"I saw Starbucks cups and a food wrapper with the name 'Taylor Fritz' on it" - Pegula, Keys, Krawczyk and Brady expose Fritz's car while suggesting Fonseca-Eala mixed doubles

The Miami Open has seen a lot of drama and storylines being written on the court, but behind the scenes a lot is occurring as well. On the Player's Box Podcast, Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys, Desirae Krawczyk and Jennifer Brady all spoke on their experiences with the rain and suspension on the opening day of the tournament while dissecting the car park shenanigans currently occurring, cruelly exposing Taylor Fritz's messy car.

Brady was on the receiving end of this washout and had a tiresome and prolonged day where nothing ever got started. "I was first on at 12:00. I got to the site at 8:30, supposed to warm up around 9:30 or 10:00," she recalled. "When I arrived, it was fine—no rain. But during my warm-up it started misting. I went out to the court, and it was way too slippery, so I went back inside. From then on, it rained pretty much all day. I was ready at 12:00, then it got delayed to 12:30, then 1:30, then 3:00, then 4:00. They’d dry the court, it would rain again—it just kept repeating. By the time I got home around 6:30, I felt like I’d played a three-set match mentally. I was exhausted."

She described it as 'mentally draining.' "It’s really tough, especially when you’re first on. You have to stay mentally “on” all day—you can’t switch off and assume you’re not playing. If you relax and then suddenly have to play, it usually doesn’t go well."

The changes kept continuing for Brady, whose times of matches were completely opposite to what they were before. "I went from first on at 12:00 on Wednesday to 'not before 7:00 pm' on Thursday. Completely opposite schedule."

It is not totally clear for the players when their matches are cancelled. "People assume we know everything immediately—but we don’t," Pegula explained. "We mostly rely on announcements and updated 'not before' times. If you go into the office, it’s usually very chaotic, so you try not to bother them too much."

Even when the schedule is done, other technological problems can get in the way. "Sometimes it’s not even official until the schedule is printed. One supervisor said, 'When it prints out, it’s official.' At one point, the printer wasn’t working—so even that got delayed. When I finally got the call, they asked, 'Are you happy?'—they just needed some positive reinforcement after dealing with stressed players all day."

Pegula, watching the Carlos Alcaraz-Joao Fonseca match on TV, could not believe how many fans had come out to watch. "From what we could see on TV, it was absolutely packed—even for a second-round match, which is kind of crazy."

It was a continuation from last year when there were not enough fans to fit in the stadium. "Last year, when João Fonseca played on Grandstand, there were so many Brazilian fans that a huge portion couldn’t even get into the stadium," Keys reminisced. "Fans actually came early during the match before his just to secure seats. At one point, the crowd even started urging that match to finish faster so they could watch Fonseca. So this year, it felt like the tournament knew any Fonseca match had to be on the main stadium court."

This caused ticket prices to rise amid the attention the Brazilian starlet was attracting at the Hard Rock Stadium. "The stadium was completely packed, and they were even using additional seating from the surrounding football stadium structure," Krawczyk stated. "Some tickets outside the main seating area were going for $200–$300—around three times the normal price. That kind of demand is also why scheduling becomes tricky—they can’t delay a sold-out night session with fans waiting to get in."

They went on to discuss the similar attention Alexandra Eala gets on the WTA side with Filipino fans coming in their numbers to watch the 20-year-old on court.

Brady offered up a crazy idea to see Fonseca and Eala step onto the court together. "Honestly, it would be amazing to see João Fonseca in something like mixed doubles with a player who has a similarly huge fanbase. Or even just imagining matches with that level of crowd energy—it would be insane. They’d probably need to use the entire football stadium for seating—it would be that big."

Keys was in an unusual situation when a fan asked her to sign a baby's butt. "I signed a baby’s butt," Keys laughed. "There was a diaper and a onesie involved—but the dad literally asked, 'Will you sign my baby’s butt?' And I was like, 'Sure, you got it.'"

While it was a weird scene for Keys, fellow American tennis player Alycia Parks was ahead of the game when pulling into the tournament. She capitalised on a space in the car park which was looked at as a 'genius' move by Pegula.

"We were all trying to figure out whose bright pink G-Wagon was in the parking lot—and it turned out to be Alycia Parks. At one point, she parked in Lorenzo Musetti’s reserved spot—right after he withdrew from the tournament. Honestly, kind of genius. She knew no one else would take it." Brady revealed that she had seen Museeti on site, possibly making for an awkward situation.

That was not the end of the car parking drama. Many tennis players were parking in other people's spots, meaning that Pegula was forced to find somewhere else to park. "Someone parked in my spot the other day. Maddie thought it was Dez just being funny, but I was like, no, that’s not her car—and I have no idea whose it was. I was kind of mad. So I parked in Alex de Minaur’s spot."

It did lead to an awkward situation - but not with de Minaur, as she found out who had taken her spot. "Later that day, Taylor Fritz sent me a picture of my car and said, 'Is this you?' His parking spot was really narrow, so I thought he was throwing shade at me for not leaving enough space. I was like, 'I definitely parked fine.' So I went out there and told him I gave him enough space, but he was like, 'No, no—I was just wondering if that was you because you, me, and Amanda are all parked close together and there’s not much space.' Then I told him I had parked in Demon’s spot because someone took mine. And he goes, 'Oh, that was my car.'"

Fritz would not have the last laugh as Pegula exposed how messy his car was. Brady touched in on when she saw it at Indian Wells. "This actually happened at Indian Wells one year. I parked next to a Tesla that was full of junk, and I got nosy. I saw Starbucks cups and a food wrapper with the name 'Taylor Fritz' on it, and I was like, 'Oh my God—someone needs to clean his car.'"