Winning Friends and influencing People

00:00:12
Speaker 1: Good, good a get a Kate, I'm back as your neighbor.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: I know, I'm so excited about this. I am so excited that you were back in Manhattan and not over the bridge in Brooklyn. Although listen to nothing against Brooklyn. It's great, but it's just no Manhattan. And second of all, I have Kamela back.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: That's great. My exercise bake has come back with you.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's come back and I've already used it and I'm super happy about it. And if you need to come to the gym, I eat my apartment so you could do this as a weekly thing. You come over here, we cut a pod and you you get on the bike.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: This is like, it's perfectly acceptable for two podcast co hosts to share custody of a piece of exercise equipment. And it's Manhattan, New York. Do I wish I had a working kitchen? Sure? Is my wife pleased that I'm about to go to Charleston for a couple of days while there's still boxes to unpack. No, sorry, Claire, this is the life that we chooses us, Claire.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: This is why you are the wife of wives. You're also the queen of Governor's Island and you're essentially the boss of the house in all aspects because you're in aries and we love you.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: That's right, fellow aries. Let's I have we have some reader mail. We have to get a review. Should we start with reader mail? Because it sets the table for Miami? We had. You know, it's interesting because because.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: We're doing this also before the men's final today, which is fine because we're going to watch that and it's going to be a fantastic match. What We're going to get to all of that in a second, but I just want to preface we are doing this before the men's final.

00:01:48
Speaker 1: Yes, we will talk about Miami. We will talk about the women's final. We will talk about some of the conflagration I waded into on Twitter, which elicited some strong reactions. And you know, that's sort of an using what place to start the podcast, which is you know, when we started this, it was your idea when we were hitting down at the East River Park many many years ago, and you thought, oh, this would be fun. And then in the ensuing years we've built quite a devoted following. The people who listen to your podcast have grown exponentially, and I kind of forget that they actually listen and email us, email us, and they it's so.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: Easy to just wrong opinions either way.

00:02:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I actually I think it's great. It's just it's so easy to forget that people like actually listen to what we're saying. So it's sort of a nice.

00:02:35
Speaker 2: Remind We appreciate it to be although I did get an email yesterday from some person dude. I'm just gonna call it a dude, because the dudes are always the one that right, and they're just and I he's just they are so rude sometimes and even on Twitter they're just guys like calm the farm.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: I appreciate the feedback, especially when it's constructive, and it's I think a test to the fact that people are engaged and care about Tennis and maybe some of the other media entities in the in the space as good a job or as thorough a job as some of them do, maybe don't offer a place that has, you know, sort of brash opinions, and which is what we sort of proudly offer. We are brash, we are, you know, and obviously in my dream scenario, Tennis has a bunch.

00:03:19
Speaker 2: Of very brash women.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: Well just more excitable, engaged voices who are running the gamut in all sorts of opinions. I think sometimes maybe the work we do at Racket or some of the work or voices that we have sound especially loud because everyone else is so quiet.

00:03:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that's the thing. Look, I mean, I think the issue is with any sports media or people that you know cover the sport, they really they don't want to piss off the players. They don't want to piss off the people that are really essentially selling the sport, which are the players, So they don't want to put them in positions of like saying something negative about them and then and then the player will turn around say I'm never doing you know X, or I'm never doing this network again, or I'm not doing an interview with you know, the New York Times or you know, Eurosport or ESPN or whatever it is because they said something terrible about me. So you do run into that issue, right for sure. And it has happened in the past. So you know, big networks or big you know papers, or they sort of don't want to push the envelope too much with you know, saying negative things about certain people. Although I did see an interview yesterday with Carlos Alcores and there was a there was a long, long term Australian reporter of tennis that just asked the most assenine negative question I've ever heard in a press conference. He said, So, Carlos, you have lost the number one ranking. You have essentially not you didn't win Miami again. You I'm like, where is this question going? Like, basically, listen, dude.

00:04:56
Speaker 1: You suck right now.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: He's actually the greatest thing that's ever happened to men's tennis in twenty years, yep, and we should be excited. And he lost one of the most incredibly intense matches we've seen in a long time. And how lucky are we to have the Carlos Sinner match emerging. I mean, it's literally the new Roger Rafa. It's great, you know because I don't say Nola in there, because I feel like Roger and Rafa were the two guys that really liked each other, really respected one another, and beat the shit out of each other in matches and then shook hands were like, hey, buddy, great job, too good.

00:05:31
Speaker 1: And also had totally contrasting styles in a way that they were you know, personified and also the first strike tennis. The you know, there's a lot of similarities between you know, Carlos and Yannik that I think we can explore.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: Full of them are incredibly nice, incredibly nice guys, like literally they're so like me. Even you heard Medvedev when he won in when he lost in India Wales and he turned around ingratulated Alcoraz and he said, he said, Carlos, well done. I mean, you're the nicest. You say hello to everyone.

00:06:02
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep a podcast tracker of the people you think are nice, and then it's going to become very obvious who you're not talking about, because I feel like you're whenever you'd go into this.

00:06:10
Speaker 2: Think I'm transparent.

00:06:13
Speaker 1: Is I'm just saying it's funny because the trope of you being like they're so nice and it's like who cares? But then you realize as you start to listen to you talk about these players that there's like some glaring omissions that you're not talking about, and that's actually where the meat is. So this is not a way to talk about the Nest Tournament, which we'll get to, but just more to say, like it's so nice and in my sort of dream of dreams, tennis gets what all these other sports have, which is a rambunctious, vital marketing campaigns. Just no just more energy and more at sometimes disagreement. Hopefully it's constructive, but just when there's not enough action and your voice seems super super loud, sometimes it's because you know, you're obnoxious, which I have to you know, think maybe is the case. But also sometimes it's just because everyone else is afraid. And that's sort of the part of tennis that I really want to see change, where we have something like The Ringer where Bill Simmons is covering all these different sports with so much engagement and yeah, people disagree, and yeah some of them are yelling, or maybe some of them are snarky, or some of them are devoted and you know, idealistic, but it's the mix, and it's the whole poot here is that we need to demand the tennis media get better, and us demanding that it gets better is both trying to make better media but also trying to hold other people in our sphere to account. And that's a theme I think. So in the spirit of being held to account, we got a really nice, long, thoughtful email from a listener, A longtime listener called Nancy Hooper. Nancy, thank you for running in and I hope you don't mind that.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: I read that email and it was you devoted a lot of time to it and it was.

