The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump's Pervy Epstein Bday Card Released & MAGA Allies Run Cover | Patrick McEnroe

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

With Trump’s cryptic and sexually suggestive birthday card to Epstein revealed, Michael Kosta dives into a lazy cover-up by the White House, a possible quid pro quo to buy Ghislaine Maxwell’s silence, and an excuse to blame it on Biden. Sports War: Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng spar over the biggest headlines in sports, including drunk crowds at the U.S. Open, Jalen Carter’s spit-tacular start to the NFL season, and AI coming for jobs in minor league baseball. Former professional tennis player and International Tennis Hall of Fame president, Patrick McEnroe, and fellow former pro tennis player, Michael Kosta, dissect last week’s U.S. Open, which McEnroe commented on for ESPN. McEnroe discusses the men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner and how the two powerhouses are pushing each other and the sport forward, the importance of players like women’s finalist Amanda Anisimova being open about their mental health, and how one of the biggest disruptions to tennis fans at the tournament was Trump’s attendance. McEnroe also recalls how he and his brother, John McEnroe, first got into tennis and what lessons the sport has taught him about resilience and independence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Michael Costa. Hell yeah. Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm Michael Costa. We've got so much to talk about tonight,

including the big developments in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, aka the longest episode of To Catch a Predator ever. So, let's get into it with our continuing coverage of the very normal and not shady handling of the Epstein files. It's pretty boring stuff. You might remember back in July, the Wall Street Journal released a bombshell report that Trump had given Jeffrey Epstein a creepy birthday card that suggested the two of them had a dark sexual secret. Although, obviously, any sexual secret is a dark sexual secret. No one's ever been like, don't tell anyone, but I like missionary.

Now, of course, Trump completely denied this card even existed, And just to be sure, they even asked the woman who compiled all of Jeffrey Epstein's birthday cards. And luckily, she had 20 years of free time. The message is compiled by Epstein's accomplice, Galane Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for sex trafficking. In a recent interview, she told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president's former lawyer, that she could not remember if Trump contributed a message to the book. Well, that sure is lucky for Trump, you know.

He sent his deputy attorney general to privately talk with Galane Maxwell while she's in a federal prison system he controls, and she doesn't remember anything incriminating about him. Surprising. What a nice thing for her to say about the president without receiving anything in return, right? Right? Right? Maxwell recently receiving a highly unusual transfer to a minimum security prison just days after her interview. you with the DOJ. Come on, guys.

Come on. Did you have to do the quid pro quo that fast? You could have at least waited a week before you sent her to the prison with the fence you can just slide under. Look at this sign. What the f*** kind of prison has a sign like that? Is this prison run by Texas Roadhouse? This looks like the sign for a church where the pastor plays an electric guitar. Also, Camp Brian?

I think my parents took me there for vacation once when I was eight. That's the prison with the big water slide, right? I'm joking. It looks nice, but that place is brutal. Room service stops at 10 p.m. So there you have it. The media says there's a letter. Trump people say there's not. So I guess we'll never know who's telling the truth.

Breaking news. For the first time, we are seeing an image of the letter signed by Donald Trump for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. Okay, so we know who's telling the truth. But this is huge. Epstein's estate finally released the actual birthday card, and it's as creepy as you'd expect. The drawing shows the outline of a woman's torso, breasts and hips, with a message that reads, in part, we have certain things in common, Jeffrey, and later, enigmas never age.

Before the closing words, happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret. The future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. Okay, okay. I know what we're all thinking. That's an excellent drawing. And I think Donald Trump might have a wonderful future as an artist. Look, now, obviously, that's a crappy drawing. But as a student of history, one thing I've learned is when a certain type of person dreams of being a great artist, we should encourage that instead. Now, even without the drawing,

that is a strangely cryptic birthday card, no? Enigmas never age. There's a wonderful secret. Although, to be fair, it could be totally innocent. We have certain things in common. Could mean anything. What are the things that we know about Epstein? He was a human trafficker.

