EP 16 - Australian Open 2026 Predictions: Who Will Take the Title?

Gerard (00:11): Welcome back to Spin the Racket, the recreational tennis pod covering everything from the pro tour to the everyday league player. I'm your boy G. Pro tennis is officially back. It is time for the first slam of the year, the Australian Open. We have Rishi Langani from Inside Sports Network joining us today to preview the tournament and line up our predictions. Rish, thanks for being here.

Spin The Racket (00:20): And I'm Lou.

Rishi (00:35): Thanks

Gerard (00:42): yes, yes, the happy slam as they call it. It's good time. I feel like ⁓ it's always tricky just trying to balance my enthusiasm for the slam with the sleep schedule that I'm trying to commit to of waking up at 5 a.m. and going to bed at 9 p.m. Ozzy open is not really conducive for that. ⁓

Rishi (00:45): Yeah.

Gerard (01:07): Yeah,

Rishi (01:38): Yeah, no, I fully agree with you. I think there's a lot of variance, you know, more than there would be ⁓ earlier in the year, especially on like WTA side. I feel like on the ATP side, it's a little bit predictable about where we're going. But yeah, to your point, it's like, who's going to come out the gates firing? ⁓ Who's going to be ready? You know, and I feel like towards the back end of the year, when we're talking like US Open and stuff, you kind of see people on their last legs. Now we have people that are some of them taking like a month off.

Gerard (02:15): Absolutely. Lou, I can't remember. Australian like, I know we ranked the slams in one of our earlier podcast episodes. Where did Australian rank for you?

Spin The Racket (02:23): ⁓ yeah.

Rishi (02:29): Hahaha

Gerard (02:29): We got

Rishi (02:40): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (02:55): the, in my opinion, and like, I mean, you know, if you ask every player, like which slime would you want, would you want to win? think, you know, eight out of 10 will say Wimbledon. And so that one's definitely a clearly the winner by, by a solid margin. And then you have the other three, it depends on where you're from and all that stuff. Right. But the Australian open is very exciting for me. ⁓ it's, I have never managed to like just

Gerard (03:24): Yeah.

Rishi (03:44): Yeah!

Spin The Racket (03:47): That's my political

Gerard (03:48): Yeah, I like it. like it. No, I hear you though. It is so tough for American viewers to watch it, but if you're die-hard fan, like I remember when I was in college, I would wake up at like 3 30 a.m. for some of the night session. Like they're really big matches. Like I was just like that committed. I don't know if have that in me anymore, but maybe like one, maybe like the finals or like, you know, I don't know, like a later semi. Maybe I can like juice it up, but it's tough.

Rishi (04:16): No, I agree with them. That's why I would say I'd put it like in the lower rankings just for viewability. It's like, it's so hard. You know, the other times for the other three tend to be a lot easier. And it's also like, it kind of like sneaks up on you. Like we're just into the new year. A lot of people are kind of doing their other things, work, whatever the case may be. And it's like, oh wow, we're right into a slam. It's not like, and if you think about like, you know, the other-

Spin The Racket (04:16): It's,

Gerard (04:30): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (04:40): we'd look at obviously at inside sports, we'd look at lot of golf, like the first major of the four majors doesn't come until like a couple of months in. And so it gives you some time to like get your feet wet a little bit. But this one just like throws you in on the deep end, which it's great. I'm excited. I'm really pumped. But it's also like you're just started the new year and here we go.

Gerard (04:49): Sure. Yeah.

Spin The Racket (05:01): Yeah,

Rishi (05:05): Yeah

Gerard (05:06): Thank

Spin The Racket (05:30): how folks are going to be doing at the Australian Open, right? ⁓ Because you don't have the full ⁓ lineup that you do at the Australian. know, the 250s that are played before, not every player is going to be there. Not every player is going to be showing their, let's just call it preseason performance. And so it's like, I feel like Australian Open is one of those where you can kind of see a lot of shakeups and, you know, just...

Gerard (06:05): Absolutely, yeah, everyone's a little bit shaky trying to get back into match form, which is such as fun. So, no, I'm really pumped for it. I think, Rish, you might have told me about this, but the ESPN shakeup. I want to get your guys' thoughts on that. Brad Gilbert's out, Pam Shriver's out. I they're moving Chris McKendry to a different role. So the commentators we used to see do the whole spiel early on are shaked up here. What do you think about that?

Spin The Racket (06:08): Yeah.

Rishi (06:30): Yeah.

Gerard (06:44): Hahaha

Rishi (07:01): The way that like, McKendree knows it sports well, but I know that they're adding in and I think really highly, think it's like Malika Andrews who does like basketball and things like that. I'm a big fan of hers, but I think she's like moving into the tennis space. So while she's not like coming at it, like Brad Gilbert from like a coaching angle or coming at it from having played the game a ton, she's going to come at it more from like a best talent, ⁓ you know, commentary perspective. So.

