BBP EP1 V2 1.18.24 4 DISTRO

Norm, Peter, and Chris are the hosts of the tennis podcast "Breaking Back." They discuss the upcoming Australian Open and the players to watch, including Djokovic and Nadal. Djokovic's injury is questioned, as he is known for playing mind games. They also talk about Djokovic's fashion choices and his reputation among fans. The conversation shifts to young players like Alcaraz and Sinner, who are expected to be the next stars in tennis. They mention the short off-season in tennis and the challenges it presents for players. They briefly discuss the popularity of basketball in Canada. Hey, everyone. I'm Norm. Welcome to Breaking Back, a tennis podcast by fans for fans covering all aspects of the game with an unfiltered lens. And I'm here with my co-hosts, Peter and Chris. Welcome to Breaking Back. My name is Peter. I've been a friend of Norm's here for a couple of years in Maine, and my background is in sports marketing. I've been in sports for about 25, 26 years, eight different sports teams, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, et cetera. Never worked directly in tennis, but a lot of it is very transferable or applicable. And yeah, looking forward to the conversations we're about to have. My name's Chris. I've known Peter since I was six or seven years old, and I've known Norm for close to 30 years now. And I bring absolutely no knowledge of the sport to this podcast. I bring knowledge of washes, clothes, footwear, some odd banal information about tennis, but these two guys are the experts. I'm just here to provide humor and context. You are good for lots of banal conversation, Chris. That's why we love you. I have an infinite list of useless information. Well, on this episode, episode one, season one, we are launching into the Australian Open. It's the first tournament of the year, right? It's where the world kicks off sport fitting, right? It's where the first New Year's celebration starts in Sydney, Australia. And man, there's a lot of topics to get to when you talk about this Australian Open. We've got Djokovic going for an insane 11th title. You've got Nadal who's not able to play because of his aging body. And as we all know, father time is undefeated in sport. We've got the women. We've got four women who have risen to the top of the field, and I think are going to be head and shoulders above everybody else. Of course, we've got the backdrop to all this, which is Netflix series Breakpoint. It dropped this morning, January 10th, and I got up first thing to watch episode one, and it was awesome. Actually, that was pretty good. I was moved to tears. We'll talk about that later. But back to kind of the nuts and bolts here, Djokovic, he's been number one for a record 407 weeks in a record 13 different years. Crazy. And what I love about this season in particular is he's going into the event with, quote, an injury, which is like, that's par for the course for Djokovic, right? He is infamous for rope-a-dope. Is he really injured, or is this just some BS that he does to make his myth even bigger? Yeah, I don't believe he's ever injured, honestly. And I think there was one quote I found doing some prep, and he said, I think, this is Djokovic talking, I think I'll be okay. To be honest, it did have quite an impact, particularly on the forehand and serve. But I had plenty of time, I think, enough to get myself in the right shape for the Australian Open. This was like two weeks ago. And it's a wrist injury? It's a wrist injury. Is it on a serving? It's on his right hand. Okay. The best quote, though, was that one of the journalists said, no one takes Novak Djokovic's injury serious anymore. Right. Well, a wrist injury for him could be like he moved his wrist the wrong way, like an inch. He seems like he's a very delicate person. He's very conscious about what he eats, obviously, about what he puts in his body, which I don't begrudge him. But, you know, it just kind of paints a very, it paints a picture of a delicate man. There's also playing hurt, right, versus playing injured. So they probably should be using the term hurt. Yeah. If you're injured, it's difficult to play through a quote unquote injury. But you just need to watch nonetheless. I mean, you can't, you can't point to a Djokovic match where he hasn't done something gamesmanship wise, right? You look at a lot of his five set matches, first set, he kind of sleepwalks through it and takes what's given to him. If he wins it, great. If he doesn't, then go back and jump in my sleep deprivation tank and take all my Serbian made, you know, laxatives or whatnot to keep me whole and I'm good. He's got to be the master at gamesmanship, right? And by far have the best mental part of the game, I would think. Can adapt to anything right during a match. Good, bad and different. Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw him on, he was on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, interviewed by Wertheim, and it was all about the mental aspect of his game. And he was talking about how, you know, he notices the other player when he is in between games. Is he sitting down looking at his box? Is he, you know, agitated? Is he, you know, looking around kind of nervous? Like, you know, is he breathing fast? And Wertheim was kind of like amazed, like he, you know, was talking to some sort of shaman. But I mean, that's kind of pretty obvious. It happens in all sports, right? Like you're paying attention to what your opponent's doing and reacting to that. Right. Well, look, I can't comment on his actual prowess on the court. I know he wins a lot. I've watched him play many, many, many times. From a fashion perspective, I can't stand how his shirts are cut. He wears a very long lacquer on, and he has like three buttons. It looks like a, it looks like a golf shirt, does not look like a tennis shirt. They're always too fucking tight. And then he's a Hublot ambassador. And if you know anything about watches, Hublot is kind of like the Volkswagen thing of watch brands. It's weird. They make very sort of big personality watches. You know, only people that wear those kind of watches are CEOs, guys that, you know, have small dicks and need to tell everybody that they don't. And that's Jokovic right there. I mean, that's spot on. That's Jokovic. Yeah. As far as, you know, from the fashion perspective, he's, I think, is he Lacoste? Is that who he is? Yeah. I mean, to be sponsored by a French fashion house and get away with cutting those shirts in that slim fit that he likes with the collars super high on his neck, which I understand he has a huge neck. I don't know. I just think he looks like he just looks robotic on court. He has no style whatsoever. I don't know. I'm not a fan of the Joker. And apparently it's Joker versus the field if we're betting for wagering on this, right? In Vegas, you can bet an amount on Joker to win, right? Versus how many total players are going to be in the channel, but 128 or I can take 127 other individuals. Yeah. Are they factoring his hurt wrist into these? I wonder, I haven't checked the odds in the last couple of days, but it is, it is like when Tiger played golf, right? You, it was a seriously hard decision. Am I going to take this one guy or the entire field and at the Australian open five set match, like I will be putting money on Djokovic. I mean, I, I have a love hate relationship with the guy and I know plenty of people that worship the ground. He walks on his Twitter following is like no other. I mean, the Serbian fan base is just ravenous and, uh, you know, they troll, they troll and go after people. It's crazy. Yeah. Oh yeah. When the doll announced that he was pulling out of the tournament, I found a tweet by some, you know, Serbian sycophants and, and he basically was had a bunch of like crying emojis and, you know, saying that Nadal, if he took better care of himself would be still playing in the tournament, which is just a farce, right? The guy has been out for a year. He came back and was dominant in the few matches he played in the tournament in Brisbane before he got hurt, um, and lost in the semis. But at any rate, yeah, those fans, uh, that Djokovic has are make it really hard to root for him. And he, he very clearly is on a reputation washing tour constantly. He's got to have a huge PR firm behind him. That's wanting him to be more loved because he, he just wants to be loved so badly. Right. What about Alcaraz? Like, I think Alcaraz is going to be his, is his archenemy, right. And he's going to ultimately replace him as the next megastar in tennis. How is he not getting more love? I mean, it seems to be all about Joker. I've heard nothing about Alcaraz. I don't know anything about Alcaraz and Sinner were probably the two best young guns, uh, behind Djokovic. Uh, neither of them played any of the pre kind of warmup tournaments. You know, they didn't play the United cup, which was kind of a mixed doubles hit and giggle thing. They didn't play in, uh, Adelaide didn't play Brisbane. So they're kind of walking out a little bit cold. I mean, I think they're tennis has the shortest off season of all the major sports, 34 days, right? NFL 241, NBA 197, MLB 178, NHL 118. You know, these guys walk off the court after the end of the year finals, and they've got a month just to recover and try to, you know, relax a little bit. It's insane. So you can see I was playing like Rafa has a nagging injury. You don't have time to recover. I mean, one month, it's not a lot of time to recover from a nagging injury. So that's surprising. Well, we were talking, texting earlier. I was asking, you know, in the, in the tour at what level or what ranking do you need to be before you don't have to have a second job? Well, it's, it's, I don't know, commonly considered top 100. You know, everybody below that is maybe it's a college player. Maybe it's a top junior, but it's people that have benefactors, right. That are underwriting all of this. We talked about this, right. With our friend at the beach and underwriting. Yeah. Right. Who's the player that they sponsored? Do you remember the name? I don't remember the name, but it was a Canadian player. Yeah. I thought it was a shop of all of Canada. I'm not sure what the ranking of tennis is in Canada is the most popular sport, but basketball is the biggest sport in Canada. Oddly enough, followed by off course hockey. And then I think tennis might be in third place, but isn't that weird? Basketball is bigger than hockey in Canada. That is weird. I mean, they did win a national championship. They're a world championship Raptors. Yeah. But back to a... Sorry, that's basketball. Yeah. This is not a fucking basketball podcast, Chris. That's in the studio next door. I told you I have useless information. One of the topics that's really hot right now is what's happening with the tour itself. And to your point, these players are, they're underpaid, right? If you're not in the top 100, you're really struggling. And so the ATP tour is kind