Meet the player-podcasters

For Pegula, Keys, ‘Player’s Box’ a cathartic release

By Richard Osborn

This is a busy time of year for American players.

The interview requests, the sponsor obligations, the ticket asks from family and friends, they add up in a hurry when you’re playing on home soil. Of course, there’s the tennis side of things, as well; the expectations — both from within and without — to perform at the U.S.-hosted tournaments from Cincinnati to Flushing Meadows and beyond. It’s a real balancing act.

Which makes you wonder: How in the world does the foursome of Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys, Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady find the time to collaborate on their weekly “Player’s Box” podcast? Why would they add to their already chockablock workload?

“It’s really fun — as long as we can find some time,” said Pegula this week in Cincinnati, where she’s the third seed. “We just filmed last night, and we were like, ‘All right, we’ve got to film!’ We get together and plan it out, and it’s always fun and therapeutic. Now we’re in such a good rhythm with it that we know it’s only going to take maybe an hour. And our team behind the scenes, our producer and editor, are so good at being flexible that they’re ready to film whenever. They make it really efficient for us with our rundowns and what we’re going to talk about. It never really drags on.”

That is unless they get the giggles. Like they did on a recent episode filmed during the National Bank Open in Toronto, when Brady struggled mightily to get through an ad read.

“That went for almost 30 minutes, but it was so funny because Jenny just kept messing it up, and we were laughing so hard,” said Pegula, a finalist here in 2024. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the longest ad read ever! But it’s all fun.”

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Turns out the podcast is an ideal way for these close friends and tour colleagues to release some steam; much more catharsis than chore.

“It’s been really fun. We’re coming up on one full year of doing it,” said Keys, the Cincinnati Open champion in 2019. “Other than just finding the time to do it, it doesn’t feel like work. It just feels like fun. It really just feels like FaceTime, where we’re all just talking and hanging out. It’s bringing us a lot of joy. I think it’s been really fun for fans and even people in broadcasting just to get to see a whole new side of our personalities. We’re yapping for an hour every single week, talking about random things. It’s just been really fun to kind of get to explore that side of the sport and kind of get into the broadcasting world a little bit more, just asking each other questions and interviewing people.”

Does that mean that Keys is already considering her post-tennis-life career choices?

“If you had asked me before we did the podcast, I would have said, ‘I’m not interested.’ But now that I’m doing it, I really enjoy it. It’s fun to kind of be on the other side of it, asking questions and doing the interviewing and seeing that side of the sport.”

Does she have a little more empathy for us tennis journalists now?

“Yeah. Like asking questions and getting nothing back. You’re like, ‘Okay, what do we talk about now?’” said Keys. “I’ve just always liked having different insights into the sport. That’s why I was on the [WTA] player council, working with tournaments and things like that. It just gives me a way bigger view of the sport. Adding this in has given us a whole other picture.”