Melissa Errico and Patrick McEnroe: Holding Court and Centre Stage

29:10Jon McLaughlin:Well, they're seeing Alcaraz do it every three points. So they're going to do what they're seeing. So now our teaching is different. And I said to one of the kids, he went for a between-the-leg shot. And I said, do you think that was the right move? And he goes, well, probably not. And I said, well, what do you think? What was the score when you did that? He goes, well, it was three. I just broke him. It was 2-1. I said, well, maybe if you're up 4-love, 40-love. you know i said i'm not going to tell you not to do it because i don't want to tell the kids like don't ever do that because they watch on tv all the pros do it so like i can't tell the kids you know first of all they gotta have some fun it is a game so let's not get carried away here but i said maybe next time do it if you're he goes yeah if i have a big lead i could try it i said there you go i like the side of my husband i'm gonna come well well you know it's so funny but listen literally as as i was watching you gaze at him and i was like that's just like the sweetest thing It's nice, actually.

30:07We're married so long. I've known him. It's just nice to hear him speak. You should come to the tennis academy and check us out. Sometimes she forgets that. Sometimes she talks. But you know what's so funny, though, to your point? I think that's so true and beautiful, Melissa, because I think there is something about marriage that's so funny, especially when you've been married for a while. I hate to say it this way, but you sort of forget the things that your partner is really great at. because it's not like y 'all sit around and talk about that that's what you do in your normal life so you come home and you talk about new things and it is fun every now and then remember like wow

30:42Jon McLaughlin:you're really good at this you know well listen if you want to see your husband in this light some more we could set up another hour and i could just wrap this like twice a year so much cheaper therapy it's more like a little bit on your best behavior yeah yeah yeah true all these true nasty things yeah yeah so so speaking of the marriage that you guys are going to celebrate 27 years in december is that right in december so let's go back to the beginning how what what was the meet cute how did you guys meet well it depends on which meeting i mean we were little kids together we were in elementary school together holy cow what was the other one oh that was the sleeping some people call it this podcast a sleep podcast too whether we like it or not it's in our resume thing but we met um grade school we met in grade school her brother who's my age uh her we were best friends like from like second grade to eighth to elementary school i was in kindergarten when i met him she was in kindergarten i was in fourth grade and fifth grade and uh i kind of had like a crush on her with that age you know right she was in fourth grade like i was in eighth or nine meet cute wise the outside the science room like we have a weird yeah we have a memory outside by the water fountain by the science room we had like a like a moment yeah and we actually both remember the moment which is weird that's amazing school we were both like we stopped and looked each other by the water fountain in front of the science room and is this in the city yeah no this was on long island where we grew up okay yeah close to the city so we used to we went to the same school so i would go to her her house because i'd sleep you know stay with her brother we were like friends wow and then our parents became very good friends so they used to you know flip burgers together where they have soccer games and all that crap um and it only took me 20 years to run her down because it happened in our late 20s when we re-met and we re-met was um i had just had shoulder surgery so and my so my tennis career was in jeopardy i wasn't gonna be able to play for like nine months so i was home in new york by myself in my nice apartment on the upper west side and i'm like oh like what am i gonna do i mean i just literally had surgery i gotta find you know i gotta look up my friend it was quirky that apartment don't get into the apartment okay um he hated the apartment another episode decorator named harry yeah it was very it was very masculine it was masculine oh nice this guy harry harry right yeah a lot of uh but a lot of neon signs you guys will appreciate this because her brother became a her brother became a successful singer-songwriter in new york oh wow yeah so he he's now a professor of music at nyu oh that's awesome i looked up his i was going through my drawer at home and uh i see his postcard and this was before you know the internet and all that so he would send the postcard that would talk about his gigs oh yeah yeah well i'm getting to that this is my time now so then so i call the number on the card and it's like a recording hey it's mike my next gig is such and such it would happen to be the next night tomorrow night oh and i said you know what i'm gonna go down there i said because my mom, my parents were big fans of Melissa.

