AVOID INDOOR CLAY

“the gap between those two, it it feels almost and the rest, I mean, it feels almost embarrassing for the rest. I know it reflects more on them being utterly unreal than than everybody else. The drop back to Zerv is in third is 5,555. And like we all saw SA against Verv on uh on Saturday. The gap feels that big if not bigger.”

“Should we talk about Valentine Vashiro for a moment? No, I don't think he's killed them off because he hasn't actually done a full circuit at this level yet. I mean, I'm quite interested to see what circuit two looks like, you know, ne this time next year. I'll be curious to see where he is. But I listen, I think he's better than certainly some people do. I think he's a good I think he's got game and I think he's got swagger.”

“I always think the the the only real sort of women's clay court event that feels like a proper precursor to Row and Garos is Rome because you've got Lints and Stokart indoors. You've got Madrid which okay the men have as well but that never feels particularly feels indoors it yeah it's an altitude like it's just a very particular set of conditions whereas the men have Monte Cara they have Barcelona which which really do feel like those really authentic European outdoor clay court events I I would love the WTA to you know mirror the men's clay court swing more”

“extraordinarily Great Britain went away. And I I was with Anki Oathong pretty much immediately after the uh the draw came out for these Billy Jeene King Cup qualifiers and her face when she found out that it was an away tie in Australia. Like it's just a nightmare, isn't it, for a for a captain and a nightmare because you know you're not going to be able to get your strongest team and she didn't get a strongest team. No Katy Bolter, no Emma Adakano, no problem for GB. They beat Australia 3 and 0 to qualify for the Billy Jeene King Cup finals.”

“by the way, just to go back to the match, you know, we haven't we haven't talked about the wind. if you told me going into it, it's going to be a windy final. I would have thought that that would favor Alcaratz actually. And I know he's the one who's given the quote before about the windy and not liking it, but I just think his game, his natural game with his movement, with his spins, with his changes of heights and all that sort of thing to me is more set up to play in the wind than Yanick S. So I was so impressed. It was actually SA who got a handle on those conditions I think the best.”

“In terms of the final and the the sinaras of it all, Matt, is this one of those results where the win for Yanick Ser is more consequential than the loss for Carlos Alcarez? Yeah, I think that's probably quite a good way of putting it, I would say. He has said Roland Garos is his biggest goal and trying to complete that career slam. I think it's massive for the confidence. You know, I just think if he' taken a loss here, it might have dented that a little bit. But now he's got the world number one back. He's got a win over Carlos Alcarez.”

“much like last year's French Open final um the interview that Alcarez uh gave after one of his earlier sort of quarterfinal win maybe or perhaps a round of 16 when he was asked about this narrative that you know the like the likes of us have been building massively about Yanix hunting down the world number one and um Alcare said oh I'm going to lose it like you know he talked about it like he had accepted He was resigned to it. Didn't seem that bothered.”

“interesting that Konita Martinez was not was not in Lintz. Not for any breakup reasons. Um Andrea was asked about it and said, you know, she said a joke. She said, "Oh, we've just been getting on each other's nerves so much. We needed a break from each other." But then she was like, "No, I just told her she needs to have a week off. She needs to go home sometimes and this is a good week. I'm going to go to Lintz anyway and she'll rejoin me."”

“And that was after Bianca Andrescu spent more than five hours on court over the course of two losses in one day. you might have seen the the clip during the rounds on on social media of what happened on her match point on the match point against her in her singles match against Julia Putin Saver which went to a deciding set tie break. she shanked a second serve to double fault at 46 down in the deciding set tie break. and I just I just hope she has good people around her, Bianca Andrescu, because my goodness me, I I I can't imagine the the despair of uh of something like that.”