ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Put a stream on with Bepa serving for it. At 40-15 we got this: 3 Bepa errors to go BP down. Two AMAZING winners, including a low-struck volley that must have fallen right on the baseline for god's sake, then some errors, then, sadly, a fuck-off amazing BH pass from Radwanska.

But Zvonareva can't finish below Woz on games now so WHO CARES.

k i started watching about 15 minutes ago and OMG this is ACTUALLY AMAZING. 3 match points saved by Radwanska, the last of which was ludicrously good defense. Zvonareva on the verge of a meltdown. HOLD PLEASE, AGA.

Oh forgot about that third MP, it was zomg zomg. Even better than the point she retrieved like three smashes against Fran early in the year!

wait

so is this match now meaningless? is radwanska out and zvonareva through? i'm confused

Anotehr amaze-balls set of defensive shots from A-RAD there, culminating in a not-very-good Bepa dropshot.

surely if radwanska wins this and then beats kvitova then she's through

This match is not meaningless per se. Woz is out. Bepa goes through with 2-1 if she wins. A-Rad can go through if she gets a set of Kvitova. If she doesn't, Bepa goes through on game differential.

(that is if ehs wins this and gets a set at least off Kvitova)

Jesus. Next time someone asks me why I'm an A-RAD fan, I'm going to show them those last two games.

LOOOOOLLLLLL @ that netcord winner

The net is letting rather a lot more shots over it on contact than usual. Except Woz's lololol

Oh Bepa. You have to do a lot better than that to drop-shot Agnieszka Radwanska.

But can she serve for it? I hope for DRAMA, but not Women's Tennis. (Zvon failing to serve it out wasn't Women's Tennis, it was just utter refusal to give up by A-Rad)

I didn't hope for FH errors from Bepa, but, I guess...

ewww i suddenly feel dirty after rooting for radwanker

From the stats it looks like large parts of the match must have been UE-tastic and we popped in for the best bit.

If Radwanska wins in straight sets, she wins the group as two-way ties are split on H2H, and plays the winner of Li and Stosur and Kvitova plays Azarenka.
If Radwanska wins one set, she comes second and plays Azarenka, Kvitova plays winner of Li and Stosur.
If Kvitova wins in straights, a three-way-tie is resolved using results at game level, which would result in Bepa qualifying and taking on Azarenka. Kvitova again plays winner of Li and Stosur.

(Actually Radwanska wins the group even if she wins in three over Kvitova. Oh tennis, your tournaments' arbitrary rules are nutty. Sets won should be a more important criterion than the H2H between two tied players.)

Stosur d. Li 6-1 6-0

I like Stosur fine but any reaction other than going "lol" at Li seems strangely inappropriate. Kvitova will maul her though!

A-Rad served for first set against Kvitova twice at 5-1 (!) and 5-3 and couldn't close it out. Fought like hell in the second but after failing to break at 3-3 despite some BPs just fell apart. Still, all points, and at this rate Li at least won't be long for the top 10 so 2012 might be looking up for top-8 seedings at the majors for A-RAD!

Hope Bepa can play one of her five good matches a year against Azarenka.

Finals possibilities:

Kvitova v Zvonareva. NID outcome, great for tennis. WANT THIS.
Kvitova v Azarenka. Would be nice to see Azarenka put to the sword on a big stage but I worry she might win. Risk and reward!
Stosur v Azarenka. Please god no.
Stosur v Zvonareva. It's really a toss-up between this and Stosur/Azarenka as to which would involve the lowest overall quality of tennis, I think this might conceivably be a lesser evil in that respect but it's really all degrees.

Stosur has never lost to Zvonareva, so that would certainly be both the lowest quality and least uncertain match-up. It also won't happen, Kvitova and Azarenka seem to be on another level this week.

Stosur has lost to Zvonareva twice! Uh, once in Fed Cup and, er, once at Wimbledon, on grass (lol). That said, I can actually imagine Stosur coming out and playing like shit and losing to Vera. Even if she plays the match of her life and Azarenka plays awfully, Azarenka would still probably win.

In any case, I agree, Kvitova v Azarenka is most likely final.

Wish I'd watched Bartoli/Azarenka, apparently failed tank attempt that backfired and lasted close to three hours! Oh, WTA, learn to tank.

oh haha whoops, I'm totally misremembering then. Didn't they meet up at the Open recently? The commentators were making a really big deal about their H2H, but I thought it was that Stosur always won, instead of almost always. Zvonareva, aside from the Kvitova match and totally blowing the Radwanska match, has actually looked really good, her shots seem to have more sting than usual.

Zvon won their first two meetings. Back in 2004. (LOL) I really liked watching Zvonareva during the Wozniacki match too, it really looked as if she had a good game plan for it, which made me think, maybe somewhere in that usually-covered-with-a-towel head the right gameplan to take on Azarenka is in there too.

aw man, I wonder if Bartoli had been there the whole time instead of Sharapova if she could have knocked Azarenka out of the semis

Hard to say really. She pwns Stosur too, so probably would have qualified herself if she was good enough to beat Azarenka.

BUT, and I didn't see the game, reportedly Azarenka wasn't trying at various points, didn't grunt and wasn't running things down. How it ended up so close I don't know, esp given that Bartoli had a big lead in the set she lost!

Cake has a terrible record against Shriekarenka - 1-7, with her one win being a Vika retirement. She just can't hit through Azarenka's turbo-grinding. Bartoli and Stosur are really pure match-up players.

Bepa matches up a bit better against Azarenka - they have very similar games but at her best Bepa is more resourceful. However I assume a Vika win because Bepa will assuredly fail mentally at some point.

I must say it's a bloody miracle that after playing terribly basically ALL YEAR, and at no point visibly improving or getting it together, Bepa is somehow in the YEC SF. How did that happen?

Her group had Wozniacki and Radwanska in it?

Can we just take a moment to LOL @ Ivanovic again? I hadn't seen this clip before but I JUST CAN'T~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTL6RFt3NwI

She lost that match! One of only three matches Batty won this year before retiring :D

Sooo this is full-on SuperPetra vs Shanksur in the first three games. LOL. Long may it continue.

Petra made that a bit harder than she needed to - blowing the first set when she was totally in control, jeez - but ultimately quite a comfortable win there.

phew! wayyyy too close tho. shame i missed that and yet am here for this boring match between two useless players

i'll root for azarenka because watching kvitGOATva bludgeon her into submission is v fun

it wasn't really that close - scoreline only looks it because of Petra's first-set blip and then Stosur ~fighting~ when 0-5 down in the third. Apart from that Petra dominated fairly easily.

Some really great play from Bepa right now! There is basically no chance this will continue.

zvonareva looks more senile when she does this fake smiling thing she's adopted than when she was crying and yelling all the time

I don't understand why anyone would be a fan of Azarenka.

This match is bad and boring and I refuse to watch any more of it.

Save the WTA, Petra. God knows you're the only one who can. None of these other girls are worthy to polish Justine's trophies!

She's got it in the bagggggg

Wimbledon + YEC <3

hello tennis thread. It's been a while. (hello, ilx too tbh)

am not watching this as i'm stuck on the late shift at work, but Vika's down a break already. :D

this is getting funny

:D

lmao wish I was watching this. BAGEL HER PETRA.

ewwwww a game :(

lol. btw did you all know that if Petra wins this, only 115 points will separate her and Caro? :D :D

way to serve it out Petra. -_-

kvitova's footwork smh

literally wtf

-_-

well knowing kvitova she'll break to love with 4 return winners now :D

k maybe not

-_______- WOMEN'S TENNIS