Mount Rushmore of Wimbledon

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Well, if you thought you knew Wimbleing like we did, you are going to be amazed when you hear how this tournament used to be nothing like it looks like today We're going tell you the entire story right now on Dinnesic You know, Wimbledon is a dynasty It's not a team It's not a player, it's not an owner s not a strategy, but it is the tournament itself. and the argument that we're essentially making to you guys, the audience out there, which Jay and I believe here is It's not quite true to say Wimbledon invented every version of tennis People had been hitting balls over things for centuries but Wimbledon gave modern tennis its shape It's actual size of the court, the mythology, the dress code, the rituals, the stage, its identity tennis exists without Wimbbleton, I don't know what it is. it's just a different sport. It frrankly, Jay, it might just be squash And it's not so much that Wimbledon is tennis exclusively, but to so many people, tennis is Wimbledon Growing up in the Czech Republic, Martina Nbatoloba, who willll be talking about a lot later on The only tennis that was available for her to watch in her home country wasas Wimbbleled did In in the nineteen eighty movie, Bon Boy As Charlie Brown and no'll come backack Snoopy and Woodstock. go to London. What do they do? They they play tennis at Wibbledon. I don't know how Snoopy got court time there, but you know, he had it like that. but That's what you do. If you go to womom, you think of London he was wearing his all white J. That did help right You know Yeah was not conforming though. He was still in the yellow. But U it's funny though, spepeaking of woodstock, like a lot to a lot of people tennis became you know, Wimbledon is like Woodstock, right in terms of the festival, the celebration of this art form. Look I have it in my own household. My wife said one of her bucket list events of those great sporting events, the one it's at the top of her list. She's not a huge tennis fan It's to go to Wimbbleledon. You know, what's interesting is that we'll talk about this too. W will then it really is Pace Right I mean, the for is an actual place of the tournament right is the championships at the All England laawn tenennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon. It's it's Wimbledon. for better or for worse. and that's what's become what's interesting to me too, is that you think of all the great sporting events, They have the article. They have a the it's it's the World Cup, the Olympics, the Super Bowl Wimbledon is just Wimbled in that the Wimbledon would sound strange And it is one word One word. and you know exactly what you're talking about You know what sports you're talking about You know what? and immediately it evokes a lot of things. If you're an American, it evokes breakfast at Wimbledon, the most unique Americanization of a European event that you can come up with. I mean The ultimate and and yet one could argue the great it was one of the greatest reinventions in Wimbled in history Yeah and, you know, the television and just the culmination. I think one of the things we'll be talking about is just the timing how everything came together to really make Wimbledon It was especially for us, Gen Xers Chuck Yeah, we really came of age I think at the peak time of Wimbled it. Well, think about it, you know, you and I are in our mid fifties. The very first time that Wimbledon was televised live, a Wimbledon final was televised live in the United States was nineteen seventy nine. I was seven and I remember it distinctly because my parents woke me up to make sure I W breakfast at Wimbledon because it, you know, with in the three TV channel era, it was a thing that year. Do you have that memory? I don't remember the first one. It's funny because to me Wimbledon just as I started getting into sports And Wimbledon had ariide breakfast and Wimbledon was a thing, but it just It was a thing and and then I'm very quickly had the desire to go. I never wanted to be a full time tennis writer But I knew I wanted to get into being a sports writer or a sports columnist And I did have Wimbledon on my bucket list. I can't think of anyone involved in sports in any way, fan, journalist, whatever who doesn't have Wimbledon on their bucket list. And I was fortunate enough to get to cover it twice in nineteen ninety five and in two thousand And in the American sports calendar, look, I you know, this is one of those, you know, what ifs, but If Wimbleon's not in July, is it as important to Americans? You know, it happens to fill kind of an empty space on the sports calendar, although as you and I were discussing the other day The July calendar has gotten the month of July has gotten better for the sports world over the years. If you're NBA free agency fanatic or you love the the British open. but For the most part What really helped Wimbledon's success here in the United States was, you know No other major sport was really out even even baseball would be in itss all starbreak during right the for night of Wimbledon. Not a whole lot of competition and you mentioned Fortnite and that to me, that's part of the power of Wimbledon. it affected the Lexicon. Right? We feel like we only use Fortnite in conjunction with Boomu. The same as we only use score when we're referencing the Gettysburg contress. right? Fortnite for those not familiar means a two week stretch. just's like score means a twenty year period So Yeah, it helps affect the lingo, the way we use terminology How many people think of love There's a rap lyric, much love like Wimbledon, right? Like love is in the score, right Yeah Do you if you really want to know, by the way, the origin story of love is is f it's it's from the French word for egg And it was originally like Zero aloof, Right? Goose egg. And it just sort of got Americanized. Yeah Among the sort of fun facts that as as you guys know and hopefully you've been following us on Dymnastic, JA and I love to impress each other with the weird facts that we come up with during our research. and he's one of my favorites. trivial matters. I Underscore the word go eggs though bagel Now we talk about, you know Six love, they got bagels, but I didn't know that originally it was it was an egg. Well, and I could argue goose eggs, right? All those, you know, same, same type of thing. it's a zero. And what I love originally is that it was supposed to be fifteen thirty forty five like a clock that that's where the scoring came from. and eventually the forty five instead of forty five it just got shorten to forty And that is hows off the d forer a little bit easier. But originally the whole idea of fifteen thirty forty five it was following the face of the clock. So these are just the I'll call them fun facts. you can call them dumb facts that we think make this a lot of fun I've learned a lot already, sry That's one there he got me Well, let's go. All right. We're going to start It's nine hundred and fifteen on a Sunday night in two thousand eight The end of the Fortnight of Wimbledon in two thousand eight London. mostost famous tennis court in the world is running out of light There's no roof yet This would be the last match without a roof on center Court. There's no artificial bubble protecting from the potential rain delays that can always make Wimbledon a little more unique and interesting. There's no final set tiebreaker at this point waiting to rescue everyone from what are the ancient absurdity of Wimbledon rules to end a match Just two men dressed in white standing on chewed up grass Almost five hours of tennis and more than seven hours of real time because Wimbledon has spent the whole day being Wimbledon Rin to land restestart. Rain delay restestart And now the sun is almost gone Roger Fetter is on one side of the net He's won Wimbled in five straight years Center Ct is his personal front lawn He's elegant, he's calm, he's nearly perfect, or at least that's the mythology of Fetter. Rapfael Rafa Nadal is on the other side. He's twenty two. he He's left handed. he' sleeveless. he's relentless. He's Baten Federer that year in Paris. This is not Paris. This is Wimbledon Paris was Nadal's kingdom Wimledon was Federer's Kingdom. And before they walked out, they passed a photograph of Borg and Mcnroe From nineteen eighty, the match every Wimbledon final had been measured against for nearly three decades And these two men went out and replaced it. So this is the thing that that people often miss. you know, Wimled has this country club image, the sport of tennis is really in its entirety literally a country club sport. but if Wimbled then you think of the rooyal box and the strawberries and cream and The private members cllub, all that compometition itself is really primive There's no teammates, there's no huddles, there's no clock cooach coming out to draw up a play, right for so long and tennis coaching was forbidden during the match There's no corner man Like in boxing, C me Mick. No one can save you So it's one human trying to break another human being in silence while thousands of people watch I know, it's this elite thing and yet in some ways, it's the closest thing we have to gladiators that go back. in two thousand eight, Wimbledon itself was being tested How long could this old tournament hold on to its old ways until it got in the way? How much drama can grass rain Silence and darkness produce What happens when the most traditional bound tournament in sports gives us a match that modern Wimbledon will never again allow to happen this way becausecause by the fifth set Oicials are making contingency plans light If the light goes completely out, the championship would have to continue on Monday and We're in the fifth set It is at this point, I believe it's seven six. no, excuse me. it is eight, seven With Nidala ahead, plans are quietly being made to prepare to suspend the match if Federer wins the next point Imagine that. The whim of the men's final, the fining match of a generation split across two days because the tournament still belongs to the weather But it doesn't happen. It all serves for the title, Federer fights, The court goes dark Television makes it look like The lights are still on, but if you were there at Center Court, you knew could not actually see everything as well as you should. There may only be a few minutes of light left Bet' forehand catches the net It all drops on his back and Wimledton gets its perfect ending. The old tournament in its old form. giving us one last masterpiece before the roof arrives the following year and changes yet another tradition undernderstand how we got to that night to Fedter the doal, the center court, the grass, the white clothes, the rain, the silence and mythology We have to go all the way back back. better for Morgan Macroe before it television before professional tennis tennis was even called tennis because the greatest tournament in the history of the sport began basically because a Croquet club needed money a broken lawn role I made a broken lawnmower. the greatest most tradition bound tournament starts because of a broken lalower. Look, before we get started, we want to remind you to please follow us on social media. Dyagnastic pod Follow, like and review us wherever you listen to your podcast or your YouTube or on our YouTube channel And from there Let's get rolling To get started, before we get into our long history ofumbleledon, let's open up the trophy case, JA Yeah, we'll see what's inside there. the The Venus Rosewater dish, that's the dish that the women hold up. I know that's in there the men's trope I don't recall the name of, but we've seen so many people hold it aloft They have a trophy. The women's have a plate. We'll let other people decide if what kind of gender Um Gender commentary they're saying, but We should remember, Wimmble then didn't have equal pay until two thousand seven, the last of the four major tournaments to have equal pay between men and women So United States and we'll talk about how the U S. really came to dominate and help define Wimbledon, but I The United States has by far the most Titles countounting for singles, doubles and mixed doubles. US is counting for eighty seven Championships at the Championships, Great Brins at seventy three, Australia Sout out to Rod Leor, their third at twenty seven Yeah It feels like Rob Laver might have half of those, right France and Germany also in double digits there at fifteen and thirteen and then you go Switchlland Although at this point, Uh I Obviously Borg and Fedr have been one man machines for their country. That's for sure And so the thirteen Wimbledon singles titles US has won since two thousand Only one of those was won by a man. It was Pete Sampras. and the women have accounted for The other doesn't Let's do a quick little you know, is this and and look, we're going to do this every once in a while interlude Um You have a good explanation of what's happened to men's tennis There's a lot of theories out there Don't I I think part of it is that you know, for, you know, the rise of the female athlete, right? So really two, maybe even three generations past Um, as's title nine And tennis was such an early Advocate in early place for woman, right? T T tennis had a head start a lot of other sports sports when it came to to female athletes. and so You know, I really think that came to fruition And it's been this extended run by women. likeike it really hasn't been a fall off women. By the way, it's very similar actually to another arguably international sport where we've seen this we've seen in at least for the American side the same development and that's soccer Right. The American women have won the World Cup multiple times American men are hoping to just get to like the quarter someday and that would be a victory It is I feel like we're it's a simil, you know, in some ways, you could see the similar trajectory in tennis. And I think soccer is more extreme because in team sports there's just so many more options. has been so many more options for men. u, you know, for talented athletes where wasn't even on the radar for, you know, people always say like, can you imagine if you had like LeBron James and Steph Curry on the U.S. men's national soccer team the basketball team how dominant that team could be Although I don't know how good Steph Curt Sorry. lookook we know Trinity Rodman is a great goal is a great soccer player. Iagine Dennis Rodman and goal Like right there here's myiseryaz likeike you'd have been amazic, but we're digressing here. We this is about tenets. this is that a This isn't about soccer. By the way, the longest matches ever here isn' And this is one and we're going to talk about a little bit ever, but Isner Mayhot. twenty ten, eleven hours, five minutes Three days the final set. seventy to sixty eight. What's interesting about this is Isstner would be in another one of the other longest. He may have the two combined have played The combined two longest matches in Wimbledon history. combineed them together. That's cruel unusual. The longest final was Djokovch versus B in twenty nineteen. that went just under five hours. four hours, fifty seven minutes, sixty eight games, four hundred twenty two points thirty five aces this is for all that That's the first tournament with the twelve, twelve tie brereaker fifths when they change the rule. for the s of that into a twelve twelve. so or that one might have gone much longer if that Most women singles titles, Martina Navatolova at nine six consecutive Um, peopleople it is the Martina run is something that wasasn't as appreciated at the moment as I think history has been kinder to her And then u well, better with the most men's titles. at Wimbledon with with eight. But the fact that Martina not just that dominant run, but the extended the way she stretched it out thanks to doubles and mixed doubles So she won her final Wombeenague Championship at age forty six That was a mixed doubles championship in Ive that was three Would you want to play her notice right now? I think she Oh, no way.'ve spoken. The most overall titles, Navasilova shares that with Billy Jean King twentyw singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Um that's that's for men or women. Right, twenty is the standard Martin and Billy Jean King both sharing that number There's an estimated one hundred and fifty thousand portions of strawberries and cream are served every year. and JA as somebody covered wimle Um In the book that I read in Strokes of Genius, the author. basically admits maybe the single worst concessions there are at any major sporting event around the world are the wom the Wimledon concessions. The strawberries and cream best they can do Yeah, and I gotta say, the strawberers' and cream. Disappointing. Oh no. I was so looking forward to that yes, she wasn't whip crraade. We need a Rady to Americanizize like my cool whip Right? I my supreme They mean like the cream that's in your coffee Right? That's what they mean by cream, which was a surprise. Literally they handed me this. I'm like, whyy are my strawberries in this milk? Where's a cool wip. that's the crereer. That's the cream. I thought it' be rockier right and have have more heft and wa. So ready So so the real advice is if you're going to go to Wimbledon Buy your own can of ready whip You know, don't do any whipppits while you're there. Get your own and use that out of the strawberries. I'm not sure you can get an aerosaol can through security. Over fifty two thousand tennis balls are used for every tournament That's some my test balls, please. And I got to say the The ball kids at Wimbledon are just incredible. I had the specific memory of this one ball girl who was there and they'd break out the can and she'd open it up and she'd line up all the cans. and then she was just like a robot like lin, you know, rolling the cans down to her counterpart down to the base like. She just had this like machine And like the the the ball kids, it's just They' run so efficiently. they are on such a tight string And that's why I'm so glad that they get their moment with the Royals you know, its after the championships and they all line up and they kind of form that that that entryway and the rooyals will stop and chat with some of the ball kids, sometometimes get into some very detailed conversations, but U that whole ball kit operation, machine like in its efficiency. Well, let's we might as well share a little bit of the history of that. The original the first Ball boys and it was all Ball booys until nineteen seventy seven girls that will show up to Wimbledon until nineteen seventy seven In the twenties and thirties, they basically came from orphanages is what how the so at the time, the most prestigious tournament in the world was being serviced by charity school children is sort of one way from some of them were from very poor families. And it was not frowned upon at the time. I think today it would be not so it would look like you were taking advantage because she would be taking advantage of child labor Now it's a prestigious thing. You get training they start the training for these ball boys and ball girls, I think in February And at this point, there are two hundred and fifty kids picked out of over a thousand thousandousands of applications. So one other Last number. one hundred fourteen million pounds, not weight Not not that's not the weight that's put on from eating all that terrible food. Under fourteen million pounds is in stterling, right? Is that the right term there? J That was the payout for the COVID nineteen pandemic insurance, which they had the foresight to apply for and get pandemic insurance in case the event were ever canceled or postponed due to a pandemic. How about that? That it was the only major sporting event in the world that decided to have pandemic insurance . Boy did it pay off I mean, literally, you want to talk about survive and helping them survive and thrive and obviously make the decision a little bit easier to do understandably. But that's still When you think about all of the stuff that we lost during COVID at that period and you know