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I hate, I hate the NBA draft lottery. I don't like it either, and some people are making noise for other leagues to adopt it, and I think it's dumb. I hate it. Probably because... If you're a Mavs fan, would you love it? I would love it. I would love it. I would love it. I hate it so much. Racket Rundown brought to you by Wilson. I mean, if you could write up a script for Italian tennis as far as ratings and everything else for the Italian Open 2025,
You know what that script would say, Mike? What? It would say your homegrown legend comes back and if you could just somehow squeeze out a TV rating for him to just make the final against the most marketable player in the game, young player in the game now. And then... You have this Jasmine Paolini who has this smile that makes you want to smile. And she comes through and wins.
On the women's side, Italian victory for the first time since Raffaella Reggi in 1985. You think those ratings were any good in Italy? I mean, just the semifinals on the channel, they were on with like 25% of their viewers. I mean, it was like 4.9 million viewers. Yeah, it was like an NFL championship game. Yeah. And I don't even know what the rating was for Sinner. Sinner and Alcaraz, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm sure it was nuts. And Helene is, she's so likable.
She's so likable. I couldn't even understand what she was saying during the trophy ceremony, but I knew that it was funny. because she was laughing and everyone else was laughing too. She just seems like a winner and I proposed the question. Rewind 12 months because now we take it. It's like Paolini wins in Italy. We're like, oh, that's great. That's a good result. Not shocking at all, right?
12 months ago, she had never been, or I guess before March of last year, she had never been like top 30 in the world. Wins there, makes the finals of French. We're like, that's a great story. How much money would you have lost on a percentage basis for 12 months later after this nice story of Paolini making the finals of the French? Next year's French Open, Paolini seeded four, Iga Sviatek seeded five.
I would have lost 100%. I would have lost 100% of my house. I mean, this is like a John Wertheim pre-written story coming to fruition. Yeah. Imagine 12 months ago. John's at his daughter's graduation, so shout out, John. That's why he's not with us. John's not here? No. Oh. Oh. But just what a story. Oh, and then Paolini was like, oh, that was fun. That was a fun Saturday. You know what I should do on Sunday? Should win the doubles.
I mean, just a straight sweep. She's like a human ATM machine right now. In her home country. Just sweeping. She knocked Coco out of the doubles also. Yeah, listen, she was pretty convincing in that final against Coco. And Coco looked... I don't know. It's a strange thing. I can kind of... I don't know if I can relate. I have sympathy for... Coquille loses in the finals and it looks like she's really disappointed and angsty in that final where...
She's in this weird place where she's won a slam. She's two in the world, and also we're going wide, and she won that final. It's a weird... It's a weird place for her to be. I mean, she's played great, kind of turned her year at the start was pretty average and made finals in Madrid and Rome. It's one of those things if you tell her a month ago, you win this many matches, she's going great. And then it's like you lose two finals. She's like, this sucks.
Like this is, you can see that it's tough. She was emotional, visibly emotional after she lost in the final Madrid. And then she got through. The ceremony said all the right things as she does. But it's just a weird, you know, she's one of the favorites. And also, you know, she just felt maybe like angsty.
And it wasn't, maybe that was just she didn't want to bring the Italian crowd in. She was quiet, you know, on air. They were saying, like, she looks flat. I don't know if it was flat, but, you know, maybe it was strategic. You just don't want to bring the Italian crowd in. against Paolini. When you see a stat line that shows 55 unforced errors and 7 double faults, what are you thinking? Well, let's just think about it. How many points does it take to win a set?
Bueller? Anyone? Bueller? I didn't mean to stump you guys. It's four points a game. You need six games to win a set. I'm not... Yeah. God, I work with a bunch of idiots. Just... Do you really want us to answer it? 24. There you go, 24. So in theory, and obviously that doesn't bring in deuce games or whatever, so it was a little bit of a trick question. But in theory, you need 24 points to win a set. You need 48 to win a match.
