AO Recap Day 15: Jannik Sinternet Has Entered the Chat

00:00:12
Speaker 1: Renee. Caitlin, I have so many things to say to you. I wish I had joined the breakfast club slash late night tequila club in Melbourne with you and Andrea Pekovich because these past two weeks have been incredible to listen to. I'm just jealous. I couldn't be there. Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing for racket, for you for your show, but also for the world an incredible service because that was a triumph.

00:00:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we thanks Kaitlyn. Look, you know, first of all, we were really lucky. Andrea and I stayed together in a great apartment.

00:00:47
Speaker 3: My best friend has a great apartment here in Melbourne, so we stayed here.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: So you know, we were getting back honestly almost at the same time every night, and if we weren't, we were watching tennis, you know, and then you know, somebody would come home at like one thirty in the morning, and so it was just great. And you know, as you know, Caitlin, Petco and I we rehashed tennis like nobody's business. Like we love getting into the weeds of talking about matches and about situations and about what happened and can you believe this? And can you believe that, and we thought, okay, let's just do this every day and put it on the pod. And there were some nights where we you know, mostly pet Coke she was like, Rudy, I gotta go to bed, and so we would do it early in the morning before we went and obviously with the different time changes, that worked out.

00:01:31
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:01:32
Speaker 3: So we had a blast doing it. We loved doing it.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: We were going to do ten minutes a day and we ended up like going sometimes like for half an hour, because it's just how Petco and I are. We just we love to get into the weeds of tennis matches, tennis players and the tournament. And this tournament was freaking amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. It had ever so many record breaking things, you know, the most five set matches in Grand Slam history or equal to I think we had the longest tie break in the history of tennis.

00:02:03
Speaker 3: In the rebarking a blink over match.

00:02:05
Speaker 2: We had the most attended Grand Slam of all time, over a million people.

00:02:10
Speaker 3: Incredible event, incredible, was just it.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: Was just amazing. The only thing that really stunk was the women's final. Other than that, it.

00:02:16
Speaker 1: Was great, sure, and I will say you forgot to mention the record that you held the double double by a wide margin. You won the mixed and the women's doubles, and that's a record that stood for decades. Chase Away, you had an incredibly cool woman to hand the baton off to in the form of Chase Away. The men's doubles final Maddi Ebden and Rohan Bopa becomes the oldest men's never one. Like the wheelchair tennis was great. It was just like everything was great. And I will even say that even though I agreed with your analysis, and if anybody does not know what we're talking about, truly go back and listen to any one of the episodes that you guys did day in, day out, literally recapping these matches. And yes, I agree the quality was not that good, but the excitement of the matchup, of the new face of the storylines, like from point to point, yes, John chin Winn was overwhelmed and had not played enough like big hitters to get you know, prepared for what Arena Sabalinka had to offer. But like it was just such a fun All the stories were so fun, all the finalists were so fun, and yeah, the match could have been better on the women's side. The match on the men's side, though, Wow, what a barn gardership was. Holy shit, let's talk about it. Because I was not awake for most of it. You were there, so we can kind of started with a brink out there. But I just before we started talking to tennis, I just wanted to say, also, thank you all the listeners. You guys Howard our show to number two across the globe, the Tennis podcast, were coming for you because now that it turns out we're doing this pretty regularly, uh, you got a target on your back. And we got so many reviews, so many responses, so many people writing in and saying, this is great. Do more the analysis, the humor, the real talk like it was just it was so amazing. So please, please, please, let's figure out how to do more of these, and I will gladly edit them and sit in the back and you know, love in whatever it is that I'm useful for unless needed. But that was great. So I wanted to start with that to say thank you to you, but also thanks for our listeners.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks thanks to our listeners, because I got a lot of lovely messages. I think the classic one of the two weeks and the reason why Peco is not on this podcast right now.

00:04:31
Speaker 3: But she is still flying to Frankfurt. It's a lot. It takes a long time to get from Australia to Germany.

00:04:38
Speaker 2: But you know, one of the drivers was picking up Petco one day and she said, she came bustling down into the transportation.

00:04:46
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm late. She goes, Oh no, no, it's okay. You're probably still doing the podcast.

