← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
QUICK SERVED: Wimbledon Day 9 - Semi-Final Bound | Alcaraz vs Fritz & Sabalenka vs Anisimova
00:20:36
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- [00:02]
John McEnroe
Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. You might think of prime as only a way to get fast free delivery or maybe as the place to stream movies, shows and sports. But it's actually way more than that. Maybe you've got a passion or a hobby. Prime can help you get the most out of it. Whether you're streaming documentaries on marine animals, ordering action figure stands with free one day delivery, or finding the perfect playlist to impress that special someone, prime makes it easier and faster to do what you love. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com, to get more out of whatever you're into. Sally from finance loves fly fishing. She used to spend her weekend surrounded by receipts. Then she switched her company to ramp. Now spend is all under control, all in one place. Her team submits their expenses with a text and she can close the books without all the busy work. So Sally's weekends are all her own. Surrounded by fish, not receipts. Switch your business to ramp.com and love finance again.
- [01:10]
Patrick McEnroe
Do you want head to heads real quick?
- [01:11]
John McEnroe
Guessing there's not one with Andrey va Bencic.
- [01:13]
Patrick McEnroe
There's not.
- [01:13]
John McEnroe
I'm guessing Novak played Kaboli once.
- [01:16]
Patrick McEnroe
Two.
- [01:16]
John McEnroe
Oh, and two or something stupid.
- [01:18]
Patrick McEnroe
Shanghai. 24. It was one and two.
- [01:20]
John McEnroe
There you go. Iga Samsonova. Iga talked about it the other day. She said there's been some tough three setters, which means that Samsonova hasn't beaten her, which means they've played like three or four times.
- [01:30]
Patrick McEnroe
Four, zero.
- [01:31]
John McEnroe
There you go. Center Shelton. Shelton beat him in Tokyo. One time. Four and one center.
- [01:38]
Patrick McEnroe
Five. One center. Sheldon. One.
- [01:41]
John McEnroe
23.
- [01:42]
Patrick McEnroe
Shanghai.
- [01:42]
John McEnroe
No, no Shanghai. No, I'm looking at it right here. That was in Tokyo.
- [01:46]
Patrick McEnroe
Let's just be the cold open for the show. Should we do the. Should we do the quick serve?
- [01:50]
John McEnroe
Yeah, we're rolling. Oh, we are.
- [01:51]
Patrick McEnroe
Great. Hey everyone.
- [01:58]
John McEnroe
Welcome to quick serve. Just landed.
- [02:00]
Patrick McEnroe
Welcome back.
- [02:01]
John McEnroe
Thank you. It's good to be back. Some stuff went down. Wimbledon, Sigmund almost shocked the world.
- [02:09]
Patrick McEnroe
Almost.
- [02:11]
John McEnroe
Was she just chopping? Was she just chopping?
- [02:13]
Patrick McEnroe
She was. I mean she. She looked great. Sabalenka just did what Sabalenka does. Yeah, she powered through.
- [02:21]
John McEnroe
She. She's a fighter. Like, I know she's lost a couple tough grand slam finals, but like she's there every day. Even like when she got pissed in the Coco match. She doesn't have many days where you're like, she just mailed it in. Like she can get pissed, but that's. You get pissed because you actually care. But like, she never stops fighting. She, she's just always there, always there. Doesn't get enough credit for it. We focus on like, you know, and, you know, she, she admitted we haven't covered this yet, but her calling Coco and saying, I'm sorry and I was wrong. Like, I have a lot of space for people just raising their hand and saying, I was wrong. We've all done it. We've all, we fight on this show and we call, we're like, we're fine. Like, it's, you just, you know, anyways. But that great, great, great fight back for Sabalenka. Not surprising. And again, let's try to be careful not to take it completely for granted all the time when we are watching greatness. Anna Samova over Pablo.
- [03:17]
Patrick McEnroe
Good call.
