ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

(Hingis won one too, but I'm not sure how much hilarity we're ever going to get out of her)

This was a good idea that never took off! Thus, revive.

Offseason now, so gossip rubbish instead: Dumped by Hingis, Radek Stepanek is apparently marrying Nicole Vaidisova!

http://im.sport.cz/363/93634-article-pz54g.jpg http://sportsposterwarehouse.com/warehouse/vaidisova05ps-1.jpg

cake!

i love the fact that one of the 10 ugliest sportsmen i've seen in the past 3 years is so unbelievably fortunate in matters of the heart, gives us all hope innit

I like to think he's a real nice dude, but of course I've no idea.

Microscandal dept: Starace (best tennis name beside Smashnova) & Bracciali are suspended for a short while for betting insignificant amounts on matches not their own.

Mardy Fish a strong candidate for best name IMO

Fed vs Sampras at MSG, 3/10/08

1st titles of 2008, for reference:

WTA Gold Coast: LI Na d. Victoria AZARENKA 4-6 6-3 6-4
WTA Auckland: Lindsay DAVENPORT d. Aravane REZAÏ 6-2 6-2

ATP Doha: Andy MURRAY d. Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4 4-6 6-2
ATP Adelaide: Michaël LLODRA d. Jarkko NIEMINEN 6-3 6-4
ATP Chennai: Mikhail YOUZHNY d. Rafael NADAL 6-0 6-1

go davenport!!

Week 2/2008, with all eyes on the AO anyway:

WTA Sydney: Justine HENIN d. Svetlana KUZNETSOVA 4-6 6-2 6-4
WTA Hobart: Eleni DANIILIDOU walk-over vs Vera ZVONAREVA

ATP Sydney: Dmitry TURSUNOV d. Chris GUCCIONE 7-6(3) 7-6(4)
ATP Auckland: Philipp KOHLSCHREIBER d. Juan Carlos FERRERO 7-6(4) 7-5

Watching Sharapova vs Obziler in the Israel-Russia Fed Cup tie now, and wow is the crowd noisy! Rapturous cheering on every serve fault by Maria, tauntingly SCREAMING along with her on every shot etc. Umpire totally unable to silence them haha!

fuck what channel? we need to sign up for the tennis channle, i can't be missing stuff like this

I just go to myp2p.eu and check whether anything is available ("Live Sports" tab -> "Tennis" button). Note: playing stuff may in general entail installing various Chinese tv apps (sopcast, tvants, uusee...). That particular tie, however, is on some Israeli sports station showing through Windows Media Player or I guess any other .wmv-showing app.

How useful it is if you're not using Windows I've no idea. Also, quality unsurprisingly varies wildly; this Israeli broadcast is pretty decent.

Pe'er was double-breadsticked by the Shazbot right now, making it 2-1 to Russia. Elsewhere, France vs China will be decided by the doubles.

Murray knocks out Federer in the first round of the Dubai tournament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7274636.stm

nice one you unpatriotic little shit.

he was wearing a saltire cap when he was playing, which doesn't seem desperately unpatriotic to me.

Federer was too busy not thinking about yesterday

i was only referring to his disinclination to play davis cup.
and i was kidding about that anyway - i care no more about it than he does.

still, 'unpatriotic' was probably a poor choice of word. well done young man!

It was more the "little shit" that you coupled it with, to be fair.

Anyway, yes, two out of three won against Federer now.

God knows why he'd want to play the Davis Cup. Who else is going to be on the team? I wouldn't want to be winning matches and carrying a team full of useless people in a tournament that has long since lost its cachet and relevance except in the eyes of really, really old tennis commentators.

x-post take umbrage wherever you like it was all meant in jest, apart from the congratulatory bit. internet does not do deadpan.

But I genuinely like Murray. I also agree with the above post. I can't be arsed to even watch Davis Cup so I can't blame him if he's rather not play in it.

Andy Murray wins something

He has won about 4-5 career titles before...but yes, its his biggest win

this is his third title of 2008 alone. by far the biggest though! wish i could've seen it, sounds like a fantastic match, and it's good to see him encroaching on THE TRIVALRY even if i do like nole more (lol the way fed's playing, nadal/djokovic/murray is the real trivalry).

on the WTA, dinara safina has won two big titles in a row! she is the only woman out there who is stepping up to fill the void at the top. jankovic is going to be world no 1 next week, that is embarrassing. the WTA is probably in the worst shape i've ever witnessed.

also i didn't know this thread existed!

Oh I know he's won stuff before but not a big tourney. It was a good match. He looks so much fitter and stronger than he was a year or 2 ago.

Nadal will be #1 on 18/8. Can't quite believe Fed's slump post-SW19; loss to Simon, near-loss to Ginepri, loss to Karlovic. Thought he might have at least made a fight of the #1 ranking (his form was fine for 18 of 19 matches in Paris, Halle and London); I had this romantic notion of the baton being passed as Fed beat Nadal at Flushing Meadow (Nadal's points surge taking him past the repeating champ despite the loss). Fed will be lucky to get out of the sixteens in NYC. Does Beijing have any ranking points?

yeah, it does. i think a few less than a masters event for the dudes, a few more than a tier ii for the chicas.

GOD that feels ridiculous looking at it! thinking about how much the olympics mean to, like, track&fielders and rowers and the like, and in tennis it's like...a TIER II.

anyway in other news, THIS is the 15-year-old saviour of the WTA who in the past month has taken sets from both serena and sweta, michelle larcher de brito: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kxaLo1riGo&feature=related

she makes sharapova sound like a trappist. seriously i can't believe she hasn't been asked to stop that bullshit yet, or like MURDERED ON COURT by a deafened opponent. that's not a grunt, that's a scream with a sustain pedal on. i'm not sure i'm going to be able to actually watch any of her matches.

oh and in other news silliams has pissed on her phone at the beach: http://serenawilliams.com/home/
sometimes you just long for the days before celebrities discovered how to work the internet themselves :(

(also note "enuf boring stuff" LIKE TENNIS)

you know, i used to watch all the nonslams cuz my stepdad taped them. then i didn't speak to him anymore. i wish i knew when they were on -- i think i'm gonna have to get on top of that!

they're on every week! televised or not is another qn

exactly, that's the thing.

Blake was asked about the partisan crowd before today's final and reminded everyone he's half English :)

BBC giving it "Blake is just happy to be here" bollocks - dude isn't here to make the numbers up. I think I'll be pro-Blake today, as he does things like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYE8gper9VM

Well done Andy!

Bit of a dull game lit up by a few stunning forehands. Shoddy line calls all day, none of which helped Blake. Well done to Murray on being the first Brit in yonks to win Queen's, which I'm sure won't lead to even more Wimbledon hype.

I predict Murray will cave under the pressure and be out by round 3.

he doesn't seem to be the sort to cave under pressure. but a friendly first-week draw would certainly be nice...

didn't watch the Queen's, but watched the Edgbaston SFs (Li d. Sharapova and Rybarikova d. Mirza) and a bit of the final today - Magdalena Rybarikova is a real discovery, such a classic grass-court game! Slices and volleys and good serving! she looks weirdly like Samantha Morton, too. i remember seeing a photo of her from her junior days when she lost some random final - she was posing w/the trophy and seriously looked like she was about to go bowling for columbine. so it was lucky for Edgbaston that she won today!

Haas beat Djokovic in the Halle final this week too.

in other news, larcher de screamo gets a wildcard to wimbledon. FUN.

The weird transatlantification of Murray's pan loaf accent has meant I can't actually hear what he's saying - it's just a series of droning noises that makes my ears stop working.

pan loaf accent

is that how you talk with your mouth full of bread?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_loaf

It was once more expensive and regarded as more fashionable than the then more common plain loaf. Hence, to speak with a pan loafy voice is to speak in a posh or affected manner.

How on earth does Murray speak with an affected accent?! He just mumbles.

I found that picture of Rybarikova looking like she's ready to go bowling for Columbine after losing the Wimbledon juniors final!

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6027/wozrybwimb2006juniortrophies6a.jpg

Fortunately today was more to her liking.

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/getty/2d/fullj.78eac332e51971240cfb28c1cb4cf0ab/78eac332e51971240cfb28c1cb4cf0ab-getty-tennis-gbr-wta-aegon_classic.jpg

Haas beat Djokovic in the Halle final this week too.

!!! interesting result for sure. fed dropped out?

yeah...Djokovic was lucky to be in the final at all, he had to come back from 5-7, 2-5 down and save 5 match points against Florent Serra (!) in the 2nd round.

waht

French tennis player banned for betting found dead

Natural causes apparently.

RIP Mathieu

Fuckin' hell. (Though my initial shock was because I thought you meant Paul-Henri Mathieu...)

Oh right, sorry! To avoid confusion to others: it's Mathieu Montcourt.

The Lex's favourite choker, Richard Gasquet avoids getting suspended after testing positive for coke.

The full findings are here (pdf): pretty lol-worthy just for the kissing descriptions and finding out that he was allegedly "contaminated" at a Bob Sinclar event.

hingis should've found a french waiter of her own to blame. or maybe just one of the 9494439 atp players she'd slept with.

her ban ends in january right? think she'll come back?

wtf federer?! 5-2 up in the final set, somehow fails to serve it out twice and then DFs on match point in the tie-break to give Tsonga the win.

all credit to Jo-W for stepping it up right at the end, but still... that was some breakdown.

5-1 up in the third! :o

at the same time I was watching Flavia Pennetta try to choke away her match - she beat Venus in the last round, and winning this would mean a top 10 debut. 6 match points came and went, double faults on at least two of them, but her opponent was Hantuchova so it was OK in the end.

btw, Serena's post-Wimbledon record = QF loss in Stanford to Stosur and 3R loss in Cincinnati to Bammer, who now owns a 2-0 record over her. The Real Number 1!

am endeavouring to pretend the horrific Clijsters comeback isn't happening. never liked her.

best recent press conference = Marat defending baby sis by telling the press to "go fuck themselves" <3

obv didn't see the Fed match but am guessing that J-W just started going even more for broke than usual when down 1-5, and everything began going in.

yep and suddenly firing aces as well when he hadn't been able to get a good first serve in since like the end of the first set. meanwhile fed's serve just went to pieces after that.

also yay dinara fighting back a break in both sets to beat kimmy. would've hated it if she lost this one.

best recent press conference = Marat defending baby sis by telling the press to "go fuck themselves" <3

this whole presser was fucking classic.

Q. Now that you stopped, what about coaching her?

MARAT SAFIN: Oh, you want me to hang myself? (laughter.)

http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=58340

<3 <3 <3

Wow, Pennetta will be Italy's FIRST EVER top 10 woman! Both Schiavone and, before her, Farina Elia peaked at 11.

Meanwhile, Andy Murray becomes the first man not named Roger or Rafa to hold a spot in the top two since forever. More importantly, Del Potro beat Roddick.

i am enjoying Del Pony's hardcourt domination of Roddick v much.

Does it mean Del P gets his #5 ranking back? I know he lost a bunch of points in the second half of July. In fact, I'm happy to support Juan Martin today if it makes the difference... ;)

yeah, if he wins today he'll be back at no 5.

How is Nadal doing post-injury? Lost an edge, or is it too early to tell?

he's only played two or three proper matches so yeah still rusty/cautious but he seems to be getting better everyday.

gonna be a great USO - with Murray at number 2, it's likely that Nadal will end up on the same half of the draw as Fed which is just weird to think abt. they've both been at the top for *ages*.

henin to unretire

can only be a good thing

i have no problem with these comebacks, but geez, i wish these "i am gonna quit tennis"-people just announce a sabbatical instead.

also, on another forum i heard a theory that Henin will have a much more difficult time getting back in top shape, since "she's no athlete" and only got to number 1 after years and years and years of hard work.

otoh Clijsters had a kid.

"Subconsciously, it might have had an impact," Henin said of Clijster's successful comeback. "But it certainly was not the most important reason."

loooool keep telling yourself that, honey

Whatever the reasons this is good news.

Justine <3

This is only a good thing if we WIN THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN. And everything else. And get that Wimbledon title. And overtake Serena's Slam total.

I love the idea that she's only doing it to bully St. Kim again :D

exactly... like she'd ever let kim be the number one belgian. :P

http://www.7sur7.be/static/FOTO/pe/9/14/3/media_l_1750878.jpg

Wonderful news. Unless it's a total failure and she runs out of wildcards after a few months.

This is so hilarious! Welcome back, Justine!

women's tennis is so fucked.

3/1 To win 2010 French Open

Need to point out that 38-yr-old Kimiko Date-Krumm - she will be 39 next month - has just reached the Seoul final, beating Kleybanova, Hantuchova (lol Hantuchova) and Kirilenko in consecutive three-setters! So happy for her. From the bits and pieces I've seen of her this year, her old-school flat strokes are still a joy to watch and she's still a superior athlete to many of the girls half her age. She'll play Groenefeld or Medina Garrigues in the final - surely either are winnable matches.

And the WTA used "age ain't nothing but a number" as the headline for their story :D

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20090926/capt.43743459a1d84ecd965456cb3822e396.south_korea_korea_open_tennis_sel101.jpg

Not to take anything away from Kimiko's win srsly!, but surely first the Kim Slam and then this should be a bit embarrassing for the current wta generation...?

right and both sveta and safina have been knocked out in the second round of tokyo. sigh.

also these pictures of sugiyama's retirement ceremony is ;_;. poor Daniela!

so i guess I should mention that I'm currently working at the media centre at the Malaysian Open. Have gossip abt some of the players to share but for professional reasons, can't divulge until the after the tourney. XD I will say though that Magnus Norman is one hot coach and Tomas Berdych is a very very nice guy.

oh snap

whoa can't wait for the gossip! jealous of you roz. pretty great QF line-up for an inaugural tournament - Davydenko/Monfils, Soderling/Berdych, Youzhny/Gonzalez, Gasquet/Verdasco. hope the winner of the first one takes it all.

