Every team, every topic, everywhere. This is Belief. Hey everyone, Gil Gross here and it is time for another mailbag. where I answer your questions, hot takes, observations, and ultimately your comments about tennis or anything else. First round, Roland Garros 2025. It is the traditional... First round of a major mailbag, and I can't wait to get into it after three exciting days of play. A lot of interesting stuff to get into here. Now, full disclosure, I have already recorded this show.
I recorded for an hour and 40 minutes and then I went back to listen and the audio was completely unusable because a cable got loose. Not the best. So... I'll tell you this. I rarely spend time during the show asking... for you guys to subscribe and follow and like and share with your friends. If there is ever a show to do it, it's this one to make my extra effort even more worth it. Obviously,
To not come out with a show is not even in the realm of possibility for me. So I'm going to do it. But I'm missing the second half of the Knicks game to do it, which is ultimately the thing that... bothers me the most about what's what's gone down with my audio failure and malfunction the other thing i'll say before we get in to the comments
Because of the timing of my post and the immediacy of it all, there are some matches that I definitely want to talk about that nobody asked about in the comment section. So what I'm going to do... After I get through the comments that I want to get through, then I'm going to go notebook dump style. I'll read through my notes and I'll hit on any matches that weren't asked about. So if...
If there's a significant result that I don't get to in the first part of the show, a little bit of patience, I probably will get to it. All right, let's start with Chris. Sarundalo lost first round to Diallo in straight sets. You and Abigail had him in your top 10 French Open power rankings, and Roddick and Wertheim had him into semis in their draws.
Thoughts on Sarindolo's underperformance at this French Open and majors in general? Also, any comments on Diallo's play and his prospects to get through his section, given his quarterfinal run and win over Dimitrov in Madrid? Is the round two matchup versus Greek spore still your popcorn match? Let's get into Francisco Sarindolo. Definitely one of the, if not, was it the most surprising result?
Or was Fritz, or I think I was a little more surprised by the Sarindolo loss than Fritz and Medvedev. I think so. However... it didn't reach the maximum levels of shock. And I think the reason for that is exactly what... Abigail and I, despite putting Sarindolo in our top tens in the power rankings, what we talked about and what I talked about in the preview, there are certain aspects of Sarindolo's mental game that I don't think he performs that highly in.
I don't think his nerve management is awesome. I don't think his resilience is ideal. Always. I don't think he's one of these guys who has unconditional intensity in his tennis. And I haven't seen him, as a result of all these things, I have not seen him in a big stadium, in a big tournament, against a top player, put it all together and play his best tennis. Haven't seen it.
and didn't really trust that I was about to see it. Not really. And I knew looking at the draw that, and there's no high horsing here with... Roddick and Wertheim because there will be a million times where I get something wrong that they've gotten right. But I knew that Sarindolo was going to be... The trendy, smart person pick to make it out of this quarter. 3-0 against Zverev. And the top level.
He has spurts on a clay court where he looks unbeatable. And when Sarindolo gets hot, there are maybe two guys who I'll take in a neutral baseline rally on clay. Sinner and Alcaraz. That sounds like a big statement, but I'm serious. When Sarindolo is playing at his best, that forehand is humming. The backhand is doing what it needs to do to set up the forehand.
He is a nightmare in rallies. Nightmare. Now, there's some technical stuff here, and we can transition into the Diallo match more specifically, where I've sometimes felt like... When the forehand isn't completely on the money, there's not a lot of other parts of his game that pick up the slack. I didn't feel, I didn't observe, and look, I didn't watch the whole match first ball to last, but I didn't observe a bad forehand day from Sarindolo.
necessarily. Here's what I did observe. Rally's one through four shots was a slaughter. Diallo won 67. Sarindola won 47.
In rallies that extended past that, Sarindolo actually had a slight edge. He was plus two. You could argue that the gap between Sarindolo and Diallo in five-plus rallies should be larger than two shots. You could argue that. But ultimately, it's not the reason why Francisco... lost the match the reason was much more so the short points because he got crushed there and that's serve return now
Certainly, Diallo's a big server, but he hit four aces in this match, and he won 78% of his first serves. That's healthy, but that's not crazy. And by the way, Sarindolo hit four aces too. So they had identical ace counts. So what was the difference here? Well, second serve points is an area you would expect Sarindolo to clean up. But he didn't. He lost that category. Diallo, 60%. Sorindolo, 56%. How does that happen? That happens. A lot of this is a credit to Gab.
That happens because average second serve speed, Diallo 107, Sarindolo 94. That is an outstanding number by Diallo. The other aspect of this is Sarindolo... While he won 56% of his second serve points, which is actually a good number by him, he only won 66% of his first serve points. Those numbers are too close together, and this happens...
all the time with Sarindolo. Jeff Sackman, Tennis Abstract, great piece up on his blog about this, about how Sarindolo gets so little out of his first serve that oftentimes... And statistically, it's very close to his second serve. And that's a big problem for Francisco. That's held him back throughout his career. And I think those are the two keys here. how big Diallo was hitting his second serve and how not big Sorindolo was hitting his first serve. And that's why you got...
a real lopsided result in the one through four shot rallies in this match. Now Diallo also did something exceptionally well, and that is volley. I've watched a lot of Gabriel Diallo, and I've always observed that he is a high-frequency net rusher. He's coming forward. All the time. And the problem is, he hasn't been that good a volleyer. He's been average at best. There have been times where his volleys have actually been kind of a mess when I've watched him play.
Yet, he's rushing forward over and over and over again. And I know I've said this on the show before. I have always been in full support. of Diallo's top of his, oh my God, I almost said tactics. Diallo's tactics of his tactics. I've always been in full support of what he's doing out there. Here's why. The goal is ultimately.
to be a top 10 player in the future, right? The goal is not to be 30 in the world right now. If you're Diallo, it's more important that you're going to be a top player in the future. He does not move all that well. I actually really like his footwork, his small adjustment steps, the way he adjusts around the ball. That's really good. But he's not speedy around the court. So he's not fast, and he's not really a pure ball striker.
He's got a flat backhand that can get a little inconsistent. His forehand is a weapon, but it's not a haymaker. Okay? So, not a great mover, not a great ball striker. Uh-oh. Like we're in trouble in baseline rallies. Great serve, but we're in trouble in baseline rallies. What do we do about that? We're six foot seven. Let's get really good at the net. And the only way to get really good at the net is to go do it.
And what I've seen from Diallo in the last two years is he's getting his reps in and he's doing it over and over and over again. And I've always had faith that that's going to pay off. Well, guess what? Third set of this match. And again, I only watched it in patches until the third set. And then I really locked in. Third set of this match, he was stellar at the net. And then overall stats, net points won for...
Diallo, 27 for 35. Outstanding. He volleyed great. This was the first time I saw that part click for the young Canadian. So that's my thoughts on that match. Overall, Roland Garros can salvage a clay court swing for some. I'm going back to Smirnoll here. Then I'll circle back to Diallo. Roland Garros can salvage a clay swing. It can also spoil it, right? It's what it all leads up to. And in this case,
I think, unfortunately, Francisco will feel like this result completely spoils his clay court swing. He can't look back on the last two months and feel like it's a success with what happened here. Diallo on clay coming in, 16 and 14 record across all levels. That's mostly challengers and qualifying. ATP main draw, 5 and 4. And four of the wins, as the commenter here alluded to, four of the wins came in Madrid this year. Made the quarterfinal as a lucky loser.
