AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2026: Alcaraz Dominates, Gauff’s Racket Smash, & Day 10 Analysis

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Hey everyone, welcome to QuickServe brought to you by ServiceNow. We're recapping again uh a lot of good tennis, a lot of one-way traffic though. Uh pretty Pretty nuts. I you know, I the results don't surprise me. They're not shocking, I guess, but the score lines are like. You know, Svitolina's been playing great, uh, had a win coming in, drilled Andreva. Like that was one where it changed kind of the way I viewed her. Uh but beating Coco one and two uh in a slam that was

That was one way traffic. I'll I'll tell you this about Svitolina. Uh not never been known. Like it's not if you name the top five movers on tour, I I don't know that she's ever been in that conversation. Um, and I don't know that you've ever said, oh, she's she just goes Rip City, like she's one of the biggest hitters. She's always been like a very solid, you know, well-rounded tennis player.

I think she's moving as well as she ever has. I think she's as fit as she's ever been. Like she's actually getting in and out of the corners and Second serve, she was stepping two, three feet inside the baseline. And it wasn't a mystery what was going to happen. She was going to go massive to Coco's forehand on that first ball. And then she would just go there again and again, but creating a a lot of speed.

Um kind of just exposed it, didn't really let Coco play uh much. Um you know, so uh she is playing. I mean, dare I say, I hate to be full of

you know, hyperbole, but I I think she's playing maybe as well as she ever has. That's pretty that's pretty incredible. I mean it she she said after the match, you know, after having her her child that her her goal was to get back into the top ten and this win We'll put her back into the top ten, but it's like, yeah, I mean now you're in the semis, like you're not you're not finished.

No, I mean and also this journey. Like she was three in the world, won a ton of Masters One Thousands, obviously had a a baby with with uh with Gael, Sky, and then comes back. Makes the semis of Wimbledon and now this is her first ever Aussie open semi-final. Ever. I mean, she was in the conversation for best player not to have won a major and now maybe has since you know, maybe that's gone elsewhere, but I mean beating Coco one and two. I mean Coco and by the way.

Coco talking about the match was like the mo most sober, straightforward. She's like normally I can dig into a match, you know get into the scoreboard, get some scoreboard pressure, maybe they get a little tight. She goes, I just couldn't play. Like I I couldn't I just got knocked off. I mean, and you could see how frustrated she was. Uh you know, what do you guys think? Did you read the whole thing about

Afterwards, all she wanted to do was go break a racket and privacy because she didn't want to put it on her team and like she couldn't find a place to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's obviously it's made the rounds on socials. They they broadcasted it briefly on on the actual broadcast itself, but you know, Coco went off the court. went back into the bowels of the of the arena and found a a a ramp somewhere and and s you know, smashed one of her head rackets.

Uh when asked about it, she said two things. One, she's like I feel like this should be discussed. Like there's nowhere for players to have any privacy in this facility besides the locker room and and two She's like, I don't feel she's like, I've only done it once, one other time. It was at the French Open. She's like, I don't feel like it represents me well to do it out in public.

Um, so I just wanted to blow off some steam because it was that or I was gonna be nasty to people around me that didn't deserve it, uh saying that, you know, they did their best, I did mine, um, just need to let the frustration out.

Um so I I thought it was sobering. Um, but yeah, I mean, she's entitled to be really upset. They they care a lot about winning. Um can we can we also talk about I mean I get You don't want people doing it all the time. I broke rockets. I shouldn't have. It's not a good it's not a good example. Right. But it's a slippery slope of like that's a bad example for people watching. Like it's sports. Does anyone ever tell the NBA not to say something to the ref?

Yeah. Yeah, but like did no one does it. It's not as if there's like a moral reckoning every time someone Cusses it around. Well, I don't know about that. Like I think she probably has to be I mean with how Famous she is, what she stands for. I I think she she is as buttoned up as any 21-year-old I think I've ever seen in this game.