55 errors is a lot of, that's a lot of errors. A lot of points. You know, when the goal is, when the minimum you can get is 48 points to win a match and someone's, donating 55, that's not great. And it is weird. I'm glad you brought up kind of errors because I've been on one. Or I was on one this week. on Tennis Channel, because whoever's keeping track of the errors in Rome... It's like, Carlos drills one to the back foot of the court.
and center clips one, hits it perfect and clips the net, and they're like, unforced error. I'm like, that's the most forced error I've ever... The stat lines where I'm watching this match, and then I look afterwards, and I go, oh, look it. Sinner had 19 winners and 42 unforced errors. I'm like that's not what I was looking at. Like that's not an unforced error.
You're basically saying if you push somebody that far back and they hit it, that's a forced error because you've strategically created a point. If someone's on the full run and they miss a passing shot off of their shoe tops or... And also, it doesn't tell the story of You have to
You make an error, but it's forced by strategy, right? It's forced because you can't just... These players would miss exactly zero balls if they're just hitting up the middle. Like, if there's no pressure, they're not worried about someone taking their head off, and this was... Very apparent during the Alcaraz center match of that Coco was probably a little bit sloppier in her final. But it's a weird thing. So center was up set point.
uh late in the second late in the first set and carlos is kind of gaining on him with that heavy forehand to his back end back and kind of pushes him in center all of a sudden tries this like hop on up on one leg and tries to hit this like inside out down the line backhand. It's like, oh, I can't believe it. That's just an irresponsible shot. I'm going, I don't know. You're positionally out of the way. He doesn't have to hit that shot against anyone else. He is forced
to take on that risk profile. And he foul balled it and it went left. But what's his other option? Carlos was gaining on him. The ball was up, feeding it back to the middle and hoping Carlos misses. I could make an argument for that. But it's not as if it's a crazy shot to try, like, up the risk, you know, try to steal the set on... It ended up not working out, so it looked ridiculous. But, like, to me, that's almost a forced error based on who... There was talk around...
These guys aren't making, they're missing first serve returns. Are they missing seconds? I go, well, yeah, because you have to hit it with such a premium. Otherwise, it's curtains. They're both so good with that first ball in the middle of the court. You have to avoid that. So therefore, you're going to miss more.
You're going to strike out more if all you're doing is trying to hit a home run. You talk about that all the time, right? Risk profile, risk profile. These guys are so even. They've got to create it, right? make more returns. Like, I promise you they're thinking of that. They are. They know what we know. Maybe more, but it was a fascinating final. I think if you...
If you go to, obviously you go to the Paolini camp and they're, you know, nuts and they're pumped and they're 12 out of 10, Coco, it's like, I don't know, it feels like there's like this disappointment and it shouldn't be that way. You know, it feels like they're really disappointed. And then Sinner, if you tell him at the beginning of the week, you're getting all of these matches, you're making a final.
Obviously, he's got to deal with this Alcaraz of things because that matchup hasn't favored him recently. Every other one on earth has. But, like, you tell him you make the final in your first tournament back after three months. Can we give that? That's so hard on a surface that isn't, you know, I won't say natural because he probably grew up playing on clay, but it's not the most effective four-year-old game.
unbelievable week for center. Like reset, instantly reset the deck were the two. There's not going to be, you know, any sort of, you know, hangover from, from the suspension and Carlos, man. The variety, it's so weird because we talk on this show and I talk on the show a bunch. about how sometimes Carlos needs to be less creative. Like just, you know, the problem with being able to hit four shots on every ball is that sometimes you try to hit, you know, all of those shots in a given match.
Against center, he has to do all of those things. He has to mix up the ball flight. He has to hit droppers. He has to knock his head off. He has to create a spinny forehand that's still aggressive and going up and away. and he's the only person that can do it consistently against Sinner. Sinner against Casper Rude, he knows that Casper's shot profile is super spinny and jumpy, and it's heavy, and it's awesome, but... If sinner knows what's coming, it is a problem.
Against Tommy Paul. Tommy Paul played like a superhero. in the first set against Sinner, but then Sinner goes, okay, I got it. I'm on you. You're hitting flat through the court. I know what's coming my way and starts making the adjustment, setting the deck, doesn't let Tommy camp out in that left corner. If he knows what's coming...
