← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
QUICK SERVED: US Open Day 4 - Ostapenko/Townsend Clash, Alcaraz Rolls, & more
00:28:42
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- [00:02]
A
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- [00:41]
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Support for this show comes from pure leaf iced tea. When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back. You need pure leaf iced tea. It's real brewed tea made in a variety of bold flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine. You're left feeling refreshing, refreshed and revitalized so you can be ready to take on what's next. The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a pure leaf iced tea. Time for a tea break. Time for a pure leaf.
- [01:18]
A
All right, it's all happening. Welcome to your day four quick serve brought to you by Amazon Prime. The first morning, Monday morning, the first quick serve that I did to the U.S. open.
- [01:28]
C
Mm.
- [01:31]
A
I overslept. You did and you did. Yeah. Yeah. And my. So we had to get up for Good Morning America humble brag. And I got a call in my room. I haven't slept till the alarm in 10 years. Like, I always wake up early, early, early. 6:45. Techie Sean's downstairs ready to shoot. Quick served. I messed everything up. Was in a bit of a rush. If I'm being honest, it wasn't my best effort.
- [02:00]
C
Mike, can I tell you why? I knew that you probably had overslept or you were in the gym being a psychopath was. I texted you and I said, do you want coffee? And you didn't write back, which is.
- [02:13]
A
I mean, five minutes.
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C
Sure. Ten minutes. I was like, is there something wrong? Because the answer's always yes.
- [02:19]
A
Yeah, I mean, the answer is yes. Like, next time, just. You just show up. And I'm. I'm always happy to be in receipt of coffee, but here we are. Everyone is marching to the third round. I promise you I will be better. We are currently shooting this. Alcaraz is rolling. Pellini just closed. Saba's coming up. Ben Shelton's playing Karina. Busta we are not going to make the same mistake. You're going to get my best effort. We are going to roll. And if something happens, I don't think Ben Shelton's going to lose. He's playing too well. Something earth shattering happens and I don't know, maybe we get up and all correct. But let's just operate on the assumption that Saba wins, Ben Shelton wins, and we have the rest covered. Producer Mike, you know who looked good, who has not looked great this summer is Jess Pagula. One and three over Blinkova. And it's starting to get pretty fun because you get to the third round, who does she play? Two time Grand Slam champion in former world number one Vika Azarenka back on the scene, getting a big win against Pavlia Chenkova that I got to think that has like night session kind of written on it. Two big names early in a tournament. Novak Djokovic gets through Zach Vida in four sets. But Novak first round looked like he was trying to find air. And that's not just my opinion. That's kind of what he was saying after the fact. It seems like it's just really hard, right? You can you play Wimbledon, then you don't play to the US Open. There's everyone else on earth wouldn't make the third round. We wouldn't even be nitpicking our third round. But with Novak, when you have 24 majors, you cast a longer shadow. And when you don't look like peak Novak, we notice, we talk about it still feels like he's trying to find match shape. Like there's gym shape and then there's practice shape. But you have to stress test those nerves. You have to stress test, you know, going 20 ball rallies continually. We have not gotten there. I mean, I guess Serena Williams was really good about playing her way into match shape during majors and pulling it off. If anyone else can pull it off, it is Novak Djokovic. But he's gonna have to kind of figure it out pretty quickly because he's been dominant against Cam Norrie. But Cam Norrie is who he will play in the third round. Cam Norrie is one of the fittest guys on tour, is notorious for talking about the fact that he has some sort of thing where he takes in more air than the rest of us mortals and can basically just like, I might lose, but I can run forever. That's going to test Novak. And if you're Kim Nori, you're going, okay. If I have to find a way to convince myself that I can Actually beat Novak has to be encouraging, seeing what we've seen from Novak the first two rounds. If you're Cam Nori, there's still, you know, not a universe where you pick Novak or you pick Cam Nori straight up in that match. But it's been. It's been strange, right? Like the first set, Novak looked pretty average. And listen, average for Novak picked it up, found a way. And it's amazing how he