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We're both here, JW and me. Switched off the first couple of days. I went on and on about all things Rafa. Not a tough... to go positive with. J.W. knocked it out of the park yesterday. You are onside in Roland Garros. I just want to say something out front. Okay, we do the draw show.
And it's like before Novak has played a second round in Geneva. And I just want to very clearly say I'm an idiot. Very clearly, like no questions asked. There's your meme. Go play it forever. I'm sure I'll see that in a very small. Clip forever. Novak having won a 250 going in. Different animal than Novak not having played in three, four weeks going in.
I just have this feeling he's going to make a deep run now. Looked great today against Mackie McDonald, but obviously the big thing was getting all the matches. In Geneva, our boy Sarundalo. I never feel much shame about my picks. It is what it is. We're just guessing. It's fun. I probably know a little bit more about it than most people watching, hopefully. It went real bad for us really early, JW, with that one. And Novak looks like he's just going to make us look even dumber than we are.
It just goes to show. Let's dwell on Novak a little bit. If we had spoken a week ago, which we almost did, I'd say there's a guy, he's 38 years old. He hasn't won a tournament in a year and a half. He's had a pretty rough year and he didn't play wrong. And you'd be like, oh boy, this is going to be a mic drop retirement when he loses in the first round, no qualifier. He goes and plays Geneva, wins four matches, wins his 100th title. Mind you, in a new coaching situation.
comes here i think he was honestly i think he was i was watching him i was courtside for that nadal ceremony And, you know, Roger was Roger. And Andy took the train from London. Imagine being on the Eurostar and just getting Andy Murray sitting next to you. I think Novak really... Yeah, I know. Keep in mind too. Former player-coach relationship as of a few weeks ago. But anyway, I think Novak was actually really...
moved and really sort of personalized the Rafa ceremony and really saw his own mortality. I thought he had a very different reaction than the other two. Anyway, Novak comes here. He's won four matches in a row all of a sudden. You say, oh, wait, he's won this thing three times. The guy who tended to beat him here, oh, yeah, he's retired. He won the Olympics here. He won the title the last time he was able to play through. And you're saying, well, wait a second.
Remember a joke of it suddenly like... a third favorite after Alcaraz's center. And he won handily today. And all of a sudden, you know, we can, I like what you said before. a few weeks ago. No one knows anything. Predicting these matches is one thing. You cannot predict Novak. He just made this impossible. Those might all be factors.
The biggest thing from the eye test that I'm seeing, and we talked about in the pod, like, is he going to go away for three weeks post-Madrid and get his legs back, right? The only way to do that is you're doing two-on-ones for four hours at a time. He has to be able to get out of the corners.
Right. Even in Miami, it wasn't like the service was really fast. So he could kind of dictate from the middle a little bit more. But Monte Carlo, the defense wasn't there. He was forced to go offense too early. Same with Rome. And we talked about, you know, everyone said it was a mistake not to play Rome. And I think the genius of him is going, okay, I know I need matches.
But I need to have my legs before I play these matches. Goes and enters Geneva. Is a different mover than he was three or four weeks ago. In Madrid, he literally couldn't hardly play defense. And the court's a little slippery. But against Arnaldi... Anytime he went to D, he was trying to force it out of the corners as opposed to kind of accepting the defense, you know, accepting with the shot tolerance that he's the best ever at.
His legs look different, right? And going through Geneva and winning those matches, all of a sudden it's like riding a bike. But yes, all of those things and inspiration and all those things. You can be as inspired as you want, and if you can't get out of the corners, I don't think it matters. Tell our super awesome listeners, tell our audience what you mean by two-on-one.
Two on ones. Okay. Two people on one side, one on the other. Novak's on the one side. So literally you're not hitting winners and you just burn your legs. So every rally is basically...
And then you feed them right back in so you're literally just working footwork and legs against two people and you're on the solo side old Harry Hopman drill from Saddlebrook for uber tennis nerds um but it's it's a drill you do all the time because one you're hitting a bunch of balls two you're getting your feels back three
Your leg, you cannot lie to your legs because it's not as if you can just peel off a winner or take an unnecessary risk because obviously there are two people, right? There's nowhere to go. There's no space. Anyway, so that looked, he looked amazing. I was impressed with, I want to talk just a second about Jack Draper.
Those weird things when all of a sudden you're a favorite. I don't want to say he's been seeded at majors, he's played the semis and majors, but he's a top five guy now and he's been a top three player for the year. So far, I think in my opinion, losing that first set and kind of staying calm, knowing that your bass setting is probably a little bit different than it was a year ago. I liked what I saw, even though he kind of had a hiccup in the first set. What else?
What else was interesting to you today, JW, on kind of the rundown? Yeah, I was looking for a theme. That's what we do here when we try to summarize these. It was tough to come by. Both number three seeds, Zverev and Jesse Pagula won. Coco looked very strong. She did forget her racket.