They were right in the heart of it to there was no Right The Olympics post they were they clearly didn't have pandemic insurance. That's why they went ahead and and and just bought an extra year and had the Olympics in twenty one olutely So that that brings to mind that that Wimbledon u They've been presresscient they've been able to adapt Right? And u And then in fact, let me throw this at you. Is it a you know, because there are times when Wimbledon gets described to be overly traditionalist and rigid. of yet I think you agree, right? The more we They've actually been fairly adaptive because if I hadn't They they wouldn't be relevant Th how different it is from just from the point where we started watching it, right in the late seventies, early eighties and how much has changed and progressed. And u, You know,'s's's funny. It celebrated his hundredth Wimble. I think it was nineteen seventy seven And that's how far back it goes. So So the eighteen seventies when it started and obviously how much has had to change since that. But We watch because of what hasn't changed Yes, I Senter court It's still you know, this version of the center court has been there for as long as we've been watching Um, you know, we want to see In fact, they probably they probably spent too much money trying to retrofit a roof on center Court rather than knocking it down and doing something new because that's how committed they were to keeping sort of the keeping that is the most por ground in tens, right? You cannot alter center court survived by the way the original center ct because it did move once and we'll get into that is now a field hockey girls field hockey pit at a local school, which is a fun little fact U So one thing they they abolished that one thing that has changed is the challenge round. It used to be the defending champion only had to play one match. You got to buy all the way. Can you imagine Yokovic would be, you know, how many how many titles would he have had, right You just extend them and you know that that's been gone for over one hundred years now. That That's again, the amazing thing now, like how long it's been since? So it's been one hundred four years since they last forty years with the challenge round That wasn't like, oh, that's something we're only going to do for four or five years. forty years, Wimledon had the challenge at the challenge rp The openp era arrived in nineteen sixty eight and now you had professionals. you actually had the greatest players. So think about there was a fo stretch of time Uh we didn't have professals. We'll get into that later. Ladies Doubles, mixed doubles became official championship events in nineteen thirty five fifty one years after the ladies singles But again, now it's coming up on one hundred years since that's everything It's like a cury when it comes to Wimbledon or almost as Yeah prettytty much the only major American sporting event that rivals Wimbled and Linked is Kentucky Derby. It's about the only one that's that yeah anyway in some ways That's changed at least the composition, right? The distance is the same, The location is the same. Ch of ground. The original track is not a field hockey field It's not a field hockey patch anymore. right. But the composition of the jockeys. if you go back and look at the early days, the jockeys were all black And then, you know, as horse racing kind of a vocals podcast, but it's absolly Latina. Yeah, you go you go back and look at who's up on the walls and they have a museum at Churchill Downs That's something that that's changed a lot See, this is why I'm partnered with JA. I live vicariously through you, JA for every great sporting evvent. You have just there is not a place you haven't been. I haven't been to the Indianapolis five hundred. I haven't been spepeedway. that that's one that's on my I list. Tie Break introduced in nineteen seventy one. uh, initally resisted, um Daily Telegphs, Lance Ting G called that sequence of abbreviated values but quickly accepted it as a fan friendly innovation. shs like that feels like the DH, right? You know, it's like everybody complains about it now No one's going back and going, God, I wish we could let pitchures hit again Nobody's going I wish these matches would never end at Winbleton. It's more fun that way. But I don't think that's the way people feel. So one tradition that I wouldn't mind them bringing back, The mandatory bowing courtesy to the rooyal Bx was all this or abandoned in two thousand three. I kind of missed that s know, that's one of the things that made Wimbledon Wimbledon Right And it was kind of funny, the players wouldn't be sure like Where do I stop? I stop here in curty, goes I bow, What do I do So here's a hot take for you. If the royal family were more popular around the world and less Shall we say controversial at times Would they have banned it The royal family, I mean, the king I mean they love the queen. No we always love the queen there's like everything else has been, you know, I don't know. That's just my hot tech. I'mast because it's a less the Royals. Yes. That's tradition I wish they'd bring back. The roof The retractable roof on Center Court opened in may two thousand nine. And then the number one court rf filed in may twenty nineteen. So it's a new number one court, right? They they did change that I kind of missed the old one. they had the tower. The cool thing about Non Court, they had some media seats Actually, your seat was actually below the plane surface. so your head was just kind of just barely poking above it And to me, that was one of my favorite seats in sports. I would love to try to go out there. And one thing I would sit there and I would I would sit right on the service line, right? Now can't tell If f's in around. you know, I'm sorry things come in and one one hundred twenty more What you're saying is the idea that human beings were, you know It is if And there's no way Mr. Mconroe could know For sure. when he was yelling at people, right Fortunately for Wimbledon, they realize that and that so we've had the electronic Hwkeye li calling technology Okay, We're going to make one beef. It's my same beef of what we now have in baseball Some of my favorite memories in baseball and some of my favorite memories in tennis are players yelling at umpires And now D't you yell at computers Well to our earlier point that especially for Americans. You know, tennis is Wimbledon, Wimbledon is tennis The most famous John McNroe outburst of a career filled with them You cannot be serious That's a Wimbled it I believe he trademarked that line by the way. I mean, that's his trademark line, but where did it happen? Would it mean as much? Would it resonate under all these decades? Would it be his trademark line if it had not ocurred at W I say not No chance, no chance. Yeah, yellow tennis balls. well then with that one U they replaceed the white ones for for television purposes. I will say that when Snoopy played at Wimbledon, he used the white tennis balls. that's good that's I kind of miss that. I don't I get that, you know Um And I think these days everybody having HDTV. the And the need for the yellow tennis ball thatV that you needed sort of in the old standard definition days, I think is let. I wonder if now in the world of HD that It wouldn't feel as television unfriendly I like the optic yellow color. R to me that that's a tennis ball color. is that optic yellow. The yellow iss green is Someday somebody will explain to me the smell of the tennis ball camp R? That initial smell. you ever you ever popped a can, right? First of all, the pop, right? That vacuum you get to pop right You get the pop and there's this It's it's it's like sniffing glue. I don't know. It's like some weird like you do you're like is this gonna like is this gonna get me high or something? What is this smell? It's the Vulcanized rubber, but But it's still something else bllueprint for Wimbled in Fonanatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. See stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, John Cena, Saylen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more. featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectles, Satics games with two million dollars in prizes, A full tailgate zone, in New York City's largest indoor FivA World Cup fininal watchatch party. Fanatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival. Get your tickets now at fanaticsfest dot com That's fonaticsfest dot com The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagel, Gohin, Daadon, Jelekca Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys bigf fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mungish Sa Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. 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I don't know Listen to Skylland Drive, How to Live Forever on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused. stories that shame, em blame, and paint the unhoused as a monolith Weian House is the podcast that's changing that Sto Henderson, creator and host And for years, I've created a space whereas the un Oouse and their advocates can tell their own stories In the last few months alone, I've interviewed on House parents immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence Redian houses a two time Webby and Signal Award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizons Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Geo Witerick SakTock current influencer who's worked with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community Listen to Weyian House on the iHart Radio app. ast or wherever you get your podcast. The All Angland Club, you hear the phrase a lot when you're watching Wimbledon? Well, guess what? It wasn't there's a reason they don't say the word tennis in it because it wasn't founded originally as a tennis club. It was founded as a croquet club. That is already kind of funny because when you try to explain Wimbled into the modern sports fans, it's like saying the NBA fininals began as a badmitt tournament It also gets at the accident the whole thing right? How many things are just of Fortunate Wimbledon was not chosen. The side was not because. They thought, oh, this would be a perfect place to put up a cathedral for tennis The club was already there. there was a meadow There was a railway Conveniently enough. there was enough land and there was a sport that needed grass because that's how tennis was played at the time. So it's that railway The excellent place I really like the fact that Wimbledon is a destination. When you take the tube train to go out to the All England Club The train says Wimbledon on it. you know, like you're going to Wimbledon, Destination Wimbledon. So it just kind of helps build the excitement on your journey out there. Is that the only is that the best way to go is on the is on the tube is public transportation? Yeah, you can take the u you know, you can you can it's kind of expensive from the center of town to take that but but you're riding one of those cool black London taxic cabs, right? So that is a cool way to go Um, there was I think there was a media show. Let's there. giveive a sense like where Like, you know, is it Would you call it a suburb of London or it is part of London It's south wasas it southwest nineteen? Is that the designation? Yeah I think that's it Um, But yeah, it's it's a it's a partart of Lennon. it' it's, You know, like the our own Disemonts in Paris Um, you know, I think it's like like a segment of London. It's it's an area, neighbor. It's more of a neighborhood, I would say than then. Well, you know what? though Chuck it From D drillist's perspective it gets a separate gets a separate date line So technically, if you file from Wimbledon, the dateline when I filed from the Washington Post, it was dateline Wimbledon. So, u, I guess it's its own entity in that regard. Look, it was not even called tennis at first It was called something called Ser sticky which just feels like a made up word and If I even showed you how it's spelled, you'd be like, what the heck is this? It got shortened to sticky And it was kind of, you're just like What are you talking about You know, here's a sport that now has billions of dollars, global icons. the most important tournament on Earth was once marketed as the sticky tournament It just sounds it sounds icky, nots just just sticky, right U You know, yeah, that sounds like a rejected British candy. Speaking of candy and the trains, like I always like the fact that in the tube stations they have like Cadbury machines like right on platform. So as you're waiting for your train, you can get a Cadbury or something Um There's the technology. that helped advance and, you know, for something that seems so Ancient and old, it is a story of technology, right?? What doesn't happen? I mean, where would we be without the lawnmower Right with glass courts and other the rubber Right? You know, and kind of the dawn of the industrial age you needed all these things Right I mean, this is you know, it's funny Wimbledon feels, you know, it feels old worldorld It feels like a before time. One of the things we think we love about it is that it's this we're going back to a different era. But the irony is without the industrial revolution, there is no tennis because you needed a lawn mower You needed vulcanized rubber so the ball could actually bounce. That is something that doesn't get invented So Mr. Goodyear, you need a court that can be marked and replicated So Um It really was actually a sport that the newew technology of the nineteenth century Um allowed it to happen You know, and kind of the regularity that came along with the industrial age, right? And You might say conformity too, but also the fact that know you did have precise measurements for the court that would be replicated everywhere. You know, baseball, which is getting started around that same time, You could have different different field wall distances, right? And some of the walls and some of the ballparks were irregular. like maybe the The diamond and the bases and the infield and the pitcher mount to the home plate was the same, but you did have some irregularity in the outfield. whereereas in tennis, the entire playing surface had to be conformed to these strict measure it. So They decide they needed a new lawnmower. so they hold literally it's a fundraiser. for the first championship, the first championship meeting too raise money for this lawn roller So the first one had been donated. It wasn't working. So they were organized to pay for this lawn to this lawnmower What's interesting is this originally, they call it a pony roller. So before you had a mechanical lawn mower, this makes sense you basically had a A lawn more literally pulled by horses. that was trimming the grass, veryery Victorian I mean at least they didn't have goats come and chew up the grass, right? It's a little more sophisticated than that So the first champion h The first champion is won by a gentleman named Spencer Gore and he is a big U the, you know, it's it's twenty two men were invited. No women were allowed yet. By the way, there was no photography at the first Championships. The local A local newspaper sent a sketch artist J Like a court room. Yeah So and which by the way, only adds to the old world feeling, right? that the first championships, we have no photographic image of it You have to go and use it's a sketch artist, which I I think that's kind of charming That's part of the romantic system though. like when I went to Wimbledon first time, I bought a poster and it was very much Victorian. I remember there's a woman in kind of a Victorian era dress. like it was very old fashioned, you know, like it's funine I bought two things. I bought one was like an overhead photo of center court And then I bought this poster, this artistic poster that sort of captured the Victorian Eera images of women women in a painting So the first guy at wins is this guy Spencer Gore. And Gore is not just some guy who just wandered in He was a rackquets player. And I'll give you a quick explanation. What did that mean back then? Rackets? So rackets is Essentially the older It was an older indoor racquet sport, kind of an ancestor toort It was indoor. yeah. played in an enclosed court There was a hard ball that moved fast, so it was very much morese squash slash rackquetball than anything else Gore also played real tennis, the older indoor game from which tennis gets gets its gets its scoring system from But when he played lawn tennis, this is this idea of an outdoor tennis match, right? That was what was new. When he does this lawn tennis court He is not thinking like he's he was going to play the way Wimbleledon ended up being played for so long as sort of a baseline He He just started to attack the net. And he used the net and in fact, he was so effective at it, they quickly changed some rules. because of how he won that first game and it was just because he was playing like he was a esssentially a much faster version of the game than the other players understood the game to be played Well, he understood the surface, right? So we saw how his urb volleyers were so effective at Wimbledon years later, decades later, a century later, but he was ahead of the game that regard. So I think it's cool that that Wimbledon it does give tennis Ct It's premier championship. h this public stage, the rituals and creates the mythology around the twobe It is. I mean, it is sort of funny though that again, that literally I guess you could say peach baskets The peach baskets to basketball is the lawnmower to to to tennis I'll go with that. We gohe and And again, sometimes it's the circumstances of the place Why is the basketball hoop ten feet to this day in fastball around the world because well that was basically the height of the track that ran around the indoor gym in Springfield, Massachusetts at that particular gym where u Dr. James Naysmith hung out the peach baskets at ten feet above the floor And so that's the measurement that we have today. Some people think you should raise it to take the dunk out of the game, but I'm good with ten feet. I'm good with keeping it the way it was at the YMCA in Springfield Mass. So You know, there's some things that were particular think to that time and place specifically in Wimbledon at, you know, in the nineteenth century, door to this day. I, you know I guess I go back and it's going to be a question that will be recurring in here is how much, you know Again, I go back Without Wimbledon, would tennis just be racquet ball or squash or lookross in this country And if you don't think it could go away, think of how popular racquetball was in eighties. It's funny. you're on campus in Northwestern when our What's facility It opened in the nineteen eighties in the kind of the peak of the tennis era So we had like or racketball areas. we had like eight racquetball courts in there, which have since most of them have been repurposed for other uses, but at the time it was designed. like you think of the movies like Slash and it seemed like every major movie in the eighties there wouldd be like a racquetball scene, right? I think there's one like Wall Street so like All right So that was a big racket sport. that went away. and I guess the precursor, right? If you're telling me tennis start as an indoor sport So things can come and go to a wide degree. I don't know anyone that plays racquetball anymore But tennis still endures and tennis remains very popular to this day Racquetball had enough popularity that you had outdoor rackquetball courts. Remember L get public parks that actually would have like those concrete that were sort of, you could use it for rackeball or squash, but it was like those outdoor walls essential w have run Chuck if racquetball would have had a Wimbledon if it would have had this cathedral maybe to survivive. So Um We definitely have to give Wimboldon some credit for the creation and the popularizing of tennis, but the endurance of tennis And the reason every went away because you had this central focal point this Vatican Um that that that was a shrine to the sport itself Well, and that