Not to take anything away from Kimiko's win srsly!, but surely first the Kim Slam and then this should be a bit embarrassing for the current wta generation...?

oh yeah, for sure, but the current WTA has been digging itself new lows for a couple of years now so someone cool may as well benefit. but you would never guess from looking at her that Mrs. Krumm is 39. would argue that Clijsters winning the USO was worse; Seoul is a small event and journeywomen be journeywomen, but Clijsters showed up the "elite" of the game.

btw the top six seeds all lost their opening matches in Tokyo :o

hope the winner of the first one takes it all.

oh totally - both those guys are rad esp Kolya who is all kinds of awesome. seems like he's just having a ball here. But i suspect that General Sod will probably win this - he's only played one match so far but even during practice, dude is on fire. Indoor hard courts suit him.

and yeah Tokyo is a clusterfuck but at least Jankovic is still there. She's been steadily regaining her form (I think the USO loss was forgivable given her personal circumstances at the time) so I really fucking hope she pulls it together.

pffft JJ! Retiring in a final at 5-2 without even waiting until Sharapova finished the first set. Awful fucking behaviour.

The Sod is inexplicably the most popular player here - there were like 300 people at his signing session. Someone in his entourage quipped afterwards "He's not even this popular in Sweden".

was just laughing about how Tokyo somehow got a marquee final out of that mess...and then, 5-2 ret. Oh dear. Bah, this means Li Na won't be making the top 15 just yet!

Impressive week from KING KOLYA, beating fresh-off-a-title Monfils and on-fire Soderling, the final vs Verdasco should be good. As should the Troicki/Simon Bangkok final!

A couple of notables from Luxembourg WTA event:

1. Some new 14-year old called Yulia Putintseva gets wildcard to the qualies, takes out Stefanie Voegele and Claudine Schaul, though loses 36 46 to Kirsten Flipkens in the final qual round.

2. 1st round match between (1) Wozniacki and (LL) Kremer: WozDEN is up 75 30, has a chat with fathercoach Piotr. He allegedly says "hey, retire at 05, u won't play tomorrow anyway, let them have some joy" or similar WITH LIVE TV MIC NEARBY, sending in-play bettors into whorls of confusion -- and acrimony when it happens. K def W 57 05 R. What are WTA rules for this, I wonder?

loooooooool

i managed to catch a little bit of rafa/davydenko (!?) @ shanghai - didnt seem like a v. good match tbh altho it was a surprising result

WozDen's getting away with it with the whole "St. Caroline was SO NICE to let the hometown girl go through when she knew she couldn't play the 2nd round" angle. Also, Luxembourg, no one cares any more. Completely ridiculous anyway.

KING KOLYA played amazingly in Shanghai - his SF against Djokovic was a great match and I wasn't surprised he beat Rafa after that. He was on fire.

wait what, what was the reason for Wozniacki retiring?

I haven't managed to see any tennis since the US Open. Oh god no, I mean since the GB Davis Cup tie. I neeeeeed it.

"strained hamstring" or something? It wasn't like she was unable to play on - she just tweaked something which presumably would have meant that she'd give a w/o in the 2nd round, to save herself for Doha next week. She's played an insane schedule recently - Beijing, Tokyo, Osaka, Luxembourg, Doha in consecutive weeks?!

Has Del Potro won a match since the US Open? Kolya nudges Roddick out of the way in the rankings and Murray is now down at #4.

No matches won! But he has been the subject of two kiss-and-tells by ARG models he contacted on Facebook though. Go Del Pony.

Safina finally lost the No 1 spot with consecutive losses to girls ranked 140 and 226. Silliams celebrated regaining it with a third-set TB loss to NADEZHDA PETROVA, how is that even possible? Venus lost two consecutive early-rounders to Pavlyuchenkova. Bepa 3's latest choke was a monumental one - from 6-3, 5-1 up over CAKE.

~America's sweetheart~ Melanie Oudin has failed to get out of qualies since the USO :/

Anyone tempted to see the end of year event in November? No idea what the tickets cost, just excited that its taking place in London.

Caroline Wozniacki is insane - she's played more matches and tournaments than anyone else this year and totally setting herself for a major injury in the future if she doesn't learn to cut back on her schedule.

No talk about my favourite wasted potential Ernests Gulbis getting busted for hiring hookers in Sweden yet? The news came out a couple of days ago although no one was actually named, but Joachim Johansson blurted out on his blog that it was indeed Ernie... loool nice work Pim Pim

lol Pim Pim, what a dummy.

Gulbis should not need to pay for sex tbh.

For some reason I didn't take on board that the YEC being in London means that it will BE IN LONDON AND I CAN GO TO IT - think it's largely sold out now though :(

Really? Aargh, I have been sleeping

prostitution isn't legal in Sweden? that seems weird.

interestingg...
In 1999, Sweden became the first country to make it illegal to pay for sex, but not to be a prostitute (the client commits a crime, but not the prostitute).

i'm just amused that it was Gulbis - the guy is never going to get rid of his spoiled rich kid tag. he's the Chuck Bass of tennis.

But he has been the subject of two kiss-and-tells by ARG models he contacted on Facebook though

pics or it didnt happen

irl lolz @ non-slam tennis l8ly

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/1027/ten_g_wtagirls_576.jpg

lol what are the Williams sisters wearing here

bitches ftw

Jankovic: "I basically gave her everything. I beat myself. That was really unfortunately the case. My game was completely off."
Azarenka: "I'm glad she gave me the match and she was not in the mood. It worked out pretty well for me."

zing!

i'm so glad someone finally used that response! I love JJ and hate Azarenka but Jelena walked into that one rather.

Surprised that everyone (except Serena) looks basically acceptable in the promo photo, given most of their track records. Spent a while trying to figure out if Venus pulls off her look, it's a bit aprony, but I think she does. Dinara's not great but could be and has been much worse. Everyone else plays it safe and together look boring, but on their own pretty good, especially Sweta of all people. Serena, jumpsuit, god, when she retires the attention-seeking is going to reach unprecedented heights, isn't it?

Apparently in Agassi's imminent autobiog, he admits to using crystal meth in '97!!!

between that and maria sharapova snarking on both her AND azarenka a couple of weeks ago, jelena jankovic is officially the wta's new favourite punching bag.

the entire agassi story goes something like "i was on meth for a while, failed a drug test, made up a lie which the ATP bought, felt really bad about it and never did it again. ps richard gasquet ain't got nothing on me." ok i made that last part up but that's the gist of it.

tennis is so badass this year.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL @ WTA!

Just tuned into Azarenka vs Wozniacki at 5-5 in the third, Azarenka having lost a 5-3 lead. First thing I hear, her horrible dying goose screech. And then amazing comedy as she gets TWO CONSECUTIVE CODE VIOLATIONS - ball abuse first and then on the next point she MURDERED her racquet and got a point penalty which handed Wozniacki that game. At the changeover she went completely insane and started banging the already-mangled racquet everywhere just to make sure it was totally dead, and then Wozniacki served out in about two seconds, fin.

Women's tennis may be the pits this year quality-wise, but comedy-wise it outstrips pretty much everything ever.

!!! seriously... i thought that match would never fucking end. Azarenka was pathetic and hilarious.

and I am all of a sudden a Wozniacki fan and why not? In obvious pain, her serve falling apart and moon-balling all over the place but the girl just won't switch off, she's so dialed in on every point. And if she drives other players mad that way, more power to her. Also i love her hair.

oh shit that sounds amazing

um wtf happened to dinara? wasn't planning on watching it but i was looking at the scores and she retired after two games?

My only prediction before the tournament was that both alternates would be used. One down!

her back or something? sigh fitting end to her season i suppose. this tourney could use some bepa battiness anyway.

@TennisReporters Among other people I don't want to be today is Antonio, Azarenka's coach, after she goes Myskina on him in the locker room
6 minutes ago from web

i'm so glad my favourite player's name has now entered the lexicon and been immortalised like this <3

woah so Safina withdrew because of a fracturing disc in her spine???? yikes, I kind of feel bad for making fun of her inability to win now

winced when i saw that yesterday but she said it wouldn't require surgery? don't know whether this is the same as/similar to the chronic back injuries which forced Kournikova and Golovin into retirement, hope not. i tend to take what tennis players say with a pinch of salt when it comes to their injuries, but Safina's not one of those who constantly claims to be on her deathbed before bravely rising from it to beat scrubs 0 and 1 without a hint of pain (Clijsters, Wozniacki).

caught a repeat of what happened earlier and it was kind of painful to watch, she was sobbing so hard. you're right though, safina hardly ever uses her injuries as excuses and as far as i can remember has never retired from a match regardless of how badly she's playing so it must be pretty bad if she really felt she couldn't play on. :/

Today's insanity: Bepa starts the match with an extended meltdown, going down 0-6, 2-5 and at one point having to play with tissues still shoved in her nose. But she has clawed her way back in to take the second set on a TB, saving two match points along the way - one with a Hawkeye overrule!

lol what? I stopped watching after she got broken in the second. -_-

god this match is so boring

Absurd. Caroline either cramping or her hamstring was really paining her, she collapsed on the ground serving at *5-4, 30-30 in the third and played the rest of the match with tears streaming down her face and pretty much hobbled. Of course, Bepa still managed to fuck up! HOW DO YOU EVEN LOSE THAT GAME BEPA OMG. Absurd.

apparently everything happens when i'm not watching. that match was so unbearably awful though.

oh yeah, hideous quality. Wozniacki with her usual midpaced nothing shots, and Bepa just refusing to go for anything, rally continues in this vein until someone hits a stupid error five miles out. when a match is like that I only tune in at the end of sets...

i know i wanted some bepa battiness but that was too much.

i'm back to hating on Caro btw. it always throws me when she whales a forehand and it falls like three feet inside the baseline.

Her FH is truly the stuff of nightmares. So weak.

Azarenka losing it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMSONEBDNQ

My only prediction before the tournament was that both alternates would be used. One down!

good call now that Bepa's pulled out of Doha citing ankle injury which means A-Rad will playing Azarenka. Caro looked pretty terrible at the end of that last match, what happens if she pulls out too? I haven't watched one of these in years so i've no idea what the rules are at this point.

Utterly non-topical, just a bit of wtf trivia I came across...

i) go here, and change the years in the boxes to, say, 1992 and 2001;

ii) shrug at Mr Guilfoil's unremarkable results, not unlike thousands of other players who tried and failed;

iii) then click the "Biography" tab and marvel. Can anyone just show up or something?

I'm thinking that he was kind of abusing the notion of 'futures' there.

There was I being embarrassed at losing a club match to a white-haired 59-y-o when I was a teenager, and there's aspiring pro Brian Wright, dropping four games to a 77-y-o...

Gotta be wrong, surely?!

i dunno, these bottom-rung tournaments attract a huge variety of people trying their luck or just entering on a lark - as far as i know, you pay your fee and if there's space in the qualifying draw, you get in. 50-year-old dewonder davis has been playing US satellites for a decade. sometimes she's even won a couple of games!

and a lot of the younger "aspiring pros" are complete shit - look up the record of one brie whitehead, for example - so if that guilfoil dude was in good shape, even at 77, played an old-skool s&v game, it doesn't surprise me at all that someone who may not be more than a club hacker would lose games to him.

http://billg.usptapro.com/default.aspx/MenuItemID/351/MenuGroup/ProHome06.htm

yeah I can believe that he could offer a little embarrassment to some 17-year-old chump.

yeah all these smaller tournaments have pretty huge qualifying draws so it's not actually that difficult to get in and play a couple of matches if you can pay the entry fee. but that's pretty amazing regardless - that site says he was a world-ranked table tennis player as well.

here's victoria azarenka and caro wozniacki bringing some cute self-deprecating snark to the WTA about one minute in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy9zF1l63v0

Can't stand either of them on a tennis court but no lie, I think they're both pretty fabulous. They're basically my anti-JJ, who i think is kind of a horrible person but who's great to watch when she's playing well.

Malisse and Wickmayer banned for a year for not filling in two whereabouts and missing one doping test (Malisse) and not filling in three whereabouts (Wickmayer).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8345711.stm

I kind of want to rename this thread "Who is James Blake losing to this week?" ;_;

there's an up-and-coming dubstep producer called James Blake, lol.

the Wickmayer suspension is so fucked...she didn't even miss any tests. Surely she'll win her appeal though - when this case first came up, her argument that her password for the computer system to log her whereabouts failed (and then she wasn't at home to pick up the new one because hello, tennis players are always on tour) was backed up by IT records and the prosecutor recommended a warning, not a suspension. So this decision has to be down to jobsworthiness or politics. And looks particularly bad in the context of Gasquet and Agassi this year.

It was the Belgian doping authorities who nearly fucked Kuznetsova's career up a few years ago due to their idiocy, wasn't it? Hmmmm.

So there's a sort of 2nd-division round-robin event this week in Bali for all the WTA tournament winners who didn't qualify for Doha? Who knew? Is this the first time they've done this? Bit like the old Ladies' Plate event at Wimbledon (won by Sue Barker one year), for first-round losers (well, not very much like that then).

Even worse than that - it's the International event winners only, ie the former Tier III/Tier IV minnie-mouse tournaments traditionally won by nonentity journeywomen. It's not a terrible field, and I like all four SFists a lot (Bartoli, Martinez Sanchez, Date-Krumm, Rezai) but honestly there was no demand for any sort of round-robin event featuring the likes of Medina Garrigues and Czink, no justification for the huge points on offer (600 for the winner!!!) and just no point at all.

Plus having clear and specific qualification criteria is no good if you're going to have arbitrary WCs as well. The WTA is such a poorly-run organisation.

You may as well bring back for-TV invitational exhibition events with diamond-studded gold rackets as prizes (remember that Antwerp event Lendl always used to win?).

Not to mention that the biggest advantage of a four-groups-of-three RR system is that it can avoid any dead rubbers - and yet the WTA STILL manages to fuck this up with poor scheduling.

xp haha that was a WTA event for a while this decade - the diamond racket went to anyone who could win the tournament 3 times in five years, Mauresmo ended up winning it...

