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Well, hello and welcome to Melbourne and the first of 17 daily tennis podcasts from the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the 2025 tennis season. You find us physically on. court number three one of the show courts here at Melbourne Park we are metres away from where Hugo Gaston will be stepping out at 11am on Sunday to open play on this court and half an hour after that Rod Laver Arena will start its action on day one of 15 days of Grand Slam Tennis to open the tennis.
We have so much to talk about. We have actually already recorded our first show from Melbourne, our first edition of Tennis Relived for 2025, focusing on the Australian Open 2005. of which it is the 20th anniversary. Sorry to patronise those of you who are capable of basic maths. That podcast is available for Friends of the Pod now. I absolutely loved re-watching some of the classic matches from the Australian Open 2005, including just an absolutely iconic match between Serena Williams.
and Maria Sharapova and an all-timer between Roger Federer and eventual champion Marit Safin in the men's semi-finals in which, of course, Roger Federer hit a controversial match point.
tweener so that's available for friends of the pod now friends will also get access to an australian open review show after the tournament to help cope with the post grand slam blues plus you'll get access to the barge our non-toxic online community for tennis chat and new for 2025 you get ad free listening to all editions of the tennis podcast so if that sounds good
and you'd like to become a friend, then the link to do that is in the notes to this and every show, of which there will be many coming your way over the next 17 days. David is here. Matt is here. and everybody. I think it's safe to say is on 10 out of 10 form. Oh, I'm so pumped. I mean, the moment you said Hugo Gaston, I suddenly thought, right, what am I going to be doing at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning? I mean, I don't know what else is going on on that day. I'm not sure where it is.
else the matches are but I'm quite tempted to be out here. Wait till I tell you who Hugo Gaston is taking on at 11am. Who's that? On Sunday morning on this very court. It's Omar Jessica, the Australian Open wildcard, but more importantly, the winner of the one-point slam. What's that? You know very well what it is, David, because we all watched it yesterday over on the Kia Arena. It was one of the things that Tennis Australia has introduced to kind of big up and bolster this.
you know, the pre-week that is now an integral part to all Grand Slams. outside of Wimbledon. Obviously, Wimbledon's intention is to be able to join the party with the expansion. But yeah, the build-up week, fan week, as the US Open calls it, is increasingly part of the kind of tennis festival that these...
Grand Slams try to put on, and Tennis Australia put on the one-point slam, where 16 amateur players take on 16 pros in matches lasting one... point long so can you win a point against a pro basically is the uh the founding principle of the tournament and i saw a press release about this and i thought oh great you know one more one more thing that they're doing in the months the sea of you know
and, I don't know, exhibition matches in the evenings and stuff. You know, brilliant, brilliant, but not for me, was my take. And, Matt, how wrong I was. You have never seen someone go from zero to a hundred as quickly as Catherine at the one point slam. The cynicism at the entrance. compared to the joy and celebration on Exit. Catherine was whooping. She was cheering for...
randoms. It was absolutely sensational. Before we talk about Arena Sablenka and Yannick Sinner, I would like to talk about Paul Fitzgerald. who has already won the Australian Open. He didn't win the one-point slam and the $60,000 prize. of course Omar Jessica won that and you know it'll be a bonus for him if he wins his first round against Stugo Gaston on Sunday but I think
I think Omar can consider it a good tournament already. But Paul Fitzgerald was the most successful amateur in this competition. And he won through three rounds, so won three points. All against pros. One of them against Andre Rublev. And he did them all with aces. And he is a hero of our times. So...
Paul, if you're listening or anyone that knows Paul Fitzgerald, I enjoyed your work so much and the actual Australian Open has got... some serious work to do to live up to the one point slam um before we get into talking about the draws media day looking ahead to to the actual
fortnight a word from our sponsors because the tennis podcast during the Australian Open is brought to you by Steve Fergal's International Tennis Tours they are and I need you to learn this folks you're gateway to premium tennis events worldwide. Your gateway to premium tennis events worldwide. Thank you very much, Matt. It's going to take me a few days and then I will be voice of Wimbledon-ing it up. Appreciate that. Steve Fogel's Tennis Tours are experts in luxury tennis travel.
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The Draws. First of all, Matt, your review of The Draw itself. As a concept and as an execution. As a spectacle. Well, it was a spectacle, and that is basically what I ask for. I asked for these Grand Slams and all tennis tournaments, really, to make a thing of the draw. It is fun. It is exciting. And, you know.
Or it should be. Or it should be. It certainly can be. You know, releasing the PDFs online at midday, looking at you, US Open, not fun or exciting. But holding the draw on the steps of the... Second court here at Melbourne Park with a crowd and having the defending champions come in, followed by a marching brass band. The marching band was good, wasn't it?
Yeah, I like that. One defending champion enjoyed the marching grass band more than the other. I think that would be fair to say. You can work out which defending champion enjoyed it for yourselves. Great. Really, really good that they made a thing of the draw. They put it on the screens around the ground at Melbourne Park as well. And I was very, very pleased.
we had a big deal made of the draw. I felt seen. Yeah, Matt thinks he's responsible for that marching brass band. I dare say he was, given the shenanigans of previous draws. In terms of the draw itself, the names that came out of the hat, and look, I should say we have kind of had a dry run at...
at analyzing this draw because we had our inaugural Melbourne live show last night. It was a wonderful night. Thank you to everybody that came and made it so special. But part one of the show, as has become customary with our... live shows was analyzing the draw going through it section by section or both draws of course um so we've had a dry run at this and my kind of umbrella takeaway from that dry one was that Not many people are predicting many upsets. We are expecting...
The big names, the expected names in both drawers to be there at the end. Yeah, it actually, when I look at this drawer, it's got both things I want. It's got a couple of sections where... you really are drawn, your eye is drawn to them, where you think, blimey, that player has got their work cut out on paper to not... sort of get embroiled in a terrible situation or maybe even lose. I mean, I think off the top of my head, I'm thinking Novak Djokovic and Igor Svantec. Their sections are just...
Every match is interesting, really, all the way through, before you even get to fourth round, quarter-finals. But... I still ended up putting them both through so that they're at the sharp end of the tournament. And I think that that is the case when I look at the draws generally throughout. I'm expecting, yeah, big names at the end. Yeah, I really agree with David there. I think my other sort of big takeaway would be how in the men's draw...
Finally, we got Al-Khraz and Sinner in different halves. We've been waiting for that. I think the last three slams, they've been drawn in the same half. And that maybe felt a little bit frustrating because they felt like the two best players in the world.
It feels like the next step of their rivalry is for them to meet in a Grand Slam final. Obviously there's a lot of tennis to play before we get there, but it's at least possible after this draw. So that's exciting, whereas I think the flip side of that is in the women's. draw where the two form players coming into this Australian Open, Irina Sabalenka and Coco Goff, have been drawn in the same half. So we can't get a final between them. Obviously, there's Igor Sviontek in the other half.
It's not lopsided, but you've got Goff and Sabalenka who obviously come in with a title in Sabalenka's case. the most brilliant form of her career in Coco Goff's case, they could meet in the semis. We'd love to see a final between them, but the fact that they're in a potential semi-final opponent is exciting too. So there's just that little bit of difference between the two draws. Looking at the men's draw, and in particular...
Yannick Sinner, the defending champions draw, like looking at his quarter, the seed who he's scheduled to meet in the quarterfinals is Alex de Menor, who has been... quite frankly, his pigeon, hasn't he? Like, there is nobody worse for Alex de Menor to play in all of tennis history, probably, than Yannick Sinner. You know, there are dangerous names in there. There's Sitsipas, there's Hashanov, there's Hercatch, there's...
But let's be honest, there's no one in there that you'd expect a Yannick Sinner anywhere close to his best to be troubled by. And yet I came out of Yannick Sinner's press conference. Matt, just slightly concerned about Yannick Sinner. Oh, wow. Look, this is not me predicting. I'm going to end up predicting a Sinner Alcaraz final, I think. But I...
