Petko & Rennae Recap Miami

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Danielle the d Animal and Yannick Swegy Sara.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Rene Stops Tennis Podcast. We are live and in person in New York City. We have just finished a lovely Easter Sunday in my backyard whilst watching the men's final, and I am joined by once again my great friend Andrea Pekovich. Peco, what a great weight you were down in Miami. So first of all, give me just your thoughts on being down there and what it was like and scoop the.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: Scoop, give me this, give me all the tea spilled the tea. Well, first of all, thank you for having me over for Easter. I would have been all alone and you invited me. It's a really nice of view. I came all the way from Brooklyn to Manhattan and yeah, so I arrived. Unfortunately, my flight to was scheduled during the women's final, which was really unfortunate. I know, so you have to recap that for us the highlights yesterday, but I couldn't see that. But all in all, it was good vibes. The tournament looks much better the first year when I played the Miami Open out in hard Rock Stadium it used to be in Kibiskane. It was literally in a parking lot. It was not nice. The gym was in the basement, the courts were in the parking lot. It looked terrible. You were surrounded by concrete. There was no protection from the wind. It's always windy in Florida, so it was kind of a mess. Now the tournament looks great. They have all these stands outside. The courts look beautiful. They have trees, they have palm trees, so now the site looks really good. And the outside courts were packed, packed, pack packed. But for some reason, the stadium court during day sessions was always kind of empty and that was really unfortunate. And during the night it was great. It was packed. The atmosphere was amazing all over the side. If you saw the crazy Andy Mark match that lasted three hours and twenty five minutes or so, you would have seen that was the vibe on the outside court. So you had that atmosphere just on stadium court. During the day sessions. For some reason, there was something off and something missing. That was the only little knock that I had, and that was unfortunate. Other than that, it was really fun being there. They really they made the best that they can, considering that it's still kind of in a parking lot. And now you have all The one thing I will say that was that is kind of weird. You have all it's like surrounded by the skeleton of the Formula one. So you see bits and pieces of where the track either is or is going to be, with stands that haven't been you know, deconstructed, that are.

00:02:47
Speaker 3: Still up, but not in the full glory.

00:02:49
Speaker 2: Oh, isn't it coming to Miami soon?

00:02:51
Speaker 1: It's coming soon. Yeah, so you have it's not fully built yet, but you already see bits and pieces and it's like being surrounded by another sport event, but by the skeleton.

00:03:01
Speaker 3: That was the only thing that was a little strange.

00:03:04
Speaker 2: Well, you've got that, and then you've got the actual stadium is the actual Miami de So you.

00:03:08
Speaker 1: Have two sporting events surrounding one sporting event that is happening at the time.

00:03:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd been almost it'd be nice if they almost built another stadium there, specifically for tennis.

00:03:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it is like a cool I mean, you've been there. You've been there. It's like for some it's unfortunate because it is a football stadium. If you are in a seat, in a bad seat, you can be really.

00:03:33
Speaker 3: Far away from the tennis court.

00:03:35
Speaker 1: But the atmosphere is kind of cool because the players are all Now they've built the restaurant and the players lounge onto the grass like onto the football field. Basically they have an indoor players lounge as well, but they have sofas there with ten so the players are hanging out on the grass more. They're right there at the stadium course, So it's like a cool thing to be there, you know, you can you can sense it feels much more like a tournament. Before it really felt like a completely disjointed animal where you were like are we playing a tournament here or are we just appearing for an exhibition? That was kind of strange. Now they made a great they made a great effort in having it feel much more organic. So there is a good thing that it's there. But you know, you see the other sporting events kind of imposing onto the tennis at all times.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think ideally it would be great to have an actual stadium down there, like actually built for tennis. Just because we're talking about suites, right, you make a lot of money from suites. You make a lot of money from bringing clients into the tennis. For example, at the tennis at the US Open, you know, you go into the suites, it's the Emirates suite, it's the AMX suite, it's the Rolling Suite, it's the ESPN Suite, It's all of the stuff. Right So there the suites is so far from the court, it sort of feels a little disjointed. So I think what they're doing is amazing, and I think trying. But I think ideally if they could build a separate stadium for the actual center court, I think that would make it better. But anyway, listen, as you said, look, the players were all said how happy they were. The only player that was not happy was rude. He was rude to the umpire. He was just like, listen, he was not that rude. He was actually a He was as rude as someone from his country can be. But he was basically like bitching about the being able to go off the court. Because the courts are so far from the main area. The outside court, you've got to like get a golf cut basically take you there and back that there's a designated spot I'm sure for the outside courts to go to a trailer probably and it's not air conditioned, they don't have towels, that don't have water, and he was a little upset about that. So I don't blame him in that regard. But look, as I said, I'm know James Blake, who's a former player, and if you've ever been a former player, you know exactly and not only a former player, but a high ranked former player that would probably expect things to be a little bit nicer. So I'm sure he's trying his best to sort of accommodate the players. And as you just said, they're doing their best down there.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: They are doing the best. It's a little bit unfortunate. If they were single tournament in the middle of the calendar, I think it would be less glaring the differences When you come from Indian Wells, however.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: You're coming from the best tournament of the year, where.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: A stadium and a tennis site was built with exactly that in mind. We want to have one of the biggest tournaments here. How can we make it the friendliest for fans and players alike. That's what you can tell that the site was built for. And then coming to something where you have to make do with what you have is just it's hard for James to deal with.

00:06:43
Speaker 2: You're right. If Miami is played in July, it would probably be, oh, this is great. We love it here and it's Miami, and you got a lot of being done in Miami, going to the beach, you know, playing golf. Like, there's a lot of things that players can do anything.

00:06:55
Speaker 1: I have to say, players love Miami, especially male players.

00:07:00
Speaker 2: Wonder why, yeah, I wonder, I wonder why. We'll let you think about that, viewers and listeners. I just want to shout out to a gentleman that came up to me on the street here literally around the corner from my apartment, grabbed my arm and he said, I love you. I love your podcast. So whoever that gentleman was, you didn't give me your name, but you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're on basically twelfth and third and you came up to me. So thank you, sir for coming in and grabbing my arm. And for anybody out there that notices me or Pecko, we always are very happy and to hear those comments. But anyway, let's get into it. Let's start with the women. First of all, do we want to talk a little bit about what Sabalanka went through the last couple of weeks. Let's start there. Look, it's been a tough month for her. She has not played well over the last month since when in the Austrain Open, we thought that she was going to just knock everybody out of the park the way she played at the u Strain Open. But she has really struggled. You have to wonder this situation with the we're assuming ex boyfriend, because the rumor was that she broke up with him.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: She confirmed it on Instagram that they were no longer together when the tragedy happens, So.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: You wonder how much that was also happening prior to him coming. And you know what happened in Miami happening, how tumultuous things were happening in her personal life, maybe affecting her on the court in the Middle East, then in Indian wells, and then of course Miami was just I didn't even know how she was able to function that week. I mean, even if you broke up with someone, if you feel you would have to feel any kind of sense of responsibility for maybe what he did, which is crazy because you have no control over what somebody does, but that would have to have weighed on her mind, There's no question, and it's just a tough week for her.

00:08:51
Speaker 3: I was super tight, and she was wearing the hat.

00:08:53
Speaker 1: She never wears a head and she so low, super low, So you could see that she wanted some protection, but she also wanted to play and wanted to honor her commitment. And I think also she probably felt somewhat safe on the court where she doesn't have to think about it or she has to think about other things. I can imagine that that is something that can give you relief for a few hours at least, I hope. And you know what I had. I can't fathom what Arena went through.

00:09:24
Speaker 3: I had.

00:09:24
Speaker 1: I wrote about it in my previous sub stack a little bit. I had sometimes private struggles that nobody knew about, and it was hard to function just knowing it yourself, but being out there in the public eye and everyone knew what happened. Everyone is speculating. Everyone is like, just a breakup.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: We're talking like the guy killed himself. Yeah, Like it's not like, oh you know, yeah, it's a breakup, or said, you know, he had a fight with her. This is a tragedy, absolute tragedy. Yeah, and a you know, a very I don't even know how to describe, like someone doing that to themselves, you know. And yes, everybody knows about it. And you can't just hide, like you said, when something's happening in your own personal life, you take it home with you, you go back to your hotel. But nobody's talking about it to you. Everybody knew about this story. So it's not like she could hide and be like, hey, how's it going. She couldn't even lie and be like, hey, it's great. She was just like they're like.