Twenty one. It's wild. Yeah, like everyone's talking about like other new like even the other day we were talking about like Andreva and Jovich and you know Umboko and Yeah Tien's twenty. Oh my gosh. I'm like Coco's twenty one. She's 21. It gets forgotten in every conversation. She's 21 years old. She's like as young as these people that are just kind of coming out now. But it's like part of me it's like, can she go somewhere where she can just

Detonate. Like, can she just be allowed to be pissed? Do you do you feel like there's too many like robocams in like every hallway? Or do you feel like it's the nature of having having to cover 24 hours of something where you need to cut away and have conversations? Both. Remove all the cameras because I think it adds a lot of layering and texture and

It's fun when you see Carlos come in and, you know, do a handshake with someone else and laugh and joke. I think that it shows the players' personalities. You know, when Sabalenka's walking down and she finds a camera and it that's all fun. I think that's great. It's like the it's like the um Like a walk-in at NBA games. Right? We're like, that's fun. That's great. The W NBA games, it's what it's fun. It's great. Also, can there be a unisex place?

For people to have a private conversation and or break something. Just like a break room. Yeah, like but think about it. Like if you if you if there's no place outside of the locker rooms to go nuts. How are you ever gonna have like an intense conversation with your coach if they're not the same gender?

A at an event. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I mean you'd have to wait till you get back to the hotel, right? Or like in a or like I at a s you get in a you get in a car. At a certain point, like we don't we don't hear every conversation if An NFL coaches laying into their team.

Or vice versa. Like we don't, we don't, we sh I don't know that we should be privy to that. All the public spaces is great. I just think the players should know where, when, how, and if there is a spot they can go to kind of be normal and petulant.

That's uh that'd be a really good room. I cause I was actually shocked about this one the first time I went up to the US Open with you with that warm-up room that's right off the racket stringing room that that it's you know that's used by everyone. And like I thought it was like So strange that there wasn't like, you know, home and a wayside at the very least.

You know, to like warm up. I've always thought that's so unique about tennis. Yeah. I mean th listen, there's no home in a way when there's a hundred and twenty eight people. Like it's just not gonna I mean, in a single straw, it's not gonna happen. But With all of these expansions, and I understand it's not great for TV, but I don't care if they have to walk three hallways that are on camera to get to the place that's not. Like you're still getting you're still getting this stuff.

Right. But like should they be able to go should Coco be able to go and have a heated conversation with her team? Should she be allowed to break down in front of her team without being being tabloidal? Probably. Probably. You know, I I mean, I don't know. Like You can't do that. You and also the other thing is like you can't do that in a locker room because I'll tell you the way that that works. And I remember like points in my career where it's like you take a devastating loss in a final.

And there's two things. There's I remember Roger coming in after our last Wimbledon final and him knowing I was devastated. So him not being able to like celebrate. He him and his team had to leave the locker room.

To go celebrate, right? So that stinks too, kind of. And there's no natural place to go. Um, but also like I'm conscious of like stealing joy from someone else if I'm having a meltdown. Like you can't Make a scene everyone else's You know, part of someone everyone else's emotional set. So as a player, you don't want your shit to get in the way, but it's like highly emotional. So I get where Coco's coming from. Should she be able to go find a place to have a conversation or throw something? If

She's conscious enough to do it. Yeah, sure. But also what that does is it makes a lot stronger case for if Arena goes to the gym and knows his cameras in there and goes snap phooey. Fair game. Mm-hmm. Totally fair game. Even more fair. Like no no conversations had. Right? Yeah. Let's but the the the lead of this needs to be Svitolina.

How she started this year, how she's improved her movement by 5%, how she's hitting the ball five or 10% bigger. She's a I I'm gonna say this: like as the game has progressed. She's trending towards being a better player now than before she was a mother. Wow. You look at the slam results, like semi f I mean Now, will she be able to play the volume of events she did back then? No. That affects ranking, right? Like there is

things that are you know, is she gonna get back to three in the world? Probably not. But is she more of a threat now to win a slam than she was then? I think so. That's what I think. But before we transition off of this and just with Coco's kind of tennis side of things, you know, in the f in the first set, she double faulted five times, made 14 unfirst unforced errors.

you know, hitch just two winners and Svidolina won twenty nine points uh to sixteen. Yeah. Midway through that set, you know, Cocoa was like Tapping on her racket, you know, kind of signaling that her strings were right, her tension wasn't right. Uh they ended up sending a ball kid back with three of the rackets to get him restrung, but by the time I think those rackets came back out, it was already four one.