of like, I don't know, not unlike FIFA, right? It's run by this group of people that likes to pad their own wallets and take care of the old boy network and the product to be damned. But I will say Djokovic has been a real leader in this, what's called the PTPA, the Professional Tour Players Association. It's like a new group, a union they're trying to form to have influence over the game. And our listeners have probably heard something about the Saudis getting involved, as they did in golf. And what's interesting is an injection of money would help these guys and the women have a real existence, a base salary to pay their coaches to travel, even though it's the Saudis. And we all know what that brings to the table, or along with the party, Billie Jean King, of all people has leaned in and said, I'm open to talk, I want to hear what they have to say. Peter probably has more knowledge from the inside on professional sports than honestly, anybody I know you've worked in what league haven't you worked in? What professionally have you not worked? Badminton, tennis, cricket, cricket. Oh, wait, do we have a rule? Is there we don't discuss or even bring up the pickleball, right? Oh, yeah, no, no pickleball. Well, we can talk about pickleball. Of course. I mean, it was only from a negative perspective. Jesus. But back to the Saudis, they're definitely I think the term is sport washing, right? And they're buying sports like, you know, Christian Ronaldo, for hundreds of millions of dollars to play in Saudi Arabia, where there's no TV rights, we're not seeing, I mean, I'm sure you can find it somewhere online. But there's no doubt that Saudi Arabia is doing what they can to purchase and buy the love of a lot of different demographics across a lot of different nations, and across a lot of different sports. And they first found out for golf, hence the live tour, which sort of split the PGA and the USGA in half, and cause a lot more issues amongst the players. And they're throwing stupid money. I mean, crazy 10s of millions of dollars to play in one golf tournament that no one would in their right mind turned down. So yeah, I think they're now getting into tennis. And as I see it, they're trying to host events in Saudi Arabia. So I think they would want to have a tennis tournament, like the next Grand Slam, and they'll make it bigger than life. You know, the World Cup was just in Qatar. And don't think that that, you know, event wasn't purchased. So it'll be soon to see what happens. And I agree with Billie Jean King in regards to listening. But if everyone were to act upon that, that'll be where there'll be some issues because some other players will, will, will raise your issue of female, if you're a woman's player, right? And you have to behave a certain way, when you're not on court, right, dictated by law. It's a little awkward. But I, I like what they're trying to do. I mean, the live golf tour, say what you will about it, it's brought those two tours together, right, to have dialogue and to figure out a better way forward. And now you see, you know, Rory opening up and willing to talk and, you know, what, what happens from here? I don't know. But in tennis, they're looking at kind of like, fewer tournaments, bigger money, and then the top players qualify for those bigger tournaments. And then the players that are lower ranked, have to kind of punch up to get in there, almost like, you know, the Premier League, Champions League, in soccer, which I think is the greatest, you know, league set up on the planet. Well, here's the thing that doesn't make sense to me, though. If they have fewer tournaments, then that's less opportunities for broadcasting rights, streaming rights, event rights, what have you, which means those tournaments will be able to go to the top players and basically say, if you don't come to our tournament, then you're not going to be able to get ranked. You know, and I'm sure that there are, are there any tournaments that overlap? Like, is there a situation kind of like in the cycling world where everyone wants to win the Tour, the Tour de France, but so they'll skip, you know, the Tour de Spagna, or they'll skip the Giro d'Italia, just to focus on the Tour. So in tennis, does anyone, I mean, I know Federer for years would just focus on Wimbledon. Yeah, absolutely. Like, US Open, no one ever talks about the Davis Cup anymore. I mean, I used to, I used to be, that was a hot viewing opportunity as a kid. Yeah, they ruined Davis Cup by making it an annual event. It was, it had substance, right, when it was every four years. Right. And people were able to find time in the calendar to play for their country. Now, as an annual event, like in the first few rounds, very few players that are at the top, with the exception of Djokovic, I give him absolute credit there, because he will play for Serbia from the first round through the finals. He makes it a priority. But the Spanish team won't have Nadal, right? The Swiss team never had Federer until, like, they might have won a couple of rounds. And the Americans are all, you know, kind of off doing their own thing. Yeah, Davis Cup's lost its luster, for sure. They got to go back to some sort of, you know, some sort of spread between, between each event. So there's no rule, you have to have a home in the country that you represent? Or you have to have been born there and claim that nationality? Yeah, it's like the Olympics, right? I mean, right. And there's some fungibility there, right? Like guys