SERVED LIVE: Tracy Austin & Brad Gilbert Join the Show | Served with Andy Roddick

Summary

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Podcast Summary: SERVED LIVE: Tracy Austin & Brad Gilbert Join the Show

Served with Andy Roddick | September 3, 2025

Main Theme

Hosted live from the US Open, this episode of SERVED brings together tennis legends Tracy Austin and Brad Gilbert alongside host Andy Roddick and regular Jon Wertheim for a lively, in-depth conversation. The panel explores what it’s like to be a teenage prodigy, the psychological and strategic demands of professional tennis, the evolution of the sport, coaching philosophies, and the futures of today’s stars—while sharing memorable personal stories, on- and off-court wisdom, and plenty of laughs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tracy Austin: Teenage Triumphs & Mental Toughness

• Early Success and Its Surreality

  • Tracy won her first US Open at 16, a feat that seems more surreal in hindsight than it did in the moment:

    “It was not weird then, and it’s very weird now...you’re kind of thinking going in that I can do this.”
    (Tracy Austin, 04:25)

  • She attributes her success at such a young age to gradual progression and lack of “emotional scar tissue” from losses, unlike older players.

• Sheltered Preparation and Coping with Pressure

  • Tracy stayed with a host family during the Open, avoiding the chaos of official practice courts to maintain calm and focus.
  • She and her brother would do tongue twisters to stay loose and distracted from the enormity of the matches.

    “I was so young, I didn’t understand...the consequences.”
    (Tracy Austin, 06:59)

• Sibling Success

  • Tracy won Wimbledon mixed doubles with her brother—emphasizing family support and superstition (ribs every night brought them luck).

• Mental Toughness Origins

  • Tracy credits her mental edge to both her own love of challenge and her famous coach, Robert Lansdorp, noting hours of focus-building drills and games at home:

    “I loved the discipline of it. And then I couldn’t have had a better coach with my personality.”
    (Tracy Austin, 11:06)

• Comparisons with Modern Phenom Coco Gauff

  • While Austin relates to young stars like Coco, she notes that the pressures today are exponentially greater due to the immediacy of social media.

    “I do think that it’s ten times more or a hundred times more.”
    (13:28)

• On Parenting a Pro

  • Austin describes the anxiety and pride of watching her son Brandon on tour—finding it harder than playing herself:

    “We have no control…when you played, we were gonna put it on the line...I have no control when he’s out there.”
    (21:19)

2. The Highs and Lows of Tennis

• Managing Adversity

  • The group agrees the real test is managing the lows, not just enjoying the highs:

    “It’s really about managing the lows, if you can.”
    (Tracy Austin, 17:36)
    “If you’re good at getting up, I think that’s a superpower.”
    (Andy Roddick, 17:47)

• Current Tour Reflections

  • Discussion of Coco Gauff’s battle with serve issues and handling harsh scrutiny—even after big successes.
  • Naomi Osaka’s postpartum resurgence is highlighted, celebrating her adaptation and coaching change.

3. Brad Gilbert: The Evolution of the Men’s Game

• Generational Improvement

  • Brad observes how each generation builds off the last, with today’s young stars (Alcaraz, Sinner) advancing levels of completeness and athleticism that continue to raise the bar.

• Inside the Sinner-Alcaraz Rivalry

  • Sinner is described as a blend of Djokovic’s tenacity and Agassi's aggression, with potential still untapped:

    “If you put Andre and Djokovic in a blender, you get Sinner. His level is outrageous.”
    (Brad Gilbert, 27:33)

• Coaching Modern Players

  • Coaching now involves huge amounts of data—sometimes too much, with Brad preferring to focus on key situational strategies over raw stats.

• Delivering the Coaching Message

  • Gilbert tailors info and motivational techniques to personality—a quick, pointed phrase for Roddick but long tactical talks for Agassi:

    “If you say red, it’s black…your attention span is completely different…”
    (Brad Gilbert to Andy Roddick, 34:02)

4. Strategic and Technical Trends

• Backhand Evolution

  • The demise of the one-handed backhand is discussed, with equipment and game speed cited as major reasons.
  • Gilbert suggests a future hybrid player, switching between one and two-handed backhands, could emerge.

• Serving & Play Style

  • Roddick and Gilbert reminisce about fine-tuning Roddick’s return position, approach patterns, and intentionally short-circuiting opponent rhythm with bold serving and quick points.

5. Coaching, Injury, and Career Management

• Philosophy of Making Adjustments

  • Brad stresses knowing when—and how much—to change, and delivering those tweaks with player context in mind.

• Dealing with Injury Decisions

  • Both Roddick and Gilbert differentiate between being hurt and genuinely injured, weighing short-term risks versus long-term career impacts, with Gilbert lamenting his old-school tendency to never withdraw, even when unwise.

6. US Men’s Tennis Outlook

• While the panel resists naming the “next big thing,” both express optimism at the rising generation and declare big upward potential for players like Ben Shelton, with Brad saying:

  “If he’s a stock, I put a buy rating on that.”
  (Brad Gilbert, 66:46)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Perspective and Young Success:

  “I was so young at 16 that I hadn’t had all of those kind of experiences. So when I beat Martina, my brother said, ‘If you beat Martina, call me, I’ll get on the plane.’”
  (Tracy Austin, 05:52)

• Austin’s Take on Gauff and Osaka:

  “Even Sabalenka is number one in the world…everybody here, they want to watch Coco play.”
  (Tracy Austin, 14:15)
  “Osaka…a year and nine months from coming back from maternity leave…now into the quarters—she hasn’t been into the quarters in four and a half years.”
  (Tracy Austin, 15:41)

• On Resilience:

  "It’s about getting up. If you’re good at getting up. I think that’s a superpower…I really do."
  (Andy Roddick, 17:47)

• On Potential and Complacency:

  “If you’re 24 years old and you’re satisfied with where you are, then that’s what happens to you… Sinner, who seems to be a much older soul…always focused on talking about the narrative about he doesn’t think he’s that good…always needs to get better.”
  (Brad Gilbert, 27:58)

• On Data and Intangibles:

  “My first thought is, you know, they have all of that data on you and the algorithm…isn’t taking any human factor into it.”
  (Brad Gilbert, 30:58)

• On Coaching Styles:

  “Andre liked to discuss in great length, and you didn’t. If I started getting in great length with you, you would tune it out.”
  (Brad Gilbert to Andy Roddick, 34:02)

• Unique Stories:

  • Brad coached Agassi while still competing:

    “Sorry, Andre, I can’t sit in your box because I’m third on court seven. How does that work?...That’s exactly what happened.”
    (43:01)

  • Agassi’s sportsmanship—delaying a final so Pete Sampras could recover from illness, then losing with grace.
    (48:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tracy Austin Segment

  • Introduction & Winning US Open at 16 – 03:37
  • Coping with pressure, tongue twisters – 06:59
  • Sibling doubles win & rituals – 08:47
  • What builds mental toughness – 11:06
  • Austin on Gauff, Osaka, differences for young stars – 13:28–15:41
  • Parenting a pro, Brandon Austin – 18:48–21:19
  • Reflections on resilience – 17:36–18:29

• Brad Gilbert Segment

  • Evolution of the men’s game/Sinner & Alcaraz – 25:21–29:19
  • Data in coaching – 30:57–32:40
  • Delivering coaching feedback, individualized approaches – 32:40–36:32
  • Technical adjustments in Roddick's game – 36:32–37:25
  • Player injuries, competing when hurt – 57:59–62:35
  • US men’s prospects, Ben Shelton – 64:41–66:46
  • Listener Q&A on injuries, strategy, and US men’s chances – 55:25–68:31

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Tone & Atmosphere

• Casual, quick-witted banter (“our dumb little tennis pod”), with Roddick’s self-deprecation and sharp humor throughout.
• Deep camaraderie and mutual respect, especially during the personal reminiscing segments.
• Lively interplay with the live audience, especially during Q&A.
• Honest and emotionally open, especially around the challenges of parenting, loss, and resilience.