takes us to sort of the next the next the next chapter of how we want to cover this little bit is sort of, how did Wimbledon become Then Um And it is, you know And over the sort of they they it starts out. It starts to get a little bit of traction. literally the very first tournament they get to charge money and there are people waiting to see it and it slowly starts to become an event And then it starts to who gets the best seat? And how do you make sure that the stars are there at the end? What do the players wear? What does the crowd expect and This is sort of the next thirty years of this tournament sort of between eighteen eighty and say nineteen twenty is sort of Uh How how the tournament goes from its inf infancy, I guess is the way to put it to U the beginning a spectum. And if it's not leading the way necessarily, it's certainly keeping up with the times, right? Be as we get into the twenties into the thirties is becoming mass entertainment. you know, it's helped by radio R? So the live broadcasts of the games and then of course, in a couple decades after that, television is so huge to it The Olympic movement is growing. You have Olympics in LA and in Berlin and those are big deals. The World Cup As we record this, we're in the midst of World Cup fever here in the summer of twenty twenty six The World Cup starts in nineteen thirty Heavyweight boxing is pulling huge crowds Im Weley Weimley Um and the FA cup are part of British culture Baseball, you've got Babe Ruth And you know, the nineteen twenty seven Yankees and and the mythology of that. The mythology of nototre Dame football Brandlon Rice and then Horseman collball as new Rocky, all of that stuff is going on. So this is all going around. This is the sporting world at large And Wimbledon is able to keep up with that shuck. and how did they do it? Well, look, Ely Wimlland, we talked about this before had the strange format, one of the stranger formats in major sports the challenge round, although Where the defending champion did not have to play through the draw. Everyone else fought through the tournament and then the survivor got to challenge the champion. So they're like the final boss in a video game Remember that and when we were kids' be like, no, no, no, no, you know, ye, I'm the guy you got to play at the end. wasas it the early NCAA basasketball tournament had some form of this. where where where, you know you certainly got a lot of if you were a high ranked team or defending champ, you got a lot more He got a lot more deference. Well I will say just to speak to, you know, you bring up the N tournam and just to kind of speak to the importance of Wimbledon and how intrinsically tied it is to the sport. So the NA Tournament March Madness has become college basketball But it wasn't foundational to college basketball the way Wimbledon was to tennis. In fact, for decades The NIT, the national invitation tournament was a bigger deal and that was the winner that was really considered the national champion so I'd say you get really toil the late fifties or the sixties when the NCLA starts to take over. So another way in which Wimbilton stands apart from some of its peers on the sporting calendar is that it's more intrinsic to the foundation of the sport than things such as the SubA tournament in the final four. basically and this is the argument I sort of keep leaning into is It's almost like the tournament and it It made the sport rather than the sport inventing the tournament. At the end of the day, basketball still invented the NCAA tournament, right? Basketball was there where it's not like the tournament itself kind of like either events or sort of the game. So the challenge round last Uil nineteen twenty two. Yeah. But you know what? Wimbledon invented that is such a huge part. of the Inident of L tournament No brackets and seating. Right? And And the notion that, you know, let's, hey, let's rank the entrance into this contest Well, and that's what's amazing because Guess what they were worried about And they weren't worried about The integrity of this sport They were worried about creating the best entertainment value for the spectators That's why they created seating in nineteen twenty seven becausecause if they had not had seing when they before they had seating, the two best players might meet in the first round and then all of a sudden you end up with some weird, you know, which Maybe Maybe sports freaks like you and I like the underdog story and you want, but it sort of It would, you know, imagine the Williams siss played in round one. And, you know, they're and you're like, well, all right. What if they're the two best in the tournament? Well, that stinks, you know Um and I have to tell you that You're right. Like it's not just What would tennis be without seating What would the NTAA tournament be without seating? Like it is is it is an important change in just how the enter Putting the entertainment into sport Yeah, and it's crowd management. It's storytelling and it's funny because the NCAA didn't even realize even though it had seating for a long time. It wasn't until CBS took over the broadcast package in the early eighties that they made selection Sunday a thing. You know, they decided, hey, let's let's televise the announcement of the brackets And so not just who gets in and out Rot and who get snubbed? Wh who gets the top seeds and what the brackets look like and what the regions and which regions might be tougher than others And you know, what the seating looks like So Again, the NAA tournament was really Late to understanding the value of these things and like the seeding of Wimbledon and what's cool about Wimbledon, which makes helps make it distinctive to this day is that They don't necessarily adhere to the rankings They'll take into consideration. We do their own seating grass R. We'll do our own seating based on maybe how people have performed here Wimbledon in the past or if this person is better on grass than that person So You know, that it's it's drama, but it's also they they preserve their own autonomy. Sall we say Look, they want the best matches on the final weekend Pure and simple. And and so of course they're going to take that into account. And that to me is, you know, look That is one thing as quote as old and traditional as Wimbledon was in some ways I mean, talk about they're further ahead of college football. It took college football over one hundred years to figure out how to get its best teams to play right? You know, and and how and how to figure out the se right? And they differing with with with how you rank and rightite U It's funny, though going back to the seeds and Wimbledon. So in ninety five the tournament It just so happened that the top four seeds made the semif finals in both the men's and the women's brackets and The Wimbledonians were very proud of themselves. The All Englandub They had this self congratulatory Was there a perfect racket for them? It was their version of a perfect racket perfect racket. You know, they got it right. We r our time for se see. actually though it's funny because I think I don't think the top two seeds met in the finals. I think there was anoughset there in the semis, but they did have the top four. So they they got their brackets right And they were very proud of themselves. They put out a press release. Look. and I want to before we go into the sort of the first superstars in the history of Wimbledon, I want to sort of go down this quick rabbit hole, which is goes to the underdog versus the the dynasty And And what is it We always say we love a good underdog story Like I realizeed is Goron Is Inovich, which is, you know, he's still the most one of the most remarkable Wimbledon champions ever. comes in as a wild card, basasically wins out of nowhere and never wins another major and all this stuff And I had to be reminded of his name Right? And like is it Like what is the better sports story? for history's sake versus what is the better sports Tory J A Done I'd deeadline on deadline give me well I want the big dogs there in the final fours. So think I'm kind of surprised how much NCOA Tourent we're talking here, but it does seem to fit in parallel So yeah, you want some upsets on the first few weekends, you know, especially when the seating disparity is so great. you know, fifteen beating it two is a big deal and America has shown it does not want underdogs playing in Aril Right? So I always say March Madness, April sureness because we had it a couple of years ago with with some you know, seemingly ra Atlantic. Look, it was my hometown school. University of Miami made that final four. It was like San Diego State, I think was out there You had, you know, on majors. Yeah. You didn't have the bllue Bloods And what happened to the ratings? They tank, right? I'm sorry. You might hate Duke, but you're going to watch Duke. Right? And you're going to watch those name brand schools and especially in college basketball where the players turn over so much. you need that familiarity. You need to know the school and the uniform and the fight song You need those blue bloods there And It think the same applies for tennis too. like you you wanted to see Borggan Macnroe in the finals, right? You didn't want to see for some up startart there. U Now, it was a big deal, say when Boris Becker is a seventeen year old All right breaks through, but He couldn't have a new Boris Becker every year. A, the novelty would wear him And B, you need those name brand people there uh to to drive the television ratings, which as we'll get into becomes an important part of the Wimbled' story So the first true superstar era actuallyctually is in the late is in the eighteen eighties. and it's the Renshaw twwins, William and Ernest. basically show that tennis can be athletic They use what is then a unique thing, the overhead serve you could just imagine that they first started with the very gentleman undernderhand serve, right? By the way, I still had visions of Michael Chang and the French open when he had that shoulder issue do the underhead surf. but So they turned what had been basically a very genteel baseline game, almost more like Madmitton going across, right into something that was faster, more explosive, frankly more spectator friendly But at least then with the equipment, you can still have long rallies. So it's interesting to think of the changes. so by the nineties you've got modern equipment, right or like raraphite tennis rackets and the string is tight. It's not literally like catgut for the strings, right? You got the high tension nylon strings. And so You know, they're hitting the ball with so much power and force and it's coming off the racket with such high velocity that it's harder to get long rallies. So you know, that we talked about the technological influence at the beginning, so it might maybe help create the game, but there were some that would argue that the technology was taking over and ruining the game and just making it just, you know, oneon, two points and that that was it killing the long rallies. I've always dreamed of like Can we hand and I'd like to see like, okay, we're gonna give you these rackets from the nineteen fifties to like Radah and Federer wooden rackets. Let's see how you do right the head is like, you know, like the eyes of myay head and not these giant. They're very small, right? right Um Meanwhile, on the women's side, Charlotte Cooper is showing that going back to the dayeen. eight a women's tennis going to have a dominant champion. Suzanne Langin turns it into celebrity too. She's got clothes, she's got charisma Sipping brandy in between sets. How about that All right. I mean, I guess that's a little bit of painkiller, right? You know, you can rub some benet or you take a shot of bandy, right long before Gateway have some brands The original Senter courourt, actually, were lingling won her first titles still exists It's the school hockey pitch I was telling you about Um on that front. And it means that oldld Wimbledon still technically exists if you want to go find it and visit it. Now it's over on Church Road, I believe, is the address N. It does feel layered, you know, it's not just old because Wimledon says it's old. You can find the old versions of it underneath rec current versions, right? There there's there's echoes, you know, so the William sisters, you know, they weren't the first sisters to meet in the late rounds of Winbon. No, I mean, you know, it's funny with with with Wimbledon as sort of frankly behind the times they were for so long when it came to equal equal prize money for women A women's title was, you know, the first women's tournament was in eighteen eighty four, only only seven years after the men Only ten women entered the first women's champion And you just alluded to it, Mod Watson She beat her own sister in the final. So when we talk about Venus and Serena And it's such a frankly, definitional time for women's tennis in general in the early twenty first century In the late nineteenth century, it is sisters launching Wimbledon. How about that? Amazing U yeah, so you know, we we We also have to think about what they were playing in Right Is the Victorian eras so they're playing They're playing courorses I' see. hats wearing hats. And this is the dawn of the all white dress clothes. It is sort of And the whole idea of the clothing as sort of and you can't look, you can't talk about Wimbledon without talking about othing because it wasn't a side issue. It is arguably one of the main characters of the story of Wimbledon the with the corsets and the petticoats. It was clothing designed to preserve modesty, not to show women actually sweating You know, there was the sweat was going to be in the undergarments I They weren't there to show off athletic athletic prowess, they were there to preserve their modesty. Yeah, and it shows the constraints, you know, the women were under in that era, right? So you can compete, but there's still all these societal nor the social expectations in that era that you're expected to compform to But look, like everything that we're going to tell you in the story of Wimbledon, they're basically Every change started with a protest, right? these little rebellions. So on the closeed front, you had A young lady at fifteen named Lottie Dodd She plays in something closer to her school uniform at the time which meant no corset And she wins U Maay Sutton rolled up her sleeves Um, because she was hot She showed her arm. People were agghast. I know, right? But it is exactly what allowed allowed this to sort of change, right? So you know the clothing story at Wimbleton really just starts you know, as a social expectation before it becomes a written rule. and for decades the all white look, it was not Formal code. It wasn't like there was a sign, no shoes, no shirts, no service, you know, all whites, you know, you're not playing It was just, this is what you did, but of course One of the things I've learned a lot, especially in my world of politics, JA is that Norms Me are meaningless unless you actually make them laws. And Wimbleon finally decided to make it a law Although the rule doesn't have to be written down if you you understand and everyone knows, you know who this room is built for, right? And there was sort of that theseese expectations and these implementations That was such a big part of it. But it look for the this is another through line in the history of Wimledon is that particularly on the women's side of the in the women's side of the ledger here It was constant rebellance in order to sort of you know, equalize things. The Victorian women are in corsets and petticoats and Lenlland shortens the skirts. She changes how women can move. Bunny Austin wears shorts for the first time on Center Court Gussy Moran shows up in nineteen forty nine in Fashionable outfit designed by then a huge fashion designer named Ted Tinling. and it revealed lace trimmed underwear. Think about that in nineteen forty nine she shows up on the courts in nineteen forty nine And you can see the lace trimmed underwear And it causes a huge scandal actually is one of the reasons why by nineteen sixty three They actually write down the rule And it's the phrase predominantly white And let's just say the word predominantly does a lot of work here because there's a lot of fights over the years They go all the way to Rafael Nidal. What is what meets the definition of predominantly white in the clothes that you're wearing Of course, this is all a precursor to Anne White showing up in the mid nineteen eighties and it was white. But it was, you know, this one single piece head to toe like whatever the material was, whatever it was it was tight Ler the Uraan whatever was suuper tight, you know, this all white head to toe leggings, one piece. just clung to her. And uh Yeah, is like that That did not go well. There was not a repeat appearance the u the Anne White, you know, super tight when Leotart. The irony is that what would happen is so they write down the rule. And then more players wanted to rebel And then literally this go into the nineties now and you get Andre Agassy, he literally boycotted Wimbledon for three years because of the dress code And, you know, look, aggacy was You know all you had to do is see your cannon Canon ad campaigns to know, right? Agassy was loud. He was bright colors You know, this was not a guy that wanted to just wear all white boycotts Wimbledon and finally comes back And there's this big like tension What's he going to be wearing And he shows up in a track suit and he unzips very slowly sort of eats the moment up a little bit. And he reveals his all white outfit He surrendered veryery dramatic But he was always the showman. ever the show even when he was conforming It was still making a show out of it. 