BONUS - US Open 2025 Review Show

37:39It looks like they just wanted something cool and datery looking. So you end up with a placebo data viz. It looks fancy, but isn't helpful. For good data storytelling, you need experts all the way down, making good decisions about what statistics to derive, what to present and when. And the when is extra difficult in tennis when you have inconsistent time gaps between points and sets, only two minutes between games and sometimes adverts to cram in as well. So there you go. No notes. No notes and very interesting stuff. Let's move on to hear from our very own, our captain of the barge, our resident writer, the wonderful Hannah Wilkes, who always brings a unique perspective when looking back on any tennis tournament?

38:36And here is hers reflecting on the US Open 2025. If you asked most people who played the best tennis at the US Open when they were down match points, I think most people would point to Barbara Krejcikova against Taylor Townsend. But if we apply Matt's principle that what we want to see more than anything is the best tennis played at the biggest moments, I think you have to look at Taquito Oda and the four championship points he saved in the deciding tie-break of the men's wheelchair singles final against Gustavo Fernandez. When I'm talking about Oda and I'm trying to find words for his tennis and the impact that he has, I find myself constantly reaching for comparisons from the standing game.

39:33And I think that's about more than the poverty of my tennis vocabulary. Stefan Uday said recently that Oda was like a standing player who happens to play sitting down. I don't know if that's true, but I can only compare the way that I feel watching Oda to the way that I feel watching Carlos Alcaraz hit a winner from an impossible position. Or, you know, watching the kind of sheer velocity coming off Amanda Anastasia Mova's backhand wing. It's just gobsmacked and marvelling and slightly indignant, you know, like, I'm sorry. I thought we had to obey the laws of physics. Like, who told you that you were allowed to just reconfigure space and time, you know?

40:26Are we allowed to do that? There's a forehand that Oda hit on the second of the four championship points he faced in that tiebreak, which I genuinely can only describe as Nadal-esque, you know? like that infuriating kind of swerving lefty forehand down the line that's definitely going wide it's definitely going wide oh it's dropped right in the corner like it's on youtube and the highlights that are available of that match but what the highlights won't show you is the shot he hit on the previous point which was also championship point against him which was an absolute laser of a backhand cleaning the line just another paradigm shifting a winner just hit off the opposite wing I don't think Gustavo Fernandez he was also playing for a career slam by the way can play better than he did but it's that capacity to just kind of break the game to do something like nobody knew anybody was capable of doing when it matters most and this clearly mattered tremendously to Takeda Oda.

41:41I mean, it was to complete the career golden slam at the age of 19. So, you know, fair enough. But there was a moment, quite a long moment, actually, during the trophy ceremony when he was addressing his coach who had also come out onto the court. his coach was getting you know getting an award recognizing recognizing his achievement in coaching Tukita Oda and Oda was speaking in Japanese to his coach and he was crying and his coach was crying and honestly I was crying even though I didn't understand what was being said and I think that's a pretty solid metaphor for the experience of watching this player you may not understand exactly how he's doing what he's doing and you may may not even have the technical technical tennis vocabulary to appreciate it but you can't deny the way that it makes you feel we were hoping that weren't we when we sent the requests out for voice notes that hannah would would talk about taquito odor and she did not disappoint yeah hannah talking about odour has become one of my favorite things really i think it i think watching him has become such an important part of hannah's second week grand slam experience you know where the number of matches suddenly whittles down in the singles and there are just gaps in in the day or parts of the day where you don't necessarily want to be watching the singles match that's on so so hannah has turned to Oda in those times and I think she really captures what is special about him there.

