B (3:17)

I was listening to the. I was reading the Athletic article and they called it a junk ball masterclass by Goff. But at one point they. They said that in the middle of the second step, Goff had reduced Pula to shout that her ball quote wasn't going anywhere.

A (3:29)

Yeah, it's weird because everyone criticizes Coco and you can't. And it's. We should.

C (3:35)

Right?

B (3:36)

You shouldn't.

A (3:37)

You know, it's weird to see someone who's two or three in the world double fall like. Like she has and, you know, go through those kind of, I guess, mental demons, even though we weren't supposed to call it that at the U.S. hope, and I think it was. Obviously there are technical deficiencies. The forehand comes and goes. And also, I don't think she gets enough credit for when the trajectory on a backhand is straight through the court and it can bruise you with this flat ball and then mixing up the forehand and then slicing forehands and then she's able to kind of bring your level down. Everyone was talking about the Roland Garros final was Sabalenka didn't play that well. She just doesn't not play well just because there's a reason for it. Coco knows she can rely on her legs. She knows she can mix up paces on the forehand when she's going. Right. That is very, very tough to deal with when she's not missing that shot. It's very tough to deal with. My opinion is that when people say you got to go after the forehand, I Don't know. I don't know. Yeah, like, she. She kind of plays reverse tennis. It's like the backhand is the shot. The forehand, if she didn't miss it ever. Really tough customer. I thought she played well. I thought she had control over her ball flight on her forehand side, and it was frustrating. Listen, Jess Pagula is one of the best ball strikers on earth. Jess Pugula is also not one of the taller players on earth.

C (4:55)

Right.

A (4:55)

So you get it up and out of the zone, it becomes frustrating. By the way, I've been meaning to say this for, like, two months. The players box is cool. Jessicula's podcast is cool.

B (5:04)

Yeah.

A (5:04)

With Maddie, and it's.

C (5:05)

It.

A (5:06)

They're doing a great job. I think it's differentiated. I think it's really cool. If you haven't checked it out, go check it out. Talking about real things from the tour.

B (5:14)

Yeah.

A (5:14)

Fantastic.

B (5:15)

Would have thought.

A (5:15)

Who would have thought? I would have thought. They're awesome.

B (5:18)

Yeah.

A (5:19)

Check that out. Jess Pugula had a great run. Good, good Asian swing. Coco wins the Masters 1000, and it's like, we don't talk about it when she wins.

B (5:27)

She only dropped 25 games all tournament.

A (5:30)

Yeah. And it's it for me. I do think, and maybe I'm in the minority right now, but I do think Coco will be a dominant server at some point in her career. I know I'm redundant at this point. I just keep. I've seen it. The ability is there. I think it will click. She's 21 years old. When that comes around, forehand will get better. Normally, we get better at things as we go on in our career, especially weaknesses. She's 2 and 3 in the world with two shots that come and go week to week. Obviously, there's a place to criticize that. And my mind goes to when those things get 20, 30% better, it's gonna be a real problem. She's been top three in the world with those deficiencies. She is a champion. She shows up every week after the US Open. I'm going, man, that was tough to watch. Like, her emoting and going through it. I'm like, is it. Is it a good thing for her to step away for a second, just take some relief? Apparently not just go win a masters 1000.

B (6:35)

What. What does this do for her momentum going into the WTA Finals?

A (6:38)

I don't know. I. You know, I. I think she. She played well at this time last year. Um, I almost think it's almost the Grand Slam. Spotlight's not on anyone. So maybe you free up a little bit. She seemed to play well during this time of year, last year, but I don't know. Does beating Pula in that match change everything going into WT Tour finals? Probably not, but she'll be confident. She played well two weeks in a row. You know, we made semis last week. She played well two weeks in a row. So, you know, obviously she's in there and, you know, everyone kind of has, you know, ebbs and flows throughout the year, right? Sabalenka. You could see her take a sigh of relief when she wins the US Open. I mean, you imagine the matches she lost this year. Different cadences, different feelings at different points in the year. You know, Sinner and Alcaraz, like they had something had to give in Shanghai. You know, obviously they're not going to win. Vachereau is going to be renderconsh in the final.

C (7:27)

What?

A (7:28)

Who won their office? Who won? Those of you listening in your car, raise your hand. Actually, don't. Don't do anything while you're driving unless you're driving a. Who had Vachero in the office pool?

B (7:38)

I missed that one. I think we missed that one.

A (7:39)

Did we miss that one? Yeah, we did. Just me. Just you. I didn't have him. I mean, how fun is tennis, by the way, guys? 204 decides, oh, fuck it, I'll go to Shanghai. I'm not in qualys, but may. I'll get in as an alternate. I get as an alternate two points away from losing in qualys. Runs the table from 2:04 in the world. Wins a Masters 1000.

B (8:07)

Beats Novak Djokovic in the semis to make it.

A (8:10)

Beats Novak Djokovic in the semis to make it. Lost the first set of six out of his eight wins or seven. Nine. Something insane. This is great. This is a great story. And also when we look at the tournaments where, okay, Alcaraz wasn't in Shanghai. Sinner went down with cramps. Open season Vachero.

C (8:31)

Yeah, yeah.

B (8:32)

Open season, Vachero. That's exactly who I went to. I pointed right at him.

A (8:36)

But let's rewind all the way back to Miami. Center suspended. Alcaraz loses to David Goffon, first round. Mensheek wins out from outside that. If he wasn't outside the top 50, he was just inside of it. Open season.

B (8:52)

Interesting.

A (8:53)

These two guys, they changed the dynamic of a lot of things.

B (8:57)

First cousins.

A (8:58)

Yeah. And also like Vachero, he had a lot of time. Like, you get these 12 day tournaments. Does he put this together if he has to take on some insane amount of workload where he's doing, you know, winning six matches in seven days? I don't know. There's a lot of time. There's a lot of three setters. You know, props to Rinderkanesh. He's been, he's been building since Wimbledon, where he beats Fare of. Played great at this tournament. Beat Medvedev, beats Verev again, I think. I mean, he's, he's, he's gonna be.

B (9:23)

In the top 30 now.

A (9:24)

Yeah. And well deserved. This isn't like a, like vachero going from 204. That's all on one tournament. He lost to someone. 874, I think. Like he lost six weeks ago or something.

C (9:35)

Yeah.

A (9:35)

And then 311 in his last tournament, in the last tournament before Shanghai. But, yeah, a month and a half ago, he lost to 874. 74 in the world.

B (9:45)

That's crazy.

A (9:47)

I did notice Sebastian was rocking the Breathe Right strip on the nose.

B (9:51)

Was he always. We should go back and check.

A (9:53)

Yeah, yeah, we should go back and.

B (9:54)

Check because, I mean, Carlos, right. Carlos threw on the Breathe Ride strip and won a match at Labor Cup. I mean, I don't know.

A (10:00)

I don't. Sean, we were. And this, this is purely, this is.

B (10:05)

The eye roll so deep for Mandy right now, for everyone listening audio.

A (10:08)

I almost just got a headache from my eye roll. I don't know. Listen, I, I, we talked about this last week, Sean. I've, I never wore a Breathe Right strip. I absolutely would have if someone would have paid me a lot of money. Yeah, 100. And also, if I had to choose one place to wear a Breathe Right strip, it would have been a place that's like the smoggiest arena that's ever existed. Yeah. Seriously.

B (10:32)

Yeah.

A (10:32)

I'm not lying to you, you know, I, and if you wear once and you win a match, you're going to keep going. You got to do it. Like, if he, he's going to be wearing it indoors next month somewhere.

B (10:42)

He's wearing one right now.

C (10:43)

Yeah.

A (10:44)

To the red carpet.

B (10:45)

Yeah, he's wearing one right now at breakfast.

A (10:47)

From 204 to 40 in the world.

B (10:49)

We actually, John did a quick serve about it on Sunday, but we have, we have this little clip from John. It brought up a question I want to ask you.

C (10:57)

Perfect one.

A (10:59)

And just picked up momentum, kept going, and now he is in the top 40 and is more than a million dollars wealthier. I mean, it's an Absolutely transformative tournament for him. Not just the finances, but now he'll be able to get into the main draws of event after event after event.

B (11:15)

Hearing that, you know, obviously now by winning this tournament, he jumps up in ranking. He jumps up into the top 40. It gives him, you know, a foothold and being able to get into these top events. Is it better to have a jump like this and a huge win like this earlier in a season or later in the season and kind of explain the logic behind that?

A (11:32)

When you're 200 in the world, the answer is yes. Yeah, anytime. Anytime.

B (11:36)

But think about like in terms of.

A (11:38)

The context, I get what you're asking basically, is it better like this is I think close to perfect scenario for him as far as when to make this jump. Remember Bosson from Roland Garros makes the semis from 300 and something in the world couldn't play Wimbledon because it's a six week delay.

C (11:58)

So.

A (11:58)

And what I mean by that, I'll explain this to listeners, all you chuckers. So and me and, and people that work in tennis. So basically the entry list for given tournaments are accepted six weeks ahead of time. So he was supposed to play a challenger this week and then just kept winning in Shanghai. Right. But he's not going to be entered in like the Viennas. But he can still play quali. You can play qualys based on ranking. The entry list is shorter. So he'll be able to play Qualys at all these events. He'll probably be seated one in qualys at all these events now. But as he. I'd rather be able to plan from January on next year and actually, you know, take a month and train and you know, do all of these things or all these benefits. I would take a week, figure out where you're going to go. But if I'm him, I'm jumping into qualities of every big event because now.

B (12:49)

He knows he can look at it with his team and be like, all right, we're going to go here, here, here, and then, and then kind of plan around that for all of 2026.

A (12:55)

He can literally plan his schedule for all of 2026. 100%.

B (12:59)

Which is crazy. If he would have done this say in between Australian Open and Roland Garros, you're kind of like, oh shoot.

A (13:06)

Like you might schedule Australian Open at Roland Garros would be the second best because there's, it's the most time between, you know, if you do great at Wimbledon, you almost don't have six weeks before the U.S. open. If you do well at Roland Garros, you know, yada, yada, yada. If you could do well at Rome, you're missing two Slams. If you would have done this at Rome, he would have missed Roland Garros and Wimbledon wouldn't have been in main draw. And he's only qualified, I think, for one Grand Slam. So, I mean, this guy, it's going to be that Radicanu thing where he's going to say, oh, I've, you know, next year. I've won 20 total matches and eight came in one event. It's nuts, you know, so it'll be crazy to see Monaco baby on the map. I mean, it's just like I was there.