can be in the third round. And we're sitting here going, he looks like he's out of breath, you know, and he says, I'm having a hard time finding air. And yet here we are in the third round. Taylor Fritz advances in four sets against Lloyd Harris. I'm going to tell you something about. And Taylor Fritz did not look good today. I'd be shocked if, you know, I read the transcript for his press conference and he said that everything felt good. The conditions are windy. It's windier on Louis Armstrong, right? They had that, like, open space halfway up the stadium. You know, it's 20ft high. The wind will cook through there. It's. It's a. It's a different thing when the wind was blowing, and it was today. But Taylor Fritz, I don't think gets enough credit for being the competitor that he is. And he is elevated to a ranking into a level where, you know, the other day he said they asked him about, do you get great memories coming back to this tournament after making the final last year? And he goes, the biggest confidence that I pulled from making the final here last year is that I don't actually feel like I played extremely well. He's like, I played well, you know, at times, and I had good wins and I was able to tough it out. He goes, my. My kind of B level is just really good now. And it might have been a C level today against Lloyd Harris was holding pretty easily, but it was a. It was a big stress test. Lost the first set, 164 in the fourth, eked out a second set. Breaker like that can turn very quickly, but Fritz is a hell of a competitor, hell of a player. Yeah, Mike, when you were going through.
- [06:57]
C
That kind of growth phase in your career, you know, what was the kind of. The first match where you felt that in, you know, I think there's a special mindset, right, to take L like that and then to build off of it, you know, what, what is that going through a match like this now where you feel like it was a C level, right? And like, he's so. He's so critical of his own play. What are you then looking back on be like, hey, but I can still make it. This is just one match onto the next one.
- [07:22]
A
Yeah. I don't know. Like, listen, we know if you listen to this show that I basically just try to. I, like, ruin myself all the time. I was always a terrible. Like, a good, bad player, right? Like, I was always really good at kind of. If I was playing badly, I would drag someone else into the gutter with me. I still think you play well, like, really well. Like 10 or 15% of the year. I think you play like, shit, like, 20% of the year. And it's that middle ground where, like, the top 10 players and the top five players are really good at just managing matches and surviving. And there's every chance that the next round, Taylor finds it and starts just cleaning the ball, right? But I was good at that. Like, that's one of the few things I was really, really elite at. You know, serving and basically match management, I was good at, right? And there's a million things I was bad at. But you see Taylor Fritz getting to that, you know, being four in the world and making the tail end of slams now, it's like he understands that it's not the end of the world if he wins but doesn't play perfectly. And obviously, the goal is to play as well as you can every single time. You know, you hear he, you know, turns it up when he needs to. That's not the way it works. Literally. As an athlete, your goal going to every day is to play as well as you can on that day. Like, that's the goal. And you understand that sometimes you're not in peak shape. Maybe you haven't been able to get the reps in. Maybe you've been hurt. And so we understand that there are factors involved that make that less likely sometimes, but the goal is to do as well as you can as often as you can. It's not a choice where you're like, I'm gonna play well today because I've decided to, like, it's just, you survive until you actually start finding form. And Fritz has become really, really, really good at that. Leans into all of the pressure that surrounds him. A lot of respect for Taylor Fritz. I actually think this court is. He's serving through this court really well, right? When he hits his spots, he's either winning the point on a serve or he's getting an easy first look. I don't think he's hitting the ball that well from the baseline yet. And it would cause me concern if that wasn't what he did really well all of the time. Right. He's proven concept on being, on being a ball striker. I'm just really impressed the fact that he did not play well today. He didn't look comfortable. He, he looked, you know, looking at his box, wasn't happy with the way he was playing a lot of the time. And ho hum, third round, right. Like work through it. It was ugly, it was gross, it kind of got through it. But he's really good at those matches now to where it was a set down