Noah Rubin: The Man 'Behind The Racquet'

The Winston-Salem Open professional tennis tournament concluded this weekend with Ilya Ivashka capturing the title. Some players then headed to the U.S. Open in New York. Others went home, some burdened by debt, injuries, or doubt.

Among them was former Wake Forest University tennis star Noah Rubin. His podcast Behind the Racquet deals with the anxiety, loneliness and depression often faced by elite athletes. Rubin himself has fought these inner battles for years, and he began the podcast to give players the platform to share their stories and fight the stigma surrounding mental health in the world of professional sports.

It all began as a social media platform — Rubin interviewed friends on tour and posted them on Instagram — and soon it was reaching thousands of followers. At that point, he reached out to his close friend, tennis commentator and broadcaster Mike Cation who immediately agreed to help launch and co-host the new podcast. 

Rubin spoke with WFDD's David Ford.

Interview Highlights

On getting athletes to share deeply personal stories:

I think the easiest aspects initially is to say, "Hey, this is what I'm dealing with. This is what I can show you I've been through." That's how we become kind of connected in a way prior to the conversation. So, I go out with people and I share with them my own experience, what I've done in my life, some things I've dealt with, and showing them that, "Hey, I could talk about it." And it kind of relieves a little bit of that anxiety of, "Okay, what's going to happen next?" And I think that's a lot of the fear is a lot of these players have never opened up before. They don't know what happens next. They don't know what takes place next. So if I can break that a little bit for them and say, "Hey, look at me, I'm okay. I've been outward about this. You could be okay as well," it kind of opens up that door to say, "Okay, let's take this chance."

On tennis star Naomi Osaka's Twitter announcement that she wouldn't speak with media at the French Open, citing a lack of concern for mental health: 

You know, it's interesting to see the discussion unfold, to see it unravel to have more normalized conversations about this is remarkable. And if I aided in even, you know, one percent of players saying, "Hey, you know, I can talk about this now, because of how open players have been, you know, since Behind the Racquet — or whatever, you know, the case may be — I want to keep helping push that conversation forward. So when I saw Osaka kind of speak on the topic and go into discussion about how she's been feeling and what it's meant to her and the difficulty she's dealt with, you know, I was all for it. You know, maybe not the perfect way for her to go about it and maybe not the perfect way for the discussion to be upheld, but this is her dealing with something that has been going on in her life, and she has to take care of herself first and foremost.

On how pervasive mental health issues are in professional tennis:

From an early age, you know, we're always told as athletes to push forward, you know, move past that, we can get over this hump. And, you know, I think that has never been told to a single athlete that has a broken ankle, you know, and I think that's kind of the discussion that we have to deal with is, why is it not considered a broken ankle? Why can't we say, "Hey, I can't play today, I'm really struggling with something."

I mean, these are discussions we should have had long ago. So, you know, again, looking at a sport specifically like tennis as well, I think we can say, "Hey, this is an individual sport, where it's very tough to make a living, which means it's very tough to have the finances to get a team around you." So you are alone, you know, more often than not. From there with this loneliness and loss of finances and just loss in general, you know, it leads to trying to forget moments. That's why alcoholism is here. You know, it's anxiety and depression and not knowing what the next step is. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.