Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign. Welcome to episode 276 of Control the Controllables. And it's that time of year. It's Australian Open is done. It's now time to get the panelists to see how did we get on with our, with our predictions beforehand, to talk through all of the story lines and what storylines we have. You know, young Carlos Alcaraz, age 22, seven time major winner, you know, career Grand Slam and just so much that went in to that over the last two or three weeks. And then also Rebakana, you know, we, we didn't talk so much about her beforehand. We should have now is a real candidate to be pushing on to be that world number one, someone who Sabalenka doesn't like to play, seems to have her number little bit. And obviously played in a fantastic final as well. That and so much more. I'm joined by Freddy Nielsen and Kieran Vorster and we have a fantastic conversation over the last two weeks in Melbourne. Hope you enjoy. I'm going to pass you over to our Australian Open panelists. And there's only three of us, which maybe is a good thing because when there's the five of us, there's the battle to see who can take over the screen and the microphone. And we got Kieran Vorster, we've got Fre Nielsen and we've got lots to talk about. But I, I, I want to jump in Vozzy to start with. I don't know what superlatives to use really, because there's so many for, for Carlos Alcaraz. But I, I want to start with Carlos Alcaraz in a position where it looked like he was cramping in big, big, big trouble against Alexander Zverev. From my point of sees tennis through the eyes of a normal human being. You're cramping, you're in that position, you're down and out. I gave no chance. I was on the flight, I lost Wi Fi. I fully expected to find out that he'd gone out of the Australian Open and I found out that somehow he'd won 75 in the fifth set. How, how did Carlos Alcaraz do that?
B (2:21)
I mean, obviously great champions know how to dig deep. They know how to find that, that just extra bit that as mere mortals don't have. Yeah, I mean, obviously he turned it around, but yeah, it was a superhuman, gigantic effort by him obviously being in that situation. And I think pickle juice may have helped him along the way.
A (2:43)
But if you're cramping, if you're Cramping like that, do you not need time to recover? Is that, is that something that you can recover on the, on the job? Does. Is pickle juice that magic?
B (2:55)
No, it's not that magic. I mean, I mean, obviously this, there would have been adrenaline flying, which probably got him over the, over the line eventually, but, you know, and then obviously he would have been hurting on Saturday. He never practiced Saturday. He never, I don't think he even came to the site. And then, so he, you know, and I think Novak did the same thing and so they just hit on, on Sunday as a warm up. So what he would have done is you would have, you'd have used the maximum amount up to the last second to recover, to get, to get in the best shape possible for the final. You know, it was just, it was, it was an incredible credible effort by him and, and obviously his support team to, to. I always say the ability to perform is dictated by the ability to recover. So the, the whole recovery strategy would have been in full effect, you know, on Saturday and into Sunday for him to, to be ready. But obviously in the match you've got, you know, there's so many different things. Emotions, adrenaline, you, you just dig deep. You would have found a way. He would have found a way just, just to get that extra bit of energy. He'll probably look back and go, how, you know, how did I pull through that? But he did and, you know, the rest is history.