will switch their nationality to be on a particular team. In the World Cup, right, that happens. Oh, yeah. So what's going to happen this summer with the Olympics is tennis is an Olympic sport, correct? Right. They're going to play. It's very interesting in the context of Rafa, because if this is his last year, which a lot of people think it may be at 38, right, and he's breaking down, he's going to want to win Roland Garros when it happens in, you know, June. But then right after that, after Wimbledon is the Paris Olympics, and they're playing the tennis at Roland Garros. So you could see Rafa play the French Open. And I would think he would play Wimbledon just, you know, because if it's his last season, he's going to do it. But then go back to clay after Wimbledon would be, I mean, epic. Just awesome. Yeah. So they're going to play the tennis in the Olympics on clay. They're not playing it on hard. Correct. That's fascinating. Correct. On the French Open ground. People in the tennis world, is that like, was that controversial? Is that caught some dust up? No, I don't think so. I think it's just up to the country that hosts and to use the play in a court that reflects the, you know, the country, maybe, or what are the brand, right? In that case, it's certainly the Terra Batu in Paris. When London hosted the Olympics a few years ago, did they have tennis at Wimbledon? No, they didn't. In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, staged at Wimbledon, Andy Murray beat Roger Federer 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. In the final, straight sets in his home country. Wow. I actually watched that match and it was fantastic. And I have to mention the fact that Andy Murray wears a Rado and he gets paid a million dollars, a million pounds a year to wear that watch. And I have written down here what kind of watch it is somewhere. Rado? Rado's the brand? He wears the Rado Hyperchrome Automatic Chronograph Matchpoint. Oh yeah. What does Rafa wear for a watch? Because he, to me, he like, more than anybody, that guy, and to play with a watch of substance, right, is like... He wears a Richard Mille, which is, the watches he wears cost, if you were to be able to get one, anywhere from 300,000 US to 750,000 US dollars. And he wears, they've had, I mean, they've had, they've designed several models for him. They're all, you know, RM67-02. They all have, you know, the RM designation. What does that mean? You're speaking Greek over there. Oh, so, well, that's like the reference number for the watch, like a 911 Porsche. So if you have an RM, like, if you know watches and you say to somebody, oh my God, he's got an RM67-02, they'd be like, oh my God, that's Zverev's watch, because he's also sponsored by Richard Mille. Most players, you know, like Federer, Federer's a Rolex ambassador, Coco Gauff is a Rolex ambassador, Borg was a Rolex ambassador, John McEnroe wears a Rolex, but he has what's called in the watch world, a piece unique. And that means there's only one in existence. And he had a Atelier in Geneva, the name of which, at the Artisans de Genève, his Rolex 116610. I mean, it's just, you know, if you were to ever, if this watch were to ever go on the market, it would probably fetch, you know, in excess of a million dollars. The jewelry these guys wear is incredible. This is watch talk across jewelers. Well, that's funny. Well, the funny thing is when Djokovic started out on the tour, he was a huge Seiko fan. He wore nothing but Seikos, and then he upgraded to a Hublot. Hublots start around $8,000 or $9,000. Well, anyway, you brought up Naomi Osaka earlier, Chris. And so she's another big story here in this year's Australian Open. In my opinion, I mean, she's the most talented raw ball striker on the tour. And she was only one of three players in the Open era, along with Sellis and Federer, to win her first four Grand Slam finals, meaning the first four times she made it to the championship, she won, which is just incredible. And she's been off for 14 months because she had a baby, which is like the latest thing in women's tennis. Svitolina, who's Gaël Moffisse's wife, did it, came back with great success last year, had some good runs in not only Wimbledon, Cincinnati, the U.S. Open, before Kim Clijsters was really the first one to do it. Wozniacki just came back, right? She was a broadcaster in the booth. Love her or do not love her in the booth. She just came back, right? And she did well. I think she got to the quarterfinals, did she not? At the U.S. Open? Oh, God, I can't. Let's talk about her in the booth. Naomi's 26 years old. Coco's not even 17 yet, right? No, she's like 20, 19 or 20. She's 19. Yeah. So but back to back to Wozniacki in the booth. Let's let's linger on that for a bit. She is like watching paint dry, man. I mean, if you put her in the booth with Alexandra Stevenson, it is like it's like the Stephen Wright skit where he said, I put a humidifier to dehumidifier in a room next to each other and let them fight it out. Right. That's that's what it's like listening to Wozniacki and Alexandra Stevenson. I will say Nick Kyrgios for all of his issues and whatnot. The fact that he's not playing tennis is is really disturbing and sad for anybody who's a purist and loves his abilities. But he did do some commentary during the the finals at the end of the year, the ATP finals. And he was fantastic. You know, unscripted, fairly polished, but was predicting things. Right. Like there's guys in every sport. Right. Pedro