones to win, because he's one. Every single one, with the exception of the gold medal match at the Olympics, and we saw what happened last time in Tokyo. He just lost his freaking mind yea in the semi five.

00:06:09
Speaker 2: And he was going for a calendar Golden Grand Slam, which course has only been achieved by stephie Graff. And I don't, I honestly don't think anyone's going to do that. We're not going to see someone when a Golden Grand Slam.

00:06:18
Speaker 1: It's just so.

00:06:19
Speaker 2: Mentally and physically difficult now, especially for the guys playing best of five.

00:06:24
Speaker 1: An interesting little thing though, and.

00:06:25
Speaker 2: I know I'm going to get so much hate for this, and I just I love my I love my Twitter was but I had this conversation with a very famous older tennis player yesterday and one of the things that we talked about was how nervous both Alcaaz and Novak were playing that final. And also, think about it, it's best of three sets the Olympics.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the guys finally in a big match.

00:06:50
Speaker 2: And again I'm going to cop so much shit for this, but when you have to play best of three, you better be on from the very first point, the very first game. You cannot lose of early and we saw it was seven six, seven six. If that's best of five, trust me when I tell you they'd be a little bit more relaxed.

00:07:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they know.

00:07:08
Speaker 2: They have time to work into a match, and if they have a bad set or a bad game, they know they can slowly work their way into the match.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: I mean Novak Jokovic won a French show open down.

00:07:17
Speaker 2: Two sets of love to Steph sits a pass. You don't have time to go down.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: Two sets of love investments, There's no room to hide. So it was kind of throw was great tennis.

00:07:27
Speaker 2: It was great from the first balls. One of the best matches I've ever watched, from start to finish.

00:07:31
Speaker 3: I found it very very stressful, and so did both of them, but also currently just cried.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, Novak destroyed his mind. Yeah, And based on what we've seen afterwards, which we'll get to you a little bit later, in terms of the rest of the season as it's unfolded, I don't think he's okay. He's not okay, well, okay, after that that final of the Olympics, he was weeping. Yeah, we're both weeping, but for just very very different reasons.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: I saw him in Cincinnati, and I did sort of mention the final in a nice way, but he's still really he's really hurt.

00:08:02
Speaker 1: Bites.

00:08:02
Speaker 3: It looks like he got evicted from his own man. You just got like an eviction letter.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: Speaking of getting you know, you're convicted by your own mind. Eagerson Tech because uh Chin Win, who of course won the gold medal for the women.

00:08:17
Speaker 1: Am I saying that, right, you are a good job. It's gonna cop You're Changin Jung? Yeah, she of course had the up for me.

00:08:24
Speaker 2: The upset of the tournament by far was beating eager in the semi finals too. I mean eager Shon Tech. If you had to put money on someone to win the gold on that court at the Olympics, if you had to choose one person for your house, you would have picked Egashon.

00:08:41
Speaker 3: I might have put more money on Eager Schiantech winning gold than like Lebron James or she Carrie richards In. Yeah, like I would have been like, oh, it's a shoe in, She's gonna win. It's at Roland Garros, forget it. Yeah, it's because I lost a match and has come close to bidding her at rollandras In years.

00:08:57
Speaker 1: No, it's it's.

00:09:00
Speaker 2: Sock almost beat her this year, so come calm the farm on it. It wasn't close match point.

00:09:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's about as close as I'm glad.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: You're back, like she was close spiritually anyway, after beating Naomi being down match point, she certainly ran through the tournament. But the win also shows you the importance of the Olympics of someone like Ea Shantek who you could see was affected big time in that match, and and Chin Win was great and then to back it up in the final after an incredibly long match against Angie Kerb. But like jin, Win deserved the gold in the end because listen, she put the work in and she got it done.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: But that was a massive upset to see her win.

00:09:41
Speaker 3: I want to talk about the Olympics some more because I love the Olympics so much. I just I want to give our friends at NBC and Peacock like a nice shout out because they did a fantastic job covering this thing. You could find all the matches, you could find all the sports, you could stream everything.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: It was both highlights and live, which is great.

00:10:01
Speaker 3: My one quibble is that during the closing ceremonies. They did not show air the seminal French synthwave band perform which means North America missed out on Angelle guest starring on Kavinski's Night Call.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: I mean, you've just lost me. I think I lost everyone. But I mean to note for the deep cut listeners, you gotta show the whole thing. No commercials during the opening ceremonies. All are the closing ceremony. You know. The commercials are what pay for everyone to be.

00:10:28
Speaker 3: They wait until something boring like somebody talking happens, and then from like Thomas Bach when he gets up exactly the guy should be talked over that a commercial. You went to Paris, Well, so you covered Paris from First of all, you covered it for this pod for NBC Paris to Paris. Then you covered it for NBC Slash Olympics from Connecticut.

00:10:48
Speaker 1: And then what happened? You just got fomo And then I was like, you know, I've seen all these sites. I know what this place looks like. You know what they're missing a little renee stove. Yeah.

00:10:57
Speaker 2: So I'd got on a plane and I flew over there for two days. I actually got stuck on the tarmac for three hours and missed my original flight. So I was supposed to go for seventy two hours and I ended up only going for forty eight hours. But I got to see the beach volleyball, which was incredible, and I got to see the basketball. The ride under the Eiffel Tower tower in Paris did an amazing job.

00:11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, the front. It was just the sights.

00:11:20
Speaker 2: I mean the horse riding and Versailles like a you joke, Yeah, the fencing. I just want to know what LA is gonna do. What are you going to show in La the four h five? I mean, what are you gonna do?

00:11:30
Speaker 3: I think this would be a great opportunity for Los Angeles to get its act together and actually put a tennis facility into the middle of the city and make themselves put themselves.

00:11:40
Speaker 1: Back on the map.

00:11:41
Speaker 3: Where are they going to put the tennis? Well, they have a couple of actions. UCLA has a great facility in Westwood. I don't know that they have a stadium, but they could build one. Westwood is very nice. It's a jucentto Beverly Hills. They have obviously the US see.

00:11:57
Speaker 2: Christianna is in the audience and she's yelling at us where they think she's gonna what are they gonna?

00:12:01
Speaker 3: Oh it is no they and Carson. Yeah, but nobody wants to go an hour outside of New York. Well, and he wants to go to Fiji. First of all, it was Tahiti, not Fiji. And second of all, everybody, I'm pretty sure wants to go to Tahiti. Nobody wants to go to Carson, California. Members of the audience, on one hand, would you let rather go to Fiji or Tahiti or Carson, California?

00:12:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the arms went way out there.

