THE MODERATOR: Thanks to all of you guys for joining us this morning. Hope everyone is doing well. I just want to start things off with a few things about our coverage this year and then we'll turn it over to Lindsay and to you guys.
Real quick, just for the transcript, this is Eric Abner, Tennis Channel communications. My direct line is 310-314-9445. You can find me on email at eabner@tennischannel.com.
We couldn't be any happier that Indian Wells is back in March again for the first time since 2019. I think everyone will remember this tournament was really the first domino, the first big sporting event to fall in that week that shut the world down back in 2020.
It's great to finally have it back on the calendar where it belongs and to have it back to back with Miami for the first time since 2019.
Many of you know since that time, Tennis Channel has become the exclusive U.S. home of both the ATP and the WTA Tours, and this is going to be the first March where both Indian Wells and Miami will be entirely available on Tennis Channel platforms.
For the next month, really starting on Wednesday, you're going to basically see a BNP Paribas Open channel and a Miami Open channel, and it's going to be live coverage all day followed by encore replay coverage all night, and we'll just do that all the way through like we do.
That means for BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells you're going to see about 120 hours of live match coverage from beginning to finish on Tennis Channel Plus, our streaming subscription service. You're also going to see live matches, and every single match, whether it was originally aired on Tennis Channel or the streaming service, will also be available on demand.
One other thing I would say is our sister, Bally Sports Regional Sports Networks, are also going to offer live matches this year for the first week of both events. That's going to be about four hours or so of match blocks the first week of each event, and these will be matches that you will not see live on Tennis Channel. For those of you participating, Bally Sports Regional Sports Nets, you'll be able to toggle back and forth. You can watch live tennis on Tennis Channel, you can flip over to Bally Sports and see a different match.
Last thing I'll say is we have a great roster of sportscasters and former players this year again, including Martina Navratilova, Jim Courier, Tracy Austin, Pam Shriver, Bob and Mike Bryan, several others. One of them of course is Lindsay, who's going to be an analyst for us in both events again this year. She's no stranger to success in the desert, as you know. She won eight combined times at this event in singles and doubles. And I want to take a second to thank her for stopping to talk to us this morning as she gets ready for the event and a busy month.
Q. Lindsay, one of the sort of overriding topics at this tournament every year is that we haven't had an American win a men's or women's singles title for now 21 years. Quite a drought. Wondering what you think about that and why that is, and who are some Americans this year that you think might be able to at least contend for the title.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, I don't think I was aware of that, that fact. That is a long time. You know, right now it's been such an interesting time for different reasons for the American pro players, the women's side, because on the women's side we've had so many players be ranked in the top 100. We've had a lot of players in the top 20 and the top 10, but unfortunately we're missing two of the greatest players of all time in Serena and Venus these last couple of years.
It's kind of been an interesting little battle between the other players as to who will assert themselves as the best American women's player playing right now.
We had Sofia Kenin, I saw she got a wild card, which is going to be great to see, won a Grand Slam just a couple of years ago in Australia. And right now it's Danielle Collins who is the highest ranked American woman playing.
It's been interesting as those players have kind of struggled with playing their best consistently, we know their best is really good, but trying to get to that level 75 percent of the time or so on tour is really what it takes to be into the top 4, top 5 in the world.
But there are a lot of young ladies who have a really good chance of winning this tournament. Coco Gauff is going to break through at a really big event really soon. I hope it's sooner rather than later. I don't know if it'll be at Indian Wells or if it'll be at the French Open or somewhere. She's in for a big title run. Wouldn't that be great to see that happen in the desert?
You always have Sloane and Madison who are very dangerous and when they get hot... We saw how well Madison can play in Melbourne. We just saw Sloane win an event for the first time in four years in Guadalajara. We've got a lot of players there, but we need them to play their best consistently, especially in the desert on the women's side.
Men's side, don't you feel like they're starting to come and make louder noise? Taylor Fritz did so well out there last year. Right now we have Reilly Opelka is the highest-ranked American male. I do think we probably have a better chance on the women's side to get an American champion than on the men's side.
But you see players like Sebi Korda, Jenson Brooksby, Brandon Nakashima, another one, making positive steps each and every year, Tommy Paul, a lot of really good players coming. Do they have enough to win six or seven matches if you don't get a bye at Indian Wells? I don't know. But I think an American champion is coming in the next three to five years for sure.
