Andy Roddick was pessimistic about where tennis was going, but "couldn’t be happier to be wrong about it"

Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz are the 2024 Roland Garros champions—and have now each surpassed $30 million in career prize earnings, at ages 23 and 21, respectively. Following the French fortnight is this week’s Served with Andy Roddick, where Kim Clijsters returned to the show for her thoughts on the clay-court Slam.

Starting off with the now four-time Roland Garros champion, Swiatek, Clijsters had only praise.

“She has such an open mind to learn,” Clijsters says. “She's improving all the time, and so her mindset is that she wants to be one of the great ones.

“I think everybody kind of penciled her to win the tournament before the draw was even made. Her matches are all pretty straightforward, nobody really challenges her, so it's unless you can like kind of hit her off the court, I think, yeah she's not going to have any problems with anybody really.”

Roddick agrees, even comparing Swiatek to Rafael Nadal in terms of how infrequently they lose, and how difficult it is to force them out of rhythm.

“I don't think she would win a sprinting contest against everyone on tour," says Roddick, "but I think the way that she is efficient with her movement—she is sliding, she's hitting, and then at the end of the slide she's already a foot back towards the center—it's all done in this one motion which makes me want to vomit with jealousy.

"It's just this insane thing, and also I’m not going to deal from a place of being hyperbolic, but I think she has some of the best footwork from the middle of the court I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Cljsters said that her favorite match of the tournament was Swiatek's second-rounder against Naomi Osaka, in which Iga saved a match point. Osaka played “the best tennis,” said Clijsters, but she also had high praise for finalist Jasmine Paolini.

“The final wasn't a close match, but she was just enjoying every second that she was out there, and smiling and laughing to her team and during the games,” Clijsters said.

Onto the men's side, Wertheim—coming straight from an interview with champion Alcaraz—unpacks his five-set final-round win over Alexander Zverev.

“I think everyone...remembered what happened to Carlos last year with the cramps, they knew about the context of Zverev that the complications with him making the final, they were still recovering I think a little bit from Rafa from Novak—it's been a bit of a weird tournament,” Wertheim said. “Just as the players had a hard time finding rhythm, so did the fans.

"In the end, we get our storyline. ‘Nadal may have played for the last time but the new Spaniard comes—and not only that, but the guy who beat Nadal in round one is the final opponent on the final Sunday.’ Today was a weird one, but I don't think anyone's asking for a refund, and I think ultimately tennis has its new champion, tennis has a new steward, we're all going to be fine.”

“I was pessimistic about where tennis was going to lay post Big Three, Serena, Venus at the top of her game, and I couldn’t be happier to be wrong about it,” Roddick said. “I think the game is in great hands."

Tune into the episode on all Served Media Channels—and stick around to the very end where Wertheim shares his parting thoughts from the last two weeks, including player fines (five of which came from the Tsitsipas brothers, for coaching).