Hey, everyone. On today's episode, we have Michael Costa. He's currently one of the hosts on The Daily Show, but you might not know that he was a fantastic collegiate tennis player and even attempted to compete on the Pro Tour. On today's episode, we discuss why self-belief is so important,
what makes the challenger tour so difficult, and how competing in tennis is similar to grinding in comedy. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. All right, Michael, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you here, and many of my listeners will know you from your comedy work, your TV work, most recently probably The Daily Show. But the few diehards will probably know you from the third round of qualifying at the Montreal Futures.
Yeah. Where I believe you took down John Francois Berard, 620660. So my question is, back in your playing days, were schizophrenic scorelines like that a regular thing for you?
What was the score? 6-2-0-6-6-0. That is wild. That is wild. And that was third round qualifying? Third round, and then you beat Troy Hahn in the fourth to make it to the main draw, and then unfortunately you... bowed out in the first round of the main well look you know without segueing into the book you already did it because so much of this book and all of our lives is memory
And man, was it interesting to dig into my playing career and the matches I remembered and the matches that I did not remember. I do not remember 6-2-0-6-6-0. I don't even know. That's got to be one of the strangest scores ever. But no, I was not a schizophrenic scorer. I was not a... 1-6-6-1. I wasn't. I was pretty level. Usually I would win 4-4 or I would lose in 3.
Every game and every match was hard fought. That's a very strange score. I attribute that to the late nights of Montreal. Possibly. I was thinking, I saw that score and I was like, man, that would drive me to comedy if I was dealing with that on a regular basis. That's very tough. And that's just like, that's tough to manage emotionally, those scores. Yeah. Right. So the listeners out there may or may not know, but you were obviously a great tennis player. You went to the University of Illinois.
You guys won, I believe, four Big Ten titles when there were actually 10 teams in the Big Ten. Made the Elite Eight three times. And then you played for the legendary Craig Tiley. That's right. So I would love to hear a little bit. Not only about like what kind of game you had and what your tennis game looked like, but also how Craig helped you when you were at Illinois. Yeah, I mean, Craig, you know, I still have Craig in my head.
I still have daddy issues of Craig. I live in Brooklyn, New York now. When I take my dog for a walk, there's trash on the corner, and I go, you better pick that up. Craig's watching. Pick up the trash. When my shirt's not tucked in. Even before I got on with you, I go, should I shave? Craig would say, why aren't you shaved? Why aren't you shaving?
So he's still in my head. Thankfully, I had a great real father. So that trumps any of the Craig issues I have. But my game was very typical of the players that Craig recruited. Big server. tall. I'm six foot four. Some might say my competitive style was a bluff. Some might say it was strong-minded and aggressive. That's for my opponent to figure out.
And, you know, not lacking in confidence on the court. Craig liked tall, cocky guys that were underdeveloped. I didn't really know how to play the net when I came to college. Him and Bruce Burke.
who were the assistant there, now the head coach at Texas, really worked with me on that game. And I really developed a lot of my game at college, so late bloomers. But if you were to play me back then, you would... uh try to break down my forehand and you would try to not let me get a lead and not let me attack your second serve that was kind of my That was the bread and butter. If you had any weakness in the second serve, I was taking it and I was coming in to apply pressure on you.
I'll call it confidence instead of cockiness, but that's something that I wish more players had. Obviously, like if you get so cocky to the point where you goof around, you don't try, that's an issue, but confidence. or a lack of confidence is a major issue for a lot of players. Like, where did that come from? Was that innate or did you kind of build that in yourself? It's a good question. And, you know, one of my favorite comedians, Bill Burr, he famously says, all there is is self-belief.
You can talk about comedy and showbiz and all there is is self-belief. And I love that. And I rely on that in any career, in any time, dig down, close your eyes, you know, really try to have that self-belief. I think that comes from mom and dad. Probably comes from my older brother, Todd, beating me to a pulp but not to death, telling me to be better. We have a good relationship still, by the way. That's a tricky one. And, you know, I have two daughters.
The things that keep me up at night are I want them to have confidence in themselves and confidence in their decisions, and I try to help them develop that. But, man, it's a great question. I think tennis does create a self-belief system in kids if it doesn't break them. Right. It's a brutal sport. And actually what I was going to ask you, so you go to Illinois and obviously you guys have a ton of success. You won a bunch of matches.
