The Body Serve

By The Body Serve Tennis Podcast

Society & Culture

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Tennis podcast featuring casual, semi-respectable conversations about the ATP & WTA.

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Misery Business: 2023 ATP Wrap

11.30.2023

The ATP season: it wasn’t always fun, but it’s over and that’s what matters! 2023 saw Novak Djokovic manage his schedule wisely and dominate players 15 years younger than him, even as Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Daniil Medvedev attempted ...

The Body Serve episodes:

11.30.2023 Misery Business: 2023 ATP Wrap The ATP season: it wasn’t always fun, but it’s over and that’s what matters! 2023 saw Novak Djokovic manage his schedule wisely and dominate players 15 years younger than him, even as Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Daniil Medvedev attempted ...
11.26.2023 Let Them Eat Cake: 2023 WTA Wrap The 2023 season started and ended with Iga Swiatek as the player to beat, but it wasn’t a repeat of her utterly dominant 2022. A new elite separated itself from the field, as Sabalenka won her first Slam and achieved ...
11.21.2023 Novak and the Seven Jokers The 2023 tennis season is barreling toward the finish line. First up: the Canadian women win their first ever BJK/Fed Cup behind huge performances by Leylah Fernandez, Marina Stakusic, and Gaby Dabrowski. Novak Djokovic distances himself even farther from the ...
11.10.2023 Shambles It’s hard to know where to start with the WTA Finals in Cancun, where the poor conditions and seemingly shoddy preparation overshadowed much of the actual play. The WTA is suffering a reputational crisis and a player rebellion, with players ...
10.31.2023 Catching A Case TBS 320 arrives as the tours (mercifully) make their final few stops of the season. We recap the results of the past week: Sinner, Auger-Aliassime, and Haddad Maia all score big wins for their respective careers. As you know, James ...
10.24.2023 Smooth Criminal Admittedly, this hasn’t been our most productive October ever, but we’re here! First, we’re recapping two weeks of results, including a 12th title for Monfils, a first for Shelton, Mertens remaining the only ever winner of Monastir, and Zheng Qinwen ...
10.10.2023 Bloviation Station Tennis returns to China after four years away, as Iga Swiatek reminds us who's boss and Jannik Sinner takes a huge step forward by beating Alcaraz and Medvedev for the Beijing title. Meanwhile, the Cancun organizers are building their Field ...
09.27.2023 Performance, BYE! Hiiiiiii, we’re back to discuss the fallout from the Simona Halep verdict and the tennis results since the U.S. Open. Now that Simona has been officially handed a four year suspension, we have a bit more clarity as to what’s ...
09.14.2023 Not Gon’ Cry Welcome to Part II of our US Open wrap, this time focusing on the men’s draw. Djokovic wins #24 and the challengers (aside from Alcaraz) have gotten no closer to cracking him mentally or physically … they’ve perhaps gotten even ...
09.10.2023 Miss Gauff Coco Gauff -- a child prodigy who built her career step by step -- grabs her first major title at 19 to cap a stunning turnaround this summer. She slays every question, embraces gratitude, thanks her haters, and will leave ...
09.04.2023 Lollygagging at the US Open: Week One We're fresh off our second visit to the US Open (and James' first!) and sharing our observations of the grounds, the big stadiums, the Honey Deuces, and the record crowds. James tells the story of night one on Ashe, something ...
08.25.2023 Flush(ing) With Possibility: 2023 US Open Preview It’s The Body Serve’s second visit to the US Open (James’ first!). We recorded part of this episode in Toronto, minutes before leaving for the airport, and then broke down the draws after arriving in Queens. There was a lot ...
08.22.2023 Bee For Real Cincinnati was starting to feel like a hangover from the Canadian tournaments but finals Sunday turned that all around. Coco Gauff grabbed her first 1000 title -- going 11-1 since her loss at Wimbledon -- and Djokovic beat Alcaraz over ...
08.14.2023 Is She A Karen, Or Is She Iconic? Tennis returned to Canada as weather wreaked bedlam on the women's draw in Montréal. Jessie Pegula won her second 1000 title and scored a great win over #1 Iga Swiatek, but we need to talk about some horrendous scheduling decisions ...
07.30.2023 Mikael Me Maybe Welcome to the brief, post-Wimbledon grass-clay-hardcourt-Euro-American-Hopman Cup season, with players fighting for money and points across various countries on all surfaces. We start with the news of Mikael Ymer’s 18-month suspension for missing doping tests (the ITF didn’t like the ...
