Canada - Eala lights up Toronto as men drop like flies

**Catherine Whitaker** (0:11)
Well, hello, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, our fourth pod of the week. It is Friday morning. As we come to you, Montreal and Toronto have just about got off the starting blocks. David, a full pod week, is basically a grand slam.

**David Law** (0:26)
I know, it's good, isn't it? Yeah, we should do this more often.
We are doing it all the time, so it's fine.

**Catherine Whitaker** (0:34)
Matt is here. How's it going, Matt? Didn't stay up to watch Amanda Anisimova, turned out to be a good decision because that was mostly rain, let me tell you.

**Matt Roberts** (0:43)
Yes. Well, with an early recording like this, I had a decision to make and I opted for early night, early wake up, whizzed through the condensed 15-minute matches on Tennis Channel. So, I've watched a load of those this morning.
And look, she got the win, so it worked.

**Catherine Whitaker** (1:02)
Yeah, I take it they cut out the sad, the sad static shots of an empty court with rain falling down in the 15-minute highlights, which is what I find, found myself staring at at midnight last night. We will get on to all of that. We are going to start though with the hospital ward that is men's tennis at the moment. We are actually going to start outside of Canada. The hospital ward does extend to Canada as well, but we are starting in Europe with the Carlos Alcaraz news that broke a couple of days ago. We knew he was targeting Cincinnati for his comeback. He had never confirmed Cincinnati for his comeback, but we obviously started seeing very encouraging training footage of Carlos Alcaraz, first with braids, then without braids.
The braid era seems to have gone very quickly.
Maybe he's a Tennis Podcast listener, who knows. But so have hopes of him playing in Cincinnati, because we had the confirmation a couple of evenings ago that he has withdrawn from Cincinnati. We're hearing through the grapevine reassurances that this isn't due to any kind of setback. It was just always going to be an ambitious timeline for him to be ready in time for Cincinnati. So it's obviously a blow, David. I was looking forward to maybe seeing Carlos Alcaraz in Cincinnati. And it is...
But apart from that, I do... I sort of believe the reassurances that this isn't any kind of disaster with the injury. But it now does leave him the pickle of, well, can he make a comeback from a... What, four-month injury? And this is different to an off-season. You know, he had a lot of time not being able to hit tennis balls at all. That is very unusual for tennis players. Can he come back from that period on the sidelines cold into a best of five set Grand Slam tournament? Or would that be madness?

**David Law** (3:10)
It doesn't sound ideal, does it? I mean, I think it is a pretty big setback personally.
The idea was, if you are going to play the US Open, the idea is to play Cincinnati really, isn't it? And to get yourself properly into a big tournament with best of three set matches, and he is not able to do that at the moment.

**Catherine Whitaker** (3:37)
It is a setback in terms of potentially being competitive at the US Open maybe, but it is not a setback in terms of nothing has happened. Nothing has happened to his wrist, is what we are hearing. It was just always an ambitious timeline.

**David Law** (3:53)
Yeah, but I think it is a bit of a reality check, because I think when we were all seeing those video pictures of him swiping forehands and looking like a tennis player on the practice court, I think we were running away and probably thinking, oh, he's back.

**Catherine Whitaker** (4:11)
Well, you weren't, David. You were an absolute bummer about it.

**David Law** (4:14)
I know. You've been proven right. I do, really, don't I? And I think that that's probably a little bit of life experience of having been the excitable one every time anybody looks half decent on a practice court. I've spent a lifetime doing this, getting over enthusiastic about somebody's comeback based on a few bits of footage. And the truth is, it's so different being in a match situation. I mean, we could well be in a situation where by the end of this year, and imagine if somebody had put this to you in Australia, that Serena Williams plays more Grand Slam tournaments in 2026 than Carlos Alcaraz does.
You know, that is an absolute possibility.
Yeah, it's a bit of a reality check, isn't it? And look, Serena came and played Wimbledon without playing anything before, other than a bit of doubles. And, you know, I mean, she looks OK in that one match.