What's Behind Massie's Big Loss, and Trump's Paxton Pick, with RCP, and Patrick McEnroe on International Players Invading College Tennis | Ep. 1321

24:15I mean, really. He did. He got his ass kicked. No question. I mean, it wasn't close. There was a huge surge in turnout, by the way, if what I'm seeing online is true. They had some 20 ,000 more voters, Andrew, I think, than they had the last time around. Some people, you know, it being the Republican Party, are crying foul about that, right? Those numbers don't add up. That's too suspicious. Why are those numbers so off? In 2020, they had 84 ,000 votes come out for the race between Massey and his challenger. Then Massey crushed it there, 68 ,000 to 16. In 2020, they had 66 ,000 votes. 2024, 52 ,000 votes.

24:56And yesterday, they had 104 ,000 votes. Galrain winning by 57 ,000 in the last count and Massey 47 ,000. So I, you know, I'm not sure why we had so many more votes here in a non-presidential election year, but this race had $32 million spent on it. So I'm going to put my money on that.

25:14Tom Bevan:That would be my, that's the Occam's razor, right? I mean, that's, you spend that kind of money and you make it this important. You have the president out there talking about it and that drives people to the polls. I mean, it wasn't close. It was 54 to 45%. So if it had been right on the edge or something, you might say that the money made a difference or something. But I think that occasionally the voters speak, and I think they spoke loudly in this case. The other thing about it is that why Trump cared so much about this race, it wasn't just Israel. I mean, this guy voted against the big beautiful bill um and trump is looking at you know if you want to give me some credit for foresight and epstein thank you yeah that was the other but he's looking at what's going to happen this fall and they may be in the minority or they may have this tiny even a smaller majority and he's seen how hard it is to get anything done uh on the hill with the minority have they now so every vote's going to count so to me this isn't just about revenge a lot of the press are so calling it part of the revenge tour.

26:19Tom Bevan:This was really trying to secure a vote that he can count on in the fall. And if you look at it that way, spending$20,$30 million, whatever the final number was on the Republican side, might have been a good investment. I don't know. Well, I think it also has another benefit to Trump, which is, you know, I don't have to hurt everyone. I just have to hurt a couple of very prominent examples and then the rest will fall in line. You know, he wants the rest of the Republican Party to fall in line. And if he can make an example out of Thomas Massey or even John Cornyn, I'm not sure it's not it's not the same situation.

27:01But he has said Cornyn is not getting my endorsement. And Ken Paxton is because I don't think Cornyn was sufficiently pro Trump in the 2024 election cycle. So if he can just sort of say to people, you know what, I do have a long memory and I do keep track. And if you if you buck me on the big, beautiful bill, you rub my face in Epstein, which I clearly made clear I wanted to go away. And you you made it into a thing where I then had to kind of sign this law to make it look like I also wanted transparency. But I made clear prior to that I didn't. I'm going to hurt you. Like I have every right to swoop into your primary as the biggest person in Republican politics and hurt you.

27:41And Massey knew that Trump could do that. He assumed the risk for sure that Trump would do that. And the only real question I have is, would Massey have gone down if it had just been that alone and not all this pro-Israel money? And I wish we could know that. I really do. I wish we could know that. did Trump have the juice and the power to make him lose just because he did get so much more active about trying to bring him down this time? Because he's done it. We talked about Indiana.

28:11Tom Bevan:But I think a nine-point spread is part of the answer to your question, Megan. I think I don't... So he could have done it on his own. I think it would have happened either way.

28:21Andrew Walworth:Yeah, we could ask Senator Cassidy about that too, right? Well, it's unfortunate for Israel that they spent all that money. Well, Cassidy was annoying. I'm glad Cassidy's gone. honestly like he was so annoying i sat in that rfkj confirmation hearing and he thought he was already hhs secretary what um cassidy did like he was so disrespectful and he was like he is not maha at all our viewers called his office and said you better vote for him and it got so bad that they disconnected the phone lines and called us and begged us to stop having our audience call. But like, we have a lot of Maha moms and dads watching this program who are much more on Team Kennedy than they are on Team Cassidy.

29:05So farewell. I'm not going to miss him. Now, what about Cornyn Paxton? That's interesting. That's also really interesting, right? Like, who wants to take the first crack at that?

29:15Andrew Walworth:Tom has an interesting take on that. Well, we talked about it on our show. And look, the polls show that Paxton was leading, And I think the writing was on the wall that Paxton was going to win this regardless. Just for the audience there, they had a vote and neither one got a majority. So they were going to go to a runoff in like a couple of weeks, Paxton versus Cornyn. And that's what Tom said. He thought Paxton was going to win. Oh, it's on Tuesday. If you remember right when they went to the runoff, Trump basically said, kind of said, offered this deal to Cornyn. And that if you push the SAVE Act and vote for the SAVE Act, SAVE America Act, that I will turn around and endorse you.

29:53If you bring that to the floor and get that, you know, push that over the finish line. And that didn't really happen. But, you know, Trump sort of held off. And then now here he is with just a couple weeks left. And you look at the polls. I mean, a couple of them have it tight. But a couple of them, I mean, the majority have packs in the head. And so I think Trump was, you know, hopping on a bandwagon a little bit. He hates to be involved in losers, right? And the MAGA base clearly is behind Paxton. And so I don't even know if he had endorsed Cornyn, whether that would have moved the needle for him enough to get him over the finish line.

30:28So I think Trump decided that he was just going to go with the guy's going to be a winner. And by the way, if you look at the general election, I know people say, and Carl said this and thinks this, which is perfectly fine, that John Cornyn would be a better general election candidate. the polling that we have shows uh that we have thus far shows that basically paxton and cornyn run essentially the same against talarico i mean they're within like a point of each other they're both at 44 45 talarico's at 44 45 he's obviously got a whole host of issues james talarico does um to be trump just said the other day like he's a vegan he can't win vegans can't win in texas which which is probably true actually.

31:07I believe he said vegan. So. Trump is so unfamiliar with like veganism. He's such a red meat American guy. He was like, he's a vegan. He's a vegan. That's not even what, that's not even a thing. But I think he is right about that. And so, you know, Paxson obviously has some baggage as well and that'll get aired during a general election campaign. But he's not that much worse. Texans aren't going to care. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you're looking at independents, like, okay, I got Ken Paxson and then I got, you know, I got James Tallarico. That's the choice I'm facing. Who thinks God is non-binary.

31:37Exactly. I think a lot of Republicans or a lot of independents even are going to decide that it's going to be an uphill battle for Tallarico, I think. Carl, here's Trump on Tallarico from Friday on Air Force One, South 12. Where are you on the Texas Senate race?

31:54Andrew Walworth:Well, I'll maybe make a decision. I know them both very well. I like them both a lot. And, you know, my record of endorsements is extraordinary. I think the Democrats have a weird candidate, six genders, a real hit on Jesus. He's a vegan. All of a sudden, he's not a vegan. He was a vegan. Now, all of a sudden, he's not. Texas doesn't like vegans. I do believe either one of them will easily win the race. You're right. He said vegan. It's amazing. It sounds like it's a cross between vegan and pagan. He's a vegan. It sounded even worse. It's like a weird religion that doesn't eat meat. Trump loves his McDonald's burgers so much.

32:39He's like, what even is that? I don't even know what it is. But here's the other thing. So James Tallarico went on the most annoying podcast in America, and that's saying something. It's hosted by that weird lady who invented IT cosmetics. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. But she her name is Jamie Kern Lima. And she not for nothing, but she was a news anchor who was not happy with how her skin was looking on camera. And so that was that's what led her to create this brand of cosmetics that gave more coverage. It's a huge hit. She wound up selling it for a billion dollars. And now she lives out with the Duchess of Duplicity in Montecito.

