BONUS - Wimbledon 2026 Review

35:37But yeah, I was so convinced by her getting back to the top when she first came back. And then I went totally the other direction and was really down on her during the Moritoglu years, really, and saw this shell of a person that clearly had very little self-esteem. and I just don't think that's any place to be winning Grand Slam titles from or anywhere close quite frankly and and as Ava picked out there didn't didn't look like she maybe even wanted to look like maybe she was doing this because well what else am I going to do with my life I'm still really young tennis is tennis is what I know and what I'm good at so let's give this a go again and so yeah I sort of went from I went reverse one point slam with Naomi Osaka over the first kind of two years 18 months of her comeback and now I feel particularly off the back of this this Wimbledon this grass court season but there have been signs of it for a while now I feel just in a very healthy middle ground of she might I think it's possible that she will win a grand slam Again, I think it's very possible she might not, but I feel like she's in a place to properly try and enjoy the trying.

37:06And I feel like that's me and Naomi Osaka in a healthy Naomi Osaka place, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense to me. I feel like it's okay if she doesn't win a Grand Slam title again. It's absolutely fine. It is the journey. It's the process. It's the giving it a go and feeling like you want to try and throw everything at it and see where you end up. And look, she is making serious progress too. I mean, the fact that she's charted new ground at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back. I think it's fantastic. That's already an achievement. And she is looking more like her old self.

37:56I mean, I actually think she looks, she looked better during this Wimbledon than she did at last year's US Open and she reached the semis there. So let's see. Let's see what happens next. I mean, I'm thrilled that, frankly, Patrick Morotog lose out of her life. I am. I mean, I may be completely wrong about that. Maybe they were a great partnership. but I'm happy for her that she is going a different way and uh um and also she does seem a lot better place than she did at the start of the year as well when I when I had a couple of concerns and look life is ups and downs as well isn't it I mean you're not always going to feel great necessarily and I think yeah I don't want to put any expectations on her or requirements on I just want to follow her story as she sort of tells it and discovers it along the way.

38:52I felt she was the right amount of gutted after this Wimbledon. Do you know what I mean? Like there are times when defeats have crushed her and it's felt overwhelming and that hasn't felt healthy. and there have been times when to Ava's point she's almost been a little bit accepting maybe of of her place in the sport now and even after the French Open lost to Sabalenka that she took I remember thinking god that sounds like a really sort of I'm glad that she seems to be in a much better place talking about how tennis isn't the end of the world and and all that kind of stuff. But there was part of me that thought, maybe it needs to hurt just a little bit more in terms of to be able to get back to where she was.

39:48But coming off this Wimbledon, it seemed like she was in a great place. I think she was so buoyed by that win over Sabalenka, who'd been such a difficult rival for her this season. And I think after she won that, she was genuinely thinking about winning the title. I mean, I suppose, why would you not be if you've just beaten the world number one and played like that? And the way she was serving, it felt like she had the biggest weapon in the tournament. And if she could play on her terms, she could maybe do it. And look, she got beaten by a very good player in Mukova who played a good match. But Osaka was just a bit annoyed about her own performance.

40:29So I feel like it's going to make her even hungrier going into the hard courts, which I still think is her best surface as much as things look good at Wimbledon and we saw how devastating her strikes can be even on this surface. I still think she's going to be most comfortable on a hard court. So I'm very excited, very excited. And yeah, just to Ava's point about that Sabalenka quote about how let's see if they can stay on this level. I love that line as well. and there is so perfect for that that line isn't it and there is this step that seven of the last eight players to have beaten Sabalenka before a final have lost their next match and that must be really annoying for Sabalenka like you know if you're going to get beaten I suppose you you probably want that player to go on and keep producing the level and go on to win the tournament you have to go all the way back to Vondrosheva in Berlin last year so it's now a year in terms of someone who's beaten her and then gone on to win a title it's been a really long time so I think as always Sabalenka is you know coming out of this tournament with a lot of Sabalenka thoughts as well and the US Open feels big for her in terms of trying to frankly maintain the level she was at if she doesn't win the u.s open it's going to feel like this year's been a regression when when you consider how well she played in the first three or four months of it that that would be pretty shocking right but she's been good at picking up a major every year on on the hard courts and there's a lot of pressure on her i think going into the u.s open yeah i mean if she doesn't win it, she doesn't hold a slam.

42:24And will she not be happy about that? I know she was in kind of the same situation last year in terms of if I don't win the US Open, I won't have won a slam in this otherwise very successful year. And she dealt with that pressure on herself very well. But I don't know, it's been a... With this whole sort of trying to restrain herself emotionally in the big moments thing she's got going on, And, you know, I floated my theory during Wimbledon. And I think that comes with losses as well as gains. And I think finding the right formula of emotional management might take her a bit of time. And I could see it not happening in time for the US Open.

43:14I mean, potentially never, but, you know, I certainly could see it not happening in time for the US Open. And I think that's going to be a fascinating tournament from a Sabalenka perspective. And Catherine, you know, I would be quite interested to re-ask her the question that you asked her following the defeat. Because quite understandably, she probably didn't want to engage with it really at the time. And she was very dismissive of it. But a few weeks will have passed when we come into that media day press conference. And people are lighter, aren't they? And she's good value most of the time.

