An Interview With The U.S. Open Stenographers Who Wade Through Scattered Thoughts And Xbox References

In the primary interview room on the U.S. Open, gamers file out and in, speaking to the assembled media about triumph or defeat. One fixed within the room over these two weeks is the stenographers who produce invaluable transcripts for the journalists. Five years ago at Indian Wells I spoke to longtime tennis stenographer Linda Christensen, and I loved her insights into the gamers she listens to so carefully. On Saturday earlier than the U.S. Open girls’s ultimate, I checked in once more with Christensen and her colleague Michele Cook to see what’s modified within the years since. This interview has been condensed and edited for readability.

Last time we had been speaking quite a bit concerning the 2017, 2018 characters. Some of them have now aged out of the sport, however who’re your favourite gamers to hearken to today?

Linda Christensen: Ben Shelton has a very nice story, after all, however that is nonetheless very, very new. I feel I can communicate for each of us: We loved listening to [Daniil] Medvedev. He’s very fascinating, very sensible, very real. He owns up if he has misplaced his mood, and he realizes he has a brief fuse and at all times takes accountability. And he walks in and at all times says, “Hey guys,” and talks to them [the media] like they’re having a beer at a rustic membership.

Yeah, he is each very blunt and exact. Are there gamers that you simply discover particularly difficult to transcribe?

Michele Cook: Where do we start? They occur to be Americans.

LC: Surprisingly, our most troublesome are English-speaking, just like the Australians. I feel we talked about that. They have all their little colloquialisms and so they short-form—

MC: Everything.

LC: While we love sure gamers after they’re taking part in, after they are available, we dread them, as a result of they’re very troublesome. An instance, the newest one, is Christopher Eubanks. We love watching him. But as a result of he has commentated—he has such little time to say all these phrases—it makes our job tougher.

MC: He can get in a five-minute interview in a single and a half minutes.

LC: It’s very quick. And [Frances] Tiafoe. He has all these little short-form names and issues that he’ll say in a short time underneath his breath. He has an entire completely different jargon. Sometimes all we hear is the expletive.

MC: That, we will get.

LC: A number of journalists look to us, [asking], “What did he say?” You assume we know? We should re-listen to it, generally a number of instances.

He’s a little bit of a mumbler. With the youthful gamers—I noticed Coco [Gauff] making a reference to an anime that she watches. Do you guys discover yourselves having to lookup a few of these reference factors?

LC: Medvedev, he’s a huge gamer, proper? [I’m] wanting up Xbox names of video games that I do not play, but it surely’s necessary to them.

MC: Or they point out a tune that is their inspiration [whispering] that I’ve by no means heard of. But that is an age factor for us.

Is {that a} matter of, as soon as the remainder of the transcript is cleaned up, you guys simply pop a fast Google search in—

MC: While we’re doing it.

So whereas they’re nonetheless speaking?

MC: That’s what I’m doing.

LC: I imply—Jimmy Butler, you realize, a number of the basketball gamers and issues are positive.

MC: Beyonce, you realize, and [the] Renaissance tour or no matter.

It’s the extra obscure pursuits.

LC: Or [if] they’ve referred to a lyric and you do not even know the tune or the artist, you are like, Whoa, we acquired to google and google and google.

The time final time we spoke, you stated that the Serbians spoke in clearest syntax. Do you discover that also to be true?

LC: They do. Novak [Djokovic] may be very, very effectively spoken.

He speaks in paragraphs. Crystalline.

LC: Ana Ivanovic used to [do that] at all times. Jelena Jankovic used to. There are some Czechs who’re very clear, like Karolina Muchova. But Petra Kvitova nonetheless throws us. She giggles quite a bit. Then she swallows all these phrases in—effectively, what was that, Petra?

Am I proper that you’ve got a tennis-specific database in your shorthand?

LC: Yeah, I write in our language, however I’ve particular phrases and phrases and names and issues that apply solely to tennis. Where if I had been doing a little authorized work, I’m gonna kind the identical factor, but it surely means a completely completely different factor.