He was a pedophile. It could be any of those things. And I see why Trump's people denied that this card even existed. But now that we've all seen it, there's nothing left for them to do except continue to deny. The White House this morning flatly denying the president drew or signed the message. The president did not write this letter. He did not sign this letter. From what I see, it's not a signature.

I've seen Donald Trump sign a million things. This doesn't look like his signature to you? Nope. I can tell you my father does not sketch out cartoon drawings. Okay, okay. Hey, I'll give Eric Trump a pass. He has no way of knowing what a birthday card from his father would look right. But they're saying it's not Trump's signature.

If only we had one to, I don't know, one million examples of his signature that we could compare it to. The far left is the birthday book signature. The one in the middle is a Trump signature from a 1999 letter to Larry King. And on the right is from a signed letter to Rudy Giuliani in 2001. Or these from 1984 in a letter to the New York Times, 1995 to a Palm Beach official, 2014, and a note to Keith Oberman. There's even an inscription in a Trump book that Epstein owned from 1997. You'll see all the basic shapes are exactly the same. Yes, yes, I see.

So if you look at the angle of the downward arc on the capital D, you can see that you don't have to do any of this shit. It's his signature. Well, it's a signature. It's his. It is funny how they're fact-checking one piece of evidence with another pieces of evidence. Like, these guys are like, if you look closely, Trump's signature on a birthday card to his pedophile best friend matches his signature.

on a note he wrote to his pedophile best friend. So we have his signature on this letter. It matches the signature on all of these other letters. Can you please just admit he signed the letter? Please, just admit it. Do what's right. I'm begging you. About the Epstein case,

would the White House support a professional handwriting expert review of the document released yesterday to prove that it's not the president's signature? Sure. We would support that. And in fact, I have already seen many forensic analysts of signatures coming out. I believe it was the Daily Signal that published a piece with three separate signature analysts who said that this absolutely was not the president's authentic signature. Yes. No. Yes. I think we have a photo of the signature analyst who said this wasn't Donald Trump's.

It's a credible source. It's a credible source. This is actually embarrassing for you guys. Just denying it at this point is not enough. Does anyone in the GOP want to help Trump out here? Congressman Burchett? I mean, anybody can do a signature. We've seen the auto pen's been used quite a bit with the Biden administration. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

That's what I'm talking about. Go from the signature to the auto pen to Joe Biden. But I bet you can get there quicker, though. sure, these girls were underage, but you know who's overage? Joe Biden, boom, did it. Okay, so they can't come up with a credible excuse. But the truth is, Trump can probably still wiggle out of this thing as long as new information stops coming up.

A second entry in the Epstein birthday book released yesterday appears to mention Donald Trump as well. The page was reportedly compiled by a member at Mar-a-Lago who included a photo of Epstein and others holding up a giant fake check, purportedly from Trump. Trump to Epstein for $22,500. The attached letter jokes that the check was payment for a deal in which Epstein sold Trump a, quote, fully depreciated woman in 2003.

Wow. I am shocked and, frankly, disgusted that Joe Biden's auto pen did this also. But this is wild. This is wild. Trump was such a notorious creep that other people were mentioning it in their birthday cards. I've never gotten a birthday card that was like, happy birthday, Michael. Remember our high school gym coach who always let the girls have lunch in his office? That was crazy.

Anyways, here's another 40 more years, pal. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I completely understand whatever this gross inside joke is supposed to mean. All I know is it's very disrespectful to refer to someone as a fully, depreciated woman. The correct term is a refurbished woman pro max 13. But this whole Epstein

birthday book has made me realize two things. One, this convicted sex predator got way nicer birthday cards than I've ever received in my entire life. I'm not a fan of the content, but you can't deny his friends put some real effort into it. On the way to my birthday dinner, my wife makes me stop at

Walgreens so she can buy me a card. Sometimes it's not even a birthday card. Oh, thank you. I will have a great first communion. The second thing I realized is Trump is playing this thing all wrong. If he just admits that he wrote this card, everyone

could move on, and then he could do one of his favorite things of all time. Find a way to make some money out of it. You've seen stories about Donald Trump's perfect birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein. And thanks to the new Trump breeding card collection, you can send an equally perfect card

for all of life's milestones. Congratulate the graduate in your life with the message, your future is bright, unlike our dark and hideous past. Complete with a woman's body with pubic hair. And get ready for Mother's Day with a card that tells her, here's to a mom who did it all,

including things that God can never know. And don't forget the pubic hair. And for the somber moments, we have comforting messages like, I'm so sorry for the death of your pedophile father. And for added respect, these cards have twice the pubic hair.

