BONUS - September Q&A

0:10Hello, friends, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, this live Q &A edition of The Tennis Podcast, especially for friends, guest edited by longtime listener Ben Day, a returning guest editor who is with us live in the chat tonight. Hello, Ben. Love it when our editors can join us live. Hannah's there in the chat. If you're there too, then keep having a good time. Good vibes all around. Matt is here. Hello, Matt Roberts. Hello. Yes, good vibes indeed. And looking forward to the show. Catherine, you and I actually met Ben at the French Open a couple of years ago. So I think it was while a Bianca Andreescu match was happening.

1:00Yeah, it was nice for me to put a face. It can't have been recently then. No, it was nice for me to put a face to Ben's name because I'd only ever emailed him before. And yeah, he's been a long time friend and past guest editor. He's very good at this role. Yes, and we appreciate that. And Ben has met Reggie. So that's a lovely sort of meeting of Tennis Podcast World. I love it when people have met and experienced Reggie. David has taken some time out from watching round-the-clock Ryder Cup hype materials. Very good of you, David. You're welcome. Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, it just makes me more frustrated that it hasn't started yet.

1:44but anyway now I'm here to talk about a sport I prefer and I'm vastly hopefully more qualified to talk about I think it's okay to be like it's every two years isn't it I'm okay with the volume of Ryder Cup hype I mean ask me again in 48 hours I might have reached overwhelm at that point but at the moment i'm so but you're a big hype person like lay it on me you like yeah i like sometimes even more than i like to look forward to things rather than look back at things is that why is that why you and i got on initially catherine because you know i'm the hype guy really aren't i so did that just rub off yeah i mean opposites attract

2:35No, I do like hype. Yeah. I like really, really looking forward to something. And then when it's over, it's dead to me. We've got some excellent shows. We've got some excellent questions from Ben, from the barge that Ben has chosen. A real smattering, a real sort of broad spectrum of topics we're going to cover tonight. So well done, Ben, for that. And let's get going. Are we ready? Let's do it. Ready. CJ in the chat is asking, the Ryder Cup is still shorter than a 1 ,000 event, isn't it? You could fit 12 Ryder Cups in a 1 ,000 event these days, CJ, if not more. Anyway, I digress. our first question.

3:28This is from Claire on the barge. Selected by Ben, Claire asks, would Coco Gough be a better player if she hadn't joined the tour at 15? Would she have been better served taking longer to develop her game? I'm thinking her serving forehand, says Claire, and joining at 17 or 18. What do we think, David? it's a it's a pretty unsatisfactory answer because the only answer i can come up with is perhaps um because i think that that it there are pros and cons i mean when i think of other prodigies people people that have been damaged by starting as young like jennifer capriati i think probably was um but i don't think koka goff has been damaged i think she's taken it all in her stride i think she's she's handling it all brilliantly as a sort of human being um but the question is more about the technical elements isn't it and then i i think about other like footballers soccer players like wayne rooney and michael owen were never more dangerous than when they were 16, 17 and once they'd got older they weren't quite the force and I think that by starting as young as she did she just developed this match toughness and was she seemed ready for it in terms of like the match day element of the sport now if you'd have redirected a couple of years into technique maybe maybe i i kind of feel like that would have needed to start earlier is my sense i still think even you know we often talk about oh you'd need to do this or that in order to reconstruct those shots i just think that that proper probably needed to do when she was in single digits rather than 15.

5:31i i wonder if actually

5:38the answer to the question is kind of like neither scenario it wasn't the wrong thing for her to do to join the tour at 15 i think i think you have to be competing right you can't just be incubating in a in a training situation whether that's juniors or seniors you know seniors at wta level or seniors at itf level if you're working your way up you have to be competing and she was she had obviously advanced she was so physically fit and strong at such an early age juniors wasn't just she wasn't getting out anything out of continuing to compete in juniors anymore I don't necessarily think and I will defer to any sort of technical experts on the game that know better than me but I don't necessarily think that she would have needed to not compete to not join the tour in order to address those technical issues she might have had to you know take it carve out a couple of months you know and do a a training block on it but then the only way to ingrain those um those changes and get them into muscle memory is to do it while while competing so i don't in the specific case of coco goff where this is about the technical issues with her game.

