Roland Garros preview and all about Naomi Osaka
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2021
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The draws are out, most of the top players have spoken to the media, and the opening day of Roland Garros 2021 is almost here.
We discuss the significance of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer all being in the same half of the draw, the pressure on Stefanos Tsitsipas to reach the final, the mouthwatering first-round clash between Alexander Bublik and Daniil Medvedev, the main contenders in the women’s draw, and what to expect on the opening day.
But the build-up has of course been overshadowed by Naomi Osaka’s decision not to speak to the press during the tournament. We analyse her statement, give our reaction to her decision, and discuss how other players have responded.
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. It is crowdfunded by listeners each December.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Billie Jean King. This is Mary and Bartoli. I'm Matt Vellander. This is Mary Carillo. |
| 0:05.3 | I'm San Roenca. I'm Lighten Huet. This is Yannick Noah and you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:21.4 | Hello folks and welcome to our very first 2021 front-shapen daily tennis podcast. It's our |
| 0:28.4 | preview podcast. We'll be looking at both draws which have been just about conducted successfully. |
| 0:36.4 | Maybe I'll take the word successfully. We could just edit out successfully, Matt, shall we? |
| 0:41.9 | Well, listeners of this podcast will know that nothing gets me in a tears like a bad draw. |
| 0:47.2 | Well, apart from uts. Well, apart from uts. But I don't understand how tennis can have |
| 0:52.4 | draw ceremonies literally every week of the year and still do them so badly, so often. |
| 0:57.8 | This one was I think only available to people on site, which is a small number. So it appeared |
| 1:04.4 | into the drips and drabs online and I was sort of squinting at a picture that a journalist had |
| 1:09.9 | taken of a draw to try and read the names. It was a shambles. Anyway, we will do our best to |
| 1:18.5 | translate that shambles into something that makes a modicum of sense for you in today's preview |
| 1:26.3 | podcast. We've also had most notable players come in for pre-tornment press. At the time that we |
| 1:33.6 | record on Saturday afternoon, there are a few missing from that list. No matter how much of it, |
| 1:38.4 | of course, is still competing in Belgrade too. In fact, I think he's on court as we speak. |
| 1:45.0 | We haven't had Roger Federer in press. We haven't had Serena Williams. We haven't had |
| 1:49.5 | the end-crened dress, but we have had pretty much everybody else. So we'll be bringing you |
| 1:56.4 | the notable stuff from those preview press conferences. We'll of course be covering the big |
| 2:02.3 | news of the week, the statement from Naomi Osaka announcing that she will not be doing any post-match |
| 2:08.1 | press at the French Open. That sort of scent waves around kind of the whole sporting world this week. |
| 2:14.9 | We'll absolutely be dealing with that and the reaction to it. What else will we be doing, David? |
| 2:21.7 | Probably talking about who we think is going to win and getting it wrong. How'd it have |
... |
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