The Body Serve

Happy New Year, y'all! We open 2018 and Season 4 of The Body Serve with a preview of the brand new tennis season. First up, we're partnering with Health IQ and encourage you to check them out to get a special rate on life insurance for health conscious folks (you!). We offer our insights on things to look for on both tours in 2018: monitoring the myriad injuries, breakout and comeback candidates, and the coaching carousel. We finish up with some piping hot tea, and be sure to stay right until the end of the show because we have a "moment of zen" instead of our usual outro.

04:05 Plans for the future of TBS, experimenting with the medium

07:55 Previewing the injured men: fingers crossed for Andeh

11:44 Assessing some of the reasons for the spate of injuries

15:15 What measures can the tours take to address this issue?

27:42 An American James can get behind & anything is Pospisil

36:05 The Queen is coming: Serena gets back on court

41:36 Challenging James to expand his favs list

45:08 Comeback candidates on the WTA Tour & going to bat for Bartoli

52:26 Venus & Serena's influence in changing the lifespan of a tennis player's career

55:35 Who's gonna bust out and eff up our lives this year?

58:29 Taking a ride on the coaching carousel

62:53 The sunken place: Kiki stole our man AND is working with Tipspieceofshit?!

66:06 Say my name, say my Shapolovorolorov

69:21 Mariah finding her tea & the vile Cohen & Cooper combo

77:52 Fuck them, but we're trash too: our new year's resolutions

We're finally getting around to wrapping up the year in men's tennis, a year marked by both the resurgence of throwback stars Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer and the Big Four loosening its grip on the top. Again, we asked our listeners to answer a few questions about the ATP season. We shout you out while adding our own insights on a year that may well mark a transition in the long stable ATP Tour. 

1:30 Where's the beef this year? What the hell happened?

We're finally getting around to wrapping up the year in men's tennis, a year marked by both the resurgence of throwback stars Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer and the Big Four loosening its grip on the top. Again, we asked our listeners to answer a few questions about the ATP season. We shout you out while adding our own insights on a year that may well mark a transition in the long stable ATP Tour. 

1:30 Where's the beef this year? What the hell happened?

We’re back to put a bow on the 2017 WTA season with a little help from our listeners. Instead of doing a tournament-to-tournament recap, we’re going more macro and framing the season through four main questions: favourite moment, favourite breakout season, favourite tournament, and clutch performance of the year. Note we didn’t say “best,” and so there’s truly something for everyone in a season which saw so many different players help script a memorable year.

01:25 Kudos to the many players who put their hand up

10:44 Fielding our listeners' fav moments

12:45 The many trials, and triumphs of Venus Williams

16:16 Getting messy to kick things off

28:06 Mugu’s finger wag kick starting her swag

30:27 Sharapova: a highlight for some, tiresome for others

33:59 Sloane channels Whitney's "One Moment In Time"

37:40 Fav breakout season: a case for Olympia Williams-Ohanian

39:11 A plug, a scolding, and a Jersey Shore detour

44:52 Australian Open is the fav tournament in a landslide

46:59 All hail a host of clutch performers

50:15 Godspeed: farewell to this year’s retirees

53:58 The WTA year-end leaders & award winners revisited

62:55 The best revenge is your paper, Venus is the damn MVP

The tennis world received a punch to the gut with news of Jana Novotna's passing; Jonathan tells us how he will remember one of his all-time favourite players. We run through the year-end tennis news: Dimitrov winning the ATP Finals, CoCo's performance at the Fed Cup final, a pair of high-profile coaching breakups, a love match, and Stepanek's retirement. We also marvel at Serena's wedding, the YES vote winning in Australia, and the burgeoning Dimidal friendship, before ending the show with a pair of things that really ticked us off and one that we absolutely adore.

