Journalist Glenn Greenwald , creator of The Intercept, joins Ben on this episode to discuss his longtime admiration of Martina Navratilova, the documentary project about that admiration he has been working on, and the hurdles that he's run into along the way as Navratilova has incurred the wrath of activists, as Glenn wrote about here at the Intercept . We discuss Navratilova's sudden fall in LGBT sports circles, the notion of cancel culture, and also Glenn's longtime love of tennis and what he ...
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 159
Mark Ein, owner of the Citi Open ATP tournament in Washington, joins NCR for a third time this year to share what went into the decision this week to call off his tournament, after months of previous optimism that holding it might be possible even amid a pandemic. Ben and Mark discuss the uncertainty of the moment regarding travel, why now was the time to make the decision, and what challenges the U.S. Open still needs to clear in order to go ahead. Also, could a radical reimagining of the trave...
Jul 23, 2020•46 min•Ep. 158
As sports work towards a mid-pandemic return across North America, Ben is joined by a veritable constellation of media stars across the landscape to discuss how things are progressing across various arenas, and what their successes and struggles might indicate about what's in store for the tennis tours as they plot out a mid-pandemic comeback. The panel: Helene Elliott , sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times ; Ava Wallace , reporter for The Washington Post ; Lindsay Gibbs of Power Plays ; a...
Jul 17, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 157
The fall out from the Adria Tour coronavirus cluster took an unexpected trip to the dance floor within a week later, with video surfacing of Alexander Zverev partying in Monte Carlo just days after being repeatedly exposed to the disease (and promising to follow health protocols) enraging people around the sport in tennis and severely damaging trust in tennis players. To discuss the ramifications, and the notions of a code of conduct, Ben is joined by NCR's Middle East correspondent Reem Abullei...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 156
Two programming alerts for you here, one sort of a bummer but the other one super-duper. Firstly, we decided that the US Open roundtable episode we recorded after the press conference in New York had become instantly outdated when the positive tests started rolling in from the reckless Adria Tour, so we made the tough decision not to publish it since it was feeling obsolete. In much happier programming news, we have some very fun stuff rolling onto our Patreon now : games of tennis-themed Codena...
Jun 26, 2020•5 min•Ep. 155
Between the recording and posting of an episode about the U.S. Open going forward, a big tennis news item dropped on Sunday: Grigor Dimitrov announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after participating in the Adria Tour events, making this the most high-profile known incidence of coronavirus in tennis yet and casting a pall over the sport's plans to go forward with tour events soon. Ben is kindly rejoined by Reem Abulleil and Tumaini Carayol to have another discussion of what the Dimit...
Jun 21, 2020•30 min•Ep. 154
The U.S.T.A. confirmed today that it plans to hold the U.S. Open in its regular dates, albeit without fans and with players and their teams kept in a isolated bubble. The Western & Southern Open will also be played, but at the U.S. Open venue rather than in Ohio. But before those, the first tournament back on the ATP Tour will be the Citi Open in Washington DC. To talk about what it's taken to get there, and what comes next for the tournament, Ben is rejoined by tournament owner Mark Ein to ...
Jun 17, 2020•39 min•Ep. 153
For our second episode of the week, Ben is joined by Patrick Mouratoglou , the coach of Serena Williams, founder of the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy , and most recently the creator of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown , a tennis event with lots of new ideas on rules to make tennis more appealing to a new, younger audience. Patrick discusses the need for more open displays of emotion in tennis, how to make tennis more competitive in a crowded entertainment marketplace, his thoughts on the U.S. Open's pr...
Jun 12, 2020•32 min•Ep. 152
Ben and Courtney are delighted to bring you a conversation they had last month with Sandra Zaniewska , a rare former WTA player who now coaches on the tour (or did before the tour stopped, anyhow), working first with Petra Martic and now with Alize Cornet. We discuss finding meaning during the shutdown, her own journey through the sport as a player and a coach, how coaches can cope with this stoppage, what she makes of Dominic Thiem's controversial comments, and her own nascent adventures in pod...
Jun 11, 2020•57 min•Ep. 151
Ben and Courtney are joined by The Guardian's Tumaini Carayol to discuss his reporting on Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff , two young stars who have emerged as leading voices among players as America is gripped by protests following the murder of George Floyd. How are these two women using their voices? What sort of shift might this represent in the public persona of Osaka, particularly? Are there any drawbacks to athletes speaking out? And how might the stoppage change social awareness in the sport?...
