Controversies Abound!

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey Portlandia fans. Carrie Brown seen in Fred Armason here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia AO rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician, Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist, Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of everyone watches Women's Sports. A new podcast from together in I Heart Women Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout out to you now. The viral moments out of the obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sport. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Hamler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Swini was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less. So I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan. And I'm my podcast, Discrease Land. I tell the stories behind music's biggest names. Like how the story of the food fighters isn't just about music. It's about grief, shock, and the moment everything changed. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. In the phone rings. And you learn that you're singer, your friend. The reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Cobain, is dead. Listen to Discrease Land on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, welcome to the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast. Caitlin, happy birthday my friend. Thank you. It is your birthday. How old are you today? Well, according to my wearable, I'm a 39.7 year old, so I'm going to go with that. Okay, something tells me you are in your 40s, but I'll let you have your woped day. Well, listen, who's going to argue with biology? I've been getting into the gym and lifting weights, so my bones don't disintegrate. I've been keeping my heart rate into zone five. Wow. Walking a lot. I don't know. I'm trying my best. That's good. According to my wearable, I'm 39.7. That's excellent. Who will mind to argue with that? Nobody. Nobody. There's no need to argue. All right, well, normally we start with questions. They could be rolling in as this pod goes on, because I, as usual, left it a little late to ask the questions, but some people have seen in questions already. We're going to start with them because we wanted to start with this topic, and it was a question that was asked to me on the socials, and it is from a garam hawa. Please address the recent WTA transphobic announcement around testing, etc. I suppose it's inevitable in this climate, but surely there has to be some pushback from players, thoughts, even though we know that our major icons like Martina unfortunately support testing. Thank you. Let's ground this question in a news update. So as of this weekend, it has been reported that the WTA will sex test players on the WTA tour, which means they will be testing players with a cheek swab, a blood test, or a saliva sample, to test for the presence of the SRI gene, which is part of the Y chromosome and causes male characteristics to develop. I'm reading this directly from the BBC, just in case anybody is worried that I'm editorializing. This will be tested once in their lifetime, and only a negative result showing no presence of the gene will permit them to compete on tour if they test positive players will face further medical assessment before being allowed to play. The WTA's previous C-Posy allowed transgender women to compete on the tour if they had lowered their test astronaut levels to below 2.5 nano milliliters continuously for the previous two years. There are no known transgender women currently playing on the WTA tour. I want to start there because there are no known transgender women playing on the WTA tour. Obviously, we can get into the politics of this. Martina is on one side pretty famously at a lot of people that I think we probably mutually admire on the other. My question is, why is this happening right now? What is causing this to be a priority? As we've discussed with the WTA tour, who is facing budget shortfalls, they've had a change in leadership. They've undergone a rebrand under Martina Rosati, the new WTA ventures chair. What is making this a priority? Your answer, question, your thoughts are the same as mine. I don't know. I don't know why, as you already stated, the WTA who is in all kinds of problems financially as you already stated amongst other things, decided that they're just going to throw this spanner in the works as we like to say in Australia. It makes no sense to me. We had, of course, we've had a transgender player already play on the WTA tour a long, long time ago. Of course, Renee Richards famously played during the Martina era and Billie Jean King and Renee Richards, interestingly, became one of Martina Navarro Lovas coaches back in the day. And what I heard on the streets is that, Renee, even she said that she doesn't think that there should be transgender players in the professional realm. But there aren't any. So why is this a problem? And for such a small percentage of people in the world that identify themselves as trans. This is my biggest thing. I say this all the time. And yes, I'm very on the opposite side of Martina and a lot of these former players because I don't see it as a problem. And no man is deciding at 18 or 20 years of age. You know what? I think I can win Wembleden. If I just become a woman, I'm just going to start taking estrogen and do all these things to get myself a Wembleden title. It just doesn't happen. And so we're taking away this such a small tiny minute section of the world to make a point right now. Why? What has happened to make the WTA decide that this is part of an agenda that they want to pick up and run with in the middle of the year? It's so strange. And I actually interviewed Renee Richards. We were doing a project for a 24 a couple of years ago about World Team Tennis, which she was a pioneering presence in. And her presence on that tour, WTA, World Team Tennis was the brainchild of Billie Jean King and Larry King, her late husband, who formed essentially the first team event that mixed genders, all of them, and had mascots and it was for a time coming back. And it's coming back and it was really rivaling the tours for attention and player participation. All the greats played it. Everyone. I mean, a lot of top of the place didn't even go to Australia. They played World Team Tennis. They didn't even go on play a major title because of that. That's right. And Margaret Courts 24 shouldn't be the. Well, among many