33:22And that's how people may know that she has a podcast because she conducted the most annoying interview ever of Meghan Markle on that show. I mean, if I had known I was going to go here, I probably would have pulled up one of those clips. Can she talk like this? It's your skin crawls. Meghan Markle has never been so likable because she's across from this bizarre, strange person. And now, probably not coincidentally, James Tallarico, who's also weird and unlikable, goes across from her as well. Truly, it's actually kind of a brilliant strategy. Just find the least likable interviewer you can and launch your campaign on their show or do some sort of big, long sit down with them.

34:08Here is – I'm actually going to try to get on Michelle Obama's podcast now that I think about it. This is going to be really good for me. Okay, here he is on Jamie Curran Lima's show, this guy, Tallarico, who Paxton or Cornyn will have to take on.

34:23Tom Bevan:The most popular question that we got asked is, are you single? Are you single? So you have a girlfriend of many years. I do. And she is my rock. She is my best friend. And I don't know if I could have gotten through the last six months of this crazy race if she hadn't been by my side. So, yeah, thanks for asking about her as well. I mean, at the moment, she's in Canada, but she is real. She's my rock. And we're in love. Maybe it actually is a rock that he just calls his girlfriend.

35:05Andrew Walworth:Megan, did you ever think you would long for Jasmine Crockett? No, exactly. Oh, my gosh. I like that guy. I have news for his girlfriend. Girlfriend, don't go through it. If you're real, run. It's not going to end well. I think your friend James has got something he'd like to discuss with God, like behind closed doors when nobody's looking. But the question is, can he win? Because when we first got a look at this guy, we all said there's no way this guy's winning in Texas. But Texas is getting more liberal, sadly, thanks to all of the new arrivals there. And they did elect somebody like a Jasmine Crockett.

35:49And the more moderate wing of the Republican Party is worried now about Ken Paxton's chances. And I know they were loyal to Cornyn and they like Cornyn, but I think Murkowski, Collins, Thune are genuinely concerned that Paxton could lose. Should they be?

36:11Tom Bevan:I think so. Yeah, I think they should. I mean, I think it's a—I think that—I know Tom talked about the polls, but I don't quite believe the polls. I think that he is a worse candidate for the state at this point. And this fall, you know, it's possible that Tallarica could pull it off. I just think that it's, you know, you can't totally dismiss that possibility the way you would have a couple years ago. Well, anything's possible, Andy, of course. Right, well. Like, is it likely? No, I would not say it's likely. But if you were sitting in the Senate and, I mean, the president of the United States of your party is endorsing challengers to your fellow senators.

36:58Tom Bevan:Yeah, that's upsetting. That's upsetting because, you know, there but for the grace of God, go I. I mean, I think the other interesting thing about this is that, you know, you are sort of ending up with a number of senators for the next six, seven months who are unleashed from any and probably a little pissed off, you know, to put it lightly, at the president. That's so true. You know, how's that going to look? I mean, so you've got Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, who you've mentioned. Tom Tillis of North Carolina is already going or is, you know, is out. Now you add Cassidy and Cornyn.

37:33Tom Bevan:So when you're talking about things like the ballroom or the War Powers Act, if you're the president, you know, you're losing, you know, a lot of votes in a closely in a close. I just saw Gretchen Carlson, my old colleague from Fox News, was on X today urging Massey, who's been at the center of the Epstein disclosures, insisting on the Epstein disclosures and getting a fair amount, not all, but a fair amount of them, urging him to go on the floor and just read all the names out loud. Yeah, you know, he did say, he said, one of the things he said is, I've got seven months left. I mean, it's not like he's gone tomorrow.

38:11Tom Bevan:He's here for seven months. But can I go back to James Tallarico for just one second? I mean, he's a 45%. And so, yes, could he get the extra 5 %? Sure. But, I mean, we're talking about this. The general election has not even started yet. And when it starts, right, he's going to have to stand on stage one-on-one against Ken Paxson and answer Ken Paxson's questions or the questions of the moderators. There will be millions and millions of dollars spent. He's obviously, Tallarico has shattered fundraising records. He's flushed with cash. He's going to be able to expose Pax and all of his warts. But Republicans are going to have plenty of money, too.

38:49And they're going to expose some of these positions to a broader audience that James Tallarico has on, as you said, Megan, on God, on all of these other transgender issues, on guns, on all of this stuff, immigration. And so once that happens, I think this race is going to take on a different flavor and it's going to look a little bit. But I still think it's an uphill battle for him in a state where there are still more. It has obviously moved to the left, but still a lot more Republicans than Democrats in Texas. And even some of the Democrats that are in Texas outside of like Austin and some of the main, they're not like far left Democrats unless they're living in the cities.

39:29But Tom, won't this largely be about turnout?

39:33Tom Bevan:And the Democrats, what we've seen so far is they are turning out their voters and they may turn out in Texas. And if you've got someone like Ken Paxton, are independents going to turn out and vote for him? I mean, sure, he'll carry the MAGA base, but is that going to be enough in Texas this next time around? I think it is. I mean, that's the thing. I think the MAGA folks would have looked at it. Can I say one thing about Ken Paxton, Tom? He's spicy. He's fun to listen to. Like, if he actually gets on a debate stage with Tallarico, we're all going to want to watch that because he's used to fighting.

40:05He's started many fights. He's been the recipient of many rhetorical and litigation punches. Like, he'll be prepared to spice things up and keep it rough. He's not going to let anybody bully him. Whereas Cornyn, you know, kind of like quiet. As I said in the beginning, and I don't mean that to be mean, but like a little bit more milquetoast, I think you could say. Which is why he's got like the Susan Collinses and Murkowskis of the world. Like, oh, no, not Cornyn. Keep going, Tom.

40:32Andrew Walworth:You could use the word gentleman instead of milquetoast, Megan. Yeah, there we go. I don't know. I call my husband a gentleman, but he's not milquetoast. He's also spicy. But in a midterm election, Andy, you're right. Turnout matters. And MAGA voters are going to turn out for Ken Paxton. I don't know that they would have turned out for John Cornyn. They might have been like, oh, you know, he's kind of - Jesse Kelly would not have - Yeah, exactly. But here's the other thing, though, Tom. Trump is not as popular as he was in Texas previously. Eight years ago, when Beto O 'Rourke was running against Ted Cruz, Trump was - I saw a poll this morning on CNN.

41:06Andrew Walworth:He was, you know, plus four popularity statewide. Now he's, you know, minus three. So, you know, the being the mega the mega handle may not be as potent as it was in Texas, even in relatively recent elections. okay my friend has just emailed me to remind me that it's pronounced it cosmetics not it so it's it it's it just back to jamie lee and kerna because it's that kind of day let's just look my crack team has found one of the cliffs between this late this lady and megan markle watch this

41:38Tom Bevan:look at this are you in love now more than ever more than you've ever been yeah i mean you have to imagine at the beginning, everyone is like butterflies. And then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah. Right out of the gate, like six months into dating. So now seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way. And that's why I feel like it's more of a honeymoon period for us now. Yeah. Do you think you'll be married forever? Yes. I have a letter. He's also a fox. If you haven't noticed, my husband's very, very handsome.

42:21Tom Bevan:But his heart is even more beautiful. I love that your eyes are sparkling right now. Oh. I threw up in my mouth.

42:31Andrew Walworth:Megan, I went to journalism school, and I have to tell you, those are the questions we were taught to ask people. Are you going to be married forever? This is what I love about being on Megan's show, though. We're talking politics, and then suddenly we're commenting on Megan Markle and some random podcaster that we've never heard of. At least I've never heard of. It's a strategy. Two villains, Tallarico and Megan Markle, choosing the least likable person they can find to interview them. There's a reason. And the high voice. I can't even do it. My voice is naturally low. My mother's is even lower.

43:05I can't even get up to that. We are the little actors. Like, your eyes are sparkly. It's so embarrassing. thing. That's where Tallarico went, and there is a reason for that. I want to ask about the following. In the news everywhere right now is the slush fund, that's what they're calling it, that Trump got with the DOJ. And I find this situation very interesting. So Trump sued the government for a man who worked in the IRS leaking Trump's tax returns, which he did. That guy just got convicted of that and sentenced. And Trump sued. And it went in front of a court who said, wait a minute, you're suing an agency that is part of the executive branch and you are ultimately in charge of.

