Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Austin Krajicek Interview from the 2024 Miami Open

• Will Boucek • Episode 167

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0:00 | 23:08

World #1, Austin Krajicek, joins the show for the second time. We recorded from the hotel lobby in Miami where Austin had a few days off due to weather.

Listen to my previous interview with Austin here: https://www.thetennistribe.com/austin-krajicek-interview/

We discuss how he spent his off days, book recommendations, hotel choices in Miami, the no-ad/10-point breaker format, and his 2024 season so far. Austin and his partner, Ivan Dodig, have made one final this year but have had some very close losses that he believes will even out over time. At Indian Wells, they lost 10-7 in the third to the eventual champions who only dropped that one set all week.

You'll hear how Austin focuses on the process and doesn't put too much weight on any one tournament or month. He uses a "52-week mindset". You'll also hear Austin discuss his Olympic plans and thoughts on making doubles more fan-friendly.

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Miami Open Interview With World Number One

Speaker 1

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today you're going to hear my conversation with world number one Austin Krychek from Miami. So I just got back from Miami. Yesterday I recorded interviews with not only Austin but also Rohan Bopana, bethany Maddox-Sands and Sophia Kinnan, rajiv Ram and Joe Salisbury and several others, so you're going to be hearing those over the next week or two from the Miami Open.

Speaker 1

A couple of quick shout outs before I get to this episode. First off, shout out to Lawrence, who stopped me on the Indian Wells grounds. He saw me wearing my Watch More Doubles shirt and said he's a big fan of the show and a lot of our content has helped him and his dad become better doubles players. So I love, love, love when people stop me and just share how much the content that we're producing has helped them. So I really really appreciate that. Shout out to Adam Ross and Matt from Florida Tennis Magazine. They actually did an interview with me which I'll include a link to in the newsletter once that is released. So if you're not subscribed to the newsletter and want to check that out, go to the website to subscribe. Also, shout out to Anastasia, who worked in the media center in front of me and we chatted kind of off and on throughout the tournament. She was covering a lot of the singles for Talking Tennis and then shout out to Vanch who was covering a lot of the singles for Tennis One. It's really fun being at these events and just getting to know people who work on different sides of the industry. There's just so much going on behind the scenes that you know, as a fan, we don't always see, so a few shout outs to those people. A quick update on the Mental Game Masterclass that's going to be coming soon so that I've started recording the videos. Indian Wells in Miami kind of threw a wrench in some of the plans, so I think it's going to be mid to late April probably realistically late April when we release that um, that new course. So, uh, just keep an eye out for it. I'll continue to update you through the podcast, um, but we'll, as always, as always, include a launch week with 30% off for those of you who are interested in proving your mental game and playing under pressure and thinking about doubles the right way.

Speaker 1

So let's get to this episode. So Austin Krychek just reached world number one for the second time. If you didn't listen to my episode with him last year. I'll link to that in the show notes. So I talked with him after he won Roland Garris with his partner, ivan Dodig, and he reached world number one then as well and that was Austin's first major title. So he just reached world number one.

Speaker 1

We talk about what that ranking means, if it's something he really focuses on. In the second minute or so there is an audio issue. We tried to fix it as best we could. You don't really miss any content, so it's not something to worry about, but just wanted to let you know. We also talk about how he avoids the spring break crowds. A few book recommendations that he has. He's very into personal development and growth. We talk about the doubles format of no ad versus in 10 point, tiebreakers versus playing with ad. He has some pretty strong opinions on that. We talk about his season. So far he and Yvonne have lost to some very good teams in some very tight matches. They've made one final this year. So we talk about kind of what he makes of what's happened so far in the season the Olympics, mixed doubles at Indian Wells and then changes or potential changes on the future of doubles.

