US Open Preview & Cincy Open Recap: Favorites, Wild Cards & Withdrawals

I have my dream job, but even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where ServiceNow's AI Specialists 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. Everyone, welcome to Serve, brought to you by ServiceNow, producer Mike JW, Tekki Sean. In the house, we say good morning because it's, we're doing this early on a Monday for a Tuesday release because we got to get up to New York City. At least I do. You're heading up tomorrow, I think. I'm going up tomorrow. Got to prepare, you know who's more prepared for the US Open this year than she was last year? Who? Coco Golf. She look good. What a different way. I mean, she look good as an understatement. That's the best I've seen her play in a couple of years, including her French Open win. Wow. Two double faults in a match against a great returner. Like Jessica Goulot was five of six on break points. That's a dominant performance in a matchup where she had not gotten the better of Jess. I think she just pulled even to 500, if I'm wrong, it's not that much. Five and five or six and all six or something like that. But it's now beaten her twice in a row once on grass, which probably doesn't do Coco any favors and wants some sensey. Once it's sensey, where the term and also plays pretty quick. To me, it seemed like I thought Jess versus Ega in the semis was one of the matches of the year. On the women's side, I think it had a little bit of everything. Ega's playing great. Maybe just too much of an ask to kind of have back-to-back performances like that. But what a difference a year makes JW Coco struggling, leaking oil going into the US Open last year, completely retooling a serve like hours before she starts. And this year, full of momentum. Those were my talking points. Are you old enough to remember 2025 this time last year? We're going to hire a biomechanics coach. What? In the middle of the season right before a major, that was a year ago. And not only were the biomechanics holding up, you mentioned the double-faults, complete non-story this week. She competed well. That is not an easy match against a player. You're right. I think she was four and five against Pagula. They used to play doubles together. There's a lot of history. I always get ten years in between them, which says something about both Pagula's kind of coolness and Coco's maturity. But no, that was, I thought that was a really impressive tournament. That was a really impressive final. And now, given context, which I'm sure we'll get into at some point, if not today, in the next week, whether it's Tabulenco, whether it's Robacana, I'm going to think Coco's a favorite to win this tournament all of a sudden. But that was a great, that wasn't a major. She's got two of those. That otherwise, that's a strong title, as I think she's won in her career. Yeah. It was start to finish. We had talked about, or we have talked about on this show. I certainly talked about on the Wimbledon broadcast because she won almost every match in three sets there. Sometimes you feel like unnecessarily getting pushed to the two and a half hour mark in matches where Coco's Coco, she's won, she's a great player. She's won a bunch of majors or a couple majors. This was convincing over a player who is as good as any on a hard court. Coco certainly can make a claim to the favorite, I think, Iga. We'll have something to say about that based on winning in Canada and playing great in Cincinnati. I think Jessica Gula played phenomenal. She's certainly right there in the mix, but before Canada, let's rewind even further back way, but way back to like two and a half weeks ago. We were discussing how open season on the women's side and maybe we would look for some of these names at the top to kind of restore some order after Wimbledon, which was crazy with the Noscava and Mujoba, great players in their own right, but not people. Maybe we expected in that, that finals match and here comes Iga, here comes Coco, Jess Pagula's winning a bunch, you know, Rabakana put up a great result in Canada. We, we hope that she'll be okay for the US open, but started, has started playing better, right? Made finals was in the quarters against Iga, weirdly, I didn't see us saying this at any point in the last three years, weirdly, the only real big question mark from the top names past Rabakana's injury is Saba Lenka, you know, listen, up is down, down is up. What do we make of Saba Lenka? Are we worried or is this just a matter of, oh, she plays two or three great matches at the open and, you know, we're, we're back to where we need to be. If she had not lost that final to Coco, what was that three years ago? She would be going for her fourth straight US open, so if she's going to turn things around, this is going to be the place to do it. That was the case last year when she had zero majors coming in and then was terrific. But yeah, this has gone from sort of, well, you know, she wins a sunshine double and maybe she slumps a little on clay to, I think there's some fairly significant cause for concern here. Again, what have we learned in this sport again and again and again? It doesn't take much to rewrite scripts, but I think it was real concern. She's not just losing, she's losing mysteriously. She's losing two players outside the top 20, she's losing decisive set six love. She seems like she's really sort of playing, playing some vacant tennis. This is not the world beater that was getting to finals of majors consistently and then winning the sunshine double. Doesn't mean she can't turn it around, she'll be the top seed. She's the defending champion. If she won, it would surprise no one and yet I, I think this is gone from, you know, what do