Gerard (07:01): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (07:28): You know, all change is uncomfortable at first. I'm sure it's going to be a good product either way. ⁓ And honestly, as long as Mackenro and Mackenro around, we're good. And honestly, as long as I don't have to hear Nick Curio's commentate, I'm fine. I'm just like over that whole spiel. He needs to get out of the screen moving forward. He's done being relevant. I'm good on that.

Gerard (07:38): you

Spin The Racket (07:48): Hot takes. Nice.

Rishi (07:49): ⁓

Gerard (07:49): That's

Rishi (07:50): We're firing with the coffee early.

Spin The Racket (07:52): Yeah, yeah.

Rishi (08:13): I loved him as, I mean, I thought he was fun as a player, like in his prime and I got it. I feel like he's trying to do the same thing as like a commentator is not like, you know, it's not the same. You know, it's like, I think you got to go more down like you banks route and be a little bit more professional when you're doing an analysis, especially like around the game, different, different flavor for different folks.

Gerard (08:24): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (08:45): Yeah.

Gerard (09:08): I'm sure they'll have really good coverage as well.

Rishi (09:11): The

Gerard (09:14): cool.

Spin The Racket (09:38): So yeah,

Rishi (10:06): Yeah ⁓

Gerard (10:36): Yeah.

Rishi (10:39): uh, the woman was what ranked like one 10, one 20 in the world. So it was kind of set up where none of the top players in the world got there. Um, and which is awesome. I mean, that's the point of it. It's like, you can have a lot of variants because it's one point, but it was a little bit too much of a Cinderella ending. And if you noticed it, like every single player, Anisimova, Demon Hour, like all of them were posting about like this one point slam. it feels like

Gerard (10:44): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (11:06): tennis kind of pushed this forward a little bit and you know, that's great to push it forward but as long as like the result was not planned out but either way it was a very cool story and if it is like all legit very happy for the guy that won that's very awesome like a million dollars to go through that tournament and so but high level I think it was a very awesome idea and I love to see things like that moving forward and I think for reasons like that and I think I sent it to you G like the

Gerard (11:07): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rishi (11:35): Practice day this year, the first practice day at the Aussie Open had like four or five times as much as many folks, like 30,000 people. And last year it was like six, 7,000 people. I think ideas like this, in addition to like, you know, the center Alcara's rivalries are like why the game is moving forward, why you're getting so many eyes. And so I like the level of engagement there, but I have some questions asked of how it netted out.

Gerard (11:41): Yeah, that's wild.

Spin The Racket (12:00): Agreed, agreed. mean, it's a great entertainment product, right? And that's, think, where for a long time we've seen tennis just not morph and evolve. And golf has done that. And there some folks that are very opinionated about that. ⁓ tennis is changing slowly, but it is. We saw the US Open mixed doubles. That was its own thing. And I think it's great to see that the US Open took the initiative.

Gerard (13:06): You

Rishi (13:07): The other level,

Spin The Racket (13:33): Yeah.

Rishi (13:35): somebody can lose, you know, it's like the Federer quote, he's like, won like half the points I ever played, right? But it's like that level of consistency. But I think that's what makes getting people into the game, you know, easier is that anyone can feel like, hey, I can rise to a high level, you know, if I just play consistently, it's it'll makes the game a lot more approachable, relative to some of the other sports. But I think that's another thing that increases engagement over time, which ultimately, like for us that love this game, like that's what we want.

Spin The Racket (13:40): Yeah.

Gerard (15:12): Yeah, no, I agree with you guys I think the more

Rishi (15:43): Not to further rag on Nick Curios, but that's where my conspiracy theory comes from. Like he missed the point going for a winner right off the inbound and then he shatters his racket like kind of a, kind of not, I don't know. Just seemed a little staged and more, more Curios going over the top, but we spent too much time on him.

Gerard (15:47): Yeah. ⁓

Spin The Racket (16:03): You wanna give him more airtime?

Rishi (16:04): Yeah, no, he's not in the singles draw, we're good on this.

Gerard (16:10): Well, let's shift to the draws here. I know we have some pretty spicy sections that we can kind go through here. We'll spend some time first talking about the women's I think at a high level, would love to hear thoughts on how the draw looks overall. Who do we have eyes on? What do we think about some of the players going into the season here? So, let's take it there. What do you think? know we talked about first slam of the year. It's always interesting to kind of see where people's levels are, but how do we feel about the lineup?

Rishi (16:43): I think the bracket looks awesome. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And as we think about like last year and women's game, it's so high variance. I think we had four different women's slam winners last year, which is awesome. So while Sabalenka has like probably looked the best, would say most consistent. It really is like, I think like five, maybe even 10 players can win this tournament this year. So looks great, you know, from that standpoint, you know, going into, going to the year, I think Sabalenka remains.

Gerard (16:54): Yeah.

Rishi (17:12): the favorite going into the Aussie Open, again, Coco, Rubach and Anisimova who came out after a crazy 20-25. I think it's just a really exciting time for the game, especially on the American side. I think it's Anisimova really pushing it from that side, but like Madison Keys after her first slam win, it's just a really exciting time. And especially when there's so little variance in the men's side, I think the women's side provides something a little bit different. Like the men's side, have that top level high rivalry.