Speaker 1

So this is a short conversation that we had from our hotel, but I think you're really going to enjoy it. So, without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Austin Krychek. All right, hey, everyone, welcome to the show. We've got world number one Austin Krychek back for a second time. Austin, welcome back. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me. So last time we chatted, one of the, I guess, kind of takeaways that I got from our conversation was that you seem to be and we talked a lot about books, but you seem to be very into self-improvement. Yeah, even I think your Twitter profile says like always maximizing or something like that. Have you read any good self-improvement books lately? What kind of kick are you on right now?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think most recently I actually do Audible quite a bit because I like to kind of listen when I do other things. Yeah, me too, I listen to the podcast a little bit, which is great, and then YouTube Premium is also a phenomenal resource, so I don't listen to much of it playing. But, specifically books-wise. I think Outlive is a good one by Peter Attia. Yeah, specifically books wise. I think Outlive is a good one by Peter Attia.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Kind of to get some general ideas there. And then Dr Gundry, who's one of my favorites. I've used his products for years and he's been a really good mentor for me, so his new book, gut Check, came out. That's a good one as well, yeah. And then, you know, obviously the last couple of days, especially with this this rain, you have a lot of free time to kind of read and do some things. I also, you know, I'm pretty I like the economic side of things too, so I've read a bunch of books in that arena that I like. But, um, you know, I just try to keep busy and try to try to keep learning as much as I can as, uh, otherwise we just kind of waste time and watch shows and video games. So it's a similar beneficial thing to be done there.

Speaker 1

I think, yeah, there's a good balance. Yeah, the um peter at sea is stuff I'm pretty obsessed with yeah I love his podcast.

Speaker 2

He's really really good and kind of brings you down the lane and spams for everybody, and how you can implement it without being too too in the weeds there and not be practical as well.

Speaker 1

So sure um, so we're at the uh, the courtyard marott, here the hotel, and when I first got here Thursday night, I get out of my Uber and then Rohan Bhopana actually had called an Uber and he got into my Uber to like go out to dinner. I requested a hotel. They send me back the hotels. Then there's like rates and I was like, okay, this one looks close, it's the cheapest, I'm going to go with that, but you all have, I believe your hotels are covered, right, while you're in the tournament.

Speaker 2

Yep, as long as we're winning, they help us out, yeah.

Speaker 1

Okay, so I was surprised to find players like not that this is a bad place, but the other options. How does the world number one doubles player end up here instead of JW Marriott?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean one. You know I obviously we try to kind of pick chains that we can get points at and so forth. So Marriott, I usually try to stay at Marriott, but in this particular case, like you said, there's some. There's JW Marriott, there's the Marriott Marquis, which is downtown, that I've stayed at in years past, probably every year actually I always stayed at the Marquis or the JW down on Brickell.

Speaker 2

And after playing Miami so many years, you know you just get a little bit tired of the spring break chaos that happens downtown there. So you know, down there it's really nice. There's a lot of restaurants, a lot of action in Brickell. But as I'm getting a little bit older now, that's of an appeal to me. I like quiet, I like to kind of be out of the way of things a little bit. So, yeah, the spring break crowd is pretty wild down there. And then also Ultra, the music festival is going on this weekend.

Speaker 2

And last year I learned my lesson is I definitely go to bed on the early side, probably compared to most. So having the window shaking until midnight is not up my alley. So that was a difficult lesson to learn last year. So I just decided this year to stay up this way and, to be honest, I'm pleasantly surprised. This Aventura area is beautiful. There's a mall it's unbelievable every store you can imagine and there's restaurants I mean every restaurant you can imagine in walking distance. Actually, I like this area a lot and I think I'll probably stay up here in the next coming years as well yeah, yeah, it's a really nice area and the I'm not knocking on the courtyard.

Speaker 1

This is a very nice courtyard too, but um, I believe the jw's are usually um kind of the higher end on the marriott sides, but, um, so you mentioned, like you, you have a lot of dead time. Obviously it's been raining all day yesterday. There's no atp doubles matches scheduled today. Um, how do you spend this dead time? I know that you've got the aggies in the tournament, right, um, which is good, uh, but I can't imagine you're watching college basketball with with yvonne.