43:56So you're kind of suing yourself. So I'm not sure I actually can hear this case because Article 3 of the Constitution, which empowers our federal courts, requires me to only hear a case if there's an actual case or controversy, which requires that the parties be adverse. They have to be adverse. How can they be adverse if they're really the same person? It's you suing you. You're in charge of the lawsuit and of its resolution. And she said, I'm going to issue a ruling on this in a day. Well, this is Monday. She's going to issue the ruling on Wednesday. And on Tuesday, Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, right, who's spent the past decade trying to represent Trump's personal interests, who's now running the DOJ temporarily, decided to settle the case with Trump before the mean judge could throw it out of court saying there's no case or controversy here and therefore I have no jurisdiction.

44:47And they settled it for a mere$1.8 billion that the government is now going to pay out. Technically, it's a it's it's what is it? 1776. 1.776. Was it an homage to the founding? Um, so Trump says, you're not, you don't have to pay me directly, although it is still a possibility that the Trumps could file for redress in this fund because they have been the victims of lawfare. But what he said is, I want you to use the money for remuneration of people who have been the victims of lawfare. And we're going to appoint a five-person board that Todd Blanche is going to appoint, but I get to oversee. I, the president, can fire them if I don't like them or what they do.

45:40And they're going to approve the disbursements. You have to submit a claim. You have to make your case as to why you deserve something. thing. I'm thinking about somebody like a Steve Bannon, you know, who was put in jail for contempt of Congress, whereas Merrick Garland was found in contempt of Congress and didn't serve one day because he was the AG. He decided not to prosecute himself, but he was happy to prosecute Steve Bannon. He should file. I heard a liberal station say, is James Comey going to file? Letitia James? Could they, you know, like they could make the case. They've been the victims of lawfare.

46:12but now the left and some of the right are really mad that 1.8 billion dollars of taxpayer money it's already a slush fund whatever you want to call it at the DOJ which is meant to cover government payouts that we actually do have to pay when the government loses in any given lawsuit but basically we just agreed to give it all to this new fund under Todd Blanche who clearly wants to win the favor of the president because he wants to be the real attorney general not just acting. So there is some self-dealing going on here. But the thing that jumped out at me, guys, is I don't like it. I'm not going to lie.

46:43I don't love it. I'd like to see individual plaintiffs who feel they've been harmed by lawfare, and there are a lot of them, file a case and get the remuneration they ought to. Just like those losers, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok did. They sued and got paid out of the same similar slush fund saying our private texts were released. Nobody cried a tear in the leftist media for them. So this is a bigger payout. It's going to involve more people. But this was created by Barack Obama. Tom, Barack Obama is the one who started the practice of having his DOJ go after these big corporate interests and then extracting a settlement that they then had to pay to Barack Obama's favorite environmental group or Hispanic voter group or insert your favorite cause.

47:37Like so much of the stuff that Trump does that's controversial that we may or may not love. It started with Barack Obama and the same media that's now ripping Trump to shreds for doing it said nothing, nothing when Barack Obama started it and was the one to cross the norm and create the new normal where our government officials do this to us. So I really have no tolerance for their cries and protestations about what Trump is doing that, unlike those other bullshit things Obama did, actually do have the chance of helping someone who's actually been hurt. Your thoughts? Yeah, look, we end up this is the problem.

48:14We end up in this sort of tit for tat cycle, right, where, you know, somebody will will do something and break some norm or set some new precedent. And then the next administration will go. And look, we saw it with pardons. Wait till Trump gets the pardon when he's leaving office. Imagine who he's partying. And one of the components of this deal, Megan, which is also outrageous, is that the IRS has agreed to never audit any of the Trump family members or any of their businesses ever for all of eternity, which seems patently unconstitutional or illegal or something, at least unethical. I'm not sure that one's going to hold up.

48:55Yeah, exactly. For one thing. So, yeah, I don't like it either. And so you can hold these two thoughts in your head at the same time. One, yeah, it seems kind of like a sketchy deal, and I wish the president wouldn't do it necessarily. I agree with you. I mean, as far as people who have actually been harmed and had their livelihoods taken away or as businesses, including RealClearPolitics, by the way, who was actively discriminated against during COVID for all of this misinformation and censorship stuff that went on. We, you know, would love to have a... Or Trump himself. Exactly. But like bring your case and get a settlement individually through the proper channels and means and a jury, have a jury award you and recognize that you were harmed in that way.

49:45But again, so don't like it, but at the same time to point out, it's perfectly reasonable to point out, hey, this isn't like something new under the sun that Obama started this. And you're right. I mean, the media, we see this time and time and time again, right? Trump will do something and the media will go absolutely batshit crazy over it. And then you'd be like, oh, well, Obama did this or the Democrats did it. And they didn't care. And we're not talking like 50 years ago. We're talking like six months ago or a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. So there is this double standard that constantly plays out, and it is infuriating.

50:17Kim Strassel had a great piece in the journal on this, pointing out that, for example, Volkswagen was required during the Obama administration to invest$2 billion in zero emissions technology. $2 billion. The Obama administration paid$380 million via the Agriculture Department to settle a class action suit brought by Native Americans. Oh, gee. There's a list of government approved nonprofits that the Justice Department maintains. And these are the beneficiaries that are pushed by places like the Obama administration and the Biden administration. And they're almost all liberal activist groups like the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League.

51:00I could keep going. All that was fine. That was all fine, Carl. Only this gets scrutiny by the media.

51:06Andrew Walworth:I agree with every word you said, Megan. Might surprise you. Every word. The only thing I would add, though, is that the cognitive dissonance to me isn't that the Democrats are being or the media is being hypocritical. It's that Trump himself is using lawfare to go after James Comey and other people. And he's pretty open about it. And if they're going to stand on principle and say lawfare is wrong and the people who are harmed by it should be recompensed by the government, then they should stop doing it now. I'm not going to lie. I'm kind of enjoying what's happening, James Comey, but I take your point.

51:40I take your point. All right. We've decided instead of a duel at dawn, we're just going to send you to Jamie Kern-Lima's show now. You have to go over there. You have to sit with that nutcase. Oh, Lord. And then get back to us on how it goes and see if your eyes sparkle while you're there. Guys, thank you.

52:01Andrew Walworth:Anytime, pal. Good to be with you. Great to see you all. All right, coming up, a first-time guest on the show, Patrick McEnroe. Yes, the tennis great, the face of American tennis is here, and he's got a thing or two to say about what we're doing to college athletes. When there are supply constraints on commodities, prices surge. You see it with fuel prices, with everything happening in the Strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity? Gold. They mine it out of the ground, and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more of it, and that's why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with gold.

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54:35Now we turn to the world of tennis and sports. Patrick McEnroe is a former professional tennis player and current sports broadcaster. He's really, truly one of the best known faces of U.S. tennis. And he's here today to discuss a major issue he sees in college tennis today, and it affects more than just tennis. More foreign players and less Americans are taking all the spots. So what's behind this and what are we going to do about it, if anything? Patrick got kind of tired of just sitting around complaining about it, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and is actually pressing for real change in the college athletics level.

55:10He's the host of Holding Court with his brother, John McEnroe, but his show is called Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. Patrick, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So the SiriusXM show, it's just you, but you hold a different one with your brother. I'm doing a show with my brother called the Mac Zone coming up from Paris during Roland Garros, the French Open. So we're going to be doing that with our friends at Turner Sports. So we're looking forward to it. We started it last year. It's just kind of a way to do something a little bit different in the tennis world.

