← Control the Controllables
Control the Controllables
Wimbledon Day 5 Recap w/ 2024 Wimbledon Champion Coach, Calvin Betton
00:36:38
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Big welcome to day five of Controller Controllables at Wimbledon, brought to you by Novellas. Hope everyone's good, hope everyone is enjoying the tennis and what another great day that we've that we've had here at SW19. As ever through the series, we're going to be bringing you an analysis of from around the grounds here at SW19. Our segments, as always, include the major moments of the day brought to you by Soto Tennis Academy, the tennis athlete Player of the day, and then our Wimbledon stories with special guests that this this year's special guest is the coach of the 2024 Wimbledon champions, Henry Patton and Harry Heliovara. Calvin Betton, a regular on the podcast and someone who again is going to bring great insight. I'm looking forward to hearing his perspective of what it's like to coach Wimbledon champions. And you know, there's lots that goes into it and to hear it from that lens is going to be special as well as ever on our chat, if you have any questions, get them in on our, on our chat. This is your, this is your opportunity to ask me questions. What do you want to know about Wimbledon? What do you not want to know about tennis? We do have our Dear Dan section at the the end of the show where we've been getting questions in the last few days. So I will get to as many of those as I can at the end. But to start with, yeah, our major moments brought to you by Soto Tennis Academy. It's been another great day. We've we went into the day everyone was talking about Sunday afternoon was was going to be Rafael Hodar against Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic against Zhao Fonseca. That was what the word was. That's what we were we love to kind of put the, put the match out on paper already. We already like to do the draw and that's where everyone's eyes were going. Well, the, the experienced boys, the older boys, Novak Djokovic and Yannick Sinner, they did their job. Yannick Sinner, you know, coming away with a 646364 win over Jensen Brooksby, 13 acres 87 first serve points one and he's into the round four for the fifth consecutive year. And then we've got number seven seed feels Weir saying number seven seed for Novak Djokovic, but he also got through again 756-416-76 against Arthur Rindic neck. And could it be, could it be number 25 for Novak Djokovic? I think the longer this goes, the more people are going to start having these conversations, right? You know, he now plays against Roman Safflin who beat Jon Secker 636363. A bit of a surprise. You know, Roman plays very good tennis on the grass, but I, I can't see him getting past Novak Djokovic. And then all of a sudden we're three matches away from number 25. You know, and I think the tennis world, we're all starting to think just give him the number 25. You know, he's, he's statistically the greatest male player of all time. Already 25 seems like a nice number, a quarter of a century and you know, that would be that probably for Novak Djokovic's career. So I think that's going to be the story that I'm really interested on how that is developing over the next few. Then we have Shintara Mochizuki who beat Rafael Hoda today. And he moves on now to play against, against Yannick Sinner. That was a three hour match. 1-676-6464. And you know Rafael Hodar, we've been talking about him. He's gone from 554 in the world to 26 in the world this year. Massive, massive talent. But, but I think it's a bit early for us to be talking about these young guns on a grass court. You know, we mentioned that a little bit last night as well. The grass is not so easy when you haven't got the experience. Another talking point of the day. We, I don't want to harp on about this too much. We cano the podcast will. I will because I am. I. It's an absolute disgrace. But today the doubles players have put out their statements, their, their, their tour, our, to our tour, our future. Very much talking about what we have been hearing in the last few days about what the ATP are looking to do to basically stifle off the, the specialist doubles players. You know, lack of transparencies coming across in what they're saying. You know, all of this is happening with very little transparency, no communication with the players whose careers will be affected the most. It's just crazy. What's, what's going on. It really is that just you got a few people in a room just deciding the future of everybody and, and, and basically getting rid of all of these jobs. Legacy, the legacy that so many people have, you know, the, the history, the tradition of our sport, the impact that it has far and wide. It's like 70% of people around the world that play tennis, play doubles, you know, and just Ultimately going back to this message, we're stronger together. You know, let's, let's be together on this. Let's grow the sport together. Let's bring, you know, more to the sport. Let's get the marketing out there. Let's