Press Conferences and Final Thoughts

It's the biggest football tournament ever this summer and the summer world cup for it. Are you? Are you up for following midnight kick offs during midnight feeds? And in depth analysis wherever you are ? Are you up for expert takes that you can pass off as your own? May, your knowledge of Kurosselves midfield is unsurpassed. Are you up for the biggest world cup ever? All in one place ? Get the sun app for the latest updates, reports, and analysis round the clock. The sun. We're world cup for it. Season finally catch up. You know what's needed? Popped a co op . Co op members get two stone baked pizzas and a tube of benesej for aerri fiber. Co op owned by you, right by you. And eighth of September selected products subject to availability COPGROM membership required one pound joining fee full times at Coltako UK South Summer. What would you do with a two hundred million pound Euromians jackp ot. How would you react? Who are you telling? Where are you moving? What are you inventing? And I tell you what I do, I buy Spain. These are the questions we ask our guests on Rich Beyond My Wildest Dreams, the award winning podcast from Eur illionso m by the National Lotstery, hosted by me, Serrell. Each week, a new guest dreams about how they'd spend their imaginary jackpot as they step into their new life as a Euromillions winner. So if you want to hear how the likes of Joanne McNally, Pete Wicks, Paloma Faith, Matt Lucas, Jordan North, Mo Gilligan, and more would spend their euro millions win. Tune in to Rich Beyond My Wildest Dreams on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe now . We are back with another episode of the Gay tennis podcast. I'm Tony and the bitch is back. I am officially back at Wimbledon . I arrived late last night back into London and I already have Airbnb drama . I was not here more than ten minutes and I already had Airbnb drama . In fact, since the last time we talked, I have had two pieces of Airbnb drama that I won't get too much into , but I will just say I am back in a hotel with AC . One of the Airbnb dramas was my fault and the other was my last host's fault . Let's just say I was very unhapp y with the review she left me on my first Airbnb . You know, from qualifying week I stayed in a cute little Airbnb that I raved about even though there was no AC during an epic heat wave and I didn't sleep for the entire week. I still left her a really good review and she had the nerve to leave me a review that was, I think she said a number three because I didn't leave it clean enough. Okay . This is from someone who left me no directions. I couldn't tell where to take the trash out. So there was one tiny little trash can. If you look closely in the video I posted on Instagram, you can probably find it. Which shout out to Monica Sellas. I saw that you liked that. Thank you, thanks, Queen. We talk about you in just a few minutes. Actually, I mentioned you briefly . But anyways, so there was one tiny little trash can in the bathroom and that was it. So I just left all my other stuff in bags that I tied up and put like kind of up against the wall next to that little tiny trash can because as you may remember I was chugging cold power aids and water every night there because there was no AC anyways, she left me a three . And when I tell you, I send her the craziest messages back and it started with LOL, which anytime you start a sentence response back with LOL and then you finish it off with that is the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard . Let's just say she assured me that she's already contacted Airbnb and fixed that. Anyway, so that one wasn't my fault. My second Airbnb drama was my fault because while planning this epic three week vacation or trip over to London and to Valencia . For my Airbnb say this week that I'm in right now for some ungodly reason, well I know why to save money. I agreed to do an Airbnb that was really affordable, but the person was staying in the house the host . Okay , like I don't that just tells you we all know I was going through it with my should er. I'm just gonna blame that. I don't know what I was thinking , but I ended up showing up to some guy's Airbnb last night like to his home where he was staying with his girlfriend . And I just pop in with all my bags and at one point I woke up in the middle of the night and I had to pee and the shared bathroom was literally right next to his door and I just couldn't continue that line . You know, it's like, what do you do? So I'm gonna go walk over next to this man and wake up in the middle of night to pee and flush the toilet. It was like it was just too much. There was so much going on and I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna cancel this , take the hit, you know, that I'm going to take some of the money hit. I'll get some of my money back and I'm getting a hotel. Like I needed my own place where I can come and tear off all my clothes after long days at Wimbledon. So anyways, that's my Airbnb drama that I said I wasn't gonna get into . I am back in London, the bitch is back, already pissing people up, already waking people up in the middle of the night. So much has happened since we last talked. I mean, first of all, Serena came back. My last episode that I recorded was all about her draw . I