Tennis Player Discusses Season and Format

Speaker 2

Um, that would probably be a tough, tough sell you know, I mean, obviously, culturally the sports are a little bit different. But yeah, I'll watch some basketball, I. You know, like I said, I read a lot, I study a lot, um, and then, uh, you know, we watch a good bit of tape as well. So we try to watch some matches on our opponents and and try to think of things that that we can do better as a team and and, uh, to be honest, I think yesterday was maybe the first day at a tournament that I haven't been to the site in I don't even know years, like a year or so so it actually was kind of a refreshing day, um you know, not ideal you don't even know years, like a year or so.

Speaker 2

So it actually was kind of a refreshing day, um, you know, not ideal, you don't get to practice, but at a certain point, you know, we've played so much tennis in our lives that a day off with anything it helps more so than hurts. So I think it was actually beneficial for us yesterday, um, to get a day away from the courts and not be, you know, kind of in a high stress environment that it can be not only at the site on a normal day, but on a rain delay day can be pretty miserable over there. So actually it was kind of nice to get a day away from the sports.

Speaker 1

So your rankings back to number one. Is that something you think much about, or is it just you know it's nice to be there and really just focused on the process and winning tournaments?

Speaker 2

I mean, yeah, it's easy to say you don't think about it. I mean it's definitely something that does cross your mind. But if you think about that, I think you just drive yourself nuts. And you know, this week, you know, kind of like last year, just kind of things lined up there and the guys defending points, you know not defending points here it's. You know I worked out that I snuck back in that spot this week.

Speaker 2

But as a team, you know, we've had, uh, you know, an interesting start to the year.

Speaker 2

We had kind of a disappointing australia swing which kind of has been that way the last couple years, so didn't start ideally the way we wanted to. So we're just trying to work on, you know, playing better tennis and I think we had a good little turn of events there at a good tournament in Rotterdam and Dubai and kind of got the momentum rolling the right direction again. And you know, I think if you focus on the process things which is boring to say, but if you focus on that, then the ranking stuff kind of takes care of itself. And then the more, the more years you play, the more you deal with defending points and big point totals. You realize real quick that if you think about that stuff you sabotage your playing level. So you try not to. Obviously it's impossible not to see it and you know it's cool to get another couple weeks at number one. But I think if we play the way we want to play and put ourselves in a position this summer, we'd be able to hopefully get that for a little bit longer.

Speaker 1

I wanted to ask about kind of the season so far, because you mentioned like a slow start in Australia, I think, semis in Rotterdam and then finals in Dubai, yeah. And then last week at Indian Wells, you make the quarters, you lose a very close one to Kulov and Mektic. You end up winning the title. I think it was their only set that they dropped the whole tournament. So you're pretty much dead even with them. So do you feel like at this point your level is higher than maybe the results would indicate so far this season? Yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 2

I mean you know the results don't lie at the end of the day season, yeah, I would say so. I mean you know the results don't lie at the end of the day, so you know if you don't pull out those matches. It's kind of a funny sport in that regard where you know the format, in my opinion, is a little bit ridiculous. But, um, you know you play such a good, a good match and and there's so many points and obviously a good bit of money in the line at those matches to be able to play at that level, and then you know, within a one, two point swing, you're either extremely happy or extremely disappointed. I think that's, um, you know something that tennis is a unique sport in that regard where it's a little bit unhealthy, I think, for the players.

Speaker 2

Um, so you have to kind of try to look at it from a bigger picture and say, if we bring that level consistently every week, then the results you know eventually will go away and you just kind of have to accept that with this format of no ad and Thursday type review, you're going to get a lot of matches that don't go your way, that you think should, and a lot of matches the other way, where you're not maybe not playing as well, but you hang in there and get one kind of lucky-ish break with the no ad format and then you end up pulling out matches that you didn't think you played as well as you could have. So it's more of a I think, doubles it more of a 50. You have to kind of look at a 52 week average and kind of you know, pace yourself that way and try to bring a good level, as opposed to just kind of looking at each individual week. Otherwise you'll definitely go insane.

