Andy Roddick is joined by legendary coach Brad Gilbert to discuss their collaboration, Brad's recent partnership with Coco Gauff, and more. Before Brad's segment, Andy explores the role of mothers competing at Indian Wells, forecasts a bright future for Naomi Osaka, and converses with Jon Wertheim regarding Steve Johnson's retirement, Simona Halep's unexpected suspension ruling, and the future for super star Rafael Nadal.
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Andy Roddick is joined by legendary coach Brad Gilbert to discuss their collaboration, Brad's recent partnership with Coco Gauff, and more. Before Brad's segment, Andy explores the role of mothers competing at Indian Wells, forecasts a bright future for Naomi Osaka, and converses with Jon Wertheim regarding Steve Johnson's retirement, Simona Halep's unexpected suspension ruling, and the future for super star Rafael Nadal.
Keep up with us on socials!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/servedpodcast/
X: https://twitter.com/Served_Podcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@served_podcast?_t=8jZtCnzdAnX&_r=1
Watch the Episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0k_--YLuTNuDvq1Dw4zHmw
the next round. Hey, everyone, welcome to served back in here for the Tuesday pod release. Hope you enjoyed T two over the weekend If you checked it out. Uh, this is where we normally do racket roundup right, where we talk about the results, the winners, the finalists, the different storylines. But when we have a 10 or 11 day tournament in Indian Wells and most of the tournament winners you can't win the tournament in the first weekend of 11 day tournament. Uh, but I can't get this thing out of my head that there's a bunch of Babies Walking around Indian Wells going your moms in the third round, like there's your mama jokes there somewhere. But it is to celebrate the successes of Angie Kerber coming back and beating Osta Panko and looking like a version of the Angie Kerber of old Caroline was the, was the ackee making, you know, a comeback from having kids. Look normal. You know we were lucky enough to talk to Kim Kleister is during one of our first three episodes and she kind of set the precedent and now it's normal.
Andy Roddick:Svitolina Coming back, uh, dealing with what's going on with family in Ukraine, having a baby coming back and playing high level tennis, making the semis at Wimbledon, playing well at Indian Wells again. I'm just blown away and I'm going to tell you something right now. You guys can take this to the bank. My first like kind of big prediction because I hate prediction shows. But Naomi Osaka, from what I've seen, and however Indian Wells shakes out, she wins, she loses, whatever it happens, I'm telling you she's going to win something big again. She's striking the ball, she is getting into tennis shape. She seems motivated. She seems like when she kind of left the game and was having, uh, you know the mental issues that drove her away before, uh, you know, decided to have a child, um, she looked like it was. It was tough to be out there, the paces were tough. I'm telling you, osaka is striking the ball, still not perfect, still making some air serve, is coming and going a little bit, but Naomi Osaka is going to win something big again. That's what, uh, that's what I think. Azarenka playing well, taylor Townsend, uh, still still playing well.
Andy Roddick:And if I was smarter, I would, I would be able to come up with your mama joke that that the, the various, you know, six month to three year olds are walking around saying celebrating their mother's uh successes. And I'm going to keep it short uh, off the top here? Uh, in lieu of racket roundup, um, because we have a jam packed show. Uh, john wartime is going to come in and we're going to discuss all things, howl up ruling. Uh, rafa, where do we go from here? Uh, show our appreciation. Um, he has a little rumor as far as the All Star game and who is potentially trying to own that space? What current player.
Andy Roddick:And we have a hell of a conversation with Brad Gilbert coming up that we recorded a couple of days ago in time for the Sunday release of T two. If you have not heard this yet, please listen to the full version. Uh, we did more than an hour with Brad. Um, it was, it was fantastic. I loved it. Uh, we exercise some personal demons and we have a lot of friends, also with each other. We've we've gotten to a place where we uh we have a really good, uh, healthy relationship now Wasn't the case when we first broke up, and I think it all comes around again. Tennis is one big family and I'm certainly thankful for Brad's time, but let's get to John wartime. John, welcome in. Before we get into the biggest stories of the week, there is something that happened which is maybe under the radar for, like mainstream tennis media, but you wanted to take a second look at it, so um, I'm going to start with Steve Johnson.
Jon Wertheim:Do you remember when Farrah Fawcett died? You probably don't, because it also happened on the same day as Michael.
Jon Wertheim:Jackson, it got buried. Uh, we have the same thing this week. Steve Johnson, uh, announced his retirement. Not a huge surprise, but still unfortunately it happened for him anyway. The same day, simone Hallop was effective with reinstated and wrapping it off, pulled out of Indian Wells. So I'm not sure it got quite as much attention as it should. Stevie Johnson, a one of the all time, perhaps the college tennis player of all time at USC, and for more than a decade, just one of these pros that adds to the cast. Nobody had anything but complementary things to say about him Good guy, good with the media, good with his colleagues. Tennis will miss him. It was a hell of a career and we have to acknowledge that, yeah, and I.
Andy Roddick:He's one of the guys where I wish I would have actually spent more time on tour. Um, we were we kind of only overlap for about 18 months because he stayed in college. He was a practice partner on the Davis Cup team in 2011. I think we played in Austin and so we were only on tour together for a year or so.
Andy Roddick:But listen, I say this about Kim Kleister's a lot also, but if you kind of have a problem with Stevie, I kind of tend to blame you. So, listen, I hope the long sunset of life is everything you you wish it to be. Stevie Johnson, you certainly made an impact on the game, but I think, past that, I think you made an impact on people. So I hope the after life is great for you. And listen, I don't know that anyone in tennis will ever have a better stash than than Stevie Johnson Lotus flights.
Andy Roddick:The two biggest stories of this week have nothing to do with people who are actually going to end up playing in Indian Wells, the Samona Hall of ruling, where she's immediately eligible, all of a sudden, where we thought she was going to be gone for three more years and roughing it all, withdrawing, possibly leading to the opinion. It's my opinion that I don't think he'll ever probably play a sanctioned hard court match again. Obviously, you don't know what you don't know, but both those things concerning let's let's start with with Halop when do things stand currently? I think we all know that kind of she's back, but how did this all go down?
Jon Wertheim:Yeah, I'm at this week. At this conversation a week ago, we said, boy, I don't know, we may never see her again. She had this appeal. But four years of the big band and the facts. Look, you know there's some questionable facts and hey, uh, house rules on her appeal and see in Miami. So she goes from perhaps never playing tennis ever again to you are immediately eligible, stretch, packed your bags and we'll see you at the next big event.
Jon Wertheim:Um, this house panel essentially heard her appeal and said you know, we don't know for sure. Odds are the probability this was not taken intensely, this was not taken. Don't you bear some responsibility? You didn't do everything right, but we believe the band should have been nine months. Well, big problem here, she's already served more than 15.
Jon Wertheim:Um, the real story here is just tennis is anti-doping protocols and look, I think we need to back up real quick and just say this is tricky business. This, by nature, is going to be problematic. They're going to be discrepancies. I mean, this is ugly stuff. We all want to clean sport, right, we all want to level playing field, but by definition, this is very, very complicated. None of us are scientists. None of us are having access to the full testimony in the full science.
Jon Wertheim:That said, there's something really problematic when every single time a player is sanctioned, it gets knocked way down on appeal. Um, you know, you compare this to the legal system. What would happen if, every time a judge gave a decision, the appeals court said you are way wrong and that six year sentence should actually have been nine months? That's a problem and I think that is one of the big takeaways here. I had to let us know. I had to let us know that we were going to be sanctioned.
Jon Wertheim:But I think that's from a number of players who it wasn't necessarily about positive tests but about discrepancies or they had over the countermedication. It took them 90 days, epipans, I mean the most basic. There clearly is something with the infrastructure that is really problematic. Way too many of these positives are knocked down on the deal. And here's some of the hollow number forward, number one player, wimbledon champion, and you know, a week ago we all know what happens through our career and, as of this morning, the howlup was judged not to have doped intentionally, but this one really needs a bitter taste.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of become the initial ruling, has almost become like an opening offer. It's like, okay, we're going to give you four. And it seems like now it's like, okay, but how much am I actually going to end up? I think she's generated enough good will over the years and she definitely has a lot of prominent figures in the sport behind her and wishing her well.
Andy Roddick:It doesn't feel like people think that she did it intentionally. My thing is basically like she would have been a first ballot hall of famer right. It's like are you going to put that at risk for something that your coach gives you? I don't think she would do that intentionally. Not because I know her or because I can stand by her character. I don't know her well enough. It's just a weird time to put that at risk when you're already 30 years old, have Hall of Fame in the bank already.
Andy Roddick:My parts of sympathy come from. I would be shocked if you would choose to put that at risk, also with the more toggle of things and influence and who you trust and who you don't. But also on the other side and two things can be true is people like see vindication all this, but she still tested positive for something that you aren't supposed to take and that is illegal. Are we allowed to have nuance where it's like I'm happy to see her back? But also, she didn't get vindicated to where she was completely innocent either. She had a banned substance in her body. They just decided there was already time served, right.
Jon Wertheim:Yeah, now slow down this word nuance you use it brings a state bell from another era. No, I think that's a really good point. I would just caution one thing, which is I think we all think of doping as like oh, it's the muscle bound 18 year old that sort of wants the edge.
Jon Wertheim:I mean a lot of times. Barry Bonds was the first ballot hall of famer before he started doping. A lot of the players that get pop are players at the end of their career. They need faster recovery. They want one big push. So I don't think we ought to read too much into the timing. I think in some cases it's very consistent with what we've seen in other sports that older athletes are the ones doping. I mean for you mentioned have the four talking. Make sure you have this supplement that is so rare You've got to get. This is like you go to GNC and pick this thing up. You've got to go to some lab in Canada and yet you don't end up having the thing tested in advance of having your ass and take it or declare it or declare, or declare that or declare that's the big one for me is or declare it.