careers aren't linear and every player can have a few dips to, yeah, this is like almost half a year now, really not just substantive results on paper, but sort of strange in the way they have played out in the matter of themselves. What do you think? Yeah. Listen, it's, it's concerning and I shorting her results long term. No. Is she searching for confidence? Absolutely. You know, I, I don't think that we would probably hear much different. We have our coach Anton Dubrov on the Q&A show this week on Thursday. So there's no way around asking him about results and if anything's different and how do they prepare going into this year's US Open, short on matches versus when she's flush with confidence, like most tournaments over the last three years. So, you know, no, nothing would be surprising here. If she gets upset early and continues this bad run, we would be, you know, it would be an upset, but it's not as if the story she's telling with her tennis going in, you know, dictates the conversation where that's not possible. And surprise Noah if she's in the semis and we're talking about her as, as a potential winner of, of the US Open, we certainly have to give credit to her upside, but the downside I think right now is as significant as we've seen for, for three years. I can't imagine that anyone, including her, would see that any differently. That doesn't mean she can't turn it around, doesn't mean we don't, we don't get for the benefit out for being capable of doing that. But, you know, Coco reestablishes, eager reestablishes, Rebok and a reestablishes, you know, just never really goes away. And the one we're searching for is, is arena, which, you know, you, you don't my house if you'd have told me that after the sunshine doubled, but that's why tennis is the best reality show on earth. There's no script. Yeah. And she, I mean, she hasn't made a semi-final appearance, you know, in a thousand or a slam since that, that win in Miami. But I think when you talk about the consistency, this is something we were talking about yesterday. Coco Goff has in 1000s and slams this season, she has six semi-final appearances, three finals appearances. And now her first title, there's 10 different champions across 11 events. There's probably as the only one that's won two, but it's been since, you know, in the summer or so. And in succession. So it's not as if there were, you know, four or five months in between. It was a hot run for, for three weeks. Take nothing away, you know, a win as a win as a win as a win, but, you have to imagine that her team coming into this year on the heels of last year would have said, okay, we would again be surprised if we hadn't won a slam by New York. It was the same narrative last year, except the results were a little bit more consistent. Uh, going into New York last year, um, Arthur Fees, whoo, 22 year olds, ribbon four hands. He's got some bounce, man, like his serve when he, he was hit in 107 wide aces against Francis, that Francis wasn't close to. If it's hot, that guy can create a bunch of speed. When he has time, it's a problem. It's a problem for everyone. When he has enough time to load and take a full cut at the ball, I'm not sure what you do. I think you have to avoid that. I mean, we've seen center have success. You have to be able to take away his time to that forehand side. It's a tale of two forehands. When he has time and he's set, it's an absolute problem for Earth. So when he's on, when he's on serve and he's able to do what you said, push it out wide, and then he's getting you off. It doesn't even matter where, pushing out wide to hit the kick, his serve is really good. Now it's still that ball toss is going to be a lot higher than Gore Unlikes, even he's a bitch who is not in Cincinnati, but is his coach, is notorious for lowering ball tosses and did it with chillich day, with no back to the windy day. That thing will blow around a little bit. That's gonna drop first, third percentage, but now we're talking about weather when we're talking about feasts. Like this, you have to be able to switch directions against him and/or inject paste to the forehand. I used to say to either side, but the big change that I've seen is he's not in a rush to get out of a back end, a back end rally now. He's basically saying, I can stay in this rally and if you break it, you're gonna have to break the pattern to my forehand. And if you don't square up that change of direction, you're fucked. JW, I was really impressed with him. And when he's been healthy, he's been this good. - Yeah, that's been the, I mean, keep in mind, he'll be a top 10 seed. And I can't, I think he's fifth in the race. I mean, he's won, I think he and Brandon, and she might have won more hardcore matches this season than anyone else. He's missed two majors. I saw him at a Paris basketball game in the spring, and he's a lovely guy, I mean, aside from all, he's a lovely guy. He's about my height. So it's not as though he's crushing the ball, looking like he's six out of him. - He's six foot eight. - Yeah, exactly. - He's a six specimen. - I go six, six. And he, this was in the spring, and he was not necessarily optimistic about his health being full, but I think he took it pretty slow and consciously. Missed Roland Garros, which says something for a French player, and he has been terrific since those forehand rallies with Francis. It almost looked unfair for a while. A strange match I think we should point out. Francis wins the second set, six won, and then next thing you know, he's flat on his back, and he doesn't win another game, I don't think. So I do reserve a little bit of concern for Francis. I hope he's okay, but yeah, I mean, I thought that was just such an impressive performance, and then you