Daria Kasatkina

00:00:14
Speaker 1: Hey, Renee Stubs Tennis podcast listeners, It's me Caitlin coming to you with not one, but two solo podcasts. Renee cannot be everywhere at all times, as much as we all wish that were true. She was taping her show when I was out ahead of her at the BNP party bat Open, when we were activating our incredible space with our partners there at the tournament, So before she arrived, I got the chance to sit down with not one but two incredible people, both of whom I will release tonight as standalone episodes. The first one is Darya Kasakiina aka Dasha. She is a Russian player who got into the top echelon of the game for the second time last year she made the WTA Tour finals. She was fascinating to sit down and talk with, not least of the reasons because she is one of the very outspoken Russian players who has spoken out against Putin against the war. Obviously, it's a situation where not every player has the luxury of being able to do that or is willing to sort of leave it all behind. But it's really courageous to watch her do that, especially because she came out of the closet last year and talked about her relationship with her girlfriend, which we get into a little bit. I do want to give you a bit of a caveat my recorder and microphone had met but not yet fallen in love and become married, as you will hear in the next episode.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: So bear with is a little bit.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: There's some background noise, but really, really, what Dasha has to say is super fascinating. She talks about obviously the history of the tour. She gives me some marital advice. She's a really fun, multifaceted person. I loved sitting down.

00:01:46
Speaker 2: And talking with her.

00:01:46
Speaker 1: So here it is live from the B and P Parry about racket aces for Tree's tent on the grounds of Indian Wells. Are sit down with Daria Kazakina. Okay, so today on the show we have thank you so much for joining us, Sasha.

00:02:02
Speaker 2: I understand you've heard the show.

00:02:04
Speaker 1: Before, so you know a little bit about what we're up to.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, it's a little bit casual and a little bit I mean that's cool.

00:02:09
Speaker 4: I like this kind of you know, this format, So I mean, I hope it's gonna be a fun one.

00:02:16
Speaker 1: One of the things I want to talk to you about is you have had traditionally a very good tournament here.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: This is fun.

00:02:21
Speaker 2: It seems like a good place for you.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: What about the desert, what about the BNP carry about open makes you feel maybe comfortable that you can have you know, some of your better results.

00:02:31
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, at the beginning of my career playing here, I've had a few good runs. Yeah, then was a bit you know, ups and downs, plus the COVID here, so it was a bit weird.

00:02:42
Speaker 3: But I mean I like it here. I like to play in California.

00:02:46
Speaker 4: Basically, I've got good results playing here in San Paset for the past years.

00:02:50
Speaker 1: So.

00:02:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like to play, you know, in the dry conditions, not sweating much.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: And also the court's pretty slow.

00:02:58
Speaker 4: Courts are slow, but they both here with altitude, so yeah, I mean, yeah, the conditions are pretty nice. At the evening's super slow, so I may bee ple sure to play in the first part of the day.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: But this one you never know.

00:03:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, but in general, I mean almost never rains, so no delays, which makes it easier.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: So you like California generally, This is a good vibe for you.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: It's sort of like Spain, I guess.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: Right, No, no, no, in Spain it's super humid. Yeah, yeah, no, it's different.

00:03:27
Speaker 4: It's different, especially I mean in the morning and the late evening is very cold.

00:03:32
Speaker 3: Here is pretty freezing.

00:03:34
Speaker 4: I think it's very good for in general for your health. I think the conditions are much better than for example, Florida, where you're just constantly in the in the sauna, you know, and it's raining all.

00:03:47
Speaker 3: The time as well. So I think, yeah, the climate twise, it's better here.

00:03:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nice to be here.

00:03:53
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the last year you had. You had a great year twenty twenty two. You know, anybody who plays I only played college sentence, so I'm not a particularly good tennis player.

00:04:03
Speaker 3: No college than is good, okay, but.

00:04:05
Speaker 1: Everybody has their ups and downs, and you know, really having your last two years, coming back into.

00:04:11
Speaker 2: The top ten, winning a couple of titles, becoming.

00:04:13
Speaker 1: The Russian world number one, Like you've had a what what is the sort of last couple of months eighteen months or so, been like three.

00:04:19
Speaker 4: Emotionally it's been a roller course. The honesty is where too many things going.

00:04:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, going on, I mean on court and off the court in the world.

