ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Federer's dropped only 18 points on serve in three matches (faced one BP). Looks like that racket is working out for him.

really entertaining match this. also even though i'm expecting Nole in 2 and it could be a total mess i still can't wait for Nolandy

that crosscourt backhand winner by Andy :)))

Domi makes the top 10 <3 Third Slovak in history to do so after Habsudova and Hantuchova.

Federer and Miami are a bad mix.

Nishikori way more offensive this year, good to see.

whoa would never have expected a win over in-form Fed after the mess of a match vs Ferrer. Happy for Kei! Sad I missed it.

it's pretty weird that Nishikori and Djokovic have only played twice ever (and split wins!) (Nishikori's came at the end of 2011 when Djokovic was running on fumes generally)

Nishikori's aggression levels have gone up but I'd like to see them go up more, he still lapses into passivity during matches - against Ferrer he was content to engage in so many nothingy BH-to-BH rallies, but he at least seemed to recognise every so often to step it up.

another h2h that made me laugh was re: Keothavong comparing Cibulkova's pomes with Ivanovic's ajdeeeeees on her BT Sport commentary. Turns out she's 3-0 against them combined. (Keothavong has wins over eight of the current top 20, which just seems incredibly bizarre.)

mm this is like last year's final in a microcosm, so far

Sharapova peaked and then Serena woke up

She's been competing believably the last 3 out of 4 times they've met but in the end what good is that.

she's competing amazingly even now, even after blowing the first set

This is why I don't get the argument that it's all mental - if mentality had anything to do with it Sharapova would be completely beaten down by now. It might be mental in the sense that Serena's mentality is strengthened but it's basically a match-up issue.

Eh, they've met so many times even if it's a poor match-up she should've won one of the many times she's had a shot or serena's had a poor day. She often does break down after some crucial point goes against her. Of course it's a bad match-up as well but Serena's lost agains journeywomen with similar styles.

Also screw that game going that way just now, agh.

never got the sense that it is that much of a mental thing, i'm sure the h2h plays on Maria's mind but at the same time she always seems pretty good at shaking off the losses and her attitude towards it seems pretty balanced generally. Serena obv still LOVES beating her though

love Maria's outfit btw. if i want her to ever beat Serena then it's when she's dressed like this

Welp. Lots of very short points in a row for Serena

I'm not a Raonic fan, but I really think he's on the verge of breaking through. He's much more aggressive from the baseline with Ljubicic. Needs to stop having these matches where he has like 7 DFs.

also he apparently lost like 15 pounds. He always was a little chunky.

Cibulkova murdering these returns, wow

Nishikori w/d :((( And the other SF is...not really worth watching.

and, ha, Nole's second w/o of the tournament. Not a good look for the ATP

lol @ men's tennis

fun fact that I discovered last night though, and one that I can't believe I didn't know before -

in the 1997 US Open women's final, 16-yr-old Martina Hingis beat 17-yr-old Venus Williams
in the 1997 US Open girls' final, 18-yr-old Cara Black beat 17-year-old Kildine Chevalier

Playing that junior final must have felt so anticlimactic even for the participants. Black still went on to about as great a career as someone with her build could have had though. This was the only time the senior final was younger than the junior final that I remember (maybe in the early 80s or before?) - the only other all-teenage Slam finals since I started following tennis were Roland Garros '97 (19-yr-old Iva Majoli d. 16-yr-old Martina Hingis) and the US Open '99 (17-yr-old Serena Williams d. 19-yr-old Martina Hingis). Respective junior finals were 15-yr-old Justine Henin beating 18-yr-old Cara Black and 15-yr-old Lina Krasnoroutskaya beating 17-yr-old Nadia Petrova.

The entire "tennis is dominated by older players now" trend is fascinating to me, not least because the causes are still so up for debate - so many factors but so many anomalies clouding the debate as well (ie, you can extrapolate little from Li Na's career trajectory). Increased physicality and training for 30-somethings, sure, and people talk about AER on the women's side - but we've had teenage prodigies post-AER, it's just that they all burned out or stalled for disparate reasons (Vaidisova stopped caring, Karatantcheva had the drugs ban, Golovin was chronically injured, Larcher de Brito stopped growing, Paszek...I think she had ill-timed injuries?). Dearth of junior talent because with the economy athletic kids are pushed towards a stable wage in a team sport? And just as that seemed to become the status quo, along come Bencic and Konjuh, 16-yr-olds who are winning at Tour level already.

