2026 US OPEN DAY 1 RECAP: Djokovic Falls In Round 1, Cramping Drama & More

I have my dream job, but even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where ServiceNow's AI Specialist come in. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work, they actually do it. That way your team can focus on what matters. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. Hey everyone, welcome to QuickSurf brought to you by ServiceNow. Yes, we are in the Cadillac studio, we are shooting QuickSurf from an Escalade IQ. Unbelievable. Techishon, look at what you've done. You built a studio into a car. Yep. It is unbelievable. There's a lot of buttons back there. I don't know what they're called. Where are they? Is that a transmographer? That's close, that's close. Does that connect to the flangey? Yes, it is. If you're listening to this episode, please go on to YouTube and see what we're currently doing. This is Cash Cab, but you have to open a dish. Yeah. Techishon's literally built a full studio with lighting and everything else into the back of the Cadillac Escalade IQ. We're supposed to point out that this car has an AKG studio reference audio system with Dolby Atmos. When I got to be honest, this whole studio is just running off of the car's plugs. It has regular plugs, we are currently in an electric car running this studio off the car's electric. I'm so happy. It's unbelievable. This is so great. So, currently, we are driving home from Arthur Astadium. You could probably see the rain or hear it, maybe in our car studio. This is insane. But I guess we have to get to tennis at some point. Yeah. It matches on the outside of Ash as we're shooting this are currently suspended. Novak's match is at three all in the third set. He is being made to work by Navone. He has spent a lot of time on court, which I was at the ESPN desk before we got into our car studio. And I just said, this is what he wants to avoid. He does not want these knock down drag out four hours on court. The good news is, it's not hot. He has two days after this. But as it stands currently, struggling a little bit, we'll see which way this one goes. Hopefully, we'll have another update as we get through the matches, which we'll run through now. Jessica Gula, I thought, looked good today. Pretty straight forward over Rusei. Since she was very nervous that happens in the US open, especially on the American side, she is one of four women that has a chance to be number one in the world. It looks like it will probably be Rabakina. I think Coco, Jess and Sabah, Sabah link are all have to win the tournament. Rabakina kind of just needs to one be healthy. If she makes semis, it's a wrap. She's number one in the world, irrespective of if any of the other three win. But Gula rolled had 14 break chances in the first set of her match, converted to. You want to break it higher percentage, but you also had 14 break chances, which is very good. One and two, Pavolini had not played since Wimbledon, so she struggled up to Wimbledon, made the quarters there. You're thinking maybe she turns her year around, got through in three sets, Costiac, rolled. She had her dogs in the match, and they held her dog up. Dog is named Mander. Mander. I only saw it. I couldn't hear it. And the other one's name is Cheach. Cheach and Mander. Yeah. Like, Cheach and Chong. Cheach makes sense. Mander. Cheach. Cheach. Cheach and Chong. Cheach and Chong. Yeah, Chong. No idea what you're talking about. Yeah. He has no idea, any reference that any cult pop culture reference that happened after the year 2017 push. Take a shot. But he can build a court. He can build a court studio in a Cadillac. He knows. That's a good hire by us. That's a very good job. That's a very, very good job. I'm definitely glad he does the new cheaches. Absolutely. It's just sucks when you have a banger and Chong's like gives you this. It's amazing. You're literally doing the entire show from a board. It's switching. This is my favorite. It's switching. It's switching. This is my favorite. Critique of it goes down. Yeah. Two seeds. Yeah. Two time. Akima. I think his name or record. I don't know. Don't buzz my balls. 