Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the sit Down. I'm viv Christie,
Speaker 1: Managing editor of Australian Tennis.
Speaker 2: Magazine, and I'm Matt Trolopa right Afozopen dot Com.
Speaker 1: This week on the sit Down, we catch up with
Speaker 1: Matt Ebden at an incredible time in his tennis career.
Speaker 1: He is the world number one in doubles, he's about
Speaker 1: to return to Wimwaroden where he's been a champion, and
Speaker 1: he's looking ahead to his Olympic deboot. Matt, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on the sit Down, and you are
Speaker 1: joining us at a pretty amazing time in your career.
Speaker 1: Australian Open doubles champion, rolling Garrass semi finalist and world
Speaker 1: number one in doubles. Talk a bit about those miles
Speaker 1: stones for us.
Speaker 3: Thanks. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Most recently, well yesterday, just regaining that number one ranking
Speaker 4: after Roland Garros. You know, we had no points to
Speaker 4: defend there from last year we lost first for round
Speaker 4: the close match, so obviously we had our sights set
Speaker 4: on doing you know, prioritizing the majors and the big tournaments,
Speaker 4: so to.
Speaker 3: Go pretty deep was nice. We played well.
Speaker 4: I was sort of happy with getting through there, but
Speaker 4: then on the flip side to lose the semi and
Speaker 4: then feel that you were actually so close and really
Speaker 4: could have you know, been one set away from the
Speaker 4: final and one match away from winning.
Speaker 3: It was then really bittersweet.
Speaker 4: Actually, it was a hard few days to digest that,
Speaker 4: as much as I was sort of happy of being
Speaker 4: in that position as well. It's sort of the good
Speaker 4: and bad thing about tennis. Anytime you get a really
Speaker 4: good result, you're sort of happy with it, but then
Speaker 4: at the same time you're like, oh, it's a missed opportunity.
Speaker 4: So you know, I obviously want to try and capitalize
Speaker 4: and win all these slams.
Speaker 3: Now, now's the time. You know, we're not getting any younger.
Speaker 4: And no time, like the President where at the peak,
Speaker 4: at the top of our game, So it's the time
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, and the tour never stops really, So
Speaker 1: just a few days ago you were at Roland Garrel's
Speaker 1: playing the semi finals, and now you're on the lawns
Speaker 1: in the UK preparing for grass court tournaments. Is that
Speaker 1: one of the most extreme adjustments in professional sports?
Speaker 4: It can be for me, not so much because growing
Speaker 4: up well, playing a lot of my junior tennis in Perth.
Speaker 3: I played a lot of club and league tennis on grass.
Speaker 4: So I step on the grass court and I feel
Speaker 4: like I'm just gone into the lounge room in in
Speaker 4: my living room at home. It feels that comfortable. I
Speaker 4: feel so natural. For me, it's probably the opposite. It's
Speaker 4: probably when you finish Miami the hard courts and then
Speaker 4: you go onto the clay. That first week just doing
Speaker 4: that training, going onto the clay, you know, all those
Speaker 4: specific movement patterns, drill patterns for the body. Adapting that
Speaker 4: way is probably the biggest one for me. But yeah,
Speaker 4: going back onto the grass is really natural, and yeah
Speaker 4: it's always a fun, exciting time for me, so I
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 1: So it's fair to say this must be your favorite
Speaker 1: time of the year.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: You know, we're try and trick ourselves mentally and not
Speaker 4: be judgmental and on different services.
Speaker 3: I've been out of saying now clay is my equal
Speaker 3: favorite along with the grass.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's no secret that a lot of the
Speaker 4: grass court was the hard coret swim with an Aussie
Speaker 4: Open US then. But now you know, having some better
Speaker 4: experience old clay and getting that confidence, I would say,
Speaker 4: and believe that I could really win the French and
Speaker 4: even now Olympics. With Olympics coming up, it's good timing
Speaker 4: to start playing well on the clay because it's a
Speaker 4: big play here too. So but yeah, you know grass
Speaker 4: court season is the next thing. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: London already going to start hitting on grass today and
Speaker 4: Queens this next week.
Speaker 2: Matt. We were talking to Stephen Farrett last week on
Speaker 2: the podcast and you alluded to it before you played
Speaker 2: a lot of junior tennis in Perth on grass, he said,
Speaker 2: coming from England to Australia, he couldn't believe how much
Speaker 2: grass it was in Perth. We're in Melbourne. There's actually
Speaker 2: not a lot of grass here, like it's at some clubs,
Speaker 2: but it's mainly in the country. Like, was that the
Speaker 2: main surface you played on when you grew up and
Speaker 2: is that why you've got the style you have today?