B (13:47)

I was there last week. Everything.

A (13:48)

Everything about it is insane. He played his cousin.

B (13:51)

Yeah, his cousin.

A (13:53)

Like he from Monaco. Yeah, like cousin. And then his coach was like his. It was his coach's uncle or his cousin or something. Like his coach was his twin brother. I don't like. His coach was Benjamin Ballard. I used to play juniors with him.

B (14:08)

Really?

A (14:08)

Yeah. He's related to him somehow. I don't know if it's through. Everyone's related. Like there was. I was watching the matches night and they were showing the boxes and I was pretty sure there wasn't anyone who wasn't.

B (14:18)

I mean, he wrote on the camera what he said, grandma and grandpa will be proud. That's so cool.

A (14:21)

It's just great. I mean, and listen, Rinder Keshe was. Was full of class and obviously it's your cousin. His postmatch behavior was dictated by his cousin, their family, that love and not that. Okay, this might be the best chance I ever get at winning a Masters 1000. And it's disappointing, right? I thought he was a 10 out of 10 with class. And it's just. I don't know, that's when the two top ones, when they. When they miss a tournament, it's crazy.

C (14:53)

Wacky.

A (14:56)

It gets a little crazy, but I don't know. That's cool. It's gonna be interesting to see. Like, I guess the question is, what's Vachero going to be ranked next year after Shanghai? We have such a tiny little sample size.

B (15:10)

Oh, that's interesting.

A (15:11)

He lost to someone. 874 in the world six weeks ago. Someone 311 in the world last tournament. Are you taking now what will happen is that every match he does win and he plays big. So there are certain guys like Carlovich, when he was playing, could have gone to a challenger and lost. And you wouldn't have even thought. Or he could have gone and played tour event and won two matches.

C (15:32)

Right.

A (15:33)

It's going to be interesting. Every match he wins is going to count for points. Right? It's. He's not going to have to work all week to get a couple of shekels. Now.

B (15:42)

If. I don't know if the ATP. Oh, sorry. I don't know if the ATP side is right, but it's telling me how to pronounce it. Stop. But it says his year to date win loss is 12 and two in his career. Win loss in singles is 18 and nine.

A (16:00)

18 and nine is a big number. But also four of those come in Davis cup, which he's four and one in Davis cup playing for Monaco, which is what I just.

B (16:10)

How's that possible?

A (16:11)

What?

B (16:12)

No, what you're saying is crazy.

A (16:14)

So, but that could mean Monaco. Who does Monaco play in Davis Cup? They could be four groups down.

C (16:18)

Right?

A (16:19)

So they could be playing, you know, Antarctica. You know, this can't be right. I mean, 18 and 9 is a. You, you have, you have really, really great players that are maybe 500 on tour. If he's 26 years old and he only has 20. What is it? 27 matches in his career. Yeah. Does that make sense? He went to school. Oh, college. He went to college. So they both. They both went to. This was the A and M showdown, baby.

B (16:45)

Oh, my gosh. This was.

A (16:47)

This was reunion weekend. Played in Shanghai for the Aggies. I'm so used to the stars who are starting to play matches at 17 years old.

C (16:55)

Yeah.

A (16:55)

And so I was just assuming that he would have a. You're looking for something where it's like, this doesn't make sense. Right. There's a reason for it.

C (17:02)

Yeah.

A (17:02)

He was hurt or he didn't play.

C (17:04)

He.

A (17:05)

All of these things. I don't. I don't. It just happened. It just happened.

B (17:09)

Oh, you know, this is why I'm so confused. When you scroll down his activity, it's all Challenger Tour events which don't count for.

C (17:15)

They don't count.

B (17:16)

It's so.

A (17:17)

That's crazy. I mean, watching. Oh, my God, that's.

B (17:21)

I wonder. I wasn't looking at the tournaments. I was just scrolling. I was like, this doesn't make sense.

A (17:24)

Watching you guys discover shit that's obvious in real time is, you know, what you know is, you know, what is the, the best part about everyone listening? Do you discover that challengers don't count for ATP Tour match victories? In our defense, there's nothing obvious about the tennis schedule.

B (17:45)

And there's also nothing obvious about the website the way it is structure.

A (17:48)

Just because other people are idiots about something doesn't mean you guys aren't idiots right now.

B (17:52)

Se.

A (17:52)

That's the worst reasoning ever. You know. You know who's not an idiot about anything?

B (17:58)

Who?

A (17:59)

Rick Draney is not an idiot. Hall of Famer, Class of 2020 three time hall of Famer, Internet Dude. You don't say it. Yeah. One of my favorite stats that I have ever read out loud on this show is coming after the break. Rick Journey, absolute legend. Please stay tuned and give wheelchair tennis the respect that it deserves. Fantastic. One of my favorite interviews that we've ever done. Vachero, Rick Journey on the other side, support for the show comes from Nutrafol. Nothing beats the ego boost that comes with a good hair day. So if you want a whole body approach to tackling hair issues like shedding or thinning, give Nutrafol a try. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people, including me. I've tried Nutrafol myself and it's been great. In just three to six months, you can go from a hat guy to a hair guy with visibly thicker, fuller hair and improve scalp coverage. Neutropol Men is clinically tested to improve hair growth and quality, so hats off to great hair. For a limited time, Nutrif is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to nutrafol.com men and enter the promo code SERVE. Find out why Nutrafol is the leading hair growth supplement brand on the market at nutrifol.com spelled n u t r a f o l.com men promo code served that's nutrafol.com men promo code served. Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Mercury knows that to an entrepreneur, every financial move means more. A credit card on day one means creating an ad campaign on day two, and a business loan means loading up an inventory for Black Friday. That's why Mercury offers banking that does more all in one place, so that doing just about anything with your money feels effortless. Visit mercury.com to learn more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group Column NA and Evolve bank and Trust Members FDIC hey everyone. Welcome back to Served. We do a lot of shows where I know a lot about what we're talking about, right? Or at least I'd like to think I do. As we've grown as a show, I think we've been lucky to get on more long form interviews. We do recaps, we do live shows at a Labor cup or a U.S. open. I think the priority when we started served was to kind of tell stories from tennis that maybe aren't getting covered every single week globally. I think that's the thing that I want to be very careful not to get away from is listen, let's talk about the parts of tennis that I'm not an expert in. I would love to learn more about it. Our guest today. I just feel so excited and lucky for the show to be able to kind of do this these types of shows is a friend who I met at the hall of Fame and have known through the hall of Fame named Rick Draney, was the number one player in the world 98 2000, 2001. Spent 102 weeks at number one in the world in singles, 118 in doubles. World champion, an advocate, was a huge force behind the quad division in tennis and making it real and leading to the ITF ranking system. I'm just going to read a quote really quick and I know he's waiting to jump on and have me stop talking, but I'm just going to read something to you just so we can level set what type of person we're talking to today. Jason Harnett, who is Rick's coach and longtime friend during his induction into the. Oh, sorry I Forgot to say 2023 member of the International Tennis hall of Fame. The quote is what impresses me is Rick's loyalty and his desire to do things the right way. His consistency and standards are what make him remarkable. Rick was a pioneer. His influence goes beyond the wheelchair tennis world. Facing challenges that most would shy away from, Rick proved to be a transformative force. Today's athletes owe him the highest level of gratitude for his contributing efforts to the tour and to the sport that they enjoy.

C (22:22)

Maybe I don't want you to quit talking about this.

A (22:25)

Rick Draney, welcome into served and thank you for being on and spending time with us today.

C (22:32)

You are welcome. Thank you very much for the invitation and the opportunity. It's a thrill.

A (22:36)

Yeah. So just I kind of became obsessed. I sat next to Rick during one of the events leading into the induction ceremony. We were around each other up in Newport this year for Maria and the Brians and as I kind of heard him, not even, I wasn't even directly asking a bunch of questions, but I was Kind of eavesdropping on a lot of the conversations you were having, Rick, and describing wheelchair tennis and the intricacies and. And I found myself thinking that weekend that I'm a. I'm a dummy for. For not getting smarter on it and actually understanding how it all works, the tactical parts, the strategic parts, the history of wheelchair tennis. And then I spent a week of.

C (23:16)

Of.

A (23:17)

Of my life. So it was basically, I would go do stuff at the US Open in the morning, right? You do hits. And I would always have an hour or an hour and a half before I would start my corporate opportunities in the afternoon. And every Single day on P1 through P5, the wheelchair division starts the second week of the US Open. I was just watching and watching the wheelchair athletes hit and going through my mind and saying, okay, what's different? How does the strategy change? How does everything work? And I didn't have a lot of the answers. I had suspicions. So thank you. I became obsessed with. With doing this. This episode and helping our audience maybe understand and celebrate wheelchair tennis a little bit more. But let's start with. With. With your story, right? Let's start with how. Why. I know that there was an injury involved, but let's go through the processes of. Of your relationship with. With this great game of wheelchair tennis.