00:07:49
Speaker 1: Thoughtful, and I hope you don't mind that. I'm going to excerpt you here. Because Nancy moved from i'll sort of summarize she moved from the West Coast. She was a devoted attendee to the B and P party about open and she went to the Sunshine Double and was curious to experience it after You and I gave it terrible reviews, mostly due to the state location. And she said some of her other friends have done a seam and we kind of got into you know, she gets into why because of the folks who owned the old keep askin you know, ybis.

00:08:16
Speaker 2: Gain was very nice, but the Key biscaners didn't really like it either, and it outgrew Keybiscane. Let's face it. I mean for the last I would say ten years of the tournament in Miami at Keebiscane, it was just it had outrun its course. They wanted to expand on Key Biscane. But the key biscaners, as I said, and in the local government, were not going to allow that to happen. So they did have to move where they're going to find big enough space to put it. They decided to put it at the Butt Dolphin Stadium, and you utilize the enormous parking lots there to put tennis courts down. And you know, for us tennis enthusiastsic go from Indian Wells, which is literally tennis paradise for a reason, and to go to Miami, it's just like a little bit of a downer, let's face it. Although having said that, I know that it's easy to walk around. You can see all the tennis and Nancy expressed her feelings that she loved it and she got really close to the courts and she experienced seeing practices and watching matches and she fully enjoyed it. And listen, if you guys out there enjoyed it, please don't be afraid to tell us because you are coming from a different perspective, say from me, for example, who the last time I was down there, I was coaching, So I'm not really out in the weeds as much as the spectators are for example. So for me, it's coming from Indian Wells, where you know, it's just so beautiful. To Miami, it's very different. So I'm glad that she gave us that thought process.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. And she had some kind words for Sabolenka who stayed in sane autographs and Titsy Pass as well, and you know, just the food and the beverage. And one thing that I do want to say, because our fraid Craig Spiro talks about this a lot of the time, which is like the he calls it the Latin Slam because so many fans from you know, obviously Miami is full of Argentines, it is full of Cubans. There's tons of people Venezuelans and as Wellilean. But also people come to Miami because it's sort of the considered, you know, sort of an unofficial capital. I personally would love if we made a big tournament happen in actual Latin America, South America, Central America. But you know, I would love to go to that Buenos Aire's tournament. I've never been to Rio. You know, there's some spots on there that I think we could create more parody.

00:10:18
Speaker 2: I certainly don't want to lose the tournament from Miami. I think it's great. I think it's a tennis mecca, or certainly down in South Florida, it's fantastic. Look, I think they're trying to do better and better things there. And obviously mister Ross, who owns the Dolphins, he was there the other night watching Sinner and Alcarez, So maybe he's starting to think that he doesn't want Larry Allison to get older, publicity and the all the joy one billionaire to another, so you know, maybe they're putting more and more into it. I didn't go this year, so I don't know if there's any differences.

00:10:48
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would say for me, Miami is such a great tennis community, and Miami is such a great city, And what I would love to see is that city and place get and the players highlighted. Get the Yeah, get the facility, the purpose built facility that they deserve.

00:11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of just you know, closing it up and using it as a parking lot during football season. Again, Yeah, it's it's interesting. And look, the atmosphere is not great out there for players. I mean, the practice side hout is a bit weird. Got to take a golf cart to get out there because it's so far and just little logistical issues like that. It's just it's just not as nice as some of the other Masters one thousand and WTA one thousands. You know, Canada is amazing, Madrid's amazing, obviously, Indian Wells is incredible. Rome, So you know, you've got these. The problem is, you know, and our listeners like Nancy, like, I've seen all the other places and I've come from, you know, playing in them, and the players are like, eh. With Miami, it's very cool center Court, you know, obviously being in Dolphin Stadium and they get to warm up on the grassed area there, so it's kind of cool. And the facilities inside are actually quite nice for the players. But yeah, anyway, but we appreciate your writing.

00:11:57
Speaker 1: In Yeah, I think Nancy, I appreciate it. And Nancy expressed at the end of her very thoughtful and long email that she wishes she were going to Charleston because now we made it look really good and my sentiments are please do come next year. Our hope is to be doing content with with tournaments like Charleston and specifically Charleston for years to come because for me, the new people who are new to tennis, who haven't spent their whole lives maybe playing or watching, will have I think, a great experience in a place like that where they can go and experience a city but also see the best tennis players in the world play on you know, a unique surface for a week. That to me is sort of a cool next step. You know, diehards can love tennis in any context. I can love tennis in any context. But people who are maybe newer, it helps to have it be like, oh, it's an explorable city. We can stay in a cool hotel. We're eating amazing you know food, food that's you know.

00:12:50
Speaker 2: I can tell you Charleston is absolutely on the list of best tournaments of the year by far. By the players. They love it because of the reasons you mentioned. Amazing city, so amazing that I'm flying down there this weekend just to go down Amazing because I just love it down there. The food, the restaurants are people. You know, my girlfriend's never been, so we're gonna go. We're gonna have a great time this weekend, and I love it. So it's definitely worth going. If you want to see women's tennis, played it its best and obviously experienced one of the great cities of the United States.

00:13:23
Speaker 1: So let's wrap Miami, shall we. We had and sort of out of the blue streak from Petra Kavitab. I think if you looked at the beginning of this tournament, it was kind of more like, Okay, are we going to get another Sabalinka Rubekina final? Is Badosa going to find her form this year?

00:13:40
Speaker 2: Or Bodosa almost got that win against Rabaquinade that could have turned around her entire entire season right there. But you know, Rabakina just has this ability now to get out of these out of these matches because of the confidence, and that's what really got her through that match. And then, in my opinion, yes, Pagoula someone that dropped the ball at this tournament. And I loved Jess so much and she will have no problem me in saying this because she would agree. But she should have won that match against Rabacchino. She was up a break a couple of times in the first set. She had so many opportunities to win the first set, and then in the second set she led in the second set again a couple of breaks and One of the things that she had said prior to the match is she hoped that Rebakina was going to have a bad serving day and then she felt like she had a chance. Well, guess what, she had a bad serving day because you broke her about four or five times and then you weren't able to finish off the match. So I was thinking, oh my god, if Jess Pagoola had a better serve and you a bigger serve that got her just a little bit of a free point here and there, she would have won that match like three and three.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: It did look. I watched that match and thought to myself, Pagola is dictating though, oh ye, which is you know, against Rabakkina. That's a huge accomplishment. I mean, we know how big a header dress is, and obviously she's extremely consistent, which makes the combination and super fun and compelling to watch. But I was watching a thinking I'm not sure why she's losing this. Yeah, and I think hopefully the takeaway from that is, oh, that's my match to win, you know, kind of like we were talking about with Paula Bajosa. You know, hopefully the takeaway is ah, okay, I'm putting myself in position. Maybe it's just the tiniest difference in confidence or feeling like I'm not quite I don't think hopefully it's that right.