55:37Now, are you the junior brother or the senior brother? I'm the junior. Actually, I have two brothers. John's the oldest. I have another brother, Mark, in the middle. Okay. And then I was a young—I'm still the youngest, although I'll be 60 in a couple months. So we grew up in Queens, and we just so happened to get lucky, Megan, that our parents moved— you know, when my dad became a partner at his law firm when he was quite young, they moved to sort of the nicer part of Douglasson, which is called the Douglas Manor. And this particular area had a little tennis club called the Douglasson Club. And John was eight and a half at the time and was playing all the other sports, basketball, soccer, football, was very good at all sports.

56:18And he decided to try tennis because they only had tennis and swimming in the summer. So the kid who was like a college kid who was running the program, after about a month in the summer, he saw my parents at the club, at the snack bar. And he said, Mr. and Mrs. McEnroe, your son's crazy hand-eye coordination for tennis. And they're like, oh, great. Because my parents had never played tennis, knew nothing about it. And he said, no, no, you need to do something. You need to take him somewhere because he's got incredible talent. So they took him to a place called the Port Washington Tennis Academy, which is now actually part of our John McEnroe Tennis Academies that we run all around New York.

56:54And anyway, there's a great coach there named Harry Hopman, who's a legendary coach from all the Australian greats. And he had gotten a fight with his federation. He came to America, ended up in Port Washington. He sees my brother. He goes for a tryout to get a scholarship. He says, we'll take him. He said, he's going to be number one in the world. No way. Now, apparently, Megan, he said that to all the parents of their kids. This one time he happened to be right. Wow. So I just did whatever my brothers did. I was one year old at the time. Yes. And I just followed whatever my two brothers did.

57:26So we played soccer and basketball. And And at the club, they had a wall. And I would just go down there. Before I could even ride a bicycle, I would go down to my tricycle, and I would hit against the wall for just hours and hours. Yep. And is that what made the difference? That sort of? I think it was like, you know, I obviously started playing a lot at a young age. So that tends to be the route that professional. How young? Well, usually less than five. Really little. And as I said, John was a freak in that he didn't start to lose eight and a half. But because he was such a freak of nature, the way he, you know, his coordination, he was able to, you know, become number one.

58:05Most players that you see playing on TV at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, they've probably started playing tennis around five or six years old. And they do other things. You know, we encourage our academy kids to do other things, to do other sports, not specialize so young. But it is becoming more and more difficult because the level's getting better and better. as kids in all sports, travel soccer teams and travel lacrosse. And so they feel pressured to do more at a younger age. There's the economic side of it, which we're all guilty of, whether it's our tennis academy or the people running travel soccer teams.

58:40So that pressure is there. And then as kids just play more, the average kid gets better. And so the bar gets raised for everyone. So what I've seen in college tennis, and you rightly mentioned, It's starting to happen in a lot of other sports as well. But tennis is like the canary in the coal mine on this story because the numbers for Division I college tennis of international players is well over 60 % of Division I players. And the numbers have gone up exponentially in the last like 20 years. So to me, it's not – I love having international players in all sports. And I think there just needs to be a balance because what I've seen in the last 10, 15 years, it's just continued to go down this path.

59:28And then now working at our tennis academy where I run into parents and the parents are, you know, their kids aren't going to be professionals, Megan. Right. But their goal for many of these kids is, can I play in college? Am I good enough to play in college? And now I'm getting a lot of pushback on all my accounts. You know, Patrick, you're a loud mouth and you're just trying to get attention for yourself. And, you know, American players just need to get better. They need to be better. Our kids need to get better. And I'm like, isn't that professional sports? Is that supposed to be what college sports is about?

1:00:01I personally don't think it is. You have to be at the top of your game just to get in? Just to get in and get a place to play, a place to participate. Now, of course, it's not about participation. I mean, these kids that are training, the international kids oftentimes have already played professionally for a couple of years in Europe. That's the difference. A lot of those European kids go right out into the pro leagues or try to make it pro. And they're really good, but they can't quite make it to the top echelon. So now you have somebody who's played a little bit of pro and is 25 or 24 years old as a candidate against a 17-year-old high school kid, American.

1:00:35That to me, there's just something that doesn't, just not right, that that's continuing to happen. So the eligibility rules have to be tightened. you know i don't believe that you should be playing any sport in college whether it's carson beck who was a quarterback at the university of miami you know he transferred from georgia he's 25 26 years old and in tennis you're seeing more that happen quite often yeah in in college you know if they can't get these things under control then i think you have to start talking about the possibility of should there be some type of quota system of international cap on how many, or at least a cap for American players to get spots on teams.

1:01:13And maybe there's a way to incentivize the university to say, hey, if you have X number of Americans, we'll give you some, you know, part of your NIL money can go to that sport. And maybe it's different for each sport because, but as I said, tennis is the sport now that has by far the most international players in the lineups of, I mean, I'm watching, this is what prompted me to get involved because I was sitting at home about a month ago, and I'm waiting for the Knick game, the playoff game, to come on on a Sunday. And I see on my screen college tennis. So it was on ESPN SEC Network. So I turn it on, and it's between Texas and Mississippi State.

1:01:50It's the finals? It's the finals of the SEC tournament, men's tournament. I hear the guys commentating, the other ESPN guys. I know them. I text them. Hey, you guys sound great. I said, by the way, just for my own interest, how many Americans are on the court? There are 12 players on the court. six from each team. One. Okay. So my mind starts clicking. I just put a tweet out with no commentary, just the facts. I'm here. I'm watching the SEC final. There's 12 players on the court. There's one American. And that created like this groundswell. And then I found out I was wrong. There was actually two because someone, of course, corrected me right away.

1:02:28I said, no, Pat, you're an idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. There's two. There's two Americans. Oh, excuse me. Because the one guy had a very Spanish-sounding name. And then I looked him up, and it turned out he was from Florida. Anyway, then I went to the ACC championship match, which is also two heavyweights in tennis, University of Virginia and Wake Forest. By the way, University of Virginia just won the title. But they were playing in the ACC final, one American. So you've got 24 players in four big-time tennis schools on these two big conferences, and you've got a total of three Americans.

1:03:04And then I started, you know, a lot of people started reaching out to me, positive and negative. And then I found, well, in the Big East tournament, which was between, I think it was St. John's and DePaul, not tennis powerhouses, Megan, okay? None of their players have any thought about being professional tennis players. No offense, gentlemen. No offense, exactly, exactly. And same numbers. Wow. Same numbers. Even at the less competitive colleges. Correct. And so this is what I'm hearing. I've been hearing from parents. One parent said to me whose son has actually got a Division I scholarship at a lower level tennis school.

1:03:42And she said to me, she said, Patrick, my son would never have put himself through all the training, all the tournaments, of course, the expenses for the family. It's an expensive sport. Yeah, big time. And if he didn't think that he could possibly play Division I, she said, trust me when I tell you this, it's very similar from all the kids. Because they all know that the chances of them being pro is 1%, right? If that. But that's the carrot that's there. And so I'm worried now that the elite players find their way through the program. because a lot of people say, well, we have, we, the United States has the most American male players in the top hundred in the rankings.

1:04:26And the same for the female. Wait, what do you mean? In the, in the world, in the professional ranks. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So quite a few of them now came through the collegiate ranks. Ben Shelton, who's the highest ranked American player. Emma Navarro, who was in the top 10. Peyton Stearns played at the university of Texas. So I got a list of players that played in college. So for them, in a way the foreign competition has possibly helped them because they're the elite player, but they're the less than 1%. I'm worried about the 99%. And I'm worried about the pipeline of players that will come through the system of tournament tennis and have that goal.

1:05:03And I think that goal is, I don't think, I know it's getting much harder to reach. Let's control some of the issues with the age eligibility. International players can also get designated as an Olympic, potential Olympic athlete by countries. And then therefore they don't have to practice the 20 hours a week. It's a 20 hour rule to practice for division one tennis. And so if you get this, whatever they call it, marker that you are now able to, you come from, I'm making up the country, Croatia. And Croatia says, this person could potentially be an Olympic athlete for us one day. By the way, not just tennis, swimming, gymnastics.

