Cheap, flat and shallow. Did anyone really win the Battle of the Sexes?

0:00Hi, this is John from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and you're listening to The Tennis Podcast.

0:16Well, hello and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, introduced beautifully, commandingly there by John in Cambridge, Massachusetts. you can get yourself an intro or a shout out on this show at any time of the year the link to become a friend of the pod is in the show notes friends also get access to the barge our online community platform hannah's column our brilliant writer our entire archive of friends shows and at least 25 bonus episodes of the tennis podcast every year including tennis relived our history series, our Grand Slam review shows, Tennis Podcast Meets, our new edition for 2025, which will continue into 2026.

1:00We'll continue until we've met all the tennis players in the world. So I think we've got a good time to run on that. And of course, 12 live Q &A shows every year as well. Plus, we still have some pet mascot slots to fill, some guest editor slots and some Grand Slam prediction slots available for a couple more weeks as well. Our presenter mascot slots have been snapped up. More news on that in the coming days, folks. Watch this space. Matt Roberts is here. Hello, Matt. Happy holidays. How was your Christmas? Hello. It was very, very nice. Thank you. I am still at my parents heading back to London tomorrow, but it feels nice to be doing a podcast again.

1:46I feel like we did four in the week leading up to Christmas and then to go a week without one is a bit sort of destabilizing. But here we are, we're back and it's good to see you, Catherine. Were you, Matt, on Christmas Day doing like the Sebco, Steve Ovette thing of sort of practicing your podcasting, knowing that none of your rivals would be just keeping that edge over everyone else? I actually wasn't. I can't speak for Catherine. That folks, oh, you don't want to know what I was doing on Christmas Day. Folks, that is the voice of Charlie Eccleshire from The Athletic. Charlie, hello. Welcome.

2:29Thanks for being here. How has your holiday week been? Very nice. Thank you. Yeah. But yeah, I guess tennis came crashing back into our lives today with all that happened a few hours ago, which we'll get on to. Yes. Spoiler alert. Thank you for the segue, Charlie. Today was the day. Nick Kyrgios versus Irina Sabalenka in the self-titled Battle of the Sexes, an event staged by management company Evolve, who also represent both Sabalenka and Kyrgios, and which here in the UK was broadcast on BBC One. In the US, I think it was on Tennis Channel, I believe. It was won by Nick Kyrgios, the men's world number 671 6-3 6-3 over Sabalenka the match played in front of a crowd of apparently about 6 ,000 inside the Coca-Cola arena in Dubai an arena which incidentally has a capacity of around 17 ,000 but not the full 17 ,000 were put on sale so they were they were pitching 6 ,000 as a a sellout crowd.

3:41Look, we here at the Tennis Podcast haven't made any secret of our feelings about this event ahead of time. Matt, how did our experience of watching the event today match up to all the expectations that we went into this with? I think from a tennis perspective, my kind of worst fears were realised, I suppose, in that you had a clearly unfit Nick Kyrgios giving what seemed like a pretty half-hearted effort at times, beating the world number one women's player, Irina Sabalenka, despite court adjustments in her favour. And I kind of just come out of that thinking, well, sure, like, of course, that was that was always the most likely outcome.

4:39Great job lifting up women's tennis arena Sabalenka by by taking part in this, as she kept saying would happen all along. And look, I'm not going to think any worse of women's tennis because of this. But you bet some people will, you know, an event that totally sort of did not need to happen. will fuel the fire of misogyny that we know is out there. So from that point of view, as I said, all my worst fears realised. I think what I was most surprised by was how sort of bland and meh and really like lacking in show and style this was. In fact, the production of it was pretty poor and cheap-seeming.

5:27certainly on the BBC there were a few merciful moments where we lost pictures for for quite a while and the you know and the commentary duo just had a sort of wide shot of the stadium and had to talk over it while we were hearing the background noise and and and the and the picture was breaking up and it was just really really poor and the players were trying to do a bit of back and forth but they weren't mic'd up so we couldn't hear them I thought the court with the different dimensions looked really really odd and jarring and everyone in the arena looked pretty bored and there were zero vibes coming through the screen whatsoever like really really flat so like obviously Sabalenka and Kyrgios and the people you know putting on this event the whole time were sort of distancing themselves from the seriousness of it you know they were hearing the criticism and they were saying look it's not that deep it's going to be entertaining That was kind of their counter argument.