Spin The Racket (17:21): Yeah.

Gerard (17:35): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (17:42): Here you have really anyone can win in the bracket.

Gerard (17:45): Yeah. Yeah.

Spin The Racket (18:19): it's entertaining, I'll say that. Women's tennis right now, it's very volatile and obviously it makes for a very good experience. ⁓ Kind of edge of your seat, watch that match, you don't know what's going to happen type stuff. Where I agree with Rishi, on the men's side, these two dudes, Synchra's are like...

Rishi (19:15): Yeah.

Gerard (19:22): Must be, must be.

Rishi (19:52): so as far as the quarter goes, mean, you know, obviously, Sabalenko is easily the favorite to win here. But I do think there's a couple of interesting players. It's not a ton of like first round matchups that I love a ton, but there's a ton of potential like second and third round matchups. Raducanu in here, Paolini in here, Marta Kostiuk in here, ⁓ Vicky Mboko in here. I think there's a number of players that are like

Gerard (20:46): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (20:46): I think

Gerard (20:52): here.

Spin The Racket (21:07): ⁓ I think yeah kind of same I would say Paulini I want to see what Paulini can do in this tournament ⁓ I'm a big fan of hers. She's just so loose So I'm excited to see what she can do and then like Rishi said Kaushik as well Just on a a streak right now So, you know, she's got potential to be able to take the quarterfinal against Sabalinka

Gerard (21:34): Yeah, I think it's ⁓ definitely a few interesting first rounds here. Obviously, ⁓ Mboko loved watching her play. She was playing really well. ⁓

Rishi (21:46): Just upset Madison

Gerard (21:47): Yeah, yeah. mean, she's someone definitely a dark horse to watch in this area here. If someone's going to upset Sabalinka, I could see her doing a little bit damage. Also, it's interesting that first round with Haddad Maya and Puntseva. Like Puntseva is a firecracker. Like that's going to be a battle for sure. And then, yeah, like I was laughing to myself about Kostik. I was remembering when Rish and I went to the US Open and she hit a pall in the stand.

Rishi (22:16): That was an amazing video

Gerard (22:18): I'll have to pull that out for the overlay here. But yeah, we got taken out by a ball from Kostya. So now I'm fan of hers.

Rishi (22:27): Yeah, before last two weeks ago, Kostya coming in,

Spin The Racket (22:28): Yeah.

Rishi (22:30): like going into Brisbane, she was 101 at the Australian Open. Now coming out of that tournament after those upsets, she's now like 25 to one here. So she's on like a meteoric rise. And the hot take is, I don't think Sabalanka comes out of this quarter. I think somebody pulls an upset. I don't know who it is, to be honest with you, but it like to lose point, Paolini is like, if she's like raised her game over the break.

Gerard (22:43): Yeah.

Rishi (22:56): Vicky Mboko

Gerard (23:14): I like it. She coming with the big reveal there.

Rishi (23:16): Hahaha.

Spin The Racket (23:17): No, it's true. It's

Rishi (23:29): Bratacanthus is pushed

Gerard (23:32): Yeah. So what do you think, Lou? Who's winning this quarter?

Spin The Racket (23:36): I'm going to put my ⁓ money on Paulini. How about that?

Gerard (23:43): Nice, Yeah, I... It's tough. Again, Zablenka, she's playing incredibly. I do think she's going to have some tough battles, but I'm going to play it safe here and I'm going say she gets out of this quarter here.

Rishi (24:00): I I'm gonna have to take Marta Kostrych and just go longer shot here. I just think she's, it's trending in her game. Obviously wouldn't be surprised if Sabalanka did it, but let's make it a little bit spicy.

Gerard (24:12): Yeah, there we go.

Spin The Racket (24:13): Can we do

Gerard (24:25): I love it,

Rishi (24:28): Yeah, we'll do points.

Spin The Racket (24:32): Points, OK. All right, so

Gerard (24:39): Let's do it.

Spin The Racket (24:41): Yeah. So for obviously for the second quarter of here, we've got Cocoa golf. ⁓ it's going to be hard to pick anyone bought Cocoa, but you know, this is also, it's Australian open. we've got a lot of players here that, ⁓ you know, could give her a run for her money. What do you think guys?

Gerard (25:02): Yeah, this one has a lot of fun first round matchups too. obviously, eyes on Venus Williams, know, 45 years old, still playing Grand Slams, like regardless of how she does, like it's just such an incredible feat that she's there and competitive. So that'll be fun to watch. Obviously I'll be pulling for Venus, but you know, we'll see, we'll see what happens there. ⁓

Rishi (25:06): Yeah.

Gerard (25:25): I'm looking at Haley Baptiste too. She was playing really well last year and Bronjirosa is not an easy first round pick there, but that'll be a battle I think. watching her and yeah, a lot of Americans in this section, is cool to see, but some good ones there. What do you see, Rish?

