Does Sinner’s injury open US Open door?

33:44She's looked brilliant, Asaka, striking the ball so well, good numbers, really clean matches. Okay, she had a little wobble at the start against Fernandes, but immediately got back on track. And yeah, I've been seriously impressed. Yeah, I watched quite a lot of that Fernandes match last night. And the crowd wasn't quite as feral as it was from Boco in Montreal last year, just because I think, you know, the youth and the unexpectedness and the fairy tale story of Mboko really heightened the senses. But it was still an incredibly partisan Canadian crowd. And that's obviously a situation last year that Naomi Osaka had a very difficult time with and didn't necessarily cope with all that well.

34:28And last night it was blinkers on stuff. It was very impressive from Osaka. Just cycling back around or a couple of days, Leila Fernandez's win over Mira Andreeva, 6-1, 6-4. That was the worst performance I've seen of the week, that Mira Andreeva performance. And I, as we've established, watched Rabakines Samsonova. Andreeva was awful. I was quite taken aback, Matt, by what I saw from Mira Andreeva. Yeah, again, one of those matches where the scoreline in the second set makes it look a little bit closer than it felt because she had a late rally. But it was 6-1-5-1 to Fernandes and she was absolutely cruising.

35:19Fernandes was really good. I was really impressed with her and thought she had great energy and played really well. but Andreeva was all at sea. I mean, her forehand was so bad. I mean, it's always been the weaker wing, but it's been a fairly consistent shot. I don't look at it and I'm not on edge thinking it's going to be an error. I'm just thinking, can she actually do much with the ball? But it was just error after error and it was a mix of like real lifelessness. Like I didn't feel like she was there for a lot of the match And then occasionally she'd get really frustrated and they would cut to Conchita in the stands and she'd be shaking her head, you know, in the way that she does.

36:04And honestly, it just it couldn't have looked more different to the person who won the French Open a few months ago, largely without fuss, really. I mean, the defining feature of that run was how controlled Andreva was throughout it in matches that she was the favorite in in pretty much all of them. She never let that bother her, which we have seen in the past. Well, we seem to be back to the Andreva that we saw sort of back in the last season or through the spring. And it's understandable to an extent when, you know, you win your first Grand Sam title. We've talked about this before. Things change and it feels different.

36:47And maybe there's also some fatigue from winning a Grand Sam title that's still there. But I was quite shocked by the state of her game, considering that she'd had a bit of a rest after Wimbledon. And I thought there was going to be a real freshness to her, but there wasn't. Iga Shiontek, David, into the quarterfinal, she'll now face Deanna Schneider, who beat Jessica Pagula quite comfortably, actually, 3-3 for Schneider over Pagula. In terms of Svantec, she'd had those couple of very comfortable victories and then a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 win over Marta Kostiuk, a pretty frazzled and frustrated Marta Kostiuk by the end of this match.

37:36Yeah, a little bit like Andreeva. She just had not got a forehand in this match. I mean, she won that first set. I didn't watch the first set, but I saw the stats that Matt sent us through that I think Shontek had won one point on a serve in the entire first set. I mean, that's extraordinary. So you can tell me about the servers. I can tell you what happened late on, which is that Shontek definitely started to package her game well and tighten things up and play well and allow Kostchuk to just spray the ball all over the shop. and so you know I kind of take heart from a Svantec point of view that she's she's getting through matches where she's having the odd bad patch but well what happened in that first set honestly like neither of them could really serve like there was a lot of breaks but Svantec in particular wasn't like her percentage was bad she was she was over 60 percent first serves in but it was just it was just a nothing ball it was so ineffective and Kostiuk was doing that thing of stepping in on the return and and crushing it which she kept up through the match and by the end Kostiuk just kept missing on those returns and spraying it was like she was being too stubborn she needed to she needed to rein that in I think because it stopped working but in the first set it was really working and could I just clarify here one point Iga Shiantek won one point on her own serve yes in the opening set of this tennis match and then won the match like it's one of the craziest turn I don't think I've ever seen a stat like that like no matter how good Kostiuk's return is Shiontek should not be at a point with her serve where she's only winning one point on it in an entire set it was it was staggering um but I do feel like she felt like it was a big win The celebration at the end was big from Svantec.