1:05:45water polo, you name it. They can practice as much as they want with their college teams. I'm like, wait a second. How does that make any sense? So they don't have to practice with their team. Well, they know they can practice with their team, but the American kids can only practice 20 hours if they haven't been designated as a possible Olympic athlete, which is, of course, it's much more difficult to get that designation by their governing body for whatever sport that is. So there's all sorts of things that are happening. And, you know, I'm getting ready to go to Washington. with some people that I know because there's people behind the scenes trying to get some of these issues addressed.

1:06:21And I'm looking forward to just be part of that conversation to how can we figure out, there's gotta be some guardrails here because again, I'm all for international play. I played tennis my whole life. I traveled the world. I've been very lucky to travel and continue to travel. I have some of my great friends that are from all over the world. It's one of the great things about being in tennis. You see them a couple of times a year, you reminisce about when we were teenagers playing so we you know very blessed to be able to do that but at some point like what are american universities supposed to be about if they're only about winning which i think we've we've taken that step in football and certainly basketball that it's just about winning so they the schools are going to pay whatever they have to pay to get these athletes but okay but is it the same for all the olympic sports because if it is, then I believe in 10 years, we're going to be looking at a much different outlook of what our sports look like.

1:07:16We're not going to have any Americans on our Olympic teams. Who will be on them? Well, I remember, Megan, when I went to Stanford as a freshman and I was one of the top junior tennis players and I got a scholarship to go to Stanford. Our parents were very, you know, into us being educated well and went above and beyond to give us great opportunities. So we had the opportunity to play tennis, to use that as a way to get further educated. Now, of course, my brother ended up being number one. I ended up being a reasonably successful player. But for me, when I went to college, I didn't know I could be a professional.

1:07:50But I got to Stanford. I played number six on the team my first few months of the season, because I had all these guys ahead of me that had also been number one recruit. But then I was walking around the campus, and I'd meet people in my dorm, or I'd go to the swimming pool. There were Olympic athletes. olympians gold medalists swimming on the stanford swimming team playing on the water polo team so i got like you know that will wake up i'm just a tennis player who's a decent you know national tennis player my point is that you bring up a great point our university system has been the training ground for many of our olympic athletes over the years and i think we we want that to continue and you know there's a competitive side of me that wants americans to do well uh i realize that some are saying, well, your American players are soft and they just got to get better.

1:08:40There's got to be some guardrails about who can get these opportunities. And we have to take pride and continue to train our best kids and give the kids the opportunity that maybe that's still there. If people like the parent I spoke to at our tennis academy think that's not there anymore, then I'm worried about what the future of these other sports other than the big two looks like for the American youth. Because if you think about it, these colleges make all their money off of football and basketball when it comes to athletics. And all the other sports are kind of an inconvenience to them, but are necessary by the, they have to have, I think, at least 16 under the law.

1:09:17But the other reason I think they have them still is it spurs alumni donations. Correct. If you get a team going, let's take Wake Forest who won the championship last year. Last year, right. It feels good to go back to Wake Forest as an alum. Of course. If you played there on the tennis team and you helped win a national championship, you're going to give more money. And if you support that player or you know that player, you're going to give more money and so on. And it feels good for the people who are there to see their team win the championship. So it can be a money-making opportunity with the donors, like the alums.

1:09:47But it's not a money-making opportunity in the moment for the school. And we actually know somebody who was on that winning team. And he was telling us that they were like, we made it into the finals. Like we're going to the national championship. This is so amazing, right? And the school is kind of like, it's going to cost us a lot of money to ship you guys all. If you could wrap it up quickly. It's not like making the finals on the football team. So what does this just start at square one with like asking these colleges to answer that question? What is the purpose of college athletics, sport to sport?

1:10:22What is the purpose? I think that's part of the reason why I put this trying to get the conversation out there. that I think we need to have this conversation with people like you and people in the mainstream to start to understand. Because if we just wanted to be professionalized as it is in football and basketball, and everybody loves to see their team win, there's the Illinois basketball team, just by the way, that made the Final Four. I believe about half of their team were international players. Okay, so now maybe they're not going to care. It'll never happen in football because we're the only country that plays football.

1:10:58Yeah, we've got that going, of course. We got that, yeah. But in basketball, the golf numbers are going up, particularly women's golf, collegiate golf, the numbers are going up. Because again, and not only are they getting, there's great coaches in all these colleges, but I know tennis well. Great coaches, great facilities, great competition for these players. So if you're an international player who's on the cusp of maybe becoming a pro or not, you're like, well, I could go and I can train for a few years and I can play professional tournaments in the off season of which they're allowing them to do that more and more.

1:11:32And now I can actually make a little money. Can you believe it? I mean, there's college tennis players, some not liking football and basketball, you know, making six figures. Because of the name, image, and likeness thing? Yeah, exactly. And because what you mentioned, if they have a good donor base at some of these schools and someone wants to donate, I'm making up another million dollars to the tennis program, they can then use that money to recruit players. They can steal a player from another competitive college, too, with that money. The portal is crazy, what's going on in every sport. So that's, to me, also something that needs to be reined in a little bit.

1:12:06I mean, maybe you can transfer once throughout your career. They keep moving from the highest bidder to the highest bidder because these schools can now say, oh, I'm going to give you$500 ,000 under the name, image, and likeness permission policy. and they say, great, but really it's nine times out of 10, just a slush fund that donors put together. It really doesn't have anything to do with it. And I, I, and I covered the NCAA basketball tournament quite a bit on my radio show. And I called it, you know, the disappearance of the mid-major, you know, the Cinderella, there's no more Cinderella's in basketball because I heard you say this.

1:12:40I thought there was a very interesting during the NCAA tournament. Cause it was like, whatever happened to the Cinderella story and why isn't it there? And it's because of the name image and likeness thing. Yeah. So if you're a, let's say a mid-major team and you've got a couple of players that are really good, guess what's going to happen to them? Once everybody sees them on the national stage, your team does well, what do you think is going to happen to them after their freshman year of college? They're going to get poached. They're going to get poached by one of the big, big-name universities with a big slush fund.

1:13:05And those teams are just going to continue to get better, and then it's going to push out the little guy who had that chance. It's part of what made the NCAA tournament amazing, that you could see someone, St. Mary's or St. Joe's, upset a number one or two seed. That, you know, that's the business side of it. And I don't think that's going to change just because there's so much money involved in those sports. But that's having a trickle down effect into sports like tennis and Olympic sport. You know, maybe people say, who cares? We don't care about tennis. Tennis isn't popular. Well, I care about it.

1:13:36Tennis is popular. Yeah. And I know people care about their, like you said, their sports, whether it's swimming, whether it's gymnastics, whether it's golf. and I think this is an issue that we need to keep talking about and say, okay, if we can't come up with some, I've given you some idea of what some of the solutions could be. If you're, pick a number, 23 or 24, I would say, you're done playing college tennis. I don't care if you were injured for two years. I don't care if you serve like a lot of these initiatives in the military, their military service. You get to a certain age, you're done.

1:14:07I think that's so reasonable because truly if you take a 25-year-old student student from abroad who's been playing professional tennis for a couple of years and now wants to come to Stanford and play against your kid who's 17 or 18, and he and his parents or she and her parents are thinking that they'll further develop over those four years. They're going to get crushed. There's no competition between somebody who's that physically developed and been on the pro circuit and a high school junior or senior. Someone sent me a great message about this particular topic when they said imagine yourself as a incoming freshman patrick mackenard's a you know young hot recruit but i'm gonna play number six on the team playing against yourself at 24 when i made the semi-finals the australian open and you know beat boris becker in australian you know what i'm saying like that version of myself against the 18 you know i'd win 6-1 6-1 yeah the old and so to me that's that that's happening far too often um in the collegiate game and again it's not, it's not, it can't be to me about just winning.