grow the product. It's an amazing product. We see it in the biggest tournament in the world, the Grand Slams, how profitable it can be as well you. So why can't we continue growing the sport together, giving everybody more opportunities. Let's have more players making money, let's have more physios, more coaches, more performance analytics teams, more. Let's, let's really get together to do that. And I guess all that really the people want that I would call the kind of the second class citizens of the tennis world is they want a chance to be able to do that. They've kind of been locked away. All of this has been done secretively. The product isn't marketed. They're not given a chance to have those conversations, conversations that's come out. It's been quite powerful. The players have put pictures of them playing when they were younger. Is it going to have an impact? Okay, let's see. We're not going to talk for too long with Calvin tonight on this. It's obviously a big topic for myself and Calvin because we are involved in the doubles world. But we have to mention that today and I want all of you guys to know about it. I want everyone to get to know about what is happening because it's a disgrace what is happening. And you know, I'm hearing the names of the people on the board that have these kind of their own agendas on this and we already have an issue with tennis being a sport that, that is a bit elitist. You know, we're fighting against that already. Well, what the way it seems to be going is they want to be even more elitist and I don't, I don't want that for our sport. I don't want that for our future. I want to, want to, want to fight this and I want everyone on side to be able to fight this together. We will again go into, there's been, there's been some quarter like Glasspool and Julian Cash were talking about it. This the current Wimbledon champions, Julian Cash said it's like being in the Olympics saying we want less people on site, we want to pay less people getting the 100 meter runners to do the 400 and 800 and saying yeah, they're not as fast as the other guys, but it doesn't matter. That's still an event on for you. It just doesn't make sense, you know, why wouldn't we have the best people at the best events, singles players or other tennis player. All tennis players can enter doubles events, right? And then the best ones play, you know, so the, the, the, the meritocracy of, of tennis is what we love. You also talked about the ATP exists, we're all members, we all pay in every year. The reason it was set up is to protect the players, you know, but they're not even having conversations with the players. So that was Julian and Lloyd, you know, Lloyd talking about the respect that, that they just want the respect and they want to be doing this together and also they want to be marketed properly, you know, and, and I don't think you could be ahead of player relations and refuse a meeting with the players. It seems counterproductive to your job title. And that's what's happening. They're just not communicating. So that's been a hot topic which we'll briefly get into with Calvin, but we'll just continue to let that roll. Please ask your questions about that. Get that out there. You know, we want to hear all sides. Of course, everyone's coming from a different agenda. I'm coming a little bit from an agenda of being a doubles guy, you know, does that mean I'm right? No, it doesn't. I'm open to all arguments, all convers. I'm just after everyone working together for the, for the best of the sport of tennis. Our tennis athlete, player of the day, you know, tennis athlete online programs brought to you by sort of Tennis Academy. Please look into that. We've, you know, had people that are signing up really being well looked after by the team. There's a link in the description of this episode and that is Shintaro Mochizuki. He won the all qualifying rounds. He came through in a five setter in the last round of Qualys. He's then gone in to only drop one set as he makes his way to the fourth round. You know, quite an incredible run from him over, over, over the last few days, you know. And in 2019, he's the first Japanese male player to win a Wimbledon's boy singles title. So obviously very comfortable at Wimbledon, comfortable on the grass. But next up is Yannick Sinner in the last 16. You know, we love these stories. These are the stories we want, you know, we want the opportunity for these players to come through. He's come through the qualifying rounds. He's now playing on the biggest Stage in the, the world number one. And that's exactly what we are after in, in our sport. Now we're about to bring Calvin Benton in. Calvin is, is a friend of mine. He's someone who's dedicated his life to Tennessee. Brilliant coach. Currently coaching Henry Patton and also Luke Johnson on the ATP Tour. Two Grand Slam titles as a coach, 2024 Wimbledon and 25 Australian Open with Patton and Heliovara and the ATP Tour finals in Turin last year in 2024 which I'm going to be asking him about. They