BONUS - Aus Open 2026 Review

41:05But you've probably got enough Novak chat in this pod already, so let's move on to a different sort of main character energy and talk about Craig Tiley, the Tennis Australia boss and tournament director who's been running this event since 2006. So pretty much the Novak he is, really, given that Novak won his first title in 2008. And Tylee's done an equally stunning job, I think. When people come back here for the first time in years like Jennifer Capriati did when she presented the trophy after the women's final on Saturday, they're almost always completely speechless of what they find, the transformation of what was very much the smallest of the slams.

41:46And now you've got all the music stages, the sort of climbing walls and high wire facilities for kids. You've got the bar courts. You've got the new elevated walkways this year. Okay, you've got John Kane Arena, but let's move on from the bad stuff. Like Alan Carr, who now apparently has eight different series on TV. It's all things to all men or indeed all women. And in both cases here, Djokovic and Tylee, these guys might not be back next year. Djokovic told Serbian press that he hopes he will be, but he can't be sure. Tylee's basically been batting away questions about whether he's about to swap Tennis Australia for the vacant chief executive post at the United States Tennis Association.

42:33Literally everyone I've spoken to is convinced he's going, so I don't think he's been trying too hard to dissuade them from that opinion. um if i've learned two things about tennis politics from writing about it over the last 15 years it's that a nobody cares and b nothing ever changes but this potential move is actually quite interesting to me anyway because uh tiley at the usta would create a sort of axis of new world power at the slams with the usta and the australian open on the progressive side and Wimbledon and the French Open cast as the traditionalists. And I think Wimbledon in particular are beginning to feel a bit sensitive and a bit left behind as their expansion into the golf course gets held up in more incredible red tape and the potential opening date slides back towards the mid-2030s now.

43:27And they're looking at the opening weeks everybody else is doing and just it's something that is impossible, but they don't have the facilities. so yeah overall uh very grateful to djokovic for creating another incredible storyline in that final few days and for to to craig tiley for building something so forward-looking and imaginative in the australian open which is two adjectives that you don't hear associated with tennis very often and uh i hope they both got quite a lot more left to give guys nobody cares and nothing ever changes. So what are we even doing? It's one of the lines of the tournament.

44:13Throwing shade on the John Kane arena. Never changed Simon. I didn't know Simon was with me, but of course he is. He's a man of taste. Craig Tiley's leaving, isn't he? I suppose the only possible scenario is that he's somehow using this interest from the USDA to leverage a better deal with Tennis Australia. But all signs point to an imminent announcement, I think, of Craig Tiley leaving his post at Tennis Australia for the big job at the USDA. David? Yeah, it does feel like that's happening. I did find his timing of coming out with his kind of big picture ideas on the final day of the tournament, you know, best of five set quarterfinals on for women and the various things he wanted to change on court, you know, and not having any umpire on the court and all that sort of thing.

45:15I found that very interesting timing in terms of why he put all that out there, really. I did hear that they weren't wholly well received in some quarters, particularly, I think, on the women's tour side, you know, because nobody's spoken to them about it. But, you know, Craig is kind of like that. He has his own picture of things and he's almost a bit French open like in the way he just decides to just do stuff and say things. But, you know, I kind of feel good. That's what the sport needs is somebody to start a conversation. And I'll be very interested to see what happens when he goes, if he does get this job and goes into the USTA, particularly given the the situation with tennis australia having kind of decided to almost side and suddenly settle with the professional tennis players association whilst the usta hasn't yet you know what does that mean that if he goes into that job that they will also then settle um it's all very interesting i mean i i can't think of another move within tennis where a significant administrator has just gone from one one of the federations to the other like that but then we've never really had an administrator quite as front and central as Craig Tiley with that main character energy so it's an interesting time yeah it's interesting I was I appeared on the ABC Network's sports panel discussion show offsiders on on Sunday morning before the men's final and we were in the production meeting before the show discussing you know what the topics were going to be and I I was it didn't know whether to to raise the the Craig Tiley thing as part of discussion about the Australian Open and looking forward and everything because I I didn't really know how interested a general audience would be in tennis administrators, basically.

47:34I said, is Craig Tiley well-known here? And they all said, oh, yeah, household name. Everyone in Australia that's got a passing interest in sport knows who Craig Tiley is and would be interested that he's leaving this post, which is totally unique, isn't it? Okay, maybe like French, Emily Muresmo is a household name in France as the French Open Tournament director, but not because she's the tournament director because of what she achieved as a player, right? Like Debbie Jevons isn't a household name in the UK, is she? Sally Bolton isn't a household name. So yeah, this does feel as much as on one hand, I'm like, does anybody care?