6:27And I just, look, maybe some people found it entertaining. I just don't really think it even was that. It seemed to fall really, really flat to me. Yeah, no way to underline a lack of vibe than inviting Karen Hashanov to just inexplicably be present without any particular explanation. making a late run for the Holger Runa what are you doing here award for 2025 yeah look I echo everything that you said there Matt and I think Charlie your colleague James Hansen the Athletic put it put it brilliantly in a tweet earlier if your entire defence against charges of setting back women's tennis is it's a show, then it had better be a show.

7:25And it really wasn't. The whole thing to me looked cheap. It looked like it was done on the cheap. And I know events are expensive to put on, but I think they had some decent sponsors going on there. The fact that it was on the BBC and on Tennis Channel would have helped bring in significant sponsor backing, I would have thought and it that whole situation just sort of emphasized to me how much this was just a hollow hollow money grab for for everybody involved and I couldn't quite believe my eyes that I was watching this unfold on BBC One during sort of prime BBC One hours on the Sunday after Christmas yeah I think broadly this it needed to have stakes or vibes and it ended up with neither really because you you actually watching it you're like the the way this would work you know obviously 1973 there was there were huge stakes you know it really meant something and those stakes don't exist now thankfully um the the only way it would have been interesting in that sense was if they if there was needle if they really didn't like one another for whatever reason you know and i don't mean that kyrgios sabalenka necessarily but whoever was facing each other or you kind of lean into the vibes of it and you really do make it a show and at a bare minimum like you said I think if they had mic'd them up that could have been quite fun like they are both you know they you know people have their views on Nick Kyrgios certainly but he can be reasonably entertaining you know he's he that could have been quite interesting seeing them or mic'd up at change of ends that sort of thing but there wasn't really they might have been to explain why Karen Hashanah exactly little cameo from only we could have heard the explanation um yeah it was i mean and then there's that weird moment where like kaka and ronaldo were were sort of entered why were they so late they were but but they weren't even unveiled in any sort of particular way they were just sort of there and they just had to wait and then and you know like um they had to shuffle past peter crouch yeah crouch yeah justice for peter crouch why did he not get his own entrance time yeah that's true um but even and then like you had the sabalenka doing the macarena thing which again if charlie that was my low point of the day yeah but i think if it really made my soul slide out of slide out of me so bad but if that but but that it was that's what i mean it was also confused because it was like it's both what is this a kind of does this have any importance or is it just a hit and giggle if it's a hit and giggle fine lean into that and you have Sabalenka doing the Macarena or whatever but it was all I don't know it just found itself caught in between those two things and actually It looked poorly planned didn't it?

10:18Like even down to the fact that okay Sabalenka had that big entrance in the sparkly coat which you know fine whatever but like prior to that Nick Kyrgios had just sort of wandered onto court holding a, it looked like the child was sort of showing him the way because he had got lost it was really it was really bizarre yeah yeah yeah it was i mean and also i think i think what happened was there was obviously a lot of hype going into it and to give it its due it did get a lot of attention you know with the fact that it was on the bbc as you say in this prime time slot what a coup that is you know for any event and you know all the big broadcasters were covering it and talking about it in the lead up and probably will do tomorrow there will be you know quite a lot of reaction to it i think a lot of people probably felt quite numb once they started watching it because it was just a bit confused as to what it was trying to do and as and as you said the the court sort of gave you a bit of a headache that kind of jagged it looked like a really old really bad graphics computer game where things didn't quite uh line up properly um it looked like there'd been a mistake with the machine yeah exactly i mean the thing is as well like it is it's it's hard in a way because i i agree with you matt what you were saying about oh you know clearly it's not gonna you know there are going to be a lot of people who have bad takes in this in bad faith you know about what it means women's tennis and all of that for me as someone who you know follows the sport very closely this sort of thing isn't revelatory like you you we know that like this isn't a surprise like that Sabalenka is losing to Nick Kyrgios we know you know this has been done to death like it's that's not interesting I actually found it more but but I didn't feel like it so I don't feel it did necessarily set women's tennis back hugely I actually felt more sorry in a way of the two for Kyrgios because Sabalenka next month goes and tries to win a fifth Grand Slam title whereas this is sort of Kyrgios's tennis reality now isn't it I mean playing doing these sorts of events you know that does he want any different tennis reality than a big payday no maybe not what he got today yeah yeah and a load of publicity but this will but there's a there's a finite amount of things like this you can do really isn't there i mean there's huge diminishing returns oh i think i think evolve uh but but but there won't this thinking up ways to deepen that well yeah i But this got a lot of attention because it was a kind of novelty thing.

