StarTalk Radio - Revolutionizing Tennis, with Nick Kyrgios

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Has tennis gotten too routine? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice investigate the people and technology shaking up the sport with Top 40 player Nick Kyrgios and David Ramos, Coaching Education and Performance Manager at the USTA. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/revolutionizing-tennis-with-nick-kyrgios/ Image Credit: Rob Keating from Canberra, Australia, Australia / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Sports Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. In this edition, we're going to pick up on some footage we got from last year. Gary O'Reilly and Chuck Nice, my co-hosts, they went behind the scenes at the U.S. Open, and they got to talk with David Ramos. And he's the director of coaching education and performance analytics for the United States Tennis Association. And they talked about how data and AI is revolutionizing tennis,

as you might suspect. Check it out. Here we are with Dave Ramos at the U.S. Open Tennis. Dave is Senior Manager of Coaching Education. And I love this bit. And Performance Analytics. Sounds great. We love that.

We do. We love some analytics. We love that. We do. We love some analytics. We love some analytics, man. So just break down briefly what it is your role involves here at USTA. And I'll talk a little bit about the evolution of it because it started starting at one. That's why there's two titles because it started one place and went to another. Because you don't have to go back too far to find out where performance analytics started. It hasn't been too much time. It hasn't been too much time.

It hasn't been too much time, so go ahead. Yeah, so I actually went to school at Ferris State University up in Michigan, and they had this professional tennis management program. All right. So I always have to start there because that's sort of my beginning. Cool. And that's sort of the reason I got into coaching education at the USTA and player development That's sort of the reason I got into coaching education at the USTA and player development,

is that at PTM, I was an instructor for college students who were going to become tennis professionals. Nice. So I went to that program as a college student myself. I played on the tennis team there. Then I was an instructor there for six years. And then I got a master's degree. And in order to complete my master's degree I did a work experience at player development nice so I had done tons of video analysis and so forth with my own college students and they taught students at Ferris State how to use Dartfish specifically as a solution

but when I left Ferris State I wanted to get into doing match analysis. So taking matches, adding data to matches, and tagging them so that I could use video in a way that I had with technique, but to improve match play specifically. So you were kind of doing what we all know that every NFL team does, which is, yo, let's watch film on this team. We're playing the Packers this Sunday. Let's watch some film.

It's commonplace, and in 2007, it wasn't a whole lot of that going on in tennis. So when I did a small work internship for player development, they offered me a full-time job after about four years. Sweet. So 2009, 2010, we started dabbling in some of the tagging, did some technique analysis.

And then 2012, when Jim Curry became the Davis Cup captain, I raised my hand and said, Hey, guys, if you're interested, I can provide scouting and analytics for Davis Cup. Wow. So I drafted a couple of professional tennis management students who are around the country, trained them online, and we tagged like 150 matches that year remotely and gave all the data and information to Davis Cup. So you tagged it remotely, you didn't have to attend each match? We just send them the matches, I sent them the software,

they tag them, they give them back to me. We put it all together and check it and then we started creating custom graphics and information. So now I'm going to get into the weeds. How long does it take to take a game? And how long does it take to take a match? And then what does that data set look like? How big is the data set that you pull out of something

like that? It really depends on how good you are. So when you're first starting, if a match is two hours, it'll probably take you double. Take you four hours to do it. Then as you get better and better, you can sort of go twice speed, and maybe you can get less than real time. You know what you're looking for. So you're

adding events about how the point starts, how the point finishes. You miss all the stuff in the middle in terms of the total number of strokes, but you can also add that like it was a rally of 12 shots. So when you're looking at this and reading this information, are you reading it for the player? Are you reading it as strategy? Or are you reading it for the coach or all of the above?

You usually start with a general set where you're measuring how the points start and end for both players. Any net approaches, any winners, any errors, serve placement, return placement, that sort of stuff. Then once we get into providing it to somebody specific, like Jim Currier, he'd say, well, don't forget to add all the first serve missed. I want to see where those things are.

And a mental skills specialist might say, hey, for this particular person, I want you to tell me how much time they take in between points. So we start with a base and then from there we can adapt it. So that was really the start of what we would call the analytics department, which really wasn't formed until last year formally. But I started in coaching ed and then it sort of grew as a side part of what services we could provide. And now formally we're focused in that area. We speak to a lot of people in analytics and for many different sports. And as big as this is becoming, when you're looking at it for particular players, this is a lot of information.

Sure. Do players actually get this information or is it the team around them? Because I'm not sure. This is such a mental game. It's so mental. I'm not sure if I would want all this information. You might be too in my head.

Is there anybody who wants this information? It's really... First, I'll say we actually have a performance analytics philosophy, and our philosophy is to first and foremost develop a relationship with the team and with the coach and deliver all the things that they want specifically first. And then once we have a relationship, if they want us to deliver small bites of it to the player, we will go ahead and do that, but we work through the coach.