43:49She's pretty honest and straightforward. And I think we might get a different result out of that question with a bit of retrospect and hindsight. That's a good point. She's in Mykonos, isn't she? True to her word. Have you seen all the pictures? I haven't, no. No, I haven't either. She's in Mykonos having a great time. Good. There's some TikToks if you fancy it. let's hear from Charlie Eccleshire shall we lovely Charlie his reflections of Wimbledon 2026 Hi everyone it's Charlie Eccleshire here when I look back at this year's Wimbledon it's three women's matches that really stick out Serena Williams return against My Joint, Karolina Mukhover against Koko Goff in the semi-finals and then Mukhover against Linda Noskova in the final all thrillers on centre court in largely pretty different ways if there is a through line though it's the way in which all these matches demonstrated the superhuman resilience that elite tennis players possess or have trained themselves to possess in the first one Serena even playing the match was remarkable but then what about joint a natural introvert being asked to play under the brightest of spotlights and somehow gathering herself to come back and win the match after losing the second and being down a break in the third in front of a crowd that were cheering on her opponent like it was the Wimbledon final then Mukhova keeping herself alive down match point against Goff in a match where she wasn't behind after going one love down in the first set until Goff earned that match point up 9-8 in the third set tiebreak.

45:20It would have been easy for Mukhova to feel fatalistic at that point, especially if she's had a fair share of heartbreak over the years. Instead, she steeled herself, saved it and clinched her place in the final. A final in which we saw one of the great mental resets in tennis history as Noskova somehow came back from the disappointment of missing those five championship points in the second set to win the decider. Against a player in Mukhova who herself beat Barbora Krajcikova in the fourth round, having also lost five straight games from 5-2 up in the second set before winning the decider 6-3.

45:49It never fails to astound me watching these players do these kinds of things. And I think there's also an extent to which we impose too much of our own levels of mental toughness onto these players, or at least what we perceive our own mental toughness to be. Momentum is a real thing, and they're all human of course, as Noskova showed with the way she couldn't close in the second set. But they're also just capable of mental feats that are unimaginable to the vast majority of humans. Speaking for myself, my mental fortitude is such that if I were an Oscarvert in that situation, having just blown the second set like that, well, there basically would have been no need to go through the formality of actually playing the decider.

46:23You may as well have just given the bagel set to McCover there and then. And that's part of the reason I'll never get tired of seeing these barely believable feats of resilience. This was slightly different Wimbledon for me because my wife is nine months pregnant and the baby was actually due on July 9th, i.e. the second Thursday of the tournament. Pretty poor planning on our part, to be fair. As my editor James Hansen said when I told him, well, yeah, because Grand Slams aren't stressful enough. We're still waiting for the baby to come, as it turns out, but what it means is I'm now going to be off for a while on paternity leave, and will miss the US Open and other events this year, which I definitely think made me make more of an effort over the last couple of weeks to really appreciate every day and take it all in as much as possible, knowing it would be a bit longer than usual until the next Grand Slam.

47:07So see you all soon. I'll be watching on and listening with interest and the New York time zone should suit me pretty well actually when I'm up in the middle of the night in the UK with a child who won't sleep so take care tennis podcast team and I'll let you know when baby Linda arrives Imagine if it is baby Linda Then they can call the next one Brenda like they're for a bit of us I was thinking do you think Linda Noskova is the first person called Linda ever to have a septum piercing?

47:40can't be many can there good shout

47:45can't be many waiting for us to get inundated by emails from lindas who've oh lindas with septum piercings please get in touch probably the first wimbledon member to have a septum piercing as well and I love that diversification for them um felt very seen by Charlie's uh feeling that if he was in Lyndon Oscovy's situation after the second set of that final he would have just waved the white flag straight away have the six love set because we all know that is what is going to happen like a hundred percent me too Charlie like game over right then in there, even if I saw the Wimbledon trophy on the walk to the loo.

48:32Wouldn't have mattered. Especially, probably. Yeah, probably. And on that subject of the great reset, maybe the two great resets, actually. You've got the sort of in-match reset of Linda Nozkova and you've got the sort of mid-channel slam reset of Yannick Sinner after the absolute disaster of what happened in Paris, the tournament that we know he had focused his whole year on. And it just, he came in unbeaten and it just got totally torpedoed by this thing totally outside of his control. And somehow, just like he did last Last year, after losing those match points in the Roland Garros final, somehow comes back and resets to win Wimbledon.

49:22These are two extraordinary mental feats, I think. And before we discuss them, I think we should probably hear from Pan Shriver, who focuses on something very similar for her voice note. So here is your friend of mine, Pamela Howard Shriver. So I am recording this voice note about Wimbledon 2026 while playing golf. Got my earbuds in, playing with three friends. It's kind of like that post-major relaxation, get back into some home routines while still thinking so much about another history-making major tournament. The heat, obviously a huge factor. I'm going to focus on a couple of things. One, my first Wimbledon in over 20 years without being on the ESPN team was a Yonex Mindset Performance coach, month four and a half, five of the program.

