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Have you noticed that headlights seem brighter these days? It's more than just a nuisance for some people. Those headlights and other LED lights knocked me out of being a teacher. I just couldn't get to work anymore without suffering these impacts, these neurological, psychological impacts. The dark side of those gleaming headlights. That's this week on Explain It To Me. Listen every Sunday morning, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome to Served.
JW here, producer Mike, Techie Sean. Techie Sean, who's our guest today? This is Emmy. Emmy. She was going through all the technical stuff. Emmy, wave. Say hi. There you go. Emmy helps with a lot of our social posts and a lot of the stuff that I have no idea how anything gets done besides sitting here talking about tennis. That's about my only value add.
JW, you said, you sent us a text last week and you said, you know what? Let's stick to the balls and strikes of tennis. Let's actually cover some players in some tournaments. You were sick of all the other crap. X's and O's tennis. We have a big event we're coming off of. We spent a lot of time on lawsuits and counter suits and antitrust. It's all very important in the grand scheme of things. But I'm suggesting, I'm submitting, we get back to...
Good athletes hitting a yellow ball over net. What do you think? Seconded. Yeah. Fine. Fine, guys. Fine. Let's do it. No fights picked this week. You know, it's great. And I think.
One of the things that I love about tennis is you have this kid, Mensik, coming in. He's never won a tournament. Never won a tournament. All of a sudden, he's in the finals of a Masters 1000. He's playing against... the most accomplished player on the men's side of all time, going for his 100th tournament title at a Masters 1000, of which he's also won more than anyone at that level.
And you know the greatest thing about sports? No matter what you did yesterday, you got to play it today. Mensik, six and six. Novak, infamous. for locking down breakers, not losing. Probably the best tiebreaker player that I've maybe ever seen. Him and Roger, maybe Pete, three best. And what does he do? He goes out and wins two breakers against Novak.
I didn't see, I thought Mensik was great all week. His first serve is elite and not just because he hits it hard, right? He obviously ratchets it up and can go 137 pretty much whenever he wants. But what do I always say, John Wertheim, if it goes straight? The speed matters less if it's tailing away from you. And if you can hit all four spots, then it becomes an elite serve. And boy, did Mensik hit all four spots. What were your takeaways?
Yeah, it was also, do you see the way he mixed it up? I mean, this does not play like a kid that is 19 years old. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much of this, this is always a dilemma with these kinds of matchups, right? How much of this do we say, well... Novak is a couple of weeks from turning 38 years old, right? He's like the same age as Steph Curry, by the way. I'm surprised to see that. But Novak's almost 38, so he's double the age of his opponent.
And he's still playing deep in these events. And he's still a couple of points here and there from winning. On the other hand, what goes when you get older? It's not necessarily the miles per hour. It's the consistency.
And this had, to me, this had echoes of Serena Williams is amazing. She's going to get that 24th major. All she had to do is beat Angie Kerber or Bianca Andreescu. And they just, it just doesn't quite happen on that day. And you had a little feeling that's what was going on with Novak.
strange delays. I mean, there's a lot of dynamic, but also let's just props to this kid and props to you as well, sir. I mean, I remember, uh, was it only about a hundred days ago we were talking about the next gen event. So keep in mind who was in that field in late December. It was Arthur Feese, who's now a top 15 player. It was Fonseca.
It was Lerner Tien. It was Mickelson. And now we have a slugger from the Czech Republic who did not play like a 19-year-old. He himself said something like, I don't know if you caught that. He said, this is the first of many. And you sort of said, well, I'm not sure I've ever heard the winner make that proclamation, but I can't argue. You do have a feeling this is not a one-hit wonder. This is a guy who's going to be in the top 10 for a long time. Yeah, the biggest thing for me, and...
players can get hot, servers can get hot, but him just stepping up, I mean, winning four straight breakers against Taylor Fritz on a surface that helps Taylor Fritz's ball get through the court and then winning two in a row against Novak. The guy would step up and hit his shot, right? Like he didn't break Taylor's serve in the semis and still got through it. Would miss forehands, would miss backhands sometimes, but then...
Had that kind of shooter's mentality where it's like, okay, this is the best path to where I can actually pull off these wins. And so I'm going to step up and do it. That sounds simple enough, you know, when you have two butt cheeks firmly planted on a couch. When you're... you know, actually having to go through it and go with the mental gymnastics and know that you missed the last one and step up and hit it again, not as easy. And this kid did it. And by the way, what a mullet.
What a mullet. Bonus points. What a mullet. Like hockey playbook mullet. What's that Czech pronunciation? So I'm like, I know I get beat up for how I pronounce names, but like. I know in America, it's a mullet. In France, it's a moulet. Check it. Is it a T or do you fade it? I have no idea. This is the hard-hitting stuff. This is the stuff we need. Somebody send it in to us. Yeah. And Mensik, listen, he was great. And he stepped up and hit a shot. His first serve is elite.
We were talking about this right before. It's not a lead just because you can hit it one thing. His ability to hit all four corners off the same toss. So as a returner, ball goes up. Normally, your first read on where you're going to shade is... If the toss drifts a little left, they're more likely to hit a flat serve. So on the deuce side, you'll cover backhand. On the ad side, same thing. Ball goes over your head left.
you're automatically kind of check stepping left a little bit and the opposite if the ball goes out to the right now what made federer a great server is that he could throw the ball over his head like a kick serve and then hit a slice out wide. So you never really had a total read. So you never really felt comfortable. You know, it's like a release point in painting the corners with different pitches and different speeds like a Maddox.
Mensik's able to hit bombs off of the same toss. So all of a sudden, you're not getting a read. It didn't seem like there was any discernible pattern with what he was doing. His first serve is elite, and I still think his second serve has a lot of room for progress.
you know, reminded me a little bit, maybe has a little bit more movement on a serve than Sam Querrey, but Sam Querrey, great first serve could hit all the spots you, I mean, I think he's, if he doesn't hold the record, he did for a while for most aces in a row. I think he had 10 and Indy. one year, but his second serve was good. It wasn't like a Pete or a Federer or even like a Novak second serve now where when I used to play Novak, his second serve was probably below two or average.
And now he's able to run it in at 106 into the body on the deuce side, hit that little bunny kick at 84. His second serve has become really good. I think Mensik's second serve is okay compared to his first serve. There's still room for growth. there but my biggest takeaway is that serve is gonna is gonna win him a lot of matches when he's not playing perfectly in other parts of his game which is a big thing if he can sneak out 10 or 15
wins a year just based on that first serve kind of controlling the narrative of a match. And also what it does, there's going to be a lot of weeks and I like this and I always had this mentality where I can be playing shitty for the first two rounds.
