ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

well, he was up a break a minute ago and that went quickly

as is this too, it seems

i can't believe Almagro shanked two FHs that landed in the service box and Rafa netted that

!!!!!!!!

wow. first win in 11 attempts

is it foolish to get excited about RG now?

i'm not doing that just yet, 5 sets is a different beast, but...maybe MORE excited than at any point in the past half decade?

meanwhile, PEAK SWETA FH!!

aside from what it means for Rafa, very happy for Almagro. He has a beautiful game and I hope it helps him perform on the bigger stages.

1-25 vs. Ferrer and Nadal now!

Nishikori has played SO WELL this week and it's continuing vs Gulbis now

yeah he's playing like peak level kolya right now, it's incredible

that gorgeous angled volley in the last game, that BH pass now, wonderful stuff. Working with Chang has counter-intuitively brought out his most aggressive game. I LOVE how good he is at changing the direction of the ball

also, Gulbis is not even playing badly!

HOW did Nishikori win that

that gorgeous angled volley in the last game, that BH pass now, wonderful stuff. Working with Chang has counter-intuitively brought out his most aggressive game. I LOVE how good he is at changing the direction of the ball

― lex pretend, Saturday, April 26, 2014 12:32 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Chang was actually an aggressive player considering his tools. Arguably the first power baseliner?

I guess Chang would probably be more of a pusher with today's slow courts tho, idk

yeah I guess his reputation for speed and the fact that he was still competing against s&v-ers made him look more defensive than he was.

Good weekend of tennis that I actually got to watch most of!

- LOL @ the absolutely NID way the Stüttgart final went after Ivanovic led 6-3, 3-1 40-15. I honestly thought she was going to choke the first set from 5-0 but Sharapova threw in a really loose game there; still, that planted the seeds for the inevitable.

- Nishikori played 11 sets in Barcelona this week and won six of them 6-2 or better. Just stellar form and his game is wonderful to watch. PLEASE DON'T BREAK YOURSELF AGAIN.

- Watch out for Maria Teresa Torro Flor, who won Marrakech, this clay season. She's only really put up notable results on clay so I assumed she was your usual topspinning LDL type but wow, she smacks the shit out of the ball and has serious shotmaking skills. Thrashed the White Mug in the SF - talking of the ESP stereotype, that match would've been unrecognisable as an all-Spanish affair not too long ago. They were absolutely barrelling the ball at each other. With the right draw, MTTF could cause havoc at RG.

- Taylor Townsend finally won a senior title, a 50K challenger. Sigh, she's 18 now and I really feel that with her talent she should be making way more progress than she has. She's received WCs in 11 of her last 18 tournaments and I don't think it's benefited her. Anyway, her run included a hilarious-sounding QF against Karatantcheva in which Sesil led 4-3, then Taylor won eight consecutive games to lead 6-4 5-0, then Sesil won seven consecutive games (!!!), then Taylor won six consecutive games (!!!!). 6-4 5-7 6-0, straightforward.

Rooting for Townsend but she's just so slow

Chang was actually an aggressive player considering his tools.

I was gonna say, the very first glimpse I had of Chang was vs Leconte at Wimbledon '88; what was incredible, aside from his court speed, was the way he leapt into service returns. I'm not sure I'd ever seen anyone swing away at first-serves on a grass-court like that before; for two sets Leconte was flailing at thin air at the net.

(You can all go to YouTube now and find a highlight reel and prove me wrong. I've just watched Edberg-Agassi, Indian Wells 1990 and I don't know what's worse, Andre's moonball backhands or his bleach-tipped mullet.)

the only Agassi I like watching is bald eagle, surly old man Agassi

Safarova wins last 12 games against a collapsing Rybarikova. Apart from that first set Lucie has looked good every time I've watched her this season and she's still only 27th in the race. So many tight defeats against top 10 players :(

Sweta murdering Bouchard yesterday was lots of fun. Went down 1-4 for shits and giggles and then terrorised her

xp immediately lost to Hercog in the next round hitting about 100 UEs, fml

CSN a set away from her first title!

She finally won it, but that match was painful. Shanks, moonball rallies, tactical ineptitude, mindless errors, the works. Sweta's "performance" from *4-1 up in the decider was shockingly bad even by her standards.

Seven first-time WTA titlists in 2014 so far: Pironkova, Muguruza, Nara, Garcia, Vekic, Torro Flor, Suárez Navarro.

Highest-ranked without a title is now Stephens (who hasn't even reached a final), but Peng has reached the most finals (six!) without winning one.

Elena Baltacha has passed away, at 30. Awful.

oh fucking hell :(

Such terrible news. RIP.

i don't even know what to say. horrifying. RIP.

too young. :(

awful, RIP :(

had no idea it was this serious

Liver cancer is unfortunately a very efficient, quick-acting killer.

Mirka has squeezed out some twin boys. Well done, Mirka.

Thiem just hit a 150km/h backhand DTL winner

And he wins the match! Amazing.

spectacular performance, Wawrinka didn't play badly at all

oh goddamn i should've paid attention to when that was on >:(

oh and Mirka gives birth to twin boys :)

Thiem's post-match analyses on Facebook are superb and also bode well

so funny that Thiem and Gulbis are bros and training partners. One seems to love tennis and the other is 50/50 on love/hate

http://www.tennisfrontier.com/blogs/on-the-cherry-path-an-up-and-coming-player-and-his-unusual-coach/

super-interesting account of his training regime

Thiem is the first 20yo to beat a top-3 player since Del Potro and Cilic took out the entire top three between them at the 2009 USO.

Nadal has played 12 sets on clay vs. Monaco. They have gone:

61 61 61 63 61 61 62 62 60 60 61 60

Have you checked the Another fucking spree shooting. Great. thread yet, tennis fans?

Can't. Been blinded by another astonishingly horrible Kuznetsova outfit.

Tho this Sveta/A-Rad game is so far of... um... really high quality?

Aga's playing superbly, Sweta just shitting up the joint in her inimitable style. That dropshot into the bottom of the net ;_;

The first couple of games were good. Not of late. Aga's backhand is a real weapon when she uses it right like she is today.

That was an extremely sloppy game from A-rad to lost the second set. Three consecutive errors from 30/0, all in the exact same part of the court.

Sweta's reined herself in and showing why their h2h is what it is.

Haaaa or she could just fuck it up from 4-1 up again