And then you decide to go play pro. And I mean, if you look, if you even pull up the 40th best player in the world and you look at their win loss record, it's probably below 500. And they almost always lose more points than they win. So you're failing all the time, which can chip away at that confidence. So when you went pro and you're kind of grinding through the futures, was that an issue where you're like, oh my God, I'm losing more than I have my whole life?
Yeah, yeah, it was. And, you know, it wasn't so much that I couldn't handle the losses. You kind of expect Paul Goldstein, amazing tennis player, won the... singles doubles team championship at Stanford you know I remember he he would come play our challenger at Illinois another another testament to Craig developing a high-level challenger while we were in college there at Champaign-Urbana. Well, guess who we're hitting with, talking with, training with? I remember Paul saying to me as...
As a junior, Paul Goldstein was the pinnacle of junior tennis and even collegiate tennis in that we were sharing a car or hitting. I forget what it was. And he goes, oh, man. you just lose all the time. I mean, I lose every week I'm losing. And this was the pinnacle of winning to me. What I hated about the pros from a winning and losing perspective was I... Because you don't win that much. I was never just getting on a roll. I was never like getting that momentum. The losses.
And I know you've talked a lot about this in your pod, and Rajiv just mentioned this. If you're losing the right way, if you're doing the right things, you can kind of stomach it. I know this is a long-term game, but I wanted, in college, I could just get on streaks 11 in a row, 12 in a row. And you just feel like you can't lose. And there's not even a top 10 men or women's player right now that can win like that. So you lose a lot.
With those match reps, what did a week look like? You travel somewhere, some remote part of the world, you show up, you take a lost first round. Now you've got at least six or seven days to kill. What are you doing in that week? Is it training? Is it... self-loathing like what does that look like yeah you know it's so my first tournament ever out of college was in z wantanejo mexico which is where
Andy Dufresne escapes prison to in the Shawshank Redemption. It's a real place. I show up with my doubles partner, Nathan Zeter, and the men- are still painting the lines on the court. So none of the players can practice. I lose first round. I have six and a half days. I made $111 losing first round. There was two people watching my match. I went up to them afterwards, and I said, thanks for watching. And they said, no, we actually just have the court after you. So they weren't even watching.
You had six days, and it was hard. Man, I feel like the first few days I would do a good job, practice twice, go for a run, but then it's like fourth day, fifth day. I don't want to watch tennis anymore. And it's very, very hard. I do think that's where a coach is invaluable. I didn't have a coach really playing, so I was up to my own.
Your personal discipline can only kind of last so long. So a coach would have been very helpful at that point. I didn't have the money for that. Coach was very expensive. So, yeah, lose first round, lose second round. Hopefully you're still in the doubles. But, Jonathan, this is so similar to comedy. I mean, bad set, bad night.
you want to wait around and think about it for five days or do you want to get in the car or get on the subway and go to another spot do another set feel a little bit better work on something i mean So many comedians when I started comedy said like, what is this resolve that you have? What is this fortitude? And I go, I don't even, that's everyone I know in tennis.
that's the only way you even get anything done in tennis. So it was so interesting for me to see that from a different outside perspective. One thing I feel like most players... maybe they've heard it, but they don't understand it is like we just said, like you might win half your matches and you're definitely winning about half of your points at most. So like, that's a very successful day at the office to win one, lose one and experience that failure. What is the comedic?
Like if you show up to a set and you go, okay, half my sets this week were good. Are you pleased with that? No, you're not. You're not. You should be better than half. I think that was what so many non-tennis people found. interesting about Roger Federer's graduation speech. I think it was at Cornell, maybe. I forget. But he said, look, I won 80% of my matches, but I only won 53% of my points.
And that's what I love about tennis. Man, it's so forgiving. In comedy, no. I better be delivering. I better be, if it's me versus the audience, which is one way to look at comedy. It's not necessarily that way. I should be winning a lot. I should be 95% of the time. I don't want to walk away thinking I had a terrible, terrible set. Now, when you break it down into points, jokes.