6:58I don't necessarily know that the issue was her joining the tour at 15. I don't know whether, don't necessarily think that that is what has held her back from making those technical changes. I don't know. What do you think, Matt? It's an interesting point. I was struck by the way Mary talked about Coco Goff at the US Open. You know, we had Mary Cruello on the pod, didn't we, after Goff had lost to Osaka. And Mary was really strong on why has she persisted with these grips for so long, you know, and sort of particularly on the forehand and I think, you know, the technique generally on the serve.

7:42You know, I absolutely think Goff probably would be a better player if she had better technique on those two very important shots. But as you say, Catherine, I don't know whether that was, she didn't develop them because she joined the tour or she didn't develop them for other reasons, you know. I think I take David's point as well, like what makes her so good is her match toughness and her resilience. And that, you know, she learned to win in spite of the problems that she had. And maybe if everything had come a bit more easily to her, Maybe some of that ultimate strength of hers might be a little bit negated as well.

8:25So I really don't know the answer to this question. I think if Coco Gauff had not come on tour and improved her technique, maybe I lean towards now she would be a better player. I think maybe I lean that way. I just think because you're on the tour, it is hard to make those changes. um she was she was having but at 15 when she joined she was subject to the age eligibility rules it's not like she was on tour full time at 15 because you can't be no and then we had gaps in that schedule to make the technical changes had she wanted to yeah and then there was a covid break you know very very quickly into her young career you know like there was maybe there was you know she didn't have a sort of normal path did she um you're quite interested to know whether that covid break whether there's anybody out there if you canvassed loads and loads of players whether there was anybody that really took advantage of that and aslan karatsev david is the answer to that question as incorrect of emerged from covid by the way um enormous calves australian open semi-final disappeared off the face of the planet you're only playing covid um one of the uh one of the other things that just occurred to me while matt was talking there was i heard an interview last week whilst watching all the Billie Jean King Cup stuff on the Tennis Channel where you get exposed to a lot of their library material in the ad breaks or in Dead at Dead Time.

10:13I don't know whether you came across the Borna Chorich interview that was on there. Do you know? I was exposed to portions of it. I saw that was on, but I can't say I gave it my full attention. It was actually really quite interesting. It makes me a bit sad to Borna Cioric, David? Well, this is the point, really, that he was asked, you know, you still think of him in a way as this 17-year-old who just came on the scene, and that shows how short careers are versus how long we're able to cover them because, you know, we don't just flame out after 10 years because you get old as a tennis player. And here he is now, he's late 20s, and so it's more than 10 years, and he was asked if you've got any regrets.

10:59if you do anything differently. And he said, if I could probably have my time again, I would probably have taken a little bit of time off chasing ranking points so that I could just improve my forehand, adjust my grip a bit, which has probably let me down in some of the big matches I've played. And he actually said to work on my footwork and things like that. He said, but when your ranking is just ever, ever growing, when it's always going up, you just assume that's always going to happen because it's quite easy to go from 300 to 150 to 50. And he said, I assumed then I would just go to 10 and 5.

11:45I just assumed that would happen because that's what was happening. And then you hit that ceiling where actually your game isn't really fit for purpose at that level. You get found out. And it was very interesting because he's a guy who's had to rebuild. You know, he's gone way down in the rankings and he's had to go back to the, you know, he won all those challenges earlier this year. And he's still kind of butting his head against the ceiling of trying to get meaningfully into the outer reaches of big tournament draws now. But, yeah, he's a little example, I think. yeah that's really interesting I do wonder if also maybe the bigger problem with Coco golf was not was not that she started playing professionally at 15 but maybe was that she had so much success so early I think it's a lot and you know Coco golf has as much humility as anybody but it must be very hard to get your mindset get yourself into a mindset of something drastic needs to change when you're 15 and you're having a ton of success.

