ROLAND GARROS 2014

Serena with her R1 opponent and compadre in Sharapova shade, Alizé Lim:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoRDYQ_IUAEmWZx.jpg

Anyway

- Serena gets a BFF in R1...and possibly a sister in R3. That's if Venus can beat Bencic, the youngest player in the top 100, in R1 - popcorn match, that
- Wozniacki hasn't pulled out. If she does it before start of play I think the draw gets rejigged, but only slightly. As things stand, Wozniacki v Wickmayer is a R1 between walking byes
- Garcia vs Ivanovic ALLEZ CARO!!!!! Exorcise the demons of that Sharapova choke!

- Nadal vs Thiem probable R2. I don't think Dominic is ready :(
- Nice to see a Slam debut at 33 years old for Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic
- Ryan Harrison lost in qualifying (to a British player) already, I wonder if the US media will continue to blame his tough draws

Full draws

http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/scores/draws/ws/index.html
http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/scores/draws/ms/index.html

Masha ;\

Djokovic with the toughest draw of the top 4. Wawrinka and Fed's draws are both very good imo, pretty confident that Stan will be in the semis.

oh FUCK I've been offered a free trip to a Caribbean private island and I'm going to have to miss the second week including the women's final ;_;

excited

26. Sorana Cirstea: Not a big hitter but a fun, resourceful player.

WHY DOES JON WERTHEIM EXIST WHYYYYYY

Seriously though it takes some doing to write a one-liner about a seeded Tour regular of half a decade's standing and get it COMPLETELY WRONG

this made me lol too

<i>Ana Ivanovic vs. Caroline Garcia: Both are potential semifinalists.</i>

Venus-Bencic could be fun

I feel like that "fun resourceful player" or some variant thereof is in every list he does and it possibly belongs to someone else, but who idk

Imagining all the devotees of finesse tennis turning up to Cirstea's match and having to duck every other rally as she bashes balls mindlessly into the stands

Not finalising predix til the qualifiers have been placed but I think I'll be rashly optimistic and pick Puig to upset Stosur AND Garcia to upset Ivanovic. Might take Diyas over Shitra (h2h: 1-0 to Diyas!) for the lols as well.

Bouchard has another disgustingly easy quarter if she can handle Pennetta (who's been mediocre post-IW).

I've long said the "Halep tears up the Tour but flops at Slams" narrative is overstated but it's No Excuses Time - this is the perfect opportunity for her. I expect at LEAST a SF and honestly, Li's hardly been in peak form lately either.

Nice veteran story from qualifying - 30yo Yuliya Beygelzimer made it through (benefiting from what looked like a hilarious choke/collapse by Johanna Konta in the final round). It's her ninth Slam MD - but she's gone 0-8 in R1s so far. One more chance to finally win a match!

(It's also the ten-year anniversary of the second of those MD losses - where she led Capriati 3-0 in the final set...)

had sortof forgotten Puig existed before this week.
other than Bartoli joining them will the ITV commentary team be the same as last year? was hoping Mauresmo would come back now she's not coaching anyone.

Puig had a slow start to the year but since she hooked up with Ricardo Sanchez a few weeks ago she's turned it around. Probably going to win her first title today in Strasbourg - in the SF she repeated last year's RG win over Keys.

A moment to welcome the players making their Slam debuts -

Fiona Ferro (FRA, WC), Anna-Lena Friedsam (GER, DE), Amandine Hesse (FRA, WC), Jovana Jaksic (SRB, DE), Danka Kovinic (MNE, Q), Alizé Lim (FRA, WC), Sofia Shapatava (GEO, Q), Taylor Townsend (USA, WC), Maryna Zanevska (UKR, Q)
Facundo Arguello (ARG, DE), Andrea Arnaboldi (ITA, Q), Facundo Bagnis (ARG, Q), Victor Estrella Burgos (DOM, DE), Pierre-Hugues Herbert (FRA, WC), Laurent Lokoli (FRA, Q), Axel Michon (FRA, WC), Ante Pavic (CRO, Q), Diego Sebastian Schwartzman (ARG, Q)

Kovinic and Estrella Burgos are the first ever representatives of Montenegro and the Dominican Republic in a Slam. Love seeing new countries make their debuts. Global sport.