12:58And yeah, maybe Kyrgios can't, maybe the interest in him will sustain across the world. You'll be able to find venues that will put things on for him. But I don't know, like Sabalenka, this will be quite quick. You know, when she's competing for the Australian Open title as the world number one, I think this will feel like quite a distant memory. whereas I don't really know what you know he's he is far far less relevant in the world of tennis than she is um and yeah I just I think she'll you know we'll talk to her about it in Australia she'll be grilled about it but then it will become a kind of secondary thing whereas you know Nick Kyrgios I don't know I don't know sort of how much more we'll see of him in competitive of tennis anyway yeah i certainly don't feel sorry for nick kiros that this is all that his sort of tennis life has been reduced to but you could really tell that that was certainly true by the quite sort of extraordinary statements he was coming out with in the build-up to this talking about how you know this is going to be one of the most watched sporting events of the last decade and how he said afterwards this is all all anyone in the world has been talking about for the last six months you know and it was it was it was these sorts of statements around the event and talking about what a sellout it was that were just indicative of this event taking place in this culture of delusion that we now live in where you can say things and they can just be entirely unchallenged and and and and they're sort of presented as as as fact and and i sort of found that element of it really really sort of tough to stomach as well i thought um you know in terms of my expectations of the day i would say the bbc did actually cover it with a with a slightly more sort of critical lens than i was expecting and i thought i thought russell fuller particularly in the studio provided a really valuable perspective in in the kind of build up but I was kind of left there thinking sort of if it is such nonsense which Russell is sort of putting across really well why are you showing it like it the sort of constant tension was was kind of existing as I was watching it it was a very very strange feeling having that on the BBC yeah the whole exactly the whole thing was emblematic of the age wasn't it of as you unchallenged sort of bent reality just stated as fact and populism there's a lot of a lot of people out there most of them men saying well lots of people watched it so that justifies it that justifies its existence and its prominence in our discourse I mean lots of people would have watched it if they were both naked you know like does that does that justify that concept like surely there has to be more than ratings like we we want we want as a people to to be better than that right yeah I mean I guess that the question that comes from it is what does it mean anything you know does this tie into a kind of exhibitionification of the sport you know where we're going to see more and more of these like we are seeing more of those um and some are more high profile than others is that what you know tennis as the u.s open knows you can't necessarily schedule the matches you want i've you know the fact they never had a federa and a dal match let alone a final um you know that that's where it differs from a sport like boxing or something like that so and you know luckily on the men's side sinner and algros play each other all the time anyway so you don't need to kind of fix things in this way um but yeah or is it just a kind of weird one-off thing that happened that we'll look back on in the way that we do that time nadal and federer played on a half grass court half clay court uh you know i don't know that was great yeah sabalenka unfortunately yeah i was gonna say matt is gonna defend that with his life matt's still watching reruns of that on youtube um sabalenka was talking about wanting to play play more i don't know like it hadn't even occurred to me that occurred to me that this would be anything other than a one-off but maybe that was spectacularly naive of me i mean I, one of the areas, as the US Open has shown, one of the areas where, and the Hotman Cup and events like that, like, where tennis can be, there is such a potency is that it's one of the very few sports that men and women can really play together.