00:04:51
Speaker 2: No, we had a driver any straight open that was clearly had been listening to the daily podcast. So we really appreciate all the listeners. And yes, I think the perspective of both. You know, obviously Petco and I to be able to talk about matches and tournaments and Grand Slam play considering we both played in them and we both know these players and the nuances that go into winning Grand slams. I mean, I don't know what it takes to win a singles Grand Slam. Petko knows what it's like to get to a semi final of a singles Grand Slam.

00:05:19
Speaker 3: So we're very I think a little bit.

00:05:23
Speaker 2: I mean I can say, like I think our podcast with the two of us doing it certainly gives a different perspective than any other.

00:05:29
Speaker 3: Podcast in the world.

00:05:30
Speaker 2: So anyway, look, the bottom line is that match yesterday was absolutely incredible. I had such a soft spot for both of these guys.

00:05:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and many many people did too. I mean, what a great duo, especially after people came to Daniel Medvedev sort of defense after seeing how you guys talked about he was so misrepresented in the Netflix documentary. He's just sort of a lovable like kind of edge lord, and he had really really incredible matches, especially against Verb in the semi final to even meet the final. So yeah, I think a lot of us were rooting for a kind of both of them.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the fact that he finished a match at three point forty in the morning, Okay, I mean that in and of itself, to get through and to back it up and to come back and win the amount. And no one has ever played a Grand Slam, got into a final, has ever played more tennis in the history of Grand Slam play. Another record that was set here at this Train Open. And so it was in the men's and I was just like, I could not believe how incredibly resilient he was in every sense of the word.

00:06:40
Speaker 3: I have to say, Caitlin. I interviewed both Yannik and.

00:06:44
Speaker 2: Daniel after their semi final victories and I just like these guys so much. They're so refreshingly great for the game. Obviously, Medvedev, Medvedev, what he went through to get to the final.

00:06:55
Speaker 3: Was just just outrageous.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: To come back the way he did against Verev and force his way into that five set match and get the victory was unbelievable.

00:07:05
Speaker 3: And we all know what.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: We feel about Zverev at this point in time, so it was nice to see Medvedev get another chance to win another Australian Open. And then obviously what Sinner was able to do would beat a guy that we never thought would be beaten on Rod laver Aren in the semi finals, and the way he did it was just amazing.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: And then for both of them to go in the final.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I have never not said how much I love Yanick Sinner, but I think people also know how much I like Medvedev, and I really, you know, part of me really wanted Yanick to win because also my connection with Darren Cahill. But I just love Yanick so much. But I just and I said last year that there's no doubt in my mind he could win a Grand Slam this year. And I thought the strain up and was going to be a really good test, and I thought that would be his best chance, just because he's been playing so well and what he was able to achieve.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: But you think about Medvedev coming.

00:07:54
Speaker 2: Back from two sets to love against Zverev and then he gets up two sets of love in the final, and he played two of the best sets I've ever seen any male play in my life. He was serving out of his mind. He wasn't missing a shot from the baseline. There's no question that Yanick Sinner was struggling at the beginning. I think he was a little bit nervous. He wasn't hitting out on the ball, he wasn't really.

00:08:14
Speaker 3: Going for it.

00:08:14
Speaker 2: But a lot of that was also because of the way that Medvedev played the match. It was unbelievable how well he came out. I think he was so tired from the two weeks that he was seeing the ball like a basketball. But then the tide started turning and you could see that Sinner was starting to hang in there and his frustration level at times was obvious to see because he couldn't get into the return games. But then when he did, you could see he just started just you know, knuckle down, like I am not going anywhere. I'm going to force this match into a fourth set I'm going to force this to be a physical match again, and he started playing really, really aggressive, and you could tell that Medvedev started to kind of get a little bit tired. The amount of hours on the court certainly affected him, There's no doubt about that.

00:08:56
Speaker 3: And then Yannik just ran away with it sort of in the end.

00:08:59
Speaker 2: I mean, wasn't easy, but you could tell he just had the edge over Medvedev in the long rallies. And match point was indicative of the entire two weeks that Janick Sinner was the best player in the tournament because that forehand that he hit on match point, oh yeah, the forehand, the foehand winner he hit against Jokovic to win the match, and then the foehand down the line just absolutely striped it down the line to win against Medvedev was unfriggin believable. And just the respect that those two guys had for each other at the net The speeches that they both gave were incredible.