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Conclusion

This episode brings fans inside both the glory and grind of professional tennis, illuminating the psychological, tactical, and emotional journeys of champions old and new. Tracy Austin and Brad Gilbert offer rare personal and professional wisdom, perfectly matched by Roddick and Wertheim’s insightful commentary and humor. Whether discussing teenage majors, world-beating resilience, or the chess of top-level coaching, this is a must-listen for tennis devotees and sports fans alike.

Transcript

[A]

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. Support comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built on. With ServiceNow AI platform, your AI data and workflows all work together, connecting every corner of your business. To see how you can put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com AI agents break the ice. Oh, gosh, John, don't open that Olipop. Yeah, plan that. So the, the guy who is just using his face to stop his fall is producer Mike right here. My man, John Worth. I'm, you know, I'm from tennis channel. Little show called 60 Minutes. Thank you for having us. This is our dumb little tennis show called Served. We appreciate you caring enough to come out and talk. Talk some things. US Open. We have two really special surprise guests, all brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, it is on Prime. We appreciate your support. It has been fantastic. Okay, I got a question for you, Mike. When you're not falling up the stairs, which is often when you're not falling up the stairs. Can you. Let's, like, let's, let's take it back for a second. Okay. Let's go way back. What would you say, like, your biggest accomplishment was, like, when you were 16?

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I was probably showing up to school on time or not falling up steps. Like, really overachieving. Yeah, like, really big stuff. I set the bar low. Okay, like, what was like your, like, that's the best of it. That's the best of it. That was. That was it. That was the best of it. That was it. And then like, what were your dumbest decisions? Oh, man, I don't think I can say these. Okay, so you're not gonna answer, jw, like, what would your average thing be when you were like 16? Like, I went to bed until I was 11.

[C]

I'm thinking it's 16.

[A]

That's okay to laugh. It's fine. I'm not ashamed anymore. We're fine.

[C]

16. I got in trouble for trying to get gum out of my shoe with a hammer and a nail, and I did get a driver's license. That was pretty cool.

[A]

Well, you guys, I don't know where.

[C]

You'Re going with this, but.

[A]

Well, I'll tell you where I'm going to go. Where I'm going with this. Our first special guest, while you guys, while you were trying to get gum off of your shoe with a hammer, and you were like, learned how to use an alarm clock. Our first guest was winning the US Open at 16 years old in 1979. And then it's like, okay, well, it's not 16, but won it again at 18 years old. Hall of Famer, Very, very good friend of mine. Put your hands together for two time US Open champion, Tracy Austin. Watch those stairs. Yeah, watch the stairs.

[D]

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Great to be here.

[A]

Tracy Austin, everyone.

[D]

Hi, Andy.

[A]

Hi. This is fun. So Tracy and I, for the last, like, 13 years, we kind of have this, like, shtick thing we do for various corporate sponsors over at the US Open. I gotta be honest, I call tracy for this U.S. open, for this tournament.

[D]

For these two weeks.

[A]

For these two weeks. We see so much of each other. I call her my work wife, which is strange when your real wife is in the audience. Also. Also weird. Tracy, 16 years old, you win the US Open. That's a. Is that, like. Is that still weird for you? Was it never weird for you?

[D]

It was not weird then, and it's very weird now because when you're playing and you're starting to play on the Tour when you're 14, you did it.

[A]

Yeah. Like, you guys can relate, right?

[D]

No, no, no. But, Andy, you did it so young. You were less than 21. You won the U.S. open, so you did the same thing, but you kind of progress gradually and you move up and it's the next thing, and then, you know, you're losing to Chris and Martina. You finally beat them. Then you're able to beat them at the Open, and it's a progression. So you're kind of thinking going in that I can do this, because I think I was, you know, top three in the world. It wasn't like it came out of nowhere, like Raducannu. But now that I have or we have three boys of our own, and they were just trying to get out of the driveway at 16 without crashing him. I kind of. It's surreal. It does feel. And you gave the year, Andy. You're not supposed to do that. You're just supposed to say 16 and 18. Otherwise they're all doing math right now and figuring out how old I am.

[A]

That's my bad.

[D]

You're bad. That's just one for today. But so, yeah, I mean, it's definitely surreal and kind of weird to think about.

[A]

Did you, Were you too young to understand, like, consequence? Like, I know the last major final I played, I was the most nervous as opposed to like the first couple I played where it's like, it's all ahead of you. Were you aware enough? Kind of aware? Was it just fun, cool? You know, I just, it was just, it was just go casually be Chris, Chrissy and Martina.

[D]

Yeah, it was almost like a great thing that I was so young and that I didn't have a lot of school scar tissue. I think there are a lot of players that play, you know, 10, 12, 15, 20 grand slams and losing the quarters, lose heartbreakers in the semis, and then it starts to build up. But I was so young at 16 that I hadn't had all of those kind of experiences. So when I beat Martina, my brother said, if you beat Martina, call me, I'll get on the plane. So I beat Martina, got on the plane, and it was kind of like we stayed at a house that I'd been staying with this family in, in Long island since I was 10 years old, so it was really cool. On the off days, I didn't even come into town to play here. Yeah, I just, they had a house with a tennis court, so probably not even the same surface or the same speed, but it was more important just to kind of chill. It's chaotic over there, you know, the US Open, there's so many people practice courts, you lose energy. So I stayed there and coming to the US Open kind of was doing tongue twisters with my brother. Wasn't aware that beating Chris, she was a four time champion already.

[A]

Can we, can we talk about tongue twisters?

[D]

Tongue twisters? Yeah, tongue twisters. And, you know, so I think it was, I was so young, I didn't understand, as you said, the consequences. And then when you beat Martina and then Chris and you're doing the Today show and the, you know, Good Morning America and your life changes and it's upside down. I'm sure you did the same. I always say, you know, you're kind of not a major champion or you are, and when you are, your world changes. Yours must have done the same.

[A]

Yeah, it did, but I think there's.

[D]

I remember playing ping pong with you during the Tournament before you won.

[A]

Is that right?

[D]

Yeah, I remember we played against the Bryan brothers.

[A]

Who won. That's a tough matchup. We did.

[D]

Yeah. Because you were so good.

[A]

Oh, sweet. Say it again. Say it again. Who did we. Who did we beat?

[D]

The Bryan brothers.

[C]

Why?

[D]

Greatest double of all time.

[C]

Hall of Famers.

[D]

That was not because of me.

[A]

That's not. Well, you say that, but that's not your biggest mixed doubles victory. You. You won. How's this? Okay, so you casually win the USA first.

[D]

Andy, you got to show them your notes.

[A]

For what?

[D]

Yeah. How much cares for this. I just love this.

[C]

You're going to pull back the curtain on our.

[A]

I'll do it. This is the served research department.

[D]

There it is. I mean that. It's like four words. Andy.

[C]

Yeah. Tracy and Austin.

[D]

I love.

[A]

It. So I don't think they care about our notes. They probably care more about.

[D]

So I think it's cool, though. You're just so. You're just so well versed, you just go with it.

[A]

Who did we beat in ping pong?

[D]

The Brian.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

Bob and Mike Bryan, who just got inducted last week.

[A]

That's right. They. Yeah, you won. This is also interesting. Like, I'm just trying to imagine your world in this moment in time. Like, you. You see the. The pictures of Tracy, it's like pigtail. I mean, it's just. It's the best. You also won a mixed doubles Grand Slam with your brother. Yeah, like, I mean, that's a. That's like a huge thing. Like, that's like a dream of anyone. Who was that? Like just a cat.

[D]

You had a brother that played so well.

[A]

Yeah, well, no, we didn't win anything. No, like we would. The Brian's in ping pong.

[D]

No, it was pretty special. Wimbledon has played on grass, as you all know, and I just thought it would be good to play a few more matches on that surface under pressure with returns and serves and such. So John and I, my older brother, who was ranked about maybe 60 in the world, decided to play mixed doubles and just thinking, you know, just a little bit extra. And then we kind of were beating Yvonne Gulagong and John Newcombe and then. And then VJ Arbitrage and Virginia Wade, and we just kept going and it was kind of cool because our other siblings were there, our parents were there. So every night we'd go, and I don't know about you, but I'm very superstitious. So I had ribs the first night.

[A]

I'm just. I'm just a little Stitches, Yes.

