Tennis Insights: Rybakina's Triumph at AO

0:00 Hello, Short Dusters. Thanks so much for joining us again. We're thrilled to have you with us, both of you. And this is Katie of On Location this week from Spain and I'm with. BTN Hello everyone, great to be with you again after a very busy week down under. Absolutely, and happy February. Thank you so much for all your comments that you're putting on the website and thank you for your likes and shares and subscribes. Keep on coming. We're thrilled to have have you with us at the end of this very exciting week. So DTM. Where better to start than yesterday's women's final that we got up for on our rocky ferry?

0:42 Yes. We have really pulled the plugs out this week. We're on a ferry from Portsmouth to Santander for I feel like we were there for three weeks. Ferry Force 10 gales. But the highlight was the tennis. It was. They managed to get TNT Sports on the TV's in the lounge, so we were able to persuade them with the help of the remote to find the right channel. We were the only two, weren't we at 8:30? But by 9:30 how many were? Watching well, then I spent about 15, I think by the end of it and you'd have to switch TV's at one point because it was health and safety that you had to actually tell everybody that there was a force 10 Gale on 2 of of the screens.

1:26 So we were moved to another screen. But but hey ho, you're not here for the storms, you're here for the tennis. And you're quite pleased, aren't you? Because Elena Ribakana not just proved to herself and all her team that she was back right at the top of the game-winning her second slam in her career, but you picked her. Well, yes, she's in our fantasy tennis, in my fantasy tennis league. So I am now I think joint top with a another pal who I'm sure is this thing. Hello Lise. After one event, 3 events to go, three more grand slams to go. But yes, that's very impressive and I think DTM has to take a pat on the back. As well.

2:06 Go on then, what for? Well, in the previous episodes I highlighted all the ingredients and the key factors that were going to contribute to the most likely winner. And I did pick Rebecca to make it through from the bottom half. And Sabalenka being most people's pick, made it to the final as well. But starting with their big serves, those two really got to the final pretty unscathed and so it was really a shoot off. A bit like the gunfight at the OK Corral on BBC Two for those of you that used to watch black and white movies. We're not as old as you, not everyone. OK, but yes, it was very much a firepower from the off and the final 644664 Rebecca now took the glory but quite a lot to unpick.

2:53 She did take the glory and she was great and I loved the way she was so calm because we're doing fairy talk today. She was the mill pond of calmness whilst Sabalenka was the force 10 Gale of ups and downs and you could tell us how she was feeling every second whereas you really couldn't read. Very professional. Very, very. Yes, it's interesting. Having heard a lot of pundits and a lot of people talk about the final, I was trying to see if they kind of picked out the things I noticed and they did in part these. These are the sort of summary takeaways for me. The mentality of the two players you've just mentioned Rebecca's calmness a bit, almost ball like, and I feel Sabalenka in those big matches likes a real fight.

3:43 She likes another personality to take on. She likes to increase her grunt. If the opponent's grunt gets loud, she likes to shout, come on and get in the opponent's face. If they're shouting, come on. If they start hitting the ball hard, she hits it harder. And I felt that she was just getting nothing back from Rebecca and she was a little bit kind of lost, especially in that final set as her lead started to dwindle. She was looking at her team. She couldn't really get that kind of mud fight with the opponent. Like in in the semi finals when the umpire called hindrance, she actually thanked her afterwards in the post match interview, didn't she? She said. You know, I was so cross about that that it fired me up to win and there wasn't any shenanigans coming from the other side of the court. And So what it left, I think was her own head. Sometimes people talk about the chimp, the voice in your own head.

4:36 I think she was just left with that voice constantly talking to her and she couldn't escape it. And the reality was that I think one of her team even had the word mentality written on their face as a sort of aid memoir that Sablanca just to say keep your mind on the job. I don't think she had a problem with her tennis. It was it was made much too much of her mind on the job and she was overthinking and thinking 10 to to a dozen about why this match wasn't sort of going her way by the end. Now for me Sabalinka has always had a chequered history of conversion rate so been in a lot of finals and even more semi finals.