1:15:13Well, because I also look at like the number of donations that they may be getting off of having a winning tennis team. Like what, I'm not picking on Wake Forest. I have no idea whether they got donations or didn't, or let's, let's do UVA because they won it this year. Let's say they got some amount of donations coming in from alumni who feel great about UVA tennis because they won the national championships. Is that, it can't be that big. It's not going to be that much. It can't be that big. Is that worth the sacrifice of our American boys and girls? I don't think so. Why wouldn't we say, because you point out in your op-ed, and I didn't mention the op-ed, but you wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called Where Are All the Americans in American College Tennis?

1:15:48And you guys should Google it. It hit on me first. But one of the points you were making is, no, it cannot be all about winning, especially because we're in tennis. We're not in basketball. We're not in football. So what is it about? Okay, maybe alumni donations. That doesn't seem like a big enough number to justify the sacrifice of all of our boys and girls development. So what about that? Like there used to be, you posit, a commitment to the development of American kids in tennis and other, you know, sort of less than top tier sports in terms of money making. and like the nurturing and just the joy that that brings to American kids who want to play tennis at the college level and like you, maybe want to use it to get into an institution that they otherwise couldn't, right?

1:16:32But instead we're giving all those spots at Stanford now, the one that you had at Harvard, wherever, to kids from other countries who probably aren't even going to stay here. And they're definitely not going to be donating a bunch of money back to that school. They're going to go home and bring all of that to their home country. I think a lot of them can't even get a visa to work here. So I think they have to leave when they're done. So no, you don't get that same commitment. I mean, I love my years at Stanford. Some of my best friends are still my buddies I met there, not on the tennis team, guys that played football, other sports.

1:17:01And we have a text chain. We communicate all the time. And that's going around, happening all over the country with people. And that's a connection that we all have with our universities. And it's unique. In other countries, there's no sporting programs in Europe and France and Italy and Germany where they go to university there and they go to university to learn a trade. They don't go to play tennis or play soccer. And there's these sort of semi-professional leagues that have been ongoing in other sports in Europe, whether it's in soccer, where they basically get brought along as professionals.

1:17:37and by the way, there's professional leagues in Europe. They have no Americans. Well, they have caps on how many international players they can have. Even in La Liga, which is like the biggest league in Spain, there are caps on how many non-Spanish players. They take care of their own. And this is professional sports. Yes. They're taking care of their own. This is exactly like the Chinese thing that Trump just announced. Where we're gonna now, first he said, we're gonna let 300 ,000 people, students come over to our universities and people on the right freaked out about it. And then he upped it to 500 ,000, okay?

1:18:11So now it's 500 ,000 Chinese students who are gonna come into our American universities and take a spot that otherwise would have gone to an American. And they're probably gonna go back home with those educations. Guess how many students we have that are American at a Chinese university? Zero. Guess how much Chinese farmland Americans own? Zero. It only goes one way. And there's no protectionism. Like even the Europeans have figured out to protect their professional sports league. Yeah, I mean, I think we, you know, as Americans like the fact that we can be a little more welcoming than some of the countries you just mentioned.

1:18:46To me, that's important to us. Nor do our people really want to go to China. Well, that's another issue. But as I get, again, I've said this before and I'm going to say it again because I believe it. I like having international players. I like having international students at campuses. But there's got to be some limits. That's all I'm saying. There's got to be some limits. And if we can't figure out a way, at least in the athletic side of the equation, to limit or I should say increase the opportunities for our kids, then I think we have to at least start talking about, is it 20 %? Is it 30 % of the roster for, I'm making it up, University of Virginia, Stanford.

1:19:27By the way, Stanford actually has a lot of Americans on their team, which is unusual. The two teams that made it to the Sweet 16 in men's centers, Stanford and Ohio State, all of their players were American. Wow. Because the coaches there decide they want. And again, in no way am I blaming the coaches of the other universities. They're just trying to get the best players to win. Of all the other ones in the Sweet 16, I gave you the numbers earlier. It's like three or four Americans. Yeah. We talked to – one of my producers is married to a former D1 player at USC who won all sorts of awards, All-American.

1:19:58and his dad was the coach for years at USC tennis. Dick Leach? I don't know of his name. What's his name, Lauren? What is it? Peter Smith. Oh, Peter Smith. He came after Dick Leach. Oh, yeah, he played you. He lost to you. Peter Smith, yeah. I think he played at Cal or he might have played at Cal. That's in my pattern. Anyway, when he was at USC. Long Beach State. Long Beach State, yeah, yeah. So she gave me some of the notes from her husband and from his dad in preparation for this. And he said that one year when he was coach of USC and they won the national championship. Yeah, like four or five times under his leadership.

1:20:31But one year he went All-American and he said it was the worst year they ever had. Yeah. You know, it's like - That's the reality. Yeah, because these other guys are like these stallions. Exactly. And also, you know, I'll be honest, tennis is more popular in Europe. So there's more - Because that's all they have. That's all they play, soccer and tennis. Well, soccer, tennis. I mean, there's, you know, basketball is getting bigger in Spain and in France and certain, we see the guy for the San Antonio Spurs, not bad 7-6 one by ama from yeah he's pretty darn good um but there's so there's more better players in europe just because there's there's there's there's more numbers um but that being said the way they're sort of skirting around these eligibility issues to me is a is a major problem with the age with the age with um coming in after like you said they've played professionally semi-professionally for a couple of years you know from the time they're 16 they start playing on the tour.

1:21:23And then what, what it used to happen to a lot of these European players when I was a kid and when I was playing in Europe and the junior French open and all that, they would either, they would go onto the pro tour. And if they didn't make it, they'd quit, you know, 2021. They'd be like, I can't make it. I'm good, but I'm not good enough. And it's hard to make money as a professional tennis player. It's not like the other sports. It's not as many numbers. You have to be in the top hundred, top tier. So now they're saying, oh, I'll just go to college. Yeah, and I can make money. I can make some money.

1:21:51Get a degree. And you're seeing some European players now that are very successful on the pro tour that spent four or five years in college. And now in their mid to late 20s, they're kind of breaking into the top of professional tennis. And I'm all for the story is great. I mean, a great story is, I don't care where you come from, but I do care that it's limiting opportunities for our kids and for the parents that are dedicated to it. with all due respect to Djokovic and, and, and Sinner, um, Alcaraz, we do, we do want to see Americans dominate these tournaments. And I, like my husband knows James Blake a bit and he went to Harvard and really apparently like blew up at Harvard.

1:22:35Like he was amazing, way better than they thought he was going to be. And, uh, I think after his sophomore year, he left and went pro and had a very successful, like he was number five in the world at one point. So like these American universities can actually help our boys. Definitely. And girls. Yeah. And girls, but like go from great to next level. Totally. And set them up for success on the pro tour, which Americans do want to see. I think most Americans would prefer to see our boys and girls crushing it on the pro circuit, having gone through an American university, then, you know, they had a great high school career that petered into nothing.

1:23:10And now we have all foreigners dominating the Grand Slam tournaments. Yeah. I mean, there is a little difference in that pro tennis is different in my view than collegiate tennis, but I get your point, which is that, of course, I was just on a Zoom call with the press with my brother about our Mac Zone show at the French Open next week. And one of the questions that we often get asked, and we got asked again, was which American male can win a major? Because, you know, you've got a sinner now. Alcraz is injured, unfortunately, but those two have won the last nine in a row. and we both said the same name ben shelton who played two years at the university of florida his dad played on the tour when when i was on the tour uh brian shelton great kid great charisma does he have a chance to win a major yes of course we all as american fans would love to see that happen but here's a kid that played football as a youth as a young kid didn't go to tennis you know completely until he was 13 or 14 his dad he said it was funny he said to his dad once hey dad i I want to go play, you know, international tournaments.

