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Hey everyone, John Wertheim Here it is, a quick served emergency podcast. Sometimes events come up in this crazy sport that are so pressing and so impressive that we've got to jump all over it. So it's Sunday. It's a day of football. We are at a weird time in the tennis season. We are limping to the finish. There are no more majors on the calendar. Not a day goes by when a player doesn't complain about injury or fatigue. Fans are a little fatigued. We are looking ahead to 2026 and what happens? We get one of the great tennis stories of the year. Recency effect, Tax notwithstanding. This is one of the great tennis stories I can recall in recent memory. For those of you who weren't watching at unholy hours in a lot of parts of the world. In the Shanghai final, the final no less, Valentin Vachereau beat Arthur Rindernesht and people would say, well, why would that be an impressive result? You've got two guys. One of them came into this tournament outside the top 200. The other one came in outside the top 40. These are not too prominent names in a tournament that was loaded with them. This is the penultimate Nastros 1000. This is a big tournament. Why are we talking about these two names? If you were a college tennis fan and you saw those two names, you might think this was a Texas A and M challenge match result from the pre Covid 2018 era. Those two were teammates for Steve Denton playing college tennis. If you were a hardcore French tennis fan, perhaps you would think this was some kind of a playoff for Davis cup spot. If you were A really hardcore fan, perhaps you know that these two are cousins. You would think this would result from maybe a backyard family tournament. But no, this was the final of a Masters 1000. I just, I don't know where to start here. It was just an extraordinary result. It was heartwarming. It was heart stopping. It was really high quality tennis. And I think that's something that may have gotten lost a bit in the results. But here we are, October. We have this tremendous story. It's about probability, it's about persistence. Let us start perhaps. I don't even know where to start on this story. There's so many angles here. But let us start perhaps with Valentin Vachereau, who previous to this event, and I'm looking here because I need to cheat, because I did not have this event handy. He played and lost in the first round of the Saint Tropez challenger event and won about €1,900, so about $2,000. He's about $1.1 million wealthier than that. A few weeks later, this big event, he absolutely blew through the draw. This is a player who wasn't eligible for qualifying at the US Open. Even on this Asia swing. He was the ninth alternate to qualify outside the top 226 years old, talented player, but the results just hadn't been there. And all of a sudden, in one magic week, he has just completely rewritten things. He beat a handful of very fine players. Holgeruna Bublek, he beat Griegspore, who had previously taken out Sinner. Of course, he beat Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. This player outside the top 200 plays the greatest all time biggest match of his career. And he gets through in straight sets. And who awaits him in the final? His first cousin, Arthur Rindernesht. Again, it was just extraordinary. There were a lot of tears. The winners cried. The player who did not win the final, Arthur Rindernesh, cried. They signed the camera. Grandma and grandpa would be proud. I don't know where to begin with this. Part of this is the improbability of a player outside the top 200 winning a tournament of this magnitude being the player he did. Part of this is just the family dynamic. Nothing will ever touch the Williams sisters, two siblings who shared a bunk bed, becoming the two best tennis players of the last 25 years. But this is awfully close. This is a real tennis family. Vachereau's half brother, Benjamin Ballarette is a pro from Monaco. Arthur Rinderdeath's mother was a player. Benjamin Ballarette's father was Vachereau's coach. This is a real tennis clan. This is a real tennis family. And here they are. This is a real win for college tennis. We talk a lot on this podcast. We talk a lot about tennis in general, about how college tennis is really becoming not just a viable pathway, but an advisable one. We talk about the success, the transitioning. We talk about Ben Shelton and Emma Navarro. Here are two more college tennis players. I want to give a special shout out to the Texas A and M sports information director that was updating their website so you could learn about this remarkable story as it unfolded in a variety of places. But it was fun reading about it on the college tennis website. These two play the cousins played together for two seasons. I saw Vachereau say it was a perfect experience. Note that they did not win an NCAA title, but just the fact that you'd go to the middle of Texas and play with your first cousin. I think that Arthur Ridernix gets a lot of credit. I mean, first of all, this is a really fine player who now for the first time in his career is in the top 30. Fans will remember him. Taylor Fritz talked trash to him at Roland Garros a few years ago and Arthur Rindernish beat Zverev in the first round at Ed Wimbledon this year was a nice the signature win his career. He's a really fine player who at age 30 is coming into his own. He could not handle his first cousin in that emotional final, but until then he had a really fine tournament, beat all sorts of great players including Zverev again and beat Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals. Arthur Rindernesh now at a career high ranking, if my rolling rankings are