Aus Open Media Day - Alcaraz faces Ferrero questioning

0:10Hello and welcome to Melbourne Park and Australian Open Media Day, the day when the world's top tennis players are brought through the media conveyor belt of TV interviews, social media funnies, press conferences, one-on-one interviews and hard work. puddles. More on those later. It is a slightly chaotic day at any Grand Slam. For Matt, it's a bit of a come down day because it always follows the day after the draw. Matt, are you bouncing back? I am, you know. There usually is only one way to go after draw day, but today has been great and I've had yeah I've had sort of happy slam vibes today. I started my day with tennis spoke to Jasmine Paolini, she's always a good vibe and yeah had a fun moment in the middle of the day as well which I'm sure we'll talk about.

1:12Excellent tease Matt, excellent stuff David has been asked to join Team Medvedev as a hype man so no David on today's show. Don't worry he'll be back tomorrow for our Australian Open Hype Show today we have the company of the man who claims to have the cure for jet lag. It's Matt Futterman. Thanks for having me. And yeah, I think I think I'm a jet lag black belt at this point. I really like it's there's like two things I can do in life. And one is Concord jet lag and the other is Parallel Park. I think you probably need to share with the class your what you think are the jet lagers? Because I think the cure for jet lag is drugs.

1:54Well, I do use drugs. And maybe that eliminates me from the jet lag Olympics. I would fail the doping test. If drugs were not allowed, then I would, yeah, then I can't compete. Same. But let's assume that drugs are allowed. And, you know, look, the whole key is you got to get on the time of the place you're going as soon as the wheels lift off the ground. And like, let's do whatever you can do to sleep on a long flight during the night of the place where you're going. And once you get there, if you get there in the morning, you got to get out in the light and go do some exercise and it's all about just like giving your body lots of hints but i'm pretty sure people did not tune into this show to find out about jet lag i don't know you know maybe they were interested in tennis perhaps people love the bonus content matt i have sent matt's jet lag advice to many people over the years yeah keying off the natural light getting on the right time zone like these are these are things i try to do see my tip is just don't arrive in the morning arrive at night take drugs sleep through boom sit see arriving at night doesn't do great things for me because like I arrive at night and because I've done the New York to London flight where you leave really early in the morning and you get there at night and like it's a bit of a mess I'm much better off getting there in the morning going through my home morning routine which is go for a run and like your brain is like okay gotta do it it's morning now I'm keyed in and you like power through the rest of the day and like that sleep that night after you power through a full day like that is far and away like the best sleep I have all year I don't doubt it I'm sure it's a brilliant method unfortunately you did lose me at go for a run So we'll have to agree on different but equally perfect methods.

4:13Pretty much everybody has been through the media centre today. We have a few stragglers for tomorrow. Of course, Novak Djokovic. He never comes on main media day, does he? It's the main character energy of Novak Djokovic, isn't he? He makes us wait. And he's quite late tomorrow as well. Yeah, yeah. He's the last to arrive at the party. And he won't be at the advertised time. No, absolutely not. But we accept it. It's Novak Djokovic. We'll be here at 7pm cursing Novak Djokovic and then I'm sure we'll give a brilliant press conference and all will be forgiven. But we did have, you know, we had big headliners today and no bombshell story, but I feel like a lot of good press conferences, a lot of good lines.

4:56Matt, I know you, Matt F, I'm going to have to be clear on this show. It's going to sound formal, but for the sake of clarity, you shall be Matt F and you shall just be Matt I'm pointing for the tape I am pointing yeah we had Sinner, we had Alcaraz, we had Shvante, Gough, Sabalenka, Anisimova Keys, Asaka, Fritz Medvedev, Matt F you've done a bunch of one on ones as well. Yes I had a few one on ones our friend Amanda Anisimova friend of the podcast as we may or may not know at this point I had a one-on-one with her, Alexandra Iala, and a few others. It's good to speak with Maria Zachary, who is optimistic about life and tennis, seemingly, after a couple good wins in the United Cup.

5:48And, you know, the good thing about the Australian Open Media Day is I compare it very much to the NFL draft, which I realize that's a reference that might not land so well with my immediate company here. But it's kind of the happiest place on earth because nothing has really happened yet. The NFL career is like very cruel. But on draft day, none of those terrible things have happened. Nobody's like blown out their ACL. Nobody's completely failed as, you know, the top quarterback in the draft. Everyone is destined for the Hall of Fame and that's kind of how it is right before the Australian Open starts.

