The French Connection: Olympics Review

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily a crier. I was like wiping away some tears almost at the end scene how much it meant to Novak Djokovic.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the French Connection.

00:00:11
Speaker 3: It is our last one, but it is brought to you by NBC Sports and Racket. We have been here covering all the tennis from the French Open right through.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Of course to the Olympics in Paris.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: It is me and that guy over there, Sam query, what's up mate?

00:00:26
Speaker 2: We got to get to the Olympics, my friend.

00:00:28
Speaker 4: I know.

00:00:29
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable Olympics, not only for tennis but for all sports.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I gotta tell you me covering it. That's my fourth Olympics that I've covered for NBC. With the tennis, I went to four Olympics.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: So that's eight.

00:00:43
Speaker 3: So it's been a few. But I have to say Paris really turned it on. I mean, I don't know how in God's Green Earth, La and then after that Brisbane are going to top all of the beautiful structures and what we saw in Paris was just phenomenal. But let's get to it the tennis before we really start capturing out favorite parts of the Olympics. Novak Djokovic. Are you surprised by his gold medal win? Obakalos Alcarez Sam, I'm.

00:01:13
Speaker 4: Not maybe a little bit surprised.

00:01:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it was incredible to have Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcarez playing the final. There's one thing that Novak Djokovic didn't have a gold medal, and you can see, I mean watching the match. I remember watching with my wife and telling her in late in that second set that Novak is putting every ounce of his mental energy, his physical energy into this match right now. I think he needed to win that second set. And you saw when he won that match, the emotional energy that like spewed out of his body. It was a really special thing to see. It was one of the coolest moments as like a tennis fan to watch that I've ever had to see what that meant to him. You could see that it meant more to him than some other Grand Slams that he's won in the past. So it was a special moment. I was so happy for him, and you were were you commentating that.

00:02:03
Speaker 4: I was, yeah, it was that's pretty cool.

00:02:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. Yeah.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I'll be honest, it was, you know, one of my coolest moments as a as a commentator working in the sport. To be able to call that final with al Karaz and Djokovic was you know, it was it was a To call it with Mary Carillo was pretty pretty pretty special.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: You know, we didn't have to do much.

00:02:21
Speaker 3: We just sat back and watched two of the greatest. You know, Carlos al Karez arguably going to be one of the greats of the game. We'll see how many Grand Slam he ends up with by the end of his career.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: But Novak just what he was able to do.

00:02:32
Speaker 3: Sam I was more like overwhelmed when I saw him in the semi final, when he won the semifinal, he I mean, you saw his vulnerabilities throughout this tournament because matches that he even when he played rougher when he was up a set in for one two breaks, You're like, oh, it's over.

00:02:47
Speaker 2: And then he visibly.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: Choked like he played some shocking tennis and we're not used to that from him. And then in the semi finals to see him like go to the ground and like jesh to the way he did to make a final. We don't see that from him, and he said it after the match, where he's like, I finally get a chance to play for a gold because he's never played for a gold.

00:03:08
Speaker 2: In all his fifth Olympics. That's how much it meant to him.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: I mean, incredible effort in the end from him, just unbelievable, and he played so solid, and I thought, the one thing I don't know about you. I thought the one thing Alciaz, the mistake he made he didn't step up on return. I thought he was playing way too deep on the second surf in particular. And you know what this feels like. I mean, you don't because you had such a great serf, but the vulnerability of Novak's second serf sometimes is in question, right, And I felt like Alcaaz wasn't putting any pressure on it whatsoever, and he was hitting like seventy mile an hour second serfs just in the middle of the box and it wasn't getting punished. And I think in the end that that hurt Alcaraz and Novak standing up on the baseline even though I was hurting him through the set because he couldn't get the kicker. That's what helped him in the big moments so amazing how he turned it around in the tiebreak, just one or two little points that ended up winning him the match.

00:04:00
Speaker 4: No, I think I think you're spot on. It was pretty cool to see with an athlete.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: I feel like the entire year Novak was telling us, look, my gold this year is to get a gold medal, and then to go out there and not have a great year in terms of Novak standard, and then get to the Olympics and fight through some of those tough matches along the way to the gold medal, and then to actually get the gold medal, do that thing that you've been telling people the whole year, that like, hey, this is the number one thing I want to accomplish.

00:04:26
Speaker 4: Was an amazing thing to see.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: I said this on a you know another podcast earlier the week. I'm not necessarily a crier. I was like wiping away some some tiers almost at the end, seeing how much it meant to Novak Djokovic.

00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, amazing.

00:04:40
Speaker 3: I mean he joins now an exclusive club of gold medal champions in singles because of course, you know, Rafa won in singles and double Stephie of course did what we probably will never see in anyone's lifetime winning all four Grand Slams and then winning the gold medal. But Novak joins you know, Andre Agassi, the likes of these players, and Roger feder is not even on that list. Although Roger won a gold medal in doubles, he never did this in singles, and so that's something that I'm sure Novak is really happy that he's got over Roger.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: Well, I don't care though we always by friends and I always joke if you were an Olympic gold medalist, may that be in in doubles, mixed doubles, singles, or you're on the men's waterpolo team, women's basketball team. When you're announced at an event, you're just announced as a gold medalist. They don't specify the event that you that you won. So you know, yes, the tennis insiders know that Novak has the singles and Roger has the doubles, but the world just knows they both have a gold.

