Ben checks in with Tumaini in Paris to discuss all the happenings of the business end of a sometimes fun, often frustrating French Open. We start with the women, where Iga Swiatek is set to face Jasmine Paolini in the final. Both great stories on their own, as we discuss, but will the final itself be a memorable one? We then tuck into the men, among whom Novak Djokovic bowed out with a torn meniscus, and the Sinner-Alcaraz blockbuster semifinal was fairly lumpy. We also briefly discuss our react...
Jun 08, 2024•57 min•Ep. 340
Ben and Lindsay Gibbs of Power Plays are celebrating together in Tennessee and also discussing what they see in tennis, when it comes to how the women's game may be missing out on the cultural wave that other women's sports are riding in 2024. What separates the trajectory of women's tennis from the momentum brought by Caitlin Clark to basketball and similar surges in professional women's soccer and hockey? What should the WTA's priorities be? How much are female players responsible for the succ...
May 31, 2024•42 min•Ep. 339
Ben checks in with Tumaini at Roland Garros to discuss the match of the tournament so far, in which Naomi Osaka was just one point away from stunning the huge favorite Iga Swiatek before the three-time champ rallied for a late escape. How does this surprisingly strong performance set up Osaka for the remainder of her season? And is it a cause for concern for Swiatek's favorite status in Paris? Also, we discuss Elena Rybakina's souring in her first round press conference, and revisit Tumaini's th...
May 30, 2024•33 min•Ep. 338
Ben and Ricky Dimon debrief on what very much looked like Rafael Nadal's last match at the French Open, in which the 14-time champion played decently but was clearly overmatched by fourth-ranked Alexander Zverev. We discuss the match, and hear from Rafa himself on what his future might hold. If not answers, there was some clarity in his remarks that helps light a clearer path for his future. We also discuss what was most impressive in Nadal's era of dominance, the newfound parity seemingly hitti...
May 28, 2024•30 min•Ep. 337
Ben and Tumaini reconvene for a quick-paced look through the French Open draws, looking at the top lines stories from the wide-open men's draw and the Swiatek-steered women's side. We start with the headline first round match between Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev, a daunting test for the 14-time champion against an opponent who brings on-court for and in-court legal issues to make this a discomfiting occasion. We also discuss Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Iga Swiatek, Elena ...
May 25, 2024•52 min•Ep. 336
Ben and Tumaini catch up on the Dinara Double, in which Iga Swiatek "won Rome and Madrid" while on the men's side a whole bunch of draws fell apart and the top of the men's ladder looked shakier than it has in years. We talk about Swiatek launching herself into a new orbit, the upper hand she has on Sabalenka, and wax poetic about the current gloriousness of Danielle Collins. We also discuss the uncertainties around many men's stars, including Djokovic, Sinner, Nadal, and Alcaraz. We then spend ...
May 22, 2024•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 335
To dive further into "Challengers," the much-buzzed-about tennis movie coming out this Friday, Ben chats with the movie's screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes about his inspiration to tell a story about the unique emotional landscape of tennis. We discuss the infamous match that planted the initial seed of desperation, the details tennis heads are appreciating (including the Applebee's near the Cincinnati tournament), introducing the sometimes convoluted structure of tennis to a general audience, the e...
Apr 25, 2024•31 min•Ep. 334
Ben and AJ Eccles attended screenings of the new movie CHALLENGERS this week, and are here to discuss this bold new entry into the growing tennis movie canon (NB: we very carefully avoided any significant spoilers until a very clearly marked intermission at the 41-minute mark). Directed by Luca Guadanigno and starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist, we discuss how CHALLENGERS compares to recent tennis movies like KING RICHARD and BATTLE OF THE SEXES, and how fiction can actually allow fo...
Apr 20, 2024•58 min•Ep. 333
Ben and Tumaini reconvened this week to react to the news that the WTA Finals are going to Saudi Arabia, a move that felt unfathomable five years ago but has more recently felt inevitable. What do we make of the news? Should women's sports be held to a different standard when it comes to selling out? And what does the deal say about both the recent past and near future of women's tennis? We then shift to a conversation about the proposed Premier Tour, a radical revamp described in detail in an i...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 332
Ben and Tumaini answer listener questions and recap the month that was in March, where Indian Wells and Miami formed the Sunshine Double and changed some of the forecasts of the sport. We start with Indian Wells, where Swiatek and Alcaraz won their second titles and Novak Djokovic lost early and bailed on the swing. We then head to Miami, where Danielle Collins won the biggest title of her career and Jannik Sinner cemented his spot as the dominant player on tour. We also discuss recent form of D...