C (24:20)

Thank you. Yeah. I was injured in 1981 and went through a process of the rehabilitation and trying to figure things out and readjusting to life and figuring out what the possibilities were and the options going forward, and was in a college class with another guy in a wheelchair by the name of Dan Lockman. We started talking a little bit, and that was in 81. I went back to school shortly after the injury in rehab, and I can't remember if that was 81 or it might have been 82. But anyway, he just asked, you know, hey, so what do you do? What are you up to? And I told him, well, I'm still newly injured trying to figure things out. He says, well, if you're ever interested, there's wheelchair sports programs going on at Saddleback College, which was a junior college near where I lived in Southern California at the time. And initially I dismissed it because I was still trying to figure out how to get through the day and didn't know, didn't think that getting back into sports was something that was going to be realistic, especially in the short term. I was an avid athlete before not excelling at any one thing. Played a lot of sports, like ride motorcycles, things like that, but enjoyed being active. And so that was Something that was a little bit of a struggle for me is figuring out what was going to be possible. And as time went on and I regained some strength and confidence and individual abilities and started getting around a little better, got more mobile, got some strength back, those types of things, I was willing to explore the possibilities and didn't know anything about tennis, maybe played a handful of times before my injury. So I called Brenda and says, hey, just go out on a court with me and let's try this. And it was so frustrating at the time that I was ready to give up and thought, I'm never going to do that again. That was a complete waste of my time and so frustrating. But I guess being stubborn, determined, still curious, whatever the case may be, as a little more time went on, I got a little stronger, was moving a little better and thought, maybe I'll revisit this. And so I got up the energy to go out to this class and got introduced to a bunch of other people out there just playing tennis and started trying to learn and figure out from them. Ron Hastings coached the program at the time and he was instrumental in helping me start to understand and let me back up just a little bit. Just for a little bit of clarification. You mentioned for me as a quad division player in wheelchair sports, we have classification systems and think about an able bodied person, fully functional, you can run, jump, do everything that you need, want to do, kind of situation. Say you're injured as an athlete, as a competitor, you're not going to be able to perform at 100% because something is not operating at 100%. In the disability world, whether it's an injury, an accident, something related to development in the womb or at birth, somehow something physically is not working as it should. And as you start moving up the spectrum, we kind of divide into two basic things. A paraplegic, para meaning two, usually means lower limbs or extremities. A quadriplegic in general terms means that the upper extremities, your arms, are affected in some way, shape or form as well. And that was my case. My injury, my spinal cord injury was in my neck and so it affected my upper arms, my left arm, pretty normal hand, not too good, right side. I have impairment in my hand, my wrist, my triceps, my shoulders. Because of the added deficit that I have in the upper extremities, there is an obvious physical difference in performance on the court in sports. In wheelchair sports, they try to classify for that so that everybody is a little bit more evenly paired as far as Competition, somebody who has very little impairment, loss, has a lot more function than I might have or somebody else. And so there's just such a huge difference that it can't be overcome. You can't train hard enough or gain that muscle function back. When it's lost, it's lost a lot of times. And so that's generally the term between quad and para that I might throw out. As we go through this and discussing the evolution of the sport, the other thing just real quickly in classification that we're starting to understand is the significant role that the core or the trunk plays in the overall performance of the athlete. Usually we were just looking at the extremities, the legs or the arms, but now we're recognizing that the trunk function actually helps far more than we thought or realized when we first started exploring classification systems in tennis. Other sports address it more directly. Tennis is looking at that currently, as.

A (29:21)

You'Re going through those processes where you have to vet quad, para and now the journey towards kind of, and correct me if I use any of the wrong terms, but the core trunk function, what is that process? Is there a committee? What are those discussions like as you're trying to parse through physical ability and how it manifests in play?

C (29:47)

So in wheelchair tennis, initially in the quad division, before we became officially recognized by the itf, we were kind of self governing. When Brad Parks, who's credited as the founder of our sport, fellow hall of Famer, started all of this, he started playing back in 76, but the national foundation of Wheelchair Tennis officially launched in 1980 under his direction and help from many other amazing people back then. But they had divisions. We had an open division, we had an A, A, B, a C, a D division, and then our E division or our quad division. So based on your skill level, your function level, everyone was, had a place to play kind of like league tennis, I guess, maybe in the usta that you're playing based on your skill level and your abilities kind of thing. So we were self policing. And it was Brad's vision really was that there was an obvious physical difference between a quad and a para. We want a division for them. What do you guys want the division to be? And so we got together and talked about, all right, how much function is too much function or you know, what's right for our division and our competition and athletes that are included, those types of things. And so it was kind of self governing initially. And then the ITF in the 90s, as they got more serious about recognizing the quad division internationally, felt that they needed a more robust system in place for classification. Wheelchair rugby has classification system specifically for quadriplegics. A lot of the other Paralympic sports have classification systems that identify para athletes, quad athletes within their specific sports. So there were a lot of systems out there. ITF looked at some of those systems, developed their system, addressing the things that they felt were important and relative bent at the time, which more often than not it was spinal cord injured individuals that were playing wheelchair sports back in those days. And so it was a little more clear cut than maybe it is now with all the different manifestations and profiles of physical abilities or impairments. And how do you classify based on the system and make it as objective and fair as possible, so to speak. So is the long answer to your.

A (32:12)

Short question, no, I want all those answers because we're trying to get a little smarter today, right? So with, with the, so that was in the 90s, largely. So now when you're looking at newer things, right, newer, I'm sure the data feedback is, is more robust than it was in the 90s. Is it the same processes in place or is there, is there a certain amount of reliance on, on data or updated technologies or is there a way to define these things more now as opposed to 30 years ago?

C (32:45)

More studies are being done, more testing is being done, more data is being acquired to kind of evaluate and try to make it more of an evidence based system. We often again, just relied on kind of what we saw and what we learned from other classification systems and maybe even what we kind of felt, maybe a little subjectively of what was appropriate for the division. But as the sport is advanced and as Grand Slams and prize money and World Team cup are equivalent to Billie Jean King cup or Davis cup, all of these things have come forward. More athletes are interested in competing and participating. And so the idea is we're trying to make it as equitable as we can. Just like you don't want doping in sport, you don't want people that are cheating a system, so to speak. Anytime there's a system, there's always a fringe element and there's a question about whether somebody's on which side of the line when you draw a line, so to speak. But they are trying to be far more objective, far more data driven, far more evidence based and far more sport specific for wheelchair tennis and looking at again, upper extremities, lower extremities and core or trunk function. So it's becoming more specific in those ways.

A (34:10)

I was gonna wait because this is one of my favorite statistics that I came across when I was doing a deeper dive of research on you. And producer Mike doesn't know this yet. Your mind's about to be blown. You ready? Okay, so Rick mentioned rugby and how the differences and all of that, so. And correct me if at any point I'm wrong here, because this is largely based off of what I could get from my computer screen.

C (34:36)

Rick.

A (34:37)

So Paralympic tennis didn't exist until 2004. Rick had to miss it because he had a wrist.

C (34:42)

Or the quad division.

A (34:43)

For the quad division.

C (34:43)

For the quad division, it was a metal sport for the Paralympics in the men's and women's open divisions in 92.

A (34:51)

So he couldn't play in it from what I read, because he had a wrist injury. So all this work setting up this sport, this division, and you can't do it. I go, but what if I told you he had already won a gold medal in a different sport? Oh, yeah, in Sydney in 2000. He mentioned rugby. Won a gold medal in rugby at the Paralympics in 2000 and was also the number one ranked wheelchair tennis player in his division that same year.

B (35:18)

That's ridiculous.

A (35:18)

That's a joke, Rick.

C (35:20)

It's. It's something I am proud of, I would say. So, you know, we can talk about Esther Verge, here's record of 400 plus match win streak, and we can talk about some other incredible athletes. You guys did your five setter segment on ODA. Yeah. And being, you know, 19 and having the golden slam kind of thing. The youngest player in any discipline and tennis to do that. I mean, there are amazing stories in wheelchair sports and wheelchair tennis especially. But yeah, again, once I got introduced to competitive sports, it was like, what is possible for me? What can I do? And while I've been advocating since 92 for a quad division in the Paralympics, it did not happen until 2004. And I thought, well, I'm not getting any younger. And so my only option is to get more focused on rugby. And I played on a club team and we won some national championships with our club team in Southern California. And so I thought, my path is going to be Paralympics for me right now is through rugby. And so I focused more leading up. I actually got cut from the team in 96, made the team in 2000, thankfully, gratefully. Good for us. We won a gold medal in Australia. It was an incredible experience. And then finally in 2004, the opportunity for a quad division of Paralympics was presented and available. But I was down in Sydney in the early part of 2004 competing in some events Getting some points ruptured, attendant in my wrist, missed out on those two tournaments and a few others. And so it wasn't realistic. I missed out on qualifying for 04 and then by 08, I pretty much aged out of the sport kind of thing.

B (37:08)

So am I reading this correctly?

C (37:09)

Life happens.

B (37:10)

Am I reading this correctly that you're also a Hall of Famer in rugby?

C (37:15)

Yes, for the US Wheelchair rugby Hall of Fame.

B (37:18)

That's all. Two time hall of famer.

A (37:21)

You're not even a Hall of Famer in one thing, Mike. No, not even close.

B (37:25)

Yeah, that's pretty good.

C (37:27)

And the great thing about for me, the two sports was that the seasons kind of offset each other. Back in the day, I always felt I learned something playing tennis that helped me in rugby and always felt I was learning things in rugby that helped me in tennis. And so grateful again to have the opportunities I had in both of those.

A (37:45)

I want to kind of put a pin in who you mentioned. Esther Vergier. I was lucky enough to be inducted in 2017 with Monique Kaulkman. I want to get into Tokido Oda. I basically want to celebrate and shine a light on the Serenas, Rogers, Rafa's, the versions of those people that exist in wheelchair tennis. I also don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves because as you were talking about your journey and how you kind of ended up playing that frustrating first game of tennis, which I think is how all of us start in some way, shape or form. But my mind went to, to post injury. You're in a wheelchair how, like, what's the timeline for any version of fluency in that wheelchair before we even get to sports?

C (38:39)

That is a good question. And it largely depends on the individual and the type and degree of the injury or disability. There are lower level paras who have trunk function and full arm function. That that adaptation, at least from a physical strength standpoint, is far quicker than somebody who, like myself maybe who was trying to regain the strength, figure out what is balance like without stomach muscles and those types of things. And so it depends again on the circumstances, but it can be relatively short and it can take some time. The greater challenge, if you will, for me was that once I started getting stronger, once I was moving around a little better and had that part taken care of, the next big challenge for me was figuring out how am I going to hold a tennis racket in my hand because I literally, I'm right handed, the fingers on my right hand move very little. So how am I going to secure a racket in my hand so I then can try to figure out how to push to get to a ball, swing, recover, and move back to by place on the court to get ready for the next ball. So when I went to this class at Saddleback, they didn't have a lot of experience with quads. Pretty much everybody there was a para. There were some other quads playing wheelchair tennis at the time. So we tried an ace bandage, and that was good. But when I started swinging.

A (40:08)

Tell me what that means exactly. You tried an ace bandage for, like, explain the process of that. Like, what is that?

C (40:15)

So I. I had to. And they helped me initially because I had no idea myself what I was going to do was like, okay, let's try to position the racket in your right hand and wrap your fingers around it in such a way that it would mimic the grip that we think you probably want to have. That will still allow you to push, allow you to swing, to do everything. Then we'll start wrapping that ace bandage and pulling it progressively tighter to try to secure those fingers in your thumb around that racket handle so when you swing hard, it doesn't fly right out or something like that. So we did that, and it worked okay. We then wrapped it with some athletic tape afterwards just to try to hold everything in place. But what the challenge then was that athletic tape was kind of slit against the push rim where we normally would push. And so even though the racket was feeling fairly stable in my hand, I was struggling with the mobility part now. So then one day, whether it was desperation, inspiration, I don't know what. But I thought, what can I do to make better contact between the way that I'm securing the racket in my hand with an ace bandage and athletic tape and the push rim so I can move better? So it came to me, why don't you put the sticky side out of the athletic tape after you've wrapped your hand, put the racket in your hand. So I rewrapped my hand, if you will, with now the sticky side of the athletic tape on the outside. And all of a sudden, I've got far, far greater contact and friction with that push rim. And it opened up the mobility world side of things for me.