And there's plenty of players out there who have no coach gotcha so they need well they need you they need they need the information directly and so if that's the request that's fine but typically we work through the court the coach as well as the rest of the performance team which might be a mental skills specialist which might of course the strength and conditioning coach is always involved um so yeah it's a coach-centered approach And then they have to filter out the few things that we might deliver to the player. Are you building a database so that you might be able to go into a reservoir and pull out information on an opponent? So, I mean, there's two types of analytics.

The one is that helps me as a player. That's where I was going to start. Yeah, that's me. The other type is I get to see your strengths and weaknesses and analyze that have we gotten to that point yet you know we really started using it for developmental purposes first okay to for every player to know sort of where their true identity is what the core game is and to and to clearly identify that because you'd be surprised there are a lot of players especially that you know that we're helping or up and coming,

and they don't really know their identity yet. And they get confused when it's, let's say, playing a certain style of play or playing on a certain surface. They get away from their core game. So number one is let's identify for our players what their core game is and let's try to measure the specific areas of focus that they're working on. So if an area of focus of one of our national coaches is the second serve or the winner-to-error ratio, we can literally look and, you know,

we do this about three or four times a year. We grab all their matches, we put them together. We say, you know, in the first quarter, your second serve percentage was 52%. Our goal was to go to 55%, and here it is. We hit 55%. How do we do that? We did it by mixing up the serves. So developmental purposes are first, and then secondary is to take all 55%. How do we do that? We did it by mixing up the serves. So developmental purposes are first.

And then secondary is to take all the matches we do for developmental purposes and then look at who the opponents are and put those together to create scouting information. So development first, scouting second. See, for me, I'd be building a historic database for game opponents to say, right, their first second serve was this historically. Now it's this, this might change. I mean, we did a show not that long ago with the authors of The MVP Machine, which is a baseball book, and they're using the ultra high-speed cameras.

I think it's Rapsodo. Are you into that kind of system? You're just hitting all the buttons. I'm breaking out the full vocabulary of what performance analytics means. That's what we do. That's why you're here. This is it, man.

That's great. I'm happy to have a chance to talk about it. No, so the thing is for me, looking at what the baseball guys did with the hitters and the pitchers, the ability to analyze just the minutest of movement changes a serve, changes a stroke. Are you there now?

But more importantly, and this is where it gets weird, that minutia is something somebody has to be able to come in and coach on top of, you know? I mean, I'll answer the question. There's a couple there. So one is, in addition to doing the analytics that we provide for qualis, we provide match analysis for qualis.

So we get all the matches back to the Americans in the play. We give them information on their international opponents. We produced a hundred matches that were not broadcast

during the course of this tournament and got them back to the players that played them or their opponents within 24 hours by text message.

Dude, they love you. They love you, don't they? Yeah, of course, because they have an expectation when they play at the US Open that every match here is broadcast. Well, that's not the case, especially for Qualies. So then the main draw comes up. We do the same exact thing.

We send everybody information on their opponents. We, within 24 hours, show them their own matches, which do go to a match analysis system here that the US Open provides. However however virtually zero players log into it because they just don't know what's there yeah but when they get a text message from us that supplies them with the scouting it says here's your uh your match information on your opponent oh by the way here's your match and we also purchase hawkeye reports for every single match that's played here yeah so we give them the highest level information and feedback that's possible during the main draw. Then myself and another team of specialized filmers go around to all the courts and film it with high speed and HD cameras. We use the FS700.

I used one with an external recorder that did 2K, 240 frames a second, continuous slow motion for the first time. Wow. Where we're able to really look at the technique and common fundamentals of all the best players, and then we can do side-by-side comparisons with developing Americans and say, the reason your serve isn't as good as these top players is, okay, you lack the leg drive, you lack the cocking position, you lack the toss consistency. So we're really using high-speed video to collect the parameters around which the best players play with, but we can also detect small problems or deficiencies in their technique which don't allow them to do certain things. So if you have an eastern forehand grip on your serve,

you're going to have trouble hitting a kick serve. And your toss is always to the right, and you're not going to be able to hit a kick serve. So we're able to deduce things from the technique that help us to analyze things at an analytics perspective as well. So from developing a player's technical abilities, phenomenal and brilliant, I look at it now as the receiving end of a serve.

And I think about the baseball analogy with the pitcher and the hitter. Remember what Carlos Beltran said? He knew what was coming. He knew what was coming. He read the tell. By the way, this is a sport where that reaction time is also important. Very close. You have to kind of almost know that person's game in order to play them.

So are you analyzing for tells on serves as well as just adapting technique for the individual. That's pretty much the number one, you know, when a coach or a player, maybe they're new to using analytics, they're usually looking for where do players like to go on the pressure points. Yeah, absolutely. You know, break points.

And if it's 50-50 or 30-30-30, then there's really nothing there. We say, hey, there's nothing there. But as you all know, whether it's Serena Williams' first serve on the ad side, is she going wide or T? What do you think? Wide or T, Serena Williams on the ad side? What's her number one serve?