My serve will give me enough time in a week to hopefully find stride in the other parts of the game. And when you have a weapon like Mensik has on that first serves, he can play average first round, second round, get through those matches. And all of a sudden the third round is like, oh, you know what? That forehand felt better. And now I'm firmly in the tournament. He also beat...
We forget, too. He beat Jack Draper, who won Indian Wells, to get this going. I was just looking up. I didn't even catch this. In between Indian Wells and Miami, he played an event and lost to Demir Jumer. a veteran for being a child actor. Uh, double check me on that one, but I believe he played that week in between. We've been talking about a challenger and did not win it. Lost his humor. Who's, you know, I mean, I think Fonseca won it.
If it's the challenger that was like an Arizona. Yeah, exactly. That week in between. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was not necessarily a whole lot to indicate that this guy was about to win a Masters 1000 and beat the greatest of all time in the final. But look at his draw to get there.
Draper, Arthur Feast, a tough match against Taylor Fritz. This guy also has the body served down. I mean, look at the match stats against Draper, and it's not like he went out there and served 30 aces. There's a lot to like here. And, you know, at some level...
Sort of think about this. We all become, we have these shorthands, right? And any player from the Czech Republic, oh, he's going to get compared to whoever, Lendl or Thomas Burdick. We're going to sort of reflexively do this. I'm not sure there's an easy comp with this guy. I mean, he's a deceptively good athlete. Honestly, the cop I'd say might be Yuri Laheshka, but I'm not sure I see him and say, oh, he reminds me of a 2025 version of X. That was kind of sui generis tennis I saw.
Yeah, it's I mean, the bomb, he still has. I still think on slower courts and Mike and I were talking about this before we go on air. I won Miami twice and it's it's obviously great. You know, you win a Masters 1000. But it's not the easiest tournament to win and then build on momentum. You're switching surfaces like this guy's not going to see a hard court again until July. Right. So you build up kind of this this momentum set and, you know.
At 19, we don't have a massive sample size of how he is on other surfaces. You see his game and you automatically go, oh, okay, well, he serves big. He should be able to roll through at least 90% of his service games. His back and he doesn't mind it down. He hits it pretty flat, is able to kind of switch. Like you're going Wimbledon, that's a thing. Now he has a little bit of an extreme grip on his forehand, which doesn't.
go to grass and then the movement. It's really hard to predict who's going to move well on the grass. So as well as this kid played this week, I still think there's going to be, you know, there's every chance that, you know. 10 days from now in Monte Carlo, we see him look ordinary, and we need to appreciate this. We've now witnessed what his ceiling is, and he's certainly raised the floor this week in Miami, but it's going to be kind of a work in progress.
And also, we have to spend some time on Novak. It's just like every time we're going, oh, going into Australia, can he still hit that top level? Yeah, sure. I'll beat Alcaraz and I'll make the semis. Then he loses two first rounds. Well, maybe it's slipping a little bit. I'm going to make the finals of a Masters 1000. And is he what he was three years ago or 10 years ago? No. But who gives a shit? This guy is surviving. He can still win a major.
especially when the surface is giving him some love like it was in Miami, where the ball's getting through the court, where he doesn't have to protect the sidelines as much, doesn't have to play as much. You know, he's going from playing defensively to almost becoming more of a, you know, an Agassi type distributor where he sets himself up in the middle of the court.
and is controlling traffic as opposed to, you know, the bendy, splitty Magoo thing that we've seen him go to for so many years. So he is going to have to make that late career adjustment, not dissimilar to what Roger did. At one point in his career, and Novak's not at this point yet, but Roger kind of stopped playing defense at scale. He would do it when he had to at 30-all or whatever, but...
Early in Roger's career, his base setting was kind of like, I'm going to play cat and mouse. I'm going to hit that chip around. I know I move great. And then I'm going to hit behind you and then I'm on you. You know, Novak is just setting himself in the middle of the court. I mean, that match against Dimitrov.
He said, I'm just going to control the pace from the middle, but extraordinary. There's just not a world where anyone's like, oh, Djokovic was disappointing because he didn't win that final. What? He's almost 38 years old and he didn't drop a set until the final, lost two breakers. And if they played the match again tomorrow, I would bet on Novak on that surface. I mean, Mensik had to pull out, you know, step up at the right times.
Uh, but like what Novec is doing is just crazy. I didn't think we'd see this much of them this year, especially after Australia, when he got hurt, I didn't think we'd see this body of worker or this volume. He stayed in the States for a month to play Indian Wells in Miami, John. Yep.
No, I mean, everyone at the start of the year, oh boy, could this be the last year? And Djokovic just made it pretty clear. Everything from the coaching change to the equipment change to the way he's been scheduling himself. I will hand off the baton to you. When Roger was getting up in years, you sort of said, well...
You know, he's more aggressive and he's taking his cuss. But boy, is he going to be able to get it done on clay against Nadal, against Novak, who is whatever it is, five years younger? You look at Nadal and you said, boy, you know, the body is really tough and especially off of clay. How in the world is he going to win a best five against Novak?
The other thing Novak has going for him at this stage in his career is it's not as though there is an obvious target to beat. I mean, there's this one guy that's given him a lot of trouble, and he's currently serving a doping suspension. So apart from... The fact that there have been ample data points that Novak still has it, at least some days. You look at his Roland Garros, for example, and...
I don't know. Why would you pick against him at this point? It's not as though he's got to go through Nadal the way Nadal had to go through him. So I think some of this is what he's accomplished, but some of this also is sort of the retreat of the rest of the field for a variety of reasons. Yeah, you never think that you would equate Novak to a Toby Keith song. What is it? I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was. I think that's where he is. And is that...
Is his product that he's putting out good enough to win a major? Yes, it is. Will it happen? I don't know. But you talked about Roland Garros. Yeah, three out of five extended format. Carlos is a little bit, you know, he's playing a little bit like a heart rate monitor right now. Yeah. I mean, this guy did win the Olympics there like six months ago. What is his strategy heading into clay season then?
Getting prepped for that. Dude, I'll tell you this right now, very clearly. Every time I think I know what Novak's going to do based on an injury, based on a schedule. Right now, I'm going to go, oh, he seems healthy. He's going to play a bunch, and then he wouldn't play until Roland Garros. I don't know. He seems happy playing right now. He seems motivated to play right now. He seems like maybe it's just...