Um they she said afterwards that she didn't really have the right tension or or string set up, that they kind of got word late that the roof was going to be closed. Um it was very hot. It kind of the weather was a little bit all over the place. We won't see that for the rest of the tournament according to the weather. But can you talk through that process of analyzing your your strings and and like setting those up and and know even if it's

A little late, what is that process like? And just for us chuckers, how does that affect everything? I mean, frankly, it it shouldn't be late. Okay. Right. If you don't know if the roof if if there's a ten percent chance that the roof is gonna be closed, which now it's more predictable.

Now they have your wet bulb, Mike. They have the whole, you know, the thing where like it goes up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And it doesn't matter if, you know, Yannick's cramping, as soon as it gets above a certain thing, it's not about it's not about um someone's opinion on a decision. It's about numbers and data. And once that data gets a certain point, so check the w like if that weather is even gonna flirt with it, you have to have a full

set of options for day and a full set of options for I say day, but uh uh for roof closed and roofed op roof open. So for example, I would go on court and my coach My stringing team, they would get feedback from me, but they had kind of uh the run of show to to kinda do what they wanted. There was every chance I kind of knew what I was gonna use, right? I was probably eighty percent of the time I was like, I'm gonna use a racket at uh strung at sixty three today. Right. But then stuff changes.

You need the optionality to go up and down the ladder. Sixty-two, sixty-four, sixty five, whatever it is, you need those different tensions and you need a stack of rackets with those tensions, maybe four or five deep. So the reality is I would most most racket, uh most uh matches.

I would use one racket. I didn't I wasn't big on the ball change. If I felt good, I just left it. Um probably shouldn't have. But there is every chance where I would use one racket and then I had 12 other ones strong that I would flip back to the stringer. Or keep two for practice the next day, uh, just for a hit around. Um, but yeah, I I I think it being late is is I I guess y you get that it's late and that's unfortunate, but

That doesn't change the the weather forecast. If there's a five or ten percent chance I it wasn't gonna be eighty eight and then it jumped to one ten. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? It says it was gonna be a hundred and ten all day. I mean, we've been talking about it for two days, three days. Yeah. Right. So I I think you have to have

At least a set of prep rackets, not like, oh, we think it's going to be closed, therefore we're going to have day rackets and that that setup. You have to have both. I mean, you just You just have to have both. You know, it's it's that that's just that's just kind of the way it is. Um and and and not that it maybe would have changed anything because civilian was plastic. It probably would have changed zero. Just so we're clear. This isn't an excuse, it's just saying like I don't

Yeah, and Svitolina by by the way, dealt with the same shit. It's not as if the roof was closed last minute for one person and not the other person. Yeah. Right. As far as an equipment setup, it's the exact same. It's not as if it's not as if someone's battling an injury and one person's not. And so they're like exact same.

Circumstances. I the but the it everything changes when that roof closes, guys. I'm just telling you. And everyone seems to think it's all about speed through the court. Like the the the laziest version is indoor courts are faster. That's normally because they're not cement based.

Right. They're like normally in indoor like indoor season, they're built on top of other venues where like it creates a quicker surface sometimes. Right. So but I'm just telling you the height of the ball and how it bounces, that's as important as the speed of the court.

Right. Like I've played matches in that exact arena where you play two days before and you're outside and the ball's jumping with the air all over the place and you feel good. And I remember oh six, I went indoors, they closed it. And I play Baghdads and every single thing is in his pocket.

Out of the pocket, average, in the pocket, very good. So you're just getting like like like a a foot and a half difference. Hundred percent. Instead in s instead of trying to talk about speed, I'd also like to talk about speed and then show the way that the ball travels in the height differential. when it's closed versus when it's open.