5:19 Always there in the grand slams near the end. But her actual winning percentage rate is very low. Last year she won 25% of her tournament. She entered 4 out of 16. That's across all the tournaments that she played. Which for number one in the world is quite low. Yes, and in terms of Grand Slam finals, she's now 4 from 8, 50%. Not too bad. But in the finals she's lost. She's been in winning positions and she herself has admitted that on at least two occasions. She's throwing the final away, and you could add yesterday to it. So it wouldn't be too harsh to say she might have won seven out of the 8 finals.

6:01 But when you really look at it, she didn't play a bad match, she just didn't really get a grip when it really mattered. Towards the end of that third set, she seemed to just disintegrate. Not visibly in terms of anyone particular moment, but just a series of points that just went for back in his way. And from three lover, it was 5 Three in the blink of an eye, plus Savalenkis, which gave her the not 2. A lot of a lot of women don't relish the idea of serving for the match. A lot of the time they struggle with that. But back in the stood up there and played a really good game.

6:41 Could see it in her eyes, you could see she was loving it. Closed out that game with two cracking ground stroke winners from love. 15 to go 3015 up and although Sabalenka made her play every ball and got back to 30 all, she stepped up and hit almost 2 aces. Certainly the first one was unreturnable and and she won it with an ace. Brilliant. I will give Sabalenka the Queen of style crown, though. I did sit there and, you know, just add a little bit of fluff. I I did sit there during the final and think, are the people at your necks looking at each other thinking, what on earth did we put her in? Because there was Sabalenka. I mean her outfit, she looked great. She you know, she was very stylish and very, you know, she looked like she chose what she was wearing, whereas little Rebecca and a blesser, she looked like she was in sort of peasants weeds.

7:32 She had Yonex head to toe, racket included, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't know, the Yonics people must have thought, did we not realise this was going to be a really big thing? We could have put her in something that other people might want to wear. I can't imagine anybody looking at what was wearing and thinking, oh, I know what, I'm going to go out and get that. It's amazing because I cannot think of another professional tennis player, male or female, that wears Yonics clothing. If you said badminton, lots of players wear Yonics, but in tennis terms, they all use the rackets. Many, many players use Onyx as a racket, especially after the technology changes. About a year ago when Madison Keys came on the scene with the new Onyx racket and then won the Australian Open a year on the numbers that are using Onyx racket, especially in the women's game, it's it's significant. But she's the only one with actually footwear and clothing. I've seen somebody else wearing the footwear because it's got a signature on it, isn't it?

8:30 And it hers has obviously got her own signature on it. I think I've seen somebody else wearing the shoes with the signature, which I didn't think was particularly cool, but hey, who am I to know? But I did think the slightly weak old nighty look was really not the look that you should be going into the women's finals wearing, I suspect. I really hope that the Onyx people have quickly got their sewing machines out and designed something a little bit more cool for her next outfit. It's not. Not such a small in stature. I was going to mention the fact that Elena Robakana is the 4th tallest player on tour at 1 metre 84 and Savalenka is only two centimetres behind the 5th tallest professional on on the circuit at 1 metre 82.

9:14 And I think their serves are the weapons which really set the standard for others to try and emulate. And having the height is a big advantage. Really. These these were the couple of takeaways, which in addition to what I've said about Savolenko's mentality, when you're watching the top women of that height serving really well, the reason they get their first serves in Rebecca served was was 55% successful yesterday. But a lot of the time when she was missing her first, it was because her ball toss was slightly lower than it needed to be. The tension through the arm, a release of the ball left that ball slightly is shorter in terms of optimum height. And when the racket is at full extension and the ball toss is going up and just reached that point where the ball hovers is not going up or coming down yet.

10:07 If you get that in the right place, but the optimum height for the racket to almost like a smash, isn't it a point of impact smashed through, then the serve tends to be successful. And towards the end, like willing her coach to get your ball toss up, keep delivering that ball toss in the right place. And that made a big difference on occasion between the sort of end and the first part of the third set. The end of the second set, Sablenka was getting on top and especially on the second surge, you saw Rebecca hitting lots of kicks, second serves and Sablenka was taking the double handed background and hitting team winners down, down the line. Rebecca needed to improve her first serve percentage towards the end of the match and she did.