17:47That will always be like an incredible USP that the sport doesn't really lean into. Now, obviously this is a kind of very mangled, strange form of that, but I do wonder if a Grand Slam like the Australian Open would look at this and wonder, is there a fun entertaining way you can do it you know so you get i don't know like a mini tournament in one of the days leading up not so it's because the problem with this match was that it got quite boring quite quickly because it was kind of like what is it they're sort of playing at three quarter pace it was on a slow court but if you did a kind of i don't know where you've got coco goff playing against one of her good mates on the atp side you know could you do a sort of best to three games or something just just make it a bit of fun or maybe you do just do it as mixed doubles I don't know but I don't know if there's like a kernel of something in this uh that other events will look at and think this might be entertaining I mean some you know not one point slam not quite that sort of novelty but I don't know are we that desperate though are we that desperate that we're looking this hard for kernels well I mean I'm sure a lot of the slams are looking at the mixed doubles event that the US Open put on and wondering whether they can do sort of equivalence of that um and they probably don't want to just like completely copy it so so they might you know they might be looking at other innovative ways they can do it with different rules and that sort of thing i do think the micing up bit is really important to like show a bit of the player's personality and make it fun and i think that that was a big misstep i mean i honestly think i mean it it looked like a cost saving to me it looked like every possible cost had been spared.

19:33You know, there was no electronic line calling. There was no feature made of the 9 % smaller court. It genuinely looked like there'd been a mistake in the manufacturing of the court. Why was the court grey? I was thinking, is grey the cheapest colour to print? Is grey paint the cheapest? It just looked so shite, I thought. And it made me think about the first time when this event came onto my radar all of our radars watching some social video of Kyrgios and Bublik during US Open and I remember thinking sort of picturing in my head that this is probably what it would look like and I would barely pay any attention to it and it would come and be gone and be a gimmick and that's that's that like the the craziness the the single single most crazy thing to me is that this was on BBC One prime time this afternoon and that I was asked to go on well I mean all sorts of things over the course of the last 24 hours and two weeks or whatever but you know I went on Five Live this morning to talk about it Charlie you went on Radio 4 yesterday evening like that's what's crazy to me that people have treated this thing as it as if it would be anything other than a than a bit of nonsense yeah and that is why i'm kind of curious to know what i mean it was hard to really gauge much of a response but i do wonder what people who aren't as close to tennis did make of it whether they were entertained or whether they did have their like how quickly their curiosity waned because clear as you said like clearly there was interest there was interest from all the broadcasters and newspapers and the idea of it I just don't know how much then the reality did interest them and I'd be interested to know what the rate you know what the ratings were or how quick the drop-off was how much people sort of stayed with it especially as you know in in this country the BBC's footage which that you know they were getting from Dubai was cutting out so it which kind of added to the sort of like what is this feel of it?

21:50I think that was the feed that was cutting out. I think that was universal. Yeah, that seemed to be what they were saying. Something specific to the BBC. Yeah, pretty big disaster that, I would say. You're only broadcasting one match and a significant portion of it was, the feed was dead. Now, I suspect that the rights were given away for free in a lot of cases because, you know, it being on prominent broadcasters generates value to sponsors. You know, that can be a good play. Nothing wrong with that kind of arrangement. It's not uncommon. So, you know, there won't be any lawsuits at play here.

22:35But if that had happened during a Grand Slam final, say, you'd have rights holders suing the event for not delivering on what they'd paid for. frankly. The thing that I've spent I think the most time sort of thinking about is Irina Sabalenka's role in all of this and look we know she you know has never been a great sort of messenger for the cause of women's tennis and women's sport she's been a she's been an amazing example of it in terms of her play and her prowess and her competitiveness and her sheer talent and ability like that i'm not questioning that at all but in terms of like championing women's tennis she's never been great you know in terms of like the comments that she's given about you know i know i know that you're waiting for the men's matches thank you for coming to mind little little little things like that but my mind did charlie go back to kind of the article that you wrote right at the start of the year which was about how she is this tennis superstar and yet her endorsement and her brand deals don't yet match up and obviously i think that has changed quite a lot since she wrote that article obviously with her move to evolve but it did sort of strike me as a as a bit of a sort of desperate act i don't know from from marina sabalenka to sort of get involved in this and obviously it's happening now at the end of the year but this this idea would have been generated and talked about way earlier in the year when maybe she was still in that state of not quite having the endorsements and the brand deals that have since come.

24:13And therefore, in terms of her future, I would sort of hope that she would realise that she doesn't need to take part in an event like this. Like, she is now getting much more of what she deserves. But I don't know whether she quite thinks like that. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, my read on it is slightly different. Like, I do feel there was an obliviousness from her as to how this would look. I do genuinely believe that. And yeah, that piece I wrote was, yeah, was kind of about that her sort of profile and how much of a star she is and her great personality and vibe wasn't matching up. And, you know, a lot of that is to do with her nationality.