But when a big server does something like that in Madrid, you don't necessarily expect it to mean much for Paris, especially when said player has lost in qualifying. So this is not... one that i had on my bingo card and look i i don't think i i really love diallo as a prospect
I'm not super confident that he's going to back this up and keep going through the draw. No. I mean, I favor Greek Spore. I do. By the way, one thing that Novak said that was interesting because he was asked about the result. when he went on the MAC zone, alternate broadcast TNT, and he was like, well, one of the tough things about this is you're playing a big server on a smaller court, on an outer court, and that might have been tough for Surundalo. So...
Just wanted to throw that out there because I figure, you know, Novak's analysis counts for something, right? Might as well get that in. Next one is from Joseph 9599. Now that we've seen the retirement ceremonies for the big three, wait, for three of the big four, where do you think the most fitting place to have Novak ceremony is when the time comes? Yeah, good question, right? Because for the other three, it's felt quite obvious. I would argue for Federer, Laver Cup was kind of a clear choice.
Definitely, if you take into account the state of his health at the time, but even under normal circumstances, Laver Cup was Federer's brainchild. That's part of his legacy. I think it just made a lot of sense to do the goodbye there. And also you have the calendar spot towards the end of the year post-US Open. So that made a lot of sense.
Murray was a no-brainer. Had to be Wimbledon. Rafa was kind of a no-brainer. Has to be Roland Garros. For Novak, it isn't that obvious. So here's what I'll say. The Djokovic family... They very much, and I don't know what the latest is with the licenses and all the technicalities there. They want to host a tournament in Serbia long term.
They want an ATP 500 in Belgrade. I know that for a fact. At least they've been on the record saying that. So it is not out of the realm of possibility for Novak to say goodbye in Serbia. I would also say it doesn't really need to be... like at one place to have your like big grand goodbye. If Djokovic were to say before the start of a season, this is my last year, he'd get a little bit of something all the way through.
Every tournament would probably do something for him, I think at least. And that might be taxing and tiring and there's a lot of downsides to it. But it's another way to approach it, right? You don't need to have this one big hurrah. You can kind of do it little by little. The U.S. Open is a natural stopping point for a lot of players just because it's the last major.
But for Novak, I don't think something feels a little off about that as much as it would be cool to cover that. I'm always at the U.S. Open. It would be cool to witness that. Something about that feels unlikely. And then the other thing that popped into my head was wouldn't it be quite the statement to retire at an ATP Finals? Has any player ever done that?
wouldn't that be a way to kind of show that you're going out on top? The reason why it never happens is because most of the time, if you're in the top eight, you're not retiring. But who knows, right? Novak, maybe he wins another slam and... He just feels like there's not enough more to play for and he decides, you know what? I'm good. I'm in the top eight, but I'm good. I don't know. I feel like that'd be pretty cool.
I know I just threw out a bunch of possibilities. I mean, I really don't know what the answer is. From Fun Night. I just saw Fritz lost to Altmaier today in four sets. Altmaier is great on Klay, but also Taylor was serving around 50% on his first serve. Is there something about Klay that can make it more difficult for someone like him to serve? Or is this aim... A mental struggle. No, there's nothing about clay that should make you serve a lower percentage. I mean...
I think bad serving days happen. That's my opinion. I think... Everybody has their average percentage, and some matches are going to be above that average. Some matches are going to be below that average. And you never know when you wake up in the morning, other than some tactical factors that can come into play at times, you never know what it's going to be.
Here's the thing. If you are a top player, if you are a top four seed in particular, and you're playing like a top four seed in the first round of slam, you survive a bad serving day. A low percentage serving day. You win despite that. So Taylor will, I think he'll look at this and he'll say not, oh, why did I serve so badly? I don't think that will be his.
his question, I think he'll be disappointed. I had a bad serving day, but it really stinks that I didn't figure out a way to win anyways against Daniel Altmaier. Now, Daniel Altmaier, let's get into this match in full. First of all, Five top 10 wins in his career. Now three of them have come at Roland Garros. He has beaten Berrettini. And who's the other one? I have it written down. I'm forgetting. I am forgetting. Where's even my notes on this? Oh, there it is.
Berrettini and Sinner. How did I forget that one? That one's so memorable. Yeah, so Altmaier has three top 10 wins at Roland Garros. Berrettini, Sinner, and Fritz now of the five in his career. And what's the reason for that? He is a physical beast. He never gets tired of running. He's great on clay. And he stepped it up a couple of times in these matches. Very tough to hit through.
He's pretty fast around the court. He plays very deep behind the baseline. Especially, he needs time. He needs to be able to buy himself time for the backhand. That shot demands time. And in order to buy himself that time, he plays very deep behind the court. Now, Altmaier impressed me with the way he served. I thought he served very well, better than what I would normally expect out of him. I thought he hit his forehand.
Better than what it normally is and that's the shot. I don't like from Altmire I think it gets too spinny too short. Sometimes he doesn't change direction on it very well. Sometimes I see him just fail to to cash in on short balls on that wing. So I thought it was much better in this match against Fritz. And he also volleyed really well. And I'll be honest, I didn't have an opinion coming into this match on Altmaier's volleys, but...
He was very opportune. Not that he was at the net a ton, but when he was, he looked, he was pretty clinical up there. Other than that, I was not surprised by anything Altmaier did. He is ultra consistent. He is ultra fit. And it's going to be hard to hit through him. His deep court position. He's so disciplined defensively. This might be one of his biggest strengths, by the way. Not only is he tough as nails, his shot tolerance never runs out. He's always playing.
High cross-court defense or on the backhand chipping up the middle of the court or sometimes chipping cross-court. He's never going for too much from defensive positions. He's focused on making the extra ball and making it deep in the court. Again, a lot of defense is an attitude, and he has a great attitude about defending. So now you have Taylor Fritz. Let's bring him back into the equation. He's not very crafty. He's a linear power guy.
His backhand in quick conditions, because it's so precise, can be a really good offensive weapon. But it's flat. It's not that fast. At the end of the day... clay really takes away fritz's backhand as a weapon a lot of people talk about his movement and that's why he's worse on clay to be honest i think the backhand is a bigger factor it's flat and again in quick conditions because of the precision it can
It can really be a shot that Taylor makes progress with. But on clay, it's not bad, but it's kind of a nothing. It doesn't get him as far. He's not going to go to the net. He's not going to do much damage with his backhand. It's up to the forehand. And with Altmaier's defensive skills... And the fact that Taylor doesn't follow anything in, it was another one of these matches where I felt like Fritz had to hit four great forehands in order to win a point.
And there are definitely matches in which Taylor can hit four great forehands in a row on a consistent basis. But yesterday was not one of those days. The confidence was lacking on the forehand. There were plenty of balls. Where, you know, I actually thought he was hitting it pretty big, but he was missing a lot. And I thought in an attempt to rein in the targets and miss less.