00:12:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody was pumped about going to Carson. I'm just saying, what an opportunity. LA used to have a great tennis tournament. It doesn't anymore. Now the Olympics are coming back. Let's like find a reason, let's do it.

00:12:35
Speaker 1: Let's do that.

00:12:35
Speaker 3: Can I can I say something controversial before we get off of the Olympics.

00:12:38
Speaker 1: Great, I love controversy, I.

00:12:40
Speaker 3: Love Coco, everybody loves everybody goes Awesome. What a cool idea it is that the athletes can vote on who.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: Here is the flag? Yes? Should she have carried the flag?

00:12:49
Speaker 4: Oh?

00:12:50
Speaker 1: God, you gotta put me right into the shitter, aren't you? Straight away?

00:12:52
Speaker 3: What happened on our last podcast, the country of Poland tried.

00:12:56
Speaker 1: To well you deserved it. Anyway, listen, here's the thing. The athletes, and.

00:13:01
Speaker 3: By the way, is going for the Olympics in twenty thirty four. I will not be there or maybe we will have kissed and made.

00:13:07
Speaker 1: Okay, you need to just stop talking, okay. So it is chosen by the athletes. I know this. So I went to four Olympics.

00:13:14
Speaker 2: You know, there's a list of athletes that you tick and it's you know, the most get given that beautiful and credible right. So the athletes obviously love her, They admire her, they love her stance, they love what she did at the US Open last year, what she's done Whntenna.

00:13:29
Speaker 1: So they chose her. I don't know if I would have done that.

00:13:33
Speaker 2: I think there's probably other athletes that had gone to many Usually the people that get to hold the flag, people that have gone to multiple multiple Olympic Games and have also won medals for their country.

00:13:44
Speaker 1: That's usually how it goes down.

00:13:46
Speaker 2: I mean, our flag bearers were those types of people from Australia for example. So but and next next time, Reagan will be holding reygun, will be the person carrying the Australian flag into the stadium, maybe in Brisbane if she's still around, she'll be about fifty.

00:14:04
Speaker 1: But she'll get it done. But so I don't know. I mean, she was given that right by the athletes, so I have no problem with it. I mean, she looked great. The blazers look great on her. She's awesome. Everybody loves Coco. She's great. Shout out to Coco. This however, she's a big struggling.

00:14:17
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a perfect transition into Coco. Had a fantastic, fantastic period of time mid summer through September last year. She won a whole bunch of titles, obviously cruising through to the final of the US Open, where I would argue saving like a little bit, gave it to her now, but like, no such thing, Fine, no such thing. She won the US Open. Yeah, does she look like she's about to win the US Open?

00:14:42
Speaker 4: To you?

00:14:43
Speaker 2: No, last year she was hitting her forehands so well. She was making her forehands all the time. I was specifically at court side for the Cincinnati tournament. You know, every single match I watched her play, every single match and I kept thinking as she was playing every match, Wow, she's just not missing. She's not missing a forehand, and her serve was reliable. Her back hand's always been one of the best in the game. Her movement is second to none, and so everything is there. Mentality, she's so cool, calm, so beyond her years, all of the things. But this year her second serve is such a liability, not her first serve.

00:15:22
Speaker 1: Obviously, the first serve when it goes in it's still massive.

00:15:26
Speaker 2: But technically she has such flaws in her serve and her service motion. And as you guys know, I've always said bad technique breaks down under pressure. And her forehand and her second serve, her technique is not great. Her elbow is like literally attached to her hat hitting her forehand. Fortunately, I can't show you relatable to well, yeah, your forehand is very similar, and I'm.

00:15:48
Speaker 1: Working on it.

00:15:49
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do since I'm trying to get it away from my body so that I don't have the windshield waper, you know, appendage.

00:15:55
Speaker 1: It's stuck to that. It's tough, it's a it's hard too much a player at that level have such a blatant technical flaw like that and to have people not pick on it left, right and center, which is what now everybody's doing.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: She's unable to use her wrist right, so when your elbow so tight to you tend to cover the ball. I mean, she was shanking balls into the like my fullhand was terrible, Christian's thank you.

00:16:21
Speaker 1: My forehand was not my best shot.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: But I don't recall hitting a fullhand shanked into the crowd on like almost every match, you know what I mean. And so that is just a timing thing, that's a technique thing, and it's also an anxiety thing.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: Well, that's really what I want to get to.

00:16:37
Speaker 3: So for me, we can talk about Periba, her coach, who obviously helped a lot with footwork and spacing last summer, probably didn't get enough credit. He left to go work with jun Chen Win and looka that's going. You know, we've talked a little bit about Brad Gilbert before. Obviously he's a storied broadcaster. He's working with her. It seems like he's not gonna change some of the techniques stuff, which I get it because she's.

00:17:02
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. I see.

00:17:05
Speaker 2: I think the kitchen is quite full at the Coco, in the coch shake cooker, at the shake Coco. I think there's a lot of voices coming her way. I think that, you know, in so many ways, I feel really sorry for her because she has such a glaring, you know, lights on her, and it's only going to get more and more glaring at the US Open.

00:17:23
Speaker 1: With what she has to do to you know, she's lost a lot of points.

00:17:27
Speaker 2: She won't be seated too at the US Open back she'll have a little bit well arguably a little bit of a tougher draw, depending on you know, who she gets.

00:17:34
Speaker 1: She'll be I think the third seed.

00:17:36
Speaker 2: So I just I feel so sorry for her because all the lights are on her and she's not in a good space.

00:17:42
Speaker 1: She's mentally not in a good space. She's getting very upset on the court. She looks sad and anxious and upset, which is really a bummer. I mean, and you can't go hide.

00:17:51
Speaker 2: It's not like she can go and play a challenger and get some tennis under her belt. She's got to go and play the US Open next and she will be on Arthur ash Stadium for her first match. I want you at home to think about not being confident, not being prepared for a meeting, or not being prepared for your homework, your you know your exam you're supposed to do, and twenty thousand people are looking at you in millions on TV, you're watching you as well, and just just check your pulse and see how that feels, because it doesn't feel good.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: And so I am there for her. I love her.

00:18:22
Speaker 2: I think she's a fantastic human being and a great ambassador for our sport. And I hope that at some point it clicks again. But it's going to take. It's going to take something special.

00:18:31
Speaker 1: She gets through a few matches, but there are certain players that can play her. I'm going to pick on that forehand. I kind of second serve.