Rishi (25:44): Yeah, no, I think this is a really interesting quarter. know, Coco with obvious favorite here, but I think there's a lot of vet players that are really interesting. You know that Donna Beckett, Andreva first round, you Beckett had a lagging 2025 after a really solid 2024. It'll be interesting to see how she bounces back this year and there's some upset potential there in that first round match. You know, if Andreva gets knocked out, then it's really like Coco's to take. Spitalina, you know, had another good year.

Gerard (25:56): Sheesh.

Rishi (26:13): ⁓ It'll be interesting to see if she can go to the next level. Kriikova had another good solid year coming back from injury, so it's another one of those vet players. And then Mukova has played well like the last two weeks. She's coming back from injury last year, so it'll be interesting to see what she can do in this tournament. I would say she feels like kind of the biggest threat to Coco, at least on that side of the quarter. ⁓ But like you said, there's a number of first round matchups that are really interesting. ⁓

Gerard (26:37): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (26:42): curious to see how like an Emma Navarro looks after, you know, a lagging 2025 year and a huge 2024. So there's, there's a couple of redemption stories here.

Gerard (26:50): Yeah.

Rishi (26:57): Yeah.

Gerard (27:33): I like it, I like it. Obviously, pulling out my heartstrings, I'm a big Coco fan. I definitely would love to see her battle it out against Abelinka in that semi-final. So I'm gonna stick with Coco too here. I'm just playing the favorites right now, but don't worry, I got something spicy coming up for you guys later.

Rishi (27:37): Yeah

Spin The Racket (27:54): I'm going to go with Andriva. How about that? I'll go with

Rishi (28:20): Gerard, I was going to ask

Gerard (28:25): you

Spin The Racket (28:31): Mm-hmm.

Gerard (28:54): Just of that group there in her area, feel like, know, the Andreavas, Sakaris, like someone could get knocked out there pretty early. I could see Serlina coming through that.

Rishi (29:10): one last week.

Gerard (29:11): Yeah. solid. All righty. We got these picks here for second quarter.

Rishi (29:33): So impressive.

Gerard (29:48): Historically has played well she's seated here this this year. You got Madison keys defending champion, of course lurking down that way Let's see, Osta pingo always a lot going on with her good or bad You got Sophia Kinnon also a former Australian Open champion there. So a lot of a lot of names here on this one Who do you guys think for these uh for these first rounds?

Rishi (30:10): A lot of Americans.

Spin The Racket (30:12): A lot of

Rishi (30:14): Yeah. That first round Peyton Stearns and Sophia Kennan, that'll be pretty spicy and some big hitting. I think that'll be really, really fun. ⁓ As far as who I think could take it, gosh, this is kind of like the best Americans in this spot. And Pugula almost, yeah, know, this is tearing at my heartstrings. ⁓

Gerard (30:20): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (30:37): This sucks when this happens, dude.

Rishi (30:44): Just based on trending, and I think Pagula's been playing amazingly well, so it's hard to kind of rule her out here, but I think it's Anna Samova's just at the top of her game. And if you look at like that half of the quarter, I just don't think she's gonna get pushed until she has to play what feels like it'll be a Pagula or Madison Keys. And I'd take Anna Samova over one of them right now. So she'd be my pick here in this quarter. The dark horse, I would say, is.

Gerard (31:15): Thank

Rishi (31:43): ⁓ wow, that's awesome.

Spin The Racket (32:04): Ooh, a lot more exciting first rounds here in his quarter. ⁓ I would like to see what for me out of curiosity, just what Zhang does. ⁓ she can bring it at some point, but I feel like obviously not seated here, not doing super well, but you never know with, with a tournament like this where, you know, how people are coming in form from the, ⁓ the off season. My pick from here is going to be an Issu Mova as well.

Gerard (32:50): Interesting. So no one's no one's picking the defending champion out of this area. I can see Jessica Pagula coming through this one here. I think she's super solid. I think she has been playing these big matches and big slams pretty well ⁓ apart from kind of an early upset thing she had last year. But but yeah, I feel like in terms of this area, like her section is not super dangerous. ⁓

Spin The Racket (32:55): Uh-uh.

Gerard (33:17): quote unquote. So I think maybe going up against Maddie in the quarters could be obviously the biggest test for her. But I think she can go out of this one.

Spin The Racket (33:27): So Pagula would have to take down Badosa, potentially Fernandez, and then potentially Madison Keys. mean, ⁓ it's no easy feat, but she could definitely do it. ⁓ So you're saying it's going to be Pagula and Anisimova for the quarterfinals.

Rishi (33:51): That's fun. And then there's like, as we said, so many other American players, Kessler, Kruger, like this is a, this is an all American quarter.

Gerard (34:00): It honestly is.

Spin The Racket (34:01): Yeah, it sucks

Rishi (34:06): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (34:18): All right, so we have our bets placed on this quarter. We're gonna have to post this on social media just as soon as somebody either wins or loses, and then just kind of remind us of whether we picked the right player or the wrong player. Gotta think about that, G, the content strat.

Gerard (34:33): Exactly.