I don't feel the way about Yannick Sinner defending his title the way I do about Irina Sabalenka, say. And that is because of the answers he gave in the kind of second half of the press conference when things moved on to talk about the court of arbitration. sport hearing that is hanging over him um and and you know the well i was going to say the clarification of the situation but there is no clarification he said
I know exactly as much as you guys do in terms of when it's going to end up being, what the outcome might be. And look, I know that he has had... things related to this case hanging over him at points in the past, and he's dealt with it incredibly. He's won Grand Slams with situations like this hanging over him, but it was his answer to... To the question that referenced Nick Kyrgios, Matt, that just gave me pause with Yannick Sinner. Yes, because he said, I don't think I have to answer that.
as soon as Nick Kyrgios' name was mentioned. And it was a question by Matt Futterman of the Athletic, and it only, you know, Nick Kyrgios was not the focus of the question. It was, you know, it was a question about the noise and... what people have to say. Such as Nick Kyrgios tweeting. Exactly. And it was honestly, in all the... press conferences that we've seen and heard from Yannick Sinnes since we discovered he'd had this suspension. It was the first time I'd seen him ruffled or defensive.
in any way and he was ruffled and defensive and I you know obviously Nick Kyrgios has had a lot to say in the intervening few months but remember I went to ask Yannick Sinner about what Nick Kyrgios had had to say about him in the US Open, during the US Open, in the early stages of that tournament. And Sinner dealt with it with such lightness of touch, he just brushed him off and said, he's an irrelevance.
Total irrelevance at it, you know, sort of laughed at him, which is a great approach with trolls. He wasn't laughing today. And I don't blame him. You know, I don't think there's anybody that is totally impervious to... to trolling no matter how irrelevant and ridiculous your logical brain is telling you that that trolling is like I think you know
We're all online people to an extent, and I don't think anybody is completely immune. But it was a very different answer today. It was. It was an answer that gave the impression that it...
It had kind of bothered him in a way that, in New York, he was just so sort of dismissive and almost just laughed it off, whereas there was something in his voice that suggested it had slightly... got to him I think with Sinner it's going to be one of those things where like there's going to be a sort of confirmation bias at the end of the tournament like if he wins it we'll go
Well, of course. We've seen the brilliant tennis he's played over the last year when he's had all of these things in his life and he's had all sorts of uncertainty in question mark. We know how good he is at dealing with all of that and still playing his best tennis. but if he doesn't win it or in particular if he sort of loses early and is a shock loss we'll go well of course like nobody can kind of
not even someone as great as Yannick Sinner can kind of deal with all of what he's had to deal with over the last six months, nine months, whatever it is. It's going to catch up with him eventually and the uncertainty of the Cavs' appeal in particular weighing heavily on him. So I know that feels like a bit of a massive cop-out of how I read his press conference, but that is kind of how I ended up coming out of it. I wasn't concerned about him because we've seen him deal with it so well.
But if it does catch up with him and he does drop in performance, then I don't suppose I'll be that surprised either. But I'm not expecting that. I am expecting him to be brilliant at this tournament because he's... because he's brilliant I can't believe you've given that whole answer which is great by the way but without mentioning that he's got Nicholas Jarry in the first round which has appeal or not surely tricky in the eyes of Matt Roberts
You see, this is the thing. In the eyes of Matt Roberts a couple of years ago, my Nicholas Jarry takes have followed me around when... They do that when you have a podcast. They do. They really, really do. I'm now setting the record straight. You don't think Nicholas Jarry is good anymore? It's a foregone conclusion. I don't think he's going to beat Yannick Sinner in one of the Australian Open. He took a set off him in Beijing last year.
And he's been having sort of health issues for a little while. Jerry, he's been struggling with vertigo. He hasn't been himself, really. I think that's a...
Big, big reason as to why his tennis has declined. His results aren't as good. He lost in the first round of every single slam last year. I think a couple of years ago, that big game... coming forward a confident Nicholas Jarry that would have been a tough first round but also you might not have faced him in the first round because he would have been higher in the rankings and he would have been you know not
not up against the number one seed in the first round so right now like on paper maybe it looks a little bit tricky because we all have the memories of what Nicholas Jarry can do Do we? I'm not sure I've got that many. That was a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
But I don't think it'll be too hard. In terms of who Yannick Sinner would be scheduled to play in the semi-finals, so looking at the second quarter of the men's draw, I'm going to call this, I know Daniel Medvedev, last year's finalist, is in it. But I'm going to call this the Taylor Fritz section. It's his section according to seeding. He's the fourth seed of Islam for the first time. And it's his section according to... Recent history. Recent history and...
His vibe and attitude and mentality. Taking your press conference influencing you sort of approach. I mean, because I very much agree with you, the way Fritz handled Medvedev at the end of last year when they played each other at the Tour Finals, I mean, that was really, that was the first time I really thought that. You know, it's not only that he's had a good year, Fritz, but he's actually handling it.
himself like a top player who's only bothered by three people in the world um but i didn't go to the the medford press conference you came out and you you you seemed quite taken aback by stuff he was saying well Some context to Daniel Medvedev's press conference, which many of you will know. Just going back sort of a few days, there was a bit of an online mystery.
about the whereabouts of Daniel Medvedev because, you know, he hasn't played a warm-up event for this tournament for a while, but he usually comes to Melbourne early and acclimatises and practices and all the rest of it. He hadn't been seen. He wasn't... evident evidently wasn't in melbourne hadn't been heard from nobody knew his whereabouts then up he pops on social media posting a picture revealing that
He and his wife have just welcomed their second child into the family. The photo that he posted, incidentally, is incredibly funny because it sort of makes it look like he has birthed the child. I don't know if any of you... you've seen this but he is on the hospital bed Cradling the baby. Good work, Daniel. And his older daughter, I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, the new baby, but his older daughter is there on the bed next to him. No sign of any adult females.
that might have given birth to this child. So Daniel Medvedev aiming to become the first person to give birth and win a Grand Slam in a three-week period. But he revealed today that he... The baby arrived and he boarded a plane to Australia the next day. And I think that day was two days ago. He said he arrived about 24 hours ago.
come to you on Friday evening. And I was thinking, oh, crikey, you know, let's write Daniil off for this tournament. And then he says, I've had one of the best preseasons I've ever had. And he kind of... Was that song in cheek or not? I didn't think so. He really talked himself up. He did. He gave one line about how he recognises that he's dropped in terms of like... how he's doing against the very best players in the world. He says he needs to do something different against them this year.
very aware of his poor record recently against the likes of Sinner and Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic. But yeah, he did seem confident. It was quite funny, he was asked about any potential hostility in the locker room with regards to the kind of stuff that Kyrgios has been tweeting about Sinner.
And he said, I only just got here, and everyone, when they see me, is congratulating me. So I'm definitely the wrong person to ask. He just did seem... He was alive, wasn't he? Yeah, he was. As he always is in... in press conferences. Yeah. But personally, I think it's the Taylor Fritz section. There's Andre Rublev in there, but P.S. he's facing Gerald Fonseca. who is flying. A young chap with an incredibly explosive and exciting game who's won this next-gen finals. He's qualified with ease.
That is a blockbuster of a first round, isn't it, on paper? Yeah, and there's a few of those in here. I mean, Taylor Fritz, incidentally, has got... Jenson Brooksby in round one, who's coming back from the band that he served for missing doping tests, wasn't it? You've got Monfils against Mpeche-Péricard. That's a first round. Then right below them in the draw, Shelton against Nakashima. That's the first round. And then in this section, you've also got Musetti-Arnaldi.
as a first round. Now I'm not saying any of those names are contenders for this title but it's a loaded section in terms of kind of first week. Big names. Do you know Ben Shelton was one of the players I got to sort of loiter around in the interview area as I like to do. David has found a new area. It was great fun. Basically, this is just an area that for players that aren't sufficiently asked for to go into the main interview room, they just get put in this sort of...
outdoor space. It's lovely, actually. Is it your favourite area so far? There aren't many ways that I would diss Roland Garros, but certainly this exceeds the Roland Garros interview area, which is all indoors. and it's all a bit too close for comfort with all the players being interviewed and bleeding into the next door neighbour's interview. But here it's very spacious and we sat with Ben Shelton and he was saying that he'd been...
practicing with Jenson Brooksby recently and what a nightmare he is to play against and how he kind of hopes that he doesn't have to play him anytime soon because of his ability to just hit passing shots from anywhere. I would have thought that... I mean, Fritz is so locked in and Brooksby's just been off the scene for so long. And I would have thought...
the baseline game will get the job done. But it was quite noticeable the way Shelton was talking him up. In terms of matches that I'll be kind of making an effort to go and... see in the first round. A lot of them are in this section. Yeah, Rublev Fonseca. You've got Poparin in here as well. You've got Shapovalov Bautista Agu, if that tastes your fancy. Sonagova Rinka. There's a lot of fun in there. But yeah, Medvedev against Fritz is the scheduled quarterfinal in that section.
Looking down to the bottom half of the draw, obviously Alexander Zverev is the second seed, he's at the very bottom. We'll talk about that bottom quarter in a moment, but talking first about the third quarter. The scheduled quarterfinal here is Alcaraz against Djokovic. This is it. This is the blockbuster. This is where so much of the intrigue is, David. Yeah, I mean, because... Djokovic-Alkraz would be a sort of stop-what-you're-doing match.