00:18:39
Speaker 2: I gotta say second word serve is for me the biggest liability because the foehand. If you hold Serve all the time, you are under so much less stress. Right, So if you're holding SERVI you're like, it's okay, I'll work it out. If I break, I know I'm going to win because I'm going to hold Serve. The problem is she can't even hold serf. She's double folding like a couple of points a game. Yeah, so you're I don't care who you are or how good you are, you're not winning if you're doing that.

00:19:05
Speaker 3: I want to draw a comparison here, because Coco won last year.

00:19:12
Speaker 1: She's very young.

00:19:13
Speaker 3: It's a little bit like, although I think way less of a shock than a Marati Kanu who came out of Quali's when her US Open a couple of years ago, but very very young, had all the endorsement deals, all the spotlight, all the pressure, all the magazine covers, all the media immediately on her, and it's taken He really too full. Granted she's been injured, but like two three full years to sort of start looking as she has this summer like the player who's enjoying tennis again, like the player who's getting deep into draws again. And so I think, for me, like maybe the best thing that could happen is Coco goes out early in the US Open. It just kind of cools it for the rest of the year, takes a little bit of a break and maybe reassesses all these cooks who are in her kitchen and figures out what.

00:19:56
Speaker 1: Does she want to do.

00:19:56
Speaker 3: Who's the best chef, who's the best chef? Who does she want in the in the inner echelon? Because it feels like a lot of a little bit of a disaster. All right, let's talk a little bit more about who else has been surging, who else has been struggling in these couple of weeks as we look ahead to the US Open. So out of nowhere Alex Pop Alex poprin and Australian that yeah, nobody talks about very much.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: Cute as a button. Where did you come from and how did that happen?

00:20:28
Speaker 2: Well, Alex has been sort of knocking on the door a little bit through the last couple of years. I mean he's you know, he pushed Novak to four sets of the Austrain Open last year. I mean, heat has the talent, he has a huge survey, he's got a big game, he plays very good tennis. I mean, this kid is good, so all the weapons. It was just a matter of him believing in himself and so for him to get the job done the way he did it, The way he crushed Rublev in the final was something also to see. A nice to see Rublev who's admitted he's had a little mental break in the head.

00:20:57
Speaker 1: This year's gone up. See it. I love him. He just whears it all. We all love him because you just never know what you're gonna get.

00:21:04
Speaker 2: But it was nice to see him get through to and play such a great tournament as well, and get through the final.

00:21:09
Speaker 1: I mean, beats Alcaraz, not Alchors yet. Who do you beat s Cinner? Yes? Sorry, Sinner beat Sinner there. Sinner's a little bit of a question mark. We'll see what he does.

00:21:18
Speaker 3: That's one of the questions I need for you, just you know. Obviously he's coming off of an injury. He's when he's healthy, one of the best, if not the best, in the world.

00:21:27
Speaker 1: For me, he's still the He's a question. He's my favorite to win the US Open. I said that months ago.

00:21:32
Speaker 2: I said that Alcarez would win the two natural surfaces on clay and grass, because I feel like he moves so well on a natural surface, he can adapt better with his body, whereas on a hard court. Yannick's so tall and aggressive with his movement. It's so much easier for him to move on a hard court. So I think that the court suits him and the court if the court at the US Open is anything.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: Like the center court at Cincinnati. It's so fast.

00:21:57
Speaker 2: I mean I walked on the court at Cincinnati and I was like, holy shit, this is like a this is like an ice rink.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so quick. So if US opens anything like that, I think Janick is the player to beat there.

00:22:08
Speaker 3: Well, prior to this, I would have said Carlitos is in every conversation. But based on how Montfice destroyed his mind along with Novak earlier this summer, and then he turned around and destroyed his racket, We've never seen a racket smash.

00:22:25
Speaker 1: Of course, I got a lot of people writing me on Twitter about, well, he's he.

00:22:28
Speaker 2: Going to get the Sportsmanship Award this year because he broke a wrath. I mean, honestly, that's the stuff I have to deal with with these certain fans on Twitter. It's like, uh, well, yeah, if he breaks his racket on a consistent basis and acts like a ding dong on the court, yeah he's not going to win the Sportsmanship Award.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: But I feel like this is such an a No, he's just like a he's just his lost his mind.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: This was such an anomaly to see Carlos Alcarez lose his mind like it.

00:22:54
Speaker 1: That's why everybody's so shocked, because it's like, oh no, our sweet little baby Carlitos, what's happened that fin victim from his own playing bardy, How sweet little baby Galitos? And who is literally the nicest guy?

00:23:07
Speaker 2: I did a Q and A with all the players at Cincinnati, and the question I asked every single guy was who's the happiest and most liked person in the locker room? And every single one of them said either Francis Tiafo or Carlos Alcarez. So you know, this guy's in a happy space all the time. So for him to lose his mind on the court, I think it's a combination of a few things. A. He's still brain is still broken from losing the gold medal. Yeah, I think he's played a lot of tennis. Yeah, he's got a lot of pressure on his shoulders now.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: I think that he's tired.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: Anyone who came off of playing at the Olympics and then is playing in Cincinnati is mentally and physically drained. It's why Novak decided do I need to go to Cincinnati? Because he's played enough tennis, he feels good enough in his own self and he knows how to win a Grand Slam, and so he chose no, I think, which was a really smart idea from Novak, not to play a lead up tournament.

00:23:54
Speaker 1: He's practicing his ass off somewhere on a hard court.

00:23:56
Speaker 2: He's getting the work in, don't he knows he's not going to lose in.

00:23:59
Speaker 1: The first round the US Open.

00:24:01
Speaker 3: But it does sort of leave the question open about Novak. You know, he was the defending champion, but also he did not win a tournament this year up until the Olympics.

00:24:10
Speaker 1: So it's the only tournament he wanted to win this year. Literally.

00:24:13
Speaker 2: I know he wants to win every Grand Slam, don't get me wrong, But the only tournament that mattered to him, really mattered to him this year was the gold medal.

00:24:21
Speaker 1: For sure, all that he cared about.

00:24:22
Speaker 3: And you could see it, as you said, when he reacted the way he did. But does that mean he will care about the US Open or what we expect from him, sure like an emotional letdown or like do you think he's now just like he shook that he has been.

00:24:36
Speaker 2: One moogie man off and he can he has one thing left well that is the ultimate Grand Slam major record at twenty five, because we've got the old you know, move the goalpost Margaret Cord at twenty four. Okay, who won like ten Australian opens.

00:24:52
Speaker 1: Yes, when nobody played nobody can that a real record? And so but at least they used to it. But he wants that record. So do I think he's going to be to win the US Open?

00:25:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because that's the one record that he doesn't that he still doesn't have.

00:25:06
Speaker 1: I tend to think that's dumb.

