Has women’s tennis served its purpose for Saudi Arabia?

The Tennis Podcast

David Law

Tennis, Sports & Recreation, Wimbledon, Sports

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2026

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Catherine and Matt are together for a mid week catch up with events in Stuttgart, Barcelona, Munich and Rouen in full swing.

Part one - ATP (00:00 - 34:41). How concerning is Carlos Alcaraz’s withdrawal from Barcelona with a wrist injury? We react to his press conference and discuss the difficulty of his clay court season scheduling. Elsewhere in Barcelona, Lorenzo Musetti has picked up some much-needed wins and now plays Arthur Fils, while Rafael Jodar has become the favourite for the title. In Munich, there’s excitement ahead of Joao Fonseca vs Ben Shelton but also more dispiriting Stefanos Tsitsipas scenes.

Part two - WTA (34:42 - 59:02). We look ahead to a brilliant quarter-final line-up in Stuttgart, despite a slow start to the event. Iga Swiatek’s new era is underway and we chat about her win over Laura Siegemund and preview her match against Mirra Andreeva. And can Coco Gauff keep up her perfect record against Karolina Muchova?

Part three - News (59:03 - 1:34:58). We discuss tennis’ place in the quickly changing landscape of Saudi investment in sport, with reports that the WTA Finals will not be renewing in Riyadh. Could Czechia or Poland be good hosts? There’s also bits and pieces from Roland Garros’s pre tournament press conference, retirement announcements from Jamie Murray and Roberto Bautista Agut, and a Rafael Nadal documentary coming to Netflix.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, hello and welcome to the tennis podcast, our midweek show covering events so far in Barcelona, Munich, Stuttgart and Rouen,
0:21.5	plus a few tidbits of interesting news that we will cover in part three.
0:27.5	It is Thursday evening as we record UK time and most of the day's play is done and
0:33.5	dusted.
0:33.9	So we're kind of at the halfway stage of these events, in theory, at least.
0:39.2	On my screen right now is Artifis, who is lighting up the Pista Rafael Nadal's first ever night
0:48.0	session. Matt Roberts, what do you think Rafael Nadal would make of that?
0:55.3	I think I know what he would make of it.
0:59.3	Because he's told us.
1:00.6	Yeah, not a fan of playing at night on clay due to the different conditions.
1:08.5	I think he actually thought it was an injury risk playing at night on clay with,
1:13.7	you know, the way the ball would go through the court and that kind of thing.
1:17.2	Yeah, he was definitely not a fan of those night sessions at Roland Garros.
1:21.2	He sort of caught the start of them, didn't he, with the end of his career.
1:27.8	And I think this session was sort of designed with Carlos Alcoraz in mind.
1:34.2	You know, if you're...
1:34.6	I suspect so, yeah.
1:36.0	If, you know, if you're going to go to one match out of four on the stadium court,
1:42.6	they were probably hoping it was Carlos Alcarez.
1:45.6	But I have to say, Feast is a pretty good substitute for Carlos Alcarez and has been playing well tonight.
1:53.2	And it is a pack crowd.
1:54.9	It is.
	...

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