Anyway, wouldn't it? That has been one of the great developments over the last couple of years. Think of their Wimbledon finals. Think of the Olympic final. That was the match of the year last year. desperate to see them play each other as many times as possible before Djokovic eventually calls it a day. And in the fact that he's now coached by Andy Murray.
And we've never seen it before. And we can finally confirm that because we've seen it with our own eyes. Yes, we have seen Andy Murray on the same side of the court as Novak Djokovic giving him pointers and receiving feedback. And crossing his arm and nodding.
doing a great impersonation of a coach. He was great at feeding the ball. There was a moment when he was hitting with Jack Draper, the session that we saw, and there was a moment when Draper went for a... a sit down and a chat with his coach James Trotman and Murray just couldn't help himself could he got up on the baseline and started hitting You know, we've got to speak to Andy Murray as a media for the first time since he...
decided to work with Djokovic find out how it all came about and you know he said he was on the golf course at the time surprise surprise and he said honestly Coaching at the moment was the last thing I thought I wanted to be doing. And he was clearly really taken aback when Djokovic messaged him and called him and asked him whether he would consider... coming and being part of this team. And he said he spoke to his wife, who was very supportive, Kim, of him doing it. And I think it...
It was very clear it was this or nothing at this stage in his life. But even now, he's not sure whether he'll like it. after the event but he has to try he has to give it a go and he's clearly just been really taken by the whole process he's such a curious person he wants to find out about things and he's learning on the job they spent
Djokovic was saying, what, eight days together in the last couple of weeks and kind of getting to know each other. Djokovic, as we sort of predicted, is buzzing about the fact that he's getting to hang out with Andy Murray and finally get to know him. know him and ask him all the questions because they've been spending years and years sort of hiding things from each other because they've been rivals. But yeah, you think about the idea of quarterfinals day.
Novak Djokovic with Andy Murray in his corner, trying to beat Carlos Alcaraz. This is a man that Andy Murray has named as the player he most loves to watch, that he's most excited about watching, is Carlos Alcaraz. And he's... really always wanted him in. I know he played him, didn't he, in the last couple of years, but he'll be desperate on the biggest stage of all to have the chance to influence a match between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcraz, and we just want to see it.
And he will very literally be in Novak Djokovic's corner. Because the coaching boxes this year at the Australian Open are on the court. They are court level, just to the side. And Djokovic told us he's into it. He said he's a big fan. He really likes it. I think it's a good move. It's a bit like the United Cup thing, isn't it? Right. They're kind of in that position, in danger of an Mpeshi Parikhail serve. They're that close. And I think for viewers on TV, that will be fantastic because...
obviously you've got on-court coaching allowable now, but frustratingly a lot of it isn't audible. But I think this will make it.
The dialogue between player and coach will be far more detectable to the on-court mics. It's like having a boxing corner team, really. Yeah, I think it's going to be better for... viewers at home and also I think for the players you know they'll be able to actually have conversations with their team in a way that in the you know on those big show courts the coaching boxes are just awkwardly far away you know you're having to strain
Maybe you're having to use hand signals. Well, Goran Ibnicevic said that they'd agreed as a team that the Italian fitness guy that... used to be as part of the team, would deliver all the messages to Djokovic because he'd got the loudest voice. Right. That's exactly. Which totally indicates what a retrofitted situation that all was.
If on-court coaching had always existed as a feature, then everything would have been designed differently to start with. You wouldn't have the coaching boxes in that awkward a position, would you? So, yeah, look, I think it actually increases the role of... of the coach in a way so it would be a big big sort of test for Andy Murray if Djokovic is up against Alcaraz but then kind of Medvedev again kind of nailed it I thought where he was like Nematyokovic is so good.
that if he ends up winning this tournament, we won't know whether it's down to Andy Murray or whether it's just because of how good Novak Djokovic is. And I think that's kind of where I come down on all this. Obviously, I'm so into Andy Murray coaching Novak Djokovic just as something to... observe and something to talk about and be interested in but I don't know whether my excitement about it is is actually overblowing the impact that it might actually have like I think more important things
about where this title goes are the form of Carlos Alcaraz and Yannick Sinner, the question mark over whether Novak Djokovic now... now has an advantage over best of five or a disadvantage. You know, for so long it was a huge plus for him that he... knew how to navigate best of five set matches, it now feels like that's working against him, given how much older he is when he comes up against certainly Alcaraz and maybe also Sinnoh, given what we saw here a year ago.
But then Andy Murray, just by coming on board, has re-motivated Novak Djokovic. Andy Murray might have done his job already. By being here with him, he has energised Novak Djokovic and Djokovic is ready to go. against those young guys. It is all tantalising. It was interesting that Murray was asked whether he's enjoying this role, whether he's enjoyed it thus far, whether he's having fun. And he was...
He was kind of like, no, but I'm not supposed to be. Like, it shouldn't be fun. Top players don't enjoy it. Novak Djokovic he was like he said I've seen players have fun and they're not at the top yeah he said that there are there are players that it'd be fun to coach but they're not very good or they're not fulfilling their potential pretty much Which was an interesting insight. And I do wonder, I think he's going to really enjoy the very fundamentals of coaching.
I think we all know Andy Murray well enough to know that he's going to love that, isn't he? Like he's doing that in his head at home anyway, isn't he? I do just wonder about all the kind of the accoutrement. coaching Novak Djokovic. Last night there was the seemingly now annual Novak and Friends event. One of the exhibition evenings they put on here in the lead-up week.
And Andy Murray was out there doing a Q&A with an MC in the middle of the court with Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev. And then he took part in a sort of... hit and giggle exhibition doubles type situation and maybe maybe he is into all of that and you know he did a great job he did did exactly what was what was expected and asked of him he seemed to be having an okay time but
I don't know. I don't think that's what he's in it for. And I do wonder if that'll wear a bit thin. Well, he did the... the favour to the media of speaking to everybody because obviously we're all fascinated by it and it was very clear as politely as possible.
I'm doing 10 minutes and that's it for the tournament because basically this isn't about me. He doesn't want to be doing what he used to do, speaking to everybody after every match. He wasn't signing autographs as he left the court. And again, he's not snubbing. tennis fans that's not him at all I think he he's very aware of it's a different role in his eyes and yeah the star's the guy on the court in terms of the
The Djokovic pass conference, obviously, questions about Andy Murray were abundant and about his motivation, as you'd expect. And then there was a moment at the end where things took a... a total turn in terms of tone and topic and a GQ article interview that Djokovic has done and came out online yesterday I think and hasn't yet been been published in
in print but but will be will be out soon um and look it it's an incredibly long read there's an awful lot in there quite a lot of controversial stuff in there you know this Yeah, he's taking some swings. But one of the kind of accusations he makes or things he suggests is that he was poisoned. I don't know whether... He's suggesting it was intentional, but he uses the word...
poisoning, about what he was kind of forced to consume during his period in detention here in Australia before he was deported three years ago. He said he had a load of... blood tests when he returned home and they revealed high levels of heavy metals in his in his blood and that that could only have been down to poisoning from what he had to consume while he was in that detention hotel and it was a
tense moment in that press conference room david yeah because the press conference basically had finished and the person asking the questions i didn't know her but she was a news journalist or That was my take. An Australian one. An Australian news journalist there to ask that specific question and I think tried to put a hand up a few times and just didn't get called upon. But when the press conference was called to a close... She asked it anyway. And she...
There were attempts made by the moderator of the press conference to wrap the thing up and say, no, no, we've finished. And she asked it again and again. And Novak, as he's leaving, said, no, it's OK, I'll answer it. And she put it to him about this accusation, and he answered in a measured way to say, effectively, look, you know, it's in the article what I said, and I'll refer you to that. and then moved on. But, yeah, that was...
It happens from time to time in tennis. Usually you get sports journalists only at these things, really. Obviously... what was it, three years ago when he was deported, the whole sport was taken over by that story, and in fact it was one of the biggest stories in the news at the time, anywhere, and I'm not talking about the sports news.
But it's pretty rare and I was taken aback when, because I hadn't even read the article by the time she stood up and quickly had a read of it and was taken aback by what he'd said.
