Rome Wraps, Paris Opens, and Ground Pass Book Club is Officially Here
This was one of my favorite episodes to record, partly because Lucy Deuce came back on the pod and partly because it felt like everything happened in one week.
Rome closed out and Roland Garros opens today. Jannik Sinner won the Italian Open over Casper Ruud, which gave him the Career Golden Masters at 24. The only other player to ever pull that off was Novak Djokovic, who completed it at 31. There is no version of that sentence that isn't historic, and I keep saying it on the show: please do not look back at this stretch of tennis in ten years and tell me you skipped the matches because you thought the score line told the whole story. It doesn't. Lucy and I spend a good chunk of the episode on this exact point.
On the women's side, Elina Svitolina lifted her third Rome trophy after beating Coco Gauff in three sets, and now she's back in the top 10. Her clay-final record is still untouched, and she took down Rybakina, Świątek and Gauff to get there. Coco's run is the other story I cannot stop thinking about, partly because the commentary around her this fortnight was honestly one of the worst-handled storylines of the season, and partly because she still found her way into the final while people online were busy writing her off. A win is a win is a win, and Lucy and I get into all of it.
We also stopped for a voice memo from journalist Hanlon Walsh, who was in Rome covering doubles and shouts out how good of a tournament Rome is for Ground Pass-style ticket holders. And Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori became the first Italian pair in the Open Era to win Rome, which felt like its own emotional moment.
Then I got to do something I have been sitting on for almost a year. In part two, I sat down with Edward Schmidt, the author of The Open Era. The book follows an openly gay tennis player going through qualies and into the main draw of the US Open while battling mental health, media attention, and falling for the world No. 2. Edward and I met a year ago when he wandered into our very first Roland Garros watch party at McCarran Park, and getting to talk to him on the pod about queer representation in tennis, the cultural moment the sport is having, and what's next felt like a full-circle thing.
So we're doing it. Ground Pass Book Club is officially live. We'll read The Open Era together in chunks, drop questions for Edward along the way, and meet at the book launch at The Strand in New York on June 2. Pre-order the book wherever you buy books, and use the link in the show notes for the Strand event and for the Book Club submission form.
It is a Year of the Small Tournament. It is also, apparently, a year of sexy, fun, accessible tennis culture, and I'm here for all of it.
Pre-order The Open Era — out June 2 in the US, June 4 in the UK. Tickets to the book launch at The Strand — link in the show notes. And if you're heading to a tournament this summer, check our Tournament Guides and grab a Spring Swing Tee or an Essential Tournament Hat from the shop before they're gone.
