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.

Tim Van Rijthoven, ranked 205, who had played precisely one ATP main-draw match before this week (as a lucky loser, Winston-Salem 2016), has just won 's-Hertogenbosch as a wildcard. Beat Fritz, Auger Aliassime and Medvedev.

“Living in the closet is impossible. It is too hard, it is pointless,” she added. “Living in peace with yourself is the only thing that matters, and fuck everyone else.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/18/daria-kasatkina-russian-tennis-player-comes-out-as-gay

Good for you, Daria!

bernarda pera wins back to back 250s
twenty-four straight sets won i believe

always liked her game everytime i watched her but she'd regularly have dips where shed make tons of errors; today vs konteveit she was so solid, only dropped serve once & it was when she was serving for the match up two breaks

Great stuff from Pera. Delighted to see Thiem string a few wins together, though he got thumped by Berrettini in the Gstaad semis yesterday.

Holger Rune's run to the Paris-Bercy title is quite... incredible:

R1: Wawrinka
R2: #10 Hurkacz
R3: #9 Rublev
QF: #1 Alcaraz
SF: #8 Auger-Aliassime
F: #7 Djokovic (6 times champ)

— José Morgado (@josemorgado) November 6, 2022

Hats off but I’ve got a feeling I have my NextGen hate figure :)

Watched the deciding set vs Stan (gutted!) and saw the little exchange at the net (which was a bit harsh). Also saw last hour of Novak-Stef semi and about half of that crazy 17min last game in the final (on my phone, on a train, picture freezing as I lost signal). So, yeah, any Djokovic defeat is good but really not sure about Holger…

What's wrong with Rune?

not sure if he was eventually fined but investigated by ATP last year for using homophobic slurs. also allegedly made up some stuff about Casper Ruud on social media

Yeah, he just seems fairly immature and brattish, yelling at his parents in the crowd etc; a particularly intense driven character who may grow into someone a bit more likeable :) The Ruud dispute was bizarre - genuinely seemed to have invented a locker room confrontation to deflect criticism of his own on court behaviour. And his “apology” (quickly deleted) for the homophobia was basically “sorry I’m not perfect LOL”.

Not easy to grow up in the spotlight, but he’s not winning ppl over so far. Alcaraz, in comparison, is already hugely popular.

good story

Djokovic once hand-picked him to 'impersonate' Nadal’s lefty forehand before a Grand Slam final

Yet until last night, 33-year-old Matija Pecotic had never competed on the ATP Tour

This is a story of redemption - a classic case of it’s never too late and you’re never too old 🧵 pic.twitter.com/fjcSwqqs9J

— Bastien Fachan (@BastienFachan) February 15, 2023

great scrambling match pt by dimitrov vs deminaur just now

saw the stat that this is dimitrov's 44th tour level semifinal & 12 consecutive seasons hes reached one...

undercutting that, today was grigor’s 11th straight semifinal loss

unbelievable cincy final, 3h49m novak comes back and beats alcaraz
novak said it felt like a grand slam final &
it truly kinda did, really great drama

Novak looked completely overheated and dazed while the sun was still over half the court (his first match in daylight this week!) - Alcaraz really let him back in with that loose game at 7-5 4-3. I had to sleep after Djokovic levelled. I clearly missed the ATP set of the year.

watched the third set live, a near-religious experience. djokovic is the goat goat

that match point alcaraz saved at — what was it, 5-3? — with the running, looping forehand down the line? jesus christ. or his kamakaze returns of serve? the truly astonishing djoko double faults? one of the best sets I’ve ever seen

post-roland garros revive! time to trade the squeak of the clay for the, uh, whatever sound sliding on grass makes! i finally broke down and bought a subscription to the tennis channel app, so i can keep matches on most of the day while i work. yeah!

big news for me is the return of tim van rijthoven. he's got a wildcard into s'hertogenbosch. first tour match since rotterdam in february '23. love his game. hope he can make some runs and stay injury-free.

Grass court season and once again I've entirely failed to look into tickets or travel or time off to see any of the 250/125/qualie-level action that's a train ride away. But the weather is dismal, so...

Boulter-Dart was a 3hr+ epic in Nottingham yesterday, pushing Dan Evans' glorious Midlands return back to the late evening, and that was inevitably suspended in the gloom at one set all. (Poor Dan - lots of Challengers in his future, you suspect, hanging on to the top 100 thanks to his stellar week in DC almost 11 months ago).

TvR was a set down to Zizou B (you can't escape him) overnight, I see.

But the weather is dismal, so...

and now it's hailing on the court at libema!

Nottingham event hopelessly behind schedule: still a men's last-16 match to complete from Thursday and no play so far today. Not sure if this means a main-draw special-exemption for anyone (e.g., the various Joneses) at Queen's/Brum cos they're still stranded in the east Midlands while qualies are underway for next week... can't seem to find a proper PDF on various ATP/WTA/event websites to confirm that (because basic info, as opposed to content, must be buried deep in 2024, it's the law).

Perhaps worth commemorating: Sunday was the first time in 53 years British men and women have won Tour-level singles titles on the day. (Boulter won Nottingham, Draper won Stuttgart).

