Federer's back, briefly

Roger Federer returned to action after 405 days and two knee surgeries with a 3-set win over Dan Evans before a 3-set loss to Nikoloz Basilashvili in Doha.  Catherine, David and Matt discuss how it felt to watch him play again, what we made of his two performances, whether we were surprised or in any way alarmed by how quickly he faded physically, and our immediate reaction to his decision to skip Dubai next week.  Elsewhere, who has more potential out of Fritz and Shapovalov? How has Rublev reached the semi-finals in Doha without even playing a match? How good was Muguruza to beat Sabalenka for the second week running? And what happened to Pegula against Mertens?  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. SUPPORT THE TENNIS PODCAST We are crowdfunded for 2021 but if you’d like to receive a reminder e-mail in December when our next campaign goes live, then you can sign up here - http://eepurl.com/gwWILX NEWSLETTER Sign up to get our news, offers, predictions and Matt’s Stat - http://eepurl.com/gbmzRX EMAIL We hope that the podcast helps to provide some form of escape during these challenging times. If you ever feel like writing to us, our e-mail is open – [email protected] SOCIAL MEDIA  Twitter - https://twitter.com/TennisPodcast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetennispodcast/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/thetennispodcast/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.