and on serve and you felt like Taylor was in control of the match still. Right. And you know, a set and a breaker, you're almost down two sets. That's a stressful situation. But he has caused us as a tennis fan base to have a lot of trust in him in those situations now. So props to Taylor Fritz for getting through Emma Radicanu. It's feeling a lot like 2021. She hadn't won a match at the US Open since she won the tournament as a qualifier. And now she's through to the third round. She has spent two hours and two minutes on court. She didn't spend a lot of time on court when she won. This tournament rolled today one and two for Francis Tiafo in a matchup with a young American, Martin Dam. Big lefty server dad. Martin Dam was a top 50 singles player and a top 5 doubles player. Foe's skill set translated really well. He's so good with not needing a lot of time to be effective. And by that I mean he has very short swings on his return. So you just felt like he was going to get enough balls in play. And once that ball was in play against dm, who's a really intriguing prospect. Big lefty serve. He looks like he's, I don't know, six, six, six, seven, one of them. It feels like they're all six six and six seven now. But Francis did a great job. Nishioka, kind of that crush and rush doesn't need a lot of time to adjust on the return. I love it when he hits that return quick and comes in. Today he was mixing up return positions, kind of not giving Dam the same look over and over. And as I mentioned, Dam's father, Martin Dam, top 50 singles player, top five doubles player. That used to be what a double specialist was. It was when you were on tour in singles, but you were just better at doubles, you know, like Jared Palmer and Alex o' Brien and Jim Grab and Richie Rennenberg they were all like top 30 players. Patrick McEnroe, they were all like top 40 players. And then way better at doubles. Right. Like they were 40 in singles and two or three in the world in doubles. That's what double specialists used to mean. It just means that you were. That was like your specialty but, you know, you did other things as well. Martin Dan was a very intelligent player. A lot of upside for his son. I think it was a pretty good showing. Taking photo a tough four setter. Zhao Fon Seka will be a great player and he's probably not there yet. I had a. I had a really great time playing with him last Thursday in Hazbin Night. Otherwise known as Stars of the Open at Arthur Ash Stadium. Really enjoyed being around this kid. Like looks you in the eye when he's talking to you, is very direct, is able to kind of focus on a conversation. A lot of the good things that you see. Obviously had a ton of respect for Juan Martindo Poacher who is a South American legend in his own right. But I don't think he's there yet. I think this is a kind of growing, growing pains year. Thomas Mahach A little bit more firepower, a little bit more season. We're going to see a lot from Fonseca. Let's see if he makes a run in the fall. He's one of those guys who, you know, 50, 60 in the world can make up a lot of ground. His goal for the rest of the year is, listen, I'd like to be seated in Australia, right? Let's reset and let's make a huge run in 2026 will be a monster of a player is still so young. Turned 19 last Thursday on the night that we played that he participated and has been stars night at the Open and a lot of things ahead for him, but maybe just not yet. I feel like, you know, that Roland Garrison, the people are saying he's a contender, he's going to win the French. He can win the French Open. It's like, let's just let him breathe a little bit. There's a lot of reps to be had with your Fonseca. I'm a huge fan. I'm buying. It's a long term buy. I don't think it's a short term buy. I don't think it's a pump and dump at all. I think this is a long term 10 year hold with him. Andreva rolls Emma Navarro comes into this tournament having won one match since Wimbledon. We were watching that her first round match together the other day and it was nervy. It was one of those ones where like I don't have form, I might be second guessing. When you're playing well, you're kind of in this flow state where all you're thinking about is strategy, not strokes, not the how the ball is coming off. When you're worrying about how the ball's coming off and if I can execute it for all on a breaker. That's what Emma looked like in the first round. She did not look that way today against Katie McNally. One and two rolled first time. You know, few times this year where she's going to kind of been in complete flow state. She had it today. She had control, that ball, the varying heights in the forehand, getting it up out of the zone and then penetrating with the back. And Emma Navarro, if we look back and she makes the quarter, semis, whatever it might be, you'd be