ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

wow @ vesely v ggl

end of Thiem/Pospisil was good - had been a somewhat underwhelming servebotting affair for most of the last set, some huge winners from both towards the end of the TB though.

watched some of 17yo Andrey Rublev beating Dzumhur in Istanbul earlier, impressed with his game - especially his BH, and also his attitude on return

on an unstreamed court in Prague, Bencic just saved six consecutive MPs from 0-6 down in the second set TB against Konjuh - their first senior meeting (Konjuh won their only junior one)

Christ. Konjuh blew another three MPs serving for the match at 5-4 in the third, saved three serving down 5-6, finally won the TB 7-3 on her 10th MP.

If they both get to the top of the game, this epic match that nobody saw will have been the start of it.

so annoying that this match got bumped to a non-televised court bc of the rain delay

i'm glad that thiem won that match but it's not a good sign that he struggles against pospisil on clay. the tiebreak was great though.

Talking of 17yos, Frances Tiafoe of USA seems to be making a decent attack on the Challenger level: reached quarterfinal two weeks ago in Sarasota (out to Buchanan), semifinal last week (out to McGee), and just now knocked top seed Bagnis out in the first round in Tallahassee.

BTW (you may possibly all be aware of this already, but just in case): Most (men's) Challenger events have a court or two streaming continuously for free in decent quality at http://livestream.com/atp.

Safarova is truly a mystery. *2-4, 0-40 down in the final set vs Smitkova, she plays:

- Five perfect service points to avoid the double break. 3-4*
- Four impeccable defensive points with Smitkova absolutely pummeling the ball at her to break back to love. *4-4
- So much momentum! Then: DF, basic error, shanked BH two feet in front of her, DF. 4-5*
- Then Smitkova serves it out, albeit it took her 5 MPs. Safarova had two BPs; on one Smitkova served an ace, on the other Safarova hit a baseball home run overhead

Notwithstanding Safarova, CZE gets six out of eight QFists in Prague and will have three out of four SFists. That's a successful home event, then!

Rublev very impressive but that hair

Continuing on the theme of youngsters: I had a feeling I'd been seeing an unusual amount of under-18's doing OK lately in the men's tournaments, and looking more closely at the data, this appears to be the case. I chose a pretty low bar for "doing OK", in order to get a decent amount of data: winning a first-round match in the main draw of an ATP main tour or Challenger tournament (without the aid of a retirement, walkover, disqualification or forfeit).

This chart shows, for each of the last ten years, the percentage of such 1st-round matches that were won by players under 18 (with the caveat that the calculated ages may possibly be up to a week off or so):

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/olem/u18winners_zpssqkcqatl.jpg

Sure, the numbers are low, especially for 2015, which is only 1/3 complete, but it still seems this trend is real. Part of the effect, of course, is that the youngsters of 2011 and 2012 were hardly Any Good At All; in 2011 only two Challenger first-round matches were won by under-18's, in 2012 only ONE (!) out of 2281 (and none for the 1169 completed main-tour first-round matches).

In case you were wondering, the U18 players who have won a 1st round match so far in 2015 are:

Andrey Rublev (1 x ATP 1000, 1 x ATP 500, 2 x ATP 250, 1 x Challenger)
Alexander Zverev (1 x ATP 1000, 1 x Challenger)
Frances Tiafoe (3 x Challenger)
Orlando Luz (2 x Challenger)
Tommy Paul (2 x Challenger)
Duck Hee Lee (1 x Challenger)
Omar Jasika (1 x Challenger)
Roman Safiullin (1 x Challenger)
Stefan Kozlov (1 x Challenger)

For the five previous years, for reference:

2014:
Borna Coric (1 x Slam, 1 x ATP 500, 1 x ATP 250, 6 x Challenger)
Thanasi Kokkinakis (1 x Slam)
Alexander Zverev (1 x ATP 500, 5 x Challenger)
Jared Donaldson (3 x Challenger)
Omar Jasika (2 x Challenger)
Amine Ahouda, Antonio Cembellin Prieto, Christian Garin, Dmitry Popko, Hyeon Chung, Joao Menezes, Juan Pablo Ficovich, Karen Khachanov, Marc Polmans, Sasi Kumar Mukund, Stefan Kozlov (1 x Challenger each)

2013:
Karen Khachanov (2 x ATP 250, 1 x Challenger)
Christian Garin (1 x ATP 250, 4 x Challenger)
Gianluigi Quinzi (4 x Challenger)
Thanasi Kokkinakis (4 x Challenger)
Nick Kyrgios (2 x Challenger)
Bastian Malla, Blake Mott, Borna Coric, Francisco Bahamonde, Hyeon Chung, Marcelo Tebet Filho, Nicholas Horton, Patrick Ciorcila, Wayne Montgomery (1 x Challenger each)

2012:
Thiago Moura Monteiro (1 x Challenger)

2011:
Joao Pedro Sorgi, Bruno Sant'Anna (1 x Challenger each)