And I'm sure they have a data set, but like the bounce of the ball matters as much as the speed through the court. And I I feel like it gets completely undertold.

Um as we're kind of digesting it. Um, we've talked this long and we've literally made it through two matches, by the way. Um Yeah, I mean Carlos Carlos, by the way, do you know how well he has had to play? In this tournament, for us to talk about Ferrero Zero? I mean Yeah. Like think about that. If he had struggled at all, we would have overblown it. And the fact that it's largely been a non-story so far.

I think, and I also think where Ferrero probably adds the most value in slam wins is probably these next two matches. And also, credit to Carlos. The serve looks great. He he his ability to quickly Make a decision that he's going in before he even hits the approach shot.

He's doing the same shit that he did in it's against Cinner at the US Open final last year. He's the maybe the only person on earth that doesn't need an approach shot to get into the net. He creates a ground stroke and then all of a sudden because he's so fast. I always think of that that scene in super bad. Where they're running for a while and they go, Oh. So and Seth Rogan goes, The fastest kid alive. But he just is able to get

into spots where it's not even natural if you're his opponent to anticipate him being there. It is backhand He attacks it more than he ever has. His serve looks better than he ever has. He's going he can go 128 T all the time. He's hitting that little off-speed cutter. He he's starting to get that serve variance where

He's pitching the ballgame where he can throw an 85 second serving, he can run it up the register to 102. It's it's similar to not as good yet, because I think he's uh maybe the best pitcher ever, but similar to Roger. Where he doesn't need to hit at 145 like Zverev, but his ability to mix in the threat of what he can do on that first ball, even a great returner like Demon has to overplay return.

Like demons trying to take cuts because you have to, but that's not what he does. Right. And the greats, I say it all the time, ad nauseum on this, they force you to play above your comfort zone. And then when it goes sideways, it goes sideways to the tune of uh two and one in the second and third sets. That's not because Demon doesn't know how to play tennis. It's because he's having to play a style that's outside it's it's revving an engine 20% more than what you should.

The engine's more likely to break down. Yeah. Right. Like Carlos is just playing silly tennis. Earli early in the tournament, right, there was a lot of there was a lot of uh press and stuff around. Carlos, you know, copying Novak's serve motion. Great. You know, w Like where where does that come from? And we've talked about this a lot in the past, you know, few months, that that these guys between Carlos and and Yannick, they're they're just willing to continually make adjustments.

Continually make adjustments, continually tweak, and and these are the results. Just complete dustings of great tennis players. You ready? Yeah. Okay. So Carlos three years ago, if you go back and watch his surf, he would go down and up and it would look like this. For those of you who are listening and not watching, I'm holding up two pens that are spread out at the top and they're touching at the bottom. It's like a V. Right. When you do that.

You can basically hit flat, but you're not getting that like motion. Your elbow is too close. You need your elbow to be a little bit freer. Now the bottom of his motion looks like this thing. I'm holding up like a metal little tin where the bottom is rounded, right? When you round the bottom, all of a sudden your elbow's in a position where you can go. It's like a quarterback trying to throw with an elbow stuck to the ribcage as opposed to

Pulled back, right? His serve, I mean, uh we talked about it with uh Holger Runa. When he uh when he came on the show he goes I said, what do we not talk about enough with Carlos's game, even with the amount of time we spend on him, what's something that still doesn't get talked about enough? He goes, his sir.

He goes, the serve is phenomenal. He goes, he can hit that kick. He can hit like the variety of his serve. There's not a serve that he can't hit. Now, you know, we talk about pound for pound servers. What's Carlos six feet tall? To have that much of a weapon? And also that he's learning how to serve. Like Andre did this, learning how to serve.

And then have the return come into his strength. He knows that his serve doesn't have to be as good as mine because I need the serve to win points. He needs the serve to win points, but then set up the next shot because he's so good from that middle, that middle ball.

And there's so much variety. So it's just now he's got variety on serve, variety on the next ball. Like let's just let's just think about this, right? He hits a little ninety-two mile an hour kick serve out to your back end, Mike, right? Mm-hmm. Your backhand's really good, right? It's great. Great. So let's say you handle that, but also in a quarter of a second, you have to worry about his second serve going 102 and going the other spin direction into your forehand, right?