[D]

So then I had to have ribs every single night, you know, ribs again. I think I gained five pounds during that tournament, ten pounds. So, yeah. And so it was, it was really special to win with a sibling. We were the first brother sister team to win. And you know, I think you could either kind of get on each other's nerves or you could really support each other. And he knew exactly what to say when it was my turn to serve because I was always panicked about my serve. Didn't have a serve like you. And he knew exactly what to do to kind of take the pressure off. So to feel that moment and to have that moment together all these years even is really special.

[C]

So let me ask how many of you guys are going to the tennis after this? So when you walk in this gate out here, you will see a plaque of two time champion Tracy Austin. And you know what it says? Unrivaled mental toughness. And we've seen teenagers come on and, you know, make a splash in this sport, but usually they come with this precocious power, right? But Jennifer Capriotti was ripping the ball on Venus and even, you know, the gentleman two seats over Tracy Austin, this lovely woman here was the most.

[D]

You don't see power. You don't see power here, John.

[C]

This is not someone hitting 120 miles an hour. This was a ferocious competitor though, as a teenager in particular, though. Where do you source that from? Where does that mental toughness come from? Can you.

[D]

I hate talking about myself this whole time.

[A]

What did you think was gonna happen when you came here?

[D]

That's the whole point right over there.

[C]

Let's do tongue twisters.

[A]

How much? But like, was it natural, ingrained practice?

[D]

It was. It's funny growing up though, I did that game concentration with the cards where you flip over just two, you know, two at pairs with my dad almost every night. I loved, I just, I just love things like that are my coach, who was also coach Sharapova and Lindsey Davenport and Pete Sampras. He did these relentless drills. I'm sure you've heard of Robert Landsdorp. And you would get. Have to hit 20 in a row and if you got to 18, you'd have to start over again. I loved it. Everybody else was like, that's enough of that. That sounds boring, tedious. And I love the challenge of that. So I think it was kind of innate for me. I loved the discipline of it. And then I couldn't have had a better coach with my personality. Not everybody loved that type of thing, but Robert, I think brought out the best in. Funny enough, when Maria came, Maria Sharapova, when she was nine years old to work with Robert, he said actually her focus wasn't that great. We know what it became really. Five time major champion. So he had these drills and he'd cheat you on purpose. Like it'd be 14 to 7 for me and he'd go 14 to 7 and I'd be ah, you know, he try on purpose and he knew kind of chuckle with it to kind of deal with adversity. Lots of different spins, slices, top spins, anything to try to, to really prepare you for all that was going to come.

[A]

Something that I want to one Tracy, there's. She has better things to do. So she's going to head out of here in a little bit. But one thing I think you have a unique, or you probably have a unique perspective on is like the pressure systems. Right. We've seen this week. Coco, who's one of the most mentally tough humans I've ever seen. Right. Had a moment and where it was too much laid bare and 24,000 people watching and you're dealing with parts of your game that you feel like you're not completely in control of. And we forget. Coco's been around for a long time. She's 22.

[D]

She's 21.

[A]

21, sorry, 21. The research department. So she's 21. But can you talk through when you watch a Coco or someone else who is a young phenom, do you feel like you can relate on a certain level? Do you understand what she's going through? Or is it different in this day and age where you can't actually. We actually talk about the way over here that you can't actually escape it. Right. With social media, with everything else. Do you ever compare and contrast what it was like for you versus what it was like for Coco? And do you feel like a kinship with phenoms?

[D]

Absolutely. I do think that it's 10 times more or 100 times more. Because now. Yes, absolutely, you cannot escape it. I mean, there was magazine articles, there was newspaper articles that were going to come out the next day. This is immediate. It's immediate response in P1 through P5. Right. If we go out there and practice. We saw Coco the other day practicing her serve with her new service coach, Gavin McMillan, who had actually fixed Sabalenka's serve three years ago. Two, three years ago when she got the yips. So Coco broke up with Matt Daly and brought on Gavin to try to fix the serve. That's hard to do, but I actually respect her immensely. Two, three days before the Open starts.

[A]

That's a tough ask.

[D]

That's a tough ask to technically try to change your serve. I mean, we're already thinking about so much. And you think about what Coco's taking on so many endorsements. I think she's done an amazing job, no doubt. But on the women's side at the US Open, it's Coco golf first and others. Even Sabalenka is number one in the world. Everybody that goes here, they want to watch Coco play. What she did at Roland Garros this year was phenomenal. That wasn't as much a tactical match, a tennis match, as it was just an athlete digging in with her legs and saying, I'm going to get every ball back in play and digging in with her mind and saying, this is how I'm going to play in this nasty wind. And Sabalenka kind of disintegrated, was complaining about the wind. And that was hard to see, actually, someone number one. It's windy on Coco's side as well. But Koko realized that those are the conditions that she was going to have to deal with and extracted about 70 unforced airs from Sabalenka. So just all of the pressures that she has, it sounds. Sometimes it's a great thing, obviously, but it's also every moment that where everywhere she goes, I mean, you see it everywhere you go. Once somebody wants an autograph, sometimes you're having a tough day or you're having a tough moment, and then people will say, oh, Coco wasn't that kind to me in that five seconds. So it's a lot. And I loved Coco's attitude after she lost that match. It was a very difficult match to play against Osaka, by the way, can we give.

[A]

Osaka played an amazing.

[D]

Can we give her kudos? She's a year and nine months from coming back from maternity leave and just brought on Thomas Wichterowski about a month ago at the Canadian Open up in Montreal, first tournament back. Something he said clicked because she got to the finals, the best tournament that she's had since she had her baby. And then now into the quarters. She hasn't been into the quarters in four and a half years and played incredible. I think the best matches she's played. He's worked on her defense, he's worked on, you know, so many areas of her game, but worked on her consistency before she would try to hit winners, I think too soon in the point. She's trusting Herself more. And she just broke down Coco's forehand. That was tough to watch. I mean, we've played at that level with all those people watching. I don't think I've never played where I had a stroke that was so deficient that it kind of lack of confidence breaks breeds into the rest of your game, bleeds into the rest of your game. That's gotta be tough for Coco. So she's. Last thing I was going to say is Coco, the way that she handled it. She said, I'm 21. I hope her team helped her with this. And I'm noticing that 25, 26 jabalinkas in that range. She's got so many years to still compete and get better and really become even a more well rounded player.

[C]

Isn't that a great virtue of tennis though, that you can win a major like less than 90 days ago and suddenly you're struggling. The flip side is you can, you know, Naomi Osaka was really struggling and wasn't getting the second week of majors. Makes a coaching change. When was that? Like August 1st.

[A]

And now she's, you know, in the quarters of the US Open, we were, we were discussing whether Iga Swiatek was going to stay in the top 10. Like, like, like French.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

10 seconds ago.

[C]

Exactly.

[D]

All of a sudden wins. Wimbledon hadn't been past the quarters. How about Jannik Sinner losing those three championship points in a row?

[C]

Oh, man, he's going to have a long time to recover. That could be a year to come.

[D]

That's.

[C]

That's our tissue.

[D]

That's what sports is about. It's about trying to deal with. I think it's. Andy, you tell me. But it's. The highs are great, the wins are fantastic, but it's really about managing the lows, if you can.

[A]

Well, it's about getting, it's about, it's about getting up. Getting up, if you're good at getting up. I think that's, I think that's a superpower. I really do.

[D]

And during a match as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

That's what Coco does so well. It doesn't matter what the score is. She truly believes. I think actually Taylor Fritz does a good job with that. I mean, I think the champions do they truly believe no matter what the score is, I'm going to figure a way out of this match.

[A]

Yeah. And I think the biggest misconception is that when you're down and out, like you have to feel good about going to work.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You don't. But you still gotta get your reps in, right? Like you don't, you don't have to. Not warm and fuzzy. You lose a Wimbledon final, you come home, your heart hurts on the next Thursday. But like, you get up and you do your work and then you go home and be sad. But get your work in, right.

[D]

I always say you give 100% of what you have that day.

[A]

Yeah, that's a great way to put it.