48:23It's just administrators moving posts. I think this does matter and people are interested just because of the guy that Craig Tiley is, right? No, absolutely. He kind of is in his own sort of sphere a star, which is quite interesting, really. And he gets away with it for the most part. And he sometimes says some pretty extraordinary things that are quite funny. I always think of that one with Nadal, you know, when he's announcing players' participation. and they know nothing about it. But look, as well as being a figurehead, he's a promoter. He's almost like an Eddie Hearn type promoter from the boxing world.

49:18And I think the sport can do with that, really. Somebody who's a bit larger than life, who's not afraid to just speak out and say things and okay, we'll work out whether they were real afterwards, but yeah, float things and see where we end up. It'd be interesting how it flies in the US, assuming this does happen, where tennis is such a niche sport in the way that it isn't in Australia. Okay, it's not the number one sport in Australia, but when the Australian Open's happening, that's the number one sporting thing, number one cultural thing happening in Australia. Like that is not true of the US Open in the US.

50:00It feels, you know, kind of Coco Gauff aside. It feels like a very niche sport over there. And Craig Tiley doesn't do niche, does he? He wants tennis to be a main character. He wants his event to be a main character. So that'll be interesting, I think, assuming it happens. Bit of a shame in a way that he didn't get the job 10 years ago, in a way. I mean, I think he's in his 60s now. If he was 50 and going into a market as big as the US Open and the USTA, I'd be fascinated to see what he could have done. I mean, I'm still interested if he gets this job. But yeah, there's maybe not as much time available to him to really get the juggernaut turning.

50:47Yeah, very interesting. OK, our next voice note brings us inevitably to the destination we knew we'd be arriving at sooner or later. The day that I'm still thinking about, I'll probably still be thinking about for a very long time. I hope I'll still be thinking about for a very long time. Men's singles semifinals day at the 2026 Australian Open, the day that saved a tournament. Here it is through the eyes of the Athletics' Charlie Eccleshare. The one thing I remember from this year's Australian Open is the way in which everything changed in the space of a day. Up until the second Friday, this had been a pretty uninspiring tournament.

51:29I'd still had a lot of fun and written some stories I'd enjoyed doing, plus our report on Raphael Font de Moura, which was a really important story to get out there. But there'd been little to get our teeth into match-wise. That all changed last Friday, and perhaps we should have known this was going to be a special day when our morning Dingles game turned out to be such a humdinger. First, there was David's outstanding performance, and then a couple of epics between James Hansen and I on one side, and the two Matts on the other. Walking into Melbourne Park, Matt Futterman and I agreed that we thought Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic would win a total of one set between them.

52:01And honestly, after a few days of basically nothing but straight sets beatdowns, that felt like quite a punchy prediction. That was at about 1.30pm. Around 14 hours later, at 3.30am, we left the grounds. What happened in the time in between was a reminder that these are the days that make the Grand Slams so unique and special. You don't know exactly when they're coming, but then something happens, and then more stuff happens, and it's like you're caught up in a tornado. The first semi-final between Alkharaz and Zverev was dramatic enough, and then somehow drama begets more drama, and you're watching something even more spectacular, as Djokovic rolls back the years to deliver that performance for the ages to beat Yannick Sinner.

52:38What a day to have agreed to appear on the tennis podcast. Catherine kindly offered me the chance to pull out, given how late things were getting, but these are the days you live for at the slams. It's kind of like that quote that gets attributed to Lenin. There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. This was a day when it felt like a whole tournament's worth of events happened in a few hours. And on these kind of days, all that matters to you in the world is what's going on in the few hundred yards around you on site. And all you want to do is talk about it, revel in it, the adrenaline cursing through you.

53:06It's gone three in the morning, you finish recording, and you're so hyped that meeting your colleague at 10am to run 12 miles feels like a good idea. as Catherine puts it in seven hours you're going to be confronted by the sight of a topless Matt Futterman and then you are and you're running along the coast and you get to the beach and again you think there's no way you'd rather be getting to cover these tournaments and throw yourself into them is of course such a privilege and it makes you feel alive knowing you've just lived a day that there's no way you'll ever forget and nostalgia being what it is the way it elides the mundane and the humdrum maybe I'll look back on the 2026 Australian Open as some sort of classic it wasn't but this was an all-time 24 hours that made me feel alive all over again that voice note first time I've ever been quoted in the same breath as Lennon thank you Charlie but he's really summed up there that feeling of um we've all discussed this before haven't we I think it's something that you got from No Laying Up the golf podcast the feeling of like these are the good old days except that they're now right um and i think we all we all felt that on friday experiencing what we all did together apart from matt for a period of about three and a half hours where uh he had a a post alcarazverev migraine a case of a case of heavy overstimulation but people bounce back, Matt.