A (41:59)

Has that become standard practice for most.

C (42:04)

Quadriplegics that use athletic tape? It's probably some variation, some method of that that is kind of the go to that allows again that better contact with the push rim for the mobility as I started getting faster on the court, because now my mobility was Improved, started swinging harder, getting stronger, those types of things. The athletic, or, I'm sorry, the ACE bandage. I just couldn't get that tight enough. So shortly into this whole process, I ditched the ACE bandage and just went straight athletic tape to the fingers. And the method that I came up with is that I would start on the back of the hand, I would bring it over one finger, pull that finger around, go around my wrist, back to the next finger, repeat that process, the next finger. So I was pulling all four fingers into the racket handle, if you will, and then I would reverse the process for the thumb. So I was trying to get all of my fingers as pulled tightly and securely and snugly around that racket handle as I could, so it was as secure as possible. Now that that's nice and secure and felt relatively comfortable. And I developed, you know, okay, that's consistent. I can feel that's where I want it to be. Then it was that reverse tape method of sticky side out. That again. Now, it's no different than anybody else pushing, other than whatever limitations you might have in your. In your muscle groups. But it was no longer a limiting factor. That's the way that I secured the racket in my hand.

A (43:42)

How long did it take you each time to secure that, your hand and the whole thing? Each time you wanted to go have a hit, how long did that take you each time?

C (43:53)

In the beginning, I mean, it was, you know, five and 10 minutes kind of thing. And maybe even longer if I was tweaking things or adjusting things later in my career, I could probably do it, you know, two to three to four minutes. It was pretty repetitious by then and had figured out the method and where I wanted things and which grip and all of that kind of stuff. The other thing that we found, again, just a little bit of a side note, is that after playing for a period of time, that adhesive, the sticky side of the athletic tape, would start to wear off. So on some changeovers, you're over there ripping a layer off kind of thing and then retaping it so that you've got good contact again. But I could do that in the changeover time that we were allowed. It didn't take additional time. So like anything with frequency and repetition, it becomes more familiar, it becomes easier, it becomes quicker, becomes more consistent. And that ultimately was the goal, was what can I do to make it comfortable? What can I do to make it consistent? And what can I do to maximize my contact with push rim, to maximize my efficiency?

A (44:58)

And this is this is a dumb question, but I'd like to only be dumb once you say change over time. My mind automatically goes to, is it the same as, as able bodied change over times? So you're having, you're having to add this extra layer. Are you afforded more time because that layer or is just like, you know, figure it out and get out there.

C (45:18)

We were allowed a little bit of latitude. It wasn't hard and firm. And again, as fellow quad division players, we understood that sometimes it looked, it took a little bit more time for us, but generally our goal was to try to follow the rules as the best we could kind of situation. And speaking of rules, and your question wasn't done by any means, but speaking of rules, the one primary difference between tennis, wheelchair tennis, able bodied tennis, is what we call the two bounce rule. And that stemmed from the early years when Brad first started playing. He was in a standard, heavy, clunky hospital chair. We didn't have sports.

A (46:02)

I want to get to the chairs too.

C (46:04)

Yeah. And so because of the limitations of the chair and mobility, that added bounce was what was necessary. We played deeper behind the baseline. That just allowed more time to get from point A to point B. And yeah, we'll get into the whole evolution of the chairs, but other than the two bounce rule, we're pretty much governed by the same rules and really, really, really try to stick to the same rules on times and things like that. But yeah, I had to learn how to do it quickly and, and got pretty good at it.

B (46:34)

Yeah. You guys use the same balls, same rackets, same everything, same nets, same courts.

C (46:38)

Yep.

A (46:39)

Are you, are you a lot more. Is there, is there an advantage to, and, or an allowance. Is there any advantage to having like a longer racket? Because obviously you're playing above your shoulders more often than we would.

C (46:50)

Right? Yeah. You don't see many players doing anything out of standard equipment. Obviously there are sub rackets that are a little bit longer that are still allowed kind of thing. But again, if you watched and you saw those men and women at the Open playing, I mean, more often than not, they're getting to a ball on one bounce these days as opposed to two. They don't need the extra time, they probably don't need the extra length on the racket. They're just so strong. The equipment is designed so well that it's no longer a limiting factor. It's actually an enhancing factor. And yeah, you got to see it to believe it. I mean, I'm a tennis fan, I'm a wheelchair tennis player. I see the players today and I'm blown away by what they're doing. It's like, wow, that's impressive.

A (47:39)

Are there, Are there conversations. Is there ever going to be a role change to where it would be one bounce instead of two? Is that. Or is that a net negative at an amateur level where you're trying to attract players to this game?

C (47:53)

I think that's the issue is that the two bounce rule for intermediate players, beginning players, even some seasoned players that maybe again, just don't have the physical strength to be as fast as some of the elite level athletes are, that that two bounce rule is important. Kind of steer off into a little different direction with this. But Shingo Kuneda, who was the guy in Japan before Tokido came along, and he'll be our next hall of famer. 2027 is when wheelchair tennis category comes up again for the hall of Fame. He's got a record that he's, he's. He's like a Roger. He'll be in.

A (48:33)

Okay.

C (48:33)

Kind of thing.

A (48:34)

I'm gonna just, just. I want to get it on record so you don't make any assumptions. I'm gonna vote against Roger. Just so nothing's. He already has everything. If he's unanimous, I'm gonna vomit. You know, I can't. I can't handle it.

C (48:50)

That's right. Yeah, that's right. We can't make it that easy for anybody. Right?

A (48:54)

But I'm all for you. I'm all for your friend. I'm.

C (48:56)

I did.

A (48:56)

That's it. That's a. That's a done deal.

C (48:58)

Whoever's voting, we'll make sure they vote for. For Shingo and against Roger.

A (49:02)

Yes, exactly.

C (49:04)

So Shingo, I was back at the national campus in Orlando and he. And you mentioned Jason Harnett. They were hitting, just training, working out kind of thing. I was just watching and watching his mobility patterns and looking at his chair setup and how different it is from what I used back in the day and those kinds of things. And I was noticing how often he was taking the ball in one bounce. And I said, are you doing that on purpose to force yourself just from a training standpoint, or is that part of your strategy? And he said, actually, it was more a part of my strategy because the more time I was able to take away from my opponents, the more I could get them on the defensive or out of position. So it was actually a strategy that he had and probably was the first guy to really do it to the degree that he did. And he said in Competition, he felt like he was taking a ball in one bounce 70 to 75% of the time or more kind of thing. He was just that quick and that determined that he was just going to keep kind of pressing forward. And so the strategy will probably change. You see more players looking like they're trying to push forward, take advantage sooner and get the other player on defensive, which is a logical strategy for any tennis player very often. Whereas before when the chair designs were such that they were a little bit more limiting, we didn't really have much of an option but to play more of a behind the baseline game to be able to get to that ball on a second bounce and try to extend the rally. But you are seeing them moving forward, pushing forward, trying to take time away. But as you mentioned, I don't know that the two bounce rule will go away entirely in wheelchair tennis.

A (50:50)

Is there a world where it doesn't need to? Because the best in the world will be able to enact the strategies that you're talking about.

C (50:59)

Right.

A (50:59)

It's like, it's like a free market of strategy. It's just that some will be skilled enough to exercise that. So it kind of shakes out. Okay.

C (51:06)

There's, there's been some talk about why don't we have a tournament with the best players and, and just you can only play it on one bounce. And let's see what happens in competition. I know some of them train that way. I know some of them have played practice matches and again, let's say 75 to 80% of the time they can make it work. That still means that 20% of the time they're not going to make it work. And so whether it actually gets adopted as a rule change, I question that. I'm not sure. But again, I can see as I watch the strategy more often is if I can get that ball on one bounce, I'm going to take it on one bounce and press forward as opposed to playing deeper and playing it on two bounces. So strategy wise, it's continuing to go in that direction.

A (52:00)

I keep wanting to get back to when you first kind of were in a wheelchair and we touched on it quickly. But then I also want to go to like the wheelchair technologies over years is like endlessly fascinating to me. And then I want to talk about the superheroes amongst superheroes and I don't know where to go with it. This is all so fascinating and interesting and. But talk about how much.

C (52:25)

Let'S say.

A (52:26)

Like uber focused training did you do based on the muscle groups that you needed to work post injury. When you started in your tennis journey and back in the 80s, how conscious were you of that? Or is it more? If I play more, it builds more and it's kind of like a self fulfilling situation.

C (52:47)

That's a great question because nowadays, even in wheelchair tennis, we almost take it for granted. You know, everyone's got their team and they've got access to higher levels of training and more intensive training and more sport specific training and mental conditioning and nutrition and everything else. I mean it really is the full focused package on producing the best athlete that I can with, with the talents and abilities that I have. Back when I started playing, we were mostly self taught and it was pretty much recreational. It was just, we're just out here because we enjoy sports, we enjoy doing something, enjoyed the social aspect of hanging out with friends, hitting tennis balls kind of thing, but there was no prize money. You know, it wasn't like there, there were tournaments and there were opportunities to compete, you could win a trophy, but the incentives that there are today did not exist back in the day. Just like, you know, pre Grand Slam era, pre Open era, amateur status for, you know, tennis in general kind of thing. It's evolution over the eras and those types of things. And so we played, but we didn't have somebody standing there every day. You got to do this, you got to do that, you didn't do this, you didn't do that. Let's work on this, let's change that. We got together, we went through drills as a group, we split off and played singles or doubles kind of thing, we played tournaments, but we were just kind of learning on our own and figuring out on our own. And so back then I watched the para athletes, the Brad Parks and the Randy Snows type of thing and I just watched what they did. And I thought, if I want to be more serious about this because if I was going to do it, I got to a point in 1984 is when I played my first tournament and I had some wins in 84. And that was like, hey, this is kind of fun. Not only playing, competing, traveling, but winning feels pretty good too.

A (54:48)

I kind of like it that, that never changes, right?