34:12It's went to see her anytime she did a Broadway show. And so I was off playing tennis, you know, from 22 to 28, 29. And I knew nothing about that world. So my mom would always say, you really should meet Melissa. She's really turned into, you know, quite a young lady. So what a great comment. Yeah. So I go down there thinking, okay, I'll go see mike you know i'll get out i'll go out you know go to go to go to the bar downtown and maybe i'll run into melissa and the rest is history she was actually just leaving when i was at the bar having a couple beers watching the show and then mike was her brother was you know gathering up all his equipment and stuff and um mike called me back in mike called me back and said melissa it's pat it's pat because we were best friends so we all went out i took her out for a burger at the alone at the alone like three hours later we went out for a burger the corner bistro you could still get a famous place oh i love that yeah that was where was the gig at but i'm curious if it's a spot we played it was called um it was a place where there's a cafe it was called the new music cafe i'm pretty sure it was called the new music okay it was downtown like east village like in the east village somewhere i'm gonna say okay that's right no it wasn't so then the the moment

35:25Jon McLaughlin:comes where you're like we're all hanging we've been hanging our whole life kind of but this is like the moment where i'm going to ask her out for a burger yeah we went out for a burger i think she might have asked me actually yeah and then i called her like the next day and i was living on the upper west side tatum o 'neill's car you had john and tatum's car the next day with the old porsche the old porsche yeah yeah tatum o 'neill's porsche right red porsche convertible and he pulled up in the west they were still married at the time yeah obviously still married i don't know uh i think uh no they were no i think they were no because when i won the mess up yeah well no it was yeah they were definitely not married yeah that's true you're right because it was a lot of fun you know it was like mixing worlds like i don't even know people make tennis a profession i thought it was something you i didn't even know i honestly didn't even really i had seen patrick on television because i yeah catch it you know for a glimpse but i guess i didn't really put it all together that that's it you can actually make a living doing that right it's just a game you play just a game so so buckle up because we're about to go spelunking guys okay that was that was easy now we're getting level two how is marriage what you thought and how is it not what you thought it would be we don't think about it i love that that's the secret yeah i think he's busy and i'm busy we we do our thing we do it we try to do our own thing we have our own interests which is good.

36:51We've learned a lot about what each other does, but we give each other space to do our thing. How is it? What did you think anything about marriage? Did you want to get married? I do. I want to get married to you. Hey, look at this. Look at this guy. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. I definitely, when I met her, I knew that I wanted to get married to her. And my dad said, you know, she's, you know, she's a very successful singer. I mean, are you ready for this? And, and I'm like, yeah, I think so. So it's been, uh, there's a lot of, um, ups and downs from the professional side that can carry over sometimes into the personal.

37:29And then you have three little kids, but we have the core things and yeah, we have the same similar values, I think. Cause we have the, you know, we have, we were children together. So there's like, I was going to say, there's something so beautiful about such a shared experience in y 'all's lives, which I think would be very rooting. You know, that you know each other's families, you know, siblings. I can see my mind as a child. I know what it felt like. Yes, yes. That's so great.

37:54Jon McLaughlin:You know, my wife and I, we don't go back that far, but we did go to the same high school. We didn't start dating until later. And one of my favorite things is I love that we can randomly reference like, you know, Miss Carrico's class or something. I was trying to think of some thing the other day. some, you know, medical thing. And I'm like, I'm trying to remember what did Ms. Carricko teach us? And she gets that reference, you know? Yeah. Which I love that. And you guys have that, you know, in droves. We do have amazing daughters, which I don't think we could even have expected that we would take such pleasure in three teenage girls slash women now.

38:34Like we're in the book, Little Women. Like it's like, that's a whole thing. Like the two of us were so independent. And yes, the elementary school. yes our families yes tennis yes broadway all of the things we were trying to accomplish as younger people ups and downs like he was saying but now we existing in a world in which we're the grown-ups that's really different and we have these ravishing daughters it's like i think we're kind of we're sort of a a part of a garden or something now like beautiful flowers and colors that's never even predicted you know and our parents are you know his parents have you know left and that we loved them so i loved his parents he loved his parents of course i love them to them his mother used to enter the room and say it's the dreaded mother-in-law i loved her yeah and i loved you my dad loved to sing oh yeah sing a little too much because he was an old irishman he used to drink too much and he would start singing and he thought that everybody loved to hear him sing um but he you know his dream was to sing with melissa you know because he loved he loved standards he loved you know you know a lot of the stuff that melissa grew up with and has sung her whole life um so there was that connection and her parents are still here you know getting getting up there in a's and had a little little couple issues recently so navigating that So we never would have predicted that.

40:06You can't even think that at some point you're going to be the grownups and you're going to have to help each other in a marriage to say goodbye to this. It's so awful. But I think we're going to do it well.

40:21Jon McLaughlin:So what would you say, what trait from the other person would you steal from the other person? I love that. If you could steal one quality from the other, what would you steal? Well, I mean, she's got the charisma and so on, the talent. But I would say from the standpoint of like the daily life, like her management skills, like she's she could be a director. She could be a manager. She pretty much does everything herself for, you know, a lot of the stuff for her career, you know, that she's doing kind of her own one woman show. So solopreneur. Yeah, exactly. So I think I would take that. And, you know, she does get frustrated with me at times that I don't manage, you know, the things around the family and the house and so on.