Rishi (34:38): You can post like a bracket of like both sides and just say like, or post like three brackets and just say like who we think is going to win if you think it's like, you know, it's kind of like when they do March Madness, you know, for the basketball. So.

Gerard (34:50): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (34:55): Yeah,

Rishi (35:00): love it, yeah.

Spin The Racket (35:24): And then we've got the fourth quarter in the draw with Ega obviously sitting front and center. But again, you've got Naomi Osaka here. You've got Rabach in who else am I seeing here? A lot of qualifiers here. So people that we don't know are going to play. ⁓ What do you guys think?

Rishi (35:50): I think this is like your craziest quarter. A lot of things can go a lot of different ways. Like you wouldn't be surprised if Rabakhan, Osaka, Iga, even like Belinda Benchinsch had an unbelievable week last week at United Cup and you know, she's what one year out of maternity essentially, which is also all that impressive and ⁓ inspiring that way. I think my pick here.

Spin The Racket (35:55): Yeah.

Rishi (36:16): Would be Rubachina. I think she just has such a high ceiling because that serve honestly, it's unbelievable. The Dark Horse I want to keep an eye on, who I've been a fan of for some time, which Meteoric Rise last year. Ivalice. I ⁓ think she's really, really interesting. It's a tough first round out with Cerseiha, who's in this is her retiring year, so last Aussie Open, but I think it'll be, I think it could be fun setting up a.

Gerard (36:32): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (36:44): in Ivalice and Naomi Osaka second round matchup potentially.

Gerard (36:49): Absolutely.

Spin The Racket (36:57): Mm-hmm.

Gerard (37:20): You

Spin The Racket (37:43): All right. Mic drop. ⁓ Dan, you took it from me because I was going to say Naomi as well. But I'll go with Rabachina. Let's go with a popular pick.

Rishi (38:01): Yeah, that's right. I will say that

Gerard (38:40): Yeah, I love it. All right, so zooming out, we have our picks for each quarter. Name your semi-final matchups and who's winning those and who's winning the Aussie Open.

Rishi (38:54): So on the first one was the Sabalenka one, So who did that? that was a Kostyuk. yeah. So I think on the left side, I think Koko Goff will beat Kostyuk, come into the final. And on the other side, I think Anisimova is going to beat Rybakina. And so I think you have an Anisimova-Koko Goff final. I think...

Spin The Racket (38:54): Damn.

Gerard (38:57): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (39:01): Yeah

Rishi (39:21): man, I need to think about it. So I'll let you guys get to the semis. I don't know who I think would win that.

Gerard (39:26): Okay,

Spin The Racket (39:36): Well, I picked Paulini to come out of this one and I'm pretty sure I Andriva to come out of this one. let's just say ⁓ Andriva wins that one and ⁓ Anissimova is going to win this other half right here. So would be Andriva, Anissimova taking the slam on my side.

Gerard (39:57): Wow. That's where her first and first land. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Yeah. So I had Savalinka going up against Coco in the semis. Bottom half Pugula going up against Osaka.

Spin The Racket (39:59): No, that came out pretty easy, right?

Gerard (40:16): I'm trying to decide if I go with my heart or if I lean on the data side. going to say Coco. ⁓

Rishi (40:21): You can do one heart, one data.

Gerard (40:33): say it out loud. I'm like, Coco versus like, oh, this is tough. This is tough. All right. I'm going to say Coco goes up against Pugula in the final with Coco winning the Aussie Open.

Rishi (40:47): I that's what it looked like when we picked the US Open too. was similar, or at least that's what I think I had done too. I thought I had Pugula to win the US Open. Yeah, now as I think about it, stepping back, Anna Samova, Coco, since you have Coco winner, I'm gonna go with Anna Samova to win her first slam. I think it's time. I think all the steps have been trending there. And I think it's a lot of what you kind of see in the Madison Keys last year going into the Australian Open. It's like all of the trends were there. It's like she's just ready to take that next step.

Gerard (40:51): Yeah.

Rishi (41:17): I think Anna Simova has shown that, especially from the redemption after that Ega match, that she's ready to take the big swing. And I think that her punches on these sort of courts go a really, really long way. So can't wait.

Gerard (41:31): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (41:40): Can't wait to be right.

Rishi (41:42): It's awesome because it's

Spin The Racket (41:47): Dude,

Gerard (41:51): out.

Spin The Racket (41:51): yeah, 100%. It's like, I mean, we're all placing bets here. ⁓ Geez. ⁓ So transitioning to the the men's is still exciting, dude. There's a lot of there's a lot of players here that they can make a break. You've got Boob Lake now in the top 10 starting the year breaking. Yeah, exactly. Starting the year winning Hong Kong.

Rishi (42:04): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (42:17): gets his another 250 under the bag and then all of sudden ⁓ breaks into the top 10 before the Australian Open. What do we think about ⁓ this quarter? Yeah.

Rishi (42:26): This quarter is really fun.

Spin The Racket (42:51): ⁓ yeah.

Gerard (42:56): So,

Rishi (42:57): which has kind

Gerard (43:05): Thank

Spin The Racket (43:17): Yeah.

