Episode 20 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast, with Carl Bialik of the Thirty Love podcast, is a deep dive into the question of surface preferences and tournament choices, as we straddle two weeks of ATP action in which events are played on both hard and clay, and every competitors needs to weigh his or her own skills against issues like jetlag, prize money, and all-important ranking points. We also discuss the potential of future stars Frances Tiafoe, who picked up his first title in Delray Beach, and Daria Kasatkina, who reached the final in Dubai.
If you were turned off by the audio last week … sorry about that. Our latest experiment didn’t work at all. This episode’s audio is much better. Thanks for listening!
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Update: Thanks to FBITennis, here are timestamps and an outline of this episode:
| Schwartzman Cracks Top 20 | 1:10 |
| Scheduling for Surface | 17:15 |
| Frantic February Schedule | 30:40 |
| Projecting Kasatkina and Ostapenko | 38:30 |
| Svitolina Future #1? | 43:53 |
| Pressure of Serving for the Match | 51:30 |
| Tiafoe Breakthrough | 55:53 |
| One-Dimensional Serve Players | 1:03:20 |