Hello and welcome to Roland Garros and daily podcast number three of 18 from the grounds of the second Grand Slam of the season.

David, Matt and I are in what is fast becoming our usual spot in the shadow of court

Suzanne Longland.

The temperature is still in the high 20s here in the early evening.

It's been an absolutely beautiful day in Paris.

And we are joined today by special guest, Ava Wallace, the newest addition to the athletics

tennis team. Ava, thank you very much for coming on the show today. I know the tennis beat

isn't new to you and Roland Garros, the place isn't new to you, but Roland Garros, the tournament

is. I don't know if you know, but David had a sort of out-of-body experience the first time he came here in a good way. Okay. How has your experience, first Roland Garris experience, been? Oh, no, I don't know that it's been out of body. I would love to hear more about that. It's been wonderful. It's lovely. It's funny. The French Open was always

my favorite as a kid watching, I think, because it felt like such a long time between the Australian

Open and the French Open that I'd be like, yay, the tennis is back on TV. And when I was walking

to sight for the first time, I just like, look to my left and saw practice courts and came through kind of the back way. And I was just like, God, these courts are beautiful. It's just, like, everyone talks about Wimbledon and the grass is wonderful. But I, like, I was looking at those clay courts and they just looked like velvet. And I said, oh, this is great. I can't wait for another slam. So I'm very happy to be here. That was actually very David Law-esque. Oh, thank you. I would say. Yeah. No, I mean, I was taken by surprise by it, really, because I didn't expect to like it. I always thought this is going to be the poor relation to the Grand Sam's. I'm quite sure that's because I just had not been to it.

And I was always at the Queen's tournament in London waiting for that to begin.

And it always looked damp and wet and, you know, everybody looked cramped and people were annoyed and, well, mostly you, Catherine, when I would speak to you when you were here.

But when I came, I realised there were a lot of times in between that

than you weren't annoyed.

And there's a reason why, and it's because it's beautiful.

David, I can get annoyed anywhere.

That is true, yeah.

Quite often, geography, unspecific.

Now look, the show generally,

this show is generally the one we do on the eve of the slam.

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