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

**Catherine** (0:11)
Well, hello, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, our midweek show covering events so far in Barcelona, Munich, Stuttgart and Rouen, plus a few tidbits of interesting news that we will cover in part three. It is Thursday evening as we record, UK time and most of the day's play is done and dusted. So we're kind of at the halfway stage of these events, in theory, at least. On my screen right now is Arthur Fils, who is lighting up the Pista Rafael Nadal's first ever night session. Matt Roberts, what do you think Rafael Nadal would make of that?

**Matt Roberts** (0:55)
I think I know what he would make of it. Famously, when he was playing. Yeah, not a fan of playing at night on clay due to the different conditions. I think he actually thought it was an injury risk playing at night on clay with, you know, the way the ball would go through the court and that kind of thing. Yeah, he was definitely not a fan of those night sessions at Roland Garros. He sort of caught the start of them, didn't he, with the end of his career.
And I think this session was sort of designed with Carlos Alcaraz in mind. You know, if you're going to go to one match out of four on the stadium court, they were probably hoping it was Carlos Alcaraz. But I have to say, Feast is a pretty good substitute for Carlos Alcaraz and has been playing well tonight. And it is a packed crowd.

**Catherine** (1:55)
It is. And look, for that reason, I suspect that this will be the first of very many night sessions in Barcelona because I suspect they're making a lot of money from it. And, you know, once you're making money from something, that genie doesn't go back in the bottle. It tends to sort of mate with other genies. And suddenly there are many genies not going back in bottles. Before we go any further with that analogy, or before we get into the quarterfinal line up in Barcelona, which as soon as Feast gets over the rather inevitable looking finish line against Brandon Nakashima, will be complete. Let's start with Carlos Alcaraz, who following a second round, got a buy in the first round, didn't he? So second round, but first match win over Otto Wirtin in 6462 in Barcelona. This was on Tuesday, during which he had a mid match medical timeout on his wrist. The following day, he withdrew from the tournament. He said, it's a more serious injury than we all expected. And I have to listen to my body so it doesn't affect me in the future. With great sadness, I have to return home and recover as quickly as possible. Matt, on a scale of, well, obviously, there was no way he was going to be able to play or it would be sensible to play, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros, he was going to have to withdraw or not play one of them.
So this is probably nothing or at the very least something extremely minor covering for a schedule decision. From a scale of that to that medical timeout looked really bad and his face in that press conference when he was talking about the injury looked a bit of a worry.
Where are you on that scale?

**Matt Roberts** (4:02)
A three or four, like down the bottom end, towards the end of not too concerned. I think this is mostly about the big picture and the scheduling and being in the best possible prep for Roland Garros, I think.
He's had injuries over the last few clay court seasons, hasn't he? I think a more serious one in 2024, that really was a worry. He never played his best tennis really that clay court season and still ended up winning the French Open.

**Catherine** (4:36)
That was the forearm, wasn't it? That was the sleeve year.

**Matt Roberts** (4:39)
Exactly, yeah.

**Catherine** (4:41)
And then last year, it was the adductor.

**Matt Roberts** (4:43)
It was the adductor, yeah.

**Catherine** (4:45)
Which my favourite yoga teacher talks about adductors a lot, and I'm not entirely sure I know exactly what muscle that is, but somewhere down there.

**Matt Roberts** (4:57)
Yeah, that did hamper him, didn't it, in the Barcelona final last year against Hogaruno and he then didn't play Madrid.
It's a, I said it the other day, it's just such a tricky thing that he's got here. You know, it's like his, his heart and the heart of his country all want to play and want to play and want to see him play at these events in Spain, Barcelona and Madrid. But they are the two events that make the least sense for his clay court schedule. Barcelona because it's only at 500 and Madrid because it doesn't really replicate the conditions at Roland Garros because of the altitude. So they would definitely be the ones to go if you were trying to cut events, but they're the hardest ones for him to just say, look, I'm not playing even when fully fit because they're in Spain. And there's going to exist this tension and...