Speaker 1

When you, when you say the format's a little bit ridiculous, are you talking about the no ad or the 10?

Speaker 2

point tiebreakers or both?

Speaker 2

Yeah, both, so you prefer, like the singles, like the with ad full third set yeah, I would say I mean, at a grand slam we still have that sure um, and then even olympics we have a little bit different, where we still play a thirteenth hybrid, but you play, uh in that ad which, uh, you know I understand the change you had. They had to make a compromise back in the day where we had to make that format change, uh, for time sakes, and it definitely makes it more exciting in some ways. But you know, it makes these matches a little bit more of a one flip-ish in some scenarios, especially when you look at it week to week. If you look at it kind of over a longer term you know term then it usually balances itself out, but it does make some difficult losses where you play.

Speaker 2

It's like last week against West and in Mektic. We played great, um, gave ourselves a chance at the end, but uh, you know, those guys were obviously playing phenomenal tennis all week and they, they deserved it and played great uh, but you know you play much like that where you're like man, we were really had a chance to win and could have came through there at the end, uh, so yeah, it just makes for some more points with scenarios, but that's the the format we have to play and you know we try to prepare ourselves every week to be the best there.

Speaker 1

If you could either do a full third or play with ad, which would you choose?

Potential Changes in Doubles Tennis

Speaker 2

I think you know, without going into the detail of the red tape behind it, and you know all that decision-making, I think I would actually the third set tiebreaker. I don't think is terrible actually.

Speaker 2

I think the no, add format makes it really hard, a little bit difficult. Whereas a love 30 in an add scenario is completely different than a 30 or even a 30 off, you lose that point. You're down two break points immediately. It's a bit of a strange system, but we obviously have been playing with it for a while, so it's not like we're not used to that. But yeah, I think I would probably maybe put AD back and keep the FIPSA type of group.

Speaker 1

Yeah well, it seems like there's a lot of potential changes coming in the next few years, so maybe that will come true, and I want to get to that in a second, but first. So I saw in Houston you teamed up with Rajiv Ram. Are you all planning to play olympics?

Speaker 2

together. Yeah, we hope so. I mean, um, you know, obviously there's a lot of things that can happen before then, but, um, you know that's the plan. We've played a lot of davis cup matches good davis cup matches in the last year and obviously a lot of tournaments over the years. So, yeah, we'd love to play um olympics in um in july. Yeah, so this summer we're we're excited about that. But we have some, you know, winning and uh, some good matches to to have before then.

Speaker 1

Hopefully we can make the team yeah, um, did you enter the mixed last week at indian wells?

Speaker 2

you were yes, you were still yeah, I wanted. Yeah, jess and I actually talked, we wanted to play, play. But it's a great idea I mean I think it was a little bit pieced together last minute, but a great idea from Tommy in this tournament. I think that's an awesome addition, especially with this 11-day format. It's really, really long.

Speaker 2

Just one event, one doubles event, where there's only five matches and you've got 11 days. It's a little bit ridiculous as well. So to add something like that for the guys that kind of get stuck, um, you know, obviously for us american, in this swing we can go home, even trip, but the european guys, you know this can't necessarily do that and it doesn't really make sense to, but it's the same for us in um, in madrid, rome and then also the shanghai, you know, like both long events make it difficult for us when you have to stay in that region. So, yeah, it's a good idea. We didn't get in because I don't think they wanted guys that were still in the events and we had a match, that opening day, I think, or something.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we finished with Wes and Nikola late on Tuesday night we would have played the night match the next day, so they didn't want to have to schedule any complications there.

