Speaker 1: So if he's got some good hands and feel, this
Speaker 1: is too good. It's not just the fact that he's won,
Speaker 1: it's the way he's played the match. He has a
Speaker 1: candy bar and an RC coke. You are kidding me.
Speaker 1: Come on, Marcus, his unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Michael's caught some unbelievable energy to the court with the
Speaker 2: fans and then with his play as well and with
Speaker 2: his personality. So it was very, very refreshing to play
Speaker 2: against an appoint like this, you know, who draws in
Speaker 2: the crowds and come with some great shop making.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he can play on grass. That's that's good.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to what you're talking about. Willis. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm Dave old tennis coach in a freezing cold tennis club,
Speaker 3: Red Hill Way. Marcus Willis, you're in Bergomo, Italy.
Speaker 1: I am what a play. I thought it was closer
Speaker 1: to Milan than it is. It's a good hour away apparently, so.
Speaker 3: Well, the Italians know if the city of a thousand
Speaker 3: because it's to do with the unification of Italy. So
Speaker 3: I mean not that I've read a Wikipedia page or anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've done some research of you.
Speaker 3: Pretty much while we're just waiting for the Wi fi
Speaker 3: to kick in, because Bergamo, although it is a city
Speaker 3: of a thousand, can't actually get decent work in Wi fi. Right,
Speaker 3: I've just learned about their traditional stuffed past, the dishes.
Speaker 3: The city is the birthplace of composer Donnizetti. I mean,
Speaker 3: you're no wham and there's lots of history and architecture
Speaker 3: and Venetian walls for you to go and look around.
Speaker 1: Okay, around my training are go and do that.
Speaker 3: Then well, yeah, because you're not there for sight seeing.
Speaker 3: You're the third seed in the Challenger. You're playing with
Speaker 3: Josh Paris again, who obviously you reached a final with
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago. First of all, how are you
Speaker 3: feeling physically?
Speaker 1: Not too bad? And my first hit yesterday and that
Speaker 1: was okay. Obviously rusty, but I'm always rusty, to be honest.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm going out and doing a couple more
Speaker 1: sessions today and then play at some point tomorrow. Whether
Speaker 1: it be ten am or eight pm, we don't know yet,
Speaker 1: just preparing. But yeah, it's nice to be back and free.
Speaker 3: So you're rusty is different from normal people's rusty. What
Speaker 3: does rusty feeling look like for you.
Speaker 1: Just the racket feels weird in my hand a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it's like certain angles I hit aren't going where
Speaker 1: I want the ball to go. But it's not as
Speaker 1: bad as you know when I was younger. If I
Speaker 1: didn't play for a week when I was younger, I'll
Speaker 1: be hitting the ball on the floor and stuff. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's not awful. You're just a tad slower,
Speaker 1: I'd say, tad slower on you know, finding your range.
Speaker 1: I'd hit the ball, you know, four feet out rather
Speaker 1: than one foot out.
Speaker 3: How long does it take for you to get rusty?
Speaker 1: Four or five days? You know, if I don't hit
Speaker 1: a ball for forty eight hours, I'll be okay any more.
Speaker 1: Any more than that, it gets a bit funner here.
Speaker 3: You must now, at this stage of the career of
Speaker 3: your career, hit less balls than you did ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, different type of balls. Obviously. When I was playing
Speaker 1: singles and playing a lot, you do a lot of
Speaker 1: hitting and moving and I don't know, a lot more
Speaker 1: open play stuff, whereas now it's just you're drilling returns,
Speaker 1: you're drilling volleys, you're drilling serve and return. And I've
Speaker 1: already said return, but I need to do return twice anyway,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, it's just different. I mean I still
Speaker 1: hit a lot of balls in an hour, an hour
Speaker 1: and twenty yesterday, first one back, and it sort of
Speaker 1: flies by because you have to do all different cross courts.
Speaker 1: Then you work on volleys every direction. It's just different.
Speaker 1: Whereas I used to warm up for a singles match
Speaker 1: in the morning, so my pretty much hit would be
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five minutes max doubles. Yeah, I mean, because
Speaker 1: you've got a partner as well and you both need
Speaker 1: to return. I didn't practice returns as much when I
Speaker 1: played tingles as I do now. I think that's a
Speaker 1: that shows you quite a lot, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, I mean so obviously this is the
Speaker 3: third time recently you've played with Josh, and are you
Speaker 3: always practicing with him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we can't. People do want to play
Speaker 1: practice sets, like I'm playing one later because Josh is
Speaker 1: gonna rest because he's played every week since I can't remember,
Speaker 1: so he's just gonna hit me once today and then
Speaker 1: I'm jumping into a practice set because there's you know,
Speaker 1: singles guys plays with plays with doubles guys sometimes they
Speaker 1: play with doubles guys sometimes, so there's always a gap
Speaker 1: and people are looking to play points. I tend to
Speaker 1: do that a lot less nowadays because I guess kind
Speaker 1: of feel like we go through the motions playing a
Speaker 1: practice set, which I don't think is always always healthy.
