Reem Abulleil

Frances Tiafoe: “It’s pretty cool to see guys really put it on the line; everybody, absolutely just give it all you got. And I think that's the best thing about sports, right? You know, to see two guys go absolutely at it and see what happens.” 📰 www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

Madison Keys: “I do think that it's always kind of exciting when crazy things happen. As a tennis fan, it's been fun to watch.” 📓 www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

Thanasi Kokkinakis had a radical pectoral surgery 15 months ago and will be playing his first Grand Slam singles match since AO ‘25 today against Terence Atmane. RG diary 📔 www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

Iva Jovic’s advice to young aspiring tennis players is to play football (soccer). Says playing football growing up did wonders for her footwork. Full interview here: www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/articl...

Daniil Medvedev takes on Stan Wawrinka in the opening match on centre court today in the Dubai round of 16. Here, Daniil tells me what he admires about Stan, and why he has "huge respect for him".

Wawrinka: The new generation is always going to be better than the last. If you look at the level right now of Jannik and Carlos it's been crazy high. I had the chance to play Jannik many times. Last few times was really tough. Hopefully I can play Carlos once before I stop playing.

Pegula: We talked about all these withdrawals. But we had 4 top-10 girls in the semis. A few more in the 1/4s. It just shows you the depth of women's tennis. Even when you have a lot of players withdrawing, just because we're missing a few it doesn't mean that we still can't put on some great tennis

Coco Gauff: “I’m very happy to be representing Mercedes. I’m happy the tour is too, it’s cool to see the little symbol on the net. I’m like, OK, we’re moving on up.” Inside the historic deal between Mercedes and WTA: www.arabnews.com/node/2633757...

Alex Eala: At the end of the day, I think there's still definitely a gap in terms of level between me and Coco and other players of her caliber. I think she did great and my job is to try and close that gap and I think I'm doing that quite well. So I'll keep working on it.

Amanda Anisimova on Mirra Andreeva: It's not easy to see someone that gives their all and then to react like that. It made me really sad for her. In my mind, I was just thinking if she keeps playing like this, there's a title around the corner for her. She's going to have a great year...

Coco Gauff: I know there's been conversations online about maybe the enthusiasm of some of the fans. I think tennis needs more of this. It's great just to see a nation so proud of someone, especially a nation that's pretty underrepresented in this sport. It's pretty cool to see.

Jessica Pegula: Priority is always staying healthy mentally and physically and you never know where a player is at with that. Even if they've been winning matches, you don't know... and that's where you see people maybe be a bit more choosy with that schedule until maybe it changes in the future.

Leylah Fernandez gets a rematch with Janice Tjen in the Dubai 2nd round on Monday. Fernandez lost to Tjen in the Australian Open 1st round last month. “It's nice to see that Janice is doing well, she's super nice. It's good to play against her again, and hopefully it goes well this time.”

Belinda Bencic: “When I step on the court I don’t care if I’m a mother, wife, daughter… you still have to perform on the court.” Full interview here: www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

Zeynep Sonmez will face her good friend Alex Eala in the Abu Dhabi Open first round on Monday 🍿

Not all draw ceremonies are created equal. Sometimes, a hawk flies in carrying the chips for the draw ceremony 😂 Meet Habib the Hawk, everyone! #mubadalaabudhabiopen

Coco Gauff played 18 tournaments in 2025 and repeated an outfit just twice all year (Doha-Dubai, IW-Miami). I asked her about it in Riyadh and also spoke to New Balance earlier this year about why brands find it difficult to stay in tennis and the challenge of delivering new looks all season

Jessica Pegula: "I feel like I can end this year knowing that I became a better player and hopefully have confidence and get excited to work on some things I know that I want to work on in the offseason and see if I can do the same thing next year." #WTAFinalsRiyadh

Iga Swiatek: “I felt good mentally, physically, and tennis-wise also it was nice, looking at the conditions and everything. So I don’t really get why I couldn’t go out of the group. Maybe I won too much in the last years and this is karma. It’s really hard for me to say (...)” #WTAFinals

What skills would Mirra Andreeva like to borrow from other tennis players? "I would like to have volleys like Roger Federer. And I would like to have physical abilities like Carlos Alcaraz." 🗞️🗞️ www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

Madison Keys: “I'm a person that could live under the radar for the rest of my life and be happy as a clam, but like you said, obviously when you're doing well, there's more of a spotlight, so it's all good things.” 📖 www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/articl...

Bianca Andreescu: “If I go back to 2019, yes, I read books and stuff, but I was still in that era of ‘ignorance is bliss’, and sometimes that's really nice, because I can definitely get into my head.” 🗞️🗞️ www.arabnews.com/node/2601438...

Jelena Ostapenko: When I watch sports, I always like emotional people, the people who always show their emotions. I don't really like people who aren't showing much emotion because for me, it's so boring to watch those people doing sports. Full interview: www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/articl...

Coco Gauff: “At first I was trying to request yesterday to be like second on instead of first, but I’m glad that request didn’t go through, so shout-out to WTA supervisors for making the right decision for me 😂”

Bianca Andreescu reached out to Alex Eala to congratulate her and offer her support: I want to be honest I didn’t have anybody reach out to me [early on]. And nobody was friendly with me on the tour, no one would say hi to me and I told myself, no, I don’t want the next generation to feel that way.

Did a deep dive on tennis players’ reliance on supplements and their paranoia over contamination risk in light of recent failed doping tests in the sport. Full story: www.thenationalnews.com/sport/tennis...

I asked some WTA players who from their rivals they'd choose to be their coach down the road. One of my favorite responses was: “Did I come up? Did someone pick me?”😂 Full video here: www.arabnews.com/node/2590847...

Ashlyn Krueger is from Dallas, so of course I had to ask her about the Luka Doncic trade. She's not a big basketball fan but says Luka is pretty much the only basketball player she knows, besides LeBron. Says "it was shocking" to hear about the trade. #MubadalaAbuDhabiOpen #WTA

They share coaches, they share an agent, they're great friends and have matching 'Victory Royale' sweatshirts - now Learner Tien and Alex Michelsen will square off in the semis of the Next Gen Finals in Jeddah.