Apr 05, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 331
Picking up where we left off on the last episode , Ben and Tumaini cover several other big stories from the first part of this season. We talk about the diverging fates of Brits in tennis, as Andy Murray sets a dispirited retirement date while Katie Boulter surges to a new high. We then spend quite a while on the health of women's tennis as a product, which seems to be getting left in the dust while the men surge, with no apparent strategy for building interest in their product. What can be done...
Mar 13, 2024•50 min•Ep. 330
Ben and Tumaini had a lot to catch up on this week, so we are splitting this episode into two parts. The first part, here, begins with the Court of Arbitration for Sport issuing a radical reversal of the first decision on Simona Halep's positive test , which means Halep can return to tour immediately. We don't have all the answers yet, but what does the dramatic disparity between the two decisions say about the dysfunction of the tennis anti-doping system? In the second part of this episode, we ...
Mar 08, 2024•50 min•Ep. 329
Ben and Tumaini turn to the women (and the miscellany) in this second Australian Open wrap show. This one was more straightforward, resultswise: Aryna Sabalenka was the best player, by a lot, defending her title in emphatic fashion. What do we make of her consolidation as a champion? And where is the sport at now, geopolitically? We also cover the strong runs of Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen, as well as early exits of Swiatek, Wozniacki, and Naomi Osaka. We also cover some other miscellaneous stor...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 328
Jannik Sinner is the winner of the Australian Open, dethroning the Djokovic dynasty and prevailing in a thrilling comeback final to claim his first Slam win. We discuss Sinner's ascendance and what the defeats mean for the two men, Djokovic and Medvedev, whom he beat to clinch this title. We also discuss other various things on the men's side of the tournament (we also recorded a women's episode which will come soon), including late finishes. We then close with a discussion of the darkening shad...
Jan 30, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 327
Coming full circle, NCR begins its 13th(!) season with our look at the Australian Open draws. Ben and Tumaini start with the men. Who can meaningfully challenge Novak Djokovic? And then we talk about the women. Have you heard that Ben wrote a book about Naomi Osaka? We really think you'll like it, and we thank you for buying it ! We'll be back with you with more shows during the tournament!...
Jan 13, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 326
At last it's finally publication day for Ben's new book, the biography Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice ! After months of copious plugs on the show, we are excited to finally be able to talk about the book in more depth and detail, with the tremendous help of NCR's intrepid correspondent Reem Abulleil who interviews Ben about the book, his process, and some of the key moments of Naomi's career. Reem was also a close observer of Naomi's since her earliest days on the to...
Jan 09, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 325
Ben and Tumaini have a lot to cover as they try to make sense of the year in women's tennis and explain the forces behind the stormy finish to the year, on-court and off-court, and where it leaves the sport going forward. After a brief discussion on the last couple events of the men's calendar—including if Jannik Sinner was right to keep Novak Djokovic in contention in Turin—we dig into the year that was on court, first by running through some of the headlines off court, and then covering how th...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 324
With Ricky Dimon in town to run his sixth Marine Corps Marathon, he joins Ben for their annual wrap show on the year that was in men's tennis, which was another season of Novak Djokovic, now 36, lording over a much younger field. Ben and Ricky get somewhat granular, going over the top seventeen men in the rankings and spending a few minutes on each, assessing their years and their prospects for next year. In order: Dimitrov, Shelton, Tiafoe, Khachanov, de Minaur, Paul, Ruud, Hurkacz, Fritz, Rune...
Nov 02, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 323
Ben and Tumaini read the 126-page decision in the tribunal's decision to convict former No. 1 Simona Halep on two charges of intentional doping, and give you a deep dive into the details of the document and expound on what it all means. In the first half of this episode we get into the details so you don't have to, explaining the reasons why the tribunal was "comfortably satisfied" of Halep's guilt, and how they arrived to those two parallel verdicts through different detection methods. We also ...
Sep 26, 2023•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 322
Ben and Tumaini wrap the US Open finals in their eighth show of the tournament, starting with Coco Gauff fulfilling the years of hype and hope by winning her first grand slam title. What did this win show us about a player we first met when she was a young teenager of 13 or 15? And what are the perils of such expectations? We then get into Djokovic's win over Medvedev, for his 24th major. Where does he go from here? And how should his relationship to the public best be characterized at this poin...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 321
Ben and Tumaini discuss the four semifinals that were, and all the storylines they contained, before looking ahead a bit to the fast-approaching US Open finals. First, what do they think of the protest that lengthily interrupted Coco Gauff's win? What is the message tennis should take from that moment? And how was Madison Keys derailed from her zoning start by Aryna Sabalenka? And what about Naomi Osaka, who dropped in on the US Open and discussed future plans (you can and should pre-order Ben's...