00:04:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean it's tough. Honestly, it's not just their room for tennis. In my head, I'm thinking about many other things. So, but from the tennis part, of course.

00:04:44
Speaker 3: I mean the last year was one of the best in my careerser part, and yeah, I've been working a lot on the comeback.

00:04:52
Speaker 4: Comeback, I mean come back back, yeah, kind of come back. And I mean it's very tough, and I think it's even more difficult to stay on this stage.

00:05:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:05:03
Speaker 4: One thing is to get there and another thing is to stay there. So it's now I've got.

00:05:08
Speaker 3: An other task. Yeah, I'm trying to complete it.

00:05:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's really for me. You've always been one of my favorite players because you look like a real athlete.

00:05:19
Speaker 2: I've heard you're a very good soccer player. Everyone talks about this.

00:05:22
Speaker 3: Well, it depends on the level.

00:05:25
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you could have played for BARSA, but yeah, you're probably on the turf field here.

00:05:29
Speaker 2: One of the better tennis players.

00:05:30
Speaker 3: Maybe, don't you think.

00:05:31
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe it's also because not many girls likes.

00:05:34
Speaker 3: To play football's yeah, maybe.

00:05:36
Speaker 4: We can compete with probably yeah, yeah, or play for the same team.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: Probably I would prefer that.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: I think that would be the most fun team ever.

00:05:44
Speaker 2: I would buy tickets to that team.

00:05:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would enjoy for sure playing like that. Yeah yeah, I.

00:05:50
Speaker 3: Mean I love football, not just to play, but to watch.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Well, you what I'm getting at is you're a real athlete, like you can tell. So you play tennis, you play like maybe it's a little bit more creative as somebody who likes to take a result. As an athlete, I don't have the most discipline on the court, and so for me it's I watch you and I think it's myself. She looks like she's having fun with the creativity. Does it feel like that in your head?

00:06:12
Speaker 2: Or maybe not so much?

00:06:14
Speaker 4: It was more before I was more creative. In the past few seasons, I've become more.

00:06:19
Speaker 3: Disciplined player.

00:06:22
Speaker 4: Because you know, we see the girls who are they're bigger than me, I mean the sense of stronger, are taller and stronger.

00:06:31
Speaker 3: They can get much more free points than yeah, I can have, So I mean I cannot just.

00:06:37
Speaker 4: You know, loose few points, making some drop shots and even not trying to go for a winner because it's just.

00:06:43
Speaker 3: Then so I do that.

00:06:45
Speaker 4: Plus the girls making winners and I'm not in the best position, so I have to you know, I had to change that a little bit and become more consistent player. But of course there's a limit for everything. So now I have again will become a bit more creative because just with discipline, maybe it's also not enough. But as I said, Raffa was saying that he has to improve every time. If Raffa has to improve, of course.

00:07:12
Speaker 2: Every one of us.

00:07:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, so always always, and you feel it well, for example, you go up up, yeah, and then you suddenly you may maybe not start to go down, but stay on the same spot.

00:07:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the moment when you have to think about.

00:07:27
Speaker 4: Him, what you have to maybe not to maybe change or maybe you just keeping focus on right.

00:07:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: On one of our friends podcasts, then getting kept on the cough said you have the best hands outside of John McEnroe.

00:07:40
Speaker 3: Did you know that?

00:07:42
Speaker 2: No, I feel like that's a that's a complement like.

00:07:44
Speaker 3: That, especially from me a guinea.

00:07:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I felt like, oh ship, because he's pretty critical.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: He's tough. Yeah, he's a tough guy. So yeah, I get it. I take it.

00:07:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't take it too. That's that's what help. So let's talk a little bit about the last year. It was so inspiring to watch you come out.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: I just have to say, as a person in the community, it was really cool. And I know that you probably had all sorts of fear and all sorts of complications that came with that. But can you talk a little bit about what has happened after talking about being opened?

00:08:19
Speaker 2: You know, how's the last couple of months been for you?

00:08:21
Speaker 1: It was July of last year that you gave that interview, like the last six months.

00:08:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know it was very complex interview.

00:08:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love you talked about a lot and then.

00:08:32
Speaker 4: The thing's been saying. Yes, I've got some consequences for that, of course, but I mean in general, I didn't regret any seconds. Good for what I was saying and just the best things what was happening inside of me.

