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Auto Trader. We welcome longtime tennis insider and author Christopher Clary, who's joining us from Paris. Chris, it's always good to have you on the show. Thank you so much for a couple of minutes.
Amy, good to hear your voice. I am wondering about Novak and as you watch, how would you describe the place where he is in his own game right now? Well, it was a night match last night in Paris's first match this year. And I just, yeah, I sensed he was sort of struggling to find the right combination. Because since he was looking at his box a lot, trying to, you know, find some support, but also not loving his ability to produce whenever he needed it, which he's been used to, honestly, in the majors for a decade now, most of the time. He's been through a patch kind of like this once before 2017, but that was linked to an elbow injury and some off court stuff that was never quite clear.
It looks to me like this could just be motivational or something else happening off the court. And he alluded to that earlier this week, talking about he didn't want to open up the Pandora's box, he said, of all the things that have been going on. So there's probably more to the story. And also, you know, he's 37 years old now.
That's part of the story too. Italy has a chance to become the only tennis player ever to win 25 singles titles at the Grand Slams. And as you mentioned now, with a lot going on around him, it has changed. He could even lose his world number one ranking if he doesn't get to the final, which he hasn't done in a tournament this year.
How much, if anything, does this have to do with what happened at the Italian Open? Do you think that's still casting a shadow? I don't know in the sense that he was already having these kind of struggles.
He was having a tough season by his standards already at that point. And I think things were already kind of going the wrong direction. But that was certainly crazy that he's sitting there in the tunnel on the way out of the tournament site off the main court and a guy leans over with his backpack to autograph something in a water bottle.
A heavy water bottle falls out of the backpack. There was no malicious intent. And it hits him right on top of the head. So it certainly leaves you with some headache the next day and he was tested and everything else and said he was fine. But yeah, for sure.
That wasn't the kind of thing you want to have happen, as freaky as it was. Is he still the player to beat in the men's draw? You know, it would be hard to say that based on his results. He hasn't been to a final this year in any event. He's only played, I think this is his fifth or sixth tournament now. But the men's situation with Nadal losing early and not being the player that he was on clay, obviously.
It's just so wide open, really, in a lot of ways. So I wouldn't call him the favorite, but he's certainly among the favorites. And I watched him last night and I thought he played a Pierre Hubert, who's a French wildcard ranked in the hundreds. Not a great player in terms of ranking, but the level was high. And I think that looked pretty tight and pretty solid. He went on straight sets and was drop shotting well and played well.
So I think based on results, if Yannick Sinner is healthy, I think his hip's okay. You have to give him the edge over Novak at this point. But Djokovic, he's been to this rodeo so many times and come out just fine.
So if he gets to the second week and he finds his rhythm and his confidence, I wouldn't rule him out. Longtime tennis insider Christopher Clary is with us from Paris. Novak had time to go and watch Rafael Nadal, as did Egas Wiatak and Carlos Alcaraz was there.
It was definitely a who's who because of the potential implications. What was it like to be there for that Nadal match? You know, it was a strange thing in a way because obviously it was one of the first round matches that probably got the most hype and justifiably so in the history of Grand Slam tennis. Rafael Nadal won the French Open a ridiculous 14 times.
I mean, it just boggles the mind still having watched them all. And he's playing Alexander Zverev, who's never won a major, but he's number four in the world, just won the Italian Open. And he's a guy who was a very dangerous player. They played a couple of years earlier in the French Open semi-finals and were playing an amazing match, just a grueling baseline duel. And Zverev blew out his ankle at the end of the second set and had to retire. So there was unfinished business.
But this is the bad news. Over the years, the Parisians have really connected with Rafael Nadal. It wasn't always a given, but I think in the last few years, they've really come to respect all that he's given to their tournaments, his own attitude, his philosophy of playing the sport. And it was just a very, you know, a big celebration of him. However, the thing is, we don't know if it was the last time.
And that's kind of what the weird part about it was. You could tell he was very close to, I think, announcing he was going to retire this year. And now he's sort of pulled back from that because it's been a difficult year for him.
Hasn't been able to get the kind of rhythm or matches that he wanted to get to sort of say goodbye to the sport. So I think he's really hesitating now. And I think everybody was a little bit on the back foot about, you know, we want to make this into a huge deal because we could tell Rafa is not really ready for it to be a huge deal.