I'm going the T. Is that T? Yeah. No, that's where I'm going. Slice T, right? That makes sense. I'm not going to give out any stats, but we all know Serena Williams, slice T on the ad side. That's herice D, right? Makes sense. I'm not going to give out any stats, but we all know Serena Williams, Slice D on the inside,

that's her money serve. Yeah. Best players in the world have a game plan A, but Serena can be a B and C because she's that diverse. When we go down

to 130 in the world, there's a lot of players that don't have any B and C and their A is really what they're going to stick to. So if we can give a player one or two things,

like, hey, on the pressure points, this is where they like to go. And off the ground, this is where their better side is. And specifically, you know, this is really where they like to play. And so it's trying to give people, you want to give them good information about how to start points,

and then we let them play tennis after that, right? We don't want to get into the minutia. Right, right, right, right. That makes sense, too, because then you're not overwhelming and that makes sense. Wow. All right, so now I'm moving on.

This is really cool, man. Because I told you I'd go in the weeds here. Right. Tennis, if you've got the ability to have pattern recognition, right? Wow. Now, players do and don't. Some can develop.

But how long before you go, hey, Watson, analyze this. Been there, done that. Thank you. We've asked already. And I want to save the best stuff for last, right? So through our partnership with IBM, they've been a big sponsor at the US Open here forever.

They provide the data and analytics around the tournament. And we were fortunate enough to be one of a couple of departments that's involved in this IBM innovation project. And through this innovation project, we have a couple of main goals. One of them is to use the richest source of data that we have available, which is Hawkeye data.

All the courts now have Hawkeye data. All the courts now have detailed stats. So we have a combination of detailed stats and Hawkeye data and video that we're getting here at the Open for every single main draw match that we're using in real time to, again, get back to the athletes and to provide scouting round by round. So that's sort of step one. Step two is to then use AI to look at the patterns that we see within Hawkeye,

like patterns of play from Deuce and Ant's side, like the directions. And what's really critical is that I told you we do point starting and point ending shots, but we're missing all the stuff in between. Hawkeye and Watson, they're going to get all the stuff in between, and they're going to be able to look at every single shot and give us things about speed and spin and all these other, and contact point that's not really there in video, and then kind of break it down and say, hey, you know, just like the keys to the match that they provide on the IBM site, in the very near future, we're going to be able to use AI to give us those qualities.

Guys, we've got to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're going to get the athlete's point of view from the perspective of Nick Kyrgios. This is StarTalk Sports Edition. We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition. Revolutionizing tennis. So we just came off of a segment with Dave Ramos. That's some crazy stuff that he's talking about.

I guess inevitable when, when you realize what role computers are playing in the rest of our lives. But why don't we get the point of view from a player, a world ranked player. Who told you? Someone told you about my ranking, Neil? So we got Nick, Nick Kyrgios. Nick, welcome to StarTalk Sports Edition. All right. You're currently ranked 40th in the world by the Association of Tennis Professionals. And so you get to say you're in the top 40. That's a famous thing in America to be in the top 40. Stay there. If you're in the 41st, no one will know. Keep that top 40 that's a famous thing in america to be in the top 40 um stay there if you're in the 41st

no one will know or pay to keep that top 40 um i look at the people you've beaten on first time out and it's quite impressive federer nadal i mean you so it's almost as though you have some secret thing that they maybe they learn about later but they don't know when they first meet you um but let me just just, it's not often we get a full-up professional in the house. Tell me, how long did you know you wanted to be a professional? When did you figure out you were good at tennis? Well, I actually played basketball when I was young first. I started playing basketball when I was seven and also played tennis. And my dad and my parents pushed me strongly into tennis.

And then coming from Australia... Because you never got above five feet tall? I'm actually six foot. Are you six foot? I was going to say. But yeah, I mean, I play basketball all the time, but I love it. Watch it.

Massive Boston Celtics fan. Watch it religiously. But yeah, and you know, coming from Australia, the pathway into becoming a tennis player was a lot easier than making it in basketball.

So yeah, I went along with that and it turned out pretty good. Yeah, I would say. I see you're giving the understatements as well. So that's a good thing. Yeah, but so, you know,

Australia has quite the tennis legacy. It's also being one of the arms of the Grand Slam. And the Australia Open, did that intrigue you from early on? I mean, let me ask it differently. Does that contest completely occupy Aussies when it's going on? Yeah, we do get reminded of our rich culture in this sport all the time. You know, we have a very heavy weight to carry, you know, with past champions.

Obviously, Leighton Hewitt, you know, still is our Davis Cup captain. Davis Cup is a team event that includes all the countries. And, you know, he's an amazing guy. He mentors us all. But yeah, we do get reminded and it does weigh on our heads a little bit how much we do carry

when we go out on the court every time. But as I said, I actually watch basketball every single day of my life. we do get reminded and it does weigh on our heads a little bit, how much we do carry when we go out on the court every time. But as I said, I actually watched basketball every single day of my life. And that was my first love, my first passion. And I carry that swagger. People call it onto the court now because all my role models are basketball players.