And there could be particular, like, correct nouns encoded? The gamers whose names would possibly come up essentially the most.

LC: Yeah, we name it a quick. We might need a quick for “Carlos.” We might need a quick for “Carlitos.” We might need a quick for “Alcaraz,” and we’d have a quick for “Carlos Alcaraz.”

Just to be complete. And I guess Coco’s in all probability in there as effectively.

LC: Oh yeah. Although it is humorous, there was CoCo Vandeweghe, and he or she does a unique capitalization. Things like that, you need to know which one. Well, Andrey Rublev, there was Andre Agassi, there’s all kinds of Andres—Andreas, Andrea. Some of these, you need to know who they’re speaking about and which spelling, and [Michele’s] so good at catching these as I’m writing them, as a result of I’ll have written the fallacious Andre.

You in all probability develop an intuitive sense of which gamers know one another and are bringing one another up on this setting.

LC: Well, yeah. Or we have lined a previous match the place, “Oh! They had that incident at the net,” and we all know what they’re speaking about or referring to. Or it was on Twitter.

So it lets you sustain with the meat on tour.

LC: We attempt.

Yeah, that is enjoyable. I do this too. Are there questions you might be sick of listening to? Most of them, possibly?

MC: Most of them [smiling]. But I imply, you realize, we discuss—that you simply all have to search out somewhat nugget, after they’ve repeated the identical factor over. We get that that is your job.

Have you had a personality as uniformly sunny and smiley as Carlos [Alcaraz] within the press convention room shortly? To me, that feels type of new.

LC: Ons Jabeur is at all times actually constructive.

Oh, she’s superb.

LC: She does not take lots of issues too overly severe. She’s having enjoyable. I imply, after all, when she loses, she’s unhappy, however she’s very personable. I do not know of anyone who could not like her.

Last time we spoke, we talked about Rafa [Nadal] having a really intuitive fashion of communication that all of us discovered gratifying. Are there gamers that you simply discover insightful or sensible in that means? Sadly, he is lacking from this match.

LC: He did give you good nuggets, at all times.

MC: We nonetheless love him. We love him.

LC: We need him to come back again and win 5 extra Grand Slams. Let me assume a minute on that. It’s superb how the younger are insightful. Coco Gauff may be very sensible. She’s very sensible for her age. So is Ben Shelton.

MC: Like [Friday] night time, he caught the issues he must mature on.

LC: And for him [that] night time, with Novak having imitated his dialing in, they requested him about that, and he said, Well, imitation is the best type of flattery and I’ll depart it at that. Yeah, I assumed that was—for a 20-year-old to have that composure!

Kind of struck the correct word—somewhat little bit of a comeback, however dignified as effectively.

LC: Yeah, he performed that actually effectively.

After these two weeks, are there a few of these voices that you simply hear simply replaying in your head?

LC: Like PTSD? I say with laughter. Not actually.

MC: Journalists? Or do you imply gamers? [laughing]

I’ve observed that gamers appear to grasp English with unbelievable pace.

MC: Yeah, I’ve observed Carlos, since he is risen so rapidly. It’s the start, his solutions had been “yes, no,” after which if he tried, we acquired nothing. But now he is somewhat extra snug with the language.

Cracking jokes!

LC: We can inform if they have been injured and had to return residence after which they [weren’t] talking English. Like Rafa, he’d come again [to tour], we might say, “Whoa, he’s been in Mallorca far too long.”

He’s coining new phrases, possibly. Anyone coining new phrases on the excursions today?

LC: Coco has—what did she say? Giving anyone … what was the phrase you needed to lookup?

MC: Showing our age: “dap.” I needed to ask the boys [younger staffers in the room]. I used to be like, “I don’t know what that means.” That’s what we each heard. Just needed to double-check. But then we heard it like three extra instances. So it is like—see? Now we all know!

It’s in your arsenal now.

LC: Exactly. We’re so hip.