Speaker 1: They're good to play sometimes, but you know some people,
Speaker 1: some pairers just just get to the place. Some player
Speaker 1: as many sets as they can with different pairs. I
Speaker 1: don't find the tournaments I've done really well out this year,
Speaker 1: there's been pretty much zero practice set.
Speaker 3: I mean, you said on this podcast that you haven't
Speaker 3: got a coach. So after your performances recently with Josh,
Speaker 3: do you sit down, do you get access to any stats?
Speaker 3: Do you sit down and watch videos? Is there like
Speaker 3: a review process, goals, those kind of things, or is
Speaker 3: it more feeling experience.
Speaker 1: All the matches you can you can see and you
Speaker 1: get the stats straight after the match. For myself and Josh,
Speaker 1: we know what we kind of have to work on,
Speaker 1: what we're going to go into the off season together
Speaker 1: and then make some changes. Then I suppose there's the
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do. Is the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can do is try and overcomplicate things, you know, right now,
Speaker 1: so we just show opening everything up and you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's no clear we've every time we've lost, it's
Speaker 1: been pretty tight. It's not you know, for one reason
Speaker 1: other than you know, certain moments not being good enough.
Speaker 1: I don't think whereas we'll go into the offerason hopefully
Speaker 1: get some time with Louis Kayer and and learn probably
Speaker 1: quite a lot of technical things and you know, angle
Speaker 1: things at the net and things like that. I think
Speaker 1: we'll we'll make fine touches to that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But until then we're not going to make any huge
Speaker 1: changes now, I guess. I guess it's similar in football,
Speaker 1: right like once once the Premier League starts or you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of the season, you might make slight adaptations,
Speaker 1: but you're not gonna I don't know, you don't really
Speaker 1: see massive formation changes when you've got quite a lot
Speaker 1: of matches coming no coming on. I'd say it's the
Speaker 1: same one, yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, and especially like this this time of year with football.
Speaker 3: Speaking to a guy who was in the Premier League
Speaker 3: recently and he told me that over a three week
Speaker 3: period between November and December, the whole team were actually
Speaker 3: only on the training pitch for two hours, and that's
Speaker 3: not the usual oil football has only done train the
Speaker 3: hard and all of this, he said. By the time
Speaker 3: you're flying back from places being patched up, some are
Speaker 3: in the physio room, some are doing tactical stuff. Some
Speaker 3: of the you know, the goalkeepers are separate. He said.
Speaker 3: Actually you're not together too often. And you know the
Speaker 3: club I follow Palace, we're currently you know in this
Speaker 3: Europa Conference, League Cup, Premier League. Is that I doubt
Speaker 3: the squad are together too often to go through anything
Speaker 3: too detailed. You said there about Louis Kaye. Now, for
Speaker 3: people who who don't know, Louis is the kind of
Speaker 3: like the double supremo in world tennis, and he's worked
Speaker 3: forum with the LTA for a number of years and
Speaker 3: there's no coincidences there. I mean the ATP finals, well, Patton,
Speaker 3: Joe Salisbury, Neil Scupsky, Juli and Cash Lloyd Glass Bowl.
Speaker 3: I probably missed one, but that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: British players at the top of the doubles game.
Speaker 1: Is yah, there's I mean, I'm I'm down to definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean everywhere he's been, he's he's succeeded certainly singles
Speaker 1: earlier in his career, but then doubles. He's coming to
Speaker 1: Britain and you know back that it was Ken Skupsky,
Speaker 1: Colin Fleming, Ross Hutchins. They all got to you know,
Speaker 1: top fifty easily in the world. And now, as you say,
Speaker 1: we got five in the top ten, which is which
Speaker 1: is pretty what. I'm eighty two and I'm number seven
Speaker 1: in Britain now, which is is quite rare if you
Speaker 1: look at the other countries, if you're eighty to number seven.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, No, he's very very good. He's very
Speaker 1: very tech. He's very he knows his angles, he knows
Speaker 1: his stuff. It's quite you know, being on court with him,
Speaker 1: and but my little pea brain, he's giving you a
Speaker 1: lot of information and my little pre brain wants to
Speaker 1: work on two or three one or two or three
Speaker 1: things max at the same time. But you know, he
Speaker 1: tells you something, you do it.