07.18.2023 The Audacity Of It All: Wimbledon Wrap Well well well, what has Wimbledon wrought?! Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa Vondrousova are your singles champions, defeating Novak Djokovic and Ons Jabeur respectively. We try to get to the bottom of how both results happened, while touching on some of ...
07.09.2023 Policing the Panties: Wimbledon Week One Wimbledon’s first week is in the books (almost), dominated by talk of rain, curfews, scheduling, and the queue. We highlight the big stories and top performers of the week – Svitolina, Eubanks, Berrettini, Vondrousova, etc. – and a few of ...
07.01.2023 The Rothesay Wimbledon Classic: SW19 Preview We’re back from Europe just in time to recap the brief grass season, share our experiences at the bett1open in Berlin, preview the Wimbledon draw, give our takes on Break Point part two, chat about the ATP/WTA overtures to Saudi ...
06.20.2023 TBS Mailbag: Tethered to Nothingness We’re on the road, so we have a mailbag episode to tide you over until we get back on our thrones up North. So much tennis stuff has happened already since we’ve been away, and we’ll be back next time ...
06.13.2023 The Next (De)Generation: Roland Garros Wrap Roland Garros 2023 is in the books, as Iga Swiatek extends her dominance and Novak Djokovic beats a field that offered very little resistance to the new major singles title leader. All respect and admiration goes to Karolina Muchová, so ...
06.04.2023 The Placebo Effect We're halfway through Roland Garros -- most of the favorites are still around plus a few clay sensations on the bottom halves of both the men's and women's draws. We're talking Sloane, Svitolina, Muchova, Iga, Carlos, Jannik, Meddy and more. ...
05.27.2023 Come Hell or High Pasta: Roland Garros Preview Roland Garros will begin without Rafael Nadal in the draw, for the first time since 2004. In his stead, Alcaraz and Djokovic are favorites, but Medvedev’s Rome win and Rune’s consistency might complicate things. On the women’s side, the fabled ...
05.22.2023 Rome in Ruins Another clay Masters, another disastrous finale. They couldn’t help the rain, but between the weird scheduling and the fumbled women’s singles trophy presentation, Rome left a bad taste in our mouths after this expanded clay experiment. Rybakina and Medvedev prevailed: ...
05.09.2023 The Gender Cake Gap Episode 301 takes us crashing back to Earth in the wake of genuine concerns over the Madrid Open’s treatment of women players. The overlong, overcooked tournament ended in a flurry of bad press, which started with some symbolically loaded cakes ...
05.02.2023 SERENA Episode 300 of The Body Serve is our meditation on the career of Serena Williams - an episode we’d put off, partly out of denial and partly because we wanted so badly to do it justice. In 1999, just before ...
04.21.2023 Man in the Mirror Episode 299 (almost there!) brings us to Andrey Rublev's first Masters title with his win over young menace Holger Rune. Medvedev & Zverev fire a few shots at each other, culminating in Daniil's clear 'we are not friends and keep ...
04.11.2023 Betwixt, Betrayed, and Betweener-ed Rain across the Southern US nearly derailed a few tennis tournaments this weekend, but Ons Jabeur and Frances Tiafoe held on to win Charleston and Houston, respectively. We chat about the early clay season, Naomi's post-baby goals, and some updates ...
04.04.2023 Petrafied Our Miami champs – Kvitova and Medvedev – underscore how tough it is to win the Sunshine Double. Petra Kvitova completes one of her most unexpected tournament runs by winning her 30th WTA title and ninth at the 1000 level. ...
03.25.2023 Pocketful of Sunshine (Double) We’re coming to you mid-Sunshine Double, which at this point is more like Sunshine Month? Sunshine Quarter? Anyway, pack your SPF. We’re seeing storylines emerge for the year: is there a WTA Big 3 emerging? Who else will join that ...
03.14.2023 Say Something It’s a little bit of everything this week -- first, some thoughts on the first week of Indian Wells, whose courts are slower than Daniil Medvedev’s bathroom breaks (his words). We chat about Murray, Medvedev, Raducanu, Muchová, and the undeniable ...
03.07.2023 Fly Like A Bird It’s been a rough week in the Body Serve household, as we said goodbye to our beautiful 16-year-old beagle Vince. He’s felt like a third co-host over the years, a presence who was always just off-mic (and sometimes on it ...
02.22.2023 We Need a Preposition February in tennis: four continents, three Iga bagels, two male US Open champs winning titles, and one white woman wearing racially inappropriate hairstyles. This month is nothing if not eclectic. We also chat about Hsieh dropping in then dropping out ...
02.10.2023 Same As It Ever Was Post-Australian Open tennis continues around the world, but this week we’re mostly talking about the seeming conclusions of the ATP’s two highest profile domestic violence cases (but not their only cases, btw). The ATP quietly dropped a new release shortly ...
