⩨atsu

“He’s not just one of the best tennis players, he’s one of the best athletes of all time […] Novak, like myself, is a challenging character in terms of the way he goes about his tennis, is extremely demanding, and I fully expected that. I look back on it and I’m glad that I did it. It’s an amazing experience that I’ve had. I’ve learnt a bit. Obviously didn’t last that long. But I put everything into it that I had, like, I tried my hardest to help him.”

“I watched him play, in that tournament [AO 2025], like, ridiculous tennis. In my opinion. I saw him play some amazing tennis there. Speaking to his team about that, I’m just like ‘so so good, so impressive what he’s doing.’”

“After the injury it was certainly a difficult few months, certainly for him but also for the team and all of us.”

“Probably didn’t get the results I would have liked for him, but I learnt a lot, I learnt a lot about what coaching is”

“Made some good relationships along the way with his team as well. I stay in touch with quite a few of the team members.”

he’s not entirely happy with the coaching pods at AO because “it’s not a good place to watch tennis from” and says the coaches should have the best seats in the house i.e. best view of the court. the pod was great for communication but it was difficult to see what was going on during a point

he didn’t find the matches that stressful, it was more the buildup, lots of things needing to be done in the leadup to a match (making sure the racquets are right, the practice court is booked, the practice partner is appropriate, preparing videos, going over strategy). he wasn’t asked by Novak to do all these things himself but viewed them as part of his job and wanted to do them, to be in control of them and make sure everything is done right

“obviously, sometimes before the matches the player needs a bit of encouragement, a bit of motivation or something as well – trying to make sure you find the right words, the right moments to do those things”

[about whether he does a good pep talk] “You’d have to ask Novak”

“it’s important for a coach to bring a good energy, you don’t want, on an important day, that your team comes out and is super flat but also nervous energy is not, in my opinion, what a player needs before they walk on to play a semifinal, final of a grand slam […] a bit of confidence as well, so that the player feels like you believe in them. Whether or not I did that well I don’t know, I’d have to… Novak would have to answer that.”

[asked whether anything about Novak’s training surprised him] “No I wouldn’t say so. Because I’ve played against him a lot. I also practiced with him a lot, particularly in our younger years. Been in the gym with him a lot at tournaments and things.”

“Actually, it’s quite… well, I think it’s a funny story anyway. On the first day I started working with him I turned up to the training camp and we did the practice session. Which [snickers], his team were all kind of laughing at me because, whilst Novak was warming up I was out on the court, practicing my feeding. Like, warming up my feeding. Which they were like ‘I’ve never seen anyone do that before’ And I was like, well, as a player I used to hate it when the coach fed poorly […] But then after the tennis session his physical trainer was like ‘Oh Novak is going for a long slow run in the park later, would you mind joining him’ and I was like, oh my god, I didn’t run since I was about 25. On the court I did, but it was never part of my training. And I was like, it’s my first day on the job, like I can’t say I’m not doing this. I’m like ‘yeah yeah no worries I’ll do that’; bearing in mind that I also hadn’t been staying in great shape since I finished. I mean I had been training a bit, but not loads. I told him that and he was like ‘it’s fine, it’s gonna be a gentle run. Anyway I went, and I think it was about 50 minutes he was running for and it was in a park and it was kind of up, quite a few hills in there. Very slow pace. But after four or five minutes my left calf cramped. And I was like ‘oh noo’. But I can’t say anything, like, this is embarrassing. You know, like after four or five minutes. And anyway, I finished, I completed the 50 minutes; I was in so much pain. And when I finished I said to his team ‘guys, you need to help me out here’ […] I felt like I couldn’t stop, like I didn’t want to show to him, like, oh my god there’s someone I’ve been competing against for such a long time and after five minutes, you know, he’s struggling, training with me. So, I did tough it out but was a pretty embarrassing moment for me.”

[asked whether Novak was testing him with that] “That run should not have been a test, it was so slow. We would all have been able to complete it. I don’t know what happened, if it was just because I hadn’t run for a long time or if I was dehydrated or nerves or whatever.”

preparations for the Carlos match at AO were done during the off season, Andy spent a lot of time with Novak’s analyst trying to figure out patterns of play that would work well for Novak vs. ‘guys like Alcaraz and Sinner’; he thinks you have to do this kind of work during the off season “and not enough people do”

[whether he’s proud he coached Novak to winning a match vs. Carlos] “Uhm… yeah. I mean, wasn’t me that won that match. Novak won that match. And he could win that match whether I’m sitting there or not. But I did the best I can to help him in that match.”