12:58Like, I think we see it with Emma Raducanu, don't we? Not that she's too arrogant to change anything, but it must be very hard when you're a Grand Slam champion to really believe that anything fundamental needs to change in your game. So I wonder if that perhaps is a part of it, it's the success at a young age rather than just the fact of being on tour at a young age because I do think they're not perfect but the age eligibility rules do prevent you from being immediately thrust into that hamster wheel situation and can you remember the first time you like seriously thought that Coco Gough had these big issues like I know that there will be technical experts who you know I'm sure will have seen it from a very young age I don't think we were like talking loads about it when it was all you know no way positive no i thought she had an amazing serve that was the thing that struck me when she she beats venus williams and was playing that wimbledon i was like look at the serve this 15 year old's got i remember i was really surprised when people started saying it was a problem i remember seeing her serving juniors and it massively stood out i remember that i remember her forehand in that wimbledon run I remember thinking it was a bit different but I think I thought it was a weapon like the way it would like suddenly drop and it would have a bit of a different arc to other people and it was probably like I think it was probably like post that French Open final that she reached you know where I sort of I really started to realise it when like Iga Sfiontech was like sort of able to just maybe expose her a little bit in a pretty one-sided way up until then it had been really like everything had been up like i i think i knew that it was a bit different i didn't think it was necessarily a problem i suppose but it's only when it technique technique is one of those things where you can you can get away with bad technique a lot of the time it's just when you most need to be able to rely on it is when it will desert you right like technique can be fine when you're loose, but your technique can be sort of can respond poorly to tension.

15:17And, you know, I'm not saying the issue is entirely mental for Coco Goff, but like, she knows she's got an issue on the serve in the forehand and the mind is a very complicated thing. Yeah, I mean, the US Open in 2019, I won't name them, but I was hosting for Amazon that tournament and I worked with a pundit that said they thought she was going to be the greatest of all time, which obviously was ludicrous and I did press them on it at the time. But like absolutely nobody was saying, look, she's obviously incredible and has so many unique or uniquely precocious raw attributes. But just marking your card here, there are a couple of issues that could cause problems in the fullness of time.

16:14Absolutely nobody was saying that. And I remember a big time name drop coming here, but I remember being with Billie Jean King at her apartment. Now, would this have been 2022 during Wimbledon? I think so, yeah. When she said, I remember her saying Coco Goff needs to take time off. She needs to take a block of time to address this. And I think that was the first time I really thought of it in that way. But yeah, you're right. Let's not revise history and make it so that everybody was saying this right from when she was a 15-year-old making that breakthrough at Wimbledon. And it's why it's so crazy now that everybody seems to be kind of unified in believing that Wimbledon will be the hardest for her to win as a slam because of those extreme grips.

17:10Like Wimbledon was where she broke through and seemed so natural because of her physicality and that serve. Yeah, we've been on such a journey with Coco Gauff, haven't we? And she's still only like 12. Ridiculous. What a fantastic question, by the way. Thank you, Claire. I usually don't like questions where they'll never be an answer because it's a hypothetical because, you know, it reminds me of my philosophy degree. But I actually really liked that one, Claire. So thank you. And thank you, Ben, for selecting it. next question this one's from Laura C on the barge Laura C asks the big three skipped tournaments to prioritise winning slams later into their careers how concerned should the tours be that top players might use that model earlier in their careers is the proliferation of 12 day tournaments an incentive is there a tipping point where a particular tournament is devalued by its fields

18:16my answer to this is if the tours aren't concerned about it then they've got flipping blinders on they should be really concerned about it really concerned about it it's already happening look at Canada this year that tournament is so devalued already if I'm the tournament director of Canada I am at the door of particularly the ATP I think Shontek turning up there at the WTA event this year covered up some of the issues on the WTA side but the WTA and in particular the ATP saying the I'm not we're not getting bang for our buck here for whatever license fee they're paying to the to the ATP like it is this is happening and it's a big problem David yeah well I couldn't agree more and I don't really think it's possible I don't think it look it using Nadal as an example it's not really fair to use him as something that's doable.