Yes, you can lose some jokes. You can lose some points. Sometimes you lose a joke on purpose because the fun is getting them back after that. So, yeah, I mean... I really hope I'm winning a lot, a lot, a lot of my comedy matches, but I'm okay to lose a few sets and get my serve broken throughout that process a few times.
What is more soul crushing, serving for a third setter in Seoul, South Korea and not closing the door or showing up for a set and just hearing crickets on what you think is one of your best jokes? Yeah, they're both debilitating. I talk a lot about, in my book, I talk a lot about that South Korea. I was up 5-1 in the third.
serving, got a big serve, and I ended up losing the match, and it's something I still think about when I'm waiting for the C train in Brooklyn. I've got kids. I've got another job. I've got family that loves me, and I'm waiting for the train to come, and I think, how did you blow that match? 30 years ago um so i i um no but nothing hurts as much as
Telling a personal story, writing jokes that evolve around your life and it being rejected. Nothing is worse than publicly speaking and failing. And then... the challenge is rebounding. And thankfully, some resolve and fortitude and work ethic will help you do that. But oh, man, it is. You sweat from places that you didn't even know had sweat glands. You know, I've had to come off the stage and change my clothes. You know, like, go home and...
And thankfully, as I've been in comedy now 22 years, that happens very infrequently, but it still happens. And any comic that tells you they always do great, watch out. They're a liar. That is so funny. Full body sweat. Full body sweat doing your set. Ass, armpits, feet. You know, Craig, I remember one time at Illinois, Craig gave us an exercise. I'm sure you've talked about it. In fact, I know you've talked about this. I've heard it. And it was like, count on how many...
how many matches you've won where you've played your bet. Unbelievable. And you can come up with some. You can come up with two or three or four. Oh, remember this match. But most of the time, you're winning. in your middle area in some form of that gray area and that's exactly the same as comedy there's sometimes you crush and you undeniable there's nothing you can do that's wrong but most of the time
You're somewhere in the middle or someone drops a beer bottle or there's a heckler or you're late or one of the jokes didn't work. And guess what your job is? Figure it out. Be a pro. I would love to take this a comedy question here, but what is the skill?
that you had to develop like a lot of people conversationally are funny you meet your neighbor down the road they say something it makes you chuckle but getting up in front of whatever a thousand people and making them laugh seems incredibly difficult so Is the skill, the timing, the delivery, the topic? How does that work where you go, what separates a great comedian from an average one?
Yeah, great question. I mean, you know, to make somebody laugh at a party is much different than to make somebody laugh who bought a ticket because you're supposed to make them laugh. It's a much different experience. I think the short answer to that is a unique point of view. I think when you watch and make a list of your favorite comedians, it's very clear that you are listening to their world from their framework, and that framework is...
comedic or interesting or something that's fun to pay attention to. So I watch old tape of me at the beginning of a comedian, and I go, what is that voice you're using? Why are you walking like that? Now... I go, as I'm more comfortable, this is the closest I've ever been on stage to me, to who I am. But man, it took 20 years.
to start using my own voice, to start walking the same way. So it just takes time, and now I have the confidence to go, I know what my perspective is on this topic. Trump, tennis, subway, homelessness problem. Whatever. Food is going to be interesting enough to people, but it's a lot of trial and error. You spent... Two years, we were talking before the show, two years as the assistant coach at Michigan.
And so I went into coaching right after tennis and I was like, oh, this is amazing. I love coaching. I think I might want to make a career out of this. And you went in and decided to be a comedian. Were there any, anyone who coached or played college tennis will know there are wild stories. Is there a single funny, crazy?
crazy, insane story that you might be able to share from your time coaching at Michigan that people might find interesting? Yeah, I mean, man, it's hard, you know, I have that you could tell that you could tell that that's PG enough to tell. Yeah, I mean, It really opened my eyes being a coach after a player. I was a very, very well-looked-after player at Illinois. Craig and Bruce and our academic advisor and our athletic trainer.
You know, I remember some of the other coaches would say to Craig, the coaches of the other teams, well, how come you guys have the best academic advisor? How come you guys have the best athletic trainer? And Craig wrote, you think that's... You think that's a coincidence? We work hard on getting the best personnel. So I was so well looked after. And then when we coached at Michigan, Bruce was my boss there. Man, it's all day. It's all, all day. I remember going to Mobile, Alabama to recruit.