00:15:18
Speaker 2: I don't think that she will go away from it thinking other than Jesus, if I just had rebukaing the serve, I would have won this match. So I think she knows. Look, you know, she's five foot four.

00:15:29
Speaker 1: I was gonna say five, it's not she's first of all, she's five six, because I'm five five and she's tired of me. But we're not all the same, you know, tiny people. I know it's for you, Willowye, you know tall just looking.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: Down and I look at them and I'm like, they're really not.

00:15:43
Speaker 1: How does somebody like Jess Pagola or well, not me, but how does somebody who's the size of us get a Rebecacina esque surf?

00:15:50
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, listen, there's been great five foot five service, justin Hannah, justin Enna, Lisa Raymond, Lisa Raymond. It all comes down to, and there's been more. Even Robert ta Vinci had a decent serve. You know what it is, it's good service. Motion. You've got to have a good service motion. And all three of those that I just mentioned had beautiful classic service motions.

00:16:15
Speaker 1: They had efficient.

00:16:16
Speaker 2: High elbows, beautiful take back down together up together like the classic service trophy motion, and they did. They three of the three that I can just pull off the top of my head that I know had good service motions and then they could propel themselves into the court and they all three served well over one hundred miles an hour and accurately. So that's what it comes down to. So if you're teaching your kids out there, if there's coaches that listen to this or parents that feel like they can coach, don't think again, think again. But honestly, it's about and look at Richard Williams. He's a perfect example. Like did Richard know anything about tennis? No, But what he did was he studied it and all that sort of stuff. And you look at the service motion of Serena for example, classic and he taught her to throw football. If you can't throw a football, you probably can't serve very well, right because your technique is shit. And if you have a really good serving technique, I bet you know how to throw a football. And I mean Sam Stows is a great example. I mean, Sam's not that tall, what maybe five e then eight maybe you know, and I mean look at that serve. It was massive. So so the butto and Lisa Raymond, for example, five five maybe.

00:17:24
Speaker 1: I think she's five four. It five to.

00:17:27
Speaker 2: Five, And I said, I think that's a lie. I think you're five to five when you're on your toes. But but she's a perfect example. Lisa can spiral a football like you can't imagine. So that's the key. Like if you're a kid, and if you're a kid small, they're not gonna have a great surf, but bullshit, that's not true. They can have a very good serf. Just make sure they have a good service motion. That's the key.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: All right, Well, Jess Pogola Renee is waiting to throw the football with you.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: I know that Jess is tinkered around with her serf. She's tinkered around with her feet being together, bringing them up together, keeping them separated, like there's been a lot of I know that David and her worked on her surf a lot, and there are times so she serves actually really quite well. But in that match, it really hurt her.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: I am not surprised to see were a Bakina. She got through some squeaks. She's feeling confident. She moves quite well, as you noted for somebody who's as tall as she is. And even he's gotten better. Like we talked about on a pray so.

00:18:21
Speaker 2: New fitness trainer Azula who worked with Carolina Plishkover for a while and I know him personally because I worked with Carolina at the same time he worked with her, and just a fantastic guy, super positive, knows how to work with players like that. He worked with Thomas Burdick before that, so he knows how to work with tall players that sort of don't have that natural quick movement. So he's done. I think he's done a fabulous job with her moving in and out of the choirs. The difference in this week, I think comparative to the week before is this court was fast, a lot faster than Inya Wells, so it suited petrik Koviteva's game. She could really utilize the lefty swinger. She could, you know, take advantage of her one to strike tennis with such flat groundstrokes. I think also her serve into the forehand Bardy was quite a good serve against Rebarkina. And then also Rebarkina is expecting the serve to come to her forehand on a big point, right, because it's such a weak aside to her backhand. And it's not to say it's bad, it's very good forehand, but her backhand is it's like sick. So I could see Petra on some big points going, you know what, I know, you expected the forehand, now bang straight to the back end, and she can do that with the lefty. You can matchup actually suits Petra quite a bit. And actually they played pretty recently in the Czech Republic last year indoors, which you think, okay, that's definitely going to suit Petra because she's such a good indoor player, but you're also playing against a player that, in that particular situation is also a Wimbledon champion coming in with tons of confidence, you know. A couple of months later, and funny enough, it was actually seven sixty six four, which was similar, but this time Rebarkina won the first set type break seven five. So on this occasion it gets flipped and of course this you know, and Petro hasn't really done anything.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: Well that was going to be very wild for you, which is you know, I think those of us who've been watching tennis for a long time know what Patrick Viteva is capable of because get her on a fast court and feeling confident. Good Nate. But where where has she been and what do you think, if anything, this might indicate about her being back.

00:20:28
Speaker 2: I think what this indicates is Patrick Kvitova at her petrik Ka Viteva's self. I mean, this is how she is. She runs these random tournaments where she just mows everyone down, and then she goes away for like six months. I'd like her, you know, I mean, because her game is so predicated on small margins of the way she plays, she doesn't she very rarely puts any spin on. It's just flat chat. So when she's on good luck, right, which is why she's won a couple of Wimbledon because the grass suits itself. So she's a start of player. So if you look at her results for example this year alone, I mean she lost to Casakina in straight sets, she lost to Jess, she beat Jess, Pagoula and Sigmund at the United Cup right with not a lot of pressure, just kind of having fun. So she plays great there. Then she loses to Casakina. In Adelaide, she loses to Caledina and Australia in the second round. Like Calinina is a good player, but you know, she loses to Coca Golf.

00:21:27
Speaker 1: That's a match.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: She can win that against good. In Doha and then Dubai, she loses Kajikava easily, so she kind of there's no indication. And then all of a sudden she gets Indian Well. She plays quite well, although having said that she should have one hundred percent lost to Jess Pagoula in Indian Wells. And she gets out of that match and wins it eleven I think it was thirteen eleven in the third set tiebreak. It was ridiculous that match. And then she loses to Sakari having being up a set and four one. That's right, she was up set and she's up against Sakari. He's definitely going to win this match. And then she us is that, you know, forget okay, that's a typical petrocout of a match. And then God Lover, she goes to Miami and just runs the ever runs the table.

00:22:09
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about well.

00:22:11
Speaker 2: First of all, I mean the first tiebreak, though, can I just say I want to talk a little bit.