A lot of his attacking forehands just didn't achieve any width. They were too central, and Altmaier was neutralizing Taylor. I was seeing a ton of that. And I felt the same way in the Monfils match. Fritz Monfils. And again, I'm like, look, Gale, even though he's old, he's really fast. He's hard to finish. And sometimes it seems that Fritz in these matches, he doesn't have enough options to finish off his opponents, and he gets stuck. If you can't hurt your opponent...
and you're constantly getting neutralized, your opponent will eventually hurt you. And in the case of Altmaier, you know, Fritz, your opponent might be a little more consistent than you at times as well. So that was my... My take on the match. And now this section is wide open. Look, I didn't come into Roland Garros high on Taylor Fritz. I left him out of my power rankings. He wasn't even in my next out.
But I still got him to the quarterfinal because that's how weak that section was. So now I suppose Sebastian Korda is the favorite by default, but he's not my pick. He's not. I think Brooksby can give him a lot of trouble. I think Jensen can yuck things up with the variety and frustrate Korda. I kind of think Brooksby wins the match.
I think Majedovic has a chance to make the quarterfinals. I know a lot of people are rooting for that. Hamad has a lot of fans. I think it's a possibility. But at the end of the day, it's wide open. And Musetti can celebrate that. That's for sure. My voice is definitely not as strong as I like it to be. I don't know if it sounds that way, but after an hour 40 recording before this.
Okay, next one is from Arnav Duda. Hi Gil, what would it take to beat a focused and healthy Alcaraz on clay? Djokovic did it in the Olympics and Runa said he studied that match for his final against Alcaraz. Do you think Sinner can take anything out of that playbook? Let's start with the Olympics match. The main thing Djokovic did there is he served plus one to Alcaraz off the court. He was not allowing Carlos to get into points. He was not allowing rallies to develop because he was... He was...
Giving no breathing room for Alcaraz from the very first shot, which was generally the first serve. And remember, he made a very high percentage of first serves. From the very first strike, Novak was smothering, relentless. He was on him. He didn't allow Alcaraz to play on his return games. Remember, Novak never broke Carlos's serve in that match, but he held the whole way. In the tie breaks, his forehand was heroic.
In both tie breaks, his forehand was a better forehand than Alcaraz's. And that made the difference in so many of the exchanges. So that's your 45 second summary of the Olympic final last year. Right? I know Holger before Barcelona said he watched the match and he thought about the match and he tried to play like Novak. And then when he elaborated on how, he was like, I just knew I had to make every ball.
So a lot of people were commenting after my Alcaraz Runa analysis, like Gil Holger said that he studied Novak. What did he do? And it's like, did he look? If he was inspired by watching Novak and visualizing himself in Novak's shoes, great. I'm a full believer in that. I think visualization for athletes can be an enormous thing, and maybe that's it. But tactically...
Unless he didn't feel like getting technical publicly, but he did in his own mind, that's possible. But what he said was like, I learned from Novak that... Or I saw that I just had to make every ball. It's like, well, I mean, yeah, generally in tennis, if you make every ball, that's awesome. That's the goal. Generally, if you don't make errors and you don't make mistakes. That's the highest level you can achieve. Did Novak make everything in that match? Damn right he did. That's why...
It's one of the best performances we've seen, but it's not some sort of novel concept that a player can look at and be like, yeah, that's a great idea. Just never miss. No mistakes, right? So that's kind of how I feel about the Holger comment that he made. What can Sinner do? That's really what the comment is. I think Sinner can do a lot of what Novak did in the Olympic final.
I think his first serve is good enough at times to take Carlos out of rallies. And I think that center at times can be more aggressive on his plus one. to not allow the points to develop as much. Thing is, that does go against Yannick's identity, right? And his mindset, not identity, but his mindset, Sinner's mindset, not that his plus one forehand isn't killer and nasty, but he really doesn't want to miss. He really doesn't.
And he's not afraid of neutral rallies against anybody. He's basically the best at neutral rallies. Why? Well, because his average... His average rally ball is like 80 miles per hour and it's always deep and he never misses it. So you think he likes rallies? Yeah, he likes rallies. But against Alcaraz...
And the athleticism and the variety and the artillery that he brings to the table, it might be worth focusing on a little bit more point shortening on center service games. And I think that might be a really good idea. Same thing on the return. If he can find some aggressive returns, great. I thought that that was going to be a key in the Rome final. Didn't materialize at all. In fact, his second serve returning was off. It was off.
From Andrew Liu, Gil, you often mention how, quote, this guy's an athlete slash moves great, and you also love your tiers. Can you create a tier list of the best athletes or movers for us? Sure. I did read this comment ahead of time and I can't do these kinds of things off the top of my head. What I need to do is scroll through the rankings and then I'll just jot names down real quick. I don't put a lot of thought into something like this, but I do need to write it down.
All right, tier one. These are the guys who, to me, are just mind-blowing. I watch them play, and I can't believe the balls they're getting to. I've got five guys. Carlos Alcaraz, Tommy Paul, Alex Di Menor, Alejandro Davidovich Fucina, and Flavio Caboli, which is probably the name that might surprise some people. I do think he is basically as fast as anybody. So those five guys...
Jaw-dropping speed. These next guys, great movers. Great, great movers. I think it's a huge asset in their game. Yannick Sinner, old Djokovic. If he were in his prime, he'd be in tier one. Kasper Rude, Lorenzo Musetti, Quarantine Moutet, Holger Runa, Daniil Medvedev, Stefano Tsitsipas, Tomas Mahach, old guy Monfils still think he's tier two. Yoshi Nishioka. Arthur Feast. So that's my tier two. I think those guys are pretty much all at the highest level of movement. And then I made a tier three.
Guys who I think are great movers, just a touch off the very, very best. I've got Jack Draper, Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov. Old Dimitrov. I think he would have been higher in the past. Francisco Cerundolo, Matteo Arnaldi, Lerner Tien, Borna Cioric, and Mariano Navone. So those are my movement tiers. A lot of names in there, right? Look, those are all great. Everyone I just said, every name I said is a great mover. Don't get me wrong. From Jayringe.
There has been a lot of talk about your predictions, but I don't mind them. I see your top notch analysis. And even in predictions, you have supporting arguments based on facts. Can you address this and your take on it? Thanks. Good work as always. Yeah, so it doesn't bother me at all. I'll tell you what does bother me a little bit. When my predictions are actually, by realistic standards, good.
And I still get crap. That's when I do kind of get a little pissed off. Because I'm like. I think some people are just so. unrealistic and they live on another planet about what's possible for somebody in terms of how much they're getting right. And that always bothers me a little bit like, yo. Good luck finding somebody who can do better than this. Sometimes I feel that way. However, this year, in earnest, my predictions have been horrendous. So it doesn't bother me.
When my predictions are really bad and people are giving me crap for it, it doesn't bother me at all. Now, the other part of this is what do I actually care about? What do I care about when I do my predictions? my videos, especially my draw previews. I found that I've generally done much better when we're in the tournament and I'm predicting quarterfinals or I'm predicting finals. But anyway, especially the draw previews, what matters most to me?
I want to be one, entertaining, two, informative. I want it to be a vessel for analysis. I want it to be. Like, if I get everything right, like, let's say I get all my predictions right, but I'm not interesting. I don't teach you anything. I'm... I'm not entertaining. That's not a successful preview podcast in my opinion. It's a bad one. I'm doing a terrible job if that's the case.