00:10:24
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah, everyone.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: I will say. What was really nice to see and witness was how the tennis world, and we are all egotistical creatures in this world, but the tennis people really gathered around the arena. I saw a lot of them going up to her, hugging her, you know, being there for her. The WTA made it possible for her to start a day later. She didn't have to do press like whatever was in that power to help her and protect her and give her some kind of support, which is impossible to support somebody, but just somehow, in the smallest ways that you have. I felt like the tennis world was doing and trying that, and that was nice to see that we are able to gather around our peers in times of need, at least seemed like that from my perspective being around the side, that was nice to see. But yeah, incredible, and I just hope that she has the support system around her to deal with it, whether that be professional help or family and friends.

00:11:26
Speaker 3: And hopefully we will see her smile very soon. Again.

00:11:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's hope, because you know, we love her personality and everything. And as I said, that's not on her what happened, and I hope she knows that. But listen, also, you know, another person.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: And maybe we should also say condolences to Constantines. There was yeah, family and friends and everyone around him.

00:11:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, we saw him a lot.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, part he was part of the tennis world. You know, he was part of the tennis world. So yeah, it was a big shock, and I think it kind of overshadowed the first not overshadowed, that's the wrong word. It was on everybody's mind in the first week of the Miami Open for sure.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, you realize and that's one of the things We'll get to Danielle Collins in a second. But one of the things that she's spoken about a lot of late is that there's so many bigger things happening outside of the tennis world, and she's become very well adjusted as a human being and realizing that, and you see it on the court from her. But I want to wait in talking about Danielle. I want to talk about some of the players that really have been struggling on Schubert again, just struggling on the hard court.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: I know.

00:12:29
Speaker 2: Look, her favorite surfaces are coming up, clay grass. She always plays well on them. We were worrying about her last year, and then she won Charleston and then she you know, played great and made the finals of Wimbledon again, et cetera. But still it's what's going on.

00:12:43
Speaker 1: Well, I was calling a match that was at the same time, so I couldn't really see her. She lost to Avannisian in the third set. I will say Avnissian is a very dangerous player in the sense that she is a counterpuncher and she uses your pace. And I felt for a while that Onnce is lacking clarity on the court, and she is somebody that has the game to be the counterpunchure because she can slow the game down. She has different sorts of variety in her game. But if you lacking clarity, the thing you do is hit hard, hit flat, hope that it goes through. And it's the worst thing you can do against Avensia. And granted I didn't see the match, I wonder what you think about aunts.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, same thing. I just think that she's lost the clarity and the confidence in what she's doing. Look, I think I'll assess more about her tennis after Charleston that she won last year. If she doesn't do well that week, then you start thinking, okay, what's going on. And obviously she plays great on clay, so well, I'm not as concerned about her yet, but certainly it's a disappointment because she has not done well for a while now.

00:13:50
Speaker 1: So she's in a really tough section. Though she is awaiting, so she has a buye in the first round of Charleston and she's awaiting the winner of Danielle Collins and Paula.

00:14:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's wrong.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is what happens so often in tennis. You lose confidence, you lose a few matches a future go wrong, and all of a sudden, it seems like everything goes wrong. Yeah, like everything conspires against.

00:14:14
Speaker 2: Get a bad draw, get a bit of an injury, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, we'll see. But as I said, well, we'll make it a suspend more so, I think after on her favorite service, Yeah, on her favorite services. Also, Rebekna coming back. She's look had these emotional ups and downs and the sickness and whatever it is, but she came back, battled in this tournament battle to get to another final. Got to give her a lot of credit. But I did tweet out, And I know I'll get in trouble for this because I've given him shit in the past about you know, his negativity and stuff. But her coach. If I had a coach, when I looked over and I was missing my best shot and she was struggling with her backhand, like that's her best shot by far. If I look over and my coach is gesturing on a regular basis and showing, you know, the people, he has a tendency to talk to everybody in the player's box. I don't know why he wants to tell them all what's happening and what she's doing wrong or what she's doing right, or when it's good. And I remember the Ustralian Open when she got that match point against when she lost to blink Over, and I remember there was one match point, maybe her sixth match point or something, and they all started laughing in the box because they were like, Okay, this is it. Now we're finally going to win, right And they all laughed. They were all laughing in the box, and I'm like, never in my fing life, as a coach or as a player, am I laughing until the match is over. And I remember thinking that, I'm like, why are you laughing? Like, yeah, chances are she's probably gonna win the next point, but chances are she might not. So you can't. You cannot have these emotional ups and downs on a tennis court. And then to look over in the final when she was struggling a bit and he's gesturing with her back with the backhand, like showing I'm moving my arms like gesturing a backhand if I'm having a problem with my backhand, And I look over and my coach is gesturing with a backhand. I'm like, I fucking know, I know I'm missing it, Like, why do you need to keep I want to look over and see my coach go, you have the best backhand in the world. You got this, you got this. I remember with Sam, for example, she would miss some forehand returns and she said to me one time, she goes, don't tell me too much with it. Just tell me you got this. You've got this, And that's all you want to hear in these very stressful moments that you got this. You're great, You're gonna be okay. I don't want to look over and see my coach gesturing and basically letting everybody in the entire stadium know, yeah, I miss in my backhand and it's shit today. Like, I don't know how she does it. I don't know how she deals with the negative coming out her way. But my god, it doesn't help. It does not help. But I give a credit because God, she keeps her shit together because of it, because she's such a great player. But I just keep thinking, God, if she had someone on the side just being super positive with her, maybe she would win a match like that. Maybe she would dig herself out of a hole. I don't know.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: Well, she definitely played the match of the tournament. It was the best f women's match I've seen in a long time. I think it was the match of the whole year as of now. Elena rebeccinham Maria Sakari, Oh yeah, what in the world. They were hitting the crap out of the ball. They were playing so well, they were serving well. It was like next levels.

00:17:29
Speaker 3: It's not like.

00:17:30
Speaker 1: Tennis from the future or something. And I was like, oh my god. And the same day, the same day on Tennis Channel, Prakash called sacchary as the winner and and I normally agree with him, and I said, ah, and I don't like they can't be contrarian, so I normally just go with it whatever. But I really felt like tane I was going to win, and I said, I have to be a contrarian here and disagree. I think Rebecca I will win. And I was never this nervous during a match because I just hoped I was going to be right.

00:18:02
Speaker 2: And I was, yeah, that was next level.

00:18:06
Speaker 3: That was insane.

00:18:07
Speaker 2: And you know when two players like that, they were both very liked on the in the locker room, very liked onto There's not one player that could say something bad about either of those two players. They're both great kids, they both worked their asses off. They they're just good kids. And they battled and they walked to the net, and the way they shook hands and the way they looked at each other was almost like that was a great match. It was, No, that was a great great I think the best match of the year.

00:18:34
Speaker 1: I think it was as of now, I think it was obviously the and the other great match was again Rebucca with the blink over.

00:18:42
Speaker 3: That was the drama of it, right.

00:18:44
Speaker 1: The quality was not as high, but the drama of a thirty eight minute tibreak is insane. I forgot about that, yes, but how could I quality wise from first point to last for three almost three hours, two hours fifty one or whatever it was was absolute insanity. But it sapped a lot of energy of Elena. She played all all tournament long. She played these two and a half hour matches two hour forty. She was sick and anyone, so she couldn't really practice for a few days, so she was struggling. And then when she found her stride against Madison Keys, she looked really good, so such clean hitting, and I was like, oh, she's going to win this tournament, she looks like so good, and then the match against Sakkari.

00:19:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, was like, it's just next level.

00:19:29
Speaker 3: It was next level. It was so good, but it took a lot of out of her.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: But even if it hadn't, she faced somebody in the final that was on a mission.

