← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
Australian Open 2026 Day 5 Recap: Djokovic & Wawrinka Advance, Bencic Upset, & Grand Slam Prep
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- [00:00]
A
AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data workflows, and AI connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people@servicenow.com Foreign. Welcome to Served. Brought to you by ServiceNow thank you for tuning in. This is the day five recap. Before we get to all the good stuff stuffed. All the good stuff. Great start. What I need from you real quick. Just, it won't even take like a second. You just, just go right there. Just go look at. Subscribe. Great. Now that we got that out of the way, let's get to the results on the women's side. Mike, you, you're not in studio. Just flu season.
- [01:08]
B
You daughter just our oldest, our poor oldest got. Got hit with the flu bug. So I'm here. You're isolating from you. But now actually my wife had to take the other kid to school.
- [01:19]
A
So was I rude last night because we went to, we went to a basketball game and, you know, I, I had, I had sympathy when it was presented that his daughter had flu. And then when, then like, like fast forward to like four hours later and he's like, okay, what time we meet in the studio? I was like, don't come to the studio. Was that, was that real?
- [01:39]
B
I'm no, I'm in slippers right now and sweatpants. It's not rude at all. You know, I guess you were to.
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A
The studio because if you were in the studio, you wouldn't be in slippers and sweatpants, right?
- [01:49]
B
Yeah, he's just showing off his crocs right now.
- [01:51]
A
Yeah, do love it. All right, well, we hope, we hope Zoe feels a lot better. We hope she starts feeling like Rybakina who wins. Pegula who rolls. Osaka gets through in three sets. Anisimova 1 and 4 over Cyniakova. Wiatek starting to find some momentum. Wins 2 and 3. Matty Keys over Ashton Kruger 6175. Noskova through the human ATM. Elise Mertens is through. Badoza upset. Benchic upset a little bit. I think that's the, maybe the biggest upset of the day just considering obviously ranking but also form coming in like she was kind of one of the. And rightfully so because she played great in United cup, but like one of the first names off of the favorites list. So that was, that was surprising, I thought. Very surprising.
- [02:51]
B
Yeah. I mean, when you look at the stat line in the blind, you know, taste test of the stat line, you would assume that Benjich eked this one out in a close one. You know what, what kind of happens in a close one like this where she just drops that third set?
- [03:08]
A
Well, listen, it's not like an NBA game where if you win the first quarter by 15, you get credit for those 15 points for the, for the second quarter, the third quarter, the fourth quarter. Right. 64 is the same as 6, 0. So when you see a scoreline where it's 640664, I think that's what it was against the qualifier Barton Kova. That skews a stat line. The individual set stats matter a little bit more. I think when you have a five set match as opposed to three, the sample size gets drawn out, maybe tells a little bit of a, of a truer story.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah.
- [03:41]
A
I mean it basically means she probably had more opportunities and you know, the one that always kind of tells the story on something like that, Mike, where it seems like an outlier is normally breakpoints converted. Right. I don't know what it was for this match, but if someone's 5 of 6 or 5 of 8 and the other person's 2 of 11 means someone's getting more looks, doing more work during the games, doing more good work and then you know, someone's just converting. Right. It's like getting to the free throw line and making free throws or two different processes. But it was weird. Bench it. She, she plays such a distinct game. Right. I'm inside the court. I'm bullying you around the court as I'm watching the match. If someone's. And this is a very hard thing to do, especially against someone like a, like a bench it. But she can be exposed a little bit when you're. If you play up the line against her movement while you're moving. So if you're running the forehand corner and she's gone there with pace, if you go line there, you can bleed her sometimes. And I think that's so credit to. I don't know who the coach is for the qualifier boot and co. Barton Cova. Bootenkova. Barton Kova. But like I was impressed with her ability to kind of like, like melt a switch of directions while on the move and kind of keep Belinda from like completely controlling the center of the court. So well done there. It's A rough, rough one for Belinda because I know she's, she's probably going, you know what, sometimes you play badly and you're in the third round, sometimes you feel like you're striking the ball great and you get upset. And this is probably the latter there. Center rolls, water's wet. I know a lot of you are like, we got to talk about, we're going to spend a lot of time next week, I assume, talking about Sinner and Alcaraz. I think there are a lot of stories to celebrate in the first week where we don't have guarantees of those players being around in the second week. Sinners dominant. His serve looks great. We're going to talk more about that. How he adjusted last year after the US Open. I was harping on like he was below 50% first serves for a lot of that tournament. He fixes it. Novak roles. I think that's really important. I think we'll spend a little bit more time talking about how, how that matters. Right. It seems like a kind of nothing burger of a result, but the fact that he's not spending four hours in extended heat and all that on court compared to last year, that's going to matter. I thought Munar had a real shot against Casper.