Someone different to report to. Maybe that's the benefit of the Murray situation. I don't know. Health is going to dictate everything. Does he show up in Monte Carlo? Man, like my pragmatic hat says he probably doesn't need to. It's not a place that he's played great the last couple of years. Maybe take a beat and then sure as shit, I bet he's there. You know, so I...
I don't know. I mean, this time last year, he was barely playing tennis. You know, he was not entering events. And now it's like, okay, torn, tearing a hamstring in Australia. So, you know. I was an idiot for going, this is going to take months because he's 38 and there's a tear. And, you know, believe it or not, you need hamstrings to play tennis. And then he goes and plays three, four events on hard before then.
What the shit do I know? What I do know is that as long as he's in tennis, it's better to watch. Even in a version of him where, I say this gently, where he's only a top three player. What? Yeah, he's only the third favorite in every slam right now. That's fantastic because we get the generational. matchups of a Mensik who, you know, they all love to beat the drum of that picture that was taken when Mensik was 14. We're always shocked when people get older. But that's fun.
You know, Mensah going, the reason I play tennis is because of the guy that I'm about to go out and play as a peer. Amazing. Some of the best tennis memories I have in my entire career. are going out and playing Andre that first time, looking across the court in Miami, playing Pete Sampras, and just having to like... check myself because I look over and he's doing the thing off the eyebrow. He's doing the shirt the way he is like all the mannerisms that I copied and would, would kind of imitate.
I'm looking across the court and seeing him. And those are those cool moments. So the longer that Novak stays out there, one, it's just great because he's the most accomplished player of all time. And two... We get those stories. We get the Mensik who gets a shot at him. We get the Alcaraz who's going to go up against him more often. We get Sinner who now is wrangled momentum from that rivalry. Can Novak steal one at Wimbledon from Sinner? All of those storylines.
are fantastic and it's just amazing that he's still going i i don't like we've quickly changed the narrative on it was unheard of for someone to be like connor's made the semis the u.s open at 39 years old And it was as if he... Led the news. Yeah, yeah. It was like space shuttle launch. It was as if he rode a hot air balloon to the moon. Like it was so unheard of. And now it's like, I don't know, the guys are...
kind of doing it. Like it's, it's, they've, they've kind of, these three man, they've kind of reset the deck of expectations on everything. Well, the age gap between Novak and Mensik was 18 years, 102 days, which is the largest in Masters 1000 history. Just for perspective too, like you talked about glowingly of Andre and Pete, which that's about a decade.
This guy is closer in age to Novak's kids. We're talking about a 20-year age gap. Novak won Miami at age 19 for the first time. Was that 2007? I mean, it's ridiculous. No, that was 2008. 19 years, 10 months. Because he won 07. He won. Wait, he didn't win Miami before Montreal, I don't think. I think Miami was his first. 08, he won Australia, right?
That was his first major. Oh, you're right. Yeah, so it was 07 in Miami. Okay. And then, yeah, then he went through, in Canada that summer, he went through rankings 3-2-1 in succession to win Canada that summer. Wow. Pretty good. Oof. I know you're fondest for Jimmy Connors and you have a lot of history, but I always go back to that, that U.S. Open. And for those of us who, I mean, I think I was in...
Was it like a freshman in college, I think? 91. It was like huge. Yeah, 91 US Open. Huge news. I mean, this was everywhere he was getting endorsements by the match. It was like the league. We start our broadcast with. I mean, this was literally the lead story.
No, he beat Pat McEnroe, beat Harhoose, beat Craigstein, and then ended up losing in the semis. People make, people you go back, people don't really, he didn't win the tournament. I mean, it was a great run and it was really sort of inspiring, but it's not like he. won the title. I mean, Novak's at a totally different level. Well, also, like, Novak, if he makes the semis at a certain age, it's from...
uh, he's ranked five in the world. Yeah. Right. Jimmy was the thing that made it fascinating. Jimmy, I think what, I don't think he was ranked in the top 200, definitely, you know, top two 50. This was like a wild card, you know, it felt.
I mean, he would never tell you this because Jimmy thinks he's going to win. Like we could play now and he has, you know, not a single hip that's his own. And he would still think he would go out and win. Like that's just his mentality and the way he operates. But. I don't know. It kind of felt like a ceremonial wild card at a certain point. Novak's five in the world right now. He won the Olympics last year. That's the difference. He's going to be 38.
I don't know. Are you going to put him outside of the top three to win Wimbledon? No, he's your third favorite. It's Sinner, Alcaraz, and Novak. Yeah, French seems tougher, but he went through the Olympics without... Losing a set last year. I mean, it's just, it's just absurd. And we, I don't, I never want to get to the place on this show where we take unbelievable feats.
and just because someone does them often, we make each one of them less significant, right? Like, I don't want to do that. It's just absurd that he's making the finals of Masters 1000s, and we're like, oh, he got upset. Like, we're shocked he didn't win. That's how good he is. We're stunned that he lost to a guy who was like a gunslinger 19-year-old who served his ass off. Like, it's absurd. So props to Mensik, props to Novak.
And the other thing I want to, before we flip over to the women's side of the draw, JW, when was the last time when you've been covering the sport where let's use an arbitrary ranking, you're Arthur Feast and you're 15 in the world or you're 20 in the world? And you're going, all right, well, I don't have to go through Rafa to win Roland Garros or any of the other Masters 1000s leading in. Alcaraz has been up and down. He's, you know, been he's.
I want to be very careful here because he's four times slam champion. He's 21 years old. One of the best players on earth. One of the most talented people you'll ever see and more inconsistent than we're used to. So maybe he's been mortal for the last.
six, eight months. Doesn't mean he's not going to go into God mode at any moment, but you go on the court thinking you have a chance. David Goffin went on the court in Miami thinking he had a chance. Like Alcaraz, when he's playing his best, doesn't lose that match. Okay, so we're level setting. You're 15 in the world. Sinner's not there. You just saw Jack Draper come out of nowhere. He's won three total tournaments, won Indian Wells. Mensic wins his first title.
at Miami. When was the last time at 15 in the world, you were this optimistic about potentially delivering a Masters 1000 and entering the conversation for Grand Slams. That door has largely been closed, like the days of Guga winning from 60 in the world or Rafter winning his first US Open from a 13 seed. That has not been a standard rational thought for a long time. Like when was the last time the conversation was kind of like this, JW? It's a great question. Do you guys watch White Lotus?