00:08:49
Speaker 3: And I mean in the I'm lucky that tennis is quite very toleran.

00:08:56
Speaker 1: I mean, one things that we talked about in the magazine, so we make racket mega saying, we have podcasts and all this stuff. And one thing that I'm very proud of with tennis and I'm teaching my son and other generations is tennis is not perfect, but it has often been on the right side of history for inclusion. You know, our first LGBT athletes were very prominent in tennis. We have a good history and I and I have to imagine, especially how dangerous being openly gay, openly by openly LGBTQ is in Russia in particular. You, I hope it felt like you had a family.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: In tennis, and it feels like maybe it did a little bit.

00:09:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I mean, as I said, I've got just.

00:09:38
Speaker 4: Of course, there was negativit for sure, maybe somewhere, but I don't know.

00:09:42
Speaker 3: Why didn't I didn't face it good. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why.

00:09:47
Speaker 4: But if it's just the good things, the people they supported me, I mean, the relationship with the people.

00:09:55
Speaker 3: They didn't change, with the people, the close people to me. Yeah, so that was the most important thing for me, because.

00:10:04
Speaker 4: When you're in the closet, you I mean, you're scared of the reaction, sure.

00:10:09
Speaker 3: People, you you're.

00:10:11
Speaker 4: Scared to lose the people you love, the people you are a friend, because you never know how they're going to react.

00:10:16
Speaker 3: But I mean, in my case, I'm super lucky. I mean, and you.

00:10:19
Speaker 1: Also have a great partner who is also a very elite.

00:10:23
Speaker 3: Athlete and probably better than well.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that must be a nice thing to be traveling and with a person who can really actually understand exactly what it is that you deal with on a week two week basis, right, Is that a source.

00:10:36
Speaker 4: Of Yeah, that's very important because I mean it's tough because there are people who never did support the Yeah, but it's okay, yeah, never did support They're not from the let's see, not from this particular world. They just it's normal that they don't understand some specific things. Yeah, no, but teach them that they just don't know.

00:11:03
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm very lucking this way because not that.

00:11:05
Speaker 4: FA mean she she she was I think most of one of the most disciplined ever.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: I feel like figure skating makes tennis look very relaxed.

00:11:17
Speaker 2: Is that my impression?

00:11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:11:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, the price there is much higher as a mistake as much higher. So yeah, she's actually the one who is pushing me to drink what I means, yeah, you know, make me more disciplined.

00:11:34
Speaker 3: I mean I am quite disciplined, I must say, but she will assume it to be even more. I think in the gym she is working more than me still and she's retired already. So yeah, if.

00:11:49
Speaker 4: She can run more, probably she's a runner. I don't know, maybe she wants to run away, so just.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: In case, just in case, she's gonna happen.

00:11:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, she's still great form. She always wants to play tennis. She has opportunities.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: Teaching her how to play talent my coach.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: She's doing better than me.

00:12:08
Speaker 1: I tried to teach my wife how to play tennis, and it nearly maybe was added to a divorce.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, well we'll go to tennis camp together and you'll have your own coach.

00:12:16
Speaker 3: I'm a support them from that side. That's why videos making videos you can see Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean our.

00:12:24
Speaker 4: Life is stuff in this way that we're traveling all the time. I don't see her people like the family and everything.

00:12:30
Speaker 3: So we're lucky to have her around. That's you know.

00:12:34
Speaker 4: Uh, it's just make I'm very happy, make it make it better.

00:12:38
Speaker 2: I'm very I'm very happy for you.

00:12:50
Speaker 1: When you gave an interview to The New York Times, you made the tour finals last year, like I said, you'd break year, and it's so exciting to see as somebody was watching for a long time. What you said at the time, you hadn't been back home to Russia. Is that still true? You've not been back home?

00:13:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:13:06
Speaker 4: Last time I've been in Russia was in February last year, So was this tournaments and Petersburg. So the last memories of Russia wasn't actually great be there?

00:13:16
Speaker 3: So yeah, so it was February twenty twenty two and since.

00:13:20
Speaker 2: Then, Yeah, And any plans to go back anytime.

00:13:24
Speaker 4: To No, Yeah, honestly know because first of all, this situation, the war still goes on.

00:13:31
Speaker 3: I mean the it's just yeah, I don't want to I don't want to go there now.