00:05:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:05:39
Speaker 3: Well, I talked to the Novaka and Roger fans about that, because they'll let you know exactly how they feel.

00:05:44
Speaker 4: Right.

00:05:45
Speaker 2: So, Ratfaiel Nadal.

00:05:47
Speaker 3: He's you know, he's confirmed out of the Olympics that he won't be playing the US Open.

00:05:53
Speaker 2: I'm just curious on your thoughts.

00:05:56
Speaker 3: Where does this go now for for Rougher, you know, because I mean I didn't think he was going to play the US Open, but but what is there left for him now to do?

00:06:06
Speaker 2: He's playing the lave A Cup, But what do we expect here?

00:06:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, It's like we've kind of been wondering this, talking about this. I feel like since the French Open, which was gosh, the first week of June, so it's coming on three months now.

00:06:21
Speaker 4: Of is Rafa done? Is Rafa not done? You know?

00:06:25
Speaker 1: I think he said he's going to play in the Labor Cup. Is that going to be his last event? Does he want to go leave the same way Roger left? I kind of want him to have his last tournament be a different one than Roger. But I think he's still unsure, and I kind of feel from at this point, I think so much of him wants to keep playing. He obviously passionate about tennis, loves the game, but he just doesn't know how his body's going to react day to day, and they's hopefully he gets a sign at some point from his body, from his mind, his friends and family because I want him to get you know, that closure that he hopefully deserves.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a really tough one. Obviously, we saw you know, some players at the at the Olympics. I'll get to that when we wrap up the Olympics a little bit. But yeah, it was it was pretty incredible to see him play in the singles and the doubles.

00:07:14
Speaker 2: You know, it's a shame that he had to play Novak second round.

00:07:16
Speaker 3: But but yeah, this is where do we go from here with Nadala. Clearly, hardcourt is a big issue for him, you know, for his body. So clearly that's why one of the reasons he's not playing on the hard court. But you can't wait for a year for Clay, I mean, so the next question is where does he go out, like you said, and hopefully it's in a way that he wants it to be.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: That's a little surprising to me that he pulled out. He made the announcement of not playing the US Open so far ahead of the US Open, four or five weeks prior to the US Open, said I'm not going to play who you don't know how you're going to feel in five weeks maybe he was going to feel good and he could play it, but obviously his body's telling him he can't do it, and so it's a it's a bummer for everyone.

00:07:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll wait and see fingers crossed. At some point, we're going to know pretty soon. What do you think of the exchange of the Emmenavarro situation at the Olympics with Chin wend I mean, it was bizarre and I was doing that match and I actually commented after the shake of hands, oh, that's nice that they had a nice moment at the net, like they looked like they were just chatting.

00:08:16
Speaker 2: But it was a little ugly there.

00:08:19
Speaker 3: I don't know Sam, what your thoughts are on this, but it was very interesting because I've not heard in the locker room that Jang isn't a bad person in the locker room, so I mean, obviously haven't been in the locker room in a while, but there was an interesting situation for Emma Neavara, who's usually so laid back and chilled.

00:08:38
Speaker 1: Both players, you don't hear much from either of them ever, Yeah, right, they're both quiet, especially in Emma Navarro.

00:08:43
Speaker 4: She is the most maybe you know her and Jessica Pagoula.

00:08:46
Speaker 1: You see them, you don't see them have extreme highs, extreme lows, very level headed. But it was interesting the entire US women's team. You saw a little fight from Navarro, Cocoa, Goth had some fight. Daniel Collins always has a little drama of so it's you know, I think Jessica Pegoula maybe felt left out. She was the only one that didn't have an altercation on the team USA women. But you know, I think it's something that was just a little moment. I think it's it's past kind of now, no one's going to talk about it, but it was surprising, especially since emmenavorrow Is seems like the most quiet, sweetest, calmest kind of one of the female players on the tour right now.

00:09:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And obviously she's spurred on Chin win to go and win a gold medal, which was phenomenal. I just really quick want to touch on that situation. I mean, going through and winning the gold medal, beating on tech that we didn't think was possible to actually beat someone like Egat at the French Open, you know where we played the French Open, where she's undefeated over the last like three years, and she's won the tournament four times there, so that was a spectacular win for her, but also I wanted, you know, a lot of pressure on egon Tech to win the gold there. I mean, that was like Rafa at his prime not winning a gold medal at Roland Garris if they had the Olympics him in singles.

00:10:02
Speaker 2: So that was a bit of a shock.

00:10:03
Speaker 3: But congrats to her to get through and not only be eager, but then to follow it up in the final against Donna Vekich, who also amazing month of tennis for her semi's of Wimbledon and finals of the Olympics. So it was pretty spectacular tournament on the women's side. Just a lot more as per usual, unexpected finalists.

00:10:20
Speaker 1: Right, And to win the final after beating Eagash Fiantek, it's almost tougher sometimes to win that final. You beat Eagash Fontech, who everyone had penciled in to win the gold medal, and then you go into the gold medal match as the overwhelming favorite and to come maybe not overwhelming but heavy favorite, and to come through and win that after winning a big match, you know what it's like after you have a big upset in a tournament, sometimes that next match is the hardest one.

