Solo episode hosted by Gill Gross

“I think if I were to boil it down, I want great servers and I want huge spin if I can get it. Big forehands, huge spin. And that that's pretty that was pretty well represented last year with Casper beating Jack Draper in the final. two really good serve plus one players and two high RPM forehands.”

“We know the lore. We know the deal with wrist injuries. They seem to have at times more long-term more like long-term permanent effects compared to some other body parts. If you have a knee injury or something like that, normally we're not talking about it as like a turning point in people's careers, but unfortunately for a guy like Delotro or for a guy like Dominic Team, you have wrist surgery and you come back and you're never the same.”

“he's from Madrid, to be clear. So he's not just Spanish. He's from Madrid. That means he grew up though. He trains in the altitude. He is not going to be like he'll know exactly what to expect. It's not going to feel foreign to him and yeah, you've really got to like his chances.”

“And Koma has the second spinniest forehand on tour. uh via you know just solely based on RPM average. He's literally second after feast in RPM. Plays with a lot of shape and just a ton of spin on the forehand. He's going to get great jump off the court.”

“Felix, I know, has been quiet of late, but he is a former finalist here. I I struggle to fully credit him for that run. It is indeed the luckiest run to a Masters 1000 final I have ever witnessed. Basically, everybody got injured in front of him.”

“I want to play this clip of Blair Henley interviewing Learner Tienne in Houston. It is hilarious. Blair is the goat, by the way. And uh I think it is going to tell you a lot. Do you feel like the clay is growing on you at all? Yeah. A real convincing learner. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, it's it's getting there.”

“Medvidev versus Ethan Quinn in round two. I think Quinn will really like the altitude. He's got a big serve. He's got a cannon off the forehand. This will be a throwback match. This is going to be someone who just looks at Denil Medvidev and says, If you're going to do that, then I'm just going to be a serve and volier. Call me Pat Rafter. Call me Taylor Dent. Call me Michael Yodra. I'm a serve volier now.”

“I've got center over Felix in straits in the final and a fifth straight Masters 1000 for Yannik Center. As long as his body holds up and he serves decently well, the serve is going to be a key for him. I still don't see anybody taking him out, particularly not in this weekend field.”

“You win the Sunshine double. You fly back to Europe. Maybe a Sunday evening redeye, but far more likely to be a Monday morning flight, I would think, or a Monday flight. At any rate, if you take no rest, no rest, you've got six days of prep on a surface you haven't played on in 6 months, and then you have to play five matches in six days in a condensed format, very high level competition pretty much every round. That's tough. You've got to be cut from a a different cloth to manage that. And he becomes the first to do it successfully since NovakJokovic in 2015.”

“I kind of do mind the 50 unforced errors from Alcarez because Carlos has the option to just play like a backboard, to trust your legs to keep you in points, to attack patiently and selectively to make sure that you're not overplaying in conditions where it's going to be really difficult to feel the ball and time the ball. Carlos played this way in the Australian Open final against an attacking player in much faster conditions and the roof was closed. They were indoors. So in much more offense friendly conditions, Alcar showed on that occasion, I'm willing to actually win this match with my legs.”

“Carlos likes to use height on this surface to attack Yannik Center. He especially gets rewarded and this is the way in which he likes to kind of initially build the points. Often get the ball up high into center's backhand. But Sinner was not really allowing Carlos to play that high ball into the backhand because he was so proactive in taking the slower ball into his backhand and making sure I'm going to utilize that time to make forehands and then play on the rise at shoulder level.”

“Alcarz hits a well-located forehand inside out. center tracks it down in his deep backhand corner. Carlos is in a great position here. He runs around for a forehand and he opts for a drop shot inside out. Theoretically, he's trying to hit this behind Yannik Center. He tried to go behind sinner, but actually behind sinner didn't exist. There was no behind sinner because he hadn't yet gotten into the court enough yet. So essentially what I mean is the whole court was in front of sinner. There was no behind.”

“S's first serve percentage would be the worst it's been since the US Open. in this stretch of time where S has made 67% of his first serves over um I'll give you the number of matches over 47 matches he's made an average of 67% he had his worst performance of those 47 matches today in Monte Carlo against the only real peer he has on tour and he still won in straight sets. By the way, quick note, can you guess what the second worst percentage serve performance was for Yannik? That would be the ATP finals against Carlos Alcarez. So, the two times he's played Carlos, those have been his two lowest first serve percentage matches.”

“I think it's a pretty big breakthrough in that sense as well to beat Alcarez and Monte Carlo because this is this is pretty much the slowest conditions on tour. These are the slowest conditions on tour. the head-to-head in slow conditions by my count was uh 6-2 Alcarez, but five in a row to Carlos. I think Yannik will take a lot of pride in beating Carlos in these conditions which are about as slow as it gets. That's significant.”

“It may not have been pretty, but I bet you that what Center's team will be telling him, and maybe Yanuk doesn't even need to be told this, he should be extra proud to scrap out a win against Carlos Alcarez while playing less than his best tennis on Alcarz's favorite surface. That should be a point of pride for Yannik Center and for Carlos. Plenty of improvements to attempt to make moving forward.”