She chose a podcast – simply calledThe Tennis Podcast – hosted by three British tennis nuts that has become,asThe New York Times described it,. And in 2022,when Shriver decided to reveal,she believed it was the perfect place to let her words and message about teen player safety breathe.
Tennis legend Pam Shriver chose The Tennis Podcast to share the most wrenching story of her life.Eddie Jim
“They helped me tell that story,” Shriver said this week in Melbourne,where she is covering the Australian Open for ESPN,as well as doing occasionalTennis Podcast spots with the hosting trio who have now become friends,David Law,Catherine Whitaker and Matt Roberts.
“That made us become friends,but also comrades,you know … people who want to see tennis do even better and be stronger and do the right thing. I felt the podcast form was the best way for my own words to tell the story,and it did.”
For Law,Whitaker and Roberts,it was the most profound sign that their pod – a show Law and Whitaker started 12 years ago around a kitchen table – had become an influential voice in tennis,and a model for sports podcasting in general.Time named it one of its 10 best podcasts of 2022,and its fanbase now includes everyone from to,the creator and star ofHamilton.
It’s all about what happens on court – but often about what happens off it,covering tennis as a sport with such a broad social and cultural footprint that it often intersects with wider issues – gender equality,racism,war,mental health.
Podcasters (from left) Catherine Whitaker,Matt Roberts and David Law have become influential on the tour.The Tennis Podcast
As Whitaker puts it,combining a passion for sport with an unapologetic social conscience is what makes it worthwhile.
“I love forehands and backhands,” she says.
“But I also have an itch to scratch about social issues. We get fantastically frustrated with tennis sometimes and the manner in which it intersects with social issues,and could be doing more,and is complacent about the platform that it has … but I’m very grateful for that intersection.”
Law,who has worked in tennis media since the 1990s,is the podcast father figure at 50;Whitaker,37,wrote to Law asking if she could work with him in some tennis-related capacity while still at college in 2007;Roberts,27,tweeted Law asking much the same thing in 2015. The generational span serves them well on air,and in life.
Law knew he had something special with both from the start.
“I thought,‘She’s got something’,” he says of the young Whitaker,and he was right. Like Law,who commentates for the BBC,she now has an on-camera role with Amazon Prime and Eurosport all thanks to the podcast.
When Roberts came along,his tennis brain and charm led to Law and Whitaker adding him to the on-air team in 2018.
“It was a missing piece of the jigsaw,” Law says. “Something we didn’t know we needed.”
It’s a career path that Roberts did not foresee when he discovered the podcast as a teenager.
“I used to listen on the bus to school,” he recalls. “I can’t say I listened to the first one,but I reckon it was probably episode 10 or something.”
Now the trio travel the world. Sponsors and subscription revenue – Friends of the Pod pay for extra content – fund coverage of the grand slams and other tournaments.
In Melbourne,they have set up shop on a Richmond terrace,where the couch hosts late-night and early-morning recordings. The results are lapped up by tens of thousands globally daily.
“One of the things we bonded over was a love of podcasts,” says Law,harking back to when the medium was so infant it could barely be called a medium. “So niche,” as Whitaker puts it. Law recalls:“You used to have to download it onto your computer and sync it across to your iPod if you wanted to listen to it.”
Twelve years on,they are tennis fans with tennis fans of their own. Listeners approach Whitaker at Melbourne Park to show her photos of their dogs (her pooch,Billie Jean,is the show’s mascot)..
It’s great fun,but still a serious business. Weightier matters always demand attention — such as this tournament’s intersection with controversy over. In typically blunt fashion,Whitaker called the reaction of other players to Zverev-related questions “pathetic” and “feeble”.
Regular listeners were not surprised because that has becomeThe Tennis Podcast brand:calling faults and winners as and where they see them.
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