The Body Serve

We're halfway through Roland Garros -- most of the favorites are still around plus a few clay sensations on the bottom halves of both the men's and women's draws. We're talking Sloane, Svitolina, Muchova, Iga, Carlos, Jannik, Meddy and more. We were reminded that politics and sport are, in fact, intertwined and inextricable with Djokovic's commentary on Kosovo and Sabalenka's response to questions...

Roland Garros will begin without Rafael Nadal in the draw, for the first time since 2004. In his stead, Alcaraz and Djokovic are favorites, but Medvedev’s Rome win and Rune’s consistency might complicate things. On the women’s side, the fabled “new big 3” have kept up their sides of the bargain through the clay season and it’s made for a fairly balanced draw. Iga remains the favorite but Rybakina,...

Another clay Masters, another disastrous finale. They couldn’t help the rain, but between the weird scheduling and the fumbled women’s singles trophy presentation, Rome left a bad taste in our mouths after this expanded clay experiment. Rybakina and Medvedev prevailed: Rybakina recording her third straight win over Iga Swiatek and Medvedev shakes up Roland Garros predictions with his first clay ti...

Episode 301 takes us crashing back to Earth in the wake of genuine concerns over the Madrid Open’s treatment of women players. The overlong, overcooked tournament ended in a flurry of bad press, which started with some symbolically loaded cakes and ended with a tournament terrified of letting women speak at all. Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz continue fine seasons, each winning their second ti...

Episode 300 of The Body Serve is our meditation on the career of Serena Williams - an episode we’d put off, partly out of denial and partly because we wanted so badly to do it justice. In 1999, just before beating Steffi Graf at Indian Wells, Serena said: “I’m tired of losing to people I should beat. Whatever my potential is, I want to reach it. Now.” She did just that for over two decades, amassi...

Episode 299 (almost there!) brings us to Andrey Rublev's first Masters title with his win over young menace Holger Rune. Medvedev & Zverev fire a few shots at each other, culminating in Daniil's clear 'we are not friends and keep my wife's name out of your mouth' moment. We talk about the WTA's decision to suspend their boycott and return to China, despite the Chinese government failing to meet th...

Rain across the Southern US nearly derailed a few tennis tournaments this weekend, but Ons Jabeur and Frances Tiafoe held on to win Charleston and Houston, respectively. We chat about the early clay season, Naomi's post-baby goals, and some updates on Wimbledon, Carlos, and Iga. For a good chunk of the episode, we take on Martina Navratilova's escalating takes on trans athletes, and more broadly,...

Our Miami champs – Kvitova and Medvedev – underscore how tough it is to win the Sunshine Double. Petra Kvitova completes one of her most unexpected tournament runs by winning her 30th WTA title and ninth at the 1000 level. On the men’s side, Daniil Medvedev caps an astonishing run of tournaments with title #4, and Alcaraz and Sinner’s electrifying semifinal gets widespread attention. We've also go...

We’re coming to you mid-Sunshine Double, which at this point is more like Sunshine Month? Sunshine Quarter? Anyway, pack your SPF. We’re seeing storylines emerge for the year: is there a WTA Big 3 emerging? Who else will join that top tier? Is Carlos poised to dominate? Will the racquet talk? Beyond the tennis being played, we’re covering two continuing stories: the attempts by the WTA to protect...

It’s a little bit of everything this week -- first, some thoughts on the first week of Indian Wells, whose courts are slower than Daniil Medvedev’s bathroom breaks (his words). We chat about Murray, Medvedev, Raducanu, Muchová, and the undeniable Ben Shelton. In business news, we talk about the WTA’s official partnership with CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm that has just promised a $15...

It’s been a rough week in the Body Serve household, as we said goodbye to our beautiful 16-year-old beagle Vince. He’s felt like a third co-host over the years, a presence who was always just off-mic (and sometimes on it when he snored). In tennis, Barbora Krejcikova did the thing – taking out #1-2-3, saving match points, serving and getting served bagels, and pummeling Iga’s second serve to win D...

February in tennis: four continents, three Iga bagels, two male US Open champs winning titles, and one white woman wearing racially inappropriate hairstyles. This month is nothing if not eclectic. We also chat about Hsieh dropping in then dropping out of Dubai, what the hell is going with Schwartzman and Muguruza, and the breakout star who will change tennis in his country forever.     0:45 Iga ge...