19:14But even he didn't have to use to win Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros in this way. And increasingly, if you go deep in one of those, certainly in the first one, if you go really deep in Madrid, if you win Madrid, you're probably not playing Rome. if you want to be really fresh by the time you get to Paris. And then you've got that, everything's such a rush now, Paris and Wimbledon, and then it feels like there's not really room for everything before the US Open now because of the length of these things, even though those aren't as long. Yeah, and I do think for the very, very top players, and this is a bit of a legacy of Serena Williams and the big three is things are so much measured now by Grand Slam success more than ever and I think that the other the tour inevitably does suffer and and and those players are you you know the very top players I'm talking Sina Alcaraz and say Sabalankas Fiontech they're going to use the rest of the tour most of the time as ways to prepare for those Grand Slams it's just a sensible way to do it and if you're making those very tournaments that long okay fine I just won't play some of them and I'm rich enough not to yeah and obviously technically they're mandatory but you know Sabalenka's not playing Beijing this week because she's got a minor injury like there's ways there's ways around those rules and I think the irony here is that the tour will probably say that they've tried to increase the sort of value of the tour by having these two-week Masters 1000, you know, and sort of make them these sort of bigger events, make them more sort of premium.

21:28I think the reality is almost the exact opposite of that in that you've what you've actually created is something with far less point of difference to the slams than the masters used to have you know they're now like worse versions of the slams like poor imitations of the slams except they don't have the prize money they don't have the prestige and you know if you go back in the day like i know that fedor Nadal and Djokovic towards the end of their career would skip Masters 1000 events. But back when they were like really jostling for position in the peak of the like big three, big four era, they were playing everything because they could because they were shorter.

22:13And it wasn't like they were always at a tournament. Whereas these players now, if they play everything, are always at a tennis tournament, you know, through the spring, you know, there's just no break. um so i really sort of think that the effect that the tours tried to have has really backfired in that sense and has created a much more of a system where these players do now think well if i can win i can win one of those roland garros lead-ups as david said or i don't need to play canada i'll just play cincinnati you know like that that that is happening we're seeing that yeah I'd love to know really the ATP marketing marks to quote Mary Carrillo you know when they're looking they're looking at themselves in the mirror whether they know that it was a mistake the WTA2 but I think the ATP were leading the way on the 12 day 1000 events whether they realised it was a mistake and there were unintended consequences that they didn't account for.

23:27I'd love to know if it, because I don't think they're going to change their minds or admit to it having been a mistake, but it so obviously was a mistake. They're such in a battle, aren't they, for providing jobs and prize money and value to the tournaments as well. I mean, it's always been that conflict of interest that the tours have and it's more so than ever now and yet the more problems they think that they've solved they they're creating others and actually more generally they're creating bigger ones because you know we we had the whole discussion yesterday about there not being room for things and yeah i think on reflection you were right really to be pointing the fingers more at these and And it's just, it's frustrating, really, because they're all great events.

24:20There's so many great events. But you can't just keep asking more and more from players. I know I realise they then ask more of themselves by playing other exhibitions. But still, these things are so extreme. Yeah, absolutely. Next question. This is from Ben. Another excellent one. If you could each choose a non-Slam tournament to be tournament director of, which would it be and why? Would there be improvements you'd be looking to make? Matt, I'm coming to you first. I am very keen to reform the year-end finals. I'm going to hop on one of our agendas. and say get rid of round robin um i thought you were quite into round robin at the tour final no oh no not at all that's interesting no not at all right that's good i um i find the tour finals a really unsatisfactory end to the season i think on paper it sounds great like the eight best players in the world i i like i do i sort of like the idea of like you can guarantee to fans that you will see these players a number of times.

25:47I think it's rare that tennis gets that. So that is unique about these events. But ultimately, I don't like it. I think I want to freshen up the season, the end of season finals. You could definitely convince me to go to 16 players so that you just have it as a knockout. You replicate a similar number of matches as you would have through round robin. I'd probably have the top four seeded and then I'd have everyone else unseeded. So there's a little bit of sort of chaos in there as well. And I think, you know, the beauty of a tennis tournament is that every match feels to some degree like consequential.

26:25It's a knockout. And you just don't get that at the tour finals. Plus, everyone's knackered that you don't need to be playing three matches. If you've lost the first two, like you're done, like you're on your last legs. and you've got to play another match. And like, is that providing great entertainment for the fans? Like, I'm not convinced it is. So I would try and inject some life into the end of the season by becoming tournament director for the year-end finals and making those changes. I'm glad that was such a good answer because that was my answer as well. And I would just like to co - I'll just be Matt's assistant.