Nowhere near a global sport: Europe, North America with pockets of Oceania and South America. Sure there are other bits and pieces but Tennis doesn't seem interested in widening its reach, unlike football.

Anyhoo quite like Djokovic to finally complete the set, glad that wrist injury didn't impede him. If anyone can fight through a tough draw its him.

I didn't say it was the MOST global sport, though you're totally overlooking both Tours' focus on Asia, but I will argue that it's the most diverse once you take gender (and arguably sexuality) into account. Get back to me when two women of colour are made multi-millionaires at the top of the sport by football.

Williams sisters come from the US where people of colour have been taking up the sport (Arthur Ashe). Doesn't mean that more people of colour in other countries have taken it up.

Women play lots of football - don't know if making any money adds much to that.

I was referring to Li Na. Plus, Sania Mirza's probably the most successful Indian sportswoman in any sport, right? Heather Watson is mixed-race, current up-and-comer Ons Jabeur (former RG girls' champ) is Tunisian, we've had plenty of black French players both male and female, plus Asia's always been represented on both Tours.

Football doesn't exactly promote or support its female players to the extent that tennis does.

Ah ok you said two women = Li Na and Mirza. Right. With Mirza the picture is distorted because women's sport, and any sport bar cricket, isn't much of a thing.

Not so much about isolated cases. Your initial post got me to thinking of what makes a sport global and football really touches wider ranges of people. Half-despair that it seems like the only global sport.

Sports admins in football are horrible but women's football seems to given promotion. Just that not as much people watch it, but that isn't due to the non-awareness of it.

No, the two women I was referring to were Serena and Na! Not the only WOC to have found massive success in tennis of course but it's so momentous that the top two players in the world are WOC.

Football is mainstream globally, obv. Tennis is weird in that it's genuinely global, it's just niche-ish everywhere. What other sports are genuinely global? It's actually ridiculous how limited the worldwide reach of most "major" sports is. Cricket, baseball, rugby, basketball, NONE are global on the same scale.

Does Tennis have any presence in Africa? And really most of South America doesn't play it. I only see any local grassroots passion for it in Argentina (although Brazil has produced a couple of slam champions).

That is what is so frustrating. Pockets in the world play tennis...pockets. Promises a lot more than what it is whereas baseball, cricket...local to a couple of regions where it will always remain so.

Athletics?

(Hi everyone!)

for tennis to become HUGE anywhere the entire nature of the tour would have to change surely. will never be a huge tennis culture anywhere when top players are only ever in one country for a few weeks before moving elsewhere. national tennis leagues and stuff would have to become a lot more serious and competitive

Hi Kat!

Was thinking well maybe the marathon has a reach...but not so much in Asia.

cerealbar otm, yes.

Bouchard just won. Not really that good a match tbh.

Marion as a commentator! She just does not stop talking at any point, though I kind of love that.

6 breaks of serve out of 6 games so far in Radwanska's match. Zhang with a nice double handed backhand especially when she goes down the line.

Nice frock from A Rad.

Make that 7 breaks.

Talking and giggling. Anyone else and I would be raging. But it's Cake so shrug.

Nice volley from Rad there

Reels off 9 straight games for the match.

Zhang now 0-10 at Slams.

Jovana Jaksic embodies so many characteristics of the obnoxious tennis brat - the ridiculous grunt that surely cannot be natural, the yells and fistpumps after opponents' basic errors - that she actually ends up kind of amazingly compelling

courts look very heavy and slow

fuck ITV4 for sticking with the boring Fed match instead of Venus/Bencic

Bencic has mostly been underwhelming, but she just played her best point of the match to break Venus as she was serving for the set

Serena is nervy and woeful but Lim poses zero threat

jerzy finally wins a match

Lisicki was so sloppy in that set and still won it 6-1. Disappointing that 17-yr-old Ferro, one of France's top juniors, had nothing to hurt her with.

wow @ Marion - Inverdale commentary. Love the person who thought this one up. I suppose it was a year ago.