- [03:18]
John McEnroe
That was a good call. That was a good one. Happy for her. I want to take a second and just talk about how she has the guts to do what not a lot of people have the guts to do, right? Like, we get roped into this thing as athletes where it's like, ignore everything, suck down your feelings, show up, do that, like that old, like American football mentality, right? That's just like. And I, I, I was bad at it and I retired at 30 because of it, probably, right? I was just like, I went as hard as I could, as long as I could. And I woke up one morning, I was like, I can't do this. Props to her. And I'm glad it's working out, right? Because there are no guarantees when you make a decision to step away from the game, when you admit that you're stepping away for mental health reasons, right? 20 years ago, that's a signal to the field. And they're like, oh, that's weakness. It's the opposite of weakness. I'm happy she's back. I'm happy she's happy. Reading what she's saying is like, okay, I'm back now and I do all the right things and I'm excited to do them. It doesn't feel like work. There's such a lesson there. There's such a lesson there. And I think it might be a little bit easier now when you see people and champions that are playing till 37, 38, maybe you just don't feel like you only have a six or seven year window, right? So that really matters, right? Like, Jim Courier is my guy, dear friend, burned it as hard as he could, as fast as he could and retired at 27. I did the same thing. Done at 30, right? Roger's taken six months. Rafa took three and four months off at a time. You know, Serena had years where she didn't play much, and obviously some is because of injury and some's not. But, like, there is an element of patience in tennis that's been proven now. I was too insecure to do it. I couldn't walk away and, like, risk my ranking. Or maybe it was ego, maybe it was vanity, I don't know. But really happy for Amanda Anisimova. She's playing great. We knew the talent was there. She made the semifinals of Roland Garris when she was 17 years old. Seems like it's all coming together. Grass is a great service for her, and she's one of the few players on earth that hits the ball well enough to take the racket out of Sabalenka's hand. You're looking at, like, a Matty Keys or something like that, but she can. As far as just squaring up the ball and striking it. Now Sabalenka has a little bit more variety. I think she serves a little better. Obviously, she's more consistent. She's been in these matches a million times. But you watch him hitting on a practice court, balls coming to him a little bit different, right? And she knows she has to take her shots. She doesn't move sideline to sideline like Sabalenka does. Sabling is kind of like an underrated mover because she's so powerful. We kind of ignore the other parts of her game and only talk about the obvious stuff. But couldn't be happier for Anisomova. I'm sure her story might inspire or at least give cover to other athletes that want to do the same thing, right? And should do the same thing, right? Like, you can't operate as a professional athlete at 50% of your mental capacity. You know, that would have. She would have ended up at, you know, showing up every week and ending up at 170 in the world and hating the game and this whole thing. So I'm happy that she made that decision for herself. That takes guts. Also, there are no guarantees when you do that that it will work out in a Wimbledon semifinal and you're going to go from 400 and something in the world to top 10 for the first time 18 months later. It's a big deal. I'm happy it worked out for her. I'm happy that it's paying dividends. It might not be all of all that break, and I know all the credit is going to get given to that. But when the Lows are the lowest, and someone gets to the highest of highs. You connect the dots, right and say props. So great job. Anna Samova. Up against it now with. With Sabalenka, who I still think is going to win the tournament, but very cool story. Happy it's working out for her. Happy to see her smiling on the tennis court. That's just. That's just fantastic. Looks like the Chuckster started playing video games today. Yeah, just left, left, right, left, right. Up, down, up, down, two, three, and three. Yeah. Finish him. He's techie. Sean's too young for that reference. I know what that is. You know what that is? Oh, my gosh. He knows something that happened in the 90s with Mortal Kombat. I mean, he's. He was the favorite. He is the favorite. You know, I think it's weird because it's like, oh, he started off weird. Now he's playing great again. I'm like, well, I mean, we. It's kind of common knowledge that on anything that had cement under the feet, sinner was the dominant force. And we kind of. You know, Carlos has proven that whenever anything's a little bit slippery, he's the dominant force, and he's the guy to beat. Doesn't mean he's going to win the tournament. I think Novak's going to have a big say in this before it's all said and done. I said it the minute he lost in Paris, and he can do it. I actually saw Cahill for a second a couple days ago, and everyone knows Novak's there, as they should. But it's not. It's not like you're paying homage to someone who's just great. It's like. No, no, no.