beat Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson in, in an Incredible final winning 119 in the third set tiebreak on a full center court. Went on court at around 4:30 and the match finished about 8pm Don't I know that? Well you know my girls were, were following that match and we had to deal with that, with that emotion and, and you know that's, that's where we're going to be at. You know and I talked about this story the other day. You know the, the. The whole emotion of, of watching that match and then having to go on and, and the girls had to go and play their final. So we know that very very well. Now I, what I'm going to do because Calvin's going to be a few minutes. I've just got the message from stuck in traffic. Might be more like 9:20. So if you're here for Calvin I apologize because you're going to have to listen to me answering some questions before, before we get to that. So I'm going to jump to the segment, the Dear Dan segment. So any questions you have, I haven't seen any jump up too many that are coming in live right now. So I'm going to go to some questions that have been, have been asked and sent through previously and then we will get Calvin on in a few minutes. We've got a question here from Kelly. If you were given a first, first time Wimbledon visitor, one insider tip, what would it be? Oh, what would it be? What would it be? I, I think you, if you can experience center court you shouldn't. I don't know if this still happens but I know when I was a kid and we used to go when people leave Wimbledon they actually leave, if they leave early they actually leave their Centre Court tickets and they have like a resale. Now someone correct me if I'm wrong if that still happens but they used to have this like resale that happened where, where, where, where you could pick up a center court ticket for 10 pound or whatever it might be. And, and having the opportunity, especially on an evening, you know, I spoke to someone tonight. Being on center court on an evening like it's been today, where the sun is shining, the light is beautiful, the, the, the manicure incredible and the light shining through is one of the most magical things you can experience. So if you can do that or you can sweet talk someone to let you on center court or somebody's leaving, you might even ask them for their ticket, you know. But it's well worth the, the, the whatever you go through to try and get yourself to experience center court. And I can promise you it will hit you like, wow, this is, this is really something special. One of the most special sporting events that you could ever be a part of. If not, then Henman Hill is kind of cool as well. You know, on an evening you get yourself a pims, you sit on there, you take in the atmosphere, you know, and then just the last one I would say is just walking around the grounds, you know, seeing the outside courts is, is something that's very magical as well. And we, we don't quite, we don't do that. Sometimes if you've got a center court ticket or a court one ticket, you actually sometimes miss the magic of walking around the grounds and picking up all of those different matches. Now my man Calvin has made it. Calv. Welcome. You're actually seven minutes early from the two, from the 9:20 that you told me at 9:10 that you were going to be.
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B
Yeah, yeah, I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was, but ended up getting a bit of a move on at the end.
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A
So, so you, you've joined us very quickly now. Cal, thanks for joining us. It's the danger, the danger of this is we're under strict instructions from the producer, which I've failed in the last two days, that these can't be any longer than 30 minutes. So if I open up too many topics, we could absolutely go. You know, we almost missed our warm up for our matches earlier because we were chatting away, you know, and I think that that's the danger. So I'm actually going to jump right in. You know, I don't get to speak to you about your experiences. Sometimes, you know, we talk about the general tennis stuff and we, we talk about, you know, the, I think we're both very passionate about the future of tennis. You know, I'm sure we'll, we'll touch that. But 2024, you experience something that very few people get to experience. And as a, as A. As a British coach as well, with a British player, you know, on Centre Court winning Wimbledon in a quite incredible fashion. You know, as I know only so well, as I admitted on the podcast earlier this week, I sat there crying my eyes in the indoor tennis center watching you guys win Wimbledon just as my girls were going out for a Wimbledon final. I had no emotion left. I was like, oh, my God. Patton and Heliovara taking up all my bloody emotion. And I wasn't even part of the team. You know. Now what was that like? What was that experiences like? As you now come you're back here a couple of years later, talk us through that day and that whole experience of being part of a Wimbledon winning team.