correct, I think he's now 28. So he had never before been in the top 40. I thought he comported himself just beautifully, really emotional. He was more than happy to give flowers to his struggling younger first cousin. I think he realized how extraordinary this event was. Let's stop and note this is a big win for Monaco Tennis, the Principality of Monaco. It's only half an hour from Nice actually in the interestingly, in the qualifying draw, I did see that Vachereau was listed as a French player. So it's a fine distinction. But tiny Monaco, which holds a Masters 1000 tournament and as a principality with a great tennis history, they now have a Masters 1000 champion in vaccine Vacherot. Spare a thought for Novak Djokovic. Interesting that at age 38 with only one title this year, only one title really, gold medal last summer notwithstanding, really only one title of the last two plus years. This would have been a huge title for him as he decides what to do with his future. And think about Novak Djokovic. You play well, there's some injuries here, and all you have to do is beat a player outside the top 200 and then beat his cousin who's not in the top 40 to win a big title. That didn't happen. Novak very gracious in defeat, which is pretty much redundant. He's always gracious in defeat. But a big missed opportunity for Novak Djokovic. I think there's a lot to be said here just about persistence, about sticking with it. I don't know if you saw there was a screen grab. I don't know if you caught this, Sean. There was a text going around that I don't have in front of me. But to paraphrase Vachereau essentially said, you never know when a magic week's going to come. I'm going to keep going and persevere. And then what do you know? You get into the qualifying draw. Very tough. Qualify. Second match of qualifying, he came within two points of defeat, got through that one and just picked up momentum, kept going, and now he is in the top 40 and is more than a million dollars wealthier. I mean, it's an absolutely transformative tournament for him. Not just the finances, but now he'll be able to get into the main draws of event after event after event again. I mean, I have this in front of me here. We can laugh going through this, but it's really not funny. If you look at his year, he's losing to players outside the top 800. Again, this is a player who was not able to qualify for the U.S. open. That's how far down his ranking was I'm seeing here at Manicore, obviously Nadal territory he lost to. It looks like a Japanese player ranked 874. That was in August. Plots change in a hurry in the sport. It's a real virtue of tennis and it's persistence. I think this is also a nod, something we say a lot as a become a cliche. But that doesn't mean it's not true. The margins are so thin. Here's a guy who's ranked outside the top 200. He believes in himself. Who knows, maybe there's one element missing to his game. Maybe he's recovering from an injury, maybe his self confidence isn't where it needs to be. But suddenly he's beating players, Novak Djokovic included. He's beating players that are top 20 stalwarts as though he belongs there. And sometimes there's a whole subset, there's a whole sector of players whose ranking they're in triple digits. We talk sometimes about how the working conditions are not what they should be, the prize money is not what they should be. But this has to be fueling and catalyzing and giving hope to so many players on the margins of. Look, it just takes one lucky week. I mean, again, There's a player ranked 874 who beat Vachereau eight weeks ago. What must he be thinking now? So it's a real. I mean, it's a real perspective on really, these margins are so thin. I also, I was checking Rindner Nech's bio on the ATP website, and I would say the best advice he received was a question. Here comes the quote. You ready? This is from the Orange Theory by his former coach, Sebastian Vill. And the quote is, just keep doing your thing. It doesn't have to be perfect. Keep going. Don't get upset when things aren't perfect. Boy, that's a motto that applies in this case. It applies to Arthur rindernacht, who, again, 30 years old, his career is now picking up some traction, but it had taken a while. It certainly applies to his first cousin, who is a completely different tennis player, his profile completely different than it was a week ago. It's a lesson for all tennis players of all levels. I cannot get enough of this story. I don't know if this is one of these outliers that now, a year from now, what was that guy's name from Monaco? Or if suddenly this guy has turned the corner and Vachereau is going to be a name we're going to be seeing in draws. But this is a heartwarming story. I think it speaks really well of tennis. It speaks really well of possibility. It speaks well of really how little has to happen in the sport for you to completely rewrite a story. So that's what we do on Sunday. We don't shave, but we take to podcasting to hopefully tell more people about this story that I think reflects so well on the sport we love. That will do it for Quick Served. That will do it for the Monegasque. That will do it for the Vachereau edition. Again, just a story that warms your heart at a time globally when hearts could stand to be warmed. Andy will be back. That's the good news. Andy's back with a recap. We'll be talking to Rick Draney who's a wheelchair tennis pioneer. We'll have a lot more tennis as we get through the rest of this silly season in our sport. But here it is mid October, and I defy you to find a better story than the one we had in the Shanghai final this week. Have a good week, everyone. And Andy will take the reins tomorrow. Take care.