French Open Day 8 - Kostyuk and stress send Swiatek packing

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1:16Matt Roberts: Hello and welcome to the tennis podcast coming to you from Paris, but a different Paris to the one that we've been inhabiting for the past week. The air is finally breathable again, and it's like the city has breathed a huge sigh of relief, so much so that we're actually recording part one of this show outside in the media seats on Court Philippe Chatrier between sessions. It couldn't be a more beautiful spot and a more beautiful temperature to talk about tennis. We have earned this, folks. Today is kind of the day that things get really serious at a ground slam, the start of the fourth round action, places in the quarterfinals up for grabs.

1:57Matt Roberts: And one of those places this time around will not be going to the four-time former champion here, a woman that for a couple of years there enjoyed Nadal-like dominance on this clay court behind me here. Iga Svontek was beaten 7-5, 6-1 earlier today by Ukrainian 15th seed, the Madrid champion Marta Kostchuk in a match, Matt. that saw all of Svantec's demons that we spent a lot of time talking about over the last 12 months or so, all of them raise their heads?

2:31Catherine Whitaker: Yeah, definitely. I think coming into this match, knew it was a danger match, Regis Svantec, against someone who'd won 15 matches in a row on clay and is in the form of her life. And I didn't think Svantec had been brilliant through the first few rounds here. I said the other day that she'd done enough, she was going to have to play better. But I just have so much respect for Igor Svantec's record here that you've just talked about that I'm always bringing that into consideration when analysing how an Igor Svantec match here might go. So I thought that she would win this one. And she started the match pretty well, really.

3:13Catherine Whitaker: Like, not brilliant, but pretty well. She was on top. She went up a break in that first set, 4-3. and then didn't hold serve for the rest of the match. She lost her serve six times in a row. And you mentioned demons. I think probably the one recurring aspect of her play that we've mentioned the most that seems to have declined in the last couple of years or so is the serve. And it's such a problem for her. And Kostiuk had this aggressive returning position right from the start and took full advantage. And the other things that we've seen Frigis Vjantek over the last couple of years or so is no longer being a good front-runner.

3:52Catherine Whitaker: And that happened again because she went up a break, lost her serve. She went up a break again, lost her serve immediately. And also not playing particularly well under pressure. These are things that she used to be so good at that are now real lapses in her game. And we saw all of those today. And I'm sure we'll talk a lot about how great Kostiuk was in this match and is, and we should definitely talk about that. There were two sides to this match, but from an Igor Shiontech perspective, it was, I think, the worst I've ever seen her play, certainly on this court, and I would say also at a grand slam outside of Wimbledon as well, I would say, because when she's been beaten in the past, it's often been big hitters knocking her off the court, and Kostiuk did so many things well today, but it wasn't that.

4:49Catherine Whitaker: And it also felt like it could still be in Svantec's control if she had her game and her head and she just didn't. And it was a really, really sad watch, actually. I found seeing a great champion perform like that on her favourite court.

5:05Matt Roberts: Yeah, same. I had the same experience of it. That moment that Matt's just described there, David, when Svantec broke for 4-3 in the opening set and then was immediately broken back to love with four ground-stroke errors. And then little did we know at the time that that would happen three times in a row, that Chantet would break and get immediately broken back. And little did we know that she wouldn't hold serve again for the end of the match. But in that moment, her dropping that advantage so limply with those unforced errors, you turned to me and said, that is exactly the sort of thing that just wouldn't have happened three years ago.

5:40David Law: It wouldn't have even gone through your head, let alone it happen I think back to when she beat Jasmine Paolini in the final here and Paolini was playing well and moved so well and I remember her coming out at the start of the match and we were sort of celebrating her getting to two games all and she barely won games after that because how do you stop this player who not only is consistent but she hits with such violence into the corners and is one of the all-time great finishes of a point. That has gone at the moment. And we've seen brief glimpses of it in Rome, for instance, I think, when she played against Osaka.

6:22David Law: And there have been a couple of matches here and there where you thought, oh, that reminds me of Svantec. Today, that just... There were occasionally rallies, you know, there were occasionally spectacular rallies where she would hit an amazing angled backhand or the big forehand. But it was sort of like one winner, then five unforced errors. And some of them were just missing by a mile. And you wonder why. Why has that happened? I mean, I feel like a little bit more. I didn't attend the press conference, but hearing it from you afterwards, I understand it a bit more now, maybe.

6:57Matt Roberts: I tell you what, that was not the press conference I was expecting. Iga Svantec, after big losses, is quite often, well, not her best self. Aren't we all? I totally understand that. But the way that manifests for her often is being quite chippy and defensive and shut down. And look, you know, I get it. But this was not that. She was incredibly open today. It almost felt like a dam bursting, possibly rock bottom. I don't know. I'm worried for her with all the points she's got coming up to defend on grass. But she picked it all apart in great detail for us. She said, I lost control of the match and I couldn't get it back.

7:36Matt Roberts: You know, this is the great front runner, Iga Shontek. She said, I just felt worse and worse. I know I lost because I got tense and my body then couldn't do the things that I wanted it to. She said she kept on saying tense over and over. She said, I was super tense. That's what I need to work on. It's got harder for me to handle stress in the past year, she said. She said that the peak of those feelings was in the US earlier this season. and I got the feeling, David, that she had the same experiences we all have had watching her. Like, oh, there have been signs and matches recently that the old Igor Shontek is back.

8:14Matt Roberts: And I think for that reason, today has really quite taken her aback because it was all the demons manifesting all at the same time, acutely and in the worst possible place. And she said, I have to figure this out, but it might take a long time to figure it out.

8:33David Law: Yeah, and perhaps the sort of player that was going to bring that out, as opposed to the type of player that might knock her off the court, is an incredible mover. There was a game, I think the third game of the match, when Kostiuk was love 30 down, and she played the most astonishing point of retrieval and then counterattack in order to get back into that game to 15.30, and then she served it out. And that moment made me think, OK, Kostiuk's got rid of the nerves, she's in the match. So great credit to her for getting a foothold in a match against a great champion. It'd be so easy to just get overwhelmed by the occasion and an opponent who can be so relentless.

9:15David Law: But when she was in the match, yeah, every time Svantec went ahead, it was immediately just donated back to her. Kostiuk didn't have to do that much to win the match, which is an astonishing thing to be able to say against a player like this. But the one thing I would add is that if I've got anything right about Iga Schwantek over the years is that she's always been on the edge. There's a line, there's a brink, and she's spent years the right side of it winning Grand Slams. And that, I think, is heightened emotions, heightened reactions, everything you would want to be at your absolute best. But if you go over that limit, it ends up in this.