Gerard (43:20): He's juiced.

Rishi (43:25): One of my favorite up and coming players is Kabali. ⁓ I think he takes a big, big step this year. I love the power hitting. If you set up for a Kabali potential bublic match later on in a couple of rounds, I think that's really interesting. But ultimately it's just hard to go against Carlito ⁓ in this quarter. I will say though that I am bullish ⁓ with Demon Hour in his home territory. So I hope we do get to see a Carlito, Demon Hour. ⁓

Spin The Racket (43:52): Yeah.

Rishi (43:55): match towards the end of this quarter.

Gerard (43:58): Yeah, this quarter is also filled with American players too. A number of the qualifiers that are up there at the top, against...

Rishi (44:20): Yeah.

Gerard (44:36): I'm definitely I'm considering do I wake up for the demon baratini night match? I'm trying to decide if that's in my in my card, but that's got obviously gonna be absolute fireworks You see kabali I like him watching him to big foe always bringing some some fire fits from Lulu I got I got to support my guy, you know watch some of that I don't even know who comes out of this section. Honestly, I mean

Rishi (44:44): Ha

Gerard (45:04): On paper, makes sense to say Carlos, obviously.

Spin The Racket (45:16): I personally think that Carlos has an easier path than Yannick. ⁓ So it just depends, dude. You've got a lot of guys here that could take the fight to him, but then the problem is they haven't proven ⁓ much recently. You've got a Kigmatovic who has given Ocaraz some trouble. You've got a Sebastian Korda that I'm a big fan of, but he's just not doing well. ⁓

Rishi (47:19): think we're all in agreement. The one other player that I didn't want us to forget, Mahatovic, is so fun and he could set up for a second round against Diemonauer, which would be, that would be fireworks. Another player to keep an eye on this year.

Gerard (47:26): Yeah

Rishi (47:36): That match would like, they'd need new balls every, after every point.

Gerard (47:51): All right, we got Sasha's various quarter, the big German man is crazy. Sasha's been around for so long.

Spin The Racket (47:52): Hmm.

Gerard (47:59): Gosh, want to see him win a slam? don't know. He's definitely a staple. His section is pretty interesting here too. You got some up and comers and a learner TN down there who's playing really well, really good tennis. I see Rublev, of course, big hitter, a lot of energy, a lot of passion. My guy, FAA.

Rishi (48:39): This is a fun one. Like it's fun because you don't have any of Carlos or Yannick. So it feels like anything can happen a little bit. And I don't think anybody's scared of Saverov. Honestly, it's like that first round match Diallo has, I mean, he had to took a bad upset last week Diallo, but I think he can obviously win this match. I think that'll be really, really fun. Medvedev obviously he fired his full coaching staff. He has a really nice start to 2026 here. And obviously he's had good history at the Australian Open. So it'll be interesting to see what he does.

Gerard (49:48): Mm-hmm.

Rishi (50:06): I like Felix to come out of here. Are you crying?

Gerard (50:09): Man, I'm trying not to... You got me cheesing over here. I could not agree more. I'd have get all the airtime on this.

Spin The Racket (50:15): Wait, did you

Gerard (50:22): I did it, no, but I mean, but... You go first, Lou, and then yeah, I'll wrap it up. I need a minute.

Rishi (50:23): He's about to. ⁓

Spin The Racket (50:24): ⁓ okay.

Gerard (50:35): you

Spin The Racket (51:00): you know, got a Diallo, you've got Arnaldi, like these guys can, can, you know, can hit, you know, they can, they can win. It's a little bit volatile in this, ⁓ side. I would love to see a learner tan, ⁓ play FAA in that section of the, of the draw. It's also sucks that you've got both Serendulose like in the same quarter. So it's like, if one were to have a solid run, do I have to delete the other one? ⁓ but.

Rishi (52:28): ⁓ man, that is spicy.

Spin The Racket (52:30): I'm placing my

Gerard (52:34): That's bold. That's a big pick there. Okay. ⁓

Spin The Racket (52:38): I'm drawing

Rishi (52:38): This is definitely the quarter where it's possible.

Spin The Racket (52:39): lines here because G is like, wait, he to take out FAA.

Gerard (52:42): Yeah, yeah, I'm like, whew. But yeah, I mean, yeah, he's a talent. yeah, that's a big ask, the best three out of five.

Rishi (52:44): I think this is starting to work.

Gerard (52:54): We'll see, we'll see. I'm definitely, I'm with Rishi. I think Felix, this is his year. This is definitely a year he's gonna push in the slams. I'm gonna call the Diallo upset first round. think, I mean, the big serving Canadian, I think he's just, he's a super sharp guy.

Rishi (53:06): Let's go.

Gerard (53:13): He'll give Zverev a lot of trouble. think he can do it. I he can pull the upset there. So, I mean, I'm definitely keeping an eye on Cirundolo Francisco. He's, I mean, the big, the big forehand, the big game. That's a, that'll be a fun matchup in that first round against Nang. But yeah, I think, I think Felix has this. This is, this is his time.