- [06:16]
B
Before we get it, before we get off of Novak, he talked about in, in his post match presser, you know, he's asked about making changes to his serve. Yeah, you know, I think we've talked about this in the past with some of the younger guys always analyzing their game, but I think it's because it's set president with people like Novak, he said, I'm, I always try to work with purpose. I had a longer off season. When I have more time then I obviously try to look at my game in different elements that I can really improve. Otherwise, what's the point, you know? So yeah, you've talked about him dropping games in, in Slams last year. You know, how important is it for him to roll through these early matches and coming in with a perspective like this?
- [06:59]
A
Yeah, well, okay, so let's, let's level set here because I think all of this is the same conversation, even though it seems like we're talking about two different things. All right, so last year he's on record. This isn't my opinion. This is just regurgitating his thoughts. Know whether it's after the US Open or at Wimbledon or when I'm getting to the latter stages of, of the tournaments and I'm, I'm Novak. Right. Bodies giving out. How am I going to Beat these two monsters if I have half of a body, right? We saw it at Wimbledon, we saw it at the US Open. He was having to invest a lot of time in the first week, early in the second week. That pays a toll, right? If think about filling your gas tank and you take a little bit out each time, right? And if you have to make a long drive or you hit a bunch of stoplights or whatever it is, your gas tank is going to be emptier, right? So the fact that he's rolled through his first two rounds and hasn't spent a lot of wasted energy and time on court, I think each time he does that, his chances of getting that 25th slam go up. Now, is it likely? Probably not, because it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with these two monsters who are 15 years younger than him and in their total primes, right? But also, if I'm Novak's coach, I'm going, okay, where can we buy time? Where can we make it so that what you are perfect at in your prime of your career with defending and speed and where basically, I said one time, and people liked it, I said, he takes your legs and then he takes your soul, right? He is able to just grind you down each time, make you work and work and work and work and work, and then four hours later, you can't work anymore, or three hours later you can't work anymore. I don't know that that's the playbook. If you're Novak now, I don't know that he can afford to invest into that playbook. Now. The most obvious place to shorten points is your serve when you are a player who is aging and maybe who doesn't defend or move as well as you did and that, listen, he moves great, he defends great, he doesn't move as well, and he doesn't defend as well as he did four or five years ago. Which, you know, time is undefeated, so it's not. That's no criticism. But I will say, as well as he did those things early in his career, I don't think he's ever served better than he has the last couple of years. And I don't think that's an. That's not an accident. So the fact that he's saying, oh, I worked on my serve, I had to come up with new ways. This is all about shortening the points. This is about not not extending or emptying the gas tank early in slams, and he wasn't able to do that consistently enough last year. Still made Semis of all four Slams. At his age, I've been effusive about how impossible that is. He's basically doing Jimmy Connors run four times a year. It's absurd what he's doing. And I think he's going to be eyes wide open on where he can kind of trim those margins a little bit to make sure that he actually has enough fuel by the time he gets to the places where he needs the biggest payload. Right. So I think the serve conversation and getting through the early parts, those go hand in hand in my book. But, yeah, so I was also wrong. I thought Munar would give Casper Rude a really rough time. Casper could leave any moment to go back and rightfully celebrate the birth of his first child. But, shit, I mean, I don't know. While he's in Melbourne, he might as well just make third rounds, you know, I always cheer for Casper. I think he's one of the. I think some people act like good dudes. I think Casper is just, like. You literally don't hear one person say anything negative about him ever. Right. I think he's got in a fight with Holger on court, and I think that's it.