9:56Matt Roberts: How confident do you both feel that she can get it back? Obviously, it's possible that she can, but how likely do you think it is? There is a world in which we've seen the best of Viga Shontek. This has been quite a while now, and even if she is able to kind of do some psychological work, change her set-up, I don't know. I didn't get the chance to ask her sort of what she envisages the process looking like for trying to course-correct this. Maybe she doesn't know yet. But even if she does all that, there's a lot of baggage accumulated here. And in the meantime, other players are getting better.

10:32Matt Roberts: Marta Kostiuk, prime example, a lot better than she was a couple of years ago. I'm not going to ask you for a percentage for once, but how confident do you feel that Iga Shontek can get back to somewhere near where she was?

10:48Catherine Whitaker: I think the end of that question is important, somewhere near where she was, because I do think if you ask me right here today, will Shefantek win another Grand Sam title, I would probably still lean yes because I think she's got time in her career ahead of her.

11:09Matt Roberts: She's 25, turned 25 today. Tough birthday.

11:13Catherine Whitaker: It was a tough scene for birthdays on Chatrier today. Two players lost who had their birthday today. So, yes, I do think she's still got time in her career and she's had such a high level that getting back to somewhere near that, to me, still potentially means winning a slam in the future. But I'm not super confident on that. I'm not confident at all that she's going to be like a really dominant player again, you know, who's putting together winning streaks and racking up three of these Roland Garros titles in a row. You know, that kind of player. It wouldn't shock me if we're not going to see that again.

11:52Catherine Whitaker: but you know she was talking in terms of time frame wasn't she she mentioned a potential year in terms of how long it might take to work through some of these issues that she's identified in terms of stress and I think also the technique on the serve she talked about the the elbow still not being where she wants it to be and having to go through repetitions and hitting loads and loads of serve like she's aware that she's a work in progress um but yeah if if you were looking at like the next five Roland Garros's right now I'd say probably she she would win one of those but that's even that is a big change from where we were a couple of years ago where we were thinking about Chris Evert's record here you know um so it's it's been a big decline in that period and it's heading in that direction.

12:47Catherine Whitaker: There's going to need to be a course correction and to go the other way for it to even get back to close to where she was.

12:54David Law: David? Yeah, I guess in a situation like this, you try to look for other examples in history of players that have gone through similar things, great starts to the career, great amassing of titles and then a drought and some that have built, got back into it and others that have sort of never really been able to be the same again. I mean, he's a very extreme example, but you mentioned Nadal at the start, and obviously he'd already won loads and loads of titles here already, but he did kind of struggle in 2015, 2016, that sort of area, and he looked like he'd lost his confidence. He talked about it.

13:36David Law: His big shots were suddenly falling short, and he was getting pushed around in a way that we're just not used to. And he didn't look dominant for a little spell there. And then suddenly, or bit by bit, he just rebuilt, got his confidence back and became an incredible winner again many times over. But I think of someone like Martina Hingis, who won at a very similar sort of age and then stopped winning. Now, she did have the Williams sisters up against her, which is not an insignificant element, and many other great champions of that time. Jim Currier won a lot here. He won two titles and reached three finals in a row in 91, 92, 93.

14:24David Law: And then that stopped happening. I mean, he played for another five, six years, and he never won it again. He never reached the final again.

14:32Matt Roberts: The Hingis one is an interesting comparison because she sprung to my mind as well. I think the thing about Hingis, you'll probably remember better than me, David, but she didn't decline. I mean, obviously at some stage she declined, but at the time that she sort of lost her footing at the top of the game, the game just overtook her, right? There was just such rapid pace of change in what dominated women's tennis and Lindsay Davenport started that. Matthew, if you're listening, justice for Lindsay Davenport. And obviously the Williams sisters... He's not listening. picked up that mantle and just, you know, sprinted with it from there.

15:09Matt Roberts: So Hingis kind of stood still while people ran past her. And, you know, people getting better is part of the problem, but Schwanzaek is going backwards, and that seems like a significant difference to me.

15:22David Law: It feels about her more, I mean, and not just the game moving on, but if she has regressed, that performance just, It's the only time it was familiar in that period of her career, in that spell when she was winning all these titles, was just after she'd won them and was off to Wimbledon.

15:42Catherine Whitaker: And Wimbledon is an interesting element here because, you know, last year she won Wimbledon and now, looking at the big picture, that very much feels like the outlier in terms of Igor Sviontek's trajectory over the past 18 months or so. And yet it perhaps serves as a reminder that, yes, she feels in decline, but it might not take like a huge amount to get back to the level that can win a slam because the level is so good that it's in her. And like, I think we talked about Wimbledon last year in terms of her feeling like some of that pressure was off and lower expectations seem to really help her.

16:32Catherine Whitaker: And I'm not predicting he's wanted to go and win Wimbledon again. But I do think some of that eventually might end up helping her again. And she might be able to tap into that kind of energy again later on in her career and squirt out another major, as Mary Carrillo would say. Do you know what I mean?

16:49Matt Roberts: I do, absolutely. She needs a serve, doesn't she? Because that was such a feature of her. I mean, clearly she needs a serve full stop everywhere, but it was such a feature of her Wimbledon title.

17:00Catherine Whitaker: Massively. And even in Cincinnati as well, where she won the title last year, you know, like it was a period where she served really well and it benefited her, but she needs it on all surfaces and she needs it to be more reliable, less attackable as a second serve. getting more free points as a first serve. Like, it needs a whole overhaul, really, because I think that is creating a lot of the pressure that she's feeling.

17:29Matt Roberts: It's chicken and egg, isn't it?

17:31Catherine Whitaker: She's under attack a lot because she hasn't got the serve.

17:35Matt Roberts: Well, Shrontek's defeat means we are guaranteed a new Roland Garros champion in both the men's and the women's draw. Obviously, in the men's draw, we're getting a new Grand Slam champion, full stop. We've still got major champions in the women's draw, but no former Roland Garros champions what a tournament is turning into him. Maybe that new champion could be Marta Kostiuk. How good was Marta Kostiuk today? How composed? How much did she look like the higher seed and the favourite for this match and the one that believed that she should be the one winning it?

18:11David Law: Yeah, she was the stable one, which is a very surprising thought to have when I think of these two players I think of Kostchuk as the spectacular one the one that can do the most incredible things physically around the court and and and is has developed herself into a real power player as well you know she hits everything she's got into shots and and has been getting more consistent with them but yeah she you say how good was she she was she was good enough i don't think this was her best day i don't think it needed to be what it needed to not be was the wheels coming off or getting derailed at any point and it just wasn't she she she played mature tennis and that is a vital ingredient i think if you want to win one of these because you're not going to play 9.5 out of 10 all the time she played 8 out of 10 probably today to win that match.

19:09David Law: I actually think she's got another level, another gear. If she could get really confident the way she did in Madrid, there's potential that she could really become the player in this draw.