Jun 05, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 150
At the suggestion of a few listeners, we thought it might be useful to alert listeners on this main feed when we upload a Patreon-only episode . And Ben and Courtney just put up their biggest Patreon-only yet, with over two hours across all sorts of topics, mostly non-tennis though with a few decided tangents into the sport we find ourselves without currently. This is our fifth Patreon-only episode , and backers to our Patreon can access all episodes and other discussion threads and posts. We're...
May 29, 2020•2 min•Ep. 149
Four years after we launched NCRvision into this world , we're finally able to bring some closure to the adventures of our 26 heroic songs inspired by tennis, and to enjoy a whole lot of fun side quests along the way! We've counted the 411(!) ballots that our listeners cast, and we reveal the finishing order of the songs from 26th to champion, having a whole lot of fun along the way. We start with a recap of the show and an interview with Eurovision expert William Lee Adams who lends his expert ...
May 26, 2020•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 148
The 2020 Eurovision Song Contest final was slated to be held today in Rotterdam, but alas 'twas not to be given the coronavirus situation around the continent and the world. The world is a far less glittery place than it should be. But fear not if you're missing that song contest fix! We're reairing our beloved NCRvision Song Contest from 2016 here for your renewed enjoyment. There's also a purpose behind this reairing: to get you refamiliarized with the songs for when our results show finally d...
May 17, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 147
In light of recent developments, Ben is joined by a Novak Djokovic superfan, Katrina aka @returnwinner , to talk about her journey as a fan of Novak's from the beginning to now. We talk about what drew her to Djokovic initially, her journey as a fan of a less popular player, and what she most admires about Djokovic. Then, pivoting to more recent developments, we discuss Djokovic's frustrating fall into the fray of faux-wellness charlatans , and how we should react to a favorite having some undes...
May 15, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 146
As the world works from home, we thought it might be useful to give you perspective from the folks who work remotely in tennis even under normal circumstances: the world feed commentators. Ravi Ubha , veteran journalist and commentator, talks about what it's like to call matches that happen around the world from a small studio in England, how to prepare, how to create atmosphere, and more. If you'd like to support our show, particularly as our normal work has disappeared along with the sport, we...
May 06, 2020•30 min•Ep. 145
For another perspective on life without tennis from someone inside the sport, Ben is joined by NCR favorite Mike Cation , co-host of the Behind the Racquet podcast , who shares his experiences now that his commentary work has ceased indefinitely with the sport halted due to coronavirus. We discuss the impact of the current moment on both financial and mental health, how lower-ranked players might be especially affected, and on the strains of exhibition match ideas which are popping up in all sor...
Apr 27, 2020•55 min•Ep. 144
The tennis world is stopped, but it got suddenly busy on Wednesday with Roger Federer expressing a view that he'd like to see the ATP and WTA tours merge into one organization after decades of being side-by-side but separate. More curiously, Rafael Nadal, not a supporter of equality measures in tennis, quickly endorsed this idea. What is going on? Ben is joined by Reem Abulleil try to figure out what's happening here, where it's coming from, and what it might mean for the futures of the tours. W...
Apr 23, 2020•41 min•Ep. 143
With the traditional European clay swing and the grass court circuit both off the calendar for the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the next possible start line for the sport is the summer hardcourt stretch in North America, on which the first big combined event would be the Citi Open in Washington. To discuss how the tournament is preparing and thinking currently, Ben is joined by Citi Open owner Mark Ein , who gives his insights and perspectives about how tennis might return after mon...
Apr 14, 2020•33 min•Ep. 142
To enhance our discussion and understanding of NCR Book Club selection Venus Envy , Ben and Courtney are joined by Jon Wertheim to chat about his experiences writing the book and how he looks back on it, two decades later. How has the tour changed since? How will history remember Anna Kournikova? And what is the current state of tennis in the publishing world? If you'd like to support our show, particularly as our normal work has disappeared along with the sport, we've launched an NCR Patreon wh...
Apr 03, 2020•54 min•Ep. 141
Ben and Courtney are delighted to bring you the long-awaited first discussion of the NCR Book Club, chatting about one of our favorite tennis tomes: Venus Envy by Jon Wertheim , which covers the 2000 season on the WTA Tour We discuss the colorful characters, what's changed in the sport in the last two decades, and how the book is a great snapshot of a moment on tour which is often sanitized or glossed over in modern narratives. Plus, a whole lot more. We will have another episode on Venus Envy f...