50:28Everything's going really well with that. I'm loving having a coach as my profession, my primary profession, while still keeping my foot in the broadcast world. And I had a couple of new broadcast assignments. One was working about four shifts for a show called Wimbledon All Access, which was really fun. I did the 9 to 11 shift, and I want to do it again next year. And then where I started actually at Wimbledon was with the BBC. This time, though, I was on the BBC radio team. And I got to say, being able to work a women's quarterfinal match with David, my friend David who came into my world about four and a half five years ago when I was preparing to tell my story about what happened with me and my coach and we've become friends and to be able to broadcast with a friend be able to share a match and be able to look in the booth and see somebody you know and trust and admire was really cool.

51:48And I just got to say, the way the women's tournament played out with Linda at Noskova, who's Yonex head to toe, and we've certainly touched base with her a little bit with the program, but she hasn't felt like she really needed our resources at the moment. but I'll tell you what, what she did between the second and third set was one of the greatest resets of all time and whether or not just the fact that her major brand that she endorses has basically said to their athletes, we think having a mindset program is so important we're going to underwrite a new pilot program, I think the message is clear.

52:39Like in order to succeed, given all the pressures and everything, you need a mindset program. So congratulations to Linda Noskova, first time major winner, and of course to Yannick for doing an unbelievable recovery in his own mindset way after the disaster at Roland Garros for him. And here we go, on to the US Open. Yes Pam See you in New York I reckon I reckon Linda Noskova is going to be a pretty good Yonex poster Girl for For all things mindset Quite frankly I don't know how she did that That picture of her With her fingers in her ears As she leaves the court I think that is going to be the the iconic Linda Nodkova photo from from this Wimbledon for me anyway yeah yeah we we were we watched that one in the press box together didn't we Catherine that that part of the match and I felt quite traumatized watching her go through that and I've just my mind was fast forwarding through to how it would be if it carried on like that which I assumed it would and I'm I was gutted for Mukherjee obviously there was no way to I would have felt sorry for either of them but I was really relieved for Nuskhova that she didn't have to go through that um from the position she'd got herself into I think I think Pam's really uncovered kind of a niche really um it's not that people haven't been looking at sports psychology and we've talked a lot about therapy over the last year particularly with madison keys in mind and marty koscik's helped us to understand i think as well um in and the vulnerability people have shown and the openness people have shown i think has been really valuable um the last year but pam has kind of discovered the importance of a positive mindset in her own life and resets and realized ways of just adding it to players careers and we are seeing the power of it and that is one of the most vivid of the lot what Noskeva achieved um and uh yeah I'm I'm i'm absolutely fascinated because sport can teach you things life can teach you things on in sports as well and like i've i've witnessed that and at 52 i feel like right i'm going to remember that for my life you know the things are never as bad as you think they are they're never maybe as good as you think they are my dad always used to say this to me and i didn't i think maybe i'm starting to realize what he meant now you know you've got to keep that even keel you've got to figure out ways to not tailspin and you can still do it.

55:43Be more Coco Gough, never as high as you think and never as low as you think. The big three resets of the summer, Linda Nozkova, Wimbledon final, Yannick Sinner post Roland Garros, Matt Roberts post Chicago.

56:00Distant third for me, I would say, in comparison to those feats. you survived Wimbledon I was there you got to the end you won Wimbledon I guess so brief concussion interlude yes did Yannick Sinnard deal with concussion I don't think so he's not getting Ubers is he I've been thinking about that women's final a lot and the third set that Mukova played is totally understandable to me. Like she had had to, you know, I think she was knackered coming into that final and she'd been outplayed and she suddenly found her way back. And I don't think she played a bad third set. It's just that she couldn't lift and go again.

56:54But I think in so many scenarios, that would have been enough. Just being there in that third set for Mukova against an opponent who just choked in the way Noskova had, to Charlie's point, Muka probably still would have won quite comfortably. The onus was all on Noskova to get back what she had. And it's extraordinary that she did it. And she held, didn't she, at the start of the third, and she went down break point in that game at the start of the third set, Noskova. And maybe had she lost that, maybe the set plays out differently. But to hold there was so huge. And I cannot believe how much the final stages of that match felt like the opening stages.

57:39It was like the choke had never happened. It was absolutely mind boggling. And to do all that within three sets, which we've talked about so much about how quick that can sometimes feel. Extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary from Noskova. Yeah. Likewise, I think that will really stay with me. And yeah, as David said, like maybe even inspire me. Absolutely. Stephanie, having that visual of her with her hands in her ears is just so evocative and just takes you back to that moment and very powerful, I think. Right. Let's hear from our third and final contributor from The Athletic. He joined us on our women's singles final preview show on Saturday.

58:33It is, of course, the brilliant Matt Futterman. Here is what he will remember from Wimbledon 2026. Hey there, friends. The bar for surprise was pretty high at this Wimbledon. Paris was so batshit. There was no way another one of those was going to ensue. The 2026 edition of Wimbledon had to be something lesser on that scale, and it most certainly was. A qualifier didn't make the final, though a wild card nearly did. And he's British, which was maybe the biggest surprise of all following that British bloodbath of the first couple of days. On the other hand, Janik Sinner won. A Czech woman won too.