19:25Catherine Whitaker: Yeah, I will already make a change to my mix from last night. Like, I felt like I needed, maybe I was just slow to this, but I felt like I needed to see Kostiuk beat someone of Igor Svantec's quality on this stage for me to put her in a mix, despite everything she's done on the clay. And look, I say a player of Igor Svantec's quality, we didn't really see Igor Svantec's quality today, but it is still Igor Svantec at Roland Garros. And I was so impressed by what David's talking about there in terms of how stable she was. You know, we know about the Kostiuk peaks, but I just don't think you can win Grand Slam tournaments being so in and out.

20:11Catherine Whitaker: And I think that is what she has improved on and delivered today. There was a really telling moment, I thought, at the end of the first set where, you know, Iguys Vjantek goes off court. Absolutely, I'm sure the right thing to do after the way that second set got out of hand for her. But it's kind of a sign that she's stressed, she's a bit uptight, she's thinking, God, I need to change something here. Marta Kostiuk's dancing along to the music on Court Philippe Chatre. I mean, who does that when you're playing Igu's Fiontech in this environment? She just seemed so at ease and so comfortable. And I find it really interesting now how she's capable of being in a match like this, a bit more of an underdog and able to swing away and attack.

21:01Catherine Whitaker: But also we saw her handle the previous few rounds of this tournament where she's favourite. And I was reading actually her coach's sub-stack today. Molly McHale, we drew my attention to it in her own sub-stack. And fascinating little insight in there from Sandra Zaniewska saying that she was so desperate for Kostiuk to go to Rouen and play that 250 event, because normally she plays 500s and thousands and slams. She said she needed to feel the pressure of being a number one seed and being the favourite in a tournament and having people try and beat her because to win a tournament like that when you're under the pressure, you need your level to hold.

21:43Catherine Whitaker: You can't be going in and out all the time. You've got to hold. That was the sort of phrase that she used. And I think she's capable now of playing in both those different styles. and yeah, today's like the final proof for me. I'm not necessarily predicting her but now I would no longer be surprised because she's just shown so much and maybe I was late to it but brilliant, brilliant from Kostiuk.

22:07Matt Roberts: That chimes so much with what she said in her press conference today, Kostiuk. My question to her because I'd been in her previous press conference when I was so struck by that I am the underdog against Shontek mentality. I believe I can win but I am clear underdog here and that mentality is important to me in this match-up. I said, are you at all concerned that now that you've beaten Niga Shontek and you're playing this well and you're on a 16-0 winning streak, you can't convince yourself of the underdog in these matches anymore? And she said, well, I don't need to. It was a real flex of an answer in a very low-key way but I loved that answer and that, gosh, that really chimes with what you've read there from her coach.

22:54Matt Roberts: Yeah, it was, I mean, she was a joy in press. She was incredibly open. She was asked a question about the decision to split with her mum as her coach, which she made in 2022. And, you know, how difficult that was. And that was a proactive decision on her part. Her mum was pretty shaken by it, I think. and she just delivered this incredible line about it, just the most self-aware, well-adjusted, just, I mean, the sort of line that every human being on the planet could learn a lot from, not least a lot of tennis players, but she said, when your mum is your coach, she said most of your identity is built on that person's perception of you and your tennis and for a while I was a while after they split she said for a while I was always wondering what my mum would be thinking of what I was doing on the court and she said it felt like only in 2024 that that link was broken that she wasn't constantly trying to please her her mum who was no longer there on the side of the court but she was kind of imagining her there on the side of the court and you know it spent two two years for her kind of to unpick unpick those knots and it was a it was a tremendous insight and I think an insight into how strong she is you know there's plenty of examples in tennis of players in clearly toxic parent coach dynamics that are unable to break those because it's bloody hard unimaginably hard i can't kind of get my head around how difficult and messed up that all is she did it she actually did it and well it's bearing fruit isn't it that and an awful lot of other decisions she's made over the last few years and i too would like to correct my past mistake and put her in my mix well some of us don't have to And she now, Marta Kostchuk, faces Alina Svitolina, an all-Ukrainian quarterfinal, a battle between the Rome champion and the Madrid champion.

25:13David Law: Oh, that's delicious.

25:14Matt Roberts: Svitolina having beaten Belinda Bencic, comeback win, 4-6, 6-4, 6-love. It was real don't mess with me, Svitolina, by the end of this match today, Matt.

25:26Catherine Whitaker: Yes, it was. This was quite a strange match. I thought. The first two sets were, you know, opposites, really, in that Bencic stormed out to a lead in the opener, was really dictating the play, I felt, in a way that she can, with ease, actually. She can take the ball early and rush you, take your time away. She's got weapons off both wings. She was really good. Svitolina got into the first set but couldn't quite bring it all the way back, and Bengtich won it. And then it was the opposite in the second set in that Svitolina took the lead and actually had points for a double break to go up 5-1, didn't convert those, and then found herself back on serve when Bengtich got it to 5-4.

26:14Catherine Whitaker: And I was thinking, OK, this is a big, big moment coming up. But Svitolina just stood up to that challenge and won that second set and carried this incredible energy into the third. You know, it's quite a thing when Svitolina gets her teeth into a match and starts playing the right way. You know, she still can start out a little bit passively at times. We saw that even in Rome. But once she gets going and finds that newfound aggression in her game, she doesn't let go of it. It's like the opposite of what we've just talked about with Svantec, who is in and out and might have a flash, but then suddenly it's five errors in a row.

26:56Catherine Whitaker: you're just not getting that from Svitolina at the moment. To use the term of Sandra Zaniewska, it's holding. Her level is holding. And there was just an absolutely brilliant game from Svitolina to break one love in the final set. A forehand inside-in winner, a backhand cross-court on the run for a winner, another backhand winner, and she just cracked the match open right there, took control of it. Vicky noted how she just broke out into a smile at that point as well, as though she was really enjoying the stage and how she was feeling and playing, and then absolutely ran through the rest of this match, dominating it and getting a six-love set and just kind of shrugged at the end.

27:46It's kind of like, it's what I do.

27:49Catherine Whitaker: It's not a huge deal, me winning this match. That's how well I'm playing. That's how good I'm feeling. And yeah, what a special quarterfinal to have the two Ukrainian players going up against each other. I think it's one of the most remarkable things happening in tennis at the moment, the form of so many of these Ukrainian women. And obviously Kostyuk and Svitolina are leading the way with that. It's incredible that there's guaranteed Ukrainian women in the semis here. Yeah, I would imagine that is going to be quite a mental task for them both, particularly Kostiuk, who will look up to Svisalina as the elder of the two and the one who's always been

28:37David Law: there. They obviously feel like they're representing the same cause beyond tennis. And yet they've got to play a tennis match and they've got to put that aside and get on with it. but they are playing just the tennis of their lives, both of them. It's incredible to witness, and I'm really looking forward to it as a match-up. I think they're both going to bring it. I think it could be a classic. Me too.