[D]

If you got 60% that day, even with your kids, if they've only studied so much and they've got a final tomorrow on Friday and you haven't had time because of other reasons, well, give 100% of what you got that day. Some days you're going to get. You're tired. You played a five setter. I played a three setter the day before. And you just got to give, give what you got.

[A]

Something else that is amazing to me is with all of your successes, the most rattled that I think I will ever see you is Tracy. I know where you're going with Tracy's. Tracy's son, Brandon is a, he made the top 100 this year on the, on the tour, has played in US Open, beat a guy named Taylor Fritz a couple of years ago at this home slam. Talk us through. It's this sport, right? It's this sport that you've known for your entire life, that you're comfortable with. You're comfortable with the orbit of it, you know, how it all works. And then you have a son who's playing the US Open. Does it feel like you know nothing when you go to watch him play or do you know me get anxious.

[D]

Right now just talking about it?

[A]

It's going to be fine. It's all going to be. It's all going to be okay. Yes.

[D]

I don't need to go to therapy.

[A]

But talk us through like the, the pride mechanisms, how hard it is when to jump in, when to stay back like that. That's not easy.

[D]

No, it is. It's. It's really tough. I think it's actually one of the most proud things I am of. If that's good English. Not sure. But of our three boys, I'll tell you very quickly. Our first son came along. He was playing a tournament and my husband and, and his, his dad took Dylan, the oldest, I think this is okay to say. And it was a Saturday. And Dylan said before the match, he said, okay, dad, let me get this straight. If I win today, do I have to come back tomorrow? I don't think we really are going to be, you know, playing Any matches on the pro tour. So we had to pull back, which was hard for me. You seem to have done it very well. But it was really hard for me not to go full throttle in everything that I do. So I'm like, okay, we're just going to hang here. And then Brandon came along. This number two. He loses seven five in the third. And I'm going, let's go get some ice cream. Ice cream. I just lost seven five in the third. I'm like, oh, we got a live one here.

[C]

Tracy here.

[D]

I realized at that point that I had to pay much more attention as a parent, that they're not all the same. Right. And I have to really, really pay attention to what's happening. And then with Brandon, this is going everywhere. Andy. Right? I mean, he's probably going to hear this.

[A]

No one listens to the show.

[D]

No one listens. There's nobod. But he doesn't always want to listen to what I say. So oftentimes you kind of just, oh, don't listen to this part, Brandon. Oftentimes I'll just go through the coach, you know? Oh, yeah, I do have the coach's phone number. Brandon. Sorry.

[A]

Oh, breaking news.

[D]

Oh, you draw this out of me every time.

[C]

Have couches next time.

[D]

Yeah, but it is hard to watch him play because you want your children to do so well. And also, we have no control. Like, you feel like when you played or we played, we were ready to go and we were going to put it on the line, and what happened, happened. I have no control when he's out there, and I just want him to be happy. Right.

[A]

What did Rafa say that one time? What happened is happened.

[D]

It's happening in Rome. Happened in Rome. What happened in Monte Carlo. I've been in Monte Carlo. What's happening?

[A]

I've never seen this side of you. It's amazing.

[D]

Andy brings us out. I tell you what we got to talk about when we do our shtick.

[A]

You're the one that has a schedule. I'll stay here all day. Like, I'm trying.

[D]

I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry.

[A]

I'm trying to. I'm trying to get you to your next.

[D]

Andy. I just want to talk about him for one second. He is the kindest because we go to suites, and we sometimes do it for four hours at a time. One suite. And, you know, we'll go nine, ten different suites, and we're talking to the different people, but we got to tell the same story. And so I'm sitting there and he tells all of a sudden this joke out of left field, and I've got to deal with that. And then we go back and forth, back and forth. But he makes it fun. I don't even feel like we should be paid because we have such a good time.

[A]

The only part that's kind of rough about it is that Tracy uses filthy language. Just. Just disgusting. Tracy, you know I love you. You know I appreciate you. You're a legend of the sport. The sport's better for having had you in it. Ladies and gentlemen, Tracy Austin.

[D]

Thank you, Andy. Congratulations, guys. You guys are awesome.

[A]

Support for the show comes from Amazon Prime. You might know prime for fast, free delivery or maybe as your favorite place to stream shows, movies, and sports. But it's also a great way to dive deeper into your hobbies and passions. Into cooking, you can buy new cutlery at the same time you watch your favorite cooking show on prime video. Into crafting. Prime can be your gateway to a kingdom of yarn and felt. Is it finally time to fix those broken drawers? Yes, it was a year ago. You can find the tools on Prime. If you're thinking about picking up a new hobby, prime makes it easy to dive in. From getting how to books to making playlists on Amazon music that keep you pumped while you organize your new model trains. Prime helps you go from maybe I'll try it to I'm now obsessed with this in no time. I've used prime this week to buy a finger splint for a kid's finger that got stuck in a door. I got an Earth, Wind and Fire album cover, a Little League chest protector, techie shoot. Sean, what's the last thing that you bought on Prime? Look quickly. I got some trail mix for the office. Great story. Super exciting. The point is, whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do. There's a lot of talk about AI out there right now, and a lot of times the AI you hear about feels like it's hard to grasp. But ServiceNow is here to work with people and tackle the boring, busy work that always gets in the way. The stuff that slows you down and keeps you from doing the stuff you actually want to be doing. And they do it with their AI agents. By being built into the ServiceNow platform, they automate millions of repetitive tasks across it. HR, customer service, and more. You can Automate any process with AI powered workflow generation. That means you can build workflows with reusable components, configurable playbooks, process mining and advanced decision support so your people can focus on what really matters. And that's putting AI agents to work for the people. Find out how to get started at servicenow.com AI-agents is our next guest here? I don't. He's here. All right, well then let's get right to it. To help us with this portion, we're going to chat about the US Open for a little bit. We're going to get into some, some Q and A, if you guys have any. I thought, who better than one of the best coaches that has ever lived? Brad Gilbert's here with us.

[B]

Flashlight on him.

[C]

All right. Big pressure. You know who you succeeded up here?

[A]

Athletes manage better.

[B]

Okay, I'll take my hat off.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Show you my bald dome.

[A]

Yeah, I got one of those. How's it going, bg?

[B]

It's going okay. You know, we're getting to the business end and you know, as you get older, you, you kind of, you know, this term is now three weeks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that first week and then you start getting here and you start really kind of seeing where the tournament's going and you kind of thought where the men's started were exactly where you thought you'd be. And you're kind of exactly thinking where we're going.

[A]

Yeah. Talk about, we'll stick with the men's for a second, but talk through, you know, from Andre and Pete, you know, when you, when you started with Andre, back to when you were, you were playing and there were great players. You know, you're talking, you know, Becker, Edberg and the end of Macanaro, Connors. And so you've seen greatness in all its form. You've played against it, you've coached against it, you've coached against Federer when we were together. And then these two come along again. And is it just the constant kind of improvement over time? Right. Like I, like we would play Pete, but like you, you could play Pete and it's like, okay, if you can hit a kick serve out of his zone on the backhand side, you got something to play with. Right. He was great at every other thing. But are these players now building off of Rafa, Roger, Novak, et cetera, as complete as you've seen?

[B]

Absolutely. Because if you've seen like some 12 year old kids now, the level of kids and all different sports, because everybody's all in on one sport. And you'll see kids, meaning that you're.

[A]

Not playing baseball, football, you're committing earlier.

[B]

You're just playing with one sport and the level that you're seeing and you know, the commitment. I thought in 22, when Alcaraz won here, at first, you know, it kind of took me back that like, wow, maybe this guy's going to jump in. And then in 23, Djoka Re established himself. So if you'd have told me at the start of 24 that Djokovic wouldn't win one from, you know, that point I was at, no way. But it's not like Alcaraz and Sinner have been given anything. These two guys have taken it and they've run with it. If you put Andre and Djokovic in a blender, you get Sinner. His level is outrageous. Right now. I'm just shocked. And honestly, what's even more surprising is I don't think he's anywhere near the finished product.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait. But like, explain that. What I mean, he makes the adjustment on the serve, he now's got a little bit of, where's the Swiss cheese?

[C]

What are the holes in that game?

