"He’ll go like two first serves, hit 74 unforced errors and 80 winners": Reilly Opelka named as worst practice partner alongside Rafael Nadal

On the latest episode of the Nothing Major Podcast, hosts Sam Querrey, John Isner and Steve Johnson pulled back the curtain on one of tennis’ lesser-seen aspects: practise sessions on tour. From how players organise hits to who makes for the toughest — and worst — partners, the trio shared candid stories sprinkled with humour and honesty.

Querrey opened by noting that at tournaments like Cincinnati, players are often seen “signing up” for practise sessions, sometimes even listing themselves as “looking” for a partner.

Isner explained: “Most players just talk to another friend and set it up, or their coaches do that. And the top players set up practises like weeks in advance. It’s nuts.”

For players like Isner and Riley Opelka, things were trickier. “Someone like Riley, who I can speak to, and myself — not many people wanted to practise with us,” Isner admitted. “So we would often put ‘looking’ and sometimes someone would sign up. Oftentimes it would go unsigned because people don’t want to practise with the bot.”

He added that at many big tournaments, practise partners — usually current or former college players — are readily available: “They can hit the ball really well, and you can do exactly what you want to do during the course of that practise.” Johnson backed him up: “Almost every tournament has a good set of practise partners, good college kids that you can hit with. So no one ever goes without a practise.”

The conversation soon turned to the dreaded question: who were the worst practise partners? Johnson didn’t hesitate: “Probably Riley, quite frankly.”

Querrey chimed in: “Riley. Opelka.” Johnson added another name: “Yeah. Rafa’s pretty bad — we’ve talked about this before.”

“Rafa just hits every ball as hard as he can,” Isner laughed.

Johnson elaborated on why Opelka was such a challenge: “He’s great fellowship out there, but unlike John, he would go full bot mode in practise. John — I’ll reiterate this once again — good practise partner. He wasn’t going to go full out on the serve. Great rhythm from the ground. You can get a really good practise with John, no questions asked.

“But Riley, he does it the right way for him. He’ll go like two first serves, hit 74 unforced errors and 80 winners in a practise. You just have no idea what you’re going to get. Sometimes Riley was a tough one, but he practised the right way for him for sure. It was just a tough practise for an hour because you never really felt like you got your side out of it.”

Querrey also remembered two particularly brutal warm-up partners: Robin Söderling and Lukáš Rosol. “They just hit every ball as hard as they could. You come to the net, they’d just be ripping it at you. Super intense. Not relaxed for the first two minutes.” Johnson laughed: “Did you actually ask those guys to warm up? How did that work out for you?”

Querrey clarified that warm-ups before matches worked differently than normal practises. “If you’re playing Monday at 3 p.m. and you want to warm up at 1 p.m., you just go and say, ‘Hey, at 1 p.m. I’d like to warm up for my match, looking.’ You don’t really care who it’s with because it’s just a 30-minute hit. You might not know who you’re hitting with until the next day when you get to the courts and you see, ‘Oh, Bautista Agut signed up to warm up with me.’ Most people didn’t care who they warmed up with for a match.”

Querrey added that sometimes limited court availability forced players to hit together rather than with practise partners: “Some events might only have two practise courts. You did need to warm up with another player. They didn’t have enough court space for you to just hit with a practise partner.”

The episode wrapped with a bigger-picture question: why haven’t more American men won Masters 1000 titles in recent years, despite Ben Shelton’s breakthrough?

Querrey was blunt: “Maybe the other guys are just good — like Fed, Rafa, Novak, Stan, Sinner, Alcaraz. That’s why we haven’t had more Americans win titles. Those players are just better.” Querrey defended the U.S. contingent: “It’s not for lack of trying from the Americans, I don’t think.”

Johnson cracked a joke to close: “They only try in 250s and 500s. We don’t try in 1000s.” Querrey played along: “Yeah, we’re looking to peak at 250s.” Johnson delivered the punchline: “That’s it. Winston-Salem next week — we’re going to get an American title for sure.”