29:09Matt Roberts: Certainly hope so. That'll be in a couple of days' time. We don't know what the other quarterfinal yet is that will be set up today. We know one half of it, but we will save talking about it until we know what the other half will look like. So that'll come up in part two of today's show, as will the second men's quarterfinal that will have been set up by the late matches still to come tonight. We do, though, have one men's quarterfinal already set, and that is Rafael Hodar to take on Alexander Zverev. Zverev, we've just watched defeat Jesper de Jong, 7-6, 6-4, 6-1 on Chattere. Very comfortable in the end.

29:53Matt Roberts: But de Jong asked him some difficult questions in the early stages of this match. He's a tricky player. It always felt like, my goodness me, is this sustainable playing like this? But when he is playing like that, it's a lot of fun.

30:10David Law: It is. He's a sort of twitchy player. He buzzes around and then he does sting you. And he stung early. He went three love up in this match. He was darting winners. He hit two drop shots in the first game. He looked supremely confident. And I think Zverev was tight. He knows what's going on here. He knows that this is the opportunity he's been waiting for. He doesn't have Djokovic, Alcaraz, Sinner to contend with. He's the guy now. He's the guy who needs to go and grab this title. and he was shanking forehands all over the place. There were many that were hitting the net. He just didn't look confident.

30:49David Law: And yet it's the sort of measure of the sort of competitor he is. He still won the bloody set. You know, it got back to three games all. It went into a tie break. De Jong then went three love up in the tie break with two mini breaks. So he's had two pretty golden opportunities. And I think he should have won this set. But Zverev, he's sturdy like that. And he reeled off the next seven points, won that tiebreak. And honestly, the match was basically over after that. I do think De Jong played decently in the second set to stay with him to 4-5. But Zverev's good at playing the scoreboard. You know, and he only needed the one break.

31:27David Law: Pete Sampras made a career out of that. You know, just sort of keeping the scores close, holding on to your serve, then getting that break. But it's shone an interesting light on the different shades of Zverev's game, I felt, that we're seeing this year and particularly here at this tournament. Because, you know, he came out into this year insisting that he was going to be super aggressive. He was going to be taking the ball on. And it was all designed to find a way past Alcaraz, Sinner, maybe Djokovic. He hasn't got to play any of those this tournament. and he like I said he was tight first set second set he just went into the old mode he battened down the hatches and he was he was returning serve nearly falling over those blocks that all the players have been falling over the advertising blocks he was way back there even on second serves and he just kept getting the ball in and trying to get the guy to miss and it it worked in the end and then in the third set once he was confident then he stepped up and he showed us the tennis that he's been trying to build this year.

32:35David Law: So we saw three Zverevs in one match. So to me, it's fascinating to see which version of him we get for the next three rounds, because in many ways, he doesn't need to produce this hyper-aggressive tennis because he hasn't got to play any of these top guys.

32:49Matt Roberts: Which one would you advise him to produce against Rafael Hodar in the quarterfinals?

32:56David Law: Well, part of that answer is dependent on the condition of Hodar. I mean, I've seen his last two matches. I don't know how he's won either of them. I mean, huge credit to him. He's come back from two sets to one against Mickelson, two sets to Love today, helped maybe by the opponent's own conditions fading. But for a 19-year-old to do that, I think he's extremely impressive. But if he plays like that, Hodder, I think Zverev can afford to just be solid. And then when the ball is there to hit, and Zverev's really good at hitting aggressively from wide. You know, when the other guy steps on it, He's great at counterattacking.

33:33David Law: But the stepping in stuff, I think he needs to probably save that for when he's got a scoreboard advantage and he's feeling super confident.

33:45Matt Roberts: It's not been Hodder the Destroyer, has it, since round one? It's not been a Hodder that you would think that Zverath would have Zverath thinking, well, I've got to get in the first punch before he does. It was quite attritional, Hodder and Kareña Busta today. And if it's attritional, I'm backing Zverev against...

34:06David Law: Hodder's going to have to go back to the guy we saw in Barcelona and Madrid if he wants to beat Zverev. You're not going to outlast Zverev.

34:14Matt Roberts: It is bizarre that he's not that guy, especially given the physical condition he must be in. You'd think he'd be desperate to make the rally shorter.

34:23David Law: I saw the first two sets and he was really poor. He went 4-1 up, he was looking good, and then he lost nine games in a row. And, I mean, look, part of this must be physical, but he also lost his... I mean, Karina Buster played beautifully for two sets. He was rolling about the ears. He's got such a great backhand on the line. He was making Hodder look as green as he kind of is. I didn't see the latter part. I mean, I saw it on the screen, and I think he was probably growing in confidence as Corona Buster's battery started to drain and he had a bit of a shoulder problem too. But I just think if he's got the energy somewhere in the reserves, he's going to have to come out firing in this next match because I think that game can hurt Zverev.

35:13Yeah, do you think that being the underdog might help him do that?

35:19David Law: Yeah, I think it might. That's right, you know. I think it's an interesting point, isn't it? I mean, actually, what I do think he's done, Catherine, you know, we have these big doubts about him over the distance. He's just come through to five sets. I wasn't expecting that. You know, he showed real grit. But to answer your question, yes, it must be very strange. A year ago... I had not heard of him. No, barely heard of him. I don't think I even had.

35:41Matt Roberts: I heard of him during our Fantasy League team selections at the start of this year when Hannah, Mystic Meg Hannah, popped up and said, with her last remaining pennies, while I was shopping for Daphne Pesci Pericar, Hannah popped up and snapped up.

36:02David Law: Could you have afforded it? Not quite.

36:04Matt Roberts: I couldn't even have afforded Raphael Hodar.

36:06David Law: Before he was Raphael Hodar?

36:08Matt Roberts: No, no, that's why I was shopping for Daphne Pesci Pericar, David.

36:12David Law: OK, all right. I won't tell you how well I'm doing in the fan suit, but it's going on.

36:15Matt Roberts: And they're new things. Yeah.

36:17Catherine Whitaker: And, like, I feel so caught off guard by Hardal. Yeah, me too. And I think part of it is not only has he, like, arrived and been really impressive, it's the consistency that I think is throwing me off the most. You know, we see players arrive and they have this peak and then they'll disappear and then they might rise again before they get steady. He's made the quarterfinals of every event he's played on the clay this season, which is just not something that players who are new and green and fresh really do. Like, it's absolutely remarkable. And yeah, I feel very caught off guard by him. I feel a bit ambushed by Hodder.

37:02Matt Roberts: Yeah, whereas Alcaraz, Matt had spotted him as a 13-year-old and was waiting for his talent spotting to come to fruition so he could be smug. he's having the opposite experience with Chodar and he's all at sea.

37:16Catherine Whitaker: If it's not me talent spotting someone always has someone had picked out Fonseca we knew about him. Well he was at college wasn't he?

37:24Matt Roberts: He was in an incubation

37:25Catherine Whitaker: pod.