Jon Wertheim:So I mean, you know, look it's, it's great that she can play again. I don't think you know. I have to Assume task notes what they're talking about and that's access to a lot more evidence than anyone on Twitter or anyone in the media or any other player, when they say, on probability, you probably wasn't doping intensely. That's it. There's still some money. It's a question here. So you know, it's nice, we'll see some on a holop again. I think you're right. I mean, reputations matter and yeah, this, this is not. You know, I'm part of. It feels bad. It's Indian Wells. We're having a lot of discussion about this. This is not a particularly pleasant story. I guess the good news is the Mona Hall of fact. She's more than circa time and hopefully this will lead to some sort of real examination about. Tennis is anti-doping, because something started way off the tracks here.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, and also the thing that's striking and then we'll. We'll kind of move on with it is Okay, it's a nine month If the exact same thing is in your system nine months versus four years. The variance is just so extreme between the two. It feels like there needs to be kind of a closer situation when you're making a judgment on something that we will never know is factual, right and 10th Now, nine months versus four years. It feels like they should be kind of closer bedfellows at the beginning and at the end of it. But I personally am happy to see a Simona out the other side, just because it's.
Andy Roddick:It's hard to ban someone for four years when you don't know, and someone has generally been a good steward in the sport and frankly I was just kind of mad that she was having to pay the total bill and maybe that's a dumb take by me, but I I that that's important to me and I had sympathy for her for that reason. It wasn't, she didn't do this alone and it's an individual sport. I understand that we are all responsible with what goes into our body. It is absolutely also a team sport your, your team, the people around you. It's all consuming for everyone that you have on salary and you at some point have to trust, fall into those people around you, and I just feel like she chose the wrong place to fall, unfortunately. But we will move on. It'll be a fascinating storyline. One of the things that I don't know that I could have done I would have been pretty, pretty depressed if they would have boxed me out for four years is stay in shape and train as if this result was around the corner, which which she apparently has done and will be ready to go in Miami. That's, that's impressive in its own right. You know who? Hope Springs eternal, I guess, but it'll be interesting to see her back. I personally am happy. I don't know if that's the right emotion. It's just what I feel and you know it'll be. It'll be a good storyline moving forward.
Andy Roddick:The biggest story of well, I guess it's the biggest story of the week or the, you know, macro view anyways Rafa pulling out of Palm Springs, after having pulled out of Australia, after having pulled out of Doha I was in Vegas, was able to see him play the exhibition Netflix slam with, with Carlos Alcaraz. It just felt, and I said to Prakash Armitra and we were sitting next to each other doing it. It just felt like he was having a hard time getting out of that back end corner consistently. And once Alcaraz found that he started pounding that side and where roughly normally runs through the ball he has such a strong right hand on that back end because he is naturally does everything else in his life right handed it was just having a hard time digging out of that corner when someone bullied him there and then he just wasn't serving great. He didn't look committed on that side.
Andy Roddick:So I said to Prakash I think it's 40% chance that he pulls out of Indian Wells. So I wasn't shocked. But there is this gravity of I think it's probably the last time we see him play in the States in a sanction match. I think it's probably the last time that we see him play on a hard court and the gravity of tennis without him feels more real by the day and we're going to get to kind of all the tribute that he is so rightfully deserved during this conversation also. But just balls and strikes. Am I being too pessimistic about what the future might hold for Rafa?
Jon Wertheim:No, and I think you know I think it's a disappointing result, I think it's unbelievable, Don't you feel like the big lead got pulled back a little bit on XOs? And you know, I think Netflix lab was great. You know there was a lot to recommend. It was Vegas, it was celebrities you were there. But I think it did kind of reveal the difference between an exhibition and match play.
Jon Wertheim:I had heard after the match I had two different people text me and say boy, I don't know if Rafa is going to. You know he, he wants Larry Ellison and that's that's a factor here. But boy, I don't know. So there was speculation already after the match and people I think you know the, the, the Twitter crowd is also. I don't understand. He took the money and Vegas he beats Carlos operas and now he can't show up to play me lotions first round match in the desert. And I do think one thing this revealed in the last week big difference between being fit to play an XO and being fit to play a master's 1000 event. But yeah, I mean, I think you know I was, I was in close contact with the dog camp, especially in the summer and fall, and they basically said he doesn't know, and some of it is psychological and some of it is just his body, the string of entries.
Jon Wertheim:He obviously he just want to end this way. He wants to go play, you know, go the cliche, go out on the shield and go play the French open one more time and go play the clay. He needs matches, but he also doesn't want to beat himself up. We saw what happened in Australia. This is new terrain for him and I think you know, as, as you say, I don't think we will ever see him on a surface other than clay. I think he's sort of saving up for for one last run on the dirt. I don't think he's playing the Olympics. I would be very surprised if he played Wimbledon. It's a pity you don't get to author your own. You know bodies or fickle, stubborn beasts is a speciality and I just you know we all sort of cringe when that press release came and we also sort of said not, not a huge surprise given given all the the battery of elements.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, and a couple of things that need to be acknowledged. It's not as if he pitched up to Vegas all of a sudden. He was in Palm Springs for a week before that, not because he cared about playing in an exhibition, it's because he cared about playing in Palm Springs, got there, was getting used to the surface, trying to trying to go through his paces properly and like, listen, because you know he played an XO doesn't mean he's ready to go. Does it matter to Rafa Nadal? Is he going to go rip his body apart? If he's, his goal is to win one match at Indian Wells. No, every single decision that he has from this point forward and probably for the last year and a half maybe that's a slight stretch, but you know 15 months has been. Let's gonna. Let's work backwards from the possibility of playing Roland Garros. That didn't work out last year. We didn't see him until the new year started. He wanted to go down to January, get some match reps in, not because he thought he could win the Australian Open Great if he finds something but because he wants to work backwards from the French Open. So, yes, is it in an XO?
Andy Roddick:It is very different. Even Alcaraz with an ankle injury when he was kind of running through. He would get drop shots hit on him and he would run through them, as opposed to doing the acrobatic slide, stop you know, hit the skids, run back in and do that electric thing. He was kind of running through on the forehand side. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining. So there's a big difference between these guys. Put on a great show in Vegas. They did everything they had to do to make that entertaining. But that is very different than going through the best players on Earth on a stickier surface Right. It's a different surface than there was in Vegas with altitude, yada, yada, yada. So listen, because you can play two sets against someone you're friendly with when you know that they're compromised to doesn't mean they're not apples to apples and I think it's dumb to treat it that way. Like, obviously, if it, rafa gets the benefit of the doubt, if he would have been healthy, he didn't come over just for an exhibition. He has proven that he will he gets a benefit. He's not going to say I'm going to play Indian Wells If he's not. It would have been a perfectly acceptable explanation to say, hey, listen, I don't know that, I can play six or seven matches on a gritty, hard court service right now, but I can play a couple sets indoors and I look forward to playing the Netflix slam. No one would have cared. It'd be like oh, that's rational. So I don't know why all of a sudden we're up in arms about that now as we project forward.
Andy Roddick:I want your take on, because I know how to play, because I know how Rafa was in the locker room. It feels like he never had a bad day right and even if he was having a bad day, it never got in the way of him being cordial, respectful. There are a lot of you know kind of tour guys who aren't nearly as good as Rafa, who you know I said this about Roger too, back in the day but you know they'll switch their grip tapes out, re-grip and they'll leave something on the floor and just walk away, right, and it's like it drives me absolutely crazy. They'll get a stretch from a trainer and get up and not say thank you and walk out Like it just drives me crazy.
Andy Roddick:And it's been nice in tennis that two of your you know top three stewards, including Novak and Novak actually is very. He doesn't get enough credit for how friendly he is with people in and around the locker room as well, but it's nice to see that those guys reset the table on. Hey, listen, I am one of the best players of all time. I am the favorite, you know, one of the favorites Every time I walk into a locker room. But there's also like common courtesy involved with the way that I go day to day. How was he viewed, digested, received from your seat with the media?
Jon Wertheim:Oh well, I don't know, I don't get this. The media, no. I totally agree, and I'll give you two of my favorite stories. One of them is in Australia a few years ago. You always like to chat up the drivers and sometimes they have good gossip.
Jon Wertheim:Yeah, all the years you've been doing this. All the years you've been doing this, who were the nicest guys you dealt with? And the drivers said, oh, I'd probably say Nadal and Federer, nadal and Federer, yeah. And I said, ok, but not the stars. I mean anyone, all right, all right, I'm talking about anyone. Those were the two guys who were most courteous and asked them where they were from. Another favorite one was I was supposed to talk to Nadal in 2008.
Jon Wertheim:He wins Wimbledon. When we're comes to the US Open and he's in the locker room and you know, we're this back of the locker was open. The Wimbledon champion, honest thing, a tennis right number one. I think he'd won the gold in in China at the Olympics. I mean, this guy owns the world. And he's in the middle of talking to me. He says hold on. He sprints out the door, he sees topless and he sprints to the practice court. What the hell is going on here? He had practiced before talking to me. We had this, this appointment to speak, and he had forgotten he had left one of his bottles on the court. So in the Sips Down, realized that we've left the bottle there, goes running out, running out, grabbed the bottle, throws it away and then comes back and says sorry, where were we?
Andy Roddick:I realized I left the bottle Because he hadn't thrown it away, so he was in a panic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm thrown away.
Jon Wertheim:No, the other thing you hear is that whenever he plays events, when he's paid an appearance fee, he goes to China. They say this guy will absolutely bend over backwards. For he totally gets it and he's very popular among fans. He's popular among his colleagues, but he also sort of gets the business and the politics of tennis and when someone pays you an appearance fee, they expect you to shake hands. I mean, this guy we all talk about better as dignity, we don't need to compare. You can say nice things about play array without dedicating.
Andy Roddick:No, you can't, John, not on social media. You can't say a nice thing about anyone without it being a direct offense to someone else. It's so obvious.
