Montreal Carnage, Gen Z Takes Over & the WTA No. 1 Race | Nothing Major EP 203

**Jack Sock** (0:00)
Coming up on Nothing Major, we're going to talk the Canadian Masters in Montreal and Toronto, which of course are still going on. And we're also going to look ahead to the Big 1000 combined event in Cincinnati. So let's get the show started.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:15)
Jack Jones, Stevie and Sam got close a few times, never won a slam, Nothing Major.

**Steve Johnson** (0:21)
All right.

**Jack Sock** (0:21)
Welcome back to Nothing Major, two-man show today. No Sam Querrey. He was or is, was in Cincinnati, traveling back today. And then going back to Cincinnati, picking up his family.
Anyways, not here today. Myself, Stevie, who's back in LA, who was in Montreal for the beginning of that tournament. Did you see Sam run some like 5K?

**Steve Johnson** (0:50)
I didn't see him run some 5K, but I just saw yesterday he posted on his socials the, him doing some hip exercises, some warm up exercises between I saw that. Good friend, pistol Pete Holterman in the back of like a Cincinnati local TV station. So typical Sam just, you know, I don't know what's going on in his brain. I'm not sure he would survive a 5K, quite frankly. So I don't believe he did it.

**Jack Sock** (1:12)
Well, I got a video from Danny, Danny Kindle of him, of him crossing the finish line with shirt off, horrible looking body.

**Steve Johnson** (1:20)
But you know, did he start the race or did he just finish?

**Jack Sock** (1:23)
Good point.

**Steve Johnson** (1:25)
I'm just asking questions here.

**Jack Sock** (1:26)
Yeah, he has good hip mobility.

**Steve Johnson** (1:30)
He does. It did look good.

**Jack Sock** (1:32)
I felt like my hips would have snapped in half, but it looks like he looked like a wide receiver with his hip mobility or something.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:39)
Let's just...

**Jack Sock** (1:40)
His body's horrible, but he's got good hip mobility.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:43)
All right.

**Jack Sock** (1:43)
So I'm going to rip Sam when he's not on the pod. He can't defend himself.

**Steve Johnson** (1:49)
He's just... As of recording right now, he is midair somewhere over the Rockies probably, flying home to Cincinnati.

**Jack Sock** (1:55)
Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. But anyways, let's get Monday started. Good to have you, Stevie. You will start in Montreal.
We normally start, we do a winter circle thing. Of course, these 1000 events are three weeks long, so we don't have a winner right now. We have some quarterfinalists. But let's talk Montreal on the men's side. Stevie, you were there for about six days or so on the Tennis Channel coverage. It's been a bloodbath, an absolute bloodbath. It already was one without Djokovic, without Sinner, without Alcaraz, but then all the top seeds, maybe apart from one or two, have seemed to have fallen by the wayside. So what is going on in Montreal, Stevie? What's in the water there?

**Steve Johnson** (2:41)
Just everyone's on upset alert there. The tournament was already somewhat decimated from a star standpoint, right? No Sinner, no Alcaraz, no Novak. But that's not, I would say that's not abnormal for that event, even with the format change. I mean, Montreal, Toronto kind of always is on the short end of the stick with guys pulling out after a long summer swing over in Europe. But now, especially with the two weeks, it's nuts. It's just too long. These guys are coming from events. You want to play some hardcore events before these long master series events. So, the Fritz's of the world were gassed a little bit.
It's a tricky proposition because these guys need to play these master's events or they start taking fines or their bonuses, year-end stuff. But the events are too long and I was pretty emphatic that the top seeds that were all there, the Zverev, Félix, Mehdi, even Demon, I thought those guys would do really well because the three of them didn't play the week prior, so they were strictly there in Montreal as their first event. So I was like, okay, these guys are here, they've had their time off, they're ready to go.
But they just didn't look good. Sasha didn't play great in his match.

**Jack Sock** (3:55)
He lost to Griekspoor in his first match, round of 64

**Steve Johnson** (3:59)
He fought back but didn't play his best tennis.
But I don't think guys are losing any sleep over this event because they know it's so long that they've got to have some time off and they've got to have some time to get ready. Félix didn't even take the court. He was supposed to play in his back. I believe he flared up on him. That was an unfortunate event for the Canadian teams, especially in his hometown. You must be hurt if you're Félix to not play your event in your backyard. But just overall, the tournament was just...