24:59That's the reality. And I think she's done incredibly well over the last year or so from a branding perspective to sort of overcome some of those disadvantages. Um, but yeah, I, I think long term, I don't know how well this will play for her, but I do think it did come from, because, you know, we, we know what she's like. She's great fun. She's, you know, she's a great vibe. You know, we were all there in New York after she won the US Open and she came in in an even more extravagant kind of outfit and entrance to her press conference, having won the US Open, even compared to tonight. um and to be fair you know if you can get her on it like i remember interviewing her at the last year's wta finals and she was talking about that push for equal prize money and that sort of thing and how you know the previous year in um at the wta finals when it was such a farce you know had been this kind of watershed moment and they didn't want that to happen again and that kind of thing but yeah i do think she she went into this thinking that it could be this bit of fun and i i think she really would have been surprised about the kind of level of backlash and i think even she i think will not like the fact that because you know i don't think she would have been grilled necessarily um in the immediate aftermath of this match but i think come the australian open because that will be the first time that we will get to talk to her after it she is going to get a lot of questions about it and i think will kind of be a bit like what's the big deal it was a kind of bit of fun um and i don't think necessarily would have thought about the wider ramifications of it and why it isn't as she's been saying you know necessarily going to be a step forward for women's tennis and the wta tour can't wait for that press conference who's pumped uh okay anything further on the battle of the sexes until the next one apparently what a thought okay that is it for part one then join us in part two for things that aren't the battle of the sexes welcome back to part two of the tennis podcast where we turn our attention now to tennis the actual ATP and WTA tours and kind of anticipation of the 2026 tennis season which we'll be getting underway very shortly.

27:30And in fact, before we do that, a revisiting of a story from 10 days or so ago that just keeps on rumbling because, well, actually, very shortly after we recorded our last podcast, Juan Carlos Ferreiro hired some sort of crisis communications person, like big sort of Olivia Pope energy from Juan Carlos Ferreiro. Suddenly, I think on Christmas Eve, He popped up on every Spanish media outlet that I have ever heard of. David did say he's a talker. We will find out. He did. I thought it might be a few more days, hours, a bit more. But anyway, it turns out David, of course, was bang right. Juan Carlos Ferraro is indeed a talker.

28:22Here is a selection of some of the very revealing things that he had to say on the demise of his coaching relationship with Carlos Alcaraz. Obviously, this is one side of the story. We haven't heard from Carlos Alcaraz yet. It seems like he's got no intention of saying anything until, of course, he comes to Melbourne and he comes to his pre-tournament press conference. But this is what we know from Ferraro about the split. He said, everything seemed like it was set to continue. It's true that when the year ends, there are certain things at the contract level that have to be looked at. And as in any new contract, looking ahead to next year, there were certain things on which we did not agree.

29:04It may be that they could have been saved if we had sat down to talk. But in the end, we didn't sit down and we decided not to continue. Ferraro was quick to shut down speculation around money. He said the financial issue wasn't one of the problems that led to the split. His comments addressed rumours in the Spanish press that had suggested he had demanded a dramatically higher salary in order to remain in Alcaraz's camps. But he dismissed that. He dismissed reports that a clash between training bases played a role. Alcaraz had grown up training at the Carlos Alcaraz Academy in Murcia, run by his father for more than 30 years, while Ferreiro operates the Ferreiro Tennis Academy in Vilena, where Alcaraz spent much of his formative time on tour.

29:57Ferreiro said, we've never seen this as a rivalry. We've gradually come to understand that given the demands of the tour, Carlos would want to spend more time at home. We offered the academy so he could train whenever necessary, but it was never an obligation, never. I think maybe we both need some time to fully process this breakup. It's not so easy. Right now, I'm hurting. These kinds of relationships are difficult to end overnight. I gave it my all. I poured my heart and soul into this project. I think I invested a huge amount of time, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of work. And I think it was important to find the team and the people who let me do it.

