ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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.