00:19:39
Speaker 2: On a mission. Before we get to Danielle, though, can I just I teeted you, I texted you. I don't need to tweet to you. I texted you about Yeah.

00:19:47
Speaker 1: I don't give my number to Renee. We have a podcast together, but she doesn't have my number.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: Madison Keys's got to be the most frustrating person in the world to coach. And I say this with total respect and love for Madison Keys because a great kid, an amazing hitter of the tennis sport, like nobody hits the ball harder and bigger. But boy or boy, she frustrates me because in the biggest moments in both sets against Rebarkina, Rabekenna would hit a great return down the middle of the court or deep into the court, and Maddie Keys is trying to hit an inside out or down the line, forehand or backhand off of that shot and missus it wide and It's like, oh, the two times, the times that she lost her serve, all she has to do is think that's a great return coming at me. I've got to rip this down the middle of the court. Like I cannot go to the line, I cannot hit over the high part of the net. I've got to be disciplined and go back cross court or through the middle. No, not Madison. She tries to hit the hardest shot in the history of tennis off the most important points. I don't get it. I don't get White. I mean, at twenty, you get it, right, because you know twenty as a teenager, you just a dummy, right, You just make the dumbest decisions. But now your Grandslam finalists, multiple Grand Slam semi finals, multiple Grand Slam quarter finalists, You've got to figure out a way to hit those balls in the court. And I don't understand how she hasn't figured that out yet.

00:21:15
Speaker 1: Well, Maddie was injured. We give her dad. She had the shoulder injury in the first few months. Because I really liked what I saw during during the US series last year, and she had a sneaky good year. She won Eastbourne, she played quarters in Wimbledon. She played Semis at the US Open, so she had a sneaky good year and in the US Series Fratangelo, her fiance Bjorn, he started coaching her and I could see a difference, and I was like, oh my god, she's finally listening, so I will give her dad. So let's give her a few more weeks to adjust with the injury. She hasn't played it. She has only played three four.

00:21:51
Speaker 2: Met former champion of Charleston.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: But she's nowhere near as frustrating as Caroline Garcia, the most frush at She is the best server on the wtator. I'm not just throwing it out there. Her and Rebeckena are on position one and two in every single serf department. So first percentage points one, second percentage points one, service games one, they exchanged one and two in every single department, right, So her and Rebeckena are statistically speaking, the best servers return. Garcia is ranked outside the top hundred. I swear to god, we were looking at these stats. It was Martina Navratilova, me and I don't remember who, and we was looking at these stats and we couldn't believe our as she's ranked one hundred and four in return stets on first serf points one and she's ranked ninety seven ninety seven on second return points one for the last six months. And she refuses to take a step back. She refuses and against the In the match against Danielle Collins, give me, she won only one single point on the Danielle's first serf, one single point the entire match, and her coach before that point that she won, her coach got up and screamed at her.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: What do you scream?

00:23:10
Speaker 1: Go back a step putah, go fucking back, take a step back. She took a step back, she made the return, she won the point, and then she went back to the baseline and lost the next twenty seven points on first serf that Danielle played. And I just if you are if you are standing there and you're winning matches, sorry, and you're winning points, and you're ranked in the top twenty, and this is the way you play, more power to you. But you're a top twenty player who can barely make a return game. You have to ask yourself, what is happening.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: That is crazy. That's a crazy stat Thank you for that. And you know, if you're coach and you're seeing that, and you're saying that to a play and they're not responding to it, like, oh, maybe I should change my positioning on the return, or maybe you should try something different. Then you don't deserve to matches because why have a coach, Like, honestly, that's just crazy. Anyway.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: The thing with her is that, and I said it a few times. The thing with her is and I think that's her problem. She still wins matches because, as we just mentioned, she's one of the best service in the world, and if she somehow gets to a break point and her positioning is threatening and somebody serves a double fault, she will win the match because she serves so well that it's really hard to break her. And you will see she wins oftentimes matches six four sixty four, one break each. You know. However, the problem is this type of player has never gone further than quarterfinals in a Grand Slam tournament. Why is that, or maybe she made semis at the US Open ones, I'm not sure, but why is that? She should have had five Grand Slam titles. And the reason is if you play this high risk of a game during a fortnight of a tournament, a major tournament, is two weeks long. You will have a bad day and other players w on a bad day, and Garcia loses every single time. And that's why she's never won a Grand Slam, because with the talent she has, she should be a multiple major tournament.

00:25:10
Speaker 3: Or at least have one.

00:25:11
Speaker 1: One. Yes, but I think that's her, that's her problem because on a seven days you saw it. You can catch lightning in a bottle in seven days. And then when she plays well, she's done it. She's done it because she's yes, because she I mean she won Cincinnati from Qualis and it was like she was serving so and that's the thing. She saw the ball so big. She was in such high confidence you couldn't break her, right, and so when you can't break her, she will break.

00:25:37
Speaker 3: You at one point.

00:25:39
Speaker 1: But it's such a high risk game that if you do have a bad day, it's really hard to win a major tournament. And I think this is the standard I'm putting to Garcia. I'm not putting a standard of a random top twenty player. I think she should be a major tournament winner and she isn't. And it frustrates me because you were talking about frustrating players, because I do think if she could just she doesn't even have to be top ten in the return games one because she's such a good server.

00:26:06
Speaker 3: It's enough. If you're forty.

00:26:07
Speaker 2: Five, I think you're annoyed because you were such a great returner and your serve let you down sometimes that you would have given your left arm or maybe a left pinky, because you need your left arm to hit you're two hand to have her serve.

00:26:24
Speaker 1: Well with both of that's absolutely true, and with both with Madison Keys and Curly and Garcia, they are five hundred times more talented than I ever was, and so I had to do everything right. And then it frustrates me to see these players who don't do everything right but are still better than I ever was because they have more talent, and it's unfortunate. But in tennis it's a meritocracy. You either have talent or you don't.

00:26:49
Speaker 3: You can't.

00:26:50
Speaker 1: I can't magically, I can't create a magic potion and drink it and become the best tennis player in the world. I did the best I could, and I'm proud of that. But I never had there and some times when I watched I was like if I had an ounce of their talent. I would have been the number one player in the world for ten years because I had to do everything correct in order to keep up with the best in the world, even for a little bit of a short period of time. You know.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, anyway, so let's get to our girl, Danimal Danielle, we call her Danielle Collins. How great was those ten days for daniel Collins?

00:27:27
Speaker 3: Iconic?

00:27:28
Speaker 2: She speaks to hell the last three years, four years, the endometriosis, the rheumatoid arthritis, She's got lots of issues going on order immune disease, like you know. She won the Australian Open, and something that I thought was interesting yesterday she thanked the crowd she lost. She literally the longest speech of all time. But we'll get to that. But she lost in the Austraian Open. And I was there for that match courtside working and I think four or five maybe seven people well it were screaming for her, and she had this little band of guys as well, so she probably had about fifteen people cheering for her, and then the rest of the fifteen thousand people were cheering for Ash Party And every time Ashbarty would win a point, it was like the roof when it's the loudest I've ever heard rod Labor Arena. Ever, then Daniel Collins would doing a point it was crickets, like, I've never heard a stadium so quiet. Because Australians are pretty we're parochial, but we're also very fair. It's kind of like the English.

00:28:30
Speaker 3: It's like a great sports country.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: They know how to respect sports people like I always say it as an example, when you have an uncourt interview with a player. In every other country, people just leave because they want to see other matches. Australians always, like every single person stays for the uncourt interview.

00:28:46
Speaker 3: It's insane.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, we like our sports and we're fair, but that Australian Open was different, so unfair. And you know, look, I don't blame it's austray And Open and it was ash party and it's the first time Australiana won for thirty years or something so or more and so I get it. But she must have felt so amazing playing that final yesterday because the crowd were going bonkers for her and it was so nice for here for her to hear. She grew up three and a half hours drive up the West Coast of Florida in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Not wealthy, very poor, family busting her ass. Went to college because she probably had no means really to go on the tour, and it's very expensive to be a tennis player. She goes, she plays college, she dominates in college, she plays great, she changes colleges, like she's had a bit of a interesting way to get into professional tennis. Then she comes out in the Townis tour and does pretty well, like plays well, and she's got that attitude and hotspone that come on then the whole thing. And then I feel like she had that the sickness and the you know, issues with the surgery, with the endeme traces, and then when I saw her play in the last few years, she didn't have that same fire. And I spoke to her about it, and I think she realized that she didn't want to be seen like that on the tennis squad anymore, or seeing like this, you know, hot head and sort of loud and brash American and all this stuff that can come with Daniel Collins of five years ago. And I think she's kind of like got really calm on the court, and I think it hurt her in some ways, but I think it's taken her a long time to get to the point and that you could see it here where she still had the fire, but she was super calm the whole time.