- [10:51]
B
Right?
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A
Like, I think that's in. You know, Holger can get in fights with people. I actually like the feistiness, but, like, I like it when Rude does well. Moosetti rolled. Sonico, straight sets. Didn't see that happening. Fritz rolled. He looked great striking the ball. Ben Shelton rolled. I love what I've seen from him through the first two rounds. I like it when he goes out and just drills someone like, 2, 3, and 3. Like, that's. He's not putting himself in stressful situations. Vachero. I mean, like, I. I don't. It's just insane how, like, someone's world turns in one week, and then he's kind of making it real. He has nothing to defend. He's 30 in the world. Like, he's gonna be top 15 in the world. Play Shelton now. Like, let's see. Let's see where you're at. I wish I would have said it out loud. I didn't, so. But I said, Silic, I. He's someone you can't. I don't think at this point, you can choose him to go through deep in Slams. He did it. He did pretty well. He drilled Draper at Wimbledon last year. Like, it was crazy. But, like, the matchup against Shabovaloff, Chapo needs time. He has big swings, and Silic is really good at taking away time. Straight sets. Like, we're talking a lot about Novak at his age. We're talking a lot about Stan at his age. Team. There's another US Open champion who's getting on and just made the third round as well. So we need. We need to give Marin Silic his props. Like, that guy knows how to play tennis. He knows how to take time away. Great win for Ethan Quinn. And it rhymes like. That's fantastic. Another win for Quinn beating Hubie Hercock, who I'm just. Needs to be said, I'm really happy he's back and healthy. But Quinn, straight sets against someone who's been a top 10 player who knows how to kind of manage Slams, who's been, you know, to the latter stages of Slams. Fantastic win there. Hatching off your boy Boz of already. Sean didn't give. Didn't give hatching off the old Chokey Magoo sign, did he?
- [12:55]
C
No. No, he did not.
- [12:58]
A
In the section where I said five people could make it to the round of 16, I'd picked none of them. I would have been over the section of the draw. Daughtery beats Baez. Baez is playing well, but that's a rough draw. Like Pecci paracard into dartery when you're unseated. That's. That's rough. And then match of the day, I think. Story of the tournament through the first five days. Stan the man drama. Five setter beats qualifier J. I hope there was no pronunciation, guy. I think that's what I heard the umpire saying. Seven, six in the fifth set. Please, please, please. Watching this. And please, one. The Aussie Open has a fantastic app. I think it's about as good as an operating experience as there is in tennis, so use it. The highlights are great, the stats are great, the feedback is fantastic. And I know Mike loves all of the apps, right? In tennis.
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B
I love all. I love all of the apps. Yeah, I do love all the slam apps. I do. I do. I think the. The websites for the tours themselves need some work, especially the women's side.
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A
Okay.
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B
Not to harp on it. You just did the win predictor thing, though, for the. On the Australian Open website for that match was crazy. For which one now, Jay?
- [14:23]
A
For.
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B
For the stands match. The. The win predictor thing was literally all up in. In J through to the fifth set. It just looked like he was going to win the thing, and then Stan just went after him in the championship round.
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A
Yeah, that win predictor doesn't. Doesn't measure heart, Mike. You can't put a data set on.
- [14:43]
B
Heart Mike, this thing looks like a heart attack. It literally is all over the place.
- [14:48]
A
You can have all your little nerd things you want, but you're dealing with a, dealing with a legend. It changes it a little bit. But if you want to have some fun, go watch that highlight on the AO app. Six three up in the fifth set breaker. Stan hits this just beautiful little stabby lob that lands on both lines like you could see, just deflating. And then 93 up, you got the vintage shot, right? The Stanwell Rinka one hander, kind of little fade away, opens up the shoulders twice. Cross gets burned a little bit, hits a little chip. Guy hits it up and you can just see it building. He's turning, turning, turning. You can tell he's just looking for that one line. Finds it, sends it, executes Stand through to the third round. Remember, all those people are. He shouldn't get a wild card. Shut up.