Not just on that, on a number of topics. He's not holding back. No, no, he was speaking in depth about the Balkans' history, the war, the... what led to it what what the future of the of the region should be in his view and hopes to be and and yet i mean he he went in a heck of a lot more detail than i would have expected him to be going into
publicly at all, let alone on the eve of a Grandstand tournament. It's interesting, isn't it? There's a definite PR push from Novak Djokovic here and has been since that deportation. The Australian Open is what he will be most closely associated with. They've wanted to make it up to him. They've wanted to make it up to him and he's been wanting to repair his relationship with this.
country and with this tournament you know Novak and Friends the now annual exhibition event is a clear example of that I think and I think you know he won't win everybody over but I think he has done some some work in terms of his PR in this country and then
And then he does that interview, and that indicates kind of a different approach to PR, which is, I don't care who I piss off or what people think of me, this is how I feel about things, and so be it. It read to me, really, that he didn't see the problem of it coming. Because the way he talks in the interview is that he's put all that deportation stuff behind him and he's fine with it.
He hasn't got a chip on his shoulder towards Australia. He loves the country. He says that repeatedly. And then he drops this information in, to me, not seeming to realise that, geez, that's a massive story, Novak. Well he knows now. Poisoning's a big word. It's a big word. I mean, maybe he meant contamination or something. I don't know, but that's the word he used. Contamination's a big word in tennis at the moment as well. His English is very, very good. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Just finally on this section, he's got Nishesh Basavaredi in the opening round as Novak Djokovic, who is a talent for the future, I believe. It's probably too soon for him, I would have thought, to be. to be challenging Novak Djokovic, but I'm interested... to watch that match. Basav Reddy's in the semi-finals in Auckland, I think, as we speak. You've got Radia Pelka in there, a potential third-round opponent of Novak Djokovic. You've got David...
Thomas the Hatch. Yeah, I mean, just on a draw level, that is fascinating. I mean, Pelk has been feeling it physically the last few days, so I think there have to be question marks over whether he's going to be able to... really be able to apply himself over the next few days having not played the sport for such a long time and Thomas Mahatch the last time we saw him was playing lights out tennis against Taylor Fritz and actually looking like one of the three best players in the world that
cause Fritz problems, and then suddenly he retired in the match when he'd failed to convert one of his match points. Now, I got a chance today in the interview area to spend quite a long time with Thomas Mahatch. and ask him all about it and and i was so taken by how forthcoming he was and how troubled he was by that that match and the way it had gone because he was so excited by his form
And he was so dispirited by the way his body gave out and he ended up losing or he ended up walking off the court. And I mean... I didn't realise quite how unwell he'd been in the off-season. He said I'd been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks and really wasn't expecting to be able to play.
in a decent manner at the United Cup at all and yet and he went there and suddenly he found form and he's beating people good players quite easily and then putting that performance up against Fritz and he said it took me It took me the next two days. It's all I could think about. He said it was the most disappointed I've ever been after a tennis match. But he's a really interesting guy. He's a deep... deeply thinking, thoughtful guy who's...
rates himself, not in a cocky way, but there's a serious belief about him. And there's a desire to make the most of it. And yet I get the sense he's battling demons inside his head. And there's a lot for him to try to conquer if he's going to get his potential out. But he's aware of that potential. It's a really interesting bloke. And folks, if you like the sound of the products of David's loitering.
And you should. And you should. And you are a friend of the tennis podcast or are looking for a reason to become a friend of the tennis podcast. We have decided to make the interviews that David did today in the area available. We're going to put them together as a Friends bonus show. All of them dropped in one big bomb. And I, for one, can't wait to hear it. David's sort of told us a few of the headlines from these interviews. You spoke to...
Hubert Hercats. Hubert Hercats. I spent a good few minutes with him talking all about Ivan Lendl and Nicholas Massoud, his coaching team. He's another one that you got the sense of his own ambition. out of that conversation I mean I think you do about the appointments in general really with Lendl but he talked me through why he made the decision how it came about what he hopes to get out of it and you know he seems quite
Not as bullish as Mahatch, but sort of hopeful, but more sort of long-term hopeful. I don't think you can come into this Australian Open thinking, OK, Hubert Hercatch is being coached by these guys. it's going to be a click of the fingers. He's investing for the long run. So I spoke to him. I had a chat with Yelena Ostapenko, which was fun. We got into the subject of electronic line calling. Hello.
forward to that um we also talked um i i and then there was a there was a 40 minute spell well one after another ben shelton francis tiafo and then my my man Artifees came and sat alongside me and had a chat. Yeah, it's all in there. Well, Art of Feast, David, is one of the names in the bottom quarter of the draw, the Alexander Zverev quarter. Kaspar Rude is the seed that he would be scheduled to meet.
in that quarterfinal. You've got an Auger Aliasim in there and you've got a Tommy Paul and an Ugo Humbert in there as well. What do we think of this section, Matt? Well, I think a lot of it depends on Alexander Zverev's fitness, to be quite honest. I think, you know, we saw him...
struggle at the United Cup and not play his second match there with a bicep strain, I believe it was. He played over 90 matches last year, Zverev. That is way more than the other players at the top of the sport you know that he did put a lot more strain on his body and I know he has shown incredible endurance in the past and you know I know that he really backs himself in terms of physicality in long matches. But maybe some of that from last year is starting to take a toll.
But I think if he's at his best, he's shown himself to be very good at coming through draws like this. There aren't really, really dangerous names in his section. Personally, I don't think. You could say Umber, who has got a win over Zverev, but Zverev absolutely crushed him in that Paris final not that long ago.
There's also Art of Feast, as you mentioned, but Art of Feast has got a poor record against Hugo and Bear. So will Feast get through to face Zverev, you could say. There's Tommy Paul, who again has got wins over Zverev, but not... not best of five at slams, where Zverev has kind of shown a level that Tommy Paul hasn't in the past on a more consistent basis. So I think this is Zverev's section, but there is that question mark over...
over his health and one or two little threats if they can really, really get it going. David, I don't know whether this was... I'm in front of a live audience and I need to have big takes, but... You declared last night that you think Tommy Paul is taking Zverevail. I do. I'm really taken by the record of 2-0. Now, they're not that recent. They're 2020 and 2022. I think both players have improved since then. But I just think that the unknowns about the Zverev arm...
That hasn't come from nowhere. I mean, it may well have been precautionary. But if they play each other, it's going to be a good few matches into this tournament. And who knows how that arm's going to be holding up. I just think that... Paul is due a big win. A bit Taylor Fritz-like. And I think he can maybe do to Zverev what Fritz has done. if they end up meeting. So, yeah, I'm going for Paul. I think he'd be very motivated by seeing Fritz's number four seed.
Yeah. Tommy Paul. I think you'd be encouraged by being Fritz that's beaten him. I think they do watch each other. I think we can underrate Fritz, though. Like, in terms of that comparison. Like, Fritz is... He's so much more reliable than Paul. He's prepared to go...
Backhand to backhand with Zverev in a way that I don't think Paul is. I think Paul's flashier. Paul will want to pull the trigger, you know, in a way that I think... I think that's dangerous too, though, for Zverev. Potentially, but I think... But Fritz has got that blend, hasn't he? He's got enough power. He can do that. But he's also got the steadiness and he's got the grit about it. I don't know if... I just don't know if Paul's got that grit in best of five against... that Fritz has.
Paul's just lost to Felix Orgele Asim in Adelaide. But maybe steadying himself for a run at the Australian Open. He's got enough out of Adelaide. Well, Felix Orgele Asim in that same quarter of the draw. Interesting. And not at all being talked about. Whereabouts in that section of the draw? He would be a quarterfinal opponent of Zverev. He'd be a...
third round opponent for Kasper Rude? No. Yes, he'd be a third round opponent for Kasper Rude, according to seeding. In that little section, you've also got Jakub Mensik. which is somebody we've been talking about for a while. No other particularly troublesome names I would have thought. I would expect that Auger Liasim rude match to happen, I think. Mensik.
question mark aside so yeah and then it'd be a fourth round with tommy paul um and then most likely zverev uh in the quarterfinals thing is your seem to be totally writing off Art of Feast, David. Right, that's it for the Men's Draw. Join us in part two when we'll talk about the women's. Ready for a career change? One way you can truly be yourself, gain valuable training and shine with your customer service skills? Then listen up.