01.31.2023 Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss: Aus Open Wrap On the 14th day since the Australian Open started, we rested while Novak wept. The victimhood tour is complete, Jonathan is annoyed, and we pay it as much (or as little) attention as we can muster. Meanwhile, Aryna Sabalenka did ...
01.24.2023 That’s Not The Rule, Kerrilyn Welcome to the third installment of our Australian Open series! We're at the quarterfinals, and the men's draw is giving chaos while the women's seems kind of … correct? We talk about Djokovic's mini-battle with the press and overall less ...
01.20.2023 The Bushbirds Are Sh*tting Hey there, just popping in to offer some thoughts on the first few days of the 2023 Australian Open and the first three episodes of Netflix’s tennis docuseries Break Point! We talk about a few standouts from a pretty rocky ...
01.13.2023 Pregnant With Possibilities: Australian Open Preview The first Slam of the year doesn't give us many weeks of tennis to form opinions, but it's delivered on story lines, with one taking the cake: Naomi Osaka -- having already withdrawn from the Australian Open -- announced she's ...
01.06.2023 A Positive Start Welcome to The Body Serve 9! We're recovering from our first-ever bout with COVID but tennis never stops and the show must go on. We offer some things to look out for in 2023 -- a true rival to Iga? ...
12.16.2022 How Did We Get Here? TBS Culture Edition To cap off our 8th season and tide you over until 2023, we’re bringing you the rare TBS culture episode. No tennis talk whatsoever -- we even had a few tennis-related items on the agenda which we deleted. We’ve got: ...
12.01.2022 The Merchants of Menace: 2022 ATP Wrap It’s time to wrap up the 2022 ATP season, and we’re treating the guys with a healthy (and earned!) dose of suspicion, starting with a rundown of the most badly behaved children of the year. But it’s not all bad ...
11.22.2022 The Inroads (and Outroads?) of the 2022 WTA Season The 2022 WTA season had everything: a 37-match win streak, the retirements of the current #1 (abrupt) and the GOAT (expected), a Wimbledon with no ranking points, and a major drug suspension. Iga Swiatek’s dominance didn’t leave much room for ...
11.10.2022 Muchas Garcías The WTA regular season comes to a close with comeback kid Caroline Garcia grabbing her biggest career title, dispatching Iga-vanquisher Aryna Sabalenka in a boom-boom final. We discuss the last-minute nature of the event and the tough financial and ethical ...
11.01.2022 Félix Aviation Administration Canadian King Félix Auger-Aliassime. As Rihanna said, let’s start there. Félix has turned around his final-round performances to the tune of three straight titles, beating world #1 Alcaraz twice in the past few weeks. Elsewhere, in Texaaaas, the world’s best ...
10.25.2022 The October Surprise Just when we thought we could go away for a spell without anything crazy happening, the ghost of an ugly hotel carpet threw things into disarray with Simona Halep testing positive for a banned substance. We begin the episode by ...
10.11.2022 25 Languages But Is Arabic One? This is a hodgepodge episode, catching up with the recent tournament results across four continents, including Tunisia’s first WTA event, Djokovic’s clearing of the Next and CurrentGen, and Tiafoe’s continuing run of good form. We spend a good amount of ...
10.02.2022 Question: Tell Me What You Think About ... Thanks to you, our listeners, we’re back with a special mailbag episode, answering your questions about any and everything. You asked about tennis, of course – lots of questions lingering from Laver Cup and Roger’s retirement, and about the states ...
09.27.2022 It Doesn’t Even Matter And just like that, another GOAT says goodbye. This time, it’s Roger Federer at Laver Cup, giving tennis and his fans one last glimpse at his greatness. Confession: we haven’t always been the biggest FedFans, but we’re still paying respect ...
09.13.2022 Barely Bleating: US Open Wrap The final Slam of the season sees Iga Swiatek troubleshoot and learn now to extend her dominance, and the coronation of the (not very) long awaited Carlos Alcaraz as a major winner and youngest male #1 in history. As always, ...
09.05.2022 Very Good, Serena Williams: US Open Week One Well folks, that was quite the first week of the US Open, wasn't it? Jonathan is back from his trip to Flushing Meadows, and we are back to talk about Serena's last dance (or at least our first stab at ...
08.26.2022 Looks Like We Made It: US Open Preview We're piecing together a preview for the US Open on precarious hotel wifi, but the show must go on! After all, this is Serena's final Slam. Jonathan is in NY taking in the action, while James holds down the TBS ...