39:38And we just haven't seen that trajectory of match all that much where she's able to turn it around. I felt like that was big for her. Normally it's gone the other way. She's faced some pressure. She's buckled a bit and never got it back. Well, she was under severe pressure in that first set, but she turned it around. And yeah, so it's one of those where you come out of it thinking, well do we focus on the disastrous first set where she where she couldn't do anything on serve or do we focus on the real positive of the next next couple of sets where she turned it around i guess we'll have to wait and see as as the tournament goes on but it could be a breakthrough moment for her do you know what i would focus on a little bit is what she said on the court at the end of it which is i feel in a completely different place to to to earlier in the year she was asked about the sort of last match she'd played against Kostiuk and how she talked at the French Open about feeling stress and feeling on the edge.

40:38You know, she says, I just don't feel like that now. Clearly, she's had a break. She had a bit of time off and she seems just, she seems a lot happier out there on the court, a lot fresher. Coco Goff, this is the final, quarterfinal Goff against Bencic. Goff, a very comfortable winner yesterday against Alina Korneva, who had beaten Nivy Jovic in straight sets in the previous round. I watched both of those two matches. And when I watched Korneva against Jovic, I was like, my God, I think I sent a text to the group saying, does Korneva just not do unforced errors? Because that seems like a great, great tennis hack.

41:17It was such a clean, clinical, tidy performance from Korneva. And then seeing her against Goff was, it was fascinating, actually, because Goff is kind of the nightmare opponent for a young, clean, sort of junior transitioning player because shots that are winners against other players aren't against Coco Goff. You hit this lovely shot, your whole life, that's been a winner against everybody you've played and Goff is getting it back into an awkward position and you just want to be standing there admiring what you did 10 seconds ago. Very relatable for me. but yeah it was a sort of fascinating case study seeing those two matches back to back I mean Jovic is a fantastic mover and hustler on the tennis court but Goff is just unmatched in that department isn't she and is looking quite convincing Coco Goff I feel quite convinced by Coco Goff right now Yeah, and it's very different scorelines to what we're used to for Coco Gauff.

42:25Think of all her good runs this season, Miami, Rome, Wimbledon. She had so many three-set matches along the way to get there, and we were praising her fighting spirit all the time. But there was part of you thinking, be nice if she won a bit more convincingly. Well, she's been doing that this tournament. She's barely dropping games, really, in sets, certainly in her last couple of matches. I think she's looked really good. The serve is definitely improved on where it was earlier in the season. And yeah, like the pressure she was able to apply to Korneva on return and in defence was just, I'm sure, unlike anything Korneva had ever experienced.

43:11And yeah, tasty one against Benchik. That's been a pretty good rivalry, actually, over the last 18 months or so. This will be their seventh meeting since the start of 2025. And five of those six have been won by Goff, but five have also been deciding sets. They're tussles, generally, when those two play. There's a little bit of edge to it as well. And I can't wait for that one. Bencic was the one David to end Alexandra Eala's run last night late last night well overnight for us Eala had won this absolute thriller against Katie McNally a couple of nights before 6-3-5-7-6-4 which I watched quite a lot of David I know you watched pretty much in its entirety the next morning you've got a weird sort of you're you're recreating the 90s with vhs with your with your tennis setup at the moment it's good stuff um and it was a great match and ayala was wonderful but you did say that looked like it might have been the end of the road for ayala it looked like she might have had to drop the last gasps of what she had in the canister in order to get through that and last night against Bencic, 6-0, second set, that take, well, it aged very well.

44:37Yeah, McNally's a player I love to watch and watching her and Iala go toe-to-toe, that is a match I could watch again happily. They're very different type of rallies that you get normally and lots of drop shots, lots of unusual angles visually and a really good tussle. And I mean, you're right, Iala was pushed to the absolute limit in this thing. And the atmosphere is so incredible. And it sort of pulled her over the line. But then the moment she won, her emotions came out. And it was sort of as though she was just broken by the weight of it, by what it had taken for her to get over the line, just made her crumple under the weight of it all.

45:30Her features immediately went from this stern, intense concentration focus to, oh, I've done it, I just can't take any more. It looked like it just finished her off, really. She was very, very grateful and happy that she'd managed to sit. She actually sort of said, it's so important that I could set up another match. to enable this atmosphere. You know, she'd managed to get one more occasion out of it. And for a few games, she did pretty well in this match overnight. But honestly, she was just on empty. She was just pushing accelerator when there's no gas left in the tank. And Bencic cleaned her up in the second set, six love, in no time at all.

46:18And I was sort of watching the first set thinking, again, great atmosphere. but at what point does Iala's progress cost her going forwards? I was thinking if she can, because she didn't look tired in the first few games, she looked fine. And I thought she goes and wins this and keeps this run going, a bit like Rafael Hodares, you know, and go and win this tournament, say. I think if she wins this tournament, she's got to pull out as Cincinnati because at some point she needs a rest. And actually now she's kind of been made to have a rest because she's lost. So I suspect she will be on the start line at Cincinnati.