30:36in the end I'm incredibly grateful for something like this. He also now he could have been being playful here but when asked if he would ever coach Yannick Sinner he did not say no. He said not right now it's all a bit raw with Carlos but you never know which I found very fun. I think the biggest single take away from this for me Matt is that he and Carlos Alcaraz haven't had a conversation, that this split, this split so seismic it prompted our first ever emergency YouTube live in very dramatic behind-the-scenes fashion, was not preceded by a conversation between the two men involved. i completely agree katherine that was the key line that i saw as well if we would have talked we could have sorted it out like it just seems like madness frankly for any relationship to end like that but let alone one that has lasted so long and been so successful like what are we doing here on on all sides and uh yeah from a ferrero perspective you could tell that he was hurting he seemed really really sad in in these interviews that he did i i watched the one they did with marco and yeah there was a yeah he was sound he was sad and it was it was kind of all heightened by by the fact that alcaraz's trophies were there behind him while he was talking just sort of as a sort of physical reminder of what they achieve together like as you said obviously this is this is Ferreira's side we haven't heard from the Alcaraz camp we haven't heard from Alcaraz himself other than his statement so for a full picture we'll probably need to wait for that but based on what we know so far I am really not getting good vibes about this at all it really feels like it could have been handled a lot better and therefore benefited both sides a lot better.

33:03It does seem a really weird situation because clearly there were, it seems like there were simmering kind of issues that if they really wanted to resolve, they could have done. And it got to the point where someone involved didn't really want to resolve those issues. Like think of the way like Sinner and Cahill have managed to somehow find solutions to keep it going, even when it looked like it wasn't going to for whatever reason. And then this where. Yeah, they seem to that clearly there are differences and they haven't been able to work them out. I just don't know how much will there has been to work them out or not enough will seemingly.

33:46me. It's pretty amazing to think that what what 10 days ago we did that emergency live stream and podcast reacting to the news. We had Matt Futterman on the show and look at the time we were fronting up that, you know, we had very little information and we were really just speculating about what might have caused this split. And sort of Matt's take was that most likely this was a symptom of Alcoraz growing up and taking control of his team and his kind of his business and starting to make decisions for himself as an adult and kind of shed the the the paternal figure that had guided him through his formative years and now wasn't the right fit for him as a as a grown man now again it's just one side of the story but based on the information that we have it sounds like potentially the opposite of that and what's happened is Carlos Alcaraz having extremely little agency in this and okay you know if he if he actively didn't want this to happen I suppose it wouldn't have happened but it sounds like something he's passively allowed to happen that's been driven by other people in his team rather than something that he has driven himself which I find worrying though I guess it is in Ferrero's interest to make it seem like that like if you're trying to yeah you know you're he's trying to present it to future employers potentially as well and it looks far better on him if it's like well you know the man himself didn't want to get rid of me this was about intermediaries and misunderstanding He's saying I've fallen for a Ferrero PR.

35:35He's got you hook, line and sinker. Who knows? But like that, you know, it would stand to reason that he that would be the kind of story he wants to tell. It may well be completely the accurate one, but we don't know yet. And it will be really interesting to hear Alcraz's side. How sort of candid he will be. That's another question. it's hard to imagine him coming into press in Australia and look even if this is his perspective on what's happened it's hard to imagine him coming in and saying yeah I wanted it was me I wanted rid of Juan Carlos I did the deed I'm the I'm the hit man it's it's hard to imagine that It does sound a lot like Ferraro is going to pop up with another player sometime fairly soon to me.

36:31And that's going to be interesting. Yeah, it will be. I mean, the Sinner obviously would be the sort of dream story, you know, in David's honour, the kind of WWF, WWE story there. You know, turning heel and coaching Alcaraz's great rival. but I mean but that I mean the problem is if he stays on the ATP tour it's hard to be that relevant unless you're coaching one of two players really um but it's going to be it's going to be interesting isn't it because Alcaraz you know we're used to him being so kind of his disposition is so sunny and especially at the start of the year and it's all fresh and new exciting vibes and whereas he's going to be getting a bit of a grilling straight off the bat um which I don't think he'll be too comfortable with and too keen on i mean he's not really it's so rare that you know he really that he's not that this is a controversy as such but it's obviously a huge off-court talking point um and yeah i can't think of too many times where he's really gonna have been grilled in this sort of way whereas obviously sinner has had so much experience because of the doping ban and that yeah but even then you know every other player was getting asked about Sinner's and of course Alcaraz got asked about Sinner's doping situation and yet somehow the sort of the tone of the questioning was just sort of different because it felt like oh you know you don't you just don't you know quite doesn't feel right to quite sort of go there with Alcaraz but this is I agree I think it's going to feel different to any press conference situation we we've ever had with with Carlos Alcaraz um and I'm not not sure I'm looking forward to that I mean I'm sort of sort of am on one hand because I you know I live for drama but on the other hand not yeah because I do think it could genuinely affect him um which again because you just you don't really want to do that to him in some ways because he is he feel I mean you know his he feels like a very sort of pure, quite chirpy personality.

