ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

I don't think kids will spend 10$ on a few pieces of candy. More like adults with weird sugar fetishes.

It's an anti-ischemic, so it increases blood flow (for angina patients). I'm not entirely sure what benefit it would be to someone with a magnesium deficiency or a family history of diabetes (like MS). It's pretty clear what benefit it would have for an athlete (in simplistic terms, at least). Seems like a weird prescription.

It's manufactured only in Latvia and has never been approved by the US FDA, so I guess that explains the lengths to which MS had to go to get hold of it.

This is a bit like McEnroe's "I didn't know the rules had changed" DQ vs Pernfors at the AO. It's kind of your job to keep on top of the rules. Most other things are taken care of for you, you big babies.

Yeah, it's not like she had some rare conditions that needed rare drugs. AFAIC, she's taken steps to find an alternative to beta blockers which hadn't (until now) made it onto the banned list. And then never noticed when it did. Oops.

seems insane to me that she says shes used it for ten years

http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/14935076/dick-pound-says-sharapova-was-reckless-description

It's been interesting watching the fallout, she seemed to have elicited sympathy for about...a day, before everyone started prodding her story and realising how much of it made no sense. The authorities, media and sponsors are all dragging/dropping her.

One thing I'm seeing really conflicting reports on is how much of an effect meldonium actually has - have read articles claiming its PED properties (plus the fact that WADA have banned it), but have also read articles saying it's a very common over-the-counter drug in Russia, Ukraine etc with very few of those properties that a lot of people take like a nutritional supplement. (That brings up the not-implausible possibility of its ban being politically motivated: WADA's own reasons are less "this drug has unusual/harmful effects" and more "loads of Russian athletes are on this thing that no one in the west has heard of, it MUST BE BAD")

lol dodig -https://twitter.com/Tennis_Now/status/708386719989518336

gosh, Kiki went all the way in

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/12/kristina-mladenovic-maria-sharapovapa-cheater-tour-simona-halep

all these years of declaring herself above the concept of friendship, really unsurprising that so few have Sharapova's back right now

(Muguruza is such a gigantic disappointment this year. Third straight year where the previous year's breakout young player totally collapses, what is wrong with them?)

fratangelo!

enjoyed Zverev/Dimitrov last night. Next Big Thing mantle officially passing down a generation, the moment everyone can stop pretending it'll happen for Grigor. Zverev's BH motion is so smooth and concise, about as aesthetically pleasing as a 2HBH can be and he's so much improved from last year. And he really doesn't play like his height! Can't remember any other player as tall as him who was as good a mover and as happy to rally.

end of Bondarenko/Tsurenko was riveting, Tsurenko cramping but still saving five MPs. So many brutal rallies in the TB.

end of this murray/delbonis match is real bizarre

hope thiem/sock can become a rivalry for yrs to come

why does Thiem hit so much to his FH though

Ryan Harrison: "that was a foot out. Are you kidding me? This is why I don't play Challengers. I'm not playing one ever again."

ryan settling for a life on the futures tour, i suppose

lmao Ryan you're ranked 168, you've had two direct entries to ATP MDs in the past year and you haven't been ranked in the top 100 since 2013, good luck with your Challenger boycott

well done ARad on getting back up to #2 which i did not see coming in september last year.

the game Zverev played to break Nadal for 2-0 in the third >>>>>

zverev is the real fuckin deal

oh my god, the game Zverev played serving for the match...from MP up...

oof but he really choked tryna close at 5-3 3d set there

yeah but it went from a bit wobbly to TOTAL FUCKING COLLAPSE at MP

and Nadal hysterically fistpumping in response like his last name is Sharapova -_-

the collapse continues, two DFs to hand over another break at 5-5

rafa does win like this a lot but zverev is really lost now god

15 of 16 points lost from MP up, most with horrendous UEs or DFs.

Nadal's celebration is ridiculous in context

UGH and if this derails Zverev's season -_-

this Serena/Aga match exceeds quality expectations handily. Radwanska had several points to go up 5-2 in the first set, loses it 4-6. Serena then wins 12 of 13 points to open set 2, but now Radwanska is serving for it at 6-5!

Godlike run of winners from Serena to win it in two anyway.

Djokovic/Tsonga was woeful quality last night

Nishikori completely crumbled after missing points for a double break against Nadal, why couldn't Zverev have just put away that volley???

Waking up to find Aga had managed to take 10 games off Serena counts as a win

vika! imprssed she could weather serenas comeback

the play level of novak/raonic is really insanely hi already

novaks dfense is so crazy

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/indian-wells-tournament-director-says-women-should-be-on-their-knees-thanking-men-20160320-gnmuay.html

gross. The Williamses (and the rest of the WTA too) should go back to boycotting them.

Novak is at it as well. wtf.

Moore is a pig and Novak is a bit of a div for wading in. Also: the ATP is already awash with more money than the WTA. Average prize money across 12 WTA Premier (=470 ranking points) events = $880k; average prize money across 13 ATP-500 events = $1.71m. Similar gulf at levels below that. It's only the Slams and the Premier Mandatory/ATP-1000 events where there is parity. So, Novak, you already get paid more because the sponsors deem the men's tour worth more investment (and that disparity is all in best-of-three events, lest we mention that particular favourite again).

Novak didn't even get that Moore was shading him as well ;_;

(Muguruza is such a gigantic disappointment this year. Third straight year where the previous year's breakout young player totally collapses, what is wrong with them?)