46:58But yeah, it's an interesting process to watch. And yeah, Bencic. And actually just a word from Nali. Nali loved that atmosphere the other night. And she sort of wanted to almost tell Iala, thank you for bringing this to our sport and for me to be able to get to share in this. And that's a lovely feeling. I loved that moment. so much and there's a line on the WTA website where apparently McNally got a 10 ,000 plus Instagram following boost after the match with all the Filipino fans like really loving McNally as well and sending her a lot of nice messages apparently so that was really nice to see they're just so positive aren't they?

47:50It's not just the volume of the fandom but it's the vibe and the positivity. Discovering a sport as well as cheering their own player. They're discovering a sport, it seems. Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, who are your two finalists and your champion from here? Alexander vs. Vitalina, winner of that to face the winner of Schneider Svjantek, winner of Bencic Goff to play the winner of Osaka Rabakina. who's coming through each half of the draw. I'm going Svitolina. Svitolina Osaka, I might go. Svitolina Gough. You're going for a Gough-Osaka semi-final? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yes, please. Okay. Yeah, I think I'm Svitolina.

48:48I think I'm going Svitolina Gough as well. I think it's Vitalina for the title for me. Yeah. Matt? I might go Osaka, you know. Just watching that, just thinking, bloody hell, she's playing well. She's in my fantasy team. No trouble at all. OK, that's it for part two. I'll warn you now, I will be doing the same game with the men's in part three. So I don't want any eye rolls when we get to the prediction stage. See you in part three. Welcome back to part three of today's tennis podcast. Heading to Montreal now where the men's quarterfinals look like this. Daniel Merida will take on Leonard Tien on Tuesday.

49:36The winner of that to face the winner of Jakub Mensik against Ben Shelton. Also on Tuesday, tonight's quarterfinals are Rafael Hodder against Artifis and Luciano Darderi against Brandon Nakashima. Let's start with Hodder Fies, which in terms of a match-up, probably the one, well, look, it jumps out to us the most, but I'm sure it jumps out to a lot of casuals the most as well. Not just because of the names, the fact that they're young and exciting, but the form they're in as well. Hodder with a 3-3 victory over Yirila Hetschka, Art of Fies, lit it up against Cameron Norrie. David, 6-2, 7-6. And he takes some beating, Cameron Norrie.

50:21You have to put that guy away. And that was a real... OK, he'd got those two victories prior to this one, Art of Feast. Varying levels of convincing, I would say, in those two matches. He had the racket smash moment in the Schweider match, didn't he, Feast? I was still feeling quite cautious about Art of Feast before this Cam Nori match. Now, David, I'm all in. I am pumped. You can only imagine when I am. He was awesome. He was awesome. And he was awesome in the first game of this match. He hit three winners in his first three points on forehand. I mean, his forehand is always heavy and it's a good finisher, but he doesn't often pull the trigger out of nowhere unless he's really feeling it.

51:16And he was just, they were in a rally, cross-court forehands, and then suddenly he just went down the line and finished the point with no real obvious opportunity to do so. Just he was hitting it that cleanly. Won the first set 6-2. And, I mean, I'm amazed that Norrie managed to get it close in that second set. And he got it really close. He got two set points in the tiebreak. what he does Norrie as well as fighting incredibly hard I thought he actually played really quite well as well in this match he lost 6-2 7-6 but but you know his level was high I thought Norrie he is one of the most irritating opponents I think on the tour for an opponent for a tennis player he was shouting a lay after every one of the points that he won including on fees errors and including when the ball hadn't even landed from a Feast shot.

52:13You know, Feast would hit a shot and he would tell that it was going out and he would go, Ellie! And I mean, I'm thinking, you must be getting injured in his skin because you're getting under my skin and I'm just sitting there watching. He's really lent in to the villain arc, I think, Cam Norrie. He always had a bit of that in him and, you know, he went to US College, didn't he? and all that sort of sledging, dark arts, shithousery stuff is quite a big thing at US College. But I feel like in the last few years, he's really embraced the dark side, don't you think? I wasn't expecting this. Yeah, I think so.