feel pretty good about what I said during that. I think all of that still stands, even though she did lose her first match , I put out a question just like questions and com ments on Instagram and I have never received such an overwhelming response. So I'm going to do a whole episode about Serena and what I thought of her comeback. I mean, I think there's like obviously positives and negatives and in some ways she did better than I thought in some ways I was a little surprised by some of the things I saw . I'll get into all of that, but I did watch Serena while I was in Valencia . I went to game games obviously . Okay, so I've been talking a lot about my shoulder and I'm sure you're like, wait a second, you actually ended up playing after you sat here and basically cried saying that you couldn't move because your neck and shoulder were so bad. Well, my doctor gave me Maldonium. I must have been going to Maria Sharapova's doctor. The drugs he gave me the day before I left on this flight , I'm about to fly over here. I call him, of course, in a gay panic , like near tears . And to his credit, honey, he gave me just about every drug you could and I was rooted up. I was I had painkillers. I had so many things to get me through that weekend gay games. So I did end up playing and not only that I actually played pretty well considering I'm so out of shape. I have not hit haven't hit a two handed backhand in weeks and weeks and weeks. So anyway, we ended up playing great me and my partner John and we got bronze medals . So hey, I'll take that. We played people honestly at a pretty high level and I could not have been too disappointed. Did I hit three double faults in the ten point tie break? We lost? Yes, but anyways, I'm going to do a little more on Serena and gay games because I watched her while I was over there . Big picture gay games, I will say Flindsia, it's not a complete chop , but like it's fine. You know what I mean? It's fun, it's good. We had a good time . It was fun to be at gay games and all of that. So that was cool , but to go from Wimbledon , you know that saying from Nimi Leeks, where she says, This ain't Phedra, this ain't Phedra and she's yelling at Ken, you're like, listen, you might be able to do that over here to Phedra, but you're not doing that to me . Well, that's kind of how I felt like this ain't Wimbledon. You know what I mean? Coming from Wimbledon qualifying where everything is just so organized and so perfect and then going to gay games, which of course is just like thousands of queens running around a city . Shout out to everyone by the way who kind of came up to me or recognized me that was super fun . I would suggest if there is a gay billionaire listening or a queer billionaire and you're not a terrible person . Please buy gay games and let's let's help give it a revamp because it's all volunteers. I didn't realize it's almost exclusively run by volunteers and that is just I mean for essentially a gay Olympics or queer Olympics to now be run by just volunteers. Like it's just it's too big of a project . It needs some money and some finances and some organization behind it. But it was so fun. I was so happy with how I played so much fun to play on Red Clay. I felt so bitched out there with my dirty socks and shoes. So yeah , overall gay games was great. I'll get more into that on a future episode. Like I said , but I am back. I am back at Wimbledon . I just had my first day there . It was a long day. I am actually going to cut to. I feel like to really get a vibe of the tournament and how it went today for me. I'm going to cut now to a conversation I had with a friend, former co host and someone who I spent a lot of time with today at Wimbledon. His name is Brennan, so you'll get his thoughts here. And yeah, so I'll cut that in here and then finish up the episode from there. Okay everybody, it is Tony. I am here back at Wimbledon for the first Sunday. I am here with a friend, a former co host , and a, what do you like to call yourself a Monica Sullus Aficionado ? Hi Brennan, welcome back to the show. Obsessionato, but I'll take it if Brennan, tell me everything . First of all, what are you drinking? Is that wine or pims? It is rose and it's lovely and you are catching me at the end of the day so it's not my first glass of roset . Well, you can have all the drinks because I haven't had anything today because I had a long trial . I know it's true because I kept asking you, but then saying, I'm not a pusher. I'm not a pusher. Can I please get you more than a glass of water? And you said no, I have to work. I know. That's a shout out to Wimbledon, give them a press pass again next year. Thank you. I'm taking it seriously. Okay , we started our day watching, well together, at least watching Asta Penko. What was the experience like watching Penko play next? It is just amazing to see not just how she holds her own, but how she gives back the power . And more importantly, she just she enjoys herself. After the second serve misses, after the first serve aces, after everything, she grimaces, she smil es, she jumps, she looks at the crowd . Even if you're not a fan of her to watch her, you have to walk away being a fan. And I can't remember who she's playing with, but he likes to dab forehead with the bottom of a shirt he has and that's what I remember . Yeah, I actually don't remember his name off the top either, but he was good and they were fun to watch and they are moving on to the next round. They won easily today So they go, I'm sure we're somehow going to get you on this fabulous podcast. While we were watching, I said, Okay, Tony, like actually like how does this happen? And what can we do? And I said, quote unquote, what is your business development strategy As to Penko odd this? He literally asked . He asked me my business development strategy for getting Penko on mid match. That's the that's who I'm wheeling and dealing with over here, okay? Breton takes a sip of Rosette. It's nonstop and I appreciate it because I do need to be working about my business plan. Hopefully I get to talk to Penko later this week. I didn't get to talk to her today . Okay, let's move on from Penko Doubles. We both were there watching the Osaka Zabelinka match. Zebelinka had not lost the match in straight sits at a slam since twenty twenty. She had not lost a tie break in seven hundred years. You can fact check that . And today both things happen ed on center court. What was your take your takeaway from that match? The positivity of Osaka just one Sab alenka would hit a clear winner. There'd be a lt and a, you know, a jump in the step of Naiomi and she was all for it, positivity. And then, you know , afterwards, you know, for those of us that were lucky enough to actually, you know, be on court after the on court interview, she walked, she skipped, she just jumped for joy. Just, you know, as she said in the Entcour Afterview Inter , that's the right phrase . I haven't been this happy playing tennis in a long time. And I'm lucky enough to be here with my partner and my parents. And I looked over at my mom and she had tears in her eyes. And she, you know, she follows tennis. She like, you know, but she doesn't really maybe know her whole journey. So just to kind of hear that, I haven't been this happy playing tennis in this long. It just, that's my biggest takeaway. Yeah , she did look happy. She was incredibly like poised. She served really well. I thought she handled the moment quite well. She said in her press conference was I was lucky enough to sit in on that this was her first win on center court at Wimbledon. She seemed very happy about that . What were my other takeaways? I was a little surprised that Sablenka didn't try slicing, dicing, doing a little more drop shots coming in like she's added all that to her game, but maybe namely just didn't let her get into it, but she didn't do a lot of that today . I absolutely agree . And has she added that much to it? I mean you can't, you know, say a lot of negative things about someone who's so clearly number one and the pedigree and you know , I guess I used to say mental strength the last month or so seems to have dented that a tad, but you still have to give her kudos where kudos is , but has she added that much to her game? We talk about that she has and yet as of late under pressure it seems not to have come to fruition . I think if you watch the clay court matches that they play, the difference between Sabalenka and Osaka in those matches that she's won, which by the way, that was also brought up . The commentator said, you know, you've lost your last three matches to Naomi and she said, yeah, that sucks, which got a laugh from the crowd. Okay , wait, can we talk about the crowd? They were very pro Naomi. I was a little surprised Why? I just wasn't expecting them to be like, it felt like they were hanging on every shot of hers. I knew that I guess I just never thought that , you know, she hasn't had a huge run here. She's never been to the quarters. I just didn't know what to expect and I just they were firmly behind her the entire time you were texting me that all match. I kept actually feeling feeling the eyes behind me in the row being like, who the heck is this person that is on center court and he's just looking at his phone? And I literally wanted to be like, No, no, it's my friend who actually is like on top of this and knows the game across the court for me. So this is where we also were talking earlier and I guarantee this part of this won't make the podcast as far as a podcast where maybe you perhaps talk about folks and, you know, do you want to have how much repeat crowd? How much are we In my thoughts in this is Sablenka a likable player? The answer to that is absolutely not. There are things that are likable about her, I guarantee she's a fabulous person. I know nothing about her and so this is nothing against her character. What I have witnessed is that I think Naomi Osaka happens to be a more likeable person . In the way she has conducted herself on and off the court. And oh by the way, I know I don't know my ass or my elbow. I'm not likable. I don't know what I'm saying. But when kind of the question is posed, are where you surprised the crowd as more for more O fsrozen than Sabalenka. No, no, no Okay, no, I totally get that. For me, I do find Sabalinka. Now this we might be two of the least psychable individuals on the entire grounds right there. I said Brendon Sutton as I was saying I don't I do find Sablink to be really likeable and fun and funny and enjoyable. Maybe the Wimbledon crowd not as much . But yeah, I know and I'll go near like this is