Great show. I haven't watched it in hours. It's fantastic. Yeah, exactly. I always say, my favorite show is White Lotus, and my second favorite show is coming up next week on White Lotus. Why am I bringing that up? Because the first two seasons, you had this star, Jennifer Coolidge, that sort of carried the show, and she was who everyone tuned in for.
Everyone talked about and now she's not on season three. Well, what do we have instead? We have this variety of storylines and different people find Fayo. Some people love the Parker Posey character and others are really taken by. The, uh, you know, the, the woman from Hawaii, everyone has her. And that's kind of, that's my tortured analogy to tennis right now. There is no obvious storyline. There's no obvious player for the record. I think, I think number 15, it's Arthur Feast right now.
Our tour. Don't say Arthur. Don't you dare say Arthur. He's not even top 20, even after this great title. But no, your point is well taken. We are so accustomed to these three. unrivaled pillars, not just of excellent, but of consistent excellence where we could just, you know, lock that they would be, you bought tickets to the semis of a major and you knew you were going to see some combination, probably all three of.
Roger Roth and Novak. That's not the case anymore. And I think you're right. Part of this is from the fan experience. And everyone out there says, oh, it's so unpredictable. Like, if you're waiting around for the 20-time major winners to return...
You're probably not going to watch much tennis for the next few decades. Like, they're the outliers. What we have now is much more normal. And I think we talk about it from a fan perspective. Players too, though. I think you're totally right. I think there are probably 30 guys that say, you know what? Why not me? And these guys who are playing in the next-gen event about 100 days ago are suddenly winning 1000s events. And Drack Draper is taking Indian Wells.
You look up and down, you look at the results that are up and down, you look at some of the fade-outs. You mentioned Alcaraz, who I still think is a different player in a best-of-five. I mean, I'm reluctant to...
to drop that stock too much, but the number one player, we're not dropping, we're not dropping stock. He's just normal. Not everyone plays perfectly for 20 years. Like these three guys, like he's going to have ups and flows and he's going to end up winning 10 majors. That's exactly. Remember like Pete, after he won his first open, like.
This is what tennis is. You don't sustain the Roger Rafa. They're amazing. 100%. He wins the US Open in 1990 and didn't win another slam until 1993. That's the way it used to work a little bit. Didn't win until 1993. He didn't win another slam until 1993. But we weren't all just like, it's like, oh, no, he's finished.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, even Serena, but, but anyway, to your point, to your point, I mean, I think this is really, must be really invigorating to so many players and they sort of turn, this guy lots of Demir Jumer and now he's beating Novak in the finals of Miami. It is absolute parody.
It's only accelerated by the fact that the number one guy, the guy that could prevent parity is not in action this spring. That's a big part of it, by the way. It's a weird time. It's a weird time. But I think, you know, we all need to adjust. And if you are any player, I would say legitimately in the.
I'd go further than 15. I mean, any, any player in the top 30, I think you walk into every single tournament saying, why not me? The other thing with, I want to touch on, on, on Carlos too, because He loses in the semis of Indian Wells and people are like, how does that happen? It's still pretty good. I mean, the first round loss was bad, but what I want to see from... from, from Carlos. And you won't find a bigger fan than me. He's my favorite player to watch.
his inconsistency sometimes almost makes him relatable. And you can see him kind of churning the wheels of decision-making in real time. Right now, when he's not playing well or not feeling comfortable... he goes more aggressive. That's hard. And most of the greats throughout history tend to dial it back, find some margin, and then all of a sudden...
you're consistent enough where you can take more risks and it's not irresponsible. Right now, his kind of, I don't want to say panic button because that's not it. It's when he's not feeling perfect, it almost feels like he gets more aggressive. And I almost want him to go into a match and say, okay, for the first six games, I'm literally going to take this person's legs out. And I'm just, my ball is heavier than theirs. They're going to have to hit winners for six games.
I don't think he likes getting winners hit on him. I think he likes to be the one that dictates, and that's his superpower, and sometimes our superpowers can also be weaknesses when not used in the right moment, right? I think as soon as he gets comfortable knowing that, you know what, I can get into a 10 or 12 ball rally and they can't really go anywhere. I'm that fast. I can create that much speed from the baseline. It's probably too boring for him.
Honestly, I think he needs to be bored sometimes when he's playing. But listen, you bet against Carlos Alcaraz at your own peril, especially... when the footing is not perfect. As soon as we get on clay, as soon as we get on grass, we saw what happened last year. And oh, by the way, he didn't have a clay court season last year. He won the French basically coming in. He played two matches in Madrid.
which there's no way he would have even played that tournament had it not been in Spain, in my opinion. So lots to look forward to. If you're a Kasper Rude, if you're an Alex Zverev... if you're a Tsitsipas, if you're a Runa, if you're a Musetti, if you're an Arterfis, you're going, I don't know, like I might be in the last four of this. And from there, anything goes.
You know, Zverev especially, I think there's a real shot. And he would tell you, I mean, there's no chance he wouldn't that, you know, center goes out. There's a real space for me to win an Indian Wells, to win in Miami. to maybe get some momentum. And it feels like it kind of went the other way, self-corrected a little bit in Miami, but then Arthur Feast takes him out. One of the things that was weird when I was looking at the rankings just now before we came on air...
Medvedev not in the top 10. He just feels like he's a fixture, right? Like he does not leave. And so I had Mike play around with some numbers for me and my prediction was basically like... I don't see much difference in his actual game from the baseline. And I think people are talking about that. It's all serve. It's all serve. And we looked up his percentage of service games held in 2021.
2022, even 2023 was between 86 and 89% of service games held, which is a big number. Close to 90% is a big number, especially when you break as much as he does. Plummets in 2024 to below 80%. Now, if you take a variance of six, seven, eight percentage points on service games held, that's the difference between flirting with number one like he was and being number 11 in the world.
right? Losing that edge, first serve percentage comes down. You're having to defend second serves a lot more. There were matches when he played people 50, 60 in the world where he wouldn't even think about losing serve. And I think that's the biggest delta between Medvedev a couple of years ago and Medvedev right now is just him landing serves. I mean, he had a bomb, but do you have that first serve percentages from those years at all or no? I do.
Can you tell me? I haven't heard these yet. And we're looking just at hard. when we were talking yeah hardcore like i'm not too worried about you know clay because you you you serve a little differently it's like a percent difference but yeah in 2022 it was 88 services game one yep and then as you jump to 2024 it was 79
I mean, that's massive. Thus far this year, it's 82. Even 88 to 82 is massive. 88 to 79, that's massive. As far as service games held, and I'm guessing the first serve percentage. For 22, 23, that's, I bet that, I haven't looked at the stat, but all you nerds at home, look at, I bet it's four to six percentage points different, just on first serve percentage and landing first serve.
