Podcast Confidential: The greatest Wimbledon towel heist in history | ATP Tour

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Podcast Confidential: The greatest Wimbledon towel heist in history

September 03, 2024

Sam Querrey will long remember his 2016 Wimbledon victory over Novak Djokovic as one of his biggest wins. But there was another big result that flew under the radar over the course of the memorable third-round match that featured three rain delays and an overnight suspension due to darkness.

As the American engineered the shocking upset of the Serbian, a subplot was in play: Querrey was quietly working on pulling off a brazen Wimbledon-towel heist of epic proportions.

While no official statistics are kept in the category, Querrey’s covert effort to smuggle 16 Wimbledon towels into his bag over the course of the match might just be a record.

The former No. 11 in the PIF ATP Rankings revealed the operation on a recent episode of Nothing Major, a new podcast that he is co-anchoring with fellow recently retired American players John Isner, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock.

“Getting the Wimbledon towels is huge,” said Querrey, who uses them at the pool, for drying his dog and (don’t tell The All-England Club!) cleaning up spills. “You get two per match and after the match the ballkids ask for them back, but most of the players just stuff them into their bag and the ballkids don’t say anything.”

“So if you go off for a rain delay you put two towels in your bag as you walk off and when you come back on they have two more towels for you. So if you have a match with three or four rain delays, you’re walking away with eight to 10 towels after the match.”

“I probably got 16 towels after the Djokovic match with all the rain delays and then the suspension for darkness,” Querrey told his Podmates.

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In a crowded field of tennis podcasts, Nothing Major, which also features Jack Sock, picks a lane of light banter about anything from on-site food, to irresponsible purchases after the first big payday, to crazy travel stories.

Isner, who holds the record for most career aces (14,470) according to Infosys ATP Stats, says: “It’s an advantage that we haven’t been retired for too long, because we can relate to most of the players on Tour, especially the American guys. We can compliment them, make fun of them in a light-hearted way, we’re having fun with them.”

Johnson, the former World No. 21 who won four titles during his career, added: “We just want to keep it fun and light with funny stories, funny experiences. We’re going to leave the Xs and the Os to other people who are more experienced with that side. We’re going to bring the light-hearted fun side of the US Open or tournaments in Shanghai or Indian Wells or those kinds of things that the fans don’t get to see that we’ve either gone through or experienced or shared together and kind of bring the fans into the back side of the tennis world.”

The idea for the podcast started after Querrey and the show’s executive producer, Charlie Fox, decided to explore new avenues to stay connected with the tennis world. “Sam and I had an initial vision for a show that would allow him to bring out his unique experiences on Tour,” Fox said. “I left him to talk to some of his friends to see if he could find a co-host to work with week to week. Two days later, he came back with three.”

“We’re just trying to be funny, give different perspectives, give a little inside scoop,” Querrey said. “I think it’s fun to hear the four of us banter and argue with each other so that’s kind of the direction that we’re going in right now.”

Produced by Sift Creative, fans can find new episodes every Friday on Spotify, Apple Podcast and most major podcast platforms and join in on the conversation by following Nothing Major (@nothingmajorpod) across social platforms.