This isn't a gambling show. I'm not telling you who to put your money on or who to pick, right? In which case, I feel like it would be fair to partially evaluate me just based on how much I'm getting right, if it were that. But it's not that. And there are examples, if I kind of take you behind the scenes here, take the top quarter of Roland Garros. Who did I make my upset alert? I made it Arthur Feast. Why? Because I think the draw is brutal and I think there's a lot of pressure.
on the young Frenchman. I could have made it Brandon Nakashima, technically, because technically he's a seed. And I thought Mariano Navone would beat him. So technically I could have made it that, but we all know that's not a real upset. It's a 31-seated guy who doesn't like clay against a pure clay quarter. With awesome skills and like tremendous movement and consistency on the surface. So I could have made Brandon Nakashima upseller. It would have given me a better chance to get it right.
But I don't think that's as important or as interesting as discussing Arthur Feast. I think it is better for the show to make it Arthur Feast. So I do make those kinds of decisions. Don't get me wrong. I want to get as many things right as possible, but they're going to.
to be instances like that. And guess what? When I filled out my bracket, Arthur Feast is in the fourth round. I believe I said that on the preview, but Arthur Feast is in the fourth round. I just think there's danger for him. That's why I made up my upset alert. There are other instances in which let's say for Dark Horse, there will be tournaments where within...
let's say just one quarter, it's never going to happen in all quarters, but let's say there's one quarter where none of the unseeded players get past the third round. None of them. That means that all the options were wrong. There were only wrong choices. And that's the kind of thing that a lot of people like they don't consider when they go back and they look at my previews and they say, wow, like all your dark horse is lost. It's like, well, you know, maybe.
Maybe unseated players actually just didn't do anything in this tournament. So all the answers were wrong. And it didn't matter which one I said. That's the kind of thing that happens sometimes. But all in all... Hey, as long as people are enjoying the previews, that's what matters most. Period. All right. Here's one from a molecule. Hey Gil, I hope you're doing well. This is about Baez on European clay.
His performance on the European dirt has been undesirable to say the least. He has not won a match in any of the three clay masters. And besides Bucharest, he's not gone further than the second round in any clay tournament. Now at Roland Garros, he has lost another match with a two sets to love advantage. He has a two and four record here since 2020, and it seems he crumbles in five set match.
where in all of his losses at Roland Garros since 2022, he's lost in five sets, two of which he's had a two sets to none advantage in. What could be the reason for his poor performances in the European clay swing? Could this be a mental hurdle that he has to overcome or something else entirely? Thanks for all you do. Take care. Thank you. Take a sip of tea. Yeah, I think it's all mental with bias. I do. I tweeted a stat out. I don't know if it was...
If it was after Bucharest when I tweeted this out, or maybe it was before then. It might have been after Rio. I'm not exactly sure. But I... I don't want to go back and look at these numbers again to update them. Essentially, Baez in his career, in opening round matches, first matches, he's under 500. The majority of the tournaments he's played in his career, he's lost in the first. round. Yet, he is 9-4 in semifinals. He is 7-2 in finals. Two, three, four times every single season.
He goes on heinous losing streaks. He's on one right now. Not to mention the disparity. between clay results and hardcore results. South American clay results, European clay results. There's no logic to these things. It's just about comfort level. And in my opinion, It's confidence. It's a fragility to his confidence, a frailty to his confidence that to me is the only explanation for the bizarre resume that he's built. Once he wins a couple of matches and he feels good, he's really, really good.
But when things are going badly for him, or he's outside of his comfort zone, or he just doesn't have a lot of belief, things go really, really bad, sometimes for a really long time. I hope he breaks out of it at some point. I mean, I wish I watched more of these matches, but...
And then I could maybe talk about what I've seen recently, but when you're losing in the first round, especially depending on who you're playing, I miss a lot of these matches. He disappears on me for months at a time. Okay, this next one from Joshua Cox. Enough with the GOAT debate. Which one of the big four is the best at doubles? Here's some stats. Roger Federer, eight titles, including Olympic gold and men's and Masters 1000.
I read that poorly. An Olympic Golden Men's and a Masters 1000 title. A Grand Slam quarterfinal, Davis Cup, three times Laver Cup, and three times Hopman Cup. Rafa Nadal. 11 titles, including an Olympic gold in men's and three Masters 1000 titles, slam semifinal. Five-time Davis Cup, two-time Laver Cup. Novak Djokovic, one title. It was a 250. One Davis Cup, one Laver Cup, one ATP Cup. And finally, Andy Murray, three titles, three 500s, also an Olympic silver.
mixed and a Davis Cup title. I'm not going to read the entire bottom of the comment, but Joshua correctly points out that none of them have played enough doubles to get a fully accurate picture of the situation, which makes this a very interesting question. And I really enjoyed thinking about this. My answer, I'll start with my answer. My answer is Rafa.
I think if you, especially if you pair him with a right-hander and you put him on the ad court, the hardest ball to volley is Rafa's forehand. That is the hardest ground stroke to volley against that I've ever seen.
I think when you put him on the ad court, considering his runaround footwork, anytime a rally develops and he's in the back of the court, you basically can't find his backhand. You're dealing with his forehand. I think that's a huge asset. And then as a pure volleyer, I think he's as good as any of them. I think Nadal as a...
A pure volleyer is as good as Federer and as good as Murray, but he was not as good as them, especially not as good as Federer, at getting to the net. Once he's there, I think his volleys were just as good. And in doubles, it's not as much about the transition. It's not as much about the movement up at the net, which is what Federer really excelled in. It's about the volleys themselves because you're parked at the net and you just need to...
Move and volley. You're already there at the net. So that's why I go Rafa. I'm not so concerned about the serve. That's where you would make the argument for Federer. You got to remember in doubles, you get to serve one out of every four games. You can't have as big an impact on the game based on your serve.
Because you're just, it's a math equation. You don't serve as much. The other thing is return. And I do think that Djokovic and Murray have a better return for doubles than Rafa because you want to take the return early in doubles. Novak and Andy were definitely better at doing that compared to Rafa, but not enough. Overall, I'd go with Nadal. And guess what? Nadal does have the best resume of the four.
A lot of that success coming with Mark Lopez, who I always liked. He was almost like the Ferrer of doubles, in my opinion. From Alexander, what do you think of Roland Garros' refusal to use electronic line calling? Well, I'd sure love an explanation. Is it the tradition? Do they want to maintain the tradition or is it profit? Because they certainly have a sponsorship, I believe with Lacoste. I could be mistaken.
But I believe it's with Lacoste where the lines judges are out on court as walking advertisements. They are wearing clothes that are paid for by a sponsor. And I don't know if there's complications with that, with getting out of that contract, or if they simply don't want to turn down the money associated with that. I don't know. But I, you know, I think ELC is better.
for a multitude of reasons that I won't get into right now. And I do hope that I hope the FFT moves to ELC sooner rather than later, or at least explains what the holdup is or why they haven't chosen to do it. From Enigma Paradox, thoughts on Gaz K's career? High hopes for the Frenchman as a 15-year-old phenom winning his first ATP match. Finishes above 600 match wins. Similar career to Monfils. Very different players.