Q. Paula Badosa won this event, she's a defending champion. I wonder what you thought about her game and what's allowed her to sort of break through and have a great run here.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Well, that was truly one of the most remarkable matches I've ever been a part of calling, that final last year with Azarenka. The quality of those two ladies showed through all three sets, through tiebreak in the third. It was remarkable.
For Badosa, there's a lot of players that improved a lot, but arguably she was the most improved player last year, and all of a sudden starting her year off, we've talked about that a lot, last year in Australia she had like a lockdown for 21, 22 days and then finding her confidence, finding her belief. She was a great junior player. She's talked about how tough that was for a few years, the first few years on the pro tour.
But you see a player kind of come into their own, and you could see her as the year went on, you could just see how she behaved on the court, like, Yeah, I belong here, yes, I can do this.
It's really fascinating and fun to watch when you're on the sidelines and you see a player really live up to their potential, and a lot of times it starts between the ears. These players are so good, but once they believe they can be there and once they believe in their game at those big moments, you get a result like you saw with Badosa at Indian Wells. I believe she's going to win a major. I love her game. I love her work ethic. I also love her behavior on court. She's a fighter out there.
I think the courts are maybe just a little too fast for her in Melbourne. Those courts were some of the fastest hard courts the players have played on in quite some time. I think the desert conditions really suit her game, give her just a little bit more time. But she's going to be a phenomenal player if she stays healthy.
There's a lot to like about her game and what she wants to accomplish in the sport.
Q. I have a couple of questions about Maddie since you just mentioned her but you've worked with her and are friendly with her. The first is, how do you kind of assess her game where she is now being the Australian Open semifinal run, and if you have any thoughts of why she has been somewhat inconsistent with that great serve and forehand you would think she might have been more consistent up to now?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah. I always try to say it like always before I talk about her, is I adore her. She's like part of my family.
Her run in Australia, especially for some of us that knew how much she was struggling in the last year playing, she spoke about it openly, which I think sometimes helps players when they actually finally get some things off their chest, it was remarkable. Her run in Adelaide and then backing that up winning five more matches in Melbourne was awesome to see again.
For her to bring that kind of intensity and that level, I just said about -- you want to be able to bring your best tennis a certain percentage of the time. The very top players bring it three-quarters of the time or roughly around that time. That's something that Maddie has always struggled with. Even the last couple tournaments she just lost her opening match in both tournaments in Mexico after this great run in Australia.
It's hard for her to keep that momentum, and for those of us, we've kind of always wondered why that is. We've tried very hard to get her to be able to play at that level. Staying healthy has also been a challenge for her the last couple years, a number of different kinds of injuries. But I think she proved to herself and maybe some of the doubters in Australia that she still can play at that very, very high level. She can still be a threat to do real damage at the big tournaments.
But the consistency has always been a factor. I've given my two cents on what could maybe help. I wish I knew what the answer was to try and get her to play at that level more often.
It'll be a challenge for her in the desert. She's never been able to play her best tennis out at Indian Wells. She knows that. She wants to change that desperately. She's going to get there early and try and figure out the lighter air if it gets hot, about trying to control her shots.
I wish I knew exactly what the reason was, but it has been a struggle for her, and it's been a goal of hers, as well, to try and get better at that.
Q. As I'm sure you know, she started this organization Kindness Wins and it is promoting being kind to yourself, being kind to others, being kind through a struggle. I'm wondering why you feel, knowing her so well, that this is a cause that's so close to her heart that she would start an organization.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it's been remarkable to see kind of the transformation of her. I first met her when she was 18. At that time I actually always point back, there was a match at Indian Wells that year, 2015, she lost to Jelena Jankovic in a very close three-set match. This was the first time I was ever kind of brought in immediately after the match, going to find her and talking to her and her just showing me her phone and all of these hate messages that she was getting on social media. Like, I could not believe it. Just for losing a tennis match, and people talking about her game and failing and even like physical appearance. It was shocking to me, who played in an era when we actually didn't have to deal with that. We worried about what a newspaper article might say about our game.
It affected her so much, and finally she just decided to do something about it. She's kind of been on a mission ever since about just trying, everybody, to just try and be a little bit kinder to everyone. It's a lot easier for people to sit there without seeing someone and write something, but going in person and trying to change people's philosophies about that, it's always been important to her really since she was in her late teens.