[B]

See, this is a great question. And you know the answer. If you're 24 years old and you're satisfied with where you are, then that's what happens to you. And if you're 24 years old, like Sinner, who seems to be a much older soul than he is, and he's always focused on talking about the narrative about he doesn't think he's that good, you know, I need to get better.

[A]

I call bullshit.

[B]

But he, I. But Rafa was like that. He's very humble. He's very motivated to get better. And I think that the fact that he has somebody in Alcaraz that he knows that if he doesn't get better, might, you know, eclipse him. So I think that, you know, keeps him motivated. And then that's, you know, for everybody else now to. To potentially get in the mix. I don't think it's possible at this moment, you know, unless I'm wrong, that anybody could beat those two guys back to back. That's how good they are. And I hate comparing them to the big three, because it's like, they were amazing, but these two guys now are taking it and they're 24 and 22. Maybe we check back in 10 years and it'll be the next two that. Wow. You know, but honestly, I thought we would be in a three to five year period.

[A]

Parody of.

[B]

Yeah, who would be the guy? Well, they've erased that.

[C]

That's great though. Anyone else still trying to get the image of Novak and Andre in a blender out of their head? Let me ask you an adjacent question. I do these interviews and one thing I always notice is there's so much talk about pressure. I didn't feel the pressure. I felt the pressure. I did. When you're in coach mode, whether it's Andy or Coco or whoever, how do you explain to you you're trying to get the player motivated. You want them to explain the way to the occasion, but you don't want to add to the pressure. How do you coach and reduce pressure and not intensify it?

[B]

You know, it's an interesting thought, but, you know, I'm a quirky dude. I like waking up at 3am and thinking about the match or how you're going to help in some way make a difference. You don't win the match, you don't lose the match. But honestly, I get much less nervous about the coaching than if you had to play like I had to play, you'd be nervous, you know, so, so part of it is.

[C]

We know what he means by that, right?

[B]

You know, part of it is you, you're helping the player try to figure out how to maximize what they do well and understand what's on the other side of the net. And you, it, I try to make it, you know, as less complicated as you can. And the one thing about coaching now, it's become way more complicated in that man, when I was coaching Coco, they would send me 350 pages of data a day.

[A]

Who's they?

[B]

Her dad and the team and from four different sites and everything like that. And my first thought is, you know, they have all of that data on you and the algorithm that's writing it isn't taking any human factor into it that, okay, we know they're going to play her forehead. I don't care what it says or there's some of these things and a lot of coaches now in a lot of sports only hide behind the data.

[A]

Well, the other thing with that is, and this is something that amongst other things, and I want to answer the. How do you deliver the message for the thing? Because I have my own personal thing. But it's also about the data set values 15 all in game one, the same as it does a point at five all in the third set breaker. So it's like you were very good at. Okay, listen, this person has likes this shape, they cut their serve, take their most uncomfortable serve, you know, give that to them, right? Make them use, take away their strength, make them hit the weak spot. So is your thing like the data set doesn't tell the entire story?

[B]

Well, I'll just know this. If I told Andre that The data said 90% of the time on this big point, he's going wide at the back end. Andre's backhand's way better. And then the one time he does it and Pete could, could beat an algorithm, you know, he could change. Great players can make adjustments on the fly and a lot of times data is great over a long period of time, but in a one off match situation, you have to be prepared that your opponent can make adjustments. And there's a really good chance that at the business end of the tournament that guy or girl's level is good enough to make a change that day.

[A]

I'll tell you one thing that I'm fascinated about because I'm not good at it. When you know, someone comes into work for a couple of days, I know what I think. I can analyze matches. I can sit here and talk on our dumb little tennis pod for days upon days about what I see, but I'm in a hurry to deliver the information right. The best coaches that I'm now learning from talking to you and Killer Cahill came on is the timing and how to deliver a message, right? Talk about the different personalities that you've worked with. Because I remember the morning of our U.S. open final, you know, it's kind of hectic. We play five sets. You know, you're treating feet that have blisters and eating and you know, all of a sudden you wake up and it's that day and you treat it like no other different. I remember us walking off the court for warmups and it was very simple. Make this a heavyweight fight. Your biggest punch is bigger than this big. This guy's biggest punch. Impose your will on him. And it's like, oh, okay, we could have talked for 25 minutes about something. But that, like, that's the last thought I had right after, before it was actually time to settle in and, and kind of think about things.

[B]

So what's really important about coaching, See you, if you say red, it's black. If you say, you know, you have a little argument of side to you and, and your attention span is completely different.

[A]

What you're, you know, this guy just.

[B]

You know, hey, I'm, you know, we're all, all, we're all in this sport. You got quirky and you part of understanding Coaching is okay. Andre liked to discuss in great length, and you didn't. If I started getting in great length with you, you would tune it out. Maybe the message wouldn't get, you know, what we needed. And sometimes with players, just because it works with one person doesn't mean it's going to work with another. And that's the really important thing about coaching. And I'm not a type of coach that has a philosophy. You know, some football coaches only have a philosophy. And I'm like, what happens if you don't have the players for your philosophy?

[A]

Explain. Explain that. Like, so if you played a certain way, you can coach that way. But are you saying, like, you have to see it through the player's eyes and adjust or is it just. It's not one size fits all?

[B]

Well, I think I learned on the fly when I was playing myself and coaching Andre. And instantly, when you think about tactics, sometimes you think about it through your own lens, what you might have done, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever through Andre's lens. So I started instantly understanding that. Okay, when I start thinking about tactics, it's not what I would do. It's only what Andre would do to be successful and take, you know, going from Andre, who's detail oriented insanely, to you, who everything is in short burst, and things gotta happen differently. And sometimes you like to be challenged and not. And you have to understand how the best way that you can navigate and communicate with the player and I adjust to whoever I'm coaching that. How are we just going to make you a little bit better? Because I always feel like the difference between being really good and being great is only, you know, 2, 3%. And if you can find that, you know, find that, you know, we made one little tweak with you. Do you remember the one little tweak that we made besides getting rid of the visor?

[A]

I was going to say. I was. I was going to say. I was going to say visor. I also think that had I kept the visor, I would have gotten like the sunshine and I'd be like, buckwheat right now. I'd be like, what's the answer?

[B]

No, no. The one thing we changed right away on your game, for some reason, I, you know, I'm watching, you know, a couple days into practice, I didn't get why you were standing on the baseline to return serve. And I was feeling like, you know what? You don't have Andre's hands, you missed too many returns, you have an unbelievable serve. But if we move you back, especially early in sets. You make a return here, maybe a guy gets tight. Players don't tend to play good games out the gate. Maybe you could steal a serve in the first two games. Maybe it turns into 27 minute set the way you could hold. So that little adjustment, all of a sudden you started making a few more returns. Not as offensive, but numbers. That numbers mattered. And I felt like it changed sets for you quickly.

[A]

Yeah, no, I agree. You say that you kind of. How long does it take you to get the cadence of when to jump in and when to jump out? Because I think something that is maybe not talked about enough when it comes to coaching. Everyone can instantly tell you what a coach does. Great. Right. But restraint is something that's not talked about enough in coaching. Right. Sometimes it can be what you're not saying, or if you're holding it back for two or three weeks for the right time. Can people handle eight things at one time or is it one thing? When do you feel comfortable in a player coach relationship? Are you observing for the first month or do you go in thinking in a couple of things, or is that up in the air as well?

[B]

God, you're making me question myself. You know, honestly, if I walk on the court, you know, I go to work and I think about whoever I'm coaching, whether or not it's a 4, 5 player, whether or not it's a junior, you start thinking about day one, how are we going to get better? And my first thought is, and I've never changed from this. Whatever happened, I'm sure whatever happened before doesn't matter. It ain't coming back. So you start with going forward. What's the point of waiting a month? Heck, I mean, you know, I'm going to. If I think something, I'm going to tell you. And if I'm waiting a month, what.

[A]

If you think six things? Do you go one at a time or are we just opening the floodgates?

[B]

You know, if we're thinking six things.

[A]

Houston, we got, you know, you didn't take the job.