Jon Wertheim:You're a Holbert. Yeah, ask us Lindsey Bond, ask us Lindsey Bond that way. But I know, I mean from day one, from the. I mean I did a piece on the doll before he won the French. When he's, this guy's never played the French before. It's 20 years ago too. We're talking about his body, his injuries, his career, this guy, for a guy, we all thought was going to burn himself out. It was going to be an injury case. 20 years is a nice run, but he was great when he was 18 years old and sitting there in the playing lounge and making eye contact and didn't speak much English. And he's, no, he's, he's great today. He's. You know the guy. The guy never changed and I can't imagine an athlete, much less a tennis player, who's kind of more more highly regarded. And you said it. It's not because he's blib and clever and and and and and witty on Twitter. He just has this level of common courtesy. That has never deserted him, even as he has gone from a teenage prospect to a guy probably worth a billion dollars.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, I used to think I would. I would hear his press conferences and I would kind of roll my eyes because it would be, you know, a pre-press deal at at Roland Garros and he's playing some guy who's 80 in the world, who you know knows perfectly well that he's won you know 87 matches in a row at Roland Garros and he's like, well, the guy plays, well, I don't know. Anyway, anything can happen today. I'm going bullshit man, you know you're going to win this match and then, like time goes on, you get to know him a little bit better. And it's weird because you know you feel like Roger and and no, that kind of deal from a place of confidence, even when things aren't going well, right, like they kind of deal from a place of I've been here before, my skill set is better, I'm going to make you do it over time Whereas I feel like Rafa and it's, it's, it's really endearing, because I operated the same way, just not nearly as well or not nearly as long, but kind of dealt from a place of insecurity, right, okay, you know I won certain types of matches 400 times in my career and 401. I'm like, oh, it could all be different this time and it's, it's an endearing quality.
Andy Roddick:I used to think it was like I don't know 20% false humility, where it's like you're saying the right thing just because you don't want to be disrespectful. And then you get to know him and it's like wait a minute, you, you, you, he hasn't missed that note in 15 years. That's a lot. That would be a lot of of intent to present yourself a certain way. And then you see him behind the scenes and the way that he operated and the way that he treated people and you go, okay, this guy is just who he is and he is endearing, not because it's it's calculated or it's a talking point or it's, you know, false humility, it's just because he is that way. He is that sort of human and it was nice to see someone who was utterly dominant also be kind of scared of the next result. It made him relatable, especially to you know, someone like me, who, who see these three guys as as absolute superheroes. For me he was the most relatable, you know, because you could kind of see his struggle, you could see the inner dialogue you could.
Andy Roddick:You know, when he told you he was like well, I don't know if I can win this year at Roland Garros. It's even money. It's like, dude, you've won it 13 times, like I'm going to go out on a limb, you're in with a shot, you know. And so I've come to kind of no respect and I feel like get Rafa even more over time. And I just I said when I saw him I saw him for quick 30 seconds and it's as if no time had passed. He came over, gave a big hug. How are you? Are you happy? You know how old are your kids? I said great congrats on, on, on your son. You know how is everything with you. He goes. I'm happy, you know, I'm stressed. I don't know how this is going to end, but I'm generally settled and happy and it was kind of that same tone. Nothing has changed. You know one grand slam or 22 grand slams, it's consistent and that's kind of all you can ask of someone.
Jon Wertheim:Right the dubits you know you always talk about dubits. I always thought this was some like Spanish currency. Then you realized who was saying doubts and this was someone fueled by doubt and sometimes you know you're right. You'd say oh, you know, I'm playing Mike Hayden in the next round. I'm going to have to be a hundred percent. He's a very, very talented player.
Andy Roddick:Well, now we're just getting carried away, because there's no fucking way. I would be scared of playing Mike Hayden in anything that had to do with any general athleticism. Let's not get carried away. I couldn't set up a camera or audio, but that is a ridiculous comp. John Wortham, you're losing credibility as a journalist.
Jon Wertheim:Richard Gaskay, the very dangerous opponent, and when you look at the head-to-head record or you know there's a. He'd win like two, two and two and he'd come in and have this dramatic sigh it was, I mean, just barely scored the knockout pun to the 10th round.
Andy Roddick:Yeah.
Jon Wertheim:But you know, you know, honestly, I think so this is the player fueled by doubt, and that you're right. I mean it's, it's a different. I mean that's the real contrast to other players, where Rodgress Fetter did not have those sort of doubts and it expressed itself not just in sort of the lines and the sandbagging and you know, oh, I'm lucky to win and just I'm going to have to be at my best, but also look at the way he practiced. I mean she would have these.
Brad Gilbert:You know two and a half hour sessions.
Jon Wertheim:You know Fetter would get out there and practice for 20 minutes.
Andy Roddick:He'd be going to the service line. Oh, there's nothing more frustrating than consistently losing to someone in them, watching them practice and not actually be concerned with the form and practice and this is a side tangent. But then be like, oh, it'll be there on Monday when it needed to be Him and Pete Sanford is the only two people that I've seen that kind of have removed that stress mechanism. So annoying.
Jon Wertheim:And the dollars practicing before a French open fight all that he's one double digit time that he's sweating and frustrated and staring at a string. And then also, you know we look at your 22 majors this was one of the titles of the sport, but you lost a lot of close batches. I mean, you go back and you look and sometimes you can see those doubts creep in, and that was something that sort of to me. Beyond the water bottles and some of the quotes and press conferences, you can see those doubts sometimes creeping in, whether it was the 2017 Australia Open final or some of those matches against Novak or even just tough matches. You know he lost to Luca Pui in the middle of the US Open one year. I mean, you could see these doubts and clearly this was something that gave him great motivation and sometimes he was successful and was able to overcome them and great things happened.
Jon Wertheim:And also, this is a guy who sometimes that little moment of pickup, that little moment itself that cost him matches, and I think he's a far more complex Chris. Chris Clary I hope I'm not giving anything up, I'm Chris Clary is writing up a book about Rafa, after his wonderful book on Roger, and one thing that I fully expect is this is a really complex guy and I think people sort of said oh, you see the Spanish kid who wants to go fishing and play a little golf and likes good, there is a real level of complications in the doll and I think we're seeing a glimpse of that. Now is he in real time battles with how to end this glorious career.
Andy Roddick:And I sit here and we go back and forth and I say things you know I guess they come off as confidently. And I said, you know strong opinions loosely held. I'm going to tell you what. I'm going to tell you what I got wrong about Rafa, way back when. Okay, I remember he wins his first French open and largely the RPMs and the height he's able to get on the ball, his physical gifts, but wasn't a complete player straight out of the gate. Right, it was going to D up, was going to put the ball out of your strike zones, but you were going to get a hit on it, Okay.
Andy Roddick:So the first time he wins the French open, my old trainer, doug Spring, who I spent 250 nights with a year for a decade he wins the first one and he goes this kid's going to win eight French opens. And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like we're, that's a, that's a, that's an unrealistic prediction, like that's a disservice to everyone else on earth, you're automatically just going to give this 17 year old, who at that point is serving 106. You're going to give him eight, grand eight French opens. Right, and I was. I was right, he didn't win eight French opens. He won 14. But it's just amazing to see and then also, I was one of the dummies. So everyone's like, oh man, if we could just get healthy for the last three months. He's 37. I thought he would have a hard time getting to 28 with the way that he plays. So instead of if we're real tennis fans and I say that we should all choose to deal in gratitude for what he has given us, right, like for the time that we have had him, which is, frankly, longer than any of us dummies thought that he would be able to last. Like him winning two grand slams two years ago Unbelievable thought. Same goes for Roger coming back Like we're bummed. He didn't get his proper goodbye. We had him till he was 40. Like this is this is an unbelievable thing we still have Novak playing at a high level at 36 years old. This didn't happen back in the day.
Andy Roddick:So instead of being sad about it and I was, that was my first reaction this we can choose to have gratitude for what he has given us, what he's given the sport, the stewards that these guys have been throughout their entire careers. I'm going to choose gratitude when looking back on Rafa, whatever happens if he doesn't play another sanction point for the rest of his life. I want to see that run. I want to see that 91 us open for him. Like Jimmy Connors, right, I want to see that exit. If we don't get it, let's be thankful for for what he's given the sport.
Andy Roddick:I'm thankful to have to have been on the other side of it before and I've never, ever felt a tennis ball in my life, feel the way it feels when he ropes a forehand and it hits your racket and it kind of causes like a delay, like there's an impact. It doesn't shoot off. It is such an impossible decision to make on how to deal with him, especially if you're compromised on one side like, like I was right, you know that he has that hook forehand that he can go out in a way to your back end where you're kind of going fishing. That was kind of the first weakness we ever saw in Roger Federer's game and it was by virtue of this guy being left handed and him being able to create a spin on the ball that we haven't seen before, since there are players who hit it harder through the court, there are players that serve better, there are players that return better. No one can create the spin mechanism that this guy can and it's hard for me to imagine, I know. You know records are made to be broken.
Andy Roddick:The next iteration comes. This guy is so specifically special with his physicality, his strength, the spin he's able to put on the ball and it's. I'll just give you like a little microcosm of the decisions you have to make when you're playing him right. So he whips that thing cross court and you're going. This is I'm already in a bad spot. Right, I have to. I have to check left, you know, maybe two feet to the two or three feet to the left of the middle hash mark. And this was when you knew he was confident. And this is when you also knew on the other side that you were fucking screwed outside of your serve. And quick points is when he was confident he would hit that one up. In a way, it doesn't matter if it lands on the service line, it is checking off the court and it is above your head.
Andy Roddick:If I hear one more commentator say, take that ball early, I'm going to automatically transport them back to 1976. Like that's the dumbest thing I hear and I want to throw things at the TV every time you hear it. So, anyways, you check left, the ball is up and away, you somehow succeed and stick one cross court off of that ball. Now you've succeeded. What does that get you? He's in the corner, he wants to be in and he's setting up. You have to take that left step. Two or three shots left again.