go and you look at his results, this entire stretch since he has returned, and you say we have ourselves a contender. There is so much to like here. There's also, we haven't talked about his defense. What was it, 11 Aces yesterday? I mean, this was just such a solid tournament and to cap it off like that. A star has emerged. Biggest title of his career, and if you want a player to back, and we should also say, Cincinnati tends to have pretty good value in terms of predicting the open. Sometimes we have these these tournaments before majors, and you can't really read too much into it. Cincinnati tends to be a pretty good barometer, and he'll have a week to recover, a week off to rest, and yeah, Arthur Fees is really, I think he's 11 now in the rankings, but he'll be a top 10 seed, and boy, star this kid in your draw, because he's a lot of fun to watch, and there's a lot of danger here, and he's coming off a great, great title. I thought it was interesting too, without his coach in the stance. Now he has the benefit of Goron in New York. That was just a great week for him. What did he say? Well, how did he sign the contract? Like, look who's talking now. Yeah, he said look who's talking now. You know, he was talking like everyone that follows tennis is talking now, and they really like what they saw. Were people down on Arthur Fees? I did, I didn't know I said that to Rose. We were watching it. I was like, who's that for? Are we getting in trouble again, for saying people are yelling at ghosts? Yeah, I was like, yeah, he just had to try that person in this game. We got in trouble last week. He must have heard us talk to Jason Air about Novak, and he's been in trouble for saying that about EGLE last week, apparently. Yeah, we did. Fees is the same thing. Maybe we should just have, at the end of every serve show, it's like who's talking now, bitches? Like we sign away. Listen, we talk about outside of Carlos Center. Who can disrupt? Fees should be at the top of that list, right? Zverev is kind of half in that category with with Yannick and Carlos, not as dominant all the time, but always there and you know, deservedly always one of the top players in the world. Obviously close out the French open, but when you look at that next group, you know, for a minute, it looked like Draper. He was three or four in the world, and then that comes and goes and health plays a factor in consistency. Doing it for three months isn't the same as doing it for years. Fees is an absolute, like you can't teach ball speed, you can't teach the bounce of his body, right? It just comes off different. I was I was texting career. I'm like the opening game, I saw him go 134 T. He hit a kicker that broke over Fees racket on the backhand side and then had a sweeper on the do's side that wide serve didn't over hit it and Fees was nowhere near it. You know, when you when you have to simultaneously guard against 134 heavy, that kick that he gets short in the box and it bounces up over your head and then he throws in the sweeper also. You're guessing at a certain point. I think you have to be able to do that if you cannot create speed. Like I saw Le Hedgeka take Fees out in Miami, but he can create speed. He can hit a hard flat through the court. If you cannot create speed, you're going to have to hope that Fees gets injured against you. Like that's that's where we're at. And so I fully agree with JW. He hasn't played a lot of extended format tournaments. He missed a bunch last year. He missed Roland Garros in Australia this year. I don't know, there's there's certain parts of his game that are you're not going to be able to avoid. He's 10 to know this year now with this win in matches that go to the deciding set. But like you said, he missed two slams. It's not like a lot of five setters are in that stat list of any. My question to that is, you know, they were talking about the energy he was expelling by being pumped up in the third set, which I think it's fun for us to watch. But how much of that is true, right? Like this guy has a lot of passion. You know, he seems to engage the audience like, is that going to be something going into a five set tournament that he needs to write it out? We're going to make a conclusion in the third set in Cincinnati when they weren't on court any. I mean, it was no, it was five sets. It was 28 minutes and that's love. It's 20, 28 minutes in the first set. Six, one second, six left third. So it was like an hour and 32 minutes and we're worried, no, I'm not worried about that. Now, if he's doing it, if he's simultaneously cramping and then doing cart reels to the crowd, then I'm a little, I'd probably a little bit more worried there. But do you, I think the point that you're trying to get to is do we know if he can man, like we look at Zverev and we can point to him and go, oh, he absolutely knows how to manage three out of five set matches. Hunter, like knows how to do it, has done it, has done it while choking and getting through a, frankly speaking, a Roland Garros final and kind of getting his way across the finish line. He's done it against the best players in the world. He's won, he's lost, he knows how to navigate those two weeks in 21 sets, right? Do we know that about Arthur Fees? Not yet. But purely based on on game and what he's offering, there are so many parts of his game. There are absolute problem for most of Earth, you know, save maybe Carlos and center, like every conversation. Zverev can keep him off base because he serves big and then he can drive that back in, probably into the forehand. But if you can't take away time, one way or the other, with Arthur Fees, you have a problem. The physicality is absurd. The serve I think is only gonna get better and it's all over the