10:49 And it was all down to the ball toss. In terms of Sablenka's takeaway, I would really encourage her to use the forecourt. She used to play double S. We're going to talk Double S shortly. She's played Double S very successfully, a Grand Slam winner at Double S back in 2019. She dropped the Double S, but she can play it at the net and I think she needs to use the forecourt. When she brought Rebecca in with short balls, Rebecca hated being at the net. Great rally there wasn't. I think I can remember one. It was a great fast rally which of course she won. Yeah, rat attack that two or three volleys in a row and then Sabalenka hit the final volley, pass Rebecca.

11:29 But two or three times she would play like a short shot, not quite a drop shot, but just a slight short shot. Rebecca had no option but to come in and she really wasn't comfortable. So for me, Sabalenka can win and can get on top of Rebecca because for a lot of the gain she was slightly ahead, but she didn't really have a clear, clear head, certainly in that third set, and she lost her way. And well done, Elena Rodbachner, well done. And we're going to move on and talk about the women's double S. Yes, we have to mention we mentioned Elisa Mertens a few times, one of our friends on the tour. We've sat and watched her a few times at Wimbledon and in Shenzhen, I think we said last week.

12:11 Yes, absolutely. We follow her with we're always with Glee and she is number one in the world for women's double. S and has just got back to that position, having won the Australian Open Women's double S with another friend of ours, former Chinese #1 singles player Huai Jiang. Yes, and they just looked like they were getting on so well. The chemistry on court was amazing. And it was, it was obvious. Everybody was mentioning how they just gelled so well, they'd play so well together. Yes, and they've rejoined. They've formed their Double S team again. They used to play together a few years ago very successfully, but then when when they're separate ways, which does happen with Double S team, they freshen up the changes as good as the rest. It's not always because they fall out. It's just simply a new dynamic.

13:02 A lot of the players will end one season, have a conflab with the partner, agreed to go their separate ways, try out a different partnership. Katarina Sinyakova, Czechoslovakian, another top doubles player at the moment, used to play with Barbour, Kraitchikova, Wimbledon and French Open champion. They were the number one doubles team for a number of years and they went part of their ways. And Katrina Sumiakova now plays with the American Taylor Townsend. They're really the other top doubles team in the women's game alongside Mertens and Jang. But they weren't so successful in Australia this last week. And I just wanted to mention a shout out to Olivia Nichols, who's the the highest ranked British female double S player.

13:48 She's currently ranked #26 in the world. And we were talking about earnings a little bit. So Katie, let's talk about the prize money. You've dropped singles, you're prioritising the double S, You're playing with Elise Mertens. How much are you going to win having prioritised the double S? Well, now we have talked about this before and from memory I think it was around 10% of the earnings if I was paying singles. Yeah, you're not far out the exact percentage people can work out out there, but it's between 10 and 15%, so roughly to the nearest million. The singles champion is getting close to 3,000,000 dollars, £3,000,000 at Wimbledon. I think it was 2.8 take $1,000,000 at the Australian Open.

14:37 As a doubles team you have to share the prize money so I'm assuming you would share it. 5050 Katie Unless your backhand slice drop shot made the difference. I would have negotiated that pretty hard first before we started, but yes, I would have gone 55th. So Elisa Mehrtens and Swijan won just over $600,000 a pair, so they would split that. So approximately 300,000 each for winning a Grand Slam Double S title. And that's, if you think about it on that's on top of your singles money, which you've won and all of the costs are the same. So adding adding the double S is is really quite profitable I suppose.

15:17 Yes, and there's been a lot of singles players. Maybe not the very top of the game, but certainly players like Mira and Drava just played a lot of double S in recent years. Going back, Coco Goth, Jessica Pegula used to be a formidable pair. More and more, some of the top players are now abandoning the Double S just to they as fit and healthy for the seven singles matches that they hope to play. To win the singles at a Grand Slam Double S, it's worth keeping an eye on Olivia Nichols, 31 now and she is was unlucky a little bit. Seeded 12 at the Australian Open that came up against a strong pair, Storm Hunter was one of the opponents that beat her and her Slovakian partner, the Halikova. That might not be quite right, but it's MIHALIKOVA. But Theresa and Olivia were seeded 12 that they lost in the second round.