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Welcome back to part two of the tennis podcast, your first of 17 daily tennis podcasts from the 2025 Australian Open. We turn our attention now to the women's draw in the top seed, Irina Sabalenka, aiming for the... the Melbourne three-peat. I'm not sure there's anyone on the planet that is loving their life as much as Irina Sabalenka right now. Yeah, she's very comfortable in her...
two-time champion's skin, isn't she? And I mean, that's actually something that she answered to you, I think, Catherine, about the position of being sort of... the player with the target on the back. She said, I love having that on my back. Who says that? Nobody does. I saw this just little Instagram. video that she and Anna Kalinskaya did as part of a shoot they did for Harper's Bazaar.
magazine and there was a little segment of it where they were talking about they were asked like whether they'd swap lives with anybody and Irina Sabalenka was like almost offended by the question like People should be swapping lives with me.
being me is fantastic um and like i guess you can look at her and think yeah she's the world number one she's a multi-millionaire she's traveling the world for a living like Of course life is fantastic and she wouldn't want to swap with anybody, but I don't think the majority of tennis players feel that.
way they might kind of say it but do they really exude the happiness and comfort in their skin and you know taking up space in the world in the way that Irina Sabalenka does no they don't and a lot of them really far from it I do think she really stands out to me in that regard her personality and this is what she said in her answer to me totally suits being the
chasey rather than the chaser and I think that's perhaps not unusual but it's absolutely not a given for world number ones you know the old adage is it's It's one thing to get there and it's another thing to stay there. Once you're there, that's when it gets hard. But it really seems to me that this is when it's got easier.
for Sabalenka that's where she feels like she should be and that's where she feels comfortable she said that's what motivates me like preventing the others from catching up with me and nipping at my heels And it'd be interesting to see if that, like, has an effect on her tennis and, like, makes her even better. Because, like, she's been blooming good as a chaser. Right? I said that weirdly. As a chaser. But, like...
If she's now so comfortable in this position, how much better can she get? I think looking at her draw, what's interesting is that... in her quarter have actually landed two of the... Two of the big names that, like, outside of Sabalenka, Svyontek, and Goff, who I think most people would agree are the three main favourites for this tournament, two of, like, the next tier have fallen in her quarter, in Jungshin Wen, last year's final. and one of the...
best players in the second half of last season, and Mirandrevo in terms of up-and-coming, you know, a real threat to the top players. But those are great match-ups for Rina Sabalenka. You know, they are not necessarily her biggest threats. She's shown that in the way that she's dominated those rivalries when she's been fit and healthy. So actually, I really like this draw for Rina Sabalenka up until...
you know, the semifinals where it's probably Coco Gough if everything goes according to form and seeding. But I think in those first few rounds, I really, really like this draw for Sabalenka. Obviously, Stephens in the first round is like... a big name and a player who we know in the past has produced greatness but
Just lost to Anne Lee, I think, and hasn't been playing well for a number of months now. Doesn't seem all that motivated, to be quite honest. It's obviously one of two or three women's matches that... that have been at night at Roland Garros that Amélie Maresmo et al have deemed worthy of that night session so like on paper it's a big first round match but I'm not sure the reality is quite that it might be one of those where you think wow what a
what a stark contrast between like remember how good Sam Stevens used to be and now Now it's this against Arina Sabalenka. I could feel that match going that way. It's just so hard to see any way that Arina Sabalenka doesn't come through this quarter. I mean... Exactly as Matt says. I mean, the only other name I'd throw into the mix is Diana Schneider because she's both obviously extremely good and on the rise.
but also still a bit of an unknown quantity. And has that bit of chutzpah that makes her think that she's going to win against Sabalink. And look, obviously every player needs to think that. but it's a bit of a difference between genuinely thinking it and hoping for the best. I also noticed just on Jung Chin Wen quickly, I'd had heard rumours that perhaps she was...
suffering a bit with an arm injury, elbow injury, something that was preventing her from serving too much in practice in the off-season. She played an exhibition. match yesterday evening here, but she was wearing a sleeve. Now, that could just be because sleeves are really in fashion. Are they? And obviously, you know, Alcaraz won a slam last year in a sleeve and Djokovic won an Olympic gold in a knee sleeve.
They're all the rage, but Jung Chin-wen's never worn a sleeve before and she was wearing one yesterday. I was really struck, I didn't go to a press conference, but just reading her transcript, I was really struck by how ambitious she is, which I love. I love it. She's saying, I'm the boss of my team.
And I'm constantly telling them that our training sessions are, you know, I need to work more on my backhand down the line. And, you know, I'm constantly sort of pushing them to push me. And obviously there's a balance to get there, you know, like. You can probably work yourself into the ground, but at the moment it feels like she just wants to rinse everything out of her game. She talked about last year's final in terms of...
obviously good memories of the run, but she said she has pity and sadness when she thinks about her performance in the final. She said she ruined her chance, which I thought was quite a strong amount. turn of phrase like that wasn't wasn't my read on the match I just thought she was outplayed by a better player but again I think it shows her ambition like you know she is she's not content with just being a grandstand finalist she's got big big
you know, plans in this sport. And yes, it might not be at this slam because of that little worry with the injury and the fact that Pere Reba is not here as well. It's always just a bit disruptive when your coach isn't with you. But yeah, I really think she's aiming high in this year and in this sport generally. I love that. Really love to hear that. And I do hope she is fit.
for this tournament. Looking at the second quarter, so the player that would be scheduled to face Serena Sabalenka in the semi-finals, that is Coco Gough. The third seed, her scheduled quarterfinal opponent would be Jessica Bagula, the seventh seed, who's still going in Adelaide, isn't she? So she'll be coming in here, you know. walking that fine line of great prep, potentially having won a title, lots of matches and lots of winning, but also, like, boom, straight into a grand slam.
Now, Coco Goff's first round is, I don't know, it's a little bit like Sabalenka against Stevens. It's a match that we should be so hyped about. There should have been an ooh-la-la when these names came out of the draw next to one another. And maybe it will turn out to be a barnstorm. You know, on paper, you've got Coco Goth.
the informed player or one of two informed players against a fellow American, a former champion here and somebody that has beaten her in the first round of a Grand Slam in... pretty recent history like that's all the ingredients and yet I don't quite feel that way about this match in this draw because I just think Coco Goff is a totally different proposition now. Yeah, I'm still interested in it because it is only 18 months since Kennan knocked Goff out of Wimbledon.
in the first round, shortly before Goff went on that sort of Brad Gilbert-inspired run, if you like, or assisted run to the US Open and several other wins along the way. But she's so different now. And I think both of them are different. I think Kennan hasn't really shown much of late. But Goff is...
If Sabalenka is the most convincing player in the draw, well, Goff is the second most. And it's close. Because, I mean, she doesn't have the two titles under her name. I still make Sabalenka the favourite for this title. I mean, I asked Coco Gauff in the press conference whether she's ever felt this comfortable and secure in her own game as she does right now. Bear in mind she's won the US Open.
And she was pretty emphatic. This is it. This is the best I've ever felt on a tennis court coming into a grand slam tournament. She said, I didn't play this well when I was... when I was winning the US Open, a testament to kind of getting through it. Totally different feel to her at the moment, Matt, don't you think that? Oh, massively. And I also thought it was interesting when...
When asked about her new coaching team with Matt Daly, I mean, it's not that new now. They've been together for a few months, but she was kind of asked about... what they've brought to her and her game and you know she mentioned obviously all the work they've done on the serve but she also said they've just instilled confidence and it's just nice to have people who are like constantly giving you positive feedback and look I think
I think the Brad Gilbert partnership was obviously extremely, extremely successful to begin with, and she got out of that. what she wanted and she won a major title with him. I'm sure she'll be eternally grateful for his help. But by the end there, there was quite a negative on court. presence you know in terms of the vibe between her and the box and it just felt like it needed a change and I think you know that's really really positive I think that
that they've just brought those good vibes to her again and allowed all those technical parts of her game to improve and actually flourish. And we're now seeing a player, what we certainly did at the United Cup, who doesn't look to have... the big weaknesses and has all of the strengths that Coco Goff has and it makes for quite a player and yeah I agree with you I'm
I'm giving the edge to Sabalenka because of what we've seen her do here. But I tell you what, a goth Sabalenka semi-final would be incredible. And we were excited about that last year and it was a great match. I'd be even more pumped this year. Yeah, Goff wasn't playing like this at all a year ago. She made a good match of it. She used her movement.
pushed Sabalenka, but this has to feel that it could be just a blockbuster showdown. The sort of match that you end up thinking feels like the final. Other players in this quarter of the draw, Leila Fernandez, Karolina Mukova, that we kind of should be picking out as a challenge. But again, it's a bit like Sabalenka's section with great players in it, but ones that she happens to have.
great records against like Goff-Mukova we've seen that match and we've seen the extent to which Goff has the the Mukova cheat codes Paola Bedosa is in there Marta Kostiuk and Yelena Ostapenko of of loitered by law or fame. Don't think that's in a bio somehow. Not to spoiler any of the content that friends are going to...
going to get glorious access to in the coming hours, but did you hear anything from Yelena today that suggested that she could be a pest in that section? She did talk a lot about just how... how injured she's been and how she hadn't played singles for a couple of months because of it but you know she started this year she's managed to get a couple of matches in she still has total confidence in her toolkit you know there's no there's no
second guessing how good she thinks she can be if it all comes together but you know I did find it quite I felt quite moved by hearing a talk about how if she maybe not won a Grand Slam quite as young as she did and as out of the blue as she did. Maybe it would have been better for her if she'd won it later. And I still think that's something she's wrestling with.
and trying to figure out the best way to sort of recreate, you know, and she has said, I tried to become too complete a player, too consistent a player, when actually I've just... Clearly got to go out there and just start smacking the living daylights out of the ball all the time. And we know it's there if the ball goes in enough. But, yeah, it doesn't often go in enough. She has got Belinda Bencic first round.