6:31There's no baggage yet. Everybody's played maybe a match or two unless you're Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and you just come in cold and you're totally confident and fine anyway. It's kind of a happy day and I'm good with that. Yeah, Iga Shiontek pretty much said that, didn't she, packaged within an answer about jet lag, a question she was asked by Jonathan Giorecco from BBC Sport. She said she finds jet lag worse on her trips to China, far worse than Australia, because she said, well, it's the start of the year, it's grey and black, it's grey and cold back home, it's sunny here, like I adapt pretty quickly she said China's tough because we're just so tired of life by then like tired of the grind by that by that stage of the season so yeah like it is I agree it is one of the joys the fact that everything feels just ahead of us um yeah we're just on the on the cusp of everything that's about to unfold Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz came in back to back as is fitting with their with their bromance vibe um we had sinner first we had alcaraz second um who should we start with matt who who did we learn more from today yannick sinner or carlos alcaraz i think probably carlos alcaraz uh i felt like his was probably the press conference coming into the day I was most interested in because it had the most obvious news line to it I suppose with his off season and obviously the the split from Juan Carlos Ferreiro and it was our first chance to hear Alcaraz in his own words talk about that and that was quite striking actually maybe not what he said but maybe the way he said it about Juan Carlos Ferreira and it was a typical Alcaraz press conference in lots of ways with some real upbeat moments and a lovely exchange with you Catherine which we can talk about but there were a couple of answers where he was suddenly quite a lot more guarded and the body language changed and he was kind of a bit more corporate and sticking to a sort of message about Juan Carlos Ferreira, and he was very unemotional in his answers talking about Juan Carlos Ferreira.

9:08And it was the same in Spanish? Absolutely. Yeah, it was. It was a much shorter section of the Spanish press conference, but again, he sort of battered it away, talking about internal issues, and he just didn't really get into it at all. And he does have a way of navigating any potential difficult subjects in press conferences, but he often does it with his sort of smile and his joy. And you almost don't want to ask him the difficult questions because it's such a good vibe always. But obviously these questions had to be asked. And yeah, it was just kind of a bit sombre, I found, in those moments.

9:49And his body language did change. And not in a shocking way. I wasn't massively surprised that it was like that, but it was notable. And I think particularly being in the room versus reading it on the transcript. Yeah, it felt like he was suddenly using his cap as a shield. His eyes were glancing downwards. He wasn't looking out to the room. It was just head down, get through this bit. I knew this was coming. Deliver the lines that I've agreed on, presumably with my team, about what's happened and move on. That's what it felt like to me, just get through this. Yeah, I was a little late. I didn't actually catch that part of the press conference.

10:29I was doing another interview. I think at the time of day I was with Marta Kostya. But, I mean, what I've been thinking about with Alcaraz and the Juan Carlos thing is I'm just sort of curious, like, you know, if you could sort of give him true serum and be in a locked room. I would be curious, like, does he feel abandoned in any way? I mean, this is the guy who was kind of a father figure for him. I realize his father is a very big part of his life, but this guy was his tennis father. And I do think at some level, even if it was like a disagreement on financial terms, which seems to be what the general consensus here, or no matter what the details of it are.

11:19I mean, the idea that at the end of the day, this guy said, I can live without you. You're not that important to me. I feel like, I don't know. The one thing we really do know about Carlos Alcruz, and we know a fair bit about him, but one thing we definitely know about him is that he's sensitive. He feels things. And I do think at some level, no matter how much of a business relationship it is or it was, that's got to be a little hard to accept because, you know, you don't necessarily hug someone who you're in business with in the way that those two hugged each other. yeah and like the message that Alcaraz had clearly talked about with his team and wanted to get out in the press conference was not much has changed you know he kept saying the team's the same except for one guy who's missing yeah it was he was trying to picture it as like as if his omelette chef had left the team yeah like the sort of unspoken word was yeah but a pretty important guy has has left um but you know i do think from a from a tennis perspective samu lopez has been a really good coach for him and a nice addition to the team and that kind of links into maybe what you asked matt about the serve like i think samu lopez is a guy who i think is comfortable doing those technical changes in that team and those are still happening it's still business as usual in that sense and yeah so like I think maybe maybe it is hard for Alcrest to know what ultimately the effect will be down the line of Ferrero not being there like he like we talked about this yesterday he's so far ahead of so many people on the tour is it only when you get to Yannick Sinner in the in the final that you actually really notice the difference like maybe he doesn't maybe doesn't really even know yet and maybe we'll find out as the season goes but yeah it is it is kind of fascinating to to see whether it does have an effect as we go Matt Matt F sorry yes it's like first grade when there were two mats in the class yeah and you're both sitting in front of me as well like I'm the teacher I feel very powerful um you asked him about his serve which he continues to tweak and there was a I can't tell if it was a really revealing thing he said about Djokovic or a really weird thing or a thing that I didn't quite understand but it was certainly a sort of double a real double take moment yes he immediately said you know I guess sort of what I was thinking I think what everyone's thinking which is that it almost looks like when he serves now is that he's doing like a Djokovic impression of himself almost like his serve he said he said you're going to ask me if I'm imitating Novak Djokovic or you're going to ask me if my serve is trying to be like Novak is that what the streets are saying because I hadn't clocked that myself yes there's been some footage going around um of a side by side of Alcaraz's new serve and know about Djokovic's serve.