43:32I know that there was some frustration that this final I think took place on court 11 and it was scheduled at a time when there were loads of other finals on as well and it was quite hard to sort of focus on one. I believe that the reason that happened is because of the expected bad weather that did end up coming on the Saturday. I think that was why they ended up scheduling all the finals at 11 a.m. But even so, I do think sort of the next big step for the US Open in terms of showcasing its wheelchair tennis is to, you know, put the final on one of the courts with a roof at a better time. really um we ended up missing it you know as we were we were getting ready for the for the women's final it was just at a time when we couldn't be on site um but you know they do a lot of good things us open they've got the junior wheelchair events they had a para standing event this year as well and like absolutely odour is one of the one of the main characters of these Grand Slam second weeks now his his encore magnetism both with his personality and his shot making is extraordinary and yeah just want that to be as as showcased as it can be and that we can do more it's great that we've got got Hannah to to really help with our our coverage of Oda but I also think that you know we can do more and the and and and the tournaments as well.

45:11The other thing is that Saturday had all of those finals scheduled and okay, they didn't originally intend for them all to be scheduled at the same time and at 11am that was due to weather. But Sunday was always going to be just the men's singles final. Like the men's singles final gets Sunday all to itself. Whereas Saturday has all this other stuff going on. And now they've cleared out the mixed doubles at the US Open. Right. There should have been even more time, you would have thought. I mean, he could do with a consistent rival, Takedo Oda, in the coming years, couldn't he? Because he's separating himself.

45:50OK, look, this final was close. It's not like there's nobody that can get anywhere near him. Alfie Hewitt is constantly pushing himself to the absolute brink just to try and be competitive against him and give himself a shot in these matches. But Takedo Odo is 19 and he's getting better and better and better. And he's winning pretty much everything. And a rival would be welcome, I think. I'm sure for him as well. There's plenty of examples of rivals making one another better. Yeah, I think that's one of the things at the moment that makes him so extraordinary. The fact that he constantly wins big matches.

46:32you know he he doesn't need a David Law pep talk why do I lose all the close matches he he's he's winning all the close matches and coming up with extraordinary shots you know as as Hannah's described there but you do feel like in in the next few years he'll probably separate himself from from the field and and he'll he'll he'll remain remarkable but you want the matches to remain as thrilling as they are. And whether that's the likes of Fernandes and Hewitt catching up to him seems tough for them or whether it's someone new coming along, it's certainly going to be interesting to follow that. Yeah, and the women's wheelchair game is in a really interesting place at the moment as well because you've got Didi de Rout on the combat trail Basically, she had surgery, didn't she, at the end of last year?

47:31And she's come back, but she's not quite come all the way back yet to be dominant like she was before. And obviously, we've had Yui Kimiji being the one to take most advantage of this sort of gap in what everyone's assumed would be a gap in Didi de Hout dominance, and it'll only be a matter of time before she gets back to where she was. But nothing's a given, and it's going to be very, very interesting to watch that closely. So thank you, Hannah, for that. And thank you for everything that you do. Let's hear now from Matt Futterman, our host for bagels and dog cuddles on Saturday morning. It was a lovely day, wasn't it?

48:17I can't believe that was only six days ago. Matt Futterman of The Athletic. Here are his reflections on the 2025 US Open. I thought a lot during the last few days of this U.S. Open about what I might remember from this tournament, what matches and moments I might recall in 10 or 20 years. I don't know that I'll remember much from the men's tournament. I will remember that Sinner and Alcaraz played one of their 67 finals or whatever it ends up being. I might remember that Alcaraz won. I will definitely remember his dancing backwards, inside and forehand tearing through the court. Matt Roberts was sitting next to me in a relatively empty stadium by Ash standards when it happened in the quarterfinals.

49:02We both let out this visceral moan. He's made flashier shots than that one, but it might be my favorite because the physics seemed so impossible and he made it look completely effortless and normal. And it was the opposite of that. What else from the men? Not too much. I found the final kind of ropey and unsuspenseful. There weren't many stretches when both players were playing great at the same time. I won't remember the score or any particular turning point. I spent a lot of time staring at Bruce Springsteen, who was sitting about 20 yards from me. Hmm, Bruce just turned down a cocktail and opted for a bottle of Evian instead.