Lendl did the 3-in-5-years thing between '81 and '85 (the '85 final vs McEnroe was live on ITV, bizarrely - I can still remember the score: 1-6 7-6 6-2 6-2) and last I heard Ivan's blingy racket was in some bank vault somewhere.

Venus won it twice and for a while it was about the only tour event that she'd be 100% cast-iron guaranteed to show up at.

There was talk of bringing that diamond thing back in Antwerp now that local crowd and sponsor pullers Kim and Justine will be playing again but I don't know the latest news about this.

I hope Marat goes out in a blaze of racket smashing glory later today although i would love to see him go on a run to the semi's or final before losing to Nadal or Fed. His final match ought to be against one of those guys.

go out in style, marat.

video of him winning the USO in 2000...he was so beautiful then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iR-TkvFWkM

Marat a break down in the final set, looks like the end of the line

a really sad way for my favorite player to go out, if that's the case. His run at wimbledon a couple years ago was great though

It's all over :(

:( :( :(

I've been out mountain climbing for the past week or so and was hoping to get back in time to catch Maratski's last match (against JMDP of all people - there's a nice symmetry there, two twenty year olds who toppled undeniable greats at the USO) and wouldn't you know it... just six hours late. :(

goodbye you crazy beautiful bastard.

i missed it too, too much work :(

good to see he scrubbed up well for his farewell. would say "great career" except it was more about wasted talent, but at least he was ridiculously beautiful...except as often as not he wasted that too, with strange facial hair and such. loved him anyway.

yeah and the worst thing about it is that he had started looking really fantastic again over the past few months - not just looks-wise but even playing like he cares again. just wanting to make us miss him more, i suppose. gahhh.

You may as well bring back for-TV invitational exhibition events with diamond-studded gold rackets as prizes (remember that Antwerp event Lendl always used to win?).

― Michael Jones, Friday, November 6, 2009 4:29 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

December 9th, Antwerp: Kim Clijsters vs. Venus Williams.

http://www.thomascookdiamondgames.be/

Um, I don't think Yanina's 4 court cases against that 1 year ban will be over by then:

Schedule Thomas Cook Diamond Games
7pm: Yanina Wickmayer - Patty Schnyder
8.30pm: Music show (Milk Inc)
9.30pm: Kim Clijsters - Venus Williams

exos aren't proper "competition", she'll be allowed to play unless the organiser disinvites her. she'd be wise to - they're paid hefty sums to play these and it looks like she won't have an income next year...

According to the local press here she isn't allowed to play at exhibition matches.

They (Wickmayer and Malisse) have assembled a team of 7 lawyers, one of them Melchior Wathelet, the former minister of justice and top judge at the European Court of Justice, to appeal against the decision in four different courts.

really looking forward to reading agassi's memoir after that NYT piece

really looking forward to reading agassi's memoir after that NYT piece

REALLY

Draw for the World Tour Finals (the WTFs) is out.

Group A: Federer, Murray, Del Potro, Verdasco
Group B: Nadal, Djokovic, Davydenko, Soderling (replacing Roddick who's injured)

Extra incentive to watch this year, as apparently not a single player's year-end ranking is safe. well except maybe Roger's, but Rafa can still finish no. 1 if Roger somehow loses badly in all 3 RR matches and Rafa goes on to win the title without dropping a single match (unlikely?). Fed-Murray/Murray-Delpo/Delpo-Fed matches should all be totally fun anyway, unless Delpo withdraws with that abdominal strain he got last week.

More interested in the real rivalry of '09, which is Nadal vs Djokovic - including the WTFs, they'll have played each other 7 times this year (and 21 in total, one more than the total number of Fed-Rafa career meetings! lol Fedal rivalry fail). Nadal won the first four of the year, Nole the last two. Djoko's also on a roll after winning Basel and Paris in the past two weeks, beating both Fed and Nadal on the way; and could well go to no. 2 if he wins the whole thing and Rafa loses at least two of his RR matches. OR Djokovic could fail miserably while Murray wins the whole thing and takes over no. 3. And so on and so forth.

also note that Rafa has lost to all three players in his half in their most recent meetings so i'm hoping he gets at least one revenge win there.

but tbh, given every player's current form, it's just as likely nothing will change at all - it's just fun to think that one or two matches could make the difference as no one in the top 9 really has a significant lead over their closest competitors. WTFs indeed.

Well, bless my missus - she's only gone and got me a ticket for the Wednesday evening session as an anniversary present. (It's our 11th and her gift for our 1st was for the Blackrock Masters at the RAH - McEnroe, Leconte, Bahrami, etc). I have a horrible feeling I'm going to get the Bryan twins plus Davydenko-Soderling, but what the hell*. I lived in Greenwich for 18 months and never even went to the Dome, so this is a first.

(* - groups were drawn today so I assume the schedule follows tomorrow?)

that's really sweet of your wife. congrats on the anniversary! :)

schedules for sunday and monday are out and yeah looks like group B will be playing wednesday, but if you're lucky you might get djoko-sod, kolya-nadal, or djoko-nadal rather than sod-kolya.

Click play.

The Bryan Brothers Band feat Novak Djokovic & Andy Murray - Autograph

I... have no words.

(can we start a tennis lols thread?)

I was right about the Bryans and half-right about the singles - it's Nadal-Kolya, which suits me fine.

Nadal/Kolya should be amazing, lucky you Mike. Predicting a Kolya win. I haven't had the time to even pay attention to this tournament let alone watch it yet, was going to get a ticket for today but am sooooo snowed under :(

I don't have the strength for Andy Murray rapping just now :/

haven't missed much lex - despite all the three set matches, it hasn't really been that fun except for Kolya-Nole yesterday and the last set of Delpo-Verdasco today. It must suck to be a Verdasco fan though. The guy can play fabulous tennis but when it comes to closing out tight matches, he always goes away in the last two minutes or so. it's so depressing.

you can save Muzz rap for after his match with Fed (trying to decide whose loss would be funnier - Fed's been trash-talking Murray in interviews lately, but Murray losing to Fed in London would be just... lol.)

Murray currently alternating between dominating and double-faulting. Federer again with the weird errors. When they work up a good rally it is absolutely beautiful.

Roger's forehand is all over the place. First set stats - 1 winner, 12 unforced errors. ;_;

lol never mind one set later, it's 19 winners to 11 UFEs.

Amazing rallies in this match btw.

Federer really starting to motor, up 3-1 in the 5th and...the BBC3 feed drops out. I mean, c'mon...it's not exactly being broadcast from the other side of the world.

Wow, this is pretty poor.

Oh hello.

How insanely jealous am I that Michael is witnessing this amazing match live right now? Holy shit Kolya and Rafa...

Great win for Kolya, expected him to win anyway. Those were some ridiculous rallies at the end of the set there.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46805000/jpg/_46805408_nadal_new_credit.jpg

That was truly a great experience - what a venue. I was on the second row of the highest tier and had a fantastic view. The scale of the Dome is absurd - outside the arena but within the complex there's a cinema, restaurants, bars - and a funfair with a bloody rollercoaster.

Bryan/Bryan vs. Paes/Dlouhy - the twins just do everything right, don't they? Like robots in baseball caps. Dlouhy was all over the shop - sublime touch and then flubbed putaways, great pickups and dismal mistimes off 80mph second serves. 6-3 6-4 to the Yanks.

Nadal was getting crushed for the first half-hour - I don't think he won a single point off his second serve until well into the second set. The manner of his comeback though - saving five break-points at the beginning of the 2nd, eventually dropping serve, then roaring back to lead 5-4 - really got everyone involved. I doubt they've had a better atmos at the O2 this week. And the tie-breaker was sublime. Shame we didn't see a 3rd set but we may well have been into night bus territory by that point.

I didn't risk taking the DSLR (it would probably have been confiscated), so borrowed a friend's zoomy compact:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2669/4134362149_08d41f82bd.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2497/4135113532_66c56ab95a.jpg

Awesome.

Verdasco missed an easy volley a couple of games back and proceeded to hang himself over the net, then he got two or three net-courts in the tie break that he went on to win. Shouldn't the net have been measured/tensioned/whatever-it-is-they-do after he draped himself over it? Would a man putting his entire weight on the net be enough to loosen it up enough to turn faults into lets?

yeah they usually do correct the net - I thought it was weird they didn't.

BTW this match is fucking hilarity. Not sure how Murray managed to win the first set serving at 47% but he did. And then the same thing happened with Verdasco in the second and yet he still somehow managed to save like 10 break pts, and then Muzz goes ahead and DFs on set pt in the TB to bring the match to one set all.

It's like neither can decide who wants to play worse at the moment.

Ugh Verdasco is such a beautiful failure. Just once I'd like to see him gut out a deciding set TB.

Only a three-set win for Del Potro would leave the Scot's place in doubt, at which point it would come down to the percentage of games won by Murray, Federer and Del Potro.

So Federer and Del Potro can now work out the perfect scoreline between them to put Murray out? Nice :)

Get the calculators out, chaps - Fed has levelled.

Murray: 44-43
Del Potro (currently): 39-40
Federer: 41-34

Federer is definitely through, even losing this set 0-6. Murray goes through with a Federer victory or any tight Delpy win (6-4, 7-5, 7-6). Delpy wins this set 6-3 or better and Murray is out.

Fed had three break-points there to send Murray through. I think Andy M will trash his Holiday Inn suite if Fed drops serve here.

0-40. The mini-bar is shakin'...

Delpy serving for it, 30-0.

So Federer and Del Potro can now work out the perfect scoreline between them to put Murray out? Nice :)

― nearly 50 in vagina years (onimo), Thursday, 26 November 2009 19:34 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see Germany vs Austria FIFA WC 1982

You reckon? Del Potro put a 112mph 2nd serve on the back-edge of the line to save break-point at 3-4. Sorry, no way.

This tournament lives up to its acronym. Couldn't tell you how I much I was laughing when Fed double faulted to set up the BPs in that last game.

how much*

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46810000/jpg/_46810815_jamie_murray_getty466i.jpg

Murray's brother Jamie was an interested spectator at the O2 Arena

evidently.

I really have nothing to add, except 'lol'.

from the ATP twitter: Federer's games won/lost were 44-40, with Del Potro 45-43 and Murray 44-43. What a nailbiter!

Dayum. Conspiracy theorists can say whatever but with the numbers this close, I really doubt that they would've managed to work it out beforehand. It all came down to Fed winning that second set in the end.

JMDP was really, really lucky there. Or Murray was really, really unlucky.

can't believe i'm only watching this for the first time - year-end champs in my own damn home town and probably the tournament i've followed least closely in the whole year. this week has been mental. didn't even know who'd qualified for the SF until today. pissed off that i seem to have missed a ton of great tennis, and insanely jealous of mike getting to go!

anyway, roger's in full on fed-error mode here. go king kolya!

Roger's been doing that in the first set in every match so far, before recovering beautifully in the second. He's doing it again now. :/

oh damn it Kolya.

This is great stuff now!

whoo. kolya played so well to come back from 0-30 when serving at *4-5 in the third, after some outrageous genius from fed...

KOLYA BREAKS!

come on Kolya don't fuck this up now!

30-0 to 30-40... :/

FOREHAND! deuce!

WOOO!

:D

first win over fed for kolya, i believe.

Kolya's H2H vs Federer now: 1-12. :D

Magnificent last set. Fed looks devastated.

I wonder if Kolya will quote Vitas G in his post-match interview? "NO ONE beats Nikolay Davydenko thirteen times in a row!"

only got to watch the final set but pony boy was fabulous there coming back from a break down and going on to play a superb TB.

More bad news for Murray, if Delpo goes on to win the title, he'll take over Muzz's spot at no. 4.

Mauresmo retired

I wish you well, you awesome burly headcase

:( I loved her, even though it was goddamn painful to watch her most of the time.

Enjoy that cellar full of red wine Momo!

memories of mauresmo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQP6mNYkKAQ

so, justine's back! and drew petrova in her first match back - nadezhda obviously wasn't going to let her 94843948th chance to prove her uselessness pass, and accordingly fell in straight sets.

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

i love this pic of nadia drawing justine's name during the draw ceremony. "Oh fuck me."

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4931/nadsdrawbrisbane.jpg

didn't she draw sharapova on her first match back as well? fact: tennis gods hate nadia petrova. to her credit though, her match against justine wasn't bad at all, she just choked at the end as she always does. about 300% better quality than the ivanovic-dokic match before anyway.

twitter is basically making me love all of the players I hate. :/ I should stop reading them.

watching justine play for the first time in 2 years!! god i've missed that backhand. she's just taken the first set over sesil karatantcheva, stream at http://www.freedocast.com/forms/PopOut.aspx?sc=5320427231E3213D109B

elsewhere, 39-year-old kimiko date-krumm has moved into the auckland QF w/victories over chakvetadze and razzano...