1:24:10And his dad looks at me and says, why? He says, have you won all the tournaments in Florida? Have you won all the tournaments in the U.S.? When you do that, there's no one else for you to play. But, you know, so far you're not doing that. So he's a great story. Because it's like all the things that we would love to see. You know, well-rounded youth doing different sports, then concentrating on tennis, going to play at the university. His dad was a coach at Florida when he won it. Great story. So we want to see that, and we want to have that be the opportunity for more of our kids. Is it true that Yannick Sinner didn't really get serious about tennis until he was 14?

1:24:45Do you know that? I heard that about his backstory. I would say that that's not entirely true, because he was a world-class skier until the time he was 12. Right. So he skied and he played tennis, and he was also quite good at tennis. I believe it was around the age of 12 that he made the decision. he tells a very funny story about it. He said, you know, he was a downhill racer. And he said, you know, you make one mistake in the downhill and you're done. Yeah. He raced over. In tennis, you know, you can make some mistakes. You're still okay. You just lose a point. So he decided to stick with tennis.

1:25:17But you can see when he plays, you watch him play. He's very, you know, long and gangly. Doug says he's like a praying mantis. He's like a praying mantis. He says, that's good. Get him on TV with me. Yeah, he's, I know. I do. Actually, Doug would love that. Yeah, but he slides around. He was sitting in that seat here yesterday. Yeah, I heard. That was a big show. Yeah, yeah. So yes, you hear those stories. Roger Federer was a great soccer player and played a lot of soccer in total. Usually for someone that becomes an all-time, or even just a pro player, usually around 12, 13, you then kind of have to make the decision, okay, I'm going to go strictly with tennis.

1:25:52And that's what Sinner did. So I think it was around 12. Okay. I mean, he's incredible to watch. Yes. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back. But when we come back, I want to ask you a couple of other questions and we'll continue this discussion. I want to talk to you about steroids in sports because that is another thing I hear from a lot of moms I know about why they don't want their kids to push into college level athletics, never mind beyond, right? Because it requires, it may require a sacrifice like that. All right, stand by. We're back in a second with Patrick McEnroe.

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1:30:14Back with me now, Patrick McEnroe, ESPN analyst and host of Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe on Sirius XM Mad Dog Sports Radio. I would be remiss if I didn't play this soundbite that my team has cut of your brother because we love this piece of him like all Americans do. He's got a temper. Yes, he does. And we are here for it. Sat, 20. You can't be serious, man. You cannot be serious. That's my question. Question. The question, jerk.

1:30:51Stay with us, waiting for him to play. I've been complaining that he's taking too long. Now, all of a sudden, I'm the guy that gets a penalty. I wonder how that works. Is that your judgment on that? hey that's a brilliant judge how did you come up with that how did you come up with such a brilliant

1:31:08Tom Bevan:that's right

1:31:16yeah don't be doing that and he shoves it out of his face gotta love it so you share in his tennis abilities do you share the temper i don't share in either megan for better or worse uh you know it's funny because he's still uh saying those phrases you know my dad tried to trademark you cannot be my dad was an attorney so he tried to trademark you cannot be serious turned out you know not legal but it was too bad but he's you know he's milked it for all it's worth our guests in the first hour the real clear politics guys they actually added a segment to their show because of that called you cannot be serious if you're not you can be serious they need to be paying john for that but my dad used to always say to him he first of all he'd say john why do you get so upset you know and my dad would start screaming he was i you know irish um his family came from ireland and he was low uh only child grew up in manhattan with nothing and he said incidentally he started yelling at john like we'd be having dinner or something you know john says i wonder where i got it but he used to say but he in all seriousness he used to tell john whatever you do don't use bad language so you'll notice in all those clips john never you know connor's used to say the raunchy things.

1:32:26Oh, did he? Big time, yeah. And if you say the F word, you get an automatic fine. Oh. So my dad was like, never say a bad word because that's how you get fined, that's how you get suspended. So that's where he came up with, you know, you're the pits of the world. You cannot be serious. Those are euphemisms for him? Yeah. It's like he's thinking of something else. He says, you cannot be right. So off camera, he's saltier. No, he's mellowed a little bit now. He's mellowing, but he's definitely got a little of that rocker edge. He loves to play guitar. He loves art. He's always been into art. I love that he shoved Jimmy Connors' face out of his face.

1:32:58Oh, yeah, he wasn't taking that. His finger out of his face. Yeah, they probably still do that today, the two of them. They've been through a lot together. How do you think tennis has changed? I mean, I only got into tennis as a spectator when I met Doug 20 years ago. But, I mean, the obvious thing is the outfits. That's one thing. The shorts are longer today. But the rackets are so different and so much more capable of power, I guess. And Doug was telling me that there's been a debate about whether they should change the rackets because the serves have gotten so... Dominant? Yeah, like you can almost not hit them.

1:33:31And is that a bad change? The good thing is that the rackets have also helped on the return of serve. Okay. So there was actually a time, especially at Wimbledon, about around 2000, when Pete Sampras was dominating with the serve. and they actually changed the complexion of the grass on the courts at Wimbledon so that it made it a better bounce. It would bounce up a little more because they were worried about exactly that. The game becoming too fast is becoming about the big server. That's actually gone back to where now, you know, the best players in tennis now are the ones that are the best athletes that can move the best, that can retrieve balls, that can obviously play offense.

1:34:09So the game is essentially the same, but it's sped up exponentially. Like if you watch, you know, my brother playing Borg from the U.S. Open, it, you know, no offense, it looks like it's in slow motion compared to the speed. And they were using wood rackets, right? Now, they were both the best athletes, the best players of their day. And by the way, I believe they would still be the best athletes if they grew up today because they just have the skill. And then you learn to, you know, use the equipment that you're given. but definitely the rackets and the string technology has really changed the nature of the game in the last 15 years so the ball you it almost grabs the ball you could control it the harder you swing the more control you have you get the ball to jump to have a lot of spin on it so that's really the biggest difference now so but what does that mean that means that the players have to be able to move quicker to get to the ball every point consistently so you're seeing better and better athletes play the game, use the technology that's available to them.

1:35:06So to me, it's much more exciting to watch. I mean, I love to watch these. I mean, Carlos Alcaraz, what he's doing on a tennis court, he's coming up with shots that we used to think weren't even possible. It's superhuman. That's how it looks. It's superhuman. But now what's happening, Megan, like even at our tennis academy in New York City, the kids are watching it and then they're trying to emulate those shots. Most of them can't. But over time, that's how the game continues to evolve where Alcaraz is on the dead run and you know even great Roger Federer Novak Djokovic they would get there but they would just kind of get it back now they get there and like I'm gonna hit a winner from that position I'm center Alcaraz and they can do it or you get who's the guy with the between the legs that all the kids like Nick Curios yeah you can do all the trick shots I'm gonna get there I'm gonna hit between my legs yeah he did a lot we we actually practice those now at our academy of course the kids love it yeah you got they gotta have some fun that's why Curios was good for the game in my I know he's controversial but he was I think He was good for the game.

1:36:00It's a shame that he didn't get it together from the standpoint of being able to be that showman, but also be more competitive. Win and be dedicated. So what's going to happen next? Because right now, Sinner, he seems to be the tops. Al Karaz is out. He's out of the French Open. He's injured. And he just announced yesterday he's out of Wimbledon, which is a huge bummer for the tournament. Such a bummer. He's got a wrist problem. And nobody really knows exactly what the problem is. But it's obviously serious. because for him to take this much time off and announce this far in advance that he's not playing is not good.

1:36:31So these two guys have completely distanced themselves from the pack in men's tennis. So now you've got Sinner going into Roland Garros as a huge favorite to try to win. He almost won it last year in the epic match that Alkares came back from match points down, which is one of the greatest matches I've ever seen. And I was lucky enough to be there live. So it's about him and it's about everyone else. Because the past 10 years, we've had Federer and Djokovic and Nadal, right? Those three dominated. And we had a couple other guys that, you know, Andy Murray won three majors. Stam, Avrinka. Who? He was a Brit, wasn't he?