52:52I think he had a knock-up against Hodder, didn't he, where he was almost trying to hit him with the ball. Like he was hitting the ball as hard as he possibly could in the knock-up. I think maybe, do you think the aggro he had with Djokovic in Rome, do you think that was like his villain origin story? That was like, okay, I'll be this guy. And the funny thing is he doesn't give you any, he doesn't have anything confrontational about him. He doesn't sort of then go up to the net. Yeah, he just, you wouldn't know. I mean, he's a really nice fellow when you talk to him. He's very polite and very helpful and very accommodating.

53:30but he's just constantly doing this stuff and he doesn't seem to have any conscience about it whatsoever and he knows what he's doing he knows it's irate i mean and actually to be honest i'm looking at feast thinking well it doesn't appear to be irritating you at all and i'm waiting for the moment where i mean like i said he got to i think i think feast had about six match points before he eventually won this match and several of them before the tie break as well and then in the tie break he's facing two set points and i'm thinking if he loses this set after being clearly the better player in it but is it going to come out this this stuff that nori's doing i mean my 14 year old son joined me for the second set of this match and he is he's a big feast guy right he loves artifacts almost as much where that's from yeah and and and i said i said listen to this listen to when when he shouts alay to a frenchman after the frenchman's missed a shot and the ball hasn't even landed yet and he listened and he was and he was like he was really shocked by it that people did that and it happened two more times and my son just went dad i really want to say a word that i'm not allowed to say because he was really getting wound up yeah he was getting really wound up by it and and then by the end of it when feast one my son's like jumping around the room yes come on l-a-u you know it's that kind of thing um so look feast was was really really good and i think mentally strong i think the the caution you have to have is always is is he going to pull up lame is is there going to be a moment where the the back or the hip causes a problem doesn't look like it at the moment like he looks great um so and he looks to me like he's developed some confidence in his body looking back now at performances from Washington and from the early rounds here he was probably really nervous about his body and on edge about that that same anxiety we have about is it going to break down he's probably got that too and and it looked like it looks tentatively like that's fading from certainly the forefront of his mind.

55:41I feel more relaxed watching him than I have in a long time. Hodder next. Who's the favourite in that? It's 50-50 to me. I mean, I think on paper you'd say Hodder. He won last week in Washington in straight sets. When is Hodder going to run out of gas? Well, he's getting better again. This is the interesting thing. It's almost as though he's hit the win. It's been really good. And he's having his second win now because he's now playing the tennis he was in Madrid and Barcelona when he was destructive. I mean, to beat Lehechka three and three, I'm going to go Fies because I actually think, I still think Fies is a better player.

56:23I mean, look, maybe I would say that, but I just think he's, I think his top level is the closest to the very top three in the world. but three or four if you include Djokovic obviously but Hodder is impressing me that that he is not just tail spinning away the thing that gets me about Hodder is his return of serve it is already among the very very best in the world you look up the returning stats on on tour and the players who are always at the top of those stats are the best players return of serve is massive in men's tennis over the last few years and hodd is right there with like cinema and alcaraz in the in the top 10 of like all the stats on return and he's he's just hurting people on that shot off either wing it's incredible and I I found the Hodah experience so weird this season we talked about it a bit the other day but I I all but I think that I've kind of let my own like I don't quite know how this guy plays don't quite know what to make of him and it's been a bit of a weird period without Alcaraz as well I think I've let that slightly get in the way of just how remarkable what he's doing is he is if you take away team events opt to have this stack take away team events hodd has claimed the most wins of any teenager within their first 50 matches at atp tour level in the open era and think of like there've been some amazing teenagers in that time and hodd has racked up so many wins.

58:15The consistency is crazy. And what gets me even more is they have this behind-the-scenes cam at Montreal and you can see into the gym. And there's all these people with their big teams and their physios going through a big workout before a match. Hodder's dad is taking him through his stretching routine. He's the only guy there. And yet it's... working it's like he's breaking the mold of these people having big teams now i still think he might need to go down that route in the future but it's remarkable to see it working so well at this time it's so like uncomplicated which is kind of what his tennis is when it's at his when he's at his best as well and i look at feasts and i'm more excited by feasts like way more like his explosiveness and his personality on court and his potential with the you know with that forehand in particular but i do think it's possible that hodd just like chops him up a bit in the way that he sort of keeps doing to people like he sees the serve and he just sort of destroys it.

