No Challenges Remaining

Ben and AJ Eccles attended screenings of the new movie CHALLENGERS this week, and are here to discuss this bold new entry into the growing tennis movie canon (NB: we very carefully avoided any significant spoilers until a very clearly marked intermission at the 41-minute mark).

Directed by Luca Guadanigno and starring Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist, we discuss how CHALLENGERS compares to recent tennis movies like KING RICHA...

Ben and Tumaini reconvened this week to react to the news that the WTA Finals are going to Saudi Arabia, a move that felt unfathomable five years ago but has more recently felt inevitable. What do we make of the news? Should women's sports be held to a different standard when it comes to selling out? And what does the deal say about both the recent past and near future of women's tennis?

We then shift to a conversation about the pr...

Ben and Tumaini answer listener questions and recap the month that was in March, where Indian Wells and Miami formed the Sunshine Double and changed some of the forecasts of the sport.

We start with Indian Wells, where Swiatek and Alcaraz won their second titles and Novak Djokovic lost early and bailed on the swing. We then head to Miami, where Danielle Collins won the biggest title of her career and Jannik Sinner cemented his spot...

Picking up where we left off on the last episode, Ben and Tumaini cover several other big stories from the first part of this season. We talk about the diverging fates of Brits in tennis, as Andy Murray sets a dispirited retirement date while Katie Boulter surges to a new high.

We then spend quite a while on the health of women's tennis as a product, which seems to be getting left in the dust while the men surge, with no apparent s...

Ben and Tumaini had a lot to catch up on this week, so we are splitting this episode into two parts.

The first part, here, begins with the Court of Arbitration for Sport issuing a radical reversal of the first decision on Simona Halep's positive test, which means Halep can return to tour immediately. We don't have all the answers yet, but what does the dramatic disparity between the two decisions say about the dysfunction of the te...

Ben and Tumaini turn to the women (and the miscellany) in this second Australian Open wrap show.

This one was more straightforward, resultswise: Aryna Sabalenka was the best player, by a lot, defending her title in emphatic fashion. What do we make of her consolidation as a champion? And where is the sport at now, geopolitically?

We also cover the strong runs of Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen, as well as early exits of Swiatek, Woznia...

Jannik Sinner is the winner of the Australian Open, dethroning the Djokovic dynasty and prevailing in a thrilling comeback final to claim his first Slam win.

We discuss Sinner's ascendance and what the defeats mean for the two men, Djokovic and Medvedev, whom he beat to clinch this title. 

We also discuss other various things on the men's side of the tournament (we also recorded a women's episode which will come soon), including la...

At last it's finally publication day for Ben's new book, the biography Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice! 

After months of copious plugs on the show, we are excited to finally be able to talk about the book in more depth and detail, with the tremendous help of NCR's intrepid correspondent Reem Abulleil who interviews Ben about the book, his process, and some of the key moments of Naomi's career.

Reem was a...

Ben and Tumaini have a lot to cover as they try to make sense of the year in women's tennis and explain the forces behind the stormy finish to the year, on-court and off-court, and where it leaves the sport going forward.

After a brief discussion on the last couple events of the men's calendar—including if Jannik Sinner was right to keep Novak Djokovic in contention in Turin—we dig into the year that was on court, first by running ...

With Ricky Dimon in town to run his sixth Marine Corps Marathon, he joins Ben for their annual wrap show on the year that was in men's tennis, which was another season of Novak Djokovic, now 36, lording over a much younger field.

Ben and Ricky get somewhat granular, going over the top seventeen men in the rankings and spending a few minutes on each, assessing their years and their prospects for next year.

In order: Dimitrov, Shelto...

Ben and Tumaini read the 126-page decision in the tribunal's decision to convict former No. 1 Simona Halep on two charges of intentional doping, and give you a deep dive into the details of the document and expound on what it all means.

In the first half of this episode we get into the details so you don't have to, explaining the reasons why the tribunal was "comfortably satisfied" of Halep's guilt, and how they arrived to those tw...

Ben and Tumaini wrap the US Open finals in their eighth show of the tournament, starting with Coco Gauff fulfilling the years of hype and hope by winning her first grand slam title. What did this win show us about a player we first met when she was a young teenager of 13 or 15? And what are the perils of such expectations?

We then get into Djokovic's win over Medvedev, for his 24th major. Where does he go from here? And how should ...

Ben and Tumaini discuss the four semifinals that were, and all the storylines they contained, before looking ahead a bit to the fast-approaching US Open finals.

First, what do they think of the protest that lengthily interrupted Coco Gauff's win? What is the message tennis should take from that moment? And how was Madison Keys derailed from her zoning start by Aryna Sabalenka?

And what about Naomi Osaka, who dropped in on the US Op...

Ben is joined by Blair Henley, the star interviewer on tennis courts around the world, to talk about her new role as an announcer inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the many different roles she's had at this US Open.

What are the challenges of being the "Voice of God" at the world's biggest tennis stadiums? What makes on-court interviewing such a unique thrill? And what have been her standout moments of the tournament so far?

All that...

Ben and NCR's Youth correspondent Alex Gruskin discuss Ben Shelton's big win Tuesday night over Frances Tiafoe in the US Open quarterfinals, a big result both within the American tennis ladder and in the big picture of the ATP generations game.

Has Shelton's generation (Alcaraz, Sinner, Rune, etc) already passed Tiafoe's generation (Tsitsipas, Rublev, Auger-Aliassime etc) for good? What about within the American ladder?

And when di...

Ben and Tumaini convene in the late hours of the night after Jelena Ostapenko thunderously knocked out Iga Swiatek, emphatically ending both Swiatek's title defense and her 75-week reign at the #1 ranking.

Given Ostapenko's talent and head-to-head record, should this be considered a "bad loss" for Swiatek? Can Ostapenko win the tournament? How does Aryna Sabalenka come into the #1 ranking?

Plus, a bit on Gauff d. Wozniacki, the con...

For our fourth daily show from the US Open, Ben is joined by tennis writer AJ Eccles to discuss his return to live tennis at the US Open last night, and what the sport looks like from inside the stadium.

What did it feel like being back at a crowded tennis tournament after years away? What are the differences between watching live and watching on TV And what was it like seeing his favorites Caroline Wozniacki and Petra Kvitova batt...

Ben is joined by David Waldstein of The New York Times, who recently wrote about the disconnect between the US Open and its neighbors, the Latino communities of Corona and other neighborhoods like Elmhurst and Flushing.

Why is the US Open so walled off from these communities? What could be done to make them more connected and invested in one another? And what is lost by hundreds of thousands of people passing over these neighborhoo...