Welcome to season 11 of The Body Serve! We're catching you up on the barely existent off-season, including the most important Joaos, Max Purcell turning himself in, and Jenson Broosky’s brave statement about autism. Even though one of us rejects any “2025” tennis that occurs before January 1, 2025, we talk through the season’s early results, including the United Cup fracas, the Opelka and Nishikori comebacks, and the shifting Big 4 allegiances due to the Murravic pairing. We also take on the decidedly more serious situation with Elena Rybakina’s former and would-be current coach, Stefano Vukov, who is currently under investigation by the WTA. Finally, we end with our 2025 breakout picks and a game that James was entirely unprepared for. Happy 2025!

1:05 GoFundMe update

4:05 First week results: Reilly, Kei, the pairing from hell, plus the top tier of the WTA smashes their first week

14:00 United Cup: the “drama” is honestly not that serious

23:30 Rybakina, Vukov, WTA safeguarding, and the childishness of “I told you so”

31:25 Max Purcell turns himself in for an anti-doping oopsie

35:55 Kyrgios’ obsession + Osaka’s allegiance to him (aka: I knew things would get rocky when he came for the nepo baby)

40:45 Jenson Brooksby tells the world that he has autism spectrum disorder

44:50 The Year of the Joao: Reis da Silva comes out as gay + Fonseca wins Next Gen Finals

50:15 Our breakout picks for 2025

54:50 James plays a game! Play along at home

We never knew how much we’d miss “hola a todos” until it turned into an adiós. Rafael Nadal Parera ended his tennis career at this year’s Davis Cup, leaving with with 22 major singles titles, a Career Golden Slam, every clay record you can think of, and a litany of quotable moments. We’ve been Rafa fans since the early days, when they said he was a dirtballer whose body would force him into retirement in his 30s. But it turned out Rafa was nothing if not adaptable -- a rational thinker whose love for the game made him a global superstar and helped build two of the sport’s most enduring rivalries. In this episode, we’re less interested in a chronological retelling of his career than complicating some of the cliches about him and talking about our favorite moments, Rafa’s inimitable Rafa-isms, and what made Nadal an athlete like no other.    

1:55 How we became fans

4:45 It’s not about stats, but here are some stats

10:00 Adaptability: the key to understanding Rafa as an athlete?

12:55 A quick career recap - the notable eras

32:35 Rafa as sufferer 

37:30 Fedal & Rafole: the cliches eventually fell away

43:45 Rafa as sex symbol 

52:05 (Not) talking about the GOAT conversation

62:25 Our favorite Rafa moments: the 2022 Australian Open was a gift

65:40 Rafa-isms : if if if …

Finally our 2024 season is coming to a close! Although bonus December content is coming soon, we finish regular coverage by wrapping the ATP season: it was basically the proof that Jannik Sinner’s late-2023 rise was for real, and that he and Carlos have taken the reins of the (mostly) post-Big 4 ATP. Just like the women’s wrap, we’ll take you through the events of the 2024 season, evaluate our picks for 2024 breakout players, and choose our ATP Award winners. We finish up with your memorable/funny/enraging moments (“do you want to change the lady?,” Indian Wells bee attack) and the many players saying goodbye to the sport. 

GoFundMe  

3:10 Where were we at the beginning of 2024?

10:30 Starting in Australia: Sinner risen

16:30 Clay: Rafa’s brief return, Watergate, and Carlos’ apology-fist pump-championship pipeline

22:20 Channel Slam and Novak’s white whale

29:20 Rafa’s retirement at Davis Cup

37:55 Off-court “drama” 

41:55 Our 2024 breakout players + thoughts on the ATP Awards

50:00 What will you remember? Bees.

53:25 Moments that pissed you off / made you laugh (sometimes both)

57:55 A ton of retirements this year, even beyond the big names

We were soooo close to wrapping this season, but we’ll always change the schedule for a doping story. The news of Iga Swiatek testing positive for a banned substance provoked shock, confusion, and even resignation among tennis watchers who are, by the day, becoming more versed on the fine details of doping cases. Our immediate questions were: Is the story plausible? Why is the suspension broken into pieces? When should news like this be made public? As always, we like to dive into the report itself, making sure we’ve got the facts straight before offering any hot takes. Later, we try to answer a few of our own questions, touching on player reactions and the danger of comparing one case to another. 