He's not going to miss a pitch. He's like Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds will sit on a pitch and then rip your head off. Against Carlos, I don't even know if Carlos knows it's coming all the time. But he has the ability to hit every shot to every spot with every type of spin or without spin.
And that really, you don't see Sinner looking unbalanced against anyone else in the world. Yeah, Carlos said, I mean, he was, in his quote afterwards, he said, mentally in terms of hitting the shots and tactically in terms of play, he was really proud of himself. You know, and it's just...
He went out, it sounds like he game planned. He went out and executed the game plan. Yeah, but he has to play all those shots against center. Yeah. Whereas, there's no surprise that when Carlos... gets to a slam final he hasn't lost when he gets to master series final he rarely loses like i think he lost one time
When he gets to that where it's in full flight and it's like a canvas, it's just, you know, it's like when he has writer's block and then he still tries to paint something amazing. He could be so much more boring against most people, but... Having all of those options against center, it makes center look
unbalanced, right? Like he doesn't know, like he's not completely sure. He played a great match. Sinner, it couldn't have gone better for Carlos this week and it couldn't have gone better for Sinner this week as well. What about Sinner's performance against Kasper? It was a joke. I mean, but he knows, you know, Kasper likes to hit his backhand cross. He doesn't really hit it flat through the court. He hits it big, but it's big with, like, you know, this jumping spin. He just smothered him.
Absolutely. I mean, you don't lose 0-1. You're a top 10 player. And I'm not criticizing Kasper at all. You can't. He came off of Madrid. He just got the shit knocked out of him, and he said that. Yeah, he was laughing afterwards. Yeah, it was absurd. I dropped a bagel on me a couple of times, too. It's not fun.
Taylor Fritz tweeted or something. He's like, oh, you almost had him. That's pretty funny. I'm sure for some people, they're like, oh, that's pretty funny. I like that they're laughing about it. If you have half a sense of humor. That's really funny. So what's prediction then for these guys heading into French? People are going to have a lot of opinions this week. I'm happy they're seeded one and two now because they are the best two players in the world.
i like zverev i like a lot of players i respect those players And I would also, I'm sure they have to lie to themselves to say they're not the clear-cut two best players in the world. Or you can say, I don't need to beat them all the time. I just need two weeks. That's what I kind of used to. fall back on two. But I'm glad it feels right that they're the one seed, the two seed. They would only play in a final. They haven't played in a grand slam final yet.
I wish everyone well, but that's the matchup that I think people want to see right now. It's going to be interesting to see. If Novak can find something, if he's got his legs underneath him in Geneva, if he's been doing three weeks of two-on-ones where that movement is a little sharper.
which I think was the problem in Monte Carlo and Madrid. It just looks like it wasn't strong out of the corners and he was having to kind of force it a little bit early. So we'll see what happens, but it's going to be... Super exciting, but that entire vacuum of dominance that happened over Indian Wells, Miami.
You know, I got my, Carlos played one Monte Carlo, but like Madrid where it's like, oh, it's any, you know, we go into the last four. It's like Jack Draper could be the favorite. That was fun. That was fun. And these two are the best players in the world, asserted their dominance, and they've won the last five slams. And they're the two. Someone will break through. They won't win them all, but they're going to win most of them.
for a long time on the women's side how important is this week then i mean it seems like that is i mean besides sabalinka it seems like we don't know what we're going to get. There's question marks. Paolini is really solid. I don't think she beats herself, but it's going to be draw dependent. If Paolini plays, you know...
Sabalenka, I don't know how you can account for the difference in physicality, right? I don't know. It's going to be matchup based. She obviously likes the matchup against Coco. She was just burning her forehead and then creating space. One of the things for all you Chuckers that are listening right now.
I hear a lot of parents tell a lot of kids, or, you know, hit to the back end, hit to the back end, hit to the back end, and then all of a sudden, that window gets smaller, someone runs around, like, they're hitting inside out forehands. Paolini did a, it was a master class of, like, attack heavy to the forehand and then you create all the space in the world.
And then you go into Coco Strength, which is her back end, but she's at least not getting two feet under, not solid. She's stretching. She's lunging. She did a really great job. Talk about strategic clarity. Paulini might get beat. She might get overpowered. She's five foot four, maybe five. If I'm wrong, I'm not off by much. She's not Sabalenka.