37:26Matt Roberts: These players do emerge he didn't complete his degree did he? But when they're in college they're sort of, I know people that are really following that scene closely will have known about him but it is like they're incubating and then released like a fully formed butterfly onto the tennis scene rather than players that come through juniors and we see their names in the junior draws at slams and we see their name pop up in the WhatsApp group because they're coming to press. That's my explanation anyway.

37:58David Law: Matt Roberts, not a Hodder guy because he didn't count spot him.

38:02Catherine Whitaker: Is that what it is? I promise it's not, but I know I have made it sound like that. In the week he gets his Spanish passport,

38:10Matt Roberts: he's decided not to be a Hodder guy.

38:12Catherine Whitaker: Lander Luffey, I'm all in.

38:16Matt Roberts: What percentage chance do you give Hodder in that match?

38:21David Law: Probably 35, maybe four. No, not 35, I would say. Yeah, I do think there's a scenario where he can come out and hurt Zverev. I think he's got the game to do it, but he's going to have to find the guy from a few weeks ago and he's going to have to play that to its extreme. I am interested, though, by his grit. It's just whether... I mean, he might be completely empty in that match physically. Matt? Yeah, I'm pretty concerned about that element

38:54Catherine Whitaker: and I suppose I would go a slightly lower percentage than David. Probably 20%, 25%, something like that. because I think Zverev can win this match in a couple of ways, whereas I think Hodder can only win it in one way, which is playing the kind of tennis we saw before this tournament, swinging, connecting, taking it to Zverev. I think Zverev can play the way he wants to or says he wants to, which is a bit more aggressive, or he can go into that lockdown mode and David talked about how effective Krenia Buster's backhand down the line is. I know someone else who's got a pretty good backhand down the line and that's Zverev.

39:39Catherine Whitaker: And I think he can absorb a lot of what Hodder will bring at him. It wouldn't shock me if Hodder comes out swinging and gets a set, but I think it's so hard to put Zverev away over five and I think Hodder needed more in the tank than he's got. and I think Svev will win.

40:01Matt Roberts: It also wouldn't surprise me if Hodder came out like Ekob Menschik against Alex de Minoune, took a set to turn his body on.

40:08Catherine Whitaker: Right, also possible. Five points.

40:09Matt Roberts: Five points in a set. But then roars back to win the next three. He wouldn't mind that. There's a lesson there for us all. It's still the weirdest match of the tournament.

40:18Catherine Whitaker: Still. It's been a weird tournament.

40:19Matt Roberts: It sure has. That's it for part one. We will be back in part two and all the fun of the night session has happened. And we'll look ahead to tomorrow's night session, which has a few surprises.

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42:34Matt Roberts: Welcome back to today's tennis podcast on day eight of the French Open, where it is now close to one o 'clock in the morning. And we do now know the full quarterfinal lineup from today's halves of the draw. Starting where we left off with the men and joining Alexander Zverev and Rafael Hodar in the last eight is a second 19-year-old, Joao Fonseca. He has just beaten former finalist here, Kasper Rood, on court Philippe Chetre, which is lying dormant just behind us here in spectacular fashion. 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2. Matt, the most spectacular tennis you've seen since the last time you watched Joel Fonseca play.

43:21Catherine Whitaker: That is exactly right. He is something else, isn't he? Very, very special. You know, we said the other day when he beat Nauad Djokovic, so that felt like a coming of age match and watching him tonight trying to do the really hard thing of backing up the big win, I was left with that sense again of just how much that Djokovic match could well have been the making of him you know like we always say that clay is tennis's classroom well to sort of stretch the analogy further Djokovic is the head teacher right and you can learn an awful lot against him and it just seems like Fonseca has and it just seems like he's got that mindset of well I've beaten Novak Djokovic on that stage very little is going to phase me now and he was absolutely brilliant again tonight against Kasparud who I also thought was brilliant both of these players brought it it was a spectacular occasion here on Chatrier tonight so much scintillating tennis between them and the end of the second set as Fonseca won this thrilling tie break was electrifying.

44:45Catherine Whitaker: And then a flurry of shot-making brilliance from Fonseca in the fourth set to stop it from going into five and to halt Casparud's momentum, who'd taken the third. Those are the two things that will live with me the most from this match. It was wonderful. Yeah.

45:06Matt Roberts: Yeah, I share all of those thoughts and feelings. As much as there was so much spectacular about this match from both players, Kasper Ruud was awesome tonight and he's got one set to show for it. That tells you a lot about what we're seeing from Joel Fonseca here. But as much as this match was about the spectacular, I think what will stay with me is, unsexy word here, but the resilience of Joel Fonseca. two moments. The first one at the end of the second set when he celebrated winning the set before hearing the out call on the shot. And he was in a full body celebration. He did sort of manage to pull it back just at the last moment.

45:48Matt Roberts: But honestly, I just wouldn't recover from that. That would be game over for me right then and there. And he just head down onto the next one. The second thing was bouncing back from losing the third set that he had invested so much in. This was such a physical battle. It has made me feel so tired watching it. And the disappointment of losing a set that you've invested that much in to come back and break Kasparud immediately and put the foot on the pedal and win that deciding set 6-2. I didn't realise he was that guy, David.

46:28David Law: Not yet, anyway. That was the stuff of champions, really, to this point, until two sets to love down against Novak Djokovic, he'd stalled, really, in terms of clear progress publicly. I think he'd been working well behind the scenes to build some foundations, really. But his exciting stuff had come a couple of years ago and then maybe a year and a half ago. But this was champion-like quality today. because it wasn't just shot making. He's got good combinations. He's throwing in serve and volleys. He kind of finished it all off with an incredible lob volley, which was just delectable. I mean, it was the sort of thing that you'd see Alcaraz doing.

47:20Matt Roberts: There were moments where he was baiting Kasparud into errors, weren't there, which was so clever.

47:26David Law: Yeah, there was a bit of that between them, you know, because Rude was trying to work out, do I try and stand up to this and go and take the play away from him or do I try to get him to miss? And then, as you say, Fonseca turned that back on him. And really, I thought, looked the more likely to win the third set and win it in three. And the fact that he didn't and still won the match in quick-fire style the next set, I mean, I think we're talking about somebody who, yeah, the coming-of-age thing against Djokovic, And it's such an easy cliche to say, but it feels like that. I mean, I can't believe that this is a guy who was two sets left down against Dino Prismic a couple of rounds ago.

48:10David Law: He's obviously two sets down against Djokovic, but he's been a different bloke since then. And, I mean, the last two games in the tiebreak of the second set, I was commentating on them for BBC Radio. I was told that they lasted 51 minutes for two.

48:27Matt Roberts: With the tiebreak?

48:28David Law: Yeah.

48:30Matt Roberts: So two games plus tiebreak, 51 minutes.