So no matter, the occasion, pick a card from the Trump collection and make America greet again. Donald Trump denies the existence of his cards. He's suing you for $10 billion. And we're from back, all the way to sports news. Don't go away. This episode is brought to you

by Square. You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something. big, and Square's there for all of it, giving your customers more ways to order, whether that's in-person with Square kiosk or online, instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger, and real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not, and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. Welcome back to a daily show. I think I speak for everyone when I say. politics, drools, and sports rules.

For a full recap of the biggest stories in the world of jocks and straps, we turn to sports war. Get ready for battle. It's time for sports war. Brought to you by gambling. Gambling. You're not losing money.

You're winning debt. What's up, sports nuts? I'm Michael Costa. And I'm Ron Chang. This is Sports War, the show where we are legally not allowed to agree with each other. So if I say defense wins championships... Then I say defense loses lawsuits, specifically in my DUI case. If they didn't want me to drive into that Dunkin' Donuts, then why do they have that sign-up that says drive-thru?

Okay? By the way, Ronnie, can I get a ride home? Yeah, fine, but you have to lay in the trunk like a kidnapping victim. Thanks, bud. Let's start things off with the greatest sport on earth tennis. This past weekend, this past weekend was the final of the U.S. Open, but it was what went down in the stands throughout the tournament that made the biggest headlines.

With the attendance at this year's U.S. Open expected to shatter previous records, fans haven't exactly been acing tennis etiquette. People are loud and shabby and moving about. People are complaining that all this alcohol is leading to bad fan behavior. How many have you had? These people are starting to drink honey deuses at 11 a.m. So I think it's just New York.

That's the way it's always been. Hell yeah. This is New York City. That's how it is. We're loud, we're drunk, we're spending $6,000 a month to share at one bedroom with four non-binary tattoo artists all named Devin. This is what's great about these Grand Slam tournaments, okay?

They take on the personality of their host country. The U.S. Open is drunk and loud. Wimbledon is stuffy and inbred. And at the Australian open, the ball spins the other way. Wow, Ronnie. Wow. You sure love some crowd noise for someone who performs to complete silence. Look, I got nothing against people having a good time. You know me. I get invited to all types of parties,

and it's not just because high school kids know I'll buy beer for him. Shout out to Chad and Jared. My point is, different sports have different etiquettes. Tennis fans should be respectful and quiet, just like NASCAR fans should have jean shorts and a Yahoo email address. It's just standard practice. Take it from me, a former ranked

professional tennis player ranked 864th in the world. It's true. Look it up. Yeah. Yeah. No one watching tennis wants to hear obnoxious drunk fans. They want to hear the sweet, sweet sound of players grunting.

Oh. Huh, uh-uh. Huh, uh-uh. You know what I mean? Wow, I guess tennis players can get CTE, which brings us to our bad brain better than night. How many honey juice cocktails will someone need to drink to have as much brain damage as Michael Costa?

Brought to you by gambling. Gambling problem? Call 1-800. Moving out. This was the opening week for the NFL. and things got off to a spittacular start. The NFL season kicked off last night between the Eagles and the Cowboys,

and one of Philly's star players is in the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons. Defensive lineman Jalen Carter was ejected right after the opening kickoff for spitting on Cowboys quarterback that Prescott. Yo, ejected for spitting? This is football, okay? Between the blood and the brain matter,

spit is the cleanest liquid on the field. People don't tune in to football to watch people being nice to each other. We tune in to see when that Fox robot will finally kill Terry Bradshaw. Plus, the Cowboys should love this. Now that quarterback is all wet and slippery, like a newborn baby. And harder to tackle, like a newborn baby. Come on, Ronnie. This kind of behavior can't be tolerated.