Yeah, Gaz Kay's career. I don't, I mean, I don't remember when he was 15 years old. I wasn't a careful observer of the sport. Maybe not much of an observer of the sport at all at that point in time. I think he did not have big weapons, but it's one of the best one-handed backhands of all time, no doubt. No doubt in my mind.
And between his variety and his consistency, a very pure natural ball striker. Somebody who I've always really liked to watch practice because it's just nice to watch him hit the ball. I kind of lost my train of thought. But I think when he moved great, he was a top 10 player. Because he had great consistency. Great variety.
and he covered the court well, and it was enough, especially at that time, at that point in time, where the game was just a little bit slower, where he could sustain himself as a top 10 player. As soon as the movement started to fall off, that's when...
when it started to become that first serve that, that forehand, which the thing with the forehand is I never felt like he was great at flattening it out. And I never felt like he was great at taking it down the line. So it was a little bit limited. And I thought there were points in his career where. You know, Gasquet's best weapon was his backhand. And that was almost an indictment on Richard. When the movement started to trail off.
Those things were put under the microscope, especially as the game got more power-oriented as we approached the 2020s. But such a graceful player. The longevity is incredible, and I always felt like mentally he was a consummate professional, and he was always in great shape. So for me, he's a talent maximizer. He has oh so much to be proud about. Clearly loved the game so much. Did a lot for French tennis. And I will certainly miss him. Do I want to answer this question?
Yeah, I have a short answer, but I'll still do this one. It's from Jason. After Altmaier's win, in which he seemed to often get the better of Fritz on backhand steadiness and ability to do damage, and Musetti's phenomenal clay season, is it reasonable to think that the narrative on the dying one-hander... might change to it becoming a semi-regular feature for clay court specialists. There seem to be a lot of positives for it on clay. Extra time makes it easier.
The typically deeper return positions mitigate its return downsides. It's easier to angle off the court. The obligatory feeling spin creates challenging contact points rather than balls that sit up. It's a little easier To go defense to offense. Went with on the full stretch. That's the only one I disagree with for the record. Easier to transition with. Seems like a lot of people are finishing on clay at the net more than ever. Easier to disguise drop shots. Yep, that's true.
The comment goes on. Obviously there's a clear history of one handers whose best surface is clay. I know that's nothing new, but it seems to me like one of the better arguments for why it might find a way to stick around. Okay. So plain and simple, great analysis. I totally agree. These are all, this is all really good thinking. I want to just be like.
Heck yeah, man. I'm with you. The thing is, I see the evidence in front of my eyes. The young players aren't coming up with the one-handers. They're not hitting it. So you got to look at the youth right now and just how sparse the one handers are. And to me, it's just a matter of facing the facts when it comes to that. There is a lot of logic from observing the current one-handers on tour. There are enough benefits to it that I would think there's a place for it.
And yes, particularly on clay, where the potential for weight of shot is just higher, which is huge on clay. But hey, it is what it is. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I've looked at the 21 and under situation for one-handed backends. It is grim. That's it. That's all I can say. From Lewis. Hey Gil, do you think Zverev's absolute peak was RG22? Most importantly, is he really as offensive today? After watching him for many years, I find him...
Being able to replicate everything except that offensiveness that he had during that run. Would really like to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I think a lot of people think what you think. I gotta say I disagree. I think Olympics 2021 in Tokyo, I think Zverev was just as offensive there. I think Paris-Bercy last fall thought it was just as offensive there.
I think in spurts for tournaments, Sasha has been as offensive as he needs to be. As offensive as you would want him to be. Just like he was at RG22. And I think that the level at Roland Garros that year, it's turned into this like mythical thing. I think because of how everything ended, the fact that he shattered his ankle.
at the end of the second set against Nadal, especially because of the way Zverev has talked about that since, where he said many times that he almost beat Nadal. And, you know, I always just say, what is he talking about? That's not true at all. He had three more sets to win. Three more. I thought he was playing great tennis. But come on. He didn't almost win.
As unfortunate as what happened, you know, as unfortunate as it was how it ended, he didn't almost win. So I think because we were robbed. of a conclusion and we never saw Zverev actually lose at that tournament fair and square. It's so easy to make up this thing in our heads like that's the best he's ever played. I don't agree. I think he was playing his best.
But he's played his best at various points in his career, and I think he's been offensive at various points in his career. This one is from member... poison opinionator. Hi Gil, what do you make of TNT's first week of broadcasting? I've seen some awesome commentary moments, some cringe, some awkward, but all around nice to have a new dedicated channel moving forward.
Also, when are we going to see you make your splashy entrance on TNT? Good question. Hopefully as soon as I can make it happen or as soon as. They want to make it happen. It's definitely something that I aspire for. For that same reason, I always have to say on answers like this, I'm a little bit limited. I'm not going to go full media critic on you and tell you everything I think.
I'm not going to talk about individual talent and evaluate people individually or the production team and all that. But there are a couple of things I can say to this. Otherwise, I wouldn't have taken the comment. First of all, I am fired up about... The rally. I think the rally is outstanding. And I know international viewers, hang with me here. I know you guys don't get TNT, but I'm going to make this interesting for you, I promise.
The rally is a whip around coverage format. So instead of the the TV coverage Hanging on whatever is the most intriguing match and by the way The most intriguing match in the first week is oftentimes, as we know as big tennis fans, not the best match, but the match that draws the best ratings. And you guys, these TV... People have the numbers. They know what they're doing. As hard as it is to believe that Djokovic winning 1-2-2 would get...
better TV viewership than Menchik and Alexander Muller playing an epic five-setter on court 14. As hard as that is to believe, guys, they have the data on this, and it's true. It's just true. However, for us more dedicated tennis viewers, I think most of us would agree. unless you're particularly partisan to whoever happens to be on one of the big courts, like if you're a huge Djokovic fan, you want the good matches on the outer courts. You want it all.
I mean, the first week of a major is best experienced hopping around from court to court to court. And that's what this... this whip around coverage entails. And they have a good team on it. I feel like it's something that Mark Petchy... has wanted to do for a long time and now he's getting to do it and he's doing a great job of steering the ship and providing the context and the knowledge necessary to be able to go from court to court to court because you can't
really prepare the same way when you're really covering every match across the grounds but i think this is a product that's needed to exist for a long time and i'm just really happy that it exists so i wanted to say that The other thing that's interesting is the HBO Max part of all this. And the one advantage that HBO Max has over a tennis channel, tennis channel app or...
ESPN Plus. You're going to get some exposure for people who weren't trying to be exposed. So you're going to have people who have HBO Max because they like The Last of Us. They like Succession. Watch Industry. If you haven't watched Industry, it's my favorite recent HBO show. They like White Lotus.
So you're going to have those people who are on Macs for whatever reason, and they might see the tennis and stumble upon it. Nobody's really stumbling upon, especially not young people on streaming platforms. That's not happening on ESPN or on Tennis Channel. So that's an interesting aspect. One thing that I do hope they implement is a customizable multi-view. That would be really, really great.
And the Tennis Channel app has this. HBO does not. You should be able to choose what matches are... on your screen you should be able to do a two box or a four box and have the ability to customize what you're looking at right so that concludes my my tnt thoughts All right, folks, I'm not going to go with any more mailbag comments because we're coming up on the hour mark. But as promised, I want to do a little bit of a notebook dump. So we'll start with day three.