She puts a lot of effort into her foundation and trying to help, especially young women, young girls in high school, sometimes junior high, about trying to navigate those really tricky years. It's tough to do that while you're playing. I never really found a good balance of trying to play and trying to do outside stuff, but I think it really brings her a lot of joy and a lot of peace to know she's really trying to make a big difference in young people's lives.
Q. Question about Ash Barty: This week I think Ash now has 117 weeks at No. 1. She's tied with Justine Henin. She has 110 weeks consecutively, as well, which is like fifth all time. And every time I post this stuff on Twitter I get a lot of negative comments like the pandemic and the way the rankings went to a two-year system has significantly changed the way the rankings are and that people are trying to take her down a notch. I wanted to ask you, as someone who held a top ranking for 98 weeks, how can we quantify her amazing achievements over the last few years? Is she in a special category? Is the jury still out in terms of where she'll rank in the tennis pantheon?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, I think everything the pandemic threw at us was uncharted territory. I think everybody did the best they could, and I think that the adjustments that all sports had to make, especially tennis, as well, with the ranking system, were the correct ones. She, for me, is absolutely legitimate, 117 weeks or whenever it starts turning over.
I spoke about Paula Badosa a couple of minutes ago. You could say the same thing about Ash Barty and watching her all of a sudden graduate to becoming so comfortable on the big stages and believing in her game and also realizing what her game could do to opponents and how much it could disrupt them, how she uses her shots to play to the pattern she wants to play to get the shots she wants to play.
She's going to go down as obviously one of the great players.
I always question how long is she going to play. I don't think we'll see her playing very -- like as long as some other players. I just personally don't believe she's going to be playing in her 30s. She seems like she is a homebody that really wants -- doing what she loves to do right now but wouldn't hesitate for one second to stop doing it if she wanted to do something else, which you can do nothing but respect.
So we'll see how many Grand Slams she can kind of accumulate, how many more weeks she'll get to. I think right now she's in a wonderful position on tour with just how she plays because nobody else plays like her. She creates so many problems for the other players. They haven't solved how do I handle a slice backhand considering I really only see it when I play her, and she's really taking advantage of that.
Forehand is one of the big weapons on tour. She's the smartest server out on tour, most complete all-around player. Just has so many things going for her that the other players just haven't figured out how to solve yet.
Q. A lot of people talk about how the coaching carousel and how players maybe change coaches too often and too early in a good relationship. But in Iga Swiatek's case it appears that parting ways with Piotr Sierzputowski was a pretty smart move. She really seems to have evolved her game further under Tomasz Wiktorowski. In your opinion, when is the right time to make a change like this and when is the wrong time?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it seems to be now the mindset more of as soon as there's any kind of doubt or question to make a change instead of, like most relationships, really trying to work through kind of issues or kind of get through the tough times. It does seem like players are quicker to pull the plug to try something different.
On the same -- I also feel like they're way too quick to hire and make commitments. Like do a two- or three-month trial, do it out of the limelight, don't make your first coaching thing a big tournament where there's a lot of press around. There's certain ways that can maybe go around doing that. I love Tomasz. I spent some time with him on tour when he was with Aga. I thought he was a very good coach. I wondered if he was going to get back into the game.
It's obviously a perfect fit with someone from your same country, a country that doesn't have a ton of history. Of course Poland has had good players, but he understands. He went through this with Aga, he knows the ropes, he knows the game, he knows the other players. I believe he's one of the best coaches out there.
I remember hearing that Iga split, I was thinking I hope for her sake she's going for Tomasz because I do think he's wonderful. And it does sound like, if you know Iga and you know everything she's been through, I wouldn't doubt she tried very hard to make everything work with Piotr, and it just didn't. And you get to the point where, yeah, you do need to try something new, and it has worked out for her. She's got so much talent, and she's going to be putting it all together more consistently here. She's still so young.
I'm excited for her this year and the years following, as well.