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B
No, I mean, it was. It was. It was truly the best day of my life. It was. I'm not married. I don't have any kids, so.
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A
So you can say that. You can say that without getting told off.
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B
Yeah, yeah, it was something else. Yeah, it was a good. It was a good day. And again, you know, quite pertinent on days I say, I know we're not getting into this topic, but we've heard a lot over the last couple of days that the doubles product isn't very good. I'll tell you what, it seemed pretty good to everyone who was watching on center court and everybody who was watching on TV that day, didn't it?
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A
It's. It certainly did. It was. Well, it was. It was. It was drama.
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B
And I think what he showed that. I think what it did show that. And again, we won't get into this too much is that I've heard a lot about, you know, like, oh, you know, the problem with doubles is the points too short and that kind of thing. And that day, you know, that was a match that was entirely dependent on drama. The actual tennis that, you know, if you would look at the actual points, there was. There wasn't that many exceptional points. There was no breaks of serve in the match. The serve that was completely. It was a set match that was completely dominated by serve. And I think that that's where. That's what it sees. We lose out on a lot. We lose touch of that a lot. That, you know, like, football is the great. Football is the most popular sport in the world, and the most popular score in football is one nil. And it's 90 minutes when nothing really happens for the majority of it. NFL, I think it's a match goes on for about three hours and the ball's in play. I think somebody said for about four minutes. During those three hours. And, you know, people love those sport. They love sport for a reason. They love it for the drama. And that's what. What that day showed on center court, I think.
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A
And for you personally, talk. Talk me through that.
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B
Talk.
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A
Talk me through the feelings that you're experiencing. A match like that, are you able to stay calm? I know you've got to show some form of calm to the players. Are you. Are you living the moment? Are you. Are you losing your mind? Are you staying. You know where. And then what's that feeling when the last. The last shot happens? The points won and. And they are Wimbledon champions.
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B
So it was. I remember that, like. So that. That year, you know, we weren't seeded. We'd only been together as a team for two months, I think, at that stage, and Harry had had a bad injury. We only came back the week before. So it was basically that the team at that point was just me. It was just me. And I think Mikko, our physio, was there. But, you know, even Louis, who's British doubles expert, wasn't watching a lot of the matches because he had higher priorities with the team who were ranked above Henry and that kind of thing. So it was just me and the team until it got to the final, because even in the semis, it was just me and Miko on the front row. And then.
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A
Right, okay.
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B
And then it came to the final, and then everybody was kind of shipped in, and then the box was like family. And like Henry's college coach, Tom came, who's a friend of mine, and Boris,
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A
a roommate of mine.
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B
Yeah, I heard him. So, yeah, in college, and, you know, Boris came, and so then we had. Out of nowhere, we had a huge team. And obviously, like, these, you know, people, family and, you know, Ellie, Henry's girlfriends came in. These people. I sort of clocked on early that. So before that, I had to do the job as a coach, like, through every matches, and I've got to sort of bring some energy and that kind of thing and, you know, get fired up. They don't want to look and see somebody being placid as the only person in the box. But then I clocked on early that, like, this was in a very emotional box. Somebody has to. When they look over, when the lads look over, they have to see somebody who's showing some composure. And so I'd set my stall up early that I was gonna be sort of pretty quiet in that I wanted to be the sort of face of reason when they looked at the box. So throughout that match, you look. And if there was a camera on me, you would see I'm not really doing a great deal, you know. You know, I might give a fist bump every now and then, but I'm not doing a great deal other than that. And then I remember at the end there was a huge sort of outpouring of emotion, you know, and I think, listen, I've had other matches keen. I'll open, I'll hold my hands up and say I should have done better in that I was too emotional or I wasn't emotional enough in that match and that kind of thing and you know, altered it in matches sometimes and that kind of thing. But this was one where, I'm quite happy to say I, I did a pretty good job that day. I think.