Marion is certainly a different proposition as commentator.

Nishikori, whaaat

loved it when her and Santoro were commentating together yesterday. hope they're BFFs irl

ITV4 killing us all by showing this James Ward - Robredo trifle.

lol Sharapova/Pironkova on clay kill me

Nishikori injured right?

Davydenko lost his first-round match, he'll be out of the top 100 next week.

Mathilde Johansson 1st round tiebreaker drama, wouldn't feel like Roland Garros without it.

drop shot from Nadal!

Unbelievable pushing of the lines, with D netting it. D has to hold, an epic game.

D has got to react positively or else its the match

Oh boy for that game to end like that. Embarrassing

Djokovic seems completely unable to translate the occasional good shot into any sort of momentum which makes it a rather uninspiring match...

come on D that angle, its not over!

What, that was a great end to that epic game, great rally Nadal came on top

ah no, now into deuce w/awful unforced error.

set point

awful..

that's embarrassing.

In last year's semi final Nole threw in an absolute dud set and still took it to 5

nice spitting slo-mo

fkn shit return

outrageous!!

knew Becker was doing fuck all

Nadal has his worst game in a while

these bloody commentators are STILL talking about the weather as though it's the determining factor. i hate them

the French commentators are also talking a lot about the weather, worrying about rain now. tbh it is pretty hot today.

like a bit of cloud cover is going to make a difference when the cloud is hovering over D's mind!

and, like, Rafa has won this tournament a lot, in different kinds of weather...

Djokovic is shambolic now and tbh it's not like Rafa has ~peaked in this match either

hahaha djokovic the joke is on you!! (uniqlo)

the end is near, deuce

Unbelievable, why did D give it straight back

wait and make a mistake

http://deadspin.com/nbc-provides-lovely-slow-mo-replay-of-novak-djokovic-th-1587768246

*pukes*

ahhh one guys puking the other guys back is out

I think breaking back prolongs the agony (of this viewer anyway)..

game on!

this is so bad

A twist! I have little faith it will last

this a really good system having a guy run out and look at the ground too bad there is no better way to make that call

there's actually a good reason you can't use hawkeye on clay! http://unseededandlooming.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/in-defense-of-ball-marks-why-hawkeye-on-clay-is-unnecessary/

CP..

fkn awful crow, df!!

o thank fn god

LOL

lex pretend
Posted: June 8, 2014 at 4:41:39 PM
there's actually a good reason you can't use hawkeye on clay! http://unseededandlooming.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/in-defense-of-ball-marks-why-hawkeye-on-clay-is-unnecessary/

this is v interesting ty, but i find it hard to believe they couldn't come up w a system that gets it right every time and just makes a lil beep when the ball is out, f challenges and all that noise

Just been reminded - second RG final against Rafa that Nole's ended on a DF. Useless

Haha omg that's true. Gutted for Nole but I didn't think he was going to win anyway - seemed oddly unfocused throughout the tournament.

Random but I kinda liked that both the women and men's finals were pleasingly colour coordinated - Sharapova and Halep both wore shades of peach and purple, Rafa and Djokovic in baby blue.

and then there was this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpK4BVuIcAADyMQ.jpg

Ferrer and Kevin Anderson wore the same outfit in their match. height differential prevented any confusion

I never understand why clothing companies don't provide alternative colours for their players, it seems like a basic PR thing

roll of honour!