41:06So if I could take one thing, I think I've gotten a little better the last few years, but she's not buying it. So, yeah, that's part of that. Let it go thing. Yeah. Yeah. It is somewhat better.

41:20Jon McLaughlin:We're seeing you let it go in real time. Yeah. No, it's OK. It's OK. I do it. I do. i organize a lot to organize look there's not going to be as much to organize when the girls can organize themselves and i've made three super capable girls so they are rock stars and they so we're good we're good it's it is just is what it is it's just it's sort of like a wave that comes through for 20 years but that but now it's over so oh what i almost over well no but they can drive yeah i mean god so what i would take about about patrick a wonderful thing you know is um many metaphors always come to mind that are tennis related though I'm not saying I see him as a tennis metaphor but one of the things he would say you know don't well if you relax your arm the ball will go faster things like that but one of the things he used to say and I always I see it in his whole self is to wait for the ball don't go after the ball let the ball come to you he does that and he has always had this like slightly but like he's a little like he's calm and he has a good sense of himself and it it resolves a lot of conflicts it draws people to him he's great in business he's great on tv he's great in a tennis team environment um and in in a corporate environment he's great on this podcast he lets things come yeah that's a gift it's a beautiful gift and so that's um that's something that it appears passive but it's wise that is yeah very well said very well said something that i could yeah you know yeah that so so okay how old are the girls now 19 16 and 16 yeah that's right so one is just finished her first year of college and the other two where is she what college uh she's at duke oh that's great that's a little bit of a hike uh yeah it's just a quick flight that's for that's not that's it tennis the ad travel the world i was gonna say that's nothing you ready that's true yeah that's only an eight eight hour drive and an hour and 15 minute flight yeah that's great that's great she loves it there she loves that great that's got to feel so good to know that she's somewhere she's like girls have hair down to their waist it's just like there's something about that they're just like their dad girls with this long hair and yeah and they each have you she's interested in uh world finance and math she's a heavy you know this is a random question but i'm so curious and you you guys can answer this because because you did this but i would be it would be so fun to talk to them about what growing up in the city and then going somewhere else to be for a while is like you know because every time i go to new york i can't help but feeling like this is such a specific upbringing everything you know i mean like you grew up in a lot of other towns or cities you know that there's a lot of things that sort of cross over and it's not that that wouldn't happen in the city but it's such a specific thing you know it's like and i want with them it'd be that'd be a fun thing to ask i think they have the best of both worlds because now we are only 10 miles outside the city yeah but they go in the dancers go in six days a week and they were you know one is sort of in a modern dance world a kind of alvin ailey style um they're they're pretty hip new yorkers and they always felt like new yorkers yeah they like the diversity of the city they like um having to kind of you know kick ass and wear an adidas pants and stuff And they also have the beauty and the safety of a town where they can.

44:59Yeah, that's right. We lived in the city until they were, the oldest was in fifth grade and the twins went through second grade. So they had the experience of those early years of actually being in the city. And then we. Playing in the parks. Yeah. Yeah. And then we moved out to the Burbs, which has been great. The girls love it. We're close to the city so we can get back and forth easily. And the girls, like I was driving her mom home last night after she came up, had dinner with us. And I was driving her back to the city. And she said, well, where's Diana? That's one of our twins. And she had gone into the city to visit, to meet her friends on the train.

45:41And she takes, you know, take the train. Oh, she's, your mom said, oh, is she okay on the train? I said, yeah, of course she's okay. She's fine. She does it all the time. Oh, is it dangerous? She did the train. yeah so yeah you're like mom you let me do that i was completely like jodie foster it seemed i wasn't a foster in tax yeah but i was sort of wandering the streets you know really 80s you know yeah yeah but maybe it wasn't safe when i was gonna say yeah maybe there was a little different what prompted the the move uh out of the city just a combination of things yeah tennis our oldest one was super into tennis and uh okay I was sort of in a transition time in my career, having left the USTA.

46:28Money was definitely part of it. Yeah. And we wanted to have a little space. We had a little easy to get around for the tennis part of it. It's probably money, though, because it's a lot to have. Yes, it's a lot to have three kids. Sure, I can't imagine.