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A
What, what is the impact of a player box on a team in a moment like that?
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B
I think it's, it can vary. Look, listen, in the semi, like, the boys played so good. This was, you know, their first grand slam semi. I think Harry might, I don't know if Harry had been in a grand slam semi before, but it was Henry, certainly Henry's first grand slam semi. And the boys.
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A
Not in men's doubles. Not in men's doubles, no.
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B
So the, the boys played so well in the semi that I basically didn't have to do anything. It was, you know, it was an autopilot. Like they were on autopilot. They played so well in the semi. Even though the scoreline was 6, 4, 7, 6, it was the most one sided 6, 4, 7, 6 I've ever seen against. It was against Skupski and Venus.
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A
That's right.
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B
We broke in the first game of the match and they never got near our serve the whole match. And I think we had break points in about nine other games, I think it was. And the tie break, we won 7:1. So it was, you know, remember that one? I was like, you know, I was pretty calm. I, I thought at the time, you know, this is, this is just autopilot. They're played so well. But. And I think it can have an effect. You know, you've got to, you've got to have the right kind of balance. You're part of the team. You know, they don't want to see sometimes if they're looking, they're looking for somebody to, to bring some energy. You've got to bring some energy. If they're looking for somebody to bring some calm, you've got to bring some calm. It's not all about saying it's very it's very rarely about saying serve here, you know, do this. It's not what it's about, really. Again, you're just another wheel on the team, and it's your job to kind of. To see things from a different view, that the players can see it. And I'm also deeply aware that they see things from a different view, that I can see it as well. So it's not always that I'm. That I'm telling them, you need to do this, you need to do that. Because there's no, there's no reason to think that I know better about the tactics of tennis than my players do. I'm just another voice in it. So what I would say is, like, you know, like, you know, maybe we could look at this, you know, or something like that. But I think anybody. I'd find it immensely arrogant to think that I would be more tactically aware than my players. You know, sometimes I'm aware that they might, in the heat of the moment, they might have missed something, but at the same time, they might have found something that I haven't seen.
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A
Absolutely. Cal, today we've had it. We've had. We've gone through our moments of the day. I. I just want to get your thoughts a little bit. We. We were talking, I guess before today, everyone was talking about. We're gonna have apparently, you know, on. On paper, because we love playing. Tell us on paper, on social media. It's gonna be. It's going to be Yannick Sinner against Rafael Hodar in the last 16 on Sunday. And it's going to be Jo Fonseca against Novak Djokovic after the epic match in Roland Garris. We're going to have that again on Sunday so that I can't.
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B
Who.
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A
Who's got a ticket for Sunday? Because we can't wait for Sunday. That's going to be amazing on Sunday. And they want one set between them.
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B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, then a bad planning Cephaly, and if he's on form is. Is on a fast court. He's not somebody you want to play.
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A
He's made quarters here before, I think.
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B
Yeah, yeah, he's. I mean, he's a bit of a bold denier, but he can't have strike a tennis ball. He needs to get his hair situation sorted out. But you can't outfit a tennis ball.
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A
A bold denier within the bold community.
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B
It's very much frowned upon.
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A
Do you accept. You accept it or not? Huh? You accept it or you go to Turkey?
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B
Well, again, there's a hierarchy. There's like, you know, there's the bold acceptors, like what we are where you just, you see it's going and you get rid of it, you get rid of the remaining and then you've got basically the next level down is what, what, what Saffalin is where he just doesn't seem to have noticed yet. And then you've got people who go to Turkey or they get wigs or they get the tattoo and they're the most frowned upon. They. We see those as real traitors to the community. Can't half a tennis ball. And listen, Mochizuki has Mochizuki's one junior Wimbledon before. He knows his way around 2019. Yeah, yeah, he knows his way around the grass court for sure. That's, you know, that was far from a nailed on one for me.