14:45So he's presumably seen that and was okay. Yes, and he lives on social media. We also know that about Carlos Sackles. This is because Matt and I haven't watched The Traitors yet, so we've had a social media blackout all day to avoid spoilers. Yeah, exactly. It's affecting my journalism, Matt. Yeah, the number of times I've clicked Twitter and then just a reflex and then, oh, God, no, I can't go on there. Yeah, we've missed stuff, Matt. But could you seriously imagine, I mean, just getting back on a more serious note, away from the double take. Could you imagine serving the way he served at the U.S.

15:22Open and saying, yeah, I'm going to change that. I mean, it's kind of like Tiger Woods, like when he kept changing his swing and he was like winning every golf tournament essentially. And it's just, I mean, it's amazing to me. Like that, I guess, first of all, that you could possibly think that you could get better. And also just sort of having that sort of open mind and the confidence. I mean, all I would ever want to do if I ever hit one serve the way he hits a million serves is to be like, OK, how do I do that exact same thing for the rest of my life? And like, here he is tinkering and doing.

16:04And there was such a parallel between that and an answer that Sinner gave in his press conference as well, which was about the line he gave after his US Open final defeat about wanting to add more variety to his game. and he said off season work we worked on coming into the net more transitioning into the net tweaked a couple of things on the serve like there were real there were such similarities in those two answers about sort of of course like I'm always tweaking like you have to be that's what sets them apart yeah and that's the beauty of the rivalry you know they're having to tweet mostly for one another look Sina Sina played that down didn't he in the in his answer he said it is for for everyone that he's incorporating this variety but you know I think it was pretty revealing the way he talked about it after the US Open final and how much he was thinking about Carlos Alcaraz in that I would say this the one slight difference I thought in their answers was that Sina was very much talking about extremely intentional change and working on variety and and the serve, like you say, and transitioning to the net.

17:19Alcaraz was laying it out as, yes, he always wants to be keeping an open mind, as you say, and tinkering and making little adjustments, but he was almost talking about it in terms of its sort of technical drift and it's not something that he's absolutely setting out, I'm going to make my serve look like this. I think he's such a sort of feel player that he's experiencing and thinking, oh, maybe it could even be a little bit better if I do it like this. And he's just playing with it, and he's ended up with this service motion. And he sort of talked about how by the end of the year, he might have a bit of a different service motion again.

18:00Like, he's just got that open mind that Matt F has been talking about. And, yeah, he also used the words calm and peaceful rhythm that he feels on serve now. Just like you, right? You have a calm and peaceful rhythm when you're served. That's how you feel as the ball goes into the air. Calm and peaceful, right? Oh, all the time calm and peaceful. Yeah. If only. Matt played very well this morning. In the wind, no less. I'm sure he did. Calmly and peacefully, no doubt. Sinner, I mean, Sinner was just, he's so spectacularly, I mean, he's like, life's good, isn't it? He's so completely at ease and confident.

18:47Like, I don't know, he just filled me with confidence in every regard today. Yeah, he does that thing, Sinner, of ending a lot of answers with, let's see what's coming. And I just feel like every time it's like a threat to everyone else. He says it so calmly, but you know what's coming, and it's like a sinner onslaught on these tournaments. He spoke about the difference he was feeling sitting there this year compared to last year when obviously he had the case still hanging over him and not knowing whether he was going to be banned. He talked about how tough that was and how that whole experience, he said, felt like it had made him more mature.