Sep 09, 2023•55 min•Ep. 320
Ben is joined by Blair Henley , the star interviewer on tennis courts around the world, to talk about her new role as an announcer inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the many different roles she's had at this US Open. What are the challenges of being the "Voice of God" at the world's biggest tennis stadiums? What makes on-court interviewing such a unique thrill? And what have been her standout moments of the tournament so far? All that and more! And you can still pre-order Ben's book , and he'd be ...
Sep 07, 2023•27 min•Ep. 319
Ben and NCR's Youth correspondent Alex Gruskin discuss Ben Shelton's big win Tuesday night over Frances Tiafoe in the US Open quarterfinals, a big result both within the American tennis ladder and in the big picture of the ATP generations game. Has Shelton's generation (Alcaraz, Sinner, Rune, etc) already passed Tiafoe's generation (Tsitsipas, Rublev, Auger-Aliassime etc) for good? What about within the American ladder? And when did the buzz about Shelton, who seemed to come out of nowhere, firs...
Sep 06, 2023•41 min•Ep. 318
Ben and Tumaini convene in the late hours of the night after Jelena Ostapenko thunderously knocked out Iga Swiatek, emphatically ending both Swiatek's title defense and her 75-week reign at the #1 ranking. Given Ostapenko's talent and head-to-head record, should this be considered a "bad loss" for Swiatek? Can Ostapenko win the tournament? How does Aryna Sabalenka come into the #1 ranking? Plus, a bit on Gauff d. Wozniacki, the constant corner chatter of coaches, and on how the worst way to beat...
Sep 04, 2023•30 min•Ep. 317
For our fourth daily show from the US Open, Ben is joined by tennis writer AJ Eccles to discuss his return to live tennis at the US Open last night, and what the sport looks like from inside the stadium. What did it feel like being back at a crowded tennis tournament after years away? What are the differences between watching live and watching on TV And what was it like seeing his favorites Caroline Wozniacki and Petra Kvitova battle it out in one of the marquee matches of the first week?...
Aug 31, 2023•17 min•Ep. 316
Ben is joined by David Waldstein of The New York Times, who recently wrote about the disconnect between the US Open and its neighbors , the Latino communities of Corona and other neighborhoods like Elmhurst and Flushing. Why is the US Open so walled off from these communities? What could be done to make them more connected and invested in one another? And what is lost by hundreds of thousands of people passing over these neighborhoods in "flyover" fashion as the tournament teleports its people f...
Aug 31, 2023•18 min•Ep. 315
Ben and Tumaini reconvene on Day 2 of this US Open to talk about players retiring at this US Open, including Barbora Strycova (who you'll hear), CoCo Vandeweghe, and Jack Sock. But mostly, we talk about John Isner, the towering American who had an outsized impact on the sport while being popular among his peers but polarizing among fans. You'll hear from Andy Murray, Grigor Dimitrov, Eric Butorac, and John himself about what his legacy has been on the court, where he broke records and uniquely i...
Aug 30, 2023•27 min•Ep. 314
Ben and Tumaini are back together again at the US Open, for the first of what will be daily shows here! We discuss the big story off-court, which is the Saudi bid to move into women's tennis, as well as some of the big headlines on court on Day 1, where Maria Sakkari and Holger Rune were the notable upset victims. Also, how relevant is American tennis globally?
Aug 29, 2023•24 min•Ep. 313
As he wraps up the book he's been writing about Naomi Osaka ( pre-order now, please, thank you! ) Ben is back on site at the ATP-WTA tournament in Washington, where he did a short-but-sweet interview with Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion who remains a remarkably engaging presence on the tour as she looks for ways to rediscover her dominance. Ben and Bianca chat about the stage presence she gets from her "unapologetic" mom, the upsides and downsides of having set the bar so high for ...
Jul 31, 2023•13 min•Ep. 312
Ben and Reem Abulleil chat about the big stories of the business end of Wimbledon, starting with the massive narrative potential of the men's final. Does Carlos Alcaraz's win over Novak Djokovic in the final represent a passing of the torch, or something less drastic? How surprised were we by this result? And how could this be a good thing for Djokovic going forward? We also discuss Chris Eubanks and Matteo Berrettini, who both had meaningfully great runs on the men's side. On the women, we disc...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 311