- [08:31]
Patrick McEnroe
But is it, like. Is it, like, scary to see Novak as relaxed as he seems to be?
- [08:36]
John McEnroe
No. Everyone's relaxed when they're winning 3, 0, and 4. Like, and also Novak, he's just, like.
- [08:40]
Patrick McEnroe
Posting, like, family photos and stuff. His kids are, like, autographs from. Yeah.
- [08:44]
John McEnroe
I mean, it's definitely a different phase in his career. And I say this in the. In, like, the most respectful way possible. Like, he had blinders on for a long time.
- [08:54]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [08:55]
John McEnroe
And I don't know that the blinders are as intense, but that doesn't mean that tennis isn't in there. It doesn't mean he doesn't have the library of thought and, you know, he's able to check those feelings. He knows what it is. He knows. He's not intimidated by center court at Wimbledon.
- [09:11]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [09:11]
John McEnroe
You know, he's still Going to find a way. I'm telling you, the chips are down. He's going to find a way to put that chip on his shoulder. He's not gonna be talking about tiktoks like that's fun when it's all, you know, friendly and. But Novak used to do that, you know, when he first came out. He would get the crowd involved and do the dances on, you know, post match interviews and stuff and just take somebody. Don't, don't, don't make that. There's an, there's an animal in there that we've all seen before. It's, it's, it's like don't poke the bear. It's coming. There's going to be a chip, there's going to be something chippy coming. He thrives on it. He'll create it just to use it if he needs to. And we all know it. But he, I mean, can't say enough about him. But Chuckster, full video game mode. Mortal kombat.
- [09:56]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, 90 minutes.
- [09:57]
John McEnroe
Just basically ripping heads off Taylor Fritz. Great win. Hatching off another guy who's better in the extended format. Has done really well in majors and it's kind of always there. But Taylor hadn't, I mean he would tell you he hasn't had a great year at all. I mean he's had probably had a pretty disappointing year by his own standard that he's kind of reset the last couple of years. That'll all change if he can get through. He's now made the semis are better and two of the last four Grand Slams.
- [10:28]
Patrick McEnroe
That's great.
- [10:29]
John McEnroe
You know, so it was the conversation going into last year's U.S. open. I know we have amnesia sometimes in the short term where it's like, oh, he hasn't been past the quarters of a slam and shut that door. He knows how to play Slams, he knows how to play the extended format. He's a workhorse man. Like plays every week and doesn't ever seem like he's fatigued or run down. And I don't know that you can pay that bill forever. But he's unapologetic about what works for him. You know, playing Eastbourne on a Saturday and then, you know, straight into Wimbledon. It's not, that's not a gear that I had. I did it my last year but it was like out of desperation.
- [11:08]
Patrick McEnroe
They, they asked him on set. ESPN said about, you know, now that he's been in the locker room of a major in the semis, only three other people using that locker room. If that kind of helped him, kind of re. Is it going to help him reshape his thinking? I was curious about what your thoughts on that were.