00:30:23
Speaker 3: She was incredible.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, until the last game when then we saw danimoll come out where she was like scream in her box, like talk to me, and then she's like shut up, sit down. It was like they didn't know whether to stand up, whether to sit down, whether to cheer for her, whether to not say anything. It was classic, and it's it's something as a tennis player we both knew because we were both pretty volatile on the court, or we'd get fired up where you're like, it's got nothing to do with your players box. It's just you're so stressed out.

00:30:50
Speaker 3: You just need to let it out on somebody.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: And you're the one. You're the people sitting there, so you're gonna cop it. And it was classic Danielle Collins last game and she hits the most amazing backhand cross got to win the match, and she just played unbelievable, believable.

00:31:11
Speaker 1: She lost the first set of the tournament and then she didn't lose more than three games until the final per set. It was like she was a less Yes, she was a level above every single person against curling Garcia too. Like even in the rallies, like in the beginning we were saying, oh, you know whose forehand can hold up better? Because both us struggling on the forehand. Danielle was overpowering Garcia over the backhand side and that's really hard to do.

00:31:40
Speaker 2: Is probably one of the greatest back ins ever.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. But she was just like the thing was she When she has a bit of time, she's always incredible. But even on like the quick hard shots that I played with a lot of depth and flat when she can be a little late because she has these big swings. She was seeing the ball so early she was there, she smacked it right back and then she had this really nice little change of rhythm. Not that she plays with the change of riddom, but she has this little angle with the back hand, so sometimes she would just go like whoops with the flick of the wrist and cross gourd.

00:32:14
Speaker 2: That I don't know so many big service don't use it enough. She was using the body serve more than any player I've ever seen over the last couple of years. She played it unbelievably well against against Alexandrova. She served that serve one hundred times like Alexandrover, couln't get out of the way. And for anybody out there that has a player serving to your body, take a half a step back, just half a step back. It makes the world.

00:32:38
Speaker 1: You say there to Caroline, Carol, she did the same against her. And the thing with Danielle's surface and it's interesting because she can also serve kick, but she has a great slize and the way she serves the body serf, she hits it as hard as she can, but with a tat bit of slize, and so you think you're in place, but then it moves just into your right tip. And if you play tennis and imagine a ball coming to your right hip, you cannot do anything. You can move out of the way to hit a backhand, and the forehand you're so close to your body you can't swing, and you always give a short ball. And if you give Danielle a neutral ball, the toast.

00:33:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's actually a serve. It was one of my best serfs. I love Danielle and I serve pretty similarly. I love the flatty like pancake flat serve. When I was serving at my best, I could hit the slider pretty well, and I love the flat one. But then I used to hit this and I hit the body serve a lot under pressure because I could smack it as hard as I could and I knew.

00:33:34
Speaker 1: And sorry to interrupt you, this is really important if you listen to Renee, but also listen to me. If you are going for a body serf, you have to hit it because the one thing you want you want what you want to do with a body serf, you want to jam the other person. So if you just slice it and they have the time to take a step back and hit it, you're dead. So that's why I take an example in Renee and in Danielle. You have to hit smack the ball. When you hit Buddy.

00:34:00
Speaker 2: Snacket, I love to hit that shot because I either got a mistake off the return, which a lot of these girls, in particular on the forehand, a lot of the girls don't like to hit that one. Or I got a short ball and for me, as somebody was serving and volling and coming in, I got a ball that was high. Often and also that it was very hard for them to hit a winner, just a straight up winner. Unless you don't hit your spot on the server or you don't hit it hard, then you're a bit dead. But it's a serve that I think she used beautifully all week. And Alexandrova, who took out Eager She Ontech, who we didn't even talk about, I mean, Ego, that was just anyway. There was too many other people to talk about. But certainly, you know, coming off of winning Palm Springs and then losing early, she's going straight onto the clay. She's going to be fine. But so that's why we're sort of didn't really talk about her very much. But I just want to give so much credit, so much kudos to Danielle because to finish that match off the way she did, and to hang in there in that last game because it was she was up thirty love and she kind of got a bit tired on the forehand. She had a short poin and she hit it straight to Rebuccina and they gone down a break point and that's when all the drama started. But just well done, Danielle, Like well done. She's going to retire at the end. Of this year, and a lot of people keep asking why why, you know, especially now they're going to be like, why would you retire? Are you playing great's? She has two very chronic diseases and in some weeks you talked about it in Austin, she like just fell apart. Yeah, because her body fell apart.

00:35:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah. I was calling Austin and we were like, oh, Danielle Collins is winning this tournament. She was so much better than everyone. She was playing well, she had won a lot of matches already, she was playing well in the Middle East, and then she wakes up on quarterfinals or even I think second round, and she had a flare up and you could just see she was in pain. She didn't sit down on changeovers. Her back was hurting, then her hip was hurting, then her knees were hurting, and she ended up retiring I think in the in the quarterfinals, or maybe not really playing at her best. And that's what happens. And the thing is with that. I never had an autoimmune disease, thank god, but I know a few of my friends who have it, and it SAPs you mentally and energetically because you wake up every morning and I had chronic knee pain, which was obviously not the same but similar in the sense that I woke up in the morning the first thing I did was not like, Oh, I have to pee. I would wake up and test my knee and be like, oh okay, Oh today's bad today I can't practice what I planned, or oh great today I can practice. And that times a billion is what an autoimmune disease as a tennis player or as an athlete, as a pro athlete, where you're like, can I practice this week? Can I play this week? Or will I be in bed for the next five days? And that's just horrible, And it's septs you mentally and energetically and emotionally, just the ever questioning can I do it or can I not do it? And so I think that's part. I think that she never mentions it in that way, but I do think that's part of what she wants.

00:36:50
Speaker 2: To get pregnant. And there's all this sort of stuff that. Look, the bottom line is I'm so happy for her that she now can walk away from this game. Maybe at the end of the day, maybe she'll change her mind, She'll have found some magic potion that helps her. You know on a weekly basis, I don't know. But if she does retire at the end of this year and puts her rackets down at thirty thirty one years of age, gets you know, married, has kids, whatever, and is happy, good for her that she was able to say, you know what, I was a pretty fucking good tennis player, and look how well I played, made a finals of a Grand Slam, and I won a w taen one thousand, and not just a random w teen one thousand, not like a Gudalahara where like two people go sometimes and play like no offense to Maria Sakari who won that last year, but like everyone was no there was barely anyone there. Everybody played Miami.

00:37:36
Speaker 1: And beating Elena Rebuccina in the final exact a Grand Slam champion, all.

00:37:40
Speaker 2: The players she beat through the whole tournament was fantastic. So Danielle, we're giving you a fist pump a well done because.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: And I have to say one more thing about her personality. I always liked her because what I liked about her is she was very authentic and very true to herself. And this is what I want to circle back to. When Daniell came on tour, she was not well liked, neither by players nor by fans, and now she has icon status. And that's just my appeal to people and to tennis players who come on tour, but generally really as people that sometimes the others have to come around to you if you are true to yourself, That's what I mean. Like in the beginning, people were like taken aback because she was loud and yelled in your face and wanted to win and was feisty. Now everyone likes her and all the fans there is so much outpouring love for her because she always remained true to herself and people will come around when they see that's who you are, and you go girl, and.