reasons, Margaret Courts record shouldn't be taken seriously, but a lot of them are because players didn't play the Australian open. They also skipped at times the European majors to play just because they were getting money. So we interviewed Renee Richards as part of this. I interviewed Renee Richards and she was really thoughtful. She was a lovely human being who talked about how wonderful it was to be seen and represented. She played tennis with a man called John Lucas who had been an NBA player and the two of them touring through the recently Voting Rights Act transformed Deep South post Jim Crow and how she could sometimes go in and get a beer at a roadhouse, but he couldn't because he was black and sometimes she would get looked to scant's at and he had had her back and they sort of formed this really indevitable on and off court duo. She said, "Yeah, I was just so much stronger than the other players. I get why the WTA didn't let me play in the tour and I was really loved the way the WTA World Team tennis tour." It wasn't out of spout, malice or spite, but it was an interesting point. And I think there's honestly some validity to it. I get why in college athletics and in high school athletics, there are some dialogues going on. I do get it. I'm not insensitive to the idea that there are. genetic differences. At the same time, why the WTA, why now, what is the point of this and why at a time when people are feeling the most marginalized and hated probably in their entire existence is because of how much of a culture war this has turned into. This WTA decided to even wait into it. That's more really my question. It's like, this doesn't come from an actual incident. isn't related to any actual tennis player where we've had somebody come and say, "Hey, I have some genetic advantages here." That has happened in high school and college sports. It hasn't happened at the WTA tour level. And so it's really, really baffling to me and it's a good question from Garam. I don't really get what it is that the WTA is focused on if this is it and why it's not focused on regaining its place as the pre-eminent league for women's sports because as we've sort of all agreed, it was out so far in front with 50 years of, really successful operation. And it's fallen behind the other sports. I don't think anybody would say that women's tennis is the most popular or most fan engaged women's sports even though the athletes are getting paid the most. I think they would point to a basketball or women's football. I think they would point to maybe even hockey, but tennis isn't the top anymore. And I think that should be between that and financial stability should obviously be the focus. Maybe it will be, but it's really baffling. I reached out to some friends of mine on the various boards, but I haven't heard anything back. I suspect you won't hear anything back, really, because I just think that they think this is such a lightning rod conversation, which is why it's so baffling that they would even do this. Why rock a boat that's not sinking at this point? The thing that might be sinking is just the WTA financials in general. So why are you going out and seeking sponsorship deals and going after, like you said, I mean, they are falling behind the WNBA. The PWHL, Women's Professional Hockey League, the NWSL, all the money that is flowing into the pre-eminent sports here in the United States, for example, are getting more play. They're getting on TV more, and not to bash tennis channel, but again, like even NWSL and the WNBA is currently a lot on ESPN, on the weekends. I see it all the time, whether it be at night, it's prime. It's on various different American networks, whereas if you don't pay for a subscription of tennis channel, you're not really watching it. So that's why I think that's where we're falling behind, but yet here we are going after a social conversation that I just think it's so stupid. It's funny because this happened a lot, the conversation started around the Olympics when we had the female boxer from Tunisia, and there was controversy about her sex, etc. It's like, I know, because when I played the first Olympics in Atlanta, I had to actually do a sex test myself, and we actually got given a card to basically say, "Oh, you're a woman." You have the genes of a female, therefore you can participate. So I don't know where that went to, and back clearly when I did it, I was like, "This is weird." Seriously, so I thought it was such an invasion of my own privacy back then, and now they're sort of like, "I don't know if they're doing that for the Olympics anymore." So it's sort of a little bit weird. I did it back in, you know, for the 86 Olympics. Now I don't believe they're doing it now for the current Olympics, so I don't really know what's going on in that front. And so why the WTA needs to venture into this category of controversy? It's just bizarre to me. I'm excited to see the WTA promote their new finals location, which is a tried and true 10th-year, 10th-year, 10th-year environment filled with fans, direct flights from many, many major cities. And it'll be televised in a time that a lot of tennis fans are watching. I'm excited that the WTA has incredible players with incredible rivalries, and we just saw one a new champion emerge. I'm excited for so many things about the WTA tour. So again, whenever we talk about the WTA, it's always like with a little bit of an air of baffling it. Well, why? You guys have a great product. What are you doing? And this is sort of, yeah, it's just so nuts to me that this is the priority. And it's coming seemingly out of nowhere. There is, I guess, a chance, and this is maybe like the journalist and me who's thinking, maybe there's an incident or there's a situation or a player that we don't know about. Something has happened behind the scenes that we have no insight into that has triggered a policy change. And then we could debate the policy and why it's being, you know, why it's being updated and what it is about, you know, the way that women sports in these in this time can or should be operating. But not knowing that, it just comes across as extremely random when there are so, so, so, so many bigger fresh to fry. Yeah, and there's so many bigger fris to fry. I mean, even on our own tours. And, you know, situations and we've seen, we've run the gamut of those over the last, you know, 15, 20 years that I've been a part of, well, 30 years that I've been out here on tour. And, you know, whether it be coaches and inappropriate relationships and, you know, aggressive behavior, whether it be physical or emotional. And, you know, we have safeguarding down to the WTA. Honestly, seriously, half the time, wonder what they do. Because I never see them at tournaments. So how can they view things that are happening on the tour? But yet, let's go after some, you know, boogie man. It does feel a, imagine, for what reason? Yeah, it feels imaginary. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, the WTA has a ton of staff in at least two countries that are having board meetings all the time. And to what end? Yeah, this, like not too busy getting upset at me for tweeting out stuff about the, you know, the lack of humanity to a player after a final in Madrid. Then they are worried about like, actually worrying about things that absolutely matter. Like, go after more sponsorship. Don't bring up a subject that doesn't need to be talked about. Is there, and I just wonder from the players board perspective, because there is a player board, I would like to have comments from them in regards to this. It could be that you guys have to, it could be that the players are pushing for it. And that's my point. So if the players are pushing for this, if there is a majority of the board saying, we should be sex testing our players. Then I want to know who they are. And I want to know if the players are the ones that are pushing for this. If they're not, then that's even worse that the WTA higher ups decided, yeah, this is a, this is a hill we're going to die on. It's a, it's a good point. Well, I mean, it sounds like something that we should definitely, like I said, I've texted a number of folks. I am sure you can or have. And so let's kind of keep the discussion a lot. Like, to me, my favorite conversations on this show are when we talk about systemic stuff, just because there's so much to get into. And again, the product is so good. These players are upholding their part of the bargain. They're showing up weekend week out. They've got an insane schedule. Their bodies are going through all sorts of wear and tear. And they're delivering in front of crowds large and small across the world weekend week out. And I, and I feel like, you know, it is up to the powers that be to make sure that they are well compensated, to make sure that they're protected. And in a strange way, it could be maybe a case that, again, this is coming from a player that's coming from an incident. We don't know. And I kind of want us to stay on it because it's a systemic thing that definitely feels without context that completely random and indicative of a lack of focus on the stuff that matters, which is make sure the tour is healthy, not losing money. And that these women have the representation and the safety and the security for their livelihoods, which we know that they depend on. Yeah. Well, let's get to Mr. Scott Gayham again. He actually said the heaviness of the first question. He'd want him to say, no, tell us a fantasy woman's semi-final at Wemble and any player from any era at their peak and predict who would win each match and final. I hate predicting who would win. So I'm not going to do that. You do it every single time. No, no, no, no, no, I don't. Every time. Yes, you do. I will do a prediction of players, but I will not do it from different eras because I just think it's so ridiculous to compare greats from every era and say who would win? Different strings, different rackets, different balls, different conditions, different training schedules, different everything. It's kind of funny, like watching that modern day players, for example, do warm-ups. And I've had this discussion with a couple of players over the last couple of decades. And no offense, but back in our day, I can't even remember anyone really quote unquote warming up for a match. We would go maybe run on the treadmill, do some little ups and downs and get a bit of a sweat going and then go out and play. What I see now with these players is they're doing 20 to 30 minute warm-ups, like dynamic stretching, dynamic this and they're rolling the ball and they're da da da da da. And I'm like, and then they go out and I see them not be aggressive in the hit in the five minute warm-up that they have and they're kind of like lasing it about and then they lose their first service game because they're not really quite ready. And I go, and I'm thinking to myself, because this has happened to me with players that I've actually coached. And I'm like, how can you not have been ready? What the fuck was the point of the 20 minute warm-up that you did with the ball and da da da da. And you weren't really moving. Were you nervous? I don't really get it. I mean, I remember back in the day with Staffy and you know, I ran into Sanchez-Lacari. They would do like a quick warm-up and then they get on the court and do a five minute warm-up and they were ready to go play. So it's kind of funny to me and I have laughed about this with certain players of certain ages where I was just like, they're doing a 20 minute warm-up and then they stand around for five minutes before they walk on the court. I'm like, well, now all of that's gone to the shitter. So even like, I don't know what players did prior back in the day and then go and play a match or not and now picking an era of like the greatest semi-final and trying to pick a winner of that is kind of impossible. But I would I would venture to say I would love to see, you know, know, Staffy and one semi-final at Wimbledon clearly. I would love to see Martina never loaver. And of course, I would probably like to see Venice and Serena Williams. I mean, really, those are the four greatest players at Wimbledon over the last couple of decades. So I would like to see Serena against Martina and Venus against Staffy and then maybe Staffy against Serena in the final. But it's hard to pick against Martina who won nine Wimbledon titles. But you can't compare the, because you know, Martina was serving and bullying and it was the grass was different back then and now it's like a bloody hard court. We're looking at the players that have won over the last couple of years that really have been kind of more hard court sort of type of players. I mean, Eagish Yantech probably wouldn't have won Wimbledon 20 years ago with the grass away there was. But because of the weather, because the ball bounces higher, now we're getting players that actually feel very comfortable on a grass court because it is way different to what it was 20 years ago. May I add in a name? Sure. Billie Jean King. No, Billie Jean King won a ton of Wimbledon. She doesn't need 20. You know who I, I think she won like six Wimbledon. She has like 11 slams, right? 