“The thing that’s hard with tennis is that I think the strategy […] was quite clear. But there’s a difference between seeing a strategy and actually going out on the court and executing it as well as he did. And my opinion is that there’s very few people in the world who can do that. So you could give a guy ranked 50 in the world the best strategy to win against Alcaraz but he’s still probably going to win that match. Whereas Novak is that good that he’s able to execute a strategy perfectly - because he is so good. So yeah, I felt like the strategy for the match was a good one, but he played a ridiculous tennis match as well [tiny proud smile]. And that’s why he won the match.”

he had trouble going to sleep after that match because he was still buzzing from it. “It was so good to watch. I loved it. I loved being part of that match and being courtside, it was awesome. I would say winning as a player and being the one on the court still would be a greater feeling. But it was still really, really special.”

right until the end of his career he enjoyed getting up in the morning to practice and trying to find ways to get better

he doesn’t feel like he misses competition, he wouldn’t mind experiencing winning Wimbledon again, but he doesn’t miss trying to get there, and he doesn’t feel the need to fill the void of competition with something else

“I gave everything I had to the sport. I don’t look back with any regret. Well, there’s things I would do differently if I could have another go at it but I feel like I gave everything.”

if he had another go he would have trained slightly differently and taken more breaks, would have enjoyed the successes more

the hip was pretty bad by 2016 and he struggled a lot throughout the year in long matches, especially five setters, it impacted the serve in particular; that year he lost multiple matches from 2 sets up which was unusual for him and his hip was hurting badly throughout those and he knew it was impacting the serve

he was on the player council when the masters series got changed to 2 week events and he was ‘completely against’ that change, ATP reasoned there would be less injuries (more recovery time between matches), he argued against it by saying players then don’t have time to recover between matches. he feels like there’s more mental fatigue now because of that, the amount of time players are on the road is an issue

while he was competing his own achievements felt insignificant because there were these guys getting to 10, 15, 20 Grand Slams; he sometimes felt rubbish as no 3 or 4 in the world and like getting to the final of the AO for the 5th time was a terrible result and [sarcastically] “you know, the media will also help you feel that way at times, as well”

“sport is difficult in that sense in that you have a great achievement and you’re made to feel like it is a failure as well”

his daughter finished 7th out of 100 in a race and he was very proud of her; compares this to feeling like a disaster when he finished second (i.e. lost a final) in a Slam

if he comes across a video of himself playing on socmed now, he likes watching himself and feels like he played well, whereas during his career he would have picked apart the imperfections

in the matchup with Roger it helped him that he had watched Roger playing a lot when he was growing up; in the big matches he found it tough psychologically to see past the aura

he says he’s “fully aware of where I sit in the pecking order” when it comes to the big 4 and that what the other 3 achieved on the court was “far superior”

is clearly aware people sometimes question the 'big 4' and says he wouldn't have shown up at Rafa's retirement uninvited (and also will only go to Novak's retirement if he gets asked)

gets asked about how Rafa was different to play against on grass than on clay and launches into a long explanation of how Rafa served differently and how serves behave differently on different surfaces and how the shot can be used tactically (ca. minute 49)

[during a technical discussion of Roger playing more offensive against him over time] “my second serve was. um. average. at best.”

Novak was a difficult matchup for him because “very similar gamestyle, but everything was just a little bit better”, the only area where he felt like he was stronger was at the net, but difficult to exploit that because you can’t try to bring him forward every single point

he loved that before on court coaching the player had to decide for themselves when a strategy wasn’t working (and is it not working because of bad execution or because of the opponent coming up with something unexpected or was it just a bad plan all along)

he says Rafa was brilliant at adjusting strategy during matches but gets a little barb in: “he did always get a little bit of additional help from Toni”

wearable technology was only allowed on the ATP tour last year so he feels like tennis is quite behind in that compared to other sports, and data has also only become available to many players recently, top players used to pay a lot of money for it and gain an advantage based on it

Kim put up a trophy cabinet when they moved house “it’s downstairs, out of the way” [it must be pretty big?] “yeah it’s pretty big, decent… decent size”, he’s fine with the trophies being there but “I don’t go and look at them daily”

his kids sometimes wear the Olympic medals (“and I was quite precious about them at the beginning but now I’m like. whatever, yeah. it’s fine.”)