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That's betxpest dot com The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Taadon, Jelekca Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big chef fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mungisha Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever. For all of us I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you And then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain Here ares some hard truths that I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. and get myself into a world of trouble I'd probably start bone smashing. doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know Listen to Skyline Drive How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You should Know and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new Stuff You should Know Do science playlist. Out now. You wantan to know about Ocham's Razor? The simplest explanation is usually the right one. We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park Come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody, turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff You should know do and science playlist on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Um Before going too far, let's talk about Charlotte Cooper, who later became Charlotte Sterry She's one of those champions that gets swallowed by history. She won Wimbledon five times. She was a dominant women's player of the Victorian era. Schz becomes the first Olympic Gold medal in women's tennis in individual sports in nineteen hundred at the Parrots Olympics. Um, So, you know, had had they had more grand slams, she might have been the first the she might have she might have come before Stehie Grapp as the first golden slam winner with getting a gold medal in tennis as well she was she was that dominant. And then Lenland comes along and greatreatness becomes a celebrity. So so we talk about aggacy certainly as the showman, but just that celebrity aspect of women's tennis. And that's, you know, Szanne Langlland, this was an interesting person to learn about in our research because she really is You can see this and this, you know, again, it matches the era, right in the thirties thirties and forties, you started to have more and more of sort of Frankly, we were just becoming more enamored with celebrity around the world, right? And she helped create a celebrity fact sort of the celebrity buzz at Wimbledon, She's French. So that automatically meant people assumed she was glamorous. So she she was dominant. she was more She was She was sort of stereotypical French, right? She was dramatic She wears clothes that scandalize, Red she drank brandy at courtside U Oh, and she was pretty good at tennis as well But she's also the first tennis player who feels like the modern sports celebrity. And she was good for Wimbleledon because she it it again One thing womenlon always realized is they wanted to be a spectum Boy She turnurned Wembleton and arguably sort of made it the society event that it is today. It becomes glamorous and dangerous. You always want that little element of dangerous. She's not winning She's performing. She's wearing shorter skirts It's changing how women move on the court And yes, he's drinking that brand. drinks it I mean, you know is did Gatorid miss the boat here You know, Well, I mean, think about it. co Coca Cola featured cocaine, right? It was the key element in Coca Cola and it was kind of originally branded as like an energy type drink, right? what Rd Bll was Yeah It wasiv energy. That's what I. That's the word exact, right. you know,, if you can have Coccaine in a refreshment, a soft drink. you can certainly have alcohol in a sports. We' thinking about likeid hidden sports. N doal and Federe and they're like just And you know, if're if you're sitting there and you grab a shot of Brandy, I just don't know how that's going to work Or the cocaine infused Cocaas. I't imagine it's better caked oute of Well, We should talk about the move, even though we've talked about it. it was in nineteen twenty two that Wimbledon moved from Wpple Road to church Road and that is still where it resides. King George V opened the new grounds. He didn't make a speech They just sounded a gong. A gong? That doesn't sound very regal and dignified. I know. I the gong show in and ninet I think I Jg Br it feels very easastern Right? Like that's something you might have expected in China or in the, you know, in the in the far East backack in the day A dog. Um You know But that's Wimbledton, right? Fmal and weird. att the same time Absolutely The new center Court, by the way, is still called center Court, even though on The good news is Center Court got its name the correct way in the old Wimbledon Grounds. It was literally the court in the center of the grounds But it was so important evenven though Center Court, right you've been there Right? It is actually at the end. the far end of the grounds of Wimbleledbon now But there was how do you change the name Mbe maybe since I've been there, as say, it felt very much in the center When I was there, especially when I first went in, you'd go in and you'd go past the U the Perry statue and it It's still, if not at the exact geographic center of Wimbledon it still very much is at the heart and we'll say that. this next fun little development is something that I know you would appreciate as a sports writer because once again One of the great phrases in sports history was created by a sports writer This is the era where tennis It's its most important phrase, grand Slam And the origin story of using the phrase grand slam to describe winning. the four major tournaments was a sports writer who was deciding Borrow a phrase from the card game Bridge Bridge likeike what my grandmother played Hey man, Yeah. I I had a grandfather who forced me to learn Bidge because he always needed a fourth. So yes, your grandmother and me, you know, where are the two bridge players, you know. But I great Yeah, it was nineteen thirty three, Jack Crawford is tried to win all four majors Uh he didn't w he actually didn't do it. the first person to do it. was a guy named Don Budge. is the first person to actually do the Grand sllime in nineteen thirty eight But the phrase stuck in nineteen thirty three that he was trying to get the grand slamp Um, and, you know, this is how sports mythology gets made and You and I were talking the other day about this and you were sort of lamenting. You know, this is been the norm for sports for a hundred years is that it's the sports journalists. who sort of create the iconic nicknames or naming conventions that stick and become fan fav Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, right? The fourour horseman, Grandlin Ricem may be among the most famous nicknames bestowed, but all the way through the seventies. as a sports rider in East Lansing, they came up with the nickname magic for Irin Johnson, onene of the all time great nicknames you know, the gas house gang, murderer's Row, all these great nicknames that were bestowed by sports wriders. and we have fallen off and we've become derelict in that in that duty and that noble aspect of the sport. And I'll take some blame because it happened on my watch too. I'm not going to say I'm solely responsible, but I didn't do enough to prevent it. I tried, I tried to go with the quiet storm for Tim Duncan, you know, borrowing that late night radio for He did a good nickname. did he end up with one? He never did, you know, And Timmy they that was his nickname. It would, you know So like Falling upon like nicknames or abbreviations or you know, initials, right? So like Katie for Kevin Durant And they tried the Slim Reaper, which would have been a great one, but he didn't like it that much. We just don't have great nicknames anywmore, like the Iceman for George Grvin. just an all time great nickname And Um againain, we tried here and there. I couldn't get it done, but we've just collectively as an industry lost the ability. to bestow these great nicknames, but I never knew until you brought it up that Grand Slam was another in the that goes in the pantheon of great sports It really does.'s not a nickname because it's not specific to anyone, but a moniker or terminology and it is so Now you hear the word Grand sllam. it's sort of like it's one of my Favorite the movie Groundhog Day Ground Hog Day the actual definition of Groundhog Day is completely changed because of the movie The actual definition of grand Slam has comete its origin is bridge and yet For ninety percent of the American public, if you say Grand sllam, they immediately would assume One of three things clearing the home run that clears with bases loaded home run orr a golf or tennis Right would not I promise you Bridge And by the way, in case you're wondering what the grand sllam is and Bridge, it's when you win out all thirteen tricks Um for, you know, and again justore It's not for. That's the, you know Everybody gets their thirteen cards And B wasn't it tied to like the four positions on the ge table something. Well it was always four. right. you won everybody's cards, right? You won all four positions, right? You won every trick type of thing. Yes, that in that sense Yes. so I guess you could say there's four. And and it's that is the one common denominator, obviously between clearing the bases or winning your four golf tournaments or winning your four tennis tournaments So someone, I don't know if it's a sports writer or not, and by nineteen thirty points the term Wimbledonia, which is a perfect uh, you know, it's kind of All encompassing, right? because Wimledon is no longer just a tournament. It's becomes its own little country, right during the forortnight. It's got its own geography, Southwest nineteen Dress code, class system, the food,, its own rules U, you know, the weather becomes a part of the story U And then radio on TV begin turning that little country into something that the world can visit And I think that's where we're going go to next because As the world as Wimbledon becomes a cathedral for the world of tennis This is when playlers rise up and then sort of the next iteration of Wimbbleton is sort of The players take over which is what we're going to dive into when we come back So by this point, JA Wimbone has become the cathedral. It has the grass, the clothes, the royal box, the center court, the rituals, the sense that this is not just a tennis tournament. this is a place where tennis itself explains what it is. This is this is a cathedral, but every cathedral has gates and for a long time The Wimbledon story was about who those gates were built for and who had to fight their way through the gates. And this is where the story gets complicated because Wimelson is easy to romanticize and a lot of the romance is real. The grass is real and the history is real players feeling nerd. feelings that they have when they're walking on the center court, that's real too. But old institutions don't just preserve beauty, they preserve the power. They preserve the institution, right? So that This act to me is about the players gradually forcing Wimbledon to become worthy of its own mythology professionals and the women and the black players, they all force it. The players' associations force it too This is one Wimbledon becomes more than just a private club with a famous tournament. It becomes the world stage for ten So let's start with class because there's like you want to talk about the divides Class was the first great divide here before anything else This is Brit, right? You know, so class is never very far away A gentleman by the name of Fred Perry wins Wimbledon in three straight years in the nineteen thirties He is the greatest champion in the UK. He's British He is the guy Andy Murray has spends seventy seven years chasing, historically speaking There's a statue of them at the All England Club.. There you go, but Perry is not. At the time, the establishments's idea of their tennis champion because he's the son of a labour member of Parliament the working class labor party of the day. He's not from the correct background, JA And that's what's so revealing because he wins the tournament. but he still doesn't fully belong to the club In fact, So he wins the first he wins his first Wimbled. And the tradition then was You got U a tie the member tie to because if you won, you became a member Well, he did not get the traditional member tie presented to him personally It was left on a bench near his clothes It's such a British insult. quiet polite. dismissive and devastating, right So the message is, you can win here, but that doesn't mean you were one of us You know, and that's an important distinction. because we're going to see it again. when it can recognize greatness before it fully accepts the person who produced it B the way, this happened to Jon McIinwell So the tradition, once you win Wimbledton, you become a member They didn't give him his honorary membership for a year. It was basically their way of saying, we didn't love your behavior And well the fans didn't greet him openly to. the first time he steps right as he stepping on the center court for the first championship match against Borg. They're booing him you know, very unwimbled in like un British like response to boo someone just as he sets foot on the grass Now, other than the pandemic in twenty twenty, the only other time Wimbledon did not have a tournament was You won't be surprised. World War I were during World War two literally center court was bombed. So the war comes And the cathedral itself almost disappears So there's no tournaments from nineteen forty to nineteen forty five bomb actually falls through center Court in its roof, destroys about twelve hundred seats sixixteen bombs alogether fall on club property And the grounds become something else entirely. The car parks became vegetable plots, right? You know, it was all about doing whatever it took to help with the war. Animals were being kept on the ground. Military units were drilling on the concourse massive thing with these, you know, events it's great expanses of land, which comes in really handy during the war, but it has to be repurposeed, right? So center Court goes from a place where champions are crowned So it's a park farm, it's a military space It's also a bombed out symbol of survival And there's one person who holds the whole club together constantly worrying about it and holds it together administrationly administratively. Her name is Nora Gordon Cleher She at the time was the acting secretary during the war Boy, she's actually an unsung hero to Wimbleda That's a great reminder that institutions don't survive just through their own weight, right? There has to be somebody who does the work. And as inevitable as Wimberland feels now That moment, it wasn'tevitable, right? It was life supported. it had to be sustained And there's there's also legacy from the wararriors that becomes kind of a positive charming part. of the Wimbledon tradition. and that's five hundred men and women from the British Armed Forces will take fifteen days off out of they're all lot at thirty per year. And they'll volunteer as stewards as Wimbledon And that's something that started in nineteen forty six as a way to reward the soldiers from World War II, now being rewarded by volunteering for work, by What it did do was it got you inside that that heollow of ground. And so you got to be a part of the tournament and you got to be on those grounds And so that's something that continued, but it had its origins from post war Britain I don't think we can underscore enough how important Wimbbleledon is to the British It is it is an identity for them. That is I'm trying to think of what the American equivalent would be you thirty fifty years ago, you had have said the World Series. I guess you'd say the Super Bowl, but it's like You know, I don't know if an iconic venue. I'm trying to think is there even a venue that has mayaybe Madison Square garden, right? that has the same Part of the national identity And you know, a point of pride I maybe gotust to national golfer, but it's still if you think about We're going to get into the masters comparison in a little bit. Yeah. know, there's a two century fall from grace of the British Empire Right, which maybe you could argue continued all the way through handing over Hong Kong. I could argue it's still happening now. Okaykay? I'm but I to get into number much follow up. Yeah. But one thing that never fell off for the Brits was when You know, and no other tournament. It's I US open has surpassed or Australian open You know like like Wimbledon is still the monarch above all else. and so for you know, a place that is clung to the monarchy, but not just a monarchy that that idea of you know, rural Britannia. u for Wimbbleledon to still rule over all else think matters to the national psyche. I will So I got to go to Roland Garas a couple of years ago And I've not been to Wimbledon yet. I can't wait to do the comparison. Have you done both Roan Gar. I went to Ran Garrys for the first time in a couple of years. So I have to say, Rolla Gar really blew me away. I was It feels like no other it didn't feel like any venue that I'd been to in the United States for that. Actually my favorite part and this is not the negative, like the egress, when you leave, you're walking through this park. It's the most beautiful exit to a sporting venue I've ever seen. But it's funny, you call it Rlling Garls, but I think most of us we think of it as the French open and the venue is certainly Rolling Garloss, but they like the whole thing to be called Rll. You know, like like to say like Rael on the D more of like aned R Gars. Um like the merchandise that I bought, it doesn't say French O open it says R only Garos. Roland Geros is, you know, that hasn't flown, so to speak. It never took off. And I say that as a pun because Roland Garlos was an aviator and the area Gown is named after him Again, Wimbledon is not actually the name of the tournament. But we all collectively know it as Wimbledon. The French would like us to call the tournament roll on Gars But we all call it the French open. So they haven't been successful. That's one way So that eternal French British rivalry. That's one way where the French the British have won that round because they want you to call it Wimbledon. They think of it as Wimbledon. we all call it Wimbledon. The French would love for you to call it Rlland Garros, but we call it the French open. But the grounds are Rlling Garros and I don't know. it's not as overwhelming to me. It's not as impressive to me as Wbled then. When Well then when you walk out of the grounds, what struck me It's so green Everything, you know, the paint is green. by time of year time year for the green too though right lastast is so green and then the posts are this, you know, shiny wooden ost Every is just vibrant Of course by the end, the grass gets worn down and it's a sort of dull brown, especially right down the middle where Most of the action is Um All I don't know physically Wimbled in the site, the All England club is more U on site, it's more impressive to me than the French tri. the French openp and Rolling Garrels scrounds are very pleasant. And like I said Exiting it is just it's very pleasant. Beautiful sight when youre when you're leaving But anyway we'll I'm sorry Yeah, I think. All right so you like the Rlla girls, you will win with. I can't wait. I can't wait. All right, so if we're talking about the players forcing the gates open Sorry about Gates ces and exases. The biggest hypocrphacy in tennis for decades was amateurism, right O on paper Amateurism sounds noble. It sounds pure. You play for the love of the sports You don't play for money. little British accent there. All right. Yeah. I couldn't help but slip into it.. You know, but it's actually very classist because it's about protecting sports for people who can afford to play for love of the game. and that's not all. It's certainly not the working class Sure, if you have money, amateurism is romantic, but if you need to earn a living, it's frankly a barrier So tennis becomes full of what these people call shamateurism. It's fake amateurism. There's under the table payments, there's expenses, pay, there's appearance money, All these arrangements that everyone knows are happening, but nobody really wants to admit it. So the official story is still purity, but the real story is about control We should talk probably the most absurd example is Rod Blaver, right? He's arguably the best player in the world at the time at the peak of his powers. and he gets banned from Wimbledon for five years. because he made the decision that he wanted to make a couple of bucks. He turns professional. I know. How dare he But what it means is that the most prestigious tournament in tennis in the world is conducting these tournaments without the best tennis player in the world. And you know, this is when the institutions of logic starts to collapse because of when were that supposed to be the ultimate test of tennis But the best players can't enter it And what exactly are we watching This next story is one of my favorite. Pauline B This story is amazing Yeah and it shows how absurd the system can get because she win Wimbledon in nineteen forty six. and the first championships after the war. And then she's banned from manager tenemnis. not because she turned professional and it's not because she signed a contract because she took money was because she said she was considering taking money that reminds me of his back where like rememember like college players would be ineligible for simply meeting having lunch with an agent? Yeah. You know, you were caught hanging out with an agent And that was it Bandn. You couldn't do. Al sur remise me one of pocal I never was able to find out who actually said this or if it was actually said but this this basketball coach goes and officially says Um Can you give me a technical for what I think? says no and says I think you're doing horse j up I love that. That's fantastic I'm sorry. I'm gonna use that I'm gonna use that over and over. What a crit. Can I can I get in trouble for for what I'm thking No? Well, I think you're S a terrible So in this case, it was a thought crime just like they were on the tech And it tells you the whole system It wasn't really about purity. It was about the government bodies keeping control over the players. Yeah, and that's