Speaker 4: It wasn't the main service. I would say hardcourt generally
Speaker 4: my well birth years, let's call it. I was in
Speaker 4: South Africa those first ten year of in my life,
Speaker 4: ten twelve years and then in Perth since then and
Speaker 4: hardcourt was the main surface for sure. And then in
Speaker 4: summer in Perth they played. Yeah, we played some Arependance
Speaker 4: on grass at that junior club level, at Edmund's club level,
Speaker 4: and they still do and then probably at least half
Speaker 4: the club's their main surface on in summer it is grass.
Speaker 4: They're more of tended to hardcourt now, but yeah, it
Speaker 4: was hard and grass, and then in the winter there
Speaker 4: was a little bit of clay, but not not too much.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I guess I grew up from those years
Speaker 4: of sort of fourteen to eighteen playing at least half
Speaker 4: my summer tennis on grass. So against men, I was
Speaker 4: developing my game. So I was learning to servoli use hands.
Speaker 4: I was playing against guys older than me, so I
Speaker 4: had to find ways to win strategically and with movement
Speaker 4: or with hands or craftinness on the court. So I
Speaker 4: think then all that experience over the years and training
Speaker 4: on it with guys older than me, even some guys
Speaker 4: who were twenty years older than me, but you know,
Speaker 4: they had good craft and.
Speaker 3: Skills that I could learn from and pick up.
Speaker 4: So along with my modern style of the young up
Speaker 4: and coming player, I was able to learn the slice backhut,
Speaker 4: even the slice forehead and the servolli out of put
Speaker 4: balls in bad places on a grass court where you
Speaker 4: might get a bad bounce out of the court, so
Speaker 4: that would favor you passing shots.
Speaker 3: You know, all those little things. Now do it in
Speaker 3: the doubles.
Speaker 2: I wanted to take you back to twenty eighteen. You're
Speaker 2: probably at the peak of your powers on grass, certainly
Speaker 2: in singles. You made the den Bosch Semis, the Harler Quarters,
Speaker 2: pushed Federer very close, scored a top ten win over
Speaker 2: Gofan at Wimbledon, and made the third round there. So
Speaker 2: that was an excellent grass court season. I wondered what
Speaker 2: was clicking for you so well there. I think that
Speaker 2: season you also reached your career high ranking in singles,
Speaker 2: and maybe you could also tell us what it was
Speaker 2: like to face a pretty much peak Roger Federer on
Speaker 2: a grass court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: That was definitely one of the best seasons results wise.
Speaker 3: The ranking wise, Yeah, I had.
Speaker 4: I think I hit the top forty that season, so
Speaker 4: that was my career I for singles thirty nine, I
Speaker 4: think it was.
Speaker 3: So I think that.
Speaker 4: Came on the back of a year a year and
Speaker 4: a half of more development and improving my game, my mentality,
Speaker 4: myself as an athlete on and off the court, and
Speaker 4: that was just a further progression of playing well that
Speaker 4: folve months before that, I think I was coming into
Speaker 4: that grass court season. I don't know, already top fifty
Speaker 4: or top six, I don't know whatever it was. But
Speaker 4: I played well at in New Welles or Miami in
Speaker 4: the six to twelve months before that. Obviously to have
Speaker 4: that ranking, let's say, and that form and then yeah,
Speaker 4: coming into the grass court season, I was always confident.
Speaker 3: I think even first.
Speaker 4: Round in Denbatch, I beat Jills Muller, who was defending champion.
Speaker 3: He'd made semis at Wimbled in the year before it beat.
Speaker 4: Rapha, So those are the kind of wins I was
Speaker 4: having and playing really well, and I sort of knew
Speaker 4: how on grind at the moment, I was probably playing
Speaker 4: a sort of top ten level. There was probably you know,
Speaker 4: eight other guys playing great undrafts, but I was probably
Speaker 4: somewhere there and that probably showed that. Wimbled and I
Speaker 4: played I think Goffin was seven in the world at
Speaker 4: the time and the good grass quarter and I beat
Speaker 4: him in straight sets, so that was a you know,
Speaker 4: good got through to the third round, unfortunately lost to
Speaker 4: Jill Simon seven six in the fourth set, and I
Speaker 4: hadn't actually.
Speaker 3: Lost to him ever before.
Speaker 4: I'd beaten him the both the two times before, and
Speaker 4: so probably thought I could have maybe should have is
Speaker 4: a bad word, but I could have won that one. Then
Speaker 4: pushed on maybe to the fourth round or quarters or
Speaker 4: something great.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't to be.