00:25:09
Speaker 2: I don't think he needs to win another Grand Slam to say I'm truly the greatest male ale female.

00:25:15
Speaker 1: I mean, he's won all the records.

00:25:17
Speaker 2: He said that he cares about that. He cares we would have played. Listen, here's the deal, the reason he's not playing Cincinnati. And don't take this the wrong way people and Mason, but he doesn't care about Cincinnati. He wants to win the US Open and he knows that his best chance of doing that is to give himself a mental and physical break after winning the gold medal.

00:25:34
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on from that.

00:25:36
Speaker 3: Okay, two more things I want to talk about. Tinzypas finally fired his dad.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: Yes, well, there's a chance him. I defend this guy to the death. I get a lot of het.

00:25:46
Speaker 2: What if I always said Caitlin, he needs to fire his dad. If he wants to win a Grand Slam, he needs to fire his dad. So there's a chance. Now, do I think he's going to do it?

00:25:55
Speaker 1: None? But I think there's more of a chance he's going to win a Grand slot the game? All right?

00:25:59
Speaker 2: And then I want to talk really quickly before we get to sort of the US open picks and things, because we don't really know much because the draw's not out. But can we talk about the shanked hit from Jack Draper last night?

00:26:14
Speaker 1: All right?

00:26:14
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone saw this match last night, but Jack Draper, I'm sure woke up this morning regretting his decision last night.

00:26:23
Speaker 3: To accept the match point gifted to him by an ARMP who was not a no you're paying attention and he clearly had a double bounce and an't own it.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: And umpoo has screwed up twice this week quite.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Considerably considering the original electronic line calling. Now, everybody out there knows how much I love electronic line calling. It would have saved me having so many gray hairs.

00:26:44
Speaker 1: Not that I have any, but.

00:26:47
Speaker 2: When you know a machine is calling that thing, you know that if it does mess up, which it did last week in Cincinnati, it's not because you're ranked number one or ranked five hundred and no one knows you and someone's having a bad day as a lines person.

00:27:01
Speaker 1: It just the machine messed up last week, right, and then it corrected itself.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: It did stopped, stop, stop, and they stopped the point, and the point should have immediately been given to Taylor immediately. Instead of the umpire saying, well, you should have stopped the point, He's like, dude, we've got electronic line calling.

00:27:16
Speaker 1: I'm not going to stop the point.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: Why would I, even though I saw that the ball was a foot out. So so anyway, that umpire screwed up on that and then flipped to this match with Felix last night and Jack Draper. Now, listen, I made my money playing tennis, serving and volley, so I knew exactly when the ball hit a certain part of a racket, how it reflected off my racket, where it went blah blah blah. I knew, and I would have known that that ball hit my racket, hit the ground, hit my racket again and went over the net. You would know that as a player for sure. So he stood there and looked immediately at the umpire. And when you know as a player that you've made a great volley like that to win a match, the last thing you're doing is looking at the umpire.

00:27:56
Speaker 1: So he knew that. He was like, did the umpire see that? They maybe didn't get that that was the giver if you did not see it in slow motion, which now we have the ability to see it all over the internet in slow motion, but even watching the match live, the.

00:28:06
Speaker 3: Reaction from the player itself. If you made an incredible stick stick like that, I'd be like, I'm the greatest, I'm so fast, look at me. I'm gonna tear my shirt open.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: But he didn't do that.

00:28:16
Speaker 3: Now, he looked sheepishly, waiting to see if anyone saw, and then when he realized nobody caught him, he just like, limp.

00:28:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you took a drink at your parents' ba, you know, and they and you put it back.

00:28:28
Speaker 1: Yes, that's just so limb.

00:28:29
Speaker 3: Also, I want to say Jack Japer, who in his spare time does a lot of modeling, apparently, Yes, He's a big fan of sandwiches. This guy has, you know, a lot of things going for him.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: But I just feel like you're at a place of work where you have to show up in the locker room and let me read you the quote.

00:28:45
Speaker 3: Your fellow athletes and commentariat can be like, don't you don't want to that? Doesn't you don't want that to be your rep.

00:28:52
Speaker 1: Let me read you the quote from Andy Ruddick. The esteem to Andy Ruddick, I.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: Feel like every time I've shanked a ball straight into the ground, I've known that I've shanked.

00:29:01
Speaker 1: The ball straight into the ground exactly. Yeah. I mean, I'm just.

00:29:04
Speaker 2: Gonna leave it at that because Andy, clearly and I both played and we knew when the ball hit the strings of our racket.

00:29:13
Speaker 3: Ever played tennis, even recreationally at any level knows when you make that dig, and everybody knows.

00:29:18
Speaker 2: Felix Asier Eliosim is arguably the nicest guy on tour and also the dorkiest and sweetest. Like I asked him all these gen z word questions and he knew zero of them. Makes you know he's over there reading probably Tolstoy or something. He's not this guy and so he went up and was trying to be very very politically correct about everything.

00:29:39
Speaker 1: He's like, you're gonna.

00:29:41
Speaker 2: Regret this tomorrow. You're going to see this on video, and you know, it's trying to try.

00:29:45
Speaker 3: He was both too Canadian about it and perhaps an insulight into how he plays a little too cautious, like you're gotta get faired.

00:29:53
Speaker 1: Up, man.

00:29:53
Speaker 2: The only thing to do there for Felix, unfortunately, was to walk up to Jack, look him straight in the eyes, put his two fingers at his eye. As you all know, you're sitting back there going yeah, you know when you and go I see you, I see you. Yeah, And I'm never gonna forget that you didn't call this on yourself. Yeah, and shook his hand. And I would have walked off because all the evidence, video evidence. You can't cheat on the court anymore.

00:30:34
Speaker 1: You just can't. And you should be a cameras and you shouldn't know.

00:30:36
Speaker 3: So anyway, all right, Well, we're going to do a complete draw preview of the US Open when we get it.

00:30:42
Speaker 1: I think the draw comes out at the end of next week, the end of Qualiti's.

00:30:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're gonna bring you a We're gonna bring you a full US Open what we think is gonna happen or could happen when the draw comes out on Thursday. Up until then, we're going to talk a little bit more about sort of the overview of everything.

00:30:56
Speaker 3: We'll talk about players that we haven't mentioned. Who has a good chat Jessica Bagoula Arena sunk.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: Let me just add Jessica Bagoula backing up. I'm winning in Canada was very impressive and I keep I keep pulling for jess to win a Grand Slam, if not even to win one, just get to a semi final, because we know that she's been so close to breaking through. Of course, that quarterfinal at the Wimbledon last year, I think was I.

