ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

For a second there I envisioned Fish winning this match.

nadal seems to have recovered from his arm injury nicely

brutal stuff.. I'm getting annoyed just thinking about being federer and hitting those crazy wide shots with nadal running them all down

I stayed in to watch Fed/Nadal and then fell asleep at 11pm lol. Not that I'm sad to have missed it, seeing the result, or that this result wasn't predictable. People are saying that Fed's finally in decline - I kinda disagree, I think he hasn't been the "same Federer" since 2008, when Djokovic and Murray started beating him on the regular. (by "same Federer" I mean that he can still go into God mode at times, but not reliably or as often.) And his 2009 "resurgence" was really more due to Djokovic and Murray regressing a bit, and Rafa's absence, than Federer actually recapturing his old level. Now Rafa's healthy and Djokovic is back on track, Fed's back to where he was in 2008.

He probably still has at least another Slam left in him - either he'll have a last hurrah in God mode, or 2009's circumstances will happen again. But it's not so much in his hands any more.

this is fucking ridiculous

Why am I watching this match. It's like an endurance test. Will these insane wenches SHUT THE FUCK UP.

It's not very good, either.

the first game was good

there's gonna be a lot of breaks in this match. both are way better returners than servers. i expect maria to come through in 3 sets once she properly finds her range

Well it's good if you take away the double faults.

and the errors making me flinch on every point

lololololololol what was that, Vika

why can't maria just pin azarenka back with some deep, high groundstrokes and then whack away a short ball? not that hard! it's hard to just bludgeon azarenka away

AWESOME dropshot, maria

did it even reach the net?

the weak drive volley straight back at Azarenka that preceded it was a bit special too

yeah it reached the net after bouncing a few times first

Another set like that please. Let this be over swiftly.

vika has so much more margin for error on her shots :[ stop being a brainless ballbasher maria ugh. if she keeps it close in this set azarenka will surely choke as she always does

I'm not sure I've ever seen a serve bounced into the net in pro tennis until now

Memories of Kournikova!

looooooooooooooooooool

i've seen hantuchova and venus do it. and probably a few others. it's not really that rare, sometimes you just whiff it

but for gods sake what was that forehand. whole court open. fuck this

DF to concede her eighth game in a row. LOL.

you see that's the kind of point maria should play more often. high percentage deep, high balls until azarenka gives a weak response.

RTeally, Azarenka's not even playing that well.

this is almost as good as last year's final

Wonder if Maria will manage to get more games off Vika than Bepa did the other day.

ahahahahaha

lol, two dead net cords in a row for Azarenka to finally win that game after Sharapova was 40-0 up

being demolished two tournaments in a row by the youngsters can't be good for sharapova's confidence :[

maria's as big a fighter as she always was but everything about her game is too unreliable these days. super pissed.

weird that Azarenka went three sets in her first three matches (against...Hradecka, Cibulkova, Pavlyuchenkova). Then pretty much steamrolled her last three supposedly elite opponents.

Out on town to kill myself with alcohol.

It really does piss me off that she has chances in that 2nd set. What a waste.

totally know that feeling, sometimes you'd rather your player just lost swiftly 1 and 0 rather than getting your hopes up by fighting back only to lose shittily anyway

Yeah, and of course you become highly skilled at ignoring the other player's chances and the only memory left is wasted game points. Tennis is too cruel :|

Azarenka's 4-0 lead was a bit deceptive, three of those games had gone to deuce. And then a few just went Sharapova's way. Vika's level of play certainly wasn't super-dominant at any stage, I guess she deserves credit for not panicking when the scoreline got closer. In general it was a horrible match and I genuinely have a headache now.

Djokovic hitting some tired-looking shots at the start of this...some great points amongst them tough.

Rafa so lucky to get away with that set. Got to 5-1* without playing that well, then seemed to try to match Djokovic's low level for a while and only just crawled over the line at *5-4.

fuck i only just got in. has it been good?

i'm rooting for nole because winning streaks are cool

it was bad earlier but it's good now! Nole playing well now, Rafa...serving well, at least. Djokovic may have cause to regret a couple of half-chances for a more emphatic lead.

beautiful wrong-footer from Djokovic.

Djokovic fails to take advantage of ANOTHER 0-30 lead on Rafa's serve

i'd love it if my stream wasn't shite

99% positive nadal will win :[

ha, i'm leaning the other way

and have done ever since Djokovic stopped looking fatigued towards the end of the first set

though he does seem unable to take ANY of the many chances Rafa's presented to him

have you got sky or are you watching it on a stream. if so is yours any good because mine is not

stream from http://www.livescorehunter.com/Livescores/Livescore-Tennis.html

it was good right up until 5-5, wtf

suspect it's my internet connection going inexplicably shitty rather than the stream though