Yeah. And it's, it's so good. It's, you're just so much fun to watch. It's so much fun watching you play. And it's so much fun listening to your comments. And, you know, so Nick has been kind of, I'll say, finger wagged by the organization a couple of times for things that he's said.

But yet somehow they always have a microphone on him. Yeah, everyone's watching. Yeah, I'm like, who's fooling who here? I think secretly they love it. I think secretly they're just like, oh, my God, he's going to say something. We can't wait for him to say something. Because every time you do, it brings people's attention back to them. Of course. At the end of the day, sports

entertainment, and I know that. I know that where I am in the tennis world, they've given me all this power because I know that everyone's watching when I play. Everyone's like, all their eyes are on me. I know that I'm just having some fun out there. I just do my thing. My role model is Kevin Garnett. You know how things get dicey

out there from time to time. There you go yeah so Nick if you're a baller and you're 6'5 and you've obviously got a game and you're thinking I can do this what's the moment I know you said the pathway was that much easier probably for tennis but there had to be a moment where you just went I really can do this. Was that light bulb moment, when did that occur for you? Well, at 14, I was shooting hoops at the back of my house. And my dad pretty much just came out and said, you can't play. You can't play basketball anymore.

He pretty much just gave me the conversation saying, you can't play basketball anymore. It's going to affect, it's going to give you injuries. And then it kind of just happened really fast for me. I was 17. I was playing just general tournaments, challenger tournaments they're called. And then I played qualifying of a tournament before Wimbledon, made Wimbledon and then ended up beating Nadal for the first time. And then ever since then, my life's completely changed. The spotlight has just been on my life ever since that day.

I'm curious something. In tennis, as the ball comes towards you, I mean, we have 20 other things we should ask you, but I want to get this out of my head. If you are 6'5", the length of your arm plus the length of the racket is a huge cross-section on your side plus the length of the racket is a huge cross section on your side of the court

so why aren't more tennis players tall would you have to have a level of basketball swagger and coordination to pull it off no because the joker has no swagger none

the joker has no swagger. None. The Joker has no swagger at all. And he's probably taller than Nick. But when it comes to swagger, he's about four foot two. The Napoleon of swagger. I'm just saying. The Napoleonic swagger. And listen, we're talking about one of my favorite players.

Like, technically, I love to watch the guy play. I love watching his game. Okay, but Chuck, I didn't ask you the question. Oh, I'm sorry. Anyway, go ahead, Nick. Sorry. Tell me about your cross-section interaction with the ball. Well, I definitely think, like, there's, I mean, in today's day and age, there's a lot of players on tour now

that are actually quite tall and can move and are athletically more gifted these days. So I guess having long levers, it definitely helps with my serve. My serve is my best shot. And I mean, having long levers, I think you'll be able to generate way more power. And I feel like you just can cover more of the court as well. But back to Djokovic, like he's only, he's, I think he's about six foot two. He's pretty tall, but he moves, he's movement.

I mean, you tend to lose a little bit of movement, the taller you are. Like that's just how it happens in tennis. And that's why Djokovic moves. I mean, his movement side to side, forwards. It's great.

It's unbelievable. Yeah. He's unbelievable. Yeah. He gets to the ball. Like you can't believe, you know what I mean? I didn't realize he was only six two.

I thought he was a little taller because he's so lanky, but I got it. Yeah. But, but, but Chuck, if I have a big wingspan, I don't have to get to the ball.

I just reach for it. That's all I'm saying. I don't have to be where the ball is. The only thing that has to be where the ball is is the racket. That's true. However, I have to say, when you look at Nick's game, Nick has this devastating forehand that he takes. It almost looks like you take the ball and scoop it up and then like turn it over and then like slam it down on the other side of the court.

And every time you do it, it's like a thing of beauty, man. It's like one of my favorite things to see. It's one of my favorite things to see. But yeah, so Neil is right. Yeah, if you're I guess being tall and having, like you said, that lever is, is, is an advantage, you know? So let's get on to analytics. So, so how, how, how, how big a part of your life is this? Tennis?

No, no. Excuse me. How big a part of your life is tennis analytics? Oh, right. I was like, tennis analytics. Well, I mean, so when I actually got told that, you know, you guys wanted to have a chat, I was pretty excited to get on here.

And tennis analytics for me, it's funny because, like, I've never been a big stat guy. Like, when people come to me or, like, there's funny because I've never been a big stack guy. When people come to me or there's a lot of stats of who I'm playing and they say, look, this is where the guy likes to serve. This is what he likes to do on big points. This is what he likes to play in general. This is his style of play. I actually don't really like having any stats or anything in my head.

