Federer's back, briefly
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2021
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roger Federer returned to action after 405 days and two knee surgeries with a 3-set win over Dan Evans before a 3-set loss to Nikoloz Basilashvili in Doha.
Catherine, David and Matt discuss how it felt to watch him play again, what we made of his two performances, whether we were surprised or in any way alarmed by how quickly he faded physically, and our immediate reaction to his decision to skip Dubai next week.
Elsewhere, who has more potential out of Fritz and Shapovalov? How has Rublev reached the semi-finals in Doha without even playing a match? How good was Muguruza to beat Sabalenka for the second week running? And what happened to Pegula against Mertens?
The Tennis Podcast is presented by Catherine Whitaker and David Law, and features Matt Roberts. It is produced weekly year-round, and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Billie Jean King. This is Mary and Bartolí. I'm Matt Vylander. This is Mary Carillo. |
| 0:05.3 | I'm Stan Ravinka. I'm Lainey Hutt. I'm Andy Murray. This is Yannick Noah and you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:22.2 | Hello folks, and welcome to your midweek tennis podcast, a podcast that was very nearly recorded |
| 0:29.2 | on Wednesday evening following Roger Federer's first match back after a 14-month hiatus, a 3-set win |
| 0:37.5 | over Brit Dan Evans. How different might that podcast have sounded had it been recorded yesterday |
| 0:45.2 | versus being recorded now after his 3-set loss to Nikolos Baselash Villy? That is the punchy question |
| 0:55.1 | that I put to you, David Law and Matt Roberts, whoever wants to take it first. |
| 1:01.5 | Well, I think I should own up and say that it's because of Matt Roberts that we're recording it now |
| 1:05.9 | and not a fight of had my way, which was last night because I was a bit overexcited to just get |
| 1:12.2 | chatting. Would we have been so overexcited that it would now be out of date? How different need, |
| 1:18.6 | I think what I'm getting at is how differently do we feel about where Roger Federer is at and what |
| 1:23.2 | he's capable of after two matches than we did after one? I'm in a similar place, but Matt watched |
| 1:30.3 | both matches more closely, so I'm going to defer to Matt. Oh, hospital pass, Matt, enjoy. |
| 1:37.7 | I think yesterday we would have been extremely positive about Federer, and I think today we probably |
| 1:45.3 | should still be positive about Federer because Federer is being positive about Federer, and I think |
| 1:51.7 | we should take him at his word and agree that this has been a good week for him. He gained the |
| 1:58.6 | matches that he wanted. He felt pretty good on the court. Our eyes maybe didn't always align |
| 2:05.7 | with that viewpoint today. There was a moment in his match today where his movement did |
| 2:12.6 | really stop almost altogether, and it was quite difficult to watch at times, but I think |
| 2:19.7 | that's a difficult thing to do to have tempered expectations of Roger Federer, but it's absolutely |
| 2:25.1 | what we need to have, and he's upbeat. He said he's already over it. He flew into his press conference |
| 2:31.2 | after the loss today. Said he's over it is positive generally, and therefore I think we probably |
... |
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