US Open Preview & Cincy Open Recap: Favorites, Wild Cards & Withdrawals

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**Andy Roddick** (1:00)
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Hey everyone, welcome to Served, brought to you by ServiceNow. Producer Mike JW., Techie Sean.
In the house, we say good morning because it's, we're doing this early on a Monday for a Tuesday release because we got to get up to New York City. At least I do. You're heading up tomorrow, I think.

**Mike** (1:40)
But I'm going up tomorrow.

**Andy Roddick** (1:42)
Got to prepare. You know, who's more prepared for the U S open this year than she was last year? Who Coco golf?

**Mike** (1:49)
She looked good.

**Andy Roddick** (1:50)
What a different, I mean, she looked good as an understatement. It's the best I've seen her play in a couple of years, including her French Open win.

**Mike** (1:57)
Wow.

**Andy Roddick** (1:59)
Two double faults in a match against a great returner like Jess Bagula was five of six on break points. That's a dominant performance in a match up where she had not gotten the better of Jess. I think she just pulled even to 500 if I'm wrong, or it's not that much five and five or six and six or something like that, but has now beaten her twice in a row once on grass, which probably doesn't do Coco any favors. Once on Cincy, once at Cincy where the tournament also plays pretty quick.
To me, it seemed like, I thought Jess versus Iga in the semis was one of the matches of the year. On the women's side, I think it had a little bit of everything. Iga's playing great.
Maybe just too much of an ass to kind of have back to back performances like that, but what a difference a year makes, JW. Coco, struggling, leaking oil, going into the US. Open last year, completely retooling a serve like hours before she starts, and this year, full of momentum.

**JW** (3:02)
Those were my talking points. Are you old enough to remember 2025, this time last year? We're going to hire a biomechanics coach. What? In the middle of a season right before a major?
That was a year ago. And not only were the biomechanics holding up, you mentioned the double fault, complete non-story this week. She competed well. That is not an easy match against a player. You're right. I think she was four and five against Pugula. They used to play doubles together. There's a lot of history.
I always get 10 years in between them, which says something about both Pugula's kind of coolness and Coco's maturity. But no, I thought that was a really impressive tournament. That was a really impressive final. And now, given context, which I'm sure we'll get into at some point, if not today in the next week, whether it's Sabalenka, whether it's Hrabakina, I gotta think Coco's the favorite to win this tournament all of a sudden. But that wasn't a major. She's got two of those. Otherwise, that's as strong a title as I think she's won in her career.

**Andy Roddick** (4:01)
Yeah, it was start to finish. We had talked about, or we have talked about on this show, I certainly talked about on the Wimbledon broadcast because she won almost every match in three sets there.
Sometimes, you feel like unnecessarily getting pushed to the two and a half hour mark in matches where Coco is Coco, she's a great player. She's won a bunch of majors or a couple of majors. This was convincing over a player who is as good as any on a hard court. Coco certainly can make a claim to the favorite. I think Iga will have something to say about that based on winning in Canada and playing great in Cincinnati. I think Jess Pagula played phenomenal. She's certainly right there in the mix. But before Canada, let's rewind even further back, way back to like two and a half weeks ago.