place, like he, when he, it's like, you know when you're watching a really good Major League baseball pitcher and when he strikes someone out, they look stupid. That's what he does when his, when his serve is firing. Like that's, that's kind of what it looks like. But good week for, for foe. I mean, he needed it, and frankly, a great, I mean, let's start the hype mechanism. Now, as we'll get to it, it's gonna be a talking point. Taylor wins in DC, Ben wins in Canada, Nakashima, finals Canada, semis, Cincinnati. Tommy Paul says, I'd like to join the party, Beats Zverev and Cincinnati, foe had surgery to remove assist three weeks ago and comes out and plays great in Cincinnati and comes within a set of winning the tournament. Is this it, JW? - Well, and the player who questions the legitimacy of that surgery, facetiously, we point out, Lurotien, we can add to this. - Oh, geez, Tien. - I didn't play her up. - Yeah, I'm looking at an option bill. Look at this. - All of which. - Look at us. - Yeah, you know where all this going, as you hear a fire truck in my background, which will be, that's our soundtrack from the next three weeks. You know where all this is going? I think there might be a record that could be imperiled this U.S. open. - It's not a record, it's just a result and an unfortunate. - It's just a result, all right. I think there's a benchmark that could finally be extinguished. It's looking very good for American men. That's what we're taking this, right? And you know what, I mean, I think we don't talk about this enough. There are different players at different stages of their career that do different things. Well, it's a real debris. You know, we've got lefties and right. I mean, it's a real in college kids and there's a real diversity here as well, which also sort of helps just in terms of sheer draws, of sheer odds. Yeah, it's looking, this was a very, this was a strange summer for tennis. I think since an addy really finished strong, we can talk about that as well. But yeah, those things are looking really good. Both male and female, but female as Coco pointed out nicely. That's, that's nothing new. This has been a very nice summer for American men. - This is, listen, a lot of, a lot of winning on the American men's side. Most of the summer events leading into the U.S. open, presence in the final, Coco versus Jess. It's all good. We'll talk more about that after the break and we'll tell you what the hell we're doing this week. We're busy. - Yes. - We are busy on the other side. We're also gonna tell you kind of, I think it's worth noting producer Mike Hayden, someone beats someone in Cincinnati and it could affect the entire course of the US open. We'll be back after the break. Thanks for listening to "Served," we will be right back. Summer's winding down, but we've still got plenty ahead on tour throughout the fall, with stops across the US to Asia, Europe, and back, and now many of our listeners make the trip too. I just did the same thing, experiencing Wimbledon Village from a fans perspective. And the best part was that I got to experience the tournament like a local by booking a place to stay on Airbnb. Teggy Sean, it was your first time in Wimbledon Village. What'd you think? Oh, it was great. You were talking about your favorite sandwich there for months, and when I finally tried it, it lived up to the height. We were on the heart of the action, so we got to bike around a bunch, but your spot was a quick walk from our house. The setup was perfect. That's right. Everything we needed to make us feel like locals at the tournament, proximity to the grounds, great shops and restaurants all around, and enough space for the family to make the trip too. But here's the thing. Great cities are about to experience an influx of fans making last minute travel arrangements to catch the action live, and that's exactly where you come in. If you've got a home near a tourist stop or anywhere fans might be passing through this fall, you can list your space on Airbnb and give someone the perfect home base to make their trip even better. It's such a simple and practical way to make use of your space, to earn a little extra cash to put towards your own travel adventures, especially if you already have travel plans of your own. Why let your home sit empty when it could be working for you? Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Alright, back to the show. Welcome back to serve, brought to you by service now, JW, before I get into the potential seedings and routes, and we're going to be talking all week, we're going to get to the draw show and predictions and all this crap. Let's go to our favorite subject where no one can agree on wild cards. What do you have to be about and what business you want? What are you going to do with draws first? You want to do with draws first? WC or WD? What do you want? No one's happy, no one's happy about withdrawals either. Yeah, let's go, let's go wild cards first. And I do want to say, my caveat also, it always, we can have our opinions about wild cards. I hate the terminology when someone says they deserve to wild card. The people that deserve entry into the tournament are the people that have done the work over the previous 12 months to have the ranking high enough to be in the tournament. No one else is entitled to anything, and we still have these freebie spots, these entitlements, these things we give away, which always make for a good argument, JW. What did you like? What do you hate? I'm attacking the premise. I think people can deserve an entitled, you know, I mean, these, what I'm drawing, these are ping pong balls, like they're, they're based on some sort of subjective merits. So shouldn't people therefore be more deserving than others? He