I'm not sure how one does that. I know I'm forgetting something. Is it the implement I need to do my job? I got to feel like remembering your rackets is an important part of the job, but apparently she won, so no big deal. I know I have surgery, and I know I forget my scalpel. That's what I left at home. No, but Coco found her rockets and used them to great effect. There wasn't much... Medvedev, number one player, former major champion, he's really struggling. He won in Rome two years ago.
and hasn't won a tournament since he's now out of the top 10 he had uh as you said cam nori anything can happen in an extended format he's got legs um cam nori wins the first two sets medvedev wins the next two serves for the match gets broken and kiminori steals a victory i
you know, I'd be happy to get off clay, but that is, that's a bit of a career. I don't want to say crisis, but that's a, that seems to be a bit of a stagnating career. But anyway, I'm looking for a theme. I don't see anything. And then all of a sudden, right after dinner i go out and there are lines around the corner and i wonder what is going on here and then i remember that they are putting joao fonseca on court seven
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? Okay, so there's two things here. We talked a little bit on the draw show. I told you a couple of adjustments that I would love to see with Fonseca. I couldn't understand for the life of me why he was taking on returns, especially in the deuce side, three and four feet inside the baseline, and then inviting that big one into the body, sawing it off, and therefore his first move is a defensive one if he doesn't hit it perfectly.
Sure as shit, he goes out there against Hercoc. By the way, Franco Davin in that camp now, that is a big hire that needs to be talked about all the time. Former coach of Correa, Del Potro, he knows. What the top level is and looks like was a good player himself. Goes way back. Hubie Hercotch, one of the bigger servers.
goes way back and just starts rip city on that first ball. That's great. But then that second ball is his momentum is going forward. So therefore that aggressive mentality that he has.
It is easier, right? It's forward momentum after that first ball. And then he was always going back on the deuce, mixing it up on the ad. It looked like it wasn't strategic malpractice out there. And then all of a sudden, the guy's hitting winners everywhere. It's not just because he got... hotter, better in a week.
Those things matter so much in these matchups. And then he's using a little, I hadn't seen it before, a little Chipper Magoo kind of inside out, up the line, knowing that Hercotch can't create much speed off of his forehand.
He's good when it's up here. He can kind of flatten it out. But from a low position, he can't go over and create the racket speed or the spin profile to hurt him. So he was happy laying that one down and then just sitting back to see what was coming and then restarting. I loved. What I saw strategically from Fonseca. Loved it. I like your call on him going deep way more. than what I saw with the strategic impairment from Rome, Estoril, Madrid. And also...
I'm watching the coverage today, and I heard someone on air go, is this the most exciting match in French Open history? It's a first round that went 3-4-2. And I heard questions asked and answered. And in my opinion, it's kind of disrespectful to the rest of the field. Is he automatically in that conversation with the big three? I'm going, this is the second Grand Slam match he's won ever, and it's the first match he's won in a month.
So I agree with all of the upside. This is a future Grand Slam winner, in my opinion. This is a future potential number one. But also, we have to respect the field and the process a little bit. I get that he's exciting. Sam Query said it must have been what it felt like when the Beatles came to America. I mean, for fuck's sake. Sam didn't say that. He said 100%. I don't believe that. Go back and ask him tomorrow when you see him. You're working on the TNT team.
say Andy lost his mind because you said this must be the equivalent of what it was like when the Beatles came to America in the 60s. This was court seven. I was going to say, the Beatles played court seven against a Polish server. It was exciting. This was the shortest men's match of the tournament so far. It was a beating. It was literally like Fonseca looked the best I've ever seen him in this match. And what he's able to do with the ball.
we've known about, how he applied his weapons today was the most mature version of applying his weapons that I have seen so far. Did we lose him? We lost him. Oh, well, I don't know. Parisian internet or us or something, but apparently JW or JW. just laughed. left. I barely didn't like what I said about Fonseca.
Anyways, we'll run it through the finish line here on QuickServe presented by Amazon Prime. Andraeva rolled. Zverev looked great. He's just different majors. You kind of have to know how to navigate them. Jess Pagula. Got through. No real massive upsets. I think the biggest one that we covered was Mehdi against Cam Norrie. Cam Norrie.
He has literally come out and said, and I don't know how true this is, but it works as far as, he goes, my legs don't get tired. They never get tired. Imagine saying that. My legs are tired right now. They're exhausted. Rublev got through. Azarenko won a match 0-0. Dimitrov got hurt. I didn't see what exactly happened, but I hope he's okay. He's had some issues with kind of like the hip back situation. Arnaldi, I thought we made another dumb pick.
I picked him over FAA, and he was down two sets and got through longest match he had ever played at tip the clock at, I don't know, four hours, 45 minutes, or something like that. Anyways, but... We'll be back tomorrow unless... JW may have left the show forever. I don't know. He's gone. Gone. I just thought like that NSYNC song.
You don't even know who Nsync is. You're like 12. Cool. Anyways, listen, all of you, thank you for watching these quick serve videos. And I'm just going to ask you just a little favor, just a tiny little favor if you enjoy our content. right there at the top of the channel. Just go boop, subscribe. Just a little boop, boop. Anyways, thank you for watching, QuickServe. We appreciate you. Brought to you by Amazon Prime. team. We'll see you tomorrow on Quixote.
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