92 in the world loses to 92 in the world. Critique of it. That's a saddle like a section. So if you're short on confidence going in. The draws were kind. Yeah. Like she can, I think, cruise to the run of 16. I think she'd play Schneider who she was way up on it. Roll and Gales and then ended up losing to. So I think that's good for for Sablelenka. Not good for J.W.'s bracket. Laila Fernandez rolled Katie Bolter, Donna Vecchic all through. Medi got a win over Gaston. That was a dream first round for him. Gaston very talented. But not the type of people, not the type of person that can knock your head off with power, which is not what Medi wants to play. If you don't have anything that can really attack Medi, come in or hold serve, he's going to look really good T.P. Drop the first set was up 5/4 serving. Got broken at love and then played a pretty bad breaker. And that'll happen in like eight minutes. Like shock to the system. He was able to reset and look really good the rest of the way. I think it was like one, three, one or one, three, two. He was dropping some heaters. Yeah. Lahec go look good. Yeah, he got up to like 138. Yeah. He was ripping it through on the second set. Shapo gets through maybe that fario takes up Brooks B in 5 sets. Did you see the feature that Jeff Darlington did for ESPN on Jensen Brooks B? That was a fantastic feature. I mean, it was very emotional, but just to explain a complex situation and humanize what his experience is like, it was amazing. So for shout out to Jeff. Jeff is awesome, by the way. I love working with him. He's he's great at this job, but it was his piece. If you listen to show or if you follow tennis, Jensen Brooks B was nonverbal as autism. Till he was four years old and they did a feature on medical personnel saying that he would have, you know, up to 10 tantrums a day that would last for about a half hour. Yeah. It was amazingly heartfelt, so like I knew I was different. I knew all of this stuff. I was frustrated and just basically telling a story about how he's persevered and his therapist doctor basically said like him being a professional that is a miracle. It was heartwarming. I said on air on ESPN, I'm proud to have his story in tennis. I'm proud that if there are kids like him who are struggling, who have to learn certain behaviors and they're tougher than maybe some other kids have to learn them, that we're pointing to in our sport and saying he did it, he won a title, lost a faria, but as I said on our ESPN set, you know, Brooksy might lose tennis matches and he wins every day. Just phenomenal. And afterwards in the locker room, and I'm getting like a little, I saw him, he looked just heartbroken. And so my heart, like he had all of it, but fantastic story, fantastic feature on ESPN. If you have not seen it, please go, I don't know what do they do it on the old YouTube or something. Yeah, probably. Go watch it. It was fantastic. Darlington did a great job and Brooksy is just an inspiration. I don't care that they lost. And I will never care if he wins another test match. He's won life. He's fantastic. That's cool. And I was commenting on it, but it was just, it was a great, great piece. So Van Asha beats Nory up set on the men's side. Seed goes down Krishikawa, one on the women's side, men's side, Nory. Lloyd Harris takes out Jack Kennedy who had won junior nationals. It was pretty straightforward. Long Island kid. Yeah, like by all accounts, a really good kid, bit of a welcome to the big leagues moment, I think. So we'll see where he goes from here. No, not on Otman was drama. It was crazy. It was drama. It was not. It was not happy. It was not on it. It was not happy. It was not on it. And it was worth every minute. Yeah. That was spent the three hours we sat there. So I'll explain this quickly because it'll lead up a lot of shot clock to do it. Otman up two sets starts cramping. Does the cramp walk where he can't, I mean, he's definitely cramping. There's no, like you don't fake cramps up two sets. Like you just don't do it. Things go, hand goes, he starts, you know, run, like kind of, most people would, like he starts running shot clock. He starts, you know, taking time here, time there, calling the trainer, you know, convincing the trainer, not just similar to what Carlos did in Australia, like, you know, I want you, I need treatment on my legs, but I'm trying to convince you. It's for an injury that's separate from my cramps. The trainer wasn't having it. I like Otman. Uh, this was late, this isn't the fifth, this was the fifth. So it, this has been going on for hours. Yeah. He's been cramping, not cramping. He was serving underhanded, right handed. He's a lefty. Yeah. His left arm was all taped up. It was drama. Like he, he was like battle worn and we're like, this is the first round. Yeah. And he said, he said something that like I would, if I, if I saw him again, he's probably leaving town, but I'd say like that's the trainers in the locker room at tennis events are saints. They're fantastic. Some of my favorite people from the legends, Bob Russo, Bill Norris, Clay Steinman, Dougie Spreen, who's my guy, like, to touch night, like, just led It's a pair, Basel, Stefan, like you just go on and on and on, just Paul Nass is a legend of a human. Albon at one point, the trainer basically said like my judgment is that it's cramps and you're asking me to do something and didn't give him treatment. Albon said like you're going to give me treatment or you're just going to keep being stupid. Yeah, you can find the exchange online, it was 2-1 in the fifth, he had, it looked like he had maybe tweaked a groin, but I mean it's, it's, I don't know, I don't know whether you had a groin or not. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And then he's saying it's my groin and the guy's like you're cramping and he's like it's not, I'm in pain. I like you don't know my body. So it's a judgment call. We don't know. And he said, "Excuse me, can you just give me treatment and stop acting stupid?" Yeah. Which again, that's, I mean that's uncomfortable. Well, you don't, like, like you get a, here's the difference, like you get an umpire, they're not like your livelihood and they're not there for you late, they're not there until 2 in the morning, adding 3 hours to their day, like I've snapped on umpire so I'm not going to say you can't say anything to anyone because that's completely hypocritical by me, right? So I've said, so I've showed the worst side of myself on the court. Trainers are untouchable. They're untouchable, you know, it's like, it'd be like saying it to you like your, your doctor. Yeah. Like they're untouchable. They're, they hustle. They're wearing their families. They travel. They're just, they have a certain spirit. They help. They're, I mean they're invested, but like for the whole tour, um, if I saw my, and I like I'm on social, I'm in his section of the locker room, I, I, I always grade, I've talked to him in his coach this week, I really, really like him. And if I saw him, I, I, you know, a piece of unwanted advice potentially would be, dude, you can't say that to Trainers, they're like the holy grail of, of the fabric of, of the tour. Um, I know that was a bad moment. Hopefully he'll realize that, you know, and, and, and uh, I don't know if nobody needs to apologize, but just maybe no, but that's not the one, um, I feel pretty, uh, I feel pretty strongly about that. So it was, it was, it was drama, um, Munar ends up winning, uh, in five, but that was probably the most dramatic, uh, match of the day. Thanks for listening to Served, we will be right back. As tennis fans, we hear so much about the toll the slams take on players, but we rarely dig in on the core thing that keeps players rested. Sleep and recovery. When I was on tour, recovery had a different meaning. Now technology enables coaches and players to track their fitness in an entirely new way. And eight sleep is revolutionizing how athletes manage their rest. 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You're just, she's as good as it gets for me and she was so appreciative and it was so well deserved and knew that it was Roger and knew it like she just always gets the temperature of the room. I texted her. I said, you've never, I feel like you've never given an opinion for clicks. And you've, you've never shot away from an opinion if it was fair, even if it was uncomfortable. I really, really, really, I was happy for her. Miracle was amazing. The reason why in Miracles, Roger's wife, I mean, for those who've been living in a trash can for plus 25 years of tennis. Not someone who is, you know, Roger said she hadn't spoken public since the interview they did for Hotman Cup mixed doubles 20 some odd years ago. Yeah. I think the reason it hit home is because it's so outside of, she has no thirst for the microphone. She has managed so many things behind the scenes for this exceptional talent to succeed in the way that he did. I'm so happy that she did it. No one knew. I mean, people are like, who is doing it? It's like it would be in a win-tours, it would be Obama, it's going to be his wife. I thought it was such a, I thought it was such a touch of class. I thought she was phenomenal. She cooked me. She cooked you. It was one of the funnier things. I think the way she set it up and the way she was there. She was great. I love them. I just, Roger and I have a bond, I will, I just, I love him forever, I love him as much as you can love someone who ruined your life, like I, maybe even more. But there's one thing from his speech that you said that you were like, I don't know if I, I don't know if I, if I buy it, well, one thing, America said was like, oh, even in the early days before, like I used to warm Roger up for matches. And apparently I said, I don't remember it specifically, but sure sounds like something I would say. Apparently I lost him in a sense final in '05 and I said, I guess Mirka had warmed him up. Yeah. Mirka was an Olympian. She's a great, great protest player. I said, I can't believe I lost to a guy