1:37:06Well, he's Scottish. Oh, okay. Well, he's a Brit, but he was. But it's important. Since you're from Ireland, yeah, we have to be careful. Yeah, well, he's very particular about that. He's Scottish. Okay. But the Brits love him. And, you know, he was a great player. And so you had not only the big three, but you had a couple other guys that could also, you know, get in the mix and win a major. And at the moment, there's nobody. I mean, Djokovic is 38, 39. It's crazy where he's still talking about it. And then he got to the finals and beat center in Australia this year, which to me was one of the greatest performances of his career.

1:37:37And this is a guy who's won 24 majors. He's won the most of anyone all the time. He's like unflappable, that guy. Ruthless. He's just like the ball goes where he wants it to go. So now everybody in the tennis world is like, okay, maybe this is Djokovic's shot. because most of us think probably can't beat Sinner and Alcaraz back-to-back. He beat Sinner in Australia. Alcaraz beat him in the final. He kind of ran out of steam. Alcaraz is almost 20 years younger. But now if he's going in there thinking, hmm, I just got to beat one of them? Because that's why he's still playing. Yeah, he's like, I'm Novak Djokovic.

1:38:13He doesn't need the money. I can do this. I can show the world that I can win one more. Yeah. And maybe I don't think he can do it in Paris because the clay is still his most challenging service despite the fact that he's won it three times. This is why I call him the greatest ever because his worst major is Paris, the French Open. He's won it three times. Nadal won Wimbledon twice and Federer only won the French once in his career. But Djokovic has won everything a million times. Don't you think the opinion on him has changed? He used to be sort of like a - The bad guy. Yeah, the bad guy, like not that beloved.

1:38:46And he really made people love him just by his tenacity, his strength, his skill. I mean, his ability to see him when he's not the favorite now, as we've seen in the last couple of years. And I think that's what's drawn more of the casual fan to him because it's always like, you know, the Federer fans and the Nadal fans, I mean, they're insane. Like that's like the Yankees or the Dodgers, you know what I'm saying? And so this guy Djokovic comes along, you know, with the edge and he's Serbian and he's got the background and he's just like in your face. And so he never had the popularity that those two have had.

1:39:21But now, you know, people respect him so much more. And they also see that he knows, and he said it publicly, I'm not as good as Sinner and Alcaraz right now. You know, they're just better. They're faster. They're stronger. It's the modern version of the game. But he's still out there killing himself just to try to play with them. He's like, I got a few tricks still up my sleeve. Yes, he does. Also, I forgot to mention Medvedev. He's been fun to watch. He is a little bit more colorful with the language. He's a little more. Yes, he is. He's got a little Johnny Mac and Roe in the Tampa. Yep. Don't you think?

1:39:51We'll see what he's got to offer. Usually doesn't do too well in Paris, but at Wimbledon, he'd be a factor. And he's one of the few guys that has won a major in the last few years and won the U.S. Open. We were there for that. That was exciting. So speaking of that level of play, steroids, for parents who are out there wondering what percentage, and we're not going to name anybody, of course, but like what percentage of the players are likely using them? what would you guess? I would say it's pretty minimal. I mean, yeah, I, you know, their tennis players get tested all the time, you know, but aren't there ways around the test?

1:40:25There probably are. Um, but at the same time, it's pretty stringent, the testing protocol. So I, I'm not a pharmaceutical expert, so I can only surmise that they're doing as much as they can to keep it clean. You know, I, I, I, there's no way for me to know if someone's using or not, and they're not getting caught. If they're not getting caught, then to me, they're not using. That's how I look at it. Maybe I'm naive. I can tell you this though, Megan, that tennis players have to let them know their whereabouts every single day of the year. So if you're on vacation in December with your family in Hawaii, they can come and show up at your hotel room at six in the morning.

1:41:12Is that right? And not only get a urine test, but get a blood test. Where they watch you, right? Don't they watch you urinate? They do. It's not like you can just sneak in the stall. You sneak in and grab someone else's. Which is a thing. Which is a thing. Some people have been caught doing that. So that's why I say people are always going to look to get an edge, right? Hopefully it's legal. There's also where they're taking vitamins and all these supplements and recovery. To me, that's the biggest thing that's changed about at least professional tennis that I can see is that the attention to detail for the recovery, for the reason Djokovic has been able to play this long at this level, of course, it's because of his skill and his ability and his heart and his guts, but it's also because he learned how to take care of the body better than anyone.

1:41:59Everything he eats, what he puts in his system, that doesn't strike me as, you know, and so the bar has been raised. So I think all these players are trying to figure out, okay, what can I do that's legal that will give me the best edge? Now, there's players that have been caught doing illegal stuff. Usually in tennis, they take a steroid that would be something that would help you in recovery. So it tends to be someone that's coming back from an injury where they would take something that would help the recovery process. But it's not like a steroid is going to help you with probably endurance or things.

1:42:30Maybe it just helps you train harder. So I honestly don't think there's a huge problem in tennis. Again, maybe I'm naive. I hope you're right. Yeah, I think I'm right. What percentage of the game would you say is mental versus physical? Well, at the highest, so to differentiate you from someone who's of an equal ability, the mental part is huge. But I, you know, I tell this story to people, like when I played in my day, you know, I was like a journeyman player between rank between, you know, 25 and 30 and 50 and 70. If I played Andre Agassi and he was, you know, playing, I had no chance, right?

1:43:04I had no chance to beat him. He was that much better. He was just that much better than me. It doesn't mean to mentally have to. Now, if I played someone, you know, Boris Becker, I had matched up a little better with him. He had some issues. He had some issues. But for Sinner and Alcaraz, against 98 % of the people they play against, they're better. So they're not going to lose unless something very strange happens. But when they play each other, someone of an equal ability, then the mental side becomes a much bigger part of it. So there's certain genetic differences between players that differentiate the top couple from the rest.

1:43:39But I'll tell you what I've seen, and this is part of our earlier collegiate tennis discussion, there's a lot more really good players, say, from 50 to 350, 400. Whereas in my day, if you were outside the top 120, 150, the level went way down. Now there's just a lot more really good players. but the difference at the top is still to me mostly physical and then what differentiates the greats from the all-time greats when you look at Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, yeah, they were better players but they were also just, they learned how to recover, I think, from losses better than it because tennis is a brutal sport.

1:44:22You're on your own and when you lose some of these epic matches that I've seen between these players and they had the ability is just kind of brush it off and say, okay, what can I do to, like, in other words, not let it simmer, that loss, but kind of go back to it. And even in the moment, every point lost is a disappointment. Every tiebreaker lost. That's what Federer talked about in his famous speech. It was a great one. Every set lost. But I will say watching our kids play and watching their classmates play their respective sports really does give me such a newfound respect for the kids who devote themselves to athletics because it is, you put it all on the line.

1:44:58And even on a team sport, like we watch our lacrosse team, there are huge individual moments. So you have both the team aspect and you have the time when it's you, you've got the ball, you're approaching the net, you're approaching the crease, you're going to throw it or you're not, you're going to have the glory or you're not. And it just, it can make or break a person. Like it's a real opportunity to grow your spirit. Well, this is why I'm very committed to trying to help college athletics because you are a hundred percent right. And we were lucky enough to play team sports. You know, we played on our soccer team at school all the way through high school, my brother and I.

1:45:31Wow. And we love, obviously love tennis because we like the individual part, but the team, the camaraderie and being part of a team and learning resilience. That's it. You know, I think that's the biggest thing. The disappointment, as you said, in tennis, you get it all the time and you get it in the team sports. You know, when you're a team and like, just think about it. You missed a shot at the buzzer, you know, to win the game or to have your team lose the game. I mean, that hurts. Yeah. You got to go home and deal with that and deal with your teammates. But it will develop a mental tenacity that will help you in all aspects of your life.

1:46:06One of the many reasons that we need some reform, USTA. We need some reform at the NCAA level. Patrick McEnroe, thank you. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. The best. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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