Speaker 3: So it's not I've been in Louis very demanding, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah he is.
Speaker 1: He is. But but I guess he's demanding because he's
Speaker 1: the best. I suppose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I found it like a bit of
Speaker 3: an intimidating atmosphere.
Speaker 1: I reckon, I don't know. I've not been there as
Speaker 1: a coach. I've only been there as a player. He
Speaker 1: was scary when I was younger. Yeah, you know how
Speaker 1: much he knows about tennis. And you know I played
Speaker 1: doubles and singles at the same time. He watched one
Speaker 1: of my matches at a challenger and I'm thinking, God,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything. This guy's going to shred me.
Speaker 1: But he didn't. He's a very matter of fact, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the you know, he's French
Speaker 1: Canadian as well. I don't if that's you know, the
Speaker 1: language barrier. He's very direct, but I've never had a
Speaker 1: problem with him. I respect him a lot. Yeah, huge
Speaker 1: resign and he says something I listen, it's just trying
Speaker 1: to implement that. It's trying to implement that. I remember
Speaker 1: the end of last year he was trying to get
Speaker 1: me to trying to get me to take a bit
Speaker 1: more risk when I'm at the back and set my
Speaker 1: partner up at the net. He says, like, you can
Speaker 1: keep the ball in court, you're very consistent, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: but you need to be slamming the ball at the
Speaker 1: baseline so that your partner gets the next ball. So
Speaker 1: I worked on that for a while and it's great.
Speaker 1: But remember I had twenty five different partners, so that's
Speaker 1: not it's not that applicable. And now I'm on the ad,
Speaker 1: so you know, that's That's a good thing about playing
Speaker 1: with Josh. You can have a look at some things
Speaker 1: and I can actually stick to a side and play
Speaker 1: with the same guy for more than three or four
Speaker 1: tournaments a year.
Speaker 3: I mean that there's no easy drawers, right to use
Speaker 3: the gliche, there's deaf, no easy drawers. And you and
Speaker 3: Josh in the first round have got two players ranked
Speaker 3: one two five and one three two in the world.
Speaker 3: And then you look beyond that and every player is
Speaker 3: around that level. A couple of you know, all Italian
Speaker 3: wild cards have got in there. Of course, what do
Speaker 3: we know about your opponents and what kind of what
Speaker 3: are we expecting?
Speaker 1: Don Ski's just a bit of a monster. He's got
Speaker 1: a huge, huge surf, takes big cuts of returns and
Speaker 1: he's big. Milk kanov is you know, he's been fifty
Speaker 1: in the world milk Kanoff for a number of years.
Speaker 1: He's dropped a bit recently, but you know he may
Speaker 1: Courts or Semis of Australia a couple of years back,
Speaker 1: very experienced player. I don't know. I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how we're gonna, you know, go about handling him. He's
Speaker 1: he's not as much a big hitter. He's quite crafty
Speaker 1: as fourhand. He can hit angles, he can lob you,
Speaker 1: he can you know, he'll stand back and find gaps.
Speaker 1: So we've got to be I guess, more careful with
Speaker 1: him than than Donsky. Donsky could just turn up and
Speaker 1: hit forty eight winners or you know, miss quite a
Speaker 1: lot from the back. So I guess for me and Josh,
Speaker 1: if we serve, if we serve well out our spot,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter who we're playing. We're going to
Speaker 1: get holds on the board if we if we do
Speaker 1: serve well and keep the percentage high, and then on
Speaker 1: Donsky service just a case of I don't know, trying
Speaker 1: to trying to pick a side or make them play
Speaker 1: as mini balls possible. Well kind of, yeah, there should
Speaker 1: be a game or two where we might get some
Speaker 1: looks on some seconds and getting rallies. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: exactly miss, so you know it's gonna be a difficult match.
