Rome Review - Svitolina Sizzles & Rain Helps Rafa to Victory; Pliskova explodes, Halep implodes; Is Djokovic really back this time?
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2018
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just moments after Rafael Nadal was crowned Champion in Rome for the eighth time, Catherine & David bask in the London sunshine to discuss the King of Clay's rain-assisted victory over Sascha Zverev, and the extraordinary performance of Elina Svitolina earlier in the day to dismantle an out-of-sorts Simona Halep. Other Rome talking points are also in the spotlight, including Karolina Pliskova's uncharacteristic outburst of on-court anger, and the WTA's decision not to disclose her punishment. Plus we ask for the thousandth time this year... Is Djokovic finally back?
And with the main French Open warm-up events now done and dusted, David & Catherine examine the runners and riders for the second Grand Slam of the year - how likely is Jelena Ostapenko to repeat her heroics of 2017? And can Zverev really be considered second favourite for a maiden Grand Slam title?
Oh, and of course there is mention of the Royal Wedding and a certain GOAT's attendance...
The Tennis Podcast is produced weekly throughout the year and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments, in association with Telegraph Sport. It is presented by Catherine Whitaker (Eurosport) and David Law (BBC 5 Live, BT Sport).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm John McEnore. I'm Bjorn Borg. This is Martina Navratlova. I'm Matt Svillander. |
| 0:04.8 | I'm San Roenka. I'm Lainey Njut. I'm Andy Murray. And you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:20.1 | Hello and welcome to the tennis podcast, but you in association with the telegraph by myself, |
| 0:25.5 | Catherine, we're to get an alongside me, David Law. And this week we are positioned on the most |
| 0:31.6 | glorious patch of law in Putney. I can't think of any other piece to complete that glorious |
| 0:38.0 | illiterative sentence, but we're basking. We're basking, yes. We record today with the |
| 0:43.3 | audio backdrop of summer jolly, British summer jolly. Yeah. Just hours ago, David, on this very |
| 0:49.2 | law and I was hosting a semi-ironical royal wedding party. Who are you? Yeah, just over there. |
| 0:54.8 | How did it go? It was great. It looks a little bit like Brexit threw up on my living room. |
| 1:00.4 | That's quite a lot of red, white and blue bunting. Right. But yeah, yeah, much merriment. |
| 1:07.6 | So you didn't listen to my tweets telling everybody to turn it off and turn on the tennis that I was |
| 1:12.5 | commentating on? No, I mean my policy on it. I mean, I'm not that interested in people I don't know |
| 1:17.6 | getting married. I find it quite hard at the best of times to be interested in people I do know |
| 1:22.0 | getting married, but I manage it. But anything that people get happy about is fine in my book and |
| 1:30.3 | any excuse for a sausage roll cake and bunting, David, is is a good thing. I've noticed that. Yes. |
| 1:38.8 | So Rome tennis has happened. Rome tennis has happened. Although, although I did, I did, I mean, |
| 1:44.3 | there is a legitimate tennis link in the Royal Redding discussion. There is. Very, very legit. |
| 1:49.8 | Somebody who has won more grand some titles than anybody. Yeah. So in Williams was there. She was. |
| 1:55.6 | With Alexa, she's a Hanyun. I mean, she had a really good seat as well. She wasn't one of those |
| 2:00.4 | ones at the back. She was on one of the front pews. That wasn't on her excuse form. Was it for not |
| 2:06.0 | being in Rome? No. Yeah, I wonder when we need a really specific detail timeline of |
| 2:14.8 | when the save the date came, when she replied to that, when she accepted the invitation, when |
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