Spin The Racket (53:30): Mm-hmm.

Gerard (53:42): Don't backtrack now, it's okay.

Spin The Racket (53:49): Third quarter. Yes, sir.

Gerard (54:03): playing extremely well for his age, but a lot of big names here too. You have Musetti, you see Minchik up there in the draw. My boy Binoc, Brandon Nakashima is here as well. You got Taylor Fritz, you got Lahechka, you got Tsitsipas. I mean, if he's back to the old Tsitsipas, who knows? But yeah, a lot of fun names. Obviously, Stan Verrinka playing in his last year at the Ozzy Open. Yeah.

Rishi (54:35): wide open again. And yeah, I'm happy to see Stan the man get that wild card in his last year. But yeah, to your point, there's a lot of interesting players. QB had a great week last week coming back from injury. think it'll be important to see how he goes match to match and buy Vesta five sets, like keeping that health up. But I think certainly he has the ceiling to do really, really well here. Obviously Menchik, our boy, we watched him win in Miami. ⁓ That was amazing. ⁓

Gerard (55:01): Yep.

Rishi (55:05): And ⁓ Taylor Fritz, I'm curious to see if he's healthy. I think last week he had withdrawn or had to pull out of a match early. ⁓ So kind of curious to see where his health is at. I think this is a year where Musetti takes that next step. And it's top seed in this quarter, excuse me, second seed, guess wouldn't be in this quarter behind the GOAT. But I really do like Musetti to take that step and come out of this quarter. I think it's very winnable where he is unless.

Gerard (55:47): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (56:04): It's a long battle to the quarterfinals. So yeah, I agree with Rishi. ⁓ I would like to see a Djokovic make it to the quarters, it's looking more and more uphill as the time goes by. I don't know, man. This is another one where anything could happen, dude. You've got a lot of slingers here. ⁓ I would love to see a Fritz make it. I think it's about time he also steps it up.

Gerard (58:00): Nice, nice. Also got to shout out some of the qualifiers there. ⁓ College tennis obviously is a big deal here in the States. have Rafa Hodar is playing. He qualified. He's the former UVA Cavalier. He played with ⁓ James Hopper at UVA. Shout out to James Hopper, a friend of the pod. And then you got obviously Baron Nakashima, also a former Cavalier. Ethan Quinn, Go Dogs. So kind of cool to see some of that college tennis translate again to the pros here.

Spin The Racket (58:01): as long as he's healthy.

Gerard (58:30): So yeah, I this section to your point wide open you got some some former legends You got some new folks coming up. I'm going with minchik. I think he's been playing Super solid that serve is out of this world good I think he can definitely cause some trouble up there Maybe go up against Joker pull that that went off and and come through this quarter

Spin The Racket (58:54): Nice, I like this. We didn't agree on any of them. Yeah, three different pigs. Sweet. All right, so. Ah, bro. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. On to.

Rishi (58:56): Yeah, three different picks. I love it.

Gerard (59:05): Yeah.

Rishi (59:07): I draw and make it the other way.

Gerard (59:08): Yeah

Spin The Racket (59:09): ⁓ yes, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rishi (59:10): Yeah!

Spin The Racket (59:12): You might go with a spicy take.

Gerard (59:16): Hmm.

Rishi (59:17): I love, this is gonna be a fun one.

Spin The Racket (59:18): to

Rishi (1:00:12): I mean, I think you have the best hard court player in the last three years, you know, in this quarter, which is pretty, pretty obvious. But you also have some interesting vets as you brought up like Silic, Montarrino, Monfils is last Aussie open. You like, you know, I love the guy. I can't wait to watch, watch him play. I hope he at least can go for, you know, I would love to see a Monfils Shelton matchup, but that is a challenging first rounder for Shelton with Umber. You know, he's, he's a solid player.

Gerard (1:00:27): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (1:00:40): ⁓ that's right.

Rishi (1:00:41): So it's gonna be interesting. Yeah, Fonseca, Spazeri. I will say there's a little bit of upset potential there. My co-founder at ISN, his cousin is Spazeri, so University of Tech's alum. We're gonna be rooting for Spazeri pretty big, but maybe a tall task. Hopefully we ultimately get to see Sinner. If Spazeri can't get there in a Jow Fonseca match, that'll be fun.

Gerard (1:00:58): There you go.

Rishi (1:01:09): Like you, Lou, I'm a big Chappavalla fan of the talent and I've been waiting for him to do what FAA did, you know, in the back end of last year, but it doesn't seem like it's fully coming. ⁓ But all long-winded to say, I think Yannick Sinner comes out of this quarter. It's too hard to go against it. ⁓ You know, it should set up for a Sinner-Shelton matchup, ⁓ which I think will be fireworks. But ultimately, I just think Sinner on hard court is...

Spin The Racket (1:01:16): Mm-hmm.

Gerard (1:01:28): Mm.

Rishi (1:01:38): just too unbelievably good. And it'd be great to see if he got upset, you know, even by a Shelton, but I think Shelton's still maybe like a half a step away, but would love to be proven wrong.