He gets you out and all of a sudden the the the the width differential between those two serves is like eight or nine, ten feet. And so then you see it off of his racket, you'll be able to tell really quickly because You know, it's either the it finishes like you're coming uh I'll say uh I'm I'm I'm trying to describe everything for people like listening or watching.

But like the second serve slice is like coming like imagine you're peeling around the side of an orange. You see the racket flow in that way. So you know it's going this way, as opposed to uh peeling from the bottom to the top on the inside of it.

Which is a kick serve, right? So you're able to almost present like the front to the back of the rack. You see you see the way the hand out hand goes out for a kick serve, hand goes around for for a slicer. Right. So that's the first like clue along with sound. But Okay, he hits that little kick out. You're Three feet wide of the s uh sideline.

With a backhand, knowing that if you don't hit it perfectly, it's in the middle of the court. He has a forehand. Okay. So let's say you hit it well, but not perfectly. It's in the middle. Now all of a sudden he's there with a forehand. And again, on a split second, You know that the most likely shot is to pull to your forehand with, you know, just rip city.

If you sprint there, he has the ability to hold, play it off to your backhand side against your movement, and or you have to guard 20 feet in front of you on that, on that uh drop shot two. That's one point. That's two shots in one point. So it's exhausting. And so yeah, so those decisions have to be made over and over and over and over and over. And he doesn't really miss. He's like Otani or Bonds. Like if he gets if you make a mistake in the strike zone.

you're gonna get punished more often than not. And even if he doesn't punish you there and doesn't hit it perfectly, then you're just back to neutral in the rally. Like if he misses that one where he pulls it to your forehand, you're back to neutral. Which also I guess that's that's not like great against him. Um, but we normally look for those like dips and he's shown us early in slams, like he'll take a set off. He hasn't done that here.

At all. No, he's it's I mean, if you look at if you look at his scores all the way through, right? It's it's three, six and two, six three two, two, four, one, six, four, five. Like it's It is and then five two one. I mean, it's he he's measuring them and then he's just peppering them with hooks and jabs. It's it's and th and then it's knockout. It's just insane.

Yeah, it's it's rough and and I feel for demon too,'cause I've I've been in that situation where it's like I feel like I'm doing everything humanly possible, training wise, physically, mentally. And I could do all that and it wasn't gonna change the fact that anytime we were neutral, R Roger could drop it to my back in it, knowing that I was either gonna have to chip and come in or I was gonna have to little shove and Magoo and get back.

Right. Like there's I I just I want that moment where he makes the semis and does the whole thing and I I want more for him'cause I don't I don't think he leaves an ounce on the table. With with the way he prepares and the way he takes stuff head on. Like he goes in there, takes it on the chin. He was down seven, five.

6'2, 3-1, saves a break point and like is still like into it. You would not have known. That's that's the lesson for for junior tennis players, by the way, when you're watching these players. They're not whining, they're not doing this, they're not like you go to first rounds, you're gonna see a lot of this from players. You get to the tail end, you're not gonna see much of that, especially with someone like Damon Total Pro. Carlos is is

Is playing well. Like, just think through how well he's played in his last, what are we now, 12 Grand Slam matches from the US Open through five rounds here. That's... I mean

That's big stuff. Um well let's let's uh let's talk about the guy that he'll be facing in the next round. Alexander Zverev, how how impressed were you with his match? Very um playing I I like I like what he's doing. Um He's going after the forehand a little bit more, but not flat because that's not his shot shape.

Right. His shot people like flatten it out. His shot shape isn't from here and then kind of coming across. He's going after it like with with have you know, heavy, tumbling type ball. Um, but I like that he's serving and volleying. Right? I like that it's there's not just like an easy out to the forehand side. Um also, like, can we give this guy

A little respect like I I you know, I I I love you banks. I'll text him this later, but he's like, you know, Zverev has to change up his game like he would against Carlos or or Sinner. And I'm going, he's no he doesn't. Tien has to change something. Yeah, I mean I'm like, no, I don't no. No, he doesn't. Not yet. Um but Tien was

His ability to need no time to go after a shot. And also when he's on the run, they did these slow modes of him running to his back end. And up until right before he hits it. It looks the exact same whether he's going cross court and his ability to hit a ball. This is TN. This is the case. This is TN. This is TN.