Ostapenko, which is, well, it's tricky. Back on the backhand list, Matt Bencic? Yes. Who's been ousted? Big news. Daniel Collins.
departs and Belinda Benchich, back from maternity leave, reclaims her rightful spot. She was just maternity cover. That's all she ever was to Matt. We should pick out, shouldn't we, Nomi Osaka from this section, not just her... in and of herself, which is a fascinating prospect, but obviously the fact that she is once again, for the second year in a row, drawn Caroline Garcia in the opening round.
Is there beef, Matt, between Osaka and Garcia? No. So then why was Naomi Osaka denying that there was beef in her press conference today? I guess, was there ever, I didn't realise there was ever any suggestion of beef that needed denying. She was like, oh, I expect her, I respect her too much to...
To have beef with her. Like, I can't have beef with a fellow Libran. I was like, okay. I mean, I never thought you did. I think maybe the fact that she just keeps cropping up in her life. It was light-hearted. Yes, I think so. Asaka has been on Garcia's podcast. This is what I thought. Yeah.
No, things are good. She just would really like to stop playing her. She said last year... Stop beating her. She said one of her big motivations was to get seeded at slam so that she doesn't have to face Caroline Garcia. And now... They're both unseeded and they've drawn each other in the first round. She said, I can't say we're BFFs, but I respect her. Which is usually what celebrities say when they absolutely friggin' hate someone.
But I think we can probably take her at a word. Yes. She came up with one of my favourite phrases. A great coinage from Naomi Osaka. Debatably lost. Yes, this press conference statement, I know you were busy loitering at the time, so I'll fill you in. It was a tough scene for Clara Towson, let me tell you, because in Osaka's words, she said... I debatably lost in the Auckland final. And in my head, I kind of won it.
Yeah, I did actually sneak into the back of the room for the last part of that conference. I was quite taken by how... buoyed she was by her form um and look i know that we're joking about that and maybe maybe you just see those quotes look written down and they look bad but i watched that I watched the set of that final and... She debatably lost. She debatably lost. I can absolutely back up. I think Clara Towson would as well.
The good news is the injury that caused her to have to retire from that final, it sounds she didn't totally... She didn't totally dismiss the injury as resolved, but she said, for sure I'm going to play my match. And she said she's optimistic about being fully... fully fit for it which is good to see and get the feeling she's pretty buoyed generally yeah I think
She's got a new team. She's working with Patrick Moratoglu. She clearly believes in him and is, I think, excited to have a new set-up. And I think she just... I mean, look, it didn't happen last year, did it, in her comeback year? And she's desperate, desperate for it to come. Good. And, you know, she said she was devastated when she lost that, well, debatably lost that final the other day because she said I could nearly touch it.
You know, it felt so close. And so there's no shortage of desire there for Naomi Osaka. And look, she's won this thing a couple of times. And she's played tennis that people... great players couldn't live with so she wants to find out if that's still there and and and i think she really believes it is yeah she said This time last year, when she was on the eve of playing Caroline Garcia in round one of the Australian Open, it was hopes and dreams, and this year it's reality.
Which is another great line, but nowhere close to debatably lost. Turning our attention to the bottom half of the women's draw, this third quarter may be one of the most open in terms of who will come through it to reach the semi-final, but maybe not. Maybe even saying that is committing the cardinal sin, Matt, of underestimating fourth seed Jasmine Paolini.
yes, let's call this the Paolini section, so we definitely don't underestimate her. She's just such a vibe. Like, such a nice part of my day, going to the Jasmine Paolini press conference. There was just such fun moments where she was trying to think of little idioms in English and asking the moderator for some help.
the moderator got the first one wrong and then got the second one right and it was just it was just really really like fun press conference vibes with paolini she's keeping her expectations low you know she stressed that a lot like i am
I am keeping my expectations low. She gave some... like a really interesting line I thought about kind of what everyone's been thinking like she's been thinking it as well why has this great tennis only just come now you know she says I look she says I'm looking back on when I'm when I was 23 and when I was 24 and wondering why I couldn't play like I do now. And yet she wasn't really regretful about that.
Because she knows that, you know, she kind of put it down to the fact that she's more mature now. Like, she wasn't ready then. And she is ready now. And, you know, you asked Catherine about how much her life has changed with, like, her new... a new status a new position in the sport and and and she acknowledged that it had changed but i think like kind of what i've just said there like she's ready for that now she's she's able to embrace that now um and i
I really don't think we're going to see a huge drop-off from Jasmine Paolini. I think she is this player. Look, she might not be reaching... back-to-back grandstand finals, but very few players do, even the best ones. That's a high standard that she's set. But I think she's still going to be a threat at the top of this sport, and I really hope so, because I love watching her play tennis, and I really like hearing her speak as well.
Scheduled quarterfinal opponent would be Elena Rabakina, the sixth seed, the former finalist. Doesn't feel fair, really, to ask either of you whether she's going to reach that quarterfinal because, of course, the answer is, well... Yeah, if she plays anywhere near her best, like she's that good, of course she will, and potentially a lot more, but she's just too much of an unknown quantity right at this moment to...
to predict that confidently. So who on earth knows? Looking at the bottom quarter of the draw, this is the Sviontek quarter. Scheduled quarterfinal opponent would be Emma Navarro. She's got a tough first round. Navarro against Peyton Stearns. Ons Jabir is in Navarro's section. Maria Zachary, Daria Kazakina as well. So that feels like a...
fairly open section, but in terms of Iga Sviantek, she's got Katerina Siniarkova in the opening round and Matt, her press conference was chaotic today. Really chaotic. You know...
Something she said at the back end of last year was kind of like she's pleased that she's been able to put the doping case behind her. And I remember at the time thinking... on the one hand yes but on the other like you're going to have to face questions about this and it becomes a whole new animal when the world knows about about it and that's kind of what
what she found today you know she was asked a lot about it not in a you know not in a really pushy aggressive way from journalists but you know natural naturally there was a lot of It was a lot of these journalists' first time probably to speak to Igor Sviantek since the news. And she was just very flustered, really.
very, very different to that first Yannick Sinner press conference at the US Open where he spoke about it to the world and he had all of his facts and ducks in a row and he was very measured. And John Tech sort of started off like that, but then suddenly realised that she'd got a little bit of the timeline wrong, and it just sort of threw her off, and it became a press conference where she was just a...
a little bit all over the place answering these questions. She was just giving the impression that she didn't want to say the wrong thing. Yeah, it was interesting because she wasn't... defensive or indignant about being asked. Not at all. She clearly understood that it's legitimate and normal for her to be asked.
about this and she was totally prepared to answer the questions and wanted to answer the questions it wasn't it wasn't anything like that and I was a little worried about that I think she has felt a little wary of the media in the past so I was very pleased to find her kind of open in that way it didn't feel adversarial
But what I absolutely wasn't prepared for is exactly what Matt described, like her not having her ducks in a row. Maybe she did and just like in the moment it just dropped out of her mind. It was almost like as she was... reliving it like I don't suppose she's been talking about it a lot with the people in her team I think they really have tried to move on from it and put it past them it was almost like as she was reliving it
kind of the memory of what she was describing, which, you know, in her words, the worst time in her life, abstract, chaotic, no control. I thought tennis did this to me. She was describing a really, really dark time. Struggled to even be on the practice court at the time, just didn't want to play tennis. And it was almost as though just the recounting of it.
just sort of got lodged in her brain and and just kind of threw her off and yeah I kind of felt for her actually like it was it was it was tough yeah I did too she in terms of that She did eventually clarify definitively that Wimphuset...
came on board you know the first approach was made to win for set at a point when she already knew about the the provisional suspension he was supportive at every stage that was never an issue she said and on that she also said that a lot of fellow players have been
very supportive of her backstage, and that meant a lot to her because that was clearly something that caused her a lot of anxiety. You know, she is somebody that worries about what people think of her. You know, she wears everything a lot less likely.
lightly than Irina Sabalenka does, for example. I asked her about sort of going back in the timeline to the split from Thomas Witkarowski, which obviously precipitated her bringing Mimficet on board and like... where that fitted into the the chain of events and whether it was connected at all had she been thinking of that for a while um and she was very very clear and very eager that
no pun intended, that the two events not be related or conflated in any way. Like the split from Witkorowski, she said, happened two weeks after. She received the news about the positive test, but she said they were completely unrelated. I asked her if it had been in her mind to split with Thomas Wachorowski for a long time.
or to potentially split, and she said no because the results were so good. But then she said it wasn't always easy and we couldn't continue working together. It sounds to me like there might be a story there. You know, aside from the doping and everything, it didn't feel appropriate to kind of get into it there and then. But it didn't feel like one of those, oh, I naturally ran its course, lovely, amicable parting of ways.
