Backhands and Compliments: A Tennis Podcast

We’re back to recap another week of tennis, from Barcelona to Munich to Bucharest. There were lots of firsts this week, from Casper Ruud winning his first tournament above 250-level to Jan-Lennard Struff winning his first ATP title. We also indulge in some classic B&C Andrey Rublev psychoanalysis time, discuss how many matches Rafa Nadal may have left, and only spend a few minutes talking abou...

Stefanos Tstisipas is not only the winner of the B&C Handsomeness Poll, but he is back to being the champion of the Monte-Carlo Masters! Add him to the list of people who have a tournament win when Novak Djokovic doesn’t. Despite Casper Ruud looking fantastic in a sleek black kit, he did lose another final. But he did finally win two sets against a top opponent! And a lot of Monaco royalty was...

It is time to reveal who is the ATP’s Next Top Most Handsome Player . Or who won the poll voted on by our listeners. Who will come out on top? And who smized his way into the top three after some serious campaigning? And is this a question of male gaze vs. female gaze?  And in tennis news, it was one of our favorite weeks for tennis. Three tournaments on three continents! We talk about the power o...

We’re feeling 22! Okay, maybe we’re not, but Jannik Sinner sure is! 22 wins, 22 years old, AND number 2 in the rankings! Although it’s the third time the charm when it comes to him finally capturing the Miami Master’s title. But the star of Miami and number one in our hearts this week is Grigor Dimitrov! Looks like last year’s Beijing really set the finalists up for major career shifts. Now the qu...

Between the rains and the bees and all the flopping, the end of Indian Wells and the beginning of Miami have provided odd bits and pieces. From discussing the advertising of the new tennis movie, Challengers to the new deals brewing on the desks of executives to PR mishaps to a complaining Casper to Fergus Murphy squashing some weird beef; we cover everything on and off the court. Miami might be a...

This year, Katie hopped off a plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan and into Miranda’s car. Listen to us recap our four days at Indian Wells and give all tea. From seeing a niche WAG in the bathroom to making Apostolos Tsitsipas laugh to contributing to Eurosport Italia, we are telling you all the little things you won’t see on Tennis TV, bro. As we always say, we’re not like other tennis podca...

Plenty of backhands and compliments this week! From charity to Holger’s positive character arc to wondering why so many Germans listen to us, we cover a bit of everything. Demon (Alex de Minaur) defends in Acapulco! (Some players could learn a lesson or two, or maybe make a deal with said tennis Demon.) Unfortunately this means we don’t see Casper Ruud in a sombrero this year. Unlike last year, Du...

February is the time for some of our favorite tournaments and for the youngsters to come out of the woodwork and gather points to defend. (When were these kiddos born again?!) This week we tackle Rio, Doha, and Los Cabos. Sebastian Baez captures Rio in 4K! (Someone at the ATP, please give us a Masters 1000 in South America!) Karen Khachanov takes down nineteen-year-old upstart, Jakub Mensik in Doh...

Sorry for the time off, everyone! The personified tennis ball in our logo had to go work for the tournament in Rotterdam. There was nothing we could do.  All jokes aside, we’re back to talk about tournaments in Montpellier, Dallas, Marseille, Cordoba, Rotterdam, Delray Beach, and Buenos Aires! It’s almost enough to make us beg for a two-week Masters 1000! We also discuss the great social media con...

In a delightful turn of events, the Australian Open turned out to be incredible! Two of our favorites, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev were in the final, so we were happy whichever way the cookie crumbled. We are so proud that Jannik Sinner won his first slam, even though Daniil losing from up 2 sets to 0 is a little heartbreaking. Since it is the end of yet another slam, we’re in a silly, goofy...

Welcome to our usual mid-slam delulu episode! In terms of tennis, we talk about the rematch of USA Claygate, Taylor Fritz and Stefanos Tsitsipas. Thankfully, Taylor won and we saw Morgan Riddle living up to a bet and eating vegemite! Once again, we see that Andrey Rublev is the pinnacle of the “f*ck yeah, concrete!” meme as he slides by Alex de Minaur in a tough five-setter. Katie gives a doubles...

Unlike most of the ATP, we will be commenting on many things during this episode. Before getting into more serious topics, we discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of round one. Like Andrey Rublev giving his fans, and probably himself, a migraine. Felix Auger-Alissame and Dominic Thiem played five sets of beautiful tennis and made Katie reconsider her position on BO5. Speaking of BO5, Jack Drape...