46:43Jon McLaughlin:I can't imagine. The thing with the private schools, what they cost in New York City. Insane. If you go with public schools, you'd have three kids, and you can't guarantee that they'd all go to the same public school. there's all this well the middle school you might have to be in this district and at this middle school they won't be able to be full so you have to get the lottery then you'd have three little girls in three different places in new york city safety wise then they i didn't want that i wanted them to be um calm and i wanted them to be close to each other and so we just it was actually good for the sort of metabolism of the family to yeah well said that well said listen john yeah i just i have to get this off my chest do it yes it's august now but it's going to get chilly and this feels like a time august feels like the time yeah hit reset before autumn rush and honestly i can't think of a better place to start than my closet dave same page that's why i love shopping at quince you always say that yeah yeah and here's why they're all about fewer better pieces made with premium materials built to last and designed to become the things that you reach for every day like the ultra soft organic cotton i was hoping you would see a mongolian cashmere sweater i wear them all the time almost early day they have the fit and quality you'd expect from a luxury designer brand you know quince works directly with ethical factories and they just cut out the middleman they're like get out of here so you're paying for exceptional quality instead of brand markups, you know, and keeping everything priced 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands.

48:21Quince has hotel quality, bedding, bath essentials, premium cookware, travel gear, and everyday essentials.

48:28Jon McLaughlin:Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash dadville. You get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Dadville. Well, my wife and I have two girls. They're 12 and just turned 10. Dave has three kids, two boys, who you've seen this whole interview, and a girl. And I sometimes, I mean, we're getting into that middle school era. So like, to me, I'm like, we're getting into the thick of it and we we sometimes you know we're like should we move should we make some big move here you know and it's it it strikes me as an adult i'm like it still feels weird sometimes to think we have so much influence in these little human beings lives you know like to to sort of watch them to know what they're going through to keep an eye on them and to think okay is this the moment where maybe we make the move maybe we switch schools because it's getting a little too intense or is this one of those moments where now we got to push through and they'll learn a lesson from this those are tricky things and so i'm curious what y 'all's thoughts on that i mean you like you said you're not out of the woods yet you're still in the thick of it but you you're a little ways down the road and have dealt with some of those things I think kids are pretty adaptable.

50:10I think they're more adaptable than you think. So they'll roll with it. I always like, you know, we did do some parenting classes when the kids were young, which I thought were very helpful. Yeah, they put us on the same page. We both sort of bought into this one philosophy about child rearing and how it was based on a book, which we would strongly recommend called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen and Kids Will Talk. And it's a book that we took the classes from the woman who was related generationally to the original authors and we took the workshops. Wow. And we continue to just do that book.

50:53And the book is a lot about listening. Yeah, it's really about, it's mostly about listening and acknowledging your kids. So whatever they're going through. Yeah. I deal with this at our tennis academy all the time. The kids, oh, they're crying. I'm having the worst day. I'm playing so bad today. I'm having the worst day ever. So instead of saying, oh, get your shit together, man. You know, you can't talk like that. Say, oh, I hear you must be, you're really having a bad day, huh? you're really not feeling good so same same with your kids you know you know no you if they get upset about something let them be upset don't you know the worst thing to do is don't cry don't cry or you're okay right you're okay no you're not okay yeah that's great either is wrong so if you acknowledge the kid then i think they start to open up a little more and they start to know that you're listening to them you know you're acknowledging their feelings and their emotions and that that helps them i think then feel okay like i'm i'm safe here yeah that's right i can express myself so i'm curious whatever you got to do john the kids will be fine yeah okay yeah and i and get in get an interest you try to get them in you know interest try to get a little sense of if they like saxophone or they like something you know and oh they they both are

52:10Jon McLaughlin:destined for broadway so they're very excited they would be very excited to talk to you anytime i'll come and see that's their dream in broadway in new york not nashville which maybe my kids are destined for in more ways than one so so uh another quick question and then we have the speed rounds you don't need to buckle up because it is hard hitting very very uh intense journalism which we're talking to new york times contributor here what would you say each of your superpowers are with parenting parenting um uh language uh one of the things i have a superpower with with the girls is language i i'm always introducing them to um uh words and ways to turn a phrase diana said to me uh uh this morning she goes oh i read adam gopnick's article in the new york uh the new yorker and i said oh you did what was it about she goes the renaissance i said well what did he say he said that the renaissance was the appeals to the modern mind because the Renaissance created the modern mind.

53:17Wow. And I was like, that's the beginning of happiness.

53:21Jon McLaughlin:Because you employ words. And I have created girls who can say something like that. Yeah, that's amazing. And they love language. I'm always adding a word to their vocabulary. It's amazing. um just just the idea of language and enjoying the the getting away from what's ordinary and letting their mind stretch and play uh so maybe a kind of sense of poetry and a sense of magicals out there because i think if you give your kids a kind of nervous feeling of like you got to make money and you got to survive and you got to be good and you have to i'm always giving them a sense of like the little beautiful shimmers in life you know love that yeah like the flavors as opposed to just a meal you know yeah that's good the scent of things and so it's like i yes maybe i am a little pie in the sky and romantic but i'm always giving them a sense of like beauty like a like fantasy you know yeah i love that i love that i don't know if it's going to make them more practical but um i think i think my my superpowers is believing in them and letting them know that I believe in them and that I trust them.