Lex the Henin match is live on British Eurosport if you have it.

i don't any more :(

this stream is pretty good though

well, that was fun! watched from 4-4 in the first set; when closing out the first set and coming back from 0-2 to 4-2 in the second, justine was ON SERIOUS FIYAH and it was gorgeous to watch. i think she's playing a lot more aggressively than she used to - lots of net rushes, esp off sesil's weak-ass second serve. some amazing down-the-line winners. from 4-2 to the end was a bit, uh, scrappier - some nasty shanked shots and she totally fucked up serving for the match. but i am very positive about this comeback now!

karatantcheva's ability to stay with henin in rallies was impressive - good anticipation, good pace and depth, but she often made a hash of more aggressive moves - though given henin's defensive skills you can't blame her. she fell apart towards the end and her serve was pretty woeful, though.

in other news, what the fuck is wrong with new zealand? http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/asb-classic-disrupted-protesters-3324955

the israeli govt is criticised around the world, which is fine, but at no other tournament has this meant personal harassment (for the second year running!) of a tennis player. those protestors need punches in the face. i'm not a fan of shahar peer and her ugly defensive game by any means, but i reaaally hope she wins the whole tournament now.

that whole bullshit makes me so angry - she's had to put up with so much crap just because she happens to be israeli. it's ridiculous. she's a 21yo female tennis player playing in an international tournament where she's not even representing her country or competing in support of her govt's policies. she's a professional athlete trying to do her job - what's so hard to get about that?

btw, joining kimiko date-krumm in the ancient stakes: Younes El Aynaoui, at 38, has just become the second-oldest male player to win a tour match since Connors in 1995.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=4800546

I am only posting this now-out-f-date story because OMG BLAKE WON A MTCH

Could be a Clijsters vs Henin final in Brisbane - first one for 4 or 5 years?

pretty solid bet imo - sadly i don't think henin's solid or tuned-up enough to beat clijsters just yet though :(

she will doubtless avenge herself on one or more big stages this year though :)

kim clijsters d. lucie safarova 6-1, 0-6, 6-4.

lol wta i have missed you

oh lucie :(

soooooooo happy to be seeing Justine on TV again! And in my home town to boot, shame I don't live there anymore. I'm gonna pop into the Medibank International in Sydney next week and do some stalking and such though!

My favourite loser and Latvian #1, Ernests Gulbis took a set off Fed today. I'd just like to note that this is a significant achievement in his young career.

also hilarious match. I lol'd way too hard at the hawkeye challenges alone.

Roger in Fed-error mode + gulbis' eternal headcasey-ness = comical tennis.

Blake lost but at least it was to someone with a modicum of talent

4 out of 6 Sports Illustrated experts pick Blake as their "On his Last Legs" for 2010.

Of course, one of those "experts" also picked the guy who's never gotten past the second round of Wimbledon to *win* it this year so make of that what you will.

those predictions are a bit "throw a name at the wall, don't wait around to see if it sticks". one dude picks serena to win 3 slams and safina to win the other...yet also picks henin as player of the year? what? also, picking vaidisova, who fell out of the top 150 last summer, as "on her last legs" strikes me as more than slightly behind the times

and picking roddick as breakthrough player seems to indicate a failure to understand the concept of "breakthrough player"

It's somewhat encouraging that Blake took a set off of Monfils, but then I remember that it's Monfils, who sometimes decides that the best strategy for his game is to hit balls as far out as he can possibly get them in a baffling attempt to confuse his opponents into bouts of incapacitated laughter.

xpost I know right? jon weirtheim's picks are prob the only reliable ones, but then he is SI's resident tennis expert. SL Price used to do okay coverage but these days, he's just way too in love with those guys who came up with Fed - Safin, Roddick, Hewitt et al. The rest are just crazy talk.

okay that was massively funny reading

"breakthrough" clearly means something different to me than it does to some of these guys

monfils is a funny one. he can never seem to decide between dumb ball-bashing and passive pushing, either. it's so frustrating that he STILL stands 5 million miles behind the baseline so often - whenever he comes in a bit more he's so good. i think he'd rather coast along and be the crowd-pleasing, entertaining sort than push himself to be a real elite player.

i'm so annoyed i'm going to have to do these myself, even though some of the questions are dumb and making any predictions in the first week of the year is a fool's game

How many Slams will Federer win? - one
Which Andy will win a major? - murray
Should the U.S. Open add a roof? - yes, but it should probably sort out its dumb-ass final week schedule first
Player of the Year - nadal
Breakthrough Player - cilic
On His Last Legs - ferrero
Most Curious About - nishikori
Year-End Top Five - nadal, murray, djokovic, federer, davydenko
Australian Open - murray
Roland Garros - nadal
Wimbledon - federer
US Open - djokovic

Will Serena be suspended in 2010? - wtf, no
Will Henin crack the Top 5? - duh, yes
Higher year-end ranking: Melanie Oudin or Ana Ivanovic? - lol, ivanovic, but neither will be impressive
Player of the Year - henin
Breakthrough Player - lisicki
On Her Last Legs - schnyder
Most Curious About - jankovic
Year-End Top Five - henin, clijsters, serena, azarenka, jankovic
Australian Open - serena
Roland Garros - henin
Wimbledon - henin
US Open - serena

Most Curious About - nishikori

OTM!

actually in the women's i'm most curious about robson - she had some really poor senior results last year! ditto larcher de brito, but i'd rather not think about her.

nishikori had such bad luck with injuries in 09 and fell out of the top 200 - would love to see if he can work his way back and get back on track.

glad to see i'm not the only one who was doing that in my head. agree with most of your picks except my top 5 ATP were: Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Murray, Delpo; Murray to win the AO, Rafa to win RG and Wimby, Fed/Nole to win USO.

Top 5 WTA: Clijsters, Henin, Serena, Jankovic, Sveta

Slams: Clijsters, Henin, Henin, Serena

Laura Robson's been losing her matches at the Hopman Cup but she looks like she's gonna grow into a very good player. Huge if unreliable serve, good groundstrokes, good head.

sorry good head sounded wrong lol. i just mean that she seems to be pretty mentally tough.

i kind of think del potro will have a bit of a sophomore slump - most male players who win slams that young do - maybe not a drastic one, but i think a few wtf losses are in his future this year. a fair few post-USO kiss-and-tells have been emerging out of argentina, too. (jealous!)

robson seems to play way better on the main tour, but some of her challenger losses last year...

xp haha

dish! i haven't heard anything except that he's been announcing that he's single and looking to anyone who'd listen. I think he thinks a Slam winner should have a permanent WAG, aw.

also i just noticed your username and loooooooool nice one.

kudos, first to get it!

here, lex pretend: ليخ فريتينض

it's not quite accurate though because there aren't any real equivalents to "e" and "x" in the arabic alphabet so it's more like "likh pritind". :)

amazing. will save for future use...

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

lynx?

US Open - djokovic

i dont have a lot of faith in his game tbh in fact i can see this being a discouraging year for him

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef012876b6002d970c-pi

awwwww

it's funny that wozniacki was the one who gave in eventually. obviously.

saw the first set of henin/ivanovic last night before falling asleep - justine made ana look like a joke. after a while, ana just joined in with that. all i could think while watching was, how the fuck did you ever win a slam and get to no 1. (ah that's right, because justine "retired"!)

KOLYA! ruining my dreams of a Fedal final. Oh well, Rafa would've crushed Fed anyway, this is a much better matchup.

But in troubling news, the commies suggested that Fed may have tweaked his wrist, which wouldn't surprise me at all given how hard Gulbis was hitting to him yesterday. And he really did look uncomfortable today. As in, worse than usual Fed-error mode. I just hope he'll be okay once the AO starts.

king kolya! :)

idk i know i predicted federer to win wimbledon this year but it wouldn't surprise me if he went slamless. i mean...he kind of backed into RG and wimbledon last year! a month before RG he looked washed up! and now he's got the 15...

it wouldn't surprise me either honestly. I'm more curious to see if this is the year his ridiculous semi-finals streak gets broken!

unless he gets ambushed by someone random, or injury, i don't think so...even murray and djokovic, who beat him regularly in tour events, haven't learnt to do it in slams yet, apart from djokovic once. (that said i think this is the year they learn.) those two + nadal + del potro and davydenko are the only five players i can even imagine beating him in a slam - like even give a chance, not even favour - and he wouldn't ever meet 3 of them before the SF, so...

I still have this ridiculous idea/hope that Fed can do a calendar year Grand Slam; this is the last year he could possibly do it, I think (he was only a few points away last year, to be fair). Nadal is back at something like his best then? Because in London a few weeks ago he played like a decent top-20 scrapper, out of his depth.

hahaha yeah - hearing lex and roz talking like fed is vulnerable im like... COLON LEFT BRACKET

Oh well, Rafa would've crushed Fed anyway, this is a much better matchup.

this is what i get for sleeping the eoy tournaments! last time i saw footage of nadal he was still very tentative and nowhere near his 08 level.

yeah i dunno guys, Haas came so close to beating Fed at RG last year, and Soderling nearly pushed him to a fifth set at the USO QFs, and this was with Fed playing better than he has been in the past week and throughout the indoor season. i feel like an upset could def happen if he ran into someone with a habit of suddenly getting on fire, like a tsonga or a gonzo in say, the fourth round or the QFs.

but of course, the tough part is that anyone who wants to beat Fed probably needs to do it in straights because you just know the longer a match goes on, the higher the odds favour Fed.

re Nadal: yep playing much better. should've really beaten troicki 6-1 6-1 today - got a little ahead of himself serving out the match but it was still very much a one-sided affair. he's remembered how to play on hard court and i think the davis cup win at the end of last year did wonders for his confidence.

Is Laura Robson is getting more out of the Hopman Cup experience than Andy Murray? Murray supposedly skipped a defence in Doha to get three guaranteed matches in Perth but he's won them all so easily it's barely been a workout. Robson's lost hers, as expected, but it'll be a while before she plays people of this calibre again. They've won all their mixed and they're in the final!

It'll prob be useful for her when she plays the AO qualies next. she beat MJMS today while Andy lost his singles match in three against Robredo, and now Andy's continuing to be useless while Robson's outhitting Robredo from the baseline! I think I love her.

Kim vs Justine is on. Hurrah. First impression after five games is that Clijsters is playing a bit better but is chucking in a few errors that is making the games go closer than they need to and robbed her of a break.

Oh Justine, double faults.. less good.

oh dear down a set and two breaks.

looking up at Carlos. just like old times...

Now zero breaks. What a terrible run of games from Clijsters. As if she's forgotten the ball needs to land inside the lines.

looooool 4-1 up to lose it 4-6. Epic choking Kim.

Lololol, that was practically a 0-6 set with a brief introduction on it.

Women's tennis, eh.

like nothing's changed. :')

terrible officiating in this match - why hasn't brisbane splashed out some dough for hawkeye yet?

Yeah, definitely. Even the commentators are pointing it out (correctly). Shame, as the game has just re-sprung into life. as a result!

the momentum swings in this match is ridiculous - clijsters wins her first game out of 8 and suddenly she's broken back and leveled up.

Zomg wtf, Clijsters was just hiting the ball so ridiculously hard and then flubbed the smash on the tape.

And that was to go down a (presumably decisive) break.

or not...

Wow. This is ridiculous now. Henin is probably wishing she hadn't stood so close to the net there.

WOMEN'S. TENNIS.

terrible officiating in this match - why hasn't brisbane splashed out some dough for hawkeye yet?

It's a small tournament, something like $200k total prize money. Presumably Hawkeye would have wiped that out.

Two match points saved! Maybe I've watched too much men's tennis which is filled with players who take an eternity to serve the bloody ball, but I think Kim's charging through the points a little quickly.

5-5! I need to find a stream of this...

http://www.atdhe.net/7635/watch-wta-brisbane

You've just missed a love service game from Henin which included Clijsters doing the splits as she often does.

xposts things like hawkeye are what sponsors are for. I worked at the even smaller tournament in KL and we had hawkeye. it's the tournament director's job to secure enough funding for the best tourney possible.

Four backhand errors that game. Atypical for Justine. And this is a tie-break.

Mini-break to Kim. But not over yet, there's a little part of me that kind of expects one of them to reveal that they're actually Elena Dementieva wearing a mask.

Gah, can't get any feeds to work. Looks like this is all over... 2nd-serve ace for 5-1 for KC?

Not yet. But probably. 5-3 now.

6-3.

6-4...

looked in

Oh drama! Clijsters thought she'd won but her ball which was very close got called out at the last minute. Very very close.

zomg wtf drop shot!

6-6!

And a good one too but Henin hit an awesome angle there.

Oh dear, a double fault from Justine - she's been hitting those on all the wrong points.

wow

Wow, that was kinda epic. I mean it was junk from 4-1 in the second set, but then back to life and it's a shame that some of the dodgiest calling came during some of the best play. I loved the look of Kim's game when she was just smacking the shit out of the ball.

Ah, that's that. Well, I didn't see any of it but I suspect we'll get a few all-Belgian finals this year.

that was an enjoyable match! apart from, like, the ending. kim's epic choke was hilarious after she completely dominated the first half of the match, some of justine's play in the third set was exhilarating but not her inability to execute when trying to close it out. her closing has been rather unimpressive this week actually, hopefully that's something she'll get back into the swing of. those double faults ughhh.

v likely serena/justine match as early as the second round next week! if justine gets past martinez sanchez...

Is Laura Robson is getting more out of the Hopman Cup experience than Andy Murray? Murray supposedly skipped a defence in Doha to get three guaranteed matches in Perth but he's won them all so easily it's barely been a workout. Robson's lost hers, as expected, but it'll be a while before she plays people of this calibre again. They've won all their mixed and they're in the final!

eh, winning doha didn't do murray much good when it came to the AO last year - may as well try switching his preparation up, with less pressure but still guaranteed multiple matches.

so Rafa would've just crushed anyone then. has just bageled Kolya. O_O

ok scratch that - pretend that first set didn't exist and this was basically the best men's match i've seen since... Kolya-Djokovic in Shanghai? Just beautiful angles and shotmaking.

And KOLYA! Amazing comeback. *in awe*

Two tournaments in a row now where he's beaten both Nadal and Fed on the way to the title.

ok scratch that - pretend that first set didn't exist and this was basically the best men's match i've seen since... Kolya-Djokovic in Shanghai? Just beautiful angles and shotmaking.

how did u guyz watch this stuff - is it broadcast in the uk?

it's broadcast here in malaysia, but you can always try atdhe.net, livescorehunter.com or fromsport.com - these places usually have loads of live streams.

Pretty bleak day in Sydney and I was too pov to get tickets to centre court (well, I could have but I didn't really care who was on, my friend I went with IS broke..) so just got a ground pass. Gasquet v POTITO STARACE was good fun! Starace was hitting some gorgeous backhand passing shorts but Gasquet served really well and looked really calm - whereas Starace was a veritable "La Linea" by comparison (and with white lines on a blue court, kind of looked like it too) yelling out oaths left right and centre, especially because he blew the second set tie-break and he knew it.

