ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Maria-Serena at 20.00 Stanford time. I think that's 6am GMT? I will most certainly be watching it!!

Serena was awesome in the first set vs Kirilenko, then managed to squander about a million break points in the 2nd set and was just awful. Lost serve in the first game of set 3 and then remembered that Maria is completely harmless and won easily again.

Nice point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn68iiGzegU

Nice point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yt66r8O0eE&fmt=18

Love it when Vika gets exposed as the underpowered counterpuncher that she is.

GULBIS TIME!?!?!?!

Stupid Gulbis, why do you have to seemingly play your one good game per six months against someone I like?

Wait, I'm just going off scores here, but is Serena up 5-0?

Oh, 1-6 0-1 now. Lololol.

Sharapova/Silliams really isn't a rivalry at all, is it?

The funny thing is that the lower on her career arc Silliams is when they meet, the harder she stamps on Maria.

Love it so so so much.

According to my phone my alarm did go off but i turned it off. I must have been deliriously tired. PISSED OFF I MISSED IT UGH!

It was gorgeous/hilarious to watch.

It's on Eurosport in a minute :D

Love Maria though so it's really a shame she's been almost exclusively DIRE since AO 2008. Watched highlights of her match vs Henin today. So clean and so much control. Wonder if she will ever regain it. Her serve just won't allow it.

Lisicki is a fucking mess. I'm not used to Serena putting so much effort into these tournaments.

Sam Smith literally just said that Bartoli won't retire because she's not a quitter and she can't remember her ever retiring before.

I know! I was just about to post that! Hilarious. Cake's injury does seem to be real this time though.

I am almost indescribably happy. I can't. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Oh yeah, she also beat Wimbledon QFist, SFist and finalist in reverse order in her last 3 matches.

gulbismentum!

Gulbis is the lesser of 2 evils

I don't like Gulbis but it would be nice to see him fulfill his talent. We've had about as much fun laughing at him as we can.

5-1 to 5-4 lol

oh ernie...

that was some dropper

by far the best result of his career, after losing 5 matches in a row.

and there was a break point for 5-5. I was enjoying that choke. Fish is such a pusher in tight moments. Pathetic.

so Bojana Jovanovski was travelling to this week's tournament in Carlsbad and somehow ended up in the wrong Carlsbad? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/14369086.stm

Given that she ended up here, I'm surprised it took her a phone call to realise she was in the wrong place

http://www.lovetofly.com/destinations/carlsbad_caverns/carlsbad_airport_KCNM.jpg

also, there is an article on the WTA site about Kimiko Date-Krumm's 1R win that refers to the time she won this tournament 15 years ago, and it includes a link to the 1996 draw! Amazing. Venus played, and lost to Studenikova in the 1R - same year that Studenikova beat Seles at Wimbledon. Pam fucking Shriver was wildcarded in, and lost to Habsudova in the 1R. Habsudova! Memories, she really should have been more successful but I guess she was the first ever Slovak in the top 10? Zina Garrison and Rennae Stubbs playing singles!

Needless to say that draw actually looks way better than this year's draw.

D Young won a match. I am now nervously waiting for a horde of monkeys to fly out of my butt.

Hingis on the Woz. Bitch still has it: http://www.tennischannel.com/news/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=9530

“I think I had more game than her,” Hingis told me at the Mercury Insurance Open in San Diego: "I don’t want to be cocky about this, but I think I had more [weapons]. She’s a great fighter but I out played [opponents] and I took the ball earlier and didn't give them as much time. If she wants to win a Grand Slam, she’s going to have to take charge more. She doesn't have one great weapon. You need that one little extra thing to overcome.”

When I mentioned to Hingis what an extraordinary amount of confidence she had when she came on tour, she immediately shot back that, "you need to win to have confidence.” While Wozniacki was a terrific junior, she was not Hingis, who was already beating solid pros when she wasjust 14.

“She does the best with what she’s got,” Hingis said of the Dane. “Everyone is saying she hasn’t won a Slam but maybe it’s a question of time. Lately she's struggled more because there are probably more players at the Grand Slams who are better than her.”

<3

Can't wait for this lame San Diego tournament to finish. Toronto!!

Okay Young beat Baghdatis, apparently in straight sets

Did he suddenly remember how to play tennis

Martina Hingis is the most perfect woman who ever lived. (Sorry Dan).

How many matches has Hantuchova lost after winning the first set to 0 or 1? 0-6 6-4 6-4 is such a Hantuchova scoreline, always welcome and hilarious to see.

Whose damn fool idea was it to schedule the women's and men's Canadian Opens AGAINST EACH OTHER in the same week? I just...that makes no sense. Why is this happening. Tennis must be one of the most poorly organised professional sports. It's completely fucking stupid and the kind of thing that shouldn't even be contemplated and yet here we are, it's actually happening next week.