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A
And we have been talking the last few nights about the doubles and again I'm sure we will talk more at the end of the tournament or we might even get a few of the players on at some point. You know, speaking to Vava Aravelo, you know, they. About maybe coming on and talking about it more. I think people need to be informed. Give me a two minute. We've, we've obviously we've had the social media posts that have gone out today. I've heard lots of people around the grounds talking about it. I've had a lot of people saying things like, ah, it's a done deal, it's a done deal, it's moved on, it's a done deal. There's a little bit of, I've said it for a long time. Is this degrading, weird outlook on doubles. Oh yeah, yeah. It's been coming for a while. Move on. Give me your two minute, give me your two minute pitch.
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B
I mean I could go for two hours on it, bro.
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A
I know you could.
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B
I mean the thing was kind of upset me a bit today is like just later on tonight I saw a couple of people on social media making a case that, you know, it's, it has to happen. It's the business model doesn't work and all this kind of stuff. It's not financially viable at all. And I said to somebody, I commented to somebody said, wait, wait a minute. For starters, I find this a pretty soulless way to look at sport that we're going, you know, yeah, we get rid of it because the business model doesn't work. If we purely go on the business model here now then there's about, just look at football in Britain. There's about six football teams that are financially sustainable in Britain. And they probably everyone else, then there's certainly everything outside the Premier League doesn't work, but you keep them because it's sport. But what I find most soulless about it. Did anybody ever fall in love with a sport? Because I'll tell you what, I like this sport because it's got a great business model. And no, they didn't. And what really wound me up was somebody said about the ATPs, it's understandable, though, from a business point of view, right? The ATP is not a business, it's a governing body, a business. And somebody said, well, you know, they are a company, they're not a company. They're neither a company or a business. They're a governing body. A company is there to make money. A governing body is there to. To govern the sport and to look at. And not only that, they're there to look at. They're the association of tennis professionals. They're there to look after their tennis players. And that's what I find a bit depressing, that they're not doing that. This is not, it's not a business move because the money, they won't be making any more money. The money is just getting redistributed to people who already have loads of it. And that's what I find the most upsetting. Like, don't, don't listen, don't let anybody tell you that this is, that this is not sustainable as it is at the minute. It's entirely sustainable if nothing changes. Kirdo, we would still be here in 10 years. The best singles players in the world would still be making an absolute fortune. The tournaments would still be making a fortune, tennis would still be making a fortune, and doubles players would still be getting a little bit at the, at the back end, like we are at the minute. It's entirely sustainable. They're selling it like it's not because they want to redistribute that wealth to certain tennis players, certain singles players. And if we want to talk about a business model, then we get rid of. There's so much you get rid of. If you get anything that's not financially viable, you get rid of. We wouldn't be playing on grass courts. If we're talking about finance something that's financially viable, those things cost an absolute fortune to keep up for, for four weeks of the year, no 250s would remain, no very few, five hundreds would remain. There'd be no sport played if we looked it. But what it is in any sport, the very top of it pays for the rest. And I'll close on this here. Now, when I keep hearing tennis doubles doesn't make any money on its own. It doesn't. It's not financially viable. How do we know? How do we know that then? If it was, what would it look like? Because I tell you what, I watched the doubles match for three hours today out there. The stadium was full. I then walked past another couple of doubles matches. They were all full. If anyone wants to go on my Twitter and search my name and put Nobody wants to watch search. Nobody wants to watch doubles next to my name. There's a whole Twitter thread of full stadiums watching doubles. I want to know if you want to tell me it's not financially sustainable, what would it look like if it was? How would it look different if it was? What would it be? Would it be full stadiums? We're already getting those. Sure. There's stadiums, there's tournaments where nobody's watching doubles. You know where they are. The same tournaments as no one's watching singles on the outside courts either.
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A
Yep. Amen. Are you ready for the Quick Fire round?