Players shouldn't be spitting on each other. They should be spitting only on the fans, particularly the ones who took the time. to make signs asking for it. Costa, you disgust me. How much enough to spit on me? Which brings us to our lucky luggy, Better the Night.

What is wrong with me? As always, brought to you by gambling. Gambling. Your kids weren't going to college anyway. Let's move on to minor league baseball. It's a sport watched by people who don't know movies exist. But one minor league team is, using some major league technology.

Artificial intelligence made his professional sports debut of the weekend in Oakland. Yeah, get this. The ballers replaced their manager with an AI program, creating the lineups and recommending pitching changes, and they won. So we spoke with the team's previous manager, Aaron Miles, about being the first manager ever replaced by artificial intelligence. Every person out here in a job that knows AI may be coming for their job doesn't like this at all, you know what I mean?

And part of me is, you know, thinks that too. A part of you thinks it's bad that you'll be replaced by AI. Stand up for yourself, man. AI can't replace you. Only a human being can spend nine innings in the dugout scratching his nutsack going, good eye, good eye. Ronnie, if you ask me, we need to ban all AI from sports. Costa, that's the worst thing I've ever heard.

And I've read the Gene Hackman Coroner Report, right? AI is what baseball needs. This is how baseball works, okay? It's always evolving, and teams are always looking for an edge. I mean, first, it was the curveball. Then it was black people. And now, it's AI. Plus, it's a statistics-driven sport, okay?

You'd think white people were ever going to learn math? Oh, really? Oh, really. Oh, really. Taking a shot at white people. We don't know math. Well, maybe you can count these. Two.

You're good. But my point remains. You don't need AI to win a baseball. All you need is heart, determination, and a few good Dominican guys. Which brings us to our AI A-plus, Better Than Night. What sacred American pastime will AI ruin next? As always, brought to you by gambling. Use promo code Costa for $100.

in instant debt. And that's all the time we have for sports war. Join us next time where we will debate if rugby should be played on actual rugs. Of course not. Think of the cleaning fees. You can clean our rube. Yeah, it's a fucking wild.

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency App for details. Welcome to that for daily show. My guest tonight is a former professional tennis player, ESPN commentator, International Tennis Hall of Fame president and host of Sirius XM's holding court. Please welcome Patrick McEnroe. You know, no one's ever come out and done such an entrance, but also, I know your game quite well, for you to open up with the forehand. Well, you know, your backhand was...

I'd like to surprise you, Michael, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I remember watching you, and when the ball would go to the center of the court, you would run around a forehand and hit a backhand. Very rare to see that nowadays. But you know what? That was my one shot. I said I had one shot that made me a little bit. How much? What was your ranking again? Well, I'm so glad you asked.

I was ranked 864 in the world, my high. You were ranked. I didn't even know they ranked people that high. Your high was 28. 28 was a high. And you know what it was in doubles. about doubles? I do know. Three. Yes. Yeah. Why not two or one, you ask?

Yeah, why not two or one? Talk to my brother about that. Yeah. You know, you were 28 in the world in singles. You were three in the world in doubles. You longest serving Davis Cup captain for the United States. You're now the International Tennis Hall of Fame president. How did you even get into tennis in the first place? You've done so much for the sport. Well, we started in a town called Douglaston. Anybody from Queens here? Not many, not many.

So we started, when we moved to this town called Douglason, when my dad made partner in the law firm, my parents got married quite young. They lived in Flushing in an apartment. They kind of made it, and they moved to the kind of nicer part of Queens that had a tennis club. And the tennis club had a pool and tennis courts,

and my brother was eight or nine at the time. And they said, you could either try swimming or tennis. and he tried swimming. He hated it because he was playing other sports. We played soccer, basketball, baseball, all the sports. So he tried tennis. He went to the, played at the local club. After a month into the summer, the local kid who was like a college kid, went to my parents and said, you know, your son's really got a lot of talent for tennis.