We’re back for the first week of tennis! With the unfortunate timezone, we didn’t get to watch a lot of tennis, but we’re still bringing you the highlights. Like Alex de Minaur entered the top ten with three straight top-ten wins over Taylor Fritz, Novak Djokovic, and Zverev. Grigor Dimitrov defeated short-short enthusiast Holger Rune in Brisbane to capture his first title since 2017! And Andrey R...

We watched the 2004 romantic comedy and tennis movie Wimbledon and decided to give you the full spoilery summary as well as our thoughts so you don’t have to watch it yourself.  New to tennis or trying to get a friend into the sport? Check out our ATP 101 and 102 episodes to understand who/what we're talking about. Follow us on Instagram instagram.com/backhandsandcompliments and on Twitter twi...

It’s time to break out the bingo boards and give our predictions, B4 the actual start of the 2024 season 😜. Katie might not be as unhinged this year, but she is definitely clowning with several of her picks. Let’s hope Miranda’s manifesting power comes in strong when it comes to how many losses Novak Djokovic will have. From rivalries to comeback years to the 2024 Paris Olympics, we talk about it...

And with that, the 2023 season is done and dusted! We go over our Bingo boards and surprise, surprise, Katie’s is still wildly unhinged and Miranda is a manifesting queen. Then we go through some questions to talk about the year. Like which player we became more fond of (and spoiler, you’ll be shocked by Miranda’s answer!) and which celebrity-tennis interaction we enjoyed the most. Katie breaks ou...

It is what it says on the tin, folks. Listen along as we go into WAY too much detail and rank the entire ATP Top 100 into categories named after Taylor Swift songs. The Tiermaker we used is from @MedvedevMeddler on Twitter! Follow along and rank for yourself! Follow us on Instagram instagram.com/backhandsandcompliments and on Twitter twitter.com/backhandspod . New to tennis or trying to get a frie...

Do you get déjà vu? We do too because this year’s ATP Finals, unfortunately, followed the trend of most of the tournaments this year and we saw Novak Djokovic win…again…yay. But, never fear! We talk about whether Holger Rune should’ve just worn Speedos and if he should write his gummy bears off his taxes. Should Jannik Sinner should have tanked? (Spoiler: for the good of the narrative, the answer...

It’s the end of the season, but there is one tournament left-- The ATP Finals! Unfortunately, the ATP decided to screw over our new schedule and start the tournament on a Sunday, so instead of talking about the few matches that have happened, Miranda and Katie take on a much more important task: ranking the outfits at the Nitto ATP Finals Media Night, obviously! Why is everyone dressed to go to th...

We’ve ended the final Masters 1000 of the season in the basement. Literally. The most important question has been answered! Holger Rune does, in fact, eat gummy bears during matches. Hope you get that golden bag from Harbio, Holger! On the tennis front, at least the boys fought harder against Novak Djokovic, giving him a harder time, but still, not even the beautiful, brown-eyed Bulgarian, Grigor...

Two ATP 500 tournaments this week means double the fun! At least for us, because the boys were hitting this week. In Vienna, we had our 13th Stefaniil match and while it lacked the flare of drama, we got a near cradle from Daniil to Stefanos. In the final, Daniil Medvedev’s curse continues and Jannik Sinner captures his fourth title this year. (Four titles for World #4!) In Basel, Felix Auger-Alis...

As two Americans, Katie and Miranda weren’t able to watch a lot of the Asian swing, but that doesn’t mean we won’t talk about it! While we both wish Andrey Rublev would have taken home his second Masters 1000 title, we’re happy to see Hubi Hurkacz do his weird close-lipped kiss of the trophy. Ben Shelton hangs up the phone in Aslan Karatsev and takes home his first ATP title and a 500-level one at...

It’s time to talk about our favorite event on the tennis calendar, the Laver Cup! A fun team-style event that is an…exhibition? A serious ATP event? No one is quite sure. Especially Felix Auger-Alissame and Gael Monfils, who got into some ~drama~ during their match. (Or is it just both of them being French?) But it doesn’t matter because Team World absolutely dominated Team Europe. But who cares a...

The finale of the 2023 US Open was unfortunately predictable, but this episode isn’t! Miranda and Katie venture away from exclusively talking about men’s singles and celebrate American Coco Gauff for winning her first slam! We focus on the positives of the US Open, like the lack of a certain man we hate, Dominic Striker wanting to dance with somebody, and a great act of sportsmanship. We mourn Mat...

We’re back again! After a hiatus because we’re not actually that serious, Miranda and Katie are back to talk about the US Open draw before it starts! Naturally, we’ve waited until the very last second to make our predictions. And surprise, we’re actually in the same room together! We talk about Andrey’s new ATP profile picture, Holger Rune’s lack of odd workout videos, and the exciting potential f...