49:42Very interesting, I thought. I nudged Charlie Eccleshire at one point in the fourth set. Look, Shaggy left and Bruce has switched to sitting on the other side of his daughter, Jessica, so he could sit next to Sting. That's big, I told him. Then I thought long and hard about whether I would have preferred to sit in the musical icon box with Bruce and Sting and Shaggy and Pink or in the funny box behind them with Mindy Kalin, BJ Novak, and Ben Stiller. I think I'm going with the funny box. They seem a little more approachable. As you might have guessed, I'm struggling a bit with men's tennis these days.

50:17The whole tournament until the final matches feels like a form of foreplay, though that might be too generous a term. Then it's Sinner and Alcaraz. They're completely amazing, jaw-dropping at times even. I also sometimes feel like they're this flying trapeze act at the circus. Utterly otherworldly and outrageous, but a little numbing after a while. Men's tennis desperately needs a third man, and probably a fourth. I comfort myself by remembering that Ndalen Federer had a few years of near-total domination before Murray and Djokovic evolved into legitimate threats. Someone will come along. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

50:55The women, though, gave me two things I will never forget. I will start with Anissa Mova. I'd been with her in Cincinnati, first in a gaggle with a few other reporters, and then in a one-on-one interview. During the gaggle, she suddenly got teary when talking about something just distantly related to the Wimbledon final. When we were alone later, she seemed kind of wistful and pensive, totally understandable. but a little bit damaged, I thought. Again, completely understandable. And then two weeks later, she's grinding her way through the draw. She's blasting Sviantec off the court. She's coming back and plowing through Osaka in the middle of the night and then making Sabalenka's life really difficult late in the final.

51:41I don't know that I've ever seen resilience of that magnitude. It may be long for a time when America welcomed immigrants and also so thankful that the Constitution gives citizenship to anyone who is born here, as Anissa Mova was, and that the USTA connected her with a coach when she was eight years old who still texts her after every match with words of encouragement. She's needed it. She's come back from about the hardest thing any teenager could go through. I suppose after losing your father suddenly at 19, it's a little easier to classify a 6-0-6-0 defeat in the Wimbledon final as a bad day at the office.

52:18But still. I passed her in a hallway last Friday, the same day she had beaten Osaka in the small hours of the morning. She stopped to say hello as I congratulated her. I asked if she'd gotten any sleep. She did, she said, a few hours. What about you, she asked. I think Anisimova is going to be just fine. I don't believe in God, but if there is one, she has a hell of a plan for Amanda. There's no clean way to transition from there to Taylor Townsend. The other part of this U.S. Open that I think I will always remember. I don't have a lot of hate in my body, but my hatred of racism and anything that even reeks mildly of it takes up a lot of the reservoir.

52:59I know I'll never forget what Yelena Astepenko said to Townsend after their match. It'll be on my mind every time I see Astepenko now, because she quadrupled down on what she had said before someone finally got to her and made her stop, probably. there's that old saying about sports and war revealing the best and worst in people Ostapenko represented one half of that statement Townsend represented the other imagine the rage she must have been feeling inside as she sat at that microphone and showed that she is the true essence of class and education and intelligence and so much else I loved it and it also broke my heart because I felt like she knew the sad truth that women in general and black women specifically, aren't really allowed to get angry in public, and that really sucks.

53:45But then, under the most intense microscope of her career, she tore through Mira Andreeva on Ash and played the match of the tournament against Barbara Kirchikova on Labor Day weekend in a packed Armstrong. Kirchikova saved eight match points, one by a few millimeters. And then there she was again, in front of the microphone, manifesting a morsel of joy amid the heartbreak and vowing to fight on, because that's what the best ones do. They know the secret to tennis and life. The only thing that matters is what you do next. Great to share some tennis and bagels with you all. See you again somewhere, sometime.