won't. I don't know. So this is such an impact. All right. This is such an imperfect, this is one of the tennis, here's a big picture, tennis is such an awesome meritocracy, right? I mean, Mike beats Andy, Mike gets ranking points, Mike's ranking goes up, Andy's ranking might not. Good job, Mike. Andy jumps off building. That's very good. Exactly. That's another story. If you're not dependent on the coach, it doesn't matter if we like his outfit or not. It does not matter if the teammates pass in the ball, like tennis is an awesome meritocracy. These wild cards fly in the face of that. We talk a lot about how tournaments need a mechanism. So if Mike Hayden decides the last minute to enter your tournament, you want him in there. He sells tickets. They need a little lever. Fine. Great. This has gotten a little out of control. And I think what we have now is a situation where the tournaments just have way too much, over $40,000 in first round money is on the line. I mean, these are big decisions. And long story short, you're never going to get it right. People are always going to be pissed off. You know this from your, you know, you pick an all-star team of little leaguers. And some people feel spurned and some people are happy and some, I mean, this is the nature of the beast. Let's put Venus aside for another time. I do think that Stan Favranca ranked 125 who's played at the previous three majors, Hall of Fame first ballot, no brainer champion of the U.S. Open 10 years ago. Good guy. I mean, just you added up. And to me, it's out. And there's only nine spots off the cutoff. So we're not talking. I mean, Venus has lost 14 straight matches. I mean, Stan Favranca is nine players get food poisoning last week. And he's in. So we're not talking about some guy flailing. I don't see how he doesn't get it. I didn't, I didn't make this connection until just now when you said that. Stan Favranca was cheering for lettuce last week, wasn't he? That's what I said, I made that joke. He said it. You said it, you said it, talking about it, everyone. Just ahead of lettuce. I mean, to put it in, like, it's so, we have a list here of the wild cards on both sides. And a lot of them are either, you know, Michael Zhang, you know, reigning NCAA champion. You have, you know, Darwin Branch, you know, you have, sorry, you have Dane Sweeney, who's a reciprocal. You have Gail Malfiece at 39 during his farewell season. He's a reciprocal according to this list. You have Sloan Stevens getting in. You had Sophia Kenan taking Serena Spot after she decided not to take a wild card. A lot of them are people that do deserve them based on either, you know, NCAA championships. They're your youth players in the American pipeline, their wild card challenge winners. So I do struggle a little bit with Stan not getting on at 7 and 15 on the season, you know, and as a past champion in a farewell season of Gail Malfiece's. But. Well, Gail Malfiece's, we're talking about where you were born is essentially the conversation. Yeah. And do you have something to offer a value to United States tennis? Gail Malfiece by virtue of being French and them having a grand slam, they have something of value for the USDA in player development with it, which is a wild card swap. Is what it is. I'm disappointed for the more rink of decision, not just because he's a great champion, a first ball at Hall of Famer. None of those things. But Stan has gone about his farewell as you would want someone to go about their farewell. Respect for the game, doing it the right way, going down and not having an ego about playing challengers, being on the periphery of the cutoff, you would hope that those types of action, where you are, we talk about playing the right way, doing the right things, training the right way, respect for the game, all of those things would be rewarded. They weren't in this instance. So you can play the game of who, where, where, when we also don't know that who was promised what, right? Does the NCAA champion automatically get in? Do we automatically put the junior winner in? Do we automatically have a reciprocal? Do we play a summer season where it's already promised a way? Have we promised too many wild cards that take up five slots irrespective of the answer? The answer by the way, those aren't hypotheticals. I mean, the answer is yes. I mean, Jack, the winner of Kalamazoo, Jack Kennedy. And great. I mean, I think that's fair. You know, Michael is saying American born college stud who's played at the previous three majors, very deserving. But I think maybe one thing that comes out of this is we just need parameters and guidelines. And maybe if you've lost X straight matches in a row, you're ineligible. And maybe if you're ranking is not in the top two, I mean, I think they're ways to do this a little more gracefully and with a little more predict, it's always going to be subjective, but maybe we can put up some guardrails. I just think, you know, Stan got wild cards at the previous three majors had a beer with Craig Tyley in Australia. I guess Craig doesn't want his free beer. Wimbledon wild card. I don't, I don't, I don't even, I don't think Stan made a Wimbledon sent me quarterfinals at best. And he's won this tournament. And I mean, as you say, it is a bit ironic. He's played all of these raky dink events to get his ranking up. And he did not want to play in the qualifying draw. But I wrote to Stan in the cap yesterday, and that's not a thing, too. I mean, this guy is accountable, accessible, you send him a text. And he gets back to you. I just want to be sure he wasn't injured or there wasn't some extenuating circumstance. And the response was fully, fully, fully fit. They're disappointed. I guess we will have to toast him on