00:38:38
Speaker 2: You know, look, she has definitely calmed down a lot on the court, there's no doubt about it. And I think she's matured in that way. But she also came out of playing college and you look at Peyton Sterns, who's going to take over from Daniel as far as the same sort of personality, and it's they've come out of college and constantly, if you've ever gone to watch a college match, they're constantly yelling and screaming at one another, Go five, go four, like y, you know whatever, Go Gators, go, you know, game cocks, go.

00:39:04
Speaker 1: Just go watch a college match. Like the first time I saw that, I was dying of laughter because after every point it was like fifteen all and the teammates would jump off the bench and run on the court, and I was like, what is happening here? This is the atmosphere they come from, And so of course you're going to bring that to the tour and be surprised that the others are not doing that.

00:39:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you're a really good player in college. So you're like, well, this is what wins me matches. And I think she's learned through the last few years that oh I don't need to necessarily be like that, but what she needed to be was karma, and that's what has.

00:39:35
Speaker 1: Won the combination right now in Miami was the perfect combination of you heard the legendary commands, like I venture to argue that there was one against Garcia that was maybe the all time number one where she like did an half ivanovitch lifting the knee up and then a half like pulling back the phils and yelling commands. So there was like a lot of things mixed milanched into one. It was so beautiful. I loved it. But with the calmness in between, yeah, right, and if and she found the perfect mixture for herself where she has the feistiness but also a certain kind of zen within her.

00:40:12
Speaker 2: And one thing to remember if you are raising a tennis player, or you listen to this podcast and you want to aspire to be a professional, if you're a feisty person like Danielle Collins, like I was, like you were, you know, on the court, remember to use those moments to change the atmosphere of a match, right, Because when Danielle Collins maybe you know, it's kind of calm, calm, come and then goes come on that one time. As an opponent, you're like, oh shit, right, So use those moments of feistiness at the right time because it can influence a match big time. Right. So just and never lose sight of who you truly are. You don't want to lose who you truly are when you're playing a tennis match, but you want to control the controllables. And also if getting upset is hurting you, then that's a bad thing. But don't lose the feistinness when it matters, and that's a big lesson that I think Danielle's leaned through the year. So well done to Danielle Collins. I'm super super happy for her. All Right, let's flick over to the guys. I mean, come on, yan Nick Sinner. He just destroyed Gregor Demetrov today. But before we get to that, ol Choraz losing to Gregord Dimitrov. How happy are we for Gregord Demetrov? Before we get to Gregole, Let's talk about Andy Murray a little bit though, because you know, unbelievable a couple of matches that he played, that three hour twenty match and then he ended up losing to Marshak mahuch. This guy is unbelievable. Then his ankle's fucked up. Now he's hoping obviously to try and get back from Wimbledon, because I think that's going to be the last time we see him on the tour. He's sort of really saying now that this is it, but how many how much do you just love this guy? And when he won that match prior to losing the one he did, I said, this is why he still plays. He goes out and he's throwing his fist in the air and he's jumping in the air and the crowd's going crazy for him. I just you can't not admire the guy. And hopefully he's back with this ankle injury now for Wimbledon.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: I think he will be. I mean, it was super unfortunate. He twisted or rolled his ankle and two ligaments are torn. So he will be out for a few weeks. But hopefully it's not a ligament injury that requires surgery, because that can take you out three months. If it's not that bad, he can get away without a surgery and he might be even back in five six weeks. Actually I had it once where a tour where a tour two and I was back after five six weeks. When I did all three, I had to have surgery and it was like a whole ordeal.

00:42:38
Speaker 3: So let's hope it's not that.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: But what I will say from a fan perspective, I was in Miami when Andy Murray played. All the courts were packed and the atmosphere always rang all over to the stadium court where we were like, oh what is it? Oh, yeah, Andy Murray is playing. Fans know what they get when they buy an Andy Murray ticket. They get a great tragedy and somebody will die at the end of a match, and most of the times it's Andy Murray unfortunately, or his fans or one of his fans, and it's unfortunate, but it's true. And so that's why it's like the discussion of first of all, his ranking is good enough to not need Wildcats anymore, but the discussion of not giving Andy Murray Wildcats like that is the one ticket I would buy as a fan. I will get a guaranteed four hour match no matter what happens, and somebody will like cry, count.

00:43:30
Speaker 2: Me in, count me in, count take my money for Andy Murray. Every single time. We love you man, get back hopefully healthy. As we said, we want to see the best Andie Murray we can see at Wimbledon, because I have a feeling that might be the Swan song that he sales out onto and it would be fantastic to see him do well there, and so we're just we're thinking of you, Andy and hopefully you're back as strong as ever for those tournaments. Actually something that we did forget and I know we're flipping that to the chicky babes, but Cocoa Golf. Again, like we've sort of talked about this a little bit, but you know, since since the US Open. Look, she played a great match of the ustral And Open and that was definitely the match sort of other than the rebekin a blink over the drama.

00:44:14
Speaker 3: There was the drama.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: Quality wise, there was quality was great. The quality between golf and Zabalenka was the best match of the women's tournament. You want to say right at the Australian Open.

00:44:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it's at certain points in that match. But she has been struggling and you know, we've talked about peer Reba, his influence over her on the forehand in particular, he was working really hard. We've talked about it before. How Brad you know, doesn't really want to change too much about that. But the thing that I'm really yes, the forehand, the forehand, we can talk about the foehound till we're you know, old and buried, but it's the second serve for me that she's struggling with. So there is there are certainly two things that are glaringly giving her problems that other players in the top ten in the world do not have those glaring except Gussie's return of sef But Gusia, you know, has this great serving motion and wins most of her service games. Was Coco, I just don't know what's going to happen anymore. She's gonna double She's gonna double fault ten times match, and that's giving away two or three games on your serve. If you're not returning unbelievable, you're gonna lose those matches against the types of players. So Coco has got to figure out something with the second serve. The motion is a disaster.

00:45:26
Speaker 1: It wasn't this bad. It wasn't as bad as it was in Indian Wiles. But still she hit only three double faults against Carol and Garciana three three set match. The only thing that was a little bit concerning to me was she the first two sets were actually amazing against Caroln Garcia. Carolyn was playing incredible in the first set. She was just so aggressive, taking the balls early, rushing Coco and Coco without and we have we have the microphones in the boxes so we can hear what they are saying, and Bratt was not saying much. And Coco on her own figured out that she has to play differently. She didn't have any depth, especially on her forehand. And in the second set she started we had the stats, she started playing ten inches higher. I don't know in inches, but the centimeters. It was like ten centimeters higher. Then in the first set, and what does hight do? Height gives you depth, and all of a sudden she won six to one or six to two the second set really easily. And then what was And this is what I admired about Coco's game always. She reads tennis incredibly, She's so smart, she has such high tennis like you, and she's able to adjust. And that's what being a tennis player is. You constantly adapt. You adapt to new conditions. Every week, you adapt to new playing styles. Then you beat somebody, then you play them the next week they have changed their game. You have to adapt again. So what you are as a tennis player is basically somebody who consistently has to adapt and change and grow and do something differently. And Coco is the master of it. She's so good at it. And of course she's a word we talked about and all we talked about her being an incredible competitor, in my opinion, one of the best on the tour. Maybe the best with Caroline Bosniaki. But in the third set against Garcia, she went back to playing flat and that was so strange to me, especially on the forehand side, because that's the one thing we talked about it many times. When she has the height on the forehand, it's really uncomfortable to play her. I've played her multiple times because on the one side she hits the ball and on the other it jumps over your shoulder and you're like, ah, what do I do? And that was really strange to me because normally she's so good in reading the game, and there she kind of lost clarity in that third set. That was the only observation I had. I have no reasoning or I'm not I don't have any consequences out of it, but that was interesting to me to witness because we have the stats and we saw that she went back to the first set again in terms of height over the net.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, so well, she'll be aware of that next time. But anyway, I wanted to throw that in there because you know, these are the big names in the women's game that didn't have the tournaments, So do.

00:48:00
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the ego as well? Or no?

00:48:03
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, it is what it is. She lost to a big hitter and she kind of freaked out a.