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C
Shut up.
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A
He's not ranked high enough. Shut up. Get out of here. Delivery. Fast delivery. Quick delivery.
- [15:54]
B
Very good. We're four days in, still can't get it. It's perfect. Delivery.
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A
Perfect delivery.
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B
Perfect, Perfect delivery of the day.
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A
And actually no room for improvement already.
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B
Perfect. This involves Stan and our friend Ethan Quinn. So I just went to juxtaposition. A seasoned slam vet like Stan the man and the perspective of a green young player like Ethan Quinn. This is what the 21 year old American said about his perspective on the difference at a slam between a best of three versus now the best of five.
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C
You know, I think my first five set match that I played, you know, I was really neurotic about how to get ready for it. I remember calling my coach and being like, do I set an alarm, you know, every half hour in the middle of the night to hydrate?
- [16:38]
A
Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Sorry. I've never done this before. I've never interrupted call you. Sorry. That's. That's a, that's a torture tactic. There's no way that's a serious comment, right?
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B
What to. To be sure you're hydrating in the middle of the night, wake up every 30 minutes.
- [16:56]
A
I don't care how hydrated you are, if you haven't slept all night, like you can't play five sets.
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B
I might not be his tactic, but he still had more to say.
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A
That had to be a joke. If it.
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B
He looks pretty serious.
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A
If he's serious with that comment, I change my mind. The story of the tournament is him being in the third round. If that, if he's like Literally not. There's like a. You imagine, like, I just imagine like, like you finally get like 20 minutes of sleep and you just rise up like the undertaker, like, and just take.
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B
A sip of water.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And then just drill her, Koch. Okay, go ahead.
- [17:28]
B
Sorry, sorry. All right, so let the kid finish what he had to say, Sean.
- [17:33]
C
Um, so, you know, I wasn't really prepared for it, but now I feel like I've, you know, gotten a lot more comfortable with, you know, I know that my training has got me ready. Um, I know how to hydrate the day before. I know how to kind of stay off my feet the day before. Um, so now kind of going into five sets, you know, it's all about being physical early. If you're able to kind of set the tone early, sometimes you can kind of see guys tap out a little bit. Um, two out of three sets, you're never going to see that. Really. You know, everyone's very physical, like I was saying just a minute ago. So they're, they're ready for those two out of three set matches. They know they, they won't get beat physically. So I think that's the main difference is just the physicality between two out of three versus a three out of five.
- [18:11]
A
Yeah, it's, it's learning how to navigate a Grand slam. I mean, think about like on, just on premise, like you, you won't do this every time, guys. But just think you have to be mentally ready. You go in, it's like, can I play five hours, seven times in 14 days. That's what you're preparing for. Sleep management. When you eat, when you drink, hydrate, don't over hydrate. Some people don't eat well on a nervous stomach in the morning. You have to load up at night and eat more, like until you're fuller than you should be. But it's all part of it. Like, I remember the first time I played a five setter against Michael Chang. I was cramping in the fourth set. It was like, never again did I have the same diet. Like, you learn these things the hard way before you actually, you know, can manage it. I mean, it's just, he's totally right and it's rough and also like these.
- [19:17]
B
Little.
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A
Like, like score things. Like, he wins, but it's five all in the second set, right? Him winning the first set, tight second set. He wins that second set 90%. Your little nerd tracker would have had him at like. And then he loses, like, but like in a, in a six minute segment, right at five all maybe 12 minute segment. You're either, you could be 30 minutes away from the locker room or you could have to invest three more hours. And it's all decided in like those eight or ten minute windows through throughout a match.
- [19:56]
B
It's not like when in other sports where they're like, you go out there and you leave it all out there on the field. 92 minutes for the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah. You're like, it's could be 90 seconds or another hour and a half.