I just love going out there, playing completely on instinct, feeling the opponent out. I obviously know their strengths and weaknesses and what they tend to do under pressure, but that's about it. I really don't like going out there with much information. I like just playing my game and just having fun. Let me follow up on that then with your in-game analytics, okay? Because one of the things that I enjoy watching about you when you play

is that you frustrate opponents. And that is mental, but it is also technical. Because you'll do things like get to the ball and you'll return shots that they know should have beaten you. And when you return it, you can see them deflate. And the mental error that they make right after that, it's normally net. And I'm like, this guy, I actually, I don't know what match it was,

and you were talking to yourself, and you were saying stuff like, this is what happens when you play uh, this is what happens when you stay up all night playing PlayStation. This is what happens, and you're talking to yourself, okay? So he's actually chiding himself about, you know,

his game, but the other guy is listening, and then you guys had like a super cool rally, and he put something down the line, and you came over, and you kind of slotted it from behind almost. It goes back, and of course he hits it in the net,

and then you're like this you're like this well what do you have and you could see you could see the the opponent that's how i roll what did you expect and so and so you see and your point is chuck right but you see that you see the opponent getting kind of frustrated, getting mad. And I'm wondering, is this part of your game? Are you doing this? Are you screwing with these people? I mean, is that part of your game?

Well, the way you said that's actually, it actually, yeah, it actually like reminds me because, you know, when I played, when I first came on the tour and I saw like Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, all these like top professionals. Obviously, when I was a kid, I was very overweight. I got told by a lot of the coaches in Australia, my teachers even. People were just telling me I wasn't going to be any good. I heard that over and over and over again.

I was winning matches and I didn't really have anything to say because I was very insecure about my weight. I was bullied during school as well. Then when I got on tour, I was just like, I'm playing my own style of tennis. And it's kind of like straight tennis. I mean, I grew up playing like 10 minutes at this really, really bad facility, like five minutes from my house,

basically concrete courts. And then when I'm playing these guys, I kind of just kept it like, I just call it straight tennis. I play drop shots. I play very unconventional shots. And then like when I played Djokovic, Federer, Nadal first time, I've beaten Djokovic and Nadal multiple times now. Like they just tend to struggle with like tennis that's very unconventional

and they don't know what to do with it. Like if they haven't seen it before, they just kind of like, they look at their like teams in the boxes in the crowd and they're like, what is this? Like what is this junk that I'm playing against at the moment? Does this mean you're mostly self-taught in that sense? Oh, yeah. I don't have a coach.

I haven't had a coach for about four or five years now. Oh, that's the answer. Because, for example, you know, just to do a cross-pollination here, in chess, Bobby Fischer was mostly self-taught. And he bursts out on the scene and he's making moves that nobody saw before. Nobody could imagine doing. And he just came from another place.

And that was part of what worked for him. And so, so does this mean then that you can create a whole new school of tennis around your innovations that no one knew to anticipate? Well, definitely. That's my goal. What I want to leave on this sport is not nothing. I mean, obviously, I want to have great results and stuff. But I think to this day already with my following on social media and everything, my goal is just to inspire the youth that have been know, being told they

won't be very good, like to play a certain way, to do things a certain way. Like just, I want to just tell, like, I just want them to believe that they can do it their own way. Like there's all different, everyone's different, there's different pathways to get to a level, like you can do it your own way. And that's what I've done. And I've known a coach now for almost five years and, you know, creating new shots that, you know, people are now playing. I'm you know creating new shots that you know people are now playing and you know obviously had a couple coaches when I was young to you know build my foundation but that's that's my goal at the moment I just want to you know inspire the young young people okay but that next generation is gonna be fed analytics they're gonna know all about

you they're gonna know about their own physiology. And surely tennis is going to be transformed, if not already, by this. And could there be a day where you're just going to be this old-fashioned guy and he does it the old way, but now I'm being informed by the AI that's telling me about you and telling me about me? Yeah, definitely. I think that's going to take over the sport.

It already has. I see in the locker room people going through stats, through analytics, all that type of stuff. But I do think that it's very... I don't think sport will ever be completely taken up by analytics. I think there's always going to be some characters like myself who are going to just do it their own way and not be so worried about that type of stuff.

You don't think it'll replace grit, the grit that you show? I don't think so because, you know, you're right. I think I should have been playing with the McEnroe and stuff because at the end of matches, I just want to go grab a beer and stuff. But these days, people just like, they're so uptight. Like, I don't know, maybe I am old-fashioned. I'm not sure. See, you know, Nick, I listened to you and, I mean,

Chuck and I did this interview with Dave Ramos and you're like kryptonite to these guys. Because they've got a phalanx of analysts, nutritionists, strength and conditioners, and a coach for the coach's coach. And you're going out there going, I don't have this strategy that you think I have. And they're all about taking a strategy and dismantling it so as they can win. So when you come without one, you're breaking their model, dude. You're breaking their algorithms. That's messing with their head. Yeah. But you're not doing it in a verbal attitude way in that sense that Chuck described. You are doing it on that level. But on this other level, you've basically gone around the back and pulled the plug out of their computer.

On this other level, you've basically gone around the back and pulled the plug out of their computer. You know why? It's because it's the anti-analytics approach. Yeah, all right. And that's what I was talking about, frustrating the players. Like, you know, there are certain shots that are considered. Here's what I feel like in tennis is if you make a shot and the guy can't get to it, you win.