I don't know, I would be interested one day to try and get to the bottom of that. But, gosh, it's going to be an interesting fortnight for Igor Sviantek, isn't it? Wow. It is, and... I think what I was struck by was when she did eventually confirm that Wim Forsett came onto the team with full knowledge of everything.
and the fact that Winforset has therefore been through some pretty troubling times with Svantec already. And I think that can be pretty powerful for Svantec, to have someone in her corner who... even in a really troubling time, was standing by her. And again, not everyone deals with situations in the same way, but again, if we think back to Yannick Sinner...
How he dealt with the US Open and how he dealt with his doping case was to make his world really, really small and surround himself with a lot of people that he trusts. And it strikes me that Svantec is trying to kind of do that with Wim Forsett in a way. I think she was really...
I was just struck by the glowing terms that she talked about Wimpersetting, even though they haven't actually been together for all that long and they've not had amazing, amazing success together. It's just been a short time, but I think she really... really values the sort of personal connection that they have. and Wim Forsett's preparedness to stick by Svantec through this. And look, we saw little changes in her game at the United Cup.
not enormous ones, but little ones against players with power that they've clearly been working on. I think she's tweaked her serve a little bit again as well, has Fiontech. So I really hope that... you know, that sort of energy of the press conference doesn't translate onto the court. You know, I really, really hope that we see Igor Sviontek playing her best tennis. And if we do, then...
It's going to be a big tournament for her because she needs to run a major outside of Roland Garros, I think. Considering how good she is on the tour, her results the last two years are non-Roland Garros majors.
haven't really been good enough, to be quite honest. She sort of jokingly talked about, you know, there was a question about Sabalenka's three-peats, and the person asking the question used the word three-peat before talking about Sabalenka, and Sriyantek thought that the question was going to be about her sort of three-peat.
here of going out early. She's aware of it. It was quite a funny moment. It was a really funny moment. It was a good joke. So there's all that and then as I think David said right at the top of the show her drawers. a little bit tricky. There's names in here who you think could cause some problems pretty early on. Anisimova, potential third round meeting, or Ekaterina Alexandrova, or Emma Adekanu, who face off.
in round number one. Incidentally, Raducani came through the main room today and seemed in very good form. Total unknown quantity, hasn't played a match this year, had that back niggle, but, you know, was talking herself up. modestly talking herself up i would say and she said she's already feeling some positive effects from her work with the new fitness coach uh yutaka nakamura she said she already feels more explosive so
I think I'm backing Jean-Tec to come through that quarter. Do you remember at the US Open when I sort of flipped a bit because I...
I've kept picking Yigashvian Tech to win Grand Slams that aren't Roland Garros, and she's kept not doing so. And me, with my slightly pathetic desire to be right, got a bit... miffed about that and declared that I would never do that again until she she proved that she she was capable of actually winning one of these things well I've got her in the final I mean it is a
I do think that is a perilous draw, and with all that's going on around her, it may be way off. She may go out early, but when I picked through the draw, she ended up in the final. Losing it, but in it. Big stuff from the big loiterer. Can you tell I ad-libbed that? Okay. It doesn't reflect great on me, does it? I don't know. David's had such a... brilliantly productive day and he's been described as the big loiterer that's it for part two join us in part three for some other bits and bobs
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With opportunities to grow your career, challenge yourself and learn from the best, isn't it time that you were achieving extraordinary outcomes for our customers? Come and unleash your potential as a customer support expert at Sage. Welcome back to part three where we are still on court number three and the sun is setting over Melbourne Park. The crowds are flooded in for whatever exhibition event is currently happening on the Rod Laver Arena. I assume it involves Carlos Alcaraz.
He's been in them all. He has been in them all. With his big smile. And his new haircut. He's copied Matt Roberts. Yeah, he's got his Matt Roberts do. If you'd like to... It's a really misleading characterisation. If you'd like to see who wore it better, the haircut, then do follow us on Instagram. I think the answer is Matt Roberts. But there you go. Yeah, incidentally, Carlos Alcaraz, one of the players that is...
doing his media commitments tomorrow. So we'll be talking about him on tomorrow's show. Len Rabatkinner as well, coming to press tomorrow. Danielle Collins, a few others as well. So we will talk about that tomorrow. We'll do more preview. In particular... looking at day one the matches that we'll be watching on day one the order of players out we'll be going through that tomorrow our second daily show from the 2025 Australian Open and it will be live
and on YouTube. That will be at 8.30 local time here in Melbourne. And that is 9.30am UK time on Saturday morning. And we hope to have cameraman Matthew involved if he can wrap up his paddle session in time. And it's going to be great. We can't wait. You'll get to see Tennis Podcast Towers Melbourne 2025 edition, folks. I think people listening reckon that means Cameron Matthews is going to be on the pod. Oh. Well, in our dreams, we'd love it. We'd love it. He has takes. We will set up a mic.
David might have interviews with Hubert Hercatch Matthew has takes about Hubert Hercatch maybe David's got those too if he's not prepared to tell them to us himself we're just going to let you know what they were anyway yes yes we are so do join us live if you can 8.30 local Melbourne time tomorrow Saturday evening 9.30am UK time what better way to start your weekend folks I can put it off no longer unfortunately the time has come to reveal our fantasy tennis teams
for 2025. This is a newfangled tennis podcast venture. for this year we're operating our own fantasy tennis league for some very special friends of the tennis podcast and we had our draft this weekend and we picked our teams for the year. We all had the same budget, 20,000 ranking points. We had to pick five men, five women, no duplicates in anyone's team.
There was a random order selection in terms of who went first in the draft and who didn't get to go anywhere near first in the draft. And some of us have got fun, exciting... teams and some of us absolutely shat the bed and um i was gonna ask if yesterday's live show had made you feel better about your team
Because the crowd were more positive about it than you've been, but shat the bed has given me my answer. I think people were being kind to me because I was so crestfallen about the whole situation. There was a lot of... It's not that. Bad? No. Yeah.
It was two o'clock in the morning for me when this draft was done because I took the bullet for the participants in the various different time zones. Somebody had to be up in the middle of the night and I was prepared for that to be me. I was also hosting the draft.
draft and I like to think of myself as somebody that performs well under such pressure so my absolute shocking performance in this draft has led to a slight identity crisis on my part because look there are fans out there of Ekaterina Alexandrovich's work and I respect both her and said fans but she's not somebody i naturally sort of root for or gravitate towards and yet here she is on team whittaker for 2025 your big signing
The other mistake that I made, and I take total ownership with this, was that I was so desperate to snap up Art of Feast to annoy David that I let it derail my whole strategy for the draft. I thought you actually had a strategy. And now all of my hopes and dreams for the 2025 Fantasy League rest on Art of East, David, because I'm not sure who else is bringing home the bacon. He'll sort you out, don't you worry. Okay. How do you feel about your teams? Fantastic.
So, David, you've got Novak Djokovic, Thomas Machach, Flavio Kabali, Talon Greeksport and Thanasi Kokonakis. And on the women's side, Karolina Mukova, Emera Adekanu, Marketa Vondrosheva, Marta Kostiuk and Olga Danilevic. Yeah, I feel like I've gone...
with a lot of players with a big upside. And I think I've bought great value because I've got Novak Djokovic, the greatest male tennis player of all time on my team, and he only cost me... a fraction of what he would have cost me in previous years because I had to spend ranking points on him and he hasn't got that many at the moment so he didn't cost that much and so the potential is there.
