In this weeks edition of The First Serve, host Brett Phillips reviews the first week of the US Open, joined by guests Louise Pleming, Sascha Bajin and Scott Draper.
Australian tennis commentator Louise Pleming, who's on the ground at Flushing Meadows joined the show to provide an insight on being on the grounds at Flushing Meadows.
"It is so different. Of course the USTA have just done an incredible job with all their protocol, with pulling everything together. In my mind all the players have been very grateful and they have pretty much stuck to the rules. It's kind of surreal just walking around, there literally is no one around. Each player has been allowed to have three people come but pretty much most players have brought one person, just their coach, there's no family, friends, and it's amazing for us commentators. We can fly around the courts, there's no one there and you get the best seat, you can be sitting down one seat away from Arthur Ashe Stadium, so it's been amazing, very unique though," Plemming said.
2018 WTA Coach of the year Sascha Bajin joined the show to provide an insight into his coaching career and what comes with coaching at the highest level on the tour.
"I started early. I met Serena (Williams) in 2007. She needed a hitting partner to travel with her, a guy who has no private life and nothing else to do, just to help her and obviously that was a great pleasure for me to start with her. We worked together for eight years, after that I learned a lot from her, from Mr Williams, just being around one of the worlds greatest athletes of all time, teaches you a certain type of professionalism that's very hard to get somewhere else. I think that I really did learn a lot about coaching from just being around that whole environment.
After that, I travelled two and a half years with Victoria Azarenka. Then with Sloane Stephens for six months, we didn't even have a tournament, we were just doing a lot of rehab and light hitting. Then we tried our first tournament in Sydney but she had to pull out before it started. Then I travelled with Naomi Osaka for a year and four months. Then with Kristina Mladenovic from last year March till the end of the year and now I'm with Dayana Yastremska," Bajin said.
Scott Draper joined the show to provide an insight on his current coaching status and his new role at Tennis Australia.
"I'm really excited to be back at Tennis Australia. It's been six years I think for me, 2014 was the last time I was involved. I think for me there's been a fair bit of water under the bridge. When I was involved back then between 2009 and 2014, it was very centralised, there's a lot of specificity around the academies and less numbers and obviously the strategy has changes significantly, which I'm still trying to understand. It's far more inclusive than it was back when I was involved. The private market is being engaged which is fantastic I think. With every strategy theres always going to be two sides to the coin, but I'd say of the things that perhaps wasn't great when I was involved was the private market was put to sleep in some cases due to the lack of exposure at the real pointy end. I think now that its gone to a more inclusive approach with the private market being engaged, I think it could be more of a collective that tries to drive results for Australia than what it used to be," Draper said.
To listen into the full episode, including our chats with Louise Pleming, Sascha Bajin and Scott Draper, tune into the full edition of the show! Listen in below on your preferred podcast platform by clicking their icon!