ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

http://www.atdhe.net/7635/watch-wta-brisbane

You've just missed a love service game from Henin which included Clijsters doing the splits as she often does.

xposts things like hawkeye are what sponsors are for. I worked at the even smaller tournament in KL and we had hawkeye. it's the tournament director's job to secure enough funding for the best tourney possible.

Four backhand errors that game. Atypical for Justine. And this is a tie-break.

Mini-break to Kim. But not over yet, there's a little part of me that kind of expects one of them to reveal that they're actually Elena Dementieva wearing a mask.

Gah, can't get any feeds to work. Looks like this is all over... 2nd-serve ace for 5-1 for KC?

Not yet. But probably. 5-3 now.

6-3.

6-4...

looked in

Oh drama! Clijsters thought she'd won but her ball which was very close got called out at the last minute. Very very close.

zomg wtf drop shot!

6-6!

And a good one too but Henin hit an awesome angle there.

Oh dear, a double fault from Justine - she's been hitting those on all the wrong points.

wow

Wow, that was kinda epic. I mean it was junk from 4-1 in the second set, but then back to life and it's a shame that some of the dodgiest calling came during some of the best play. I loved the look of Kim's game when she was just smacking the shit out of the ball.

Ah, that's that. Well, I didn't see any of it but I suspect we'll get a few all-Belgian finals this year.

that was an enjoyable match! apart from, like, the ending. kim's epic choke was hilarious after she completely dominated the first half of the match, some of justine's play in the third set was exhilarating but not her inability to execute when trying to close it out. her closing has been rather unimpressive this week actually, hopefully that's something she'll get back into the swing of. those double faults ughhh.

v likely serena/justine match as early as the second round next week! if justine gets past martinez sanchez...

Is Laura Robson is getting more out of the Hopman Cup experience than Andy Murray? Murray supposedly skipped a defence in Doha to get three guaranteed matches in Perth but he's won them all so easily it's barely been a workout. Robson's lost hers, as expected, but it'll be a while before she plays people of this calibre again. They've won all their mixed and they're in the final!

eh, winning doha didn't do murray much good when it came to the AO last year - may as well try switching his preparation up, with less pressure but still guaranteed multiple matches.

so Rafa would've just crushed anyone then. has just bageled Kolya. O_O

ok scratch that - pretend that first set didn't exist and this was basically the best men's match i've seen since... Kolya-Djokovic in Shanghai? Just beautiful angles and shotmaking.

And KOLYA! Amazing comeback. *in awe*

Two tournaments in a row now where he's beaten both Nadal and Fed on the way to the title.

ok scratch that - pretend that first set didn't exist and this was basically the best men's match i've seen since... Kolya-Djokovic in Shanghai? Just beautiful angles and shotmaking.

how did u guyz watch this stuff - is it broadcast in the uk?

it's broadcast here in malaysia, but you can always try atdhe.net, livescorehunter.com or fromsport.com - these places usually have loads of live streams.

Pretty bleak day in Sydney and I was too pov to get tickets to centre court (well, I could have but I didn't really care who was on, my friend I went with IS broke..) so just got a ground pass. Gasquet v POTITO STARACE was good fun! Starace was hitting some gorgeous backhand passing shorts but Gasquet served really well and looked really calm - whereas Starace was a veritable "La Linea" by comparison (and with white lines on a blue court, kind of looked like it too) yelling out oaths left right and centre, especially because he blew the second set tie-break and he knew it.

Then saw Benneteau vs Leonardo Mayer, a new name to me, and one I don't know that we'll be hearing again. Terrible match, really, Mayer has a crap serve and no real weapons at all and Benneteau charged out to a big lead, surrendered a break but was in control for most of the first set, then had two lapses - going down a break, then getting it back in fine style, then playing an iffy tie-breaker to lose before realising that he's not completely rubbish and bagelled in the last set.

Then some fun doubles, tho less so because Aspeli, one of the players, was clearly being carried by Paul Hanley, his partner whereas Huss and Ball were a much better and slightly more even team - Huss hit some sweet angles with the volleys and overall this was great fun to watch, though not as fun as last year, and srsly the no-deuce thing is totally shit.

