ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Serena finally wins a game thanks to Halep FH errors. Serena has improved in this set to the extent that she can keep the ball in court during rallies, but the serving, oof. 7 DFs so far

"Peaking" at the YEC when everyone else is banged up or braindead, just call her Sim Clijsters

That (excellent) point had Turning Point written all over it

Such an important hold for Halep, that, and I liked the way she did it. Serena's not missing on her groundies any more, so she needed big serves and aggressive play

this is exciting

Serena's current strategy seems to be to win this by defending...

Halep 6-0 5-1. Lots of tight games in this set but Halep's upped her level in all of them.

simona should really win a slam next year

Glad Halep could close that out. If that had been 10 years ago and it had been, I don't know, say, someone like Hantuchova...

60 62. One of the most one-sided defeats of Serena's career, if not THE most.

An entire career history of Serena receiving bagels:

Q1 Indian Wells 1997, l. Alexia Dechaume-Balleret 46 06
3R Roland Garros 1999, l. Mary Joe Fernandez 36 61 06
SF Dubai 2005, l. Jelena Jankovic 06 34 ret.
F Miami 2007, d. Justine Henin 06 75 63
1R Zurich 2007, l. Patty Schnyder 06 03 ret.
RR Doha YEC 2008, l. Venus Williams 75 16 06
QF Madrid 2013, d. Anabel Medina Garrigues 63 06 75
RR Singapore YEC 2014, l. Simona Halep 06 26

So, in two of those she retired, two of those she won anyway, one was when she was a foetus and the other two full losses went to three. This is the first time Serena has been bagelled and lost in straight sets since the second match of her career.

cool

per Twitter, the last time she won this few games in a completed match was in the Oklahoma City 1998 QFs, when she lost 16 16 to Joannette Kruger

I hope Joanette Kruger has had a long and successful coaching career off the back of that.

I'm going to be so pressed if Serena loses like that to Bouchard.

Dechaume-Balleret parlayed it into a Fed Cup captaincy!

xp won't it be hilarious if Serena turns round and beats Bouchard 3 and 2 anyway

Nice of Novak to name his baby after his rival's coach, what. (In all seriousness, it is a reasonable and tasteful name, so well done Novak and Jelena.)

Got to improve your volleying if you're naming your kid Stefan, come on.

Let's hope the kid has a better overhead, anyway.

Ivanovic mauling Bouchard, but can't get the bagel. Oh well.

lmao @ Bouchard dragging Ivanovic into a grinding BH-to-BH rally and still flopping first

Bouchard's lack of touch is just...that "volley", jeez

Radwanska looked pretty bad at the close of that match. Lost the last four games with about as many UEs as she'd normally hit in an entire match.

My useless fucking favorites

Come on Petra, finish this set off quickly before Sharapova wakes up

:D :D :D Hilarious lob winner from Kvitova to break in the first game of the second.

Still not ready to believe in Petra yet

Well, I hadn't tuned in for the first set but I'm all for more Sharapova service games like that :D

Kvitova is hitting some nice winners but Sharapova is just terrible... probably tired. I WILL TAKE IT IF IT HAPPENS.

lawl, Shitra shows up but Sharapova can't make her pay. 4-0! So huge for Petra if she closes this.

BAGEL HA!!!!

Volleying straight back to Petra hahahahahaha, Sharapova's so bad at the net, people act as if she's good because she comes in on easy shots she can swing volley.

UGH no bagel :(

Now would be a fun time for some double faults.

What a week this is!

(Though the comeback starts here.)

Stop it Shitra.

Irritated at them both for needlessly prolonging this game

Amazing winner on MP at last

Bouchard getting completely exposed for the third time this week

ooh, nice to see some proper shock-and-awe tennis from Serena on that point

Serena taking tips from her BFF! Wozniackian FH moonball to reset the point and then BLAM massive angled FH to end it. OK, the second bit had nothing to do with Karolina.

A wrong call and a net cord enable Bouchard to avoid the bagel, sigh

Congrats to Bouchard on 11 games over 3 complete rubbers. Just like wildcarding in a junior slam champ or something.

Even worse than Dementieva's 0-3 in 2005!

I was just about to say! Dementieva 2005 had been the only YEC competitor (post-RR) to play all three RR matches and fail to win 4 games in any set. Until now! And Bouchard's 11 games are even worse than Dementieva's 15.

I look forward to Bouchard playing the Dementieva/Kuznetsova role of being pasted in the YEC for years to come.

YECs always come down to bloody maths in the end.

Ivanovic needs a straight-set win over Halep to qualify. If Halep wins a set, Serena qualifies. That's a tricky one, because Halep has zero incentive to play hard or dig deep - I doubt she'd be motivated by kicking out Serena, but she will certainly want to conserve her energy for a likely SF vs Wozniacki the next day. I suspect Halep will come out and try to play aggressively for a straight-sets win but if it just leads to errors, or if Ivanovic gets off to a strong start, Halep won't bother fighting back.

The other group is so convoluted that even now Wozniacki (2-0) could fail to qualify and Sharapova (0-2) could be in the SF.

xp I wouldn't look forward to it too much when she ends the next five seasons ranked 18.

Oh, and I have a feeling a lot more players will be working Bouchard out next year. She really reworked her game and approach in last year's off season to be so ultra-aggressive, but between her wonky technique, a number of players including SHELBY ROGERS showing how best to dismantle her and her own knocked confidence, a fall cometh.

True! But it felt like a lot of players worked Wozniacki out, and look, here she is in 2004 back in the top 10 with a GS final and likely a SF spot in the YEC...