48:33David Law: 51 minutes and multiple set points on either side and he comes out on top. I mean, I think there are a couple of moments that Rude will think, my luck's just not in. But even so...

48:47Catherine Whitaker: Yeah, everyone was tight, including that line judge on the baseline. He had a couple of calls very close to each other that I think were questionable. and yet those two holds a serve before the tie break, both of them showed a lot of strength of character in those moments and it wasn't like every point was a winner. There was a lot of maybe a bit of overhitting or a poor decision but they wouldn't let it get to them. They would follow it up with something incredibly special and that was really special to witness. And yeah, like Rude in that moment was like the most electrifying player in the draw.

49:34He turned into Jimmy Connors,

49:37Catherine Whitaker: defending all the smashes and getting them back and getting them back and then getting them back. Defensive lobs. It was crazy. And then finishing it with a winner and then he hit a winner on the next point. Like everyone was going mad for Kasper Rude. It was amazing. And then, like, Fonseca, when he won that set, the guy in front of us here in the press seats screamed into his phone, sending a voice note, I'm guessing, to someone back in Brazil about the Fonseca scenes he was witnessing. Like, I've thought this before about Fonseca, but he moves people in stadiums like you don't really see in tennis.

50:14Catherine Whitaker: You know, people hugging and high-fiving and emoting emoting in a way that just isn't typical to a tennis crowd. It's very, very special. And, okay, I didn't quite have the energy of the Djokovic match. And it's a shame because, you know, it gets so late here and the stadium thins out a little bit. It wasn't packed at the end. But it was still a great atmosphere tonight. And I've just never seen a Fonseca match that isn't. You know, like, it's brilliant what he brings to tennis.

50:47Matt Roberts: All of it watched on from the front row of the president's box. You know, when Fonseca was down that end, we're talking metres away, only a couple of metres away sometimes, by Gustavo Curtin. David Howell, who was... You probably couldn't see because you were up here in the press seats for Matchpoint, but his eyes were wet.

51:10David Law: Yeah, they showed him on the big screen here, and it was very moving. to see how much they mean to each other, how much the young pretender, the hopeful for the future wants to be like this guy and loves the fact that he showed an interest in him when he was a junior here. And you can see Gustavo Kürten is just as lovely as you hope he will be. I've worked with him for a number of years at the ATP. I joined the ATP in 1998, the year after he'd won Roland Garros in such surprising fashion. And we've got a tennis tree lived out there, if you ever want to go and listen to it, where I got to interview Guga about that run to the title.

51:55David Law: And he's such a lovely bloke. He's revered and loved without limits in Brazil. And you can tell that he thinks he's in the presence of something special here, and he's loving it. And honestly, it's got a similar feel to 97. It does have, because this is what Guga was doing to people. He was, I don't know what he was in the world, 60-odd? 66 he was. 66 in the world, you know, and he was...

52:30Matt Roberts: Had a similar round three was his massive win, where people took up and sat up and took notice. Thomas Mustard, who'd won it two years before and was at the time the fifth seed.

52:41David Law: Yeah, and the way he played the sport, there was a freedom about it. Whereas Muster was trying to grind you into the dirt. I love it when you say that. It's true. I mean, he took great pleasure in it. He wanted to make you miserable. Curtin wanted to do the opposite. He wanted to make everybody smile with his shot making. And Fonseca in the post-match interview on court tonight, He said, you know, I'm just me. I just want to hit good, exciting shots and make everybody happy, you know, and entertain people. I mean, what a thing to say when you've just won. It's just so great. And, yeah, I mean, you got giddy watching Guga in that first year wearing his Brazilian colour shirt, blue and yellow Deodora shirt back in the day, and people still wear it watching Fonseca.

53:37David Law: you know the exact replica of that shirt and and then he won it two more times on top of that but the first one because it just he was just such a new name i remember guga telling telling me in that interview you know that he'd come over i think from the tournament in hamburg and he he got no form at all and just like fonseca has come into the you know and he's he's nearly been bounced out of the tournament, two sets of love down against Prism, it's playing like a drain, really, you know? And then suddenly he's just, he's back, he's here, and he's found it, and he's found it, and then some.

54:14Matt Roberts: Are we worried about his canister, or is he so young and, you know, it's a grand slam, so OK, it's best of five, but there's also a day off in between rounds, and what the youngsters have over the older players, what the biggest physical advantage, Obviously, there's an in-match physical advantage, but the recovery advantage is huge, isn't it? We're going to talk about Jakub Menchik in a moment, who seems to have the power to revive the dead. The undertaker. I'm talking about his own legs.

54:46Catherine Whitaker: Yeah, it makes me think a little bit of Carlos Alcaraz's run at the US Open in 2022 when he kept going five sets, and they were very late five-set matches, weren't they, against Sinner and Tiafoe. and he just kept coming back. And Alcaraz, I think, is a different level of physicality, even to Fonseca. But I agree with you. Like, when you're 19, I think you can recover better between matches. I felt like he'd recovered better than Ruud from the last round tonight, Fonseca. And also, if he can get through the quarterfinal against Mensik, he then has two days off, you know, because that will be on Tuesday and the semi-final would then be on Friday.

55:34Catherine Whitaker: And I think, well, look, I think that's massive for whoever wins out of Fonseca and Mensik, especially if they end up playing Zverev in the semi-final. They're going to need everything they've got. And that extra day could be a difference maker.

55:49Matt Roberts: I mean, the good and bad news for him is that he's facing Jakub Mensik, a 20-year-old in the next round, who's played even more tennis than him. He's played about all the tennis that has been available for a human man to play over the first week of Roland Garros. So that's sort of an advantage. The downside is that it doesn't even matter to Jakub Menchik. He was in a wheelchair four days ago. He's now in the Roland Garros quarterfinal. I mean, midway through this match tonight against Andrei Ryblev, he looked ready to get in a wheelchair. and then he's fresh as a daisy half an hour later. Like, honestly, his powers of revival are something else.

56:31Matt Roberts: He is tough to put away, David.

56:34David Law: Yeah, he is. It's really impressive. He is... He's earned a bit of a reputation of being somebody who doesn't have a tank to dip into. And he's faded badly in some longer matches. Well, I think I said it the other day about Hodder and Landaluthe. You know, they're proving that they can go into the trenches and have a really physical succession of battles. And now Mensik's doing this. It's really big for their aura. I feel like that about Fonseca as well.

57:10Matt Roberts: Big year for Mensik, actually. So it was a breakthrough for him in Australia. That was his first major round of 16. This is his first major quarterfinal. He was another one that was accused a bit of stalling after he had that breakthrough winning Miami last year. Like, oh, why aren't you doing that week in, week out? But, you know, this is significant progress for him in 2026. I need just a moment to talk about his mum who was courtside. And actually, I thought for a lot of the time really kept her cool. She was sort of laughing and joking. But then there were also moments when I really felt for it.