She also never hits a shot where I'm like, well, that was a wrong choice. She might get beat. No, she's like, she always hits the right shot. She might miss it. She might miss it by an inch. She might, you know, miss a ball, but... Rarely is she strategically irresponsible or wrong. Very, very intelligent. Like, I'm hyper, hyper intelligent. And, you know, she's been playing from, like, a physicality deficit since she turned pro. It's not surprising. She's four in the world.
All of us assholes had her making the final. That was a great story. She's ranked higher a year later. She has done an amazing job. She is a great player. She is a lot of fun to watch. Infectious. She's great. I mean, we're talking about time. We haven't said Musetti. He wins. He's in the semis every week now. He's top 10 in the world. Italian tennis has had itself. They have so many minor league tournaments and proximity isn't expensive.
You can play 45 weeks a year. And if I'm, again, if I'm exaggerating, it's not that much. The sentiment is accurate. They've done a great job with infrastructure. And now, does that create Yannick Center? No. Does that create an all-time great? No. Does it create a lot more people that are 70, 50, 30? Absolutely.
Absolutely. They've done a fantastic job. What are we talking about after the break? We're going to rip through just some headlines. I got some questions for you based on some headlines we had over the last week. I got to be honest, this show I'm excited for. You know what I'm really excited for? What? Draw a show. Coming later in the week. But anyways, after the break, producer Mike's going to ask me some shit. Got a 7 a.m. meeting on a Monday. Expensing breakfast because it's in policy.
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all right welcome back to serve mike you got some headlines you want some opinions on yeah man well i think we had some cool moments that happened uh during the italian open uh some things that aren't kind of they're a little bit outside the norm in the typical you know tennis news cycle
And one was, you know, before Yannick Sinner went on his run to the finals in the Italian Open, he made an unexpected stop at the Vatican. Just days before his quarterfinal match, the world number one had a private audience with... the new pope leo the 14th
The meeting was arranged by the Italian Tennis Federation, and Sinner was joined by his family. During the visit, Sinner handed the Pope one of his rackets and asked if he wanted to hit a few. The 69-year-old pontiff looked up at the chandeliers in the reception room and said, better not. But he did admit he's a longtime tennis fan and once called himself a keen amateur.
I'm a keen amateur. Yeah. That's what I am now. Yeah. Me and the Pope. Wish you could have been for a Dingles game. Me and the Pope. Let's go give him a serve. We have Pope Leo on. No. It got me thinking. Did you ever meet anyone during a tournament that was completely caught you off guard, an opportunity was presented to yourself? You're in full focus mode, but then you wanted to go. You're like, I need to meet this person. Yeah, I have a story for you.
i have a story i have a story for you so we're in so whenever we would play in um in houston first president bush was always there and he says two stories are one i the year i finished number one i clinched it the night before then i had to play the next day and i lost the next day i was like Mission done, couldn't really get there. And so they present the number one trophy, and President Bush presented the trophy.
and it said number one, and they're like, can you and Mr. President and Andy, can you guys hold the number one finger up? But I just lost, and so I was a little sour. He goes, he goes, Congrats. I bet you want to hold up a different finger right now. That's awesome. And so it was the year before, or maybe it was during finals. No, we went with the Davis Cup team to his house the year before. It was like the next year. I remember they invited a couple of players over and it was,
Hey, we're going to have a barbecue. And they put extremely casual on the invite. They said extremely casual. Extremely casual on the invite. and i'm like well what do you take you know i was like well can we do like i don't know like maybe we'll just treat people like normal normal humans yeah so i show up in like a pair of jeans or a hole in them like with a sixer everyone was not extremely casual. Extremely not casual.
I walk in and he started just, I just got laughed at and that was, that was that. Extremely casual for them is just like no jacket. Extremely casual for them is like, full suit, no jacket. Yeah, is, is, Yeah, it's like not about, I don't know. The Bush family does a ton with tennis in Texas. Yeah, still. They love it. They used to come to that event.