also the Wimbledon Crowd let's be honest they',re a little bit more traditionalist. They're little, you know, to be honest . Yeah. But anyway, I just wanted to point that out because for me, I've not experienced a crowd being that pro Naomi outside of the states, but I'm not one of her matches. But that was something that jumped out to me. She talked about the crowd a lot in her press conference. That was my question. I was going to ask her before someone else did, and she called them lovely . But I felt like the center court really honestly, it just felt like it really worked for her today . Brennan, final thoughts before we hop off, thank so much, by the way, and plug anything you want while you're here . No, just a great day. You know, love being out of the pod again , fun seeing you here and it's, you know, tennis, it connects dots, it connects people and, you know , a tough loss for Sabs. Obviously had some words about that, but a great person, a great competitor and is just so great to see you and you know, just the competition of Wimbledon. Lucky to be here. And when I finally get Monica Sellas on, you will be the first person I call to invite on. Thank you so much for coming, Brennan. Okay, so that was Brennan. As he said, yes, he had the drinks had been flowing for him all day. He was having a great time. I was having a great time too, but I was sober as he attested to. I just was like , honey, my last day at Valencia, I tore it up and then I had to travel all day and show up at some random man's home and not in a good way. You know, his girlfriend's on the couch bitch. So yeah, I definitely am back like in work mode here . So I get back to site and the first thing I noticed when I got to Wimledon was it was not overly crowded . It did not feel like the first weekend of the US open is packed . Like wall to wall, you can't move. It's hard to get anywhere. Wimbledon is not like that. Like it just yeah, of course there were some busy areas but there weren't super long lines like queuing out, you know, wppraing around , even at Indian Wells, I felt like it was just really crowded . I don't know if it's just Wimbledon or the European way or what, but it wasn't like that at all considering it was the, you know, the, I guess, the first weekend after, you know, the tournament started last Sunday . It's the biggest football tournament ever this summer and the summer world cup for it . Are you? Are you up for following midnight kickoffs during midnight feeds ? And in depth analysis wherever you are ? Are you up for expert takes that you can pass off as your own? Your knowledge of Kurosal's midfield is unsurpassed. Are you up for the biggest world cup ever all in one place ? Get the sun app for the latest updates, reports, and analysis round the clock. The sun, we're world cup for it. Season for Nari Catchetchup . You know what's needed? Pop to co op . Co op members get two stone baked pizzas and a tube of benign s for a fiber. Co op owned by you, right by you. And eighth of September selected products up to availability Culture Membership required one pound joining fee full times at Coldco UK last summer. The first thing I see when I get to my little gay tennis podcast desk is you know, they've got all the screens up and the first thing I see is Roman Sathuin up five to unjokovic and I'm going to immediately say like I told you so I'm going to plug my episode about the highs and lows of qualifying. He was a huge high for me . I mean watching him up close, you know, basically I was like the only person watching it sometimes I mentioned on the episode like he kind of gets himself into these tough situations, but when he's playing well , he plays as well as anyone and he made it all the way to the fourth round the second week and should have at least Postgovich the five sets today ended up losing in four sets. Somehow he lost that first set that Djokovic was trying to give him from five to up he lost but pretty amazing for him. He won six matches many of them in five sets like hats off to him. He was looking ragged out there today, but he was out there showing up for the otter community. He's one of the few otters on tour. So shout out to Satulin for for holding it down for them, making it all the way to the second week. And then from there, I immediately went out to see the end of my favorite doubles team, Ellen Prez, Demi Shores. Now we all know I called Demi like the queen butch lesbian of the WT O. She got her haircut, okay, her hair is still her iconic hair is still kind of slipped back, but it's definitely shorter . I requested to talk to Demi today, but I found out that I only am allowed through whatever I was given through Wimbledon to participate in group interviews. So I'm trying to work that out. I'd love to talk to her one on one . But so I wasn't able to talk to Denmi, but I did get to quickly talk to Ellen Perez and see her after their win. They won their match. You know, they were supposed to play Venus and Serena today if Venus and Serena had not had to pull out with Serena's injury. So they watching them on grass, watching Demi Shirs up there hitting volleys, watching how athletic Ellen Perez is from all areas of the court . Ugh, it was the best. They play again tomorrow, so I'm going out there to watch them early tomorrow as well. So just the most fun