- [11:27]
John McEnroe
Well, I was actually. I was weird. I had a couple of friends. The day after Brooke and I sat in the Royal Box, we went out to Wimbledon. Our kids had never been to a tennis tournament, so they walked around for a little while, and we hosted some friends there. But by hosting some friends, I mean, I went and worked while they were inside the courts. And so to get out of the rain, I was just kind of like, loitering in the Tennis Channel studio, and Taylor came in. And I don't know that we had ever said hello before, but I saw him. And so I just was, like, hiding in the back corner as. As Weisman and JW were. Were talking to him. And he answered your exact observation. He just said, you know, when I lost in the quarters, you know, a couple years ago to Rafa, I knew when I said that I need to get into this position more and more. So what you're talking about, like, you have to understand when you. The first day you get to a Grand Slam, it's a train station. There's so many people. There's, you know, 128 singles players. There are not. And they have two separate locker rooms at Wimbledon. But. And then add two players, at least two people on a team. Then you add everyone else that's. That's involved, and that's before we get to doubles, and that's before we get to, you know, everyone else. And then the last day, it's literally you and, like, four other people in the locker room. It is so weird. And you're just looking at that person and trying to, like, each pretend like it's not one of the biggest days of your life. Like, but those feelings are going to be more comfortable for Taylor Fritz, now that he. This is his. This is his new normal. This is what he does. He, you know, can advance, especially slams on fast surfaces that put a premium on ball striking. This is no surprise for him. You know, he's in the semis, and he would have been one of the seven or eight guys that you said, you know, I didn't. But would. Would have a chance to kind of be in the semis. You know, he's in that conversation. It's not surprising anymore. It's not as if Taylor's making a run. It's like, oh, yeah, Taylor's in the semis. Yeah, he's completely normalized it, which is great. Give us something to watch. I hope, I hope he can make, I hope you can make the final. Would be, would be an unbelievable effort but tough four setter against hatching off and then got some matches tomorrow. Andreva Bencic. My heart's saying Andrea is going to win a bunch of these, you know, so it'd be, it'd be amazing for Ben Chich to come back and awesome, you know, like all of a sudden just, you know, equal best Grand Slam results post motherhood coolest thing ever. Every time someone does it. I don't know if it's just because we love her, but I give credit to Kim Kleisters for like again we talk about Anisomoma hen Samoma. Sorry jet lag in a samova. Normalizing mental health decisions. We talk, you know, about Taylor Fritz normalizing those feelings. Ben Ch coming back after motherhood was normalized because someone else did it. Right. So these are, you know, there's a, maybe an era of connectivity between all of these things. You know, the, the more normal it is, the more within reach it seems. Right. Caboli and Novak, it's going to be a tough one. It's going to be a tough one. They played once before. Wasn't great for Caboli.
- [14:37]
Patrick McEnroe
It was not.
- [14:38]
John McEnroe
I like him though, man. He's super athletic. I. He doesn't see I haven't stood next to him before. He doesn't seem like the biggest guy, but he can let a rep. Tater Chip. He can, he can hit it. He's athletic, he's fun to watch. I saw an interview with his dad and his. You could. His dad was like weeping after he made the quarterfinals. You could tell this was like a big, big deal. So however it shakes out, great result. But I expect Novak. I mean this guy's gonna have to take such risk to get Novak on a, on a grass court. Can lock up middle and he just keeps it down like he keeps it 3 or 4 inches lower than where you want to take a swing at it. And so you're, you're kind of attacking from a place where it's, you're having to bring some pretty thin margins in.
- [15:23]
Patrick McEnroe
So when you, when you say that like it's. He, he has to sit back, but it's not like he can tee off on it the way he normally would want to tee off on it because it's coming three or four inches.
- [15:32]
John McEnroe
Well, it's harder to attack when the ball's down. Like you don't, you can't get you. If, if it's at your knees. You have to create a spin profile to get it up and down. Right. And if it's at your shoulder, you're flattening it out through the court. You get that skip that you see on the grass court, right? Like you know when someone, when you see Taylor with a high forehand on grass, it shoots into the corners, right. Whereas it. Novak keeps it just lower to where you feel like you can't really flatten it out. Or if you do, you can't flatten it out down. So you have to hit it deeper, which brings the baseline in, which brings the sidelines in. It brings all of the trouble in. You're not going to flatten out a ball and hit it on the service line if it's at below your waist. Just doesn't work that way. That's what spin is for, right. You have to create that margin the further down the ball is. IGA Samsonova. I'm like I've said at this whole tournament, I said at the beginning I was having a hard time not choosing her, but I think Eagle looks really good. Like you talk about a great player who struggled on grass year to year and then all of a sudden just like finds it. She looks comfortable.
- [16:33]
Patrick McEnroe
She's super relaxed.