11 or 12. Justine Hanna. Justine Hanna should have won a Wimbledon. She got to two finals. She had the perfect game for grass. She named Immaculate Slice. She has an Olympic gold medal. She won the Athens Olympics in 2004. She won the tour finals twice. She won the Australian Open. She won the French Open four times. She won the Australian Open two times. I was there for one of those times when she beat Venus and Serena in the same tournament. It was awesome. To me, Justine Hanna was the only person at her peak who had a good record against Serena Williams. She didn't have a winning record against Serena Williams. I believe it's eight and six or something like that. But it's close and they pushed each other. She, to me, was the closest to Serena actually had to a real rivalry. I would love to see them play on Wimbledon the 2000s, early 2000s, 90s Wimbledon where it's really grass. It's not a hard court now to your point. But to me, Justine Hanna should be part of the conversation because I feel like she could complete everything about her career. I know Scott Gihim's question was about the semi-finals, but I am going to interpret it as I would like to see Justine Hanna play on grass and kind of take on all comers and see if she could get another shot at it. Listen, Kaitlyn, I had to tell you this. But as Ruffee on the dial said, "Eep, eep, eep, does not exist." And if you didn't win it, you didn't win it. And you had an opportunity to win it. And you didn't when you played Moresmo, I believe in the final. Correct. Am I correct? That's your key. That's one of them. Yeah. So if you don't beat Moresmo in the finals, you aren't not as good on grass. And that's just a fact. Why? Because Moresmo had gone to the net a little bit more. She had a little bit more on her serve. Sorry. I can't put her in that category. I'm not, or nobody's asking you to put her in that category. I'm saying I would like to see Justin Hannah. I am answering the question. Your feedback is neither required nor is it desired. Really? Wow. This is Scott presumably asked the question and wanted it to be entertained at a number of different ways. So, okay. Well, that's fine. You want to throw who you're going to take out of that forward that I mentioned. I don't need to take anybody out. You also, he said the four of the semaphonals. He's, like, I mean, we saw stuff he won it a billion times. Venus, I've seen a bunch. So yeah, I'll take Venus or Steffi out of there. Not, not do it any disrespect just because I've already seen the play at a bunch of times. I want to see something new. Oh, this isn't about, okay. So this is just purely about what you want to see as far as like your favorite play out because we know that and I use your favorite play out of all time. Fantasy women's semi-final draw fantasy. Okay. It's not who are the four best. It's, yeah, but you want to see. You like to see you only gave one. That's what I'm saying. Because I don't disagree with your other choices. No, but that's what I said. You have to take one person out. Yeah. I'm taking one out of Steffi out. I'll take Steffi out. That's fine. Wow. Because she's already won a bunch of times. I've seen her play it a bunch of times. I know what she looks like holding the Venus Rosewater dash. I want to play her in there who's never held it. All right. Well, with that nonsense, we're going to take a break and we're going to come back and we're going to talk more about, actually, I want to talk more about a little bit about the nuances of that Wimbledon final that we spoke about last week, but I want to talk a little bit about some of the emotional side of it that it's taking me a few days to sort of get over after break. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watchers Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey and Ler, she became the first female solo roeer to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week, every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat Savalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brown's seen in Fred Armason here. You know what, so rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years. But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought he was going to write. Listen to Podlandia. AO Rewatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited on the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to sweet 305 where the cool chat comes to life. What up? It's like a form of a saying, like, "Hello, friend, hello, my best friend, hello, brother, hello." Look, I've never seen anyone with me. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. Se mi amante. Uff. Oh, it's incredible. Ya la té no vela. You're the only person I know that loves the Yala Starburst. It's a woman. No, it's not someone who needs you. As you said, I would like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pond as part of my Toyota Podcast Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan and on the Discretsland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. These are the stories you haven't heard. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. Your Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. In your doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons, right there alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous church. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Discretsland on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so Caitlin, we talked about the Wimbledon tournament in, you know, it's sort of like, grandia and what happened last last week. But one thing that I sort of sat watching the British Open Golf yesterday and watching this guy, Ryan Fox, win on the most amazing 18th hole he played and birdied at 39 years of age and the emotion and he told his catty don't you cry. I'm going to start crying and then watching Spain win the World Cup yesterday. And Vamos Espanya. I'm sorry for all our Argentinian listeners, but I really want to know that we are. Argentina and listeners hold your country's standard of sportsmanship to a higher to a higher standard. That was well, that as well. If there was an Argentine fan, I would be hanging my head in shame as to how my team comported itself on the field. I don't care when or lose, you don't start fights, you don't act out of pocket. That