Speaker 4: But yeah, same the week before Halley One, some good
Speaker 4: matches there. Beat Corl Schreiber that you know, German favorite.
Speaker 4: He had obviously won there in Halley before, so to
Speaker 4: beat him and then to play Roger after that was
Speaker 4: a dream come true if I had won, But yeah,
Speaker 4: it wasn't wasn't quite able to win.
Speaker 3: Lost close match he's had seven six, seven five. I
Speaker 3: think it was. Was the first one to break serve.
Speaker 4: Actually I was up a break in the second set
Speaker 4: twice I served for the second set, So yeah, for me,
Speaker 4: I just really wanted to at least get the second
Speaker 4: set there and have a chance at the third. I
Speaker 4: don't know if I would have won or not, but
Speaker 4: I was playing well enough to I thought, having to
Speaker 4: have a chance at a third set and try and
Speaker 4: knock him off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was number one in the world at that time, he'd.
Speaker 4: Won a ten times in a row. He was in
Speaker 4: his favorite and maybe one Wimbledon that year as well.
Speaker 4: But so yeah, yeah, that was a nice period for me.
Speaker 4: I'd obviously always wanted to get to the top ten myself,
Speaker 4: let's say, never quite hit the actual number, but I
Speaker 4: did feel a certain periods on the right surfaces and
Speaker 4: conditions in my career that I played let's call a
Speaker 4: top ten level.
Speaker 3: So probably some of those months they're all grass.
Speaker 4: As a grasscourt player, I was probably playing that sort
Speaker 4: of a level, and that's why it gave me those.
Speaker 3: Results that I had and the chances I had against Roger.
Speaker 4: And then at Wimbledon then yeah, obviously in Denbosh the
Speaker 4: week before that too, and then yeah, I'm glad it's
Speaker 4: obviously kicked on for grass court double success obviously.
Speaker 3: You know, to then be able to win Wimbledon in
Speaker 3: the doubles a few years later. Yeah, it was. I
Speaker 3: said at the time, it was more than I could
Speaker 3: ever dreamed of. I didn't I didn't even dream of it.
Speaker 3: Being left good.
Speaker 1: Where does that achievement sit, Matt in everything that you've
Speaker 1: achieved in tennis.
Speaker 3: I think it's probably number one.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I had at the time, and then
Speaker 4: even winning Aussy this year it would maybe equal it
Speaker 4: or come close.
Speaker 3: But I mean, we all know what Wimbledon is. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like folklore.
Speaker 4: You know. It's even not even just as tennis players
Speaker 4: or people in tennis, as people in South America who
Speaker 4: don't watch tennis, who play football, that.
Speaker 3: They know what Wimbledon is. You know, they know who
Speaker 3: won Wimbledon. It's sort of I don't know it. It
Speaker 3: has a special aura about it, and I think even
Speaker 3: as Ossie's we kind of identify as Wimbledon as well.
Speaker 4: It's not our home Slam, but our second home Slam,
Speaker 4: let's say, is the last one hundred years, we've had
Speaker 4: some many great Ozzie champions win there and singles, doubles, men's, women's, mixed, doubles, whatever.
Speaker 3: It has such a great heritage for us, and there
Speaker 3: even as a kid, my parents and my family took
Speaker 3: me there when I was I.
Speaker 4: Think about seven years old to go watch and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: just those special early memories and then you know, to
Speaker 4: win women and then even coming back to OZ and
Speaker 4: seeing how that was so well received and seeing how
Speaker 4: many people did actually stay up all those late nights
Speaker 4: and watch the matches.
Speaker 3: And follow online and in the media, and yeah.
Speaker 4: For that, even though two weeks after I came back,
Speaker 4: he was a it was a real big buzz and
Speaker 4: just to sort of.
Speaker 3: Go be a part of that, and yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: know my name part.
Speaker 4: Of that was kind of surreal in a lot of ways,
Speaker 4: but it was very special and yeah, very very grateful
Speaker 4: that that one went away.
Speaker 1: And what's it like going back to the All England
Speaker 1: Club as a Wimbledon champion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a little bit spooky.
Speaker 4: It's you kind of walked through there and well, the
Speaker 4: year coming back if we'd won it, Yeah, I'm back
Speaker 4: through the doors.
Speaker 3: You see your name on the wall on the champion board.
Speaker 4: And obviously all those great feelings and emotions fill you
Speaker 4: up inside from day one and sort of through the
Speaker 4: old tournament and you kind of play with definitely an
Speaker 4: extra confidence but also maybe an extra freedom because you
Speaker 4: feel like this is great.