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B
Yeah, let's go.
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A
It can be quick. It can be quick. What's your best ever Wimbledon memory? As a fan?
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B
Best ever Wimbledon memory was I spoke about earlier on 1991, I think it was. Andre Agassi had not played Wimbledon for
- [28:54]
A
a Michael Schtick winner that year.
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B
I think he wore. No. No. I don't know. No, I think Sampras won it. I think Sampras.
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A
91. Not too early for Sampras was.
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B
It might be right. Might be right.
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A
Calvin, if I've beaten you with this, I need to check this now. If I've beaten you at something like this, this is a big. Because you are on this. You are on this with this. This is. This is not so Quick Fire, but this is important. Wimbledon Men's Wimbledon singles. I'm so excited about this that I've even got it wrong. Michael Stick. Look. Can you believe that, Carl? Me. Me getting this over you Speckled stritz. That's six, four, seven, six, six, four.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Somebody's obviously going to drop the mic. I'm out.
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B
Great memory. And Agassi had not played. I love Dagosi. He's my tennis hero. And he'd not played Wimbledon because main reason is he said he wouldn't. He didn't like the all white rule.
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A
That's right, yeah.
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B
He came and he said he was going to play in 91, but they wouldn't reveal whether there was some serious doubt whether he was actually going to stick with it. And in his first match, he came out and he warmed up in a tracksuit, if you remember.
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A
I do, yeah.
- [30:07]
B
There was so much attention on it. It was the. It was the headline on the 9 o' clock news that night. And he warmed up in the entire thing. And then it was absolute theater, if you remember it.
- [30:18]
A
Yeah, I do.
- [30:18]
B
Cracky bottoms and pull the bottoms off and the top off. And he had his usual kit, but it was in all white. Yeah, I've never, You know, the cycling.
- [30:28]
A
The cycling shorts she used to wear. The denim.
- [30:31]
B
Short black denim shorts with. With green.
- [30:33]
A
Cycling green or pink. Yeah.
- [30:35]
B
And he had white denim shorts with the white cycling shorts and then the white top. And it was. It was pure theater. Even at, like. I think I was like 13, 14 at the time. I was like this. I've never seen a man control a crowd like this. Like, he had them wrapped around his finger and then he came back.
- [30:52]
A
So it wasn't. So it wasn't a bold thing. This wasn't the start of the.
- [30:56]
B
And he came back a year later and won it.
- [30:59]
A
Yeah, he did.
- [31:00]
B
But. Yeah, that was something I'll always remember.
- [31:03]
A
Finish the sentence. When I think of Wimbledon, I think of posh people. Who would you most like to play on center court, past or present?
- [31:11]
B
McEnroe.
- [31:12]
A
What song would you like to walk out onto center court to?
- [31:15]
B
Oh, Street Fighting Man, Rolling Stones.
- [31:19]
A
If the whole calendar was played on grass, would the top five ATP and WTA look any differently to now? If so, what. How?
- [31:27]
B
The grass that they play on now. No, they wouldn't. If it was the grass they played on 15 years ago, then it definitely would. Yeah, it'd be just, you know, the. I think it would look different, but I think the game would look different. Like, I think maybe there'd be some different plays at the top of the game if. If that was the case.
- [31:45]
A
Your favorite ever Wimbledon champion. And why.
- [31:49]
B
It's Agassi. It's Agassi. Just the. How different he was and the way he played. I mean, again, you didn't win Wimbledon from the back of the court back there. Well, you did. One man had done it, and that was beyond Borg. And that was, you know, a long time before that, and that was with wooden rackets. But since the power game came in, you didn't win Wimbledon unless you were a serving volleyer and Agassi won it from the back of the court.
- [32:13]
A
What is your guilty pleasure?
- [32:15]
B
I'll give you a Wimbledon one. The chocolate milk that they have there is absolutely phenomenal.
