The Body Serve

Welcome to our mid-Roland Garros 2020 dispatch. Those sounds you may have heard over the last few days were those of players often being loud and wrong. We’ve got a fairly predictable final eight on the men’s side, while the women’s draw has turned out some truly shocking yet inspiring results. We dive into the latest Zverev mess, Novak’s quip, Hawkeye misinformation, Sara’s cursing, retiring players before they’re ready, and finish with a rant on calling Naomi’s man her “rapper boyfriend.” Who’s deserving of being told to kick rocks and eat dirt?

5:00 A lot of surprises in the men's draw, but the quarterfinals are still pretty standard

10:30 Sooo many first-time third rounders on the men's side

14:40 Zverev has a fever. Oh?

27:50 Women's draw: Swiatek destroys the clear tournament favorite, among many surprises

32:30 Errani loses the match and her mind as Bertens cramps

44:00 Damn, it's tough to be an umpire these days: the HawkEye saga

56:20 Keep your saliva in your mouth; keep your dad in his seat

59:40 Et ceteras: don't retire players before they're ready

65:20 Why are we still telling players how to schedule and whom to date, during a pandemic?

Roland Garros 2020 is upon us, en automne, barely two weeks after the US Open and perhaps against better judgment. But what happen-ed happen-ed and here we are in Paris. The cool, damp conditions will likely produce grinding and unpredictable tennis, which has made predictions futile. The best predictor is how players have fared so far during the restarted season. In addition to the draw preview, we've got a few Covid updates, several messes to check in on, and a Dramatic Reading full of Canadian Content.

0:30 Against all odds, Roland Garros is happening

4:50 Men's draw preview: who will benefit from these tough conditions? Rafa gets Thiem, Djoko gets Tsitsipas/Meddy/Berrettini

19:00 We both failed probability but no, Virginia, the draw's not rigged

28:20 Women's draw preview: for the first time in a while, there's a clear favorite (but her road's not easy)

37:20 Women's bottom half - what to expect of Pliskova's health? Will someone other than Simona win her third Slam here?

42:15 Covid updates: spectator limit reduced to 1000 per day; Paire is in, but Verdasco is out

47:10 Buckle up for lots of commentator talk about weather and new balls

52:50 An enduring, recurring mess by Boris Becker

55:35 Dramatic Reading, a tribute to the trap king of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada

It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t think we would -- or should -- have any tennis for the rest of 2020. Now, here we are recapping the final week of a fanless U.S. Open. Naomi Osaka and Dominic Thiem are your champions, a third Slam triumph for Naomi and a first at last for someone not named Federer, Djokovic, or Nadal. We cover the matches of week two leading up to the finals, as well as so much of the commentary and discourse surrounding the tournament. Sadly, and maddeningly, the commentariat simply did not meet the moment. All this and more on our Bubble Wrap!

02:02 Mariah saves the day: Jonathan has a word for the haters

10:20 The road to the women's final

20:38 Naomi Osaka wins her 3rd Slam title, against a reborn Vika

30:27 Naomi starts a conversation, the commentators have no clue how to talk about it

46:08 The sloppy path to the men's final?

52:07 The "low quality" of the men's matches doesn't exist in a vacuum

59:54 What to make of the men's final  

65:18 Moments that made us cringe

78:14 Moments of levity: things we enjoyed from the fortnight

81:59 Dramatic Reading: Serena (out of nowhere) shades tf out of ______.

We knew it would be an unusual first week of the US Open. It started with Benoit Paire's positive test, and continued with the double bubble regulations and warring health departments. We got non-stop drama surrounding Kiki Mladenovic's singles loss and last-minute ejection from the doubles draw. But no one was prepared for the default of the undefeated #1 seed Novak Djokovic after hitting a line judge with a ball. Nostalgic for five-set collapses and parent-coach-player psychodramas? Oh, we still have those too.

0:30 Djokovic defaulted in the 4th round

9:15 Highlights of the men's first week: Felix grows up, Tsitsipas melts down

18:00 Three Canadian men in the second week of a Slam, a first!

26:00 Women's side: Rogers and Brady stun, Pironkova parachutes in to torture your faves, and Vika gets that Vika mojo back

41:20 Some thoughts on Sloane-Serena

49:45 Benoit and the original 10 - a double bubble and a not-quite-double bubble

53:40 Kiki does not love the US Open

59:10 Inconsistency, jurisdiction issues, and a lack of transparency

70:10 Thoughts on Djokovic's statement  

This week saw many major stories come and go until one stuck: the breaking away of Novak Djokovic and others from the ATP Player Council to start a separate player association (not a union btw). Before that, we saw Naomi Osaka's solitary act of resistance stop the tennis world in its tracks; a strange and troubling end to Sakkari-Serena; the rebirth of Victoria Azarenka; and the rebranding of Milos Raonic as widely beloved. Oh yeah, and the US Open preview.