57:48Matt Roberts: I do find it tough when the parents are courtside. But, yeah, in the end, relief for the Menchik family. So in two days' time, we'll get a 19-year-old against a 20-year-old in the Roland Garros quarterfinals. Fun.

58:04David Law: It's great. It's so interesting how the sport works and kind of not reinvents itself, but it comes again. It was so many blows one after another before this tournament when Alcraz was out and then Art of Feast. Obviously, I'm talking about my favourites here in a way, you know, and people that make me excited to watch and obviously what happened to Sinner. And, you know, these are blows on one level. And yet round after round, day after day, it's been revitalised. It's had a new lease of life. and to see these young lads taking advantage and not just doing it through shot making, showing real grit and heart and the stuff that you need.

58:57David Law: I think it's exciting for the next few rounds and it's exciting for the future generally.

59:03Matt Roberts: Speaking of youngsters, Mira Androva, back in the Roland Garros quarterfinal, she beat Jill Teichman, 6-3, 6-2, who was excellent in this match, was Mira Andreva, celebrated with a huge fist pump and roar in the direction of the Teichmann support camp.

59:24Catherine Whitaker: The support camp stroke fan club stroke cheer squad that had not only seemed to have expanded in numbers from the previous round, but also have moved slightly closer to the court. you know and I really thought that could bother Andrava you know especially on Longlen you know like if this match had been on Chatrier you know they would have had less impact but on Longlen it's more intimate they're closer and they were doing their thing and Teichman was doing her thing at the start of this match it was close but Andrava has a you know she's got way more game than Teichman she's also better able to cope with of Teichman's leftiness than Mukova was.

1:00:10Catherine Whitaker: You know, I talked about the Teichman forehand jumping up at the Mukova backhand, and Mukova wanted to slice a lot of those shots. Well, Andreeva's got one of the best two-handers in the game, and she dealt with that shot incredibly well. She's also got her own court craft. I think she deployed that pretty nicely, and she's got more power than Teichman, and all of it came together for a really, really nice performance. and yeah, it's a big win for Andreeva. She's been doing a lot of it, hasn't she? I think she's won the most matches on tour this season.

1:00:42Matt Roberts: Yeah, the winningest player.

1:00:43Catherine Whitaker: As they say.

1:00:44Matt Roberts: As some people say, yeah.

1:00:46Catherine Whitaker: And like the next step is trying to finish off one of these tournaments and, you know, she's right there because it's such an open tournament, especially in this half now with Fiontech going out.

1:01:02Matt Roberts: Yeah, Saronica Steyer for her next, who's a really brilliant 2026. Her retirement season continues 6-1, 7-6 for her against Wong Ziyu. It's her third major quarterfinal in a 19-year career. It's her second here at Roland Garros and her first was in 2009. Would either of you like to submit a guess as to who she lost to in that 2009 quarterfinal?

1:01:36Catherine Whitaker: 2009. That was the Kuznetsova year. I'll go for... Oversafina, was it one of those?

1:01:49Catherine Whitaker: Dimensheva?

1:01:51Matt Roberts: Incorrect. Matt.

1:01:54Catherine Whitaker: Well, I don't know, so I will say one of Kuznetsov or Saffrona.

1:01:58Matt Roberts: No, this player then went on to lose to Kuznetsov in the semis. It was Sam Stoza.

1:02:04Catherine Whitaker: Wow. Yeah, very good Frank Schopen record.

1:02:10Matt Roberts: I mean, that is unreal, isn't it? Her last role on Gareth's quarterfinal in 2009. Yeah, that's crazy. She says she's not changing on her retirement decision, but she also said she hasn't given it any thought at all. She's leaving a sliver of window open, I would say, as is her right. Absolutely. You go for it, Serana. So Andreeva Castella will be our second women's quarterfinal in a couple of days' time. That is it for part two. Join us in part three, though, for an intriguing order of play to run through for day nine. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85 % of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform.

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1:03:52Matt Roberts: Welcome back to part three of today's podcast. Very, very quick cursory awarding of Muscataire of the Day, just for the sake of consistency. We scrolled very deep through the results of today and we found an Edouard Roger Vasselin. Well done, Edouard. Who won a round two mixed doubles match with Laura Siegmund. And I think we can all agree that that is heroic.

1:04:15Catherine Whitaker: Worthy of a prize.

1:04:16Matt Roberts: on all fronts. So, Edouard Roger Vasselin is our musketeer of the day. Congratulations now. Big moment at about 2pm this afternoon in the press room, I'm sure, elsewhere as well when the order of play dropped for tomorrow. Day nine of the French Open. Philippe Chatrier looks like this. Opening the day session, Flavio Caboli against Zachary Schweider. Second on, Maja Kvalinska up against Diane Parry, the last French player standing. Third on, Félix Auger-Eliassime against Alejandro Tabilo, which means in the night session, not before 8.15, is Irina Sabalenka against Naomi Osaka. This tournament has had 33 night sessions in a row, a match that is billed as the match of the day across three years, and they have featured no women.

1:05:21David Law: Just saying it out loud makes it even worse.

1:05:26Catherine Whitaker: Yeah, and I thought they had got to a point where they were only picking men's matches because of, quote-unquote, length, because it's only one match and you're guaranteed at least three sets if there's no injury in a men's match. And they thought that that was the way to do this night session. What they've done here by scheduling Osaka Sabalenko in this slot is showing that actually it's not necessarily just about length of match. they can put women in there and they've been actively choosing not to for 33 straight matches and it's taken a lot of men going out of this tournament for them to think, oh, maybe let's put some women on and they've been choosing over the last three years not to have women in this slot even though they very, very much could have done it.

1:06:35Catherine Whitaker: it really tells you quite a lot, I think. Yeah, it feels like they've exposed themselves.

1:06:43Matt Roberts: Yeah. I think it's a catastrophic PR misstep. If I was the tournament or Amelie Maresmo's PR or comms person, I would say stick to the line of, you know... Length. Length. Stick to that. I know she's never explicitly said that's our policy, but it's been implied and we've sort of...

1:07:04Catherine Whitaker: She's talked about it in press conferences in answers to questions.

1:07:07Matt Roberts: Yeah, we've assumed for the last 33 night sessions that that is at least the fig leaf that they're hiding behind as justification. I mean, I don't believe that, but I believe it is, you know, what they tell themselves to sleep at night. They've totally blown it out of the water. I think this is... I mean, obviously it doesn't matter because they don't care. That much is true. but I think this is, yeah, exposing is exactly the right word. They have been making qualitative decisions every day for 33 days and decided that not one women's match across 33 days and three years is worthy of being the headline match of the day.

1:07:52Matt Roberts: It's disgraceful. Yeah.