C (54:51)

That never, never changes wherever you are, at whatever level you're playing, right? And so I started thinking, how far can I take this? Because not that we were looked down upon in any way, shape or form, but as quads, we were looked at as different than the Paris. And, and obviously again, because back in those days the physical function was pretty obvious when you Watched a quad player playing, you could tell that they had some upper extremity limitations as they were doing what they were doing on the court. But I thought, why can't I push a little faster? Why maybe can't I get a little stronger? Why can't I get a little smarter with what I do? And so I would watch those guys, well, how did they make that turn? How did they attack that ball? How did they recover? I talked to them. You know, what do you do for training? I remember Randy Snow talking to me. It was raining at one event, and he found a parking garage, went inside so he could do some hill work. In the parking garage kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. But it was like, what do. What do I need to do to raise the standard of my abilities on that court to give myself a better chance to win? And so those were some of the things that I started looking at. And we started having camps and clinics, and we could get together with coaches and get more direct.

A (56:17)

Okay, so who's we? How many people? What regions? Is this a local thing that kind of. It's like you draw a circle, and then it's a bigger circle, and then it's a bigger circle. Or are we meeting from different cities around the country? You know, kind of a meetup situation?

C (56:32)

Yes, to both. So in Southern California, because the national foundation of Wheelchair Tennis was established there, that was kind of the hotbed of wheelchair tennis. We had 11 or 12 tournaments from Santa Barbara to San Diego and Inland Empire, so we could play a lot of tennis there. But as it continued to grow, now it's, you know, in other places around the country. The first international tournament was in 1983, if I remember correctly. So shortly after. I mean, the NFWT was. Was founded in 1980, and that was the same year that we had our first US Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships. Back then, pre Grand Slam era. But that was our big tournament kind of thing that everybody wanted to attend, everybody wanted to try to win. So a lot of people were still coming to Southern California, but it grew from there. Like you said, bigger circles. Other parts of this country, other parts of the world, to where we are now. 140 or 50 tournaments, I think, on the ITF tour.

A (57:33)

140 tournaments on the ITF tour, yeah. And it's all age ranges starting, or. That's all age ranges. That's junior tennis throughout, you know, pro Slams.

C (57:43)

Yep, yep. We've got a total. That's about the total number, if I'm remembering correctly, somewhere in that ballpark currently on the tour. So Lots of play opportunities now. So, yeah, it grew, it mushroomed, it expanded over the years. But the we back in the day was just other folks in Southern California and at that class at Saddleback College. But then as other players, you know, Randy got involved, he's from Texas. And so Texas started growing a program. Somebody else from another area hears about it or comes to a tournament, something starts growing their kind of situation. And so now you're starting to get other coaches that are trying to help those local programs and they're collaborating. What are you doing? What are you doing? They get together at tournaments and they're sitting, talking and oh, I see he's doing that. You know, where did that come from? So now some coaching education is kind of getting developed to say, let's put some camps and clinics together, introduce this sport to even more people and give them a better teaching experience initially than maybe they would get just grabbing a can of balls and a racket and going out on a court with their friends. And so like everything, that evolution of coaching and training and all of those things grew through the years as again, once prize money starts getting introduced to Paralympic opportunities and the ITF has their world rankings and year end world champions, when those things start coming online, people are willing to get a little more serious about what they want to do because like you said, winning never gets old and we all want to have that.

A (59:19)

So as you're talking through this, I have so many questions. When you. So your injury occurred when you were 19 years old. It was a car accident. You build up a couple years later. Correct me on the timelines if I'm wrong. A couple years later you start playing. Were you. And then you develop, you become a part of a community. Is that. Was that community similar in age or am I. Is the assumption wrong that you were maybe one of the younger people in that community? And what does junior wheelchair tennis look like now? What, what are the age ranges we're dealing with when it becomes maybe more popular or more available? You see, what's the kind of tipping point age, where you start seeing interest these days?

C (60:03)

Great question, because it's going to lead into juniors and I love talking about juniors. So for me, initially and again back in the day with spinal cord injuries specifically, the average age was in the late teens to early 20s. So I was average from that standpoint. Most injuries happened whether it was a recreational accident, a car accident, whatever it was, the spinal cord injuries, the statistics show that it was typically, you know, 18, 19 to 20, 21 years old.

A (60:36)

Is that just Based on growth with. With individuals at that point. And like, when an injury can affect you or is there. Is that. Is that a dumb question?

C (60:43)

No, not at all. It's like I say, I think it's a function of the lifestyle.

A (60:47)

Okay.

C (60:48)

You're at an age where you're. You're looking at doing things, but sometimes maybe a little crazy, maybe a little riskier behavior. And so some of those were just accidents as a result of that. Now, you've always also still had kids who maybe were born with a disability or had something happen earlier in life. Cancer, like Esther. She had cancer, and through surgery, they nicked part of her spinal cord as they were trying to get that tumor out. And she was. I don't think she was eight. I think that's when it was diagnosed. I want to say 11, but don't quote me on the numbers there. She can. She can tell it, but she was young. And one of the neat things that the NFWT did in the early years is they developed junior wheelchair sports camps, and they would bring these kids together again. We were in Southern California, so track and field, tennis, swimming, archery, basketball. Just opportunities for these kids and the families to come out and see that recreation was possible, to see that maybe more was possible than a lot of times we thought that I'm in a wheelchair, I've got an injury, I've got a disability. What does life hold for me kind of thing. And these things were happening with the nfwt. Those programs increased. And so mine was. Again, I was 19. We weren't doing anything wrong, per se. It was just a car accident. They happen. They happen every day, unfortunately. But the age back then of everybody that was in my group, so to speak, probably had a spinal cord injury somewhere in their late teens, early 20s. That was by far the norm for that initial group that I was involved in. So then, if you want, let's fast forward to today for a minute. Talk about juniors. You okay with transitioning to that? And it's just exciting to me because, again, I was involved with the NFWT a little bit. I recognized the benefits that I got out of other people doing what they did that helped give me the opportunities that I got to enjoy. So for me, trying to give back, trying to help was something that I wanted to do. And being fortunate to be involved with those junior wheelchair sports camps in the early years was something that I really appreciated. And fast forward to a little bit of a timeline nowadays. In 1998, the governance for wheelchair tennis in the US transitioned from the NFWT to the USTA. So 1998, the USTA takes over the governance of wheelchair tennis, moves along, progresses, continues the programming, everything else that the NFWT have been doing and trying to advocate for and expand opportunities and those types of things. In 2017, there was a little bit more of a focus and a push to look at the junior space, because at the time, we had two to three dozen juniors actively playing, competing, traveling in tournaments. But the thought was, we've got this whole collegiate pathway just like any other kid has. And if you look at the whole plan and view of tennis, you can start from a young age and go on through to your 80s and 90s. They talk about it being a sport for a lifetime, but even from a competitive pathway standpoint point, because we now have international tournaments and more opportunities, and juniors were included in World Team cup, and juniors are included now at the grand slams since 2022, if I remember correctly, at US Open, first one for that. But they looked at that pathway for juniors and thought about what about this collegiate space, scholarships and education, just like anybody else. Go to school, get a degree, compete in tennis, see what the future holds. If you're good enough, there's opportunities to continue on that competitive pathway. But you've established something in your life that's going to help you going forward one way or the other. The integration took place in 2021 at the USTA where it wasn't like separate wheelchair tennis. So under player development, it became a fully integrated aspect of everything that the USTA focused on.

A (65:07)

So there wasn't separate budgets. It was part of the overall budget for player development.

C (65:12)

They still had maybe a budget per se, but it's like, okay, everything that player development has, everything that high performance has, everything that we do in marketing, everything that we do in every other business unit at the usda, we're going to be thinking about wheelchair tennis as well. We don't just expect the wheelchair tennis department to be thinking about those things. So as they started to integrate those types of things, we saw that pathway, especially for the juniors, develop, grow and blossom through that particularly. And As I mentioned, 2022 was the first Grand Slam junior event at the US Open. Now, because of what's happened, we've gone from a couple dozen wheelchair tennis junior players to several hundred wheelchair tennis juniors. Now, it doesn't sound like a lot in the grand scheme of the total population, but you've got to keep in mind that the wheelchair sports community is much smaller than the general population at large. Then the number of Those that are interested in playing tennis is even smaller than that. The number that are interested in pursuing at an elite level and have the resources to do it is even smaller than that. So it's a huge increase for us. Even though the number doesn't sound that big. But you think about going from a couple dozen to several hundred, what that does. We went from two full time, if you will, programs at two colleges and universities to now having 15 colleges and universities that are recognized by the ITA with their wheelchair tennis programs. 20, 20. Oh, go ahead.

A (66:51)

I was going to say, like you keep underselling the number. I played in Kalamazoo and juniors enough times and that's like the super bowl of junior tennis in America. And there's 196, which felt like it was too big of a draw. Right. So you're saying, you're saying a couple hundred, that's kind of the equivalent for our national championship in able bodied tennis. So like, I don't, I could, I could, like, I could dump your own argument on its head pretty quickly, I think.

C (67:19)

Yeah, yeah. And again, everything is relative, right? From a percentage standpoint, when we now have our collegiate championships, 15 is way better than two as far as the number of colleges that are being represented. So with the ITA governance, we see that there's even more possibility. They first included team competition at the USTA National Campus in 2023. They also, the NCAA also had an exhibition at their championships in 2024. And they're now looking at the potential under the emerging sports aspect of what the NCAA does at seeing what can we do to get wheelchair tennis and maybe even some other wheelchair sports more integrated into the NCAA ecosystem. So all of a sudden all these juniors that again, these opportunities didn't exist when I was a kid. Now they have these opportunities and it's so incredible to see what's happening. One of the other things that I think is really cool about this, two things actually, but one, Jason and the others had an integrated camp with some of the able bodied junior boys and girls and some of the wheelchair players. And it's like, okay, we're going to do drills, we're going to do sprints, some of you are going to get in a chair and see what that's like. We're all going to go in the gym and these young boys in the wheelchairs, it's all upper body strength to get that chair around. They're out working bench pressing numbers that these other juniors can't imagine kind of thing. And now they're Establishing these friendships and relationships. So as they go to the Grand Slams, as they go to these other events, now they're connecting with each other. We're seeing some of our juniors now living full time in Orlando and training at the national campus. Just like, you know, we got Ben there and, and, and things like that. And so that pathway, that experience is now fully open and available to wheelchair tennis players and in particular our juniors as they're progressing through the space. Amazing. Mike, you got a professional career.