00:22:16
Speaker 1: Sixteen fourteen five seven.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: Points against her. They both had loads of set points, but obviously it was always going to come down to that, and when I was trying to get to a while ago. But typical mea tangent. I think Rebarkna fought mentally the whole week. I think it's so hard to do the Sunshine double. There's only a reason why only a few people have ever done it have been really great, So the.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: Game stretch of time to be hard to do.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: It's a month long mental stretch and.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: In drastically different conditions, drastically different different court's a example.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: She won like Indian I was like, I think five times or something, could never win Miami, very different conditions. Although she's from California so she likes the conditions there, but she hated playing in Miami. Like so you know, there's a very few that are able to do it. I actually thought she was going to do it, but I think mentally I didn't take into consideration because she's so cool, calm and collected. I think mentally she was fried also.

00:23:13
Speaker 1: Especially given the amount of matches that came down to the wire in this tournament alone, right, I mean that's just like, that's emotional fatigue that even somebody is you know, sort of serene on the outside and ac and have.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: To see it. Like listen. I mean, I've spoken about it for and I've copped some shit from him and her camp and you know, giving Stephan her coach shit on this pod a couple last year about being really negative and stuff. But I mean, I'm sorry, but like it takes its toll. She's telling him to shut the fuck up, like a couple of times in the semifinal, Like at some point, you know, obviously they they like the relationship. It's going really well. She's winning a lot of tennis matches. He's obviously making a huge difference for her tennis, and there's no question that he's done an amazing job with her career.

00:23:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly it's working.

00:23:59
Speaker 2: But my point in telling you in the first place, when I spoke about him at some point, oh my god, the negativity and the chatter that he does in matches, it takes its toll on you as a player. And it's only because she's so.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: Chill, drunk out.

00:24:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, she can deal with it, but even she's telling him to shut up. Now, whether he's telling her something positive or negative, I don't know. But when you are tired, which she would have been, emotionally really tired and physically not getting all asleep, you're stressed out every day, it's like it takes its toll on you. And so maybe it took its toll on her in the final that she just she didn't have to fight, particularly in the second set, because it was a pretty quick second set. I mean, Petro took a three love lead in like two seconds, So I think that mentally she was probably as fright as anyone. So I mean, just take it on board. It takes as a tennis player under those circumstances, it really does take it out of you emotionally and physically, and we saw it with Alcroz. Maybe it took it out of him in the third set against Sinner.

00:24:58
Speaker 1: Yeah he looked tired.

00:24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's cramping, which is.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: He physically Yeah, his muscles were actually tired.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: Actually he was cramping.

00:25:06
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, so let's match. Let's talk about that match, just because I think, you know, as exciting as the Sinner Medvedev, and I love the fact that Medvedev is getting Jelly's finals. I think a tour with Medvedev frequently. He actually likes his No, he hasn't been about anything. I did his LaCosta commercial. We just should just talk about it's I don't know if you've seen it, Everyone go form an opinion because you haven't watched it. Look at it yet, Nancy would know you're going to watch it. We'll talk about it next week because it's pretty funny and weird, and I think it's performance art of the highest order. I cannot get enough of Cinner Alcarez. You're I'm not the only one. This is the future of men's tennis, and it's great. It's great. It's incredible, of.

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Course, but I am obsessed with these two.

00:25:55
Speaker 1: It's amazing.

00:25:56
Speaker 2: Like I literally stood here the other night watching the match. Was he with my friend Jill and Eden and we were watching and I was going just I must have said, after this one point that has now been replayed one hundred times on Twitter, are you e f in kidding me? Are you fing kidding me? What the fuck am I watching? This is insanity, you know, And when you're talking to other pros that played the game at a really high level, and all of them are lose their minds over the The tennis that those two guys play against each other is ridiculous. They both move unbelievably. That is the most efficient mover I've seen. From his height, I've ever seen that guy moves so well it's it blows my mind.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: He's sort of like a cat. Right now, I'm posting this episode from Charleston, one of the truly truly great culinary destinations of the world. The eating is not late, so I am very very excited that waiting for me when I get home is my Sakara Signature nutrition program, which makes it super super easy for me to plan nourishing, feel good meals around my busy schedule. Dinner plans this week, I don't have any, but guess what, I don't need to because the options are endless and they're catered to my taste and time. Takara brings expertly designed organic nutrition programs and wellness essentials right to your door. They're science backed, ready to eat meals deliver results you can see and feel, from weight management and eased bloat to boosted energy and clearer skin. Right now, Skara is offering our listeners twenty percent off their first order when they go to Sakara dot com slash racket or enter the code racket at checkout. That's Scara s a ka r a dot com slash racket to get twenty percent off your first order Takara dot Com slash Racket. I see, I mean, the two of them are, and that's the thing about the matchup that makes it so exciting to me. It's the fact that they're That's why getting the Sabalanca Rabekina final that we got in Australia made me so excited. You see these players at the top of their games and they kind of expand the notion of what's possible, you know, And for me watching Center and Alcharaz, the two of them, especially where some of these points actually illustrate what's possible. It shouldn't be possible to have a rally that long where each of them hit probably four or five winners behind the back slices, lobs running fourhand.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you know the point I'm talking about. Of course, that point, of course.

00:28:25
Speaker 1: Was finished with flick backhand crossport.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: But Alchoriz was on his as twice in that.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Alcras made a diving Avice dog hand.

00:28:34
Speaker 2: He actually was on his aus three times.

00:28:36
Speaker 1: No, it's incredible.

00:28:36
Speaker 2: It's just I just and have I said this before. They're great guys.

00:28:42
Speaker 1: They're great guys. They're so nicely. What I've heard is that they're so nice. Men's tennis is in a great, great place. I think women's tennis is in a great place. The product is great. I was lucky enough to be on one of your Amazon Prime Video Sport Colleagues.

00:28:59
Speaker 2: Show earlier this week, the Backup Plan.

00:29:01
Speaker 1: The Backup Plan, with our friends Hannah Astapchak and Jason Spells, and they were sort of asking about parody in the games, and you know, oh, now finally we have parody in the men's game. And to me, parody is the fact that we have a cohort of people who can win and it's not just the same couple of names. Because for me, the fact that women's tennis was always like, well there's no one reliable victor. It's like, excuse me, why do you want to watch the same person win everything all the time? I mean, I know we talked about this all the time, and that's not to take away from any great greatness, but I like the parody. I like the idea that it's just a question mark, Like I didn't know who was going to win that Center Alcoraz match at any point, including the.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: End and cocluding the end when Alchoriz looked like he was about to he you know, was like cheer, somebody shoot.