Okay? Thank you, Chuck, you win. Okay? Thank you, Chuck, for that. But guess what? Wisdom. But believe it or not, and Nick can tell me if I'm right or wrong, there are people who look at you like, oh, no, no, no, that's like small ball or that's like cheap or that, like you're not supposed to do certain things, you know?

But to me, it's just about placing the ball where the other person can't get it and that's it but that's not about really that's really it's all it's about but it but but there are players who like why don't you play me why don't you play me like you're not you're not playing me and it's like why should i play your game exactly why should i play your game okay you're saying he's crazy but he's correct i'm telling you this it's it's an it's an insane mental part of the game that and and when nick plays he's like f your game let me ask you a question i'm gonna beat you let me ask you a question in line i've heard i've heard tennis analogized to chess where you you make a move, you set up the next move, the person has to go to a different part of the court,

then comes a winning shot. That requires strategy. You're not thinking every shot in that moment. You're thinking every shot in anticipation of shots that follow. So what happens if I watch enough videos of you and I get informed by my computer that this is a rhythm that you take and then I disrupt your rhythm because I know what you're going to do in advance? Are you nimble enough to change it up in that spot? Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, my game, I think everyone in the top 100 or anyone on tour knows that the simple way to beat me is either to let myself beat me,

like me beat myself, or because I'm so unpredictable, every point's different, my patterns are so different. I mean, I don't even – as simple as a way to put it is, I just try and – my motto is always I serve big and I play big, and I just try and keep everything on my racket I try to hit the ball where I think they're not gonna be able to get it like that's a simple I have no patterns really like I don't really um you remind me what they said about Babe Ruth so all these modern players they're like have these big muscle regimens so they can sit

hit 700 home runs and Babe Ruth hit seven home runs on beer and hot dogs. That was his strategy. He still did it. My mindset might seem a little careless, but like, I mean, I care a lot about it. It's just my approach to it. Like, I mean, I watched basketball guys, like, you know how they come into games like with like different style, with fashion.

You can see their personality. Like I'm one of the only guys that will walk around tennis courts with like hoodies on, like Jordan 1 like i don't know i just kind of want to what will it take what will it take to get your ass into the top 10 you nearly did it didn't you well you were 13 i was i was i was 13 and i didn't really have i didn't have a coach i won three titles in one year i was playing well but i've always lacked consistency like i mean i think a lot some of the top players,

every top player in the top 10, they can work hard every single day. And, you know, they dedicate every small little tiny bit of their life, diet, stretching. Like, I haven't stretched a body part in about, probably in about eight years. Now you sound like me. I love it. My professionalism and my consistency,

it's got a lot of room for improvement. But that's just what you're going to get. You're going to have ups and downs, but I've just learned to accept that, really. What if you did? What if you said, you know what, I'll have that stretch. I'll go and load up some AI, and I'll think, not about maybe my opponents, but maybe about my own game.

You might have to do that as the twilight years come. You have to be smarter about it rather than more physical. You might have to rely on that. Yeah, but I don't know. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I heard it. He was like, yeah, but not now. Not now.

Let's push back. My mindset is, at the end of the day, it's tennis. Like, I'm not going to, it's not something I'm just going to stress over. Like, life's beautiful. There's so many, like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm blessed to be where I am. I play tennis at a very high level. I do it my way.

And, you know, I'm not going to, I think, I'm not going to dedicate my entire life to this sport. I've got other things going on and that's it. Guys, we've got to take a quick break. Nick, if you can hang out with us, we'd love to chew the fat with

you in our third segment. That's what we like to do. Can you hang for a bit? Definitely. I'm not going anywhere. Excellent. This is StarTalk Sports Edition, Revolutionizing Tennis. We'll be right back. StarTalk Sports Edition. Chuck Nice.

Hey. Gary O'Reilly. Hey, hey, hey. All right. So Nick Kyrgios is going to stay with us as we chew the fat. Thank you, Nick, for hanging on. And so let me just ask. We were devoting this show to trying to understand what role analytics plays

when a tennis player can kick the ass of another tennis player. And you were just crumbling that. You're just crushing it. You're crushing that whole concept, the whole thing. I tend to go against the grain. Yeah, but you know what? Like I said, when we first started, I call it in-game analytics. You know what I mean?

I think that what Nick is doing is he's processing the analytics on a play-to- play basis, point to point. He's figuring out what's going on in situ and figuring out what he has to do to make something happen. And I mean, you know, we call that improvisation if you're on stage as a comic or a jazz artist. But, you know, I think that's what he's doing. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, man. So you're saying Nick is the jazz artist of tennis. I think that's what he's doing I don't know maybe I'm wrong man so you're saying Nick is the jazz artist of tennis I like that that's how I would describe it

it's more like jazz you know what the bass line is you know what the melody is but then all of a sudden if you're in sync and it only works when you're in sync if you're in sync it's just like okay I'm going to go off on this little phrasing here I'm going to add something here I'm going to go off on this little phrasing here. I'm going to add something here.

I'm going to do something different here. And you come up with a completely different song right in the moment. You wrote a song in the moment. And it's pretty cool. Yeah. Or he agrees. Man. He agrees.