like, oh, she turned it in that match against McNally, she looked great today. And that's another thing we were talking about with Novak. If you can get through those kind of dicey matches, all of a sudden you turn up for work one day and the inbox is easier, easier to get through, right? Things are flowing a little bit, you trust your decisions a little bit more. You hit a big deal here and then a week later it's like, oh, I have the confidence to make this call, right? It's just like what you do, right? There's flow state, there's times where you're rolling at work, there's times when you're not and when you're not, you're kind of grinding and nothing is guaranteed and you have to kind of think through things a little bit more as opposed to when you're flowing at work. It's like bingo bango. Everything's clean, clear headed, confident decision making. Felt like Emma might have found that a little bit today. She had a good day at work. Rbakana goes through. She was the risk in my draw finalist and I don't know that I gave enough credit. It was a live show, is a little distracted. People were waving. We were getting heckled and into the finals. He played well by the way. I like, I like learners game a lot. There's a guy just. And all the guys who yelled stuff the loudest just left right afterwards. No interest in what we're. We had no. They had no interest in what we were saying. I like Robocanum 3 and 6 today. Cruz. The first round still looking good. Colleague, I hope I said that right. Beats Casper Rude in five sets. Casper searching a little bit right, came into this rank 12. And again all of the observations are against people's shadow. Like we, it's a compliment to Casper saying like, you lose second round, we're gonna have to renegotiate and figure something out going into next year. You had a 12 next year name going into a Slam, right? That's a dream for most players. But you've made three Slam finals. You've been two in the world before you, you become a, you've been a fixture at World Tour Finals. He's going to need a lot of form. He's going to need something to change to get back to World Tour Finals. Yuri Lehecka, listen, I'm. You've heard me talk about him. I like his game. He can bother people. He looks good. He's going to keep rolling here. Men Sheik is loses to Blanchette today. Blanchette had won one tour match ever based on what I heard on the commentary today. So he's doubled his match WINS in the U.S. open compared to his, his regular life on tour. And if you look at men chic, it's like he wins Miami. And it's like, okay, is this, is this, is this a rocket ship? And I said the week after Miami, I'm like, listen, big result, lot of tennis to be played. You don't get anointed in this game, right? You earn every single week. And he's been kind of like tour average since, since Miami. And if you're seated 16 and you're expected to make runs at Slams, Blanchard played great, clutch and like all the props in the world to him and his journey. And like you're happy for the success. This is a big paycheck for someone that's. That had won one match on tour coming in at a huge paycheck. Massive props. And if you're men chic and you want to be a top 10 player, I'm not sure this is the match that you're, you're, you're happy losing, especially in the fifth set. Rinder Knish gets through. Psycho Bunny Guy. Hashtag sorry, that was gratuitous. Roles has played well in a couple of things. Bonzi of Medi Meltdown fame wins another five setter against Marcus Giron down two sets. Like imagine going through. But imagine producer Mike going through just an absolute battle like you on the front nine, right? Just stuck, just shit. Just mentally exhausted.
- [18:18]
C
Just can't wait for the turnhouse crack. A cold One because it's all over.
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A
Can't wait, can't wait for a beer. But like imagine the mental warfare. Imagine the coverage I'm sure you know, is the medi match has been talked about. Being up, up some sets, then getting back to five, closing that out, coming back, being down two sets. Props to this guy, man. Like props to Bonzi. Not an easy three days of, of, of physicality, of, of mental. His coach, Nicholas Mahu knows how to play some long matches.
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C
I mean he's got, he's got almost eight hours on court first eight hours.
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A
On court, which is like less than half of what his coach did in one match against Isner one time when he lost 70, 68.
- [19:05]
C
Wait, that's his coach?
- [19:06]
A
No way. Yeah, Nicholas Mahu. So you imagine Bonzi because, oh, I'm so tired. I've been on court eight hours in Mahout just going, that's, that's so sweet. I just want to put you in my pocket. That's so cute.
- [19:18]
C
That's insane. I don't know that.