He's got great hand-eye coordination. My parents are like, great. They never played tennis before in their life. He said, no, you need to do something about it. Right. So they took him to one of the first tennis academies, called the Port Washington Tennis Academy in Long Island. My parents called up there, got an invitation for a tryout to get a scholarship.

John went there. There was a legendary Aussie coach there. You probably know him, Harry Hotman. Okay, sure. He coached a lot of the greats from Australia, Rod Laver, John Newcomb, Lou Hoad. He saw John at the tryouts and he said, we'll take him. We're going to give him a scholarship.

He's going to be number one in the world. Holy shit. All right. Now, first of all, what... But the other part of that was that he said that to all the parents that showed it. I was also going to say he said that about John, but Patrick is sitting here. Patrick's there. He saw me playing.

He says, that guy's going to be 28. I know it. So then you want, so you saw it. So I followed in the footstead. I'm seven years younger than my brother. I have another brother named Mark in the middle. So we all. Did Mark play too?

Mark played, but not very competitive. I guess sort of like you. Oh, no. Don't laugh at that. Don't laugh at that shit. He was a big-time college player, don't seriously? Fighting Aligni. So we all played.

We all just loved tennis. We loved other sports, too. But it just so happened that we were a little bit better in tennis. That's amazing. Let's talk briefly about the men's U.S. Open Final. You were calling the match. Yonick Center from Italy, lost to Carlos Alcaraz from Spain, who's now number one player in the world.

It was a great showdown. They played in the French Open Final. They played in the Wimbledon final. What did you see in the match that blew you away? Well, these guys are incredible athletes. I sat there, Quartzide, Michael, three years ago when they played for the first time ever in a major. And they were both, you know, a little green.

They hadn't won anything big yet. But I remember saying to the guys, Chris Fowler and John, my brother, John, who were in the booth, I went court side. And I said, I've never seen two guys play at this type of speed and tempo. And this is coming off of Federer and Adel and still Jokovic. still out there. But these guys were kind of raising the bar. So they play with amazing power. They play in from defensive positions. They play more offense. And Al Karaz is like a showman.

I mean, he just, he loves to be out there. He's, you know, when he lost a two match points, when he's trying to close out the match, he could, you feel the tension. And he's, he's, he's smiled to the crowd. Yeah. And he said, they asked him, we asked him about afterwards. He said, I was actually afraid. But I just, but he's, he's, he's like a silent, he's like a smiling assassin. That's what I've been doing wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. When I feel afraid, I shiver and I cry. Exactly. So these two guys are just really, you know, we had this ear of the big three.

We were all wondering, what's going to happen to tennis, you know, because there's such global superstars these players. And Serena Williams also retiring. And, you know, these two guys have literally just taken over. They've won the last eight majors combined between the two of them, four and four. Sinner kept number one for the last year and a half. Now it's Al Carasso. The real question is, can anyone else threaten them?

Can anyone compete with them? When in team sports, when a team loses in the Super Bowl, you know, they change things. We've got to get a new quarterback. Or the GM is moving things around. What can we do differently? And I'm curious what your thoughts are. Is Yonik's Center needing to sit down and really reevaluate the whole game? I mean, he's two in the world.

He won two grand slams. Is it that kind of approach with an individual sport like tennis? Well, first of all, interestingly, Al-Carras said after he won the tournament in his press conference, he said he spent 15 days after Wimbledon when Sinner beat him. For the first time Sinner beat him in a final of a major, and the first time he won Wimbledon, he dethroned Al-Karaz on the grass. So Al-Karaz said, he hadn't said this until he won the tournament,

but then he divulged that he had spent 15 days just training to beat Sinner. And Sinner afterwards, when he lost, said, you know, what he does is so good, he's so dominant, but against Al-Karaz maybe just not quite enough. So it's kind of fascinating to see how these two are pushing each. They're watching each other. Yeah, they really are. To see how one can get better.