- [16:35]
John McEnroe
Talking comfortable and I mean, she looks great. I like, I like her in this match. She's 4 and a go. 4 no against Samsonova center and Shelton, that's the unknown. I mean, this, this, the schedulers are giving him every chance, right? There's an elbow injury. Well, we're not going to. Just in case it's bad, we're going to put you out on. This isn't tinfoil hat. This isn't real.
- [17:00]
Patrick McEnroe
This is real.
- [17:01]
John McEnroe
No, this is real. Like, okay, well let's, let's play this game because, I mean, Wimbledon knows it that they run such a tight ship. Are you going to put an injury risk on center court? I mean, obviously Novak deserves to be there. He's one in seven. Yeah, well, it's just. Yeah, exactly right. You're. They're putting two men's matches on at the exact same time. Normally they might stagger that a little bit. And they. The women the same time, the men the same time. 1. They're giving him every chance to get that scan back. And I don't know if we've heard the results of it yet, but also like second, you know. Yeah, I mean they're not going to put that out on center and risk him retiring after a set. They just saw that with Dimitrov they don't want that. It's just. That's a tough one to even comment on because we just don't know the status of. Of an elbow. We do know the status of the rate of Ben Shelton's improvement on grass in the last. The last couple of weeks. Like we mentioned on the Redraw show, bit of a dumpster fire at Queens, bit of a dumpster fire at Mallorca, and respect to the Shelton camp because he's. He's playing great now. He really is. I didn't see it coming. I watched the Queensbound, like, the angles to ball, when to fire, when to use, certain ball flights, when to chip. It was just. It felt like it was all kind of confused and. Or it looked like it was confused. And it looks. He's played his way into a lot of comfort on the grass, so props to their team. I like center, if healthy, but that one is like, you have no idea what's going on, right? You pick center, and then all of a sudden he might play three games or he might have an injury. He might feel fine. It might have fallen on it, might have hit his funny ball. You don't. You don't know. We have no insight into their camp, and they normally run a pretty tight ship anyway, so we'll see on that one. But get into the fun part of it, guys. Let's get into the fun part of it.
- [18:46]
Patrick McEnroe
It's good stuff.
- [18:47]
John McEnroe
It is the good stuff.
- [18:48]
Patrick McEnroe
It's been a great tournament. I mean, it's.
- [18:50]
John McEnroe
It was a little like. It wasn't like that shot. It's. It. I feel like we're getting to it now.
- [18:55]
Patrick McEnroe
Really. Oh, I felt like the first couple, like, days were just like shock after shock.
- [19:00]
John McEnroe
Yeah, that's true. But it was like. It was weird. It was like shock after shock. It was like two and two shock. It wasn't like burners.
- [19:07]
Patrick McEnroe
It wasn't like tiebreakers.
- [19:08]
John McEnroe
Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, I guess so. But, yeah, it was, I think, like the. The most electric. I had felt it, like, where I was like, okay, this feels like a heavyweight fight was. Was like the atmosphere of a heavyweight fight was when Sabalenka played Radicanu, like the night session and people getting into that was where it's like, oh, this feels like. All the. All the YouTube comments said that that felt like a final. Yeah, people who went or watched it, they felt that the energy was insane. I mean, obviously Radicanu is a star, and in Britain and everything, the rating on that was insane, too.
- [19:38]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. It was huge. 5 million people on BBC or something.
- [19:40]
John McEnroe
It was massive. And I was over there. It had the feeling of it, too. There's a lot of excitement, but it's getting started. I mean, the big storyline is can Novak wrestle one away from these, the new two, which.
- [19:55]
Patrick McEnroe
There's two Americans in the semifinal. That'd be great.
- [19:59]
John McEnroe
That'd be great. Let's let it happen. Let's make it, let's will it, let's get it done. Come on. This is it. This is the one.
- [20:05]
Patrick McEnroe
Come on, guys.
- [20:05]
John McEnroe
This is it. This is it. Let's do it. 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.
- [20:55]
Samantha Smith
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