00:48:08
Speaker 1: Little, and it is we talked I don't know if we talked about this, but it's talked about all the time. It is so hard to win a Sunshine double, and because basically are playing two Grand Slam tournaments in a row more or less. A little bit it's a little shorter, but it's still a lot of tennis. And you hit a wall and sometimes you are lucky that you scrape by, and then for semis and finals you are there again.

00:48:33
Speaker 3: But oftentimes you hit a quarter.

00:48:35
Speaker 1: Yes, you hit a wall in quarters there like fourth or last sixteen quarters, you hit a wall. And if you're not lucky with the drawn, you play somebody that's on fire, like Ega played with Alexandrova or Coco played with Garcia, you will be out.

00:48:47
Speaker 3: And that's the problem.

00:48:48
Speaker 1: If you overcome these somehow luckily, then of course for semis and finals you'll be there, and you're the.

00:48:54
Speaker 2: Better player in most times. Ega is the better player in those semis and finals. Right, But speaking of a double Sunshine double, Alcaraz who looked unbelievable, but the courts suit Alcaraz and eager in Palm Springs so much because of the grittiness of the court. Then you go to Miami. It's faster, the balls are different, it's humid, it's it's just very different commission conditions. And like Lindsay Davenport just won Indian well so many times because she's from California, she used those conditions, could never do well in Miami. Same thing. So but Alcaraz, I mean, Greg God, Demetrov, how happy are we for that guy? I mean, he played unbelievable. He played so good against Alcarez. It was like just.

00:49:39
Speaker 1: Against against against That was even crazier to me because of the he had lost the last seven matches against Veref, So that was even crazier to me than the Alkoraz thing.

00:49:50
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of stuff there with them.

00:49:52
Speaker 1: Well, and and di Mitev said it against al Karaz, he kind of had no choice. It was like, I'm playing right now at this moment, you India, Well, so I played the most inforum player here. I have to do something special and it forced him but to do it again.

00:50:07
Speaker 2: A day later he lost the second set against Verev.

00:50:10
Speaker 1: Yes, and he choked in that second set, well, he had five to four, he was six four five four love thirty and he missed two four hands in the bottom of a net.

00:50:22
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, that's a choke.

00:50:23
Speaker 1: And you can say that now because he managed to win the third set and he didn't choke even a little bit.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: But he choked in that second set.

00:50:30
Speaker 2: He choked those points and he played a very tectically tactically terrible yeh tiebreak. And I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden he started playing every ball to the back end of Zev and he has the ability with a slice back end. He has the ability to hit the slice down the line. So as somebody who hit a slice a lot when I played, if you hit hard to my slice, I could slice it to my one handed backhand. It's very hard to run over there and hit that one hand back and against a two hander when they were like dominating you on that side. But the ability to be able to hit a slice back in like an ash party and just go book and hit slice down the line, then you're like, where did they go? They run over? Zverev's like six foot six to run over on his weaker side, He's always going to hit that back cross court to Grigor's best shot. It's like, why isn't he doing that? All of a sudden, He's like China slice back cross court, cross court again. I'm like, oh my god, you're going to his best shot. And then Zverev just controlled every single point in the backhand, and then in the third set he just played smarter again, played played the forehand. Oh my god. The break point where the ball hit the tape when he came into the net and he fell down and he made that on that is one of the shots of the year. To break it would be one thing if it was like fifteen or whatever, because listen, I've had balls come off the net and you know, I mean I made money from hitting reflexes at the net. So for me, it wasn't like, oh my god, but trust me, I was on the ground on that one because the import of that point when it hit the tape and he fell on the ground to make the shot, it was that was one of the shots.

00:52:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean there were so many things adjacent to it that you don't see when you just see the shot. It was the first time in two hundred and sixty weeks that he was back in the top ten. It was the first time in eight years or whatever that he beat two top five player back to back. It was the first time in five thousand years that he made a Master's one thousand finals, and so there were so many things on the line and that moment, so it's not just the ball hits the tape goes up and you're reacting to it. It's like, if I make this, I'm winning the smash and all this like red tail comes with it of it out.

00:52:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so incredible, well.

00:52:42
Speaker 2: Like so calm, so great. I'm so happy for this year.

00:52:46
Speaker 1: He was serving so well because his second serve is kind of shite, and he was serving really well, and he had a few, very very few where you could tell the old second serve was coming out where he just puts it in. It was like sixty eight miles an hour, and I was like, I can run faster than that. But but generally speaking, ninety five percent of the tournament, Grigo was serving so well. And not only he doesn't have he has a great serve, but he's not the fastest serve on tour, but his spots that's the almost like Roger Federer's.

00:53:18
Speaker 2: And that's the difference. And that's the difference. We've talked about it before we talked about al Choraz. Jim Coreers said that, you know, Alcaraz's biggest like downfall is the fact that he doesn't spot serve as well as the top guys, like you know obviously how Roger served, how Sinner is serving now, how you know all the big service is Vera. When he hits his first servey in, it's like it's spot serving, it's so good, whereas Alcaraz is about a foot from the sideline, whereas these guys are serving one inch.

00:53:47
Speaker 1: From the side.

00:53:48
Speaker 2: And Gregor that's where Greg got. But also I feel like Grigor's changed his forehand a little bit. And I give Jamie Delgado, his coach, a lot of credit because they've been together now for a couple of years and Jamie sort of oscillated between Andy Mut and Grigor and then so Jamie's with him all the time now, and I just give him a lot of credit. And he looks to me like he's changed something a little bit on his forehand, and as good as his forehand before was. I feel like there's something with the take back that looks a little bit different. And I think he's just playing with so much confidence now and I love it. And he comes into the net as much as anybody, and he's so good and he's fast, and he just understands how to move forward and I am here for it and.

00:54:28
Speaker 1: I love him. The biggest difference that it is to him when he's playing well and not well. And I've always said it when people come up to me like, oh my god, do you know Grigor Dimitrov, He's like baby Federer? And I was like, yeah, with the difference that Roger plays on the line and Grigor plays twenty feet behind the line. He looks like he plays like Federer, but it's like Federer.

00:54:48
Speaker 2: And also the serve, Yes, but he used to go in because I went, it's funny that you said that, but I went one time at the Austrain Open. I sat side on the baseline right so right where the tournament director sits, there where Craig Tyler sits. I sat there one time to watch him play, and I'm like, and I think he played Roger. So I was like, what is the difference between these guys serfs? Because they do similar action, like the whole thing, and I was like, oh, it's so obvious. Roger would land first and second serve about I would say, a good two to three feet inside the baseline. So when he's hitting his serf, heat is going for it, and he is, you know, the confidence that he has to get inside the baseline and stay there and then maybe get back. You could see it. And then as Grigor was serving, particularly the second serve, even the first serve, he would go up and hit the serve and as he came down he was landing on the baseline, on the baseline or maybe an inch inside the baseline. I'm like you, that is terrible. You have got to be inside the baseline hitting your serfs. Look at all the great serfs. Look where Arena would finish inside the baseline. He was going It was almost like he was going up hitting and coming down and going backwards.

00:56:05
Speaker 3: Yes, but I know why.

00:56:07
Speaker 1: You know why, because he was afraid to take the balls on the rise. He needs time, and that's why he would revert back and be trying. Yes, and because he's so fast he could get away with it. Now he's not Roger playing on the line, but he's playing many more shots closer to the line, and he tries to take them on the rise, and it looks like they've been working on it. He's quick up to the short balls. That's why it's also easier for him to come to the net because yes, so he has really I think the main difference in Grigo's game from when he's not playing well to now when he's playing really well is he's much closer to the baseline. He takes many balls on the rise, and so.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: And he comes in and you know what it is, He's finally using his speed in the right way, which is forward, not parallel. And so I decide twenty feet behind the baseline and just going, look, I'm really fast. I'm gonna run this down because he's not that guy. Look, it's one thing for Rafa or Medvedev to be twenty feet behind the baseline because they're counter punching.