Speaker 3: I know I play well here, I know I'm one
Speaker 3: of the favorites, let's say.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, you know you have already
Speaker 4: done it and achieved it too, so it's you know,
Speaker 4: no one can take that away.
Speaker 3: From you, so you kind of.
Speaker 4: Able to kind of draw on the best part of
Speaker 4: the confidence and let's say, obviously the pressure of being
Speaker 4: a favorite, but maybe pressure is also awful a little
Speaker 4: because you've won it before. So it's a super nice feeling.
Speaker 4: And to know that for the rest of your life,
Speaker 4: I can come back to Wimbledon, you know, as a member, guest,
Speaker 4: or play the legends or something one day and when
Speaker 4: I'm eighty five years old, come back and watch with
Speaker 4: my wife something that it's a nice thought to have.
Speaker 1: What is the tournament like generally? Could you maybe explain
Speaker 1: it to our listeners who haven't been lucky enough to
Speaker 1: experience it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wimbledon it's a hard one to really explain.
Speaker 4: I feel like any other tournament during the fifty two
Speaker 4: weeks I could really explain really well.
Speaker 3: But there's something about Wimbledon.
Speaker 4: It's tradition, it's history, or it's kind of small, it's
Speaker 4: the intimate. Even cener court that's for another discussion. We'll
Speaker 4: talk about senate court. It's a whole different ballgame of itself.
Speaker 4: But the grounds, the tournament in general, Yeah, there's not
Speaker 4: too many other things like it. I think in sport
Speaker 4: you might have to look at some of the most
Speaker 4: famous Hallard cricket pitches or locker rooms around the world,
Speaker 4: or for other sports fans to empathize with those feelings
Speaker 4: of how it really is. But yeah, as a player,
Speaker 4: it's there isn't anything like it. It's sort of hard
Speaker 4: to explain until someone goes there and sees it. But
Speaker 4: I think as a fan, I think it's I mean,
Speaker 4: it's probably we're stuck in the stories in our own
Speaker 4: head of you know, the tradition, the hundreds of years
Speaker 4: of things we've seen on TV, the great champions, we've seen.
Speaker 3: It all around the world.
Speaker 4: But as a fan, I think if you go there,
Speaker 4: I think it's the it's the intimacy. I think it's
Speaker 4: that everything is.
Speaker 3: Slightly more bunched up, even center court. It's it's it's incredible,
Speaker 3: it's it's got an aura about it. But it's not
Speaker 3: the biggest court in the world.
Speaker 4: The fans are really into it, obviously, they are extremely
Speaker 4: well educated fans. They're being around Wimbledon for fifty years themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just it's it's hard to explain. I mean, yeah, if.
Speaker 4: If you get the chance, go to Wimbledon and see
Speaker 4: what I'm talking about, and you'll sort of hopefully get
Speaker 4: some of that mystic kind of a feel and an
Speaker 4: aura of that tradition that we feel and experience going there.
Speaker 4: That there is different I suppose also British summer. You know,
Speaker 4: everything comes to life a bit. There's still kind of cool,
Speaker 4: but Chris, everyone's sort of super happy. If it's funny. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's there's a lot of special things about it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: if you can't get there, take my word for it.
Speaker 4: It's it's a special place. It's a hallowed turf. There's
Speaker 4: a special aura and the mysticness, let's say about it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, really did get the chance. If you get
Speaker 4: the chance, go and visit.
Speaker 2: I haven't been since twenty nineteen and I just want
Speaker 2: to jump on a plane after hearing you say that
Speaker 2: Viv is going, Yeah, Viv is about to go.
Speaker 1: You've got me excited for the English summer.
Speaker 2: We know you've been very generous with your time, Matt,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. We've got one more, if that's
Speaker 2: all right. It's about Australian tennis because also there's a
Speaker 2: fair bit of strength in those ranks too. We've got
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of guys in the top one hundred.
Speaker 2: There's what Demon's doing. He's become a top ten player.
Speaker 2: You referenced Davis carb Australia is the thing, the finalist
Speaker 2: the last two years. You've been involved in Australian tennis
Speaker 2: for a long time. Now, How like encouraged are you
Speaker 2: with like the current crop and where the strength of
Speaker 2: Assy tennis is right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very exciting and I think it's again it's
Speaker 3: a progression of all the work that everyone's done behind
Speaker 3: the scenes and then the grassroots the last fifteen years.