Bruce always went to Miami, London. I went to Mobile, Alabama. That's the assistant's job, as you know. I was watching this kid who I was told to watch. You weren't allowed to talk to the parents. I don't know if that's still the case. Is that still the case? Still the case. Okay.
And I'm like, I don't want this kid to come to Michigan. I didn't like the way he competed. I didn't like a lot of things. You could tell that Bruce didn't really care that much either. So I was sitting there and I was writing in my Michigan portfolio. I just started writing jokes. Jokes for me. as a comedian, not anything to do with Michigan. And I look over and the mom is reading my notes. She wants to know what I'm thinking about her son.
And I'm writing jokes about my dad's farts and whatever. Whatever you write as a comedian. And she's like, what is that? And I slammed it and I said, I'm not allowed to talk to you. And I ran away. And that was one example of when those two worlds... collided but i didn't like devoting so much of my time and energy to um a 16 or a 17 year old trying to get them to decide that michigan was the best place to go when they're also looking at kentucky miami u.s you know other great schools
And it was tough. It was tough. College coaching is very, very tough. And I'm glad I'm out of it. Yeah. Well, all that and now on top of it, you have to find $100,000 to get someone to come. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know. We did a great job developing players, changing grips. I mean, I'm sure you know this, too. I couldn't believe somebody would show up as an 18-year-old with the wrong grip. And it's like...
Of course your forehand's off. And then you get mad at the previous coaches. So we spent a lot of time developing players, and I loved that stuff, being on the court with them, helping them. I loved that. That was really fun. Well, I think one thing, so I would have been one of those players. I mean, I don't know that you ever saw me play, but I had some of the...
least aesthetically pretty shot you can think of, but like I played baseball, so I just took the racket and I gripped it. I had two back ends to start. Okay. Here we go.
And yeah, exactly. And I would just, so I walked out on the court and I was just slicing balls and they went in and I'm an athlete and I quickly realized if I get to the ball and make it, I'm going to win. So I did well in my first tournament and the person in the club was like, oh, you're great. Just keep playing. And so you do that for four or five years.
People are always afraid to take those 10 steps back in order to get better. And so I never took those 10 steps back. My strokes were always a little weird. And then you get to college, like you said, and someone who's been trained classically looks at you and goes, how could you possibly be at this level with those errors? But I do feel like people are so scared to lose what they already have to gain something great. And we're competitive.
We're competitive. We don't want to lose. I didn't want to learn an attacking style as a junior because I knew it was going to hurt me to lose matches. And I just finished Pete Sampras' memoir, which... leaves me wanting more um but he talks about how he really didn't care growing up if he lost he was just trying to develop that championship game i think it worked out well for him
I was doing everything I could to win the match at age 12 when, man, if I just would have been told go serve and volley for a year and come back, maybe I wouldn't be a comedian now. Maybe I'll still be playing Titus. Normally, I have Instagram questions from the audience, but I did not get this in time. These are all Instagram questions for me, but they're just random ones that I was curious about when I was thinking about this last night. In what way...
This is actually a purely tennis question. You were a great player. More in the frame. There you go. It'll show up. It'll show up. Yeah, I'm going to put you full screen when it's just you. When you were 864 in the world, career high. and you're obviously a great player, but you didn't make it in that top 100. What separated in your mind, level-wise, the people who were able to make it and push through, like a Paul Goldstein, versus a great player like you who didn't make it?
I've always said my answer to this question was that I had one or maybe two great weapons. I had a serve and I had a competitiveness, which I'm also including with fitness. I always felt like if you were really competitive, you would be fit because that's just the safest way to make sure you don't lose because you're tired. So I felt like I had two. But, man, if you got the serve back and you started to work the point.
You had a good shot against me. I was so interested when Sasha Zverev mentioned after his loss to Yannick Sinner at the Australian Open final in the press conference, he said... Tennis is about five or six things and Yannick does five of them better than me.