Andy Roddick:You have to guard the one cross court and early in a match, you know if he has it when he's not confident, he'll just keep you in that, that poison pattern you know and that's going to work. Probably he's going to win 60, you know 60 or 65% of points there. But then it's like a cat playing with a, like a dead mouse or something. You check left and all of a sudden he holds it to the last minute. It looks like he's going to hit that ball cross court and then, the last moment he sends it line and you are. He hits a winner and it is a winner by 14 feet and you were not even close to it and you feel like you did a good job handling the first one. It is an impossible decision to make.
Andy Roddick:As he's progressed, slices gotten unbelievable, uses it to switch directions. The backhand pass cross court is probably the best backhand cross passing shot, cross court that we've ever seen, especially on the run. His ability to mix up his serve Obviously he likes to can opener with the left hand a lot, but also on big points he would go flat the other way, like it was a constant guessing game. His second serve kicks into your body, moved it around the court and his volleys you know we keep saying they're underrated, but we've said it so much that they're probably just rated at this point. But the way that he's been able to progress as a player, where it used to be kind of D up and be physical, the way that he's come through stepping in on returns at Wimbledon just a, just a master class in tennis IQ. And it is an absolutely debilitating day of decision making when he is in full flight.
Andy Roddick:As we look forward real quick and I want to wrap the Rafa thing because I know Brad's going to talk for like eight hours as we look forward to I say that lovingly, as we look forward Monte Carlo, that's the next question. He wants to play there. It's been his most successful play event outside of Roland Garris. That will be a good tell. If he pulls out of Monte Carlo we could be in real trouble. Does he want to play Barcelona, right? Does he want to play that tournament again? I would probably say no, right.
Andy Roddick:Madrid not his best tournament overall because altitude guys can actually get at his ball and send it through. Guys can serve a little bit bigger. But obviously he will want to play in Spain. If he's healthy, at least one more time in his career, then you get to Rome. Probably the best comp for Roland Garros. We'll see. Maybe depends on how DP goes. If and when he plays in Madrid. I would say Monte Carlo and Madrid are probably the two priorities on that list. Probably wouldn't hate two weeks of treatment and physical therapy or whatever going into Roland Garros. If he plays Madrid, obviously he will play Roland Garros. If he is on one leg, there is no next event. There is no saving yourself from injury. There is no. If he would have felt exactly the same way he felt when he pulled out two days ago at Indian Wells. If he feels that before Roland Garros, he will take the court. There is no doubt about that.
Andy Roddick:I hear a lot of chatter about Olympics because it's at Roland Garros. It's like, oh, he wants to play the Olympics and will he play the Olympics. It's not his choice, like I hate to be like the bearer of bad news. So you have to qualify by ranking. For the Olympics there will be multiple Spaniards that qualify with their ranking. Rafa would have to win a couple of big tournaments to get into that conversation where he's like top 40, something like that for automatic entry.
Andy Roddick:Assuming that doesn't happen, the way the wild cards work at the Olympics it's about country, not about individual. The Olympics are kind of bigger than tennis, right, so they normally go to aspiring nations. Maybe a South American wild card from a country that doesn't have a direct entry. I remember the guy from the Ivory Coast played in like oh, foreign Athens, and he got got to be like oh and one. Like there are players that you never see on tour, and that's kind of the special thing about the Olympics. So it's not just if there's a wild card available, he gets it. It is different.
Andy Roddick:I think people are assuming that his interest in playing the Olympics is super high. Right, it's six months after Roll on Garros. They can't do an individual ceremony at the Olympics, right, it's not as if they can shut down the entire tournament like they can at a Roll on Garros and really give him his extended props. So I would be surprised at this point if he played the Olympics unless everything goes perfectly through the Claycourt season. Even then, is he going to skip Wimbledon, skip the US Open, or is he going to take on that entire workload to finish at the Olympics? The Olympics is a big, big, big. If I think he's going to play, roll on Garros, even if he has to crawl out there.
Jon Wertheim:Yeah, agree on all that. We got to disagree on a few things, but this is one of them. And to my mind, he's already won gold in singles and doubles, and also in 2012,. He did not play London, right? I mean this? This would have been a great opportunity. It's played on Wimbledon. It played at Wimbledon in 2012. And he basically said no, I'm not able to, so he's already. But you're right. I think people say, well, why don't they just give him a wild card?
Andy Roddick:You can't do that when there are four eligible players.
Jon Wertheim:Not the way it works. Short of every Spanish player ranking ahead of him saying you know what? I'm taking back feet for sort of a quick rule change to accommodate him If the Olympic for today, he wouldn't be eligible. So that's that's. That's a good point. See you at the French Open. We'll all do our career retrospective and send off.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, and I know I'm going to get you know people on their what Mike, I'm going to go to the next one Twitter fingers. They're going to get on say, oh yeah, you're crazy, rafa will get a wild card. Like you're basing that on feelings. I'm basing this on precedent. Um, I would love for him to get a wild card in the Olympics if he wanted to. It's just not the way that it's ever been done in the history of tennis at the Olympics. It's bigger. It's not as if there's the role on Garros Terminal director deciding who gets the wild cards. It just is a little different and the separation is interesting.
Andy Roddick:All signs point to the game. I just appreciate you. I appreciate what you've done for our game. I know I can speak for John and say, uh, the media side of things also respects you as much as the locker room. You've given your time, you've given your effort. You've been an unbelievable steward for the game. I hope you get the ending you want. If you don't, we're still full of gratitude. We're here to watch it. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't change everything that you've given to the game. Hey guys, I'm going to be honest. I think we teased some Novak news last week. Uh, you keep mentioning this All Star game situation like what do you know that the rest?
Andy Roddick:of us don't.
Jon Wertheim:Everybody wants to tennis. All Star game, right. We have skills, competition, men, women, everything to celebrate our sport. Well, you know what a really good time could do. That might be right before Indian Wells. Everybody's happy. They come to Southern California and they're looking for a good opportunity. They're looking for venues.
Andy Roddick:This would be in Los Angeles. He wants to kind of take ownership over. He wants to kind of take ownership over this All Star idea.
Jon Wertheim:Yeah, and I think some of this is just know. I mean, he's always looking for ways to involve players. Yeah, a legacy play. But I also think this just makes smart business sense. Who wouldn't want to see Coco try to hit targets or have a sprint competition or have a sub who can serve the fastest? And Novak has taken a real interest in the logo. So this is not just some whimsical idea. He's really running with this. Look for this as early as 2025.
Andy Roddick:Interesting and I will say like I've always struggled with the concept of it, just because I don't know how it work, like I don't know that there's a lot of players that want to go uh, you know, swing as hard as they can. It serves on a given night, with no other context, and your body's not warm in the whole thing. Skills competition has a potential to get awkward on TV, like if you don't hit something for a while, you know it's like you're going to get in trouble. You're going to get in trouble, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to get in trouble, you're going to get in trouble, you're going to get in trouble. It kind of just feels a little hollow.
Andy Roddick:I'll tell you, I watched the tie break tens the other night in Indian Wells. It was great, I loved it. I think that is the format it's. It's unisex, there's something on the line. People want to win. They're still hitting great shots, but there is some levity. Ben Sheldon's hitting these, like you know, kneebreaker serves, and then you're there. There's an element of skill and ridiculousness of trying shots. You know, I think that's the best way to do this. No back stuff. I'm like that's the All Star game. Right, you get selected, you get honored, based on ranking and, or a hybrid of ranking and slam results. Maybe a couple wild card coaches choices, coach of the year maybe chooses the four replacement players as they see fit. But that tie break tens format, I think is, is it for all star weekend?
Andy Roddick:But, john, thanks for the breaking news. You've been on a bit of a bit of a heater with your, with your team. We need an All Star game. We're the only major sport that really doesn't have it. Um, I hope it works out. That'd be cool. Thanks, john. Yep, the next week, you guys All right, I am so excited. Uh, this, this kind of new venture podcast. Um, one of the people, as soon as I decided I was going to do this with, who I knew I had to have on, uh, because he's endlessly busy. He's been on the team for a while. I'm going to be his friend, brad.
Brad Gilbert:Gilbert, the legend, Brad Gilbert. How are you BG? Good morning. How are you buddy? And Brooklyn must have done a little bit of artwork here, because normally on tennis channel it's like you're in the closet or the bathroom, so background setting has massively improved.
Andy Roddick:I see, on the new set, I appreciate you. Yeah, we had to. We had to step it up a little bit after, you know, four years of basically playing basketball. So, listen, we're going to get to all things, andre and Murray, and you're playing career and kind of this magical journey that you're now on with Coco. But I think one of the things that doesn't actually get talked about enough and it's been written about you had talked about it in your books before, um, but it is very weird For someone to start coaching you. You know you're not a player. Do I remember correctly that you were actually ranked higher than Andre when you started coaching him?
Brad Gilbert:Yeah, I was Eddie. In 1994 in Miami, I think I was about 25 in the rankings. Andre had dropped to 30 because he was coming off a wrist surgery and missed eight months. He really wasn't a 30 player in the world and he asked me out to go to dinner, Maybe the night when I was in the car. I had never heard of Fisher either, and nor did I ever know in Florida that you could put your car on a ferry and go to a restaurant.
Brad Gilbert:Um, and then that kind of led on the journey that I didn't realize that they were actually thinking about. You know me as a coach. Nor at that point was I thinking about coaching because I was still, you know, the tennis player. But I was probably six months to a year ago. I was like, oh, I'm going to get asked what are you going to do next? What is your next move? I was, you know I, but I feel like as a player, If once you start to talk about that, Yep, the corner is right there. Yeah, so I was probably in denial about it.
Andy Roddick:But once you're ranking, is still okay you try to not think about it. You know and but was it, was it, was it? Was it? Uh, were you? And just plainly set it.