00:10:45
Speaker 4: So it was, you know, good on her for.

00:10:48
Speaker 1: Focusing, digging down and finishing what she started winning that gold medal.

00:10:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally all right, What were some of your favorite moments from the Olympics?

00:10:56
Speaker 4: Sam? Are we talking all sports? Right? Yeah?

00:11:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking all sports.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm gonna I'm a purist that likes the swimming, the gymnastics, the javelin, the long jump, the track and field. I like those Olympic sports that we've seemingly been around for five hundred years. But the track and field is probably my favorite. I love especially the relay races, passing the baton. But you know, every night I loved turning on you know, NBC eight pm. We had the two hour show and so they did a great job of kind of jumping around from sport to sport. And I don't know why we kind of touched on it earlier. This Olympics felt bigger, I know, Crownship. The crowds were huge. It didn't matter what sport you turned on. You could turn on rat dancing, you know, beach volleyball, the biking.

00:11:45
Speaker 4: In It was just packed with people.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: And anytime a sport or a crowd or a stadium is packed, it kind of intrigues you more so even if it wasn't a sport that you were necessarily into, call it fencing, but the crowd is packed, you kind of in your mind like, I gotta I gotta watch a little bit. Why are all these people watching? I need to watch? But the coverage was amazing, and you know, Los Angeles has a lot to live.

00:12:06
Speaker 2: Up to now, yeah they do. I was thinking, where are they going to put the horse riding when they have it in Forsai? In Paris?

00:12:12
Speaker 4: Did you go watch a lot of other sports while you were so.

00:12:16
Speaker 3: You know, obviously super busy during the tennis, not able to go and see anything. But I will tell you that I went to Paris and saw the beach volleyball was unbelievable.

00:12:29
Speaker 4: I mean, with the power in the backround right.

00:12:31
Speaker 3: But I sat in the stand and I went, this is absolutely bonkers. I've never seen a more beautiful setting in my entire life. It was just unreal.

00:12:41
Speaker 4: I would kind of be mad if I'm another one of the other athletes. Why look at this setting exactly?

00:12:48
Speaker 3: Because it's incredibly popular. Well, the way they had it set up is that a lot of and you've been to Paris many many times, but if you walk down the towards the place de la Concorde from the Acta Triomph like, all the way down there, they have those beautiful open gardens near the Louver. What they did is they set aside or a lot of the different venues along the river Send. So it was incredible the way they did it, because they do have a lot of space, believe it or not, in that area, you know, essentially downtown Paris. That was beautiful gardens and things. So they set up a lot of the games along the river Send, so that was amazing. So you had just people walking up and down the river, up and down the you know, the most amazing iconic streets in Paris.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: So it was incredible.

00:13:29
Speaker 3: And I went to the women's basketball between the US and Australia, which was also amazing. The atmosphere there was incredible. So I just thought Paris was incredible.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: One thing that I love was the Andy Murray story with Dan Evans.

00:13:43
Speaker 3: Those guys survived so many match points outside of other sports, that was an iconic storyline for me. But I was obsessed with the swimming clearly, I mean paying attention to calling tennis and then having a little sneaky look on peacock on the cable on my phone what was happening in the swimming at the same time, Gonna lie I was watching a lot of that, and so yeah, I mean there were just there were so many for Australia. We had our most successful Olympic Games ever, seeing the the Fox sisters win gold medals, each of them and one of them knocked one of them out in the semi finals just to get there was like the Williams sisters of kayaking.

00:14:19
Speaker 2: That was incredible.

00:14:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I know what you mean now, it was. It was incredible.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: Hopefully people kind of talk about these other sports for the next four years, the kind of keep the momentum going until the twenty twenty eight Olympics in Los Angeles.

00:14:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, just storyline upon storyline. So yeah, Simone Biles coming back doing what she did, just all the detractors, all the haters. I just think about the people that were online when she pulled out in Tokyo because she didn't want to kill herself, like literally, you know, like it's a dangerous sport to be in the air and have the twisties and not know where you are on the end, come back and do what she did. And I just think about the people that called her weak back in twenty week when I.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: See at the Olympics now, like the when the females are doing you know, the double bars of the vault, their coaches are still there sometimes supporting them in case of a fall like you.

00:15:07
Speaker 4: I mean, if you.

00:15:08
Speaker 1: Land funny on your neck or your back, like it's going to be not good.

00:15:13
Speaker 4: I'll say that, yeah, it's.

00:15:14
Speaker 2: Going to be not good.

00:15:15
Speaker 3: So anyway, I was just thrilled for her that she was able to I actually flew back from Paris.

00:15:19
Speaker 2: Her dad was on my flight, so there.

00:15:21
Speaker 4: You got to them. Yeah, I did talk to him.

00:15:23
Speaker 3: We were talking about how long it was taking to get our bags off the flight.

00:15:27
Speaker 2: So we did have a good chat about that.

00:15:29
Speaker 4: No Olympic talk, just luggage talk. No luggage talk.