I don't know why. I don't know that I've noticed any technical differences. I don't know. I don't know. But those, if I'm in his camp, those numbers are screaming at me. I mean, the last time he was... below 80 percent was 2017 and he was not in the top 10 oh god yeah he was that was that was way before um you know he was a fixture to just get rolled through service games even against great returners and what that does also just medvedev aside
But when you're rolling through service games and all of a sudden you play a 30-all point and you're making your opponent play all the time and your opponent knows that they're probably not going to break, the pressure mechanism... on that versus when you're holding less than 80% of the time, every ball matters a little bit more, right? And the difference between one and 11, yeah, right there, six, seven percentage points on service games held.
Those are the margins that we're playing in. And I guarantee you that all stems from probably a 5% variance in first serve percentage. This is also a nerdy tennis talk, but that's a huge drop of service games. I'm going to attribute this to an A. Agassi because I think he's made this point, which is sometimes first serve percentage can be deceptive because...
You miss a few first serves, then you take something off of it and you start hitting more first serves in, but you're not hitting them with the juice and placement that your risk level is changing. So he's always a little bit skeptical, but... Some of this with Medvedev is just eye test. He does not step up to that line like the confident player that we know he was when he was winning majors. But man, that is a big drop in service being held. To the Agassi point.
That was for Andre because he would set the table. Like there were some matches where he would serve 52% because he was going bigger. And then if someone wasn't beating him from the baseline, he's like, all right, well, I'm going to kick the first one out of your zone. And then.
I have lunch in the middle of the court and you're screwed. So it doesn't tell the whole story. I think a backwards comparison against yourself probably tells a better story than comparing one person 60% first serves in versus... You know, that's what makes Vera such a, like, nightmare is he serves massive and he serves 74% for serves in. Like, comparing it to yourself, I think, is a more relevant stat than, to your point, Andre saying, you know, Mats Vlander made...
92% of his first serves in a French Open final versus Pete maybe served 58%. But Pete's 58%. He was winning 90% of the actual first serve percentage points. But just... In a silo, in a comparison backwards against yourself, 88 in your prime years to 79. I mean, that's massive. That's a huge.
differential and that's probably why we're looking at 11 i mean he and listen this is going to be no information that he's not completely aware of but also like to andre's point when was the last time you looked at
medvedev stepped up to the line and just rolled a first serve in at like 90 miles an hour it doesn't happen now he'll go up on a second serve up to psychotic numbers like 120 and 115 and he'll take that risk there but he steps to the line he's trying to win the point on the first serve and if he's not landing him
Then all of a sudden, one, guys are going to break more often. And two, his pressure vice of making a ton of balls isn't as pressure filled if he's not holding serve as much. You know, guys are able to get into it. When we said X's and O's, we meant it. We're going hardcore. I'll give you one more thing, which is when you are losing matches, tennis does not norm its statistics for quality of opponent.
So when you're losing early, as Medvedev has quite a bit in the last 12, 16, 18 months, not only are those stats going down, but those are going down against lesser players. When he's winning less than 80% of his service games, that's not necessarily happening against Alkares, Sinner, and Novak. Yeah, that's a great point. But it'll be exciting.
I think clay season is as wide open as it's been. It's amazing when someone wins Roland Garros 14 times and then goes away, all of a sudden, a little disturbance in the force and everyone's got a shot. You know, it's interesting. It should be very exciting. I got asked last week. I was doing a separate interview.
and it's like well do we like the unpredictability i don't know i'm like listen we we we tend to dislike anything that's in front of us exactly we don't like the unpredictability but it's also like who asked you that i did something for uh actually something cool i'll shout him out dominic team is now like the the editor for like the sunday paper in austria like he's coming up with yeah he's like it's really cool
yeah it's cool i don't know him at all and he texted me he's like hey would you do this feature i'm in you know quasi in charge of what we present on sundays and what so i was like yeah i said i'll do whatever you want me to do. I think you're great. I mean, we don't know each other, but I think you're awesome. Um, yeah. So he's like, yeah, I'm like the editor of a Sunday. I'm like, good for you. That's awesome. Uh, we're in that green visor. Get, get me rewrite. Um, newspaper man, Dominic team.
He's got the hanging sig like a blackjack dealer. He always has ink in his mouth. By the way, he probably has none of that. His hair is perfectly quaffed. Definitely not. Anyway, so it was for that. He asked me to do it, and I did it. Uh, okay. So JW, I want your, uh, opinion. Can you play the pronunciation of just yellow? Well, I think we should go to break first. Fine. Fine. Whatever.
Alessandra Yala. I think that's pretty close. Pretty good. Ready? Ready? My name is Alessandra Yala. Alessandra Yala. So it's pretty good. But do we have to say it like it's a question? My name is Alexandra Yala. I don't know. This is Ron Burgundy. I go fuck yourself, San Diego. I got to say, this is one of the best things about the WTA site, and it really helps us out. Are we back? Yeah. Yeah, we're back. Oh, we're live.
You want to make clear that that was a Ron Burgundy reference and nothing against San Diego. Oh, well, thanks for the heads up. Great producing. Welcome back to Served. You're really nailing your job today, Mike. Way to go. What? What? That's what the people want. I thought we were on like a break. No, we're back. We don't have real breaks. I thought we were full Ross and Rachel. No. We were on a break. So Alexandra. Do it one more time. Yeah.
My name is Alexandra Iyala. Alexandra Iyala. Okay. So we now listen to this, the pronunciation, which by the way, is a great feature. I think that's what you're getting to, right? Like all the people I would have said, Alexandra. Ella? And they're like, there's a Y. There's no Y. I know there's no Y, but you're supposed to pronounce it like a Y. I don't know. How do you pronounce something you've never heard before correctly every time?
I think we've done good. I mean, even on Tennis Channel, though, they were like, they were all saying it wrong. It's not like there have been a spade of Filipino players that we could extrapolate from either. I mean, that's another wrinkle in this story. We have no basis for pronouncing that name. You always have some fun little tidbits. Give our listeners a little background. Obviously, the breakout story of the Miami Open was Alexandra Yella playing well.