00:09:35
Speaker 3: I love Yanixinnis thanking his parents for not.

00:09:38
Speaker 2: Pushing him into a sport that maybe you know, we all know how great a ski he is, and just I'm sure that the parents, knowing from where they are from, probably wanted him to maybe ski didn't really understand the sport of tennis that well. Is just indicative of how important it is to let your kids do the passion and do the sport that they really love.

00:09:58
Speaker 1: Now I want to jump in here and do something new, because normally I'd be like what about their outfits or like what about that cute you know, blah blah blah, because you know, I'm the less of a tennis expert. What I've learned so much the last two weeks listening to you and Andrea talk about return positioning and it's like technique variations. I mean, you talk about this on our podcast when it's just you and me all the time, and most of the time I follow you because you're really, you know, good at explaining it. But I want you to explain it to me like I was pet Co or if I had a prompt for you that she would have or She's like, oh, did you notice close to the baseline he was standing like can you can you break down?

00:10:33
Speaker 3: It's actually pretty good.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: I mean, my father's got a he got some German connection. Anyway, My point is, without doing a full more of a Becco impersonation, chopped down like a Lidden tree, what the fuck is the Liden tree? I made that the episode the Liden tree.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: Anyway, Well apparently that's a tree. It's apparently a thing because one of our trustee listeners wrote in and told us all about the Linton So I'm.

00:11:00
Speaker 1: Away that's great. I mean she's thinking Henry the fifth. It was a triumph really, but like what, yes, you know, gas was a factor. Yannick ran away with it fresher legs, blah blah. But from a tactics perspective, because these guys are so good on the run, because they're both so flexible, because they both have great backhanded back ends, was there a technical difference between the first two, especially in second two sets, where like Daniel gets the first two.

00:11:31
Speaker 4: What happened besides well, many came out standing a lot closer to the baseline, and I think that really threw Yannick's game plan off because I think he, you know, he's so used to Medvedev standing a long way behind the baseline.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: He's played him a couple of times in you know, months previous, where he's beaten him three times, and he hadn't done that before. So technically they had obviously changed something up. But Medvedev changed something up. He started standing inside the little bit more closer to the baseline number turn, I think that sort of took Yanick out.

00:12:01
Speaker 3: Of his serving rhythm.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: He was not serving well in the first set or two, and Medvedev, as I said, was like lockdown mode, was barely missing anything. And so I think that Yannick decided to stand back further on his return in the third and fourth and fifth sets, so he was starting to get into the service games of Medvedev. And then I think once once he got into the return games and obviously got that one breaker server, you could just tell everything changed. And I do believe that in more so, in general, Medvedev's pace on the ball was not as strong, was not hitting the ball as hard, He certainly was not serving as big. In the third and fourth and fifth sets, his miles per hour dropped off significantly and the flip side is that Yannick's Yannick's serving was bigger, it was more accurate, he was hitting the ball stronger. So you could just see the sort of the wear and tear that Medvedev had had, and also the improvement in the match as it went on for Sinner to be more comfortable. I think the first couple of sets he was just overwhelmed a little bit by how big this moment was, and so not really hitting the ball as aggressive, wasn't staying through the shot with his legs. There's clearly Medvedev was kind of like, fuck it, I'm going to go for it. It worked against Verreev down two sets, love, I'm going to start out that way, and that's what he did. But I think the wear and tear got to him, and I think Sinner started to calm the farm a little bit in the third, fourth and fifth and started playing within himself. Because even you know on Australian Network, one of the things that I thought was fantastic from Todd Woodbridge that he said is that he said he was Yannik Sinna deserved to win this tournament. He was the best player by a mile in this tournament. From start to finish. He didn't drop a set until he dropped a set to the ten time defending champion in Novak Djokovic, which, guess what, still pretty amazing still, and then coming back from two sets of love and coming back from that adversity when he had really faced anything like that in the tournament, just shows you his maturity, his calm.