Q. I wanted to ask about what's happening in the world around us here. You saw Svitolina play in a tournament the other day after initially saying she wouldn't face a Russian opponent, we've seen the various international tennis bodies say that Russians can play, and Belarusians as well, but without their flag and without identifying country. What kind of emotional state does this bring to a tournament? Indian Wells is going to be noteworthy for so many reasons, but this is kind of the first big tournament since this whole political situation, since Russia invaded Ukraine. There's going to be a lot of emotional moments here. How will that affect what we're going to see?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, so much so. I mean, who was not brought to tears with Yastremska's story. I teared up -- I'm tearing up now just seeing her say goodbye to her parents and even just winning her match. This is so much more than the sport. There's so many people involved that we all know, on both sides truly. It's absolutely heartbreaking for everybody, especially for the players obviously from the Ukraine, for Svitolina who has family there still.
You know these players aren't sleeping at night. You know their energy is worried about everything going on back at home. Yastremska even spoke about how she doesn't know what she can do after this tournament in Lyon, considering she now has her 15-year-old sister to take care of.
And also for the Russian players that really have nothing to do with this. For Medvedev, could there be a worse week he got the No. 1 for the first time for him? It's been pretty crazy involved for everybody.
I think it's going to be very emotional out in the desert. I think it's going to be really hard for a number of players to compete, not be on empty emotionally. I mean, like everyone in the world, I just hope it doesn't last much longer. It seems like it might, but it just seems unfathomable what is happening and what some of these people are having to go through.
Q. You mentioned Medvedev and the timing of his being No. 1. We see him and Rublev on the entry list. There's so many different things coming into play here. Plus Nadal is already out there in the desert. He sent some video of him practicing --
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: I saw that, yeah.
Q. Just if you could share your thoughts about Nadal and the kind of start he's had to his season and what he might be capable of at Indian Wells.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, of course. We love to focus on some of the positive story lines, right, and could there be a better one than Rafa this year? For an Australian Open that started with so much chaos, and obviously it seems little now compared to what's going on, but at the time for everything Novak had to deal with, to have Rafa be able to come through after everything he's been through was absolutely amazing.
To see him keep it going, winning in Mexico and already in the desert, you know, I didn't know -- you never want to doubt the great ones, but there was a period there where he was down by so many majors, to see that he has the outright lead, if you were to look back six, seven years ago you would think, gosh, that doesn't seem likely.
But he is a player that we're so lucky that we got in our sport. His motivation, his work ethic, also how he carries himself as a human, but just love how motivated he is. It seems like he's on his like eighth life in tennis with all the injuries. His foot was so bad last year. I remember watching him in the hallway in Roland Garros where there's some cameras after he lost that match to Novak, barely being able to walk. That was like, wow, his foot must really be hurt, and his team kind of helping him up those stairs, I'm thinking, Wow, I didn't know he was that hurt. Of course he tried to play one more tournament the rest of the year.
Then we heard in Australia how much it meant to him because he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to play again. It's been the best possible story line for tennis this year. And now he's at 21 with the French Open looming, looking so confident at Indian Wells. We love to see the pictures of the players and the videos of them already at tournaments practicing.
He's going to give a real spark to the tournament in Indian Wells. Wasn't there last fall. We missed some of the really big names, everyone having grown up in the area, like in Southern Cal, everyone is so excited to see his name and to see him already there competing to go for another title.
Q. We've seen most of the top-20 men and women in action already in the Middle East and in Mexico. Who are some of the names that have stood out or impressed you the most leading up to Indian Wells?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: It's interesting, I mean, there was a couple players we haven't seen -- I mean, Ash Barty we haven't seen her play since Australia. I'll feel really good when the first pictures of her are from the desert of her practicing. We obviously want to see her in action.
The players I haven't seen, Karolina Pliskova as well had a last-minute hand injury. We weren't able to see her yet this year. She's back practicing here in the States, so let's see what she can bring.
But the most impressive player, how good has Anett Kontaveit been in some of these tournaments? She has played exceptionally well since Australia ended. She's now up to a career-high five. She's been a really fun story to watch the last six months, and it hasn't gotten a ton of publicity, but she's won so many tournaments. Ostapenko, as well, really came out of nowhere to play so well when the first one was at, I guess, Dubai, I believe, right, or did she win Doha? She won one of them. And to play so well again.
I love it when the players that we've seen their best can play at that level again, so that was fun to see Ostapenko go back and reach that.
Let's see what we get from Emma Raducanu this time around in the desert. Mentioned Coco Gauff, as well. I feel like something is going to happen big for her here pretty soon. She's worked too hard, she's too good for that not to happen.
