Simona Halep, Irani, Kim Chris discussed on The Passing Shot Tennis Podcast

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Incorrect, Kim Chris wins zone. Chris. I'm not on the list. Nowhere near nowhere near the list. Can I tell you the other players I was thinking about? Yes. Redeem yourself. I was thinking Simona Halep, but I think there might be a bit early for her. No, Simona Halep would also have been an incorrect answer, Chris. What about. Sara errani on my list? So ironic. Yeah, sorry, irani number 6 in the rankings. And one more player in the top ten. No one got any ideas. We've spoken about her recently, actually, petrova. It's not but portrayer is on the list at number 12. I was talking about whose number four in the rankings, agnieszka, rad vanska. Oh, that is bad. We should have got that. She's been everywhere this week. So you could have had I was trying to think he got to the slam fire. I'll go from one to 20. You could have had Azarenka, Sharapova, Serena Williams, advanced Kerber, irani, Lee nar, Petra kvitova, Sam Stosur, Caroline wozniacki, Marion Bartoli, Nadia petrova, and Ivanovich, Maria kirilenko, Dominika cibulkova, Roberta Vinci, Lucy savage, Julia gerges, kaia kanepi, and the final one macro rover of Russia. Now which macaroni was that is that the one who's playing now? The older. That would make sense. Not the one with the same name, who they like the year of birth. But ask where the inspiration came for this bonjour. This seems rather unusual. I don't know, I just felt, you know, 2012, it was the time that tennis was in London for the Olympics and for me that was a very fun year on the tour. There were lots of big names on the WTA Tour and I just wanted to relive past glories. Excellent. I quite like those. Memory lanes. Yeah. Excellent. I love it. And although I lost, I think we both did pretty well. So well done us. Let's have a look at what's in the mailbag this week, because we have got a lovely email from David, who has asked us, hi guys, it seems like a lot more players are withdrawing from matches and tournaments and getting injured. What do you think is behind this? So quite an interesting and thought provoking question from David. Thank you for getting in touch. Joel, let's start with you. What do you think might be the reason for the well, the seeming increase in withdrawals? Because it does seem to be quite a lot these days, isn't there? Yeah, I think first of all, I think just the game in general has got a lot more physical, particularly on the men's tour and I think that physicality. There's been ushered in bi players like by like Rafa Nadal. I think has led to more led to more withdrawals and injuries. I also think that there's just loads of tennis on the calendar. And I feel like some players might feel pressured into playing events whether that's for sponsorship or for prize money or ranking points and again, they might not necessarily be fully fit. The season is January to November. It is very, very long. And putting so much wear and tear and pressure on your body, considering the court surfaces as well. It's not very forgiving and I think if you don't pick your schedule and know your limitations that we've seen the big players, I think, especially do over the years, thinking about Andy Murray and how he picks and chooses events. I think it can, it can get very demanding on you very, very quickly. And again, I think that's another reason why we're seeing, I think, more injuries in generally. Yeah, and also I was thinking, maybe players are just better aware of when they should reach their limits and call it a bit of a day, whereas before they might have just wanted to have plowed on, but there's a bit more of a self care attitude like when they do get to that point and they're not feeling great. It's like actually I need to look after my body and maybe that's a healthier attitude when you do find that there's issues. Maybe it's a post COVID thing, more germs going around, like that we're not already immune to because we're not traveling for a while. I don't know. There's the whole load of things. A lot of sponsorship activity, of course, as well. Like you mentioned, there's a lot more demands. Chris, what do you think? What's your what's your two penne on this? Why do you think that there might be more withdrawals than normal, more injuries, perhaps happening? Yeah, I think a lot of players didn't really take an off season in the traditional way. We've seen a lot more activity that is taken to the sponsorship. There's a lot more money on the line, a lot more kind of pressures to be on the court as much as possible. Something that struck me about this about this question particularly, some of the quotes from players about the tennis balls they've been playing with having lots of difficulties with them, especially when it's come to their wrists and Medvedev was very vocal on this this week. And I think he didn't really want to be one of those players that moans about the balls.

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