00:29:44
Speaker 1: Me, and I thought he was still gonna win the match.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, he's back. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess that's to.

00:29:50
Speaker 1: Me when you your hair stand on end. Watching tennis is when you truly don't know the outcome. And I'm not saying it's not fun to watch a match where you do know the outcome and it's so clear that one person is just you know, putting on a display. But for me, the best matches are those matches where you're like, anything could happen. There are gonna be shots we've never seen before. That's what it was like for me watching the Sablinkbukina Australian Open match. Maybe less pyrotechnics in terms of the movement or shots, but just the fact that they were both going so hard for it when I didn't know who was gonna win. That it to me is ultimately the excitement of watching live sports. That's why I watch it because you don't know what's going to happen.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: I love that Australian Open final because I've never seen two chicks just get short balls and just say yep, I'm fucking hitting this. Yeah. It was not like, oh oh god, I don't want to miss it, artillery tight. I mean when people get nervous, they don't really quite go for the lines. These two were like nah, going for the line. Yeah. It was just it was. It was amazing. It was such a great, high quality tennis. And I will say, like court surface is super important, right, So Miami is a lot quicker. Apparently it's running it to like a thirty nine. Last year was like a thirty three. It's just like the speed of the rating of the ball when it hits the court, what's the revolutions? How quick is it coming off the court. So basically it's running at a thirty nine, which is quite fast, and it was thirty three last year. And I would say I don't know what Indian Walls was, but I would say Indian Walls was probably like thirty one, thirty two, very slow, very gritty, lot more sand in it. Pretty much because the desert blows sand onto the court, so they just rolled it into the surface, which is why Medvedev was like, this is not the Dennis court, This is not hard court to them. So you know, it's super quick in Miami, which is why I said, obviously, Petroko Viva it was so successful there because it lends itself to her hitting style totally. So for example the men's final, let's take that. For example, obviously Alcoraz in India wells is a bit slower. He can hit through the court for winners. He can also run down everything you think, well, so does Medvedev. He plays the same, doesn't have the spin that al Choraz has. Alcaraz's ball hits and spins off the court a bit more than Medvedev's kind of sit. It's there a little bit more so it's harder for him to generate winners.

00:32:03
Speaker 1: And that's really where the Raffer comparisons I think are really accurate.

00:32:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you've got just the Novak action. He has a lot of action on his forehand to write as much on his back end, and Roger kind of can do it all. But but I say this final and it's good that we're doing this pod before the final because I'm really not sure who's going to win this final. I mean, because Sinner, if it was Alcaraz Medvedev, I think it would be a lot closer this match today than it was in Palm Springs and Innie Wells. But I think Sinner this is going to be interesting, tough match for him because I think Medvedev this court really suits him. So what is Sinner going to do now to beat him? And if I was to take a book for Tarren Cahill and say, if you watch Al Karaz, he actually out hit Medvedev, Medvedev couldn't do anything. So I would say, green light every ball, Just hit every ball as hard as you can, rush him, come into the net, try and finish the points because if you try and play from the back of the court, just hitting, hitting, hitting, Medvedev's gonna win the match.

00:33:04
Speaker 1: It does seem not to get too technical, because this is really more your bailiwick than mine, but it does seem like one of the things about Medvedev that I see as being a huge I mean, he moves so well for a guy who doesn't look like he moves well poletic. I would say it's poetic in its own way. But he stands so far back, and Sinner's angles have to be able to be deployed quickly right against I mean, because Medvedev's fast and he covers a lot of ground. But I have to say tactically, there must be a way to maybe not hit through him on the baseline, but hit through him using the entirety of the court.

00:33:38
Speaker 2: Well, I would I would employ a little bit of and he doesn't really have this, and maybe he can employ this today or get better at it. I would use to slice a little bit and bring him forward because he the one place that Medvedev is not comfortable is at the net. Sure, so you've got to find a way to bring him forward to hit them through him. So we'll see Alchoriz did that the drop shot. The drop shot can also slide and then bang, he can hit it through you. So we'll see Darren's you know, obviously one of the great coaches of all time. He will be looking at all the stats and trying to figure out a way for Sinna to win this. And I would love to see Senna win it me too, because that would really establish Sinna Medvedev, al Karez, Djokovic as the top four players.

00:34:18
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say, my favorite part of the year is about to happen. It starts tomorrow and it's clay season. I love clay season.

00:34:25
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. I love it.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: I think if grass court season were longer, and if it were a little bit more, you would like that the month promoted I would like the most because it's actually the surface that I like to play on the most. And I like serving a bone, you know, because you're right, just by being five to five, I have a pretty good serve when when I when I used to serve. But my point is, I do you you're making a face, but thank you for not illustrating and allowed you, dick. I love clay season and I love the fact that, truly, truly it's chaos. And I have to say, I think the best ticket in town is going to be the roll on Garos mad Well. Pretty much every match Carlos Alcarez plays on clay Well.

00:35:03
Speaker 2: Every match Carlos Alcarez plays these days is like gets the most hype because he's so exciting to watch. But what I would like to see is Rafa come back, yep. Healthy. He's obviously talking about not playing Monte Carlo because he's physically not going to be never.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: Does where were there?

00:35:19
Speaker 2: No, yes he does, he doesn't. How many time? Look up? How many times I'm sure he's won one Monte Carlo.

00:35:23
Speaker 1: Probably not recently. Has t Pas won it like three or four times?

00:35:26
Speaker 2: Today? How many times is Rafa one Monte Carlo?

00:35:28
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll we wait for that, Nentwer.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to say at least five times. But here's the thing. I think he's not going to play because he wants to be really really ready and he knows he's going to go full on hard. I think he's going to play obviously Rome, Madrid, Barcelona and try and get all the tennis under his belt before the French Open. But I would love to see Alcarez Rafa semi R final and then I would love to see Djokovic. It will be in the other semi R final, yeah for sure, and we'll see what. You know, these other guys can do, like Taylor, Fritz Fritz and you know, poor old Dominic team he can't win two matches right now. But you know, so there's a lot, there's a lot. Well, it's going to be exciting. The women's is going to be exciting. It is definitely the favorite that the French open these big How many times did he win it? I said five at least, So Caitlin, He's only one Monte Calo eleven times.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: Hasn't it.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: Honestly, our listeners are just dying right now with the lack of information that we're giving to them. We're supposed to be the expert.

00:36:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to edit all of this out.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: Oh god, Okay, So I don't look as.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: Dumb as I clearly am. But speaking of looking dumb.

00:36:38
Speaker 2: I am.