Al-Carras is a little bit more of an all-around player. He's got a little more ability to come to the net, to play Slice, to play drop shot. Sinners more of a straight ahead, just pound you, pound you into the ground. So he's trying to get a little bit of that finesse into his game, which he did at the Wimbledon final, by the way, beat him in four sets. But Alcaraz got him back. And I was at our tennis academy today here in New York City that my brother and I run together. Hit it. And all the kids are there.

They were all so happy that Al Corrat, everybody's big Alcoraz fans. Because, you know why? His personality and the smile. Yeah, he's not afraid to hit between the legs. He's not afraid to go like this to the crowd. You know, it's funny you talk about that focused improvement because a few shows ago, Ronnie and I did a sports war. I thought Ronnie kind of edged me out.

And I said, I will do anything I can to defeat him at today's sports war. And that's exactly what happened. And he did. Yeah. Exactly. And the crowd of you. I would say, Game set match to Casa.

That's right, thank you. The women's final, I thought this was almost the story of the whole tournament, that Amanda Anasimova, an American, who lost in the Wimbledon final 6060, whose family flew to London to watch her in the final. She didn't even win a game. I thought it was, as someone who's lost 6060, a few times, not that much. for her to then beat the player that beat her, Polish Yugosfiantic, make the final.

I thought it was such an amazing story and that she took some time away from the sport because of the mental health challenges and difficulties. What's your take on Amanda Anna Samova? First of all, I'm not surprised that you know how it feels to lose six love, six love, Michael. That's true. Secondly, that really is, in all seriousness.

That really is the ultimate embarrassment for a tennis player at any level if that happens. So for it to happen on the biggest tournament, the biggest match of the year. You're supposed to win when you serve. You can't even win a couple games, Amanda. Right, yeah. So to your point, the fact that she, I thought she handled that with a lot of grace when it happened. And, you know, she left the court for a couple of minutes to kind of gather herself.

She came back onto the on-court ceremony. Yeah. Was really appreciative of how well she'd done. And I think she kind of faced it head on, which I think is what helped her this summer. But you're right. She had a great tournament. By the way, this was the fourth straight tournament in the majors that there was an American woman in the final.

That's right. Madison Keyes had won in Australia, Cocoa Gough, one in Paris, and then Amanda gets to two straight finals. So she's going to get over the hump. She's going to win one, but it was a great store. But Sabalanka has been the best player all year, even though she hadn't won a major, but she'd been in two other finals.

So I think in some way she deserved to win and just kind of solidify her spot at number one. By the way, Sinner Alcarez, there's still a competition through the rest of the year. Most people think that tennis is over after the U.S. over. But these players play... Well, these crowd has stopped listening to tennis. You started talking about it.

This crowd's like, there's tennis? What's that? There's still more... You mean, to play for the year-end? To play for the year-end, yeah. To finish number one, which is a big deal for these guys. You want to get that I finish the year as the number one player in the world. What are the differences between the mental health component nowadays versus when you played?

Because I follow the sport closely, and it just feels like there's never a fucking break for these men and women. And you have to constantly defend the points. You have to constantly make new points. You have endorsements and deals. I mean, Naomi Osaka, every time I open up Instagram, she's endorsing something.

There's a lot of people are constantly needing to see them and for them to win, and that's tough. There's a lot of pressure and tennis being in such an individual sport, you can't escape it, right? So when you lose, I mean, as unsuccessful as you were, Michael, on the tour. Even me at number 28 in the world. I tell this to parents all the time.

I walked away from a tournament once in my life as a professional, having not lost. I only won one singles tournament. So, and even the top... What was that tournament? That was in Sydney, Australia. It was on hard course.

It was on hard course right before the Australian Open. Congrats on that. Thank you, man. That's a... Appreciate it. Yeah, it's nice. I mean... It's not sports wars, but it's something.