1:35 GoFundMe Update

3:25 Iga Swiatek tests positive for trimetazidine in Cincinnati, gets a 1-month non-consecutive suspension

9:05 A timeline to make sense of things

13:10 Iga’s team sends a boatload of evidence to the ITIA

17:30 What’s the difference between No Fault or Negligence and No Significant Fault of Negligence?

31:30 Public disclosure: balancing a player’s privacy with building transparency and trust 

36:05 Tara Moore has a more legitimate beef than most 

42:30 Simona said this case is identical to hers (it is not)  

This year in women’s tennis, the top tier took further steps to entrench themselves but the WTA retained its signature depth. Sabalenka, Swiatek, and surprise – Krejcikova – added majors to their hauls; Paolini and Zheng broke out in a big way; and Gauff managed to rewrite her season in the fall. We’ll take you through the highlights, the comebacks, the ‘remember whens,’ and moments both infuriating and hilarious. As usual, we also choose our WTA Award winners and do a self-assessment on our 2024 WTA breakout picks. Thanks for a great WTA season!

0:55 Launching our crowdfunding campaign!

3:00 The season’s major themes: Steadiness at the top (+ Babs!), the Zheng and Paolini breakthroughs, Coco’s two seasons, and many comebacks of varying success

12:20 Picture it: Australia, January 2024

17:20 Danielle makes a career-best run, Iga dominates clay

26:25 Babs snatches Wimbledon, Zheng ascendant

33:20 Aryna bookends her year at the US Open

38:30 Our choices for the 2024 WTA Awards

44:10 How did our 2024 breakout picks do?

47:55 Your most memorable moments: our listeners love Jasmine

50:55 Moments that pissed you off and moments that made you laugh: Babs and Qinwen keeping the girlies entertained  

64:35 Farewells and farewells for now

Coco writes a new story to end her year -- beating the bad season allegations, as she said -- by taking out Swiatek, Sabalenka, and finally Zheng Qinwen to win the WTA Finals. (Barbie K tried to shake the table, as usual.) In Turin, Jannik Sinner showed that anything you can do, he can do better. He won his first year-end title and notched a 70-win season, the first since 2016. After that, we talk about the retirement of legendary umpire Carlos Bernardes, Frances Tiafoe’s big fine, Jon Wertheim’s hot mic incident, and more.

0:30 Housekeeping: a transition to BlueSky?

6:40 Coco beats the bad season allegations!

19:55 Barbora Krejcikova will f*** it up if you invite her (respectfully)

24:45 ATP Finals: starting with the group photo

29:55 Nice job, Taylor! But Sinner does it better

41:35 #NameTheTennisPlayer is back!

45:15 Umpire Carlos Bernardes retires from tennis

48:00 Wertheim’s hot mic moment 

53:15 Tiafoe fined $120,000 for tirade 

The top women descend upon Riyadh, the photoshoot is a smash, and #1 Sabalenka sails into the semis. There are still questions around this business decision, and players have varying success in answering them. Paris, as always, suffers from late-season malaise, and the ATP Finals qualifiers start to firm up (almost), but we wonder about the value of grinding it out this late in the season. Plus, lot of et ceteras, including: Dev Patel is the next Zendaya(!), and off-court coaching is no longer a trial but still a tribulation (heh). 

0:30 And another thing about Sinner

2:55 Some meta-commentary on the show and getting older and less stan-oriented 

8:15 The WTA Finals looks: great job everybody!

16:10 Players answer inevitable questions on Saudi Arabia, some better than others

26:35 If a tree falls in Paris

38:10 ATP Finals qualifications: not many scenarios are left

44:55 WTA results: Shnaider wins #4 of the year and Somnez enters the top 100 

47:05 Sloane on protecting your peace

52:20 Et ceteras: Diego Forlan to play pro tennis, the incomparable Dev Patel to make a tennis movie

57:20 Off-court coaching is now the law

These October episodes are always all over the place. The tours are sputtering toward a finish as players are vying for the final spots in the year-end tournaments or securing their ranking for next season. We talk about the Six Kings Slam, its strange and corny happenings, and the Saudi efforts to diversify their economy with sports and entertainment. We go through some recent results -- Dasha back in the top 10! -- plus we discuss the Hall of Fame vote that inducted Sharapova, peruse the slightly confusing WTA ranking rules, and honor Dominic Thiem’s great career. 