Every year. And they were huge supporters. And I know they have something to do with Alina Svitolina and her foundation. We talked about that and they've been big supporters of of what she's doing for Ukraine. So props to them. But yeah, I mean, that was the first one that came to mind. But there was always just this kind of flow of...
You come off the court and it's like, in Australia, Kylie Minogue is saying hello and whoever is saying hello. Sean, do you even know who Kylie Minogue is? No. Oh, my God. Sorry. I quit. I quit. It's Sean's fault. Comment your favorite Kylie Monogue songs, please. Oh, my Lord. Anyways, yeah, so there was all... I mean, that's really cool. The Pope just being announced and, you know, tennis fan and...
You know, center, center, chicken dinner. That makes all the sense in the world. Not surprising. I'm sure he sure blessed that scoreline the next day against Casper. He did. All right, what else you got? On Thursday, Tommy Paul revealed that his Ford F-150 got repossessed. He watched it happen on his camera. Right from in front of his house, posting pictures on his socials. He said that he had missed a few payments and boom, the truck was gone.
And he said, I quote, I've been grinding to get my truck back. This wasn't months ago. It obviously just happened a few days ago. It happened really quickly. You could follow the whole thing on his social media channel. He went on to tear up the Italian Open. He ended up making semifinals. And he brought home $325,000. So he was able to get his F-150 back, his baby, as he called it. And now he confirmed it's on autopay. You got to pay for your babies, Tommy.
He was a good sport about it. It was pretty funny. I liked it. I liked it. I like how you said it happened quickly. Apparently, it happened slowly. We just weren't paying for... He missed the test. How long is his payment plan? How much did he make last year? I don't know. Why is he on a payment plan for a truck? I don't know. How about just paying it off? I forget who I was listening to was talking about the other night. Just pay cash on me. Straight cash on me. What's he doing?
There's good debt and there's bad debt. Imagine being worth however many millions of dollars and not paying your truck bill. I mean, it's like a country song. I mean, he could literally pay the truck off right now and be done with it. I don't know. If you're going to call it your baby and do the whole thing, you might want to pay the bill. Yeah.
I mean, was there any explanation? He just missed payments. How many payments can you miss without knowing? I don't know. To get your car repossessed, you have to miss all the payments. Okay. You know this stuff, but like more... How... How long will you have to miss payments for them to physically come to your house? and get your truck out of your driveway. I mean, a lot. We literally switched bank accounts once and we missed like...
seven payments on her car. And you're fine. The car never got repossessed. No. Has he not paid his truck bill for a year? It sounds like he might not have ever paid it. to get repossessed. Does he know that cars cost money? Sounds like he does now. But what was the weirdest distraction you ever had? I mean, that's a distraction and he just kept playing and he made it to the semis. I was in Chile. And I got a call from my buddy. So we were driving in New York City. Is my buddy Panda?
and driving on like 5th Avenue and The entire right side of our car, tires blow out. So I'm like, okay, I had to fly to Santiago the next day. He was going to hang in New York for a couple of days. And so I said, okay, so I pulled over, found a place to park. We each had like go to dinner or something. I said, hey, you're gonna have to do me a solid. You're gonna have to come get this car and drive it to like the, you know, or just come help me get a toad.
And he was like, all right, man, I'll do it. I was like, thank you, because I can't. I have to fly out in the morning. He's like, all right. So I don't think about it. And then I get, I'm in Chile. I'm going to come back to the States. And we somehow, I get this panic call from Jen. Jim was your assistant at the time. Basically, you are guilty of theft because Panda had the wrong car towed.
And apparently he got a toad to like this, like Russian chop shop. That wasn't like, and so I'm like, am I, so am I on the hook for this? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, Where did you tow it from? He was four streets away. The color of the car. He had a random car towed. Not even the same color. It was the car that we had been in for like three days before that.
Like some person just walked out and they're like, where's my car? Yeah, there's actually a movie title. Dude, dude, where's my car? Sweet! Which Sean also doesn't know. No clue. He has no idea. It's like the world didn't exist before 1998. I mean...
