Q&A with Calvin and George on Sky Sports, surface changes and Davis Cup venues + Murray bites back and Raducanu shows promise

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the Sports Podcast Awards. We came SECOND, a one-place improvement on last year, but still losing out to Dan Kiernan. We shall overcome!

We're back as a trio this week, a little later after James took the slow boat home from Australia, answering as many questions as possible from the bulging mailbag.

Justin Cerny on Twitter/X asked: “Thoughts on the variety of surfaces & locations for events during weeks like this? (ATP, Challengers, WTA tour & 125s) Does it help bring opportunity & exposure or does it lack a uniform brand for professional tennis? Something in between? Keep up the good work”

John Williamson on Twitter/X wrote: “After a joyful 2 weeks of loads of televised #tennis games courtesy of a month’s UK Discovery subscription, the potential spectre of Sky Sports thin pickings is appearing over the horizon – any chance of bluer skys?”

Fab Miss Ana asked on Twitter/X: “What are possible penalties for (WTA / ATP) players for complaining about tour or tournament? Have they ever been enforced? Asking as Daniela Hantuchova (now appointed the infamous Madrid WTA director?) criticised players for complaining and asked for penalties to be enforced."

Andy Lee on email asks: “Looking at the results from the Davis Cup this weekend, including a shock for Serbia (will that affect Novak's plans post US Open this year?) and to a lesser extent Croatia I noticed the finals group stages venues haven't been announced. I'm completely biased being from here but do the panel think Manchester should be a permanent finals venue as per last year? Yes, there were attendance problems at say Switzerland v Australia but the GB games were bouncing. Fill the other games with schools and club tickets if necessary. We suffer from a lack of top class tennis in the North, we have the Ilkley Challenger and then it's down to Nottingham/ Birmingham pre Wimbledon. This would fit the bill very nicely in my opinion.”

We also discussed...

Andy Murray's savage reaction to an article questioning whether his current form threatens to "tarnish his legacy"

Emma Raducanu is one and done in Abu Dhabi, but with no added injury concerns and a win under her belt

Heather Watson is back in the headlines, making a run at AD to return to the top 150

Holger Rune has got rid of Boris Becker and Severin Luthi, and signed for IMG

Saudi Arabia is going to offer eight top players up to £5m to play an exhibition there later this year, more on the story here from Simon Briggs of the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2024/02/06/saudi-atp-rules-6-kings-slam-novak-djokovic-rafael-nadal/

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