- [32:19]
A
Oh, I might have to try it. Not the protein one because that's not the protein one.
- [32:23]
B
They do one. I forget the name of it but it's the brand that does the ice cream. But it's basically like melted chocolate ice cream in a can. Phenomenal stuff.
- [32:31]
A
What's one thing you'd change about Wimbledon?
- [32:34]
B
Less posh people.
- [32:36]
A
What's the best advice for young players that they should remember when playing?
- [32:41]
B
I don't know. It's a long time. It's a word for them. Look, it's a long road.
- [32:44]
A
Don't be posh.
- [32:45]
B
Don't be posh. Yeah. Might be tough in tennis to be fair. Listen, no, the best advice is, is watch tennis matches. Don't watch highlights, don't watch 15 minutes highlight videos on, on Instagram. Not even 15 minutes. Like yeah, watch a full tennis match. That's one thing I'd say sit down and watch five sets of tennis. Watch the, the cadence of a tennis match and how it moves up and down.
- [33:10]
A
Who's winning the World Cup.
- [33:12]
B
I think Argentina will win it again.
- [33:16]
A
Not coming home maybe.
- [33:18]
B
To Argentina.
- [33:21]
A
Calvin Bennett, legend as always. Thank you for joining us. Have a good evening.
- [33:25]
B
Cheers guys.
- [33:26]
A
There we go guys. Calvin Betton, our amazing guest this evening. Calvin, you can jump off. We're going to just finish it off with our last, our last couple of questions that have that have come in. I've just got one more here for Dear Dan, what is your favorite thing about being a coach on the pro tour? From Ben. My favorite thing about being, being a coach on the pro tour, having the opportunity to work at the real elite end of our sport. I'm a, I'm a massive fan of sport. I'm a massive fan of tennis. I'm a tennis enthusiast. I'm a sport enthusiast. I, I like the detail of what it takes to be brilliant and excellent and our sport and for me to have the opportunity to be this close up to the elite athletes and, and, and having a, having a genuine authentic daily impact or opportunity to impact on that is a real treat for me and it's something I don't take for granted in any shape or form. I don't profess to be, to be creating this and life changing for any of these players because there's many great coaches and these players ultimately would be amazing without us as coaches as well. But to be able to have the opportunity to add value at the very elite end the of, of the Sport is, is, is just a real privilege and honor for me. And then to be able to do that on a, on a, on these sites like this, you know, I do, I walk around every single day and just look around and think, wow, how lucky am I? This might be the last day I have an opportunity to do this. Don't take for granted in any shape or form. And, and to have that privilege which the player giving us that opportunity to be part of that is, is. Is absolutely my favorite thing. My second favorite thing is I absolutely love given this opportunity then to my family to be able to be around and I've got my wife and kids with me these last few days. For them to then have the privilege to be at these amazing, this, these amazing events and for us to have those experiences as a family is something that's really special. So those, those would be, those would be a couple of things. Now guys, day five is over. Day six is coming tomorrow. It's Middle Saturday. We all love Middle Saturday. On a personal note, we've had a better day. I know I spoke about Andre Gorenson, a player that I coached losing yesterday. Today, Gabby Dabowski, Louisa Stefani 16262 in the first round of the the women's doubles. And then Gabby Dabrowski and Evan King actually played Henry Patton and Olivia Nichols. We didn't talk about it, but me and Calvin, I guess we're on opposite sides of, of the coaching boxes today. Great mixed doubles match. Gabby and Evan came out in top seven, six, six, three. And tomorrow we have Andre Gorenson and Aaron Routliff. They play a first match up at 11 o' clock and then Gabby and Louisa play the second round of women's. There's then tennis on the ground. A couple of people have said hello to me today. Thank you. I got a little bit of a shock when people called my name out, but anybody wants to say hello to me at Wimbledon, please, please do. And we will be back tomorrow night at 9pm but until next time, I'm done. Kieran, we are controller controllables.