54:33Um, because, you know, it's going, when it's just, like I said, like, you know, going out last night to the city, okay. I have a train. If you need me, I'm here. Let me know when you're coming home. Let me know when you're on the train. And then I just, you know, we never really did like a cur, a hard curfew with our girls. We just, you know, um, so I think they, we, we, we enabled them to be comfortable making their own decisions. We never took the phone away either. We keep out, you know, we, we never said any, we just hope and we talk to them about it, you know, got to learn to turn that thing off.

55:09You know, we don't live in a world where there's no sugar anywhere. There's no, you know, unplug the phone and grab everything and punish them. We don't do that. We're letting them monitor themselves, you know, and trust they will. And they keep making good choices. And then we, we, we, we thank them and acknowledge that we had a great night. they took care of themselves and that just begets more trust. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. My, my parents were really good about that with us. And it, even as a kid, I clocked.

55:40Let's Jason, let's loop that in post just that one comment over and over. But, but I think even as a kid, I sort of realized the power of their trust because it really motivated me to prove that they were right. You know? And so the more they were like, Hey, you know, like just being at a time, you know, and I was like, okay, I got to do that, you know? And so you would think that giving them a longer leash and I'm sure it can be problematic, but I know for me, and I feel like my siblings, it was actually, it really made us want to make better decisions because we knew we could lose that trust.

56:10And then that thing would go away. But the more you did, the more trust they gave you. So it was a really interesting, you know, you don't have such a bad relationship. You're not living in a living war to have kids. People are always like, oh God, when I tell an audience i have three teenage girls at home a thousand people or 500 or whatever will go oh you know like i'll hear like a whole groan yeah yeah i'll say no i'll actually go you know or before you moan like i'll stop them it's amazing you know like yeah it's it's it's funny how people just think if you're a parent you must be beleaguered yeah yeah yeah yeah we're inspired by them yeah inspired by them that's great yeah it's good it's pretty good all right we could go

56:57Jon McLaughlin:on for hours and hours and hours but you guys have uh cold ac air hopefully coming through your vents right now that you need to enjoy it finally cooled off in new york with the thunderstorms so at least oh yeah boiling yeah we do have a lightning round that we want to get to this is just guys just hard hitting quick journalism you've never seen in your life before All right. We think, but we don't know. Yeah. Side of the bed. Has it stayed the same your entire marriage when you travel? Does it change or is it always the same? It changed in England. Yeah, it did. I was on the other side. That's appropriate.

57:32That's appropriate. I think. At home, it's always the same. I seem to be. Yeah, there's something about safety with me. Like I go on a certain side of the room, I feel safe or something. And you seem closer to the bathroom, although you use it less.

57:46Jon McLaughlin:Right. I love that. bathtub and stuff but yeah but i'm on the left side of the bed if you're looking well stage right if you're lying there we go there we go what a great answer and i'm in the deuce court yeah thank you well if you're close to the bathroom you definitely are kids cry this has been a long time for y 'all but who would get up who is the um when the kids cried who would get up back when that was happening hmm and the circumstances yeah it could be either of us yeah it actually It definitely depends. If it was, if we knew it was, um, if it was something serious, like sick, I was already awake.

58:20But if it was something that we knew was a kind of a sort of a nonsense or just another something chore, it would be him. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a very sound sleeper. So I can, I can get up and then I could go back to sleep. She's not so much, you know, she wakes up and then she can, you know, be up for the rest of the night. Like we have our little dog so you know sometimes i'll take him out in you know five in the morning she's like why did you do that right mustn't do that all right but yeah take him out and then i bring him then he goes right back that's a bad thing you see when you react to something that's unfavorable even with children she says it's happened again yeah she says that when i'm gone the dog doesn't never wakes her up no so he knows he'll go downstairs he trained him he knows go out and take a pee and

59:08Jon McLaughlin:then i get the treat well this is just biting my wife and i are the same in the in in the way we sleep like i'm a super sound sleeper and my wife could not be a lighter sleeper yeah and so i you know but we'll be having coffee in the morning and she'll be like oh it's a rough night what are you talking about what happened she's like well you know livy came down three times and you know i couldn't find luca for a couple hours you know i was asleep the whole time slept right through yeah yeah we know the feeling yeah your heart lives whether you're a mother your heart lives yeah where they are you're in there you're on their pillow yep yep all right so um let's say you guys have two days you have 48 hours just the two of you you could you could do anything you could you could be anywhere in the world what do you guys do the same thing whatever it is we would actually agree on it yeah we would enjoy the same thing i don't know it would be a trip to the you know it would be to hedra or something oh wow yeah we would get there that quick but you know for two days yeah yeah some some some place we could get to fairly quickly but you know a little beach i love the woods i love hiking i love to hike um we've done that a few times so we could go up north but um we agree on it i just don't know where we just don't know I don't want exactly what it would take.