38:44And I think he, you know, we've seen him. He has been affected by things, even like the whole, the way Djokovic gets in his head. I do think, you know, he can get a bit unsettled and a bit rattled by things. And I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it did just put him off kilter a little bit at the start of the Australian Open and possibly throughout. Wouldn't be the tennis podcast with some pointless speculation on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever. Taking Yannick Sinner out of it, who do we think Ferreira might pop up to coach next? If we had to place our bets. He's done, Zverev. Yeah.

39:26That went badly. I think Charlie's made a good point, though. I think on the ATP tour, you'd have to go for someone pretty young that you could kind of nurture in a similar mould to Alcarez. Obviously, there's only one Carlos Alcarez. He's not going to... Then he's going to discover the next Carlos Alcarez. But if you're going to someone ranked 10 to 20, it's such an obvious step down, but still within a similar mould of coaching, like coaching at the top. Whereas I think if he went to a younger player, someone he could try and work up the rankings that you can have success that way. I think success is going to be easier to measure and have with a younger player than it is, you know, someone ranked 15 to 20 in the world right now.

40:19Because how do you make such a difference? Maybe he can. Maybe he's that good a coach that he can be the one to make the difference. But I think he knows the reality of how good Alcaraz and Sinner are. And closing that gap is not going to be something that he's going to take on just for anyone because i mean links wise someone like flavio caballi has trained you know he's spent off seasons with them you know he'll know them well he's a kind of but again he's a sort of alcaraz light in some ways you know he tries extravagant things sometimes doesn't make the wrong shot selection but he's just a different league so it would feel like a bit of a uh a step down um i mean yeah it would be incredibly exciting if you want someone like fonseca i guess and was like, let's try and take you, you've been on that similar trajectory to Alcaraz, now let me take you on those last few steps.

41:08That's one of the few moves I think where you could be a bit like, wow, yeah, that is a pretty exciting project to be working on post-Alcaraz. Yeah, okay. So Ferraro to stay in sort of paternal coach mold. I do worry just on the kind of, the Alcaraz side of things. I can imagine like, as David said prophetically, like he is chatty. I do fear as well. There'll be, you know, it might be the Australian, but it might be other tournaments that more stuff's going to come out from Ferraro that Alcaraz will then be quizzed, which obviously we will all lap up because that will be great. But I don't think it will be hugely helpful.

41:48You know, you can imagine Carlos, Juan Carlos said in commentary or in an interview, this about your game or this about your opponent or whatever it is. And I think he'll feel quite uncomfortable with that kind of questioning. Exposing. Exactly. And it wouldn't surprise me, like, who know? He could be mouthing off during the Australian Open quite feasibly, Ferraro. Well, presumably Spanish, I don't know who the Spanish rights holders are for Australian Open, potentially Eurosport, certainly used to be Eurosport Spain. I mean, if I'm a producer for them, I'm putting in a call to Ferraro getting him getting him on the team i do think there is also a scenario where not in the short term but in the long term alcaraz and ferrero work it out and actually ferrero's next move is potentially back to alcaraz like i think it's i think it's not likely in the short term but given the statements given the love that clearly is sort of still there between them and maybe if Alcaraz has a dip, you know, maybe if Alcaraz does have that dip in form, maybe it is a bit of a sort of realisation on both parts that actually this would be better for both of us if we can work this out.