59:12Those are probably the two most predictable events in any Wimbledon these days, especially with young Carlos still on the sidelines. But it's a surprise that's going to stay with me for an incredibly long time. It probably won't surprise a lot of people what it is. I've watched it so many times now. I can see Coco Goff's match point in the semifinal in a kind of slow motion in my head. I kind of saw it that way the first time. The press seats are at the end of the court where Mukova was receiving. We had a dead-on view of Goff serving from the other side of the court at 9-8 in the dying minutes of what was an outrageously good third set.

59:50She cracked about as good a serve as you would want to crack in a pressure moment like that. well into the match's third hour, almost right down the center line. As it came off her racket, I thought, that's not coming back. I thought the same thing again as Mukoval lunged for it. I figured it was going to deflect off her strings or off the rim of her racket and fly in some random direction. I think Goff probably thought that same thing. And then, as the ball floated high, I thought the same thing we all probably thought. There's a meatball. Here comes a big swing, hard and deep. and Coco's going to let out one hell of a roar.

1:00:27I'll go back to a moment in the second round when Matt Roberts and I were watching Coco's match tiebreak against Solana Sierra on the number one court. Sierra hit a bad drop shot and lost the point. I told Matt I really don't like drop shots and tiebreaks. I get why players attempt them. We survived as a species for hundreds of thousands of years because we are hardwired to try and escape stressful situations. Mostly, I think that's what's going on when drop shots happen in tie breaks. Players are tired and hot and stressed out, so they pull the ripcord. But so often in pressure situations, the first thing to go is your touch.

1:01:06Darren Cahill doesn't even like drop shots when a player is serving for the match, so I'm in good company. And the player he was talking about was Yannick Sinner. I say this with the utmost respect for Goff as a person and a player. It's not a results-based second guess. I think the other Mac can testify to that. Coco pulled the ripcord there. I get it, but still. The thing that makes me queasy every time I watch the replay is the way she double-hitches her elbow before she swings at the ball. She's not even sure she's making the right decision. It's heartbreaking because she's been hitting her forehand pretty damn well in the second and third sets.

1:01:47It's probably the most relatable tennis point I've ever seen a star play. It's the thing I do on a tennis court on every other point. That's why I went 0-8 in singles my senior year at Union College. I also couldn't really serve. I was like one of those soccer teams that had just two problems. Defense and attack. Here's what's not so relatable. Coco is a kind of miracle of the modern Terranist ecosystem. She dabbled in basketball and ran a little track, but she'd been pretty much all tennis since she was about eight years old. She did homeschooling. Her dad was her main coach through childhood.

1:02:24She spent time training at the Moritogu Academy. She's been growing up in the spotlight since she was 15. Her mother is a constant presence as she travels. There are red flags all over this existence. But it's worked out. It goes okay for Coco. And this was Coco an hour after that drop shot. It's not a painful story, she said. I think thousands of people would love to lose the semifinals at Wimbledon on match point. This is something I wouldn't love to experience again, for sure no. I think it will make my next moment when I win a match like this even sweeter. I had a match earlier this year. I saved six match points.

1:03:03It's just one of those days where it didn't go my way. Somebody had to lose, and unfortunately it was me today. She sounded sincere. She didn't seem like she was just spewing happy talk. Yeah, I don't think I will ever forget that drop shot. I also don't think I will ever forget what happened after it either. See you all soon in my neck of the woods. There will be bagels. Good to hear that, because we do love a Matt Futterman bagel, and we love a Matt Futterman bagel slicing device. I really love the bagel slicer. I feel like Matt is probably going to be thinking about that Coco Gough forehand drop shot longer than Coco Gough is thinking about it.

1:03:51You know, I still stand by I don't mind the shot selection. I think if she hadn't been hitting that shot the whole match and suddenly came up with it in the tie break, then yeah that's that's dodgy maybe and I kind of feel the same way about the drop shot thing like shouldn't you just keep doing what you've been doing rather than the tie break the not playing drop shots in the tie break like should you suddenly change your game because it's a a tie break or because you've been serving for the match I don't know did you how much pushback did you give him Matt when he had that debate I was really amused by it you know it was something I hadn't thought about before but that's often what you get when you sit next to Matt at a tennis match it's one of my favorite things about him like a niche a niche take that he feels really strongly about that I hadn't even considered but then like it kept happening I feel like we had a lot of tie breaks this Wimbledon and we had a lot of a lot of players in them who would play drop shots and later in that tie break against Sierra Goff played a bad drop shot and almost mid-rally Matt turns to me being like see told you but somehow Goff won the point it was that it was that point where she dug out that backhand and flicked it past Sierra which was such a turning point in well the tournament potentially Goff's season career her outlook on grass you know one point can kind of change everything interesting that Cahill agrees in terms of like those pressure moments and and those are the moments where your touch goes but I mean I go back to Alcaraz trying to serve out Wimbledon against against Djokovic he tried a drop shot on one point and lost it and then tried it again the very next point and won it.