Men's singles: Rafael Nadal
Women's singles: Maria Sharapova
Men's doubles: Julien Benneteau & Edouard Roger-Vasselin
Women's doubles: Su-Wei Hsieh & Shuai Peng
Mixed doubles: Anna-Lena Groenefeld & Jean-Julien Rojer
Boys' singles: Andrey Rublev
Girls' singles: Darya Kasatkina
Boys' doubles: Benjamin Bonzi & Quentin Halys
Girls' doubles: Ioana Ducu & Ioana-Loredana Rosca

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD9U46qlVQQ

Boys' singles: Andrey Rublev

what!? http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/3402-30e458fb88987efa997ee688419a34a8/P_original.jpg :)

New rankings!

1. Serena Williams (1)
2. Na Li (2)
3. Simona Halep (4)
4. Agnieszka Radwanska (3)
5. Maria Sharapova (8)
6. Petra Kvitova (6)
7. Jelena Jankovic (7)
8. Victoria Azarenka (5)
9. Angelique Kerber (9)
10. Dominika Cibulkova (10)
11. Flavia Pennetta (13)
12. Eugenie Bouchard (16)
13. Ana Ivanovic (12)
14. Sara Errani (11)
15. Carla Suarez Navarro (15)
16. Caroline Wozniacki (14)
17. Samantha Stosur (18)
18. Sabine Lisicki (17)
19. Sloane Stephens (19)
20. Andrea Petkovic (27)
21. Lucie Safarova (24)
22. Roberta Vinci (20)
23. Ekaterina Makarova (23)
24. Alize Cornet (21)
25. Kirsten Flipkens (22)
26. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (25)
27. Garbine Muguruza (35)
28. Sorana Cirstea (26)
29. Svetlana Kuznetsova (28)
30. Venus Williams (29)
...
44. Camila Giorgi (50)
51. Ajla Tomljanovic (72)
55. Anna Schmiedlova (56)
69. Heather Watson (92)
71. Francesca Schiavone (54)
88. Maria Kirilenko (46)
89. Kiki Bertens (148)
94. Pauline Parmentier (145)
103. Kristina Mladenovic (103)
127. Tamira Paszek (155)
150. Taylor Townsend (205)

1. Rafael Nadal (1)
2. Novak Djokovic (2)
3. Stanislas Wawrinka (3)
4. Roger Federer (4)
5. Andy Murray (8)
6. Tomas Berdych (6)
7. David Ferrer (5)
8. Juan Martin Del Potro (7)
9. Milos Raonic (9)
10. Ernests Gulbis (17)
11. John Isner (11)
12. Kei Nishikori (10)
13. Grigor Dimitrov (12)
14. Richard Gasquet (13)
15. Fabio Fognini (15)
16. Mikhail Youzhny (16)
17. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (14)
18. Kevin Anderson (20)
19. Alexandr Dolgopolov (21)
20. Gael Monfils (28)
21. Tommy Haas (18)
22. Tommy Robredo (19)
23. Fernando Verdasco (25)
24. Jerzy Janowicz (23)
25. Nicolas Almagro (22)
26. Marin Cilic (26)
27. Philipp Kohlschreiber (24)
28. Roberto Bautista Agut (29)
29. Feliciano Lopez (27)
30. Marcel Granollers (39)
...
31. Guillermo Garcia Lopez (41)
76. Dusan Lajovic (83)
110. Nikolay Davydenko (92)
121. Facundo Bagnis (143)
140. Janko Tipsarevic (118)
141. Ryan Harrison (125)

And now to Edgbaston to watch Vekic vs Bencic. The tennis never stops...

I'll be @Edgbaston on semi final day. haven't even looked at the draw yet

it's a v promising draw, it's been upgraded to Premier this year (well, actually that's not why it's good, it's good because it's always a pretty intriguing tournament) (until we end up with an Ivanovic/Hantuchova final anyway)

On-court coaching finally proves its worth!

Vekic: "I can't fucking move, the court is wet"
Felgate: "People have been playing on grass for 150 years, grow up"

lol @ Andrey Rublev, he was a famous icon painter no? Parents must be fans.

Thinking this morning 'has Becker been sacked yet?' and then thinking maybe its ok as I'd rather not hear his commentary.