His ability to hit a ball cross court at the last second, kind of work that right hand on the outside of the ball and have it cross the sideline before it crosses the baseline consistently. is unbelievable and it looks the same as when he goes live. So if you're so if you're if you're playing that, he's holding you in position a little bit longer, waiting to decide what he's doing with that backhand? And his ability to hit it flat, but also open up the court with width.

Is is elite already. Like absolutely elite. And it's funny because people were talking about like, oh, his movement isn't Perfect or big, or you know, it's he's not the fastest guy ever. But he has that Murray thing where Murray was very fast, but he has the Murray thing where. Someone who hits it that well and has racket control on the run versus someone who is really fast but doesn't have control of the racket face feels the same. Right, it feels the same.

Like James was was was commentating the match. James is uh you knew if he w you were gonna get him on defense, most of the time he was gonna hit his way out of it. So it wasn't like that clawing defense where it's one more ball, two more balls. It's a different set of uh it's a different pressure set. So Tien doesn't, he can be a step slower than the fastest guys on tour, but because he has so much control of his racket face when extended, it's the same.

Like I I have to assume it feels the exact same. Um Zverev is really good against lefties. We said it the other day, like Tien being able to pull him out to that the the wide serve on the ad side. Works against most of Earth and and Zverev is just so comfortable in that pocket. It works against all of Earth because uh Zverev, I believe, based on our stat of the day, is 37 and one against lefties, that one being against TN.

Yeah. I mean so he's good against all of Earth. Yeah. I I'm telling you like Yeah, I I think He he's very comfortable. And also like you gotta think like that roller forehand where he works at cross court is all of a sudden going to a backhand. Like that that the the way it shifts for him to play a lefty. And I always say like every lefty not named Rafa. Because like that's just a different sort of RPM and you know

Uh it's it's it's pretty crazy, but uh Zverev served fantastically well. Uh Tien was on like early, like the first point of the match. Sverv went big and Tien was on a return like right away. He mixed up his second serve. He mixed up where he was serving. He served and volleyed. He was down 15-30. Like it was one all-two all in the first set.

Serve in Bali like three times in a row, Tian's going, Oh wait, that's d okay, I have to think about that. Like is this part of the situation? That's something we have been talking about uh on the show too. Like the ways that he's going about being aggressive aren't just, oh, I'm gonna get my quirk positioning irresponsibly close, considering my take back. It it's it's like a measured uh aggression, which I think he really has a hold of and, you know, he needs to be talked about in this

in this tournament. You know, his his head to head record, it's like the narrative is he can't beat the you know, the big guys and it's like okay, you look at the head to head, he's six and six against Carlos. Yeah. Well a after the match, uh Eubanks had him on the court and he was he was asking him about, you know This will be our perfect delivery of the day Andy because I'd love to see this good from what Alex is really, really committed. Techie Shaw, give us the perfect delivery of the day.

You had some really good volleys today. I was really impressed with your feel around the net. I wanna know how you would grade your volleys today, but more importantly, how would Misha grade your volleys today? Because they seem to be really good. Every single encore interview is about him. I'm playing. I'm here. He used to play. He used to play ten years ago. He was very good. Just because you said that, I'm gonna ask you another question about your team.

N you're one of the few players who has your m your dad and your brothers part of your team. We know what it's like on tour. Your family travels with you, your team travels with you. Do you guys ever get sick of each other? Like you never get a break. I don't get sick of them, but they don't get sick of me because I pay for everything.

I kinda I'm kinda into like there kinda seems to be a movement towards no fucks given. Like Rublev started it, like Walrinka's just ripping Rip City, Sasha's just going. And by the way. Can someone can someone show me the lie with anything he just said? No, no, I just love how relaxed he is too. I I think it's like, you know, it's he has this hanging over his head about the slams, and I I feel like it, yeah, just be relaxed.