Brad Gilbert:Um, well, he didn't say that, but he did take the woodshed in Scott, still like two weeks before two and one in the cold night match. Um, it is first term back which he won. Um, I think it was more about he was asking me about where he was going in his first term and I was like, did I feel like there was potential for him to go where he needed to go, which I thought like for me was an obvious question. I said you lost to me four times and there was absolutely zero reason you should ever lose to me and I always felt like there was no reason that he needed to always try to be too good as a player when 99% of the time you know you're losing to me and that gets lost sometimes from players when you feel the need to be to the good or beat the entire draw in one match.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, it's funny because, as you're saying that, I had this flashback to last weekend when we were out in Vegas and I was just wrapping with Andre and one of his overriding points about Alcaraz was that he tries to be, he has to, feels like he has to be in the same position that he was in 30 years ago.
Brad Gilbert:He's totally in that situation right now, a little bit like I'll go way back 40 years ago. I remember 1984. I gave some tickets to friends they wanted to see Mackinac will play at San Francisco and he went out and one easy. I asked a couple about that. How was the match?
Brad Gilbert:They go with shitty, I mean he went to and he's like, you know, he's like you know he's like, yeah, like Novak is the master of that, and if Alcaraz doesn't do some incredible slide, he doesn't do something. You feel now because you've seen it. So he is all of a sudden, besides beating somebody, they want to see a show. So that's a tough burden to always have to be where a guy like sinners game is a little more like a. You know a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of this excitement other than amazing ball striking. But you want to see the road runner skills and the defensive skills, the offensive skills from Alcaraz and so he has to learn to deal with that now.
Andy Roddick:So I have a question and I hope I articulate it correctly. I was someone who the next time I hit top spin on the back end will be the first time. Right, I had to be the first time. You probably solved a certain way. You get a lot of credit for the way you got through matches. You said you know in the in the answer to questions ago that Andre should have never lost to you four times Now if you were never going to be the best player in the world. Do you think the fact that you had to figure out and negotiate ways to win matches Is that what has helped make you one of the best coaches in the world? Do you think if you would have been the best coach in the?
Brad Gilbert:world and you would have been the best coach in the world. You would have been the best coach in the world and I hope you can tell us how you've ended up being. I mean, it's a good, honest question. I'll give you a word that's really important for a lot of levels of tennis players, even the ones that are incredibly gifted. I say manage.
Andy Roddick:You have to learn how to manage yourselves and be honest with yourself.
Brad Gilbert:So many players are not honest with what they don't know. I'm not saying you're going to rip it. I might go six months before doing it, but yet I wouldn't miss it. And there's a lot of players today that you feel like have like a marginal shot, but yet they're trying to pull trigger on it all the time. So it doesn't equate the numbers that like all of a sudden you're trying to rip that shot. It doesn't make any sense. With your backhand you did a pretty good job. I think it's one of the things that really made me. The first time he goes, why doesn't he have closed grip on the two headed backhand? Because only David for air was one that had that even wider separation for you. But I did feel like you managed the backhand really well and I think the thing that we probably did the best for you in a short period of time the first day that I saw you do in practice at the time you were doing your hair dripping on your shirt.
Andy Roddick:That's such an exaggeration.
Brad Gilbert:And you had oil stains on your shirt.
Andy Roddick:That's such an exaggeration. You're letting time get in there.
Brad Gilbert:You're letting the truth, get in the way of a good story. Yeah, don't let it get in the way of a good story. And you, prefaced by you, were already prepping me that, like, what we were about to do in the grass doesn't count. Because I suck on grass and like instantly in my brain, I said you serve well, you've got a big forehead and all's we have to do is just tweak. One thing is your return to serve, because remember then you were standing on the baseline like Andre, but yet you would miss too many returns. I moved you back like five feet let's make some returns. So with you it was just a small little tweak that changed how matches started. You make a couple returns, you steal a break. All of a sudden, by the end of the game you were thinking grass isn't so bad.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, grass ended up being okay for me and I remember those those first couple of days. Well, it was like a new beginning when I actually had space to operate. So a couple of things. I get asked a lot about different coaches I had and what you know some did well and what some you know what other people and they ask what makes Brad so special as a coach and I said, okay, I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to be able to do that and I'm going to be able to recognize when to deliver the information, where the his player is ready to receive it right.
Andy Roddick:So, like I know, andre would want to go on and you guys would have maybe a four hour conversation. He could be right off the court and you guys would settle in. You know I used to walk past you guys in locker rooms and you guys were like fully on one, like going to the locker room, and you guys were like I knew that you had my attention, I was calm, I was not in an emotional state. Where does that instinct come from? Is it something that's natural for you or is it just a general awareness, something you have to think about? How?
Brad Gilbert:does that manifest in such expertise? I mean it's a great question in coaching and that you and Andre couldn't be able to do that. I mean, you know I was in the back end of the match. Maybe 15 seconds was all I was going to get with you had, you know, one time. You know, I remember one time you played Cyril Sonnier at Indie and I didn't think the guy could hit a back end down the line. The guy hit like 10 back ends in a row down the line.
Brad Gilbert:You started railing on me, but a couple of times you could be pretty brash before a match and I wanted you to play guys for a long time. You know, you know you're not going to be able to get to the end of the match. See, it's about you know understanding the player. Andre like to talk along a long period of time about matches and afterwards you needed space getting get out. You know it's very similar to you about information. Is Coco Coco? You can't go a long period of time? She's a little bit like you the mission impossible.
Brad Gilbert:This message will be very interesting and I also feel like that I learned a lot from my coach, tom Shippington, and that I don't have a philosophy. I don't feel like I take a player and then some coaches feel like, okay, this is the type of player. Each time I want to mold them into, I'm always thinking about what made me. My player doesn't do that well. How are you going to manage that and how are you going to maximize that? You know, I think that you know when you watch. I think the most important factor to being great it's how do you manage that dip Like Santa Cruz could be playing awful and he could be it for all. How often have you seen Joker? You know what? He's not at his highest level, but he's still on serve and all of that. He's still on serve and he's still on serve and he's committed. That, to me, is the difference between being good and being great.
Andy Roddick:How do you manage when you're not at your best and how do you take advantage quickly? Another thing that you are an absolute expert at is I see so many coaches right and I watch them operate and I hear what they're saying and they're saying you know you're not good at the footwork. You're the prep, you're this. That the footwork. You got to be a 90 degree angle. You got to answer like your head's going to explode. You are so good at focusing around two or three talking points at a time. You go in. There's a focus you mentioned the first day at Queens. We're going to take a step back. That's going to free you up, and you say it with a confidence where, even if I'm on the fence, there's still a belief system. Is that something?
Brad Gilbert:that's intentional or do you think that's a good thing? I feel like too many coaches in practice get too technical. I mean I see it like every day on the court yesterday and I'm amazed how many coaches are so technical during practice and they feel like every swing you did something wrong. And I'm like man, if you want to find something wrong you will. But it's to me it's not like the time to be doing that and probably my all time pet peeve, my coach, tom Shippington's coach I'm not going to be standing behind the player when he practices.
Brad Gilbert:Give him some space. You should be nowhere near the court when they're playing. You should never be standing. Andre would go nuts if, like the coach, was standing behind the player when he's serving. To give some space, give some freedom.
Brad Gilbert:And a lot of times we're on limited time, like at these tournaments. So you're trying to maximize and think about, you know, maybe some of the things that I might be thinking about. You know, let's work on a couple of across this here, because maybe we can do that a little bit more tomorrow in the match situation, because I think it's all there's practice. When you're off, that's a time to work on things. That's like you have a little grid or you have a long block getting ready for a shot, but when you're at the tournament, the term is that the time to be getting fit. You know you're trying to make technical changes Now. You're just trying to get ready to have this ability to turn on tomorrow and then tomorrow, the next day. You know how am I going to. You know, fix my practice schedule to get ready for the match.
Andy Roddick:We probably have a lot of listeners who aren't like. Your first coaching gig was with Andre Agassi, right, and then you know, you pick up with Coco. When we got together, I had it, I was like I'm going to play six in the world. Uh, when we, when we started, do these, uh, the way you approach that and with the technical part of coaching, does that apply to all levels or is it something that you can do because you're dealing with players of a certain level, like with the rec players and coaches that are, you know, coaching juniors? Is that still?
Brad Gilbert:the same, totally the same, but you was like I call bullshit on that for 20,. By the way, I'll go back and have a research department.
Andy Roddick:Okay, you ever played back in it. Uh, no, but I know that I was six in the world.
Brad Gilbert:I double the cube and say that you were 10.
Brad Gilbert:You got um. When I start coaching the player let's say it's a pro I try to think about whatever has happened before doesn't matter, and you don't compare one player to the next player. You know you're not going to be able to get through your lens. What can we do to start getting better? And it's only you know in tennis, way too many players and coaches to think about what we've missed and what's happened in the past. That's not helping you. What's helping you now is getting ready for what's upcoming, and probably you no-transcript I started thinking about in the same terms.
Brad Gilbert:I feel like club players way more overestimate their weaknesses massively. Coco's Physio Maria. She's 40 years old, she's an Argentinian lady. She was playing the match yesterday and she lost to another Argentinian, physio, at 7-6. And I was out there walking in the morning and I gave her a couple tips and I said you know what, if you play to your strengths, you beat that guy 6-2. There's no reason with your quickness that you're trying to pull triggers. You should be a pusher. You should like when the balls hide you, you're back in, back up, manage how you're playing. And a lot of club players do not understand Screaming winner. One point. It's the dummy errors that cost you the match and, believe me, all the way through the juniors in college, that stuff matters.
Andy Roddick:I am having fun and a chuckle here of you walking by and analyzing a battle royale of trainer versus trainer. And I had this flashback to when your son, zach, and Dougie Spreen were in the indoor courts. They were wimbled in just having absolute battles. And I'm coaching Doug and you're coaching Zach. We spent a million off days. You know we would practice. I always like to practice in the carpet because I feel like it was a truer bounce than what you would get at the practice courts and you wanted to get a little bit of rhythm. And I remember those afternoons where it was like the Zach versus Dougie showdown. We would be at home and be like they kind of look at each other, we're a little bored, like it's only five minute walk, you guys want to go over and battle and they're like, yeah, and then we would each go like Brad's coaching his guy.