00:31:22
Speaker 1: Think that really affected her for quite a while.

00:31:24
Speaker 2: I think she changed coaches and now she's getting into a nice rhythm with her new coaching team, Mark Merklan, who's a great guy, and Mark Knowles. She's got Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, that's what she called her team. Just came up with that Wow Jess and her Markey Marx. But I think that she has a real shot to win the US Open this year. There's no one outstanding. Sablanca's not playing well.

00:31:47
Speaker 3: Rebarkna, she's been a big I mean, she's had unlucky food, poisoning and injury.

00:31:53
Speaker 1: Like just she's had what he's going on with, I don't know.

00:31:55
Speaker 3: I love her though, I really want her to do well because the game is better when she's at the top of it. But it's just with I've had have been a non factor this summer.

00:32:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, this does feel like an open opportunity for Jess Pagola.

00:32:05
Speaker 2: And I just wonder how much Rabakina was affected by Wimbledon because she was so overwhelming favorite to win that tournament. Yeah, and so I just wonder how much her not getting through that semi final and losing that match affected her.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: Now.

00:32:21
Speaker 3: The one thing I'll also say, and we haven't touched on her this year, but she's been in now two major finals is Jasmine Paulini. She has an Olympic gold medal in doubles. My favorite player, Sarah Rani, she's your favorite player. But is she a factor in the US Open.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be a little bit tough for her on the faster court of the US Open. I wouldn't put it past her because She's so capable of winning, as we know, on any surface, grass, clay, whatever. She's one of my favorite players. And I've said this for years. I've said this for years.

00:32:52
Speaker 1: You have nobody listened to Nobody listened to me.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: I know.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: It's one of the it's the curse of being Renette. It's the curse of being right. Okay, she's she does doesn't have a weakness.

00:33:04
Speaker 2: Now, she's like five foot three, she's tiny, and but she This is a lesson for everyone at home that's teaching tennis. It's all about technique. And if you have a really good technique and you have great heart, and you work hard, you can achieve a lot of things. And she has great technique on foehand, great technique.

00:33:20
Speaker 1: On her back end.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: She has a nice slice, she has a beautiful service motion. Like there's little things in her game that you can pull from and say. She does everything really well. She bollies well, she plays doubles. She wants a gold medal in doubles.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: With Sarah Rani. Who couldn't hit a serve in two? You I mean, collectively those guys are shorter than.

00:33:36
Speaker 3: Raleopelker totally right, Yeah, I mean basically, yeah, not great at math.

00:33:42
Speaker 1: So oh and a shout out to Rileyohperlko's who's back. It's so great to see Raleiopelker back.

00:33:45
Speaker 2: But I love sir Button back and back and by and well, nice to see him back and healthy. I just want to I'm just glad he's back and healthy too. But yes, Jasmin Paulini has been a great surprise for me.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: And have you seen a happier person on the No, It's delightful to watch her on court.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: That's why when I think about Alcarez, I'm like, you compare Alcarez and Pauolini because they're so hugely like funny and laughing, and then you see him lose his damn mind.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: She actually lost her damn mine.

00:34:12
Speaker 2: At the at the Olympics as well, did she Yeah, she got like all crazy too, and we haven't you don't see her getting upset. Yeah, she lost like eight points in a row to lose that game.

00:34:21
Speaker 3: That's the pressure of now, the tension and the Olympics and being in late stages of you know, finals.

00:34:29
Speaker 1: I get I get it.

00:34:30
Speaker 3: I mean when you're I think it's easier to be bubbly and happy when people don't necessarily see you coming, but when everyone starts asking you like how did you lose? How could you possibly a blast that match? And you're like, well, I can't win every match.

00:34:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:34:41
Speaker 2: Well that's kind of like even with Eager, like the pressure that she feels, you know, to perform all the time. Now, you know, having done what she's done at the French Open. I mean she's won five Grand slams now, you know, four at the French one at the US Open, and the constant question to Eagers can she went on a fast hard She's won the US.

00:35:01
Speaker 1: Open, so she knows she can do it.

00:35:03
Speaker 2: Interestingly, they've changed the balls back to what they were last year. They had last year they had the same balls for the men and the women, and I know, for example, Ash Barty hated the balls at the US Open, and it's interesting that they've gone back to the older the balls that were used two years ago, which is when Eager won the tournament. And I know she didn't really like the balls. But for me, with her game, the.

00:35:23
Speaker 1: Balls it's probably regular.

00:35:25
Speaker 2: No, the balls are regular duty again instead of the extra the heavier ones fluffy. Yeah, so they're going to be fast and so I think that actually helps her kick serve a little bit. You know, the ball will be on her faster. But at the same time, I think it does help in some regards with her spin. So we'll see if that affects anyone this particularly who's your favorite going into the.

00:35:45
Speaker 1: US Open and before we see the drawers.

00:35:47
Speaker 3: I don't tend to do these predictions based on any facts. I go with vibes and I want to see Arena Sateleanca get a big title this summer.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, where has she been?

00:35:59
Speaker 3: I think she's got a new boyfriend. That's the reason she's not playing well. I think she's got a new boyfriend. And I think she's she's vibes all summer. She's having a brat summer. You know what, She's hot girl summer. She doesn't care about tennis right now, but now she's getting back into it because she's uh better care.

00:36:17
Speaker 1: I mean, does she have to?

00:36:18
Speaker 3: She's doing great without you know, winning she won the Australian Yeah, but yeah, I want to have Balinka to win, So I can't separate that from should she win, as is she in a position mentally to win? But I like her odds better than Coco's or actually Jessica Poola, who I like a lot personally, but.

00:36:37
Speaker 2: Not I thinks I'm gonna I'm gonna pick jess as breaking through, breaking through to get to a semi and I think once like kind of like Novak, once you break through something like that, getting to the finals. For him of the Olympics, it was like all the pressure was off his shoulders. And I think that's one of the reasons why he did play so well, he played so solid, is because it was kind of like a little bit of a cherry on top. I know how much he wanted to win, but just the fact that he had the opportunity I think sort of released a lot of stress off him. And Carlos had all the stress on him, yeah, because.

00:37:05
Speaker 1: He just beat him.

00:37:06
Speaker 2: And the finals anyway, there's so many great storylines going into the US Open. There's so many unknowns going into the US Open, particularly on the well actually on the women's and the men's side tennis is there's no one for the very first and I can say this honestly, there is no one going into the US Open this year that is a favorite like that.

00:37:28
Speaker 1: There's no one like there's you know when when you live.