Tuesday. Then we'll talk about some Monday stuff and we'll finish up on some Sunday stuff. Although there's not all that much from Sunday. And the last match I watched was Monfils. Mofis versus Hugo Delian. And I'm not going to get into the X's and O's here. Because a match like that isn't about X's and O's. It's about romance. It's about romance. Guillaume Enfils is a forever legend in this sport. And he is beloved.
around the world and he fills stadiums around the world because he can take a first round match against Hugo Delian. No disrespect. I like him a lot as a player and I respect how he goes about his business. But he's not a huge box office kind of guy. Gael Monfils can play anybody, including Hugo Delian, in the first round of a slam and make it a top five match that we'll see all tournament long.
And he did it a couple years ago against Sebastian Baez. And he's done it again here. That match had everything you could want from an entertainment standpoint. It had fireworks, highlight reel points, twists, turns, emotions. You know, huge reactions, physicality, finesse, power, everything. Mon fils, man. This is why he's loved. That's all I have to say. Okay, let's do Fonseca, Hercotch. Blowout. Blowout City.
for Joao Fonseca. This match didn't feel close for one second. The first set fell over quickly. The second set fell over quickly. The third set felt over quickly. They put this thing on court seven. A lot of the buzz around it had to do with that. That was really silly. It was really, really silly. By the way, scoreline 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. I understand that Fonseca is unseated. I understand that this is only the second time in his career he's playing a major tournament.
But you have to know when you're organizing a tournament, you have to have your finger on the pulse of who is popular and who is a draw. And Fonseca... let's be honest, conservatively is a top 10 draw right now. And the goal when you're scheduling a tournament is not to put the best players on the biggest courts. No, it's to make the fans happy. That's your job. And there were way too many people who would have shown up to Roland Garros on Tuesday.
They had tickets. They wanted to see Fonseca. They couldn't see him because they put him on that tiny ass court. And that's a mistake. Hopefully not one that's repeated, right? Sorry for cursing. And look, like sometimes people complain and then it's like, well, what match did you want to kick out? How about the Moutet match? I know it was Frenchman versus Frenchman, but again.
Think about who's going to put, like, think about the demand here. And even in France, Moutet against Tabour is not a bigger match than Fonseca-Herkac. It's just not. Okay. Look. I don't want to go too in the weeds on this match. Second serve battle was domination for Fonseca. Joao won 70% of his second serve points. Herkacz won 32% of his second serve points.
Hubie can't hit forehands and backhands with this guy. He just can't. Fonseca is a far superior ball striker. The way he was moving in this match, really, really good. I thought Joao was hitting out of the corners. as well as I've really ever seen him do it, particularly the forehand corner. So it was pretty tough on Hercotch to do damage. And...
The other thing I'll say is like Hubie's first serve averaged 121 miles per hour. That's just not good enough. Herkacz is generally, or at least sometimes, up at around 126. and his serve is going to need to make a huge impact if he wants to beat Joao Fonseca. Again, he cannot ball strike with Fonseca. He's not good enough to do it.
his serve needs to do something for him here and it didn't do enough and then the second serve battle was you know it really showed you who was winning from the baseline but also Other than Fonseca just playing a really sharp match. I mean, it was... It was a really high level. And I don't know what more I can say about Joao. On the Herkacz side, he wasn't moving all that well. And mentally, he just looked checked out. He's coming from Geneva. He's had a lot of health issues this year.
So he's playing five matches in somewhat short succession, but emotionally, let's not forget, he cried after that final. He cried after losing to Novak in that Geneva final. I think he was crushed with how the last 10 minutes of that match went. I think he was extremely disappointed with the way his game unraveled when it really counted in that deciding tiebreak.
And frankly, I don't think he recovered. I just don't. Plus, there's the fact that Fonseca is a will breaker. The fact that Herkacz never really seemed to dig his heels in. It's one thing losing points. The way you lose points against Fonseca is demoralizing and emasculating. You're watching the ball go by you at 100 miles per hour.
Meanwhile, the crowd is splitting your eardrums every single time. Like that can't be a comfortable place to be, especially when like you're kind of already a little bit wounded psychologically coming in. Okay? One more thing. I heard from somebody. I got a text during this match from somebody who...
I haven't spoken to in five, six years. We were friendly in college. Friendly. And I got a text from him and it said, And TNT, by the way, made it the main focus of the broadcast, even though on Chatrier, there was the Monfils match going on. Anyway, I get this text. Apologize to bug you out of the blue, and I know I'm probably very late to this, but who the hell is this Fonseca kid? He's electric. This is the kind of thing. Anybody else on the TV, I'm not hearing from this guy.
Again, I want to stress, reiterate, I haven't heard from him in five years. I'm just not hearing from that guy. But Fonseca, he has the Steph Curry. He has the Caitlin Clark. Between the crowds. The way he wears his heart on his sleeve and the winners, the power. That combination is eye candy that even the most casual viewers.
Cannot miss. Okay, let's move on. Novak Djokovic also got the Tuesday start, so we saw him in action today against Mackie McDonald. Ideal draw for Novak, as we said in the preview. Mackey coming off of a calf injury, and just generally his game is diminished severely by Klay. So that was positive for Novak, but... you kind of knew he was going to be okay as long as he dealt with what was a really chaotic 48 hours for him. From winning 100 in Geneva, getting to Paris late, taking part in...
in media taking part in the Nadal festivities, which I'm sure, you know, makes him feel a certain kind of way. I mean, that... It's hard to focus on competing when you are involved in something like that. But as long as Novak was able to handle that 48-hour whirlwind from a tennis standpoint, he was going to be okay. And he was. And he moved really well, by the way. The body seemed good. So that's a big problem.
He wins quickly. That's important. And I just want to touch on one thing before I moved on from Novak. I promise, because I know I've covered it a lot. I promise that I will not talk about... Djokovic is scheduling until his tournament is over after this. But let me just put a bow on it. All right. There were a lot of comments. recently, last week, where people were saying that Djokovic played Geneva because of his niece and his nephew. Okay? And the family. He's got family in Geneva.
Novak is a sweetheart. And a great uncle, clearly. Because that's a very kind thing to say. But you guys can't seriously be that gullible to believe. That Djokovic is prioritizing seeing family that he can see whenever he wants to see on an off week, which he has plenty of throughout the year. That he's prioritizing seeing family.
over his Roland Garros preparation. That is crazy. And he said it during the trophy ceremony, again, because it was a sweet thing to say. And I'm sure his family very much appreciated that he said it. But when he's actually like asked in a different setting, he went on the Mac cast. John McEnroe, Patrick McEnroe said, hey, so why'd you play Geneva? Was it to get matches? Was it to get 100? And.
At first he said both, and then he was pressed a little bit harder. And he said, and I quote, quote, I wouldn't go to Geneva if I was feeling good about my game. I felt like I needed a tournament. He didn't go to see his niece or nephew. He didn't go to get 100. He would not have gone unless he needed matches, which he did. That's why he went.