B (69:30)

Yeah. Rick, as you kind of talk about pathway for juniors, right, for, for, you know, most kids coming up, if they want to get into tennis, right, all they need is a court, a racket and a ball. You know, let's, let's talk a little bit about the technology you guys need in terms of these wheelchairs and obviously what's been changed since you began to what we see now. And as you said, some of it's giving advantage, you know, to where it's getting lighter and faster. But talk about the angle of the wheels, talk about what it costs to find this and what, how you can tailor, make it for your own physical ability and then obviously how that then passes down through the juniors, as you said.

C (70:06)

Yeah, great question. As we all know, racket technology, string technology, shoe technology, things change, they involved and, and you know, we probably wouldn't want to play with an old wooden racket nowadays when we have some of the things that we have these days. And, and yeah, you have a little bit of respect thinking that those players back in the day played with the equipment that they did and did as well as they did. For us, the sports specific wheelchair has been a huge leap in the competition on the court. As I mentioned, when Brad first started playing, I mean we've all kind of seen the standard clunky, big, heavy, 40 pound plus hospital type wheelchairs with the footrest out front and the armrests and the high backrest and the push handles and, and those types of things. Well, in the earlier 80s to mid-80s we started experimenting and when I say we, it wasn't me, but, but it became a part of what was taking place in the wheelchair sports sphere was that we were looking at what can be done to make chairs lighter, to make them faster, to make them more stable so they would turn better and again minimize the limitation of the chair and actually enhance the on court performance. And so instead of cold rolled steel like those standard hospital chairs were made out of, they started making them out of aluminum. They started switching to tires that could take a higher Pressure in them. Typically it may be a bicycle tires, you know, 65, 70, 80, 90 pounds. A road bike is maybe going to be there and higher. But we were pushing up to 120/psi in tires. So there was less rolling resistance on the tire. Two of the other things that were really significant is we started changing the camber in the wheels. The rear wheels used to be that we were pretty straight up and down because we still needed to get through doorways. We only had one chair we traveled with and we got around with and then we went on the court and competed in that chair.

B (72:08)

It's crazy.

C (72:08)

So we had to make it that it still could get us from point A to point B. Not just perform well on the tennis court, then the sport. Well, let me just real quickly so on the camber that started changing a little bit more as we started transitioning to a sports specific wheelchair. So the rear wheels, it's actually negative camber because the bottoms of the wheels are further out than the tops. Yeah, exactly. We thought 8 and 10 and 12 and 15 degrees was pretty extreme and pretty good. Nowadays they're 18 to 20 degrees of camber and those things. It's almost like if the wind blows, it will turn that chair. They are balanced and dialed in and set up that well that it's very, very little rolling resistance. So with the tire pressure, with the chair design and setup, the materials that they use in the early days. This is the other thing that's kind of interesting and a little bit funny to me as well. We did not use an anti tip behind us. We just thought we just need four wheels and we just have to be careful how far we lean because we just didn't want to deal with them. We didn't think it was necessary. And so you'd see a player go over every once in a while and somebody runs out, helps them up or they can get up themselves sometimes. But we did not have the advantage of being able to lean back into our backrest.

A (73:34)

I have a horrible, I have a horrible question. I have a horrible, horrible question. Was that ever part of strategy? Were like players more known for like going over there?

C (73:44)

There were some that pushed the envelope a little bit more.

A (73:48)

Is that right?

C (73:49)

You know, again you think about like we talked with the camera, the chair is far more stable now for turning and for leaning or reaching for a ball. The chair is longer than it used to be. Again, we wanted the chair kind of small and short and compact. So again, we could get through doorways and get around places in and out of things and things like that. So nowadays the chair, yes, you can reach further. You are more stable when you turn with that anti tip. Some use two anti tips in the back. Leading back for the serve or leaning back into the backrest as you're executing a turn to make that turn that much quicker or coming out of a turn to make that turn much quicker. And recovering and getting back to your place on the court, your. Your mobility patterns ready for the next ball. The chair design is amazing. If you've never sat in one and you haven't ever have an opportunity just to get in it, number one, to see how amazingly responsive they are. But number two to see, you know what this having a racket in my hand, grabbing a push drill, pushing a wheelchair, turning, hitting the ball, recovering is a little harder than these players.

A (75:00)

Isn't there video of Novak trying it and just absolutely smoked. Not looking like he's the most accomplished player of all time.

C (75:07)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and there are others that have done it as well. And again, oftentimes we can't really appreciate what other people do until we maybe get to experience that a little bit more. And that's not just me or people in wheelchairs. I mean, we think about all walks of life. It's obvious I'm in a wheelchair. Something's happened. How many other people in the world, which is basically everybody, are dealing with something in their life at some point in time? Life is not fair, fun, or easy for anybody. And we've all got challenges and we're all trying to figure those things out, help each other along. But sometimes, yeah, that experiencing it firsthand gives you a fresh perspective on then what you actually see somebody like a tokido or something doing on the these days.

B (75:58)

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B (76:19)

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C (77:35)

Yeah, good question. It was again, back in the day, we traveled with one chair. We had a racket bag that went on her lap. Wasn't too difficult. There's always a repair station at a tennis wheelchair on site. That's kind of become a standard because again, somebody blows a tire, gets a flat tire, somebody has a problem with the caster, an axle gets bent kind of thing. There are things that do happen on a regular occurrence, not a frequent occurrence, but we recognized that early on and said, okay, how do we deal with that? And so we would get some of these durable medical equipment providers and manufacturers and the places that sold the equipment, they'd come because they had experience repairing chairs and things like that. So they're typically on site with all the standard parts, an air compressor to pump tires, those types of things. When we transition to the two chair setup, in some ways it almost helped from the standpoint of it, that second chair, the tennis chair, now became the luggage rack. I threw my tennis racket and my bags on the tennis chair, the seat of the tennis chair, and I pushed that in front of me getting through the airport to check in. And then they would check that baggage at the ticket counter. That's typically where we took it instead of all the way through the airport. But some players did that as well in the early years. I don't want to say the airlines were more careful with them, but maybe they were still a little bit heavier than they needed to be. And so they were a little bit more robust and a little less prone to damage in transportation. But it has happened. I for one, was fortunate that never in my entire career did I have a problem with my everyday chair or my tennis wheelchair. In my travels, I had issues, you know, again, on the court or something like that. But I was very fortunate that I never had anything bend, break or get damaged. But it does happen. The players nowadays, some of them are actually encompassing their chair in some type of a cage setup or a box setup. So if the luggage people are just going to throw it inside, they're going to throw it inside. They might take the wheels off, have it in a separate padded wheel bag. So then the box, the cage around the actual wheelchair tennis frame is a little bit smaller kind of thing, a little bit more manageable. But it is a very real issue. I mean, think about you traveling to a tournament and you show up and some of the equipment that they're used, you're used to having in your racket bag or next to you is broken and you don't have a replacement, you have no rackets. Yeah, yeah. What do you do then?

B (80:15)

Can you qualify the challenge of that with how expensive these chairs are?

A (80:19)

Oh, good call.

C (80:20)

So, yeah, that's a great question. The least expensive, probably tennis chair nowadays with a decent set of wheels and a decent setup. The equipment that you want on it, I'm going to say 4,000 if you're lucky. They're probably more like five to six to maybe even $7,000, depending on any specialized equipment you have on wheelchair setup. They actually make frames out of titanium and aluminum both. You know, titanium is a little bit lighter kind of thing, but it is a more expensive process. So it's not inexpensive by any means, just as tennis in general is not necessarily an inexpensive sport. But the actual sports equipment, the wheelchairs that we need, they cost a pretty penny. And so that's a challenge. More and more, not in all cases. But even with insurance, they're recognizing the value of sports and recreation and the overall health benefits for individuals. So it is possible to maybe even get a prescription per se for a lightweight everyday chair, maybe even a lightweight sports chair to help increase again, the physical aspects of your life and your overall health benefits. But that by no means is the case. The elite level players, just like you, Andy and others, end up with sponsorships, right? They recognize the brand and those types of things, the accomplishments and, and, and, and those types of things, the numbers aren't what they are on, you know, the ATP or the WTA side. But again, we have prize money events and we have players now that are actually making a good living for us as wheelchair tennis players just playing wheelchair tennis. Put it in perspective. Taquito, for his singles Win, won $90,000 at the U.S. open this last year.

A (82:09)

So less than first enterprise money.

C (82:10)

I did win. Nice. Yeah, I didn't win $90,000 my entire career when I was playing kind of thing. And so we have grown. We have improved. We have. Things are better than they were. Would we like them to be better? Sure. Just like every generation and everybody, we always want to be advocating and pushing for things to improve and increase and those types of things, but we have to be realistic about where we are, where our numbers are. We don't sell out stadiums at the National Tennis center yet. Yeah, someday, maybe after this podcast, that's going to change. Right. But, but again, we have growing pains, just like the sport does, like any other sport does. And those types of things, it's a numbers game. It's economics 101, business number one, finance number 101. You got to make money to grow the brand, to grow the product. And so we're, we're dealing with some of that. But the tour is far better than it was again 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 and 50 years ago when this all started.

A (83:15)

So I'm gonna. I have a question, but I also want to just point out something. I'm not great at math, Rick. I didn't go to college. I'm not the smartest person that's ever lived. But 90k to win the US Open versus a 6k offset for a performance chair. And that's the, from what I gather, from what you're saying, that's the introductory cost for something that is considered a performance chair. So just sit with that for a second. I'm gonna kind of use this in two episodes this next question, Rick, so bear with me for a second. Are there places and support systems that will people can donate to to help offset the cost for junior chairs or anything else? We're doing a philanthropy episode in about a month, and with your permission, we'd love to cut and paste this segment if there is someone or somewhere that people can go if they want to help offset the cost for junior players.

C (84:08)

I so appreciate you asking that question. And the answer is absolutely yes. And whether it's at the local level, at the national level, at the international level, we've got great people at the USDA that we can get in contact with. We've got great people at the ITF that we can get in contact with. We've got, again, programs. All the sections now have wheelchair tennis kind of integrated into them. They're supposed to have somebody at the individual section offices that is familiar with wheelchair tennis and understands the programming and the local needs and what's going on in those areas. And so, yeah, you want to just start looking up wheelchair tennis and ways to donate and. Yeah, do you want to do it at a national level, A local. Local level, anywhere in between. We don't care how many zeros are behind the first number kind of thing. We just appreciate it. And. And that's always what's. I think another thing that's really neat about tennis and the tennis community is that, yeah, we all kind of have our different spaces, but at the end of the day, it's tennis that brings us all together. Me getting to sit next to Andy Roddick at the hall of Fame induction ceremony. I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that was going to be possible. And yet here we are now, kind of thing, having these great conversations about wheelchair tennis. It's awesome.