Post-Australian Open tennis continues around the world, but this week we’re mostly talking about the seeming conclusions of the ATP’s two highest profile domestic violence cases (but not their only cases, btw). The ATP quietly dropped a new release shortly after the AO that the Zverev investigation had concluded and that the results were, well, inconclusive. Days later, Nick Kyrgios pled guilty to...

On the 14th day since the Australian Open started, we rested while Novak wept. The victimhood tour is complete, Jonathan is annoyed, and we pay it as much (or as little) attention as we can muster. Meanwhile, Aryna Sabalenka did THAT. Wow, what a moment. From her grit, skill, and determination on court, to her goofy glamour the following day, we put some respect on that incredible women's final! O...

Welcome to the third installment of our Australian Open series! We're at the quarterfinals, and the men's draw is giving chaos while the women's seems kind of … correct? We talk about Djokovic's mini-battle with the press and overall less than sunny mood, the state of safeguarding against abuse on the WTA, and another induction into our Hall of Fame. Finally, we offer our review of episodes 4 & 5...

Hey there, just popping in to offer some thoughts on the first few days of the 2023 Australian Open and the first three episodes of Netflix’s tennis docuseries Break Point! We talk about a few standouts from a pretty rocky and wet week one (don’t be offended if we missed your fave, it’s not comprehensive); we discuss the Netflix Curse chatter that seems to be dooming 8 of the 10 featured players;...

The first Slam of the year doesn't give us many weeks of tennis to form opinions, but it's delivered on story lines, with one taking the cake: Naomi Osaka -- having already withdrawn from the Australian Open -- announced she's pregnant and will miss the 2023 season. This barely a week after defending champ Ash Barty announced her own pregnancy. Tournament director Craig Tiley is up to his usual hi...

Welcome to The Body Serve 9! We're recovering from our first-ever bout with COVID but tennis never stops and the show must go on. We offer some things to look out for in 2023 -- a true rival to Iga? A few more Big 4 retirements? -- and share some of our (and your) hopes and dreams for the upcoming season. We also catch up with the tennis news cycle, including the latest Camila Giorgi controversy,...

To cap off our 8th season and tide you over until 2023, we’re bringing you the rare TBS culture episode. No tennis talk whatsoever -- we even had a few tennis-related items on the agenda which we deleted. We’ve got: an hour of TV talk including spoilers for The White Lotus and a few lightning-round rants; thoughts on “queerbaiting” and Kit Connor’s forced coming-out; Mariah Christmas concert revie...

It’s time to wrap up the 2022 ATP season, and we’re treating the guys with a healthy (and earned!) dose of suspicion, starting with a rundown of the most badly behaved children of the year. But it’s not all bad - we also cover Rafa’s personal-best start to the season, Carlos’ rise, Novak’s disappearing and reappearing acts, Felix fixing his finals bugaboo, Holger’s Paris breakdown and later his Pa...

The 2022 WTA season had everything: a 37-match win streak, the retirements of the current #1 (abrupt) and the GOAT (expected), a Wimbledon with no ranking points, and a major drug suspension. Iga Swiatek’s dominance didn’t leave much room for her competitors, but other highlights included Ons Jabeur’s steady rise to world #2 and two Slam runner-up finishes, Caroline Garcia’s singles renaissance an...

The WTA regular season comes to a close with comeback kid Caroline Garcia grabbing her biggest career title, dispatching Iga-vanquisher Aryna Sabalenka in a boom-boom final. We discuss the last-minute nature of the event and the tough financial and ethical positions the WTA continues to occupy in light of the China situation. On the men’s side, Holger Rune caps a momentous autumn swing that brings...

Canadian King Félix Auger-Aliassime. As Rihanna said, let’s start there. Félix has turned around his final-round performances to the tune of three straight titles, beating world #1 Alcaraz twice in the past few weeks. Elsewhere, in Texaaaas, the world’s best women have a blast dressing up but will soon look to take on the dominant force of Iga Swiatek at the WTA Finals. We’re also covering Rune’s...

Just when we thought we could go away for a spell without anything crazy happening, the ghost of an ugly hotel carpet threw things into disarray with Simona Halep testing positive for a banned substance. We begin the episode by wading through these doping waters, before catching up on the 7,000 tournaments since we last dropped an episode. Just take a look at the timestamps for the remainder of th...

This is a hodgepodge episode, catching up with the recent tournament results across four continents, including Tunisia’s first WTA event, Djokovic’s clearing of the Next and CurrentGen, and Tiafoe’s continuing run of good form. We spend a good amount of time on Ostrava - the destined-to-be-a-classic final, Iga’s status as an activist #1, and Krejcikova’s return as a top singles player. All that pl...