Be you. Play the way you want to play. I get sick of them, but they can't get sick of me because I pay for everything. I mean, facts. I mean sorry. I I don't know. I I have I have tell my kids that I have yeah I have no notes. I have no notes. I don't I don't have any notes. Uh I will say uh do you see Zverev's commentary on on uh TN and the way that he's able to play from the baseline? Mm-hmm. He basically said, No one I I haven't seen someone that good from the baseline for a long time.

I mean that's exciting. That's exciting. It's it's it's very exciting. Um but like also credit to Sasha, right? Like Serve he's like, if I didn't have my serve, I would have been in trouble. Yeah, well you do. I hate it when people like Like and you're like, well, if he didn't have he had like twenty aces or something. If he didn't have his serve, like why does no one why do why isn't and this is probably my own personal be why doesn't anyone ever say

If Lerner didn't have the ability to switch directions anytime, he would it would be a lot tougher for him. Like yeah, if we took away everyone's strength, it would be tougher for them. Give me a break. How stupid is that? Bias against servers. I don't like it.

Oh man. Alright, so what's the what's the popcorn match today for you? Now you've got to sleep on it. Still Shelton Center. Yeah, it's I just I'm curious to see Ben has improved. Always all the time consistent trajectory since he's come up. And also he's one and eight against Yannick. The time he beat him was two out of three sets, not three out of five on a really fast court in Tokyo after the US open.

I'm just curious to see what adjustments he can make that might be able to bother Yannick. And also the weather the rest of the way. It's pretty muted. Yeah, it's h it's highs of uh we got seventy-four, seventy-seven, eighty-five, seventy-eight, sixty-six on championship Sunday. The roof's closed.

The m the bounce is a little muted. Maybe Ben's kickster comes down three, four, five inches. Um, all that stuff matters. I don't think Yannick's gonna have to fight uh the heat anymore. So he kind of got through. what he needed to get through. So that's the one I most like. Like I feel like Musetti and Novak.

Uh it's gonna be a little bit more predictable as to what we see, like what Musetti has to do, what Novak has to do, um, how they go about it. Yeah, you know, Musetti likes that kick, but it goes into the strength, and he's gotta mix up the serve a little bit. Um Curious to see how much Musetti goes to the chip versus Rip City on the backhand. Um

Curious how Novak comes I mean, he's he we haven't seen Novak in like half of a week. Yeah. Right. Like I mean he he kinda got away with um you know, to his own admins isn't me, so save your Novak fans, just save your commentary. Novak said I got lucky, I should not have done that. So therefore, you can't get mad at me when I said Novak got lucky, he should not have done that.

Fair? Fair. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Okay. It seem it seems like it should be fair. And if that's not fair to you, then that's that's that's a you issue, not a me issue. Um Yeah, I I think Shelton Center, uh still I think Pagula Anasimova Anasimova

If our stats are correct and God knows, like can we just get a simple stat sheet? Can we do that? Can we can we figure that out at some point, Mike, where it's not like just something that isn't b buried and I'm like license? Can we also Like I'm looking at the like data's great. I'm a big fan of numbers and math and that should dictate a lot of things, but like as I'm looking at matches that prioritize data doesn't I don't factor in tweets about the person. I don't care about that.

Right? Like I don't care about what happened seven months ago in a match. I don't value that the same as what happened in the last two weeks. I don't value that the same. I don't value the numbers against someone who's 90 in the world and apply those to the matchup against Carlos, right? Mm-hmm. Like that doesn't seem so it's like the more more data, like I would want like really focused.

Data data. What would be like the if you were to make a data dashboard to show head to heads, what would be the four or five stats you would want to see? You don't even need that many. Uh first serve percentage. So if someone has uh the amount of times broken if Sasha serves 75% versus if he goes down to 62% against Yannick and Carlos. Uh break points converted.

is is a big one. Did he get fifteen looks and only convert two and lose? That's deceiving because that means he was actually getting doing a lot of good it and just not getting it across the line. Or was he two for two? Won a match, but then literally wasn't in any other return game.