54:38Yeah, I didn't move for five and a half hours during Alcaraz Zverev. I got a bit stuck in the media seats and I didn't want to miss the drama. You know, it was a large period of that match where Alcaraz could have pulled out at any possible moment. Certainly it felt like that watching it. He very much said that he certainly wasn't planning to pull out at any point, But, you know, I was just on edge for a lot of it. And, you know, Al-Khraz Zverev is kind of a match between like a story I really want to happen and a story I really don't want to happen. Like the stakes feel high in Al-Khraz Zverev.

55:20And I didn't have enough snacks. David very kindly went out and got me some much needed water and Pepsi Max. But yeah, I'll be honest, I was in a bit of a state at the end of that, at the end of that semi-final. And I don't think quite in the moment I had appreciated just how amazing that match was and that feat was from Alcarez. It was only in the sort of processing afterwards. You know, I think I was just too stressed to really sort of enjoy the drama of that match. Whereas I very much enjoyed and soaked up the drama of the second one. And one of my favourite memories of the tournament was being in the stadium with both of you as Novak Djokovic was mounting that comeback and winning those final two sets.

56:11And just the feeling in the stadium that I think everyone had of, oh my goodness, this is on. And the swell of fan support that Djokovic whipped up. and I think there would have been a lot of people in that stadium who went in not really minding who won but ending up feeling like they wanted Novak Djokovic to do it, to be there, to witness history and I think that was kind of what we were feeling on that day of like, wow, I want this to just be as great as it can possibly be because we've been owed this after a few days of not very good matches and you couldn't have dreamt this scenario with those two matches being as dramatic as they were.

56:53And it was a very rare occasion where you were actually thrilled to be podcasting at 3 a.m. because it meant that you'd had this all-time great day. And yeah, one that will sort of go down in the history books, I think, of Super Saturday, 1984. This was one that people will be talking about for a very, very long time. And Charlie's perfectly captured that feeling that I think the podcast always has. You know, I always want to just talk about the tennis with you two at the end of the day. And this day was sort of the peak of that. You were just, you know, in some ways, those are the hardest podcasts because people are expecting takes and expecting, you know, expecting it to be great.

57:36But people have seen it. They've already formed their own stuff. And how can your words add to it? But, you know, I think just trying to get across the vibe and the tone of the day is kind of the job of those podcasts. And yeah, you're all sort of high on it. It was very special, David. Yes, and I think I will probably end up remembering it more because of Novak Djokovic than Carlos Alcraz, this particular tournament. I feel like Djokovic had the moment. Okay, he didn't get the end result. He didn't get the trophy. but he got what he what he's looking for from this whole process of hanging on he beat one of them he beat the harder one for him you know the bond that he hadn't we all thought he'd never beat again and you know he just went toe to toe five sets outlasted him outplayed him and then started off very well against Alkrazin final, you know, and carried it on.

58:43I just feel like, and he had people whipped up with him. We were getting messages from people or mothers of people who say they'd never supported Novak Djokovic before in a match because they were always a Federer person or a Nadal person or whatever it might have been. And yet they were pulling for Novak Djokovic against Carlos Alkrazin in the final. That's, I mean, it won't be everybody of course but but that that is something i've experienced with other greats who are fading a little and trying to just mount one last stand you know and i felt those feelings as well about about the greats in the past and and he's had his moment and i i can't think of too many bigger achievements than what he pulled off i hope in time assuming there isn't number 25 around the corner um i hope in time they'll we will view it as i i like to view serena williams reaching for grand slam finals post maternity leave um which is like that shouldn't be viewed through a lens of whether or not she she won number 25 it should be view through a lens of she reached four grand slam finals after a maternity leave a traumatic life-threatening labor experience and then being a being a mother on tour which is absolutely unreal and not something that anyone has ever achieved before she won a she won a grand slam whilst seven weeks pregnant like yeah and and look it's we partly view it all through a have they achieved number 25 or not because they framed it that way right it was Serena Williams that brought Margaret Court into the conversation and Novak Djokovic has brought Margaret Court into the conversation by making 25 the goal so that they have kind of encouraged us to view it that way but that doesn't mean that we have to and I will be quite happy looking back on And this run from Novak Djokovic is one of his greatest ever achievements once he's retired, whenever that might be.