Going through beating Iga Svantec. Again, we have the picture of her asking for a fan photo. We love that. Played great. Lefty. from the Philippines. Give us some tidbits there, J.W. She's quite young, as you would infer from a picture with Iga. It's not like Iga's the grizzled veteran that was, you know, Novak's...
37 plus. That's not the case here. But no, I mean, this was a wild card. It's a great story. And I think, you know, I mean, I think there's sort of the Wikipedia factoids that we can... Talk about her age and she's a lefty and she's not a physically imposing player. But I also think there's a bigger story here about talent and mining talent. We talked a few weeks ago about Mira Andreva born in the middle of Siberia, basically.
And ended up, you know, talent shines through and she made some career choices. The same case here. I mean, here's a player from Philippines, big, you know, big country, but more than 100 million people, not a lot of tennis. And she ends up at the Nadal Academy, not like last week, like when she was 12 years old. And look at her now. I mean, she got a wild card into this event. I remember a quick story. I remember a few years ago.
An agent who will go nameless was very upset that Miami gave a wild card to an IMG player. Miami owned by IMG. They gave a wild card to an IMG player. And it was a Russian the same week or the same month that a Russian had invaded Ukraine. And they were very upset that a Russian player...
No one had heard of had gotten this wild card. It was, it was Mira Andreeva. So that wild card. I'm sure that I'm sure the 14 year old version of Andreeva had a lot to do with Russia invading Ukraine, by the way. No politics, but no, you're absolutely right. So you, you, uh, anyway.
is say this about James and IMG and the wild cards. They are pretty well distributed because here was a player from the Nadal Academy. I mean, again, nice junior player, but not a whole lot. Her brother played Big Ten tennis. And then she comes out. She beat Iga, and we saw the photo. Before that, though, she beat Ostapenko and Madison Keys. So this is three major champions. To give you an idea of how unexpected this, after this great run...
Took a set off Pagoula in the semis too. I mean, this was not a fluke. I mean, there's real game here. A left-handed opponent who's a good athlete is always going to be tough, but this was really a breakthrough. So there were three matches over three major champions. And then she takes a set.
off of a top five player at Pagula. And suddenly, she does not win the tournament. You saw that great scene when she lost the match to Pagula, but she ended up getting this applause and had this grin. If you'd walked in late, you'd no idea who would have won and who would have lost that match. But now we have...
Going back to White Lotus, now we have another member of the cast to watch because this was really one of those stories that puts a smile on your face, pronunciation notwithstanding. I think it was just bitter Buffalo Bills fans against... Pagoula and Miami Stadium or Hard Rock. And also just like we need to just say this. The only people that actually deserve a wild card. If.
Sabalenka has a year off and God forbid something happens and she gets hurt and she comes back. She deserves a wild card. She has earned anyone else who's complaining about not getting a wild card. Be better. Since this isn't like the, we're definitely not doing anything political on this show. Since that is the case, I will not say you're not allowed to complain about someone's taking our jobs.
Let's compete for them. No one's entitled to anything. Sports are funny that way. Let's compete for it. Yeah, it's so strange. Like, it's almost like we like free markets until they're free markets. We're not doing anything political. No. Stop it, Mike. I didn't say anything. Okay. We have a young...
prospect from the Philippines. Not a sentence that many of us thought we would be saying, but here we have a young player to watch. I mean, again, to tell you how far out of the loop, she has this great run, gets to the semis. She moves up to 75 in the world.
You know, one tournament is not a career make, but it's a great story. This is a real, I think this is a real sort of validation. I mean, Tony Nadal was there. This is a real validation, a real coup for the Nadal Academy. It's a great coup. I mean. Philippines is really an interesting market. The NBA will tell you that Philippines is like high up on their list of markets.
to crack for basketball. Why not tennis as well? So this is in lieu of Serena Roger Rafa, this is, this is going to be a theme of our podcast the entire year in, in lieu of a ritual excellence. We have great stories like this. And to me, that's. That's a trade-off we're happy to take. We also dare say you're hearing a lot of either players training at the Nadal Academy, players being developed.
At the Nadal Academy, this is kind of sneaky becoming like the old voluntary IMG situation, but for like Europe. Like it's... With like a larger test. A lot of people are going over there to train. They got a little something going there. Like you talk about legacy.
He's leaving behind opportunity. I'll tell you that, Rafa is. The Doll Academy, it kind of is getting to the point where we're bored when we hear it because it's actually happening more and more and more and more and more. And it's not geographically restricted either.
Right. It's not like an American tennis academy. He's popping them up. Yeah. Well, I think the main one is probably the one that all of those are kind of coasting off of. I don't know if they're all going to be. I mean, I've seen pictures of this place. It looks absurd. But as far as training base, it just seems like it's.
possibly the most influential academy on earth right now, or at least trending that way, which for a while it was, it was like, you couldn't even, that wasn't even a conversation, right? It was Boletarian, Boletarian, Boletarian. You'd have maybe some smaller ones and Macy, you know. all of a sudden gets these these two girls from compton and you know puts his his flag in the ground and says we're great too but like this academy is is no joke beyond just the name candy of of of rafa right
This isn't like he's on court with all these people. I haven't. I've seen pictures. I haven't been there in person. It looks unbelievable. Have you been there? Yeah, but to the one in Mallorca. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, Mallorca's beautiful, but it's not like the, I mean, you know, looks like a tennis. It's actually a nice mix of, you know, it's perfectly nice. And there are people there that are just tourists that want to hope to glimpse.
nadal and they pay a lot of money and they come and then you've got on the court next to them it's like you know munar who i mean munar's the one who beat medvedev you know he's he's playing with casper rude yeah exactly yeah exactly he's playing with casper rude
And next to them is, you know, a hedge fund guy from Canada who thinks it's cool to get a t-shirt that says Nadal Academy. It's an interesting place. But no, I think you're right. I think this is, you know, this is really becoming a go-to place for the best players to train. I'll tell you what, the hedge funder playing three, three, five dingles next to Casper Rood. One of them is paying to be there. I'll tell you that right now. It's almost like it's good marketing to have Casper.
hitting next to the hedge funder. So the question I want to lay out to you is Sabalenka, most consistent entity. in women's tennis. And I think two years ago, that probably would have been Iga with flashpoints of Sabalenka. It feels like that has turned to where it's Sabalenka with flashpoints of Iga and other players.
But we kind of always, you know, Iga's against her own shadow right now, right? She's won five majors, four of them at the French Open. She all of a sudden feels that first crunch of the clay, that sound that it makes when you step on it. And the world changes, right? Like the tennis orbit changes. So credit to Sabalenka, the tournaments that she doesn't win, she loses like dramatic finals and someone has to play great to beat her. Her base setting is...
