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SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Andrea Petkovic (0:40)

Hello everybody and welcome to The BIG T, the best podcast out there. I'm Andrea Petkovic and I'm here with my favorite partner, BG, the one, the only Brad Gilbert. And we are here at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Incredible scenes today, BG, because there were 7,991 people in the stands for the WTA finals. Applause.

Brad Gilbert (1:04)

That might be more than they had in the whole tournament of Cancun. We look a little like IW Sheik today if you see us on YouTube.

Andrea Petkovic (1:12)

If you're watching us right now, we really put an effort in because we respect the finals, whether it's WTA or ATP. But let's start talking about the WTA because today was the first day and we started with a surprise entry, Marta Kostyuk, who got the call yesterday when Elena Rybakina, the number one player here in the world, pulled out because of an illness. What did you think of their first match? She played Wimbledon champion, Linda Noskova.

Brad Gilbert (1:38)

First of all, when I was driving to my hotel yesterday, they had a billboard up, it was some medical billboard and they said in the desert area, there was like 365 flu cases, 265 COVID cases. And I'm like, shoot, maybe I better go in somewhere and get a quick flu and COVID shot. But Marta was here, obviously, to be the alternate. It's a great paycheck to be the alternate. But she got hurt like about three weeks ago and I bet she hasn't been practicing. And then all of a sudden, apparently she just, boom, had to hit and she looked like that in the first set. She didn't hold for a first time until she was 5'1 down. And you know, Linda had been preparing to play Rybakina. And then you get a kind of a player that's out of sorts in your first WTA championships. Thank you very much.

Andrea Petkovic (2:22)

Yeah, it was Marta. I heard that she was in LA actually yesterday doing some photo shoots for her sponsors and just taking care of business. The tennis players also have, apart from their court obligations, and then she got the call. And so she hurried back to the desert. And as you said, she probably couldn't get, you could tell that she was a little rusty. I thought in the second set, she found her groove and it was a much better match, but Noskova kind of ran away with it in the end.

Brad Gilbert (2:49)

And you know what, I was surprised about Linda coming forward a lot more. I like her two-headed backhand volley. She returned it in. You're right about Marta finally relaxed a little bit in the second set and made a much better go of it. Maybe in her second match, now she'll practice tomorrow, she'll be better, but you definitely sensed at the start of the match, oh, this could be a quick one.

Andrea Petkovic (3:10)

And you know what, I had a similar situation. So I was the alternate one time. I did not get in, so nobody got injured. But I was in this really weird place because I was in an indoor facility in Istanbul at that time. And so you had to be, and they played three matches a day, not two matches like here. So you had to be there an hour before the match and then wait until the last two players were on court and played the first point. So I was sitting there for sometimes eight and a half hours. So I wasn't sure if I was rooting for somebody to get injured to get in, because I would have failed miserably if I had just cold pants out on the court and then play one of the best eight players in the world of the season. It's not like some schlub, you know what I'm saying?

Brad Gilbert (3:56)

No, it's a weird thing that when you're just kind of waiting around and then all the other players are saying, oh, let's hit with her because she's not going to get to play. Exactly. You probably like the hitting partner, but it is a tricky thing. And now they needed to get another alternate to come down here. So hopefully, it's only Rybakina that gets sick, but it was a bit of a to be expected matchup.