16:16 And I checked on her lifetime earnings and she, having got a degree in sports science at Loughborough, went has been a professional double S bless since 2017 and she earned coming up to $1,000,000 in nine years. So that shows you the contrast with all that travel. There's not a lot of loose chains there, is there after. Costs, no. I'd say that you'd need to paper round as well. But moving on, we're going to cover a little bit, well, wrap up the AO with takeaways from the AO 26. So what do we think of the third weeks this bill picking up, starting with this first week, which normally traditionally is just being qualifiers for the singles event, but now we've got this third week with a lot more razzmatazz and obviously the one the third. Going in the the beginning, yes.

17:07 So slightly back to. 312 if you like. Yeah, well, everybody loved it, didn't they? OK it it really came off really well. The the one point slam was great and it then encouraged people to be more interested in the qualifying rounds. And then we had the the walk ONS, the press conferences, the interviews on the court interviews behind the scenes. We have the drama of the cameras behind the scenes and Coco Goff smashing her racket. All the stuff off court stuff, players she'll read, how important their social media, their followers with talking. We're thinking of Naomi Osaka's in about the Coco Goff I've just mentioned and even talk about Serena Williams coming back to see managed to get her name mentioned even for Rebecca this final.

17:52 So what do what do we think there, Katie? I think. Probably I feel for the women and the men with the intrusion of the cameras being everywhere. Think, you know, I know Kokakov slightly blamed, you know, she had, she she'd lost and then she sort of had a bit of a blow up about the cameras, but I feel for them. Apparently underneath AO there's a Warren of alleyways and and walkways for the players to walk around. So unlike at Wimbledon where you can see the players walking around, especially on the outside courts, they have to, They've got this sort of tunnel system there, but there are cameras everywhere. And I'm not sure what the benefit of that is for the players and for their mental health. They need to feel that they do have some time when they're not being watched.

18:42 So I have sympathy with them for saying can we just have a little privacy sometimes? I agree with that. I think some of the players have a big PR team that's working on their behalf. I think the proper time to discuss how those cameras work and where the balance is drawn between players, privacy and exposure, for fans to see all aspects of their professional sort of wares and how they get, how they get to call what they're doing behind the scenes, their training. I think having that relationship with the fans is important. I think for me, Kofukov had a very disappointing loss and then this story came out. I think then eager Swan tech chips in and for me the players like to have control over the narrative and sometimes it would be nice that the fans and the people who are supporting the sport get thought of maybe as well.

19:37 So finally, that balance is important. Yes, but I think it is about control of it, isn't it? Because they're all putting things all over their Insta, but they're not putting bracket smashing and, and negative things. They're putting positive things. Whatever we think of them bringing their jewellery range into their tennis or whatever else they do, but they aren't putting that. That's quite negative. It's quite intrusive. And I think it's the Australian Open sort of saying, well, you've overstepped by giving us so much of your background through your own Instagram. Then we just feel like it. We can make hay and and set down not sell but you know, promote these type of clips. For our own social media reach and it just didn't seem very supportive of the players. OK, good.

20:23 And I think we just have to mention the hindrance call which came up in the semi final. The hindrance was called out on Sabalenka, so she lost the point because if the umpire feels that you do something, whether it's verbal or physical, that then affects your opponent's ability to play a shot, then the point can be awarded to the opponent because the umpire, in their opinion, it's a hindrance call. So in the example of Sabalenka, she hit a ball, she claims it was a mish hit. So her normal grunt was then followed by an extended sort of additional sound as it's like an embarrassment screeching sound was like, oh crikey, that ball's gone offline.

21:06 That she's that this was ball was clearly going to go out, is what the umpire thought. Yes and the ball spun back into court rather than looking like it was going long and so at that point the umpire intervenes thinking that her sound had gone on for far too long and therefore puts Vitalina off. Whether you agree or don't agree with Sabalenka, all the all the umpires opinion, they obviously had to agree to disagree. The umpires decision has to be final. Absolutely. And so it should be. And the only sadness was that it seemed to be that. I'm not sure if it's a sadness, but it just seemed that it actually spurred her on because she likes a bit of argy bargy.