I think that movie came out when I worked at Blockbuster in high school. He literally doesn't know what Blockbuster is. He has no idea. No idea. So, my thing is, like, if I'm on the hook for this and I kind of try to get back into the country, is this a problem? Now I'd have no chance. Right? Like, I mean, coming... Easy.
So that was a weird call that I got. It wasn't repossessed, but I guess I can't criticize Tommy Paul too much because I was apparently responsible for a stolen vehicle getting butchered. So apparently Tommy Paul's his own panda. helping him out the difference is is that as soon as it took exactly one time where someone needed money for me to get that money to that person oh my god it wasn't over and over we love tommy paul and by the way he played
Great. He's looked really good. Second year in a row he's made the Rome finals semi-sneaky, by the way. He's ready for Roland Garros. He could make it deeper. He could make the semis there. Yeah, depending on his draw, he could go great. Everything draw dependent. You're going to have too many yahoos.
talking this week before we actually have a draw. I don't think Zverev can make the semis. It's like, if his draw is good, yeah, he can. So we'll wait on that, but Tommy Paul is ready to roll. We'll probably talk about the draw this week. Yeah, I'm sure. This Friday? I feel like Tommy's just begging for a Ford sponsorship. Honestly, if Toyota jumped on it, I mean, another Chevy's got to go jump on that. Yeah. Okay, how about this? Just let them repossess it. Yeah.
Repossessed. I hope that happens. Tommy, you... You got to pay your bills. All right, last one. This Sunday in Roland Garris, it's going to be emotional during the opening ceremony of the French Open. They are set to honor one Rafa Nadal in a special encore tribute, his first since announcing his retirement last fall. The organizers are keeping the full details under wraps, calling the surprise celebration worthy of the King of Clay.
you know what we asked our chuckers kind of based on this knowing this this celebration was coming we asked for them to write it and give us kind of their top favorite Rafa Nadal French Open wins, you know, because there's 14 of them. So we were just like, please just give us a top five. So after the break, we're going to reveal the Chuckers top five. There's so many. Imagine choosing five and ignoring nine.
And when you read the thing, they're like, well, this one, he was 19. Well, he turned 19 during, and then this one, he was 31. It's ridiculous. We'll talk more about the Rafa's ceremony. Obviously, well-deserved. What my selfish hopes are for it.
And we'll get to the Chuckers list. You got to another Chuckers list. You like that Top 10 Matches episode. I like it. Ooh, clicky, clicky. The people like it. Ooh, clicky, clicky. Gotta give the people what they want. Click. We'll see you after recording these commercials. Click. in need of a laugh. Good news. The Tribeca Festival returns to NYC June 4th through 15th for a program over
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All right, welcome back to Served. Let's get to all things Rafa. Obviously, this ceremony is a no-brainer. I have high expectations. The Davis Cup one kind of felt weird. That's not the way that... His career should have ended, in my opinion. They wanted all the guys to come and be there, but I was with Roger a couple weeks ago, and he was like, well, you know...
We don't know what day he plays. And then if he plays and they win, they want us to come on a Thursday. But if he loses on a Tuesday, it was just all messy. This is great. Sunday, Roland Garals. Let's kick off the tournament. Let's pay homage. I expect all the people to be there. I expect Roger to be there. I'm sure Novak will be there. I'm sure that this will be... This would be one. his retirement the way that his retirement should be celebrated
on that court. But you got the top five, I don't even know how you're defining this, top five Rafa something. We just said top five Rafa Nadal, Roland Garris wins. Thinking in the full context of the entire tournament. okay like from from first match through you know what impressed you the most for a full tournament run okay number five 2020 pandemic perfect pandemic perfection with no crowd and no rhythm due to the strange pandemic circumstances Rafa turned into a masterclass.
winning his 13th title and didn't drop a single set. And that's when he drilled Novak in the final, right? Yep, Novak. It was 0-2-5. Yeah, I mean, that's 0-2-5. And I remember a lot of the conversation going into that tournament was that it's going to be played in October, so therefore it's going to be cooler.
When he had lost to Soderling and when he had lost to a couple is when it was cool, right? And the ball doesn't jump as much. And so everyone was kind of, I probably said it too, like a dummy. Everyone was like, oh, this is going to be a little bit tougher in the matchup. And it's like, okay, I'm still Rafa. This is still clay. Thank you. Bye. Can you explain that a little bit more? Because that's what it said. Like the ball weight was like, you know.