Leylah Fernandez is another one. She has not played her best tennis since the U.S. Open. I think she's kind of settling into being a top player. We'll see when she can kind of find that A game, also.
Q. You mentioned Kenin getting a wild card. We also saw one going to Osaka. How much of a factor is it going to be to have someone like an unseeded Osaka in the women's draw?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Nobody wants to see that, let me tell you that. It's crazy. That's the reality of her situation. She will not be unseeded for a long time. She will make her way back up. She's way too good of a player.
She got a little bit unlucky in Australia just with her draw, with having to play Anisimova, who was playing the best tennis of her career Down Under. Brutal match that was a tiebreaker in the third or else I think the result could have been so different for Osaka.
I know from like her team, she's very happy again. She's practicing. She's very motivated. When you see those kind of signs from Osaka, you know you've got to be ready. There's always a couple of players that the players who are seeded are like, please do not be in my little section, and Naomi of course would be pretty high on that list.
Q. I've got to ask you about Taylor Fritz. He's playing his best tennis. He's now in the top 20, reached the semifinals here at Indian Wells in October. I just recently spoke to him and he just spoke about how free he's been able to play and doesn't feel like he's really hampered by the early expectations he had in his career. I just wanted to get your take on how you think he's been playing and what he can do to kind of take the next step and get into the top 10 possibly.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, it was a big difference in the level of Fritz's game last year than before in his career. He also grew up in California. I've obviously seen him play for so many years. It just seemed like all of a sudden last year he was more of a physical presence in how hard his groundstrokes were coming off his racquet, how aggressive he was, his ability to finish points. All of that seemed to get easier for Taylor. Obviously culminating in just an amazing tournament in the desert.
It is always great to go back to a tournament where you've played your best tennis. Sometimes people feel pressure defending ranking points. That won't be the case for him. He loves the crowd that gets behind him there. Everybody knows in Southern California, for Southern California tennis fans, this is the tournament. You can't wait to get there when you grow up in Southern California. This is a tournament you always want to play well at. He feeds off that energy, as well, from the crowd.
It's fun to see him put so much effort in off the court. He's got so much stronger. He's not naturally quick, but you can tell when he moves now, he's moving so much better. It's becoming a little bit more natural for him now that he's put in so much time. And the people that work hard and that are committed, that's when the results happen. I watched him play last year, and you could just see the hard work that he was putting in.
Now the challenge for him now into the top 20, hardest jump is then to make it into that next group, into the top 12, into the top 10, and that again takes another big improvement in some area, whatever that might be for Fritz. Maybe that's finishing points up at net a little bit easier, maybe it's developing the serve as a weapon more consistently. Something there has to kind of push him over the edge to then get into the top 10.
So it'll be interesting to see what his team kind of decides to make that push, what area, in. But I think he's one of those players that just cannot wait for Indian Wells, to play there again, and to try and match his performance from last fall.
Q. It's been since 2017 a non-top-10 woman has won the title at Indian Wells. Who would you see from outside the top 10 as the biggest threats this year?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, that's interesting. Well, we talked about Osaka just by based on what she's ranked. She's won there before. Anytime you've won a tournament before, you never want to count that player out. I also think that Coco Gauff, I think she plays better on slower courts, and Indian Wells' courts have always been much slower. Australia I believe was a little too fast for her and her grips and some of her swings. Indian Wells' clay courts, they give her a little bit more time, so I think she'll be pretty comfortable there.
Let's keep an eye on Sloan Stephens, as well, coming off a win in Guadalajara. She'll be coming into Indian Wells with the most amount of confidence we've seen in quite some time.
Let's go one more. How about outside the top 10, Kvitova is outside the top 30. Halep is 27. Some of these players we're used to seeing as stalwarts in the top 10, their rankings have fallen. I feel like a bunch of those players will get back. Halep I think also will like the speed of those courts.
Q. Swiatek, Kontaveit and Ostapenko have been hot lately; which of those are most likely to extend their winning runs during the Sunshine Doubles here?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Gosh, it seems tough to bet against Kontaveit, doesn't it? I know she's 5 in the world and winning everything.
I'm going to say Swiatek, though. I think she's been putting in a lot of hard work. She's got a little bit more variety in her game if things aren't going perfectly. Big fan of hers.
I'll choose her of those players.