So that was that was sort of the ambivalent part of it. But it was an incredibly loud ovation under the retractable roof when he came in. And he was supported all the way through in a way I've rarely seen in any tennis match. How much do you think the Olympics matter to him?
I think a great deal. Rafa has given a lot to the Olympics over the years. You know, tennis is a strange thing because of the fact that you have four basically huge moments each year with the majors kind of like golf. And so the Olympics is an add on. It has a lot of history.
And the Parisians love their tennis. So it's going to be a big connection moment for the sport. But I think Rafa has deep connections to it. He won the gold medal in Beijing in singles and then won the doubles gold medal with his friend Mark Lopez is now one of his coaches when they were in Rio. And he's given a lot to it. He's carried the flag and he's a real unifying person in Spain. So it means a lot to him.
And I think he's going to be focusing almost exclusively on that now for the next couple of months. I got to tell you, I feel a little bit like diehard Tiger Woods fans when they talk about how much they miss him on the tour with nostalgia. I really do miss Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
I have missed them so much. Yeah. I mean, it's a thing that's in a way, Djokovic against Nadal has been a longer rivalry in some ways better. But just the way that Federer and Nadal connected over the years and those great Wimbledon finals and their own personal relationship and the way it moved along and the way tennis fans kind of chose one camp or the other, but then kind of came together through them.
You're right. It's the Federer aspect. He's a classy guy. He's pretty visible. He's out there, you know, singing in concerts with people and cameos and interviews right and left. So he's still getting his frequent flyer miles in.
But the sport for sure misses him. I actually think I just saw, not I think, I just saw them in a commercial for Louis Vuitton too, the two of them together. Yeah, but the Sherpas up in the mountains of Switzerland, right, doing their thing.
I'm like, I'm freezing and Roger's not because he's Swiss. Christopher Clary is with us from Paris. I know you're working on a new book or is it out, the book on Rafael Nadal? No, it's not out. We decided to wait because of, you know, Raf is a situation not being clear what he was going to do.
That's called The Warrior. I read a book called The Master on Federer that came out. I enjoyed talking with you about that.
And The Warrior will be out next year and we'll see if, you know, this is indeed Nadal's last year or if he continues on until 2025. So what was the process like writing another book after the success of The Master, but now taking on a completely different subject? Well, I gotta tell you, and I feel better talking about it if they were done. Basically, I mean, I've been a daily journalist, as you know, for over 30 years. I was with The New York Times for over 30 years. And I gotta tell you, writing a book for me was the hardest thing I ever did.
So just a whole different way of thinking about something and structuring something. But the book about Nadal is great for me because my wife's French. I spent a lot of my time over in France over the years. The French Open is the tournament that I know the best of all the different things I've covered in sports over the years. So bringing together the French Open with Nadal and what he achieved, I think it's going to be a fun combination. We have a second round women's match that is going to get a lot of attention between Naomi Osaka and Iga Swiatek.
Right now, Iga, the best player in the world. How much do you think Naomi can challenge her? You know, if they were playing on a hard court, given how well Naomi's been playing, you know, in her comeback from maternity and sort of she seems really, really motivated and excited to play good tennis. If they were playing on a hard court, I would say it's going to be potentially a great match.
I'm not ruling that out. I guess it's hard to see considering how great she is on play. She's won the French Open, you know, already, you know, four times and she's somebody who's just got a fantastic fit with the surface, kind of like her idol, Rafaelle.
And Naomi's always, you know, I think she's kind of been the Maria Sharapova early years approach, you know, like a cap on ice, what Brady used to call herself when she was on the red play. I think Naomi would have agreed with that early on, but she's really been very intentional and been very upbeat and positive about playing play-court tennis. She hasn't gone deep in a tournament yet this year and I don't think she's going to beat Iga today, but I think she's on the right track and I think her peak is coming again. I think she could be a real threat at the U.S. Open, for example, later in the year. But, you know, we'll see. You never know. Naomi comes out with her huge serve, has a great day serving. Conditions are a little quicker than they've been the last few days.
It's a possibility, but it's a long shot, I think. Christopher Clary is with us from Paris, covering the French Open. And I want to ask you about something that we talked about last year and probably even the year before, too, where there were a couple of high-profile tennis players who took time away for mental health. And now we've had a golfer who's retiring in Lexi Thompson and is pointing in large part to some of the struggles mentally that she has had on the tour and just the effect it's had on her.