59:33And it's just hard to grasp, I think, with Hodder in a way that Fees, I get Fees. I know what Fees is about. Yeah, yeah. I'm just struggling a bit more with Hodder. But that's not to say he's not as good. He's 13 in the live rankings. There's a potential for him to break the record of shortest gap on the ATP between breaking the top 100 and breaking the top 10, which is currently held by Boris Becker, who won Queen's and Wimbledon back-to-back as a 17-year-old. Decent. Yeah, that'll do it. And there's potential going to obliterate it. Yeah, absolutely. And do it without winning a slam. Do it with, you know, obviously he's had big results, but do it kind of with consistency, which isn't how teenagers tend to break records like this.

1:00:25that's what both of these two guys have done actually this season is i mean i think feces now reached his fourth masters 1000 quarter final of the year um and and has has got a re you know a decent ranking and he's he's only played the one grand slam tournament you know um and and and hard i guess he got to the quarterfinals of the french i still don't quite know how he pulled that off given the state he looked um but yeah just the consistency and the the refusal to just tail away amazing uh the winner of hod our feast places the winner of dardari nakashima the agenda david informs me that you have nakashima takes which i think might be a first on the tennis podcast i don't know whether i would say takes but i'm interested in a fact um and a correlation of results with that fact the fact is that wayne ferreira is now his coach and has been with him since Queens he reached the semi-finals of Queens um he he had big wins in Washington you know he went deep in Washington and and I just I mean look I I can't I haven't spoken to Wayne I saw I saw Wayne in uh Wimbledon and and it was he was he's always really nice to us you know Wayne Ferreira we've we've we've had a lot of dealings with him over the years and and he's done a lot of coaching I mean, he had great success with Francis Tiafoe.

1:01:53I think Tiafoe played the best tennis of his career whilst Wayne Ferrer was his coach. He had a short period of time with Jack Draper. He had a fairly short time with Alexey Popperin. And like I say, I'm wary of drawing sort of cause and effect with things. But semifinals of Queens, in Washington, he went and beat Jakub Menchik. he beat Alex Diminor, did Nakashima, he pushed Taylor Fritz very close to a third set, and here he's gone and beaten Nata Rindeknesh, he's got to the quarterfinals, you know, he's had two long three-set wins. Feels like that partnership has definitely added an extra something to him, and he's always been a really consistent, accurate server, and he's got a good, solid baseline game with a really good backhand everything sort of works well he's like classic american player on a hard court of being at his best there um so he takes some putting away and yeah i'm just interested to see whether that partnership and ferrera's got a bit of spike to him hasn't he you know we we know him well enough and nakashima always seems to lack that at least you can't get a read on, well, how much of a sort of mongrel is he on a court?

1:03:17Has he got some of that scrappiness that I certainly think Wayne Ferreira will want to, he'll want to see some confrontational tennis almost from him, certainly some scrapping. Yeah, that's a great point. He's a distinct personality, Wayne, isn't he? I can see why it doesn't work with some players and it doesn't work quite quickly and dramatically. I can see why, you know, he's got into things, Jack Draper, for example, and it's just clearly not been the right fit. But I can also see why when it does click, it really clicks and it really works. You know, we saw that with his partnership with Tiafoe for a long time.

1:03:57Those remain Francis Tiafoe's best results. He clearly had Tiafoe's ear and Tiafoe was prepared to listen and buy in. You know, I think if you get someone's buy-in, I can see why that yields results. I've been to some weird places with Wayne Ferreira. Do you want to clarify that? I don't know. Stranded in Chengdu. Crumpled in tears. Crumpled in tears on the floor of Beijing airport. Nightclubs in Chile. There's a travel night there. in the back of a cab with a drunk Mark Philippou, nursing a drunk Mark Philippou. You were running the public relations for the Champions Tour, weren't you? And he was on it.

1:04:49Well, you were running the public relations for the Champions Tour. I was...

1:04:56Representing me. Representing David, yeah. So that I didn't have to go. In the back of a cab with the drunk Mark Philippou. Yeah. In the middle seat, no less.

1:05:10He's the oldest player left in the field, Nakashima And he only turned 25 last week Yeah, new balls please, David Yeah, it's the first time ever that all eight quarter finalists At an ATP event have been born in the 2000s Oh God Everyone was so desperate for Bertrand van der Daen's court to lose So that they could have that stat leave my leave my guy Bertic alone Bertic's not good for the movement he's not good absolutely not like as much as this has been a weird tournament like I would say TN Mensik Shelton Hodder Fies like they're the they're the young guys who are exciting to me And like they're there in this draw and Fonseca was there in the previous round.