2:30 American sports react to the shooting of Jacob Blake

9:15 Naomi Osaka announces that she won't play her Cincinnati semifinal to draw attention to BLM

16:30 "Shut up and dribble" doesn't work in tennis, especially women's tennis

20:50 Meanwhile, the Western & Southern Open is happening under strange circumstances - Vika's resurgence

24:45 Milos Raonic: new hair, new thighs, new me

28:20 The bizarre end to Serena Williams-Maria Sakkari

33:50 The girl who cried wolf

39:15 Friday night news dump: Djokovic and others break away from the ATP Player Council to form the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA)

53:30 Federer, Nadal, et al send a letter with some ... concerns (and some very good questions)

63:20 So what about women tennis players? #TennisUnited am I right

71:00 Oh, the US Open is happening in like two days? 

Tennis has resumed in the US and Europe as the pandemic rages on. We catch up on a few weeks' worth of news, including: recent title winners Brady, Ferro, and Halep; early life in the Cincy/NY "bubble"; the non-sensical ramblings of vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists; and that Novak interview. We close with a tribute to two titans of 20th century tennis, who contributed even more off-court than they did on: Bob Ryland and Angela Buxton. 

1:40 WTA site adds pronunciation guide - let’s try again,fail again, fail better

3:40 Tennis returns in Palermo, then Prague - Ferro is your first title winner of the resumed 2020 season

7:45 Lexington’s Top Seed Open gets a field they didn’t expect; thoughts on Venus’ new game, plus Coco, Serena, Vika, Jil, Ons, and Jenn

22:30 First-time titlist Jennifer Brady sweeps her side of the draw

25:00 Welcome to the bubble   

37:55 The NYT interview with Djokovic - ehrm, um, how do we put this 

46:15 Virologists and physicians are great and all - but let’s listen to vaccine-skeptic conspiracy theorists instead; also known as Occam’s Checkered Head Band

56:45 US Open:who’s in, who’s out

60:45 How are the rankings going to work this year?

63:15 Tributes to the late, great Bob Ryland and Angela Buxton

We are back from hiatus to bring you an episode that we have been working on for months, one that serves as a continuation of our previous dive into Pre-Open Era tennis. With tennis players now able to earn a living while also competing against the best at all the tournaments, we follow the development of the WTA Tour after its inception, the persistent struggles for equality over the decades, and the players who played major roles in making it happen.

04:02 Why do this episode now?

07:21 Cultural context for equal prize money and conditions under which movement arose

20:25 Tennis at the onset of the Open Era & the emergence of the women’s tour

37:51 Chris Evert emerges at the exact right time for women’s tennis

43:43 The WTA takes off; the women take Wimbledon to task

57:42 What were the arguments back then surrounding equal pay?

71:08 Ebbs and flows in the 80s and 90s, but the fight continues

83:00 Wimbledon’s decades-long petty misogyny against EPM

97:20 Our cautions and takeaways from this episode

We've just had the pleasure of chatting with the legendary Zina Garrison, gold medalist in Seoul, 3-time major mixed doubles champ, and the 1990 Wimbledon runner-up. Zina chats about her origins in tennis, shares her experience as a black woman in a very white sport, and takes us through some of the highlights of a great career. As Zina herself says, "Zina doesn't say much but when she does . . . " -- well, you listen.

8:50 Zina takes us through her introduction to tennis, the first all-black WTA final (with Lori McNeil), and getting a kick out of her own record against Martina Navratilova 

18:00 That Monica Seles flowers incident (lol) and beating Chris Evert in her final match

22:00 Zina's 1990 Wimbledon run, 30 years later

26:00 "Now people can't say those things didn't happen" - how Black Lives Matter has shone a light on inequality in tennis

34:10 Althea Gibson as more than just an icon

38:00 So ... about the wiggle

41:00 The game since Zina retired - who's she watching now?

4:00 A brief diversion to celebrate our double century, on cricket legend Brian Lara

7:00 Adria Tour results in several players testing positive for COVID-19

19:40 Fandom has made this conversation all but impossible

30:15 Blame game between players, coaches, Djokovic's dad, heads of state

32:30 Dominic Thiem, king of obliviousness

34:45 Alexander Zverev spotted acting the fool, stans jump ship

42:25 We're in trouble because managing this pandemic requires people caring about others

48:15 A dramatic reading of The Doughnut Chronicles, starring Boris Becker and Nick Kyrgios

So ... anything interesting happen lately? This week, tennis has swiftly put itself back together again, introducing an ambitious summer/fall schedule that includes the US Open, Roland Garros, and smaller tournaments on three continents, with nary a week of rest in between. We discuss the risks, the stakeholder concerns, and the simple WTF of the US Open's bombastic announcement. Because it's Pride month, we also address the sorry state of content coming from the tennis institutions and how it can be done better.

11:50 USTA trusts players to be "judicious" and careful about public safety ... where is the evidence tho

22:30 Novak Djokovic continues to take L after L after L 

30:00 Revised WTA and ATP schedules: Quarantine? Never heard of her

40:30 Revisiting the 2018 US Open trophy ceremony- does it read differently now?

57:10 Venus Williams turns 40! Also, what is Tennis Majors?

60:35 Tennis United and the general failure of tennis orgs to confront LGBTQ issues and racism