00:15:33
Speaker 3: No. Yeah, yeah, it was another airline actually, but anyway, all right, so of course the Olympics is over. We can't wait, as we said, and I think there's a lot of players our Daria Saville wrote on her Twitter page watching the end of the Olympics makes me want to practice harder so.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: I can get on the team in four years.

00:15:50
Speaker 3: I mean everyone thinks that way because this Olympics was so incredible. So congrats to everybody and everybody at NBC because I know the hours that they put in were just tremendous. So everybody at NBC, Molly Solomon in particular, who's the boss, congrats on everything. All right, it's time to get to hard court season, Sam.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: What a turnaround for some of these players.

00:16:10
Speaker 3: And we've already seen some upsets, and particularly from players that have come from Paris that didn't get the preparation on hardcourt have lost in this tournament already in Cincinnati, Taylor Fritz for one, Tommy Paul another one. But I want to talk before we get to sort of that situation. There's a bit been a bit of an interesting situation with the electronic line calling. Speaking of Taylor Fritz the other day when he lost his match against Brendan, he said, look, he said that had nothing to do with the outcome of the match, but there was a ball that was about this far out and the electronic line calling didn't pick it up and they kept playing, so he hit I think I believe.

00:16:45
Speaker 2: Three more shots. They both hit about shots after that.

00:16:48
Speaker 3: And then the Word of God said stop, stop, stop now. I want to know from your perspective, you know, and people like I thought you said it was, you know, one hundred percent accurate.

00:16:57
Speaker 2: I never said it was one hundred percent accurate.

00:16:59
Speaker 3: But I feel like, and as you would feel like, players feel like it's going to be the same for both players no matter what, right, So what do you think about that situation and just overall in general.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, nothing's ever going to be one hundred percent accurate, and it just kind of messed up by not making the out call. It's still maybe it's still let the players and the umpire and the fans know that.

00:17:19
Speaker 4: The ball was out.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: It accurately, accurately notified people the ball was out. Yeah, once that happened, the umpire should have gone, hey Taylor, Hey Brandon, that ball from three shots ago was out. Here's the proof, here's the video evidence, and the point should have been awarded to Taylor.

00:17:35
Speaker 4: It's so obvious, and I even it's tough in the moment.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: I even maybe feel like Brandon Nakoshima sould have said, oh, no, no problem, Taylor your point, it's I don't actually think it's Brandon's job to do that. I think it's the umpire's job to stand up and make the right decision and say, hey, that's Taylor's point. Maybe internally at the ATP and WTA they hadn't thought about this type of scenario if it happened. I think moving forward they would do that and make the change and say, hey, if the if hawkeye doesn't correctly call a ball in or out and the point somehow continues, we're going to go back to whatever call should have been made. Yeah, it was unfortunately, like Taylor said, it didn't affect the outcome of the match. Yeah, because you won the next point, You won the next point, and it was I think it was early in the second set.

00:18:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, But.

00:18:22
Speaker 1: You know, the ATP or the umpire, whoever's in charge of making that decision moving forward, needs to come up with a kind of a black and white decision on how that's going to be handled. And it's not the way they handled it currently.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't understand how.

00:18:36
Speaker 3: I mean, clearly a precedent is being set now, right, but you know, for the umpire to say something is I mean, I'm just gonna flat outside as dumb as you should.

00:18:45
Speaker 2: Well, you should have thow a point. It's like, I'm not going to stop the point. Its electronics suns right.

00:18:50
Speaker 1: I'm surprised the supervisor didn't come out and say, hey guys, this is Taylor's point. Yeah, like the ball was out and the machine's messed up. So sorry that happened, but it's Taylor's point.

00:18:59
Speaker 4: The ball is out.

00:19:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ball was out. I just it's mind boggling to me.

00:19:03
Speaker 3: But anyway, as we said, hopefully president has been said, they've talked about it afterwards. If this happens again and the word of God says stop stop stop because that did not come from the umpire. They came from like some electronic thing. It should have just been right away. Mistake was made, no problem, move on and then we wouldn't have even had any of these problems. But I guess things like this have to happen for rules to be implemented, and hopefully the rule will be implemented.

00:19:26
Speaker 1: Going to exactly, you can't think of every scenario on what's going to happen in sports with hawkeye or a player of going to the restroom or whatever the random scenarios are. So you know, sometimes you're going to have these one off lessons that you're going to learn. It's how you react to things. So hopefully the etp WTA reacts to it in the right way and makes the proper changes going forward.

00:19:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it will happen again.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: And like I said, you know to people on like social media that were like Rene, you always say that electronic line calling is great, and it is great, and you know, you and I both know if I'd had it in my time, less stress on me, like knowing that an umpire didn't screw up a call or alignsman didn't screw up a call, you'd have had.

00:20:06
Speaker 4: Ten more Grand slams.

00:20:08
Speaker 3: Definitely had less gray hair, that's for sure, and I would have probably had a lot less therapy. But anyway, another thing that's really interesting about what's happening just we like to talk about the stuff just necessarily not all the ways about the tennis.

00:20:21
Speaker 2: Is this fan abuse that's happening.

00:20:24
Speaker 3: Okay, there was situations, for example in Europe this year when Danielle Collins had to go at remember when she had If you think it's how you get you right, she went at someone, And then we just recently had Dennis Schaffbot Shapovalov had his.