00:14:01
Speaker 3: You know, even Medvedev saying klekle makalma after.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: He won the Zeppie, that's actually the attitude that won Janick Syndy Strain Open. And I got to give Medvedev a lot of creditude because if there was ever a time not to be Kyle Mkalima was in the fourth fifth set when he was starting to kind of fall apart a little bit physically and his opponent started.

00:14:19
Speaker 3: Picking up his play.

00:14:22
Speaker 2: I just thought the way he handled himself, the way Sinner handed himself to just fantastic examples of two great champions.

00:14:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and the for me, the final really was like one of those you hate to see anybody losing because you know how fun it would be for Danielle to get his first Australian Open, the second one that he has shown up in a final, his second slam. You know, he's just also such a great character. On the other hand, Janick was such a great player throughout the tournament. He definitely was the player of theurament, much like Arena Soblanca just was like better clearly than everybody else by a margin, you know. And I want to call back to something that Andrea said in the in the last episode when you guys were recapping the women's final, where she said, you know, she was happy to hear that Arena in her post match her post championship match interview seemed the right amount of happy. She was like, I am thrilled to have won, but I don't feel like this is like, wow, the pinnacle, you know. And in watching and I was thinking about that episode and how fitting a comment that is, like, you know, act like you've been here before, even if you haven't that Yannick center in doing a lovely job thinking his parents being obviously very gracious, but like he looked ready to assume the status. He looked ready. He didn't look like he was a in a you know, which is not default anybody for the way that their emotions take over in the middle of a you know, a celebration when you've just achieved something kind of unfathomably difficult and you know, elite. But I was really impressed by the fact that, like, oh, this guy is for real and he's really here, and it did make me wonder about you know what you guys were talking about with like Novak, like you get you age slowly and then you age really fast, Like Janick Center is for real in the same way Carlo's algoraz is for real, not just because there, but because they can do it and it doesn't and it doesn't seem to feel like and they know they can do it, and then they and they are and they are doing it and it's gonna make there's reasons so good.

00:16:26
Speaker 2: There is no question that Janick Sinner is prepared. And I think, I really do believe this. I think he's going to be a number one in the world by the end of the year. I think he can absolutely be number one because because of the fact that he did not have great Grand Slams major results last year, this is a guy who, without question can win multiple Grand Slams this year. He is capable. He is arguably the best player in the world right now. He's not ranked number one. We all know what Novak did last year and to repeat that is going to be really hard with these guys nipping Eddy's heels.

00:17:02
Speaker 3: Alcarez has, you know, Wimbledon to defend. Certainly, we know that he has the finals to defense or semi did he make the finals of the French last year.

00:17:13
Speaker 2: You know he has he has some points to defend last year for this coming year as well, Whereasianik really doesn't have a lot of points to defend at the Grand Slams, so he can pick up an enormous amount of points there. So that's why I think he can actually be number one in the world by the end of the year, because if he keeps performing like he is and has been over the last four months, he's arguably the best player in the world right now. I mean he's beaten Novak, you know, three times in the last three months, He's beaten Medvedev and multiple times in the last three months. So I think that you know, Alcarez will be there knocking at the door as well. So I think this is just a great moment for men's tennis. Finally we finally have guys that are stepping up to the plate wanting to take Novac on at Grand Slam level, and until then Novak is still the greatest play all the time and still the player to beat at any Grand Slam. But this has sort of opened the door to say, we're here and we're not going anywhere. And I do believe that he's none over the top celebration last night with somebody that wasn't saying, oh.

00:18:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just great.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: I'm glad I won one because he wants more and he's good enough and his game is good enough, and there's things that he can get better at and that he's he is getting better at that is going to make him an even better player.

00:18:25
Speaker 1: There was something, I mean, he still has upside. I mean, you guys were talking about John Chinwen and how much upisode she has, like it seems like ton I mean, she's only going to get better, and you know, if I'm what I loved was hearing about how you saw the kind of performance that Arena Sabalinka spent months doing in her training court facility room, getting pissed about having lost the US Open and then comes out and performs this way and that eager and Elena Rebakina and probably one or two others are maybe thinking, Okay, I gotta do now. Who is the equivalent of that on the men's side, Who thinks to themselves? I was right there? Maybe it's maybe it's very I don't know. I mean, listen, maybe no question in jail in like a couple of months is what I'm going to say.