1:05:47And it was the right thing to do because as you say, Catherine, he'd been successful with that play the whole time. If he can hold his nerve, it is a good play. I don't have, I don't feel, I wouldn't put a blanket ban on them, that's for sure. But I do think that she should have hit the forehand. And I'm not saying that as a - But that's assuming that it would have gone in, right? What if she'd shrank? Yes. An attempted top of the forehand. Yeah, but if she'd shanked it, I wouldn't have thought, oh, the drop shot is the play there. Because I think the right play for me was to hit a forehand into the corner.

1:06:27And I agree with Matt. She'd been hitting her forehand well in the last few, in the last couple of sets in that match. She'd found it. But I think Matt's point about why you shouldn't hit, his proposed policy of why you shouldn't hit drop shots in tie breaks is about that's what goes, the touch is what goes when you're under pressure. I think Coco's topspin forehand goes in those situations, you could say. But she plays a lot more of those in her life. I personally think tactically it was a very sensible ploy the issue is the moment when you're trying to apply touch I do think there is to that and the fact that Yannick Sinner's coach Darren Cahill said the one thing he wants Yannick Sinner to improve and he said it laughingly but clearly seriously is to stop doing drop shots when you're serving for the match I did find that interesting I couldn't tell whether he was just like totally joking there.

1:07:35Like, oh, you know, there was the joke between him and Vignotzi about like, oh, it gives Darren a heart attack when he does that. You thought he was being serious, did you? I didn't see the recording. I've only read the transcript. I wasn't in that press conference. So it's a little bit difficult to read in that. But I don't think you say it unless there's some truth in what you're saying. the only thing is I think you can have palpitations about a shot and still be playing the right shot and execute it and win Carlos Alcraz does it all the time I realise he's an extreme look I just don't mind the shot choice because you win by the sword you die by the sword I want to see Coco Goff taking risks because I want to see her at the net all the time.

1:08:26I just think that sometimes she's going to lose as a direct result of it, but I think she'll win more than she would have done if she just plays at the back. I think she was coming in anyway, wasn't she? And what do we say a lot about Goff's forehand? It's at its best when she's hitting it and coming in. And I think she really struggles on the forehand when she's got pace coming at it and she has to handle it. This was, I can't remember the words Matt used to describe it, but just a gimme, kind of. A meatball. I want to see her do an Anissimova now and get to the semifinals of the US Open and play the drop shot winner on that point.

1:09:08She is the sort of player that would do that, I think. Go for it. What do you think Anissimova said to Goff when they met up at the football the other day? Apart from it's coming home Obviously they started with a chorus of Wonderwall But once that was out of the way They definitely talked about it didn't they I reckon Anitimov went oops She just went girl Yeah maybe encouraged her to watch it back Like she did Yeah, at least you've got the biggest match of your life. Just watch that again. The biggest match of her life, yeah. I reckon they had a good time. And I think Amanda's going to have a good time again tonight when England win.

1:10:03Absolutely. She might not be there. I'm not sure she's a travelling England fan yet. I reckon she'll have it on, though. Yeah, I do too. I back her to have it on. Let's declare her an Anglophile. Goff said it was her first ever football match Did she? Yeah Well, what an initiation Crikey Okay, shall we take a turn And hear from the inimitable Simon Briggs of the Telegraph Who, you know, Wimbledon for the Brits I suppose the same for you know all the press packs for from the home nations of each of the slams but you know the Brits at Wimbledon they have such a different experience of the tournament than we do sometimes it feels like they're covering a parallel event yeah we don't see them there you know they're going to Katie Bolter press conferences and Harriet Dart press conferences and obviously that only covered the first couple of days for us but like okay we eventually got into the Arthur Ferry story when it became clear that he was going deep and becoming a factor in the tournament but took us a lot longer to get on board that ferry than it did see what I've done there got to make hay while the sun shines um it's shaking his head took us a lot longer to get on board than it did for you know Briggs and his colleagues to get on board they were honking the horn from from round two and you know you've got to you know that's the game you've got to good luck to them um so of course he does talk about arthur ferry here in his voice note but he also comes at it with a very interesting perspective and i think one that ties in with um something that matt futterman mentioned in his voice note something that matt talks about a lot including in his in his book that you'll be hearing about more on this show over the coming weeks.

1:12:01So let's hear now from The Telegraph's Simon Briggs. So if I'm going to do my new bit and compare Wimbledon to a TV show or a movie, I think it's got to be Saving Private Ryan because it was an absolute bloodbath out there on day one for British wildcards, British qualifiers, British players of all kinds, actually. Ten matches, ten defeats. And then from there, only one of our number went deep into enemy territory, you might say, and that was Arthur Ferry. Ironically, the cross-channel ferry, as you had it in one of your punning interludes. the Telegraph we use a lot of headlines about the court of King Arthur and as an aside I should point out that the myth of King Arthur was popularized by a French writer called Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century before it was adopted by the English later on which does seem appropriate in the circumstances.

1:13:00As for my own Wimbledon well after that disastrous start I spent quite a bit of time looking at the performance pathways and the development networks and wondering if we might be barking up the wrong tree a little bit. The one thing that concerns me is that kids are having to specialise at like seven or eight years old if they want to be inside the system. It's encouraging a lot of kids to give up other sports. It's encouraging a lot of kids to be homeschooled before they really know whether there's a chance of making it. And interestingly, Ferry himself actually was a late specialiser. He played basketball.