00:13:37
Speaker 4: Fair First, A second of all, it's very difficult, it's not convenient. It's easier to kind.

00:13:43
Speaker 3: Of the way.

00:13:45
Speaker 4: To Russia right now, right, Yeah, plus the many things I've been saying, right, it's just now, it's just not the time to do it.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: But you are based I know you're a resident of Dubai, but you're mostly based in Barcelona.

00:14:00
Speaker 4: No, no, opposite, Yeah, yeah, I'm in Dubai.

00:14:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, practicing in Dubai and Barcelona is a place first where we go when we when it's convenient. So it's yeah, kind of a stuff because of my explosion. And he was Yeah, he was there.

00:14:17
Speaker 1: So I'm asking personally. I'm trying to get my wife to move to Barcelona with me. That's where I studied. It's a great place. I used to live there.

00:14:24
Speaker 2: I have a tennis court.

00:14:25
Speaker 3: I can talk to her.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: She's very stubborn, she's very very really in New York.

00:14:31
Speaker 3: In New York, Yeah, no, you have to move, I think so.

00:14:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you cannot compare. I know that if you're looking for something like relaxed, you know, like sunny, cheaper, cheaper.

00:14:47
Speaker 3: Yes, see, just the.

00:14:51
Speaker 2: Way I want my ocean.

00:14:53
Speaker 1: I want to play the tennis court.

00:14:55
Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean to leave maybe for business. New York is much better, but to leave Barcelona it's the best.

00:15:05
Speaker 3: It's the best way. Yeah, it's the best.

00:15:07
Speaker 2: I love it so much.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to ask you about it, just because it's so wonderful. And also I'm going to tell her that you said this, so now she has more. But she's very stubborn and she works for the City of New York. Yeah, so one day, maybe.

00:15:19
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, maybe. Yeah, it's difficult when you're working some place and it's very difficult to change. But I mean if.

00:15:26
Speaker 4: Once you go on a distant job for example, or that it's Yeah, I think to move to.

00:15:31
Speaker 3: Europe, it's so much, it's a very good thing.

00:15:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like for me, the openness of that city is what's so inspiring.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: I mean, New York is alually very.

00:15:39
Speaker 1: Open, but personally I feel like they really encourage creativity and I can imagine why you felt very comfortable there.

00:15:46
Speaker 2: You want to spend a lot.

00:15:46
Speaker 4: Of time there, you know, Yeah, the same I mean Italy, Yeah, but it is very nice. But as a tourist maybe, but to leave, I think it's Spain is better.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really great, but Dubai is more where you're spending most of years. Yeah.

00:16:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:16:01
Speaker 1: And then in terms of your own sort of mental you know, headspace, it seems like you're in a really wonderful place, like it's really fun to watch you, uh, you know, be you know, I don't want to say becoming an adult, but I'm forty too, so I feel like as an older person, I can say it's really fun to watch you sort of evolve, and it seems like you're playing with a freedom and a happiness that is very evident. And so you know, how do you how are you approaching this year? It seems like you're you know, enjoying the moments, and it would you say that that's kind of where your where your head is.

00:16:30
Speaker 3: Uh, well, enjoying.

00:16:32
Speaker 4: I mean there was a beginning of this season and I mean, uh, speak with the coach. It's never easy and all these things. Yeah, I was, it's struggling and you know, it's never easy. We've been working us for four years.

00:16:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now I have to change it.

00:16:48
Speaker 3: So, I mean you've got a habits, you.

00:16:50
Speaker 4: Have everything, everything and everything, and then you have to change it, you know, to get in touch with a new person and everything.

00:16:58
Speaker 3: So but everything's happening seven for better.

00:17:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:17:03
Speaker 3: So now I feel good and you know, yeah, enjoying, enjoying my time here, enjoying. You know, I realized it. I'm so likely to do that thing, which most of the times I love.

00:17:18
Speaker 2: No, anybody who plays tennis doesn't love it every single.

00:17:21
Speaker 3: Day, and for sure, if it's fifty to fifty, very good.

00:17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, yesterday I played terrible. I hated it. This morning I played very well. And I loved it. So you know, every day.