00:57:10
Speaker 1: And then they step up on the bank and they don't have a one handed back and they don't have one. I mean, you had a one handed back in the fertile back you stage. Yeah, it is for your backhand, yeah for sure. Yeah, show your slice. If you try to hit a slice and you can't get him twenty feet behind the back. You have to float it and if it floats, the guys will kill it. But now he's taking it on the rise. He's taking the speed of the opponent, and he's like Stefie Grafted or Roger Best example, he's like fucking slicing it. He's not floating it, he's slicing it. And now even the guys who have good hands, they're like, oh, I have to go really underneath it, and you would see them four hands slice it back because it's so sharp. The way he hits it. It's just jeff it, yeah it. But he's really improved, like tremendously. It's not like one two aspects. They are like four aspects in his game, from serf to positioning to slicing to fourhand and all of that helps him organically come to the net more often where he was always good. And the combination of that is why he's deservedly in the top ten again and if he can continue this way, will be a contender at the biggest tournaments every single time. You do not want to have him in your drop absolutely.

00:58:23
Speaker 2: I think the key is because he's being a little bit more aggressive with his where he's standing on the baseline and how he's playing is that it's allowing him when he tries to get into the net and get these guys who are out of position, He's able to take three steps, maybe four, and be in a really good position at the net, whereas before he would have to take six steps because he was so far behind the court and try and hustle his way into the net, and these guys would pass him. I was a fuck, can't I can't keep coming in? Yeah you can, but you've got to start here, not way back there. So I think that's the difference, just his position in the court, he's hitting his back end. I think he's absolutely physically stronger than he was going through that long COVID situation, which we talked about already on the pod. So I think everything is falling into place perfectly for him, and I would love to see him make a Grand Slam final. I would love to see him have that opportunity again. Do I think he can beat the Sinners and Alcorazm's and Grand Flam Final over best of five? I don't know. I don't want to ever say no against anyone, because lightning in a bottle could happen. But I just love to see him make another Master's one tho thousand final because he deserved it so much this tournament. But my god, best player in the world right now. I know alcaaz one in Indian Wells, but I think there was something going on with Sinner a little bit in the final. And I also think that court is perfect for him. For alcoraz in Indian Wells, I think this court is more indicative of the US Open. I think Sinner is the absolute favorite to win the US Open and Wimbledon, and possibly at Wimbledon. I actually think the US Open maybe even faster than Wimbledon believed because the grass is so slow now and hard underneath, so it bounces high. But my god, Yanick Sinner, I mean he smoked Medvedev. I know Medvedev was tired because guess what, everybody, Yes, I love that you keep tweeting as this shitty draw once again. He is second on like almost every match. I think when he plays in the day now, he must be like, what's that up there? Oh, that's the sun, because the guy plays late every time, which doesn't help him when it comes down to playing the Yanick Sinners of the world or the alcaraz Is in the seventies and finals, but he gets a shitty schedule every time. But he got smoked smoked, I mean by Sinner and then Sinner smokes Grigot in the final. The guy is playing unbelievable and you cannot have a nicer guy winning matches. We're so lucky in tennis with these players we are.

01:00:49
Speaker 1: We are so I Yanick Sinner first of all, Swaggy Sinner, He's gotten a little swag to him.

01:00:55
Speaker 3: Good for him. Like I supported.

01:00:58
Speaker 2: Yannick Centronet Center, I fully.

01:01:01
Speaker 1: Support Swaggy Cinner. And the reason for that is a boy has become a man, and a man is now dominating the tennis world and the man's name is Swaggy Sinner and I'm here for it. So that's one number one. The other thing I will say is coaching matters.

01:01:17
Speaker 3: Darren K. Hill is a great coach.

01:01:19
Speaker 1: The reason why I say this I called the match against Greek Spor, who was playing absurd tennis. Yanick was not doing many things wrong. It was just that one day and gree Greek Sport can play. He has big serve, he can come to the net, he has a huge forehand. He was not missing his backhand. He has like he doesn't care. You can tell he's already put Novak one time to the brink of a loss at the Paris one thousand Masters indoors, so he knows how to play the big players. And he came out there and his backhand is weaker, and Yanick was attacking the back end, but it was not breaking down. He was just holding fast a set and a half and the rain came.

01:01:59
Speaker 3: He walked off.

01:02:00
Speaker 1: Until then Greek Sport had won eighty six percent of first and second serfs. He was serving out of the out of his ass, to be honest, and they come back and all of the sudden it drops to fifty percent. I'm like, hmm, I wonder why. I see Darren k Hill the next day and I'm like, Darren, did you tell Janick to cover the white surf and then? And Darren was like yes, but he got aced twice down the middle. I was like, huh, that's okay because we have the stats and I showed him.

01:02:26
Speaker 3: And he was like, oh my god. Yes.

01:02:28
Speaker 1: And so even though Jannick got aged twice down the tee because he was covering the sly serf. More it changed the complete out come of the match and him having the trust in Darren k Hill number one be being able to execute it, because that's a whole different story. You can I can cover whatever I want. If Greek Spore hits a serve at me, I can stand there. I won't return it, you know. So it matters to be able to execute number two and number three. He remained calm. He recognized and this is what I always tell people when you are losing, there is one single assessment. You have to make one single assessment. Am I doing something wrong? If the answer is no, wait for it, wait it out? Or is the other one And that's the second assessment. Is the other one playing really really well? And I have to accept it and continue to do my thing and hope that it ends. And that's what Yanick did. He waited it out and it broke down and Yanick won six to one in the third and after that I was like, this guy's winning the tournament Swedish center, or.

01:03:31
Speaker 2: Am I standing too close to the baseline on return? If my name is Caroline Gusia, So you're right, and you said it in the commentary. Actually when he was playing Greek School because I was watching that much, and you said sometimes you just have to wait it out when you're playing again. It's one thing if you're playing against Novak, yes, of course, and he's killing you because he's hitting the service spots. You can't get a free point on return because he's never missing one, and blah blah blah.

01:03:58
Speaker 1: Well that's the first assessment. Am I doing something wrong? As like am I tactically maybe? Like, first of all, am I just playing bad? And you can't do anything except for try better? But am I doing tactically something wrong? And if the answer is no, this is the match panere you prepared. I know this is his weakness and it's just not weakening today, then you have to continue and wait it out.

01:04:18
Speaker 2: And you'll hear coaches often say I've said this many times. I'm sure you said it many times to yourself in your own head. It's just like you yell to your player, just.

01:04:29
Speaker 3: She can't keep it up.

01:04:30
Speaker 1: That's like so many times my coach told me, like she can't keep it playing out of her ass ye.

01:04:35
Speaker 2: Like if someone said, you know, if you know that this person hits her forehand, cross caught you know eighty five percent of the time every single match, and then all of a sudden she's hitting seventy percent down the line off the forehand and she's making every one of them, and you're like, what the fuck. She's like, don't worry under pressure, and that's the key. Under pressure, they will always do what they always do, and that's the bottom line. And if they don't, that's what you say.

01:04:59
Speaker 1: Two go.

01:05:01
Speaker 2: And sometimes as a coach, Darren will understand this, when he got Ace twice down the tee, you go, too good, that's too good. You made him or her hit the shot. They don't want to hit under pressure, and if they can do that, that's when you can actually as a player, believe it or not, because it sucks to lose every time, but when you know that someone has beaten you with their weakness because it was too good, that's some time you can walk away and go the fuck, that was just too good.

01:05:24
Speaker 1: And that happens once a year maximum, maybe twice a year dead and this is what happened to Ega against Alexandrova. That's what happened to her. Unfortunately it happened twice. This Moscova and Australian open, but that a lower ranked player or for amateurs at home, somebody that you know that you're better than normally. You know that happens once or twice a year where you're like, accept too, just you just did it. I gave you everything I could and normally it breaks down. Today it didn't. And if Yannick had lost this match, everyone would have been like, oh my god, what's happening to Janick Cinner? But every single person watch the match would have been like Greek sports man.

01:06:03
Speaker 3: For him.

01:06:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I said, the.

01:06:05
Speaker 1: Worst is he would probably have lost the next round two and three and people and Probablemic would have come.

01:06:10
Speaker 2: I mean, it was kind of like blink over at this straight and open, you know, played the match of her life and then lost the next day. But listen, here's the bottom line. Yanick Sinner without question is the best player in the world right now on the men's side.

01:06:23
Speaker 3: There he did a little look a little tired today.