1:13:31He played football. He didn't take tennis too seriously until he was 14. And that's actually true of a lot of the great ones. You look at those skiers like Djokovic and Sinner. You look at the people who played football to a high level, like Federer, Nadal, Murray. I just don't think necessarily that narrowing that funnel so early is good for anyone. I wrote a piece about this, actually, which went online on Monday. If you're interested, it's linked to my Twitter, which is at Simon R. Briggs. If you can't get past the paywall, then send me a message if you want to debate it, because I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's experienced what it's like on the ground.

1:14:06I think it's important and yeah, we'd love to hear from anyone with views. Thank you. Simon promoting his Twitter handle and ditching the Telegraph's paywall all in one voice note. It's incredible work. I don't know about you, but I think he makes a very important point there and one that Matt Futterman made on the women's final preview show on Saturday that we did when discussing Karolina Mukova and in particular the success of analysing the success of Czech women's tennis in general, something that Matt had written a piece about and gone into great depth exploring. And of course, a big part of it is the lineage and the history.

1:14:58and it all started with Martina Novatova and that provided role models and inspiration and that is a big part of the picture. But there's more to it than that. They are doing things differently in terms of the culture around tennis development in Czechia and he said a big part of that is that kids aren't encouraged to specialise early. In fact, they're actively discouraged from it. Karolina Mukova has a background of playing football. Her dad was a goalkeeper and I think she played a lot of football. And you can see that in the way that she moves on a tennis court. I think you can see it in a lot of the Czech tennis players that they have this really diverse skill set.

1:15:43They're problem solvers on a tennis court. They're not just kids that have been doing drills since they were seven years old. And even aside from whether or not it's the right way to incubate a champion tennis player, it is definitely not the right way to incubate a well-adjusted, healthy human being. As Matt pointed out in his voice note, there are exceptions. Coco Gough does seem to be one, a very well-adjusted, happy-seeming human being, despite the fact that she was in this tennis production line from a very, very young age. But there are far more examples of the opposite. You know, tennis has a happiness problem and that really is the focus of Matt Futterman's book that's coming out in a couple of weeks and whose message I resoundingly endorse.

1:16:46Like I really do think tennis has a happiness problem. And I think this, this culture of sort of, you have to dedicate your whole life to it from the age of seven or eight, or you don't have a chance of succeeding because it's just so demanding. I think that is, that is a big part of it. And I, yeah, I think Simon makes a very interesting point. Now I didn't realize David, that that was maybe not policy, but kind of the culture or the approach at the LTA. yeah yeah same uh and when i think when i think back i always remember judy murray saying she her boys played all the sports you know they just loved sports and and understanding what a different ball does and what happens if you do something to that ball and if and and it's always struck me that and and yeah i do feel that it seems like a healthier way to go about your life to just play loads and loads of things and enjoy things.

1:17:49And I don't know. I don't know. Surely Britain, for instance, would have come up with some magic formula if it had been there. But just culturally, I don't like the production line element to things in quite that way. I don't know whether that's necessary, but I wouldn't want to put my kids through that, into that personally. I mean Dan Evans said he played all the sports you know when he was a young lad and look at him you know look at the way he uses a ball look at the imagination that he has I just think there needs to be some room for that and so yeah we keep banging on about Italy maybe it's time to bang on about Czechia as the example and it also means that you end up with tennis players that have chosen tennis out of a range of options they've chosen tennis presumably because that you know though i'm sure that in some cases there will be parental pressure and other things going on but they're more likely for it to have been a it's more likely to have been a a personal and authentic choice at an older age than it is at the age of seven do you think the LTA will sort of be encouraged by this Wimbledon because of what happened to Ferry will that be used as a look we had a man yeah exactly we had a man in the semi-finals and look going through the numbers there's a lot more players in the draw than there used to be obviously they've given a lot of them wild cards but they're you know that means there's a lot more players in the top 250 but i feel like for a grand slam nation to consider themselves successful really we've got to be talking about at least top 100 players and it feels like we're some way short of that at the moment um and you know ferry as well was one who went to the to the US and I think got a lot of those more well-rounded life experiences through that and I think that's great that so many players are doing that but it doesn't really seem like a sustainable national federation policy really to to be totally using that as as a way to to get players through.

1:20:27Yeah, that policy is interesting to me because there has been a really big concerted effort. It does seem to be entirely on the men's side. I don't know why that is men's only as a policy. And look, it does seem to be successful and I'm certainly in favour of prospective tennis players who aren't good enough yet at the age of 17 or 18 to throw themselves into pro rather than go, well, you're not going to make it then. Give them a chance to hone their skills, live some life, and then evaluate over the course of those four years whether turning pro is something they want or is available to them.