27:06We can take one each. Co-tournament directors. yeah co-tournament directors yeah we'll take one each we'll draw it from a hat but I just want to do all of your ideas co-sign on all of that and I would like it to be outdoors oh that would be my other thing that would be my other thing I'd move it around yeah move it around but try and keep it outdoors that used to happen Matt Jim do you remember far back enough to remember all that? like I don't like the first ATP finals like I remember watching it was like set in Shanghai uh but I but I know that like they played them what in like Lisbon Euston yeah so various places I mean when I first started watching tennis in the early 90s it was in Frankfurt for several years then it was several years in Hanover which is where it was when I joined the tour and I went to Hanover and and was there in Germany.

28:02And then in, I think, 2000 was the first year it went, it did its one-year stays, and it did a year in Lisbon, and I went to that, and that was amazing. Gustavo Curtin won it. Then it went to Sydney for a year, and then it went to Shanghai, I think, the year after that, and then it stayed there for a bit. Actually, and then there was the very amusing years. It was even Houston, wasn't there? Houston. It did two years, I think, in Houston. Tournament directed by somebody called Mattress Mac.

28:39Who is a sort of mattresses. Can we do a relift on this? And there's this great moment where, because Roger Federer was, he was now starting to dominate. I'm going to Google him. Mattress Mac. How am I spelling Mac? M-A-C-K? M-A-C, I think. I mean, I think it's shortened for a longer name. I can't remember what his name was, but put Houston Mattress Mack in. Jim Mackingvale is his real name. And so there's definitely, I think if you went to either 2004 or 2005, Federer played Agassi in the final, and Mattress Mack did not want Roger Federer to win at all. and he was in the crowd like with an American flag cheering on Agassi and he's the tournament director and it was quite a thing he was quite he actually put out some sort of quotes because I think they might have played in the round robin as well as the final, something like that or maybe it was the semi-final but there was some quotes where he was quite pissed off that Agassi had lost Like he was really quite aggressively pissed off.

29:57So that was very amusing. And then eventually he found it. This is a checkered Wikipedia page I found here. Okay. James Franklin McInvale, also known as Mattress Mac, American businessman known for owning and operating the gallery furniture retail chain based in Houston, Texas. Best known for his energetic, fast-paced sales pitches, typically ending with some variant of his catchphrase, saves you money. He's got a book, David. Co-authored the book Always Think Big. He sounds like a man that speaks exclusively in catchphrases, which is very irritating. In capital letters. Yeah. Yeah, he's been sued by the district over some tax issues, primarily donated to Republican candidates for office, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Lauren Boebert.

30:57Supported the Tea Party movement. Married to an Olympic diver, Cynthia Potter. Their marriage lasted three years before McInvale filed for divorce. Oh, gosh, this is a lot of wives. Okay. A picture is emerging. On February 3rd, 2022, McIngvale placed an unsuccessful$4.5 million wager on the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl L5-1. It officially set the record for the largest mobile wager in sports betting history. As a result of the Houston Astros winning the 2022 World Series, Mac was awarded$75 million in total sports betting payouts, the highest total in sports betting history.

31:57Do you want to know what tournament I'd be director of? No, I just want to read this man's Wikipedia page. But yes, yes, OK, I do. Okay, I'm going to be the tournament director of Rome and I'm going to make it equal prize money and I'm going to build the whole event around the court pietrangelo. Ooh, fun.

32:20Yeah, very fun. Where's everyone going to sit, though? I don't worry about that. I just want to make it a good atmos. It's an amazing little stadium as it is. Why do you just have to go big? I mean, I just think it's the best stadium in tennis. If you just leave it alone and just, you know, not worry about having 10 ,000 in. I know you're not allowed to do that at Masters level, but just imagine it. Imagine if those marble steps were just packed with people when an amazing match was going on. Oh, that court is incredible. So much better than just a big sold-up stadium. Yeah, great. Can't argue with that.

33:07I do see crowd control issues, but... Could you make it... Happy to live in this utopia. Do you make it more sunken so you can get even more people in it? I don't know if that's possible. Get the shovels out. Yeah. But, I mean, I also just love that tournament. I mean, it's a selfish thing as well as wanting to equal the prize money and do one or two things. You know, try to make it a bit more efficient. It's not a very efficient tournament, I don't think. but I just think it's got such soul. Make it a week. Make it a week again. Well, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. We're doing that. Not being on the tour otherwise.