Speaker 1

Okay, do you expect or have you heard anything about that potentially happening this week at Miami? I haven't heard anything.

Speaker 2

No, I mean you know, I think that's the last thing on my mind right now.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2

As to rain is pushing everything back, but no, it'd be cool if they added something like that. But you know, yeah, those things are above our pay grade. But you know, yeah, those things are above our pay grade. Yeah, piece of tennis balls.

Enhancing Fan Experience in Tennis

Speaker 1

So I spoke with Matt Ebden last week. He's obviously a lot more involved in a lot of those conversations. He's on the ATP Player Council and for people listening, I released the podcast earlier this week, so definitely go back and listen to that. So I was asking him kind of what we can expect over the next few years, and obviously there's still a lot up in the air. But one of the I guess directions he talked about potentially pushing doubles is to make it a little bit more like a and he used the words party atmosphere. So like maybe have some light music in the background, have fans allowed to go in and out? Um, maybe a shorter changeovers. What are your thoughts on that? What would you like to see as kind of changes are made over the next several years?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, like you said, matt, matt's on the board so he has a little bit more direct um communication several years. Yeah, I mean, like you said, matt's on the board so he has a little bit more direct communication on that. I haven't heard too much about the changes just yet, but I think as the sport evolves, we're going to have to adapt and obviously, at the end of the day, it's about making the fans have more fun, more engagement with the crowd and in the tournament's eyes, they want to sell more tickets. So it's not necessarily about the sport as much as it is about, you know, the the value of selling tickets and getting more people involved with the um, with the sport. So, yeah, I mean I'm open to those changes. I mean the specifics of it, I, you know, I I can't really comment because I haven't heard much in the way of um specifics of you know, whether it's shorter changeovers or music or I don't think anything's set in stone, it's just ideas.

Speaker 2

Those are all decent ideas, and I think um yeah, if we can make this sport more entertaining and fun, I think those are things that have to be looked at, but as far as you know specifics, I don't really have any details on that.

Speaker 1

To be honest, yeah well, does it bother you? Like, if you're in the middle of the match and you I know some players it bothers a ton when, like, somebody's moving in the stands and you're about to serve, and like medvedev, for example, will just serve and he doesn't care at all.

Speaker 2

It depends on the location, I mean if it's right behind the server. It can be a little bit distracting, but it's like anything else, if that's the rule and you get used to it.

Speaker 2

I think that's a pretty quick adjustment, yeah, and, to be honest, most of the courts that we play on in doubles, especially in the rounds, don't have the fans behind the court as much, as more of a shy thing. So we don't get to play, usually on the bigger stadiums until later rounds or or really the last match. So, um, you know, so that scenario for doubles isn't maybe as big of a deal. I don't think there'd be people walking necessarily behind the servers as much, um, but uh, yeah, I think it's a good idea. I mean it's, you know, every other sport. You can move around, you can talk, and obviously you know there's some things you can't screaming while someone's serving or, you know, directly trying to distract somebody. But you know, as a sport adjust, I think we'll have to as well, and those are quick adjustments for the player to think yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

I think I think it'd be a good opportunity to, I guess, differentiate doubles, like as a product, from singles and make it more I guess. The analogy I've always used is like if somebody like last year I was at the US Open and brought a few friends who had never been to a tennis event before, so if they go to the singles match and they have to sit and wait for three games to get to their seat, or if we could change that for doubles like this is a totally new tennis fan and they'll go in and they'll hear some music and they can go straight into their seat and then in the middle of the game they can go get a beer and come back yeah like they'd be like oh, I'm a doubles fan.

Speaker 2

That singles is boring you know, yeah, I agree, I think that's that's a great, that's a great idea and, um, I'm sure that it'll probably transition. It's inevitable at some point to transition to something like that, which, which, yeah it would be great.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we'll see what happens. Awesome, austin. Thank you a ton for joining me. Yeah, man, thank you.