Now, maybe it was the tiebreaker between Hamburg and Geneva. Maybe the family helped him get to Geneva. Sure. However, that wasn't the real question I had. It always made sense to me that he would play Geneva. My question was always, Why did he pull out of Rome? He was finally asked about it in the press conference. And he basically said that he didn't want to play both Madrid and Rome. Because he thinks it's too much.
playing Monte Carlo, which he likes to play because he says he kind of regrets playing Monte Carlo, but because it's close to home, it's really hard. It is home. It's really hard for him to resist playing that tournament. It's so comfortable for him to just play it. Okay, so there's that. But then he said, normally I would pick Rome of the two. But this year, because I haven't played Madrid in a while, I picked Madrid. Now.
Is that the most sound logic that I'm fully bought into? I'm not sure. So I think him wanting to only play one, yes, checks out. But the last two years, he's only played Rome. He skipped Madrid, and that's worked out really well. And is it really a reason to change that strategy just because you haven't played Madrid in a couple years? It didn't stop him from... not playing Miami for a bunch of years. Anyway, I still think that maybe there is something going on that we don't know about.
And I promise, I just wanted to set the record straight because Novak has given his answer. That is his on-the-record official reasoning for pulling out of Rome. I wanted to make sure I got that on the show. But I will now leave this alone. I promise. All right. What's next? Any other day three stuff? Yes. We didn't talk about Medvedev.
This was surprising. Even though I'm not high on Daniil, he wasn't in my power rankings. I kind of thought that he would... Look, it's best of five. It's a major. This is a tournament that he's actually been really consistent at. I just thought he'd... He'd do the Medvedev thing. He's pretty good at finding a way in best of five, historically. That hasn't been the case this year. Lost early to Lerner, Tien, and now he's lost early to Cam Norrie, a guy who he held a 4-0 head-to-head against.
He beat Cam 6-4, 6-2 in Rome just three weeks ago. Cam, no top 20 wins since Australian Open 2023 when he beat Rude. He was down to 91 in the world last week in Geneva, qualified, made the semifinal. So he actually had a lot of momentum coming into Roland Garros. That certainly helped Norrie feel confident coming into the match. Like, we know, I actually, like... I have a lot of respect for Nori's best level and how tricky the—
His ball is, how different the backhand is from the forehand. The physicality is always there with Norrie. I feel like recently in his struggles, the consistency has fallen off. I'll also say this. Horrible luck with his arm injury. Because he played basically the best match I'd seen him play in a year against Jack Draper at Wimbledon last year. Beat him. Didn't go down as a top 20 win. Although, in my mind, that's an awesome win for Cam. And he, by the way, did it in straights, I believe.
I think he did it in straights. So he played incredible. And then he immediately hurt his arm, his left forearm, which is his forehand, of course. And that really derailed him for a while. And again, I just haven't seen the signature Cam Norrie consistency recently that got him into the top 10. Anyway. That's the Nori part of it. I'll tell you how the match went in case anybody's unaware. Nori won the first two sets. Medvedev won...
Sets three and four. The fourth set was a blowout. Medvedev lost only eight points the entire set. And then in the fifth, Daniil continued to seem like the better player. Medvedev served for the match at 5-4 and he got broken at 15. He made four ground stroke errors. Three of them were pretty routine. One of them was defense. And then Medvedev got broken again at 5-6 to lose the fifth set, 7-5. So Medvedev really almost completely completed the comeback. And then from there, he...
felt the moment, and he was pretty bad. The level down the stretch in the match, the level itself from both, I don't think too highly of, and therefore... I'm curious to see what Nori does from here and if he backs this up and what he does for the rest of the tournament. Because again, as much respect as I have for Nori's game.
The level of tennis here, I didn't come away like, wow, Cam was unbelievable. It wasn't really my view on it. But he was tough. He made the balls under pressure. And he... He forced Medvedev's hands. I mean, he made Daniil play the balls that Daniil wasn't ready to play. I'll say that. Here's my big takeaway, analytically, from this match.
We've talked a lot about Daniil Medvedev struggling to find his identity on the court. Trying to adapt his play style and losing a little bit of what once made him great. Well, I felt there was some symbolism in this match. This was a great catch by Chris Eubanks, who is commentating on TNT's The Rally. He noticed that Medvedev started the match in a hybrid setup.
You had natural gut color strings on the mains, and then you had polyester strings on the crosses. That's a high power setup. You get more easy speed on the ball with that setup. Then midway through the match, it changed. Suddenly Medvedev's string bed was all black, all poly. This is a drastic measure that is unheard of. in professional tennis to change not your string tension, but your string setup in the middle of matches is totally unheard of. But Daniil...
has been doing it and has said that we know that this isn't the first time he's done it because he's talked about it this year. And I'm going to pull a direct quote here. He said he beat Hatchinov in Doha and he said he did it largely because he changed his racket. He went for the full power setup. He said, quote, because of what is happening on tour right now, I have different rackets.
Okay. This is all fine and well, maybe. You could look at this and say, hey, it worked. It turned around the match for him. Here's what's crazy about this. Medvedev has done such a dramatic 180 on his philosophy here. He did an interview in 2023 with Tennis Warehouse and... He said, and I quote, That's not me. I'm using the same tension almost all over the world, 22 kilos. I don't usually change rackets during matches, even in five sets. I don't change tension if it's cold, hot, or whatever.
He said that in April of 2023, folks, he went from the most dramatic part of the spectrum of. I never change my racket. My tension stays the same and my racket stays the same. Entire matches. Two, I am changing my technology more dramatically. than basically any player that anybody has ever known of. This is like a vegan deciding to become a butcher. That's what this is. And I'm sorry, but it reeks of a player who is just completely panicked. Dimitrov retired again this morning.
That is four in a row for him at the slams. I will point out that he hasn't been a serial retirer. We'll talk about one of those a little bit later on. But he's got five retirements in that stretch. And four of them have come at slams. It's really unfortunate. I keep saying it over and over again. But last two years, I really like some of the tennis that Dimitrov has been able to play.
even north of 30 years old. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to make a single gratifying run at a major because the body hasn't held up. That's been unfortunate. Nine retirements. in 58 career slam main draws for Grigor Dimitrov. That is a high number. One other thing I want to quickly hit on is Jakub Menchik, Alexander Muller. which was one of the craziest tennis matches I've ever watched. End of the fourth set, Menchik is trying to get the match stopped because of rain.
And he's actually being pretty disruptive during a Muller service game. He stops twice during the game to try to get the match suspended. And the chair umpire is not really having it. And she's like, no, like... It's not too wet to play. We got to keep playing. And I think there might have been... some gamesmanship there for Menchik, given his timing. I mean, he could have waited until the change of ends, or he could have taken no for answer the first time, and then...
Again, finish the game and then ask again. But instead, he was kind of disrupting the rhythm of the match. The French crowd, supporting Alexander Muller, of course, noticed. They started getting on Jakub Menchik. And Menchik leaned even further into his stall tactics. There was a point in time where...
He tied his shoe at Deuce during Mueller's service game. Like right before he was going to serve, he went to tie his shoe. Maybe his shoes got untied. Maybe. But most of the time when a tennis player does that, it's because they meant to do it. He bounced a ball off of his foot at one point when the crowd was bothering him before a serve. He just bounced the ball off of his foot. Again, can it happen by accident? Yeah. Most of the time, it's on purpose.