00:37:33
Speaker 3: You know, the mother of Georgie weren't on the run from Italian tax authorities. She's always my dark horse favorite.

00:37:39
Speaker 2: That's great, But I mean I can honestly say there's never been one US Open or one Grand Slam where someone hasn't been a little bit more glaringly the pot like you're a favorite there.

00:37:49
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like there's a leader. There's no one.

00:37:51
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's loop back to this in a week's time when we have the draw, we can do a complete draw breakdown, maybe with our friend Andrea Petkovich.

00:37:59
Speaker 1: Yes, will be in town. But for now we are going to invite to the stage.

00:38:03
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:38:03
Speaker 3: I introduced him before, but I'm gonna do it again so he has a benefit of hearing it. Story journalist, founder of Futurism, the bad boy of Substack, and uh the author of Rackets forthcoming issue number twenty five cover story which is coming out in a week's time. I don't think you've seen this yet, Foster. This is our AI generated cover of one Andre Agacy. This is a proof from the printer. It hasn't even been released yet. There's some other incredible AI art to go along with Foster's incredible cover story.

00:38:39
Speaker 1: And let me introduce you to Renee Stubs. Renee Stubs, Foster.

00:38:44
Speaker 4: Were talking about vibes.

00:38:45
Speaker 3: We're just talking about vibes. Great, We're the vibe ist tennis podcasts that there are.

00:38:50
Speaker 4: I'm a vibes guy.

00:38:51
Speaker 3: I'm here to vibe for those of you who are not as who are more plugged into the tennis space. In the media space, Foster's substack every Friday Foster is the must read of everyone in media, not least of which because you give a weather report for all sorts of far flung places.

00:39:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do for fun.

00:39:11
Speaker 5: Wherever it's summer in your mind, it's clear and sunny and warm and cap Farrat.

00:39:17
Speaker 1: This week, I'm always mentally in cap Farota.

00:39:20
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying.

00:39:21
Speaker 1: Vibes, vibes, you got to you gotta tell me about this.

00:39:23
Speaker 2: So tell me about Andre, the connection, like just everything about him that you feel like people don't know about Andre.

00:39:32
Speaker 3: Well, wait, I just want to say, you have written brilliantly for GQ. You did a big piece about f One. You've written for all sorts of publications, Nritimes Magazine, New York mag You even wrote about red carpets for A twenty four This is not the first time you've written about Andre Agassy, though, No.

00:39:50
Speaker 4: It's not.

00:39:51
Speaker 5: I actually interviewed Andrea Agassy in early twenty eleven when he was promoting Topspin for the video game Sure for Favorite, Yeah, Everyone's favorite tennis video game, and Andrea was on the cover, and we spoke for about twenty minutes, and it was barn on one of the funnier interviews I've ever done, because when you're promoting a video game, you're supposed to talk about the video game Sure, And within the first five minutes of that interview, we established that not only does Andrea Agacy not play video games, he hasn't played the video game he's promoting. And he thought it was especially funny that you could manipulate a digital Andrea Agacy to move around to court in far better ways than he had been able to for the last ten to twenty years, if not ever, that's.

00:40:44
Speaker 1: A very insightful takeaway from Andre Agasy. Yeah, to be a pretty.

00:40:49
Speaker 4: Insightful guy, known to be a pretty insightful guy, and he.

00:40:54
Speaker 5: Just had no truck with talking about the video game, and he was much more interested in talking about the education efforts that he had started in his post tennis career. Yeahing starting these charter schools in Las Vegas that have become massive successes onto themselves. And the interview ended on a particularly strange note about the charter schools, where he insisted that he believed in letting children unionize like the teamsters.

00:41:23
Speaker 1: Insane.

00:41:24
Speaker 5: Actually, yeah, he believed in He wanted a children's union, which not about it. Listen if mom in third grade, I love that idea.

00:41:31
Speaker 3: Also, famously, Andrea Gassy had a pretty rocky relationship with his dad, and so you can hear the child inside Andrea Agacy probably wanting to be emancipated.

00:41:42
Speaker 1: Who loves that idea?

00:41:43
Speaker 5: Oh, if we're getting under the hood, I don't know where to begin, but yes he did.

00:41:46
Speaker 1: We were about to.

00:41:47
Speaker 3: Get under the hood because ultimately, unfortunately, so two things happen with this cover story.

00:41:52
Speaker 1: First of all, it's one of the best things we've ever published in Racket.

00:41:55
Speaker 4: Oh thank you.

00:41:55
Speaker 3: That's really it's a thrill to be able to talk to you about it, because it's just a beautiful, beautiful, generous, human, thoughtful story. But also lamentably at the last minute. We weren't able to get you and Andre together because he was I think, off to Romania to play pickleball or appearing in Cincinnati.

00:42:15
Speaker 5: He was off to Romania that actually play tennis. I was gonna say playing pickle.

00:42:19
Speaker 1: Not mention those two words, Romania and pickleball.

00:42:22
Speaker 4: Okay, he was playing pickleball in a lot of other places.

00:42:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, lamentably is a great euphemism for how it felt to have this interview not come together at the last second.

00:42:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a bummer, but also not that uncommon. I mean, frankly, we've done plenty of pieces where you write around the athlete and you kind of get some I don't know Werner heard.

00:42:45
Speaker 1: Zoggy and ecstatic true to people if you don't hear them from the person themselves.

00:42:53
Speaker 4: It's true for those who are not versed.

00:42:55
Speaker 5: In the Verbiaga journalism, it is called to write around, and this occasionally happens and a subject does not participate. Normally, what a ride around often entails is speaking with the sources around the person. We had so little time. I just ended up writing a sixty five hundred word essay. I don't know what the final word count is.

00:43:15
Speaker 1: It's around there.

00:43:17
Speaker 5: But yeah, I ended up writing an essay about being from Las Vegas and Andre's kind of recession from the tennis world and working in education and stepping away from the limelight and how he started to move back into it and getting under the hood with the psychology of things like his father and how much he hated tennis, and what an insane revelation that was for any athlete to come out with. When he came out with his memoir admitted and he did, in fact hate tennis.

00:43:50
Speaker 4: He hated doing it. He was forced by his dad to do it.

00:43:54
Speaker 5: And for me, when I read his memoir, that was the most striking thing everybody remembers. And the wig and the brookshielded it all though, and all those things and Pete Sampress being a bad tipper.

00:44:08
Speaker 1: I can't learn that about Pete Sampress.

00:44:11
Speaker 5: Which, by the way, if you're going to say something mean about somebody, that's a good one to start with. It's an incredible one because nobody is going to take Pete Samprass's side.