00:20:38
Speaker 2: Issues in Washington, d C.

00:20:40
Speaker 3: With a fan, and now Jordan Thompson has had his own issues with fans in Cincinnati. And a lot of this has to do with, in my opinion, guys that are betting on tennis, they've got it on their phones. This person recently did a whole thread of it on Instagram on Twitter saying I'm sitting behind this guy and he's literally on a bed app right now, and so they feel like if you don't win a point for them, they have the right to now start abusing you and calling you all kinds of names, which is what they were doing to Jordan Thompson, and he took offense to it, as did Dennis Shopovolov. What does the atp WTA Tennis in general have to do when it comes to fans like it's yell out to place.

00:21:20
Speaker 2: It happens in other sports.

00:21:21
Speaker 3: We've seen it happen in baseball and basketball where players sometimes lose their mind they run into the stands.

00:21:26
Speaker 2: Never a good idea.

00:21:28
Speaker 3: But what is the tennis associations going to do about this.

00:21:34
Speaker 4: It's not an easy thing to handle.

00:21:35
Speaker 1: I remember playing matches, if win or lose, you know, you'd win a match and all players are going through this. You'd open your Instagram and you'd have fifteen to one hundred death threats. Sometimes of it was always betters, and so you know, betting is a big part of not only tennis but other sports, and it's going to bring more revenue to the game. It's going to help the prize money. Yeah, it's great, but it's a hard thing to manage for the ATP or the governing bodies. But I think a lot of these fans or these online threats, you know, it's got to be one strike policies if you if you verbally say something or attack players, hey you're out of the stadium or you're out of the event. But then it gets to that point where it's what's what's a verbal attack? How far can you push it? Because if you just tell a player, hey, you stink like that's not that bad. He shouldn't get kicked out. So it's it's a tricky situation. The tours just need to monitor, monitor it. We don't want players, we don't want fans abusing players. And saying nasty things to them, and as a player, you've got to do your best to just not react to it and calmly try to go to an umpire, go to a supervisor and say, hey, this, this person over here is not acting in a humane manner. Can we talk to them and fix this situation. But because it's a it's a nasty situation, like you said, and we're seeing it more and more.

00:22:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree, Yeah, I think this at some point if it starts to be come personal and a personal attack on someone and they're going at them because you know, as I said, it does happen in baseball and basketball, but it's so loud and free flowing and stuff is happening all the time, whereas in tennis it's very quiet.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: So when someone says something to you clearly obviously.

00:23:14
Speaker 3: Directed right at you, I think linesmen or lines women or lines people, if they hear something like that, they should be able to go to the umpire as well and say this man is or woman is being aggressive as being derogatory towards a player and have security go on remove them, period, end of story. I think that's the way that you handle it, and particularly it is always these guys that are betting on tennis and they just feel like they can say whatever. I mean, the abuse that players get, I mean, I get it myself, and I'm not playing anymore.

00:23:41
Speaker 2: I just get it.

00:23:41
Speaker 3: If I comment on somebody in a commentating role and I get fifty five people writing me on Instagram, which is just I'm just like, Wow, you need to really get a life anyway, seriously.

00:23:53
Speaker 1: Right, some commentating Inside Story last week for Tennis cham come. Some of my first commentating, I had the same thing in you know on Instagram. You open up, You're so horrible. I can't believe you said that. I'm like my second time commentating. I'm trying my best, Like, what could have been that bad that I say anything that outrageous?

00:24:10
Speaker 3: Welcome to the world of online abuse, my friend, for just doing your job right.

00:24:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fun.

00:24:17
Speaker 4: All right.

00:24:18
Speaker 3: On a positive note, let's talk a little bit about what you think Alcaz Sinner okay or Alcarez Djokovic.

00:24:25
Speaker 2: What's the better rivalry.

00:24:27
Speaker 1: It's not close. It's it's Alcaaz Djokovic right now. It's not going to be here.

00:24:32
Speaker 4: As long as Alcaaz Sinner.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: But I think especially the last year, especially with Wimbledon and the and the Olympic final, it put that as the premiere, you know, rivalry in tennis right now, and it's there's nothing better when any anytime those two are in a draw. At the moment, I think every tennis fan is cheering for that to be the final. It's like fed Nadal from fifteen years ago. Everyone wants Nadal, al Karaz Sinner as amazing as he is, he's just he's the third guy at the moment, and those two at the moment. At the moment he's going to get up there, it's going to be al Karaz Center at some point in the near future. But Novak is hanging around in such a big way, and it's those two going to the US Open.

00:25:20
Speaker 4: That's what everyone wants in the final, right.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, listen, it's gonna be.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: It's hard to say because the problem is everyone remembers what's just happened, right, So of course Alcaraz and Djokovic have played each other back to back big finals like Wimbledon and Olympics, so it's like, of course that's the rivalry. But then you get Sinner and Alcharizm when they play against each other, it's unreal tennis every well, So it's kind of like, as far as I'm concerned, they're both incredible rivalries. It's like, what's a better rivalry Roger or Rafa or Rauffa and Djokovic.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: It's like, they're both great rivalries.