[B]

There's a few more problems. But honestly, you always feel like there's a way. There's light at the end of the tunnel. And more often than not, Tracy brought it up. It's about. And it was about. My whole tennis career, my whole tennis life is about managing your game. Obviously, when you have more skills, it's still about managing your game, how to maximize it. And with you, we didn't make that many tweaks. You know, it was Little things. You know, I remember about day three or four when I was coaching Andy. Instantly everybody wanted me to get you to come to Netmoor. And then I was thinking, God, you had this cup on your forehand volley.

[A]

Still have it?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Great.

[B]

And you could get passed in a phone booth. He didn't cover them well. And it was like. So I was thinking like, you know, we gotta be a little more selective about coming in and wait for the right opportunity because it's easy sometimes to look at somebody one strength and think they can do another. So I feel like, you know, I had a coach that would tell me in college, Alan Fox. You ever meet Alan Fox? He would tell me, no matter what, on everything, come to the net. And that was his thing. He would always, you know, and I always tell him it's like I feel much more confident on the baseline. No, no, no, but you'll present it. And I was like, Alan, you know, it sounds good in theory, but he was a net player, he came in on everything. And it just didn't work for my game at 20. And I was really stubborn about it, but I never forgot it. And six or seven years later, when I actually felt a little bit better about how I volid it made more sense. But at that point I wasn't ready and nor did I have any confidence in it. And sometimes if you rush something that you know they're not ready for or she's not ready for, it can cause more problems and. But you want to get to something if it doesn't work well, especially in today's game.

[C]

So I was going to ask you a big macro tennis question, but you said something earlier that I can't. I'm still trying to. Did you say you were playing while coaching Andre?

[B]

Yeah. You didn't know?

[A]

How does.

[C]

I knew. So tell us, tell people how that works. Sorry, Andre, I can't sit in your box because I'm third on court seven. How does that work?

[B]

That's exactly what happened.

[E]

Support for this show comes from pure leaf iced tea. You know that point in the afternoon when you just hit a wall. You don't have time for self care rituals or getting some fresh air. So maybe you grab a beverage to bring you back, but somehow it doesn't do the trick or it leaves you feeling even worse. What you need is a quality break, a tea break. And you can do that with pure leaf iced tea. Real brewed tea made in a variety of bold and refreshing flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine with a Pure Leaf iced tea. Tea in hand, you'll be left feeling refreshed and revitalized with a new motivation 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.

[D]

You're basking on a beach in the Bahamas. Now you're journeying through the jade forests of Japan. Now you're there for your alma mater's epic win. And now you're awake. Womp, womp. Which means it was all a dream. But with millions of incredible deals on Priceline, those travel dreams can be a reality. Download the Priceline app today, and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip.

[E]

Book it with Priceline Audio.

[B]

Happy price.

[A]

Priceline.

[C]

Did you say you were playing while coaching Andre?

[B]

Yeah. You didn't know?

[C]

How does.

[A]

I knew.

[C]

So tell us. Tell people how that works.

[B]

So it was in Key Biscayne when they were playing, you know, back on the island in 94, Andre was coming off wrist surgery. He had just thumped me two weeks before in Scottsdale in the quarters. It was his first tournament back. We were practicing, and he said, you want to go to dinner tonight? And I said, sure.

[A]

You knew he was going to pick up the check.

[B]

He was pretty good about that. Extremely good about that. And he told me, I'm staying at this place called Fisher island. So. Okay. So I had no idea that literally I had to go from the Intercontinental down the causeway and put my car onto a ferry. It was actually the first time I'd ever put my car on a ferry. So I go over and I meet him there, and we both play. Actually, the next day, I was ranked 25 in the world. Andre was ranked 30. And literally he was just there with his agent, who actually wasn't officially his agent then because he was only in law school, Perry. And he started asking me a lot of questions about, you know, where he was headed in his career and what I thought he was doing. I was a little disheveled at, like, this Italian place. They had shit beer. So we had to go over to the market and at least get a couple of decent beers. And then. And yeah, we did. We did. And then we proceeded to talk for the next three hours about where he was going with his tennis. And basically at the end of it, you know, I wasn't thinking about it. I was like, dude, I can help you tomorrow.

[A]

And did you say those words?

[B]

I did Exactly, I can help you. And I said, let's go at 9:00 clock tomorrow. And he goes, I never hit before 12. And I was like, Dude, I play second on. And so literally we did hit. I played and I literally finished and I had to bolt over the box. And then, you know, it's probably one of the only matches after that that I was ever late. He was playing Mark Pecci.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

And mightily struggling. I, like, I was shocked.

[A]

No, Petch.

[B]

No, I'm serious, you can ask. He was mightily struggling and somehow he got through this match like maybe five in the third. And you know, it was the first time that like you sat there and it was like, God, this is hard. This is hard when, you know. And so about two hours later, I'm back at Fisher island and we're actually discussing the match. And at that point I actually kind of thought Andre was kind of aloof about tennis. You know, I didn't know that.

[C]

Yeah, seriously.

[B]

No, seriously, I didn't know he was a savant. And I started asking him about a point at 4, 3 that you didn't take the ball at 30, 15 and come in. And he said, what shot? And he proceeded to recite like he was a radio play by play guy, 17 consecutive shots. Actually thought he was kidding. Then I picked every other point and he could remember every shot of every rally. And so then that, then I'll say, okay, I'm just not going to flippantly say something about a point because he actually remembers. So that was the start. I lost third round the next day to Peter Corder. And then literally that kind of started my focus on game plan. And everything ended up one of the. Our first tournament together, I would say was one of the most unique experiences. And that Andre, you consider that Miami.

[A]

Tournament the first tournament together?

[B]

Yeah, definitely. So somehow Andre gets to the final. It's an early start, he's playing Pete in the final. And these guys have grown up together. And now for the first time, because I've played Andre eight times, I've played Pete a bunch of times, this is the first time that I kind of understand the gravitas of those two playing. But as a competitor, you don't really understand it because you're always fixated with yourself. So we show up at 10 o' clock to hit, you know, for maybe it's a 12:30ish final. And when we get there after we've warmed up, Pete's on an IV and the tournament director comes over to me and he goes, Pete's sick. And I'm like, good. You know, I'm like, really good. You know, the checks in the, you know, check's gonna be deposited. And so I go over and tell Andre, the tournament director just told me that Pete's sick. And Andre says, well, what's he need? I don't know.

[A]

Not have been my first response.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Me personally, I'm taking the trophy, I'm cashing the check. And you would have done the same.

[A]

Gone. Thank you.

[B]

So Andres, how long does he need? Which, you know, then the tournament director said, well, Pete says that, you know, if he can play tonight, he'll be okay. So Andre literally gave him.

[A]

I'm going to. I'm going to be in. Going to be in Cabo tonight.

[B]

So literally, he gave him till 8 o' clock that night and went out and lost in three sets. And first of all, I couldn't believe the sportsmanship. The crowd was full and literally we went out that night. And he wasn't pissed, not at all. And it really showed me something about Andre that was special. That, like, first of all, I couldn't believe he would do that. I don't know of hardly any other competitor that would do that against your rival. And he just said, you know what? I wanted to play him to see where my game was. And amazingly, 12 months later, I played my last match. I lost to Todd Woodbridge, 6 and 6. Was kind of disheveled about that loss. And Andre beat Pete in the final tiebreaker in a third to go from 30 in the rankings to one year later to one in the rankings. And Mike and my tennis kind of went in the.

[A]

So I want to ask you one more thing before we get to some q and A with the audience. Start thinking about what you want to ask.

[B]

Is that my water there?

[A]

It is if you want it. Yeah. No one else is? No one. No germs on it. Bg.

[B]

What's happened to producer Mike? He's kind of been silent.

[A]

I'm listening. I have nothing to add. No, I look.

[B]

Nice shoes, though.

[A]

Good cakes. I looked over and he was playing Angry Birds. So let's go. And for those of you who aren't here live, who will watch this show, you know, an hour after it's done, we are about to go into the night session where Taylor Fritz is playing Novak Djokovic. Right now, I want your best coaching. You're in the locker room. Taylor Fritz is four in the world. He made the finals of the US Open last year, is a regular at the tail end of majors now, Semisa Wimbledon. You're playing Novak Djokovic looked like he was struggling physically first two rounds and yet here he is in the quarterfinals again. You have an O and 10 record against this guy. Convince me I'm going to beat him.