I don't know. I'm Nick's no attorney so i mean there's no athlete ever going to take that away chuck they're going to embrace that see the thing is the other from my point of view as a former athlete in brackets neil if you imagine ai has every tennis player has access to AI in the top 50, right? Then if you have car designs designed by a computer, they all generally look the same. It's when this player, this car comes along, it's exotic, it's different. That's the thing you remember.

That's the thing that stands out. You'll have a lot of players whose game is going to be based on very similar lines. Nick's is that standout. It's that point. So when they zig, he zags. When they zag, he zigs. Okay, but here's the thing. Or was it a different cusp?

Here's the thing. Okay, I think people are under-recognizing what AI can actually do. So AI is not just a better version of what we would do. in its full form, it is thinking in ways we have never thought. No, that's true. Okay. Just to give an example, the world of juggling, right? You know, there, how many ways can you juggle three balls, right?

There's, you know, there's two or three ways you do this. They gave that to a computer. This is even before AI was on the table. So she gave that to a computer. This is even before AI was on the table. They just gave that to a computer and says, find us every way that works. A whole new juggling sequence came out that nobody thought of before. Yeah, but I think it's the way it's done is the most important thing.

The personality is gone if it's AI, I think. It's not really going to be fun to watch. No, no, but suppose, well, no, because,

because AI could have more personality than you and say, analyze what you've done and say, that's pretty inventive. This inventive. Here's another inventive one that you hadn't thought of. No, you didn't think of that. What does it look like?

What does it look like? I don't know. Let's say I figured that out. You don't want to be embarrassed by doing something AI told you to do that you could have done better. That's what you're saying. I ain't going to have swag, Neil. Bring me a swag AI.

Just program it that way. Up the swag factor. It's a knob. So, Nick, how does that play into your existence with the sanctioning body, with other players, and your life? The fact that you are more like a baller than you are a tennis player. The way you carry yourself. I think it's a good thing.

I think you're going to bring a lot of people to tennis. And I think that's a good thing. I think you're going to bring a lot of people to tennis. And I think that they know that. I think that they look at you and they'll never tell you this because you're unconventional. And so if I'm a sanctioning body, I can't condone unconventionalism. I just can't. I can't. You're spot on. But what I do know is this.

It's good. It's good for my business. this, it's good. It's good for my business. It's good. I know one thing, when you're on the exhibition courts, right, I've never seen those stands more filled up, right? And not only that, I mean, I'm old enough to remember in real time watching McEnroe, no one would condone anything he said or did, but you watched the game,

you wanted to see what he was going to do next. And they loved it. They loved it. Not to analogize you to him, I'm just saying it's an example of just what Chuck is talking about, where you're too unorthodox to be

endorsed by the agency, but secretly behind closed doors they're like, oh, this guy's great. unorthodox to be endorsed by the agency. Right. But secretly behind closed doors. They're like, Oh, this guy's great. You're just what they need.

Speaking of McEnroe, what do you think of, of what he said just about you a little while ago? What was that? Uh, he was like, are you trying to start a fight? No,

man, I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. McEnroe said it. Okay. don't get mad at me I'm just bringing it up okay I'll you know what I mean what did he say what he said as far as I'm concerned he's old and and he can't play tennis anymore so you know I mean you know Nick could very easily be like have a coconut smile and shut the f up so like Nick could easily say that so anyway here's what happened um mackerel was critical of nick uh

for about some some on court uh comments and behavior but then he turned around he was like look this guy is super talented this guy has everything it takes if he really wants to be serious then he should get serious if, he should go do something else. Whoa. Yeah, those are big words. Those are big words. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually close with John because we play Lever Cup.

It's Team World versus Team Europe every year. It's like a Ryder Cup or golf. Okay, yeah, yeah. What's that one called? The Lever Cup. The Lever Cup, interesting. Okay, I'm familiar with it. What's that one called? The Labor Cup. The Labor Cup, interesting. Okay, I'm familiar with it. Team World versus Team Europe?

Yeah, so Team Europe's got Novak, Federer, Nadal. They're like an all-star lineup. And then Team World is basically just me and some Americans. I don't get too many people on my side. I like that. It's like Marvel versus DC. And then he's our captain. And once he didn't know me, once we met each other,

we literally bonded like crazy. We're actually great friends now. And then when he realized that I'm actually crazier than him, he's kind of just given up. He's given up like he tried to he tried to like give me some advice and then like when he really just met me and just like how i was and just like he just knew that like no no comment or anything he said was going to actually influence anything i did like it just had to come from within and then he just now we just now every time he talks in the after we finish he's literally just, let's just grab a beer or something.

Like that's what it is. That's the chat now. It's nothing like tennis. So it's, and that's, and that's the way I prefer it. To be honest, like I,

I understand that just like people are different. They're going to go about it different ways. Like that's just how it is. Like you can't make someone do something they don't want to do ever.