A (85:28)

Good. Well, so when we cut and paste this mic, we're going to find a place where we can drive traffic and hopefully, listen, if we can cover a chair, three chairs, 10 chairs, whatever it is, that'd be great. So we're going to copy and paste that into our episode that's coming out about a month from now. Based on. To your point, Rick, the community and the generosity and the precedent that's been set with people giving back in tennis. Listen. Oh, another question I had about the tire. I want to know wear and tear. How long does do tires last? And also you're switching surfaces. We wear different shoes when we go on different surfaces. Is there. Do you switch your tires based on surface?

C (86:12)

That's a great question. It ends up being that, for the most part, the chair setup that you have on one surface works almost equally well on another surface. There isn't a lot of change. And part of it is because we're so used to the chair feeling a certain way that if we start changing dynamics of that now, it affects our balance, our stability, our turning, our mobility, those types of things. An interesting side note to that a little bit. Shingo was actually playing in Wimbledon, playing on grass, and had his tires aired up to his normal tire pressure. And as he was playing, he was actually behind in the match, and he felt like he was sliding, slipping too much on a changeover. He actually let air out of his tires, which seems kind of counterintuitive. That's the level of genius that some of these guys get to. Of what is that one little edge that I need? What can I do to tweak something slightly to make it work? He ended up coming back and winning that match. I personally never Played on grass, I played on, played on clay, hard courts, the clay is more playable than we maybe think it is. It actually rolls quite well because there's.

A (87:30)

Some, there's some friction, there's some grip, right.

C (87:33)

There's some firmness underneath the top layer kind of thing. And so you actually move quite well on clay. And so I never really had a different chair. Set up tires. These elite level players, they can need to change tires after a match. After one matches they're moving that much. Shingo I think I can't remember how many miles he logged on. He tracked what he did in a match and so as quickly yeah as, as again I used to be able to get through a whole tournament kind of thing on a set of tires and maybe even longer kind of deal. But nowadays I'm guessing they're probably changing tires several times.

A (88:15)

That completely changes the conversation based on travel. So now we're talking about like tires as well. Like I mean you, you have to like you like you have to ship a frickin freight thing to get, I mean to get from tournament.

C (88:29)

You've got, yeah like I say you've got a wheel bag or you've got a gear bag, an equipment bag. Whatever you're gonna do, you're gonna be bring the basics that you might think you need. Again axles, that's one thing that not frequently but can bend. So you better throw a couple of those in a bag, you better throw a few sets of tires in a bag, you better have a couple of extra inner tubes in a bag. Anything that might wear out, you better pack with you kind of thing and be ready for that occurrence. You can also a lot of times the like the tire size is pretty standard. Most players nowadays at the elite level are playing on a 26 inch tire. So the tire and the inner tube will be similar for all of the players. So the repair station might have a bunch of those and they make them available for sale or something like that. So there might be that option as well. But like you and anybody else you'd better travel with everything that you think you might need for that particular.

B (89:32)

Has anybody blown a tire in the middle of a match and had to change a tire?

A (89:35)

Oh yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, so does the call incentive. They have the, they have the repair center. Do you call into the repair center and the guy comes out and fixes the tire.

C (89:46)

So like a medical timeout. We do have an equipment timeout and if I remember correctly these days it's 20 minutes, 20 minutes to change a tire. Somebody, somebody that's really good can change a tire in five minutes or less. Leaving, let's say you crack a frame, let's say a front caster for whatever reason fails kind of thing. And you need to now undo a couple of bolts or a bolt or something like that, change something out. So there will be times. David hall, another fellow hall of famer wheelchair player from Australia, unfortunately, he had a frame crack in the middle of a match at a US Open wheelchair tennis championship many, many years ago. And you can't weld that in 20 minutes kind of situation. And they're built very specific to the individual. So myself and a few others that were also sponsored athletes by the same wheelchair manufacturer, you know, try my frame. Try my frame. A little bit like Goldilocks trying to find one that might work kind of thing. But he just couldn't find one that was close enough to what he needed to be. And he ended up having to default that match. And so it's, it's a real possibility. But it's a great question. We do recognize that some things will wear, some things will fail. Something might need to be repaired. And so they have added an equipment timeout similar to a medical timeout.

A (91:11)

Man, this is like my brain's going on overload right now.

B (91:14)

Can I. Can I tees up on. On some of the grades and some of the legends.

A (91:17)

Yeah, that's where I was going.

B (91:18)

You've had a chance to play with. Can I just say, he's mentioned Shingo a few times. He has 50 grand slam titles. He has a 106 match win streak.

A (91:29)

It span three years, which sounds great as. As long as you don't get to Esther next.

B (91:33)

Yeah, I was just say that four Olympic gold par. You're like, oh my gosh, this guy's so good.

C (91:38)

Yeah.

B (91:38)

And then you get to Esther and she's like, she didn't lose for a decade. And you're like, oh my God. Like just some of the greats. It's been really fun reading about these.

A (91:46)

Let's run through. And obviously we're all kind of victims of the moment and we have a phenom in. In Tokita Odo. So we want to get your thoughts on him. You mentioned Randy Snow, you mentioned David hall, you mentioned Esther Vergier.

C (91:57)

You.

A (91:57)

May I. I mentioned Monique Kaukman, who I got to know during our induction ceremony. Just run through the superheroes of your sport and give us a little bit on not just how great they are, but like, why. Like, look At Randy Snow, how is his game different than a David hall, than a Shingo, than a. Than a Taquito? Let's get super nerdy about this, okay?

C (92:19)

And I'll give you my best of all of them. You mentioned Monique, obviously, we talked about Brad. The one that we haven't mentioned yet is Chantal Van Direndon, who was the first really, truly elite level player in the women's division. And interestingly, Chantal, Monique, and Esther are all from the Netherlands. So all three of the female players, I don't know what they're doing in that country, but they seem to have a corner on the market in the. In the women's division. Is there.

A (92:47)

Is there. Is there a reason? Like, you. You mentioned that, but is there, like a general. Like, when you guys are. Guys and gals are in the locker room, are you going, oh, yeah, the Netherlands, they're great because of this thing, right? It's like. It's like. It's like Spaniards, right? It's like Nadal finishes and then they have this other guy coming in or gets nuts. It's not.

C (93:04)

Yeah, we're. Yeah. Where do they find them? How do they develop them kind of situation. Because now you've got Dita in the women's division. She's from the Netherlands as well. So four. Four. Elite level. Impressive.

A (93:16)

They got something going on. They got something going on.

C (93:18)

They got some tires.

A (93:20)

There's a tire conspiracy out of the Netherlands. I'm starting that rumor right now.

C (93:24)

The rest of us are trying to figure out what it is and how they do it. They do have some good coaching. They do have some good programming, and obviously that helps. They are a smaller country geographically, and so these players can get together more often and train with the same coaches and work together, those types of things. I think that helps and is an advantage. But it is an interesting phenomenon. Like you say, when you get a string of players from a particular country that become dominant, it's like, all right, what are they doing? We got plenty of people in our court or in our country that are elite level athletes. What are we not missing here? Or what are we missing here that we got to figure out? So I don't have the answer to that. But Chantal, she was a player before she was injured. Very fluid, very. Just. Just clean what she did. She wasn't the fastest player, but she was solidly consistent. She didn't make many mistakes. She had a long reach. She had long arms, and she could reach out and extend and so she could get to more balls. But Just a really beautiful player to watch is kind of the way that I would put it. She was enjoyable to watch. Her fluidity and her consistency and the skill set that she had. Monique, not that she was on the other spectrum, but she to me was kind of one of those grinders. She just, you could tell that she was determined and she worked hard and she pushed hard and she did everything that she could to maximize what she had on the court kind of thing. And. And again, she had the resume to be worthy of the hall of Fame, but just somebody that you could tell. Right. Work ethic, effort, training, repetition is something that's important. That was something that I picked up from Monique is that I got to work harder if I want to be better. And I'm not going in any particular order. Brad and Randy. Randy was a junior player before his injury, so he had a little bit of a tennis background. So I think that helped him. But I think he's the one that kind of raised the level of the concept of going from maybe a recreational type wheelchair tennis player who might be a good athlete and had some success to what does it take on the court and off the court to maximize everything that I possibly had from a training standpoint, from a coaching standpoint. He and Val Moore did a lot with coaching and coaching curriculum back in the day and helped a lot of other players learn some of those things and some of his concepts on mobility and strategy and those types of things. It just seemed like his mind was always working about what can I do next, what can I do better, how can I be even better on the court? Great personality as well. Just very engaging to draw. We lost him too.

A (96:15)

Sorry to interrupt. To draw parallels. I'm sorry to interrupt when. When you were talking about his unfortunate passing but it was. Was he kind of. Would his comp in able bodied tennis be like. Like I remember Jimmy Connors coach me is like you guys do all these weights and stuff. I just played more tennis like that. That's what I did.

C (96:33)

Right.

A (96:33)

And it was very different than a Lendel who started doing track work. A Jim Courier who is an animal and attack the sport equally away from the court as it did on the court. Is that, is that similar to what. To what you're talking about with Randy?

C (96:48)

I would say that that would be a Randy, a Courier like approach to if I work harder off the court at whatever I need to work on off the court, it will translate into performance. Doesn't mean that he hit fewer balls per se, but he recognized that it wasn't just about I need to get on the tennis court and hit more balls. There's more to it. So, yeah, I think that's a good analogy. With those players, Brad probably was an even greater athlete than any of us realize or recognize. We got to remember that he also founded the national foundation of Wheelchair Tennis and was trying to run that and organize the tournament schedule and organize the wheelchair sports camps for the kids and dealing with fundraising and dealing with board members and all of the administrative and managerial things that had to happen so the rest of us could go out and have a good time playing tournaments.

A (97:40)

Is it. Is it similar to like a Billie Jean King type type figure where all of a sudden she's dealing with all of these other things away from the court as well as being one of the best players of all time?

