Alcaraz wins 12 in a row and Fils-Ivanisevic: The Inside Story
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2026
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Part one - WTA Dubai (00:00 - 44:40). Jessica Pegula has capped a remarkable recent run with a big title. Is she playing the best tennis of her career? And what makes her so well set up to be a consistent force? We also cover an extraordinary semi-final won by Elina Svitolina against Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova finding some form, and the announcement of the new WTA Tour Architecture Council as the withdrawals and retirements in Dubai piled up. Can they make meaningful and beneficial changes to the schedule?
Part two - ATP Results (44:41 - 1:21:13). Carlos Alcaraz put in an astonishing performance to win his second title of the season, while Jannik Sinner was upset by Jakub Mensik in the quarter-finals. Is Alcaraz moving ahead of Sinner, or is it too soon to say? Elsewhere, David gives us the exciting lowdown on the new Goran Ivanisevic-Arthur Fils partnership, and there are titles for Tomas Martin Etcheverry in Rio and Sebastian Korda in Delray Beach to discuss.
Part three (1:21:14 - 1:35:57) - A look ahead to this week as Jack Draper and Bianca Andreescu return to the tour while Acapulco is set to begin despite violent clashes in Mexico.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is presented by ServiceNow. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at |
| 0:06.6 | servicenow.com. Well, hello and welcome to the tennis podcast on this fine Monday morning, the final Monday morning of what has been an absolutely revolting February in the UK. |
| 0:30.4 | So hopefully change is in the air for us and for the architecture of the WTA, apparently. More on that later. My two favourite people |
| 0:41.3 | are here. Matt Roberts, how you doing? Very well, thank you. Yes, I saw a sun emoji in my weather |
| 0:50.2 | app for this week and 17 degrees. It's coming. Spring is coming. I put that day in my |
| 0:59.0 | diary. I was so excited about it just under the title spring. David, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm all right. I've played tennis three times since you last saw me. |
| 1:14.2 | I don't think I'd played tennis three times in the last year. |
| 1:17.3 | So, you know, I've been trying to imagine myself as Carlos Alcara's sort of marauding in towards the net. |
| 1:25.7 | And then realizing I don't have any reflexes when I'm there. |
| 1:28.7 | So that's been a bit of a downer to have that grim realisation. |
| 1:32.7 | But apart from that, I've very much enjoyed it. |
| 1:35.2 | And I still beat my kids. |
| 1:37.7 | Should we ditch Dubai and lead with Solly Hull? |
| 1:43.2 | They're catching me up. What were the results up there? |
| 1:45.8 | Yeah, well, you know, we played 10 point tie breaks |
| 1:49.0 | and if you do enough drop shots |
| 1:52.6 | and mess them about enough, |
| 1:53.8 | they still can't quite cope. |
| 1:56.9 | And that would be your tactic in the one point slam. |
| 2:00.4 | Absolutely, that's what I'm training the one point slam. Absolutely. |
| 2:02.5 | That's what I'm training for. |
| 2:04.8 | Don't mention that. |
... |
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