1:01:07It's interesting those quotes translated from his Serbian press about not knowing if he'll be back. I don't know how much you read into that, David. I mean, he's kind of been saying that after slams for a while, hasn't he? I mean, he's been saying, I'd like to be back, but I'm 38. I can't, nothing's a given with a 38-year-old body. Like, I don't think that means as much as maybe the quote looks like it means written down. I think he's just being realistic. And I think he does get emotional after these matches. I mean, I think all the way back to when he lost to Checanato at the French Open and said, you might not even play the grass.

1:01:52And people wrote that up in headlines. it's he won Wimbledon a few weeks later um you know and and look I don't think he's I don't think he's being dramatic I don't think he's lying I don't think he's doing anything other than just I mean telling you how he feels in the moment and also how how can how can a 30 nearly 39 year old know what shape he's going to be in in a year's time he's not going to know how you don't know whether he might have just had enough. Like, got to a point and just thought, I don't want to go again. I don't want to go, I don't want to make this trip again. I suspect he will want to if he's physically able.

1:02:32And I still think that he will end up doing his lap of honour. But he could do his knee in between now and then and it will be just impossible like it was for Federer. So, yeah, I don't read too much into it at all, no. So it turns out Simon Briggs probably could have just recycled his voice note from last year because Novak Djokovic has made himself the main character in spite of the fact that we've got a 22-year-old man who has achieved the career Grand Slam, becoming the youngest man ever to do so. He says he had quite a modest celebration in Melbourne on Sunday night. Matt, do we believe him?

1:03:19i do actually yeah he said he said he played board games with his brother which was which was quite wholesome um and then he was up early wasn't he for his for his photo shoot the next morning up earlier than we were yeah well we had a big celebration whereas he didn't and yeah then he was he was on our flight home he was on our flight home yeah we had a lot of the the Alcaraz clan was quite a big feature of our time at Melbourne airport on on Monday they first appeared well Matt and I spent rather longer at check-in than than we had wanted or intended to because I fell down the amateur hour hole of having to remove items from my suitcase at check-in due to it being overweight.

1:04:22So there I am, removing bottles of dry shampoo from my open suitcase with crap strewn all about the floor while Matt is taking photos of me to share with David. and team Alcaraz appear to our left which is just what you want and my goodness me they were an entourage match so much baggage so many human beings and Alcaraz has shared he's done his post Grand Slam photo dump including the picture of all his trainers now I know what was in all the bags that Alvaro was lugging all over Melbourne airport yeah i mean you know obviously they're all free and he gets given them but yeah he might have a he might have a shoe hoarding problem alcares i i hate to think how many are lying around his his parents home back in murcia um yeah and then we just like kept seeing them didn't we yeah the whole the whole alcares team all the way onto the flight um there was a there was a moment in the lounge where

1:05:41well so we're so we're we're um look this is these are these are first world problems we're about to describe right there are there are a lot of it's a great privilege to be able to use any airport lounge we know that but the melbourne the catar airways melbourne lounge it's it's not it's not an a-lister is it matt it's not it's not one of the best no it's not no and carlos alcaraz agrees so there we are um uh me matt and james hansson from the athletic we're uh we're checking into the lounge ahead of our flight and in ahead of us walks carlos out team team alcaraz they stride into the lounge just ahead of us well carlos alvaro and alberto molina his age yes just those The three of them stride in.

1:06:43So then we arrive at the desk and they're in a bit of disarray because Carlos Alcaraz has just walked in and we're very, very much secondary in terms of their needs, needs that they want to satisfy. But anyway, so we're standing there at the desk and probably about 45 seconds later, the trio of Carlos Alcaraz, Albert Molina and Alvaro Alcaraz are seen marching out of the lounge in the opposite direction. and we're like okay this like the uh the Mahaba Lounge or whatever it was called is uh it's not up to scratch for a man celebrating completing the uh the career Grand Slam um and then we eventually enter the lounge and we're we're confronted by what blessed them they have cordoned off as a VIP area.