[B]

I think he called an injury timeout in three of his four matches and he's gotten better. What's more amazing is he's just playing majors now. He's just played French Wimble in U.S. open. I don't recall any player. I don't know if John, have you ever seen this, that a guy or woman just played three consecutive majors.

[A]

And I was going to say the first one I'd guess is Serena, but I need to fact check it. Right.

[B]

I'm not sure that she, if she ever did that. Just no tournaments in between is pretty remarkable.

[A]

My best guess too, though.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good call. I said this the other day when we were talking about when guys have huge losing streaks against players. And maybe one of the things that's the toughest thing to navigate for the coach. You know, listen, I never. When you were coaching Roddick, I mean, when you were playing fed and I was coaching you, I didn't make a gravitas about that guy. We just talked about what we needed to do to hopefully be successful. So first and foremost, I think the opposite now that he needs to go out and redline because everybody thinks he needs to get out of his comfort level, go big.

[A]

And you're saying most people would say Fritz has to go out and take higher risk.

[B]

And you disagree because of where he's at right now this term. And he's actually played a little more conservative than I've ever seen him playing with more shape. He's defending better. So I would say what he's been doing all tournament long, go out and play the first six games like that. See where it stands. See what Novak is doing? Is he playing bigger? Because Novak is serving more aggressively, Serving.

[A]

And volleying a lot, too.

[B]

And he's playing a lot better. And then obviously, you know, you do have the scar tissue when you're an over against somebody. You know, I know what it feels like because I, I was 06 against Lendel and the last time I played him, I was 0:15. I was 4:1 up into third in Philly on a fast supreme and I knew that I had cracked my ankle, but I was probably playing loose. I had a high volley on top of the net to go five one in the third. Absolutely choked it. I lose seven Five and a third. I'm icing my ankle. I'm sitting on the training table. Lyndall comes over, puts his arm around me and he says, If I had 110 temperature and I was on my deathbed, I wouldn't lose to you.

[A]

So would you tell Fritz that story before he had to go play Novak? Is that, Is that where, Is that where we landed the plane?

[B]

Most importantly, back to Fritz. Stay within yourself. And now coaching is legal. You don't have to, you know, do the third basing. Remember I would tell you the btc Boca Town Center. Serve wide.

[A]

Serve wide left. Not that we. Not that we had signals.

[B]

Yeah, we had some good code words.

[A]

Not that this meant serve wide on the. Yeah.

[B]

Or, or my son, remember Zach when he was small? You know, I might have him yell something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you can actually tell your player and talk to your player.

[A]

We're not third base coaches anymore.

[B]

Right?

[A]

We're not. We just say it.

[B]

So I would go out and play the way he's been playing.

[A]

You'll double clap for someone. They move back and then go like, you know, you know what I'm talking about.

[B]

And you know what I might do if normally it's a bad play for Fritz to get involved in long points with Novak, when he gets, when the rally gets extended past 7, 8, 9 balls, the odds of him winning the point decrease incredibly. But Now Novak is 38 years young. We've seen a couple times this tournament, you know, he's had to do, you know, he's gotten winded, he's had a blister, he's had some issues. The guy's amazing. But that's the first thing I would want to test, see how you can do in these rallies that before weren't a good play for you. So a couple of those things I might see and maybe the one thing I would take a few more risk on that he maybe doesn't do sometimes I would take a few more risk on his own second serve. I might take a few more chances.

[A]

On the second and directionally pace both.

[B]

Both. Yeah. I might amp up and say, you know what? If I'm going to just amp up on one shot, it's that. Because if you want to look at a number that really hurts Fritz against Novak is second serve points one, especially on those big points.

[A]

But also if you miss it, it kind of sends a message where if a great hitter knows what's coming, right, if, if you tip your pitch, it's, it's, it's curtains. Anyone Have a question for Brad. Yeah, right there. We have somebody with, we have a mic coming just so it, it translates to, to the interweb.

[B]

First, I want you to know I'm.

[A]

Wearing this hat ironically. No, don't say that. Musetti hat. A great tournament. People love him. He's flying the lonely flag for the one hander doesn't have a place at the top level of tennis. It's, it's less of a place in my opinion. And we'll, we'll get to Brad. I just think, I think returning has become so important and I think with the, the, the new strings, right, the poly strings which I, I, for those at home, I always explain it. It basically if you were to take an expert bowler and give them a foot on each side, bigger lane, they'd be able to come up with new spins. They'd be able, they wouldn't, they would miss a lot less. That's how I equate. You give the best tennis artists in the world, you know, a new toy to play with. All of a sudden they can hold passing shots to the last second. That's why serving volley is dead. Everyone can take full swings on a return. So it's not that chip anymore. So I think it's a lot tougher. I think you have to be like an otherworldly talent, like a fed, right? Where like the ball just melts into your string bed and then all of a sudden you're neutral. I don't see like a huge comeback for one handers. I don't, I don't think something's going to happen where all of a sudden 50 out of the top hundred have single handers again. I think there's space for an outlier, but I don't think it's coming back.

[B]

It's amazing that he's played well here because he had zero form. He'd won one match since the French. Yeah, yeah. But you know what I want to see, I hope I see it in my lifetime. I don't understand why two handers all got one hand ability. I want to see.

[A]

What do you mean by that?

[B]

If, if you're a two hander, right? It's kind of unusual if you don't have a decent slice or some even two handers have a really good slice and so they have the use of one hand. I want to see a hybrid player.

[A]

You want to see someone return with two hands.

[B]

I want to see somebody return with two hands, like really good. Be able to handle a high ball with two hands because that's the biggest problem when you're a kid learning for a one handed backhand, it's so much more difficult to return with one hand. And when they hit the high lob, it's miserable.

[A]

Is the game too fast to switch grips, recognize it that. I mean, I mean, why not?

[B]

Why can a two go to one? So why not be able to go and then off, off the rally? Be able to have.

[A]

You've worked with too many good players.

[B]

I think it's possible, I really do. That's the one I want to see that somebody potentially could maybe do the use of two, you know, and one opposed to the.

[A]

You steal a benefit from each one.

[B]

Yeah, I don't, you know, but you know, you asked about the guy's chances, you know, what makes me think Rafa just destroyed guys with one handers. So I'm not liking his shot against sinner with that one handed back on.

[A]

Right here. Thank you. As a player and as a coach, what is the threshold for an injury before you pull the trick?

[C]

Pull the ripcord, call, call a withdrawal.

[A]

I'll give my opinion. First, there's hurt and there's injured. Right. Hurt is like tendonitis, your elbows throbbing. But there's a very low likelihood that the injury is worse. Right. Where you're causing yourself a six, six month injury instead of a four day injury. Right. Like pain is fine. Risk for a bigger injury, I think is where it enters the equation to, to pull the rip cord, at least from from where I was sitting, right. If you, if you have a groin pull and all of a sudden you feel it, you know, you don't want to tear it. Right. Whereas if your elbow's throbbing but it's because of overuse, then it's a little bit different. I don't know. Where was that line for you?

[B]

I'm probably the worst to ask about this because one of those.

[A]

Didn't you pull a calf muscle in the clinic last year?

[B]

I ripped my hamstring, remember last year?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So I'm about the worst to ask about this because it's a quirky stat. I played over 820 matches in my ATP career and you know how many matches, how many times I pulled a ripcord?

[A]

Zero.

[B]

Nil. Nil. So. And I played through a lot of things, but part of becoming a player to a coach is I learned from Andre that probably a bunch of times it was stupid what I did because it cost me months. It cost me like maybe peaking and doing the right way. I do get totally annoyed now, about players pulling a ripcord in the middle of a match and then they play.

[A]

Next week, I agree with that.

[B]

It's a really weird thing that like a guy is pulling a ripcord in a third round, a fourth round, and then literally it wasn't that bad that you could play next week or you're playing the doubles the next day. There should be a rule against that. If you, you pull out of a match, you can't play next week. But when you like Ben Shelton, for him to do what he did, he knew it must have been bad, that maybe, that maybe it is only going to be up three weeks, it's a strain. But if he tried to push through that for that one match, or maybe it's better.