19:32and yeah he he had a twinkle in his eye talking about the one point slam and he sort of he sort of jokingly talked about that with the same look on his face as when he talked about partnering emma navarro at the us open mixed doubles like this is all kind of a joke what a load of nonsense i'm in on it i'm happy to go with it he said look he's had the same one point slam trajectory that i've had he said not a big fan in the beginning but it was great we've all been there yannick I think we need to figure out, like, what's the next thing that could, like, get them out of their comfort zones in a funny way?

20:05Like, could they have to play something, like, with their opposite hand? Or something like that? I just think, like, these... Who would win, who, off the top of your head, who do we think would win that? Alcaraz? I bet it would be some there's a number of players who are playing with their wrong hand yes so Nadal famously yes like Nadal and Carlos Moyer as well I'm not saying he would win this thing but like Alex Mickelson is actually a lefty strangely and so he's probably a pretty good left handed tennis player I mean I think pretty much every tennis player could win a goal instead against me playing with their abs at hand.

20:57Maria Sharapova used to occasionally do that switching the racket to her left hand when she was dragged out wide on the backhand side. That was always fun. I'm going to give a shout to Thomas Mahatch of course. I've seen him hit good left-handed forehands in the middle of points. That is something that he would do. There's also a number of players who sign the camera afterwards with their left hand. I think off the top of my head, Bonacioric is one of those. I want to say potentially also Tommy Paul. I'm not certain about that. But yeah, I think Matt F is right. Like there's, I don't really need to say Matt F really, do I?

21:37Like it's obvious when I'm saying Matt. It feels validating for me, but it feels like you're backing me up. So I appreciate it. No, but I'm quite in on that. on the playing with the wrong hand. David always wants a wooden racket tournament as well, doesn't he? Test the skills. I agree with you. Seeing them out of their comfort zones, that's the USP, or certainly one of the USPs, that's the magic sauce. Yeah, and it's much better than the sort of hit and giggle two-set thing where they're trying to be funny and play tennis at the same time. and I don't know. There's something to these sort of like quick, slightly gimmicky things before the real shit comes that I think has like a bit of magic to it.

22:32I mean, you saw it with the US Open Mixed Doubles and the Fast Fours, and yes, there was a big trophy for that, but still, it was different, and it was different, and it was fast, and it was quick and it was just sort of like a quick good meal that you get. And, yeah, like why not do a couple of things different because we know that it's a pretty long, you know, Grand Slam tournament. We're going to get a lot of matches, a lot of long matches. And, yeah, these first weeks, I don't know what we should call them anymore. Well, each Grand Slam brand there is a bit different, don't they? This is opening week.

23:17This is opening week. In New York, it's fan week. And in Roland Garros, it's, I don't know, chic week. I don't know. And I have my big idea that, but this gets into the whole wild card debate, which is get rid of all main draw wild cards. You only have wild cards for qualifying, and then it becomes wild card week. Don't you want a ticket to wild card week? I'm signed up. I've signed that off. Yep. There it is. I approved. Matt F., you and I asked like a twin set of questions to Alcaraz and Shiontek. Me to Alcaraz, you to Shiontek. The big career slam question because they're in the same boat at this tournament.

24:04Okay, not identical boats. How far can I take the boat metaphor here? Will I make my dad proud? Because obviously Alcaraz has the chance to set a record in being the youngest man ever to achieve the career slam. Whereas Shontek would be merely just adding her name to the list of incredible players that have achieved the career slam. I went first with Alcaraz. And I had the sort of leg up of him already having done that interview at the end of last year. where he said, if you offered me two other slams in 2026 or one Australian Open, I would take one Australian Open. So I very directly pitched him the offer of all three other slams or the Australian Open.

24:56He's still thinking. He's still thinking about it. He thought about it long and hard. I sensed at one point he was about to say Australian Open And then he went, but three is three. And he said, I need to think about it. And I said, I'll ask you again later in the tournament, unless you lose to Adam Walton round one, because obviously the unsaid subtext there. I can't believe he needs to think about that. Just because he's so young, you know, like he'll get the career slam. But he won't necessarily, I think he wants to be the youngest. He, youngest man. He referenced that in the name. He referenced it himself.