1:06:12And like there's just this thing where some of the players you maybe expect to take advantage of the situation ATP Tauro's in at the moment can't quite capitalise on it. Like a Medvedev and an Orgi Aliassim and a Dimonor. But then you've got this, as David was talking about, this newer wave, this younger wave. and they're kind of here in Canada right now and it's going to be interesting to see which one of them it is, I suppose. Ben Shelton faces Jakub Menchik, winner of that to face Merida or Tien. Shelton getting the better of Fonseca last night 6-3, 7-6. He was three love in that second set was Fonseca.

1:07:00got broken back and then seemed to tweak something in his foot or in his ankle. And we're reassured that it's fine. He didn't call the trainer at the time. And yet he totally went off the boil after that moment. I think he was shocked. I think he was worried. He lost all the momentum in the match, immediately lost serve. Just wasn't the same player. His whole vibe changed, Fonseca. But Shelton was good in this match. David, I know you watched it as well. Looking at it through the lens of what Matt was saying about Hodder and the return, you know, the return stats pretty much correlating with the rankings.

1:07:44You know, and the return has been one of the areas that Ben Shelton has had to work on and improve in his game. And I had the commentators, I think it was Colin Fleming in this match and in Shelton's previous match, talk about how that was what he went back to the practice court to work on after his defeat to Otto Werden at Wimbledon in the opening round, which was a shocker really for Ben Shelton, given his expectations and the level of opportunity. where does the Shelton return look like it's at to you David? Yeah I think his game looks like it is rounding into form nicely now that was a good performance I agree with you and actually he got his serve broken in the very first game by Fonseca who came out feeding the ball incredibly well I thought eventually had that nasty little ankle turn that he had in the second set But I think Shelton did well to kind of immediately break back and get into that first set and turn it around.

1:08:47And I just got the sense that obviously the serve is always going to be a weapon. But you need more than that. And you need more than serving big forehand these days. You need the backhand to stand up. You need to be able to, as you say, be able to make returns. He just looks like he's training in the right direction. when there's so many players of the big names I don't feel like that about they're either struggling or they're injured Shelton I mean he did it last year you know he won this tournament last year kind of need kind of hit the wall in Cincinnati and then played the best tennis I think he's ever felt he's played at a grand slam in the US Open and then had a terrible injury so rounding around nicely into form and hopefully you can stay full of it I think the matchup with Menship will be interesting from a Shelton return perspective because I do think that one of the things about the Fonseca serve is that he likes to kick it and you know his his natural kick is to the Shelton forehand and I felt like Shelton was able to just take a step back in the court and actually take a full swing at the return and he was pretty comfortable doing that.

1:10:00I think it's situations like at Werton and on a quick grass court at Wimbledon where he's not got the time. What are his hand skills like on the return? And I think there's still some question marks there. And I think Möncheng will test that a little bit more than Fonseca, whose serve was kind of in and out through the match, I think. Yeah, he wasn't happy with his serve yesterday, Fonseca. it was a lovely match in terms of the amount that they both were at the net really pleasing from that point of view and Brian Shelton is encouraging Ben to be there he was there a lot anyway and Brian Shelton still wanted more of that and Fonseca was up there a lot as well, it was really it was a nice tennis match Peace was watching Yes And Merida He was.

1:10:51Yes, I'm Merida. Trinity Rodman surprised him. He shut the door in her face. Then reopened it. But, yeah. Menchik, David, he was your pick for the title in the last pod. We could talk about Eka Menchik or we could talk about Greg Allensworth. Yes. He delivered a shutdown of a spectator who apparently was sort of heckling the players and delivering his own advice, which Mensik was at pains to tell Greg Allensworth. This is the second time it's happened. Same guy. And Greg, just when it went quiet, he just said, ladies and gentlemen, the players have their own coaches who they pay money to. and so could you please stop giving them advice?

1:11:50They have their own fantastic coaches and Menshirt just sort of went...

1:11:58It was the perfect level of umpire sass. Yeah, perfect. Little twinkle in the eye. This is why Craig Tiley's idea is to put umpires in bunkers beneath the court is something I just can't get on board with. We need those moments. Keep Greg out in the open. A little mention for Bertic's shot of the tournament, please. Oh, I mean. What a player. Unbelievable. Hercac smashes the ball at him and he sort of swerves his body out the way, but moves his racket just to... Like the Matrix. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Gets his racket on it, has the control on it to get it back. And yeah, he saved a couple of match points, didn't he, to beat Hubert Hurk.