I would say significantly better on a more consistent basis than anyone else, uh, in the world right now, probably men or women, you know, sinners, obviously out that changes when he comes back. Um, cause he was utterly dominant, um, before, before the suspension. Is this the year and what would be different? Can Sabalenka break through on the clay and try to snatch some of these titles? She's been close in Madrid against Iga a couple of times. Does any of this matter?
Once we shift to clay, as far as how it affects Iga Shviantek. I think it has to, don't you? I mean, first of all, I don't know. You don't think so? No, I don't know. I know what I'm going to say. I'm going to say it feels like she's gaining on her. And then I'm going to see Ega play on clay for the first time. And I'm like, Oh, she, she, we do this every year. Oh, she just starts smoking people. And we're like, Oh yeah, obviously.
But like we always have those feelings going in. I didn't wish you, I didn't acknowledge this holiday, but today technically is the first day of clay season too, right? March 31st, we're on the clay. Look at the rankings. She's like 3,000 points. I don't have this in front of me. We can look it up maybe. Look at the difference between Coco and Iga.
She is so good. Like anyone eager is so good. She loses sometimes. That's like, that's the criticism. Oh, she loses in the semis. Sometimes she won five majors. She's going to be the favorite with like for the last five years. We would have taken Ega against the field at Roland Garros. That's how dominant she's been on clay. What the question is, is it less certain this year and why?
I think it's got to be. And I think some of them is eager results. I mean, yes, she's won. What is it? She's won four of the last five Roland Garros. But, you know, she's not number one in the world. She's taken some defeats. She's had, you know, she a few weeks ago took two. Instagram to write about the mental health and the pressure she's facing. That's not ideal. I also think at some level, I mean...
Look, if Sapulenga had closed a couple of matches, if she had beaten Coco in that U.S. Open final, if she'd beaten, you know, a couple points here and there and beaten Madison Keys. I think it's a different story still. I also think, does that feel like a better clay court player than we give her credit for being? I mean, she was a second-week player. I give her credit for being good on clay, just so we're clear. She's really good on clay. Yes. I think, to me, the big variable here is just...
which Iga shows up and what is her mindset and what is her happiness level and what is, you know, what is she doing when Matt, you know, we know she can win one-on-one. I mean, I think now the question with Iga is if you can get her to five all.
what's going to happen to her. I think this is, it's a, it's really, it's a good question. And I think honestly, it's as much about Iga as it is Sabalenka. What do you, what do you think? It's a good, it's a good. Here's, here's, here's when I tell you, here's, here's when I'm pretty sure. that I'd have to question my mental health is if I had to play ego on clay. I think that's when I would question a lot of it. I just think we try to kind of navigate.
this conversation every year and it's different if she wins in Miami, obviously, but do we change the, the entire clay court conversation moving in because of Yela? beating her yes i i completely get what you're saying was she by the way also she's never lost a grand slam final just so we're clear we talk about this person who is
We talk about this person who is, you know, you get to four or five, all the pressure ratchets up. Is she going to handle it? Yeah, she is dominant. She doesn't lose when she gets to a certain point in a tournament. So I don't know. I don't know if it's all going to work out that way, but what I want to say is bet against the grid at your own peril. We've rarely had someone as good on one surface as Iga Sviatek is on clay. Sabalenka on everything else, a cut above.
Now it comes back to the field and Iga's been, you know, at least that good, if not better on this service. And I just don't want us to be lazy about what her greatness has looked like on Claire for the last five years. Well put. That's a really good stat. She has not lost a major final. I mean, she's had, you know, outside of Roland Garros, there have been some disappointing results.
fourth round quarters and semis. That's yeah. I mean, you, you win, you win a major four of the last time, five times it's played and you are the top seed no matter what. I, I, how much do you. How much should joy be a part of this? I mean, one thing we always say about Sabalenka, but I think it was very much apparent in Miami where she now sort of has this base. For as often as we hear about burnout and mental health and social media.
Here is a player who just projects happiness doing her job. And that's not the kind of thing we quantify. That's not the kind of thing we will go look up stats on. But I don't know. I mean, does that not impact your analysis a little bit? Well, fine. I think, I think we also view things through a moment in time. Like you go three years ago and we'll be like Sabalenka's stresses out. She gets angry. She's volatile. Like there are all these things like she's, she's figured it out, but she's also.
Like, what is she, three, four years older? She's four years further along in this kind of emotional learning set. Like, at the same age, Iga's so far ahead of where Sabalenka was at that age. Like it's not, it's not close. We're treating them as the same, whereas Sabalenka has, you know, time maturity experience. And the thing we talked to, we talked about it with Kim going into Miami, Kim Clijsters.
is I fully believe that, especially as tennis players, there are a lot of times where your biggest strength can be a weakness at some point. We've talked ad nauseum on this show about... Iga's superpower is she shows up for practice, she treats it like a Grand Slam final. And that is a great thing, but it's hard to live the stress of a Grand Slam final every day. Like there is some sort of...
you know, payoff. And I think we're seeing it with what she wrote and what she's been going through. And you, you throw in, you know, the, the dismissed positive test with it. Like, yeah. So the stress mechanisms ratchet up her intensity. is part of what has made her great. She's already won as many majors as Maria Sharapova. Like, level set. Never plays again in her life. They're the same.
That's absurd. So we need to just like always remember, like her floor is two more majors than Ash Barty. Her floor is one more major than Kim Clijsters. Her floor is two more majors than Lindsey Davenport. Like we just need to kind of at least be conscious while we're judging people in the moment again of what they've already accomplished. She has the ability to get through it. She has done it.
Uh, I, I was critical of her just cause I didn't think, I think writing four pages on something when it's not top of mind for everyone else, I just think she would have gotten more out of, I screwed up, you know, you guys have probably screwed up at work too. I'll get better.
I think that's, you know, but, but I just want to say like, if you don't think she's chomping at the bit to get to recorrect on her surface, you're, you're, you're, you're wrong. And I can't wait to see that matchup. I think the best rivalry in tennis. has or in women's tennis has been when Sabalenka is trying to break through those Madrid finals when she's trying to kind of, you know, go into Iga's home court, which is on clay and take a major title. Pagula just is like so good.