54:22On to what's next. An all-timer there, I think, from Matt Futterman. He's done us incredibly proud. And he's kind of touched upon, really, all the things that I think I will take with me from this US Open. And they're not all positive things in terms of what will... I've got lots of really happy memories from it, but in terms of what will really leave a mark, a couple of the things aren't so positive, but the most positive one is the resilience of Amanda Anisimova. I didn't know that about her. It is a total revelation to me that she is this person. And it's a wonderful revelation. I'm really in awe of her and what she did this fortnight.

55:17I kind of said it all on the main podcast. I had my doubts after Wimbledon whether she would be back in that position again. And I would have been jaw on the floor astonished if you told me you should have been back in that position again at the very next slam, beating Igor Shvantec along the way and then backing up that victory over Igor Shvantec by beating Naomi Osaka. I think she's now an incredibly intriguing character to me as well as being obviously an astonishing tennis player. I've always understood the tennis. I really have. I've got what you've seen. But I've just never really thought of her as somebody with this kind of grit on the court and with this kind of clear love for the sport.

56:13And maybe it hasn't always been there or maybe she's not always been able to show it. But I've connected with her in a way that I really didn't see coming. and it's been such a happy revelation over these past few weeks for me. Yeah, and I think she is someone who you have to watch quite a lot to get that from because she does put a bit of a guard up in interviews, for example. She's spoken really well, I think, in lots of press conferences this year and she was actually really open in her final press conference, having lost to Sabalenka. She really did let us in in kind of how she was feeling there.

57:03But obviously, I agree with you. I'm just so pleased that we're seeing that tennis in the latter stages of the biggest tournaments now. I feel like part of my job on the podcast is, you know call out stuff we don't like about the sport and part of it is celebrate stuff that we do and lift up stuff that we do like and i i get such a buzz out of the amount of people on like the barge now and on on our instagram who are rooting for amanda and the simova like it just fills me with so much joy i'm like my job is done like people are people and i'm not saying they're just doing that because of me but people are appreciating her tennis in a way that i think they haven't done because we're seeing it in the latter stages of major tournaments that is the best way to get through to people whether it be your tennis or whether it be your personality that you're kind of talking about there we're seeing it and that's all i've really ever wanted you know Will she go on to win a Grand Slam title?

58:17I sure hope so. But I don't know. You can never know. There are so many good players still. There's still bits of her game that I still think she's got to improve. But she's relevant now. Totally. She's a relevant force. And you feel like with everything that's in place for her now, she can keep being relevant. Let's hope there's no big injury or something like that. But you think she can keep being relevant for quite a few more years. She's still pretty young and I find that exciting. And yeah, let's bring on the Australian Open. Do you share Matt's position on Yelena Ostopenko in terms of kind of not being able to view her in quite the same way from now on?

59:06Not sort of being able to have quite the same fun and silliness with her that we've always been able to have. Yes, I think Matt said it well. Like, we're always going to think about this now with Ostapenko. Unless, you know, I don't want to completely write someone off. Like, unless she does the work and properly fronts up and apologises and owns what she said and at least understands why it was wrong for her to say what she said i don't i still don't think we're there with her given the quote-unquote apologies that we that we did see on her social media so as long as that's hanging over her and she hasn't properly addressed it yes i do think i do think sadly ostapenko became a lot less fun this tournament And that is a, it's a blow because, you know, the head to head with Svantec and the faces on court.

1:00:15We've had a lot of fun with that. But this is a lot more important.

1:00:25Before we move on to our final voice note and just a few reflections on the men's final and the final day generally of the tournament. Anything else you want to touch upon? Well, I've come up with a stat, which I think you'll like. It goes off what Matt was saying there about, you know, the men's tournament being a bit of a drag until you get to the Sino Alcaraz of it all. And I think now there's such a pressure on Sino and Alcaraz to deliver. Like, I think that was quite a good final. but I think because of the paucity of good matches that have preceded it and because we kind of need it to be good we're maybe judging it a little bit harshly like I think if the rest of the men's event had been really good and we'd got that final we'd have been pretty satisfied with that final but because of Roland Garros that was so good and because of such a pressure on them to deliver for us now.