2010:
Bernard Tomic (1 x Slam, 1 x ATP 250, 3 x Challenger)
Ryan Harrison (1 x ATP 1000, 2 x Challenger)
Denis Kudla (1 x ATP 250)
Filip Krajinovic (2 x Challenger)
Tiago Fernandes (2 x Challenger)
Daniel Berta, Dominic Thiem, Micke Kontinen, Suk-Young Jeong (1 x Challenger each)

It was only a few years ago that we had one teenager in the ATP top 200. Really pleased to see that Duck Hee Lee seems to be happening; he got a bit of notice as a junior because he's deaf.

boy, the Madrid draw is stacked. Vika/Venus R1, winner probably gets Bencic in R2 then Serena in R3. Sharapova opens against Bacsinszky (albeit Bacsinszky's dominant form seemed absent in Marrakech this week), Pliskova or Garcia in R3. Makarova opens against Kuznetsova, winner probably gets Muguruza in R2 and a projected R3 vs Kerber, who herself opens against Stosur, then probably Keys in R2.

Still, my favourite R1 is definitely Bouchard against Strycova. Handshake lesson imminent!

http://i.imgur.com/0avw8v7.gif

Federer is totally losing this Istanbul final to Cuevas. Book it.

Strycova d. Bouchard 0-6 6-3 6-3.

It's official. Bouchard is not the new Sharapova. She's the new Hantuchova. Barbie <3 :D :D

Impressed by the sheer variety of Bouchard's six-match losing streak.

IW QF, 76 57 46 to Lesia Tsurenko: losing to a qualifier from a double break up in the third, with a wide open draw ahead of her
Miami R2, 06 67 to Tatjana Maria: getting bagelled by a #113-ranked qualifier
Charleston R2, 16 36 to Lauren Davis: thrashed by one of the smallest and weapon-free journeywomen on Tour
Fed Cup, 46 46 to Alexandra Dulgheru: self-inflicted post-handshakegate humiliation in front of her home crowd
Fed Cup, 64 46 16 to Andreea Mitu: ditto, except to a #104-ranked substitute and from a set and a break up
Madrid R1, 60 36 36 to Barbora Strycova: handing out the bagel this time...and still losing

can't find a working stream but I'm sure Kvitova losing a set to Govortsova is going to be some champagne tennis, right.

Kyrgios's attitude was so pissy today. Not the slightest danger of him even putting up a fight let alone saving 9 MPs vs Gasquet this time

typical Sharapova today. comical DF to give Garcia BP, then she takes enough time before the next point that Garcia could have taken in a sightseeing tour of Madrid and got back in time to return - no warning, of course - and serves an ace

1-5 down in the TB, Serena casually reels off 6 straight points for the set. That Azarenka DF at 5-4 was closer to the baseline...

I wondered if this Serena/Vika match might be entertaining based on the score so tuned in at 5-5. It's pretty awful, though. Though Azarenka losing that tie-break from 5-1 up, 5-7 at that, was pretty funny.

x-post. I mean if Serena had been a little bit less casual when she moved forward on those two service points she lost...

The hell happened there

Azarenka serving at 6-5 40-0, having saved a MP down 4-5...

Serena huge FH winner, 40-15
Serena huge return, 40-30

AZARENKA THREE CONSECUTIVE DOUBLE FAULTS LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

TB!

lol, amazing

Serena wins 12 of the last 13 points from triple MP down

loooool

Vikapaws in full effect, really sad I wasn't able to watch this live

Azarenka totally thought she'd served an ace on the first of those DFs too

And she'd served so well ALL match!

So much hilarity in this fed-kyrgios match, from nick's total meltdown in the first set TB to roger declaring "we need a clown for this circus" :D

Kyrgios' grunting on big points is just absurd, please stop it Nick

I think Kyrgios will win multiple slams tho, so much talent with this knucklehead

always taken aback by the curious hiring practices for ballkids at Madrid

Fed much better than in MC or Istanbul but may lose anyway. Tough draw.

what a match

stunning tiebreak

Kyrgios deserved that for the dropshot that brought up his first mp alone, what a shot

Also, he beat both Fed and Nadal in his first meetings against both!

fyi Kyrgios just lost to Isner

yeah, I expected a comedown of sorts - mirror of his Wimbledon win over Rafa only to lose to a more experienced servebot in the next round.

Sveta EXPOSING the Claypova myth there

Oh god Petra, gets the early break, then 3 DFs in her own serve.

She's been amazing apart from that game. That sick dropshot switch-up >>>>>>>

Another one, on the FH this time!

DEAD at Petra's amazing play, especially grabbing a third break in the set.

I mean Serena's second serve is up to crap but you know, you gotta take it where you can get it.

thought she was about to blow it with that missed FH for a double break...but she got the double break anyway. She's so good right now.

That ace to save BP :D :D :D

Well let's hope that massive shank at 30-30 doesn't cost her. I don't think it will.

Today's tennis has been my silver lining

In their last matches before Madrid, Petra and Sweta got straight-setted by Brengle (!) and Zhang (!!) respectively. Then they struggled through two and three 3-setters respectively en route to their SFs. Then they thrash Serena and Maria with near-flawless performances wtf wtf

Murray! :)