1:00:30Jon McLaughlin:Whatever it would be, we'd both be in for it. Yeah. Listen, y 'all got to get down here. It's a wonderful place. We literally, as of today, it has been miserable here. And like you said, Patrick, we said today, it's been incredible. Before you come. Okay, I have a quick question for each of you. So another hard hitting. I'm going to give you a second because as I say them, you can think about these. Patrick, favorite tennis match of all time? Melissa's favorite musical of all time

1:01:02That's an easy one for you I wasn't going to say on your toes I was going to say the chorus line There was something about a chorus line that really made me want to go into show business It's just the line of people and each person ultimately is all unified in the chorus line They all look the same with the top hat but by the end of that during the course of the show you learned what it cost each one of them how they got the dream, what obstacles they overcame, their ethnic background their body type issues, you know, tits and ass that song, all of those things every person had an amazing, complex totally different reason for wanting to be an actor and they all unify I love that all these diverse people coming together and a common cause.

1:01:52That's like my nirvana. I love that. That's a great answer. Well, I've been lucky enough to have seen quite a few of those famous matches. I mean, you've seen them all, right?

1:02:01Jon McLaughlin:I mean, you've been there for pretty much all of them. I've pretty much called them all that have happened since the last 25 years. Believe it or not, when my brother had his famous match with Borg at Wimbledon, which he lost eventually, and the famous tiebreak, I was actually at a junior tournament playing the junior nationals in Fort Worth, Texas. And I was watching from like my motel room, you know, one of those motels where you pull up and the pool is right there and then you drive into your door. but I would say the, the, probably the one, and we just saw another one in Paris just a couple of months ago with Alcaraz, which was, you know, goes into my top five, probably put Federer, Nadal, Wimbledon when Nadal won his first, you know, finally won it.

1:02:50108, yeah, because I think that was so monumental for him to win Wimbledon. The way he did it, you know, the match with the rain delays, you know, this is before the roofs, where now there's basically no delays in these matches. So it added a lot of drama. And at the time, obviously, I've always worked for ESPN. ESPN didn't have the rights to the finals that was NBC but ESPN had hired um uh Dick Enberg I know if you guys are maybe too young but maybe you remember Dick Enberg was a legendary uh play-by-play announcer for baseball football and then he got super into tennis and he used to do breakfast at Wimbledon when it was all those years on NBC so ESPN brought him over in his later years and he and I called the final, but it wasn't live on air because that was on NBC.

1:03:44But ESPN wanted to do it because, you know, we all thought this was going to be, you know, could be an epic match. So then those years they had ESPN Classic. Remember ESPN Classic? And we did the broadcasting during the week, right? And then NBC did the final weekend. So we were there the whole time. So we said, we're going to stay. and I got to call the match just with Dick Enberg and one of the great calls, you know, when finally Rafa finally won and he just like, you know, I get chills just thinking about his reaction. He just stood up and he said, Rafael Nadal has won Wimbledon. Like it was like that simple.

1:04:22And he was like, I look at the video of it and I can remember like his excitement, you know, and he had this pad of paper that he used to literally write notes about every single detail about the play. I mean, this guy was old school because he was a baseball guy. He was into the set, so he used to write, you know, Rafael Nadal, age, you know, 26, Manacor, Spain, you know, titles this year. I mean, he had everything written down. Who was that? Enberg? Dick Enberg. That's how he used to do it. So anyway, that was, you know, and obviously Federer, Djokovic matches, Nadal, Djokovic in Australia was still the longest match ever played.

1:05:01five hours 53 minutes you know every detail do you know i was there for that so uh i i was happy because i always loved federer and you know to watch him play and um i was happy when he beat nadal at the australian open from a breakdown in the fifth and i i believe i had one of the good good lines that had ever um said about the match i said he he out rafa rafa that's a great that's

1:05:29Jon McLaughlin:So accurate. And a lot of people always used to give Federer, you know, not enough props, I thought, for his intensity as a competitor because, you know, he made it look so easy. So I like the fact that late in his career, he had some moments where he was able to, you know, show his will. But he would come back and that was, you know, one of the greatest points ever played. And you could just Google it. It would come up immediately. in the fifth set. It was like 4-3-30 all, I think. And they went back and forth. And Rodgers slid into the forehand like on a hard court. He slid into it and hit a winner down the line.