Martinez watching a baseball game or doing commentary. He'll tell you what's going to happen before it happens. Right. Tony Romo, same thing. He calls the plays before they as they happen. Right. And Kyrgios was doing the same thing, calling serve direction, calling the spin on the serve, predicting the outcomes and was fantastic. So I do hope that even though he's decided he really doesn't care about tennis as a player, that he does stick it out in the booth. I'm a huge fan. I mean, I think tennis needs more unique personalities, love him or hate him to like Nick Kyrgios. I think he brings so much flavor to the sport that, you know, could be considered bland or has been bland over the years in the past, wearing all whites to a tournament, nothing but white where the players can't necessarily reveal their true colors or wear and represent what they want and be their own brands. So I actually loved him. Certainly it used a little less or racket smashing. And I think he was in one of the break point episodes and his mom had all the rackets he smashed and there were like hundreds of them in some room in their house. It was hilarious. But but I like to see him get back on the court or in the booth. I'm a fan. Yeah. I mean, I love Kyrgios. I have a love hate relationship with him as well. Right. Because the one of my favorite matches of all time, he played Indian Wells against Federer and it was three tiebreakers and he won. I mean, he played Djokovic first time, beat him, Murray first time, beat him, Nadal, Federer, same thing. But he doesn't have the discipline, doesn't have discipline to actually do the work to be consistent. John McEnroe did a commentary on, I would call it not commentary, a monologue on Kyrgios. And basically said, like, if this guy can conquer his mental demons and focus and get himself straightened out or whatever it was he was sort of analyzing and critiquing, he said, this guy has the skills to destroy everybody. Boy, is he a train wreck to watch on the court, though, when you watch him yell at his team, you almost wonder, aren't they on the same team? The way he yells at his coaches in the corner is vehement and it's impassioned. And it is like watching a train wreck. It's but that's his process. And I think, you know, let's let's call it what it is, right? He suffers from some kind of, you know, mental issues, right? I mean, I personally think like everybody's on the spectrum, you know, we're all somewhere on there some days more than others. And for him, screaming at his box and wanting to stand up and kind of just take it and reflect positivity back to him is what keeps him grounded, right? Other players. I think that's what's good about having the ability to have your your coaches right there on the court next to you, because you can have that interaction because tennis is a stressful sport, right? You're out there naked and alone in front of, you know, millions of people on TV, thousands in the stands, and you're having a bad day and it's there's nowhere to hide. And in being a show of equality and commenting on a sport that has been the most equitable for probably the longest in the lifetime of all professional sports, thanks to Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe. Who lost the women's singles match last year? There was there was some footage of her crack like smacking a rocket in the locker room afterwards, yelling at her coach. That was after the US Open. Yeah. Yeah, that was amazing and terrifying. She was more terrifying. I mean, she is a beast. She's one of the the main themes or topics of season two, episode one of Netflix's Breakpoint. You can't help but but love her, honestly, because she does you know exactly what she's feeling all the time. And that's exactly the kind of, you know, athlete that you want to see perform, right? You don't want to go to a concert and see somebody up there just like playing the guitar, playing keyboard, right? Like without any, you know, animation, right? You want to see them move around, right? Do something unique that's not on the album. Same thing in tennis with Sabalenka. It was, you know, a bit of a spoiler alert, but she couldn't get past the fact her dad had died, and she wanted him to acknowledge, you know, her success. And until her mom was able to, you know, say to her, like, your dad was proud of you, win or lose, after every match, it was a block. And when in this episode really, you know, demonstrates or shows that, I gotta say, I'm sitting there this morning watching it, drinking my coffee, and I'm tearing up a bit. And that's pretty cool, like that an athlete and their story can move you in that way, right? And that's what's unique about tennis. Like you don't have that access in basketball or, you know, other sports, football, baseball, right? They're, you know, pretty buttoned up, protected by a huge organization around them. But in tennis, you know, there's no hiding. Well, and on that same line, as far as her showing her emotions, does that affect her play? Or is that a way for other players to read her level of ability? Like there's the famous story of Agassi and how he knew where Becker was going to place his serve by which which direction he like moved his tongue or something like that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a great story. No, you're right. 