1:01:29I think we're being a bit harsh on it. I absolutely take the point. They didn't necessarily play all that well at the same time, which would make it a great match. But they've actually put the full replay on the US Open YouTube. It's great. They've cut all the faff. It's got Mary Crullo's commentary and it's just a really nice two-hour watch and I have watched it back and it's good. It's a high-level match, I would say, especially from Al Karaz. Anyway, that's all padding for my stat. This year at the majors, there's only been two five-set matches from the round of 16 onwards. So out of a possible 32, you've got eight round of 16 matches at the four majors.

1:02:22There's only been two. little quiz obviously the world on Garros final is one of them that's one that's one of them can you remember the other one I don't think was it a round of 16 match it was a round of 16 match and it was at Wimbledon because if it wasn't you'd have made it a quarter finals onwards stats so I'm getting this not from my tremendous memory of tennis I'm getting it from my knowledge of Matt Roberts' mind palace Wimbledon round of 16 matches oh my goodness

1:03:01think of a pod bit was Grigor Dimitrov involved? was it Nicholas Jarry? Nicholas Jarry against Cameron Norrie oh we can understand why I've forgotten that absolutely so Nicholas Jarry against Cameron Norrie and the French Open final, like one of the best matches of all time. Wow. Those are our two five-set matches from the round of 16 onwards. And look, obviously, not every match has to go to five sets to be a good match. You know, I'm sure there've been plenty of good four-set matches and, you know, even some interesting... Bad five-set matches. Right. But it is at least a marker of competitiveness, you know are we making that deciding set and truthfully i haven't done the stats on this but this year there was a lot of blowouts at the us open in the in the round of 16 and quarterfinals and the australian open i remember there being quite a lot of like retirements around that stage yeah and there were retirements in the us as well and that it hannah made this point in her in her second column from the us open which is uh which is available um right now um that, look, the early rounds are fine for men's tennis.

1:04:24You can get away with it because you've got sort of B plots, haven't you? Plots that aren't necessarily relevant to the wider tournament but are fun. And you are getting the good matches. There's always great matches somewhere. Yeah. Right. There's enough going on that there are good matches somewhere. You know, you've got Holger Runa losing to Jananad Struth and you've got Coleman Wong breaking through and being a fun story. I had a great time watching Kabali Brooksby. Right, there's stuff. There's fun stuff. And we've obviously got these Cineron Crest finals that provided we get them, they are usually pretty great.

1:05:01Like different levels are great. They're not always going to be the Roland Garros final. But I agree with you, like this final was pretty good. It's just we're judging everything by the yardstick of Roland Garros now. It is rounds 16 to semis that there is a real problem with men's tennis. That's when you feel it. That's when you've got matches that feel inconsequential, that take up a lot of space on the schedule because they're best of five relative to women's matches. And that there's so much less going on. you're kind of forced to pay attention to them, even if they aren't necessarily deserving of that attention.

1:05:44I know that sounds harsh, like everyone's trying their hearts out. It's not their fault. But in terms of entertainment and interest and stakes, like stakes for me are absolutely crucial in how much I care. It's suffering. Those rounds are really suffering. And I do think we've particularly felt it, well, at this year's US Open, but also at Wimbledon as well, where, you know, Draper's not been able to sort of build on what he showed in the spring. And, you know, he's now injured and out for the rest of the season. Feast as well is missing. and hear Ben Shelton. I remember thinking the moment Shelton did his shoulder, I thought, oh, we just lost some fun for the next few days.

1:06:37Like Adrian Manorino is quite fun, but he's not Ben Shelton fun in terms of quarterfinal, semifinal. Your dad's coming for me right now. On Tuesday when he picked us up from the airport, I would rather go and watch Adrian Manorino than Carlos Alcaraz. And he means it. He does. He's not just trying to be controversial. He really would choose Manorino over Alcaraz. But I do think if I had to pick out three players who I'm excited about in terms of, I don't think reaching Alcaraz-Sinna levels, but maybe once or twice or pushing them, it probably would be those three. As we were talking about earlier, that have enough upside still left.