1:06:08It was like just one of the most amazing shots ever. I know. Okay, just real quick.

1:06:12Jon McLaughlin:This is just... I'm going to start the timer one more time. Just real quick. The French Open final... Yeah, the timer is in hard quotes. Alcaraz center that we just saw two months ago. Are you watching it? Like I'm watching it as just, yes, I love tennis and I've played a million hours of tennis. You wouldn't be able to tell watching me play tennis, but I love it. And so are you watching it on a different level thinking like, no, no, no. I can see what's happening here. Alcaraz, he's got more in him. He's going to come back. And if so, what are the signs that you're seeing? The answer is yes. I am watching it.

1:06:56I think on a different level. I did think he could come back in that match. There are certain times when you just know it's over. I'm not going to say I was predicting at Love 40 on his serve that he's going to come back, but I wasn't surprised that he came back because this guy, he's a different animal. I was actually equally as surprised that Sinner came back from being a breakdown in the fifth because I thought Alcaraz was going to run away with it. So I'm not always right. Sometimes you read it and he's like, that impressed me more um not more it impressed me a lot and that's why i predicted sinner would beat alcaraz in the wimbledon final which he did because sometimes what people don't understand is that when you lose a match and you you you come back the way sinner did to still almost win the match late after you've blown this huge lead that means something you know that's when tennis players give up in matches uh us other players recognize that because even like players that give up um you know you remember that and and even like i remember andy roddick who you know played for me and davis cup for so many years and he was like the ultimate competitor but he was playing nadal and in spain on clay getting his ass kicked and he knew he was getting his ass kicked and so every but but he kept fighting like he never quit even though he do there's he knew he He goes, P-Mac, he goes, I got no.

1:08:23He goes, I'm just getting, I said, I know, man. And we both knew it. It was 6 '3", 6 '2", you know, 3 love. But he fought to the bitter end. And people were, you know. I danced with Andy on the table. We won the table. But the other players. And he said, Mac, your wife is more fun than you. He was right, yeah. We were all crazy that night. Anyway, keep it. But the players get that. And there's sort of a code of respect when you do that. So I think for Sinner to come back the way he did and almost win it in Paris actually helped him. And I actually think it made him a lot more fans because people saw his ability to dig in even deeper.

1:09:10Alcaraz, he's an amazing talent. the one thing i said about him this year and in australia when he he in my view let jokovic beat him because jokovic was sort of somewhat injured and jokovic got his head and i said the only thing that alcaraz isn't at the moment is he's not a street fighter if he if he becomes a street fighter um in the way that jokovic has become um and dal just always was uh he'll be pretty much probably unbeatable but those those two guys have definitely distanced themselves from the pack and you know hopefully one of these american guys who are awesome players taylor fritz you know ben shelton tommy paul francis tiafo those guys are awesome guys great players i'm hoping one of them can sort of break through and at least win one of these big ones because the problem in tennis is you know imagine if you're taylor fritz but you're a football player or you're a basketball player you're an absolute superstar right you're the best player on the planet and by the way who plays nfl football outside of this country yeah answer nobody okay but if you're the number 16th you know best football player which is amazing um you know you're an absolute superstar hall of famer you're teller fritz and you're number four in the world and people are like oh man when's this guy gonna win a major it's brutal you know that's tough the other thing that i think is so just to finish that thought uh that you said about tennis and growing up this is why i'd never had the head game for it was like to your point about andy it's just like tennis is such a humbling sport one because it's one-on-one but you can just get obliterated like it's it's not something where in every sport you can do that but because it's a singular sport it's like i just feel for you know like when you're watching and you play that game he's like I can't do anything.

1:11:04I'm at the height of my powers, and he's just that much more powerful. It's just such a humbling sport that way. It's crazy. I had that experience far too many times, especially against a guy named Andre Agassi. On center court at Wimbledon and center court at the French Open. A couple of my Stanford buddies were at the match in Paris, and it was in the third round, which for me was pretty good to make it to the third round in Paris. And I was down 6-2, 6-2, 4-0. And he was just literally just running me. He wasn't even trying to finish the point. He was just making me run. And I looked up at my buddies from the Stanford team.

1:11:42And I was like, oh, man, I'm like, I'm a human punching bag. Yeah, and there's no tagging out. But you know what? I took my punishment. You know, like I didn't give up. You know, I ran for every ball. Are you guys talking after? Obviously, you all know each other. I mean, you know it. I mean, you're in the same locker room. Are you talking to him afterwards? Like, dude, what are you doing to me, man? We shook hands and he said, oh, man, I really played well today. Sorry. It's unbelievable. Yeah, we all do it. Okay, last question for y 'all. If you were going to write a book on marriage, if y 'all were going to write a book on marriage, what would it be called?