1:21:12But it is, as much as I think U.S. College in principle is a good thing for those players, it totally is the LTA just outsourcing their player development. It is a bit staggering to me that they feel that that's not something they can achieve in-house at all. Maybe it's just realistic and they can't. We don't have the same athletic college situation here. But yeah, it very much is an outsourcing of a problem. maybe not a problem but a situation yeah I I personally don't mind how it's done um if you get results and and I do think there's a healthiness to getting your education in and going to you know you've seen players come back from the college system seeming more ready for life and so I said and still with plenty of years left to to make an impact so I I'm well behind that but I do I do take issue with this with this sort of view that you can celebrate these top 250 players the way they do and I mean I I disagree with Tim Hemman on that I mean he he's sort of he's behind Scott Lloyd's tenure in that way and says things are way better than they used to be well maybe they may be but yeah but are we really judging success by that the the there might be a bunch of people who are who are given all the resources in the world and given these wild cards which which inflate rankings and get them in the between 100 and 250 i'm sorry i just that doesn't excite me yeah i think having that many players in the top 250 or whatever feels like the bare minimum to me of a grand slam nation and yes it might be better than previous years but to me that just says that the previous years was was shockingly underperforming and we shouldn't be measuring ourselves against that we should we should try and be aiming quite a lot higher i would of thought.

1:23:34Yeah, absolutely. Well, do you know someone who was all aboard the Arthur Ferry early doors? I do indeed. It is, of course, camera operator and editor extraordinaire, the man with the best laugh at Wimbledon. It is Matthew. He was sent out with his notebook. Well, I say sent He was a keen volunteer, I would say. Took his notebook and pen, sat in the press seats for the entirety of Otto Werthinen against Arthur Ferry. And there the journey of Matthew and Arthur began. Here is your annual Matthew voice note. I really enjoyed watching Arthur Ferry at this year's Wimbledon. I actually came to watch Vertanen on court 18 in the second round, but was really impressed with Ferry.

1:24:32He reminds me of Alcaraz, not on the same level, but in that he enjoys playing an all-court game. And he comes to the net not only on easy balls or when it's obvious you need to come to the net, But he actually comes in on complex volleys, just like in the 90s when you saw players volleying those really hard volleys. And he uses every part of the court, which is refreshing. He plays positive tennis, although he compares himself to Andre Agassi, where I understand hitting the ball early, you know, taking it on the rise, especially that backhand and the return, aggressive returns. Yeah, but let's just say he has a hybrid of Agassi and Alcaraz.

1:25:27When I watched him on court 18 against Zizou Burgs, he was down in some sets. One-four, a double break and a single break. And I just noticed that even when he won the many battles in terms of winning a point, even though he was still down, he was still positive and gave himself little come-ons. which I found really positive. So yeah, now Wimbledon is over. The fairy tale is over. All the cameras and the shine is not going to be on him. I remember Denis Shapovalov. I remember him in Canada when he beat Nadal. And I remember him at the US Open. I think he reached the fourth round. The tour, the year is long.

1:26:15How are you going to play when you're in an empty stadium somewhere in Europe in an indoor tournament. Let's just see how he does for the rest of the year. I'm hopeful. So, come on, Ferry. Denis Shapovalov being used as a cautionary tale is an incredible marker of where his career is at right now. Although, having said that, I think Arthur Ferry would sign up for Denis Shapovalov's career. Don't you? For sure. Yeah. I would think so. I mean, it's quite an interesting one, that. You know, they've both reached one Grand Slam semifinal each now.

1:27:04So the answer is yes. Actually, I don't think he would sign up for it now. I think at the end of his career, if you told him that he'd done what he'd had, Denis Shapovalov's career, he'd be fine about it. But right now, I think Arthur Ferry's thinking higher than that. I love that Matthew's like, I'm hopeful, but also that's a real note of caution, isn't it, at the end. The year is long. Can you do it in Montpellier? Do you know what, though? I think he will be okay without the razzle-dazzle. I do. I think doing it without the grass might be a bigger problem for him, but I don't think he's a I can only do it with the big crowds in the world watching kind of a guy.

1:27:56I mean, college tennis does breed them pretty tough in that respect. Yeah, I think that's true. I think we'll see what he's like without the grass, without the British crowd behind him, with people getting used to his game as well. The fact that everyone's trying to decipher who he reminds you of is that I think he sticks out as a bit of a different game. And it's possible that the tour kind of wakes up to that, I suppose. Yeah, an Alcaraz-Agassi hybrid. No pressure, Arthur. by the way like the fact that Matthew came for Otto Wirtanen and stayed for Arthur Ferry is a classic first week Grand Sam experience as well isn't it and Matthew goes to an awful lot of tennis tournaments and has done for many years but he doesn't actually sit down and watch live a lot of tennis and you know he was like that's the most tennis i've watched live for probably 10 years and it got him hooked on a player and i genuinely think matthew will be following his results now and i just love the thought of people going to wimbledon and having those similar experiences where he may not be a player that ends up being consequential for the tournament in a way that Ferry actually was.

1:29:22But you know that there were people who sat down and watched someone that they'd never seen play before and were really taken by them. And that's, I think that's the power of watching tennis live as well, up close. It's all mind-blowing and impressive. And I think Matthew's a good example of that. I think, I try not to get, I try not to take it for granted how much tennis we watch, but inevitably we do, we're very fortunate we get to watch a lot more than people. And I think we can maybe play down just how cool it is for people who don't get to watch it all the time to see it up close. And yeah, Matthew's experience is very powerful there.