1:07:26Yes. You wonder like, oh, maybe. Yeah. Like you're not thinking, oh, maybe about Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, are you? Really? We know Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul. They are doing their damnedest. But we know. Yeah. Whereas we haven't quite seen the upper limits of Jack Draper and Ben Shelton. Yeah. And I'd probably add Fonseca into that as well. And Art of Feast. Yeah. Yeah. Those four. Or certainly a fit Fonseca, Feast, Shelton, Draper. Right. But then look at what they're having to do to themselves physically to even try and be competitive. You know, Shelton's shoulder's falling off. Jack Draper's serving arm is in a bad way.

1:08:09Yeah. Art of Feast has broken his back. This is not a good state of affairs. It's a worry. Yeah, it is.

1:08:22we should probably have a few reflections of our own on the final day um because unfortunately that is one of the that is the thing that will leave the biggest mark on me and not the final which I I have watched back and really enjoyed and it was a it was a very important thing for me watching that back because I barely felt like I was watching a tennis match on Sunday I struggled with Sunday a lot. I felt like I was in a dream the whole day. And I know it was a lot, depending on how and where you watched that final, you'd have been varying degrees aware of everything that was going on around it.

1:09:06And I'm envious of you if you were able to just watch that as a tennis match and enjoy that perfect performance, as he described it from Carlos Alcaraz. But I had a completely opposite experience of that day and the heaviness and the sadness of it with Donald Trump being there and everything that came with that is still weighing on me really. I still really, really feel it in my bones. we shared a media seat in the lower bit of the top tier and there I am sitting watching Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and I was just drawn to him the whole time he was opposite us, he had the shiny fake trophy in front of him I was sort of intermittently looking between Donald Trump and Bruce Springsteen and sort of having to remind myself no there's a tennis match going on that you need to be watching I too was distracted by who Bruce Springsteen was talking to and what his seating configuration was.

1:10:15And on earth he and Shaggy might be saying to one another, have Bruce Springsteen and Shaggy met before? I'm dying to know. Is he talking with Sting about the fact that the rest of the police are suing him? Is he giving him the tea on that? Tell me everything. So, yeah, I obviously enjoyed getting preoccupied with the presence of Bruce Springsteen, which was iconic and the moment that Matt and I discovered that Bruce was going to be there was a high point in what was an incredibly, honestly, an incredibly low day. It felt doomful to me. And I feel very sad about saying that because I, you know, I memorized all the presidents of the United States as a teenager.

1:11:04I memorized all the states and their capitals. Like I was Americana obsessed. I loved America. Like I love America. I love going there. Like New York is one of my favorite places in the world. And I sort of tried to think of it this year is, you know, I'm not going to Trump's America. I'm going to New York. And that's that's different. And it is different to an extent, but there were a couple of very confronting moments where it really didn't feel different and where the state of the world and the state of the country were very much brought home. The other one being my argument with the climate denier at one o 'clock in the morning while trying to get on a bus desperately.

1:11:48And both were chilling, absolutely chilling. And I'm afraid that is that is what will stay with me. Yeah, same, really. and speaking to some American friends, they've kind of been like that final day of the US Open, kind of a perfect metaphor for life in America right now, where he's just there and just in the way and blocking your enjoyment of something. And, you know, you can't stop thinking about him. It's hard to put him out of your mind. And he does have this adverse effect on what you're experiencing. And yeah, I felt all of those things. I felt relieved that I was able to leave. You know, like I felt ready to leave America and leave New York.