whose girlfriend warmed him up. Maybe salty, maybe just a little salty, yeah, yeah, but she cooked me and I was talking for him. I was talking for him. I'm more about clubbing. Oh, yeah. So, Roger's entire speech was, it touched a class, like, it wasn't, it wasn't grandstaking, didn't mention the number of Wimble and Titles, didn't mention the stuff. He talked about being a ball kid and, you know, thanking all the ball kids and the ecosystem of tennis. And I just talked about the trainers and them and the tour directors and basically the ecosystem of community that exists in tennis. I thought he did a great job doing it, but he referenced like when Mirka and I were young, he goes, you know, when we were doing clubbing, you know, you know, you know, you know, someone wasn't clubbing? Yeah. It's because they say we were doing clubbing, that means you weren't doing clubbing. That is definitely not the way you say it. That is not. Maybe lost a translation. Maybe that's what they're doing. That's what I don't know. All right. I don't know. So here's what's going to happen. Rain, rain, go away. I have a couple things I have to do in the morning before tomorrow night's broadcast. Right now on the no back match, he is serving for the set in the third, five, four, 30, 15. Before we get to that, can I give you the service now, stay out of the day that has to do with this? Be awkward if you didn't now. Yeah. I know. Yeah. No back has now played in each of the four slams, 20 plus times. It's a joke. Is it, I mean, I don't like each of the four slams, 20 plus times. So the sad of the day, 20 or is it four? I don't know. Is it 80? Is it 80 plus? 80 to infinity? Yeah. You're set up back there. Take a shot. Looks like you're about to like, looks like you're about to do a set in Ibiza. So he's like a board. He's like twisting. Yeah, he's about to do clubbing. He's about to do clubbing. You're doing clubbing. Yeah. Okay. So if Novak wins this in four, we're probably not going to come back into the car studio tonight. We don't need. So what's going to happen is we're going to go to our hotel. We're going to get out. I'm going to do what anyone does. Might take a shower. Yeah. But of course, all day. Been a long day. I'll tell you what I think of this match just through three sets. On the ESPN side is that he needs to avoid long matches. He has not avoided long masters. I think the book on Novak just from watching it watch Tarante and Cincinnati in the way that Center's gone against him and a couple others. I think they know that he's not going to settle in and he would be stupid too. But long rallies, he's not going to play defense for four hours. He mentioned some physical issues in Cincinnati. I don't think he was telling any of the tour something they they didn't know already 39 years old. It is. Since he won in 2023. The semis are better and at least eight or sorry, semis at least the semis. If not better and eight of the 11 slams, he's 39 years old. It's absurd what he's doing and time comes for everyone. When he's going to the forehand, he's not playing much defense. being aggressive. He's making some more errors on that side because he's trying to be more aggressive. Not dissimilar to what Roger did at the end of his career when he took more chances, you know, big swings in the backhand. What that means is you don't go into like this lockdown physical. I said one time, it was actually when he was playing Jensen Brooksby and Brooksby took the first set and I said as long way to go, I said he first he takes your legs and then he takes your soul, right? The investment in taking your soul is a tougher task for Novak at 39 than it was for him at 34 or 35 because if it's not, then science doesn't exist, right? So, but I do think he is being more aggressive. I do think the side that people are choosing to kind of go after aggressively is to that forehand side and I think Novak is taking more shots when he gets run to that forehand side. You know, some second server turns, there are some things that I think are cleaned up by when he gets, when he will get more matches. I think the unforced air count was really high in the first two sets. It looks like he's cleaned it up a little bit in the third set, but you're starting to see a pattern where they're not playing the reputation of Novak, they're playing the current version of Novak and I think a lot of that traffic runs aggressively through the forehand side nowadays. I think it serves as good as it's ever been. I'm not sure he's lost serve yet to this point in this match. Yeah, he's going to get two days off so hopefully he can get through this. The conditions are pretty benign indoors, not warm, not humid. You got to think it's a tough task for Novone. I mean, he's