Brad Gilbert:Those were good, that's right. But believe it or not, okay, you play. Now you're at a club and a lot of three O's and three fives want to be better and they take lessons. But the simpleness in an actual match isn't about how you're hitting the forehand and how you're hitting the back end. It's about shot selection. It's about making another ball and if you're, let's say, college player and you're a good mover, you're pulling trigger. Maybe you don't need to. So it's always trying to find a solution, what will work best for your game. And that's kind of how I thought when I played and if I was reborn, I never heard this word one time, andy, which I heard from Andre, which didn't make sense to me because I couldn't compute it.
Brad Gilbert:Andre told me early on this word it's a simple four letter word that didn't fucking compute to me. You know what was peak, how am I going to be peaking in seven weeks? And, like me, I couldn't think well, we got Miami, you know. And he wanted to know, like in Washington, it was about how am I going to be ready for the open? And so, like me, when I played, I was always focused on the week.
Andy Roddick:So maybe I'm in your camp.
Brad Gilbert:And so maybe when I would get to the open I would be tired, you know, because I didn't understand how to do that. For me, every week was the open and I didn't think about winning a slam or peeking like that. So once he told me about that, it helped my brain understand. Okay, it's not about Washington and since, even though I want to be playing well, I want to be able to play at my best seven weeks out, so that kind of instantly changed my brain from the player to the coach and probably the most important transition that you'll make from a player to the coach is understanding. It doesn't matter what I did, it only matters when I look through your lens, or Andres, now Coco's. That's when it helps make them a better player. But a lot of foreign players look through their eyes and think about what they would do and then tell the player what they're. You know how they see it through their own lens.
Andy Roddick:So you've obviously seen kind of an experience, everything through your own eyes, through your players eyes. Who do you lean on now if you have a question about? Are you calling Andre and saying, hey, what do you think about this? Who do you wrap with about tennis?
Brad Gilbert:still, I text you, I text Andre a lot, I talk to killer Gale a lot Interesting.
Brad Gilbert:And believe it. I still talk to my coach who was 87 years old, tom Shippington, and my kids throughout their whole life didn't even know his name was Tom. They just think his name was coach. And I told coach the only difference was he had to coach people like me. I've got a chance to maybe coach a little better players and he, when you coach a college team, it probably makes you a little more even kill because you have to learn to manage different levels.
Andy Roddick:Interesting.
Brad Gilbert:So. So when you coach different players, they have different levels. But the beauty of tennis, there's all this technology now, which I'm not that crazy, to tell you the truth.
Andy Roddick:And the line is that just because you don't know how to work an iPhone?
Brad Gilbert:No, I know how to work it, but not amazing and you know, I still get help.
Brad Gilbert:But I'm going to tell you this Okay, when you get 300 pages of analytics, there's some great stuff in there, but there's also the I call the analytics. Doesn't take the human factor into it, that your player, maybe strength, is different than the patterns of this one match. They're going to come up. So all of a sudden I'm looking and I'm scouting a match. The girl is serving and doing everything that may be tomorrow, you know, when she's playing Coco, she's going to make it a judgment. If she doesn't, you're probably going to thump her and I, finally, if I have 300 pages of analytics, don't they? Doesn't your polly that 300 pages of analytics? So you have to be careful.
Brad Gilbert:If I told you any, it's verbatim. The guy's serving wide your back end. Every break point does it 93% of the time. And I feel like football coaches and a lot of tennis coaches hide behind this data. I'd much fucking rather be wrong than say that the data told me it's going in the back end. Then what happens on the big point? They go to your forehand because they know that your forehand's weaker.
Andy Roddick:Yeah. So it's like, for example, my mind went to okay. So if someone's trying to figure out where I'm serving and they're using a small enough sample size and the match that they happen to look at is me playing football Felicia on a Lopez and then all of a sudden they draw down that, oh well, andy's serving wide 85% of the time, that's not actually like. My serving pattern is just the serving pattern that I had inside of a given matchup and you can't make that into gravity, right? You can't make that just factual day to day.
Brad Gilbert:So let's say they'll do it over. You know 80 matches. 70 of those matches could have been one sided and you might have been able to been fine. The matches that are most important are the matches that where you're playing at the same level of your peers, and what changes can you make? I know that one time when I looked at data a long time ago, when Andre played Pete in the 99th final women, he was averaging about 99 miles an hour on his second serve.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, and he pumped it up to 120 against Andre immediately. Yeah.
Brad Gilbert:And so because of he knew Andre was playing really well there and he was like you know what, I'm not going to let him take some huge shots. And then, all of a sudden, we weren't quite ready for that. And then three, four, like no, the match turned out to die. Three, all love 40. And he hit two second serve bombs. And then, you know, and then Andre got rattled because he didn't break. But that's not going to be in the data, and great players probably have the ability to change data more than the guy ranked 80 or a girl ranked 150.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, and the thing that is true amongst all great players is they generally force you to up your risk profile. Like you're talking about Pete having to go bigger against Andre, I'm not hitting a little bunny kick against Roger because I don't want to get neutral. And so across all of the great players that you've ever seen, I would guess that the easiest kind of common drawdown is that Pete example, where he knows Andre is playing, he can you know he's not going to be able to manage his serve right, he has to actually create something special and vice versa. You know, I always had to adjust against Fed and do things. I didn't want Come in on balls, I didn't want Try to be aggressive on the backhand when I didn't want to a little bit more up my risk profile on a second serve.
Andy Roddick:I just think the greats across time and maybe no one better than Novak kind of forcing you into, kind of upping your risk profile. And when I sit down and watch matches, I wish I always get told what's happening, right. I always get told this person's missing this shot, this person's missing that shot and I'm going no, that person's missing that shot because they don't have the choice to play their standard boxed in game, right? You're playing someone. 40 versus Novak, something's got to give. They're not going to beat him with their kind of stock offering, right?
Brad Gilbert:So the greatness of Novak. So Fed's game has all this electricity and he has shots and everything. Same with Rafa Yep. Take Novak he's the greatest player ever at the new trubal. It's not sexy, it's effective and it forces you into making a decision that maybe you don't want or maybe I'm not willing to play this 20 ball rally and he wins a lot of points by not taking a risk. He's not hitting the ball inside the service box, but he's hitting a good, hard, quality shot and I think that's the biggest change that I made with Andre is, andre would go too big, he would risk too much on a first ball and then he would litter up a stat sheet. And I'm like you're not the type of player that should be littering up a stat sheet. I said if you play a match and you can hit less than 10 on four stairs, nobody's going to beat you.
Brad Gilbert:I'm losing, yeah, and unless somebody plays a great match. But when you play 40 winners 40 on four stairs you know who is an unbelievable player. To litter up a stat sheet, he wasn't a fast guy, but that's probably the best way he could play against good players was Robin Soderlitz.
Andy Roddick:Oh man, he could thump it. Yeah, it's like he was most effective by kind of having peaks and valleys right.
Brad Gilbert:Enquist another suite like that. Yeah, so when you're a great ball striker, there's no reason that you need to litter up a stat sheet. At least let the match come to you and see if you need to all of a sudden up what you're doing because your opponent is asking you to do that.
Andy Roddick:Now we haven't. We've kind of touched on Andre. I want to take a quick second. Obviously, murray's in the kind of news a little bit because he says he's going to play through the summer. We don't know what that looks like, we don't know if that's British summer, we don't know if he's going to try to make it through the open. Talk me through kind of his personality pre and post match. We're talking about kind of dialing things back right, like letting your kind of stock game be effective on the other person, not overplaying. He's something that he's someone that even when you started with him was never guilty of overplaying any shot. So what were the adjustments that you had to make with him? I'm assuming they were different than with Andre.
Brad Gilbert:So it is the first morning I got here. Let's stay in. So it was last Sunday, 415 in the morning in the gym. Who do I see? Andy Murray, and we get into the longest conversation about rackets and all of the technology. Oh my God, he's crazy about all this With Andy, probably the biggest thing is that I analyzed right away was the type of game that he played First. The beauty of it was, everybody told me, like he'll never be talked to, he'll never be this, he's a pusher.
Andy Roddick:That's so stupid from anyone who actually knows tennis, though. The guy is such ball control. You have that kind of ball control you can't teach that. I disregard that opinion even back when I first saw him.
Brad Gilbert:Yeah, but he at that point probably weighed about 60. And his biggest issue was physicality. He literally had a two hour mark, was toast he didn't have, and the type of game that he played. You need a full tank. You can't be a counterpuncher unless you're fitter than a fiddle, unless you can stay out there and you can wear your opponent. So I did think that was the most important thing. And then I felt like probably more than Andy shot at it and it's probably the one shot he probably wishes was a little bit better was the second shirt. I felt like his second serve was a little bit attackable. And then the other shot that we talked about a lot.
Brad Gilbert:Andy is a three letter guy. No matter what you tell him, he's going to say why, what's your research, what's your thought. I'm telling you there wasn't one time I could tell you or I could tell under any time. I told Andy Murray something. It was why. How did you come to this? A lot of times I just I see it, I think it. I don't disseminate like you do and I spend 10 hours on the computer thinking about and I don't have this dissertation, I just say it. I didn't understand why he would jump eight feet inside the court and then bunt the return.
Brad Gilbert:So I say I don't get the geometry that you're gonna take this big risk and then not do so, because then if you don't do something now, you're not in great position to where you can defend on the next ball. So we did move him way back and then he did that big leap forward which he told me. Like you know, that's one thing that he changed and he never changed after I changed it because he would kind of be close to the way inside. So then he moved back, so at least he wasn't nine feet inside the court, because it's like you're that far inside the court you either got to come to net or do something better. Yeah, but he was a unique guy talking about strategy with yeah, he would.