Women's draw is stacked, anyway. Venus/Ivanovic 1R, lol. Winner gets injured Cibulkova...so a Wozniacki/Venus 3R is very likely. Serena gets either JaJa or Gorgeous in the 2R (wow, one of those will have to win a match) and then St Kim in the 3R. Kvitova really lucked out with her quarter, given the draw's strength, therefore an opening round loss to Unforced Errani is probably imminent.

How many matches has Hantuchova lost after winning the first set to 0 or 1?

Boredom demanded it:

Q2 Klagenfurt, 2000, l. Anca Barna 61 46 36
1R Miami 2001, l. Jana Nejedly 61 67 46
2R Gold Coast 2002, l. Justine Henin 61 06 36
QF Berlin 2002, l. Anna Smashnova 61 26 36
2R Wimbledon 2003, l. Shinobu Asagoe 60 46 1012
2R Montreal 2004, l. Ai Sugiyama 61 46 46
3R Los Angeles 2005, l. Serena Williams 61 36 36
SF Australian Open 2008, l. Ana Ivanovic 60 36 46
2R Paris 2009, l. Alize Cornet 61 46 26
QF 's-Hertogenbosch 2009, l. Dinara Safina 61 46 36
F Monterrey 2010, l. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 61 16 06
4R Miami 2010, l. Venus Williams 61 57 46
2R Wimbledon 2010, l. Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova 61 26 46
QF Carlsbad 2011, l. Agnieszka Radwanska 61 46 46

Lol Hantuchokeva. The gift that keeps on giving.

All 4 of my faves are in different quarters of the Toronto draw (Venus/Kvitova/Sharapova/Serena) so that's good. I'm glad Serena has a challenging draw. It's all good practice for her right now. I'd prefer her to meet St Kim once before the US Open. And we all know JJ will turn into God Mode against her BFF.

Such awesome eurosport coverage for Toronto. I could cry.

What. the. actual. fuck. Ivanovic is ranked #18? Like, how? I literally thought she was in the bottom half of the top 100.

bloody Bali points innit. she'll still be top 20 even with last year's Cincy SF points coming off, and now with Venus pulling out even has a chance to add a few this week.

at least Oudin is well out of the top 100 at last.

was v happy with A-Rad titling last week, wish I'd seen a bit of her run but she was way overdue a trophy. by all accounts Bepa is still playing horrendously, I have no expectations any more (not that my expectations were anything other than severely limited in any case).

I think Serena is the obvious choice to come through her bit, and fairly easily. weird that she's the match-tough one, but JaJa's looked like she has a foot out of the game for a while and St Kim hasn't played in an age.

OMG Kuznetsova losing a 3 setter to a nobody

I for one am shellshocked.

You mean a nO_Obody, surely.

Bartoli lost which is more of a shock.

Jelena Jankovic. To Julia Goerges. On hardcourts. Winning 4 games.

*Jelena Jankovic lost.

People don't seem to harsh on Jankovic the way they did Safina, but really, it's she that is the worst player to ever be #1, surely.

(I mean objectively she was more consistent for longer than Ivanovic, but Safina had more finals, Ivanovic won a slam and Wozniacki is mentally tougher and has loads of weeks at #1)

Jankovic doesn't seem to care any more. Her game has been a shadow of what it used to be since 2009 now, but almost every time I've seen her play this year she's so listless and just doesn't give a shit. Don't think she's winning matches against anyone any time soon.

I think Sweta's decline might be terminal too, usually in her vast stretches of moronic losses to nobodies there'd be a random huge result around the corner, I have no faith in that any more though.

CAKE was visibly injured in the Stanford final, maybe she isn't fully recovered yet? Also, Voskoboeva has made a really strong comeback this year, her results have been better than before her injury. Already beaten Kirilenko and A-Pav, gone from 528 to 135 in the rankings since the start of the year.

ugh this story:

Elise Tamaela is a 27 year-old Dutch player on the ITF circuit. She was playing a challenger in Versmold when she was verbally and physically attacked by another player's (Karen Barbat (DEN)) father. She's now in the hospital and the dude has fled with his daughter, presumably trying to avoid the authorities.

Here's the account from Elise's brother:

As the brother of Elise I can confirm the story... Elise has been attacked by the father of Karen Barbat whule watching her game. He was calling her names from the start of the game (all kind of racist things I'm not willing to repeat). After a while Elise said something about it, he then knocked her out with a punch and elbows to here temple. She immediately lost consciousness for about five minutes... After a while she was taken to the police station to press charges, the father and daughter flee, police still looking for them. At the police station Elise started the vomit continiously, an ambulance was called to take here to the nearest hospital. She's still on a intravenous drip with painkillers and needs to stay in the hospital till at least tomorrow morning (having a concussion and a bruised face)...

My father and I drove to Halle (where Elise is in the hospital) and are now in a hotel, we hope we can take Elise back to The Netherlands tomorrow...

The father/trainer of Karen Barbat will probably never see a (professional) tennis court again, that man is a true risk to all people around him!

ugh, wtf?

looking at the draw, Barbat was playing another Dutch player in qualies, not Tamaela, who's in the main draw, so I'm guessing Tamaela was attacked as she was supporting her compatriot?