Speaker 1: You know, as I said, I've not played in a while,
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a case if we either you know,
Speaker 1: go to one guy and hope he misses all we
Speaker 1: go to the other guy and don't know where he's
Speaker 1: going to hit the ball that's in that's in the
Speaker 1: rally formation. But you know, quite a lot of these
Speaker 1: matches are served dominated, so it's going to come down
Speaker 1: to a couple of points, and yeah, that's what it's
Speaker 1: tend to be in recently. So I just got to
Speaker 1: try and yeah, stay injury free and and go out
Speaker 1: there and enjoy it, I suppose. But we will, we
Speaker 1: will have a look at the serving spots where they
Speaker 1: like to serve at certain points. But you know, Donsky
Speaker 1: cancer of anyways call it singles as well, so we'll see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say, although they are double specialists,
Speaker 3: aren't they. They are over the last kind of decade anyway.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about somebody who's going to be leaving
Speaker 3: the tour. Christopher Eubanks has announced his retirement. I love
Speaker 3: this guy. I mean that that little run to the
Speaker 3: quarters of Wimbledon a few years ago that was. That
Speaker 3: was just great fun like roll in back the years.
Speaker 3: But whenever he talks and I hear him on different
Speaker 3: podcasts and stuff like that, I could listen to him
Speaker 3: all day.
Speaker 1: He's brilliant, lovely guy as well. I haven't looked into
Speaker 1: I saw the news yesterday. I was quite surprised. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching him play and I don't know his ranking
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I don't know the reasons behind
Speaker 1: it that. He's probably got other opportunities. He's very good
Speaker 1: at what he does off court.
Speaker 2: Hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard the tour, isn't it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know if especially if you're not getting results for a
Speaker 1: period of time.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been out there. He made his debut
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, so he said ten years of traveling.
Speaker 3: He's twenty nine, right, so he's still quite young. But
Speaker 3: you know, possibly as a media career, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But you know, a couple of really nice little runs.
Speaker 3: I think it was in Miami he got to the
Speaker 3: Call to Finals. He won that weird grasscool tournament in
Speaker 3: Mi Yorka. Oh yeah, the kind of the outlier. But
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think he's great. What's it what's
Speaker 3: he like around the tour? What's his uh? You know
Speaker 3: is he is?
Speaker 1: He is?
Speaker 3: He as engaging and popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've seen him, seen him around. He's
Speaker 1: always quite chatty, quite quite nice. Yeah, always been really
Speaker 1: kind to me always. I don't ye, I don't know
Speaker 1: anyone doesn't like him, to be honest, it's not he's
Speaker 1: not he's not a bad blow because he's he's a
Speaker 1: really nice guy. But like anyone when they play tennis,
Speaker 1: they keep himself to themselves, in their own when they're training,
Speaker 1: when they're going through it. You know, he's he was
Speaker 1: pretty professional. But the way he went about his business,
Speaker 1: his game style, but love to talk tennis of court,
Speaker 1: like love to talk tennis. You could see his eyes
Speaker 1: light up when he speaking tennis and players and things
Speaker 1: like that. So, you know, I think what he's now
Speaker 1: as his calling isn't it really just yeah, good good
Speaker 1: to be around, good energy, Just good.
Speaker 3: Energy and a bit of a throwback like what we
Speaker 3: always say. It's just a nice bit of variety to
Speaker 3: see somebody attacking the net and following in and be
Speaker 3: almost like a modern day grass called specialist in so
Speaker 3: many ways, it's just yeah, it's good variety for the tour,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed watching him playing. I love watching guys
Speaker 1: like that play because it's something a bit different and
Speaker 1: you get different matchups. And I remember that woman and
Speaker 1: I think he lost to member Devin Ford and in
Speaker 1: the end, but did he eat sits and pass? He
Speaker 1: had some big wins. It was awesome because you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of followed his journey. I remember he pre
Speaker 1: qualified for Winston Salem two fifty I think maybe the
Speaker 1: same year I had my wimbed and run and he
Speaker 1: was like hashtag Marcus Willis from pre Qualities and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and I remember he kind of first came
Speaker 1: on to the tour because I got tagged. I got
Speaker 1: tagged in it and I didn't know who he was,
Speaker 1: but he obviously pre qualified for Winston Salem and won
Speaker 1: a few matches and whatever. And from there I followed
Speaker 1: his career and he, yeah, he was had a beast
Speaker 1: of us, a huge fourhand chipped it about came in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good to watch. It was good to watch.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dan Evans is the other guy when he's playing.
Speaker 1: I watch all of his matches because he's he's just
Speaker 1: at the net. He's like vollowing, like Hemmon back in
Speaker 1: the day. It's just it's really good to see and
Speaker 1: it's so hard to do in these conditions as well.
Speaker 3: It certainly is well look mate, best of luck with
Speaker 3: everything and let's catch up later in a week for
Speaker 3: another pod. Mh