33:50Next question comes from Ethan Normandy on the barge. We know Ethan. Hello, Ethan. Ethan gave me two Amanda and a Samova T-shirts in New York. He's a real one. uh very simple question here who should andy murray coach next and why david you can go first before i fall down another internet rabbit hole i actually had to kind of bring up the ranking lists on this um to think about it um because i was really struggling about it i think when you with Novak Djokovic, you have given yourself a bit of a problem. And I think he made a mistake there and there. I mean, I understand why he did it. And it would have been very difficult to say no to.

34:41And you're probably left wondering kind of what if, if you'd said no. But I... I'm just picking up here, David, on something Hannah's pointed out on the barge. do we definitely know Andy Murray's a good coach? No, of course not. Oh, there was definitely part of me that was a bit like how's he walked into a Premier League job? He needs to do his badges and go and coach in League One and earn his stripes in the Championship. But just sort of framing the Djokovic thing is Andy made a mistake I mean maybe Novak made a mistake well absolutely I mean I still think it's one of the one of the subjects that will probably come out in the fullness of time but in terms of what I'd like him to do if he was to come back into coaching which I think he will at some point I kind of I mean probably the main thing I'd like him to do is find a player to work with from an earlier age and sort of work with them and bring them up.

35:55But I also don't know whether that's just a bit too much for somebody like him who doesn't necessarily want to be on tour like that anymore. I sort of feel like the most useful kind of use for his time would be to come on board with somebody like Lendl came on board with him who is trying to make the next the final step and lendle knew what it was like lendle got there and became a dominant world number one just as handy murray okay he wasn't dominant in the same way but he got to number one he won more grants he won grand slams um and lendle was kind of did feel like the missing piece of the jigsaw and i kind of feel like murray could do the same for somebody the biggest problem is the most like for like is probably zverev and i don't want that to happen um so i'm actually going to go i've named i've got four names here for you um as candidates dimanor because i actually i do think dimanor responded really well to agassiz the other day um it's it was it was very interesting and and rafter it was very interesting and seeing there was way more to him when you gave him some of their ideas, if you like.

37:16And he was on this pudding of a court and they figured out a way to just tie Zverev up in knots, really, on that slow court with the low slice to the forehand, etc. And they'd clearly been working on it. Currier actually interviewed him and said, I saw you practising that tactic. and then you put it into being today and he was like, oh yeah, you've been doing some spying. So it's clearly something that they were working on. And I'd love to see, you know, maybe Andy Murray could help him become an even better player. I think maybe Mazzetti is another one that Murray could help. And then I've also gone with Andreeva and Mukova for similar reasons.

37:59I think I almost don't want him to coach Andreeva. Well, I don't because I don't want the Martinez Association to end. And I'm also slightly worried, what if it went wrong and didn't work out at all? And then you'd ruin the Andreva and Murray kind of lovely distance relationship that you have right now, where they're sort of really nice about one another. But those are the sorts of players that I think he could become a finishing coach to.

38:35it's funny I I wrote down Androva as well for similar reasons partly because I don't really want Andy Murray to coach again straight away like I want him to be at home and see his kids grow up and he's not at home he's on the golf course Matt right but if he's not coaching he can be at home at least a little bit more and I want him to do that and that would allow the Andreva-Conchita Martinez partnership to continue to flourish and then when that comes to its natural conclusion maybe Andy Murray can sort of step in there I think it would be like exceptional fun like you know as you've described Andreva with her big crush on Andy Murray and then Andy Murray you know trying to trying to help her win big titles and i also think there might be a little bit of a similarity there in terms of game style you know just like someone with loads of options a really high tennis iq but needs to hit that forehand a bit more and you know needs to maybe just get their sort of on-court temperament a bit more under control or get the best out of it so I just like that one for lots of reasons I also think Murray on the WTA Tour would just make a lot of sense considering you know we know that certainly by ATP standards he's been way more supportive of the WTA Tour and way more sort of interested in it and I think I think he'd be like really happy like scouting and like watching matches and all that kind of thing I think that would I think that would sort of stimulate him.

40:25So, yeah, that was kind of the one that came to mind. But I also like your suggestions.