2026 US Open Day 13: Shelton Into the Final, Zverev’s Ball Bouncing & Women’s Final Preview

0:00I have my dream job, but even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where ServiceNow's AI Specialist come in. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work, they actually do it. That way your team can focus on what matters. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. Everyone, this is QuickSurf brought to you by ServiceNow. We are in the Cadillac Studio. Again, escalated IQ, mic. It has a KKG system. Studio reference, AKG studio reference. It's a Dolby at most. So the cabin is not just where we're making the show, it is part of the listening experience. What else? That's it, that's all we did. We did the doors. We did the doors, soft closed doors. Did we do the moon roof? We did the moon roof. We did the speakers. We did all the zones. We did the three climate zones all the way through the rows. Rob's getting a massage. Custom LED lighting. You can actually change. You can go ambient lighting. And then look at that.

1:00Boom. That change blue. Pretty sick. Pretty sick. It's blue for us open. Zvarib hatched off. Pretty much what we thought. Zvarib is playing right now. He started off average for this tournament. There just wasn't enough consistency from hatched off getting what he wanted. There were bits and pieces. Zvarib does a really good job of like my base setting is where I kind of drift behind the baseline. Control the middle, hit through the court, make you attack from, you know, weird different positions. But like, he just gets so many easy points, 139, and then runs 117. You know, the serve is just kind of constant pressure. And he got out of it in the third set. He's done 5-2 in that, in that breaker. So listen, we didn't know if he was going to be able to stand anymore after his first two rounds.

2:01And now he's cruising. You know, he's, he's one of bunches that's in a row. Third slam final. In a row. In a row. In a row. It's very six overall in his career. He actually did say afterwards in the encore presser. He said that after the second round at 3M that he was sitting with his team in the locker room. And they're actually just laughing. They're asses off, as he said. And how bad he was playing. And it was the sense of humor that helped him the next day. You know, how important is it, you know, with him heading into this, right? It seems like he's knocked off whatever the cobwebs are or whatever it was in those first couple rounds. You know, he seems to be riding a lot of momentum. Yeah, I mean, I think more than anything as we've talked about this, he's a realist. You know, it's like he wins a second round. He's not going to sit there and say, that was great. There was no luck involved. I mean, Sonigo had him up against it, you know, out of the gates. Two points away from losing that match and now he's in the final. That's crazy. You know, so you know it's in there. He just got to give yourself enough time to find it.

3:04What did Hatchoff say in the post-blog? Oh man. So Hatchoff is clearly very annoyed about something that Svara was doing. He says the way he bounces the ball, look, it's annoying not only to me, but to me, it's a lot of force, a lot of players because it takes so much time. You don't know how to prepare for the serve. You're ready. Then it's another 12 bounces. Every point is like that. If it's within the rules regarding the time, I cannot say anything against that because it's the rules. Yeah, the rules should change. As long as he's doing it within the 24 second shot clock, what are you going to say? There needs to be a shot clock for the second serve. Okay. Yeah. You cannot bounce the ball 20 something times between first and second serve. Yeah. You cannot do it. And then Hatch shocked when we finished at three in the morning. Like we just can't do it. There was like a stat circulating that people were attributing to ESPN and some others, but he's bounced the ball over 12,000 times. Yeah. And that was before today's match. Yeah.

4:04I mean, judging on the fact that we counted 15 to 20 times per serve, you know. Yeah. Here's what you're ready for a crazy one. You have four or five seconds to start your motion after your first serve. Unless, how about you buy back time if you start your first serve at 15 seconds, you get that added to your time between just a total of a lot of clock. Yeah. Like I did, but there's you'd roll over. So the over minutes here. Yeah. Whatever data you don't use this month. But here's the issue with the clock. Right. So you have to fix if you toss the ball, you shouldn't be able to catch it. No, I agree. The toss is part of the serve. It's a waste of time. If you fuck up your toss, that should be on you. It's not fair to like, like I never had wobbly tosses and I got no credit for it. Right? Like you shouldn't be able to catch your toss. It's part of the serve. Is the toss part of the serve? Is it a skill? Yes. Great. Why do we get doovers?

5:04I don't know. I don't know either. I didn't get to do over on my back end. No. You should not get doovers. There has to be some sort of reigning in between serves. Like you can't just start over each time. And also what players are doing is it gets down to one and they throw a bad toss on purpose. And then there's no shot clock after that. Yeah, we've seen Foddu that earlier. I mean, you should like I don't know. Like if you're sucking wind, it's not their fault for you know, whatever. It's bending a little bit. But if the rules sucks, then you're going to take advantage of it. Yeah. It's not easy to expose them. What is it for actually? Yeah. And also it's like you can take complete. You can take all the liberties with when you start the clock. It's like a personal judgment. So we really don't have anything. You mean like when the ref when the start the clock, yeah, because I think here at the slams, they put down the score and then they turn and start the clock where the rest of the ATP tour is, the second the scores logged the clock starts. Yeah, but there's no consistency to when they started. No. Zero.