- [19:21]
A
Yeah, but props to Bonzi, man. Like, that's a big, like winning five sets against Mehdi. Everything that comes along with it, the crowd just being completely in, irrationally in your shit through no fault of your own for two and a half hours. The last three sets of that match coming back, being down against Marcos Giron, Giron's body looked like it was giving out a little bit and Bonzi looked good, like props. That's where if you're prepared for the moment and you do the fitness work, then all of a sudden opportunity presents itself. The last thing you want to do is have your body be a question mark. He may have been in this good a shape forever and now it's paying dividends. Life of a tennis player, really well done. Barbara Krishikova beats him. Boko, first round blows up my bracket wins again today, two and four. And she's someone two time slam winner in singles, I don't know, handful plus and doubles. She's someone where it's like you look at her and it's like, oh, she hasn't been winning many matches and then she wins two matches, she's like contender. I don't know, she could, anything's possible. Like she's that good. But she does need those reps. And when she finds that confidence in that gear, she's someone who, you know, you might ignore, you know, first round all of a sudden has been injured, all of a sudden she finds some form, she finds a gear and you're going. I don't know. I don't know. It's pretty impressive. Okay. And then meltdown award of the day.
- [20:57]
C
Wait, before you do it, before you get into this, I just want to say, Carlos Alcaraz just wrapped up 1, 0 and 3, and Paolini wrapped up 3 and 3.
- [21:07]
A
Yep. Carlos Alcaraz is on in cruise control right now. One, the haircut's tight. I'm just telling you. I saw him. I saw him yesterday on the way out of the open. And I'm so happy to be back in our studio, by the way. Like, I just feel like I'm comfortable here. It looks. It's pretty great. Like, it's. It's.
- [21:29]
C
Did you hear his reason?
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A
Yeah, because his brother up the haircut.
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C
I love that part. I've been there, bro.
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A
Yeah. So I. Cause I go, ooh. I said, Carlos. I said hello quickly. I was like, you look meaning. Yeah, mean sleeveless. And I was like, y', all, this kid's too. Well, yeah. I'll tell you, though, like, the little things. Like, I'm walking from 30ft away to exit to go to where you get transportation, leaving the open, going to the airport yesterday, and he's walking in, talking to everyone. Everyone running the security gates and walking in. He literally has time for every conversation on the way. And it's not put on. It's just the way he is. Right. And I don't. Like, I wasn't one to want to small talk when I was going to work. I just. I just wasn't. But the game's better. Every single person that comes across him, no matter what their job is at the US Open, goes. You know what? I really like that guy. Like, he's just. He just has an easy smile. He's just easy to be around. He hit a forehand tonight, Mike, in the second set, where, you know, guy hits it middle. Pretty good ball. Carlos is probably like 3 or 4ft behind the baseline. Had just been opening up the shoulders, cleaned one inside in from the middle of the court, three feet behind. Not like set up where I'm going to take a massive rip. This was, like, turned on it. 109 miles an hour. That's a big second serve.
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C
It's nuts.
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A
Like, and it was the easiest not. He wasn't trying to, like, he. He.
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C
Obviously, it's not like he, like, loaded up and float. Float into it.
- [23:10]
A
No, no, no. He injected. He knew he was injecting pace into it. It was a confident strike, but 109. Like, we get to 100 101. And everyone's like, ooh, 109. And it looked easy. I mean, he is a different sort of talent. Medi. Meltdown of the day. Any guesses? Mike, did you see this one?
- [23:28]
C
Yeah, yeah. Ostapenko.
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A
Ostapenko. And, you know, okay, just let's. Let's. Let's level set here. I like meltdowns, right? I don't like. I like meltdowns. I think they're entertaining. I have. I'm. I'm. I melted down, so I can't criticize someone for a meltdown, which is my point. Like, you try to be. Not be, like, a complete hypocrite about things. There's no chance that if Mehdi was on this podcast next week, that'd be fun. If he was on this podcast next week, that he would go, oh, that guy overreacts to the crowd when it doesn't go his way. There's zero chance he would ever say that. No chance. He makes mistakes. He's pretty sober in thought later. You know, he's imperfect. He'll admit he's imperfect. You know, he's like, I just go nuts. Ostapenko. Lecturing someone about class on a tennis court is like me lecturing someone about wearing all black on a podcast right now. Like, it's like me lecturing someone about trying everything they can to stop losing their hair. Like, it literally is like heights of hypocrisy. That. That bothers me.