Gerard (1:01:52): Yeah.

Rishi (1:02:05): Yeah, that's fine.

Gerard (1:02:23): if he's not really ready to go and pulling up set there. Basavoretti is playing O'Connell in that first round too. So he's also kind of that next-gen player, someone fun to watch. I agree with you. think Shelton's center in the quarters will ultimately be the matchup. My heart.

Spin The Racket (1:03:08): Yeah, sorry for your boy ⁓ Rishi, but I would love to see a Fonseca-Sinner match. ⁓ I would love to see that happen. ⁓ Katyanov and Mikkelsen, Fonseca-Sinner, I'd love to see a Shapovalov and a Matija Baluchi or something like that. I think Baluchi is laughter, right? Yeah, dude, would be sick. And then, I mean, just to see like ⁓

Rishi (1:03:14): No, no, certainly it would be...

Gerard (1:03:32): Mm-hmm

Spin The Racket (1:03:38): I don't know, Mumfies with Shelton and Vachero with Shelton would be fantastic. All that to say that I think Yannick Sinner is going to come on top on this one.

Gerard (1:03:50): In agreement.

Rishi (1:03:51): onto the semis. man. You'll like this one, Gerard. I think we get a Felix over Carlito in the semi.

Gerard (1:03:52): Yeah, yeah, let's line them up.

Rishi (1:04:03): to play Yannick Center who comes out over Musetti. We get a FAA Yannick Center final and I think Yannick wins, but I think he gets a little bit pushed and I think this is a big step in FAA's career getting to the finals of a slam.

Gerard (1:04:19): I love it. You've been reading my notes, Rishi. I don't know how, but somehow you can see in the play. Yeah, I think obviously I have Alcara going up against FAA. I do like that idea of FAA pulling out to at least make to the final. And then I have Minsik going up against Sinner. ⁓

Spin The Racket (1:04:37): ⁓

Gerard (1:04:38): in that semi-final. think it'll be good for Menchik to get to the semis, but think Sinner is just too hot right now. So, similar to you Rishi, I have the same thing. A little different path of getting there, but yeah, Sinner winning the Australian Open this year.

Rishi (1:04:54): Three in a row, I think.

Gerard (1:04:56): Yeah, yeah. Lou?

Rishi (1:05:00): He's going to click LearnRT in here.

Spin The Racket (1:05:00): Yeah, Yeah, no, no. Well,

Gerard (1:05:03): she's Irish.

Rishi (1:05:04): Learn it, Ian.

Gerard (1:05:07): You

Spin The Racket (1:05:07): No,

Gerard (1:05:34): Mm.

Spin The Racket (1:05:37): I would favor center at this moment. So we all said center. I mean, yeah, dude, this was a lot less, less difficult than the women's draw, you know? Like, I mean, Rishi had to take a break to think about this. ⁓

Gerard (1:05:41): Okay. All right. So we got three boys winning center. The 3P here going up. 2026 champ.

Rishi (1:05:46): Yeah

Spin The Racket (1:06:02): for the women's and in here we are like, yeah, know, all that disabled center. So.

Gerard (1:06:08): Yeah,

Rishi (1:06:25): Can't wait, can't wait. And it's interesting, know, we're talking, none of us even really had a pause for Zverev, Casper Ruud or Medvedev. It kind of shows like a shift in the game. Like we're now moving on from like, obviously Sinner and Alcaraz but like behind that it's like Mensik Musetti, like new gen and like if Jack Draper was playing, it would probably be like him baked into that too. So it's like, we're done with these like former relevant guys.

Gerard (1:06:33): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (1:06:43): ⁓ dude. We just skipped.

Gerard (1:06:47): Yeah, so good.

Spin The Racket (1:06:52): Yeah, we just skipped that generation, dude.

Rishi (1:06:54): Yeah,

Gerard (1:06:55): Yeah, yeah, like...

Rishi (1:06:56): they're probably so pissed off because it went right from the big three just to these two.

Spin The Racket (1:06:58): ⁓

Gerard (1:07:00): I know it definitely changed a good bit. Yeah, it's your point. Draper obviously not here. Arthur Fils not here. So yeah, it could have looked a little different.

Spin The Racket (1:07:08): Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, boys, I think that's a wrap. We're going to be obviously posting a lot of different content based on our predictions, based on what happens. We're going to have a graphic that's going to show

Gerard (1:07:33): Yeah.

Rishi (1:07:40): Yeah, so we have Inside Sports Network, we're on Twitter, the Gram, you can just come to insidesportsnetwork.com. A lot of our content started as golf base and now we have a new tennis product. So whether you're just following along, wanna get engaged with the game, whether you're looking to make bets on tennis or play daily fantasy tennis, we have content around all of it. So come find us at Inside Sports Network and I appreciate you boys having me on.

Gerard (1:08:08): Yeah, that was a blast. Thanks for being here.

Spin The Racket (1:08:09): Yeah,

Gerard (1:08:16): and I'm Gee. See you next time.