1:12:49It felt like the end of Argo when the plane takes off. You haven't seen Argo, have you? But I think you might have referenced that before. I think you would like it. And I think you would relate to that final scene. Yeah. And it just, you know, when obviously when doomful things are happening in the world, obviously this is not unique to the US. We've got our own problems here and in a lot of places in the world. But you want to be able to like ring fence some things and keep them precious and safe from the stain of what's going on elsewhere. And it just felt like... Carlos Alcares is pretty much at the top of that list.

1:13:38Right. Like the anxiety, the whole time I was worried about, you know, because what turned out to be the fake trophy was sitting there the whole time looming over the court. And the whole time I was thinking, is he going to be involved in the ceremony? Are they going to have to go up to the Rolex suite for the ceremony? are they gonna feel like they have to reference him in their speeches the moment of the relief i felt when we got through the speeches and neither of them had mentioned the president being there that felt like the end of argo as well it's like okay nobody none of the things i love have been permanently tainted here this experience in this day have been tainted but hopefully in time we can just move on from today and enjoy enjoy something precious again we don't have to cancel carlos alcaraz few but yeah unfortunately that was um that was a huge part of the experience and it wouldn't be, I don't think it would be right for one of these shows to not talk about that.

1:14:49So sorry to kind of leave on a sad note. Although this isn't the final note, we do of course have one more contributor to hear from, somebody who also struggled a lot with what happened at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre on Sunday. It is of course the person with whom we end all of these shows because nobody should have to follow her uh thank you matt for this show thank you to all of our friends for for listening for supporting for making these shows possible uh thank you to david for well just being david yeah thank you to david for being david uh we'll be back with david very soon don't worry our next live show um or our next our next show which also happens to be live, is Monday at 8pm UK time.

1:15:46We'll be talking about the Billie Jean King Cup finals in Shenzhen, 8pm UK time on YouTube, also available as a podcast as well. Thank you for listening. Here is the wonderful, the incredible Mary Carrillo with her reflections on this US Open. So here's the difference between tennis fans and fans from most other sports. A lot of tennis fans play tennis. You think a lot of rugby fans play rugby? The football fans, your version, or the crazy-ass violence-soaked American kind. You think football fans head out to the soccer pitch or the gridiron with their cleats and their helmets a few times a week and beat the shit out of each other?

1:16:28All right, I know. You're thinking golf. A lot of golf fans play golf. And like fans do in our sport, they dress like golfers when they go watch golf. And please stop doing that. But you can't get 24 ,000 golf fans in one place to cheer over a 300-yard drive or sink a 40-foot putt or do other golfy things that are amazing. Golf is hard. And amateur golfers know how hard it is because they keep hitting their shots into lakes or off of alligators. I don't know. I don't play golf. Tennis-playing fans know how hard it is to hit a ball like Irina Sabalenka, or have to fight through emotions like Coco Gauff, or get too old like Novak Djokovic.

1:17:12They know what it's like to be so damn close to a win like Taylor Townsend and not win. Even famous tennis-playing fans, the actors and singers and athletes, the muckety-mucks and Rolex folk, whose motto is winding fans up by the thousands, These people, not the Rolex folk, they're used to expressing themselves eloquently, athletically, creatively. On Sunday, they were cheering and hollering and gasping at Alcaraz's tennis. They couldn't even speak about how Carlos made them feel because what's the use of words when you know in your bones how hard it is to play like that? So they shook their heads and they laughed and they banged each other on the shoulder because Alcaraz can do anything.

1:18:00everything, more than everything. They've never imagined what Alcaraz imagines because no one ever has. No one's ever been that quick, that instinctive, that playful and joyous and happy to be alive on a tennis court. Look, I've played tennis since I was eight years old, and I've called tennis matches for 45 years. I've been blessed to witness the greatest in my lifetime. Chrissy and Martina and and McEnroe, and Sampras, and Groff, and Serena, and Roger, and Rafa, and Novak. They put my kids through college. But there are no words I know that describe how Carlos Alcaraz makes me feel. I've run out of him.

1:18:40So thank God this U.S. Open is finally over, because I've got no more words.

1:18:55I'll see you next time.