100%. If you if I'm playing somebody, and they're smashing their racket, you know, kicking it around, you know, throwing a tantrum, I'm slowing it down, I'm giving them as much time as possible to think about the last point. And that's absolutely going to play into my strategy until they can pull it together. You know, the rhythm of a tennis match is both players are going to go through ups and downs. And like I was saying about the Djokovic interview on 60 Minutes, I mean, he is like, really good at taking advantage of those situations. So Sabalenka consciously wants to control her emotions more, right? Even if it's a balancing act, you want to be, you know, free and like unencumbered by thought. But at the same time, you don't want to, you know, lose your match because you've lost your cool. No, so there's a there's a fine line between being, quote, emotional and impassioned. And so if I'm in a post match interview, and you know, these announcers that I feel for these players, because to your point, they are, they're out there, they're out there, they're naked on the court, they have nowhere to hide. They're not a football player wearing a helmet with 52 other football players. And then after the match, they have to go and do the camera shoving their faces right after the match, especially after they've lost. And so I have a little bit of empathy, sympathy for the golfers and the tennis players. But certainly it's okay to be impassioned. But it's a different thing to be emotional at your emotions, get the best of you, which translates into smashing rackets, and then you know, fines or delays or penalties. It happened with Serena and Naomi at the US Open a couple years ago, which was I was transfixed by that match, because you didn't know who's going to melt down next, Naomi or Serena. And then Serena went after the umpire and got two or three penalties. It's tough. It's tough. Well, and that was something that a lot of tennis purists were actually happy to see happen, because apparently Serena would do that a lot and not get any, she wouldn't get called for it. This happened a few years prior to that Osaka match in 2018, where Serena was called for a foot fault. And she went over to the lineswoman and, you know, allegedly threatened to kill her. And so the tournament umpire came out and said, we can't have that here. And you're done, the match is over. So she'd already had a warning. Right. And I think a point penalty for for some other transgression. But, you know, one funny thing about Sabalenka, El Presidente from Barstool, David Portnoy, Boston guy, loves to gamble. He fell in love with Sabalenka by virtue of Nantucket. He's a full on douchebag. He's fine. I actually like Dave Portnoy. His pizza reviews are incredible. Yeah, he came to Portland actually did a pizza review here. He was convinced, right to come up here and do that and was richly rewarded. Yeah, they went a little sideways, though. I think the two the two pizza places he went to never seen a quote unquote celebrity before. And so they're telling him to go to the next pizza place. Anyhow, get a little backwards. But that happens. He ended up betting on Sabalenka after she got smoked in the first set of one of her matches and she came back and won. So, you know, plus a bunch of money, tweeting about it all the time. He ended up actually going out with her in Miami after the US Open, which I thought was pretty cool. So I'm a big fan of Portnoy. Well, I don't know. We'll have to get him on the podcast. Talk about Sabalenka. He's our first guest. It's a lot to handle there with Sabalenka. He's probably busy. He's a big Michigan guy. Did he go to Michigan? He was at the national championship game. He is a Wolverine. Yeah, he's a Wolverine. And he's that's why he's also the Tom Brady's biggest fan and Patriots fan. I don't know how much of a Patriots fan he is now. Another thing that's interesting about Netflix and the Australian Open this year is Zverev, he got hurt a year ago while in the French Open playing Nadal in this incredible match at night. And he rolled his ankle, high ankle sprain, like awful, came back at the end of last year and was playing high level tennis and continues through into the Open. And quite frankly, as a guy could definitely make a run into quarters or semis. But the controversy is he's got a domestic violence charge that's pending. Zverev was given a penalty order and fined almost a half a million U.S. dollars by a German court over physical abuse allegations against a former player. Now this guy is featured in this season of Breakpoint and he's on some sort of like governing council for tennis, which definitely doesn't send the right message. I don't think here in 2024. He's going to get some booze in Melbourne. And he's clear to play. I'm assuming he's 100 percent. Yeah. And the draw is tomorrow, I believe. We'll find out who's playing who and when. The seeds are out. The draw is tomorrow. That's right. Tomorrow being Thursday, January 11th, whenever this airs. But honestly, I really think it's Djokovic against the field and it's the four women. So Djokovic is going after his 11th Australian Open title. So he's won. How many times do you think he's played there? Maybe 18 Australian Opens? So he's won more than half, right? A very high percentage of the tournaments. That's pretty incredible, too. I mean, it's probably like Rafa at the French, right? Rafa's won. Fourteen. Fourteen French Opens. Yeah. That's insane. It's ridiculous. Although, you know what? I think this year is a great opportunity for the American players, right? You've got Fritz, Tommy Paul made a great run to the semis last year. Big Foe. And then, you know, Ben