00:44:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, just cheap it is. And also it feels so true because it's relatively low stakes.

00:44:25
Speaker 4: It's so low stakes you're like.

00:44:27
Speaker 1: I know that that's true, even if though I don't know that that's true.

00:44:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can't be mad at Andre for.

00:44:31
Speaker 1: Saying, oh, no, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Andre's the opposite. He's like the guy that'll leave a hundred bucks on the table for a tip. You know that he's that guy? White, Sure, I know, I've I've basically seen it.

00:44:42
Speaker 2: But right, Yeah, so when you're that type of person, you take offence to people that are not super generous.

00:44:48
Speaker 5: And what also just in terms of small like minutia that you can say about somebody else that it feels validating for all the other things you want to say about this person is so artful.

00:45:02
Speaker 3: It's artful, it's beautiful, and that's to me like the shame of the I mean, the piece is amazing, and I want to sort of get into it and also explain a little bit of the art that we chose and commissioned by an artist to go with it, because it essentially speculates to your point, what is he back for?

00:45:19
Speaker 1: He hated it. He told us he hated it. It was revelatory.

00:45:22
Speaker 3: Since then, we've had so many he kind of gave permission. I think for other athletes to talk about their fraud, relationships with the sport itself, maybe their parents, the feelings of commitment and pressure. And we sort of by illustrating it the way we did, I think, really hold up your the essential truth of your piece, which is is he coming back to sort of be a pope, a leader religious figure because we don't have a leader really in this space? Is he leading this pack of you know, sort of there's an image that we've illustrated where he's leading a pack of lions, you know, is he here to sort of be an aggressive and to remake this space in his own image? Is he an entertainer like we have on the cover, Like what's he has those elements in him?

00:46:06
Speaker 1: But why and what are we dealing with now that he's back?

00:46:09
Speaker 4: We don't know.

00:46:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, we don't know. I mean, you know, some of the theorizing I do is he did up kids. They are now of adult age, so he's an empty nester. He has accomplished everything he set out to do in the education space, certain, like without question, And can.

00:46:26
Speaker 1: You speak to that a little bit because you're from Vegas, Like is this a real? It's a real It's not just a.

00:46:31
Speaker 5: You know, it's a real no, it's this is not like a vanity endeavor. It was very functional. There have been I can't remember when the first graduating class was, but I believe it's well over a decade ago. It's amazing and the I think there might be two schools I'm forgetting off hand, but there have been several education efforts beyond the schools.

00:46:53
Speaker 1: It's clear he meant it very much put his entire self.

00:46:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, he stopped doing his his charity event because they had enough money to be able to you know, invest it and put it through and basically continue helping the schools without having to do another gala. I mean they were making like ten fifteen million dollars every time they did their gala, so their events, so they had put that into a you know, who knows what a roth ira and that we're making it so much money on it.

00:47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:47:20
Speaker 2: So so the bottom line is that I think that, you know, what he did in the educational space was just incredible.

00:47:25
Speaker 1: So do you feel like maybe he feels like, Okay, it's in a good space. I think you're right.

00:47:29
Speaker 2: I think he's an empty ness to the kids. Are you know, his son is off at school. His daughter's you know, also of age of not needing to have, you know, have parents looking after her. So I think, you know, him and Stephie have decided like they want to get out and about, and he wants to get back in the tennis spates and be more seen. I know Stephie hates it, she would rather be anywhere else.

00:47:49
Speaker 1: But also at the same time, you know.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: It's a chance for her to spend some time with her husband, who has been moving around and traveling a lot as.

00:47:57
Speaker 4: Well, so you know, and that's the other thing.

00:47:59
Speaker 5: They managed to reach a children, two children who are the kids of arguably two of then most not arguably two of the most famous tennis players of all time. Yes, and they managed to keep those children out of the limelight, away from celebrity, which having gone through that both of them, I can't imagine what a gift of parenting that must have felt like to give your children.

00:48:23
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you I see them personally with their kids, and they're amazing. They're amazing parents. Steffi's an amazing mom.

00:48:28
Speaker 2: She's such a hands on person, and both Andre and Stephie are incredible parents. So you know, I hope they're enjoying, you know, now the second stage of their their lives as far as the kids being out of their care basically and doing so.

00:48:43
Speaker 1: And I love that they're back in tennis. I mean, we want them back more in tennis.

00:48:46
Speaker 3: Tennis needs some charismatic, big picture thinker celebrity types who aren't you know, John McEnroe basically, and.

00:48:56
Speaker 4: Especially in America.

00:48:58
Speaker 1: In America, come on, and and so you know, I think the.

00:49:02
Speaker 4: Groundwork was set for that return. But then there's the why bother of it all.

00:49:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we know that regardless of how much Andre hated tennis or not, he does have a competitive instinct.

00:49:16
Speaker 4: Yes, and I do think there's a real.

00:49:21
Speaker 5: Narrative to be examined with regard to the way he felt about tennis. His father also died a couple of years ago, and you know, his father is the person who effectively forced this sport on him. And it was the being forced into the sport and being taken away from all the normal things.

00:49:42
Speaker 4: A childhood might entail, and all the competitiveness and.

00:49:46
Speaker 5: All the vicissitudes that being a professional tennis player involves.

00:49:50
Speaker 4: That made him hate it. And so this thing that has defined him for so much of his life he's had such a fraught, tortured relationship with Maybe the third actor is about repairing that relationship. Maybe the third act is about putting.

00:50:04
Speaker 5: Some kind of capstone on that narrative to where he can get to a point where he loves the score, yeah, and to where he feels that his legacy isn't just as a guy who won and changed the game and then became one of the most charitable athletes of all time, yeah, but also found a way to love.

00:50:23
Speaker 1: It and.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: Also, arguably I will say, you know, if you've clearly read the book as we all have, it's one of the great books ever written, I think. But also one of the things that I loved about it and bringing it back to tennis and his love hate of it, is that, as you know, in the last couple of pages of the book, he basically says, if I didn't have tennis, I would not have met my wife, I would not have.

00:50:47
Speaker 1: Had my kids, I would not have the life that I have.

00:50:49
Speaker 2: So in the end, it brought him his greatest joys and gifts, you know, besides the money and the trophies and all that, it actually gave him the most important three.

00:50:59
Speaker 1: People in his life, which is his wife and two children.

00:51:02
Speaker 2: So for me, that's that was one of the most I cried the second to last page when they went and played tennis on that public court and the two of them were just hitting and they both because they both had their fraught moments, believe me, of being professional tennis players, both had very difficult fathers, and so I think, you know, to have them hitting tennis balls on a public court, you know, for me, it was just like and they had that epiphany, both of them, like Wow, we have each other and this sport gave us each other and our family and our lives. And I just was like, oh, it's like a mess crying like reading that because I knowing them so well.