Then saw Benneteau vs Leonardo Mayer, a new name to me, and one I don't know that we'll be hearing again. Terrible match, really, Mayer has a crap serve and no real weapons at all and Benneteau charged out to a big lead, surrendered a break but was in control for most of the first set, then had two lapses - going down a break, then getting it back in fine style, then playing an iffy tie-breaker to lose before realising that he's not completely rubbish and bagelled in the last set.

Then some fun doubles, tho less so because Aspeli, one of the players, was clearly being carried by Paul Hanley, his partner whereas Huss and Ball were a much better and slightly more even team - Huss hit some sweet angles with the volleys and overall this was great fun to watch, though not as fun as last year, and srsly the no-deuce thing is totally shit.

The umpire in the Mayer/Benneteau match was great, though I can't explain why, it was just the way he said the scores, he was really getting into it... like 00-15 was like "Whoa, you're gonna break serve", such was the enthusiasm.

In honour of the vanquished:

http://www.furanes.net/images/potito.jpg

And Gasquet, teasing me with his ass:

http://www.furanes.net/images/gasquet.jpg

(cropped to hide the fact that my action shots were shit)

shame that mayer's no good - he's had some interesting results over the past year.

silliams/caravane sounded like a good match! have high hopes that caravane may be coming into her own this year. she's not the fastest player, but her ballstriking ability is fearsome.

i also find it hilarious that 39-year-old mrs. krumm managed to beat petrova and take azarenka to a 7-5 final set.

Diva vs Silliams is on now. Diva is UP A BREAK! Let's get excited and pretend that a) such things are significant in women's tennsi, and b) Diva is someone else entirely.

oh dementieva, peaking before the slam as usual. let's enjoy this now as she's prob going to lose to Henin in the second round of AO (draw out this morning).

Diva won the first set! Not on her own serve obv.

Diva's serving fine, btw, and just hit a lovely ace!

Also hyper-partisan TV commentators need to stop making excuses for Silliams already. 6-3 3-0.

I mean OK, Serena's playing shit, but still, nobody puts asterisks on Serena's wins when she gets it because some scrub or Russian chokes against her, it's unfair that people keep doing the converse.

reprise of last year coming up, then?

ok lol @ those two "smashes" from serena. she just wasn't even trying to put them away.

Seems so. Serena IS sore and not moving well but she's also hitting badly, so, meh.

serena couldn't have given less of a shit about that. sad!

Shame she's due to play Justine so early. Lovely backhands this game.

GRR COMMENTATORS mentioning Silliams' high unforced error rate. "Well, really, they're forced errors because she has a knee injury so she was trying to end the points more quickly, so went for her shots more." = THIS IS STILL AN UNFORCED ERROR.

took a look at the men's draw for indian wells & im kinda pysched. henin looked good as well

charity exo Hit for Haiti on now w/ Henin, Davenport, Graf and Navratilova, dudes - Fed, Sampras, Nadal and Agassi - coming on later. should be fun.

(btw Henin... Dulko?!)

My CPU, fed many results, suggests we should possibly keep an eye on Claudia Giovine of Italy.

If Google translates correctly, it appears she is the cousin of Flava Flav Pennetta btw.

helloo Mario Ancic. got mono, went to law school, got mono again, got hot(ter).

lol @ djokovic. lol @ this tournament so far really!

hope lex watched ag rad beat the girl who beat henin 6-1 6-0

i haven't seen any of this tournament, the results have been hilarious though. clijsters going up 4-0 in the deciding TB vs kleybanova, then losing 7 straight points? sweta losing her opener, then tweeting "fuck the haters" and "only god can jurge [sic] me"? ivanovic losing her opener and falling out of the top 50? li somehow losing to elena fricking baltacha?!

and the sampras/agassi rivalry extending to "who's the biggest douche", too - loved how roger and rafa just stood there looking completely baffled at these two old men acting out.

i guess agassi won the biggest-douche competition, sampras unsurprisingly missing a humour trick by failing to make a roids joke

ha see, I think Sampras won the biggest douche competition (as he did when they were still active pros OH SNAP) by failing to have a sense of humor

yeah when he couldn't think of anything to say or do except aim a serve at andre like some neanderthal, that was so typical. but he could've made a meth/roids joke and didn't! open goal missed.

also loved fed going "PLEASE SAY SOMETHING RAFA"

That was fairly uncomfortable viewing. Agassi doing the roast/variety-show banter and Pete completely not getting it. Sampras probably thought of a drugs joke and figured that would've sent the whole shebang well over the line into unpleasantness. Bit like seeing Joe Bugner or someone have the piss ripped out of them by some club comic in the '70s and getting a mock uppercut in response.

it was sooo awkward. i watched the whole thing and the mood completely changed after that happened.

sveta's twitter is a lol-goldmine btw - love her so much.

and nicole vaidisova has just announced she's retiring. at age 20. to marry Radek "the sex" Stepanek. :/

oh nicole. :/ indeed. also dudes like 35 or smthn?

lex if its around parts of the sharapova/zheng match were really good! other parts were... less so.

nicole :/

though tbh this makes no concrete difference to anything at all really, she may as well have been retired for the past year. and you just know she'll do a comeback in two years, after the divorce, and it'll probably go much the same way as dokic's and lucic's (1% results that hark back to her glory days, 99% first round losses). i really think i'm going to put some £££ on that.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=5001478

^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

I don't dislike Federer at all but this is making me super happy.

boo. I liked the dude a lot once but then i was unfortunate enough to have met him while working at the KL tourney last year and, without getting into details, the guy was basically a douuuccchheee.

Not a surprising result though, he's been slowly climbing back into form and Fed's been shanking forehands all week.

Watching some of that Aga/Nada vs. Fed/Sam joke match right now. Nice to do spmething like this every once in a while

Nadal has a semifinal game today right?

sad to hear baghdatis's genial persona doesn't hold up IRL.

yeah it's nadal/ljubicic and roddick/soderling today.

http://www.tennis.com/spotlight/2010_03_25_sony_ericsson/index.aspx?photo=01

lol at many of these

not that often I have something nice to say about Andy Roddick but I'm liking him today. His comments on Wayne Odesnik, who was caught smuggling HGH into Australia:

Q. Sorry to be a rally killer, but I wanted to hear your comments and thoughts on Wayne Odesnik.
ANDY RODDICK: If he pled guilty, which it looks like he did, there's nothing worse than that. I'm normally the one to give people the benefit of the doubt.
If that's the case, what we read today, that's just plain cheating and they should throw him out of tennis. There's just no room for it. I don't... I was shocked. I was surprised. You know, we don't need stories like that. You know, I know that's the minority. If that's the case, I have zero sympathy.

Q. Your feelings are just as strong even though it was a possession and not a positive test?
ANDY RODDICK: If you have a possession, you know you're not supposed to have it. You're not supposed to be anywhere near it. You're not supposed to know about it. You're not supposed to smuggle it into a country. If you have I mean, if you caught your sons or daughters and they possessed some type of drug, they're guilty of probably using, as well, correct? You know, I don't see the difference. If you have it and it's not enough to you either have it to sell it or you have it to take it. So either way, it's not the play. It's no good.

Q. How well did you know him?
ANDY RODDICK: I know Wayne a little bit. I mean, I wouldn't say we're friends. He used to train in Austin sometimes. You know, I don't think we ever really did much together. But it's just normally when this has happened in tennis it's been someone that is like I don't really know at all. To have it be one of our guys and for us to lose a guy in the top 100, it makes me a little angry, you know. I don't you know, I don't want that stigma attached to our country and to our players, so it really pisses me off.

Q. That's the thing, the average person sees this in the paper tomorrow and they think...
ANDY RODDICK: That's what makes me angry. We have the most in your articles that you will write, I hope that they're at least researched to the point where we have the most stringent drug testing policies in sports. We're up there with the Olympics. We can't take Sudafed because something will come up. We have to be accountable for where we are I have to send in my forms next week to tell people where I'm gonna be for the next month every single day. If my wife and I want to drive for a day trip somewhere, I have to call in and say, We're going here, here, and here and provide an address. So I hope with the articles that they will at least acknowledge that. The ATP and the powers that be in tennis have done every single thing possible, you know, with the exception of assigning a person to follow each person around 24 hours a day and sleep with the person, to mitigate these problems, you know.

Q. So you do not think there is a problem in the sport?
ANDY RODDICK: I don't see how there can be. I mean, unless everybody's packing vials of stuff in their bags and smuggling it into countries, which I don't God, I have a hard time believing that, you know. You know, I think HGH is the one in every sport where I hope they come up with a test and I hope they start just slamming guys. I hope when they do come up with a test for it they don't tell anybody and they just implement it and start picking people off.

Q. There actually is a test, Andy, but it's not used in tennis.
ANDY RODDICK: Well, the sooner the better. I think they should use it everywhere. You know, I just hope that I wouldn't be surprised if there is a test out there that we're gonna be the first to come fly with it. I hope we do. I hope this will move it. There's no room for it. We don't need it. We don't need that stigma. I take a lot of pride in what we have to do on a daily basis and how responsible we have to be for, one lack of a better word for one jackass to ruin it for the rest of us.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=5047894

<3 Cake:

Now 19-1 this year, Venus is bidding for her third consecutive title after winning at Dubai and Acapulco in February. She's dominating while Serena has been sidelined with a left knee injury since winning the Australian Open two months ago.

The knee must be better, judging from the shoes she wore while watching the semifinal from the front row.

"She looked really amazing," Bartoli said. "I said to her, 'It's not fair you're dressing up so nicely. I'm going to watch more what you're wearing than the ball.' ... She had a red dress and some really, really, really high-heel shoes, maybe something like 14 inches.

"I think she can manage to walk pretty well. I think from wearing those kind of shoes, you don't feel that much pain in your knees."

sweta's twitter has become a goldmine of legendarily baffling stuff http://twitter.com/SvetlanaK27

I hAve bold by made by givory!nice one)))
8:15 PM Apr 10th via Twitter for BlackBerry®

All expencive cars I have so many,ppl will thik I m spoiled
6:32 PM Apr 10th via Twitter for BlackBerry®

I m in love with carsssss!i have a big garage!so anyone wants to give me some feel more then welcome!))))
4:33 PM Apr 10th via web

i got stoped for speeding((((( i was racing a litle bit)))) by the way -i won!)))))
8:35 PM Apr 7th via web

Happy Eastern to everyone!
4:12 AM Apr 4th via web

if u see me with a bruce on my forehead a size of my head!who is following me would know from where i got it !heheheh
12:29 AM Mar 21st via web

i want to fly to cosmos ...what do u think???
5:34 AM Mar 14th via web

# i m russian so what>
4:35 AM Mar 14th via web

guys i dont drink just for info!
4:22 AM Mar 14th via web

all u are the best best off all!god is the jurge!
4:21 AM Mar 14th via web

gusy u r geate ll who are not haters! before i didnt understand who was haers but now im~!
4:20 AM Mar 14th via web

only god is our jurge! thia is my tatoo and its true guys,no one can jurge no one so relaxxxxxx
2:06 AM Mar 14th via web

i love all kind of music,from rapers i love snoop,50 and T.I those guys are the best for me!i like rihana as well ,mary J.Blige,ne-yo,pitbul
3:10 AM Mar 8th via mobile web

what on earth does she think parentheses do grammatically?!

i love all kind of music,from rapers

o rly

my favourite tennis player gets her biggest cheer of an astoundingly pathetic final performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btHZ4S1NS_8

love the court-side sofas!

Hey ILX tennis fans...so I have a decent passing knowledge of the tennis stars of the day, but I'm trying to set up a little kids TV film for Wimbledon this year and given the likelihood that obvious choices don't come through for me, I wondered if any of you had any suggestions about top players that are weird/funny/chatty/interesting in a way that appeals to kids?

Basically if there's two venn diagrams and one is SUCCESSFUL AND TALENTED and the other is FUNNY AND GOOD HUMOURED we'd want someone in the intersection!

Any thoughts?

serena williams, definitely. she pretty much comes across as an overgrown toddler 50% of the time anyway. andy roddick ditto.
novak djokovic was nicknamed the djoker for a reason, though he seems to have toned it down of late.
jelena jankovic does her eurotrash-lady-gaga thing pretty well.
nikolay davydenko and svetlana kuznetsova both come across as super-dour on court but have reputations as being two of the funniest characters around off court.
kim clijsters and caroline wozniacki will both do the i'm-so-nice-my-favourite-hobby-is-visiting-sick-children-in-hospital thing if that's what you're after.
i get the impression gael monfils would be super-fun in a setting like this, also francesca schiavone.
flavia pennetta is terrific fun though this mostly seems to centre around her regaling audiences with tales of shagging atp players in the physio room, locker room, anywhere and everywhere on a tournament site, so maybe not totally child-friendly.
all of those are current top 20 players. dmitry tursunov is ALWAYS good for a laugh though he's fallen out of the top 100, so i'm not sure how available he'd be (he's a former top 20 player though) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV99EqADFyE

oh and i'm pretty sure roger & rafa would be tremendously professional, if not funny, but their sheer level of success and legendary status would appeal to any child.

yeah we defo would love someone like roger/rafa but chances of them doing it fairly slim...

either way the plus side of this is I get paid to go to wimbledon for a few days this year! :)

yeah when he couldn't think of anything to say or do except aim a serve at andre like some neanderthal, that was so typical. but he could've made a meth/roids joke and didn't! open goal missed.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 3:02 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

He should have brought up Streisand IMO.

either way the plus side of this is I get paid to go to wimbledon for a few days this year! :)

jealz! u know where to come if u need a freelancer innit.

laura robson might be a good choice actually, she seems to be quite funny and game for a laugh.

on the mens side lex is right djokovic is the obv choice but monfils is goofy/lol in an appealing way. and roddick is kind of a douche but hes got a good (if sarcastic) sense of humor & can be really funny.

i also think mikhail youzhny is hilarious but im not sure this is a widely shared opinion

I hate him but the kids would like Roddick, doubly so if they've never watched a tennis match amirite?