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A
It's crazy. There's, I mean there's no, you can't run out the clock in tennis. You have to win the last point. You have to play better than they do for at least one more game. Always.
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B
That's amazing.
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A
No exceptions.
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B
Well, I wanted, I wanted the junks to position that then against our friend Stan, the man who played a four and a half hour match. And obviously he is well versed in slam expectations, physicality wise. And he had this to say post match.
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A
The last thing.
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B
You are 40 years old.
- [20:43]
A
How will you recover? What happens now for the rest of the evening for you? No idea. But I think at the beginning you drop a beer. So maybe I'm going to pick up a beer. I deserve one. There you go.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:02]
A
Forget everything I said about professionalism. Know your audience. 1. I'm sorry, you're down, you're down under with the Aussies. They want to hear you say beer. I'll just, I'll just, I'll just tell you that right now. I think he's officially entered the it part of the tournament. I got through the first two rounds, grinded through a 5 center. It ain't gonna get the easier for me against Taylor Fritz. You know what, it's weird though. Like some people have those bodies that just don't cramp. Like I don't know that I've ever seen Stan deal with cramps. And then you see like the, like I remember Kefelnikov, like he would take a shirt off and you'd be like, hey, that guy's gonna cramp. And then he'd be out there six hours later. He's just, you're dying. And he's like just still going. Just a machine. Some people are just built differently. But this is, this is so much fun for me to watch this run. This is like when someone of Stan's level says, like I want, I'm going to play one more year. What you want for that person and for tennis fandom is, is to have this moment. These Moments where it's like we're all in this together. It's not going to end in a title. It's not going to end. You know, it's, it's. We're not going to beat Alcaraz and Sinner with the, with, with what we're bringing. I mean we can't have some, some fun along the way. Like this is, this is cool. And Stan's not someone who's like giving you a ton of, you know, it's, it's not as if he's a great player, but I don't know that he's like, like overtly publicly warm and fuzzy all the time, you know, throughout his career. I love this version. I love it. This is, this is, this is fun to watch. This is fun to watch. I don't know. I love it. Was that, is that all the deliveries?
- [22:45]
B
That was, that was the perfect deliveries of the day. We had two deliveries.
- [22:51]
A
We're now getting to the part of the, of the tournament. Sorry, I'm looking at my phone. I'm looking at the, the great app. We're getting the part of the tournament where the matchups are becoming like really juicy. Like I think Alcarez roles but like Alcaraz Mutet is like okay, how, how can, how annoying can he be? Is he going to get under his skin? Like that's fun. Paul and Davidovich fantastic. Big foe and demon in Demon's backyard. Like that's a blockbuster match sphere of Nori. Like there's gonna be some just battles out there. Leonard TN and Borges. Like Borges beats faa. There's, that's like opportunity knocking while Rinka Fritz. It's like the legend versus the guy who's trying to be one. Like it's, it's, it's just, it's just fantastic. Shelton Vachero, Sinner, Spazziri. That's a rough one. Spazzeri is good man. He can move. I watched him last night. I spent watch the first couple sets of his match. He's fast. Everyone's fast now. Everyone can move. If you can't move, I don't know that you can play on tour unless you're like the one of the seven footers. It's a non negotiable. How you feeling, Mike?
- [24:13]
B
Me? I feel great.
- [24:14]
A
You do?
- [24:14]
B
I feel great. I'm pretty honestly I'm a little bummed that all the matches happen in the middle of the night while we're sleeping.
- [24:20]
A
Well, we're going to be in a snowstorm here for the next four days so we can stay up late. It's going to be great.
- [24:24]
B
Yeah, we're just. Let's just stay up late.
- [24:26]
A
Let's do it. Well, you don't have. Listen, if you're watching, our show states that you don't have to. We just listen to us in the mornings when you. When you wake up. We'll be here.
- [24:35]
B
Yeah.
- [24:36]
A
Like the Jackson 5 and Mariah Carey once said, I'll be there. Just press subscribe. This is Quick Serve brought to you by ServiceNow. We'll see you.