Right. Absolutely. So let me ask you this then. Let me ask you this. Uh, is there anything he's ever said that you were just like, yo, right on. Everything he said, I kind of know. They're just highlighting it again. But when he talked to me about my behavior,

I was like, John, if you lived in today's day and age with social media, you going out partying, people on their phones videoing, you would have been horrendous in this day and age. I was like, you cannot talk to me about your behavior. You cannot. And then he's like, you're right, you're right, you're right. And I'm was like, you cannot talk to me about your behavior. You cannot. And then he's like, you're right, you're right, you're right.

I'm like, you can't talk to me about my behavior because what you were doing, you got defaulted once for breaking every racket. You didn't have no more rackets to play with. How are you going to tell me about behavior? Do you know what I mean? I'm willing to give it back. Look, I can take it. I take it every day of my life.

I wake up, I go online, I see negative comments. Like, I've grown up just, like, getting hammered, hammered with negative comments. So I can take it and I can dish it out like you would not believe. That's why, like, when, like, these tennis players come to me with, like, controversy and, like, on Twitter, like, I, like, rub my hands because, like, I'm just ready to go to war. Wait, wait. So that brings up a very important point. started to go to war. Well, right.

So that brings up a very important point. So in terms of the head game that goes on, you know, if half of a, if half of a game of tennis is your talent and the other half is it, like as, as Gary led off, um, describing, you know, in the old days, we call it psyching someone out. Um, is it possible that someone could, uh, perturb you, perturb you rather strategically in a Twitter thread, knowing you're reading it, and now you're a little bit flustered for your next game? Or are you above all of that? Nah, I'm like, I don't need to joke about it. What does it feed you? Does that make you better?

Like, you don't understand how much I love this topic just like going out there and just getting in someone's head. Like I love it. Like I just do this. I just do like, for instance, when we change ends, so tennis is, I love the thing I love about tennis.

Like you change ends every two games, right? You cross ends. And then like, I just like look at my opponent every time. Like I'll just look at him and say, how is it like, if he's looking anywhere,

if he's looking at me, like, but every, everything, everything I've noticed over the last like couple of years, like every time I cross ends, the opponent's always looking at what I'm doing. Like always. So straight away, I last, like, couple of years, like, every time I cross ends, the opponent's always looking at what I'm doing, like, always.

So straightaway I know that, like, I'm in their head because they're thinking externally now. They're not even thinking about how they're feeling. They're just looking at what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, if I'm talking to myself, self-commenting, or just, like, playing with the crowd, high-fiving the crowd. Like, I'm already one, like, half the battle. So now if I just focus on my game, they're in trouble.

How much of what you do is reading a tell on an opponent do you bother to do that because it seems like you are you're happy being you and I respect that totally but do you get into the okay this is going to come now do you actually read it at that detail that level um I'm not, I mean, like the thing about tennis that you can get away with, you know, maybe just like having a comment here or there or not even like focusing for a point or two. The scoring system like it helps you a lot. So, you know, I've got a really good serve.

So if I'm holding my serve every time, you know, I'm giving myself a very good chance to win the set. But the scoring system helps me a lot in the fact where I could just throw a game on their service games. Like I could just completely not even try to return a serve. And then all of a sudden they're thinking, what the hell is this guy doing? Like this is not, we're professionals, like he's not supposed to be doing this. And then I hold my serve. And then the next game, they're like, oh, he's probably not even going to like bother return my serve.

And then I win the first couple of points on their serve, and then they're freaking out. They're complaining to their team saying, these guys, what is this? Like, this is ridiculous. And then before they know it. You're messing with their heads, dude. You're totally messing with them. And I don't know if AI will ever be able to like. Mess with people's heads that way.

Do you know what, Neil? That's crazy, right? Neil, you remember, Chuck, you'll remember this. We interviewed Ron Darling. Remember him? The full series winning pitcher? He told us during the course of a regular season, he would face a certain batter,

knowing they're probably going to face up to them in the playoffs at some point. He said, I would throw him junk. I would throw him absolute garbage. And when we came to the playoffs, he'd be thinking he'd be getting the same stuff served up. And then he'd just trash him. Absolutely.

So Nick's treading maybe not a well-trodden path, but a path that is. Yeah, very similar. Okay, so let me confess that probably that's the last thing AI will ever know how to do. Mind you, if it's listening, it's probably already worked it out. Guys, we've got to bring this to a close here. All right.

Mick, it's been really great having you. I appreciate it, guys. It's so much fun. Just getting inside sort of the anatomy of tennis in general, and especially inside your tennis anatomy. Yeah, I was about to say, this is not the general tennis.

No, no, no. You're talking to a strange cat. Yeah, I was about to say, this is not the general tennis. No, no, no, no. You're talking to a strange cat. Yeah, definitely, definitely. We like that. Gary, good to have you. Chuck, as always. Oh, it's a pleasure. So we've got to wrap it up there.

Nick, thanks for being on StarTalk. We're delighted to have you and get your insights not only to the sport, but into yourself, which was quite. No worries. I love it. Excellent. Excellent. Gary, always good to have you, Chuck. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Always there.

I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bidding you to keep looking up. Bye.