1:12:24That was really amazing. maybe it should be the answer where do we start I love that maybe it would be a Sondheim song move on just move on clout I don't know about marriage yeah it's funny because I feel like that's one of the first things that y 'all said which is so so um before yeah that's a soundtrack by the way um moving on um okay so before we release y 'all back to the court slash stage um anything that y 'all have coming up that's fun you want to promote i know um gosh what you were just uh melissa you didn't you played in london you just just happened that's right okay because i knew that was that was already passed but yeah i just did um yeah i played cadogan hall was unbelievable beautiful thousand couple standing ovations yeah it was phenomenal and there was one of one of her dreams was to play there and it happened this year and it was uh all sondheim night so there were some great sondheim fans and your vocal coach is saying you're singing better than ever 2025 you're crushing it i'm working on new things you know i have i have a couple of new ideas i do have this sondheim concert that i can do now you know forever i have a bunch of concerts like a holiday concert and film noir things that have developed over time they sort of seem a little bit like their themes or something they're all jazz uh inflected uh and i am i did i did get a have a thought because i've been working with barbara streisand's uh pianist for two years now randy waldeman for played with her for 40 years he put me in a wonderful opportunity at the montreal jazz festival to open for george benzen i saw you got a standing o there too

1:14:27that was cool she had to play with his band which they got amazing players yeah so i did what i sing with their instrument oh that's so cool so cool you know like my um michael simmons and and uh you know and the drum chris walker on bass like the whole thing was he invented this weird electric bass type of sound and it's super funky and you have some of uh carlos santana's kids and stuff in the band and it's just like so it's so heavy and in rehearsal i was singing michelle legron music which is like movie songs just like barbara streisand would sing actually some of her music we adapted some of her charts and music like The Man I Love and Gershwin and things.

1:15:08The drummer said to me at rehearsal the night before the festival, he was like, do you mind if I funk it up? And I said, you funk it up. You do what you do and I'll do what I do and we'll see what happens. That was magic. I had my hair everywhere. I didn't wear a bra. You know, it was fun. I thought, I'm in a jazz festival. And I let them be them and I was me. and i spoke french and english to the audience and it was like it was cool the crowd it was george that sold the whole place out it was massive credit and you know the crowd were there to see george they did they're like who's this melissa erica she comes out and by the end of her six seven songs they were like that is the best feeling is it not the best feeling is she was on a tour with him again this year and unfortunately george came down with an illness I think he's early 80s now, so we're sending positive vibes to him.

1:16:02I will give you my three things I have coming up. One is my radio show, which goes on every Saturday morning on Sirius XM, called Holding Court, which is a little tennis, a little other sports as well. So I do that every Saturday. And if you have the app, you can listen to it at any time, because a lot of people Saturday morning, they'll sleep in it. It's like a prime time slot. It's doing well. It's doing well, and I'm happy that they allowed me to do a show that's really basically talking tennis, because that's pretty unusual to do on national radio. Then we have our induction ceremony for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, of which I'm the president of, late August, August 21 to 23, where the Bryan brothers, the great doubles team, who played the biggest cup for me for many years and for the U.S., incredible guys, and Maria Sharapova going into the Hall of Fame.

1:16:53so that's going to be super cool and then of course uh the big one the final major of the year the u.s open right here in our hometown and those are the uh long days uh getting ready for you know doing that um can i be a jerk and then something sure i'm doing a reading at guild hall east hampton uh playing zelda fitzgerald opposite aldwin august 16th and that's super yeah so in august like did you end up for the open do you stay in the you do you stay at home or do you have to stay in the city? I usually stay at home, but I usually keep a room close to the site. Oh, don't stay where. What's the room number?

1:17:32407. Yeah. They got us a hotel close to the airport because that's where the stadium is. Beautiful part of the stadium. It's a wild thing. It's in Queens. It's not like, that's where I grew up in Queens. They work like all day. Sometimes I'll just crash there because I'm on until midnight. match or something like that but the good news is that um when i leave the open normally it's at the end of the night session and i can yeah there's no traffic so i can i can i can make it home you know pretty quickly but it just depends on the turnaround some more when he was playing because if he didn't win he'd come home yeah now he's there all the time but my win-loss record is a in the booth well thank y 'all this was so much thank y 'all for your time we loved it y 'all gotta make sure to make it down to nashville you gotta come down guys yeah we'll come down to visit i feel like i gotta hug you both well thank y 'all so much guys you'll have a great rest of the day thank you guys