ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

come on Kolya don't fuck this up now!

30-0 to 30-40... :/

FOREHAND! deuce!

WOOO!

:D

first win over fed for kolya, i believe.

Kolya's H2H vs Federer now: 1-12. :D

Magnificent last set. Fed looks devastated.

I wonder if Kolya will quote Vitas G in his post-match interview? "NO ONE beats Nikolay Davydenko thirteen times in a row!"

only got to watch the final set but pony boy was fabulous there coming back from a break down and going on to play a superb TB.

More bad news for Murray, if Delpo goes on to win the title, he'll take over Muzz's spot at no. 4.

Mauresmo retired

I wish you well, you awesome burly headcase

:( I loved her, even though it was goddamn painful to watch her most of the time.

Enjoy that cellar full of red wine Momo!

memories of mauresmo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQP6mNYkKAQ

so, justine's back! and drew petrova in her first match back - nadezhda obviously wasn't going to let her 94843948th chance to prove her uselessness pass, and accordingly fell in straight sets.

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

i love this pic of nadia drawing justine's name during the draw ceremony. "Oh fuck me."

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4931/nadsdrawbrisbane.jpg

didn't she draw sharapova on her first match back as well? fact: tennis gods hate nadia petrova. to her credit though, her match against justine wasn't bad at all, she just choked at the end as she always does. about 300% better quality than the ivanovic-dokic match before anyway.

twitter is basically making me love all of the players I hate. :/ I should stop reading them.

watching justine play for the first time in 2 years!! god i've missed that backhand. she's just taken the first set over sesil karatantcheva, stream at http://www.freedocast.com/forms/PopOut.aspx?sc=5320427231E3213D109B

elsewhere, 39-year-old kimiko date-krumm has moved into the auckland QF w/victories over chakvetadze and razzano...

Lex the Henin match is live on British Eurosport if you have it.

i don't any more :(

this stream is pretty good though

well, that was fun! watched from 4-4 in the first set; when closing out the first set and coming back from 0-2 to 4-2 in the second, justine was ON SERIOUS FIYAH and it was gorgeous to watch. i think she's playing a lot more aggressively than she used to - lots of net rushes, esp off sesil's weak-ass second serve. some amazing down-the-line winners. from 4-2 to the end was a bit, uh, scrappier - some nasty shanked shots and she totally fucked up serving for the match. but i am very positive about this comeback now!

karatantcheva's ability to stay with henin in rallies was impressive - good anticipation, good pace and depth, but she often made a hash of more aggressive moves - though given henin's defensive skills you can't blame her. she fell apart towards the end and her serve was pretty woeful, though.

in other news, what the fuck is wrong with new zealand? http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/asb-classic-disrupted-protesters-3324955

the israeli govt is criticised around the world, which is fine, but at no other tournament has this meant personal harassment (for the second year running!) of a tennis player. those protestors need punches in the face. i'm not a fan of shahar peer and her ugly defensive game by any means, but i reaaally hope she wins the whole tournament now.

that whole bullshit makes me so angry - she's had to put up with so much crap just because she happens to be israeli. it's ridiculous. she's a 21yo female tennis player playing in an international tournament where she's not even representing her country or competing in support of her govt's policies. she's a professional athlete trying to do her job - what's so hard to get about that?

btw, joining kimiko date-krumm in the ancient stakes: Younes El Aynaoui, at 38, has just become the second-oldest male player to win a tour match since Connors in 1995.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=4800546

I am only posting this now-out-f-date story because OMG BLAKE WON A MTCH

Could be a Clijsters vs Henin final in Brisbane - first one for 4 or 5 years?

pretty solid bet imo - sadly i don't think henin's solid or tuned-up enough to beat clijsters just yet though :(

she will doubtless avenge herself on one or more big stages this year though :)

kim clijsters d. lucie safarova 6-1, 0-6, 6-4.

lol wta i have missed you

oh lucie :(

soooooooo happy to be seeing Justine on TV again! And in my home town to boot, shame I don't live there anymore. I'm gonna pop into the Medibank International in Sydney next week and do some stalking and such though!

My favourite loser and Latvian #1, Ernests Gulbis took a set off Fed today. I'd just like to note that this is a significant achievement in his young career.

also hilarious match. I lol'd way too hard at the hawkeye challenges alone.

Roger in Fed-error mode + gulbis' eternal headcasey-ness = comical tennis.

Blake lost but at least it was to someone with a modicum of talent

4 out of 6 Sports Illustrated experts pick Blake as their "On his Last Legs" for 2010.

