ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

(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

that was hellish but finafuckinglly

Streams so laggy so I missed this first set, though by the looks of the scoreboard thing that was probably for the best.

Here is my wishlist for the rest of the day.

1. Petra wins second set 6-0
2. Petra takes enormous cheque from WTA and then continues to thumb her nose at conventions of what a "marketable player" should be by continuing to be herself
3. Victoria Azarenka suffers the mildest, least painful injury that can nonetheless completely end her career for good.

this is soooo boring

Okay Petra, keep calm and remember Wimbledon.

bahh

That's right, Azarenka. You blow leads in those games. Oh that look of anguish....

zomg AWESOME recovery passing shot from the very left corner from SuperPetra! Thanks for showing up, just in time.

really really never in doubt

wimbledon + yec <3 thanks for saving this year for me, kvitova. the tour would be absolutely NOTHING without you

WTA = saved. Finally, a champion who gets shit done, doesn't act as if she's entitled to it, doesn't engage in gamesmanship, and will contribute to the sport by being a great champion instead of someone who will ham it up for cunt journalists who expect players to smile, look pretty and parrot their lines back to them. Now, improve on that AO QF and #1 is yours, Petra!

HURRAH

Makes up for the fact that neither of the men's finals just now went how I wanted (I mean, love Tsonga, but love Del Pony more). And Mrs Krumm just won an 100k, so no retirement for her just yet (lol Larcher de Brito won a 25k, thank god that she never happened. Can you imagine if the top 10 included Azarenka, Larcher de Brito AND Wickmayer? Things can always get worse!)

No mention of Anne Keothavong winning both the singles and the doubles at Barnstaple?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z598ILPYTp4

miss her so much :( :( :( watching her during the indoor seasons from about 2005-2007 was always so awesome. unbelievably talented. and also batshit insane which is always good

highlights:
vs martinez charleston 2004
vs hantuchova luxembourg 2007
becoming a mental giant every time she played serena on clay
hitting kick serve aces over lindsay davenport's head
beating henin charleston 2006
beating capriati charleston 2002
orange juice

You can always treasure the fact that she still managed to beat Ivanovic this year!

Tremendous results all round. Kvitova only a few points shy of #1 and she'll probably get it next year. Good for Keothavong and Krumm, too!

CAKE gets to play in both YECs, bizarrely. Yes, that disgraceful Bali tournament that no one cares about happens this week.

I care about it. I care that Ivanovic loses and drops out of the top 30 (please).

Had an idea, though. If you take a wildcard into an event like this, it should automatically count as one of your "best 16" no matter how you do. That way it isn't just freeloading points onto people on an arbitrary basis.

Basle SF: Nishikori currently leads Djokovic 2-6 7-6 5-0! Injury?