6:04No. And listen, I don't know if it's greater. If it's not, all I know is that if it's there, use it. And if it's a rule, then it should be a rule. That's it. You know, I don't know. And also you just you can't have. You can't have 24 seconds. And then take 50 seconds again before a second serve. It definitely is like an Uncle Rico mild mild to the towel box though. Like it is like a hike. Did you see what I think that's going to be? That's too much. Did you see what foe was doing? They were throwing his towel. It's actually really smart. Yeah. They saved him six steps every time. So basically a foe would walk back. So he would pull up like eight or ten feet short of the towel box. On his coach aside. And they had towels and they were throwing it to him to save him the extra steps. Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. But I only could do that on the one side. Now, this is variable head to his third straight major final. Staff that kind of like was crazy to me because there's been so many, you know, obviously, Becker comes to mind. But first year of a man to make the semis of all four majors in the same year.

7:06I was stunned that Becker didn't do that. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So pretty good stuff from the old there of Ben and foe. Here's something that needs to be said. We are here 25 years since 9-11. One, our first responders, the police officers, they weren't just brave on that day. And they were definitely brave on that day. They're brave every day. God forbid anything of the sort ever had happened again. I guarantee you they would show up for us. And we need to remember it every single day and not just today. Right? And having two exceptional young American men play on the same day. Play on Arthur Astadium tonight. I thought was a fantastic way for the tennis world and kind of the sporting universe to focus on this great city.

8:14As we remember those lost, those that were brave. So we need to acknowledge that. And I thought Ben, foe, acted with the almost class played a fantastic match entertaining. But secondary tennis sports is secondary to remembrance today. Right? This is important because sports are a distraction. We care about it. And it's fun. We love it. We're passionate about it. Life is more important than sports. So, but I thought it was a. It was it was a lucky occurrence that these two happened to play tonight. And I thought it was fitting. Yeah. I thought Ben once he found his range was fantastic. I love the mid match adjustments. I loved him not only going back, but also stepping, you know, three or four steps to the right, getting a ton of four hands. The return game has changed everything for Ben. And he's been committing to just going back and way far back.

9:16He's three feet further back than he was on average last year. And, you know, two feet further back than he was through Wimbledon. Right? So I thought the adjustments were fantastic. You know, foe, I think just the second serve was to get him. Right? When you're starting from a point of then takes a haymaker at a forehand and then you have to negotiate your way out of that. I think that's a tough place to be. So he either had to have an unotherworldly amount of first serves in or, you know, has to get more on that second at some point. But this was a win for foe. We talked about the preparation. We talked about the fitness, the fact that he was able to kind of get through this and at least have a payoff for the work with the big run here. I thought was fitting Ben's focus. The last two matches has been different. It has been head down. He's been a little mean looking.

10:16Yeah. Not as joky, not as lafitte. Full adult. The last time I just like not and it doesn't it's not like the, oh, I'm supposed to look like I should be in this right here. Like it's it's like smoldering intensity. It is like focused. Yes, determined. Yes. And I love it. Head down against Alcarares. Head down till the job was done against foe. And the crowd was, it was weird in the beginning, right? I felt like the crowd was just in it to see a great match and was there for both guys. Right? You would just see an amazing rally, a 31 shot rally and no matter who wanted that place was going nuts because they were watching some great. But there was a period around, you know, the middle of the third set when Ben started to like kind of pull the audience, I think, into his favor. And it was through great athleticism, great shot making. But then also it was just like it was like it was a more subtle engagement with the audience. It was weird. I know that I've been to a sporting event where there was more excitement about the event with less clarity about how we were going to act at an event.

11:23Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think they were both kind of trying to kind of manufacture some energy, but it was this weird thing where, you know, it was full of pride. It was full of hope. And we definitely weren't cheering against anyone. Right? You're cheering for good tennis and you like both of them, but they're, it'll be different. It'll be different on Sunday when Ben takes on Zverev. Oh, and five against Zverev. He won his first set they ever played in his lost 10 straight sets. Wow. They have not played this year. They played four times last year. And four, obviously, Zverev. I think that matters a little. Obviously, the patterns, the knowledge and everything else, Ben's back in is holding up like I've never seen it hold up before. Explain that a little bit more in layman terms. The pattern that Foe went to and that Carlos went to pepper the back in. That's been the, that's been the scouting report on Ben for the entire time.