Shelton, who I think has got more upside than anybody we've seen in America in quite some time. He really has no backhand at the moment, but with a serve that's pushing 160 miles an hour and a massive forehand and crazy athleticism. What happened to Chris Eubanks? He made a good run right after the quarters at either Wimbledon or the U.S. Open last year, right? But there's others like J.J. Wolfe, Alex Mickelson. Brooksby. Jason Brooksby. Nakashima. Opelka. I mean, there's quite a field of American men that could push through. You know, it's hardcourt, relatively good surface for them. So I saw, speaking of Opelka, I saw he was ranked 1,141st. So he fell back a little bit. How many players get ranked? I mean, do they rank 2,000 players? That's a great question. I mean, like, yeah, you get an ATP point, you're ranked. So it goes pretty deep. Like college players, there are plenty of college players that are in the 500s, 400s, still in school, but able to play in pro events as well. I don't think I remember personally seeing a ranking lower than 200, much less 1,141st. Well, what happens is someone like Opelka, if they're hurt for more than a season, all the points you had just get washed away. You've got to come back and play those same tournaments to protect those points. And sometimes if you're out for maternity leave, that they'll protect them now, which they didn't previously. That's how some of these players are able to come back and not have to toil through qualifying or on like the 250s or ITF circuit. But yeah, I mean, someone like Opelka is going to have to just battle his way back. On the women's side, you got obviously Coco Galfright ranked third, Pagula ranked fifth, Madison Keyes ranked twelfth, is it Emma Navarro, Kennan, Sloane Stevens. So yeah, it seems there's a lot of promise for both the men and women in tennis, which is exciting. Yeah. Like I love Chris Eubanks, but sorry, bud, you're not- Hey, 34th, that's not too far outside top 20. I'm a fan. I think he's doing a lot of good for American tennis though. And he can do no wrong. I can't remember if it was Wimbledon or the U.S. Open last year, because he spent as much time in the booth. And any given day, you could watch him either playing tennis or they had him in the booth between his matches, which was unbelievable. You'd think he'd be practicing or sleeping or eating, but he was actually calling the games. I'm expecting a little Atlanta, maybe home cooking preference there for Mr. Eubanks. Yeah, go Yellow Jackets. He did go to Georgia Tech. And Ben Shelton from Atlanta too? He is. Yeah. Georgia Tech is like the Intellivision of engineering school. The Ramblin' Wreck. Can you elaborate on that, Chris? I'm not sure our listeners will pick up on that reference. Sarcasm's coming through. MIT is like a crazed supercomputer, then Georgia Tech is like Intellivision from 1982. As a demon deacon, I'm not going to argue with you there. I don't know why I have so much hatred for Georgia Tech being from Georgia, but I mean, I just, I've always thought... Let it out. Well, when we were growing up, Peter, their football team was just total dog shit. Oh, it has been ever since. Yeah, there's no doubt. But there's some good tennis. There's some good tennis coming out of the ATL. And by the way, if you're, if you go to visit Atlanta and you're listening, don't ever call it Hotlanta. Don't ever say, oh, what's a Hotlanta? That's like going to Austin, Texas and immediately buying a cowboy hat. Yep. Yep. And going to Hawaii and buying a Hawaiian shirt. Get the airport. With the lei. Oh, yeah. Yep. Aloha. You know, looking at the women, though, I think, I mean, of course, the men's going to be entertaining and whatnot, but not with, you know, without Rafa there, it's kind of like the Joker show. But the women looks like it's going to be a little bit of a little bit of a bloodbath. Yeah, a little more parody. I agree. Yeah, I would look at Coco for sure. I mean, when she broke through at the U.S. Open, the confidence is just, I mean, the talent is unbelievable. But her confidence and her mental toughness in that match. Right. She lost the first set and she just dialed it up for the second set. And from there on out, it was her match. And I'm a huge Coco fan. Actually heading down to Delray this coming week and going to get some hitting in at the old Delray Tennis Center, where she trains no place better in America for for hanging out, hitting some balls, knocking back a few beers after, which I might do. Let's get that bar as our next sponsor. Get you some free free cold beers down there. I agree, though, Chris, I think there's a lot of parody on the women's side. I think your post Ashley Barty party. Right. I think it would be the hands down favorite if she was still playing. I think she retired early, maybe a year and a half, two years ago. But I think Ashley Barty was the Joker for the women before she retired. I mean, she was pretty dominant. And since she's left, I think, yeah, there's a lot more parody. Walked out, dropped the mic. Number one in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw her come back, though, honestly, at some point, I think she wanted to have a family. And I think being the top tennis player and number one athlete in Australia was a lot of pressure. So I'd love to see her come back. I want to know when you go to the Australian Open, right, you go to Wimbledon and get strawberries and cream, right? You go to the US Open and get that honeydew drink with the melon