Older episodes

The Body Serve

What's The Body Serve about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Body Serve episodes:

Misery Business: 2023 ATP Wrap

Let Them Eat Cake: 2023 WTA Wrap

Novak and the Seven Jokers

Shambles

Catching A Case

Smooth Criminal

Bloviation Station

Performance, BYE!

Not Gon’ Cry

Miss Gauff

Lollygagging at the US Open: Week One

Flush(ing) With Possibility: 2023 US Open Preview

Bee For Real

Is She A Karen, Or Is She Iconic?

Mikael Me Maybe

The Audacity Of It All: Wimbledon Wrap

Policing the Panties: Wimbledon Week One

The Rothesay Wimbledon Classic: SW19 Preview

TBS Mailbag: Tethered to Nothingness

The Next (De)Generation: Roland Garros Wrap

The Placebo Effect

Come Hell or High Pasta: Roland Garros Preview

Rome in Ruins

The Gender Cake Gap

SERENA

Man in the Mirror

Betwixt, Betrayed, and Betweener-ed

Petrafied

Pocketful of Sunshine (Double)

Say Something

Fly Like A Bird

We Need a Preposition

Same As It Ever Was

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss: Aus Open Wrap

That’s Not The Rule, Kerrilyn

The Bushbirds Are Sh*tting

Pregnant With Possibilities: Australian Open Preview

A Positive Start

How Did We Get Here? TBS Culture Edition

The Merchants of Menace: 2022 ATP Wrap

The Inroads (and Outroads?) of the 2022 WTA Season

Muchas Garcías

Félix Aviation Administration

The October Surprise

25 Languages But Is Arabic One?

Question: Tell Me What You Think About ...

It Doesn’t Even Matter

Barely Bleating: US Open Wrap

Very Good, Serena Williams: US Open Week One

Looks Like We Made It: US Open Preview