43:10Like, I don't think it's happening any time soon, but it wouldn't shock me if that happened. You know, if it's the kind of Murray going back to Lendl kind of thing in a couple of years or so. The problem is, and look, sort of wider career, Al Kraz has got plenty of time, but he's also sort of got a ticking clock, hasn't he? Like this Australian Open, this next tournament, the first one after this seismic split is his most important of the year. And the one he wants, the one he would sacrifice a second slam for this year. So he kind of, you know, if there weren't that pressure on completing, becoming the youngest man to complete the calendar slam, he'd say, OK, well, you know, look, he can afford to have a dud Australian Open and a lull and take some time to adjust to this really big change.

44:07But in his mind, he can't afford that. Unless he thinks or hopes there'll be the kind of new manager bounce that will carry him to the career grand slam. He needs a new manager first. Yeah. Aladice waiting by the phone there were reports I saw online earlier that Alcaraz said he wanted Andy Murray I can't find any verification for those but obviously I want them to be true I mean that would be amazing and I did get a few messages about that I think Murray would say no my hunch on the basis of our conversation with him a month ago is that he really doesn't want to coach right now. I think he would find that extremely hard to say no to.

44:57Yeah, you don't think it would be like how... But I think he would just about manage it. You don't think it would be like how he had no intention of coaching when Djokovic called him, but then you see that Djokovic is calling you and asking you to coach him. Yeah, but exactly. I don't think he will do that exact same. I don't think he'll reenact that scenario. He can't just keep saying, no, I don't want to coach right now. and then when the actual call comes in, say yes, can he? True. I mean, you're right, but there aren't that many people who you'd put in that bracket. I mean, there's basically Djokovic, Sinner and Alcaraz on the men's side.

45:31Look, I think you'd find it very hard to say no to. Yeah, thank you, Charlie. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Okay, look, that's it for part two. Let's come back in part three and look ahead to United Cup. and other week one of the 2026 tennis calendar events. Can't wait. Welcome back to part three of today's tennis podcast, where we look ahead now to proper tennis, starting in just a few days' time. The United Cup is the first event off the blocks. The group stages and quarterfinals happening in Perth and Sydney, and then the semifinals and finals happening in Sydney. We had the news a couple of days ago that Jack Draper is out of the United Cup for Team GB and in fact out of the Australian Open.

46:25The mood music was there, wasn't it, when he pulled out of the two exhibitions that he was scheduled to play to start the comeback from the bone bruising to his arm, the injury that had been plaguing him throughout the summer and that he took a long break from tennis in order to heal following the US Open. He announced it on Boxing Day with a video message on social media, clearly devastated. This is an ambitious guy that is desperate to compete and is champing at the bit and is currently being held back in a cage. and it kind of makes this decision all the more impressive to me because I think it would have been very easy for him to just give it a go and see how he got on.

47:15But he said, I've had this injury for a long time. I'm at the very, very end stages of the process and to step back on court, back into five-set tennis so soon just doesn't seem like the smart decision for me and my tennis. This is a worry though, Charlie, isn't it? because it's a long time away from the game already. This is a chronic injury that it doesn't seem like there's any kind of surgical solution for. And it's clearly still not healed properly to the point where he's totally confident in it. And long-term for Jack Draper, that's a concern. Yeah, it's really worrying. I mean, those quotes can make it seem like, you know, I guess the positive is that he feels he's coming right to the end of it.

48:06And this is just a kind of smart managing of his body. But yeah, it's going to be a long time since he played by the time he comes back in, well, hopefully February at the earliest. And then he's basically going to go straight into Indian Wells, which got a thousand points to defend. That's going to be, that's a lot of pressure, you know, when you haven't played a lot of tennis. And I think that is sensible not to go straight back into best of five. And it was at the Australian Open last year, wasn't it? Won his first three matches, all five sets. And then he, you know, he pulled out against Alcrest, you know, kind of shell of a man by that point because he'd played so much tennis.

48:46So he knows as well as anyone how demanding that can be. So it does make, that does make some sense. But yeah, I mean, just so unfortunate because he's had lots of injuries before. and then it looked like, you know, he was kind of overcoming them and then getting these great results as a consequence of that, of finally being injury-free. I do just feel really sorry for him on a personal level. Like being injured is just really, really rough. You know, whether you're an amateur, I mean, obviously it's way worse as a professional, but even as an amateur, anyone who's played any sport knows, it really does get you down.