in it that you see all over social media. I don't know what you get at the French Open croissant or something unique. What do you do? I went I was on their website, the Australian Open's website, and they show this picture of a huge bowl of chili with what looks like five avocados on top of it. And I'm guessing that's their staple food. The colon blast before you go to the tournament. The bedwetter-sized Foster's oil can. And I think that's why this is this Grand Slam is referred to as, quote, the happy slam. I think some I think Joker or somebody in 2007 said everyone's happy in Melbourne or at this Grand Slam, I think because they're partially over served. I mean, the crowd is raucous. I do think there are a lot of unique things to the Australian Open, as we touched on, including, by the way, there's apparently a huge famous botanical gardens across the street, where Joker takes his trophy every year and like walks through barefoot. That's apparently his happy place, as if it's some botanical gardens across the street from the grounds. But Aussies just have a good time in their in their blood. When I was on Qantas going to when we were flying from L.A. to Sydney, we were lucky enough to fly business class on Qantas. When we asked for beer, they gave us a bucket with four Budweiser or four Foster's lager oil cans in it. And then when we finished those, they brought four more. And, you know, it's a 15 hour flight. So we had a lot of Foster's on the plane. And time in the pisser, right? Yeah, but they they were, you know, I mean, it was almost like they were drinking with us. It was crazy. Australians are fun. We do a speed round on was it a good idea for Nike to say goodbye to Tiger Woods or Tiger Woods to say goodbye to Nike? Good or bad? That's a big question right there. I think it's the worst. That's a whole other podcast. Yeah, I think it's the bar of sports decisions in my. We'll see what's happening there is Tiger wants his own brand. He wants his own skin of the game. I mean, just like Michael Jordan has with his Jordans, just like Federer has with his on just like Naomi now has with her new balance. That's why I brought up Tiger, though, so we could talk about better on. Oh, yeah. Good segue. Yeah, I don't I have somewhere I know the terms of that deal, right? Like he turned down. He got 30 million a year to wear on. And then his but his equity participation in the company is worth like, you know, in the billions or something ridiculous. Well, I think he made like didn't he make like 106 million his last year playing tennis and he only made six million actually playing tennis. He made 100 million off the court. I mean, you guys get the Midas touch. Federer is a god in my book. He can do no wrong. I don't believe he's a nice guy. And he likes his fans. And he's got how many kids does he have like 15? He has like five kids, right? Four. To one with one mom with Mirka. Okay. Anyway, he you know, and he's also he's always dressed to the nines. I mean, the guy's got style. He knows how to carry himself. But he chose this shoe company on. And I admit I bought a pair of the like, they're, they're not quite high tops, they're sort of the three quarter inch high that, you know, like Johnny McEnroe had in the 80s with, you know, his Nike kind of shoe. And I know that it's got that, you know, higher, higher cuff, because that's he's got the ankle problem. But I have to say that the design is super ugly. It's kind of like a modern version of a Stan Smith with a high ankle. And they're so light. That it's almost, you know, you want to feel something on your foot, but these things are so light, you don't even know you have shoes on. It's weird. So you're anti on? I'm not. And I'm anti this particular design. I mean, I think that they, they're making an effort, but I don't know. The on shoes, the dance tennis shoes are, I mean, I know they're designed like, from the ground up by Federer. And I think functionally, they look, or they're probably great. But aesthetically, they look like old man. They don't have a good profile. No, they're not, you know, and to talk about footwear, Coco Goff's sponsorship with New Balance, I mean, they are dialed in. That is that to me is one of the best brand ambassador, you know, she's, she's got a great look on the court. The shoes are great. I'm sure that they sell extremely well at New Balance. She wore an incredible watch after the US Open, she immediately put on her little Rolex, it has a lavender dial, which is really hard to get to digest. It's incredible. Yeah, Coco's got some major style points. But then so does Naomi Osaka, too, right? Oh, yeah, 100%. She's Nike. I can't believe Coco Goff is as well spoken as she is at 19 years old. I mean, if you put a camera in my face after I just won the US Open or a major tournament, I would just be stumbling over my words more so than I'm probably doing during this podcast. Like, and for her to get camera shoved in her face and speak as well as she does. I'm super impressed. She's 19. She was she sounded like she was 30 years old. Yeah. Agreed. Should we? Should we call it? Are we good? I think so. I'm looking at looking at the experts. I'm getting a thumbs up. I'm getting two thumbs up, four thumbs up. Four thumbs up means we're not fired. And they're gonna invite us back I think to do another one. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe to Breaking Back on your favorite podcast platform. And be sure to follow us on text and Instagram at breakingbackpod.com.