00:36:39
Speaker 1: I should I address the Twitter confirmation about pickleball? Let it go? You can bring it I.

00:36:48
Speaker 2: I maybe they can bring it up because all of our listeners are right on your side.

00:36:51
Speaker 1: Well, it's I don't want to appreach to the quiry. It's just I want to explain myself a little bit, which is that seeing Agacy and Chang and Raddick and macenrall play pickleball for well, you know why they're doing it, right, Because they're getting paid a lot of money. Yeah, and I get it.

00:37:06
Speaker 2: But it's because I would say John and Andy, I don't know about Michael and who's yell Andrea agasine, Oh, Andre, I would say that none of them like pickable at all. They think it's a joke. They're taking the money.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: I get it. I also, you can't do a charity event, any event that all four of them would do would make boodles of money for So I see.

00:37:32
Speaker 2: Where you're going here. So why not Andre, Andy, Michael and John McEnroe play a double sit? Is that what you're saying?

00:37:40
Speaker 1: Yeah? For the Ukraine or for you know, alleviating you know, I.

00:37:45
Speaker 2: Don't know, because obviously someone in Tennis didn't think to pay them a million dollars or whatever.

00:37:50
Speaker 1: And this is sort of this is what I want to get back to at the place we started, which is a lot of times and most recently, whenever I sort of go off on Twitter, I get a lot of feedback behind the scenes from like folks, some of whom are like yeah, but a lot.

00:38:02
Speaker 2: Of I'm a man seven nights, I'm a man.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, Who's like, you're negative. You're a real loud mouth, you are, you know, and it's.

00:38:09
Speaker 2: Like, can't you use that energy as a positive.

00:38:12
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I'm trying to by making.

00:38:14
Speaker 2: I'm joking that that's no sure what you get told.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: But it is. But it is a good valid question, which is I'm trying to by putting into the world things that I want to see more of. I want to see more travel content, so we're doing a travel content series with Andre Pekovich this week in Charleston. I want to see more beautifully designed merch and posters and events, so that's what we're doing. I want to see more loud, thoughtful, amazing voices who can blend coaching with like random people on the street, which is why we made.

00:38:39
Speaker 2: A finger pointing at me.

00:38:40
Speaker 1: Then well, I as soon as you said loud, I should know I'm talking about you. But I think like.

00:38:44
Speaker 2: You actually didn't point until you said loud.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: That's right now, just to make it clear, but I think you know, I am trying to, through all of our efforts and all of our friendships and all of our partnerships with racket, be both an active critique of the system, but also make the case that you know, we're putting our money where our mouth is and spending our money and spending our resources to try to do stuff that we want to see more of. We don't want to be the only voice in town. We certainly don't want to be super super argumentative of all the time. It's tiring so for me to watch our legends play pickleball with you know, knowing that they probably don't like it because somebody was more opportunistic in the pickleball space. They have a lot of venture capital they need to spend it. I think they need to convince people that this is a real thing, at least until they can exit and get their returns on their investment and sell it to the next sucker down the road, because the truth is it's not a viable pro league or television product. Then it makes me angry that the entirety of the tennis ecosystem, or at least most of the tennesse ecosystem that we see Tennis Channel included, ESPN concluded, are Legends included, are happy to sort of lay down their arms and be like, yeah, sure, this latest fad thing.

00:39:49
Speaker 2: Why not.

00:39:50
Speaker 1: We're not doing a particularly good job of making tennis the center of our universe and promoting the game and making it as popular or as money making as it should be. But here's like the latest thing. Let's go hitch are wagons to that because it seems exciting. That to me is really the defeatist energy of it that I find.

00:40:05
Speaker 2: So I have a harder time. And I'm not saying this because I work for ESPN, but I have a harder time. I don't ESPN are putting on whatever an hour or two exhibition, fun thing with people that are going to get eyeballs on it on a Sunday where there's not a lot going on on.

00:40:23
Speaker 1: A Sunday step for Miami.

00:40:25
Speaker 2: Oh hold on. I don't have a problem with ESPN doing that because they're paying, they're they're putting it on there, and they're getting their sponsors and etcetera, etcetera, and they're making money from it, right, So because it's a fun thing and they don't have tennis on until the Slams I have, and so that's an opportunistic thing for them because ESPN don't aren't focused on tennis for sure, right they are focused on entertainment sport on their networks. Right. I'm we're currently watch Champs, you know. While we're doing this, I have the replay of the F one race on ESPN because it was at o'clock in the morning and I was too tired to watch it and watching the replay today. So that's ESPN is the worldwide leader in sports. Tennis channel is supposed to be Tennis channel, Okay. So that's where I have an issue. Is they have it on tennis channel, and because they have it on tennis channel, because pickleball people and associations are paying for it to be on their channel. Okay. So that's a very different scenario to me. Is it going up against the final the pickleball thing, Yeah it is. But is that ESPN's problem or is that is that Tennis Channel's problem to push the tournament.

00:41:36
Speaker 1: To say, shit, maybe a different days.

00:41:40
Speaker 2: Probably gonna watch Andre Agassi and John McEnroe and Andy Ritick and Michael Chang over the stuff on our network. So I have to work around that.

00:41:49
Speaker 1: To me, that's the bigger issue. And I think you're right. I don't blame ESPN in this scenario. As much as I am frustrated at the Tennis world, especially when this thing.

00:41:59
Speaker 2: I would just like ESPN to take back Miami for sure and all the masts one thousands.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: Although honestly, based on the Australian Open, coverage. I'm not sure that that's such a good viable idea anymore. I was really disappointed in the Australian Open coverage, and I think, you know, we can have a I think, probably maybe slightly disagreeing, but just drunk constructive argument about I know that all the talent, and I'm sure all the talent was inhappy with it either, and that.

00:42:23
Speaker 2: In the echellance of the tennis people, they would absolutely trust me when I tell you they want to be down there for sure, you know, And sometimes decision making is out of the people's hands that want to bring you the share.

00:42:35
Speaker 1: I'm sure they didn't, you know, I'm sure they didn't, you know, give people.

00:42:39
Speaker 2: The option something different next year.