00:25:52
Speaker 3: Let's face it, just it's whenever they play, it's a great rivalry. And that final was just, you know, it was just incredible. And to think and this always makes me laugh right now, age is a factor, right as we all know. And what's so interesting is that the Olympics was best of three, and you know that if it was best of five, our Carerez probably doesn't feel quite as nervous because he was really nervous in this patch. I mean, he did not play his best tennis, and Novak was just himself from start to finish. He didn't really go up, he didn't really go down, and our Carez was a little bit up and down. But if it was best of five, you would, I don't know, you would sort of maybe even edge a little bit towards our Careraz these days, and you would never have said that in the past if it was best of five.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Year I was like, no one's beating Novak over five.

00:26:39
Speaker 3: But I think that's where the age factor comes in. He knows that he can push himself for those two sets, and my god, there was one point in the tiebreak that was ridiculous, and I think it was in the second set, and I think even Novak lost that point, and I was just like, this tennis is It's something else. It's just I hope that I hope Novak plays for a couple of more year and that they play each other a lot more because it's just outrageous tennis.

00:27:04
Speaker 4: See.

00:27:04
Speaker 1: And I said it earlier, it seemed like at the Olympics in the final Novak emptied the tank in his body after those two sets. If he did not win that second set tiebreaker, I don't know what happens to him. But I feel like the pendulum swings and al Kraz's favorite that third set in a big way. But yeah, it is recency biased, but I want Novak and Carls to play again at the US Open final. If we're going to get the possibility of another Olympic final like that, those are the two guys I want to watch.

00:27:31
Speaker 4: Plane.

00:27:32
Speaker 3: Well, it depends on the drawer, so we'll see, all right, somebody that I did discuss a couple of weeks ago, and I'm have been pretty spot on with my picks over the last few months, but I did say that Miaomi Asaka was a real thread at the US Open. But since that amazing match against Ega, which she had match points against eagashion Tech at the French she has not played well and including just recently in Cincinnati, losing in the last round of qualities to Ashlyn Krueger and was seen.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: I know this for a fact because somebody saw her walking down the golf.

00:28:07
Speaker 3: Course at Cincinnati, because there's a golf course right next to the tennis courts with her water bottle by herself after the match, Like, what do we expect?

00:28:15
Speaker 2: She has gotten a wild card?

00:28:17
Speaker 3: It was announced I believe yesterday or today that she has a wildcard into the US Open. As a former champion, of course she deserves that. But what are your thoughts on Naomi, because this is to me, after what I predicted, is a bit surprising.

00:28:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, And after that last to Egish Fiantec of the French Open, where she showed she could play at that high level, there's been nothing since then. So she knows deep down she has that level to play with the best, but she just can't find it right now. During my limited commentating career, which I started last week at the Tennis Channel, I actually called her match against Mertens in Toronto.

00:28:56
Speaker 4: Yes, and she's.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Just she's redirecting balls at the wrong you know, she's finishing matches. She has ten airs, she has thirty five double faults. I think I also saw another stat when I was calling that match that she has lost now I believe it's twenty maybe it was twenty one matches in a row where she's lost the first set. She just lost the match. So like that fight and that drive to kind of dig down deep and find her find a way to get out of some holes isn't there. And that comes with just doing it one time and knowing what that feels like. But she's she's got to fight. Her game is there, like she showed at the French but she's got to find a way to pull that out of herself somehow. And it's tough to do. I mean, you're a former player, you're a coach, you know how hard that is. But she's she's got some work to do right now.

00:29:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely some work to do there, and it is confidence and maybe coming onto the US Open site where she's had so many great champion moments on Arthur ash Stadium and all throughout the grounds, we'll just give her maybe that little edge to get over matches that she's losing in three sets and losing to some players, you know, good work from Ashlan Kruger who then went on to in a first round in Cincinnati. So she's playing really good tennis and she's a very good young player coached by Michael Joyce, so doing it, doing.

00:30:07
Speaker 2: A really good job overall.

00:30:09
Speaker 3: So yep, we'll see where Naomi can go. Who are your your picks at the US Open? Just judging on him, it's hard to know. Would be nice to that Cincinnati would be finished, will have a little bit better idea, you know, clearly, I think if Sinner wins Cincinnati.

00:30:22
Speaker 2: For me, I've said Sinner's my favorite the US Open.

00:30:25
Speaker 3: Even though he has not played well over the last couple of months and he's had some injuries issues and just some bad losses for him, bad losses, He's still my favorite. And I think coming out of Cincinnati will know a lot more. But what about you on both the men's and women's side.

00:30:39
Speaker 4: He favorites now Alexi Poprin after they got certain. That's pretty amazing for him with that.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: I'm great.

00:30:47
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you said that, because what an effort from him, not only there a little thing. Congrats out to jess Pagoula, who backed up her win there last year, and then Poprin who wins his first ATP one thousand. Great job I saw him in Cincinnati. What a great kid, works so hot, so congress and he's.