Apr 01, 2020•1 hr 58 min•Ep. 140
To distract you all from the bizarre world in which we live, Ben introduces you to one of the more unusual characters from the tennis ecosystem: the courtsider. (For more of an explainer on what courtsiding is, you may want to read this piece first ) Brad Hutchins, author of the book Game, Set, Cash , reminisces about his time on tour as a courtsider, the highs and lows of that job, and what it's like to be the mouse in a cat-and-mouse chase around the globe, working lawfully but against the wis...
Mar 29, 2020•42 min•Ep. 139
This tiny update is mostly to alert followers who track our show primarily through this feed that Ben and Courtney got together earlier this week to record an episode about what quarantined life is like . Since it didn't have tons to do with tennis, we put it on our Patreon page for supporters there. But since we were told many people had missed it and would have liked to have known it was there: voila, this mini episode. It's available to our backers there, and you can become one if you're not ...
Mar 22, 2020•4 min•Ep. 138
With the tennis tours now officially being suspended for at least more than the next month (goodbye Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Monte Carlo, etc), Ben is joined again by Dr. Chris Worsham , a pulmonologist at Mass General and Harvard Medical School, to discuss the spread of the virus and why events are ceasing. What makes a tennis tournament such a bad idea during a pandemic? Would the suggested fixes (like ballboys wearing gloves) have done much? And when might we see a light at the end of...
Mar 13, 2020•37 min•Ep. 137
The spread of the global pandemic COVID-19 (coronavirus) is forcing the world of tennis (and much of the wider world as well) to grind to a halt as we seek to slow the spread of the deadly disease. Ben is joined by Reem Abulleil to discuss the impact of the disease so far, and the headline-making cancellation of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the fifth-biggest tournament in tennis behind only the Grand Slams. We discuss where tennis might go from here, the idea of playing tournaments in f...
Mar 12, 2020•31 min•Ep. 136
Ben and Courtney are joined in this episode by Sally Bradfield , a former communications rep on the tennis tours who is the author of the new novel Not Quite 30 Love , and who has a host more stories to tell about her time working in tennis, particularly (to Ben's delight) on the WTA at the turn of the millennium. Sally has stories about working with emerging stars like the Williams sisters, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, and also speaks generally to the ever-ongoing plight of...
Mar 07, 2020•42 min•Ep. 135
We are delighted to have Louisa Thomas , one of the most wonderfully writerly writers about tennis in her work for The New Yorker , on this week to talk about all sorts of things to do with tennis and writing, and answer bunches of listener questions. We discuss how she got into writing about tennis, how to make tennis relevant to a general audience, the Kim Clijsters comeback, her favorite athlete to profile, the Big Three and how to compare greatnesses, tennis books, and much more. (Recorded b...
Feb 28, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 134
After Maria Sharapova announced her retirement on Wednesday morning, Ben is joined by Tumaini Carayol of The Guardian for an emergency episode to discuss her career and its many highs, lows, and controversies. After expressing some relief that she's stopped, we discuss what made Sharapova keep pushing on through the pain so long, and also what our early memories of her career were. We discuss her arrival as a star, and then the darkening of that when she tested positive for a newly-banned substa...
Feb 27, 2020•59 min•Ep. 133
Ben is joined on this week's show by Tom Hill , the coach of Maria Sakkari (who is set to make her WTA Top 20 debut on Monday), to hear more about the path of a young coach onto the WTA Tour. Tom takes you from his beginnings as a young Brummie boy who ventured off to the Bollettieri Academy in Florida and then worked his way through the college ranks before getting an unexpected break into elite women's tennis. First with Danielle Collins and then with Maria Sakkari, Tom has slowly but surely p...
Feb 21, 2020•50 min•Ep. 132
This week we bring to your ears a conversation with one of the sharpest eyes on tour: traveling women's tennis photographer Jimmie , who follows the tour year round with a dedication to the sport no other photographer can match. We talk about how Jimmie worked his way onto the tour, building himself as a trusted person in the fabric of the tour, and what his days and weeks look like as he depicts the women of the WTA in new and fresh ways with an unrelenting schedule (which even included some of...
Feb 14, 2020•37 min•Ep. 131
Ben and Courtney wrap up the Australian Open with a look at the end of the men's event, which finished for the eighth time with Novak Djokovic as champion. He sure seems to be closing in on that G.O.A.T. count, huh? Also, we discuss runner-up Dominic Thiem, who is establishing himself as the new Andy Murray, Sascha Zverev, who made a first Slam semifinal and generated a lot of donation talk, and Roger Federer, who toughed out a win over Tennys Sandgren and then gamely took court to face the musi...
Feb 06, 2020•49 min•Ep. 130