was whatever is in the sporting culture right now in Argentina that allows for that is you blow it. Start over every single one of those players should be banned for games, much less. I wouldn't let Argentina compete on the world stage after the performance they put into this world cup. Absolutely despicable messy ruined his legacy. That's my thoughts. Oh my god. Yes. And this is why sometimes I know you when you get in a little, you come back from Mexico and you're like, "I'll fire it up even on your birthday." But I agree with you. It was despicable. And also, by far, Spain was the better team. I mean, they had 6,000 shots on goal. Argentina had zero. That is on you as a team. That is on your players. That is on your coach. That is on you guys. And you're gonna start swinging at the Spanish players after the game. Come on, give me a break. You guys should have lost 6-0. But yeah, anyway. So my point in bringing this up is the emotion of sports, right? And the emotions of winning and losing. And I just think back to, and we didn't really get into the nuances of that final and sort of the close friendship between Mucová and Noscova. But also just the fact that Linda Noscova was able to, you know, deal with the death of her mom, who she was so close to. Her mom was on tour quite a lot with her. Mom was like a lot more involved with her tennis. And I remember seeing her mom quite often on the tour. And I would love to get into the head of Linda Noscova when she left the court. You know, when she put her fingers over her ears 'cause she wanted to block the noise. The only thing time I've ever seen that was when Bianca and Trescu played Serena in the finals of the US Open and blocked her ears. And I think it was like five or very similar score line, actually in the second set, when it was like she was so close to winning and then Serena came back. And I would love to get into the mind of a player when she leaves the court like that and sort of looks herself in the mirror and what she went through to walk back onto the court and play such an amazing third set and the strength that she showed. And then you hear the stories of her going to Tanzania in her off season to like volunteer at a school and her dad talking about how difficult it was for him growing up, you know, with the kids growing up and how little money they had. And I just think about the families up there and what they went through and the dads shaking hands after the match. And I don't know, I just, the sport is so amazing like that. And we saw the worst of it yesterday with the Argentinian players, but we saw the best of it with, you know, Noscova and Moukova and the fathers in the crowd and the way they both handled that whole moment. And I don't know, I just, it's why I love sports so much is that we see the best of people. Sometimes we see the worst of it. But I don't know, I just think it's something that we didn't talk about enough last week in how Linda Noscova handled just such unbelievable disappointment in the second set to come back on when that third set was just remarkable. There's a lot of people that thinks she can get to number one in the world. I don't know how you feel about that. Are you one of them? I definitely think she can be top three. To get to number one in the world, you've got to be really consistent all the time. Do I think that she has the capability to doing that? Yes, I do. I think her serve is a little bit still vulnerable. The second serve in particular. It's the one thing I said on the network in Australia actually when she lost it in Australia. She lost the tally Gibson in Australia. And one of the things I said was she, that Martina Hinges' mom had done a great thing with teaching Martina Hinges how to hit ground strokes and Belinda Benchich and Linda Noscova in their young career. But the one thing that she does not teach well and I would definitely not send my kid to Melanie Moleter is a serve. The thing that Noscova does well in that situation is that she's strong and she can hit it big. But it is definitely a part of her game that can get much better. And I think I don't know how she can change the service motion so much anymore. She's 21 going on 22. But that would be an area that I think can get even better and bigger. And if that does happen, yeah, I do think she can get to number one in the world because she does everything really well. She has an amazing disposition on the court. Yeah, no arguments here. I'm ready to talk about the tournaments that just concluded over the weekend because there were a lot of-- Oh, I know why. --really fun. Well, it's not the only reason why. I love the fact that we had a lot of other players who haven't been in the headlines as much lately making really strong runs. Like I'm thinking of Paula Bedosa, for example, who didn't win the tournament in Romania. She lost to Maya Sharif, the Egyptian player, who's very fun and dynamic to watch. But she made a final play, especially in Clay. We saw Maria Sockery, who's had a rough go of it. The last couple of years come up a little short against Barbara Khrugikava, who herself has had a struggle. Obviously, since going out with injuries. So Andre Rublev won a title over the weekend in Boastad. So it was just sort of like, oh, this is fun. I like the idea that some of our more-- our tried and true team members who haven't necessarily had good couple of past seasons were able to take some titles. And for me, the slams are exciting. Obviously, they attract a lot of the casual fans to your point earlier about tennis channel. If you don't subscribe and you don't pay, it is hard to watch tennis on TV. I mean, even watching ESPN, it makes you go through a streaming subscription tier now. And they don't put all the matches on the main channel. So being a tennis fan in America is very hard because of how little access we actually have day and end day out of watching tennis. But if you do subscribe to a streaming service, like tennis channel, you see all these amazing tournaments. And to me, I can get just as excited if not more about a WTA 250 final with Maria Sockery and Barbara Khrugikava than I can, you know, a Wimbledon final. Because I like both those players and they both have interesting stories to me. And they have a cool contrast in styles. And, you know, there's Maria Sockery playing in front of a home crowd of Athens, which is a relatively new tournament. So to me, tennis is great because it takes us in-- - Everywhere. - It's everywhere. And it's happening everywhere. And