You know, I'm a Stosur skeptic. But her match against Na Li was downright brilliant. Maybe she deserves to rise up to #9. Barely a mistake in sight. Not sure what Li's claycourt credentials are but I guess those flat strokes are more hard-court weapons.

Henin vs Ivanovic is terrible.

Apparently Stosur's Charleston performance was really, really outstandingly brilliant. idk, who'd have ever thought a couple of years ago that the woman would magically learn how to hit groundstrokes rather than framing them 5 miles out all the time?

Only saw the last few games of Henin vs Jankovic - was impressed by how disciplined and calm JJ is being. Could be her first win over Justine in 10 tries.

SimO_Ona of the formerly-gigantic breasts has reached her first WTA final in Morocco, btw.

(last few games of the first set, that is. my stream seems to have cut out now.)

Shit, that was a typo. No idea how I came to type Jankovic as Ivanovic, the person facing Justine was actually playing like a non-retard!

Well, she still is playing well. Henin isn't serving very well.

That is to say, she's not gtting the first ones in in good spots. But she is actually placing some fine second ones.

laura robson might be a good choice actually, she seems to be quite funny and game for a laugh.

yeah i kinda love her. her latest tweet:

Probably shouldn't have watched the new M.I.A video whilst eating breakfast.

Lex, find another stream! Henin has been hitting some seriously savage angled shots, especially (oddly?) on her forehand, and is intermixing that with flubbing basic mid-court shots. But she's won the second set.

well obviously it was Jankovic who blinked first in the TB. sigh. she will never beat Justine. this is a great match though, high quality and tense. both playing pretty well I think.

randomly, Andrea Petkovic's twitter is really good - like, entertaining and witty in a dry, sarcastic way, not in the point-and-laugh way of Sweta and Silliams.

that said, i wouldn't be remotely surprised if jankovic now lost this set to love. that double fault to give up the opening game? brr.

and then blowing a 40-0 lead on justine's serve! well DONE jj.

zomg! She didn't blow that 0-40.

that volley, though :O

it was basically an epic flail

Okay, Jelena, wait for her to actually be ready before you serve, you'll lose quickly enough now.

well, that wasn't a quintessential Women's Tennis scoreline at all. still, a really good match i thought, apart from the last couple of games when jelena just crumbled.

also, she will never beat justine, ever.

also, scant consolation for JJ, but i thought she had the right gameplan - being aggressive, moving the ball around the court, perfect mix of defense and offense. justine was just too good on the big points and played the match (as opposed to points or games) better.

We have laura robson booked already! Also want to do something about umpires since none of us have a clue about these shadowy figures we thought it'd be good to explain them to the kids. Think we had roddick before I worked there and it was really good..I've heard.

GET KADER NOUNI!!!

http://www.sport365.fr/medias/sporever/sport365_664x376/tennis/78118_Arbitre.jpg

he's great - loved when he umpired victoria azarenka's meltdown in doha last year and when she went mental after her second code violation (smashing her racquet on the chair, the ground, everywhere) he was just looking down at her with this "wtf is this crazy wench doing, smh" expression on his face.

eva asderaki is cool too.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3155/2647038484_3af9ee3653.jpg

also, anne keothavong's brother james is an ump as well...

also, they're retired now, but i hear that both marat safin and anna kournikova will be playing the senior tournament at wimbledon this year (now how's that to make you feel old), and they're both terrific in these kid-friendly events

Whoa all amazing info...thanks lex. If I can wrangle any passes I'll let you know tho it's a military op I think, we had to apply two weeks ago.

J-Ho thrashes Peer to get through to final. SHe'll play... um who knows? Lapuschenkova had a 4-1 lead and then promptly fell apart to 5-5. She looks very pale but has a good backhand!

from what i saw yesterday, Lapushchenkova is kind of amazing - route-one MUST-HIT-WINNER-NOW ballbashing. i dread to think how many unforced errors she must usually hit given her career results though.

Nadal d. Gulbis was a great match! Hitting ~50 winners vs Nadal on clay = amazing. But Nadal just can't be hit through in the end.

it definitely confirms what's been apparent for a few months though - this is the year when Gulbis stops being an idiot underachiever. he's steppin' up.

He needs a lot of prizemoney to pay for hookers. Unless his parents pay for those.

Lapushchenkova's service motion = fussy, shoulder-ruining looking thing. Not quite Sharapova-esque, but... that kind of worry.

getting more ambitious now as basically our first bid was for ana ivanovic and her agent emailed back instantly like "yeah this sounds good, certainly."

love sports that aren't football and how nice they all are at giving you access...

lol poor Dinara

ivanovic's default mode is "i am so exciting to be here and i am so exciting to do charity work for children!!! :D " - lol i completely forgot about her now she's fallen out of the top 50. weirdly she signed a career-long deal with adidas a few months ago despite her two-year slump, so it figures that her team are all about the off-court marketing opportunities.

lol dinara. dulgheru's not a bad clay-courter though. but if the back is as bad as dinara's implied...eek.

most lol result of the week - Schnyder d. Dulko 6-7 6-2 7-6. Batty Patty led 5-0 in the third set, with match points I think. Choked, Dulko won six games in a row, served for the match, led 6-5 40-0. CHOKED and Batty won in the TB.

and today so-called "up and comer" Polona Hercog lost to Peer from 6-2, 5-1, 40-30 up.

Women's tennis!

Lol Ivanovic has won two matches in a row.

YAY NADAL

Sounded like a good match judging from the to-and-fro and the stats (very high 1st-serve %age from both); couldn't find a working stream and didn't fancy signing up at bet365 to watch theirs, so just relied on score updates.

Fed's clearly on an upswing though, after his sloppy results since Melbourne, whereas Nadal is back somewhere near his 2008 level.

What a rubbish tennis town Birmingham is. Feels like every AEGON tournament there has rained away. Tomorrow Sharapova will finish her FIRST match, and the tournament started sunday.

Haven't been able to watch mutch of Queens, but I did watch some Halle. That's a sweet grass court tennis stadium.

lol @ Queens; the top six seeds are gone

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=5275429

love the end of this article

Li Na vs Sharapova in tomorrow's Eastbourne final, the two top seeds. Could be a good match.

Chewitt beat Fed in three sets at Halle! Blimey.

Sad to see Mardy Fish lose at Queens, I saw him play some absolutely lovely shots when I went on Monday.

For some reason the losses to people like Chewitt bother me far more than losses to randoms do, re: Fed.

Li absolutely hammered Sharapova in the Edgbaston final. Totally clinical, and she only lost seven points in the second set. She served brilliantly. Anyone else notice Mirjana Lucic reach the 3rd round there? She's back in the top 200 and will play Wimbledon qualies...can't believe her amazing SF run was ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

The first set of the 1R match between Safina and Rybarikova in 's-Hertogenbosch was possibly THE WORST tennis I have seen all year, which says something. Safina obviously lost in the end to take her losing streak to 5.

Yes, could not believe Halle final result! It's one thing losing to people who've never beaten you before (in a dozen attempts, see: Kolya, Sod), it's another losing to people who surely never expected to beat you again. What is this, 2002?

(I've been away this weekend - I'll watch Halle highlights now to see if it really happened).

Hewitt won it on a net-cord (though Fed's break in the first set was earned the same way). Horrible shadow on the court at the Gerry Weber.

Dementieva will miss Wimbledon after appearing in 46 straight slams. Which is a pretty damn amazing stat considering how hard she works on the regular tour.

FML @ Wimbledon draw

First time in 133-year history of the tournament: no English men in the singles draw. There are two Scots.

LTA, rather than chuck about wildcards this year, placed a cutoff at #250 (and banished Bogdanovic - eight straight 1st-round losses at Wimb but ranked 160-odd - to the qualies) and no one made it (James Ward failed to defend his Sarasota Challenger title in May and dipped into the 300s). All the Brits failed in qualifying, Bogdan losing 24-22 final set in the 2nd round. Kinda funny but will it achieve anything?

so Nicole Vaidisova and the fugliest man in tennis finally got hitched:

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef0133f25c643e970b-500wi

aw Steps actually looks vaguely human there.

For some reason I can't envision Vaidisova as anything but deeply unhappy under the iron rule thumb of Radek. That's purely based on... aura.

Anyway, is Ivanovic BACK ?

The Cincinatti organizers have got to be happy with Clijsters, Ivanovic and Sharapova in the semis.

Stayed up last night watching Berdych-Federer as far as Fed missing a few break-points at 4-4 in the 2nd (having coasted the first). "I'll bet he loses this now," I thought as I went to bed. He nearly did too - Berd led 5-2 in the decider but Fed won the breaker. World top four in the Toronto semis.

Fuck me, Ivanovic gets her game back and then injures her foot three game into the semi against Clijsters. Brutal fate.

lol Murray

man, two amazing thrillers in a row for fed. About the best non-slam tennis I can remember that was on US TV.

in the last 10 years at least.

Federer never used to keep me up until 2:40am. He really should've finished that in two sets. Really have no idea how today's final will go.

aaaaaaaand it's 3-0 with two Murray breaks. Very noble of Federer to run out his career by making things interesting like this.

what on earth is this yelling.

oops I forgot about this during the rain delay. Uh, well done Andrew.

nice piece on date-krumm here - http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Ageless+Date+Krumm+finding+ways/3410520/story.html

found this quite interesting -

“I enjoy being on Tour. In the first career, I couldn’t enjoy it,” she said Tuesday. “I don’t speak so much English, don’t like Western food, don’t like hotels, so I always had stress.”

This generation of tennis players can’t imagine all that tournament downtime without texting, iPads, and Twitter. But back in those days, the Internet was just an infant, and cellphones were nonexistent. It was a huge challenge for Date-Krumm to handle the isolation.

Serena is out of the US Open. Everything can happen... again.

^^based on current rankings, this means the top seed at the Open will be... Caroline Wozniacki. ;_;

OMG Wozniacki as top seed in a Slam. Actual lulz.

Serena and Justine out, Venus injured, Jankovic and Demented in dreadful form, Clijsters hit about 50 UEs and picked up an injury just now while losing to Bepa again...this has the potential to be even nutsier than RG.

Wozniacki vs Sharapova rnd of 16. Let's knock the dane out.

(WC) Kimiko Date Krumm (JPN) d. (12) Maria Sharapova (RUS) 75 36 63

A day before her 40th birthday! BEST RESULT OF THE YEAR, ilu Mrs. Krumm. Really hope highlights get on youtube soon, didn't get to see a point of it.

So much for the argument that '90s players couldn't cope w/today's power game, btw. Steffi could return next year and win the Australian Open, seriously. Hell, we should probably expect comebacks from Huber, Majoli, Schett, Rubin, Spirlea, Testud and Tauziat at this rate. Just to get the Slams which eluded them first time round.

Majoli won a slam though!

I always felt so bad for Anke Huber, such a great big hitter but always falling short of glory. Most of those players you mentioned could totally win a slam nowadays (in peak form), considering how lousy the WTA is, barring Serena (and I guess Clijsters at the US Open).

So happy for Kimiko, she was always my #2 fave in the mid-90s.

omg if Chanda Rubin came back I would do backflips

also I saw that result and was like "lol I bet the only person on Earth happier than me right now is Lex"

Francesca Schiavone (ITA) d. Kaia Kanepi (EST) 75 46 75

man this was such an awesome match

Caroline Wozniacki is your new Women's Tennis No 1, everyone! RIP WTA.

more like RIP Caroline Wozniacki; it seems like that ranking has been a complete curse for everyone except Serena in the past few years

Also, Venus is calling a presser this afternoon, and the Italian press is speculating that she'll announce her retirement, which...seems unlikely, given that just one or two days ago she released a statement saying she was looking forward to the 2011 season. But what on earth is the presser for, then? She's already announced she's ending her year.

looool seriously I quite like Caro shameless flirt that she is but looooollllll

re venus: Possibly announcing her retirement after 2011? Making a final go-round ala Safin... I don't know why any player would do that though - surely they know they're going to get the same questions over and over and over again for a whole year.

Wozniacki is a nice girl and obviously because she is a raging Pollack I can't hate her. But the idea that she would even get five games off an in-form Serena is surely highly amusing.

Oh hello:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/176746250.jpg

If that didn't work, http://twitpic.com/2x8aa2

exciting week this week. kimiko date-krumm broke her own record as the oldest woman to beat a top 10 player - stosur joined the wall of shame this time - but fell to tamarine tanasugarn in the final. oldest wta final ever, apparently. i <3 tammy so it's ok.

and murray pretty much thrashed the field in shanghai, ending with a brilliant 3 and 2 dismantling of federer. do it in a slam now, this is old news.

on a side note, the crowds in shanghai were so enthusiastic and excited - such a contrast to wta events where no one bothers to show (including the players). i've said it before, but imagine how good the wta could be now if the williamses and belgians had comported themselves like the big four on the men's side instead of being pampered divas who deign to show up to 6 events per year and blow off the tour at every opportunity they get. this year's ATP YEC will be super-exciting, even with all the players knackered from a long season. this year's WTA YEC is going to be a fucking embarrassment (again). if clijsters doesn't show - and she hasn't since the us open - the only slam winner in the field will be schiavone. who i hope wins it all.

no one could beat Murray if he played like this at a hardcourt slam. This is getting ridiculous-- fucking win one.

Winning 7 five-setters is a huge jump from winning this week - he seems to be over his youthful stamina issues but his mentality is questionable & although he has a great head to head against the top two his record over five sets isn't so good. He doesn't seem to be able to maintain that high standard over longer matches and tournaments.

That said, I still think he has it in him to win one and is maybe most likely to be the next new winner of a hard court slam.

