Tennis is back; James Blake discusses the challenges

The Tennis Podcast

David Law

Sports, Wimbledon, Sports & Recreation, Tennis

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2020

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tennis is back. But there are still question marks about the sport’s short-term future.

In the first half of this episode we discuss the return of the WTA Tour in Palermo and the mood surrounding the US Open before wrapping up the results from the various exhibition events.

Then, we hear from former World No.4 and current Miami Open tournament director James Blake (starting 43:26).

He takes us through what happened during the week in March when Miami was cancelled and explains why he’s struggling to envisage the US Open going well.

He also praises the way in which Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff have used their platform for good during the last few months and declares why he thinks more unity between the WTA and ATP would benefit tennis.

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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, this is Mary Ann Bartoli. I'm Matt Vylander. This is Mary Carillo. I'm Stan Ravinka. I'm Lainey Neut. I'm Andy Murray.
0:06.7	This is Janik Noah and you're listening to the tennis podcast.
0:20.9	Hello folks and welcome to the tennis podcast. It is Monday the 3rd of August 2020
0:29.6	and there is tennis, actual tennis, not exhibition tennis, competitive tennis, featuring players.
0:39.6	We've heard of playing for ranking points and prize money. We haven't seen any of it yet.
0:47.5	It's just been qualifying over the weekend but the Palermo WTA event does get underway. The
0:55.3	main draw in earnest later on today. David, Matt, I give you tennis.
1:03.6	It has suddenly occurred to me that we were together when tennis was last to think.
1:10.6	You remember when we were watching Dubai? Was it when
1:16.3	yeah. Or Matt and I watched Kim Clistus's return in my lounge. That feels like a different lifetime.
1:26.8	I think I was kind of at the last weekend of tennis, which was the Davis Cup qualifying,
1:34.0	which was now qualifying for an event which is taking place sort of 18 months after they qualified
1:41.2	for it. Even then, there were, it was kind of in the background, there were rumbling signs of
1:48.9	COVID-19. I think the airport I was at in Hungary actually had a case and they shut the airport down.
1:55.2	But then two days later, everything just shut down. It's amazing how quickly it happened.
2:02.2	Yeah, it just tennis is back and it came back with, in a very tennis way, because I think the first
2:07.1	day of qualifying in Palermo ended at gone 2am in the morning. It was kind of like, oh, we're
2:14.8	doing this again, are you? Given that there's no crowds to worry about and no corporate lunches
2:21.7	to schedule around, there is no excuse for that, is there? Because you can start playing at 8am.
2:27.8	And you can play on as many courts as you want or need to. I mean, how, how, if that is so tennis?
2:37.2	Is it like, comfortingly reassuringly tennis? I think that it's all finishing, yeah.
2:43.0	But also, stupid. Catherine, when we stopped tennis and you're...
	...

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