00:31:04
Speaker 1: Just kind of been floating around sixty in the world for the last five years, had some big wins here, you know, has a lot of average losses, and then put it all together and it won that final convincingly over Rubelev two and four. But great job to him, Great job to Jess Pagoa, like you said, who and jess was kind of having somewhat of a similar year to no back in her standards, and then she wins Berlin before Wimbledon, and now she defends her Canada tyle winning Toronto. I think she's back up to twelve in the race. It just Jessica Pegola's entire year just got flipped around and she's now going into the US Open. Speaking of kind of who my picks are, She's as much as a favorite as anyone right now, I think to win the US Open, and.

00:31:44
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go.

00:31:46
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna take Pagola at the US Open. I'm gonna have her as my favorite right now. I don't She's as deserving as any female player right now to win that. And on the men's side, Nook, Djokovic or al KaAZ, I can't separate who I want to watch in the final with who I'm picking in the final.

00:32:06
Speaker 2: Do you think it's going to win? Man?

00:32:07
Speaker 4: All right? I think Novak.

00:32:09
Speaker 1: I think he goes in with the least amount of pressure he's ever had at a tournament in his entire life.

00:32:15
Speaker 4: That could go both ways.

00:32:16
Speaker 1: He could maybe just bow out in the first round because he doesn't care, but what there's nothing more he can do right now, And so I think he goes into the US Open with just zero pressure, zero expectations, and that's going to free him up to a whole new level. And I think he might just run through the draw and win that tournament easily.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll certainly see.

00:32:33
Speaker 3: I mean, what else has he got to do I mean, gosh, for the first time in his career. As you said, he doesn't have pressure on him, which must feel so weird. But I feel like when you when you're that great, you always feel like, let's face it, you've got pressure on you.

00:32:45
Speaker 2: So we'll see.

00:32:46
Speaker 3: I'm I'm picking sinner. I have to stick with my pick no matter what. And I think Jess is a real shot as well. I mean, nobody's shining through Rebakina, Saba Anka, Egistrion Tech. None of them are saying on the struggling a bit right, a big time. Yeah, we didn't even talk about her struggles. But but you're right, there's no one really shining brightly on the women's side as to say, hey, what about me? I mean, Donna vect just had a great couple of weeks, Jasmine Paulini.

00:33:14
Speaker 2: I mean, the list is long, So.

00:33:16
Speaker 3: Where's Carolina Mukhova. Let's put her in the favorite of the US Open as well?

00:33:20
Speaker 1: Right, it seems like there's fifteen female long witness.

00:33:25
Speaker 3: But anyway, so we'll see, we'll see, you know, US Open just a couple of weeks away, you know, I want to do a little quick rapid fire before we do this.

00:33:34
Speaker 2: If you could travel.

00:33:35
Speaker 3: Back in time, one wish, one tournament, one match, one title that you could have won, Sam, what would it have been.

00:33:42
Speaker 1: It's Wimbledon. I mean, I would almost think the answer would be the same for everyone. Wimbledon is, in my opinion, the biggest tournament in our sport. If I ask non tennis fans, you know, my next door neighbor, name a tennis tournament, they're going to say Wimbledon. I got to the semi final singles, didn't quite get there, but that's the event.

00:34:00
Speaker 4: I think you want your trophy case.

00:34:02
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yes, absolutely, Wimbledon for sure. I mean I I mean in doubles for me, I won Wimbledon.

00:34:08
Speaker 1: A couple of right, you've got you've got the proof in your trophy case. I think you can't pick what you can't pick Wimbledon.

00:34:14
Speaker 3: No, no, I wouln't pick the French because it was the one and I didn't win, and so they go and lost in the finals a couple of the times. But but yeah, and actually, to be really honest with you, the French would have been great. But I would have loved to Meddle at the Olympics. That is one thing that's missing out of my little closet, me and me and not no back anymore because he's got it.

00:34:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:34:33
Speaker 3: You know, during the Big Three era, there was a lot of players that didn't didn't get a Grand Slam because of those three guys. But if there's one player that you feel like really missed out on getting a Grand Slam, who would you like to hand a trophy to?

00:34:48
Speaker 1: Gosh, I could say five guys right now, I'm going to I'm going to say three guys. I'm going to say Thomas Burditch, m David Ferrer and Joe Wilfrid Songa. Yeah. All those guys were ranked between five and nine for eight years, maybe even more so Burtich and Farrara. It seems like they made the quarterfinal every Grand Slam. I don't have the stats in front of me, but I bet the two of them made twenty five quarterfinals the Grand Slams and they would just come up against Novak Roger Rafa and those guys were.

00:35:27
Speaker 4: Just too good.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: But those are two guys especially that I feel like they almost feel like they should be in the Hall of Fame. But because the big three were there. They're not even close to getting in the Hall of Fame.

00:35:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, listen, I know Andy won a US Open, but I would like to give Andy a Wimbledon title at least. And I would like to Andy Andy Ruddick I'm talking about, and I would love to see Andy Murray have had an.

00:35:47
Speaker 2: Australian Open title. So they already they won Grand Slam, so I give it to them.

00:35:51
Speaker 3: I would say also David now Bandian a player like him who was so good so long on all surfaces.

00:35:58
Speaker 2: But I'd say for Rare.

00:35:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the guy that just hung around the top ten his whole career, never won a Brand Slam, just had that Rafa in front of him at the finals of the French Open that one year.