An NFL quarterback took all of last season off and is pointing to just the mental health umbrella, though we don't know the specifics. How often are you hearing that with athletes these days, now and in 2024, where it's become more of a common conversation? Well, I think, you know, culturally, all over the world, I spend a lot of time in Europe and Australia. I just think it's a very difficult time for young people in general, all over the world, for a lot of different reasons. And I think that reflects itself as well in the sports world, in that same age group. And I think also, let's face it, too, in a good way, that there's a lot more openness about discussing those sorts of things than there used to be.
So I think we're hearing more about it. Athletes are more comfortable discussing it. And if you're asking them why they're stopping a sport, maybe I don't know, I didn't listen to Lexi's situation, but maybe she's more open than athletes in the past, might have been about that. But for sure, I think society in general and sports leagues, with all the means at their disposal, they need to do as much as they can to support people. And you've seen some efforts in tennis. I mean, the situation with Osaka definitely opened some eyes about supporting people and giving them that opportunity to really take some time away from the spotlight if they needed it and be more embraced than castigated about that.
And I think that's very positive. But let's face it, I mean, tennis is an extremely difficult sport psychologically. In singles, you're out there on your own, you get a little bit of coaching now, but you're still very exposed. A lot of these athletes, especially on the women's side, come along at age 15, 16, and they're traveling internationally at very young ages and very isolated at times, huge pressure. And the social media lens only magnifies that. So the people that go, well, they're athletes and they're making loads of money and they're the fortunate ones. In some ways, yes. In other ways, it's a tough world. It always was, but I think even more so now in some ways. So it's good to see these leagues and these federations deploying resources to help people out that way as much as they can.
Agreed. In addition to Naomi, who are Americans to watch at the French Open, Christopher? Well, Naomi's the next, right? She represents Japan. She grew up in the US, obviously, but she's Japanese in terms of the Olympics and the international stuff.
So American players, I mean, Coco Buff has always loved playing on clay. She's not had a great, great season after winning the US Open last year. You thought she might just spread wings and flick over the sport. That hasn't happened, and she hasn't played her best, best tennis yet, but she's always a threat on the clay. And I think a couple of young players coming up as well with Emma Navarro, former NCAA champ from Virginia, who's been playing really well, Madison Keyes has been playing well, but the one really to watch is Danielle Collins, who has announced this is her last season at age 30, and she's been on a tear.
She won the Miami Open, and she won in Charleston on clay after that, and has gone deep in clay court events. So I think she, at a kind of a later stage of her career, she's played great ball, and I think she's got a shot to go very deep here at the French Open. On the men's side, anyone?
On the men's side, yeah, it's exciting in some ways. I mean, obviously, with this wide open men's situation, which we haven't had for 20 years at the French Open, with the Rafa Nadal years, it's been hard to get a lot of oxygen. But there are a couple of guys playing really well. Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul in particular have played well on clay this year, and they're both on their mid-20s. Neither one of them has won a major or got into a final, but they both have played some of the best tennis of their lives, and have put in the hard yards on the clay.
And so they're both worth watching. And then there's young Ben Shelton as well, who's a huge serving lefty, who's had a real breakthrough a couple of seasons on the men's tour. But these guys, they're not in the top five or six yet, they're more in the 10 to 20 range, so they need to step it up.
But they're all three of those guys. And then Sebastian Korda, who's the brother of the Korda sisters from golf, is also a really talented guy, and he's got a chance to do well on the clay as well, I think. Right, Nellie. Actually, we just heard from her earlier, one of the biggest stars on the LPGA tour. So every time we think about tennis, we think of you, Christopher.
So it's always good to be able to connect with you. He's been covering Grand Slam tennis for 30 plus years, and Olympics. Are you going to be at the Olympics in Paris? Amy, I am. Yeah, I can't miss this one.
Paris and all that, and the connections, and it's the same clay I'm used to watching. So I'll be there for that. Awesome. You can find him on Twitter at Kristoff Clary, C-L-A-R-E-U-Y, working on that new book about Rafa, though it's on hold.
But definitely get the master, because that was brilliant. It's always good to talk to you, Christopher. Thank you so much. Hey, Amy, thanks a lot. I also started a sub-stat called Tennis and Beyond, if anybody's interested.
So I've been enjoying doing that too. Awesome. Thanks, Christopher.
Have fun. Okay, Amy. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
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