even though this is a really weird stretch of the calendar, because it's not quite US-open pre-North American Hardcore season yet, although some of these tournaments are obviously around hard, like I mentioned. A lot of the tournaments are on clay. You know, we had a grass court tournament last week in Newport. So, you know, there's still a bit of a limbo kind of feeling to it. But I love the fact that there's amazing matches going on and there's some names, you know, back in the headlines. And yes, Stefano's T.C. Pass is one of them fine. I just-- - I had so much waiting for it. - I had so much for that crazy guy. I love him. I love that he's crazy. - Well-- - For me, it was good to see, because, you know, we know he's famously finally flicked his dad as a coach. And for our listeners of our pod, I think Renee Stubbs has been asking for that for a number of years. Not-- - And you're not the only one. Pretty much everybody has been like-- - A number of years. - A disaster. And, you know, he finally did it. And, you know, a lot of people are like, "Well, you know, his dad's got new beer, "he's got new there." I'm like, "No, but the problem is that Stef "loses his shit on the court." And half the time, it's not even at his tennis, it's at his dad. And his dad is yapping at him from the sidelines, saying stuff that is so negative. I know, because I was told what he was saying at times by somebody who speaks Greek. So it's like, yeah, maybe you need somebody out there who's like, "Rar, rar, raring you and making you feel good." And half the time, you know, that's what coaches do. You know, there's certain, you know, things that you have to tell your player, whether it be exes and knows and what we're gonna work on and what we need to get better at. But in the end, you have to have somebody who's supportive of you, who is really believes in you. When you get into the trenches, when you get down, you know, those five match points are second round and you look up and spend Grenoferl is pounding his chest and saying, "Keep fighting. You need to look up and see a coach who believes in you, who thinks that you can still win." And not somebody who's gonna yelp negative shit at you that makes you feel terrible about yourself on the court. So clearly that that finally is working for Steph. It's nice to see him back. And yeah, with the polar badosa thing, you know, with her run for winning a 125 and then coming in and getting to the finals is 250. Her ranking is back now up inside the top 100. So that means that she will get automatically in the US open, which is great because she won't have to play qualifying. She's too good a player, a former number two in the world, to be playing qualifying. But unfortunately for her, her body also broke down on her again in the final when she was down a set and fall love to Sharif. But if the body is there, she has the game. And so, you know, nobody's gonna wanna play a player with her caliber of ball striking and serving, going into the hard court season if she's back physically okay. But yeah, it was great to see that. And Babora Krijikava is one of these players as well. They get kind of a role on it and look, look how great she played at Wembleden after again coming off some, you know, health issues and things like that and pushes Moohova to the absolute brink. It was one of the best matches of the tournament. Was that Moohova Krijikava match? Was just awesome to watch. All court tennis and Krijikava when she's at her best is really hard to beat because she doesn't have any weaknesses. So that was a tough match up for Sakari who, I mean, we saw her win the semi-finals. She was like crying. She was so happy to be in the final. And that's always a bit of an indicator for me. I want to see a player win a semi-final and just go shake hands and walk off the court and be like, yeah, okay, big deal. I'm in the final. That means nothing to me. It's kind of like, you know, how I looked at Sveriv when he won the semi-finals of the French Open. He knew the pressure was on him to win that tournament and he did not get excited. Even said it in the post-match interview, yeah, this is nothing. I want to win. I don't want to be in a final again. And some players, you see them when they win matches in quarters or semis, you see how excited they get. And you can kind of, it's a bit of an indicator of that they almost think their tournament is over. So for Cragicava, you know, she's won so much, so many big titles. It was no big deal for her to be in the final. It was like a securry. You could see it. It was it meant so much to her. But yeah, Rubele winning, always great. And of course, Steph, that was super exciting. Anyway, let's take one more quick break. We'll be back with a little bit more to finish off our part today. What's up, fam? So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roeer to go from California to Hawaii. The highlights, the rivalries, the break out stars the moments to take over your entire timeline. In the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women sports. Naomi Osaka showing out she beat Savalinka. Shout out to you Naomi. You get the palm Naomi. On the iHeart radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey Portlandia fans. You know us or rather you know them. But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Padlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning. Breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Listen to Padlandia, AO Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Holtin, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Samira E, Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Sweet 305 where the good chat comes to life. What up? What up? It's like a form of a friend. Hello, friend. Hello, friend. Hello, sister. What up? Look, I've never seen anyone with nothing. My children, yes, they know. Sit me amante. Ooh. Yeah. Ooh. It's incredible. Ya la tel novela. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starbursts. Oh, I'm a need. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Ponds as part of my Tultura Podcasts Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan and on the Discretsland Podcasts, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories for music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Imagine that. Your Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons, right? They're alongside Yakuza Gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. And what about that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? Listen to Discretsland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so Caitlin, we've already talked about Spain winning Al Coraz. Looks like not only is he back holding the woke up, Louis Vuitton purse or whatever you want to call that thing. What do you think about that? It's hard for me to think about anything other than his insane amount of hair. I was talking about the Louis Vuitton purse that it comes out of now. But I'm picturing him and I'm just thinking that he has like he's back to Lego hair. This guy grows hair so fast. It is insane. Like remember when he buzz cut his hair before the the US open last year? And last year he did it and like his brother did. By the third round he had like a thick full head of hair back already. Like I can't get past it. So he has a Louis Vuitton ambassador ship. They sponsor the tournament of FIFA and they brought out two of their global ambassadors. The other one was the Korean model woman who was in that show. Everyone kills each other. And it's this case that is made by the brand and that they had him posing next to. I was more excited about Carlos Al Coraz losing his mind in the stands because the amount of coverage of Carlos Al Coraz specifically. My favorite one was when one of Spain's goals was wrongfully retracted. And you see Carlos Al Coraz jumping out of his seat with excitement and then holding his head in his hands with dismay. And I agree with him by the way. That should have been a goal. Yeah, Spain should have won that game probably for zero. Like again, we'll just pick a little. I'm saying six. Refereeing. But somebody put the caption when you realize the tie break is 10 points instead of seven. I'm here for Carlitos showing up kind of wherever and whenever. He's probably here now running rampage around the city doing God knows what. Buying that chain, getting his hair dyed, getting another tattoo. Who knows? I'm here for it. That's actually hilarious. Yeah, I mean, his hair is something to behold. I tell you, it would be interesting to see if Novak chose to let his hair grow the same because I'm pretty certain they have the same hair. Like if that chia pet hair that's just always there, these guys are going to have hair for the rest of their lives. But yeah, to see the unkept look, I don't know if he's doing it because he feels like, I don't know, but the whole point of me talking about this is that he's in the United States. And word on the street is he is going to try and play Cincinnati. If that is the case, if, if, if I kind of imagine he would have gone back to Spain, I would imagine that he would probably send to himself here on a hard court somewhere, somewhere and practice on before Cincinnati, but it will be a great relief to tennis fans around the world to see him back playing in Cincinnati. 100%. I, I have my doubts. He's got a girlfriend too. I mean, him and Sinner getting photo and papped, papped, papped, I should say, not papped, papped, whatever. People get it. Both of them out there in the old Mediterranean with the old blondes on a boat. They're living there. That's not it. I mean, shouldn't we all be on a boat in the Mediterranean? I mean, I was in the Mediterranean, but I wasn't on a boat. But if anyone wants to take me on a boat, I would open to boats. My number is I won three. I don't know. I don't know. I don't feel good about Carlos's comeback. I'm not, I'm not totally sold on it. I don't, I don't, I don't have any information. I just, I have some lingering intuition that I don't think he's actually going to end up playing it. Theos open. I think he's going to maybe come back for Asia. I don't like what I've seen so far of his practicing. I think he's hitting soft stationary balls. And I think the wrist is a really, really deeply fundamentally, you know, fragile part of everybody's biology. I know he plays such a physical game. I don't, I don't see you happening. Ironically, I got invited to a documentary screening last week for the Novak-Jokovic documentary that it's coming out on, on Amazon Prime. I snuck out before it screamed because I was mostly just there to shoot. He didn't shoot moves with people. I said it's here. No. Oh, man. I had to wake up early next day. I mean, it's sort of the people from the last dance. So I, I expect it to be pretty decent. Yeah, I bet it's good. I mean, I plan to watch it. I'm really looking forward to watching it with him in the, the, you know, in the, at the front. And he had a Q&A afterwards. I was going to get home very late, but I, I will watch it. But it was interesting because you know, there was one Martín del Potro and he was sort of shuffling around. He was kind of standing by himself. He didn't look like he kind of looked like a man without a country. And I just was so sad seeing him because he looked sad. And what happened to him was so, so, so tragic, not only the injury, but obviously his, his terrible financial situation with, I guess, his family members and it sounded messy and awful. But it reminded me like the wrist is a real, real big problem. And so for me, I'm excited. Carlos is in the stands. I'm excited to use on the boat. I'm excited about his hair, but I have some serious reservations about whether or not we're going to be seeing him striking tennis balls at ATP tour speed on a hardcore in a tournament setting anytime soon. Well, every now and again, I will say not to be that person, but every now and again, he does respond to me on Instagram. And I did when I, when he was hitting balls, I did say it was great to see him back hitting balls. And he said, hopefully soon I'll be hitting it harder. And that was at the end of June. And so, you know, one of the things that I did write to him was that I did have a wrist injury for seven months. And I said, please take your time because it's not an injury when I sort of fuck around with. And if it's sore in any way, you shouldn't, you shouldn't even try and play anymore. But I sort of want to air on the side of you and be like, maybe he's taking his time and it's probably a good idea. But if not, I mean, his fitness will be good because you can do anything you want with a wrist injury to a certain degree. You know, he's not going to be lifting. anything above his head, but certainly his legs will be, have been worked hard. So physically, he should be okay. But getting back on the tennis court and hitting tennis balls is really the pre-dominant thing that he needs to do. So we'll see, and hopefully that happens. All right. Well, it's