I can really see the vision with David's team. If those players stay fit, that would be my one concern if I were David, is there's a very high injury. prone risk with that team. The Nassi Kokonakis has already pulled out of his match in there. I see. Yes. You know, Mukava, we know is cursed. Of course. Vondroshova, Raducanu, not... Not necessarily players who are known for playing week in, week out, but they've all done a lot in the past, and if it comes off again, David is going to...
Clean up. It's an annoyingly good team, I think. Matt's got Jao Fonseca, Lorenzo Musetti, Artur Cazor, Matteo Arnaldi, Francisco Cerundolo on the men's side and on the women's, Iga Sviontek, Diana Schneider, Peyton Stearns... Ava Lees and Robin Montgomery. Yeah, if you go big on Igor Svante, you need an Ava Lees and a Robin Montgomery. You're the only one who's done that. I mean, you spent what? Best part of half your budget on the one player.
I wanted to do that. They were all gone. Yes, but then, you know, so that's hopefully a banker of points on the women's side. The men's team... lacks that, I would say. I'm not thrilled about that. But there is, again, there's potential. You know, Fonseca could have a huge year compared to the points that I bought him for Mazzetti.
That's the sound, incidentally, of some tarpaulin being dragged across court number three by some, I'm going to say, underqualified-looking children. They're no Wimbledon court coverers, put it that way. They're having fun, though, by the looks of things. Yeah, they are. Sorry, Matt. I can't remember what I was saying. My team, Mazzetti, yes. I'm prepared for him not to get many points during the hardcourt season.
You factor that in. I just need to be patient and wait for the clay and the grass. So it could come together, but the crowd didn't like my team at all. No. They were quite savage about it, actually. I've got Artifis, Matteo Berrettini, Hubert Herkacz, Alex Mickelson and Yun Shaukete Bu on the men's side.
And on the women's side, I've got Mira Andreva, Lulu Sun, Anna Kalinskaya, Ekaterina Alexandreva and Danielle Collins. We'll see. Yeah, well, what I would say, you haven't got... standout players that make you definitely think oh well that's definite points but you've got a lot of really good players who've done well in the past the problem is
kind of feel like their best may be in the past and therefore you bought them for a lot of points. Which is precisely the opposite of my strategy. But anyway, I crumbled under the pressure and now I don't know who I am anymore. But apart from that, it's been a great week. Right, that is your lot on what's been a bumper day and a bumper podcast with 16 more to come, folks. Hope you like tennis. And extras from the loiterer. And extra. Well, extra.
David, how much loitering do you want to commit to? It's one and out for this tournament, but we'll see how we go in the future. Let us know if you enjoy it and you'd like David to do future loitering. We have a mascot for this episode. Hello.
to Vic. Vic is owned by Louise. Hello to Louise as well. And is a six and a half year old greyhound. An ex-racing greyhound. He's an absolute... beauty stopped racing in January 2023 so a couple of years ago and his racing name was Milhouse Vic don't know if that's a Simpsons reference
Who knows? He's lived in Coventry, in your neck of the woods, David, with Louise and her husband, Alex, for just over a year. And they can't remember what life was like before him. He enjoys snoozing, eating, running, playing with squeaky tennis balls. Not as keen on the regular ones. I think once dogs learn that squeaky tennis balls exist, it's hard to go back. He likes riding in the car with his head out of the window, chicken and stretching out on the sofa.
So being sassy and eating. Sounds like Matt in a lot of ways. All the good things. Yeah, the only thing I don't do there is... riding cars with my head out the window. Have you tried it? He doesn't like cats or going out in the rain.
Billy Jean doesn't like going out in the rain either. No, some comical pictures. So yeah, he's a fairly typical greyhound. Louise says he doesn't have much stamina, so probably wouldn't do well in the tennis court. Yeah, they're amazing greyhounds. People think that they're a very... high maintenance breed of dog because they need a lot of exercise but actually they don't they like do short sharp exercise they're sprinters not
not marathon runners. She says he'd likely chase one or two tennis balls before giving a sigh and lying down in an inconvenient spot in the sun for a snooze. He's a bit of a drama queen, so he'd always have one eye open for any aggro. Vic? You sound like my kind of guy. He's beautiful and he will be in our next newsletter and he will be all over our Instagram. So hello Vic and thank you Louise. Hello to our mascots.
lovely Phoebe Maisie for me who always helps me to glory and TBC for Matt still yes good old TBC for now we'll go with Carrie yeah we're all just Yours hasn't been born yet, right? Born, but not named. Oh, OK. Honestly, on the edge of my seat for Bernadoodle puppy photos from Carrie. It's going to be a big day when those drop.
So, yeah, hello to our mascots. Hello to our top folks, Greg, Geoff and Chris. And hello to our shout-outs who Matt will tell us about. Yes, I'm not rushing off to Fulham, so shout-outs are back. Big, big moment. How good of me. We're about to come all the way to Australia for that. We have Kai Roland Green in Denmark. Hello, Kai. Like Havertz. The Arsenal forward. Not a tennis reference, but still. And Wayne Rooney's first-born son, I believe. And Roland, like Roland Garros.
Ah, very good. And Denmark, like... Getting the first question in Nomad Djokovic's press conference. Yeah, the first question from the floor in Djokovic's press conference was about Denmark and how much Djokovic is looking forward to going there for the Davies. cup. And he rather killed the buzz because his first sentence was a big hold your horses. Let's see how this goes first shall we? Yeah. Hello Kai, do we know anything about Kai?
We do. Kai says, thank you all, including Hannah, shout out Hannah, for reawakening my love of tennis. Oh, well, that's just lovely. And Kai has read... Holger Ruhner's autobiography. Is there a review of that? Aren't there two of them? No, one's a picture book or something. Oh. Yeah. He says that he's happy to provide tidbits. Genuinely Kai. Get in touch. Yeah. Thanks, Kai. We've also got Ada Tago, who is originally from Croydon, but no.
The other way around. Originally from Hong Kong, but now lives in Croydon. Hello, Ada. Hi, Ada. Hong Kong to Croydon. What a move. That's quite something. And Ada's favourite tennis players are Naomi Osaka and Rafael Nadal. Tough 2024 for Ada. But maybe a big 2025. Well, what's Rafael Nadal up to? al-isaka yes okay yeah the chance is actually what he's up to is doing promo content for saudi arabia
That was last seen on his Instagram, which is a bit of a tough scene, but anyway. And you will both love this. Ada says, my friend and I... a friend being Isaac, are both big fans of your show. We play our own predictions game at the Slams since last year. And this year, the bet is that the loser sponsor the winner on the shout-out package.
I won the predictions for the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the Olympics and the US Open. So Isaac has got me this shout out. Depending on how things go, you may hear from Isaac next year if he can win. Ada and Isaac. I love that very much. That's fantastic. Thank you. And finally, we have Joseph Barreto. We know Joseph. We know Joseph. Joseph is going to be guest editing our Q&A show after the Australian Open. Fantastic.
He's guest edited before, hasn't he, and done a stunning job. Joseph says that he'd like to dedicate this shout out to his husband, Michael, who jokingly calls himself a tennis widower, especially during the Australian Open when I'm up all night watching.
tennis instead of sleeping and loves to say your friends David Matt and Catherine when he hears me talk about the podcast as in with all these Italian players Italy is really having a tennis renaissance would your tennis friends think of that oh we are your tennis friends we are your tennis friends yeah thank you joseph that's extremely lovely um and i just wanted to give a couple of
quick supplementary shout outs today one to lovely listener carol who got in touch with me on instagram yesterday we met carol at the london live show last year and was truly one of the loveliest people i've ever met and she's having a tough time And we were hoping to see her in Australia, but I don't think we will. But we will at future Australian Open. So hello, Carol. We are thinking of you. And the same to Pam, Pam Shriver.
A friend of ours, as listeners of the pod, will know. And Pam is a resident of Los Angeles and is safe. Her family is safe, but is obviously having an incredibly... tough and anxiety ridden time at the moment and we are thinking of you Pam and everybody in LA and surrounding areas just now it's obviously a horrific situation and Our thoughts are with you all. So, yeah. Hang in there, Pam and Carol, and hope you're able to...
Follow the Australian Open via the pods and get some pleasure and comfort from it. We're looking forward to the next couple of weeks, folks. 16 more daily pods coming your way. The next of them live tomorrow and available as... a podcast if you can't join us live but we will be live on YouTube 8.30pm Melbourne time 9.30am UK time Saturday morning thanks for listening we'll speak to you then
Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score.
Yeah, me too. Now we're talking. Transfer to Google Pixel 9 with Gemini Live today. Sequences shortened. Gemini Live available for ages 18+. Internet required. Results are illustrative. Check responses for accuracy. Feature and account compatibility limitations apply.