25:34Okay. He wants that, I think. I understand why it's a dilemma for him, and I like that it's a dilemma for him. I like how much he wants this now. And I'm sorry, is this his last chance to be the youngest man? We think he has one more. I think he's got one more shot at it. Okay, so if I'm Carlos Akarez and I'm not Carlos Akarez, I'm taking three this year, and then when it's my last chance, then I'll do it. And then he's won four in a row as well. Right, yeah. Then he's got a Serena slam. Right, exactly. You can pitch that to him at the next press conference, Catherine. It was a, it was, he was so like Pete Carlos Alcaraz during the answer to that question, wasn't he?

26:25Like huge grin. His mouth couldn't have gone wider and he really thought about it. He was totally sort of in the moment and really engaging with me. And then the next question was about Juan Carlos Ferreira. So you had this whiplash of head down, body language change. But yeah, Schvantec, in very much typical Schvantec style, didn't want to engage with the career slam hoo-ha. She thinks that's a big deal in our minds and isn't in her mind. Well, she doesn't even want to know who she'll play in the second round. Like, forget about the idea of thinking about if I win the tournament, then I've won the career slam.

27:15And I mean, I bet you can't name the last person to win the career slam, probably. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't want to. Don't you think she wants it more than she let on in that answer? No, she said, by the end of the answer, she said, like, it's a dream. It would be a dream. Like, yeah, of course. I just can't be in the mindset of thinking about it all the time. Yeah, that's not sort of the way. Yeah, I need to shut this down now so that I'm not persistently reminded of it at every turn. Yeah, I think she's learned at this point. I mean, she's had a lot of practice doing it. that like she is at her best when she's just, you know, when she's channeling Rafa and, you know, next ball, next ball, next point, next game, why would I worry about anything else?

28:04Everything else is so far off into the future. And, you know, she sort of trained herself to do that as much as possible. But at the same time, you know, she did say like, yeah, I really want to do this. It'd be great. can you imagine I get to win all four Grand Slams? I still think she's slightly amazed that she's even won one Grand Slam because no one from Poland had ever done it before. So I mean, I think, I mean, she said, I remember very clearly she said, like it was hard for me even to like dream about doing that because it was just seemed so out of the realm of possibility. so um i i think you know a career slam like that would be wild like i think she can't quite believe still and i don't know she'll ever really believe like this life that she lives generally i thought she was on great form shantek i did too and i think the uh most obvious way that that came across was that as matt has mentioned she doesn't like knowing the draw and the first question she got asked in the room was about players who are in her draw.

29:21Like, Osaka was named and Rabatkinner was named. And I feel like I've been in English Fiontech press conferences before where that would sort of derail the whole thing. And, you know, she said, I don't like to know the draw. She said quite funnily and sort of sassily said, oh, so thanks for the heads up. But then she stayed in a really, really good mood, I thought. I thought during the press conference and gave some real insight, Catherine, I thought to your question about something we've been talking about a lot, which is the win for set idea versus the Rick Karofsky idea of what her game should be and sort of how caught in between she is at the moment.

30:07Yeah, I really didn't know how she was going to take that question and she gave the most fantastic analysis of her game. Okay, it might not have told us anything that we didn't sort of suspect from looking at the outside, but the fact that she saw it the same way as we see it from the outside and was prepared to say that, I found interesting in itself. She wasn't at all defensive about it. She can take things... She can take things personally as we all can or get a bit defensive occasionally. But I didn't feel like there was any of that today. Even at the start, when the very first question was extremely awkward because it just revealed all of the big names in her section of the draw, which, look, we as people that follow the sport all the time know is something you don't do with Igor Shvantec.

31:03And I do think generally you should be careful with that as a tennis journalist. However, I'm also aware that you can't expect everybody to know that that's a total no-no with Shontek. What I was really impressed with with Shontek was the way she broke down Wicked, like with the seriousness as if she was breaking down her re-assembling. It was incredible analysis. We were talking about Cynthia Erivo's vocal tone and how it blends with other cast members. Oh, it was like a... I mean, she was going deep. She wasn't laughing and giggly. She was serious. It was as if she was on a film review podcast.

31:51And this was all after. It was really... It was kind of cool. It was. It was awesome. It was a great Iguer Chantet press conference. But this was all after the first question, which had gone so badly wrong. and she said, please don't, I don't like to know my draw. Please don't say that again. And that could have set the tone for the press conference and it could have been quite tense at that point. So the fact that we ended up with a deep dive on Wicked for Good was amazing. It made me feel pretty good about Yggish Filmsay. Yeah. And like, I had absolutely no idea, and this was a question that Tamani Carial put to her kind of at the end of the press conference like I didn't know how she was going to feel coming out of the United Cup because it was this weird thing where Poland had won and yet on a personal level she had underperformed you know she hadn't she's not really been in that setting before she'd been in the opposite quite a lot where she'd won her matches and Poland hadn't won but actually I think she did really lean into the team aspect of the United Cup she sort of said that and enjoyed that And yeah, she was on really good form and it was really nice to see.

