Carl Bialik joins me for a recap of the Miami Open, with a particular focus on the Italian teenager who reached the final there. Sinner has a relatively weak first serve, but seems to do everything else right. We talk about how to balance what he is with what he could be, the importance of his evident emotional maturity, whether he'll eventually win more first serve points, how well he'll fare on clay this year, and just how much we can compare him with Rafael Nadal. We also touch on the man who beat Sinner in the Miami final, Hubert Hurkacz. Is a 24-year-old without any obvious elite-level weapons still on the rise, or will the Masters 1000 title mark his career peak?

The Tennis Abstract Podcast

Ep 104: The Present and Future of Jannik Sinner

Katrina Adams's new book is called Own the Arena: Getting Ahead, Making a Difference, and Succeeding as the Only One. As a former player, coach, and commentator, and as the first African American to serve as president of the USTA, she has a unique perspective on the world of professional tennis. She talks about the importance of giving proper credit to Althea Gibson and many other Black tennis pioneers, why tennis is one of the best sports to help youngsters succeed off the court, how players should think about life after retirement, what the USTA can teach other national federations and other sports, the underrated brilliance of Lori McNeil, and what she likes about the Dutch.

Ep 103: Katrina Adams on Role Models, Grassroots Development, and Tennis Governance

Lorenzo Musetti is only the latest of many teens and early 20-somethings to shake things up on the ATP tour. Erik Jonsson (@erktennis) is a longtime Challenger and prospect watcher, and he shares his thoughts on Musetti, Aslan Karatsev, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Sebastian Korda, and more. We talk about how to identify future tour-level stars by watching Challenger matches, whether there is any hope of another top-tenner as short as Diego Schwartzman, why Sweden hasn't produced a female tennis superstar, and what constitutes a legit top-20 player.

Ep 102: Erik Jonsson on the Rising Wave of Stars in Men's Tennis

Larry's new book is called Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Understanding, and this episode dives into exactly that argument. We talk about how sports are like religion... and also like the Grateful Dead, whether individual sports offer the same health and happiness benefits as team sports, how the in-person fan experience has changed, what we can learn from American Ninja Warrior, and why the world is so full of sports bars.

Ep 101: Author Larry Olmsted on the Benefits of Sports Fandom

Carl and I celebrate our milestone 100th episode with the mailbag to end all mailbags--75 minutes worth of questions, many posed by our loyal listeners, covering everything from our favorite players and venues to the future of the sport several decades down the road.

Ep 100: 100 Questions for Episode 100

Julie is the author of the new book Sidelined: Sports, Culture, and Being a Woman in America, which comes out on Tuesday. We talk about the forces that keep sports media from holding stars, teams, and leagues accountable, and the ongoing struggle to keep athletes from brushing domestic violence and sexual assault accusations under the rug. Julie explains how Serena Williams is held to a higher standard than male and white female stars, and how she'd like to see Serena treated differently by fans, media, and fellow players. We explore how women's sports should be marketed and reported on, and what that might mean for the WTA as it considers a merger with the ATP. Finally, Julie tells me how it is difficult as a woman in the media to remain enthusiastic about the sports she covers, and why she thinks its important to keep doing what she does.

Ep 99: Author Julie DiCaro on Serena Williams, Women in Sports, and the Limits of Sports Media

Carl and I discuss the second pick of the Tennis Abstract book club, a 1960s novel that didn't turn out to have much tennis in it at all. We talk about whether the brief bits of tennis in the book swing above their weight, why Updike would have his characters (occasionally) play tennis instead of other sports, and why tennis seems to be underrepresented in fiction. It's not Updike's best work, and like our last book club pick--Gordon Forbes's memoir A Handful of Summers--it's very much of its time, but it gives the reader (tennis-focused and otherwise) plenty to think about.

Ep 98: Book Club: Couples, by John Updike

This week's guest is Matt Futterman, reporter for the New York Times and author of Running to the Edge, who spent 15 days in lockdown so that he could cover the Australian Open. We talk about his two weeks in hotel quarantine and what is was like to emerge into a semblance of normal life. Matt explains why sports aren't really sports without fans, how close the Australian Open came to not happening, and why Sofia Kenin isn't a bigger star. We also consider whether the unique schedules of marathoners provide any insight into how tennis players can better manage the pandemic, how tennis pros can gain some of the benefits of being part of a team, and which active player would run the fastest marathon.

Ep 97: Matt Futterman on the Australian Open and Sports With Fans

I am joined by Dave Seminara, author of the entertaining new book Footsteps of Federer: A Fan's Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts. We talk about how Roger Federer is typically Swiss (and how he is not), how his Swiss admirers differ from his legions of fans elsewhere around the world, and how the Swiss network of small-town clubs sets the country apart. Dave also shares the stores behind some of his quests to track down sources for his tennis articles--it turns out that finding a 60-year-old Togolese Davis Cupper can be just as tricky as getting Federer to open up about his past. As we are fellow travel buffs, we venture into that territory as well, talking about tactics for budget travel in Switzerland, how Switzerland compares to Norway, and just how far some people will go to check a destination off their list--the topic of another of Seminara's books, Mad Travelers, due out this summer.

Ep 96: Author Dave Seminara in the Footsteps of Roger Federer

I welcome Joe Posnanski, senior writer at The Athletic, for a wide-ranging conversation starting with a discussion of Djokovic's and Osaka's wins at the Australian Open. He talks about what might be stopping the younger generation of men from dethroning Djokovic and Nadal, why Naomi Osaka is different, how much credit to give to coaches, and whether the outstanding crop of young American women is underreported. Joe also shares his thoughts about how to compare players across eras, whether we ought to pay more attention to the amateur era, and what he'd write about if he could write more about tennis.

Ep 95: Joe Posnanski on Djokovic, Osaka, and Tennis Greatness

Carl and I use the fitness sagas of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as a springboard to talk about injury management--the way in which players handle constant nagging injuries, whether that means adapting their tactics, changing their pace, rearranging their schedule, or just plain suffering. We also wonder how much undisclosed injury and fatigue affects match results, or if commentators focus too much on questions of physical readiness at the expense of talking about the tennis itself.

Ep 94: Injury Management, and How Much It Matters In Modern Tennis

Jeff chats with Bill Connelly, an ESPN college football writer who dug into Match Charting Project data this week to write about the complex mastery of Novak Djokovic. Bill explains how Djokovic tactically differs from the competition, how his game has changed over the years, and whether the nature of his game makes it tough to fully appreciate. He also weighs on whether tour-wide parity is better than dominance, how ESPN (and tennis media in general) could cover the sport differently, and why there are so few people who love both tennis and college football.

Ep 93: ESPN's Bill Connelly on What Novak Djokovic Does Better

Carl and I discuss the opportunity generated by the Covid-19 pandemic to study natural experiments in sports. Many of the things we used to take for granted--stadiums full of fans, weekly travel schedules, consistent training opportunities--have been disrupted for some or all players, in tennis and other major sports. We consider what we can learn about home-court advantage, the predictability of results, the role of unchanging venues, and even the speed of play, by comparing pre-pandemic numbers with their corresponding post-restart figures. We also wonder about the limitations of these sorts of studies, because there are always confounding variables. The biggest one of all: the pandemic itself.

Ep 92: Natural Experiments and Second-Order Pandemic Effects

Carl Bialik and Jeff Sackmann talk tennis with an analytical bent.

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The Tennis Abstract Podcast

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