WTF... My love Vera beat Jankovic 6-3 6-0 in the year-end ch's? I'm going to start watching this dried out tournament if Vera is in top form. Meeting Azarenka next. I hear Jelena tanked it like a polaroid picture in the 2nd set though.

that match was dreadful. women's tennis is so, so bad now. just cancel this farce of a tournament.

the schiavone-stosur match is pretty good

This Azarenka -- Zvona thing has been prettty good.

I mean, yes Zvona V chokes in finals now, but she's stopped choking otherwise! Some shoddy serving now and then, though.

Dementieva just RETIRED! I thought she'd stick around in pursuit of that elusive Slam forever. Have a nice life, you amazing headcase.

Her finest moment? Maybe killing Capriati's dreams yet again in the USO '04 SF despite That Serve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei9_HL6Zuq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY2fICGc6Uo

I remember one of those serves being measured at 38mph.

nooo! :( :(

Happy I got to meet her once though - she was really sweet and gorgeous in person.

aw

aw, Demented's finest moment. I love her reaction to actually winning something big for once, it's like she can't quite believe it's happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5wZ3vmTOhk

ATP finals on the BBC, woo! Murray desperately needs a haircut.

so did anyone see the nadal-murray match last night? easily match of the year for me in terms of crazy shot-making and drama. (Rafa breaks Andy. No wait, Andy breaks back! No wait... Holy fucking forehand! etc.)

murray lost that one narrowly but for once, it was a loss he could be proud of. wish he would play like that in big matches more often.

yeah so glad i watched that - i attended on mon (djokovic/berdych) but this week have been soooo busy i haven't caught much tennis. that match was crazy good though.

i didn't particularly prefer either player but it was much more important for murray - winning the YEC could well have been a v important foundation for him to actually go ahead and win a slam for once. it's been a crucial step for lots of players who underwhelmed at slams.

oh yeah and i'm not all that impressed with the tournament - maybe i'm just spoiled by how cheap the wimbledon ground passes are, but it strikes me that £17 (or less, as in previous years) for a wide array of matches and players, and being able to get right up close to the court, is better value than £34 to sit in the nosebleeds (not even the very cheapest seats!) and take your chances on 1x doubles and 1x singles (in our case, both were ok but hardly worth it). i mean maybe people really are suckers for the very biggest names but when you can see top 20 players on outside courts, as well as future elite players on the way up...

pretty uncompromising from roger there.

he was pretty much on it throughout - really aggressive play. rafa played well in the second but just looked exhausted in the third, roger can thank murray for that. good match!

Good stuff! I think there was a break point for Nadal in the third where I third Roger would throw away the lead, but after that it was all business. Loved the delayed reaction at the end --- a match point should always have a twist!

where I thought*

I'm proud happy that Roger won. Sets the tone for next year

(another year which I will be rooting Nadal)

holy shit:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-1208-dwyre-20101208,0,1757631.column

Sampras has been robbed of the majority of trophies, medals, plaques, crystal and rings that are a testament to a career that brought a then-record 14 major titles and status as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Three weeks ago, he found out that the dozens of boxes containing those symbols of his career had been stolen.

"I have 13 of my 14 Grand Slam trophies," he said. "Some are at home and some up at NikeTown [in Portland]. My first Australian Open trophy is gone, and so is everything else."

Seven Wimbledon and five U.S. Open trophies, and one Australian Open trophy, remain.

"Everything else" includes trophies for winning 64 tour tournaments, and finalist hardware from 24 others. It includes what he was presented for winning five season-ending ATP World Tour titles, for being on two Davis Cup winners, and for taking 11 ATP Masters event titles. It includes an Olympic ring, seven ESPYs and six trophies awarded to the player who was No. 1 in the year-end rankings. Sampras, now 39, was that from 1993 to '98.

much as I want to feel sorry for him, what kind of idiot puts all of his trophies in a public storage facility in West LA? And on top of everything, waits *three weeks* before issuing a public notice? I mean, dude.

Nishikori teaming up with Brad Gilbert... let's hope he can make Kei more consistent on court.

right so Lukas Lacko has always been one of those dudes with plenty of talent but with no consistency at all, but I've never seen him play this well before, especially with Rafa not even playing that badly. Lost first set narrowly in a TB, before proceeding to bagel the current number one player in the world. When was the last time Nadal was bageled?

Unsurprisingly, Rafa immediately breaks in the first game of the third - I've no doubt he'll pull out the win (duh he's Rafa) but it's pretty nice seeing someone come out of nowhere bringing some game to him.

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef0147e2e32061970b-pi

Ranked 484 three weeks ago and now he's back in the top 100 at 89. Dude's such a champ.

:)

watched it last night - Pony looked as if he'd hit the wall of fatigue before the first set was over (no wonder, given how much he's played without being match tough of late), but he just kept holding it together - had a few issues with putaway shots but in general his power and clutch serving was so impressive. Tipsy was...yeah. Let's just say "women's tennis" and leave it at that.

What with Djokovic looking probably as dominant against Fed as he ever has and BEPA completely dismantling Wozniacki, last week was a good one in tennis, I feel.

Bepa 3 :D

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/ap/72/fullj.2431c87199d07dee44526db035124387/ap-6caf6de8e81e427cb2a75dab15286e73.jpg

Only her second Tier II-or-over title, can you believe it. (Actually...yes, you can, very well.)

xpost yeah - didn't see the Pony match, but Fed looked utterly flummoxed in that final against Nole.

and Bepa was pretty awesome against Woz, who didn't even play too badly I thought - that match was the first time I felt she was trying to do something other than just get the ball in.

I wanted to see Schiavone/Dokic, appaz poor Fran got injured and was near-immobile in set 3? And it was still only 6-4! Still, god for Jelena's double-faultwinner count.

YIKES @ the Serena news - seriously scary. I don't know enough about pulmonary embolisms or hematomas to really know what's ahead, but from what I've read she could be out for another year? It'd really suck if the sport lost Serena and Justine for good at the same time.

(also Roz, are you at the women's KL event this week? whenever I've tuned into the livestream there appears to be pretty much no one in the crowd)

An old boss of mine had pretty much this exact thing happen to him a few years ago (he was... 35?) and it knocked him out of commission for about a year. It was seriously scary; he almost died.

it's really scary to think that this all stems from just stepping on broken glass, and despite what I assume has been the best possible medical treatment. I wonder if the restaurant settled with Serena financially already? cuz if she's so minded, she could take them to the cleaners for loss of earnings.

I don't know if this is a general physical indicator, but the big thing they were terrifying my former boss/bandmate with was the possibility that this was an indicator of some variant of cancer.

Basically with him, he had tweaked his leg on a ski trip and gotten a clot in a major artery in his leg, which slowly built up over a period of several months to encompass THE ENTIRE ARTERY.

lex, I was there for the Bartoli-Camerin and Safina-Han matches on Tuesday, both of which were awful.

Cake is leaner and taller than she looks on TV, her serve unfortunately still isn't prettier. Safina-Han started off with four breaks in a row before Dinara got a handle over her groundstrokes. Han did not hold serve once the entire match. :/

Working the rest of this week, but I should be there over the weekend. Crowds are pathetic because the whole tourney is horribly disorganised - they only landed BMW as a main sponsor in November, which left them with just two months to promote the event in a country where tennis isn't a big deal AT ALL. especially not women's tennis. The venue isn't the most accessible either - Bukit Kiara is basically an ultra-posh country club. It's sad that the crowd turnout is still so low, even though entry was free for the first three days (and is still free for BMW owners/white card members).

re Serena: definitely scary. I'm not sure if stepping on broken glass alone would've caused it - she's a tennis player who spends long hours on airplanes and has been bed-ridden lately, both of which increase the risks for a pulmonary embolism. Risks also increase if she's on the pill, which i wouldn't be surprised if she was.

The thought of her leaving the game is really scary and highly possible - even if she recovered enough to play in the next few months, I doubt her doctors would allow her to travel long distances for tournaments very often after this.

lol Dima: http://twitter.com/TursunovTales/status/45782199257141251

geez Murray.

was just thinking of bumping for that. shameful. can't think of a worse loss in his career!

didn't see the match but guessing he still hasn't gotten out of whatever funk he's been in since the AO final. srsly thought my screen was broken when I read Donald Young (Q) def. Andy Murray (4) 7-6, 6-3. Donald Young!

anyway, go Delpo.

I saw Delpo beat Ljubicic last night! It was a good match, had no idea Ljubicic could still play well like that (in patches only though). Also had forgotten he was the defending champ, lol.

I also see that Sweta failed to win a set off a girl who isn't in the top 100 #rmde

wait waht (re: Murray/Young)

deep belly lols

also: Li Na won her first 11 matches of the year.

And has now lost her next four.

Brad Gilbert, getting to the heart of what's important:

@bgtennisnation Can we get an Amen? Djoker in all Black...I believe! Best outfit since he's been with Sergio Tachini by far. Beat down in proper gear. about 11 hours ago

I don't know if anyone was online to see this as it happened but...Isner's completely awful attempts to flirt with Woz last night: http://cowbell.typepad.com/forty_deuce/2011/03/isniacki-still-going-at-it-like-two-neutered-puppies.html

he's been at it for what, months, and still no mobile phone number to get this stuff 'offline'? ai ai ai

i love how Djokovic is all like "ok i'm taking over" and IMMEDIATELY gets invited over

Haha yeah Caro is all "omg thank god you're here" when Nole shows up.

Isner's so adorably clueless. There was also his equally fail-tastic attempt with PETKORAZZI who was -clearly- just messing with him:

http://cowbell.typepad.com/forty_deuce/2011/02/iskorazzi.html

omg actually cringing. of all the songs to try to use! oh god that moment when someone who's into you and knows you ~like music~ and are just so clueless about what you like...been there petkorazzi, been there. she's awesome.

isner trying to mack on PETKORAZZI is just the most unfair sight, really, like from the very start you could tell he was being fucked with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8luGivOlw

so much gold. loooool mumford and sons.

obviously the australian and the brit have the worst taste!

the Ivanovic/Cake match I just watched for some reason was a horror show btw. Don't think I've seen many more pathetic things on a tennis court than Ivanovic whining to her coach about she didn't know whaaaat to dooooooo. Cake looked like she was on the verge of vomiting, Ivanovic looked like she was on the verge of crying, and both played accordingly.

also Ana's constant AJDEEEEEEEs are still ringing in my head and may even have displaced "friday"

Kind of like how Ana insists she's having 'fun fun fun' after every bad loss.

She had it right when she said she dominated the rallies and still lost, though.

ehhh, Cake was pretty proactive in the first set, in the second set she reduced her strategy to "hit everything to Ivanovic's BH all the time, regardless of anything else" - think she could've won it a lot easier if she'd deviated from that a bit but hey it worked. in any case, Ivanovic does tend to control rallies against most opponents, it's just that she controls them into the net or 5 feet long.

Peng vs Sharapova is really good.. As in both athletes playing well!

Now it's just one of them.

man, I really didn't think I'd ever find myself rooting for Sharapova again, but she's playing Wozniacki

I'd be interested to see it just for the stylistic match-up but I've no idea who I'd root for/who I dislike less. I didn't see their USO match but remember thinking, going in, that it'd be an easy win for Sharapova. Whoops.

Gasquet is so pathetic. Missed points for a 3-0 lead in the first set...promptly lost six games in a row. Got his 3-0 lead in the second set...promptly lost five games in a row.

lol, never change Gasquet

is it just me or are there a lot of parallels between the US and French players in terms of ability/choke factor

also I can't say 100% why both Sharapova and Wozniacki irritate me so much, but they really, really do

it's pretty basic for me - I find Wozniacki's game pretty dull (and her personality seems like St Kim of Niceness redux), I find Sharapova's shrieking intolerable (and the corporate Nikebot hype surrounding her is annoying too). I guess I'd have supported Woz because when I woke up to the result I laughed out loud for about 10 minutes. 1 and 2!

is it just me or are there a lot of parallels between the US and French players in terms of ability/choke factor

haha maybe Blake, I don't think even the Russian headcases can compete with the lack of fortitude and/or mental weakness demonstrated by Gasquet/Mauresmo/Mathieu/Pierce.

Hey, Gasquet took out Roddick, which is basically Job Done in this event.

Mauresmo and Pierce actually won slams in the end

I guess I'd have supported Woz because when I woke up to the result I laughed out loud for about 10 minutes. 1 and 2!

as did I but I imagine I might have the done the exact same thing if the results were reversed.

Never want Woz to win *anything* though I find her pretty likeable, I guess? her personality/Twitter/flirtations with ATP-ers can be unintentionally hilarious in a way Shaz-bot's ice queen routine never is.

So Fedz is just an out-in-the-semis guy now, huh.

Never want Woz to win *anything* though I find her pretty likeable, I guess?

This is extremely OTM. I think she's great everywhere except for her actual tennis game, which is probably better than "competent" but just isn't compelling to watch/follow, not like the entire generation that proceeded her or Ivanovic/Jankovic before they fell apart.

ummmm guys this Nadal/Djokovic match is kind of incredible. Both hitting total God shots.

^^wish I had watched that - alas, sleep was too important. yay for djokovic though, dude is now 19-0 in matches for the year. o_0

jmdp well on his way to being seeded by RG/Wimby too, if his good form continues. :) seriously did not think he'd back in the top 50 this quickly (he's at 51 now but likely to move up further in the next few weeks).

meh Caro. I so wish I liked her tennis given how she now seems to be the only person on the entire women's tour who really does handle pressure well (lacklustre results at slams - or indeed, most of her losses - tend to be due to her getting outplayed rather than her choking).

OK what the fuck. I shit you not: St Kim has only gone and pulled out of tournaments in Tokyo and Beijing because of her radiation fears...SIX MONTHS IN ADVANCE.

If she's serious, she's a fucking moron, this is offensively stupid. If - as is more likely - she's frantically seizing any old excuse to get out of playing a couple of events in the autumn, and is willing to make herself look like a shit-for-brains idiot to do so...that's just incredibly sad w/r/t the state of women's tennis.