Speaker 4: I would say when I came up broke in top hundred,
Speaker 4: I think only Layton was still top hundred when I
Speaker 4: came out, I think I was number two, and then
Speaker 4: obviously Tomic came and then Nick and that came later.
Speaker 4: But it was at some point there was only two
Speaker 4: of us in top hundred, whereas previously there'd always been
Speaker 4: five to ten guys at least. And then since that point,
Speaker 4: I'm proud to say that there was then started to
Speaker 4: become always five or eight or ten or have a
Speaker 4: many top hundred and it's you know, people take it
Speaker 4: a bit for granted too, how odd it is and
Speaker 4: we sit here and we throw out numbers of these
Speaker 4: guys winning as many Slams and the many people in
Speaker 4: the top hundred. But it's incredibly, incredibly art the ranking
Speaker 4: system to get that many points at the top level
Speaker 4: in a twelve month period, to have a ranking of
Speaker 4: the top hundred, and that's why you see only every
Speaker 4: ten years there's only unfortunately only ever, I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's six to ten of us or these players making
Speaker 4: the top one hundred from Australia or from any country really,
Speaker 4: because the level is that hard and it demands so
Speaker 4: much physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and even be from Australia,
Speaker 4: what I've seen and everyone's shared this, yeah, even geographically
Speaker 4: it's very difficult.
Speaker 3: We basically have.
Speaker 4: To live away nearly the whole year away from home, friends, family,
Speaker 4: since you're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years of age through it
Speaker 4: till into your thirty.
Speaker 3: So your whole life almost as an adult.
Speaker 4: And you know that's incredibly demanding, and there's thousands of
Speaker 4: variables that go into that. I think us I can
Speaker 4: say to a lot of the young kids coming up
Speaker 4: or their parents or coaches when they say, oh, the schedule,
Speaker 4: they going my yeah, but being a good tennis players
Speaker 4: almost irrelevant. That's the easy part. You know, anyone can
Speaker 4: be a good tennis player. But and you put together
Speaker 4: a career where you have ten year in the top
Speaker 4: hundred overseas, the whole time away from your support system,
Speaker 4: your friends, your family, your home, living with travel, you know,
Speaker 4: dealing with all those things physically, mentally, emotionally, relationships, coaches,
Speaker 4: all those things. So it's a lot. But I'm proud
Speaker 4: that there are I think five or six guys in
Speaker 4: that top hundred now again and then still and some
Speaker 4: more pushing and some more coming back, let's say. And
Speaker 4: similarly on the women's side, I think the women they
Speaker 4: also had a few stronger years there and a couple
Speaker 4: of that being injured and lost ranking a bit. It
Speaker 4: would be nice to see another four or five of
Speaker 4: the girls push up into that top hundred and really
Speaker 4: solidify us as you know, one of the top three
Speaker 4: four tennis nations on the planet. Obviously, Yeah, like you say,
Speaker 4: two Davis Cup finals, we've been able to do that
Speaker 4: on the men's side, so you know, we're obviously right
Speaker 4: up there and strong, and obviously the girls coming off
Speaker 4: the back of Ash being world number one, and hopefully
Speaker 4: that can inspire them to push on up as well,
Speaker 4: and then some coming back from injury again, I know.
Speaker 4: So it's yeah, it's an exciting time for Australian tennis.
Speaker 4: But I think, yeah, it's also a result in a
Speaker 4: combination of processes and players that were put in place
Speaker 4: a good fifteen years ago. I watched them change and
Speaker 4: take place before my eyes and I've benefited from a
Speaker 4: lot of them, just the support, the structures, the networks
Speaker 4: that they were sort of trying to build and give
Speaker 4: players the self responsibility to and in this tennis life,
Speaker 4: that's what it's all about.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You can give the people help you and whatever, but
Speaker 4: in the end, we're the only ones out there at
Speaker 4: the tournament, scanning the points on the court, winning the matches,
Speaker 4: doing the hard yards, doing the tough things, and it's
Speaker 4: important we have a lot of support and help as well,
Speaker 4: but it's you know, ultimately comes down to the players
Speaker 4: being self empowered.
Speaker 2: Well, viv the time could be right for Ebden to
Speaker 2: do just.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, and I really hope we have a chance
Speaker 1: to chat to him about those experiences. So we'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another episode of the Sitdown, and
Speaker 1: in the meantime into John and the team on the
Speaker 1: AO Show.
Speaker 2: Weekly and details for how to contact us are in
Speaker 2: the show notes below, and as always, remembered to subscribe, rate,
Speaker 2: and review. We'll see you next week five.
Speaker 1: Look forward to it, Matt