1:07:43And honestly, I can understand why it was not befitting of a man celebrating a career, a career grand slam. It was like an NHS waiting room. It was absolutely great. It was actually the most depressing part of a not particularly nice airport lounge. No natural light. Some really, really uncomfortable looking sofas with no soft furnishings at all. yeah, it was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. And there was this little sign outside it saying, this area has been reserved for a VIP movement.

1:08:25They'd done their best to jazz it up with a sort of red rope around it, but that only sort of drew attention to it. And it would have, I mean, there wouldn't have been any privacy for them whatsoever. so out they went but then in came the rest of team alcaraz not into the not into the vip area into the plebs area that we were in so yeah samu lopez was there yeah the the physio was there all the assorted hangers on everybody but alvaro carlos and albert molina goodness knows where they were whisked off to um but Matt was in the loo when Juan Carlos Ferreiro came up in conversation, so I didn't have anyone to translate that for me, so we'll never know.

1:09:20All I know is that Feliciano Lopez came up in the same breath.

1:09:29Read into that what you will. Yeah, read into that whatever you will. but yeah it was it was a funny it was a funny um kind of outro to the the Carlos Alcaraz Australian Open experience and yeah he had fallen asleep on the plane before it even took off bless him very relatable stuff and like my takeaway there was like god being famous is is a lot like everyone was just desperate for a photo of him with him were filming in like ways that they thought were really subtle but just weren't you know like mate your flash is on come on and all the cabin crew were sort of kidding about it as well that really annoyed me actually like let's be professional here you're in charge of you're in charge of our health and safety get it together yeah but he handled it all with beautifully yeah absolutely should we have a word on Elena of Akina David because she hasn't come up a lot in this show so far and well she and that women's final deserves to be talked about I think And I feel like that kind of sums up a little bit of how Elena Rebacchina is talked about, regarded, viewed within the tennis world, or at least has been over the years.

1:11:09She doesn't command attention in the way that other people that win grand slams do. Certainly her opponent, who she beat on the night. And it made me reflect a bit the last few days because I read The Barge, a lot of the contributors in The Barge, in response to her victory and in response to our podcast and so forth. And the fact that certainly I came away from that match largely viewing it through a Sabalenka lens, as in I felt like she'd blown it. I also felt that Rebecca had played extremely well from from ball one and her ball striking is enough for me you know I will watch her hit a tennis ball and I'm a happy man just watching her strike a pristine tennis ball is is one of the great sounds and sights in the sport but but I also feel like I'd like to sort of start thinking about her when we go into tournaments over the rest of the year more as a player in the mix because I feel like sometimes I don't because she's not talked about elsewhere or she's not allowed or I mean I realize she hasn't had necessarily had the results that Sabalenka's had but you know she did win the WTA finals and And I think Matt made a very good point about how, yeah, but that hasn't been backed up over the last couple of years in Grand Slams.

1:12:39You know, she's underperformed in a lot of the Grand Slams. But, yeah, I was sleeping on that one, really, in terms of what she would end up doing. And I'm really keen to not let that get away from me, what I've just witnessed. because that was a startling performance to beat Svantec and Sabalenka to win this title. That takes some doing. And I'm really interested to see how she backs it up. And just because she's quiet in the way she goes about celebrating or the way she goes about just behaving as a tennis player doesn't mean she should be thought about less as a contender. And I'm really interested to see now.

1:13:28what she does next yeah i was doing similar reflecting to you david and kind of in particular reflecting on how i came out of this final of theirs at the australian open compared to the one three years ago and i remember i remember being wowed by that one three years ago and and feeling really alive after it and you know it was quite interesting how they were in different places back then you know we're back in her back then was the one who'd won a major and was was trying to get number two and Sabalenka still hadn't won one and you know that was a real moment for her to win her first major there so there's been a bit of a sort of role reversal of of the two players since then Sabalenka came into this one as the player and and kind of the favorite I suppose going into it but I think I think for me what's happened is that in the last three years Sapolenka has just become only more compelling and only like easier for me to talk about, you know, in terms of her final record is so interesting now.

1:14:39And she's become a world number one, but maybe doesn't quite have the number of majors to sort of back up her dominance. And we've and we've also had this interesting question of can she convert to clay and grass, you know, still still waiting for her first majors on those surfaces. So like in the last three years, Sabalenka has sort of grown in my mind. And I think that's probably why I ended up coming out of this final thinking more about Sabalenka than I did Rabatkinna. But you're absolutely right in terms of Rabatkinna's tennis. I do love watching and I do always want that to come across to people listening.

