Friday morning January 12, 2024, it is the beating the book podcast.

Skill Alexander, not a megapod, not a guessing lines, but something that has become a tradition, unlike any other here.

A tennis slam, the Australian Open, tennis's first slam.

And I was mentioning on a numbers game this morning, not like golf where like you get to play a few months and then you get a slam. The Australian Open. Tennis's first slam. And I was mentioning on a numbers game this morning, not like golf where like you get to play a few months and then you get a slam. In tennis is like, did you just pick up your racket? Let's play a grand slam immediately. It's the Australian Open. Tennis is first of four. And to handicap both macro and first round with us in all kinds of directions.

It's the great Drew Dinsick, Whale underscore Capper, on Twitter, and the co-host of both

the deep dive at NBC Sports Bet the Edge podcast.

Drew joins us from Long Beach.

How you doing, Drew?

I couldn't be doing better.

I love this time of year.

Love the Australian Open.

And some years, it's not like,

you know, some years, it's, it's a, it's like, oh, don't dip our toe in. This is, this could be interesting. This year feels very consequential. We have so many interesting storylines as we

break into 2024. The 2023 tennis cycle was as entertaining as any I can ever remember.

So hopes are high that we're going to have some pretty spectacular stuff.

You know, just off the top of my head, the storylines are, you know, you know,

Joakovich was a Wimbledon win away from a, you know, calendar slam last year.

People are obviously expecting him to, you know, calendar slam last year. People are obviously

expecting him to, you know, repeat that success. But Al Kras is now here officially. He's got, you know,

a U.S. Open and a Wimbledon under his belt. People are all kind of expecting this could be the

year that there's like a passing of the torch as, you know, in terms of who's the best player on tour um can center breakthrough is a fascinating uh you know kind of uh you know

secondary storyline for the men's side and then on the women's side um you know the women's game is in

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