Of course, one of those "experts" also picked the guy who's never gotten past the second round of Wimbledon to *win* it this year so make of that what you will.

those predictions are a bit "throw a name at the wall, don't wait around to see if it sticks". one dude picks serena to win 3 slams and safina to win the other...yet also picks henin as player of the year? what? also, picking vaidisova, who fell out of the top 150 last summer, as "on her last legs" strikes me as more than slightly behind the times

and picking roddick as breakthrough player seems to indicate a failure to understand the concept of "breakthrough player"

It's somewhat encouraging that Blake took a set off of Monfils, but then I remember that it's Monfils, who sometimes decides that the best strategy for his game is to hit balls as far out as he can possibly get them in a baffling attempt to confuse his opponents into bouts of incapacitated laughter.

xpost I know right? jon weirtheim's picks are prob the only reliable ones, but then he is SI's resident tennis expert. SL Price used to do okay coverage but these days, he's just way too in love with those guys who came up with Fed - Safin, Roddick, Hewitt et al. The rest are just crazy talk.

okay that was massively funny reading

"breakthrough" clearly means something different to me than it does to some of these guys

monfils is a funny one. he can never seem to decide between dumb ball-bashing and passive pushing, either. it's so frustrating that he STILL stands 5 million miles behind the baseline so often - whenever he comes in a bit more he's so good. i think he'd rather coast along and be the crowd-pleasing, entertaining sort than push himself to be a real elite player.

i'm so annoyed i'm going to have to do these myself, even though some of the questions are dumb and making any predictions in the first week of the year is a fool's game

How many Slams will Federer win? - one
Which Andy will win a major? - murray
Should the U.S. Open add a roof? - yes, but it should probably sort out its dumb-ass final week schedule first
Player of the Year - nadal
Breakthrough Player - cilic
On His Last Legs - ferrero
Most Curious About - nishikori
Year-End Top Five - nadal, murray, djokovic, federer, davydenko
Australian Open - murray
Roland Garros - nadal
Wimbledon - federer
US Open - djokovic

Will Serena be suspended in 2010? - wtf, no
Will Henin crack the Top 5? - duh, yes
Higher year-end ranking: Melanie Oudin or Ana Ivanovic? - lol, ivanovic, but neither will be impressive
Player of the Year - henin
Breakthrough Player - lisicki
On Her Last Legs - schnyder
Most Curious About - jankovic
Year-End Top Five - henin, clijsters, serena, azarenka, jankovic
Australian Open - serena
Roland Garros - henin
Wimbledon - henin
US Open - serena

Most Curious About - nishikori

OTM!

actually in the women's i'm most curious about robson - she had some really poor senior results last year! ditto larcher de brito, but i'd rather not think about her.

nishikori had such bad luck with injuries in 09 and fell out of the top 200 - would love to see if he can work his way back and get back on track.

glad to see i'm not the only one who was doing that in my head. agree with most of your picks except my top 5 ATP were: Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Murray, Delpo; Murray to win the AO, Rafa to win RG and Wimby, Fed/Nole to win USO.

Top 5 WTA: Clijsters, Henin, Serena, Jankovic, Sveta

Slams: Clijsters, Henin, Henin, Serena

Laura Robson's been losing her matches at the Hopman Cup but she looks like she's gonna grow into a very good player. Huge if unreliable serve, good groundstrokes, good head.

sorry good head sounded wrong lol. i just mean that she seems to be pretty mentally tough.

i kind of think del potro will have a bit of a sophomore slump - most male players who win slams that young do - maybe not a drastic one, but i think a few wtf losses are in his future this year. a fair few post-USO kiss-and-tells have been emerging out of argentina, too. (jealous!)

robson seems to play way better on the main tour, but some of her challenger losses last year...

xp haha

dish! i haven't heard anything except that he's been announcing that he's single and looking to anyone who'd listen. I think he thinks a Slam winner should have a permanent WAG, aw.

also i just noticed your username and loooooooool nice one.

kudos, first to get it!

here, lex pretend: ليخ فريتينض

it's not quite accurate though because there aren't any real equivalents to "e" and "x" in the arabic alphabet so it's more like "likh pritind". :)

amazing. will save for future use...

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

lynx?

US Open - djokovic

i dont have a lot of faith in his game tbh in fact i can see this being a discouraging year for him

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef012876b6002d970c-pi

awwwww

it's funny that wozniacki was the one who gave in eventually. obviously.

saw the first set of henin/ivanovic last night before falling asleep - justine made ana look like a joke. after a while, ana just joined in with that. all i could think while watching was, how the fuck did you ever win a slam and get to no 1. (ah that's right, because justine "retired"!)

KOLYA! ruining my dreams of a Fedal final. Oh well, Rafa would've crushed Fed anyway, this is a much better matchup.

But in troubling news, the commies suggested that Fed may have tweaked his wrist, which wouldn't surprise me at all given how hard Gulbis was hitting to him yesterday. And he really did look uncomfortable today. As in, worse than usual Fed-error mode. I just hope he'll be okay once the AO starts.

king kolya! :)

idk i know i predicted federer to win wimbledon this year but it wouldn't surprise me if he went slamless. i mean...he kind of backed into RG and wimbledon last year! a month before RG he looked washed up! and now he's got the 15...