been out the three hours, too. Yeah. You know, it's just that Novak's like a superhuman person at 39 years old, so you pay the toll a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, one's the last time you saw a number with Novak with 41 unforced airs. Yeah, as we're watching this in the pressure to the forehand side again, he rolls one over the middle of the net to give -- sorry, not Toronto -- to give Novone a break point. So who knows what's going to happen here? If this goes something crazy, five, we're going to come back like right now. Okay, so we're back. It's a couple hours later from where we were. You've changed. I've changed. We're parked out front of the hotel. Yeah, we're not moving so that we don't obviously build something because we're not moving. We are in our Cadillac studio, Escalade IQ, still went upstairs, watched Novak Djokovic. He lost in five sets to Novone. I think everyone is watching thinking we just don't know. Like his body wasn't physically able to go anymore. It wasn't a matter of willpower, it wasn't a matter of pushing through, it wasn't a matter of pacing himself or picking the right moment. His body simply gave out. There was -- he threw up, it looked like there were some cramps. It looked like his back hip, something gave out as well. He's 39. His body gave out tonight. Yeah, I mean, when you see any player throwing up on the side, you know, inhalers getting worked on like that, regardless of age. So here's our map. Like I think it's natural to think every time he plays a slam, it's the end of the year. Is that it? Yeah. After 39 years old, is that it? We don't know. Some jack-a-lantern's going to ask and press if he knows right then. Yeah. Yeah. I hate that question. I mean, I guess there's no chance he knows, he needs to think about it and also, if he wants to announce something, he'll probably do it without you asking the question. But you don't know, you just don't know. Like, time comes for everyone, time is undefeated. In my mind, it's not a matter of like willpower pushing through discipline. All of those things that have made him, you know, he literally has the most accomplished resume in men's history. I don't know that all of those things are a choice right now. You can do something for so long. Your body has a say in it. His body is having a massive say in it. Tonight, it was weird because normally, you know, we've seen the Novak matches before where there's this, you know, I'm going to pick a fight with someone that's going to be a source for motivation. I'm going to be, you know, petulant at times, then I'm going to use my, this warrior heart at times. I'm going to find a way to navigate through it. We've talked a million times on this podcast. He's the best like navigating matches and pacing matches, maybe that I've ever seen outside of Pete's Ambrose. The look on his face in the fifth set wasn't one of me against the world. It wasn't one of me, you know, there was no chip on his shoulder, at least from what I'm watching. It doesn't make it fact. Maybe it says something different, Prestonite, but it was, it looked like, okay. It was deep in thought, and there were times where you feel like he was almost emotionally like going to break, you know, but not out of anger, but out of like, you don't know if it's gratitude, sadness for gratitude, you know, whatever it is, my realization. And listen, maybe he gets his body right and plays well in Australia. Maybe he doesn't. We don't know, I'm assuming he doesn't know. Props to Navone, so there's the tennis part. Then there's the, Navone didn't know he was going to play know back five days ago, right? But his body had to be physically ready to play four hours and 36 minutes, and run, and he was ready. That's his first career or five matches, that's that one he was own for before that. He has been, you know, through the challenger circuit a million times, you know, hard courts probably not the one for him and ready for the moment, like take nothing away from him. He hasn't, he can't control know back's body. He can control what he does, and he was fit. He was ready, made balls, put know back in a situation where his body had nothing else. So props and the story is going to be what now for know back, and I don't think we know. I think every time he walks off the court of the grand slam right now, I think it's okay to wonder if it'll be the last time, right? And I think there's a difference between wondering if it'll be his last time and being a dumbass on Twitter and saying he should retire, shut up. He can make that decision, he's in on his own entry, he's made the semis more often than not recently. You know, we don't get to say in it, everyone chooses their own path. And I mean, he's now 