double seam. I know there's a lot of talk about doubles, especially on the ACP side of like they are reducing doubles essentially in terms of prize money and people playing. I'm gonna get hopefully I'm going to get Hamiln Walsh or someone else on this on this podcast to talk all about that. I have a million thoughts of course of how we can kind of how I think they should go about changing the Doubles game to make it better. But I can tell you everybody out there on court watching Demi Shirz and Ellen Perez, my favorite lesbian and allied team, like they had a ball. I had a ball . Got to get a quick picture with Ellen . She's just as like cute and nice as you would think. It's really funny and one of my big takeaways from seeing a lot of these players up close is just the difference between on court and off court . I'm kind of the same odd court as I am off court. Like I'm just kind of a psychopath and annoying on court and off court. You can always hear me. During one of my matches at Gay Games, my friend Ken was like, I could tell you were winning because I hadn't heard you all day. I hadn't heard you scream at all. I hadn't heard you yell at yourself. And so yeah, he could tell I was winning and he is correct. Really, even when I'm winning, losing, I'm usually like just chatting and it's just I'm annoying, you know ? And so many of these players are just they're intense and they're so on court. They're they're one way and so like dominant and ripping balls and then off court're. They just like mild mannered and nice and like laughing and having a good time . It's very interesting . Okay, so anyways I see Ellen and Demi shout out to them, whatever and like Madison Keys who just yesterday played her first match on center court. I also heard from Pagula today that she has never played on center court, which is just shocking that these players , you know, these are slam finalists slam champions have never been on center court Wimbledon and they've been at this tournament for years. So anyway, hopefully Pagula will get on center court for her quarters or if she wins further along, but I went out to center court today for the first time for a match . That's the main match that Brennan and I were talking about on our episode . But it was for sure the match of the day and one of the biggest matches of the tournament, I think. I gave my high level thoughts there , but my biggest takeaway besides the ones that we already talked about was, you know, I sat front row for Naomi Osaka losing first round Apollo Badosa last year at Rolling Garris. She was so streaky. She was just clearly not confident, like she would play a great couple of points and then lose like three games in a row . And I just like, wow, what a difference a year makes or just how confidence, you know what I mean can change everything for you because from the minute she stepped out there, she was so locked in, ripping serves , playing well, attacking the ball early . I thought her forehand down the line was she was hitting it better than I've probably ever seen it . And then a reminder to the OG listeners, okay? This is for you . I predicted that Naomi Osaka was going to win Wimbledon when she came back on an episode with Miles David a couple of years ago when she was first coming back and you know, there's been some like random Wimbledon champions on the women's side with Kochikova and Bonjassova, whatever . So I thought that Naomi had such a chance like with her serve, I really felt like she could play on grass and I thought it was weird that she hadn't had a breakthrough. And I got dragged all over the Twitter stre ets for that for that comment that prediction. Well, here we are and she is looking so good on there and she will be playing Mukavin . So Lord M,ukova is going to do everything she can that Sablinka didn't do. You know, Sablenka wasn't changing it up today and I feel like Mukava will do that . I went out there to watch Mukava play because she was playing Carchiokva and I just could he ar everybody saying like, this is, you know, the tennis purist will love this. This is for the tennis purists. And neither one of those players like jump off the page to me, you know, personality wise. So I was a little like, okay, do I really even want to go out there? But I have my press seats. So honestly, like, I don't have to queue or anything. I just walk right to my press seats, sit, enjoy . And I'll tell you, sitting there live, I did see it more . You know, there are never going to be players whose personalities I'm obsessed with, but watching them play against each other and it was quite high quality, I must say , like the depth, the hello , the depth and the way they were hitting so close to the lines without a single sound like neither one of them were big grunters. I love a grunt, but there was something nice about just watching two women go out there and just play tennis at a really high level. Like I said, they're not known as power players, but the balls were flying off their rackets and the placement of the balls Everything was flying there. I didn't spend a ton of time there because I thought Mukova was going to win like she was up I think seven five two so I left that match early but it ended up getting trick ier, but yeah, I get it. I'll leave it there. I'll just say I do get the muk of a critique