I did a bit of digging and established that it was: April 18, 1971:
Roger Taylor beat Pierre Barthes in Palermo F.
Ann Jones beat Billie Jean King in Las Vegas F.

on the same day, duh

Really dislike how they play music in the breaks

Yeah, it’s awful. Pretty weird how the ugly branded edifice of this event suddenly looms up between Victorian houses in a pleasant side street next to Barons Court Tube. (I chanced my arm Saturday with resales on the gate - nothing doing).

Also: Raonic hit 47 aces in beating Norrie yesterday. Golden age of grass court tennis is back.

that big lug is going to force me to root for taylor fritz. unacceptable!

scary tumble for dan evans, who was forced to retire. he's been looking good lately too.

No dedicated thread yet but, WCs for Wimbled*n announced, no real surprises I don't think, glad to see Broady in the mix though.

nice win for draper over alcaraz @ queens club

the amazon prime federer doc came out today

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/movies/roger-federer-twelve-final-days-review.html

Maxime Cressy hit 23 double faults yesterday in Newport, en route to a 7-6 3rd set win. I figured that must be close to a record for a three set match. Sure enough, it’s 25… held by Cressy, last year in Dubai.

Actually, that’s just ATP. Anna Kournikova hit 31 at the AO in ‘99.

Cressy also one of seven male players to have managed the perfect game: four consecutive DFs. Last year in Marseille.

so nadal looks legit healthy now

Loved that he played Borg in r1. 20 French titles across the families.

Nadal about to serve (for the third time) for the win vs Navone in Bastad qf. Close to four hours.

crazy.. great fighting spirit & his body cooperated
assume he’ll pull out of doubles now lol

sinner's 2024 season has really been wild 66-7 record, 2 slams, #1 ranking, $7.5M for winning the saudi slam exo, doping controversy, w/draw from olympics, now w/draw from paris

expect him to win turin prob unless hes struck down w another viral infection

incred final in miami, mensik in straights over a very in form novak

Funny detail: Mensik apparently tried to withdraw on day 1 with an inflamed knee. Supervisor was on lunch break, so headed over to the physio to get the paperwork done - got a bit of treatment, felt a bit better, somehow beat Bautista Agut hours later, stuck around, wins the thing.

Always good to see Novak lose, not so good to see that he can still (comfortably) win five in a row at Slam/1000 level if the stars align. So he's stuck on 99... maybe a 4-day stroll to a 250 in Belgrade means he can tick off the century and then go away.

didnt know that abt mensik nearly withdrawing wow

lotsa good matches this event, the mens game rn, w sinner not obliterating everyone temporarily, is p exciting and open

novak would have won that match, comfortably, vs most opponents;

Saw a Northwestern/Illinois tennis match this past weekend. Obv not pros and I'm at best a casual fan, but it was the first time I've seen the sport played legit competitively up close and it was really cool. Some of the serves were redonk -- jaw droppingly fast. And we were close enough to see different spins on the ball toss and watch the spin on returns. Very little at the net during the singles game but the reflexes during the doubles match had to be *finger snap*. Fun stuff.

thats cool, yeah ive only ever been up close to a mens challenger, i suppose ppl know from the movie maybe that is like aaa baseball equivalent, but the level of play was just outrageous.. & the match im thinking of was a fringe level pro vs a past his prime pro

I've seen a few of the greats in the flesh - Serena W, Agassi, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, McEnroe, Sampras, Lendl, Becker - but it's something else to be court-level and close up. My very first experience of that was Andres Gomez on an outside court, Wimbledon '87. The speed of thought and the footwork is what stays with you, I think. Also a joy to see Dustin Brown's net-craft in the doubles at Roehampton a few years back, just sublime skill.

As much as I always hated Boris, I remember a match vs Diego Nargiso at an invitational warm-up on Merseyside back in '89 that was a marvel to watch from the lower seats. This slightly scuzzy, fast grass park court, which seemed to have a slight camber, hosting such a high standard - it hardly seemed possible.

Jenson Brooksby, out of the sport for two years after surgery and a suspension, and still ranked outside the top 500, gets a wildcard into the qualies at Houston, wins six matches (including three from mp down) to reach the final. Highlights of the semi vs Paul are worth seeing.

finishes off the title tday vs tiafoe w little drama

great run, one of the MPs he saved was 1st rd of quallies…i wonder how often someone has saved MPs 1st rd of qualifying and gone on to win that event

amazing by venus tonight in dc, oldest to win on tour since kimiko date

Valentin Vacherot!

truly unbelievable run

rinderknech also ! all cousin final

great run from felix since us open, unless you compare it to sinner

sinner this season is 56-6

4 losses to alcaraz (1 was a retirement from illness)
1 loss to griekspoor 3rd shanghai (sinner retirement -cramping)
1 loss to bublik rd of 16 halle

take out the matches lost, he's lost nine sets in 56 matches won

I was thinking earlier, The Ban satisfied no one and was widely considered the softest possible sanction, but it cost him up to 4000pts. And yet he's still got a shot at YE #1.
Meanwhile, Felix and Lorenzo could be playing for the last Turin spot all the way until the eve of event, unless Novak steps aside (can he just take that 250 event anywhere he wants to live?). Daniil also playing this week, which affects the alternates. $155k for sitting on the bench, not bad.

First names, like they're my pals.

Also, good to see Vacherot keep sailing along - one tight loss to Fritz and another three main draw wins in Paris. Might be around for a while, at least make a year of it, like Karatsev.

good analogy vacherot to karatsev, that seems apt to me

i think meds withdrew from metz fwiw