We're not just living in the post. Today we're living in an alternate universe post because today and those day we're bringing you sliding does tennis which is kind of ovarian concept isn't it should we. Should we trademark this in some way. Can we patent it. Let's if it's a success. I shower and then and then we'll get onto the patent lawyers wouldn't wouldn't gwyneth paltrow smith about that. She owns the rights to alternates. Alternate timelines well. My favorite my favorite genre of is counterfactual fiction. There's a book called idyllwild which imagines a world in the ninety s where needed jfk nor marilyn monroe died in the sixties and it sort of projecting into the future and imagining a world. That is entirely different. And it's cooled arms on on this spoiler for you or the listeners are highly recommend anyway and it's called idol ball because of course idyllwild. Anybody know this putting on spot here. This is a great little but if trivia idyllwild was the name. jfk airport before it became today airport. I don't know how. I read your david. Private could a medium sized book right. Yeah i take a long time to read books Well it's worth the effort. If you got in your hands in the middle of the night you know we as we did last week. We start off with david. Whitaker's review of what we're about to do podcast as he says it's a really good idea. Like i like counterfactual history. If hitler had gone ahead with the invasion of britain in nineteen forty not bottled it dot dot dot. What if lee harvey oswald missed etc. What if it hasn't rained in henman's semifinal with even vich so my daughter's very much understood the premise. If today's podcast and one of those three we're going to do yes. Thank you very much. David whitaker slash. Dad's fuel suggestions A little teaser of what's come where we are thinking of sort of moment tree seemingly incident significant at the time occurrences in tennis which may or may not have entirely altered the course of tennis history. david would you like to kick us off with the first sliding doors tense moment. Yeah would i'd like to imagine a world in which rafael on the dow was not left handed never decided to to play left hand. All just ended up playing left handed. And it's one of the. It's actually one of the things that i wanted to come back to for for quite a while probably a year and a half ever since we did our rounded out story. Podcast when we were we went deep into his his past and tried to just chronicled his career from it from a very young age and during that process we had been like many other outlets taken in by a the the myth it turns out that his uncle tony had decided that he should play handed in order to be more successful in in order to discomfit his opponents more and we talked about that on that podcast and turns out. That isn't what happened. And we at the time i mean. I think that that podcast got some some great feedback. People enjoyed it. But a number of nadal diehard said cop believe you're still going with this view that refunded. The uncalled decided. He should apply left-handed. I one day. Because that's not the case. So i've also one day i'd like to really look into that and find out what the situation was and when we came up with sliding doors tennis and i chose. This is one of my my selections Matt's produced the referee on the dow autobiography which contains the following passage. I've seen reports in the news media saying that. Tony forced me to play left handed and that he did this because it would make me harder to play against well. It's not true. It's the story of the newspapers have made up. The truth is that. I began playing when i was very small and because i wasn't strong enough to hit the ball over the net. I'd hold the racket with both hands on the four hundred as well as the back end then. One day my uncle said there are no professional players who play two hens. Strictly speaking true. Monica seles did right. Fabrice santoro did right But anyway there are no place press professional players who played two hens. And we're not going to be the first ones so you've got to change so i did. What came naturally to me was to play left-handed why i can't tell because i ride with my ryan tend when i play basketball gulf or doubts. That was the way sounds order. I play right handed to but in football i play with my left and my left foot is much stronger than my rights. People say this gives me an advantage on the double handed backhand and that may be right having more feeling more control and both hands than the majority of players has to work in my favorite especially on cross court shots where a little extra strength helps but this was definitely not something that tony in. A moment of genius thought up. It's dumb to imagine that he might have been out to force me to play in a way. That did not come naturally to me so pretty emphatic rejection of that. That story that we've all kind of taken as just conceived wisdom from over the years a couple things that he's often talked about by commentators is looking like he's got to four hands conventional forehands in in the way he's able to strike the bowl in terms of the the sheer muscular. Rt of his game the way he's able to put you on the back foot from both sides equally strongly and say and he's alluding to that in that analysis of whites useful for him to play. Left