No, it's unbelievable, yeah. But the point is that you lose a lot in tennis, so you have to deal with that. truth is that that's been going on forever. I actually am really glad that players like Naomi Osaka, like Amanda Anasimover, are talking about mental health and making, you know, it used to be if you talked about, hey, you're a wuss. You know, you don't talk about the fact that you're struggling mentally. You know, that shows that you're not tough or whatever that may be. So those things have always happened, but I think it's really healthy that the players are not shy about

discussing it. And I think Amanda is a perfect example of someone that dealt with it, you know, kind it confronted it head on, and then it made her, I think, a better person and a better player. I mean, at one point, she was stepped away from the game. She was taking college classes. She was painting, you know, and it sounds almost funny, but when you are such an accomplished junior, she won the U.S. Open juniors against Cocoa Golf at age 13. Wow. You don't really ever have a moment to go, I need other interests and hobbies. I just thought that was an amazing story. Let's talk about the U.S. Open for a second. I love the U.S. Open. changed a lot over the years.

The USDA is going to make $13 million just on the honey deuce beverage alone. Yeah, the honey deuce is enough to pay for all the prize money for the players. Yeah, right. Or at least a winner's prize money, yeah. I have never seen so many people who felt like, to me, they'd never watched tennis before. I watched Yonick Center, the world number one, waiting to serve and have to turn around and there's a group of 45 guys doing selfies standing up during the match. Welcome to the world.

Is this good for tennis? like it's more popular the U.S. Open. I feel like it's making more money. Attendance is through the roof. Good or bad for the sport? I think overall it's good, but I catch your drift. I mean, I'm a tennis purist. I grew up going to Forest Hills and, you know, in the little club. So I, I, as a kid and as a fan, what I did was I got there the first couple days of the tournament, I just run around and go from court to court, match to match. And that's what the real, and there's still a place for that. Yeah. For real tennis fans. But definitely the U.S. Open has become more about the show.

show the entertainment value. And the truth is, I mean, I go to, I'm a big New York Knicks fan, right? So this past year they were good. But years before that, they sucked. Yeah. Right? And they're still charging a fortune for tickets. And it's all about, you know, what are you going to eat?

You know, what are you going to drink? When you're sitting in those nice, you know, seats. But even the ones up top are super expensive. Same with the U.S.O. How do you think those people felt, by the way, I know. Waiting in line as our president was getting seated in the stadium. And, you know, no politics here for me.

Yeah. But I will say, well, politics here for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got me. Got that right. But, yeah, they bought thousands of dollars. The match started 45 minutes after it was supposed to start, number one. Yeah. Okay.

Then the players were playing, and it was four, three in the first set. They've been playing for half an hour. Yeah. So it was an hour and a half after, and there were still thousands of people waiting to get in. Yeah. Well, I was very thankful that ESPN covered that. Yes. Because so often I'm afraid that the TV program doesn't want to paint a bad light on the event that they've paid millions of dollars to cover.

So I was thankful that ESPN goes, look, this is happening and it sucks. And you guys were very honest about that. One of my favorite things that you've ever said was in 1991 when you made the Australian Open semifinal. Your brother did not. And you said... He didn't play. He didn't play. Right.

That's because they kicked him out the year before. Correct, because he got defaulted, so he said, this tournament. I'll let my brother go play. But in the semifinals, you're in the semifinals, and you said to the reporters, just like you'd expect, Edberg, Lendell, McEnroe, Becker.

Correct. Get a sense of humor. Even back then. All right, real quick, real quick. We haven't had an American men win the U.S. Open since Andy Roddick, 2003. Taylor Fritz is getting close.

Francis Tiavo, great player. A lot of great American players. Ben Sheldon, I think. Maybe has the best chance. Okay, yeah, I was going to say, like, what's your thoughts on that? And it feels like the world got a lot better also. Yes, the world got a lot better. You know, I ran player development for the U.S. Tennis Association for a number of years,

and we tried to raise the bar on coaching, on training. I think we did that. You mentioned Amanda. I remember seeing Amanda when she was 10 years old, practicing, taking lessons. But I think we have a really good group of excellent players. Now, getting to the finish line and winning a – it's not like you're a football player, you're a basketball player. You know, you could be the third best player in the league, but you're on the best team. You can win.

