No Challenges Remaining

With the tennis tours now officially being suspended for at least more than the next month (goodbye Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Monte Carlo, etc), Ben is joined again by  Dr. Chris Worsham , a pulmonologist at Mass General and Harvard Medical School, to discuss the spread of the virus and why events are ceasing. What makes a tennis tournament such a bad idea during a pandemic? Would the sugge...

The spread of the global pandemic COVID-19 (coronavirus) is forcing the world of tennis (and much of the wider world as well) to grind to a halt as we seek to slow the spread of the deadly disease. Ben is joined by Reem Abulleil to discuss the impact of the disease so far, and the headline-making cancellation of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the fifth-biggest tournament in tennis behind on...

Ben and Courtney are joined in this episode by Sally Bradfield , a former communications rep on the tennis tours who is the author of the new novel Not Quite 30 Love , and who has a host more stories to tell about her time working in tennis, particularly (to Ben's delight) on the WTA at the turn of the millennium.  Sally has stories about working with emerging stars like the Williams sisters, Mart...

We are delighted to have Louisa Thomas , one of the most wonderfully writerly writers about tennis in her work for The New Yorker , on this week to talk about all sorts of things to do with tennis and writing, and answer bunches of listener questions. We discuss how she got into writing about tennis, how to make tennis relevant to a general audience, the Kim Clijsters comeback, her favorite athlet...

After Maria Sharapova announced her retirement on Wednesday morning, Ben is joined by Tumaini Carayol of The Guardian for an emergency episode to discuss her career and its many highs, lows, and controversies. After expressing some relief that she's stopped, we discuss what made Sharapova keep pushing on through the pain so long, and also what our early memories of her career were. We discuss her...

Ben is joined on this week's show by Tom Hill , the coach of Maria Sakkari (who is set to make her WTA Top 20 debut on Monday), to hear more about the path of a young coach onto the WTA Tour. Tom takes you from his beginnings as a young Brummie boy who ventured off to the Bollettieri Academy in Florida and then worked his way through the college ranks before getting an unexpected break into elite...

This week we bring to your ears a conversation with one of the sharpest eyes on tour: traveling women's tennis photographer Jimmie , who follows the tour year round with a dedication to the sport no other photographer can match. We talk about how Jimmie worked his way onto the tour, building himself as a trusted person in the fabric of the tour, and what his days and weeks look like as he depicts...

Ben and Courtney wrap up the Australian Open with a look at the end of the men's event, which finished for the eighth time with Novak Djokovic as champion. He sure seems to be closing in on that G.O.A.T. count, huh? Also, we discuss runner-up Dominic Thiem, who is establishing himself as the new Andy Murray, Sascha Zverev, who made a first Slam semifinal and generated a lot of donation talk, and R...

Ben and Courtney wrap up the Australian Open starting with the women's side, in which Sofia Kenin leaves Melbourne as the unexpected champion. How did she fly under the radar for so long? What does her story say about the immigrant experience in tennis? And what can we expect next from her? We also discuss Garbine Muguruza's revival, Ash Barty's coping mechanism, and more from the second week of t...

The 2020 Australian Open finals are set, and Ben is joined by longtime friends of the show Nick McCarvel and Matt Trollope  to predict who will leave Melbourne with the trophies. The women's final pits Sofia Kenin against Garbine Muguruza, meaning a largely unknown quantity against an often unpredictable one. How will they each handle this occasion? The men's final represents another chance for Do...

Ben and Courtney get together at the end of a long week one which really just featured one crazy day. Beginning with the end of Caroline Wozniacki's career and continuing with the upset wins of Wang Qiang over Serena Williams and Coco Gauff over Naomi Osaka, what exactly happened to make Friday so crazy? And what else happened throughout the week, and how does it set up the rest of this tournament...

As we finish Day 3 in Melbourne, you'll hear more about two of the more interesting players to have advanced through two rounds so far, who (somewhat coincidentally, honestly) happen to play each other in the third round.  First, you'll hear from 2012 Wimbledon champion  Freddie Nielsen (who first guested way back on Episode 32 ) about his compatriot and longtime friend Caroline Wozniacki, who has...

To make sense of the hazy situation regarding the poor air quality in Melbourne, Ben talks to Dr. Chris Worsham , a pulmonologist at Mass General and Harvard Medical School, about what to know about the possible risks to players and others at the Australian Open. What sort of symptoms can be expected? Who might be most affected? What to make in the disparate messaging from tournament and city offi...