00:51:36
Speaker 5: For anybody listening to this who had not bothered to read open well, you said about it not just being one of the great sports books, but one of the greatest memoirs of all time.

00:51:45
Speaker 4: It's absolutely true.

00:51:45
Speaker 5: It was written with a Pulitzer winner named jam Owinger, and it is phenomenal, and it's such a beautiful psychological study and it is truly so open hearted.

00:51:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, it's fair.

00:52:01
Speaker 3: Uh, it's human in such a fundamental way about the experience of being alive and being a son and being a person who's you know, sort of encountering the quotidian and the sublime in a way that's like you forget for a while while you're reading it that this guy is also accomplishing what he's accomplishing. It doesn't read sports, And then there we were in you know, I was at the Super Bowl, and everyone's coming up saying it doesn't read like that at all. It reads as a deeply it's sort of pristian almost like I think that's why it hits with.

00:52:35
Speaker 1: Sort of the literary, you know, sort of.

00:52:39
Speaker 2: Media types who appreciate the writing, but also with everybody who's maybe more listen. I'm not a massive reader because because I like kun't keep my focus on anything. But I read that book and I just I loved every page of it, and it was so it was so beautifully I'm going to ask.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: You about sort of Foster's theory because this piece, you know, he is such a beautiful sort of continuation of open and it sort of speculates I think maybe personally it's about him loving the sport again.

00:53:08
Speaker 1: And repairing that relationship.

00:53:10
Speaker 3: But I also want to ask you, like, do you agree that we need and Andre is certainly American tennis. We need somebody who can get We have seven governing bodies, we have commentators from all sorts of different generations. Nobody really is in agreement with what the sport needs to do.

00:53:29
Speaker 1: We're taping this.

00:53:30
Speaker 3: Live at fanatics fests, and I see the NFL over there, and they're super on message and they know who they want to promote and how they want to promote the sport we're looking at. You know, the NBA is right in front of US, UFC is, UFC is over there doing you know, live in the octagon. All these other sports kind of have it together. Tennis is not here.

00:53:48
Speaker 1: No, tennis doesn't know how to promote itself, certainly not in this country. Tennis is terrible at promoting itself.

00:53:54
Speaker 2: It wasn't a canned lion where all the cmos of every marketing you know, every marketing person who writes a check to a sports evan to or whatever not there you know here right now, you know at Finad, no tennis spears.

00:54:08
Speaker 3: There's a hockey demonstration, there's trading cards, there's everything. Pretty much, I think league wise, I'm sure I saw like a foosball competitive.

00:54:18
Speaker 2: Leah action and the critically everyone Kaitlin, so, how can we do this better?

00:54:22
Speaker 4: Right?

00:54:22
Speaker 3: And like where can Andre fit in? Because it kind of feels like he could be the pope.

00:54:27
Speaker 5: I mean, he's going to be the captain of the rest of the world Labor Cup team, that's right, that's the start. He's already shown up this year at the Australian Open in Wimbledon. Yeah, we learned that he is working on a kind of Netflix Beckham style documentary about his life, and I think those things are going to bring a.

00:54:44
Speaker 4: Lot of visibility of this sport.

00:54:46
Speaker 5: Also, it bears keeping in mind people forget Andre really was the first radical tennis celebrity in the way.

00:54:57
Speaker 1: That he was, in the way that he was.

00:54:58
Speaker 5: Absolutely he was a style lads, cool shoes, incredible endorsement.

00:55:02
Speaker 2: He definitely changed the he changed the like you said, the cool, the cool of you know, the shorts, the I have denim shorts on right now.

00:55:12
Speaker 1: That's what he was playing in the US hoping and is crazy what he was doing. Is that why you're wearing denim hints?

00:55:17
Speaker 2: That's definitely it. You're paying thousand degrees outside here in the York.

00:55:21
Speaker 3: But anyway, well, I think that we're happy to have him back, and we're happy to have you in the issue.

00:55:27
Speaker 1: Thank you so so much. I have a gift for you. I'm gonna wait until after we take it.

00:55:30
Speaker 4: I can't wait to give it to you.

00:55:32
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for being part of it.

00:55:33
Speaker 3: The last question I'll ask you is one of the things I was so excited about and where I did my journalism. I did my final journalism capstone projects at the University of Missouri on David Granger's Esquire, getting him to come back and guest edit the issue of the magazine and then work with you, who had overlapped with him at Esquire.

00:55:51
Speaker 5: I had worked with David Granger hired me at Esquire, And for those who don't know, David Granger is truly a legendary editor in the journalist space and then magazine space as far as they go. He changed the face of media and what a magazine can be. And even though magazines obviously don't have the same prominence that they do now, all of media blogs, you know, podcast long form, and yes, you can trace it back in somewhere or another to the GQ, he worked at in the Esquire, he worked out and so yeah, it was absolutely incredible to work with David again. What an amazing pleasure. I cannot I can't wait to read the rest of the issue to.

00:56:32
Speaker 4: See it is so David with you.

00:56:35
Speaker 1: He's done such a phenomenal job.

00:56:36
Speaker 3: It was incredible to give him the keys and just try to throw the best people I could think of, some of whom he brought, some of whom I knew at this effort. And We'll be launching it this Thursday, and I'll see you there as well as him.

00:56:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody buy it.

00:56:52
Speaker 1: Everybody buy it.

00:56:53
Speaker 2: Not only everyone buy it, but come to the party. It's Thursday, top of Radio City Music Hall, on top of the rock. It's going to be fun. We've had a blost at Fanatics. I mean, what what Fanatics and the fest do here is absolutely amazing.

00:57:08
Speaker 1: It's only going to get bigger.

00:57:10
Speaker 2: iHeart is doing such a phenomenal job with promoting all the sports, and particularly women's sports. So we so appreciate all the work that they've done. Here are clearly deep blue. Thank you guys, Thank you everyone for just you know, listening to our nonsense today. We hope to get into the nitty gritty of the US Open next week, and all the drawers are going to come out, and the US Open is about start, and I cannot wait.

00:57:33
Speaker 1: It's going to be so much fun.

00:57:34
Speaker 3: Our super Bowl, it's our ask your season, it's our brilli ladness. You know.

00:57:39
Speaker 2: Once the Olympics was done, I was very sad that next day. So I'm very ready for the US Open.

00:57:44
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Faster for joining us, Thank you for being here, thank you, thanks, and we'll see you guys real sick. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thank dit