00:17:28
Speaker 4: It's a different experience on the word. I mean, I'm surrounded by great people and it's the most important and just you know, you always have to compare, like where you are and what's going on in my country for example, like yeah.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there's one more thing that I want to ask you, just because we happen to be in the B and P tent and they are lucky up to sort of I think put a lot of resources towards tennis.

00:17:56
Speaker 3: This is the.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Fiftieth year of the.

00:17:58
Speaker 1: Wtare do you think you know we talked a little bit about inclusivity. We talked about the fact that tennis is more often in.

00:18:06
Speaker 2: The good rather than the bad.

00:18:08
Speaker 1: Where do you think, as somebody who obviously is a very thoughtful person, tennis, Uh, sort of could could improve a little bit more in terms of you know, maybe some of the gender parody stuff do Where do you think?

00:18:19
Speaker 2: How do you think we're doing? And where can we go?

00:18:23
Speaker 4: Well, we we always talk in the players lounges.

00:18:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, we always have the same topics.

00:18:29
Speaker 4: Uh, of course, now it's the main topic is the.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: The same pay? Yeah, yeah, th men's of course I mean, I'm not stupid. I know that the men's de generate.

00:18:42
Speaker 4: For example, the five hundred to something, they gener more money, they get more money. But I think that we don't we don't get enough on the tournaments like two hundred and fifties. We don't have enough five hundreds. I mean, we don't have enough quantity of the tournaments. I mean, I don't think it's okay that we have a five hundred in Doha and the cut off it's twenty two. And I mean it's like a World Cup and yeah, the winner gets you know, a third of what?

00:19:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then yeah, and then you go.

00:19:14
Speaker 4: Same to playing Dubai's the same players, and then you go, okay, it's a big jow.

00:19:20
Speaker 3: You go Madrid, it's the same players. So why is that.

00:19:24
Speaker 4: It's more difficult to win Doha, Yeah, for example than the Madrid Dubai for example, and Dubai get buy Yeah, you get eight buys. Yeah, you can get the first round someone I don't know, I don't want to say, but not the twenty because for example, in Doha.

00:19:45
Speaker 3: I was as a eighth ranked, I was fifth seeded.

00:19:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, so first round you could get number fifteen who was unseated.

00:19:56
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, who's a tough.

00:19:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a final.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: Yeah. In Dubai, you see the drove Barbara.

00:20:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean a Grand Slam, you get easier.

00:20:07
Speaker 1: That's interesting, that's a good Yeah.

00:20:11
Speaker 4: Honestly, I think Okay, now we have like thousands, thousand dollars, very easy for fans. Yeah, for us, it's still struggle because not all of them are the same.

00:20:23
Speaker 3: Yeah. We have Indian wells, Miami, Madrid, uh.

00:20:28
Speaker 2: Used to Beijing.

00:20:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a masters yeah for mats. And then we have thousands which are lower. Yeah, people don't know about it, but with there is three three and a half times less price money.

00:20:44
Speaker 2: It's crazy. Cincinnati is one of them.

00:20:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a Cincinnati Rome Dubai. Yeah, all these tournaments and it's the same players.

00:20:55
Speaker 2: It's the same players.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: But also the joint events, the men's and womens together make the most. That's what fans want. I want the women's playing together. That's why these tournaments are I think are the best ones because they're there. You can see all the players and they're playing together, and it's a cool thing in tennis that you can see men and women on the same court. You can't see that at a you know, at a single single generalman to me, so it's a.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: Bit like I don't see the logic why.

00:21:21
Speaker 4: For example, that was Miami Madrid. Yeah, so they are able to generate the same prize money in the combined tournament, right, and for example Cincinnati.

00:21:32
Speaker 3: Rome, Yeah, and the couple of others, Yeah they're not.

00:21:38
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure they're able to. But just I don't know where it's like to use the problem.

00:21:42
Speaker 2: Right.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: Well, I think we maybe need a new Commissioner of Tennis, and I maybe think it should.

00:21:47
Speaker 4: Be you know, I'm not a you are.

00:21:52
Speaker 1: I think you've probably last year that you're very very unspoken and.

00:21:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you see, I'm good talking about.

00:21:59
Speaker 1: Well, then you get the other people to just do all the actual work.

00:22:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. Maybe I can come up with the ideas, but you do that idea. Yeah, but as we see, now we've got it.

00:22:07
Speaker 4: I mean two sponsors, yeah, yeah, better yeah, CBC.