1:30:01Yeah, I have a friend for whom Holger Rune is that player. It's been a rough year. There you go. She's been having to browse his online shop, which sells honey. I was going to say, there's honey. It was sort of vitamin enriched matcha and I think broken tennis rackets. If you've got a few minutes to spare, Holgerunas online shop is quite an entertaining place to be. But yeah, that's a great point. Great point that you make. And seeing, I loved, I mean, it's always lovely meeting listeners at the slams, but I particularly love meeting ones that are there for the first time. And I think in particular Wimbledon, because there's such a mystique around Wimbledon.

1:30:57And I think I'm particularly susceptible to getting complacent about it because I live down the road. I walk past almost or walk nearby almost every day on my dog walk with Billie Jean. And so, you know, it's quite a pedestrian place for me in lots of ways. So sort of to see people starry-eyed walking through the gates for the first time and to see people kind of living out their dreams just by being there, just by standing in the grounds is a very, very powerful thing that I like to be around and have some of it wear off on me. and like to be reminded of as much as possible. So if you came to Wimbledon and you found one of us to say hello, thank you for doing that.

1:31:50We do love it. David particularly loves when people ask for his photo sort of just outside the media centre so that our colleagues can see.

1:32:04Well, you make me sound a lovely chap.

1:32:11we all love it really don't we we've had to endure a lot of sneeriness about being new media over the years and I like being a star now you see yeah including when the bloke the John McEnroe heckler that's got a picture of David Law on his phone somewhere he's going to look at it one day and go who was that what was that all about wasn't here for him but you know you were a Brucey bonus David and speaking of which how are we going to end today's show of course there is only one way to end any Grand Slam review show unless either of you have any further reflections you would like to submit before our denouement which is of course the great Mary Carrillo we don't get to see her at Wimbledon anymore It is a great miss that the only Grand Slam that Mary Crillo is involved in now is the US Open.

1:33:16But my God, it makes us look forward to the US Open and our trip to Newport, just ahead of the US Open, where we're going to see Mary inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Honestly, can't wait for that. And she will be back. I am so hyped for that speech. Me too. Aren't you? Like, don't you just know it's going to be incredible? I genuinely feel sorry for Roger Federer. Me too. She's going to upstage him so hard. And that's not, you know, she upstages everybody. There's nothing to do with Roger Federer. But you're fighting a losing battle, Rog. Yeah, it's going to make us cry and it's going to be life affirming.

1:34:01It's going to be joyful. It's going to be all the things. and I'm so excited that we're going to get to be there. So we miss you, Mary, at Wimbledon, but we cannot wait to see you in Newport and in New York. And as ever, we are thrilled and honoured that you've contributed to this review show. So playing us out today are the words and the voice of the great Mary Carrillo. I watched the ladies' final with my parents. They live only about 15 minutes away from me, so I see them every day. I moved them from New York last February because both of them were now in the same depressing facility that all three of us kids hated.

1:34:43My father, who's been deep in dementia for a few years, now joined by my mom, sound of mind but poor a body. So I sprung them both to a very nice place down here where I live. My dad gets brought to my mom's apartment every day after breakfast. and now at 100 years old, he spends most of the day sleeping on her couch. That's how I would find him on Saturday morning. I could already hear ESPN's Breakfast at Wimbledon preview show from way down the hall because my mom's hearing at 95 is nearly as bad as her eyesight. Luckily, I guess everyone else in that place is hard of hearing too. Nobody complains.

1:35:25Terry Sullivan Carrillo watches a lot of tennis and these days my play-by-play duties consist of telling her who's playing, who's winning, what the goddamn score is because she can't see well enough to know and she didn't know anything about the finalists I told her, loudly, how I've long loved the stylish Mukova but then ESPN did a feature on Linda Moskova that brought my mom to tears She learned that Linda had lost her mom as a teenager. Mine had too. It shaped her entire life, that loss. Still crying, my mom demanded of me to change my allegiance to Moskova. This is a very bossy woman we're talking about.

1:36:11She always has been. And she's a very easy crier. For my Irish Catholic mother, tears are holy water. They express the inexpressible. I told her it should be a good match. They both deserved to win the title. But I still wanted Mokov to win. But boy, Moskova showed a lot. So did Terry Carrillo. All those match points that went begging in the second set, my mom barely survived them. Was that in? Who won that point? It was Moskova, Mom. And when Linda came good, my mom cried again. Then the trophy presentation. Mukova began to speak but couldn't, and you know how it is to watch someone try to hold back tears.

1:36:59It's even more emotional and more powerful than when they cry. I didn't even want to look at my mom at that point, but I could hear her. She was quietly crying for Mukova. I love her too, she said. Then the young champion spoke, and she was every bit as lovely and emotional as Carolina. At the end, Linda collected herself enough to thank her mom. I wouldn't be here without you, she said. I will never forget these two weeks. Now my mom was weeping. It was enough to awaken my father. He'd slept through the whole match. What happened, he asked. My mom tried to speak. to explain, but she couldn't.

1:37:45I was pretty jammed up myself, through all the things life had thrown at me, good and bad, quiet and loud. My parents, old and frail and full of sleep, they were still here. Why is your mother crying? Tony Carrillo asked. It's okay, Pop, I said. There was a tennis match.

1:38:13Thank you.