ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Aga winning a close high-stakes match? Well I never.

If she'd served as well as she did v Halep it perhaps wouldn't have been a close match, but, hey ho.

Now let's have a repeat of last year's Petra/Maria to add to this mess.

Kvitova so much more solid. She's not even peaking but Sharapova's BH is a mess

it's gone very bad now -_-

Some of Petra's returns now :D :D :D

And then very good from 1-5 down! PETRAAAAAAA

Petra will now lose this set 5-7.

Also, MARION BARTOLI.

Petra winning points with anticipation and defence!

thanks for reminding me why you're my favourite, Petra, after this not very good year

THAT FUCKING SECOND SERVE OMG OMG OMG

AFter all that, my two useless slumping underachieving failures of favourites are in the finals and.. whuh? how?

PETRA

KVITOVA

Both finalists had a 1-2 RR record! Amazing.

On top of that, Hingis/Mirza are in the finals of the dubs too!

some real entertaining pts in gasquet/rafa but gasquets hitting too many errors

that was a brilliant point for Gasquet to break on

even in Rafa's state this feels like the ultimate NID result, some very pretty points tho yeah

as I was saying...

Gasquet served for the set, DFed twice, left a ball that landed in, was broken to 15

NID NID NID

lol

Gasquet had two SPs in the TB and led by a break in both sets

but loses his 14th straight match and 20th straight set to Rafa anyway

Shitra has turned up to the final so far, it seems.

god, Petra is flopping so badly at the net and missing so many kill shots

100% of her smashes so far have been comedy

Beautiful dropshot from Aga

UEs so far:

Radwanska 1
Kvitova 25

Adequatra turns up for two games! Whee.

It lasted to the end of the set!

Petra still better at hitting ridiculous shots from neutral or worse positions than finishing off a won point

Radwanska belatedly raising her level in response...

lol dead net cord puts Kvitova down 0-30 serving to stay in it

AGA!

She should have beaten Sharapova, but taking out Halep, Muguruza and Kvitova in a row, which is probably more top 10 wins than she's had all year is damned good.

Who would've thought her nightmare season would end in her biggest title yet? Petra actually made her work for it in the end, and historically Aga's tended not to have the answers in those situations.

May she follow in the footsteps of Novotna and Mauresmo and ride a YEC victory to a Slam title the following year...

Fedal XXXIV!...Federer just consolidated an early break despite some v ill-advised net rushes

Have spent most of this match thinking Federer should lead by more than he does - Nadal has played his best defensive match in ages - but finally, we're here and he's serving for it

63 57 63, a lot closer than I thought it would be. Federer reduces overall H2H deficit to 11-23 but extends indoor H2H lead to 6-1. More evidence that if they'd played as many times indoors as on clay (15) that overall H2H might not be as lopsided.

I did a little analysis a while back of every event they played while they were continuously #1 and #2 and I think Nadal came out ahead by two or three (whereas he was 8-9 clear in the H2H over the same period). Nadal failed to keep their final date more often than Fed, esp early on, so the H2H should really be closer.

Wait, can someone explain the justification for what I presume is a wildcard for Zheng in Zhuhai?

Same as for Pironkova and the sundry Pretty Girl WCs in Bali/Sofia for the past few years I guess ie there is none

That is egregious particularly because the format actually halfway makes sense compared to Bali/Sofia. Not that I'd expect her to win any matches.

Definitely not when drawn into the Venus/Keys group.

The event still has a bit of an underwhelming consolation prize feel, I don't feel like I need to see these players fight for scraps (or...700 points while being guaranteed not to face a Top 8 opponent) any more this year.

Meanwhile, Bouchard breaching Twitter and social etiquette all over the place: https://twitter.com/geniebouchard/status/661303458402799616

Particularly enjoy how she immediately assumes spam/hackers when she sees a colleague wishing another colleague well.

(neither does it surprise me that Wozniacki is the type to send multiple needy messages over the course of several months despite being rudely ignored every time)

that's heartbreaking

also, hilarious

damn kev anderson kinda choked trying to close rafa in straights…on to the 3rd

Rafa getting through so many aggravating matches on ~fighting spirit and opponents choking nowadays

It was pretty hilarious to see Saisai Zheng SABRing on Venus's second serves yesterday and succeeding btw

https://twitter.com/philousports/status/661663679063179265

dam berdych got from 3-5 down in this tiebreak v novak to set pt in v impressive fashion

the pressure to keep redlining/going for every winner is tuff to maintain rip berd

berdych is now 2-20 v novak