1:12:51But then, as we predicted, he will eventually lose. Yes, absolutely. Nice run. Classic. Nice run for him. So, Merida Tien, winner to face the winner of Menshik Shelton. Hodar Feast, the winner to face Darderi Nakashima. Emer. Merida, by the way. Yeah. He had not, he'd never won a match on a hardcore, on a hardcore level before this and is now in the quarters. And like he's now in the top 40 and obviously he's been overshadowed by Hodder and everything he's done. But this has been a pretty crazy breakout season for him as well. And I like his backhand a lot. Spain have got going. Could do the World Cup Davis Cup double this year.

1:13:36I'd have thought. And Tien, I've been a bit worried about his arm. Like even before yesterday, I thought there were times where the last few matches I've seen him play, going back a bit, I felt like maybe something's bothering him on his arm. His forehand hasn't been quite so good. And then yesterday had the tape against Tarante. And yet he's also been quite good and beating people pretty convincingly. So I don't quite know what to make of that one. who are your finalists who is your winner david you went menchik in the last pod is he still your champion yeah i am inevitably now that answer visa started to get going i've got whipped up and i'm starting to regret that because i think it's going to be a feast menchik final um but i think menchik's taking out shelton yeah i do i think i think he'll win a serving contest i just think he's taking care of business really straightforwardly i think that'll probably be seven six in the third or something and i kind of feel like men's she could get the better of it very funny moment by the way we learned at tn and tommy paul at the net the other day where um tn showed tommy paul his cramping leg after just having beaten him six three six two and uh you know don't tell me that now you know you've just destroyed me and you've got cramp i mean Bloody hell.

1:15:00And by the way, just one of the final little note before I hand over to Matt for his predictions. I'm going to go for Menshik over Feast in the final. I wasn't quite aware of the fact that Montreal's planning this huge stadium renovation and building a new stadium, I think for probably in about five or six years' time, and a lot of protests being had about it because it's going to take up a bit more of the park that the thing's built on. But it's going to be 15 ,000 seats up from 11 now, and it'll have a retractable roof. So that would be quite a moment. Yeah, they do suffer with rain. Yeah, they need a roof really, don't they?

1:15:38I like that stadium. I really do. But yeah, that seems like a good plan. Do you have a favourite out of Montreal, Toronto, when you watch it, the look of it on the telly? It's tough for me because I've been to both. So it's hard for me to just go on the telly. But Montreal is my strong. I enjoyed both very much, but I really love Montreal. I do like that stadium. The press room is fantastic there. So it's really hard for me to divorce that experience and just drill it down to the televisual experience. What about you? Yeah, I feel like Montreal just feels on the telly a little bit more intimate, like the crowd's just a little bit more on top of the players.

1:16:28That's how it feels when you're there as well. Right. I do like that. I feel like you just get these, you get atmospheres whipped up in Montreal in quite a way. But they're both great. They both look good on the telly, I think. Matt, your predictions?

1:16:48I will go with Shelton. For the title? For the final. coming through that coin flip match against Mensik I'm feeling Hodder you know so I'm going to go Shelton-Hodder final with Hodder to win yeah and then pull out of Cincinnati you can't keep going I think he should surely I think he should, because if we're talking about doubts over Sino and Alcaraz,

1:17:33Hodder's got a shot at the US Open, but I don't think he would pull out. No, doesn't seem to be in his DNA, does it? Certainly not at the moment. Okay, so we've got Monday, Tuesday is when the quarterfinals in Canada are being played. The semifinals are all on Wednesday in Montreal and in Toronto. Thursday at the finals and it is also the first day of Cincinnati because there aren't enough days in the tennis calendar as we've established and that means that Friday is our next show our post-Canada live YouTube show 8pm live on YouTube also available as a podcast of course and we will be talking about everything that happens between now and Friday in Canada and the first day of Cincinnati when probably absolutely nothing of note will have happened because it takes about five days for these tournaments to get going.

1:18:29But we'll talk about it anyway, because that's what we do here on the Tennis Podcast. So Friday at 8pm is our next show, my dad's birthday. So that's his evening entertainment lined up. Did your mum have a good birthday, Matt? She did, yes. She had a lovely day. I would highly recommend the David Bowie Lightroom thing. Great. It's very cool. Very pleased to hear that. I had a sneaky peek at the mascot today. It was like I knew it was going to be a good one, so I let myself have a scroll to the bottom. It's a double header. It is two dogs that are very clearly friends and are wearing matching bandanas.