I wonder if it ever occurs to airheads like Serena and Kim, who sadly happen to be the only true elite players left, that without the Tour, women's tennis is nothing more than a sideshow to men's tennis at the Slams only. Wish they'd get out of the sport already if they hate playing it so much.

okay thank you Sony Ericsson for alerting me to the fact that there is an American tennis player named... JACK SOCK

Hah @ Petkorazzi getting Ivanovic in on her antics for their doubles matches.

Hey look, Na Li lost again. How shocking.

i'm abt to go to bed but for those playing at home, Andy Murray is currently down 4-0 to Alex Bogomolov Jr - not to be confused with upcoming Ukrainian Alex Dolgopolov Jr who's currently ranked 23 and could feasibly take a couple of games off the world number 5. Nope Andy Murray is down 4-0 who turned pro in 2002 but has never been higher than 97 in the world. -_-

*down 4-0 to someone

bah, i need to go to sleep. i will be prepared to laugh/cry in the morning if Muzza actually loses to Bogie.

lolololololololol Murray

Hey look, Murray got broken at 5-6 to lose this match. Nice US hardcourt series for Murray.

safina up 4-1 against bepa

kinda lol but...

looooool so Murray managed to outdo last week's Worst Loss Ever already. And how did Wawrinka manage to lose to Granollers, with a bagel set along the way to boot?

Roddick's straight set loss to #62 Cuevas isn't quite as bad, but it's still pretty bad.

I haven't been keeping up with anything. Is Nadal physically healthy now?

^^he's just fine, lorax. form's been a bit off lately, but only when compared to djokovic who's completely slaying the competition.

speaking of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r1SafhJE_5o

lmao basically andy murray shouldn't be anywhere playing tennis right now, let alone playing alongside the guy who's arguably at the peak of his talents.

Love getting Martinez Sanchez in a tv match.

MaJo is doing her usual silly and cool trick shots mixed with endless unforced errors, but Clijsters is helping her along by playing truly shoddy tennis.

clijsters always has the ugliest dresses

OMG Ivanorazzi with the schoolgirl BFF antics every doubles match. Is this the WTA?

During the changeover after this point, Ana went to wallet and gave Petko some cash. Want to know why? Well, this is what Petko told me afterwards:

She actually gave me $10 but I had to give her change. So [the rules are] if you serve an ace on an important point, $5. If you serve a service winner on an important point, $2, return winner, $2. And this, where she gave me $2, was she said "OK, I'm going to serve a first serve and if you cross and put the volley away I'll give you $2." And she just had $10 so she gave it to me and I said I would give her the change later. Then, after that amazing most epic point ever, she said "OK. You can keep the change." We said that probably we would be the #1 and #2 in the world if the prize money was visible on the net post. So that's our way of motivating.

[...]

Convincing was hard work because last week in Indian Wells, I think, in the tiebreaker, I felt like she hit one or two double faults and didn't hit the returns quite as she's used to. Because I told her before the breaker, I thought it would be motivation but obviously it was some kind of scaring her. I told her "Ana we do the Petko dance if we win!" and I thought like, she's gonna go like "Yeah! Now I'm going to run even more!" but she went, like "Yeah. I'm going to serve two doubles and not put the return in." So I think she was scared back then. But now we practiced and now she's more comfortable. But she said before the match points she said she was getting so nervous because now we were winning it and she would have to do the Petko dance.

http://cowbell.typepad.com/forty_deuce/2011/03/losers-pants-winners-dance.html

And finally: The 4th round is looking amazing for the women.

those two are so adorable, love it! xp

it was nice watching Delpo rip Toaderling a new one last night :)

^^real no. 4 imo

Has Murray won a single set since the Australian Open semi?

negative.

That's quite a run for someone who went into the Australian ranked #4.

Petko - C Woz is pretty entertaining.

I wish I could watch this

Petkorazzi should be up like 5-0 now...her shots are so unstable though, she's powerful but when her strokes break down you just wince.

Wozniacki is as she always is, except making lots of random errors, ie there's not much left. And yet she'll probably win.

actually I wish I'd seen Woz beat Hantuchova in the last round, apparently Daniela blew a ton of set points then double faulted on MP. Obviously.

haha

PetKo can't throw away this lead surely

I really really hope not

please please please win, for all of us

Petkorazzi :D

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

she is seriously one of my favorites on the tour right now

easily wins the #1 wkiw award in the whole tennis world

Says Pet-V, "Most of the players think they can overpower Caroline, but it's the wrong approach".

She's also trending on twitter.. nice for 'just' a non-slam mid-tournament match.

A-Rad just won the point of the year so far - involved returning multiple Schiavo smashes, the last for a FH pass winner. On fire.

just woke up and saw the results. woo, petko dance!

more of Petko on Wozniacki:

"Most of the players think they can overpower Caroline. I think that's the wrong approach, because that's where she's most comfortable, when she can run and bring the most balls back. Then once you lose your concentration for once on your shot, she goes for it. Some like to say that she's pushing, but it's not like the balls are slow and not short, you know. They are quite deep, so you cannot really attack them.

What I try to do is mix it up and to make her play, and then when I had the short ball to go for it. Because if you try to hit every single shot with full power, full power, she just gets more comfortable, more comfortable, and eventually you're gonna miss. She's not gonna miss the last one.

smart girl.

although I'm, you know, my biggest fan, I'm also my biggest critic, as well

lol Maria, the important part here is not that you're your biggest critic, but your biggest fan!

What is Petkovic doing today? So awkward.. and Jankovic has turned on the error-machine in the 2nd set. Suddenly got a strong urge to see the winner of this match routed in the next round.

holy hell, Fish beat Del Potro????

They moved Ana/Clijsters to court 2, and of course that match turns out to be a cracker while we're left watching a hopelessly drawn-out error-fest on TV.

WTF, Del Potro?

Huge lol: Ivanovic led 5-1, 40-0 in the last set. But guess who won!

zomg Petkovic won

this is turning into my favorite tournament since Goran won Wimbledon

Clijsters goes through all these scrappy wins but will probably win the title anyway = she is the new Serena, probably. LOL Ivanovic. Thank goodness the tournament's website puts up highlight reels so could see a bit of Petko!

Was literally INFURIATED watching live scores last night and seeing Clijsters sneak through. Going by reports Ana didn't choke massively, though, and played fairly well in the tie-break etc.. still you can't do that stuff, Ana Ana Ana Ana Ana. Don't let Clijsters win this.

Aga looked so dangerous against Schiavone... still pulling for Bepa to win.

A-Rad is in some crazy super mode on the defense.

ladies and gentlemen, your new American men's #1:

http://nbcsportsmedia3.msnbc.com/j/ap/key%20biscayne%20tennis-1113430052_v2.standard.jpg

GO MINNESOTA

Surprising.

ugh can people please stop losing to Fish

Just curious - who is your favourite current US male player, Lex?

I dislike Fish less than I dislike Querrey, Isner, Roddick, but I like Blake more. Always good to see Roddick dethroned as top American. There was that good spell 2-3 years ago when Blake was ranked ahead of him. Used to derive similar tiny comfort from Stich > Becker periods.

i'm enjoying sharapova making two consecutive semis. i'll be extraordinarily pissed off if she loses to petkovic again ugh

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=6274798

can I just say this is really terrible, and LOL

Damnit I hate windy matches.

watching sharapova in the wind is always fun

and i meant that sarcastically, as in she's awful in the wind

not as in i like it when the wind blows her dress up

but what the hell, that too

We've got a third set... god help us all.

PLEASE KEEP THIS UP FOR FOUR MORE GAMES

"Masha’s fans are always somewhere in between a heart attack and an orgasm." <- signed

3-6 6-0 6-0 would be quite a nice revenge for australian open...

Oh yes yes yes.

okay lol

oooh a miami final is nice. even though maria has had a piss easy draw

Q: She thought you would be tired in the third after the long match you had the previous night. Didn't seem to be that way.

Sharapova: Because I didn't do the dance after. I wasn't tired.

that's cold, maria.

Just curious - who is your favourite current US male player, Lex?

I guess Ginepri? never particularly minded him. I think the two things I react most negatively to in a player are a big serve and media over-hype, and most US male players have one or both of those.

What a horrendous women's final. WTF happened to Bepa?

If Maria lets Vika win >;[

They've played some thrilling matches before, though.

nightmares of shrieking and unforced errors

Complaining about grunting is SO 2001. Unfortunately that's what all the preview articles will be about now.

Complaining about grunting is SO 2001

lol what does this even mean? why 2001? people complained about it - with good reason - in the early 90s with Seles. and then when Sharapova emerged in 2002-03. then again with the Larcher de Brito hideousness. it's got to the stage where I refuse to watch certain players unless the match is likely to be good enough to mitigate the screeching. (Sharapova and Azarenka cancel each other out.)

I don't see why shrieking is even a problem! I like it.

it's so grating and i can't take screechers remotely seriously.

They're the serious-est of the bunch!

it's just the most intolerable, hideous sound.

Btw that's the best dress Maria's worn in ages. Exactly the look she should be going for.

the likes of petkovic and schiavone's grunting is much more offensive to me than the sharapova variety

the conditions are humid so if the match is in the day (unlike vika's last 2 matches) azarenka's poor fitness should seal the deal for sharapova! a miami championship would be so nice and out of the blue

The Petkovic grunt sounds like a lineswoman's "OUT!".

here's that radwanska/schiavone point i gasped about earlier in the week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN8waD6K7-g

all 3 of schiavone's forehand overheads were really lazy. i mean how do you not smash that first overhead up into the stands

the first overhead was pretty good, after that radwanska's lobs were too high and deep for schiavone to put away effectively

she was practically on top of the net for that first smash. really no excuse for it not to have been walloped into the crowd. don't see how radwanska's last lob was particularly high or deep either

For a second there I envisioned Fish winning this match.

nadal seems to have recovered from his arm injury nicely

brutal stuff.. I'm getting annoyed just thinking about being federer and hitting those crazy wide shots with nadal running them all down

I stayed in to watch Fed/Nadal and then fell asleep at 11pm lol. Not that I'm sad to have missed it, seeing the result, or that this result wasn't predictable. People are saying that Fed's finally in decline - I kinda disagree, I think he hasn't been the "same Federer" since 2008, when Djokovic and Murray started beating him on the regular. (by "same Federer" I mean that he can still go into God mode at times, but not reliably or as often.) And his 2009 "resurgence" was really more due to Djokovic and Murray regressing a bit, and Rafa's absence, than Federer actually recapturing his old level. Now Rafa's healthy and Djokovic is back on track, Fed's back to where he was in 2008.

He probably still has at least another Slam left in him - either he'll have a last hurrah in God mode, or 2009's circumstances will happen again. But it's not so much in his hands any more.

this is fucking ridiculous

Why am I watching this match. It's like an endurance test. Will these insane wenches SHUT THE FUCK UP.

It's not very good, either.

the first game was good

there's gonna be a lot of breaks in this match. both are way better returners than servers. i expect maria to come through in 3 sets once she properly finds her range

Well it's good if you take away the double faults.

and the errors making me flinch on every point

lololololololol what was that, Vika

why can't maria just pin azarenka back with some deep, high groundstrokes and then whack away a short ball? not that hard! it's hard to just bludgeon azarenka away

AWESOME dropshot, maria

did it even reach the net?

the weak drive volley straight back at Azarenka that preceded it was a bit special too

yeah it reached the net after bouncing a few times first

Another set like that please. Let this be over swiftly.

vika has so much more margin for error on her shots :[ stop being a brainless ballbasher maria ugh. if she keeps it close in this set azarenka will surely choke as she always does

I'm not sure I've ever seen a serve bounced into the net in pro tennis until now

Memories of Kournikova!

looooooooooooooooooool

i've seen hantuchova and venus do it. and probably a few others. it's not really that rare, sometimes you just whiff it

but for gods sake what was that forehand. whole court open. fuck this

DF to concede her eighth game in a row. LOL.

you see that's the kind of point maria should play more often. high percentage deep, high balls until azarenka gives a weak response.

RTeally, Azarenka's not even playing that well.

this is almost as good as last year's final

Wonder if Maria will manage to get more games off Vika than Bepa did the other day.

ahahahahaha

lol, two dead net cords in a row for Azarenka to finally win that game after Sharapova was 40-0 up

being demolished two tournaments in a row by the youngsters can't be good for sharapova's confidence :[

maria's as big a fighter as she always was but everything about her game is too unreliable these days. super pissed.

weird that Azarenka went three sets in her first three matches (against...Hradecka, Cibulkova, Pavlyuchenkova). Then pretty much steamrolled her last three supposedly elite opponents.

Out on town to kill myself with alcohol.

It really does piss me off that she has chances in that 2nd set. What a waste.

totally know that feeling, sometimes you'd rather your player just lost swiftly 1 and 0 rather than getting your hopes up by fighting back only to lose shittily anyway

Yeah, and of course you become highly skilled at ignoring the other player's chances and the only memory left is wasted game points. Tennis is too cruel :|

Azarenka's 4-0 lead was a bit deceptive, three of those games had gone to deuce. And then a few just went Sharapova's way. Vika's level of play certainly wasn't super-dominant at any stage, I guess she deserves credit for not panicking when the scoreline got closer. In general it was a horrible match and I genuinely have a headache now.

Djokovic hitting some tired-looking shots at the start of this...some great points amongst them tough.

Rafa so lucky to get away with that set. Got to 5-1* without playing that well, then seemed to try to match Djokovic's low level for a while and only just crawled over the line at *5-4.

fuck i only just got in. has it been good?

i'm rooting for nole because winning streaks are cool

it was bad earlier but it's good now! Nole playing well now, Rafa...serving well, at least. Djokovic may have cause to regret a couple of half-chances for a more emphatic lead.

beautiful wrong-footer from Djokovic.

Djokovic fails to take advantage of ANOTHER 0-30 lead on Rafa's serve

i'd love it if my stream wasn't shite

99% positive nadal will win :[

ha, i'm leaning the other way

and have done ever since Djokovic stopped looking fatigued towards the end of the first set