C (97:51)

Yeah. Yeah, Brad. And again, not to take anything from Randy. They had a good rivalry and others back in the day, but I think Brad would have had more titles if he would have been able to just be a tennis player and not have to be the CEO of wheelchair tennis at the same time. So, yeah, great analogy from that. But talented athlete, very dedicated. Again, none of us can really fully appreciate how much thanks and gratitude we owe to Brad and to his wife Wendy, for everything they did to get this sport started and to see that it had a legacy going forward to see where we are today. David hall was maybe a combination of everything. He was kind of quiet, not outspoken, not high profile, but you could just tell that there was a quiet, determined, reserved focus about him. And he did what he did in his way all the time, and it translated into an incredible career. He was a great mover without you realizing that. He was a great mover a little bit, maybe like Federer kind of thing, he just got to balls and he was quite consistent, quite steady. He didn't really have anything overpowering about his serve or his game. He had a wicked slice backhand, but he just was a complete player. He could do it all. Back in his day, it was still mostly a baseline game, so he wasn't coming to the net, just like all of us back in the day weren't doing that. We see that more today. But as a baseline player, he had about as complete a game I think, is anybody did. He could just kind of do everything, and he moved really well.

A (99:34)

It's interesting because as it's. If you just saying that, me not knowing how the game has changed stylistically, it feels like it's almost like Benjamin Button to where like able body tennis is now moving towards the baseline. And wheelchair tennis, from what you're just saying, is moving the opposite, opposite way. Yeah, it's like shit passing in the night.

C (99:56)

Kind of feels like that a little bit again, as players recognize that if I can get to a ball that much quicker, I take that much more time away from my opponent. Realistically, it's still harder to get from point A to point B in a wheelchair than it is on your feet kind of situation. So even if it's fractions of a second or a second, that's a huge deficit. And over a 2, 3, 4, 5 ball rally, that adds up, adds up. You get that player so far out of position, you've got such an easy put away shot at some point in time. And so now we transition maybe to the Shingo, who really will be our next player in the hall of Fame. I think his retirement time frame, obviously his career statistics are worthy of induction. He elevated everything that the rest of us have done just to a different level on the court and off the court. A little bit better in mobility, a little bit better in consistency, a little bit better in strength, a little bit better in power, a little bit better in mindset, a little bit better in training and conditioning in that approach, those types of things. And so he and Esther to me, are two of my heroes and two people. Randy as well. I watched Randy a lot kind of thing to see what he did. I watched David Hall a lot of to see what he did. All of them I watched and tried to study and tried to emulate and thought, all right, they're doing what they're doing. Yeah, maybe they've got a little bit more physical function than I do, but there's nothing that says I can't train harder. There's nothing that says I can't work on consistency. There's nothing that says I can't work on a part of my game that's a weakness and trying maybe not necessarily to always turn it into a strength, but limit the exposure that I have to that weakness kind of thing. And so they're all my heroes, in my opinion, and watching them, seeing what they did, what they accomplished. But yeah, when you talk about Shingo and Esther in their records, again, not to take anything away from what they've done. Wheelchair tennis, we've got a few hundred on the men's ranking, couple hundred on the women's ranking, less than 100 on the quad ranking internationally. So we don't have the mass number of players. And so when somebody gets really good, they. They have a tendency. I mean you look at some of these careers, they're able to stay at the top for a little bit longer than maybe some of the changeovers and some of the parody and some of the, you know, outcomes in, in the ATP and WTA events. Again, not to take anything away, when you're really good and you're consistently good, it means that you've worked your tail off. Good.

A (102:31)

I, I just. You deserve it. We just need a level set for a second because we live in a country where, where we celebrate like SEC titles where there are eight teams. Right. Or. And we celebrate like we, we, we say we're national champions when it's national champions under a certain age not playing against the best in the world. And we celebrate that as if we've just solved a crime or something.

C (102:56)

Right.

A (102:56)

Like it, it. So like, like again, don't undersell. We, we, we literally live in the country that likes to celebrate silos of accomplishment and we'll break them off until we can celebrate it. So listen, best on earth is. Best on earth is. Best on earth is best on earth. And that's more that we can say about most sports that exist inside of their own little leagues that they've created for. For their celebrations.

C (103:22)

Yeah. And that's well put and kind of where I was going with it. It doesn't matter if there's a hundred or a hundred thousand. If you're the best consistently over time, bring on the other thousand. A hundred thousand any day and they'll still beat them kind of thing. They're just that good. They're that unique and special as athletes standing up or sitting down kind of thing.

A (103:44)

Tell me. So you mentioned the hundred and I think you said six straight matches raising up. Talk about like let's put into, let's make it real some of Esther's stats where it's 400 plus match wins. Like let's, we're talking. This is looney tunes kind of the statistics that were like she's the equivalent of. Of and maybe even more so than the three guys that I had to deal with. And all of a sudden people going is so and so going to get to 24 slams. I'm like, that is a bananas conversation to have. It doesn't even make sense. They ruined it for the rest of us.

C (104:17)

Yeah, yeah. And, and it's again, you just have to sit back for a minute and reflect upon anybody at any level of competition in any sport. But since we're talking tennis. Tennis. Anybody go out and try to win 400 plus matches in a row.

B (104:35)

470.

A (104:36)

I lost four Dingles games this morning.

C (104:37)

Try to do that. And yeah, it was 600 and something. She lost out in Australia to Danny. DeTorro was the one match that she lost. She already had a streak of like 200 or come on. I didn't know. And she lost a match down there. I actually talked about it. Yeah, I just didn't prepare. I wasn't prepared for the win that I had to deal with. Danny played well that day, but she says it was on me. I was not as prepared as maybe I could have been or should have been that day. There have been other really, really good players and this maybe transitions a little bit into the newer era. Tokido doing what he did. Gustavo had four match points at the US Open. He was that close to taking all of that golden slab away from Tokido. And Gustavo has been a really good player for a number of years in the last year. So he's elevated the level of his game and has been pressing these top players even more than maybe he had been in years past kind of thing. So it was a huge moment for him. But again, it speaks to the quality and the level of play that we have. That Tokido or even Esther, it wasn't a given. They still had to play and prepare. It's not like they just showed up and said, oh yeah, I can do this. They were tested, they were challenged. Esther was down in a Paralympics match against a fellow country woman one year and came back and won that match. They both had their records on the line. Shingo more than one time had his records on the line. But just like greatness at any level, the ones that are up against it find a way in some of those matches that really could go either way to pull that match out kind of situation. And that's what we're seeing nowadays with Tokido and Shingo before him kind of thing. Gordon and Alfie from Great Britain to elite level players, I mean, we could go on and on and talk about everybody, but like you said, greatness is greatness. And when you do it consistently over time, again, doesn't matter if there's 100, a thousand, 100,000 or a million people, they're going to beat them all.

A (106:51)

One. I mean, thank you for your time. I mean, this has just been an absolute pleasure. I think one of my favorite episodes that we've, that we've ever done. And I don't say that lightly because I'm so full of gratitude for the people that choose to share their stories and their time with us. In closing, and I don't want to be overly vague with a question that is. Is very personal and meaningful, but just from hearing the way that you talk about the journey, the ins and outs, the growth. If you went from two colleges to 15 colleges and, I don't know, another sport in like, I don't know, like pickleball, they would call it the fastest growing sport in the world as opposed to, you know, underselling it at all. But just from the first time you've played to, you know, getting the designation for the quad division in 1998 with the ITF, to seeing the new generation of players, to living through the Esthers into the Taquito and Shingo, have. Do you ever think about what life would or wouldn't have been like if you hadn't been at Saddleback College and they would have had this available to you? Is that something you think about daily?

C (108:03)

I don't know about daily anymore, but very often. And again, it's interesting when you get informed that you've been nominated, number one, to be inducted into the International Tennis hall of Fame, and then you get that amazing call that you've actually been elected for induction into the International Tennis hall of Fame. That's a moment that you start reflecting a lot, I think, on your career. Nobody starts out saying, someday I'm going to get into the International Tennis hall of Fame. We start out, man, I hope I can win a match someday. I hope I can win tournaments someday. Hope I can win two tournaments someday. Hey, this is cool. I've got a career. I really enjoy this. And we go on that process. But for me, there have been a lot of times I thought, man, what if I never had gotten introduced to wheelchair tennis? What would my life be like now? I think I still would have held something meaningful and productive to do. I wasn't ready to give up on life. I mean, I think we all go again when we're faced with something difficult. We have to figure out how we're going to deal with it. Or maybe it deals with us a little bit. And I'd rather be in control as much of the situation as possible. So it was like, all right, it's happened. Now what. What are my options? What are the possibilities? So I'm grateful again that I looked at the option and the possibility finally, even though it was as frustrating as it was the first time. But as I've reflected and I've had a chance to be around Brad a little bit as we celebrated 20 years of wheelchair tennis at the Open, he was there and we got to visit some. And often he's asked, did you ever think, did you ever imagine that it would turn out like this? I don't know that anybody in a sport from 50 years ago can fully think or envision or imagine that it would be where it is 50 years later kind of thing. And when it is that 50 years later, as we're celebrating 50 years next year for wheelchair tennis, it's, to me, it's just, yeah, reflecting on the journey and so much gratitude, like I said, for me being willing to take the chance for others, being willing to provide the opportunity for sponsors, for donors, for organizers, for tournament directors and volunteers, and on down the line, none of this would have been possible if other people didn't do what they did to provide me the opportunities for competition and success and achievements that I got to experience. And so when I think about it, and I do often, I'll bet it's probably once a week. Once every couple of weeks, I think about, man, how cool is this? I hear about something that's happening, I see something. I get to go to the US Open and hand out some trophies to these athletes these days, those types of things. Get to sit next to Andy Roddick at the International Tennis hall of Fame induction for Maria and the Bryan Brothers, things like that. It's like, I never thought this was possible, but how cool is it that it is? And boy, like you said, I'm really glad I was willing to take that chance and try, as opposed to thinking, I'm too afraid, it's too hard, I don't even want to try.

A (111:12)

Well, I'll tell you one thing, and I'll speak for our show, you in the wheelchair tennis community at large, you will always have a friend on our show. If there's anything that we ever need to get smarter about, if 50 year celebrations coming up, if we can add any value to the movement, you have my word that we will do our best to do that. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. It's been. It's been good getting to know you and I hope, I hope this is the first of, of many conversations.

C (111:39)

Rick. Thank you very much, Rod. I appreciate Andy for everything that you provided for us and for the opportunities going forward. I'm sure I'll be bugging you again about next year as we celebrate 50 years. I appreciate the kind words. I appreciate the thoughtful questions and the conversations we had. And it goes both ways. If there's ever anything I can do to be of assistance. You've got my contact number and yeah, look forward to crossing paths with you again. Thank you.

A (112:07)

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