1:00 Does Saudi Arabia even need to sportswash at this point? 

12:20 Results: Stan isn't going, Dasha back at #9, second titles for Draper and Mpetshi 

18:35 What’s left this season, and who’s in the running for an ATP Finals spot?

25:15 Danielle Collins is in fact not retiring this year

31:20 Sharapova inducted into the Hall of Fame: a test for voters 

42:45 Dominic Thiem retires

48:10 Aryna back at #1: arguments over ranking math

Autumn is supposed to be relatively quiet in tennis, no? Well, in the past week or so, Rafa announced his retirement, CAS released the full decision on Simona Halep's doping case, WADA appealed Jannik Sinner’s No Fault or Negligence ruling to CAS, and one of the most successful coaching pairings of the decade ended. We’ll take you through some key points of the Halep case, including how and why her suspension was so drastically reduced, and some learnings that might help us better understand the Sinner case. We cover the wave of cranky baby behavior in Shanghai, including Frances’ outburst and how it reads in comparison to similar behavior from his colleagues. Plus, Sabalenka nears no. 1 again, Coco resets, and why the continued whispers about Zheng’s personality aren’t sitting right with us.

2:05 Rafa says ‘Adiós a todos’

8:20 CAS finally releases the full decision on the Halep case

23:05 WADA appeals the Sinner decision - what have we learned from the Halep case and others?

32:15 It’s pissy cranky season

40:50 A few WTA players play stupid games, win stupid prizes 

43:55 Why is Qinwen becoming public enemy no. 1? 

52:30 Coco said “what crisis?”

55:25 Iga splits with Wiktorowski

Welcome to part two of our mailbag! We’re kicking things off with our review of Serena in the Arena (at long last). We can’t help but compare some of the things we’ve said about Serena’s career over the years with how Serena described those events in her own words. Like you all, we noticed a few notable omissions from the series, and a few things that were conveniently glossed over. Spoiler: we enjoyed it. We spend the rest of the episodes sifting through the remainder of your submissions. Hope y’all enjoy! 

00:52 Serena in the Arena, at last 

22:54 How would we schedule the tennis calendar?    

35:02 James grinds his Madrid axe, goes to bat for USO Series

40:25 Giving some grace to non-English speakers in pressers

45:47 The tennis opinion we disagree on most

52:51 Ramblings on the where we see the sport in the next few years

59:30 The prerequisite update on our Bravo TV watching habits

Tennis is a famously exclusive sport. So which forces and institutions determine who gets access? Who’s guarding the gates, and what’s the criteria for entry? In this episode, which is co-produced by Sheriece Matias Dick, we start to explore the barriers to entering tennis, the various paths into the sport, and how the gatekeeping institutions of tennis have jockeyed for power through the profound economic and cultural changes of the past 140 years. After exploring a few players’ journeys into pro tennis, we look into the founding ethos of the sport -- “gentlemanly amateurism” -- and how that obsession with status permeated the sport even as it became more accessible to working class people. Finally, we land in the present day, where the seat of power has shifted from aristocratic patrons to the corporate sponsor, with their own standards of conduct, inclusion, and ‘class.’

0:30 What is gatekeeping and how does it relate to tennis?

9:40 Various routes to becoming a pro tennis player

12:25 Comparing Tiafoe and Fritz

23:05 Tennis’ “working class champions”: various paths to the pro level

30:20 The financial barriers for kids entering tennis

36:50 Tennis as an activity for the leisure class

41:45 Code of etiquette: a surprisingly durable way to police the gate and perform class status 

48:30 The Open Era democratizes tennis, sort of

51:45 The new tennis economy: broadcasting rights, sponsorships, and the invention of the branded tennis celebrity

57:35 Connors, McEnroe, and their very American “class struggle”

65:00 From patron to sponsor