01:06:26
Speaker 2: For sure, it's normal. He's you know, the amount of great plays he beat in a row, and he played late and yeah, so there's no question. But Yanick Sinner without question is the best player in the world currently on the men's Tour. I know Alcarez one last week, but this guy has started the year winning the Australian Open, winning you know in Europe indoors immediately afterwards, and one of the things that I know I talked to Darren about after he won the Strain Open was he was immediately saying, yep, he's playing great, it's awesome. We just have to keep him focused on the next and wanting to keep winning. And congratulations to not only Darren, but who's his other coach? I always forget his name, the Italian, Yes, exactly, see see.

01:07:06
Speaker 1: They twenty two, I mean twenty two and one boyfriend is twenty two and one SWEGI Center this year.

01:07:11
Speaker 3: That tells you all.

01:07:12
Speaker 2: And he lost arguably to a guy that's could possibly win ten Indian Miles titles with al Karaz and so well.

01:07:20
Speaker 1: And we said, we commentated on this before. The difference right now before between Carlos and Sinners when they play each other, it's a lot of form of the day plus conditions and current calls. Though Carlos still has matches where he doesn't play his best and Yannick doesn't have those.

01:07:39
Speaker 2: He plays great all the time.

01:07:40
Speaker 1: Yes, he plays great all the time, and I repeat myself against Greeks, but he also played He maybe didn't play great, but he played good.

01:07:47
Speaker 2: He didn't play bad. There was no there is no exactly he's bad.

01:07:50
Speaker 1: And Carlos still has these bad matches.

01:07:53
Speaker 2: And I think, and I want to go back to the women just for one second before we end this, someone like a Rebackina who's coming off injury, injuries and sicknesses and all this sort of stuff. And she didn't play great, right, She was missing her backhand quite a bit, which doesn't happen. She wasn't acing all over the place. You know she's going to be I think she's the absolute favorite to win Wimbledon. In my opinion. I think she's the player to beat there this year. So if you're going to put on an early bet from Wimbledon, I would put it on rebarking because I think she's going to be really, really tough to beat there. And I just think the women's game is so healthy right now, and the men's is being dominated essentially by two guys in al Karaz and Sinner and Novak will be back, we know that for sure.

01:08:35
Speaker 3: And with the split with Goran and split with Goran.

01:08:39
Speaker 2: I mean, Novak's had splits now with his management company as Matt two managers that the two Italian husband and wife that were his agents forever, got rid of them at the start of the year, had a new team in place. Now Goran's gone. There's definitely something tumultuous happening in Novak Djokovic's life. I don't know what's going going on. And the cryptic tweet that he put out about Goran, you know this and that, and then he would be like he might not think about that way in a bracket, like in a parenthesis, sort of like a sly little passive aggressive comment about Goran, like I was. I read that like you wanted this, But clearly Goran was not happy, because I could just just from the tweet. I don't know. I haven't spoken to anybody. I'm you know, I could be talking completely out of my ass, But there's certainly something that's going on in that camp that's very tumultuous, and I don't know what it is. You might know more than me because you're so being connections. But there's something that's certainly not going right in Novak Djokovic's world right now, and so look, he's always bounced back from stuff, but he's also not getting any younger, so it's getting tougher. And these guys are getting better Yannick Sinner al KaAZ, they're not going away, so he's gonna have to come back and be at his best. Obviously, Rafa is going to hopefully come back and play some decent tennis on the clay before he goes off into you know, Mayoca Land and Sales. The season doesn't play tennis anymore, So we've got a lot to look forward to with this clay court season coming up here.

01:10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am fucking here for it.

01:10:13
Speaker 2: Me too, Me too.

01:10:14
Speaker 1: The only thing I will say what drives me insane, especially when I do watch the Rebeckna versus Soccery matches, that these our top five women are almost never playing each other.

01:10:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they keep losing.

01:10:27
Speaker 1: Yes, so every time like Soccery right now, in this during the Sunshine Double, she was a top five player. She was top five before, She was number three ranked player in the world before. Like when she plays this way, she's a top five player. She was a top five player. Rebecca, now we all know, is a top five player. They play each other and it's incredible level, Coco GoF and Sablenka at the Australia.

01:10:49
Speaker 2: That's what you want.

01:10:50
Speaker 3: It's incredible.

01:10:51
Speaker 1: They never play each other. How is this possible? It never We've had ten tournaments this year and we had two matches with top five women played each other. How is this possible? As you said in Germany, this outburst is me as a tennis fan. This is me as a tennis fan, not as a tennis expert, not as a former tennis player, as a tennis fan, because every time I see these matches, I'm like, oh my god, I'm like, this is the best thing ever.

01:11:17
Speaker 2: So this is what you want before we end this pod, because it's been a long one. You want the top women playing against each other more more often, okay, because we want these great matches and we want to see Novak back playing at his best. We want to see Rafa back healthy, playing some good tennis on the clay.

01:11:33
Speaker 1: And we want that the Animal to keep up.

01:11:36
Speaker 2: Her and we want the Animal to keep it going this year because she is always fun to watch and I love it and I was here for that last game was so Daniel Collins and I was here for it.

01:11:45
Speaker 1: And you know, what I'm also looking forward to. We didn't talk a lot about her, but we talked a lot about her during the Indian Wells episode. I'm excited to watch Ego and Clay again because I know that some finds her boring. I mean, I don't understand it because I feel like she's similar. And Erotics said it on his last podcast. It's a great podcast, by the way, Surf, not that you go away from us. You can listen to two podcasts at the same time.

01:12:11
Speaker 2: But but I mean, we're both profession we're all professionals. Really should.

01:12:17
Speaker 1: But he said it, really, he said it fantastically about Novak. Djokovic was explaining his game, like how it feels to play him and what he does and why it's so tough to play him, and he was saying that the way he plays doesn't maybe his genius doesn't maybe fully present itself to an untrained eye, but to a trained eye, to somebody who has played on this level, it's like, what this guy is doing is incredible. And Ega to me is similar in that regarded to an untrained eye, people will be like, she's the best in the world. But if you've played before, you're like motherfucker. Is she good and Clay is just her best. And so I'm excited to see her on Clay again because it's just when I watch her, I get actually goosebumps. Now I'm like, this is what I wished I could do. Yeah, you know, this is what I wish I could do, like the forehands from the center of the core, open flattism, just the like I'm excited for that to get.

01:13:15
Speaker 2: She does have to, I think, keep working on the surf. That's the one thing we talked about the life that you know, she's got to have to me, She's got to take away that pause in between the take back the TakeBack.

01:13:25
Speaker 1: Can she hire you just for service.

01:13:27
Speaker 2: Maybe just for sake eager.

01:13:30
Speaker 1: Not for service in a sense that you service herce tea in the border.

01:13:35
Speaker 2: But I would love to just help that service motion, There's no question about it. But I am available, eager. I know Daria listens to the podcast. She's actually quite a long listener to our podcast Sports Psychologists, So so I am available. I'm available for servs and volleys for anybody, you know, just throwing that out there. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. It was a long one, but we've had two or three four great weeks of tennis. The Sunshine Double is over. Congratulations to Danielle Collins and of course Yannick Sinner, well done. You're You're just two of my favorite people, so it was great to see you win. And also daniel Collins has been mentoring three young tennis players. And it's just little things like that that you don't know about Danielle. You kind of look at her. You either love her or you hate her. But I hope you love her because she's worth loving.

01:14:23
Speaker 1: And so is Yanick Sinner, Danielle the Animal and Yannick Swergish Sinner.

01:14:28
Speaker 2: And nobody has a tattoo inside their lip like Danielle Collins does.

01:14:33
Speaker 3: I didn't know that.

01:14:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, my god, I have savage. She's a savage. She's an akon and a savage.

01:14:39
Speaker 3: Yeh.

01:14:39
Speaker 2: We love her, So congrats to both. All right, guys, we will see you on the clay courts. We can't wait for it. Of course, Peko can't wait to see Eager crushing in on the clay as well. So everybody, thanks for listening to us again, and you'll hear from us real soon. Somewhere bye bye

01:15:00
Speaker 1: Fet