21:47 But what was interesting is, Sabalenka said, Can you watch it again? Can you review it? Because in my opinion, you're wrong. And I think rightly, regardless of behind the scenes what the referee and other officials thought, you really have to stick with the umpire there. Otherwise, she wrote, you kind of weren't. Well, exactly. That was like the Felix shot with Jack Draper, where the umpire clearly called it wrong and feel it kept on saying go on. Just have a look at it before. But anyway, we're not talking about men's tennis. We're talking about women's tennis, yes. But I I think not a lot to take away from the Australian Open and I look forward to the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open incorporating some of the successful features that we've enjoyed the last three weeks. And now the players move on Australia, the Australian swing has come to an end and do you know where they're heading off to now?

22:37 The players. Well, they're all on the way. Well, they've arrived in the Middle East, haven't they? Exactly, all the players that lost in the first week, a lot of them headed out to the Middle East, where the Middle East swing takes place. And all the players that did really well at the Australian Open, they're putting their feet up. Because as you were talking to me today about this in the drive and it's to do with the WTA contract, the women players to play a certain number of 1000 point tournaments, Is that right? They have to play the biggest event, so the four grand slams and then they have to play the 10.

23:19 I think it's 10, it might be 12 WTA 1000 events and then they have to play and they can pick and choose. It's a bit like pick and mix. They have to pick out. I think it's six WTA 500 events. So the very top layers don't need to go near the WTA 250 events. For example, there's one in Romania happening this week where Radhikani is the number one seed, while the Rebecca News of This World don't need to worry about that level. They're not obliged to play that. They kind of if they want that their schedule has to be 20 events unless they either pull a fast one or a genuinely I'll injured withdrawal for for a recognised reason.

24:02 And the main reason to get there quickly, the main reason to be in the Middle East now easily and without stress, is that you've lost early at the AO, so you've got time to get there. Yes, so the biggest event this week is a WTA 500 event and that's the Abu Abu open and Rebecca was on the entry list and Oka was on the entry list now pulled out because. Because they did so well at the AO. Yes. They don't need the. Points and there's been some late withdrawals because players are either injured or just not feeling it and they may make up a genuine issue or they may make up something which is sort of a bit tenuous. And I'm sure sometimes players state a reason for not playing that they wouldn't throw a Grand Slam because they want to play the Grand Slam.

24:52 And there are there are contributory factors. So sometimes the timing of withdrawal means you get your prize money and if you leave it too late, you only get half your prize. So there are other factors that feed into the timing of a decision. But this week, Belinda Bench is the number one seed. She's defending the title in Abu Dhabi. And of course, she lost very early at the Australian Open to a qualifier. So she'll be nice and fresh. And Alexandra Ver and both these two players, Alexandra's number two seed in Abu Dhabi also, she lost in the first round at the Australian Open. Both these players are on the cusp. Or just bench it. I think it's #9 in the world going into this week, Alexander, kind of a #11. They're both trying to get into the top 10. Yeah, they're trying to get some points, although Benches is defending the 500 points she won last year. The player I would look at out for this week is Clara Towson. She's the number three seed over seeds in a small draw of 32. Players get a buy. 1000 is already in the last round of 16, so they only have to win four matches to win the Abu Dhabi Open as opposed to seven to win the Australian Open. So a big difference there for four good matches and Towson's got a big game, just lost to your player and Boko in the third round in Australia.

26:10 So probably a bit more form coming into this week than a lot of the others and. We do realise, dear listener, that it is pretty hardcore to be listening about the Abu Dhabi Open after the AO. But stick with it and you'll, you'll enjoy it and you know we and you'll know so much more about it by the time we get to the next exciting Grand Slam in France, in Paris. Yes, there's there's a few weeks in the Middle East. So following Abu Dhabi we are in Qatar and then Dubai and Qatar and Dubai are bigger events. They're the WTA 1000 events. So by the time we get to Dubai, some of those competing for the title, Abelenko, Rebecca and Andreva Iguswante, some of them will have gone out over there to play in the Middle East. But we've got basically February in the Middle East. Lovely and now we have our sport off game set and surge. Yeah, he's on the up.