that's a pretty, you know, that's probably the negative legacy at times of Wimbledon Now look, the turning point actually becomes a bit comical So in nineteen sixty seven, Wimbleledon realizes, hey, people want to see the best tennis players. So they decide to host a professional tournament on center Court featuring the very players who had been banned from the championships. Rod Laver, Ken Roswal, Poncho Gonzalez at the time. It's funny because it's opposite, the Augusta, they hosted an amateur tournament as something new and different to get more exposure. But here they they get the pros Romland puts the forbidden players on its own court And everyone can see clearly these guys are better So the institution accidentally exposes its own hypocrisy, right And sometimes that's how change happens in sports, right?s not because the people in charge sudden become enlightened But because the contradiction becomes too obvious to defend. sort of like amateurism in college sports in this count or the Olympics, you know on Right, you know, it's interesting to me, right? So basically in ' sixty eight, everything opens up and they decide Okay, it's going to be part of the professional circuit. and Um It reminds me of nineteen eighty eight and the decision of when when the NBA said, you know what Maybe we should have professionals play the Olypics. And if it's supposed to be a test of the best, right? you know, we saw it with hockey, right, starting in in Agonoa nineteen ninety eight Let's see the best. You know, let's have the Olympics truly become about the best and not just the amateurs. So in ' sixty eight, the open era begins and professionals amateurs can finally play together Prize money appears in the Wimbledon program. to M's in any And Labor comes back and he wins and that's the perfect response. He basically says, you kept me out for five years, but guess what? I'm still the man So what do we think with Rod Laver? I mean, you you talk about him like Rod Laver having losing five years of Wimbledons, you know, Ted Williams, you know, in baseball is famously lost and way Willie Mays, bothoth of them lost a couple of years with the Korean W still have these all time great statistics that in baseball, but it's it's there's an interesting what if here in Laor. I mean, Laor' iss already one of the considered one of the all time greats Imagine if he has say three more Wimbleledland Championships. Well, I mean, then Pete Sampras would not have surpassed him, but these other guys would have, you know, that they. Big three O the doll and Federer and Djkoobvitch, you know, up in the twenties you know, I don't think Even back then you just didn't have the sports medicine to sustain the way these guys have this laate and I mean, they all kind of barely did, but I mean, the fact that Djokovich is still going. And u So I I don't think he would surpass them, but but maybe wonder if Sampras would have been able to get passast him because Sampras gets one past him. I think, maybe two past him. and E never wins again Fonatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. See stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, Seun Cinena, Saylen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. Eclusive merch, rare collectles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, in New York City's largest indoor FIFA World Cup final watch party. Fonatics Fest is the world's number one spports fan festival Get your tickets now beticspest. com. That's beticspest d. com The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Daadon, Jekcaa Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys bigf fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mungisha Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever. For all of us I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you And then we can test what draw is the best for your brain. as opposed to his brain Here ares some hard truths. that I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. and get myself into a world of trouble I'd say probably start bone smashing. doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the Unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith We the in House is the podcast that's changing that Sto Henderson, creator and host And for years, I've created a space whereas the you Os and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed on House parents immmigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Redian houses a two time Webby and Signal Award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Geo Witerick current influencer who's worked with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community Listen to Wey and House on the IiHard Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast So u seventy three, you know, you've got this labor moment Nickola Pilich is suspended and the ATP, which is still new, the um, the men's tour Um, they they support him But Wimbble then refuses to budge And you have eighty one male players withdraw So now it's not just a tennis confrerey. This is a players association proving itsp. This is a war within the sport And if you think about it, let's put it in larger context. This is at the beginning of basically sports labor the sports labor movements in general R? You had baseball and basketball and football all with these fledgling players associations and you had this. then of course, we had the this was the ATP. you also would later have Billy Jinin the. But this was you know, we talk about the player empowerment era. of the last ten years, I could argue this the mid sort of sixty five to eighty, right All of sports. was the reallyally the first player empowerment area and it hits tennis pretty hard R it's hitting all these sports because television is transforming all these sports and is infusing all these sports with more money and the stakes are becach money higher. And it becomes impossible to ignore You know, disparity. It's one thing. Yeah, you can put up with something when there's really not that much money being made and the money is pretty much limited to the tickets sold in the seats But with this this exponential multiplier of the finances that's coming in, the players aren't blind and they can see what's happening R And so for the for the most part, this works. Wimel then sort of, you know, he starts to, you know acknowledge uh this But it was messy. You did have a young seventeen year old named Bjorn Borg who crossed the picket line and played. but for the most part, they didn't have the tournament they wanted And they realize they that They essentially had to tree the start to treat the players, at least the male players as equals. and I single that out because it takes up a while to equalize it across the board Exactly. And now let's talk about the gates in a literal sense, right? Who was allowed to play And that'll bring us to Theia Gibson grows up in Harlem Black woman in Harlem, her family leaves the Jim Crow south. so the kind of the the greatreat migration northward and Any timee this comes up, I always have to recommend the book The Warmth of Other Sunons, which does such a great job of chronicling this's written by Isabel Wilkerson guest speaker at the commommencement Northwestern a few years ago U being they Lps in U So she kind of comes up on on, you know, this alternate path. like a lot of doctors sponsor. there're sort of these tournaments that are put together The doctors who have the money, black doctors have the means to provide and put these termaments together. So she kind of makes a name for herself on this circuit because the white tennis establishment close to her. There's something called the American Tennis Association and that's You know, sort of like what the Ngro leagues were to baseball. It's an infrastructure that exists because black players had to build their own world It was it literally the same parallel Yeah, like what you're describing a parallel You know I think about this, imagine It was women were already treated as second class women in the sport, right? Like you're you're you're You're breaking through multiple barriers here And that's why, you know, one of the most almost criminally under recognized and under honored people in sports is Alphia Gibson who the double the double before Arthur Ash, you know, we celebrate Arthur Ash and rightfully so for becoming the first play How come there's not Althea Gibson, right? Yeah. I don't mean that in any negative about Arthur Ash Stadiia, but it is you're right. It's sort of I don't want to say she gets lost, but It's almost like she broke through too early before we we, you know, it's like, well, you did it before the Civil rightights era in some form or another. I don't I don't get it. do you U seexism. A lot of times it's as simple as that word, right? I think that the sexism of it. the same as we don't talk about other female figures in the civil rightights movement, you know to this I want to say over because we can probably never pay enough tribute to Martin Luther King But in some sense relative to the work that the women put into the movement There's an over indexing of Martin Luther King, right relative to to the work that the women put in. And I think it's the same with Altha Gibson when we compare to a Jackie Robinson or and she's in that same time You know, I was just going to say Jackie's in forty seven Yeah. She breaks. She pushes pushes through minute fif twenty one wins it in fifty seven Right ye. U If you're looking around, so the NBA integrates in nineteen fifty. The NFL in nineteen forty six year before baseball which people always seem to forget. Yeah. Right Yeah. So Um I mean, to be a black woman, but Let's give Wimmledton credit. you know, for being not being too far behind the times. right? Maybe they weren't the first But they're not lagging way behind like say Augusta was, which didn't have a black player in the tournament until nineteen seventy five. Right. So u Again, when they're not leading the way, but when will they're not lagging too far behind U So here we are nineteen fifty seven, she wins Wimbledon and the Queen of England. presents her the trophy. That's a That's a pretty big That's a visual. Yeah, here's a bllack woman from the American South by way of Harlem receiving the Wimbledon trophy at Center Court from een of England amid all the tradition ladent uh that goes on at Wimbbleledon U The day she wins lnds in an extraordinary heat wave similar to what Europe is experiencing Hezer right in the summer of twenty twenty six ninety six degrees almost unimagable for an English summer. It's funny. I was there in two thousand summer of two thousand covering the British openp and Wimledon. It was like in the high seventies And they were freaking out You know, like people were like passing out from heat stroke, sunburning you're sitting this is great. July seventies on you know ninety six. you can just imagine London when there was probably virtually no air conditioning at the time Um But so she wasn't just carrying the pressure h right. She was doing in this brutal heat against Darlene Hard who had been her doubble's partner went six, three, six, two, and then as Queenlizabeth II, hands are the trophy. Gibson reportedly says at last at last and that could have meant could have been a lot of things and been interpreted in a lot of ways and, you know, u Uh, you know, again a full decade before Martin Luther King closes his fame I have a dream speech with. Yeah words freel. It's I mean, for all we know, she was just like, at last I get a drink of water after that factatch. But those words, you know, You know, as Mart Lut King says, in the words of the O Negro spiritual, you know, we last And again, two decades later, Arthur Ash This Again, speaks to the power of Wimbledon because If I say Arthur R to most people probably what comes to mind is the first black man, again, not black person, but black man to win in Wimbledon. even though that was his third of the Grandlam ch Championships that he won. He won it show you how important Wimbledon is. It's like you didn't really accomplish anything. You could win all the Australian opens in the world And if you don't win Wimble, then you haven't done anything intent So he won one of those, He ws the US openp in nineteen sixty eight in a classic match in the first of the open era Right And um at the old s of F Hills And so u, This was kind of the thing that really put him on the map, I'd say and became his calling card Um And u He someone comes out of Richmond, Virginia, which was the capital of the Confederacy Yeah You know, it says a lot that his A statue of him goes up alongside all the Confederate generals and leaders that they head up on the same it's weird that it's in the same little area, but yes. Yeahah He's he's mentored by the same doctor who helped Althea Gibson, doror Walter Johnson U and he really becomes not someone who just And I think this is part of the reason and again, there's a sexism, but U also you know, the way he carries himself., you know, so dignified. I think Gibson was, you know, a little more kind of rough and tumble kind of a a tomboy, if you will you know, and Arthur Ash, you know, really is like a dignitary and' a kind of a post king civil rights leader Well you're describing Jackie Robinson Yeah to the sort of the same, the same sort of personality. sort of red This goes back to the origin story of Jackie that that, you know, Branch Ricky was trying to figure out can he can he handle the incoming Right. And Arthur Rasty use modern terminology wanted all the smoke, right? And goes beyond just fighting for tennis, you know, becomes adamant about no athletes should be going as apartheid South Africa And, you know, blessing them with their talents or, you know, artists shouldn't be performing there, you shouldn't do concerts there, all of that. He was very outspoken on that. Um, and the Yi wins will in. so he's already thirty one U you know, and he beats a twenty two year old Jimmy Connors who was a defpending champion, youngest rer louder, the favorite player and there was there was tension there because Connors had sued Ash before the tournament U So this was not just a friendly meeting I you. It's interesting to see that and Arthur A Ash decides he's not going to just beat Connors by playing his normal game. He had a different strategy to try to I think weird out the young Connors. And it's like the tennis version of the ropad dope, like Aly against Foreman the rumble in the jungle. And so don't give the power player power So just give him junk, slices, floaters, drop shots, know, wherears him you can almost picture young you know, it's so funny, the most iconic Jimmy Connorss moment is when he's in his late thirties, right? But you know He was energetic at thirty seven twenty two year old Connters running all over the place, but Ash did wear him out And wins six unbelievable, right? Yeah. when the great thaninking man performances in sports history and but dad became the first and still the only black man to wayne at Wimbledon. So Gibson' about getting through the gate. Ash is about walking on a center court and outthinking the whole power structure. And then there's Billy Jean K Billy Jean King. she she is in some ways, she's the one that breaks the barrier for women U It's tennis really all over the world, The WTA. All right, The original nine. Um you know, she's She she leads the women to what would eventually become an equal moment in tennis And she's not asking the existing system to be nicer. She's saying let's create a whole new system when it serves us Um this comes back to the the timing element So cigarette ads get banned from TV in nineteen seventy one. And so Virginia Slims, which is a cigarette brand and marketed upward womomen is looking for a way to get their product awareness out there So they sponsor the women's tour R? You've got this major corporate backing for this pledgling tour Of course the slogan, you come a long way, baby Um And so Uh you know, it matters Wimledland because Wimledland here's the oldest and most prestigious tournament, but it's not the first to get equal prize money So for women to get their money, you needed the back end of something like this. So Here comes this major sponsse. They're looking for something. They've had this, you know, the prminent way of advertising taken away from them and shut off from them And so it worked out pretty well for Billy Jean King and the Pedgling womomen's tour. Look, it did. By the way, I was thinking about this. had you had Virginia Sims, which, you know, for those of us of a certain age It was you just associated it with women's tennis all the time Right? It was always Virginia Sims, Virginia Slims. And then you had the Winston Cup Remember for NSCAR racing for NASCAR. Yeah. becausecause again, it goes back to what you just said, the cigarette companies They had to find another way to get their logo out They had to find another way and so while they couldn't advertise, title sponsor And course of like The antithesis of sport, right? Sports health and good for your cardiovascular system. all that. It's really sort of of all things. likeike is there a worst thing Although if you told me right You know, I'm sure I'm sure like there are guys that smoke the tennis tourbamits that have whibbled that ever saw you smoke, they probably would have thrown you out of the facility. So Again, the US Open got there in terms of equal pay in nineteen seventy three than it took until two thousand seven. It's funny. I actually met Billy Je King for the first time last year and I said, you know, Hey I'm just amazing in awe for everything that you've done. and Quick Ror is and I'm still going You know, she's in her raadies now but it's just so d like she still had to keep going. like she she gets equality at the U.S. openpen and and it takes, you know until another thirty plus years It took Venus Williams You know, she made she writes this op ed in the timimes of London before the start of the tournament and know and you know, in zero seven and she makes this public plea and makes this case And then finally And, you know her popularity and her voice is is what took it. So it's u It is quite but going back to Billie Jean JA. She's another one like Alpha Gibson, Billie Jean King. it she's getting her dues. I'm glad she's I've noticed feels like in the last ten years She's getting the bies in there. He's getting the flowers she deserved at the time that we didn't It's very similar to Muhammad Ali Right where in the moment she was treated as a So she's dividers, she's ruining sports, she's bringing politics. you know what I mean? All these things and Muhammad Ali was treated the same way By the end of their career and end of their lives you realize my word, look what they did and look at the look at the dignity that they kept, you know, while doing it. And I feel like Billie Jean is getting is getting her flowers late, but at least she's here to get her flowers And it's so great she's hearing it directly from the people who are benefiting for like, I remember Coco Gf h you know, got one of these seven figure checks for, I think when in the US open and I think the Vijian King was there, but she just was just looking at this, you know, giant check literally. I'm really grateful for you for for what you did because now I got this this big check to deposit in my account. So she got to hear it directly. So I Um, you know, and when When she closes her eyes for the final time, she will she will, you know, have a peaceful eternal sleep knowing that, you know, she got the full recognition for everything that that she did. Look and not to give away Mount Rushmore', but it like with Billy Jean King, right that is You just say to yourself possible she You know, when a if you look back over it when women's tenenis is two hundred and fifty years old, she's still going to be seen as a founding mother, if you will, of women's tennis You just can't extract her from Yeah from the sport and just women's sports in general, right are beyond just tennis hundred percent. so this act was the story of the players making Wimbledon open its gates to the