12:28Ben has been able to neutralize Carlos. Not most of the time, but decent amount of the time and was able from the third set on to neutralize Foe when he got into that pattern where he was kind of bending Ben off the court. The weakness has turned into something that looks a lot more stable. Right? It's not easy. It's not easy to find the leak anymore. And so, you know, the maturity, all that, but it's easy to be a lot of those things when you're not worried about one pattern over and over and over. And you know that your weakness is going to hold up and you're not trying to avoid it or trying to rush points or trying to fire four hands too early because you don't. Someone to attack and finally that's been a game changer. I was on with Ben. Sports center with Scott Vempel after the match and asked him about it and you know he said that was kind of the whole deal. You know the fact that that that side is holding up and he can switch directions and and kind of went into it.

13:31So if that stays solid. He's got a real shot. He's got a real shot. Now the return is going to be very different. It was just about to ask you as great as Carlos is. The service and Zverev serve. Right. The second serve isn't like he he was able to run around Carlos's second serving get four hands and eat. Same thing with Tiafo. I don't think he's going to be able to do that with as much consistency. This very serve goes faster and it turns into the body like a slice. So he's going to be if he wants to get a forehand he's going with the spin and then trying to turn it out, which is not an easy thing to do. So I don't know that it's I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of this where it's like oh he's returning great. He'll break like this type of serve that you're returning in the way that you're returning it matters. He's going to have a much more difficult time against against Zverev serve. Well I think we'll break that down a little bit more detail tomorrow after this blockbuster women's final. I tried guys. I tried he would love you. Thanks for listening to served. We will be right back.

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15:34That's 8 sleep comm slash served code served for up to $350 off the pod. Alright back to the show. Blockbuster women's final let's break down. Sublinga Robarkin. Here's what I think I think when sobelenka is playing her best I think she's the best player in the world. Robarkin has been fantastic this year but the sobelenka that we've seen in this us open has just been different. You know all the respect in the world for. Robarkin and her path. Sobelenka leads the head to head 10 to 7 7 7 on hard. Sobelenka is 5 and 3 in finals including the Australian Open this year where. Sublinga was up 3 on the third and then Robarkin flipped it. Sobelenka getting through that tough match against Noscuba winning one of those big matches in a big tournament. I think was was a very big deal.

16:35And I'm going to be very curious to see how they come out when you know who can hit line who can bleed the other person. So I think you know Robarkin is probably a little bit smoother with with her technique I think her serve is is a little bit better. I think sobelenka probably moves a little bit better. First strike tennis is going to win the day. First strike tennis is going to win the day. If sobelenka is connecting on second server turns. It's really hard to beat her. What do you think? Honestly it's when you look at their matchups over time. It's come into a place where it is whoever wins that first set, whoever comes out and kind of sticks their flag in the ground is most likely going to win. And I think you know Sublinga beat her in any wells after that Australian Open. So it's not like she's coming off of not having not figured her out for a while. That was a tough match too. Who do you have? I'm going to take Sobelenka.

17:36I think I am too. It's amazing. She's turned her form around. There's some about this tournament in her. I can't wait to see it. I hope the crowd gives it the respect that it deserves even though it's not Coco or Jess in the final. These are two phenomenal players. The number one for this week and then it flips next week. So let's enjoy these champions. You know, as Sobelenka goes for a fifth major, Rabak and it goes for a third of the second this year. Implications for number one in the world on the line for the year end raking. So I can't wait to watch this match. Two fantastic athletes who are kind of hitting their stride. You know, for different reasons we were worried about both of them coming into the tournament. One injury related, one form related. I think it'll be fantastic. I think Sobelenka is going to hit the ball really hard. Probably yell at someone along the way. Rabak and I was going to hit the ball really hard and definitely not yell at anyone.

18:39Definitely not. This has been quick sir. I brought to you by service now. We are preview the men's final Ben Shelton against Sasha Zverev tomorrow. Wait, I didn't hit you with the service now. It's out of the day. You didn't. It's a good way to end it. 333. That's how many days old. Career batting average of 10 Williams. Like, well, I don't know. What is it? That's how many days old Ben Shelton was when you won the title here at the US Open in 2003. Oh, two to our old. Yeah, that's rough. That's rough. He's like a line. He's like linebacker years old now. That's rough. Also quick shout out Taylor Townsend, Sinny Akiva. Clear slam twice now for Sinny Akiva with two separate partners and Townsend her first one. Townsend went in the presence. She goes, I got the double-dose. Got the double-dose. She has two main uses. Legend. She has. Fricking legend. I got a lot of time for her. All right. Quick serve brought to you by service now. Kind of like, is the official vehicle of the US Open?

19:39See you tomorrow. I have my dream job. But even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where service now is AI specialist command. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work. They actually do it. That way your team can focus on what matters. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.