Once you get the more moisture in the air and it starts to cool off a little bit, it just doesn't bounce as high. So the hotter it gets, the more the ball jumps. The colder it gets, the deader the conditions become. So for Rafa, with his spin profile, you get him on a hot day on a clay court. That thing is just jumping. That's why Carlos plays well in Indian Wells. Draper plays well when there's thin air, right? They create these spin mechanisms where the ball just...
just sends it. It just jumps. Anything that deadens his spin a little bit? It's still terrible for me against him because I can't create spin in the first place. But against some people who can hit it really big, they might prefer a colder kind of deader bounce against Rafa. That's interesting. Number four, 2005, The Arrival. Huerta! Yeah, just 18 years old, turning 19 during the tournament. In his Roland Garros debut, Rafa took home the whole thing.
This is official arrival of a future icon. I mean, he did that. He won in four sets against Puerta, who then tested positive for some serious stuff. Later. So he beat Puerta. That was from this tournament? Yeah, he beat an enhanced Puerta. He beat Grande Parta in the final in four sets. It was crazy, though, because he didn't get to play in 04.
I want to say he beat Roger in Miami. And then it was like, wait till this guy gets on clay. He couldn't play the French Open in 04. And then I lost to him in Davis Cup. He'd already won a couple, like a master series or two in 05. And it was like... the questions are can this kid the first time he's playing this tournament is he the favorite and it's like yeah maybe he could be maybe not maybe roger is and then
You know, in 05 and Roger, you didn't really bet against him that often. This kid just came out and first time French Open wins it. It's crazy. well then from the first time to the last time number three 2022 the last hurrah playing through serious foot pain and questions about whether he might be able to make the French Open at all. Rafa got it out a legendary win over Novak in the quarters and crushed Kaspar Road in the final.
title number 14 yeah and then he had that foot operation but we forget like it wasn't that long ago 2022 he comes back from two sets against medvedev in the osdie open final wins the french open was in the semis of wimbledon torn ab muscle against fritz in the quarters somehow got through it
And then he had to retire against Kyrgios. And so Kyrgios didn't, he's actually never won a semifinal match, even though he's made a grand slam final. Rafa was half of the way to the calendar year slam when he got hurt. Wasn't that long ago. That's crazy. It wasn't that long ago, and apparently he couldn't feel his foot, and he ended up having to have an operation. You guys talked about that. Yeah. When we did the interview, you saw it. He took a shoe off at the end.
it looked like there was something growing inside of his foot, like the top bone of his foot. It was, that's never going to look right again. Yeah. And this, I think this was the tournament where everyone realized that it was terrible. Badass. Such a badass. Beating Super Puerta? Super Puerta. Number two, 2017, the resurgence. Back in top form at age 31 after battling some injuries, Rafa bulldozed the field en route to number 10.
he got 10 i mean it's like insane he didn't drop a set and smoked stan where we got in the final two three and one It's amazing how many finals he won because I think I know which one is going to be your number one now. Was that number two? That was number two. Number two. Number two. It's amazing how many finals he won against. Hall of Fame players. Novak, 0-2-5.
seven games like novak's won the french open he won the olympic like novak is great on clay while rinka is a former french open champion i think he won two years before that Two, three, and one. The one against Casper was straightforward. I don't remember the exact score, but it had a two and a one and something else in it. He rolls people in finals here. Puerto was weird because he actually went four sets and it was a real night.
And number one was a, I couldn't believe how lopsided this one was, if it's the one I'm thinking of, but go ahead and say it. Yeah, 2008, the peak, absolute clay court destruction. Rafa didn't drop a set the entire tournament. and topped Roger Federer in the final 1-3-0.
Some say that it's the best Grand Slam performance ever. It could be. I mean, I remember watching that year and remember, like I'm watching this and going, oh God, this is a nightmare. But I'm also, I'd also played him and beaten him like two months earlier. But like he gets to clay and I remember watching, I'm going, how many of his shots are crossing the side boundary before they cross the baseline?