19 in one in first round, U.S. Openness. Yeah, he'd never lost in the first round. We'll see, maybe it's an injury that caused it, but it looked like his body was breaking down in a couple of different ways. Endurance, physically, injury, Clay Steinman, who we mentioned earlier in the pod, one of our hero trainers tried to get him through, and it just didn't work. So we'll see, you know, this is before he's gone into press. We'll see what he says. I'm guessing it's going to be a lot of, I don't know. With his body, I'm sure he'll tell us what it is. I'm curious to see if he's emotional in the press conference. I'm curious to see, you know, if there's anything, listen to ends coming quickly. He's, you know, given us little hints before. So that is a transcript, I don't normally read a lot of the transcripts. That was a transcript that I will read start to finish when we wake up in the morning. It's just past midnight now in New York City. So I don't know. We'll see. Well, I mean, what did you guys feel when you were watching that? I mean, listen, he cut his practice short with Zizi Werbs earlier in the week, you know, kind of like the reports where he was worried about like some heat related things that it hasn't been very hot here. The weather was about as good as you could get, granite, you know, the roof was closed and you've mentioned before the humidity can rise in there, you know, I mean, the conditions were benign. The condition, it's tonight. I mean, there's no, there's no, there was an extreme conditions. And just ultimately when you watch that, you know, I think of someone who's relatively close and aged to me, you know, out there grinding out against a guy, you know, 15 years younger than him, who's in shape and informed. Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that he fought through all five sets is, is no fact, chocolate much. Yeah. And so a couple of things need to be said, one, it's, it's hard to even try to like go through his accomplishments. There's going to be another day for that, right, and it'll take up a lot more than the end of a quick served up, so on day one of a grand slam. Yeah. All right, so let's just leave that there. Realize the moment for Navone. He was in pain, spent time with him, looked him in the eyes, smiled for. That was so great. I thought that was great. No, that's good at that. Even when he's, you know, you don't agree with what he does on court during the handshake to his opponents, especially as he's gotten older and he understands what he is to these players, he's the idle figure. He's really been great at that. Novak stopped inside the autographs in the way. out tonight. They really, I didn't see that walking off the course. Walk down here. Four hours and 36 minutes body dead. Signed out of gas. I'm sure he's I'm doing thoughts about what if what's next is this it? I don't know. I, you know, if, if listening, he might be like this, this isn't it. But I would be stunned if the thought doesn't cross your mind. It has to. Yeah. Um, so he was class when he lost. Um, we've all had moments where you get to see our worst moments. But tonight, I thought he was, I thought he was. Um, I think he hit a lot of really good notes post match. Now we'll see what happens in press. I don't know if he goes in there. I don't suspect we're going to see the kind of usual combat of tone of no back. Mm hmm. Maybe I'm wrong. But we'll see. Um, you know, it is like not wrong at all. Mm hmm. Is the studio studio is pretty good. I was pumped. I was like, I'm feeling it. I was kind of in like, I was kind of in party mode. Yeah. Um, and it's just summer when you see one of the great strutal, it's just a weird like sports thing. And when, you know, the superheroes and the efforts of your sport look human, it's just a weird thing. So, uh, it doesn't make this any less cool. No. Um, we'll be back tomorrow. We will be back in the Cadillac studio, which is inside of a escalate IQ. Yes, sir. Everything in here is powered by the car. It's, it's all plugged into the car. It's pretty sweet. It's all just up. So thanks to Cadillac, the official vehicle of the US Open for taking a shot on this crazy idea that we had it served. Um, thank you to service now for always being such a great partner with us. This has been quick served. Um, we'll see you. We'll have more to know that information. Um, Venus, by side, no, Venus is 46 years old and going on the course 12, 13. And this 44 year old is going to bed. I am. I am at this very moment, not all moments at this very moment. I am happy that I retired 14 years ago and I was 30. She's, she's not, can't believe she's our court. Good night. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work. They actually do it. [BLANK_AUDIO]