Backhands and Compliments: A Tennis Podcast

We are Praylor Fritz today as we discuss all that has happened at the US Open. No more mid-Slam delusions this episode, we’re actually very rational (very demure, very mindful) about our predictions and we rank who we would like to win the US Open the most. Naturally we talk about the biggest upset, Katie’s man Botic van de Zandschulp defeated Carlos Alcaraz! No choking from him (even if Juan Carlos Ferrero thought he would). Taylor Fritz is playing some of his best tennis and we are putting all of our manifesting energy into an All-American semifinal. On the other side of the draw, we talk about the star-power of Jack Draper and the sweetness of Alex de Minaur. And we call our shot on the Australian Open Final and Wimbledon quarterfinal rematch between Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev.

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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We ended up quite punchy in this episode, so enjoy some mid-Slam delusion on DAY TWO. We talk about some of the upsets (rip Pablo Carreno Busta, Holger Rune, and Karen Khachanov), the battle of the Boss Babies (Taylor Fritz vs. Matteo Berrettini), and the retirement of iconic players such as Diego Schwartzman and Dominic Thiem. Katie finally announces what she’s been teasing for months. She sold a book to Simon & Schuster! And yes, it’s a tennis romance novel with soulmates and rivals-to-lovers. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a B&C episode if we didn’t have a completely unhinged hypothetical question to discuss. (This week we ask, “Who would we want to see Freaky Friday bodyswap and play against each other?”)

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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An episode where we go over all the ~DRAMA~ from the last two weeks. From Stefanos Tsitsipas firing his father very publicly to a double-hit dispute between Jack Draper and Felix Auger-Alissame on match point to Jannik Sinner’s doping scandal; we’ll go through it all with all the facts and our color commentary. We also give Alexei Popyrin his flowers for winning his first Masters 1000 title in Montreal! And Jannik Sinner becomes the first man this year to win 2 Masters 1000 titles! (Katie’s bingo card is very happy about this.)  

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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Get ready for some slightly obnoxious U S A chants (and one ITALIA chant) in this week’s episode! Carlos Alcaraz’s incredible summer ends with a silver medal and Novak Djokovic finally claims the gold medal. (Maybe now he’ll leave us alone. Unlikely, but we can dream.) We loved that Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz took home bronze, while doubles’ specialists came through in the gold medal match. Andy Murray has officially retired (making this the second of the Big 4 to be sent off into the sunset by an American doubles team) and the Queen’s Club already renamed their center court after him. Story of the week, however, goes to Katarina Siniakova and guest! (Tomas Machac, for the uninitiated) These exes won the gold medal in mixed doubles and it has us gushing over it!

In Washington, Sebi Korda wins and makes this the first time a father-son duo has won the same tournament! We briefly touch on Andrey Rublev’s transphobic and hypocritical remarks, but we’ll go more in depth once we have more of his response to the backlash. Denis Shapovalov was also in hot water in hot Washington and got defaulted. And much, much more!  

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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Lots of beautiful tennis this week! Arthur Fils became the newest exterminator and won Hamburg for his second ATP title. But it wasn’t without its drama. In the coastal Bastad, we saw the man, the myth, the legend, Rafael Nadal, putting in the hours. But ultimately, it was Nuno Borges who took home the trophy! Of course, most of our episode is dedicated to Matteo Berrettini’s win in Gstaad! He defeated Quentin Halys (Con-ton, Al-ees) in less than an hour. And finally, in Newport we had an all-American clash but Marcos Giron wins his first title and right in time for his 31st birthday! Plus, we can’t help but speculate on the room assignments for the Olympics and talk about the Forty-Love deuxmoi story that took Twitter by storm this week. 

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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Did tennis happen this week? Are people talking about tennis? We sure are! Carlos Alcaraz won his 4th Grand Slam, the Channel Slam, and successfully defended his Wimbledon title! Has the US Open Curse come for Novak Djokovic at last? Along with the tennis, we also have two of our favorite segments return: Andrey Rublev Psychoanalysis Hours and the “Who is More Famous?”™️ game! Also, in big news for Roger Federer went to the Eras tour (RogERA FedERAERAs Tour).

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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With drama galore and a few cheeky Instagram stories from the most famous woman in men’s tennis, strap yourselves in for our review of the first week (and a half) of Wimbledon! We go through it all including; Taylor Fritz being our Scorpio King to both the rat and Arthur Rinderknech. Speaking of French Arthurs, we talk about how weird Hubi Hurkacz was being during his match against Arthur Fils. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Backhands & Compliments episode without a long talk about Matteo Berrettini! (A couple mentions mean *JAR*) We’re having a great time with Wimbledon this year, so let’s hope the good times keep rolling!

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

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We’re back to live react to the 2024 Wimbledon Men’s draw and this time, Miranda has put her insanity and genius together to create a stunning spreadsheet to help us stay on task. You can hear us react in real time to our favorites and then we systematically go through the draw, discussing who has a great draw and who doesn’t. In between our professional thoughts, we talk about Paige Lorenze and ‘clawgate’ and Andrey Rublev not playing the Olympics.  

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

Follow us on Instagram instagram.com/backhandsandcompliments, Twitter twitter.com/backhandspod, and TikTok ​​https://www.tiktok.com/@backhandsandcompliments.

It’s officially grass season, so make sure to take a look at our fresh logo! This week, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Alex de Minaur defeated Sebi Korda, matching his girlfriend Katie Boulter once again as she won in Nottingham! In Stuttgart, British lefty Jack Draper wins his first ATP title! Unfortunately, he beat one of our favorites, Matteo Berrettini. Add in some fun facts, a discussion about Bublik’s quitting, and recommending books to Coco Gauff and that’s our episode!

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

Follow us on Instagram instagram.com/backhandsandcompliments, Twitter twitter.com/backhandspod, and TikTok ​​https://www.tiktok.com/@backhandsandcompliments.

Despite the chaos of Rome and the potential for insanity at the beginning of Roland-Garros, the second slam was not very Open and not particularly French! Still, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner saved the tournament by defeating a rat to win the tournament and becoming world number 1 respectively. We talk about all of that and more, including Miranda’s injury at the hands of some wet stairs at her brother’s wedding, the greediness of the ATP that spans all the way back to 1991, and a Space Jam remake with tennis players cleverly titled Space Slam. 

New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about.

Follow us on Instagram instagram.com/backhandsandcompliments, Twitter twitter.com/backhandspod, and TikTok ​​https://www.tiktok.com/@backhandsandcompliments.