Right. So not going through the court, like the first time it goes over a line is, is our boundary. Isn't the back line. Oh my God. It's like, Someone would go, they'd go big inside out and he'd like, he'd just sling it to where it's like crossing the sideline before the baseline. A lot of the time, I'm like, he makes the court 47 feet wide and it's above your head.
Unbelievable. Like, I don't know. People couldn't win games. Like, really, really good clay player. I remember him playing Almagro that tournament. I don't know if it was the quarters or something. It was like 0-1-1. I mean, it was, the guy was having a hard time winning points. like you can't hold certain quarterfinals it was it was a beating 0-1-2 or something i mean it was like
I remember watching that. It was just 1-1-1. There you go. I was way off. But I remember watching that match and going, Nicholas Omago is a really good clay court player. Top 10 player in the world. can create speed, like can try to hit it through him. He couldn't hold serve. Like he couldn't hold serve.
It was depressing. He's beating Novak in the semis. He's beating Roger in the finals. I mean, it's like each time you look at the list of who he had to go through, too, it's not like he was like... cakewalks in any of these it's funny like we talk about the greatest of all time and it's you know i think it's The resume, I've said this before, very early in our show. But if you have the three resumes, you choose Novak's resume. You just do. It's the most. The head-to-heads are beneficial.
It is weird to have, you know, we basically know that Novak is the most accomplished player of all time. The head-to-heads, he owns everyone head-to-head. but also no one disputes who's the most dominant on a single surface ever. Like those two things can be true at the same time, right? Rafa on clay is the most single dominant force in the history of tennis. Yeah, that's not a stretch. I don't even, but to the point I can say it.
And it's not even inflammatory. It's not even like, I don't even expect people in our comments to pretend like they're losing their minds. No, everyone's nodding their head right now. Yeah, but there's no way around it. It's like this product market fit of him, his ability, Clay. the moment, the ability to handle it.
bingo bingo 14 grand slam at uh at one tournament are you gonna be emotional watching this on sunday i don't know probably i mean i don't know like respect i just want to be quiet take it all in You know what will get me is when I guarantee you at some point they're going to pan to Roger or someone who...
like, will acknowledge that fight where all they did for however long was trying to ruin each other's legacies and, you know, Novak there and Borg and, like, all, I get goosebumps talking about it, like, all of those people there. literally just full of respect. And I don't know that that's going to happen. I just assume it's going to happen and I hope it's going to happen. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen. That is what is that like shared goal experience.
I know how great you are because you've done it and I've participated in it and like that sort of thing. That's the kind of thing that makes me emotional, like streamers and fireworks and that doesn't, it's that there will be that push and pull moment between. his contemporaries and the legends that kind of, you know, Borg wasn't at all before and it all came along, right? Like those, those things will probably get me. Yeah. That's awesome. I can't wait to watch it.
What do we got for the rest of the week? What's our homework? We got our draw special coming out presented by our friends at Amazon Prime, which I'm really excited for that. you know, all throughout the French Open. We're going to have quick serves. We're going to have mid-tournament redraws. We might have a little special episode.
a really pretty good player yeah we won't tell you the name it's going to be shmandre shmagacy yeah yeah yeah um okay that'll be great so don't get into the cadence where we you know that we're you Your place to land on a Tuesday. We're going to be every day during the French. JW, me, who knows how it all shakes out. We'll do the live draw show. I don't look at the draw before I see it for the first time when I sit down. And that... That is the difference. So that's why.
We'll make fun of each other. We'll get them wrong. A week later, we'll try to tell you what we got wrong. We'll do a redraw show as well as an update. So there'll be a lot of content, way more than we normally do. uh during the french open the quick serves were like thank you for watching them during australia they were a 12 out of 10 as far as you all paying attention so we'll try to do them more. We'll try to do them better.
We have the newsletter now too. And thank you for all those that have signed up already. Go check it out on our website. Easy to sign up for. And we'll keep doing that on Tuesdays when the show drops. We'll give you more as long as you're willing to take more. We're really appreciative of you all. We will be here. throughout the entire French Open experience. Thanks for Gracias.