Sean, Sean, Sean, I'll send a zoom link around. We're going to have to do this virtually because I don't think he'll be, uh, we won't be doing this on a court in New York and for it. Which is, I mean, former champion 10 years ago. Come on. Yeah. I say, when I say not deserving, it doesn't mean that it, it, it basically just means you're at the mercy of someone else's decision making, right? And that is what it is. And I hate that saying. But like, that's what else could Stan and what Rinka do, yeah. Right. Like, um, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's imperfect. It's fun to talk about. Uh, I would say the exception of Arthur Ferry and Gore and Evie Nesovitch in 2001, it largely, a lot of times is ceremonial. Um, unless it's up and coming player, I, you know, I'm sure they promised Darwin Blancher Wildcard six months ago. I am sure that dictated his schedule and when not to play and when not to go to Kalamazoo and. all of those things. And he's the youngest player in the top two. All of these things play into it. And they don't have the name value of a stand more rink. But that doesn't mean that they haven't, you know, if you're an upcoming prospect and they say, do X, Y, and Z. And you do that. It's tough to pull that wild card. It's, it's things, you know, things happen, right? According to this, you know, he got Lanch got dams free wild card because Ethan Quinn withdrew. So then he got bumped up. So then he made it into the main role. So it sometimes just circumstance, circumstances happen. And they know they, they're going to give it to an American because they've probably, maybe they've slaughtered it, you know, this many for American rising stars. And listen, the win in your end thing is, is fun. And when you lock up X amount of spots that are concrete and they've been promised away before, there is little room for extenuating circumstances like a stand more rink, you know, or you have to make a tough call like a venison and someone else out or whatever it is. So, you know, flexibility probably matters. You know, I, if I, me personally, I'd kind of like, you know, a month out, not to, or four months out, not to have six, five or six, whatever the number is locked up. Outside of my purview, haunted, kicked the can, you know. But such as life, we've talked a bunch about wild cards and whatever withdrawals, Mike. Yes. Lots of them. Lots of withdrawals. We have about 16 withdrawals so far. Do you want to go to break first? Do it? Do you want to go to? I don't want to. But if you're going to make me, I don't, I mean, I'd rather just get on with it. Let's go to break. Thanks for listening to "Served." We will be right back. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I watch tennis, I think about tennis, I talk about tennis. But even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialist come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish. Case is closed. Request handled. No extra work for you. That way, you and your team can focus on the work that matters, which for me is explaining at length by tennis players are the best athletes on earth. Sorry, everyone else on earth. All right, back to the show. Hey, Techie Sean here. Just jumping in real fast. You're about to hear a segment about US Open With Draws. We recorded it early because Andy had to jump on a flight. And that's why you're not going to hear us talk about, as you all fun, take us with draw. You'll hear Mike mentioned there are 16 withdraws and there are now 17 because of Jowel. Just wanted to give you guys this quick update. Who knows? By the time you watch this, there might be another one that we didn't talk about. All right. Welcome back to serve, brought to you by ServiceNow. Should we go to break again, Mike, or can you think we can run through the finish line here? Yes, we can. Let's do it. We have 16 players are out of the US Open, across both tours. But that number is everyone that has kind of been withdrawing. There's the thing about the withdrawal of this and most of it's noise. Most of it's just headlines. Look at all these players that are out. But nine of those 16 are ranked outside the seating line, which means that they were never really going to affect the pathway. But I think there's probably three players right now that are out that are really affecting what the possibility is for seating. So what's fun in what gets talked about like in the locker room. So if you're in Cincinnati and news breaks, sinners out. First thing, 15 people go, Oh, shit. I might be able to win this thing. That's crazy. They want to admit it to you. But that's what they're thinking. Another thing is that then we start moving the pieces. Okay. Well, Novak gets bumped up at least one spot. You know, it would be helpful if he was top four. Kaboli starts making a run. Beats Hodor gets right on the doorstep of a top four seed loses to feasts, which then locks Novak in for a number four seed. So does not have to take on potentially carlosures vera until the semis. All of these moving parts can affect the trajectory of a tournament. That's two weeks away. And it's so much fun. But that shit matter is in the locker room. Like Kaboli losing that match. You lose in a master's series that stinks. And also now you're bringing in tougher opponents earlier in the draw, Eagish Fionteck sneaking in, getting into that eighth slot as opposed to the round of 16. All of that stuff matters. Like on a percentage basis at the margins. Does that make it 10% 15% easier, more straight forward? All that stuff matters. Can I layman's terms? It a little bit for us like Tekishan and myself. Just a reminder, seeds one through four. Yes. Morons. Seeds one through four kept apart until the semifinals. Seeds five through eight are dropped to