33:04And in terms of the answer about her game, like she said something that was like music to my ears. She was like, I can be an attacking player and a defensive player. Like that is such a great understanding of her game and her attributes. And, you know, she said the problem is when things are going badly and, you know, she still falls back into her patterns that are so embedded in her game. Because she doesn't have time. The schedule doesn't allow her time to ingrain new patterns, basically. She said if I had six months, I could sort of re-imprint my DNA as a tennis player. Like, she knows she has the technical skill set to do it.

33:47it's just her DNA has been written in a certain way with that partnership with Thomas Wichorowski. She said, like, I just, you only get a couple of weeks here and there, even the off-season is, you know, kind of three weeks and it's just not enough time to fully embed it in the muscle memory so that when things start to go wrong, you don't revert back to old patterns. At some point, I do think she's going to go to school on Arena and start skipping some tournaments. Maybe she'll do it this season, or maybe it'll take one more season of San Blanco finishing the year as world number one, while skipping Canada, while skipping a couple of other things.

34:41she skipped one of the China tournaments, correct? Yeah. And she basically sort of mails it into the Middle East. And I think at that point, EGLE will start sort of dialing back a little bit and being like, huh, maybe there is something to this. Maybe I don't. Maybe the whole like playing every single tournament really doesn't matter all that much when you're at my level. Because there's no reason to. There's no WTA bonus pools. You're not going to lose money out of it the way the ATP players do. You just get zero points that week. But if you're making the final four of pretty much every Grand Slam, you can skip a couple of the thousands.

35:31Yep. Here, here. Or tennis could shorten its calendar and none of that would be... would be necessary. Yeah. Okay, that's it for part one. We will be back in part two to talk about, well, Irina Sabalenka, Coco Gough, maybe even Amanda Anisimova. But before that, a word from our sponsors of this episode and every episode of the Tennis Podcast throughout the Australian Open. It is, of course, Steve Fergal's International Tennis Tours. You're on your own here, Matt. The premium hospitality and experience provider. and Steve Fergals are also official ticket and travel providers for Roland Garros and if David were here he'd be making cooing noises about the wonders of Roland Garros and Steve Fergals can get you travel packages for one of the most special sporting experiences in the world and that includes premium four and five star hotels, daily round trip transportation to the grounds, official match tickets and optional hospitality upgrades that enhance your match day experience if you really want to do things the bougie way.

36:43And if you do, then Tennis Podcast listeners can save 10 % on those incredible travel packages. Perfect for fans that want to create their own itinerary while enjoying official access. You just go to tours4tennis.com forward slash podcast. That's tours, the number four, or tennis.com forward slash podcast, and use the code PARIS10. It's a brilliant offer, and we hope to see you in Paris. Welcome back to part two of today's tennis podcast. I feel like we should talk about Irina Sabalenka, even though I don't have that many takes at all, potentially no takes from Irina Sabalenka's press conference, other than I feel exactly the same way as I did on yesterday's show about she's my favourite for the Australian Open, which is obviously not a mic drop thing to say.

37:35But, you know, Irina Sabalenka was Irina Sabalenka and is incredibly happy and comfortable in Australia and backs herself to win this tournament, I think. Yes. I mean, I have Sabalenka's name written down on my notes page and no notes after it. There really wasn't much to come from this press conference at all. I was thinking about her record in Australia, and she mentioned how well Keyes played in that final last year. And then the other loss she's taken in Australia over the past couple of years was Rabakina beating her in Brisbane. And that's probably the best match I've ever seen Rabakina play.

38:21And it just got me thinking, Sabalenka so often starts the season well. all throughout her career. She clearly loves the conditions and playing in Australia and it has taken two great performances from big hitters who can take the racket out of your hand to beat her over the last few years. Otherwise, it's just a perfect record. And yeah, she is the bar and someone is going to have to go some to beat her here, I think. And yet Coco Goff is in her half of the draw and we know what those matches can look like on the biggest stages and in the highest stress situations. And Coco Goff seemed on brilliant form impressed today.