Right. The the drop shot usage rate with Carlos and if that comes off of a forehand, right? It's tough to drop shot Zverev when he hits that backhand through because the ball's coming in lower and hotter, whereas when you have a little bit of loft, Carlos can play a little bit more. Um the spread on where they serve each other.

Right. Does does Carlos try to get width so that he can move Zverev on the next ball, or does he want to go higher percentage? So yeah, just to start, the I I would do there. You know, how much tw Twitter chatter there is about the person I could give a shit about. Yeah. Just so we're clear. Like I don't care. I also d I just don't care what happened at a tournament in Hala last year, second round, against someone that's been out of this tournament for nine days. Mm-hmm. I don't care.

Doesn't matter to me. So it's less about like what like I know what I would look for, but it's less about what's completely irrelevant. Right. And I don't know what the data says outside of those things. What I would want to do is remove a lot of the data noise and actually get See what the outcome is uh with that. Um the women's matches, I know we're supposed to sit here and say like, I know I'm pretty confident. I'll tell you when I'm confident about something. I don't know.

What's up? Pagula's three-o against Anna Samova. Anna Samova's not the same person she was, I'm guessing, when Jess won all those matches. You know, but obviously there's something just being able to play against movement and accept pace, her shot tolerance with pace.

She can switch directions. She can get people where they, you know, kind of are on, you know, feel like they're on skates a little bit. That's plus for for Jess. But Jess also doesn't like playing the big hitters with her second serve. So Anna Samova's. gonna be lining up and i it there's not gonna be a lot of nuance with what she's gonna do with Jess's second sir.

Now it's gonna be the shot tolerance with if Jess can get it kind of out of that quickly. I mean they haven't played each other since twenty twenty four. It's not the same Anna Simova. Not the same. And it was three sets in both those and then the other one was twenty twenty, was it two sets? And they yeah, it's completely different. I'll tell you this. Like I I chose Anna Samova through. She's done nothing to discourage

the faith that she's getting from dummies like us to get through in this tournament. Pagula's doing a lot, she's done a lot this tournament to inject herself into the conversation of us dummies. Right. So I don't I don't know. Rabak and Shviatek, I don't know. Nothing would surprise me. Any I could go 0 for 2 on this very easily go for 2 for 2 on this. Flip a coin have some fun. Um Curious to see where Robina serves. Her first serve percentage is gonna matter more than maybe anyone else's.

In this because Ego returning second serves is very different than ego returning first serves. Um, Iga too. You know, her serve improved a lot last, you know, Wimbledon last year, but this is like we're getting to it. There's as much chalk, meaning favorites on favorites. Favorite on favorite crime in this tournament is any slam that I remember in the, you know, recent memory. And everyone's playing well.

Like it's not as if someone like the person who's basically just survived until this point is Sinner, who would have been the least likely to just survive out of anyone in the tournament. Right? Like we've gone into like the last slams and Novak, we're going, oh gosh, his body's breaking down. I don't know what we're gonna see. There's really not that going on here at all. Like Zverev seems good.

But all the way, also by the way, and it like we talk about a little bit, his process with having to check his insulin and inject himself on court. Wild. Crazy. Crazy. I mean, we won't go crazy, but like my father-in-law is a type one diabetic. I see the maintenance that he has to be generally aware of on like a random Tuesday. Not like a five set match. Like it's it's it's Looney Tunes, and I don't know that you can overstate that. Um but it feels like everyone's pretty healthy.

Everyone's pretty happy. Everyone's playing pretty well. Like it's setting its we're setting ourselves up for a pretty uh a pretty great Kind of final weekend here uh in in Australia. I like Novak. I like Cinner. Um, I don't know. I don't know. We should I mean I can tell you what each person like has to do well and I think we've we've largely done a good job. I think we've largely covered that, but like

They're all play well and they're all like this I don't know, it's pick'em. Or do you wait? I'm sure that's the analysis that you came here for. Thanks for watching QuickServe presented by ServiceNow. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half-off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now.

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