been a big week, mostly because of this little bit of controversy that came out just yesterday with the WTA sex testing. We spent a bit of time on that. But is there anything else, Caitlin, that you would like to talk about because it is your birthday? It is my birthday. I've got some beautiful, teach-buele, Austrian tennis in the background, which is how I like it. A low stakes first round of a clay court tournament in a beautiful setting. You can see some Austrian Alps, or maybe they're the Tyrells there in the background. Tennis is amazing. And takes us everywhere. So, yeah. I'm excited about the quotidian stuff. I'm excited about the day and day out. I'm excited about all these players that we just saw at the end stages of tournaments. I desperately want a healthy polypidosa back. She's so box office and such a reliably interesting player, although I did not love seeing her chuck her rack in the stands. And I think, again, everybody who does that, whether I like them or not- Automatic should get an automatic def. It's like the rules are the rules. And you can't selectively apply them even if nobody gets hurt. It's like somebody could have gotten brained in the face. Don't throw your racket. Don't create a dangerous situation for line judges, umpires, spectators, just camera men, camera women. Get a hold of yourself. Yeah, that was absolutely disgrace. Yeah, unnecessary, unnecessary. If you know as a player, when you let go of a racket out of your hand, whatever happens after that is on you. No matter even if it's unlucky, quote unquote, you know, like, oh, I didn't mean it to hit that thing. It's like, you've flipped up and went in, you had control of the racket in your hand and you let it go. Whatever happens after that is on you. And if it goes into the stands, you should absolutely be absolutely defaulted immediately. And that is the only way to stop it. It's kind of like when I watch soccer, like if you go and watch rugby or basketball or anything, if you touch a ref, if you mouth to a ref, you are off. And I don't know how people feel about this. They can write in and let me know because I know people that follow this know that I am a little obsessed with all other sports. But here's my idea for men's soccer going for it. I'm not going to say women's soccer because women don't do this because the women know that they're going to get shit for it because I've spoken to friends of mine who played professional soccer and they were like, well, we would never do that because we'd get so much shit for it. If you go down and you did not get kicked or studded or whatever and you're like, or hit in the face, you know, they carry on like these idiots. There's one great Instagram photo of a video of a woman who just gave birth to a child and it's like, man, I had to do this. This is what they would look like. You know what I mean? Like they show these like soccer players rolling around on the ground. They haven't even been touched. If you do that and you, it is caught on VAR afterwards, five minutes in the sin bin. That's what it is. It's like ice hockey or rugby. You go, you go off and you sit on the sideline and you watch your team have to defend for you now. One man down for five minutes. That's it. It'll stop men. It'll stop them doing it. I promise you because as soon as they're like, oh, that wasn't you, weren't fouled and you rolled around 17 times on the ground like a Chico roll. I don't know what you call them here in his States, but it's kind of like a hazard of guess as to what that might be. Just look it up. Just look up Chico roll in Australia. If you roll around like a Chico roll, you're off for five minutes. That's my, that's my, you know, I want to take away Lets in tennis. That's what I want in men's soccer. I'm going to do you one better. If you roll around on the ground, you should be tased and we'll give you something to cry about kind of school of thought and you can play or not. Wait, wait, you spend five minutes off the field and you get tased on the way out. We'll give you something to cry about. That's what this will give you something to cry about. Yeah. Absolutely to speak. All right. Well, lovely chat. Thank you for the birthday wishes. Thanks, Caitlin. We are in the same city. So maybe I'll have to find you for a, for a celebratory drink, even though I had a couple of yesterday watching Spain beat Argentina. All right. Well, I'm actually kind of pissed because you could have, I know it's not my birthday, but I really wish you'd bought me a back a bottle of really expensive here, but non-expensive and expensive. I'm supposed to give you a bottle of skillet for my birthday. Yes. German amenant times. How many times have I celebrated your birthday through the years? I remember we turned it a boat. I remember taking, going up to dinner and we held a second. We did an charter about my friend, Diedra, did. You just hopped on for a ride. It wasn't free. I can tell you that much. I'm just saying, I'm supposed to bring you back a bottle of skillet. I don't think so. Anyway, I'll take you to dinner if you want. All right. I'll call you after this. All right, everyone. Thanks for hanging in there with us this week. And I know we've had a little bit of controversy, so I'm expecting a lot of shit coming my way on Instagram. Anyway, on Twitter. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armasin here. We're launching Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of "Portlandia" together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McGlockland, legendary musician, Amy Mann, and many more. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. Listen to Podlandia, AO Rewatch, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? And we're the host of "Everyone Watches Women's Sports," a new podcast from Together in iHeart Women's Sports. Naomi Osaka, showing out. Shout-out to you now. The viral moments. Out of the obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey, she looks good, her combos, or swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. And the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brenn. And on the Discretsland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories from music history. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison, or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's accuser, where that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Do better. Or do less. You all have to do so much. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.