What’s happened since the US Open?

Catherine (0:10)

Well, hello and welcome to The Tennis Podcast. We are back in all senses of the word. We are back home in the UK. We are back in the land of the living, broadly. David, how are you doing?

David (0:28)

I'm great. Thanks. Yeah. I'm back in to the sort of watch Albion in the afternoon and get down, and then watch Seahawks in the evening and get cheered up, hence why I'm wearing a Seahawks hoodie.

Catherine (0:42)

It's great having a backup team in a backup sport. That's right. Yeah.

Our friend Sam in New York is a Man United fan, and that's not going well at the moment, but he's picked a backup team. Great idea, you might think. Unfortunately, that backup team is Coventry, which is absolutely totally missing the point of having a backup team. But anyway, Misery Loves Company. Matt, how are you doing? Sorry to mention Man U.

Matt (1:15)

I hate Man U. It's the same thing every season, but we've got a point and now we've got an international break for three weeks where I don't have to fret about Fulham. So that's probably a good thing. But I'm well, thank you.

Catherine (1:30)

Will you not fret about Fulham, Matt? That's really not what you were saying on the group chat last night.

You were saying, I'm anxious about the... Specifically, you said you were very anxious about the fixtures immediately after the international break.

Matt (1:45)

I did look up the train to Ipswich.

It's only an hour from London. It's quite tempting, isn't it? Yeah, I know. Crazy.

Catherine (1:55)

Gosh, is it really? Yeah.

Matt (1:57)

Liverpool Street to Ipswich, an hour and five minutes.

Catherine (1:59)

Is Ipswich like the John Cain arena? Not quite as far away as you think it is. Far more accessible from the media center than you think.

David (2:09)

But you never actually try for 23 years. Sounds like Matt might be about to try.

Catherine (2:15)

Okay, keep us posted on that, Matt. Incredibly, we have quite a lot of tennis to talk about. Because tennis never stops, folks. We have tennis news to talk about. We have tennis matches to talk about. We're going to start with the matches. We have been playing, well, not us personally. We, the Royal We of the Tennis World, have been playing Davis Cup Qualifiers this weekend. We've had Home and Away, Old School Ties going on all over the shop this weekend. There have been some glorious scenes, some proper atmoses. It's been really cool to see. I think we all had to kind of dredge ourselves up from the depths of jet lag to force ourselves to watch tennis, but actually once we did, it was well worth it. There were some really good vibes to be had out there. We now know the line up for the Davis Cup Final Eight in Italy later this year. We obviously knew that Italy were going to play as the defending champions, but we can also add to the list Czechia, South Korea, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Spain and Austria. Let's start with Czechia and their qualifier against the USA, which promised quite a lot on paper because of the strength of the teams and delivered, Matt, really, really delivered this one, one by Czechia, three robbers to two over the USA, played at the O2 Arena in Prague. Incredible crowds, incredible atmosphere, incredible matches.

Everything you want from the Davis Cup.

Matt (3:54)

Yeah, Czechia really have the US's number at the moment in Davis Cup. That's the second year in a row that they've met at this time of year and second year in a row that Czechia have won. Last year, it was actually in the US that they got the win and now they got to play them at home and they did the same thing. And what a tie this was, like, as you said, the one that popped off the page in terms of the number of top players playing. And, you know, if ever you needed a reminder of how good Davis Cup can be when it's staged properly home and away, this was it. An absolutely packed house for both days of this tie. And you really didn't know which way it was going to go.

It went down to the wire. And credit Ben Shelton, I think, for playing. You know, he went for the US and having just lost in the US. Open Final and had that pretty exhausting run there. I think no one would have been surprised if he pulled out. But actually it was Fritz and the other top Americans that pulled out and Shelton still played. Perhaps there's an argument to be made that it might have been better for the team if he hadn't played. He definitely wasn't at full pelt. And he ended up losing both of his singles matches. But I do still just credit him and think it's a hell of an effort to go and play and try and win.