The air in Melbourne can change with the winds, but to get a sense of which directions this tournament is listing towards, Ben is joined by Stuart Fraser of the Times of London to get his sense of what's been happening with the air quality and the tennis so far this month, and what might be happening next. As we gaze through the haze, you'll hear from Stu, from Dalila Jakupovic, and from Craig Til...

Ben and Courtney dive into the first Grand Slam of the 2020s with some Big Decade Energy, breaking down the paths for the top women and men in Melbourne. We start with the women, where Ash Barty is the top seed and hometown hope, and where many contenders clustered in the top half, particularly in the second quarter (Osaka, Serena, and an R1 between Venus and Gauff). On the men's side, we like the...

Ben and Courtney wrap up the week that was in Brisbane, where a loaded women's field produced four in-form semifinalists (Karolina Pliskova, Madison Keys, Petra Kvitova, Naomi Osaka) who all look to be in great shape for Melbourne. Also, who is currently the best player without a Grand Slam title? We think it's probably a Brisbane finalist, and we discuss. We then shift to Serena Williams, who won...

As the week winds on in Brisbane, we first hear from one of the players already affected by the fires: Liam Broady , who had to reroute after traveling to Canberra for the challenger there before it was relocated. Then we assess the first ATP Cup, which is now progressing to the knockout stages in Sydney. After thoughts from Novak Djokovic and Felix Auger-Aliassime, Ben is joined by reporters Cour...

Kicking off our *NINTH* season, NCR is thrilled to be joined by one of our favorite people on tour, Barbora Strycova. From the grounds of the Brisbane International, Ben and Courtney chat with Barbora about her life in tennis and her unique game, as well as topics ranging from fashion to figure skating. Also, hear why Maria Sharapova was jealous of her when they were teenagers, and how she explain...

Ben and Courtney wrap up the decade with our choices for the 10 most defining players of the 2010s in women's tennis. Tough decisions had to be made! Just counting women with 2+ Slams in the 2010s already gets you to 10, and what fun is that? So to be representative and interesting, we had to make some tough, tough snubs along the way. Agree? Disagree! Please share your own lists! Thank you for jo...

Ben and Courtney wrap up the decade of NCR with our lists of who were the most defining players of the decade, each picking 10 players (10 men, 10 women) who we think best tell the story of the last 10 years in tennis. We start with the men, which was a much more straightforward exercise in some ways, but also still leaves plenty of room for debate. Do you agree with our picks? Share your own top...

NCR is delighted to welcome back Lindsay Gibbs , creator of Power Plays , for a wide-ranging discussion of sexism in sports, anchored (obviously in tennis). Ben and Lindsay start with the massive symbolic importance of the mega millions on offer to the WTA Top 8 in Shenzhen, what that signals for women's sports, but also how that signal might be muddled by the relative lack of coverage or attendan...

To wrap up the highs and lows of the radically revamped Davis Cup Finals event which just wrapped in Madrid, Ben is joined by Eleanor Crooks of PA to get impressions from on the ground at the new "World Cup of Tennis" from a veteran reporter of the format. How did expectations match realities? Which constituencies were most and least happy? What most needs addressing? And how does the relative suc...

Ben and Courtney continue their end-of-season show by looking at the various, disparate newsmakings of retired WTA stars Margaret Court (what should Tennis Australia do?) and Kim Clijsters (what should we expect of her comeback?). Also discussed are the careers of the departing Dominika Cibulkova and Tomas Berdych, Courtney's handshake with Andy Murray, Hawkeye replacing line judges, and the first...

After far too long apart, Ben and Courtney reunited to record a sprawling conversation as the tennis season nears its end, and here's the first half. We start with Stefanos Tsitsipas triumphing at the ATP Finals in London, which sure offered evidence of a changing of a guard if we're ever ready to be ready to accept that. What makes Tsitsipas so unique? And is Thiem now a threat everywhere? We als...

In an annual NCR tradition, Ben is joined in DC by marathoner Ricky Dimon for a lookback at the ATP season that was.  2019 offered a lot of the same in terms of Big 3 dominance--will the one who finishes with the most Slams automatically win G.O.A.T. debates? Though in 2019 there were also meaningful breakthroughs...right? And will Andy Murray be able to contend again soon? We also look at the ove...