1:19:15It is Archie and Alfie. We know Archie and Alfie. They are owned by Amanda Kirkland and they are three Peters. Archie is a mini golden doodle and Alfie is a petite golden doodle. Both doodles love watching tennis with their parents. Amanda says, I didn't mention my husband in last year's blurb and got in trouble. And they live. It's not a shout out for your husband, Amanda. It's a shout out for Archie and Alfie. I think that's fine. You still haven't mentioned his name, but you have mentioned that there is a husband that exists and they live in New Jersey. Look at these dogs. Come on. They've got tennis ball bandanas on.

1:20:07I think their paws are touching. I think they might be. I think that Archie's back paw is sort of holding paws with, no, no, Alfie's back paw and Archie's front paw. They are wonderful. I love them very much. Thank you for getting my week off to the perfect start by looking at two doodles being friends. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you, Archie and Alfie, for being three Pete mascots. We love that. Hello to our mascots, Bodie, Maisie and Roger. Hello to our top folks and executive producers, Greg, Chris and Jeff. And we'll head to Matt for some shout outs. We have Andrew Greenhoff from Bristol. Hello, Andrew.

1:20:53Hi, Andrew. Andrew says, I met David Catherwood and Matt at the US Open in 2023 at the Alcaraz Medvedev semifinal. And we had a wide ranging conversation about a few things, including VPNs and ticket prices. I remember that. Didn't we recommend NordVPN? Probably. It's served us well for many years. That was, do you remember that Medvedev performance? Yeah. Yeah. Didn't he say he needed to play like 11 out of 10 or something? And then he very much did. And then was bad against Djokovic in the final. He had one set against Djokovic that lasted two hours and then the rest of it was pretty me. I think I saw you, David, after you've been commentating on that and you were shoving a chocolate muffin in.

1:21:45You were like, I need sugar. I was finished. I needed the US Open to end right then. Well, it did. Yeah. Thank goodness. Andrew, thank you very much for allowing us to have this mini tennis relived. We also have Jen Amadeo Who is from Wilton, Connecticut What a name, Jen Right, Jen She's put in brackets like Amadeus Mozart Yes Which is rather excellent I watched the film Amadeus When I was really little At a music camp And it gave me nightmares Have you seen the film Amadeus? No, I remember it being advertised I was afraid to watch it as an adult because it gave me terrible nightmares. What was music camp?

1:22:45What did you play? Well, at the time I played the piano and I was in the early stages of the viola. I took up the viola with my friend Sarah Sue, who Matt has met in Dublin. At the same time that she took up violin. She is now a professional violinist. You took different pals. We took... Yeah, and our talent gap was quite clear from early on. And I was at music camp with Sarah, and she's got that thing, David, that you've got where she can just hear a tune and play it, which is the most extraordinary skill that I don't know why you don't talk about more. Yeah, and it very much felt like, oh, one of us belongs here and one of us should probably be at sport camp.

1:23:33And I couldn't be a professional whatever she is. But I appreciate the... Violinist, David. So, yeah, anyway, Jen. Jen says... Jen Brady. Yes. Jen says, I always feel like I'm spending time with my friends when I listen to this podcast. I'm hoping to finally meet you at the US Open this year. It seems like it should have happened already, but I'm determined to find you and say hello in September. Good idea, Jen. David is very easy to spot. Yeah. I just hang about in case people find me. It's great. He has actually been known to do that. Yeah. Thank you, Jen. See you in New York. And finally, we have Debbie Goldstein from Israel.

1:24:23Hello, Debbie. Hi, Debbie. and we met Debbie, David and I did at Wimbledon this year Debbie was part of the Barger meet up on the hill and Debbie says being there for the first time after so many years of only watching on TV was truly a dream come true I met so many fellow Bargers as well as Matt and David in person I'm still hoping to meet Catherine unfortunately we weren't allowed in on time before the pod started. Still, I had a lovely chat with Catherine's father, which made the day even more memorable. That's better than meeting me, Debbie, meeting the captain. Oh, that's so lovely. There's been some incredible Rachel Barge birthday content this week.

1:25:15I mean, she's birthdaying like Hilton John, Rachel. Go on, Rachel. It's incredible. Yeah, there's been some lovely, wholesome barge, but barges celebrating Rachel and her birthday. And she was at the barge meetup at Wimbledon as well, wasn't she? It's very heartwarming stuff. So thank you, Debbie, for being a part of that community. It's very, very special to us. Debbie, Andrew and Jen, thank you very much for being friends of the Tennis Podcast. If you'd like to become a friend of the pod, then the link to do that is in our show notes. We are part of the Athletic Podcast Network. Our next show is Friday and it is live on YouTube at 8pm UK time.

1:26:01If you would like to join us for that and get involved in the chat, we will see you and speak to you then.