It's so weird how last Aug I'd have given Li a decent shot at beating Serena anywhere, one of the few I felt could actually do that. Since then Li's gone up a level, won another Slam, reached the YEC final etc, but I'd now give her LESS of a shot, because of the nature of their last two matches (embarrassing herself at the USO; and at the YEC, peaking against a subpar Serena and still getting bagelled in the deciding set)

Like, before Li would always play Serena close but today I expect a very straightforward match.

Li is bossing Serena around really impressively just like in the YEC final. This is the kind of match that turns on one point, after which Li will fail to win a game, and in a few games' time we should see that point

whoa Li Na chipping and charging successfully off Serena's second serve at deuce

and that was just after Serena got back to deuce from 0-40. A really well-timed tactic to stop that momentum shift in its tracks.

Fuck's sake. Didn't even get the set this time.

My god that dropshot. 10 feet over the bet

*net

Serena peaking now, Li...the opposite. Every fucking time.

yeesh that challenge

welp, inevitable but the quality of that set was befitting a final at least. Please don't totally flop in the second, Na.

Italian commentators just said "Nishikori/Djokovic, Berdych/Nadal" and sniggered. I don't speak Italian, I can only imagine the unflattering comparison they made

Li broken from 40-0 up and if the following game was anything to go by that was the very last of her resistance.

wonderful performance by Nole. Nice to see him use the backhand slice so well, that' a shot I think he should use a little more vs. rafa.

it really was impressive - I liked that he upped the aggression rather than trying to out-grind Rafa, but the biggest surprise for me was his net play. It was actually terrific! Still botched one terrible overhead though, some things never change.

IW/Miami double is a great achievement, really weird to think Nole doesn't hold a Slam at the moment despite the quality of his past month, and if RG or Wim were to be played tomorrow I don't even think I'd call him the outright favourite. Nice to see men's tennis in some sort of flux again!

As for Rafa I was sort of surprised to see his fight dissipate somewhat in the second set. It wasn't as total a collapse as Li's but it was a bit of a capitulation.

(This week the Charleston draw is so open, literally every non-Williams seed is in mediocre-to-woeful form. Hoping for a Bencic breakthrough!)

Serena swinging for everything and barely moving against Cepelova, set and a break down. thigh injury? trainer on court now

oooo. didn't know much about Cepelova before now, she played really well. i'm going to sleep now

wow, what a loss. From the highlights it looked like Serena was exhausted and had her thigh strapped. Cepelova drop-shotted her a million times and kept her nerve. Cepelova is younger than Stephens and has also now beaten an injured Serena, I wonder whether she will get Sloane-esque hype!

I was impressed by Bencic dispatching Kirilenko on Monday - clinical at first, as expected with Kirilenko rusty, but she toughed out the second set. Bencic's groundstrokes and angles are so lovely.

Mrs. Krumm beat top seed Pennetta in Monterrey, amazing.

yeah i watched that Bencic match actually, she looked good. hit a couple of great running BH winners. her second serve is pretty feeble though

Stephens' BH has started this match doing whatever the opposite of peaking is :x

Svitolina is really good at setting up points she can finish off at the net. Unfortunately she can't volley to save her life

Stephens' attitude is not her problem. She fought hard in the first set, she's fighting hard now. You don't have to be shrieking or hysterical to fight.

Svitolina's BH is excellent (some of the angles she got with it were sick). Stephens' BH is still a weak, harmless and unimproved mess. THAT is the primary reason for this result.

Keys is playing so badly right now. Her defensive game has somehow gotten worse (from barely existent to non-existent) and her second serve is so much more attackable than I remember. There is no point in having amazing natural power on your groundstrokes if you're never close enough to the ball to use it...Peng just has to move her around.

Bencic into the QF over Svitolina? So impressive.

First time I've heard Anne Keothavong commentating. She's really good!

Janowicz is in a downward spiral, but still a very impressive win for the 17 year old Coric.