- [24:48]
C
Can we. Can we address it, though? She was upset with the fact that Taylor Townsend was leveraging the American audience in America.
- [24:58]
A
Oh, yeah. Really?
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C
How? She was up. But she said, and then Taylor Townsend. I loved her come back in the post game. She's like, I beat her in Canada too, because she was like, play me outside of the United States.
- [25:08]
A
Yeah, listen, here, here. Here's. Here's. I should have level set. Good call, Mike. O up 5, 3. Has not been playing well. Taylor beat her in Canada recently and apparently hit a let cord and didn't apologize and then riled the crowd up. Mike, you've worked in sports a long time. Have you ever seen an athlete dare to use the crowd for their own benefit?
- [25:36]
C
Never. Never. I still can't get over when you apologize to people for let court, but I'm still learning.
- [25:42]
A
Oh, I agree.
- [25:43]
C
Maybe like a kicker apologizing the other team for. For hitting it off the upright for me.
- [25:47]
A
Rob Robbie Ginepri. Really good American player. Semis of the US Open. Coaches helps coach Alex Mickelson now. He just decided midway through his career that he was never going to apologize for a let ever again. And his. His. His reasoning was pretty simple because I'm not sorry. I'm glad it happened.
- [26:06]
C
I agree.
- [26:07]
A
I agree. I was playing. I played Dingles today, and I got a let cord and I looked at. We're all buddies, so it's a little bit different. Like, you're not, like, at the US Open, so take it for what it's worth, but I literally looked across the night, would you like me to lie to you? And they said, what? I said, would you like me to lie to you? They go, sure. I said, I'm sorry.
- [26:29]
C
I mean, that's exactly how I feel about it. Every time I see it, I'm like, what are they apologizing for?
- [26:34]
A
So here, the other, like. But the. The point is, because I can already see people going, like, you thought Mehdi was funny, and you don't. I think Ostapenko's funny pretty much all the time. Right. I think she's petty. I think there are lots of players on tour that aren't a fan of hers. I think she injects a certain type of personality into the tour that, you know, would be annoying to play against. But also, it's like, I don't know, Lil Wayne likes her and watches her because of her pettiness. Like, I don't know if Lil Wayne can tweet about you. It's probably good for tennis in some way, shape or form. Her lecturing someone about how to behave in a respectful manner to an opponent. Fucking miss me with that, Mike?
- [27:19]
C
It was just the way she did it, too. Like, getting in her face.
- [27:22]
A
She called her. She called her. She said she had no class and that she was uneducated.
- [27:25]
C
Yeah. And that's what drove me nuts a little bit. I just think I get it from being a little chippy, if you want to be chippy afterwards and, like, move on. But that. What that was, was like. It was. It almost was like, all right, I'm here. I got to keep going, I guess. But also seeing red.
- [27:40]
A
But if. If you have propane, props to. Always props to Taylor Townsend. If you have. If you have that opinion set where you want to lecture someone about sportsmanship, I have a suggestion. Start looking people in the eye when you shake their hands. Let's. Let's start with that. Let's start with that. And then about 15 steps later, you can criticize someone for not saying sorry on a let cord. This has been Quick Served, brought to you by Amazon Prime. Look them in the eye when you shake their hands. Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. Prime is more than just fast free delivery. It's your go to for streaming music, movies and sports. Plus, it's also a great way to connect with the things you love into skiing. Stream ski films on prime video even when the slopes are bare. Love fishing. You can get new gear delivered fast and be back by the water in no time planning your next big trip. Prime helps you get everything you need faster than you can write your out of office email. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into.
- [29:03]
B
This month on Explain It To Me. We're talking about all things wellness. We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well collagen, smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes and fitness trackers. But what does it actually mean to be well? Why do we want that so badly? And is all this money really making us healthier and happier? That's this month on Explain It To Me Presented by Pure Leaf.