00:42:41
Speaker 1: Good good. I hope that that's the case. But I think for me, just seeing how popular the sport is recreationally, unlike pickleball, which claims thirty million but it's actually seven, unlike the idea that this thing is going to be a huge money maker, Tennis already is. It's the best sport for women to play, it is inclusive, it has been on the right side of history. It's not a colonial, boomer white sport. The way that this thing is that is attempting to take over our purpose built facilities. So if these guys were all playing this on a sidewalk and not coming after our legends and our stars and our airtime and our network eventually get god, don't even get me started. The amount of people who sent me that article infuriating, and I think that's what that's what their VC money has bought. It's bought the illusion of an inevitability, which is frustrating because the truth is it's not a very good product for a pro or television. Television is terrible product, and it's sort of like there, it's the most cynical, least uh, you know, least difficult path, path of resistance to me, which is why all these you know, men who've invested in it and men who are making all these decisions, you know, playing it. And it's probably because they play it. And so for me, it's it's frustrating to watch our sport. That's so it's never been better from a product perspective, and from a recreational perspective, at least not since the eighties. Get sort of obscured. That's where my anger comes from, and I want to use it productively by talking about it, explaining myself, and trying to put that energy into making the sort of product and the kind of world around tennis that I feel like they should have been making the whole time. That's what this is. It's not me firing shots at people because it's fun. I would much rather be working with them to make things better. I had a very very long meeting with some of the executives at some of these places where Olive branch. Let's work together, let's combine forces.

00:44:34
Speaker 2: They don't listen, they don't want to.

00:44:36
Speaker 1: No, they don't think that there's anything to be at it.

00:44:38
Speaker 2: Caitlyn, I listen. You know, I have my own TV show now, and you know we really want to make it one of the better tennis coveraged shows, right you have. You know, Unfortunately we don't get b roll. We have to pay for that. You know, Amazon have to pay for the rights to show a point from Miami or blah blah blah. Right, So they're not they're not gonna they're not going to pay all that money for b roll yet, right, because we're a new sports and it's expensive station and it's very expensive, right, so you know, so my only access to tennis players, for example, is through them coming on my show and doing an interview and we talked to them, and we've had we had Jenny Brady on last week, which got a ton of views on the social networks and people were so excited to see Jenny Brady and find out what she's doing.

00:45:25
Speaker 1: For sure.

00:45:26
Speaker 2: You know, I've had, I had, I've had plenty of tennis plays.

00:45:30
Speaker 1: You've had Christian, You've had Andre Pekovich, You've had a handful.

00:45:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Rohan Bapartner on last week talking about his historic win and Indian wells in the doubles and being the oldest man to ever win a title on a to B you know, all this sort of stuff that Mark Knowles came on the other day. And then I'm getting pushedback, for example, from the w t A and saying, well, what are your numbers? And you know, we can only give access to players to the people that are paying for the rights to show that. I'm like, hold on a second. The only people paying for rights paying the associations is Tennis Channel, right, they have the rights for the tennis to show it and to interview the players. But there are so many players that don't get asked to do those interviews. So there are so many players that don't get asked, you know, their opinion on stuff. There are so many players that don't get an article written about them because these tennis you know, you know, Tennis Channel or ESPN or Eurosport or New York Times or you know the Boca Ratone Gazette or whatever. They only care about the stars. That's all they care about because that they feel that that sells their sport. And I'm asking, for example, the WTA. I don't need the top players. I would love them. I can email them and I can text them myself.

00:46:41
Speaker 1: Second news, as you know, will this weak directly, Yeah.

00:46:44
Speaker 2: Because I'm just texting her myself.

00:46:45
Speaker 1: But it's like, but they should see that you're trying to amplify their their players, their jobs and help them do it, which, by the way, working for Amazon, which is an enormous footprint in the world and probably a future rates holder if being.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: Honest, well, they're the rights holder in the French Open now for you know, all of Europe, et cetera, et cetera. But it's like you guys, don't you cannot see the forest through the trees, and I just think it's lazy. I'm sorry, it's lazy, and I don't care what anyone says. Our sport is run horribly from a marketing standpoint, and they're all out of their minds with this Breakpoint on Netflix. Oh my god, we're going to get such great cut. This is going to bring so many more new fans to Really is it okay? Great if it does, fantastic? But can we amplify it in other ways as well? Well?

00:47:33
Speaker 1: I think the to me, the one thing I'll say about Breakpoint is it is a huge dereliction of duty that the tours didn't do this themselves. Hello, Like, are you kidding me?

00:47:47
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:47:48
Speaker 1: Who's making all the money? Who has the sleet deal with Netflix? Box to box, the production company that's done this four times? Is Breakpoint even their best effort? I would argue, probably not. From what I've saw, it's fine. I mean, there's some elements of it that are good. I'm not complaining about the fact that it exists, but like the fact that also setting aside giving away your essentially your marketing responsibilities but also your marketing dollars and the return on that to another third party with your intellectual property that you've now given to a third party instead of doing yourself. Do you have an on ramp for those people who discovered tennis first through rakeepoint? How do they find tennis on your network? They're not going to see it on a NAT show. They're not going to see it in racket because we don't have any rights. They're gonna have to go to the Tennis Channel, subscribe and work their way through a very arcane process to try to even watch the players that they got to know about. Where can they go to find information on the internet? Maybe occasionally The New York Times says a story we don't have the resources to do at twenty four seven newsroom like I used to do at Time dot com or the Washington Post dot com. Where are they going? Are they going to Tennis dot com?

00:48:48
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you what that they don't have to go into the WTA dot com, Like who's doing your website? The amount of times I have to go to the WTA and say, guys, you know the match point is actually not on the VD for your website. So I don't want to trash the WTA, But I'm trashing the WTA because there are so many areas where they fall so flat, and the ATP do a much better job with that. And it comes down to the dollars, I get it.

00:49:14
Speaker 1: Well, no, no, no, but.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: I will say it doesn't come down to dollars because, for example, you guys at Racket with the smallest budget with like three people working for you, do a way better job.

00:49:25
Speaker 1: Listen, we're trying, we have. There are plenty of things I wish we were doing better and that we were doing more of. I am not saying this in a position of you know, being.

00:49:33
Speaker 2: A know it all.

00:49:33
Speaker 1: It's just more like your allocation of resources is not to create a resource for people to be able to spread, interact with and learn the game. And that is what I would argue you should do. Because as good as the ATP is, and as much better and obviously more well funded as they are, they still have takedown notices for people who organically share content on the Internet, which to me, yeah, just an exridiculous of your fans trying to find your content and among themselves. Does that hurt you? Does it take away from your bottom line? Are these people who would otherwise be paying you but aren't paying you because they're seeing it for free on the internet. Absolutely, not the level of sophistication that they have with an understanding of how essentially it's all marketing, but the level of sophistication that they understand of the Internet, of how audiences work, audience growth and storytelling leaves a lot to be desired. And so for me, I want again, this is all in the spirit of please do this better so that we can help, right, Like, that's sort of I think why it gets us so animated because it's like you're sitting here with a show and a huge platform.