the top four quarters. So they might meet a top four player in the quarter finals. Seeds 9 through 16 can be drawn against the top eight seeds in the round of 16 and then so on and so on. And so what you're saying about somebody like Ega, right? Like Ega is sitting at number eight right now. She's not going to play Coco in the round of 16 because she's seated 10. But now we're waiting to see what happens with Ravakana, who's currently in the top four. If she's withdrawn from mixed doubles, she had the Achilles ish injury and since now if she withdraws, now you have mirror and Drava sitting at five, bumping into the top four. You have Ega going from eight to seven. You know, and then you have somebody like Spitalina bumping into the Lloyd, it's Lloyd. You can't triple stamp a double stamp, but it's just like triple stamp a double stamp. Like when you when you when you think about before the draw is even come out. All of these things that are happening. I'll add one more caveat. You used Ravakana as an example. So Ravakana, she does not owe it to anyone in the field to pull out before she knows she can't play. Now if the jaw gets made and she pulls out on like Sunday, which is her business and it's her right. Cabloey, like so if she pulls out Wednesday, mirror slides into that spot. If she pulls out Sunday, it doesn't really then then you slide in. Why not take all the time, right? Then you slide in the luckiest loser and everything kind of goes a little bit sideways. So luck of the draw is quite literally a thing. It's it affects your path. It's out of your control. It is a flip of the coin. JW withdrawals just part of this year. I hate to be that guy because I think I think might nail on something that I think we don't always talk about, which is in some ways this is insulation. This is defense, right? So if you're a top 8 seed, you will not play anyone rank higher than you till the round of 8. If you were a top 16 seed, you don't play anyone rank higher than you till the round of 16, right? Look at some of this prize money, right? So all you have to do is beat the players ranked below you, which you know, I mean that's that don't seem that hard. So the difference between say eight and nine, right? If you said if I'm coaching a player, if I'm coaching a player and I said, look, let's not even think about second week, just play the players that you know, you're already earned it, right? Empirically, it's pretty hard. You're better because the ranking say you're better. All you have to do is this is your first week pop-up speech. This is your this is your pump-up speech. You know, round of 16, $480,000, quarter final, $780. So none of this is guaranteed. But if we're talking about having an easier path to get there, the difference between eight and nine is huge. The difference between 16 and 17 is huge. There's a lot of money at stake here too. But no, I think you're right. I think that, you know, a couple of key pullouts and it could be weeks in advance really changed the trajectory for a lot of players. I mean, Ego was on the verge of dipping way into double digit rankings. That's not the case anymore. It's really significant for her. I mean, again, all of this is how the draw plays out. There's context. All this could be a mood point when, you know, Mara Kostya catches fire. I mean, this hardly guarantees anything. But I think if you're looking at this, you're right. Every little incremental edge helps a player and the difference between being number nine and potentially having to play the first seat in the quarter five and being number eight is a huge, huge differentiation. It's a massive deal. I remember I was a little hurt. I mean, I was just grinding on whether or not I was going to be ready for a world tour finals. If you don't play that and the alternate goes in and wins a match, you're not see the top eight in Australia. So therefore, it's your decision. Even just for attendance, you're not giving up that pathway to the quarters. These are all little decisions that have to be made because it matters especially in majors. I mean, we were talking post Wimbledon. I said, if Ega doesn't turn it around, she's going to be, I mean, who wants to play Ega when she see the 13 because Cincinnati's win from last year drops off now. It was moot as, as JW said, because she wins in Canada. But all of those things matter. Yeah, they do. Listen, I'm pumped for mixed this week. Novak and Saba Lenka. Like, I mean, like, let's, if we should have almost done an entire episode on like prop bets, who yells at their box first? Arena or Novak? They just do it together. Yeah, maybe do it together. What if they did a choreograph yelling after one game? I would, I would die. I would laugh so hard. If that happened, obviously Carlos and Serena, I mean, who are we kidding? Unbelievable. It's just great. Busy week for us. A lot of fun stuff. This is Monday. I got to find a way to get good at tennis again before tomorrow night. Why is that? 'Cause I have to play Federer. - Who's, you do? - For his tribute night. - Oh, that's nice. - In singles. - Washington Generals mode. (laughs) - Oh, no. - Oh, no. - No. - How's this though? 