In tennis, you could be the third – Taylor Fritz is the fourth or fifth best tennis player on the planet. It's crazy, yeah. But he's got Sinner and Alcarus. Before that he had Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer. So that's the challenge for the tennis player. These guys are amazing players. I think one of them will break through, but there's no doubt that right now it's Sinner, Al-Karaz, and the rest of the pack, including Djokovic, who's at 38, was the third best player this year in the majors.

But even he said after he lost in the U.S. Open to Al-Karaz, I can't beat these guys anymore. It's crazy. That a guy who made three semifinals in Grand Slam said, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. I love the sport of tennis, if you can't tell, if this audience can't tell. I'm so thankful all day I've been telling everybody on staff. This is the most tennis this building has ever heard

in its life. But I'm so thankful that we get to talk about it. The, you know, the sport, as I'm now 45 years old, I'm a parent, I've got my teammates that I played with at Illinois. I just feel like the sport

has given me so much. It's taught me so many things, how to deal with success, how to deal with failure, how to deal with cheating. Were you doing the cheating or somebody else? I did some cheating. And it's some cheating.

In junior tennis, as you know, you make your own line calls. You're 12 years old. It's match point. The kid hits it on the line. It's out. Peace out. Let's go. But it also happens to you.

You've had a life in tennis. What are you most thankful for with the sport? What do you feel like the sport has given you? I think it's giving me resilience, you know, and a passion. I mean, I love it. You know, people who, I was just at our tennis academy today, right before I came here, talking to parents, talking to kids. One of the parents said, you must have.

be so tired. You know, I said, I miss it, you know, like meaning of the U.S. Open is so crazy for us at ESPN. But I love it. I've been extremely blessed. I mean, lucky to be around it and wear different hats. So I've kind of never gotten bored because I've been involved there's so many different aspects of it. But like you said, it teaches you many lessons about life because most of the time you get your ass kicked. Right. And even when you're number 28 in the world, and even 864 in the world. Actually, then you always get your ass kicked. Well, weirdly, at my ranking, I would be playing in tournaments with other 864s so I could grind out a win.

But you're at 28 in the world. You're just getting your ass handed to you actually more often than me. By Andre Agassi, yeah. I remember playing Andre Agassi, this will make you feel good. On center court at the French Open, he was just destroying me. And then by the end of the third set, you know, it was so bad that he wasn't even trying to finish the point. He was just making me run.

I was just like side to side. Yeah. So I had a couple of my buddies, but a couple of my colleagues. college buddies were there watching in the crowd. I had no coach. I know that I had my college buddies from my team at Stanford. And I looked up in him after I finally, like, I won one point. I was so happy. I was like, I said, looked up at them. They're clapping for me. I said, I'm literally a human punching back.

So you know what? It teaches you that. And the other thing about it, as you see, you know, when those players go out there and whether it's 10 people watching, whether it's 24,000 people like at the U.S. Open, I mean, you really are out there by yourself. Yeah. And even though you can coach now, coaching is sort of, is legal now, which is good and bad. I thought Chris Everett had a great line to me during the, we called the women's final. She said it's almost too much.

It's almost like the players are, and so some of the players are, I think it's a little too reliant. Yeah. But for the most part, tennis really teaches you that independence that you need. Because to really be a great coach and a great mentor, what you're trying to do, what we try to do with our kids at our academy is get them to be able to handle stuff on their own. Yeah. Isn't that what we try to do in life?

I mean, I remember playing college, losing terribly, and you could coach on the changeovers, and my coaches, Craig and Bruce, were like, hey, you really got to stay low on your forehand when he's hitting it to your forehand. And I was like, do you want to try it against this guy? Yeah, right, right, right. So even if you're saying it, it's hard to do it.

Thank you so much for coming and chatting with us today. I love talking with you. Tune in to Holding Court with Patrick McEl on Sirius XM. Patrick McAroll. We'll take a quick back after this. Thank you. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision.

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