professionals, the black champions to empowering women to player labor to the athletes who weren't just grateful to be allowed in, but they're strong enough to negotiate their turn. Look, and this is what makes Wimbledon Dynastic, if you will. It protects tradition ferociously, but over and over again The players force it to decide which traditions are truly sacred And which ones are just big race deffending old power the fact that they can adapt too yeah Yeah, the fact that Wimbledon can adapt is why it has to stpe And then once the gates were open, something else happened that really helped bring Mumledon to the place and the status enjoys today. and that was Americans. fell in love it We'll talk about that next All right, so we're two American guys doing a Wimbledon episode. So at some point, we're going to have to ask the very selfish question How did this tournament become ours too? Because yes, Wimbleon is British to its bones, the All England club the The Royal Bs, strawberries and half and half as HA will tell you, it wasn't really ain't whipp cream. that cool wh. address code that sounds like I was written by someone's disapproving grandfather And yet for American sports fans of a certain age, Wimledbon is now And it really is of a certain age, it's the age that JA and I are. I mean, we were kids in the late seventies Wimbleledon is deeply familiar and feels weirdly American, but it feels like it's culturally a first cousin for sure To the extent that the Beatles are American, right? feel American The Rolling Stones came over here in the nineteen seventies right L Rissing, we had Forbes all these things, right? the British invasion. this wasn't so much as an invasion as it was um just reaching out and and an affinity for it. And I think the answer lies in three things. It's Champions television and timing Um, so the Americans Americans love winners, right? Chuck. We do. So Americans were going over to London and winning and winning and winning. So you had a rooting interest teelevision gave Americans and it gave the sport exposure in America, and it gave Americans a ritual and then the timing U we hinted at this earlier It fllt at a great place, a fortuitive spot on American sports counter pretty slow period on the American spports counter, late June and into July And um It made Wimbledon feel like seasonal appintment. So let's start with the players first U, you know, it wasn't just a moment. it it was w years, right? You got your early American Champions like May Sen Bill Tilden Ellen Wills, Moody and Don Budge and then Post warar E, Marine Conny, Altha Gibson and Billy Jean King And in the open era Um gives American television this incredible cast. Connors, McNroe, E Ntoloo starts off as a and becomes an American citizen after a infection As Sephras and Agassy. Venus and Serena All those stars And really depend I mean, really since it depending on your generation Wimbledon comes to you through a different American face. I mean, just You know, you you literally, if you're in your sixties or seventies, You've got a player. If you're in your forties or fifties, you've got an American. If you're in your twies or thirties, you do. right and the fact that You know, it could it could switch back and forth Right? So if the men were going through a low, which Pretty much the twenty first century has been an American tenn as l. But you did have Venus and Serena to pick up the slack, right? And then you had sort of Chris Et in the seventies until McNroe becomes more prominent in the eighties, right? And in Sampras in the nineties So you had this this this handoff back and forth the men and the women. But let's be honest, the real American marketing genius came from a producer at NBC, an unnamed producer. Breakfast at Wimbledon. NBC takes what should be a problem, the time difference and turns it into a brand and an identity You want to watch Center Court Lve You're going to get up early. So NBC says, so great. that's not an inconvenience Let's turn it into a ritual Man Ch I' just hearing you talk about it. I hear those notes in my head The song is called World Champion by Keith Mansfield and everyone who grew up watching brereakfast and Wimell then can H hummet sing along Um But yeah, it was brilliant television branding, right? and just really embracing it. They made the time a part of it. Like that sounds aspirational. Let's have breakfast at Wimbledon. If you knew bad the breakfast at Wimbledon actually was, maybe you wouldn't be so incited to get up, but because you weren't subjected to that awful British food, you just got to wake up and roll out of bed and maybe stumble into the living room and turn on the TV All these the brilliant green the emeralds of Willeton would be beamed into your living room I want I want to give you I know you've got you love this next story here. And before you get to it, I want to talk about a brief history of the of what Wimbledon, what the television experience was like for Americans for Wimbledon before nineteen seventy nine You have this great story here and I don't want to I don't want to take it take it from you. But just to give you a backstory. So it wasn't it was in the sixties is when, you know, so The BBC started televising Wimbledon, believe it or not in nineteen thirty seven they even they actually There were so few people watching it that the makers of televisions advertise television sets in the program at Wimbledon to let people know that they could if they couldn't get into the gates at Wimbledon, they could go they could buy a television and watch it in the BBC Do that's interesting because that highlights the difference between America and and England because you know, originally like the baseball owners saw television as a threat Right? And the NFL owners saw television as a threat that oh my God, if people watch on television, they're not going to come and buy tickets and we're not going to make as much money. But TV seem to be embraced at Wimbledon in England. So This won't surprise sort of American sports TV. knowledgeable people, but the first sort of excerpts of Wimbledon were on the wild world of sports back in the sixties and ABC would bring these taped badcast nineteen sixty nine is when NBC officially gets to the rights to Wimbledon. But between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy eight Wimledon is all on tapeed deay and it's packaged. And it's, you know, not dissimilar to how You know, this was for those of you of of us that are younger than JA and I, this was like Sports We got to experience as kids came to us prepackaged or on tape delay. whether it was the NBA Fals, whether it was boxing, whether it was tennis, whether it was golf, if you were watching the British openp you know, everything or the Olympics L games on college football. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, NBC was doing it with the Olympics, you know, accounting for these different time zones around the world You know, really into the twenty first century, surprisingly, until social media basically forced them to stick with every de li But this is what happened, right? which is the American players in the early seventies start to become the stars of tennis. We just told you. Arthur Ash wins Wimbledon in seventy five. Billy G. King is the one of the dominant women's players. You have a young Chris Evet. You have a young Jimmy Connors. You have this up and coming star and John McNroe. so There was suddenly NBC decided, you know what? there might be an audience here for live coverage. Let's give it a sh. and One of the problems though was that kindind of interesting that NBC could boss around the Olympics and change starting times. so you might get Uh, you know, swim gold medal match might start at like eight AM in Beijing to accommodate the American TV time zones Um, But Wimbleledton, they weren't budgeting. They were doing their noon start for the championship, you know It doesnn't matter what that meant for American TV audiences And they didn't want to budge. on when NBC with their first breakfast of Wimbledon in nineteen seventy nine, it's the the Borg Norm Borg versus Roscoe Tanner in the final And they just wanted to do a little five minute intro to kind of set the stage. You know, MBC became really famous for those in the nineties with the M NBN NBC Um they just wanted something similar, you know, just like a tone set or the build excitement in the match U you know, and the producer, Don Olmeyer, a pretty famous producer at NBC Sports. Don Omeer, by the way, who's Tony Korneizer loves to talk about it all the time because it's Olmeyer who made the famous quote that says All of your problems can be solved with one thing the answer to most of your problems is money. Except Wldon. except they Wldon. Right because despite all the money that NBC was paying for the American VV rights woman said, no, you cannot have a five minutute del. And so Uh That day though, it just so happened that Donald Dell was an NBC commentator, but he was also Dond Roscoe Tanner's agent. you know, the Proroser agency represented, you know, most of the tennis stars of the seventies Also was where David Falk was working when he signed his client Michael Jordan in nineteen eighty four Um So Donald Dell uses he switches from commentator mode to agent mode and He gets his client, Rosco Tanner. to take a bathroom break right before the match or ostensibly he's takaking a bathroom break, Re goes and hides out in the back of the men's locker room And so you know, buys him the necessary time. Meanwhile, he's in there so long that there's a Wimbledon official going in there saying, oh, mister Tenor Where are you, Mr. Tana? We're ready for you. Mr. Borg is ready So having sufficiently delayed the start of the match let me see could get their little preview in He comes down you know, just I'm not going to go down the road as an exDBCer. The leegend of Don Almeayer is what it is, but there's a regason why you have the phrase the leegend of Don Almeyer These are the type of things that made him a legendary television executive. The good and the bad. lookook. I'm not going to you know, there's other ways that Omeyer cause some controversy later on down the road. We're not going to get into it here. This is why there is the word legendary television executive applies There's a re Yeah to mr. Omeyer. Well, look There's one other person that I want to give a little bit of a shout out to here because you know at least for for those of us of a certain age Breakfast at Wwindling and you woke up, it was summer. everyverybody and you got to see Bud Collins wearing crazy looking pants that looked like they were designed by a kaleidoscope or something And Bud Collins I think is an incredibly important narrator here for bringing excitement. I mean He and I'll say this. I think John McNroe brings a very similar energy to these broadcasts. But I think he learned it from Bud Collins. and And this is what's great about Bud is that Bud was both a legendary sports writer from guess where, the Boston Gobe was he his career, he was both a tennis nut taught tennis evenven while he was an intern at the Boston Herald, he was like a local tennis coach for a little while But he was he started tell he started doing tennis commentary for public television in Boston in the sixties And so that's why he was one of the few sports journalists who also had some TV chops, which is why MBC hired him You know, Dick Vyal did for for college basketball on television Arguably is what But Coins did I think. D't you that Thank that list, John Madden for the NFL and Madden Joon Cherry with hockey Night in Canada these these people who you know, really helped elevate the sport and we' a conduit and were're enthusiastic cheerleaders. so enthusiasm. I can tell you just like this It was was contagious. Aesome. Yeah. like it's genuine. It's not an act. It wasn't an Iyper dities, right? Yeah. You know, you know, Bud, Bud sat in in my little section when I was when I covered Monbon for the first time And that enthusiasm So the day the tournament started, he is in there, you know, we all had phones at our desk and his phone would ring and he would pick up and answer and say, Wimledon first day he was just floating on a cloud because this was his time. So, you know, Bg Collins was tennis on TV for American audiences. Yeah. But again, even for him, you know, so well versed in tennis, you could tell Wimbledon was it This was Christmas for him, right in middle of July. Wimbledon. That was it And again, you know And I don't and maybe it's because you and I are both of are sort of ink stained wretches that did television too. I mean, what I loved about Bud and what he did and look, I I in my own way, I've always said my coverage of politics, I wanted I wanted to people to like what we were doing, not dislike what we were doing Bud Collins made me want to play tennis and I had no interest in tennis. Like that's how enthusiastic he was about. you were he made it more compelling He just dead. Fonatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Araron Judge, John Cena, Saylen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, in New York City's largest indoor FIFA World Cup final watch party. Fonatics Fest is the world's number one spports fan festival. Get your tickets now eticspest. com That's beticspest d. com The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin Taadon, Jekca Yetli, gaya, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys bigf fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be how we got to this present moment Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mungisha Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. 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I don't know Listen to Skyline Drive How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the Unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith Weian House is the podcast that's changing that I'm Theeo Henderson, creator and host And for years, I've created a space where the you Ows and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed on house parents immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Rian houses a two time Webby and Signal Award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizons Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Geo Witcherick S speak doctor current influencer who's worked with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community Listen to Wey and House on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You S should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new Stuff You shouldh K know Do science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Ocam's Razor? The simplest explanation is usually the right one. We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park? Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody, Turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff You should know do and science playlist on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Collin's aside in his crazy pants. you know, his his pants equivent of Craig Sager' jackets. Yeah Yeah, You know, but it the broadcast was more formal and more ceremonial. Um So you could tell even through the television that there was something special about this place, right Um and Here's also where Tendna sayss contradiction though because the packaging is a leak M the acents the Rs and Private Club, but the competition You know, it's lonely. you're by yourself And, you know, there's no running back to pick up a blitzing linebacker, you know, that there's no teammate that you can pass off to. There's no teammate that can grab the rebound and pass ahead to you, you know? Um, you know, baseball, you get another at bat tomorrow, but You know, tennis is just you and you know, it's funny that there was a mentality I had to adapt when I was there because I realized If you have one bad day When bad outing, when,, you're done, your tourn's over. you're going home. So I really try to adopt that mentality when, you know, like you got to bring it every day with your sts You know, for the weeks are there. You know, I was like, you got to bring it every day because if a tennis player, one of those people out there on the court doesn't do it, they're going home. So so I tried to be like a tennis player lookook, it no coach. You don't even even when there's a time out, you know, you can make, I guess eye contact with somebody in the crowd, right and you know, maybe do Morris code, right? stuff like that. There's there's There's no clock, although you know, maybe there's some expectation you come back from your hydr your water break there a little bit. You don't have a teammate. You don't have a substitution And now with especially that were putting everything electronically, you won't even have any empires to blame anymore, right? Like it is In some ways with the video reviews, it is There is nobody to blame but yourself And I think it's that That notion, you know, that that that primal you know, one on one and I think that's why there's such a difference between, you know, we werere singles. we don't really care that much about doubles tennis, right ever have. you know, there's something about that evenven like watching the the William sisters, you'd think Oh that would be compelling. This's not the same as watching them play each other, for example. W, Maybe that speaks to the individualism. of Americans U, and that's like why we keep getting our butts kicked in a Ryder cup because calls for teamwork and And that Americans can't shift from that individual all And we're'rere we're I always say we're all libertarian at heart in America right? Be we came here We came here escaping some group write some entity to, you know, whatever it is, everybody came here to strike out quote unquote on their own And the thing about tennis is that It has that It has that you're competing against somebody. So it is like boxing. you're you're going head to head with someone. Parts of it are like golf where you're just it's just you competing against the contours of the court, right? There is nothing preventing you from getting your servant Right? especially there's nobody liting. Ione like imagine I imagine imagine if somebody could rush you while you were serving. Right Right, which is what Race, you know, nothing like that No one in the crowd can do anything, right? Quiet, please. kick So So In that sense, it's like golf, right? Like there's nothing preventing you. There's no one preventing you from hitting a great drive right down the middle of the fairway except for yourself. There's nothing preventing, but you we've seen it, right? When the serve starts to get a little dodgy, the pressure goes up and of a sudden you can't get that first serve in. And now there's that pressure to get the second serve in Right? So it's that watching someone struggle against themselves. part of the fascination. tennis and I think one of the things that helped it play well here in America. Well, let's talk about He brought up golf. and I think this is a good time for an aside on the masters. meaneing the best American comparison to Windledon is the Masters, right? If there's if there's one U. S morning event that has that has the tradition, quirks and rules and controlled imagery and reverence for place It is Auusta Absolutely, you know, that and they all kind of have their They' Yeahah their quirks or are there traditions, you know, So the masters is the green jacket and Wimbledon it's all white Masteres has man corner, Wimledon has center court. Master says Pimento cheese one with then has strawberries and cream. Master says no phones, no running alsoso, you're not allowed to run Um, you know, Wimledton has no visible courortide advertising maybe a little Rlex logo on the score on the score booard that's it. U But yeah, there's certainly a lot of similarities look, Wimbleon does have the Royal boox, but it also has the queue, right? It's center court seats cost a fortune and people have to camp out overnight just for the chance to get in, which is similar to how the Masters of Ground work Um So and both have these similarities. They're private