27:07 Well, Elena Rebakana jumps back into the top three in the world after gaining those 2000 points for winning the Australian Open last year. She got to the fourth round this year. She won. So really a difference of about 17150 points difference she's gained on last year's she's swap places with Coco goth, Rebecca at #3 in the world and the other big mover inus Vitalina. After semi final run is back inside the top ten and is now, after quite a long time having given birth to a child, it got Gelmon feast. She's finally returned inside the top 10, having had a breakout Friday.

27:53 Isn't it very impressive? Very impressive. And game set and reset. We've already mentioned one of them. Yes, Coco Goth, watch this player. I'm worried for Coco now at #5 she won't get the top 4 seeding, which means that the big events, she'll meet one of the top four players guaranteed at the quarterfinal stage. That makes life a lot harder. She's got to win those three. In a row that I talked about, only two or three players had won three in a row against the top five or six players in the world. Coco Goff has now got that challenge guaranteed unless you can rise back up the rankings and to do that it's going to be very difficult for Coco Goff because she's a French Open champion. So the surface she's likely to do the best on the slower surfaces.

28:40 She's got all the points to defend so I expect her ranking might drop further. So she's got some pressure on her. Yes, and another All Americans that have got to reset. Sofia Kenny and Emma Navarro. Small in stature, players who've done very well in the past, but their rankings are falling. Emma Navarro is now at #17 and Sophia Kennon, Grand Slam champion, won the Australian Open in 2020, reached the French Open final. She's now at #27 and both those players are struggling to win. They haven't won more than one match in isolation at the start of this year and I think both those players are in fairly big trouble because their serves are very vulnerable.

29:25 So having been in the top ten, those two are falling, declining and they need to try and work out how they can maximise some wins against these bigger servers. Oh well, I'll cheer them on for a bit this week, see how it helps. Sadly, I think Sophia Kenyon has already lost Abu Dhabi as we speak. So yes, yeah, difficult road ahead. Finally, dear listener, we've got for you the the Player of the Week. Yes, that has to go to Elena Rebeccaner. We both highlighted her in different ways as being the most likely to take the title away from Marina Savolenko and that's exactly what happened. I was delighted for her because she for me is evolving the game the last 12 months. The likes of Amanda and the Samova and Elena Rebecca along with Arena Savolenko for me are a bit like how Boris Becker changed the men's game back in the 80s with his it's the women's, the top of the women's game and now playing a different style of tennis to the rest.

30:29 And it's for me, it's almost a bit like the tech. I get very dated with tech even though I think I know how to work that the computer, but you get very dated. You think you're right in amongst it, but things are evolving around you and I'm going to be fascinated to see if more and more players really work on the serve, are much more aggressive with the second serve, and look to basically copy and incorporate more of the what I'm going to refer to as the top table, the top table of women's tennis into their own game in an attempt to break in. The Top Table People is a blog which DTM wrote for the website this week, which you may well want to have a look at if you're really interested in the sort of who would you invite to your tennis dinner party?

31:21 Really, I would have all sorts of people, you know, Henry the eighth, various other one day. We'll do all talk about that one day. But yes, Dan was talking about his tennis top table for women's tennis and that's on the website. Yes, if you had four seats at the table, who would have a guaranteed seat? And I wrote this blog last Wednesday, I think at the quarterfinal stage, and I said in my blog, which is on. Just stop. Yes, on our website shortburstmedia.co dot uki talked about Arena Sabalenka having a guaranteed seat at the moment. I talked about Elena Rabatina having a guaranteed seat and the reasons for those two are all based on statistics and tennis reasons which is highlighted in the blog.

32:10 So the likes of Eager Swan Tech, people screaming out and saying that she's a Wimbledon champion. Read my blog and you'll see why she doesn't get a seat ahead of those 4. Well, or comment and say why you think that they do get the secret. But it's a it's a good game. If you're on a long journey like we are currently in the car or on the train and you like your tennis, who would you sit at your top table? Your best four players on current form, not past glory. Current form. Love to hear from you. So that brings us to the end of this week. We look forward to finding out who's going to conquer the Middle East. Thank you very much for coming on our ferry ride with us.

32:51 Next week we will be in our destination in Spain, probably with some excitement from the Spanish aircraft fans. Anyway, it's goodbye from me. Goodbye from me. Thanks so much for coming along on our ride.