00:50:36
Speaker 2: And they're like, I'm sorry, we were not able to give you anybody at the one thousands. We could maybe work on it in the two fifties and five hundreds.

00:50:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, cool, they're the same players, yep, I mean, same tournament. It's just making themselves irrelevant because what we're finding a racket. And I'll give you an example, so like, uh, there's a player who has won a Grand Slam who doesn't feel like she gets a lot of coverage from you know, the networks. Nobody's asking her to, nobody's calling for special interviews with her. In the media rooms at these tournaments and tours, haven't, and the brands she works with haven't really propped her up. She's now coming to us saying like, hey, can I work with you guys? How can I show my sides of my personality? How can I be somebody who's not just seen in this one dimensional way?

00:51:18
Speaker 2: Not yet?

00:51:19
Speaker 1: And again I say this with humility and a true desire to help. If brands are coming directly to us, and players are coming directly to us, and I come to the networks and the tours and say, hey, work with us. We have the authority and the brand awareness. You guys have the reach and the access. Those are two. I got some chocolate in my peanut butter moments, like, there's an overlap there, And so for me, it's just sort of short sighted. And again I'm not saying this is a way to complain. I'm just saying it to illustrate, Like, do I wish we could do a lot more stuff?

00:51:53
Speaker 2: Yes?

00:51:54
Speaker 1: Do? I feel like the tours are in their own ways and a lot of these networks are in their own ways. Absolutely, And to me, all of the critiques and all of the seeing people get excited about pickleball, it's because so many things are lacking in our own infrastructure, and it's to me it is a zero some game. Having been in rooms with investors, with venture capitalists, with private equity groups and having them say to me, oh, well, we're not really that interested in tennis because you know what's exciting is pickleball, And I say, but the global reach, the actual product, the players, the history, the culture, the fashion. Then they say, yeah, but pickleball is like it just seems easier, and it's like, you know what, that's true. That's true. There's probably less headaches, less tours, less you know, they're probably willing to do stuff with you. They're probably willing to play the long game, and they're probably willing to, you know, from an organizational standpoint, beat the drum of their product, which is bad. But that's not something the tennis world is willing to do. And I really, really really would love to see that change.

00:52:56
Speaker 2: Listen. I could go on and on about, you know, the amount of the lack, in my opinion, the lack of marketing from the WTA standpoint, and I'm only going to talk about the WTA because I don't know enough about it from the ATP standfort point. But you know, when you had shit crowds in Dallas or and Fort Worth last year for the WTA Finals, and they said, well, we didn't have a lot of time. What I don't care if you have one month or two months. I mean we put a party together in La Two hundred and fifty people came in six days. We put that together. Like, if you have the outreach and the people, the brand and the understanding, and you have players that you know have already you know, solidified themselves into the WTA Finals, and you don't have them on Good Morning America or the Today Show or CBS Morning, you would probably have them Good Morning America because it's a synergy with ESPN and the Grand Stations, whatever. It doesn't matter. Everyone's so obsessed with tennis. Trust me when I tell you there's a lot of superstars that obsessed with tennis. So work with them, get them on TV and say hey, listen and we're going to be in Dallas Fort Worth. There were so many people that didn't even know the tournament was on. Yeah in Dallas.

00:54:05
Speaker 1: I would argue, don't put it there.

00:54:07
Speaker 2: Well, I know, we can argue all we want, but when people in the city don't even know there's a fucking tennis tournament of the best tennis players in the world. That's on you. I'm sorry, that's on the WTA marketing and I know I'm harping on it, and they're like, well, you know it's money. No, it's not, it's passion. Sorry, it's passion, like you can play play some intern who plays tennis at Missouri, you know, who's in a journalism school to say, hey, got any creative ideas for us, Yeah, to get this out in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Well that's so, there's stop being lazy.

00:54:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think. I think in that spirit, it's clear season a new tournament is around the corner that we are excited about.

00:54:49
Speaker 2: Fight up in a while.

00:54:50
Speaker 1: Well, no, it's it's it's it's such a good I.

00:54:53
Speaker 2: Just got that email the other day and basically saying like, look, you know, we can't give you anyone.

00:54:57
Speaker 1: So I'm getting texts from powerful people who should be not worrying about what I'm saying on Twitter and instead of doing their jobs. Yeah, and or or I'll take it from you and do it for it.

00:55:07
Speaker 2: And you know, as far as Santas Channel is concerned, listen, you know, it's it's a lot. They have to cover a lot of tennis.

00:55:12
Speaker 1: And I get it, they have a lot to do, but it's not great. And then you and then you see six pickleball channels on there, and then.

00:55:21
Speaker 2: You're just concentrate on the tennis. Yea out of it?

00:55:24
Speaker 1: Right?

00:55:26
Speaker 2: They can't because they're getting paid by Pickable. He pays to be on tennis channel. Tennis channel have to pay a Miami to have the rights to have the tournament.

00:55:36
Speaker 1: Think they would be excited to make it profitable. All right, Well, with that in mind, there's a new season, there is a new surface, there are new names, there is a new spring breeze in the air. So maybe change is upon us and we can look towards you know, better days, because yeah, I think, oh, the harsh words are intended to be taken as an impassioned critique, but also create a cur about like, hey, we're having a bit of an existential crisis. How much longer can the powers that be keep doing things the way that they've been done and stay in power?

00:56:15
Speaker 2: And you know what, I want to just throw a last thing before we hold tennis players. You also need to be a part of growing the sport, and when you're asked to do an extra five minutes or something, do it okay, because it only puts more money in your pocket. That's the bottom line, because if you can advertise more of the sport, you can get more out there. You know. Look, these players gave so much to this breakpoint, and they did give a lot of access, and some of them came to me and said, I can't believe they didn't use this stuff or that stuff or this stuff. I mean, we had a fight here, we had this here, and I let her into my psychology session and blah blah blah. They didn't use any of it. Use that stuff because the players are okay with it. If they're allowing you into a room when you're having a psychology half an hour session, they're obviously saying to you, you can use this on your show. And they didn't use that stuff on their show, which is shocking to me.

00:57:01
Speaker 1: Hopefully the last next couple episodes will be better.

00:57:04
Speaker 2: I hear it's a little bit more dramatic, so we'll find it. We'll find out very soon. Anyway. Well, thanks for Johnny is Hey, Nancy, thanks for writing to us. We really do appreciate you listening and all of our listeners. Thanks very much. I'm sorry I was a bit hot headed today.

00:57:15
Speaker 1: I love it all right. On that note, bye bye