he was competitive about getting as many Olympic pins as possible (“you get rejected all the time” because most people want a good pin in exchange) and got most of his tennis teammates into it too

things he would change in tennis: (age-related and other) exemptions for participating in all the masters; a two year ranking system so players feel less pressure to compete constantly (but difficult to achieve because it messes up records and their comparability)

he loved bo5 as a player, more time to figure your opponent out, but he wouldn’t watch a full bo5 match now probably (“I have a family, I’ve got other things to do”)

for things to actually change in tennis, players will have to be very clear and agree on what they want to change (e.g. lower ranked players might not want to play less, top players do; top players liked the new mixed doubles format at USO, lots of doubles players hated it etc.)

says that the new planned masters event in Saudi would have been difficult for him to turn down as a player (whereas he always turned down exhibitions there) because it’s a mandatory event on the tour; also acknowledges that it’s tricky to say that the tour shouldn’t go there purely based on the human rights record when the tour goes to lots of other places that are questionable in that regard as well

“heavier” tennis balls problem comes from players hitting harder and courts becoming grainier; could be solved by balls being changed earlier/more often during matches

says he hated being on the player council because it was frustrating but went back and did it a second time because he was asked to; players aren’t well educated enough to have informed conversations on lots of the topics

the schedule could be improved by having AO 2 weeks later (but they don’t want to do it because currently it’s in the school holidays there)

favourite thing he gets to do now that he couldn’t do while he was playing is skiing

he’s given up on cooking because he would panic when he was following instructions and something wasn’t going right, he had no idea how to adjust to that “so then I retired from cooking as well as tennis” [grins]; his four-year-old would let him know when something wasn’t quite right

his oldest daughter had trouble adjusting to him getting attention when he was going somewhere with her; he talks about how she just recently allowed him to walk next to her on the way to the car for the first time

talks about his six-year-old getting into board games and just like he launches into tennis analysis he describes his son’s strategy and tactical errors at monopoly

Sincaraz

sol invictus (I cut down the original quote for brevity) | mature

" [...] Who was he compared to Carlos Alcaraz, wunderkind? Nobody. He, Jannik Sinner, was going to die." [Jannik Sinner, before and after The 71st Hunger Games.]

the summons | not rated

In the middle of the time war, Carlos loses Jannik. He’s determined to get him back.

made of outer space | not rated

“What do you usually do in your free time?” As soon as the sentence leaves Carlos’ mouth, he cringes. Jannik gives him a strange look. “I look for extraterrestrial life. But you know that.”

somewhere beautiful together | teen

Carlos is retired. Holger can’t win a Slam, and needs a new coach. Jannik can’t win Roland Garros. Desire is eating them all alive.

locked in | teen

Jannik Sinner's lock screen gets exposed during the US Open. To the shock and surprise of pretty much everyone it seems to be a picture of Carlos Alcaraz.

gut feelings | teen (but leaning mature imo)

CA: Should I text him about it ? JA: NO AA: No SA: no lmfaoo CA: Ok 😕

comfort zone | teen (but also leaning mature)

The door handle clicks and Jannik stands up, remembering how Carlos had greeted him three months ago and anxious not to fuck up the protocol. "Congrats," he says when Carlos comes in, holding his hand out. "You were incredible today."

everyroom | not rated (but pretty much explicit imo)

Felicidades Jannik!!! how do you celebrate?🥳

Novandy

naturalization | teen

Novak was always smiling, and Andy had never seemed like someone destined for happiness anyway. [Alternate reality where Novak chose to play for Great Britain.]

if i'm not made for you | mature

'Omals', that was what they called little omega kids who acted alph all the time – oh, Andy’s in that omal stage, short hair, always wants legos and toy guns rather than Barbies, they go through that sometimes, it’ll pass.

and all at once | explicit

Novak starts wearing Andy's gear, and Andy... well. Andy loses his shit. A little bit. There's a lot of unresolved history between them, but also something completely new.

as we fly south | explicit

After being friends for so long, Andy really should've learned by now not to let Novak Djokovic call the stakes. Especially when said stakes involve the words 'bet' and 'bondage' at the Olympics.  Even if it's what he wants.

come to heel | teen

It shouldn't bother him that Novak's playing around.

Benflavio