00:22:13
Speaker 3: CBC, Yeah, Marilyn. Then yesterday I.

00:22:17
Speaker 4: Think another new comes up with a more than three hundred million.

00:22:20
Speaker 3: I want to see where this money goes.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: I want to see where this kind of goes too.

00:22:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we have to come up with this question. The problem is that it's too many players and not of and not which is normal.

00:22:35
Speaker 3: Not all of us are united.

00:22:36
Speaker 4: Right, So yeah, if it would be like Team Yeah, I mean Team Nobody would be much easier. But yeah, you know, it's always the same thing. I don't call anything if ten percent will not do it.

00:22:52
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic that a younger generation of athletes understands that the sport is stronger when people are together, and it's is I hope that's true, but you know, maybe I'm wrong, But it does seem like the you know.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: There's a little bit more cohesiveness between. Maybe that's not what you see in the locker room from the outside. It looks like it's getting better.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: From the outside. Yet maybe, yeah, for sure more.

00:23:16
Speaker 4: Than before when right, some of the players were not even practicing, you know with the other players.

00:23:23
Speaker 3: Before. Now it's different. We're all, you know, we're more more close now.

00:23:32
Speaker 4: But it's it's complicated also, I mean after COVID's I understand that it's not easy. The many companies they're struggling, the associations they're struggling. But still now we are on the I think, on the way up. So maybe that's the time to start to talk about.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: Higher pay again.

00:23:54
Speaker 1: Well, I mean the world I see is where tennis has been undervalued and we have so much. It's the third most popular global sport.

00:24:04
Speaker 3: It should be what was talking about people wat Yeah.

00:24:08
Speaker 1: So for me, there's there's it's an under optimized entity. And I think especially for women's sports, now that we know how much value there is in women's football, how much value there is in women's basketball, how much value there is in women as athletes. To me, it can't stay unequal forever. And I hope that. And it sounds like you know, you're you're definitely not shy about sharing your thoughts, which I think is awesome. That's why I wanted to talk to you and not somebody else.

00:24:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, sure, okay, I'm not gonna compare the best football player in the world may see with the best women's football player with the.

00:24:46
Speaker 3: Playing I mean, it's yeah, it makes no sense. I'm not commoration.

00:24:51
Speaker 4: But I mean in thingus with the price money, I think it's easier for sure. It's okay, Yeah, the constructs, it's we don't talk about contracts.

00:25:01
Speaker 3: The company decide how much they want to pay it and then just yeah, it's.

00:25:04
Speaker 4: Also a lot depends on generationality and all these things, so that's different things.

00:25:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:25:09
Speaker 1: But also you can't look at the numbers the Australian Open Women's final, yeah, and the ratings and the viewership you know.

00:25:15
Speaker 3: Also use Open, I say US finals was higher.

00:25:20
Speaker 4: So okay, for sure some of the events, yes, men's generate.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: More, maybe them.

00:25:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, but some of the competition generate movements, they generate more. So I think at the end, I hope it will come up to equal medium equal pay.

00:25:45
Speaker 3: I mean, w say.

00:25:46
Speaker 4: They're saying that they're trying to do their best, and the of course going the direction and they want to make equal pay on thousands by twenty twenty seven.

00:25:58
Speaker 2: That's not soon, it's not.

00:26:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope. I'm still going. So yeah, I don't know what to.

00:26:07
Speaker 4: Say, because of course I don't know many many things I don't know in the business.

00:26:12
Speaker 3: I'm not the business woman.

00:26:13
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:26:14
Speaker 1: You're making a pretty good case. But yeah, yeah, but uh we'll tell you maybe.

00:26:19
Speaker 3: They could do better.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: Maybe Listen, I think to me, the idea that we're talking about this and that we have dialogues and people are paying attention to it.

00:26:28
Speaker 2: I hope is a good sign. I think we only have another second with you, So I.

00:26:32
Speaker 1: Just want to say everybody who listens to our podcast has been asking us to have you on.

00:26:36
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on.

00:26:37
Speaker 1: Maybe we can continue the conversation with Charleston. Yeah. Sure, we are rooting for you. We're so happy to have you. Thank you so much again, and also thanks for being you. You're really fun to root for off the court but also

00:26:48
Speaker 2: On So thanks do, thank you, Thanks super nice, amazing, Thank you.