[A]

His entire livelihood is his left shoulder. Yeah, like, guy throws gas like you have to.

[B]

That's making a wise decision. But I was that dummy that I would have still played through it.

[A]

Does it matter what round it is?

[B]

Yes, no matter what. For me. Because when you played like me, there was, you know, you didn't think about tomorrow. You only thought about today. And literally I grew up just battling and I wouldn't worry about tomorrow.

[A]

Honestly, I fully, I fully disagree. If you're, if you're, if you're Ben Shelton, respectfully, if you're Ben Shelton and you, you know, we saw the fourth set. If you were watching.

[B]

He did. I'm saying he did the right.

[A]

No, but, but I do think there's a difference where it's like, if Ben Shelton has that thing and he has to get through one match and there's a lot of Advil available and it's like, I have to win three sets in a major and can I. Is that worth potential damage? My answer is yes. Is it a realistic situation? And obviously you get a scan and you know what you're dealing with and everything else, but if you have to navigate five rounds of a major and you're compromised for 12 days, that's a very different scenario. That's a very different timeline in my mind than let it rip tater chip for three hours.

[B]

You know, like 97% of the ripcords and injury timeouts is when the player's losing. So. So, but when you see a guy like Joker pull out like in Australia in a semis, and he knew, or you saw with Shelton, then, then you, you obviously understand the big picture because they're playing to win slams. A lot of players are playing to play 40 weeks a year. And, and so every week is about a paycheck and you're week to week. So there's a lot of players that are in different, you know, I call their areas and points of their career, so that does matter. But when you see a guy, you know, like Djokovic or you see a guy like what Ben Shelton had to do, they're thinking big picture. And sometimes if you forget that big picture, it can cost you a lot more time, which changes the big picture.

[A]

Yeah, let's do two more questions right there and. Right there and then we'll let broad guns way. He's got to call some.

[B]

There's a pull out tonight. Now. Did you hear this?

[A]

Oh, what happened?

[B]

Oh, yeah, I just saw it like a text. So it looks like Vondroseva pulled out against Sabalenko. Yeah, so. So I don't know if, you know, people are on their cell. They can confirm it.

[A]

Oh, we got time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So settle in.

[B]

I think they're scrambling now on who they're going to put on if they're.

[A]

Going to have a match. Oh, I got the. Put Venus and Leila Fernandez on stadium court. Let's go.

[B]

They're playing right now. All right, let's get to the.

[A]

I don't care. Move them. Two more questions. That's tough to follow, but I know it's been a minute since we've had a US man win. Oh, I thought we were going to make it. So I was kind of curious. I know Fritz planned tonight, but if you guys had to bet who might be the next US Men to win a US Open tournament, I'd be curious to hear who you think it'd be and why. I kind of have thoughts and it benefits no one if. If I say those things out loud. They have to be as sick of hearing about it as I am talking about it. So I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't. There would be, you know, newspaper candy the next day. It's just not worth it. What I will say is I'll take the opportunity to say this is not the same as when I stopped. Right. And we have four, six. We had 23 men in the main draw of the US Open. There is momentum. Tommy Paul's been in the semis of a slam. France has been the semis of two. Ben Shelton's been in the tail end of slams. Fritz has been in the finals. He's been in the semis. There. There is it. We're like if we were going uphill for a while trying to answer that question, I feel like we actually have some momentum on our side for maybe the first time in a long. Not the first time in a long time, but as much as we've had in a long time. So I'll choose the positive. I think they're doing great and the women are amazing. Like four straight slam finals with American women representation. So you can answer that if you want to.

[C]

I'll say just for clarity, for the record, I'll speak for you. He would like nothing more than for that no longer to be a trivia question. So this is not the 72 dolphins here.

[B]

So I feel like Fritz is getting close. I feel like Sinner and Alcaraz are going to wipe out a lot of generation. You know, it's like what the big three did.

[A]

I hate it when they do that.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm really annoyed that Sinner's not an American. I mean, it's like a German guy, you know, you speak, learn to speak German. He lives there at a ski. Shouldn't you've grown up in la?

[A]

I don't know. You know what? I think we can all just be happy that Spain finally has a good male tennis player.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Like, thank God they waited hours.

[B]

But I, you know what if like last year Alcaraz lost a Vander Sloop. I, I do think.

[A]

Try that again. Do it again.

[C]

That's Tracy's tongue twister.

[B]

Vander Sloop, remember, you know? Yeah. So if, you know, a major does happen where you get so something happen, one quirky one where Alcaraz happens to lose, maybe, you know, one of them gets injured there, there is a window. But I feel like, honestly, if the next 10 majors, if literally nothing happens to Alcaraz and Sinner, what would you put the over under on them? Winning the next 10.

[C]

All 10.

[B]

Yeah, I mean it's, I mean you almost have to bite your lip and you can't believe how good they are. I was sitting courtside today watching Alcaraz and Lehecka is a good player. That guy is a good player and he just made him look like it was, you know, just a first round match. So it's up to the guys to get better. But if I had to pick one guy and coach one guy, you know that I feel like he has the best chance at Shelton. Shelton because he has the biggest game and he's athletic, you know, So I, I, if he's a stock, I put a buy rating on that.

[A]

All right, last question. We had one.

[C]

There you go.

[B]

You, you like the buy rating on that?

[A]

I, I buy rating on Shelton for sure. Yeah. I love Ben. Hey guys, thanks for being here. Andy, back when, after you split with.

[B]

Brad, I remember your game seemed to.

[C]

Change a bit in your forehands.

[B]

Going to the net more.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Curious how much of that was strategic.

[A]

Versus maybe injury or something else. And, and Brad, I'm curious, if you had kept working with Andy, what would.

[B]

You have changed in his game?

[A]

Well, I mean, shit, we're a minute over. This is going to take 27 minutes in a box of Kleenex. So I had. It wasn't immediately like people like to make the split like it was later. But so there was some stuff where I probably became a little too obsessed with my weaknesses as opposed to spending time on my strengths. I've said it before in this podcast. I had never spoken about it at a tear in my shoulder in 08 where I had to kind of completely renegotiate a swing path. So lost a bunch of weight and started running a lot more. It was spinnier. All the while having the talking heads going. I don't understand why it's spinning or it did me. No, no good to. To talk about it. Right. The book was going to be out on it soon enough. You know, you could see it from where you were sitting. But maybe that's a six month delay. And so it was probably. Maybe the answer is, is. Is. Is both. You know, there's no doubt that the best I hit it was. Was. Was when I was with Brad.

[B]

So I'll just. Very simple. And I would tell them like who I think it was in Indianapolis, that if the rally goes longer than five shots on your serve, pull a ripcord. You're given too much rhythm. Remember I would say that a lot. Don't get in any extended rallies on your serve because you're just taking with it and you. We really focus on you being a lot bolder on your second serve.

[A]

Big. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And so he could go through a set where all of a sudden it was what Pete would do to players. You would feel like uncomfortable that you wouldn't get any rhythm and you could lose a 29 minute set. So I felt like I didn't want to think about any of the negatives in Andy's game. It was the positive that he could steal a quick set and that was. I would tell them that a lot. Pull a ripcord on this point.

[A]

Brad Gilbert, everyone.

[B]

Did they put the Venus doubles on? Did they listen to you?

[A]

No, I think they're on. I think they're on. I don't think they're listening to the show live. Brad the powers that be at the U.S. open. Brad, you're always the best to listen to. I'll walk out with you. Thank you for watching served. We appreciate you. Thank you to our partners at Amazon Prime. Okay, watch that first step. BG yeah, seriously. I'll be right out. JW Producer Mike Social Sophie Somewhere Techie Sean Somewhere. Thank you to Amazon again. We appreciate you. It's been served. 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. Thanks to ServiceNow for their support. ServiceNow wants to help people do the fulfilling work they actually want to do. Work like hosting this podcast. You know what people don't want to do? Boring busy work. Now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of your business, it, HR and more so your people can focus on the work that they they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Get [e-mail] AI agents.