1:15:17But if I'm being like totally honest, like I found Rebecca kind of harder to talk about over the last three years, you know, like the baggage that has accumulated there. and with Vukov's suspension and the investigation into him for abuse allegations and the fact that he's back, like, honestly, I do just find that a harder thing to talk about than I do Irina Sabalenka or Carlos Alcaraz. It's not against Rabatkin as to why maybe, like, the tone of our voice might be slightly different coming out of a Rabatkin win. Like, I love watching her play tennis. It's just all that context for me, like informs how I view matches and stories.

1:16:06And yeah, I'm sorry if that ends up coming across as like anti-Robachno in any way. It's really not. It's just trying to get that tone right, I suppose. Yeah, I think that's really well put. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But you can't argue with the tennis. is yeah and breathtaking i was i was reading this morning she's a combined nine and four against fiontech and sabalenka when they're ranked number one in the world it's an extraordinary record she has marked herself out as the single biggest threat to those two who have been the best two players in the world for a number of years now in terms of individual matches and other players had had the major record more recently you know whether it be coco goff or amanda nissimova with her finals even paulini reaching a couple of grandstand finals like and then the czech players as well of course like other players had felt like bigger major threats but rebecca has finally like put it all together again at a major and this this form she's been in since wimbledon is is really really notable and and having her around as you know as a player with that game does add to the already excellent top of women's tennis that we have.

1:17:31And yeah, she's an exciting force going into the rest of this season. Absolutely. Very well said. Well, as Matt Futterman alluded to earlier, Mary Carrillo is knee deep in Olympics prep. In fact, she's going to be co-hosting the opening ceremony tomorrow night as we record. I'm going to be commentating on that here in the UK. So if you'd like to hear me introduce Mariah Carey singing Valare, then Discovery and Discovery Plus is where you can enjoy that. so no Mary Carrillo voice note on this show but we have our own incredible wordsmith in Hannah Wilkes, captain of the barge and somebody that has done voice notes for us for these shows for the last few years and always gives us important words to live by and today is no different so playing us out with reflections on the Australian Open 2026 is Hannah Wilkes.

1:18:40I'm sorry to be sadly predictable, but I'm going to talk about the men's semifinals, a day that even before it finished was already being sent down in history as one of the greatest days of Grand Slam tennis of all time, which is going to go down in my personal history as a kind of Everest of FOMO because I missed it. started at 3am where I was so I was sleeping and then I had something to do that morning so I just mainly missed it and I've been trying to go through you know the stages of grief about this and I might be stuck in denial because I've started to actually kind of relish the fact that I missed it you know there was something about the kind of frantic and sort of piecemeal way that I experienced it which felt just really true to being a tennis fan because you know most people can't take 10 hours out of their life on a weekday to watch tennis they they just can't you know so there was something about kind of trying to balance my laptop on the bathroom sink so that I could watch Alcaraz against Barov while I was in the shower and you know like missing my exit off the M25 because I was so focused on the radio coverage and you know sitting in my parked car like willing Alcaraz to convert this match point because I really had to get out to go to where I needed to be there was something about it which it just felt fun um anyway I was driving home during the the fourth start of Djokovic against Sinner and again kind of I'm on I'm on the M25 and I'm driving through these kind of torrential downpours and I'm struggling to pay attention to what lane I'm supposed to be in because I'm listening to the BBC radio coverage and all I could think about was David on the previous night's podcast saying about Djokovic I'll believe he can until I see he can't and that line just kept going round and round in my brain because like Matt said on the next pod like I thought we'd seen that he couldn't and I didn't even realize I particularly wanted him to but I found myself so gripped and so invested and wanting it so badly for Novak Djokovic it really took me by surprise the intensity with which I wanted him to get that win and I actually I don't really think that was about Djokovic per se I think it was about what I want from tennis and from Grand Slam tennis in particular which is what a lot of this tournament was missing which is that feeling that anything can happen that anything is possible you know I think the reason that this line from David kind of kept going around in my head is that David sort of embodies that feeling in his in his kind of way of talking about tennis on the podcast and his way of kind of previewing matches and and thinking about what's possible you know he's like the patron saint of you never know so much of this tournament like it felt like we knew and jacob feng shakanta going into it felt like we knew but we didn't know uh i think one of these things one of the things i'm taking away from this Australian Open is, yeah, the resolution to try to be like 1 % more David Law about these matches that feel so inevitable and kind of 1 % less ready to be bored because it's just more fun to feel like anything can happen.

1:22:36And we got that reminder that that's true just in time. Thank you.