1:07:55David Law: I think one of the issues with, I totally take your point about it being a PR misstep in terms of logic. You've got a logic fail based on what your argument is about why you've been doing this. You've just provided the complete counter to it. I just don't think enough interest is around here to challenge it. I think the international media will, as they have done for the last four years of which we've been part. But I don't think locally they do challenge it.

1:08:33Matt Roberts: Yeah, you're right. I don't think they're thinking, oh, God, we're going to get pelters for this. We might be exposed. I just don't think they worry about that clearly. I think Emily Merezmo probably is anxious about the prospect of the press conference. She does. I don't think she likes seeing us particularly, does she, in that press conference. but once she gets that over with I think everybody goes back to not worrying about it too much

1:08:56Catherine Whitaker: I think they'll give themselves a big pat on the back a big seat we'll put a women's match on, you're happy now? no, you're still not happy? it'll be something like that, would be my guess

1:09:08Matt Roberts: absolutely Longlen tomorrow we have Potopova Kalinskaya first up, Madison Keyes big chat in the group chat today about whether she's a dormant volcano You know, the adjudication is Matt?

1:09:21Catherine Whitaker: Yes.

1:09:22Matt Roberts: Madison Keyes, officially Dormant Volcano. She takes on Diana Schneider tomorrow. Juan Manuel Sarundolo against Matteo Bertini, third on. And fourth on, Tiafoe against Arnaldi. Hopefully, there's some French players in doubles tomorrow so that we have... Oh, sorry. That was Diane Parry erasure there. If Diane Parry doesn't win, hopefully there's some French players in doubles. In fact, I can see that there are two French teams playing against one another on Simone Mature tomorrow. So we're guaranteed to have Muscataire of the Day contenders. Phew. Apologies, Diane Parry. Hello to Bashir, our lovely mascot today, who is really channeling my current feelings with a massive yawn in this photo that I'm looking at.

1:10:10Matt Roberts: Elise says, we always bounce back. Actually, I don't know if it's Vicky saying that or Elise or maybe Bashir. Either way, they're right. We bounce back, folks. That's the story of a Grand Slam tournament. Hello to our mascots, Bodhi, Maisie and Roger. Hello to our top folks and executive producers, Greg, Chris and Jeff. Matt, let's have some shout-outs.

1:10:33Catherine Whitaker: We have Leslie Giannelli. Oh. Hi, Leslie.

1:10:38Matt Roberts: Hi, Leslie. That's a slightly Italian flavour. Makes me think of the man behind me in the press room earlier that after a particularly extravagant rally between Rude and Fonseca, actually shouted, Mama Mia!

1:10:55Catherine Whitaker: That's perfectly fitting. Was it the same man who has the Star Wars theme tune as his... It wasn't. I love that. As his phone ringtone.

1:11:05Matt Roberts: On full volume.

1:11:06Catherine Whitaker: In a workroom. It's so funny. And sometimes leaves his phone at the desk. Yeah. So it just goes on until someone stops it. And let me tell you,

1:11:15Matt Roberts: It's not like a fun inside joke that he chuckles at every time it happens. We do. Totally straight face. Yeah. Everybody else in the room is looking at one another, cracking up or furious, depending on what their state of mind is at the time. And he's just straight faced answering his phone.

1:11:33David Law: Like Leslie Allen. Like Leslie Allen, the lovely former tennis player. Leslie Bowery. Yeah.

1:11:41Matt Roberts: Leslie's are actually big on the show, aren't they? because Leslie Allen has been on the show before.

1:11:45David Law: That's right.

1:11:46Matt Roberts: And Leslie Bowery has spiritually been on the show. Yeah, absolutely.

1:11:50David Law: Always with us in Australia.

1:11:51Matt Roberts: Always.

1:11:51David Law: Yes, she is the statue at the Australian Open where we recorded our Emergency Serena Williams has Just Lost podcast about seven years ago.

1:12:05Catherine Whitaker: When David was trying to make two podcasts in one day happen. Yeah, didn't really take off. We did it at once.

1:12:11Matt Roberts: Yeah, I nipped that in the pot.

1:12:13Catherine Whitaker: It's where we had a friends meet-up this year, wasn't it? Yeah. We met at Lesley Bowery.

1:12:19Matt Roberts: Very good times. Thank you, Lesley.

1:12:21Catherine Whitaker: We also have Kedar Nagarajan.

1:12:25Matt Roberts: Hello, Kedar.

1:12:27Catherine Whitaker: Hey, Kedar. Who is from Bangalore but lives in New York. Oh. And Kedar says, I've been a long-time listener. I started about 10 or 12 episodes before Matt's debut.

1:12:39David Law: Wow. That is going back. We're talking eight years now. Matt, you've been doing this. I know. It's good, isn't it? It's pretty great.

1:12:48Matt Roberts: He might have thought we were introducing Fresh Blood every ten episodes and you were part of a revolving door.

1:12:55David Law: How many would we have? We'd fill this press box if we had them.

1:12:59Catherine Whitaker: What I'm wondering is whether he means my sort of proper debut.

1:13:04Matt Roberts: Or the Karen Hashanov takes.

1:13:06Catherine Whitaker: Exactly. What was your proper debut? I did about 10 minutes on a US Open pod in 2017. You did. You were rubbish, though. So we didn't let you on from the back.

1:13:20Matt Roberts: Diehards are scrabbling back through the archive now to find that. I can't remember which day it was. Yeah, the real OGs.

1:13:26Catherine Whitaker: Remember that one?

1:13:28Matt Roberts: There's actually, for people that have been listening a while, there's a real treat on our Instagram at the moment. Just head to our stories. Sorry, Matt.

1:13:39Catherine Whitaker: That's all right Sound on Introduce it to a new audience Sound on

1:13:43Matt Roberts: Go to our Insta stories

1:13:46Catherine Whitaker: And finally we have Sarah Brody from Durham But living in Sydney, Australia

1:13:54Matt Roberts: That's where Matt was living when we first met him

1:13:56Catherine Whitaker: Was indeed Durham For that 2017 debut Not Sydney Unlike Naomi Brody Very good

1:14:04Matt Roberts: And like Sarah Borwell

1:14:05David Law: And Sarah Gomer

1:14:09Catherine Whitaker: and our Sarah has a lovely message which I will read lovely note to end on I think Sarah says huge thank you to my sister Katie for a shout out gift and to my mum Maggie the one who brought tennis into our lives in the first place our tennis obsessed mum used to take us to camp out for tickets at Wimbledon back when the queue meant erecting a tent on the pavement at seven years old I genuinely thought that was what camping was and honestly it felt worth it when the reward was being completely swept up in the magic of centre court. Since then tennis has lived rent free in my soul. There's nothing quite like it.

1:14:54Matt Roberts: Well, that's perfection. Thank you Sarah, that's a very beautiful note to end on. Thank you Kedar, thank you Leslie, we're part of the Athletic Podcast Network we'll be back tomorrow Thank you for listening.

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