member clubs created tournaments that became global television events. With Wimbledon, it's elite, but it's not completely closed. And it's commercial lies and it doesn't look commerse. And I'd say that for the masters too, right? They restrict the amount of commercial breaks and limit the number of sponsors so it's not too gout int tacky. Um I would say that, you know The cue is cool, this notion that you wait long enough Anbody canankically get it. Yeah if you wait would also like though, is that you know, when circumstances force things upon them They formed a new tradition and became more accessible. And I'm talking about the People Sunday, which started in the nineties you know, normally Wimbleledon takes the middle Sunday off. There's no matches play even if there were all sorts of rain delays. they kept that to the point of where players were kind of annoyed by. Like when it comes to like one year Yeah S' saying ninety nine, some saying ninety one. I'm tending to go with ninety one because I remember being a thing when I was there in ' ninety five Um So there's one year that there were so There was so much rain. they were just hopelessly behind on schedule. So they broke tradition at the All England Lwn Tennis and Croquet Club and they played on the middle Sunday And um So they hadn't sold any seats in advance, right? because they weren't supposed to be there. So they just this was anybody could come first come. First serve have had it even in center court, right? There were no free so so. So if you got there early enough, you can get in and you can go was it like when the Caddies got to swim in the pool and caddys shhack that's you running it But it was a huge hit U And you get, you know what you had, Chuck? You had people doing the wave in Senter courourt That's fant. Ev't help us, you know, but there was so much enthusiasm. and rather than recoil in horror Uh, you know, the people, the powers that be at the All England Club decided that Hey, Maybe we should make this a regular thing. so They repeated it in other rain shortened years. And then they made a regular thing. And so in twenty twenty two U it's a permanent feature that Middle Sunday is the People Sunday So I think that that's something pretty cool and that's adjusting. and it's turning a negative into a positive and saying, you know, this works. let's keep this going Now there's this There might be some belief that somehow Wimbledon was anti commercial. It was never anti commercial. As we told you, the very first tournament, they're selling tickets, right? This was about raising money. So the business of Wimbledon is fascinating because of that. It isn't it's just it wasn't anti commercial, you could call them. They were just very particular about how commercialized they would get So there are no visible courts side advertising boards, right? There's no baseline logos. There's no giant signage that assault your eyes. but You do see recognizable logos. I mean, Rolex is impossible to ignore Slashinger is there Robinson', we're going to get into Robinson's in a minute is there. debventures are there and of course, the broadcaster brands are there Yeah, u terms of that Robins though, you know, so Before you had gay raid and we talked about the brandy, but you also had out Robinson's Barley water U whichich actually is a real thing like a like a hydration idea. rightight? notot just like a a funny thing. Yeah So the story is in nineteen thirty five, the dressroom staff at the All England Club Barley water and lemon as a way to help the players deal with hydration And um That's how it started And it actually worked well enough that players kept wanting it. and You know, it seems like a quaint tradition, but it was actually nineteen thirties performance science U you know, again, before there was Gatorite, there was Barley water doesnesn't sound very appetizing, I'll be honest, man I'm in a hot day. Give me some of that barley water. you know. thoseose of us thought barley water was beer Yeah, Hops and Barley Hs and Barley exactly So you know, the thing with Wimbledon though is it looks old, but it's not anti modern, right? You know had radio early there on that They early on television, they're there with Hawkeye You know, they broke down and put the retractable roof on center courts. Um, sub air drainage to to get the water offff center court, global broadcasts, you know, all these elements U We told you about it earlier So how why did they decide to take they take out pandemic insurance? They lost Wimbledon in nineteen in twenty twenty Um It was July. You guys remember the Delta variant, you know U if you guys have all buried your COVID PTSD, you don't remember the deelta variance, but that was peak, right? So there's no Wimelon. Well, the reason Wimmelon took out pandemic insurance is they took it out after the SARS epidemic and near pandemic of two two o three And turned out to be really precient, you know Wimbleledon ends up with an enormous insurance payout, you know, It just shows you how frankly operational and Um and protective they were at the tournament Dynasties become dynastic because they're thinking ahead Right. And so it's not an ultimate example of thinking ahead. I mean, they almost got caught They were, you know, about a decade and a half ahead of their time when they thought that Hey, if something like this comes about we better be prepared Much more so than the United States government turned out to be. I was just gonna say a tennis tournament in Wimbledon for ten weeks is a little more prepared than they are in the U.S You know, Wimbledon You know, by thinking ahead, by taking all these carefully planned steps, it' become a global media property. It'd become an American television rutrol a business machine and it's still got a private club party f to it all simultaneously So once you have a stage, the money, the audience, the tradition pressure. The only thing they got to deliver every year is the drama. and that is what we're going to We could tell you all you want to know about how this thing got started. But ultimately, Wimbledon is defined by its rivalries and matches And we're going to go through some of the best of all time right after this As great as the location of Wimbledon is, as great as the history of Wimbledon is, it would be nothing without the matches without the rivalries And look, let's be honest, you know, we talked about the birth of Wimbledon's influence on the American culture was thanks to television, was thanks to the late seventies, but it was also thanks to you know, arguably two rivalries that really defined Wimbledon from arguably nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty five. On the women's side it was Martina and Chris And on the men's side, it was bored and back with maybe an honorable mention for Mr. Connors. Thank know. And prepare for this I read I read the book Epic John Mconrove bey on Borg in the greatest tennis season ever And also listen in the podcast biggest Rbberies of all time hosted by Cry Champion about Martina and Chris And one thing that kind of I thought about Considering the four. So all four of these individuals are born between nineteen fifty four and nineteen fifty nine And Yeah I keep coming back to the Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers, which examines how much time and place are responsible for who we become or who these significant historical figures become. And in this case The fact that they werere born at all when I heard nineteen fifty nine And fifty six it made me think of nineteen fifty eight, which is the year that Michael Jackson Prince and Madonna were all born. And they all kind of reach their peak Michael Jackson's thriller comes out in nineteen se or off the wall comes out in nineteen seventy nine Rrillers and Rillers eighty three or eighty four Yeah or eighty then transrite U ninet ninety nine, I think is ninety two and then eighty two and then purple Rin is eighty four And so but I think it's not a coincidence. They all kind of hit that peak right around the time that would be the ten thousand hours or so that Mount and Gladwell popularized that that's the amount of time for you to reach greatness in whatever your perceived field is, right? So the fact that I These people all are entering their primes, their peaks at the time that brereakfast of Wimbledon is being established by NBC and becoming a thing And in particular for the women, especially Chris Et comes along Right after Billy Jean King has opened the door And she's perfectly positioned to walk through that door as this, you know, she was modeled as the all American ir girl and look, let let's let's not dance around this. right? Billy Jean, I you can't help but wonder how much that Billy Jean King's sexuality at the time limited her popularity. Right. although You know, at first she wasn't, you know, she wasn't out until later. Right? R But but that comes in. but certainly Martina He wasn't trying to be the girl store the way Chris Everet was absolutely leaning. and I don't think that's fair to say she leaned into it. That might just be who she was, who she is. But you know, but it's Billy Jin King and the entire women's Liberation movement, right? And So the prominence that's afforded the women's sports, you know, in the way that Altha Gibson, even if she had been white would have had these opportunities and these doors open for her in the nineteen fifties For exam Um And then for Martina Yes, she grew up, you know, on the other side of the Iiron curtain, but the fact that she was in the Czech Republic and not the Soviet Union made a big difference because the Soviet Union really emphasized the team sports like hockey and basketball and they threw their considerable weight behind those sports, whereas other countries in Eastern Europe were more about the individual sports. So tennis could be piloted. You think of Romania and Nadia Komonici, the great gymnasts, you know figure skating in some of those other Eastern European countries. So the fact that Martina was born, let's say in the Czech Republic as opposed to the Soviet Union Um I love this what if from you? We were when we were doing our planning, you were bringing this up and I was sitting there and wondering if she's a Soviet citizen. and raised in the Soviet system you know, they would have probably forced her to play another sport because they didn't really at the time weren't make weren't pushing tennis. they might have pushed her into an Olympic sport or might have pushed her into a team sport or something. You're right. It's an interesting What if R? justust of, you know, yes, she was born in a repressive area of Eastern Europe at the time But she could have been in an environment that didn't even embrace tenac You know, McNroe, you know, he for this image of being a New York City guy and they kind of played that up. But his family moves to the suburbs And they join a tennis and swimming club in nineteen sixty seven. Well if he's raised in the city, he'd never plays tennis, right? Yeah And so, you know, gets his first tennis lesson at age eight Um, you know, and again, it you know, it poises him to sort of peak around the late seventies All right, I've one before we get into the iconic matches here, I've got one other You you aspect of this and that is The advantage of being left handed because this is coming up now, it is There is an over indexing of great left handed point guards in basketball now. And there's always, even though there's this loopsided nature of right handed versus left handed people in the country In tennis, it seems on the elite level, we've almost always had A great right hander versus a great left handnder You know, our dollar better Right Yeah Connors was a lefty. McNroe was a lefty boy, you know, it's it there It I just, you know, there's it's funny. It's like And there's something about being a left. you talk to lefties that are successful and they'll basically in some ways because you're You're forced to use. you're more ambideucturous, you're forced into it, because society sort of favors right handed I don't know what it is, but it does feel as if the successful left handended athletes can you know, there's almost like an equal representation in the elite level as there is with writings So There's actually a discussion of this in the book and the benefits of being a left hand and I'm not well versed enough in tennis really understand or explain it. but has something to do with you know, the ability to serve to like the Duce court under certain circumstances let that So there are some benefits to being a left handed server Um, you know, and what that can do and how that, you know, serving to someone's backhand as opposed to their forehand all these things, right? So so there's something to that Um U Arthur Ash was really good at explaining like so Tiger Woods was great at explaining the technical. If you asked him to talk about sort of you know, more weightier matters, he would shy away from that. But you talk about the technical aspects of hitting a golfall. Arthur Ash was similar in this book, like he really breaks things down. He talks about the way Borgs what made Borg so good on grass, the way his shots would dip just as they cross the net They harder to play him. He moves better laterally on grass than most people do. and As said that There isn't as much adhesion to the sole of the shoe on ground outide So that level of detail what made you know, Borg such a great champion at Wimbledon. So all these people just There were just things about them that were suited to Wimbledon. There were things about them that, you know, make them perfectly suited to take advantage of the time and the place of this boom in tennis and, you know, this focus on Wimbledon in America All right let's talk about the cathedral. It's within the cathedral and that is Center Court U because centert look, Wimbledon Center Court There's Yankee Stadium, there's Agusta,'sadison Square Garden and there's Center Ct at Wimbledon And what's great about Center Court is that Just like when Notre Dame runs out of their locker rooms, you know, play like a champion today and you hit the sign There's something fitting about tennis that you walk under a Richard Kipling quote And you said you had the quote, you actually I had it somewhere framed just as I've been moving, I just came across it. U But yeah, Sampras was someone who really took it to heart. I think he H ad it at the funeral for Fed Perry, something like that Uh he he he was one that really pit him up, you know, San Franis loved all things Wimbbleled in. We love the fact that as a defending champion, you get the first men's match like and I think it's noon on Monday, the first day, right You get that honor of starting off on Center Court to begin your your your your title defense Um Yeah, he he he was just really into all things Wimbled in and playing on center Ct and and the Rudard Kipling poem if Um you just lapped all of it up and the quote from the poem And it and it just There's, you know, in I read the Fed Nadal the book about the great Federr Nadal match of twenty zer eight If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same and better You know, the more these guys, you know, the more they play on center court, the more they win or lose on center court, the more that quote has more meaning to them depending on whether they're doing well or not well, right Yeah, you can really take it hard, but you can apply it to so many things, right You know, I love it. Um You know, yeah, there's also the notion of ghosts, right? You know you know, Yankee Stadium, you know, you hear about them the old Boston Garden or, you know now Madison Square Garden. Um, you know, and that Wimold then certainly has its way as well. Look, Center Court was bombed during World War two and they rebuilt it You know that in itself So the we set you up in the cathedral What's really great about Wimbledon is that every generation can claim its own match as the defining match of their generation, right Um Where were you when Borg and McNroe played the greatreat Tiebreaker Where were you when Becker one at seventeen? Where were you when Venus and Serena took over? Where were you when Federa and N all played into the dark Where were you in Djokovitz Beat feder right? Like and And depending on how old you are depends on what you think the greatest match is. and let's be honest Jay and I are gen Xers, which means First match in our head is going to be Borg McNroe nineteen eighty. And this is one of my favorite things because if you ask the average American who remembers this match Who won I promise you, most people would get it wrong Yeah, especially because Bore comes out and The first set in the smokeom six one You know, or I'm sorry, Maconro beats Bick six wee You know, it looks like it's going one way, but then, you know, Borg steadily fights back And u and the fact that were great Monroow wins the most famous u, you know, set of that one is two, rightight? You know, the four When is the fourth set on time break. He stays off Championship points after championship point. Looks like Borg is going to win, you know, it's all about. I think at this point Borg's trying to win his fifth in a row at that point or fourth in a row, I think at that point And What's interesting, in some ways, the legend of John McNroe is born in some ways because he lost this match ultimately you know, he kind of I think he won over the people though. that that's a big part of it too because like I said, they'rewing when he comes out, you know, they They've got They don't like his style. They don't like the loud You know out of mouth Yankee, right? Mac and Brad, I think is what the tabloids That' some have brought up the fact that the tabloid press is a character in Wimbledon You know, I mean, they they can take over, they can like hound people into submission and run them out and make them leave the tournament early because the relentless pressure, especially at the time when, you know, newspapers occupied and more prominent place in the media sphere Um So and Borg was on the way to win in five consecutive ultimately. So he wins there. What's weird, you know, the fifth set, by the way, you know, we talk about the great four set tiebreaker eighteen sixteen. McNroe wins it And it's one of those where you assume, well, that he broke or But he didn't break board Org wins the fifth set eight six, mind you Right? Like in itself, what a fifth s. And even though Borg wins could Row broke. because the career's never the same after that match Yeah. and and Borg just eventually bails out and rather than like, okay, I'm going have to deal with this guy for the next few years and that just doesn't seem that pleasant to me. So yeah, we forget about him We also kind of forget about him how great he was. because, you know, Mc androe stays around Even though Bjorg was a better player Bjorn Borg was a better player You know, Mconroll stays in our consciousness because we see him every wimbled and we hear him every wimbled it, right? We do now, that's for sure You know, and of course his brother was a pretty decent tennis player. wasn't John McNroe I say this. I know Patrick a little bit. He's a he's a good tennis journalist in his own right. It was fun when the Macreroll Bothers would play would play doubles and stuff, but you're right Borg And you know, here's the other thing Um you know, Borg just Borg also he had ended up having his own he had some personal issues, right? He had some money issues and all this stuff And yeah, it I think I would always claim that Bg was a better player than Mconroe, but Mconroe might have had the better career Yeah we just certainly he exists and occupies more of a place in our head. And some of it was intentional by Borgi You know, he admitted that, you know, there was more to him than you saw, but he very intentionally kept that that cold exterior but just as a way of paying tribute to him before we move on, Vitus Jerry Litus who was a player who was in that era and was friends with both of them Borg and Mack and Row U At one point, so the bigig three was considered Macono Bg and Connors, you know, before