And I always thought, oh, my God, I was thinking this whole time tennis was like three things. But here's a different level than me, way higher level, saying it's actually six things. And I go, oh, that's so interesting. So I always said I only had one or two weapons, but I think.
maybe i was supposed to have five or six weapons that i didn't have in what way was climbing the future challenger tour similar to when you first started out you go to your first comedy club what were the similarities there It's very, very similar. The only difference is in comedy. It's okay if you get drunk every night and you can sleep as late as you want. It's a test of self-belief. It's a test of work ethic. It's a test of learning from other people, but not...
you know, trying to use that for your own personality. It's very, very, very similar. And that's the kind of surprise answer that people get when they ask me, well, how do you go from tennis to comedy? And I go... You're by yourself. You're solving problems. You're dealing with yourself, your insecurities, and your emotions. It's the same thing. Just one of them you have to be fit, and one of them you have to be cunning or witty in your mind.
every lesson I've learned in the first profession of mine, which was tennis, is attributed to any success I've had in the second. And by the way, anyone who's listening who isn't a tennis coach or a comedian, you know it's the same for you too.
Whatever your first profession was or first track or first dream, if you pursued it, it helped you pivot to whatever the next step was. You mentioned, I'm not even going to try to pronounce that city in Mexico, but you... mentioned that they were painting the lines i want to know what the worst conditions you ever had to play in on the futures tour were oh easy can i even show you a picture of it let me see it's in here south korea
It wasn't even red clay. I forget what it was, but they didn't have real lines. Here it is. Those are chalk. So that's like the beginning of the match, but... After a set, that service line, it's all over the place. And by the way, the baseline is too. So what we all learned was start moving in when you serve. I mean, I was crushing aces, but.
That was very tough. And also what was so tough about that was, and this is what's so great about tennis and traveling, being global. I showed up to that tournament with my British teammate, Oliver Freelove. We're the only white people there, the only non-Korean players. Every single person on that site wanted to defeat us. They saw our racket bags, they saw our privilege, they saw our money.
They were out to get us, and that was tough. People bumping into us to get into the restroom, taking our tape, you know, just like off-court stuff. On-court. The umpires were, I mean, it was tough. And I never played Davis Cup. I can only imagine what that's like. But that's a test, man. That was a test mentally. It was very, very hard. And, you know, there's no courtesy vehicles when you play futures. There's no food.
We had peanut butter in our bag. I was sharing a room sometimes with my opponent the night before, truly. And it's really, really, really, really hard. And congratulations to any player.
who has successfully navigated their way out of future satellites into a higher level because nobody understands, except for tennis players, how truly remarkable that is. I'm going to give you an opportunity to... dive into your cocky side here but you you were 864 as a career high in singles that's right if comedy had rankings what is your career high i've thought about that i've thought about that i love
that tennis has this ladder system. I love that I know where I was. I can't lie to you and say I played Wimbledon. I was 200. I hate that in the arts, it's subjective. I hate that I can go, oh, I killed that audience. And it's like in the sports, it's like there's the scoreboard. I can't say I won when I lost 6-2, 6-2. Someone told me that there's about 400 headliners in the world, English-speaking countries. I think that's a loose estimate.
I think I said in the description that the publisher wanted some type of similar question. I said, put me at top 50. Put me at top 50. Some people would debate that, but I mean, that's what's kind of so fun also about the arts is that there isn't a ranking system. And last question, and this is a tennis one, but normally I ask coaches or players for their best advice for the recreational adult player. I would love to know what your best advice is for that 4-0 player. For the 4-0 player.
I want to know your answer to this too, actually. This, you know, I know you had Steve Smith on the pod. He's so... that one of the things I carry that I learned from him was just all of the reasons to play the ball cross court.
lower net six and a half more feet easier to reflect the incoming ball than change direction of it and there's even more that i don't remember it's so simple uh it makes a lot of sense based on the dimensions of the court and the average 4-0 player or 3-5 player they watch the pros and they go they just keep hitting backhands to each other and it's like yeah yeah they're gonna do that until until it
The probability is to change directions. So that's just a really simple answer. I would just say play the ball cross court way more often than you think, than you realize or want to. What's your answer? You know, no one's ever asked me that, and it's great. You put out so much good information on Instagram. I hope your viewers are not just pressing like, but...
but truly absorbing and digesting that stuff. You know what's so funny before I tell you my answer is when I started the Instagram, I've told this story many times is I shared some little tidbit.