The umpire in the Mayer/Benneteau match was great, though I can't explain why, it was just the way he said the scores, he was really getting into it... like 00-15 was like "Whoa, you're gonna break serve", such was the enthusiasm.

In honour of the vanquished:

http://www.furanes.net/images/potito.jpg

And Gasquet, teasing me with his ass:

http://www.furanes.net/images/gasquet.jpg

(cropped to hide the fact that my action shots were shit)

shame that mayer's no good - he's had some interesting results over the past year.

silliams/caravane sounded like a good match! have high hopes that caravane may be coming into her own this year. she's not the fastest player, but her ballstriking ability is fearsome.

i also find it hilarious that 39-year-old mrs. krumm managed to beat petrova and take azarenka to a 7-5 final set.

Diva vs Silliams is on now. Diva is UP A BREAK! Let's get excited and pretend that a) such things are significant in women's tennsi, and b) Diva is someone else entirely.

oh dementieva, peaking before the slam as usual. let's enjoy this now as she's prob going to lose to Henin in the second round of AO (draw out this morning).

Diva won the first set! Not on her own serve obv.

Diva's serving fine, btw, and just hit a lovely ace!

Also hyper-partisan TV commentators need to stop making excuses for Silliams already. 6-3 3-0.

I mean OK, Serena's playing shit, but still, nobody puts asterisks on Serena's wins when she gets it because some scrub or Russian chokes against her, it's unfair that people keep doing the converse.

reprise of last year coming up, then?

ok lol @ those two "smashes" from serena. she just wasn't even trying to put them away.

Seems so. Serena IS sore and not moving well but she's also hitting badly, so, meh.

serena couldn't have given less of a shit about that. sad!

Shame she's due to play Justine so early. Lovely backhands this game.

GRR COMMENTATORS mentioning Silliams' high unforced error rate. "Well, really, they're forced errors because she has a knee injury so she was trying to end the points more quickly, so went for her shots more." = THIS IS STILL AN UNFORCED ERROR.

took a look at the men's draw for indian wells & im kinda pysched. henin looked good as well

charity exo Hit for Haiti on now w/ Henin, Davenport, Graf and Navratilova, dudes - Fed, Sampras, Nadal and Agassi - coming on later. should be fun.

(btw Henin... Dulko?!)

My CPU, fed many results, suggests we should possibly keep an eye on Claudia Giovine of Italy.

If Google translates correctly, it appears she is the cousin of Flava Flav Pennetta btw.

helloo Mario Ancic. got mono, went to law school, got mono again, got hot(ter).

lol @ djokovic. lol @ this tournament so far really!

hope lex watched ag rad beat the girl who beat henin 6-1 6-0

i haven't seen any of this tournament, the results have been hilarious though. clijsters going up 4-0 in the deciding TB vs kleybanova, then losing 7 straight points? sweta losing her opener, then tweeting "fuck the haters" and "only god can jurge [sic] me"? ivanovic losing her opener and falling out of the top 50? li somehow losing to elena fricking baltacha?!

and the sampras/agassi rivalry extending to "who's the biggest douche", too - loved how roger and rafa just stood there looking completely baffled at these two old men acting out.

i guess agassi won the biggest-douche competition, sampras unsurprisingly missing a humour trick by failing to make a roids joke

ha see, I think Sampras won the biggest douche competition (as he did when they were still active pros OH SNAP) by failing to have a sense of humor

yeah when he couldn't think of anything to say or do except aim a serve at andre like some neanderthal, that was so typical. but he could've made a meth/roids joke and didn't! open goal missed.

also loved fed going "PLEASE SAY SOMETHING RAFA"

That was fairly uncomfortable viewing. Agassi doing the roast/variety-show banter and Pete completely not getting it. Sampras probably thought of a drugs joke and figured that would've sent the whole shebang well over the line into unpleasantness. Bit like seeing Joe Bugner or someone have the piss ripped out of them by some club comic in the '70s and getting a mock uppercut in response.