You give her anything that the court helps get the ball through the court, she's just so good. You know, is she as powerful? Is she six feet tall, you know, like Sabalenka? No. Is she... the best version of what she, her ball striking is so good. I just, I love watching her play. There's nothing that can break down. If you're a coach and you're looking at technique, you know, you look at Rafa, it's complex. Not everyone can play like that. You look at Pagula.
repeatable depth, everything that is a basic of tennis, she has mastered. She's just so good. She's so fun to watch. She has a personality. She doesn't take herself too seriously. I'm a massive, massive, massive, massive fan. Give me a couple of thoughts on Coco because it seems like the major happens. We think it's going to be downhill. It's going to be a downhill snowball after that. It doesn't work that way. We get through the open last year. She has a great fall.
We feel like it's going to be a downhill snowball into this season. It hasn't quite worked out that way yet. What is Coco looking for going into the clay court season? It's a great... question in part because I feel like our usual fallback is getting a little thin, right? What do we usually say? Which is she's winning ugly. She's learning to win when she doesn't have her best stuff. She's fighting. I mean, honestly,
We talk about Sabalenka and Iga. One of the great rivals in tennis right now is Coco against... And Coco against her breakdowns. Can she overcome these days when she can't find the court? Can she overcome these days when she has double figure? I mean, look at her stats in that defeat last week. And you just kind of say, yikes. On the other hand. We've seen her win majors playing suboptimal tennis. We've seen her win a lot of matches just grinding through.
She's also capable of winning matches love and love as she did in Miami. I just, I don't know how long we can stay on this trope of, boy, she's winning ugly and this is going to pay our dividends later in her career when she knows she doesn't have to be 100% because... The flip side of that is sometimes you just want to go out there and play to your capability. And you go watch those matches and look how many balls go to that forehand side.
look how many times the stat sheets have double figures, an hour, figure double faults, an hour into the match. I don't know. I mean, I think the A level is there. But I also think it's got a way on your mind to have a game that can end up in the breakdown lane as easily as hers sometimes seems to. I don't have anything to add to that. You know what I do support, Mike? What's that? Digestive health.
Ooh. I do love an Olipop. Felt like a good Olipop break. It was... God, you're killing me today. All right, welcome back to Served. JW, since... Since we're only talking about results in Miami and we're not going off on tangents today, we're not going to... we're not going to touch anything that could even be perceived as political. Can you tell me about Daria Kazakina and the fact that she's Australian now? And I know that you've been close to this story.
You've sat down with her. You spent some time on it. Can you just give us a quick rundown and seemingly that there is a happy place where she's at and accepted and has found a new home? Top 15 player, nice loopy strokes on both sides. Could probably use a little bit more punch, especially on the second serve. Is that what you mean? In our non-political podcast? Oh, no, you're talking about her new nationality that she represents.
You know, it's no secret. I guess about a year ago, I did a piece with her for CBS when she was in Spain. And she said, look, I'm not an activist, but I cannot support what's going on in my country of Russia. And a lot of that seemed to be motivated by this Ukraine invasion. Also, you know, Russia is not necessarily a great place to be when you are in a same-sex relationship as she is.
essentially said, you know, this has been very hard for me, but I have not been home in years. It's not a huge surprise that she has chosen to represent another country. I think Australia is a bit of a surprise. I was told this is as much about Australia's...
policies as sort of Tennis Australia recruiting her. But yeah, I mean, you go look at the, she's looked today on the WTA rankings page and there is an Australian flag next to Daria Kazakina's name. And I think this, this is someone who really is a... a profile in courage and she's not banging shoes on tables and she's not doing hashtags. And this is not sort of glorifying, you know, political, uh, cosplay. I mean, she.
I feel strongly about this issue and in a very dignified way has basically said, I cannot abide by being a player for Russia anymore. I think she will get a handshake from the Ukrainian players now. But no, this is really... I mean, it's a tribute to her. I mean, it's, I guess, a tribute to Australia as well that they will accommodate someone like this who wants to...
who wants to live in their country and represent their country. But yeah, as of today, Daria Kazikin is now on the WTA page with an Australian flag. It's really an extraordinary story. Too bad it's on the non-politics edition because it really is... Very political in nature, but I don't know how you don't look at her with a great deal of admiration. Yeah, and this is one of my things where it's like, we can make absolutely anything political. This is simply someone who made life choices.
Not accepted where she's from. Hadn't been home in three years. And by home, I mean her former home of Russia. Found a better solution for her life without having to change who she is, what she does. Not telling anyone that they have to... you know, change heaven and earth wherever it is. I'm going to adjust and I'm going to go find my happiness. So props to Daria Kazakina. Well deserved.
And hope it's a decision that, you know, will be one that you look back on and say, you know what, I absolutely nailed this one. Best case scenario, I hope. It's great, I think. And I can't wait for her to play the Australian Open last year or next year. And I hope there's a crazy outpouring of support. And I suspect there will be. Mike, what else we got?
We have our friends, Kim Kleister and Social Sophie with their first episode of the Love All podcast dropping this week. Belinda Benchich is their guest. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, sick. It was really cool. It was a really great conversation. Um, she literally did it from like the players around lounge overlooking Charleston, like literally walked off the court, did, did the interview, her baby sleeping in a car seat, you know, like nearby. It was just this.
wonderfully casual conversation that only the way Kim Clijsters can do it. Yeah. I'm very excited for that to drop. I've been just all cars on the table. Tim, Tim, Kim's going to crush me for talking about this. I want to do. A documentary on Kim Clijsters. 100%. Story that's not told often enough. Like that moment in time for that year where she was retired, loses her father.
decides to casually get ready for an exhibition at Wimbledon, says I'm hitting the ball pretty well, and then wins the US Open like 10 weeks later. Like that little moment in time. Unranked. Don't you, don't you do, don't you, in your history and documentaries. We're trying. We're trying. What's holding us up? Maybe we have a love all episode about this. Yeah, maybe. We love Kim Clijsters. Social Sophie is doing a great job. They have a great...
Great banter. So check that out. They can find it on our surf channel. It'll be on our channels. Great. So just check out our channel. New content in case you're sick of us, which I would be if I was you. Okay. Go over and check out the Chuckers Club over on YouTube. And also we're working on developing newsletters. So we'll keep you guys posted and all that. There's a lot going on. We're trying. All right. Well, what else do you want to do?
Uh, you know, I think that's it. I don't know. Great. Fine. Check out our socials. Great stuff, Mike. Uh, JW. Thank you for coming on. As always, we will see you next week. Thank you for your really trying to keep us tight on tennis. Good thing we didn't talk about anything else and we'll see you next week. Meet Klaviyo, the only CRM built for B2C.
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