Q. Danielle Collins cracked the top 10 this year. Which American man or woman is most likely to crack the top 10 next?
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Oh, my goodness. It's so easy on the women's; I always just say Gauff because I know it's coming. She's just so good.
On the men's side, Korda. I think that's coming.
Q. As soon as a player shows any promise, particularly a really young player, everybody is getting on the bandwagon. The expectations are going to be absolutely fantastic, they're going to be top 10, going to be No. 1 in the world, they start bringing them out, doing a lot of promotions and everything like that, and often it happens that the player suffers from that, at least for a period of time. I think of Jennifer Capriati and Melanie Oudin. How do you account for that, because you get why people are enthusiastic but it's not always helping the player to have that kind of pressure.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: Yeah, you know, it's so funny, I was talking to somebody a couple days ago, and they were asking me if I went to college. I said, no, I was good as a teenager, I got into the top 10, but truly what turned out to be one of the biggest blessings for me was I was the same birth year as Jennifer Capriati, and poor Jennifer, being so good so young -- I mean, I was playing in the 14- and 16-and-under nationals when she was making her breakthrough on the pro tour at 13, 14, took the brunt of a lot of that -- took all of the media.
Chanda Rubin and myself were the same age, so we got to sit back, develop our games, get a taste of what it's like to play on the pro tour, kind of figure out was this something we both wanted to do, how did we feel about it. We spent a lot of time together but didn't have to face that kind of stuff.
I always say it was the biggest blessing for me ever.
It's a lot. It's so much for these players, and we've seen players who have great teams around them still struggle with everything that goes with being a successful super talented player, especially on the WTA. Even with teams that have gone through it before, when it becomes being more than just about the tennis -- everyone who's good in the juniors is doing it because they absolutely love to play. Something drew them to the sport when she were most likely under 10. It takes a certain kind of personality to want to be in an individual sport, kind of assume all that pressure, assume the responsibility, practice the same shot a thousand times a day with no one else cheering you on, like teammates or anything, and that's why you do it, because you love to play.
Then all of a sudden you're introduced to a lot more than just tennis and how do you balance that, how do you figure out what's important.
That is one of the big conundrums in the sport is trying to keep these young ladies because a lot of them are teens. We're going to see with Emma, how do you keep them focused, not consumed by everything else going on.
Some teams do well; Maria Sharapova was amazing at handling all that. Other players got lucky; they got better when they were older. Li Na comes to mind; she was much older, much more mature when she had to handle becoming a global superstar. I think that probably helps a little bit.
But unfortunately we've seen too many great young talents kind of crumble under whether it's the pressure or all the commitments, and that's something that needs to be lessened, and that falls on the people around the player and trying to help guys them.
Q. It's probably too early to tell with Jenson Brooksby, he just has 30 matches under his belt at ATP level, but what we've seen from him so far is just incredible compete level and a really eclectic game. I just wonder, I can't figure out what his upside might be and I wonder if you've given any thought to that.
LINDSAY DAVENPORT: You know, it's funny, you never want to underestimate a player, but he doesn't play like everybody we've -- really too many players we've ever seen come through the tour, and then you always like to see a player who knows how to win at every level, will do whatever it takes to win matches, has other options to play his shot selection and has kind of carousel, his arsenal of shots I should say is just phenomenal, and then you see there's room for improvement.
Obviously the big serve -- the serve is what everyone is talking about. That's the big area to try to improve on. Imagine if he got that going now. I believe that he's 6'3" or 6'3", developing free points off that. He moves like a cat out there.
I actually watched him play that match against Zverev which he lost in Mexico, just that brutal long match.
But he is such a fighter, and for so long we were saying, oh, maybe the Americans aren't tough enough or maybe they're not grinding enough, and he's the opposite. He'll stay out there and do whatever it takes to win.
I think the upside is quite big with him. I mean, this group that's coming through with Korda and Nakashima and Brooksby is a phenomenal, phenomenal group. They'll keep pushing each other. They all have different strengths.
But I think the fight of Brooksby is really going to set him apart from a lot of players, and he still has some shots to improve. That's really what you like to see also.
THE MODERATOR: Just wanted to say thanks again to everybody. Thanks, Lindsay. Thanks, Doug. Anybody needs anything regarding our network today or over the next month or so, just reach out to me and let me know. Thanks a lot, everybody. Let's have a great tournament.
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