'Cause I haven't been able to talk about it. Yeah, getting the call like six months ago. It's like, thinking singles. I'm like, singles. - Who said that to you? - What is this singles? - Yeah, like what person said that to you? - There is. - And why did you not hang up the phone immediately? - It's so stupid. (laughs) So yesterday I played the first full-out set. I've played in eight years in singles, like with serving and actually trying to run. And it has been a bear trying to get my shoulder going. - Oh. - What a nightmare. The singles is hard. - You're gonna try and take it up the register? How you feeling? - I gotta try it. I mean, I might not make it through it. - Yeah. - I'm like, who do we have on standby in case? (laughs) - Something just like the strings on electric guitar. I'll tell you this, I would not be playing singles on Arthur S.J.D. and if it was not for like anyone else. - Yeah. - But, you know, when Roger says, I'm coming back to New York, will you be a part of it? You say yes. But honestly, have I, has anyone ever been more made for a moment than me on Tuesday in a big arena? - Yeah. - Brought in to make Roger look good. (laughs) Like I am. - You've had lots of practice. - I am built for this shit. Like if I'm not ready for this moment, no one's ready for any moment if we're being-- - Are they gonna mic you guys up for the singles? - I hope so, 'cause I need some sort of offset for my tennis ability right now. - Oh my gosh. - Did you guys watch the movie The Dink? - I think you might be able to draw inspiration from that. - Got it. - But this is a real sport, though. (laughs) This is like a real, like you have to run and stuff. - How many, how many changes are you gonna have? - None. - I'm not taking 'em. - Just go straight through. - No, I'm not taking a road. Retire by any sort of. - We'll run out and bring some towels up for my show. - You will not see my nipples. (laughs) Will not happen. So that is Tuesday night. I am frightened. I'm like, please just make serves. Don't hit double faults. Don't make the place go quiet. That is the worst, that is the biggest fear. Is that it's so bad that it's like, there's no, there's no con. And then someone goes, come on Andy. (laughs) - It's, it's. - It'll be Techie Sean up at the stands. - Yeah. - Who's talking now? - That'll be probably now. (laughs) (laughs) - JW judging me. - Stop. - All right, so Thursday, really busy day. We have a four mentioned. We have Anton Dubrov on for the Q&A episode. That will be great. Obviously, not the standard SabaLenka interview, because we have to address maybe a lack of form going into a major, which is a bit of a new scenario for her over the last four or five years. We have an event at the Waldorf that night. I think JW is coming. I am seeing a bunch of really fun players there. We have a draw show on Thursday. Where, I mean, the draw show. - It's gonna be a good one. - I don't know. It's gonna be, it's gonna be carnage. I have no idea where I'm going. Like you actually need the draw to come out here. It's not just Alcharez Center irrespective of who's in the draw. - Yeah. - Sinner's out, Carlos hasn't played since April. This is as weird of a draw show on the men's side as we've had for a long time. Friday, I am pumped about Friday. - Yeah. - So, our dumb little show. - It's not dumb. - You get mad when I, Micah, at some point has gone over to the dark side where he gets mad at me if we're calling it a dumb little show. - It's not dumb. Sorry, our smart, amazing show, dumb little show. So, things that you, the kind of big players are requested to do on media day. Press conference, ESPN, and there's normally one other one that they have. We are that other one. So, we will be out in the area outside of the stadium on a big stage from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. So, if you are on site, come see us. We got some heaters. - Heaters. - Heaters of a list. - We have a great list. We can say it. - I think we can say some of them. Do you think so, Sean? - Yeah, I think so. Subject to change. - I mean, the way the media day works, as Andy said, is the top players are going through a cycle, and after the draws come out, and they do all the different media stops, but they will be coming on to stage with us. There's not a, we don't have a confirmed schedule yet. We'll put the schedule out, but some things will shift, some things won't. But we start at one o'clock. - We've canceled this schedule then. - We're still at one o'clock with some pretty big names. - One o'clock. Calling all our Filipino fans in New York City. Yala. - Woof. - One o'clock. - Get a kick us off. - Next on that list. - To the moon. - You wanna talk about who's next? - Who's it? - Here we go. - Here we go. (laughing) - Car does coming in after that. We have Arena, Sabahlenka. We have Andreva. We have Ben Shelton. We have FAA. We have Taylor Fritz. We have Tommy Paul. And this is still a working list. So we will be working one to four. If you wanna see some fun interviews, get some insights from some players. How are they feeling? What are we doing? What adjustments have been made? How'd you do in the mixed doubles? Were you a total loser? Did you win something? It'll all be fun. We will have a great time as always. We are honored to be a part of US Open media day. Who would have thought? Look at us. Look at us. And then Saturday night, I will be hopping over to see one Roger Federer get inducted in the Hall of Fame. - Hopefully people show up. - And our friend, Mary Carrillo. - Yes. - And then I'll be hopping right back. And then on some version of ABC ESPN. So after that busy week, I get to actually work. - And then we'll still be doing our quick serves every night. - Oh. - Which is pretty sick. - I can't. - What we have set up, I can't say it yet. The quick serve situation. We're gonna blow your fucking minds with what we have planned for the US Open. It is, it's creative. It's creative. It's a good one. - We're gonna be rolling into these quick serves. - We're gonna be rolling right into them. - This has been served. Brought to you by ServiceNow. Welcome to fucking US Open! Let's go. - Let's go, let's go. - Thank you, let's go. - Bracket challenge, see ya. I have my dream job. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work. They actually do it. (upbeat music) (audience cheering)