Menchik played incredible tennis. As soon as stuff got tense and emotional and hostile in this match. Menchik was marvelous. It was honestly Novak Djokovic-esque me against the world performing. And... Look, if you want sportsmanship, if that's what you're looking for, Jaka Menchik in this match was not for you. He just wasn't.
That said, the crowd, as you can imagine, was giving it back to him and class and etiquette went out the window, not just for Menchik, but also from the crowd. It got crazy. I'll tell you, the only guy. who maintains some dignity here, is Alexander Muller. That said, the fact that Menchik was able to stand up in that environment and to embrace that hostility and play as well as he did...
Honestly, he showed me something. He's a stone-cold killer. He is. He showed me he's a stone-cold killer. And mentally, he continues to just pass test after test after test, regardless of what you think of the gamesmanship there. Okay, that's it for day three. We've already talked Fritz Altmaier. Day two, I guess there's two things I want to hit on quickly. The first is Arthur Feast. Nice win from him, by him.
over Nico Jari in four, but I do feel like we saw some of the vulnerabilities. Three for 16 on break points, and in the third set, which went to a tie break, we saw Feast... Overhit after overhit after overhit. Just getting too amped up, too excited. Now, somewhat understandable. He was looking for his first ever Roland Garros win. Hopefully, he calms down a little bit.
after getting that off of his shoulders. And it didn't ultimately cost him in this match because he was the far better player than Jari. Way better. But the clutch factor from Feast was pretty bad. He made a lot of bad errors on the biggest points. And again, it didn't cost him because he was just so much better. But Dosa Osaka. That's the only women's match so far that I've really watched from start to finish. And part of it, by the way, is because I don't wake up at 2, 3 a.m. every day.
And all the men's matches are scheduled late and all the women's matches are scheduled early. So here I am on Pacific time and it's way harder to watch women with how they schedule them. Okay, Bedosa Osaka. Well, I'm not going to go through everything in the match. Here's the big takeaway here, first and foremost. Osaka, when Bedosa hit a ball... Regular height, regular spin, regular pace. Osaka was great. Osaka was a great ball striker whenever she had the ball.
in a comfortable spot in her strike zone. Here's the thing. When a player is defending, they are not often hitting a ball straight. They are not... hitting that regulation rally ball. They're throwing it up high. They might be dropping it short. It might get a little low. It's probably off pace. Like when you knock your opponent off balance, you get an off pace ball often.
But Dosa was playing really tough defense. She was such a great competitor in this third set. I almost thought she needed to calm down a little, but in hindsight, no. The intensity was great. Back to the tactics. It was the high slow stuff or the low short stuff that Osaka wasn't able to deal with. She really struggled in the midcourt.
There were several short balls that she didn't get her feet up to, and then she wasn't able to execute off of the short ball. And she made a lot of errors off of the, like the high. floating loopy ball. Again, a lot of them were not because Bedosa was like, let me hit a high ball. A lot of them were Bedosa was defending, so she had to hit a high ball.
But it ended up being the most effective tactic. And the way Paula was moving and grinding, she was able to extract all the errors she needed to out of Osaka with that kind of variety. So Naomi needs to get better. at dealing with the, the funky junky stuff because you're not always going to get the ball in your strike zone, right? Okay, now we go to day one, Sunday. A couple of really quick ones here. Petchy Perry card. I enjoyed that match.
Roof closed. Horrible break for Zizou Bergs. Zizou Bergs had to be like, are you kidding me right now? Petty Perry card is obviously way more dangerous with the roof closed because it helps his serve. I also think Klay. is his best surface because I don't think his serve needs any help from the conditions other than indoors, which I think does make a real difference. But it's not like there's going to be conditions that are too slow.
for 140 miles per hour. There's no such thing, but he needs a little help breaking serve. And I think the clay helps him break serve a little bit. And speaking of breaking serve, he did it more in this match than he has in almost a year. GMP, he beat, who did he beat at Wimbledon? Oh, Rusevori, I think. Was it Rusevori? Whoever he beat in the third round of Wimbledon last year, he got three breaks of serve. He hadn't broken serve more than twice in any match since then.
So for the people who say Petchy Pericardt isn't a serve bot, folks, he is the serve bodiest of serve bots. Okay? He does not break serve very often. But he did four times in this match. Again, it's actually the second most of his career. and it is the most since Wimbledon last year. But he looked great. He looked really good. Tomas Mahach, just want to mention, another retirement from him.
At this point in time, it's not a good look. And if I were him, I would just want to, and maybe he's done it and I've missed it. I would want to publicly explain what's been going on because there might be a good explanation. He may be dealing with something chronic. Or something that he can't fight off. And it's affecting his ability to finish these matches. But because he is showing up week after week after week. And not finishing his matches.
and also not taking any time off for injury, it does not reflect very well on him, unfortunately. At this, I'm just saying, all I'm saying, this is my take. If I were him, I would try to explain myself and I would be slightly embarrassed. I think if I. didn't explain myself. I would want to say, Hey guys, I know this has been a little bit crazy. Let me just clue you in on what's been happening. Right?
Let's end on Ben Shelton. He wins in five over Lorenzo Sanago. When Sanago went up two sets to one, I was still like, eh, probably still Shelton's match. The delta between Ben, best of five and best of three is flat out enormous. And, you know, you can just look at his win percentages straight up.
Let me pull that up. Best of five for his career. He's 25-10. So that's a win percentage over 70%. Do you know how hard it is to win 70% of matches? Do you know how many players have won 70% of matches in the last year? It's probably like five or six players. Definitely Sinner, Alcaraz, Djokovic, Zverev. Probably like Draper. And that might be it.
That's how good that win rate is. And that's his career win rate in best of five. Best of three, his career win record is 61 and 53. That's 53 and a half percent. That's pedestrian. That's like... Top 40, low top 30. I mean, it's just a huge delta. Now you dig deeper into the numbers and I want to share this. I think this is fascinating.
why is Shelton so good in best of five? And that's the question that I'm attempting to answer right now. I think it is because he is, first of all, just a big match performer, but also... In crunch time, when the matches go long and he's gotten a long time to kind of feel things out, he gets better and better as matches progress. The stats flesh this out. Ben is six and four in three set matches. So let's be very clear. He's good at majors. He rarely wins in straights.
Only six out of his 25 wins. But in four setters, he's 10-3. In five setters, he's 7-3. Since the U.S. Open in 2023, he is 14-2 in matches. that are either four or five setters he is really good in these long matches that go into for lack of a better word extra time he is so good And mentally, I just think that's his biggest weapon. I don't think it's his serve. I really don't.
I think it's his mind. I think it's his ability to show up and trust himself and be confident and not get tight in the biggest moments. Can he make some... Risky decisions in big moments? Yes. But it feels time and time again over the course of a best of five set match when everybody is nervous and tight and they feel like, oh, it's so important. It's a major.
I don't want to miss. I don't want to do anything wrong. Ben is out here going for it and getting after it. And it's just, it's served him well so far. And that's all I can say. So, Shelton Stats, just eye-popping stuff. All right, that will do it. I will be back with the show after the conclusion of round number two. See you then. Hope you enjoyed. Don't forget to subscribe. I'll see you next time.