00:45 Remembering the one-of-a-kind Jana Novotna

15:23 Grigor Dimitrov is your year-end champ and new world #3

29:40 Colleen helps the U.S. to Fed Cup glory, is gracious as always

33:34 Cleansing the palate with Serena's wedding

37:36 Cheers, Australia! Loves trumps hate down under

40:10 The Body Serve motto

41:41 The Dimidal phenomenon: we are HERE for it

45:40 Rafa's verdick & Bencic continues her climb

47:40 Splitsville: Caro & Sascha, Murray & Lendl

52:15 Stepanek joins Hingis in retirement; Thiem/Mladenovic confirm love match

55:18 #SeeWhatHadHappendWas: Richard Ingham Evans

61:05 Xtina attempts to climb Mount Whitney

63:53 Thing we dislike: the abhorrent JAMES CORDEN

66:10 Thing we love: the delightful SKAM

The tennis world received a punch to the gut with news of Jana Novotna's passing; Jonathan tells us how he will remember one of his all-time favourite players. We run through the year-end tennis news: Dimitrov winning the ATP Finals, CoCo's performance at the Fed Cup final, a pair of high-profile coaching breakups, a love match, and Stepanek's retirement. We also marvel at Serena's wedding, the YES vote winning in Australia, and the burgeoning Dimidal friendship, before ending the show with a pair of things that really ticked us off and one that we absolutely adore.

00:45 Remembering the one-of-a-kind Jana Novotna

15:23 Grigor Dimitrov is your year-end champ and new world #3

29:40 Colleen helps the U.S. to Fed Cup glory, is gracious as always

33:34 Cleansing the palate with Serena's wedding

37:36 Cheers, Australia! Loves trumps hate down under

40:10 The Body Serve motto

41:41 The Dimidal phenomenon: we are HERE for it

45:40 Rafa's verdick & Bencic continues her climb

47:40 Splitsville: Caro & Sascha, Murray & Lendl

52:15 Stepanek joins Hingis in retirement; Thiem/Mladenovic confirm love match

55:18 #SeeWhatHadHappendWas: Richard Ingham Evans

61:05 Xtina attempts to climb Mount Whitney

63:53 Thing we dislike: the abhorrent JAMES CORDEN

66:10 Thing we love: the delightful SKAM

We were compelled to record episode 102 by the heinous and embarrassing draw ceremony at the Next Gen Finals in Milan. But it gave us the opportunity to recap Julia Goerges' stunning run in Zhuhai and Jack Sock's top 10 debut and first Masters. The title of this episode comes straight from CoCo's mouth, while trailing Goerges in the Zhuhai final. Finally, James takes a quiz on the WTA season - did you do better than he did?

1:00 The reason we’re here: ATP Next Gen draw ceremony fiasco

101 episodes in and we're still finding lots to talk about. We praise Caroline Wozniacki for her career-best performance as she beats the best and wins Singapore. Plus, we discuss Venus' season, and the knocks on her for her press conference performances, sorting through some resentments and biases on all sides. We also take on Hingis' shocking retirement, Guy Forget shading the eff out of Roger Federer, and end with an impassioned #SeeWhatHadHappenedWas on Kevin Spacey.  

1:30 Getting into Singapore: surface slowness, round robin intrigue

We're proud to share our 100th episode with you; we weren't always sure we'd get here. We skip the latest tennis news in favor of an extended listener mailbag, made possible by all of your clever and interesting questions. We chat about: the surprising absence of an out gay male player, some guesses as to why tennis is so popular among LGBTQ fans, our dream tournaments to cover and players to interview, our favorite curse words, and we ruminate a little on our purpose and mission as a podcast. We finish up with a review of Battle of the Sexes, and our genuine awe at what Billie Jean and the Original Nine accomplished.

:30 We made it to 100!!!

Welcome to episode 99 of The Body Serve, one episode away from an unlikely milestone. Thank you to listener @SholzTalks10s for his unwitting inspiration for the structure of this episode: we run through the tennis happenings from A-Z, serving up our usual flavours of tea, opinion, results, and levity. Hop on board The Body Serve train for one of our favourite episodes yet.

6:30 A-C: Agassi still on-board the Nole train, British media hysteria, and Cilic enters top 4

12:00 D-F: Dan Evans’ cocaine ban, Errani emerges from pasta-gate, and Fedal XXXVIII

23:10 G-I: Grisha presses Rafa again, parsing through Hong Kong, and Belinda’s back from injury

27:50 J-L: Jo Konta’s class & the British affinity for cakes, Kremlin Cup, and Linz results

34:15 M-O: Maria wins Tianjin, Nadal excels in Asia, and we are OVER the Fedal fandom outrage

40:15 P: Fabio’s peanuts

47:45 Q: Jonathan takes a Quiz

59:10 R-U: Roselyne Bachelot faces the music, Shanghai doing THE MOST, feeding the trolls, and unlucky delPo

1:06:30 V-X: Osaka’s dream win vs Queen Vee, WTA #1 race, and we’re Xcited for episode 100!!!

1:11:30 Y&Z: Fedal year-end #1 talk and Zhuhai is on the come up