Andy Roddick:We got into a kid in a couple of years ago when he was. He's like I've ever seen that this is a true story. Producer. Mike, we're texting back and forth and again you mentioned the rackets. He was on one about the rackets two and a half three years ago, right, and he would text. He had me and Bob Bryan on a text and he was like what do you think? More space? I'm like I don't know. He rented out a court and kept the shot spot live and active so that when he was using different rackets, it wasn't based on feelings like Brad's talking about. It was based on an entire readout shot profile. He rented out a court with shot spot technology after he had lost in Cincinnati one year and then sends us all the readouts. I'm like bro, I don't, I don't know like I like your math is great. I have no idea. I would have to see how the ball was coming off or feel it like I don't. I don't know what this is is that?
Brad Gilbert:told me at at the LTA. He has a radar gun.
Brad Gilbert:He just play tested every single rack and he says that he you know that all the different head rackets somewhere more about he couldn't get any more power on any racket on any different types, looser of tighter. I said maybe has something to do with your arm, maybe you've got a little too much. But he's still searching, I know, or any smidge that can make him better. And that's the reason why he's probably still going, because in the back of his mind that if he finds something it will all of a sudden give them that pecksy-dust and he's gonna.
Andy Roddick:You know, he's been holding out the whole time because he wants to make a quarter of a slam and feel those kind of emotions again and I hope he has that moment. I hope he gets the send off that he's he wants because he's he's deserved it and his curiosity is amazing. I'm sure it was probably annoying for you as a coach sometimes, but I respect someone who is so committed to process right. That is. That is a non-negotiable with someone's great is respecting the process, not trying to shortchange the process. Some of us can go overboard sometimes, but it is a non-negotiable, especially in an individual sport.
Andy Roddick:Something else I want to get to before we let you go is you know, for most of the tennis world, right, all of a sudden we're scrolling on Twitter and you and I text a little bit more, so I normally have a little bit more of an in view that I that I would never kind of talk about publicly, but to most of the tennis world, all of a sudden we're scrolling through last summer, we see Washington and everyone goes oh shit, brad's on court with Coco, like I'm assuming that didn't happen that morning. Walk us through the process of when you started kind of thinking about this, where your interest level was, if you were committed to getting back out on the road. Kind of walk us through what led to that moment where, all of a sudden, the rest of us are going oh shit, look what happened a couple years ago.
Brad Gilbert:Unfortunately, it crushes me. Yes, and we lost this tournament, miami, canada. Since seeing year-end championships, we lost a lot of the days that we did and still bums me out we're not, we're not following this match, and that's all another story. So that that kind of led me to. I have a lot more time and, to be honest with you, I have one coaching regret that I've been in the final weekend as a coach numerous times at women and never come away with winning that term.
Andy Roddick:So I was there with my bad bro.
Brad Gilbert:I was six times as a coach in the 70s and didn't get past, you know, a couple of finals. I'm still, you know, thinking about the 2004 final. Two rain delays. So don't yeah. I don't know what you're talking about the five all to let courts in the second set.
Andy Roddick:I don't want to leave this interview depressed.
Brad Gilbert:Let's move on okay, so okay, and I started thinking that it was probably time that it that I'd like to get back in the mix. But I wanted to get back in the mix with somebody that potentially could be in the final weekend. Yeah, and somebody that was young enough that I could help get to that level. And during that tournament I actually got you know first early determine that there was you mean women last year women in 2023.
Brad Gilbert:Okay, there was a guy player that that I got some interest from from his agent that happened to text me and then, after Coco lost first round to Ken, I happened to be in the greeting room talking to Mary Jo Fernandez, whose husband represents Coco.
Andy Roddick:I started telling her the team mate.
Brad Gilbert:Yeah, on the roster yeah, so I started telling her the few things that I saw. Mm-hmm, they could quickly change Coco's course of where she was going. So, which led to Saturday morning, when I was getting ready to go to the courts, I got a text from all of San Joe and who is Coco's agent meeting yeah yeah, would what?
Brad Gilbert:I take a meeting with Coco and the family about some of the things that I saw. And I said sure, so it took a meeting. We had a that that morning over at the house in the village that late that morning and we spoke for about an hour and, you know, tony said he was looking in through the window and he was man, see, like a 62 year old guy, and seeing you know a couple of them looking on their phone. He didn't think he was going very well. So, and as it turned out, when the meeting was done, I said that my schedule was open for the summer of 2023 other than the qualities at the US Open. Us open, so I had umpteen weeks to go. So literally two weeks goes by. I don't hear nothing. Actually, had told Kim that's not normally.
Brad Gilbert:That's not normally a good sign no, no, and that's exactly what I said. And then the day before, I got a call from the tournament of Washington. What I like to do, something you know unrelated to Coco Washington.
Andy Roddick:Had you come in and do like an appearance.
Brad Gilbert:I'm in and do a week for the tournament. I did clinics with Luke and I did a bunch of players where I was taking them into the week you're about to tell me this was all a coincidence so I'm so got the Washington the next day.
Brad Gilbert:Yeah, the next day literally. So this was like Wednesday. I'm going to Washington Saturday. Okay, get the call from Alessandro. He says do you want to come down tomorrow to Atlanta? What goes playing this exhibition in Atlanta? Do you want to do a two-day trial see how it goes? Or maybe she's gonna go back to Delray and we could do two day. You know, figure something out. I said well, and I said I think Coco's play in Washington. I'm now going to Washington, like Friday night, you want to do the two-day trial there? And then he takes me back and he was like sure, and I said well, because I've already got a ticket, I've got the hotel, I've got things covered so one one public and one isn't yeah, that that was probably.
Brad Gilbert:I didn't think about that. That was probably like an unforced error by me, but honestly, I was really just thinking about some of the things that I saw, just like you, how my life has come full circle. You know that, like you're my age now and you were Coco's age, you know, in 2003, and I saw a couple little things. I felt like we're gonna make you shoot difference. And the two-day trials. We had two good days of practice, saturday and Sunday, which led to like, okay, let's, let's do the tournament. And I remember Mary Jo calling me Tuesday afternoon and I'm staying at this place. Literally it's called the Salomon Ender hotel. You're very at this place, I haven't, but I feel like I'm about to wait, I explain me.
Brad Gilbert:The only rich Carlton, I think it's ever changed to the Salomon Ender hotel in DC and I had a piece down no, it's, I don't know. It's over by all the government okay. I I'm not in that part of the neighborhood of Washington ever before. To death, to no go for me. That's a that's a complete no go for me. And I had just written down on the piece of paper the date of the US open fun.
Brad Gilbert:I don't know why, because I just happened to look at it. I wrote down the day of it and right when I did that, mary Jo Fernandez called me and she wanted to know how things were going. I said I think things are going really well. She plays the first match tomorrow and I think she's gonna win the US open on September. You know on the dates and I wrote down September night and then she got. You know, you're getting so far ahead of yourself. Why are you thinking that? Don't say that. And I and I probably like shouldn't have, but it was inside. I literally just wrote it down. I just wanted to see what it looked like on the piece of paper that date. And you know, sometimes you can hold, but it's like sometimes you can catch lightning in a bottle, like you had a great summer of 2003 and I felt like, if you asked me at Indianapolis if it was gonna happen, I kind of felt like it was happening. I didn't want to jump out of that damn plane that you made me jump about of after.
Brad Gilbert:Cincinnati was, but I felt like a lot of the things that happened to her was very eerily similar to you. It wasn't about making a big change in something. It was about how to manage your game and to maximize the things that you did better well, I listen, I couldn't have been happier with your successes.
Andy Roddick:I gotta tell you, one of my favorite moments of of last year was, you know we had been talking and I text and we, you know you'll be calling a match and I'm just kind of bullshit. And then I'm nerding out and you know, what do you think here, what do you think there? And it's become really like a really fun cadence but between us. But watching Coco's run, and now all of a sudden I liked everyone likes Coco, everyone. I mean she just handles herself great. So I generally like Coco. And then all of a sudden you start working with her and I feel like I have more of a vested interest, just because I want to see the changes, I want to see how your mind kind of translates to her game. And then all of a sudden you start ripping off wins again. I'm going here, it goes, we got the, we got the fucking downhill snowball going again. I know where this leads, I know where it's going and so fast forward.
Andy Roddick:She wins the US Open and I'm like I was like literally emotional. I haven't been that emotional watching a tennis match in a very long time. And then I text you congrats and I remember one of my favorite kind of 45 minute moments was you said, hey, you know what? This is just crazy. I'm kind of spinning. I'm really happy but we're gonna do you know the party celebration. Here he come, you know early come, before everyone gets here. Let's just have a couple drinks and even that moment and and kind of thinking through it and then kind of rolling back the clock and then all of a sudden, you know your daughter walks in.
Andy Roddick:I we talk about babysitting her when I'm three years old and now she's like a grub. I mean, it's just, it was just a nice and I got to sit back, you know, against a wall I didn't know Coco well at that point or any and then just to sit back and kind of watch it from a 30,000 foot view. I felt like I was looking backwards a little bit, except you two have a lot more runway, hopefully. I think you were the perfect guy for that job at that moment. As you're looking forward, what are you currently kind of working on and and where do you think the start of the year has been for Coco?
Brad Gilbert:well it. You know, it's interesting when you're in that moment, like when I was you, I was her, you're you don't really understand what's going on because you're showing the moment until it's over this year. You know, she was just like I'm gonna say she was three minutes, three minutes from winning the yasio. In my opinion, it, you know, six, five thirty love, yeah, in that first set, after a slow start. As she won that first set, I think she wins six in two, zabalenka picked up her game dramatically and then she had another window at three, four love thirty to second. So sometimes in matches that's all it is a small window. And then then we didn't have a great trip over in Doha, dubai, I think maybe she rushed to playing there, that they have these two big tournaments out of nowhere. But I think, more importantly, at any age, and especially when you're young, it's understanding about what the goals are to get better, because it's too easy to say I want to win X, y and Z, because that it, you know, everybody does. But there's parts of her game that she definitely needs to work with. I've never got so many taxes in my life once I started coaching her, but that instantly everything is about fixture for it, fix your grip, fixture for, and you have to. And it's like I think.