A considerable part of this could simply be what is somewhat inexactly called "regression to the mean".

Get a hundred dice. Number them with a felt-tip pen, thus giving them personalities of sorts. Throw each of them, say, 100 times, and record the totals.

Most will yield somewhere near 350 points. Some will be noticably worse and some will be a lot worse; some will be noticably better and some will simply be attention-catchingly good. Spray-paint these with gold paint, and watch them extra carefully the next season. That is, when you just throw all the dice 100 more times.

You will, most probably, find that the gold-painted dice do worse than in the previous season. Not necessarily worse than the average, but pretty much *all* of them will do worse than in their noticable breakout season. Do you see?

I'm not suggesting all players are equal (as dice are). The simulation above would work with loaded dice as well -- some dice could have a true average of 4 or 5, and some of 2 or 3, and they would perform differently in season 1. But the ones that most defied your expectancy (positively or negatively!) would probably fall back to their real expectation the next season.

But the players you notice most are the ones that have surprised you positively, rather than negatively! Why? Well, how does tennis tournaments work, as opposed to e.g. football leagues? The loser is eliminated, the winner plays again. There will be more throws of the (loaded) dice to notice the winners.

Yes, I am suggesting that a breakout season is an indication of a hell of a lot of luck. In addition to a hell of a lot of skill, let it be said. The luck is not sustainable. The skill is. I believe it is very, very, *very* hard to decide what the mix between skill and luck is, even if you watch the players closely; even if you *are* one of the players.

tl;dr version: *The* breakout player will almost always collapse, due to maths.

Yes, I am suggesting that a breakout season is an indication of a hell of a lot of luck. In addition to a hell of a lot of skill, let it be said. The luck is not sustainable. The skill is. I believe it is very, very, *very* hard to decide what the mix between skill and luck is, even if you watch the players closely; even if you *are* one of the players.

Yeah, this is an interesting way of looking at it, and I guess this is why I try to follow promising juniors as soon as I can so I can follow them in juniors and through the ITFs - a breakthrough season should be part of an overall pattern, a consistent arc in a player's career.

Even at the time a lot of tennis fans noted how Stephens' and Bouchard's breakthrough seasons owed a lot to draws falling apart and big names getting injured (neither exhibited elite-level results for their age as 15/16/17-yr-olds). Muguruza's been harder to assess because she hit the tour relatively late (due to sparing play rather than poor results) and her progress has been stalled by surgery etc.

The disproportionate attention on *Slam* breakthroughs is a hindrance imo. You can have a big Slam run, or even two or three, due to factors like draws falling apart and friendly seedings. But it's much more promising to gradually build up consistency week in, week out even though THAT headline-grabbing Slam run might elude you (as with Bencic so far). Azarenka had been top 20 for THREE YEARS before she made a Slam SF! That worked out much better in the long run.

The ATP does much better at marketing its young players based on tour performances rather than Slam performances (and as a group, so there is never *the one*). The Next Generation campaign atm is exactly how it should be done - Coric, Zverev, Chung et al haven't done shit at Slams yet but that's less important at this point.

Anyway it's been quite a year for tennis's mainstream presence, I'm quite glad the sexism row occurred because there's so much deeply entrenched misogyny in the tennis world, among the ATP players and even in the way the WTA markets itself, but it's is SO FRUSTRATING having to make the equal prize money argument yet again. Quite surprising that PR-slick Djokovic has embarrassed himself over this (particularly liked him waffling about hormones, then turning around and blaming his words on adrenaline in his non-apology). Quite heartening to see how many ATP players seem to have realised they at least need to be on the right side of history publicly. Very much enjoyed Murray dragging Stakhovsky in the press, on Twitter etc.

Nicole Gibbs and Alla Kudryavtseva = new faves

http://www.sportscribe.ca/home/tennis-players-set-twitter-ablaze-over-sexism-row

surely I will not see a worse tennis match this year than Zverev/Mmoh. Atrocious quality. I guess Zverev's still hungover from his Nadal choke but for a highly-touted 18yo, Mmoh did fuck all to make him pay for it

3rd set tiebreak and schwartzman is bleeding from both knees rn

uhh sloane was up 3-1 on watson.......and then lost 11 str8 games

haaaaaaa

Watson always used to own Stephens tho. Nice reversion to the norm!

kasatkina had p nice groundstrokes, first time im seeing this girl

can't stop watching this https://vine.co/v/ippiO22Lvjv

so casual <3

after her career Aga could make a fortune on the senior circuit as the female Bahrami if she wants

fed/del potro today should be interesting

yeah for once Delpo isn't the one most recently coming off surgery! I won't be in to see it though :(

Fritz has a shot vs Ferrer imo.

Saw a bit of Paul/Smyczek yesterday, surprised Smyczek won it after gagging so hard in the second set. Paul's game seemed kind of blah at first but he really started going for it when he made his comeback and it was like, why weren't you playing like this all along.

I really like Kasatkina's game too, the speed of her progress has been astonishing. Went from 370 to 72 during 2015 and is already up to 34 in the live rankings. Had played one WTA match in her life this time last year, now has two Slam 3Rs, two Premier SFs and a Masters QF.

She wasn't ranked highly enough to get into qualifying at RG or Wimbledon last year and this year she'll likely be a seed at both.

fed out w stomach props

LL zeballos takes the 1st set off delpotro!