And the girl I was coaching who made me start the Instagram was like, you're not supposed to share that with other people. You're my coach. And I was like, don't worry. They're not going to use it. You don't use it. I've been coaching you for two years. You still make the same. They're just going to be entertained and they're going to go, that's a great idea. And they're going to move on with their lives.
And so when I consume stuff online, I try to be very intentional. If I like it, I write it down. I'm like, I'm going to make that part of my everyday moving forward. Otherwise, I just got entertained by something that's knocking on my life. Hey, player, you knew the net was there when you walked out there. Yeah. So I guess my best advice is, and this is probably life in general, but I think tennis is very, very difficult. And because it's difficult, people try to overcomplicate it.
And for me, it's like, get to the ball, put the ball in play and play within yourself. And so a lot of times when I say the funny thing is I'll say, you know, I'll preach consistency, which as a player, I wasn't at all. But I'll say, be consistent. And people go, well, you have to attack.
And I go, it's interesting that you think I said not attacking. The reason why they think there's a difference is because people know when they attack, they actually end up missing. That's true. That's a good insight into their brain.
Right. It's like you're telling on yourself that you're like, well, I want to attack someone. You're like, oh, but you think you won't be consistent if you attack. Ding, ding, ding. You can approach up the middle of the court. Right. Exactly. There are many ways to attack with consistency.
I hear when I put out a video or a YouTube video and people start going down these rabbit holes and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's just pump the brakes. Kind of like you said, if you just go cross court and you keep it simple and your strokes are as good as the other guys and you have a level head, you're going to be fine.
And so I just like keeping things as simple as possible. And that's my best advice is don't go down these rabbit holes. Just keep it simple and get good at the basics. It is very true in all facets of life. the more we know about it, the simpler it gets. But the less we know, the more complicated we make it. It's very true. You don't usually watch experts and think how difficult they make it look. Correct.
Yeah, and this is also the problem with comedy is when you watch a great comedian, you go, oh, this seems easy. Or they want me to talk to them because he handled it so easily. And it's like, that's because he's been doing it 25 years. Right. The job is to make it look easy. And yes, Roger Federer got a lot more people signed up for tennis than he probably realized because it goes, oh, this looks so easy and fluid and beautiful.
We've been dancing around it for 30 minutes, but you've got Lucky Loser coming out. Can you give us all the information on that? This is my book. that I'm very proud of. It starts when the book starts when my older brother John gave me a tennis racket for Christmas when I was four and how somehow through all the trials and tribulations of competitive tennis, college tennis.
pro tennis I ended up sitting here now as a professional comedian it's wild I had to write it down because I didn't fully understand it and grasp it But I'm very proud of it. It comes out March 11th. The tennis community has been super supportive of it, as is the comedy community. And I think it's a fun read. Greg Tiley is in here. Grinding out juniors is in here. One of the times I cheated so terribly in college is in here. I visited a Dutch prostitute. That's in here.
It's a lot of stuff, Jonathan. I know you didn't ask that. Okay, so... Well, you're talking about what do you do when you lose first round? Well, you got six days to kill. You're in Amsterdam. I think it's chapter 12 in here. Amazing. Is there anywhere else besides Daily Show that you're currently co-hosting or hosting a couple days a week? Is there anywhere else where people can find you or find your stuff? So I'm keeping an active stand-up comedy tour all the time.
Coming up, Atlanta, St. Louis, Austin. Connecticut, Toronto, Dallas, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee. MichaelCosta.com has all the tickets. And I just really appreciate you and appreciate your pod. I think it's... It's putting out great information. I hope these idiots are using it. Well, thank you so much for your time. I'm really excited to read the book. Can't wait. And congrats on all your success. Thank you, Jonathan.
All right, I want to thank Michael for coming on the show today. Attempting to level up through challengers and futures and make it on the Pro Tour is an incredibly daunting task and one that most players fail in. My favorite takeaway from today is remembering to build your self-belief.
You're going to lose so many points, games, sets, and matches in tennis. It's part of the deal. And one of the big things that can help you keep a level head throughout this crazy process is believing in yourself and the work you're putting into your improvement on a weekly basis. Thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved at tennis without even hitting a ball.