00:19:16
Speaker 3: Who knows, But I mean, there's no question. That's where.

00:19:22
Speaker 2: He's got a little bit of a reputation now of not closing the door when he had opportunities the US Open. Now here at the Australian Open, he had Medvedev done and buried. Did Medvedev get a little bit lucky at five all hitting that kind of shank return? Maybe, but also you know he got a free point on a double fault on a shitty, terrible double fault from from Medvedev to give him five to four. So you know, you could argue, we can argue for days, you know, throughout the tournament what could have happened and what didn't happen, and all bottomers could have should have didn't and who did it was Sinner and Sablenka, And as Petko said in the previous it's the fire it's going to light a fire under a barking.

00:20:02
Speaker 3: It's going to run light a fire under Eager.

00:20:04
Speaker 2: It's going to light a fire under cocoa, and I am here for it me too.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: But does this like light a fire under like Stephanos tis Pass doesn't light a fire under. I don't know, Like who what are the dude?

00:20:15
Speaker 3: Of course?

00:20:15
Speaker 2: I think I think the person that lights a fire under honestly is Alcarez.

00:20:19
Speaker 3: How correct.

00:20:20
Speaker 2: Okay, the fire is burning with Novak, we don't ever have to worry.

00:20:24
Speaker 1: About that fire is never going out. It's fair. Nobody is going to go out before the fire goes out. That guy's gonna be like Ivan Lendel running up on people at the scrabble championships in his golf club and just trying to win at everything, kind of like you when you get you on a pool table or a ping pong you can't extinguish that fire. She's like, watch out, kids, I'm gonna school you.

00:20:43
Speaker 3: Guys.

00:20:43
Speaker 1: You're like, whoa, whoa take it easy? Yeah Novak, no, no back, It's in no danger of that. But who else?

00:20:49
Speaker 2: Novak's like a gas alven that doesn't ever turn off. I think al Chirez, there's no question about it. I think this variab will probably think that man I could have been in that final, and he had a very good record against uh. It would have been interesting to see that match up. But at the same time, I just think, you know, they're they're a Taylor, you know Taylor Fritz, Like, can he get himself fitter so he can hang with a Novak and maybe get that win over him. And I think maybe seeing Yanick do it over five sets, it's possible. I think it's given these guys a real look into the fact that Novak can be vulnerable at Grand Slam level. Now it's happened twice in the last two years or year and a half, he's still won three Grand Slams. So until they're beating him on a regular basis at slams, we're going to see Novak still hanging around. So I don't know, we'll see I can't wait for the French Open. We're hoping to do the podcast on a daily basis, on a more daily basis, especially at the Masters and W two one thousand events sort of the Indian Wells, Miami and of course you know, in Paris, and we'll see what happens. But until then, I mean, I'm just thank you, thankful for everyone, Thanks for editing everything.

00:21:52
Speaker 3: Caitlin.

00:21:53
Speaker 2: As soon as I've sent it to you, you had him out and so it's been great and I've really enjoyed it. I've really enjoyed getting into the weeds on a day basis of these snatches and players.

00:22:02
Speaker 3: So click and subscrib.

00:22:04
Speaker 1: And I can write gab And also thanks everybody who sent in notes and just kept it going because I think for us, we talked about doing this for a long time and it was just really it's like what racket wants to be. We want to be the convenient place for all these amazing voices to talk and edify, and you know, it's just it was awesome. It was great to see and I'm really, like truly grateful, so happy to happy to jump in when needed, happy to let's sit back and lie you did, ladies do your thing more often because it was just such a such a win.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: So on that note, I won't say choose, well, I'm going to say choose for my buddy Petco, who's probably landing somewhere in Europe right now, and it's feeling like absolutely dog poo and I can appreciate that because twenty four.

00:22:49
Speaker 3: Hours of flying is no easy feat.

00:22:52
Speaker 2: But anyway, I think everybody thinks listening, we really appreciate. It's on behalf of a PEPCO. I'm going to say cheers, and on the respect of my buddy Caitlin Thompson, I'm gonna say bye.

00:23:05
Speaker 3: Thanks everybody.

00:23:22
Speaker 2: M