of a thing. Like I get it more in person . What else ? Oh , at the end of the match, so I got to go to press conferences. I went to Naomi, Arena's Abelenca's and Mukava's. And there were only a couple of things I really wanted to ask and frankly they, got asked by other journalist s before I even asked them. For Naomi, the biggest thing I thought of was that I wanted to hear from her was about the crowd. The Wimbledon crowd was so behind Naomi Osaka today , and it didn't feel like they were against Arena, but they love her here and I feel like they finally are getting her . And center court for me honestly is one of the best places to ever watch tennis. I And know that's like, yeah, no shit. You're at Center Court Wimbledon. But there's something about the size of Center Court that really made it a perfect location for watching tennis . So I get there, I'm sitting again in the press season, which I thought were going to be like two rows, you know, I'm like trash and don't understand anything. There was a whole section for for press . So when I got there sitting down, this is like the match of the day for me like I said, , this is the only thing I want to watch. And my first take is like, damn , this is the perfect size. Arthur Ash is way too big. Arthur Ash is just way too big. It's just so merica to have a stadium that is just entirely too large. Every seat in center court Wimblet is a good one. The crowd is more engaged and like hanging on every shot more than I expected or that I ever have seen at a tennis event. Nowhere is there . What do they like to say like the crowds are more knowledgeable or more tennis like have higher tennis like Us, I totally felt that today. Like the os, the ods, the moments, they knew every moment that was happening on court. They knew the big points and I thought the women of crowd was just incredible today. I got to say watching on c itenter cour t was a pinch me moment. And like I said, I was there before Jessica Gula , you know, so I'm not mad about that, but I wanted to hear Naomi's thoughts there and she described the Wimbledon crowd as lovely and that was exact ly my take too. Like it was just it was a really nice viewing experience and I'm interested in seeing what it's like going back because like I said it's not massive. It's not overly done , a great match. It was perfect atmosphere, high quality . I talked a little bit about tennis matches that feel like moments. That's why I loved Serena Maria matches, even if they weren't that close. Like they were events this felt like a big event and Naomi handled the moment better. Who would have thought records were broken today for Arena that I really didn't expect . So that was my question for Naomi that I didn't even have to ask. She was really positive about the experience here at Wimbledon with the crowd . I wasn't even going to go to Arena Sabelinka's press conference because I don't know. There's something about going to a losing press conference that just doesn't it just didn't excite me as much. I was honestly I was like, let me just go see what match I want to go watch . But as I was walking, I was actually going to get food shocker and they announced over the intercom like literally I swear it was a minute after the match. They were like, Arena Sabelinka is coming to press right now. Like get your ass in there if you want to see her. And I was just like okay,, well, I'm right here. I might as well go sit. And I was one of the first people in that press conference because I just happened to be walking right by. I sit in that theater and I'm like, okay, let's see how this goes. And I got t saya Arena very short , very quick, didn't want to give us anything. The question I was going to ask her, I don't know if they showed this on TV , but after Arena lost, she slammed a ball outside of the stadium like over outside the roof, like outside onto the court. I don't know if it actually left the entire stadium, but it definitely went like up into the roof area , which I live for. And so I wanted to ask her like, how did that feel? But of course, Ben Rothenberg, he got the question in before me. He just kind of almost was a statement. She didn't really say much about it. She was just like, yeah, I didn't I didn't hit the grass. So I decided she wanted to preserve the grass for everyone else and be respectful. So she slammed a ball outside of the entire stadium. I lived for it, honestly. So I also found it interesting that in both of Naomi and Arena's press conferences or post match interviews, they both use the word sucks about losing . So Savilinka basically was like, yeah , losing in any way whether the match is in your control or you feel like you got out played it sucks either way and I would rather win . And then on court, Naomi was asked by the person, you know, whoever was out there asking her questions , she was like, yeah, like , you know, you lost her the last three times. You know, what did you do differently? And Naomi was like, yeah, it sucks to lose two times in a row. So I guess from the words of both Naomi and Arena , losing sucks, and I can agree to that. Other things I ran into today, oh my gosh, I went and watched Penko play Mix. We talked about that a little bit. Penko is just Leon Austa Penko is just a must watch no matter who she's playing with, no matter what