00:36:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's plenty.

00:36:08
Speaker 3: And if you had a season two of the French Open, Friendshire Connection, who would you have on your guest list?

00:36:14
Speaker 2: First up? Who do we want?

00:36:17
Speaker 1: It would be a joint get. We'd have Roger and Serena on all same time.

00:36:23
Speaker 2: I like this, this is exactly my thought.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: I'm dreaming big right now, but I guess yeah, those two are my two dream gas.

00:36:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought of the same too, or you have Rafa, Roger and Novak just sit around and just talk about these stories about them.

00:36:37
Speaker 1: We just have a panel with like the five greatest players of all time exactly. Throw Staff episode one, season two.

00:36:44
Speaker 3: Throw Steffie in there. But of course, listen, guys, the Paralympics. Also, don't miss out on them because they are coming up on Peacock and the networks of NBC as well. So don't don't forget about the Paralympics because they're incredible athletes and so hopefully you stick around and on all the networks of Peacock. Hey, guys, July twenty six, we'll be back covering all the Olympics. Wait, hold on in LA in four years, so I can't wait for the for La to roll around. We saw the little promotion at the closing ceremony. It's going to be slightly different to Paris. We're going to see a lot more Beach, a lot more of Snoop Dogg, which is fine by me because he was classic throughout.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: I Actually I live in LA, so I'm already seeing them. You know, the airport's getting in a remodel. You're starting to see like little signs of the Olympics coming, even though it's four years away, you're scenes have improvement starting to be made around the city.

00:37:37
Speaker 2: Oh, I like this for you. I like this for you, and.

00:37:39
Speaker 4: I'm going to be in every sport.

00:37:41
Speaker 3: Well, the transportation be decent, because that was the first question I thought, how are we going to get around La.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: I'll volunteer right now to be a tournament driver for athletes. Oh, if they want it, But I have no idea how they're going to get around in La.

00:37:53
Speaker 4: I'm going to drive.

00:37:55
Speaker 1: Assume the transportation is going to be miserable, and then if it's better than miserable, everyone's going to be Yeah.

00:38:01
Speaker 3: Well, I thought about Beijing and the transport.

00:38:06
Speaker 2: Were you in Beijing?

00:38:08
Speaker 4: I was.

00:38:09
Speaker 1: I played Beijing, but the tennis it was like five minutes away from the village.

00:38:12
Speaker 4: The tennis got lucky.

00:38:13
Speaker 3: With them, but remember they shut down like the streets and so they had lanes, particularly for like Olympic athletes. So don't worry everyone, La will be fine. They'll figure it out. I heard the transportation. They're going to really work on it. They're going to have the metro running. There's going to be lots of things. It's going to be hard because Paris you could get everywhere super easy because of the metro, so La is not exactly the greatest when it comes.

00:38:35
Speaker 4: To figure it out.

00:38:37
Speaker 2: Get yourself on a bus.

00:38:38
Speaker 3: But anyway, but Sam, you want to promote your podcast as well that you've got going now.

00:38:43
Speaker 1: I've got a new one with John Isner, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock called Nothing Major. And that's called that way because we none of us have majors. Jacksack has some in doubles. But I'm sorry when they were not counting those title of our podcast. But it's been fun. We've got four hour now comes out every Friday. It's kind of a lighter take on tennis. We're not necessarily breaking down the x's and o's. It's more of a funny podcast. We are talking tennis. It's a brof. We had Jeanie Bouchard on yesterday as a guest. She's gonna be on this week on Friday. She was an amazing interview, really fun. So yeah, check it out if you if you want to laugh, listen to some tennis. It's called Nothing Major.

00:39:23
Speaker 2: Jeanie can hang with the bros. She's a bit of a bro fest.

00:39:26
Speaker 1: Well, we answer her some tough questions and she was We played some fun games with her and she was hanging in there.

00:39:34
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.

00:39:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, I coached Jeannie for a bit, so I know she's definitely can hang with the bros, that's for sure. And my podcast is the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast, and that's probably what you're listening on right now. So mine comes out every Monday, going from next Monday on doing a little thing with iHeart Radio, so hopefully you'll tune into that.

00:39:53
Speaker 2: But it's been a fun. It's been fun doing this with you, Sam.

00:39:56
Speaker 3: It's been nice playing a little mixed doubles with you through this whole, a little French connection, and I've appreciated talking to you about all things tennis and seeing you blossom into this. You know, TV Superstar on Tennis Channel as well. And don't worry about the haters, mate, they are all over the place.

00:40:13
Speaker 1: I've been Superstars a little. It's nice of you to say that I've got some work to do before I get to your level. Commentating is harder than people think.

00:40:20
Speaker 2: Yes, it's not easy, but keep going.

00:40:23
Speaker 3: You'll be great at it because you know, if anyone follows you on Instagram they know you how good your sense of humors and follow him on his podcast with all the other guys. But thanks everyone. We want to throw throw a big thanks to everyone behind the scenes of doing this podcast. We've enjoyed bringing it to you and you know, hanging there with all of us through the US Open and of course all our podcasts. And thanks everyone for joining us on the French Connection and brought to you by NBC Sports and Racket. And for now we're going to say bye bye, see you later.