Brad Gilbert:Sometimes people think, and even club players think it's so easy to just fix something like that and I and my first thought is, I don't know what you're like. I said what happens if you fix it and it doesn't get better? What happens if you make a change and it doesn't get better? And then you, when you change a grip, you have to completely change an arc of a swing. What does that do to the arm? So there's, there's, you know, more factors in and making a change and probably more than anything mentally, you know it's not as easy as people think because they think you're a pro, it's like boom, you can do that. Not everybody's like Ross or that can make changes like all the time. Andre was another one that like to tinker all the time, you know, but not all players are like that. Where you like that, could you make changes easy.
Andy Roddick:I could try them. I wasn't against it and I could tell you pretty quickly whether it was gonna work or whether whether it wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't scared to try anything. I mean, I felt like my entire career I was kind of trying to problem solve for these otherworldly talents and so you know, yeah, I was desperate at times. I would fucking try anything to try to get a different result. But the, as you're talking through that, it's weird because it almost draws a direct line to where we started this conversation, where you become so technically obsessed and not everything is about swing. Especially and this is from where I sit and I kind of agree with you adjustments, not changes. Right, if Cocoa fixes or changes a grip, she relies on her legs like her. Her, her kind of plan B is set. Very similar to Rafa. We're like I might not be playing well, but I can serve and I can play D and I'm gonna make. Even you know what, if I'm not playing great, your life's gonna be miserable for two hours. Even if you beat me, right, I'm gonna be a massive pain in the ass. So all of a sudden she changes her grip. That changes the cadence of steps into the ball. That changes ball flight when she's on the run. That changes every single thing. Maybe court positioning is different.
Andy Roddick:It's not just one fix. There's a waterfall effect off of any major change that you make and it is that trade-off worth, that waterfall effect. Maybe an adjustment here and there, like we, we worked on a serve and it was like a couple simple little things. It wasn't heaven and earth and she seemed to get it pretty quickly. But yeah, I mean, listen, it changes ten other things. You change a grip. That changes okay, maybe. I like to used to kind of play it off line and now all of a sudden this grip dictates that I pull it this way. It changes kind of all of those instinctive reps that you've built up over the course of 20 years. It's more than just a grip in my mind. Do you know if?
Brad Gilbert:you ask like a really good 14 year old, like a top junior if you win 6, 4, 7, 5, 6, 4, 6, 4, you think you have to win way more points. It's amazing that, like it, a 6, 4, 6, 4 match 1% 5 yeah and so it, and it's a lot of times it's the key points.
Brad Gilbert:Some players and at some point you do need to make a change when you're stuck or you're going backwards. And in theory, if you don't improve a little bit, andy, you are going backwards because there's you 17, 18 year olds. But sometimes you can force change and change, you know, can be good, just like sometimes the coach can be lucky. It's not what he said. It just happened to be a new voice, happened to be at the right place in the right time. That you know. So there is a little bit of luck factor, but I I'm totally honest and that there is no way I can take a 500 player and take him to five in the world. You might do the greatest coaching job ever, take a 500 player that has a max of 350 and take him to 150, but you're not going to be recognized for doing that big because you're not. You're going to be recognized for taking somebody that you know, taking him that. But, honest to God, you, whether or not it's Andre or anybody, if you're coaching on, they have to have these God-given skills that help them.
Brad Gilbert:Otherwise I just give you a magic pill and, honestly, at my age now I take the losses so hard. I mean, it crushes me. I always feel like I did something wrong. I did something wrong. I still, to this day, have huge guilt about those two fucking random days that Fed made some changes in that match, that you know that maybe I didn't equate for it, because that's how much I care. I really care that much and it guts me. I think as you get older you forget the wins and for some reason I wish I could change myself, but I remember the losses. I'll still never forget. How about this one? Do you remember this one in Basel? I don't know why. We went to Basel, feds hometown. You're getting ready to go play a match they called them match and for some reason you you put on your shoes and you have two, I thought it was I had only had running shoes, but maybe I'm yeah.
Brad Gilbert:Yeah, maybe I had to go, but I like the first three games and running shoes.
Andy Roddick:I think I don't think it was two left shoes, I think it was like I had these like spongy, like this shoes you're wearing right now. I'm like dude and it was like who ran, but you were who ran back. Oh, that was a.
Brad Gilbert:I had to get back to the hotel and literally we, we get a bike, you're almost on the way back and got back and only gave you the shoes in the middle of the match and you play yeah.
Andy Roddick:I think you said something along the lines of oh fuck, he don't run much. Try to hold serve. Yeah, don't spray an ankle. I'll be back in like 20 minutes.
Brad Gilbert:Take every take every bit of clock in between points get a time violation. Little things that you just think about. You know that never go away and I actually think that, like the little things in coaching sometimes, you know those are great memories.
Brad Gilbert:Yeah and and each player that you coach, you got to remember that they are wired differently, you know, and you can't wire them to a certain way. Like you, you know one of the things that made you great if you said red, you know, then it's black. If you say she's hot, she's not. You kind of like the fuel with fire. You know Metallica song that was that's what made you a good argument Rage you to play better. Some people like Andy Murray deep discussion, you know, and I found that all players you know want to be great but they're just different on how they process what's best for them.
Andy Roddick:Yeah, I One. I have to thank you for your time today. I know our listeners are gonna absolutely love this. Another thing that people know you as the coach, the player, the guy wearing the questionable hats on the sidelines.
Andy Roddick:Questionable by the way, bullshit like you. You make me give up a visor, right, and you just. And then you've created this whole story about like a grease on shoulder, whatever like, and then you go wear the the fucking hats you wear now and you're making front of my visor. That is Hypocrisy like I've never heard. I was fine with the criticism of the visor before you started wearing those stupid fucking hats.
Brad Gilbert:I Got the bucket hats.
Andy Roddick:I got the Panama, the Panama like bro, that you're bald, when you're bald, I don't tell me I'm bald. I'm fucking bald. Like what are you talking?
Brad Gilbert:about. Yeah, but I burn easy, so you need shade. It's a terrible and you know it and then you know it's a bad move for a coach. No, you gotta have a coach. How you got out of hat. You gotta have shades. You gotta look cool. It's very important to look cool. If you look cool, you coach better. And you gotta have a hip look. So we got you for the visor of the trucker hat you. Then you had better physical appearance.
Andy Roddick:Well, that's fine, I listen, I'm owning my shit. I'm just telling you you gotta own some of your, some of your choices. One of the things that people don't see when we, before we, got sidetracked about your dumb Panama hats. One of the people, one of the things that people don't see, and I want to give you credit for, whether it was Zach, when we were young and he was, you know, a teenager your girls, zoe and jewels and Kim you have your kids have turned out 10 out of 10, like you have done an amazing job as a father. You're. It's just, I was texting with me?
Brad Gilbert:stop you there. Let me stop you there. Kim Gilbert gets all the credit. Oh, I understand that fully, but you were still present, like I get.
Andy Roddick:I get who's doing the heavy lifting. I understand I. You know I couldn't say enough nice things about Kim, but and I do God they got her a good-looking jeans.
Brad Gilbert:Hopefully, like the same for your kids. You're gonna get a little more of your Mrs Jeans.
Andy Roddick:I hope so too. That was the. That was the plan. All you can't. You can't beat good planning. Something else that I I have regret about, and I I don't know that I've spoken about it publicly I Regret my part in us not having more time together. I wish we would have. I think there was a lot of unfinished business Not to go. We've talked about it privately since, but I wish that we would have had more time and I regret that. But I appreciate you. I think tennis is is. All you want is personalities. That's what you remember when we look back after all these years, and you've certainly been an outsized personality, and Outsized personality is fun for a moment in time, but it doesn't have the staying power that you've had without quality behind it, and so congratulations on your career. I can't wait to see.
Brad Gilbert:What I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you a house, I'm gonna give you a hot to the screen because you know it Is much as the winds and you know the losses hurt. I felt like you know we A thousand percent agree with you. We had more talk and I never you know there's been a bunch of Billy Martin Yankee situations like with coaches that been back Lendles when we were very five. I never went back to a player after I stopped. Wish I went back to you because I felt like we had our unfinished business.
Andy Roddick:Say maybe, maybe for the next, maybe for the next life. Well, I, I personally loved being able to pick Brad Gilbert's brain. You know I'm it's weird I'm I feel like I'm equal parts host and fan of Tennis minds, and so for me to be able to sit here and kind of play both sides of it is a real pleasure for me. What I will say is that being wrong never really affects Brad's confidence, right? So we made a bet where he said, when we got together, I said, kind of casually, you know, when we got together, I was, you know, it was 2003, was like late May, early June, and I was six in the world. He goes no, no, no, no, buddy, I'm telling you it, you know the whole BG thing. And he said you were 10. And he said it with a confidence where I was like I might be wrong, like he, I wasn't wrong, I was six. Pay the man, brad, pay the man, I'll send you an invoice. I probably won't send you invoice because you came on our pod this week, but anyways, point being, I won that bet, just won't let the record show.
Andy Roddick:Next week we are gonna have my dear friend James Blake, famous for his huge forehand. Maybe this picture where he's on Arthur Ashe Stadium court pouring water on himself, shirtless. For those listening, that's probably a weird thing, but there is a picture for people watching on YouTube and or I Guess YouTube and also. Let's just enjoy Indian Wells the rest of week. The term has gotten off to a hell of a start. You have been nice enough to sit here with us for an hour and 40 ish Minutes, so I I'm not gonna take up any any more. Your time. I appreciate you all listening. This has been served. We'll see you next Sunday on T2 and we'll we'll see you every Tuesday for the audio and YouTube release. Thanks.