• Postcard from Montreal
    Aug 13 2024


    Bonjour from Montreal! Michele and Bryan ate and drank their way through a visit to the this delightful city for the Banque Nationale Open tennis tournament, which featured the men this year. These poor players had to put up with endless rain delays resulting in a chaotic schedule, meaning a number of players had to play two full matches the same day. Quel drame!


    Come with us as we explore the city, eat (and eat and eat), ponder the idiosyncrasies of our "old school" AirBnB, and sneak stuff into the Tournament.


    Montreal is a sublime city, as European as they come, and just an hour plane ride from New York City. Five stars, no notes.


    As always, follow us on socials and leave us feedback at https://www.perfectmatchpodcast.com/


    Allez-hop!


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    23 mins
  • Tennis Pros’ Musical Stylings
    Aug 6 2024

    With the tennis now complete at the Olympics, we’ve been spending some time investigating a strange, sometimes embarrassing phenomenon in the world of tennis: the players’ pet music projects. Some of these players take their music very seriously, some not so much. None of these releases (with the possible exception of an Argentinian player's) can be considered legitimate music. The quality varies from, say, your co-worker’s SoundCloud page to Euro Vision stylings to promotional sports rap to, just, what the fuck were they thinking?


    We take a ride on the streaming platforms and offer the best and worst of this subgenre, from Shapo to Serena and beyond.


    As always, follow us on the socials, rate us in your podcast app and send feedback at https://perfectmatchpodcast.com


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    31 mins
  • 2nd Serve: The USA's Messy Olympics Exit
    Aug 2 2024
    As the Olympics come to a close, the USA is fading in the tennis category...and not without some Real Housewives-style drama! While it is guaranteed that the US will take home one medal in Men's Doubles Tennis, a couple of the non-medal competitors decided to burn the place down on the way out the door. Both Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro had (unfortunate) choice words for their opponents after they lost, for reasons only they can know. It was pretty tacky!

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    19 mins
  • Rating Olympics Players: Yea, Nay or Meh
    Jul 30 2024

    With the Olympics underway with all of its nationalist fervor, we find ourselves rooting for players from around the world, regardless of which country they represent. We started thinking about why we like some players over others. It's highly subjective, sometimes irrational and (admittedly) often based on looks.


    Today we run through a wide swath of tennis players competing in the Singles category and give each one a Yea, Nay or Meh (with buzzer sound effects of course). As we try to explain why we feel the way we do, it gets a bit uncomfortable!


    Please rate this podcast in your app, follow us on socials, and send us feedback at https://perfectmatchpodcast.com


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    36 mins
  • 2nd Serve: Tennis Channel Ads - Poop, B.O. and Beyond
    Jul 26 2024
    The Tennis Channel shows a lot of ads: ads that are cheap, crass and representative of the dark reality of American life. We dissect a few lowlights in the genre, from a "poop shy" woman who discovers direct to consumer supplements to a recently clear-skinned dad horrifying his teenage daughter in his brand new Speedo! These ads deliver the goods..and the cringe.

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    18 mins
  • Renée Richards: Tennis' First and Only Transgender Pro
    Jul 23 2024

    As part of our Social Justice Series, we take a deep dive into the life and pro tennis career of Renée Richards, a trans woman who successfully sued the US Open in the 1970s for the right to play on the women's side. We will also discuss current takes on trans athletes in tennis (some better than others!) from several tennis luminaries.


    For background, we watched the excellent ESPN documentary "Renée" (part of their "30 for 30" series, available on ESPN+), as well as the better-than-it-needed-to-be 1980s TV biopic "Second Serve", starring Vanessa Redgrave as both the pre and post-transition Renée (available for free on YouTube). We suggest watching either or both if you want to take a deep dive yourself.


    As always, follow us on the socials, rate this podcast in your app, and tell your friends!


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    40 mins
  • Midweek Mini: "In the Arena: Serena Williams" - It's Interesting!
    Jul 19 2024

    In this Midweek Mini, we talk about the ESPN+ series "In the Arena: Serena Williams". Say that 10 times fast! The first two episodes that are available now are an interesting look at the early careers of both Serena and Venus Williams. It includes some excellent rare footage of them playing in the storied Compton public courts, as well as some great moments of them playing on the pro circuit, mostly against one another.


    We talk about the weird consensus throughout most of their careers that their matches were kind of boring and possibly fixed. What were people thinking?


    As always, follow us on Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, and stream all of our episodes at https://perfectmatchpodcast.com


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    17 mins
  • Good 🇪🇸 Prevails at Wimbledon, Djokovic Has a Weird Relationship With the Fans
    Jul 16 2024

    In which we discuss Serena Williams calling out Harrison Butker, Stefanos Tsitsipas' new controlling/abusive video, and the Wimbledon Champions. Barbora Krejčíková's unexpected win and Carlos Alcaraz' much needed defeat of aggrieved weirdo Novak Djokovic. We weigh in on whether it's okay for a player to mimic sad violin playing at the crowd (after he's won the match!) and then gaslight everyone by saying he did it for his adorable daughter. Hard to say!


    As always, follow us on Threads, X/Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube! Whatever brainrot you prefer.


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    34 mins