there was Nadal anded and Djokovich, there were those three. And Jeradus was playing well. and someone asked him if he thought he'd broken through and was a part of that big three and, um Jolatus says. There aren't three there are the rest of us, then there's boring Well, that's how I mean, he was look He was the guy. and That is the interesting thing about tennis, right? is that there really does feel like even if there's a, you know, there'll be a great rivalry There is somebody that has the belt Right, you know, you know Even during the Federan atal. Great match and yes, Nadal won that match Fedr was still the guy holding the belt Right. He was still felt like And because what happened? He's still the two seat. Right Nadal was still the two seat to Federers one seat, who then goes on to win the U.S. Open later that year You know, It is so in all of this time, there was always still somebody that felt like like Martina and Chris, you're like, yeah, but Martina iss one She has the belt It was Everet, right Everets born before like Martina grows up. She's got a poster of Chris Evet on her wall when she's growing up as a kid in the Czech Republic And so thats that's the goal. She talks about how you know, she she comes to to u So Florida And she's like seeking out Chris Eveard, you know, she's like, can't wait to meet her. And then she's she's surpris and presently surprised that Everet had heard of her You know, that oh, there's this this sheckherl that com. So they're they're initially friendly. As they start off, it's a friendly rivalry U It's the media that tries to turn anles together Right. You know it is,' not just it's not just the media though and certainly was set up to be, you know, the all mmerican girl against the Czch But and it was a little bit of Cold War. Yeah It always felt like there was a coold war prison with which that rivalry got covered And somehow even after Martin became an American A. which's so considered, you know, the representative of Eastern Europe. What I didn't know until I listened to this podcast is that Nancy Lieberman befriends Martina and helps her train he gives her advice and then also says you know, the basketball great Hall of Fame. Nancy Lieberan um says can't be friends with her You know, that's your enemy. You're trying to take what she has And so u How very Larry Bird, like Larry Bad Magic like right It becomes Larry Bird's mother's favorite second son while Larry Bird's like, what am I doing? I can't be friends with you. R. But kind of what happens with magic and Isaiah though, who they're super tight until they go against each other in NBA finals and it fractures their relationship And so this wedge comes in between them and U there is some coldness that develops after they initially were were friendly Um, but also U Navital over does surpassword, particularly at Wimbledon and there ass this Wimbledon focused episode Um, you know, Nabatoloa clearly is the superior of the two at Wimbledton Ever wanton enough Wimbledons to make sure she's an all timer Like she'll n like like right She'll always be second and she even u her coming out moment. She does, I mean what's interesting about Chris Everet is that here's somebody that faced both Billy Jean King in a final and Martine atifine whoo are the two greatest by number of titles women's Wimbledon contestants of all time. You know we mentioned Boris Becker in eighty five, so he didn't have the rialry interesting. He He faced ampperus in two thousand. So Becker by he's not that old. you know, he's like twenty it was he hadn't had a good run. That was a that was that one of those. Hey, look Or specker' back Yeah, he somehow m it to the final and then, you know, he just was no match. I remember at one point You know, San Francis is blowing serve after serve after Becker just closes his eyes and Ways racket in between points like I might as well do this because I got no ch chance of returning these deserves if I'm trying Um, but but U you know, Becker, those were his like kind of bookkend appearances in the finals Um, you know, and at seventeen, you know, he was his breath of fresh air. It was great for Wimbledon though, because you're you know, this very well, he brought poweration Don't you feel like right? Yeah just all over the place diving and And you know, it becomes the first German man to win at Wimbledon. and And of course, the tableloids had a feel there. Yeah I can't tell you the amount of Luftwaffel references and Litzkrieg and all this stuff. like they the tabloids could never restrain themselves from making some type of World War twoo reference when there was a German You know, what's interesting about Becker? For me as a as sort of this amateur tennis, casual tennis fan is that Like power ser like, you know, now every when I think of Wimbledon, I think of the, you know, that this is this is where the power servers can dominate, right? You know, the guys that really have the powerful serve. And it feels like Becker is what and I know he's not the first, but he really sort of felt like that And in some ways, there was a time where I didn't love watching that kind of tennis, where it was just ace after ace after ace Thank you now, you know, in some ways, tennis is incredibly as athletic as it was in the eighties and nineties, it's somehow jumped another level and it's just in some ways, I think more phenomenal at the way that they have one hundred twenty mile an hour serves and they return them, right? Like you're just, you know, there's there's incredible back and forth. but There's something about Becker that felt like he brought this like power Uh and and mainstreamed it a little bit at least for the modern era I would call it energy and Less energetic was Pete Samers was never beloved for as much as he loved Wimbledon The the crowd didn't love him back. You know, they Wh is that? Is it just he wasn't loud and bright color guy? You what Because they initially booed Mconroe But maybe they just came came to think of Maconroll as what American tenns, you know, like they didn't like Gia. They didn't want the blank Yeah right. They wanted to like Fs can do up, you know, uptight and I wouldn't call Samers uptight, but you know, reserve certainly And like if you're going to have an American coming over here and beating our boys, He should act American, you know, like if we wanted a, you know, a stoic person, you know, we'd have we'd root for you know, one one of our Brits here. So they they just never took to Sampas. It was kind of polite applause, but, you know, would you think would you put Steffy Graff as sort of the women's version of that because you could argue, you know, before the Williams for Serena and after Martina and Billy Jean King. I mean, Stuffy was as dominant of about a seven year run as anybody She was and And also addition, I think the association with with You know, McNroe was volatile. Right? ye. You know, graph and sampas were just efficient you know, fraline forehand. you I mean, you just you you let her get forehand on you and forget about it. Fonatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aron Judge, John Cena, Jalen Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more. featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectibles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes. A full tailgate zone. and New York City's largest indndoorf FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Fonatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival. Get your tickets Banicspest. com That's bananxpest dot com The Declaration which is full of these beautifully rendered sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals does also have this darker history to it Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution Why is it important that Americans know about it Well, if we don't understand, The full context in which our nation was founded We won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself I'm Rebecca Nagl, Gohin, Daadon, Jekcaa Yetli, gay laa, citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys bigf fans? Hell yeah. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Mungisha Tet and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever. For all of us I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you And then we can test what draw is the best for your brain. as opposed to his brain Here ares some hard truths. that I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. and get myself into a world of trouble I'd say probably start bone smashing. doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You S should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new Stuff You should Know Do science playlist. Out now. You wantan to know about Ocham's Razor? The simplest explanation is usually the right one. We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park Come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea everybody, turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff You should know do and science playlist on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused. Stories that shame em blame and paint the Unhoused as a monolith We the in House is the podcast that's changing that Sto Henderson, creator and host And for years, I've created a space whereas the you Os and their advocates can tell their own stories In the last few months alone, I've interviewed on House parents immmigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Wedian houses a two time Webby and Signal Award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizons Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Go Witer. Fak doock current influencer who's worked with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community Listen to Wey and Housed on the iHard Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast So Samprus Graph and they were simultaneous, right in ninety five when I covered it, Samprus won the mens and the graph won the women. So they come up in the same era. The Samprus aggassy rivalry, which Nike really tried to push and it was sort of a thing, but they just didn't have enough meetings. And I kind of blame aggassy more because aggassy kind of fe off and he had that walkaway walk about righty He we also left and it also boycotted Wimbledon for three years because of the dress code. right? So that rivberry didn't get to play out very often at Wimbledon Um, so maybe Sampras would have been better beloved if, you know, he had the the Mc androe to his board my favorite The timeline here of the recent era is we were going through our great matches There's another phenomenon here is sort of, I always love the passing of the torch match And how often Fedr was a part of one because wind does Sampruses run in when he meets a young nineteen year old on won one year after winning Wimbledon for the last time And then fetterin it all, right? He sort of in some ways, it wasn't quite a passing of the torch F basically, it was sort of a It allowed Nadalan to become to join him But then you have Jokovich, you know, ten almost literally's eleven years after the Nadal federal match is is in the Yokovich Feder'. And think about that timeline twenty nineteen is Yokovich Fedr, which is an incredible match. Ges goes even this is after the twelve, you know, when they instituted they had to trigger the twelve twelve tiebreaker in the fifth set. We just got through telling you about Federer's first title inzero one Teen years. Amazing between that better for a moment because He felt like the end game were like a fusion, if you will, because he had a Sampras like serve in legacy like groundstrokes. And it just made him seem like the perfect tennis player It's funny, Sarah Kaufman, who is the dance critic for the Washington Post, wrote a column about Federr, which I've actually taught in my class several times or used in my class because it's a great example of writing when there's no statistics to back you up when it's just a feeling that you have And so she made the case that Roger Fedder is the most graceful athlete our timeent And its it's interesting. gr schools Chrl is a perfect word, right Yeah And it perfect description. and of course, you provided the perfect definition and examples of what made him so graceful and descriptions of his grace. But that was That was betterveteran and just special and the kind of a reared place for a place that does reverence or a red person for a place that does reverence. But what do you do? Yokovich Fedr Nadal, right? This is one of the great It's, you know, you've gotten, you know, we do this all the time with basketball, LeBron versus Jordan It's different eras versus these three, which all played They all played each other. And they all have twenty plus majors. And you just wonder how many they'd have if they didn't have to go against each other, right? I mean, you know, you know, we we you and I are sitting here lionizing the old Borg and McNroe days and those guys were great. but this most recent domination of this trio of men. And look And we may have already seen the torch pass. right? I talk about the torch passing matches. Alcaraz and yogas I mean, now we've got toident later Right And you wonder like there was that match where Alcaraz was out and Cina was out and Jokovich got beat. you wonder like if it's really dying, like it seemed like it was all open en up for him to get one more Grnd sllam and he could two guys out. Yeah, you know, it just might not happen. I mean, he did get he did get u You did get another Olympic gold medal a little bit surprisingly right in Paris, but Um Uh, yeah, but let's let's move to the Williams sisters who um were their own thing and who changed tenus. you talk about the athleticism that Becker brought, but how Arockower. Yeah.'s similar thing to women's tennis and I can argue Steffie Graff was sort of the first h. She was a forerunner of it, but The serve wasn't as big. the range wasn't as big, right? So she not like like Serena really of Serena to just chase down anything and get it back over the net Right And what was amazing to me was how they made Martina Hingis obsolete. So Hingis was this great player who was very skillful But she just didn't have the power. So she had it looked like she was going to be the next thing. I was actually there when she was having some of her first appearances at Wimbledon And, you know, everything felt she was next and she was just very poised and polished and just had a very precise game accuracy on her shots was incredible and she just didn't make mistakes And then the Wave sister just came along it just overpowered her and she just had no answer You can't get bigger and stronger, you know, And so the game belonged to the Willams sisters. Lindseay Davavenport was a pretty powerful player you know, you had to have that in your game. You had to have that type of athletic ability to compete now, you know, the serves got bigger. You used to be able to break serve pretty easily in women's ten women's cent broke you just break right back And it wasn't happening now with these more powerful servers. The William sisters meet four times together. Sereinna wins three Venus wins once against her sister. But let's step back Is there a better sib siblings What other pair of siblings are essentially both haall of famamers in their sport was ready for this one. but I know I didn't and I wasn't like I've been, you know, I wish I'd gotone deeper into this, right? but you start to I mean it is It is It's really am, you know, we I talked about the backack and Ro Bothers and certainly they played together, but, you know, Patrick wasn't John, right R There was in time that Venus was right to head a is in step Curry. The Dimaggios like I, you know, it Proably they've got to be collectively the greatest siblings. There's I can't I'm here's a challenge for those listening We'll be doing our our, you know, we'll take your questions and comments If we're missing a pair of siblings, let us know. There was a great moment at the US Open actually when what we thought was Serena's farewell to singles tennis, but, you know, as you know as we're recording this, she's getting ready to come back and play in Wimbledon, also want to take a note to give our best wishes to Chris Eward, who as we're recording this has announced the return of the cancer battles that she has fought so along with Martina. they both went through cancer and we thought They're both on the other side and can kind of savor and just really you know, look back and spend these time reminiscing and now I'm sure Martina will be by her side again and provid support as they go through, you know, each kind of had to take turns going through it and supporting each other and now it's be Martinez turn to support Chris they really seem like public sisters now. Yeah you know, in our own way to way to take care of each other. We certainly want to, you know, send our best wishes to Chris and our support And, um simultaneously, we're excited about the return of of Serena Williams and excited to see, you know, what she can still do in her her mid forties Look, I don't think we could just I feel like every time I feel like we madeade it clear how great the William siss are. then there I realized there's still things I left out. They have twelve Wimledon singles titles together. Sereita has seven Right Venus has five. to twenty sixteen and one of the two sisters either held the title in eleven different years. I mean, that's just You know, there's just nothing like them that we've ever seen Yeah. Yeah. I was there when they faced each other at Winleood for the first time in the semifinals in two thousand and the place was going crazy and the U that we say you put out a three and to half press release about sisters and the history of the tournament and the tour And that was the first time sisters had met in the semifinals, as you described in the very first Wimbledon Women's tournament Sister's Mad in the final. Um U I just remember kids were going around going. The Williams Venus and Serena, they were just like bopping around like The match itself that was a problem like when they played each other their matches have never been for great Right. Yeah. there' just there was just too much going on Right We sa matches it' aspect of it. Yeah. The matches tosel. Right? You never sit there and say And I don't look, no, I'm an only child. so I can't get inside the whole sibling rivalry thing. I mean, you know And I have two kids and they don't really place boards against each other You know, I don't That's a dynamic that I think is just unique that nobody can quite understand unless you're actually inside their heads. And crazy that they won fourteen grand Slam doubles finals together teamorts every time they made the final They were win him By the way, I do you know, we I I hated I don't want to I I don't want to leave I want to go back one quickly to Stehie Graff here a minute because I think I worry that we kind of glossed over She is the only woman to ever have the golden slam And you know what the golden slam is Yes. so you know that in ninety two, I think it was get it. She pulled it off in o now you're ninety two. Yeah. w it winning oneon, the Australian open, the French open All and same calendar and Olympic gold medal Yeah one it was ninety two, maybe ninety six. I think ninety It is And it, you know, it's interesting again, I think that it's just a reminder that You know, The dark It is hard it is There's always another generation that's going to come and say, hey We're going to top this and there's no doubt the W sters in some ways topop stey but. Stehie was a was was a was a dynasty in and of herself for a period of time. There's three other shoutouts and matches in Wimbledon history that we have to talk about One is the greatest fairy tale of them all. Goron Ivan Isavvich. I really was practicing. Ivon Isavvic, Ivon Isovic He is the greatest sports fairy tale, maybe ever U This is the equivalent of a sixteen seed beating a one seed in the NCAA tournament He was his ranking was one hundred and twenty five. He gets a wild card, which is what Serena Williams is playing under and the twenty twenty six Wimleton