ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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?

wtfffff why wasn't i watching that

(nishikori WON, with a BAGEL)

Granollers d. Del Potro in Valencia. Maybe an even bigger WTF. No one should lose to Granola!

Federer now gets Nishikori in the Basel final instead of Nole. He'll probably win that. He's only won one title this year - Doha back in Jan - and there was a risk that he'd be titleless when it drops off, but I think he'll probably hold on to this one...

meanwhile before anyone thinks about it LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BALI. Aggravating tournament. Why does it exist. Ignore it and maybe it'll go away.

tbf i wouldn't put it past ana to actually lose that final

Medina Garrigues getting those unwarranted points isn't much better. 255 points already!!!! For two retirements!

If Djokovic loses a couple more, he probably loses the claim to greatest year ever, right?

I'm the first to say that competition now is greater than it was in the past, but hard to argue that 66-5 is greater than 82-3.

wow and I forgot Fed went 92-5 in 2006... I kinda feel like Djoker is giving it away in tournaments that don't matter as much... but I guess that's still giving it away.

medina garrigues is in the final via two retirements? lolllllllllllllll

annoyed i missed kvitova def kuznetsova. i assume that was either an amazing match or an absolute horrorshow

Oh god, Ivanovic wins Bali again in a preposterously nobbled, injury-ravaged field full of weaklings and Roberta Vinci. Look, just scrap this event and make it a "best-off" of the 9-16 players if you must, run it before Istanbul so it doesn't close the season and stop giving wild cards and having it clash with Fed Cup finals.

Nishikori to be seeded at AO, surely? :D :D :D

Woo I am going to see Tsonga vs Fed on Sunday @ATP finals! I've lost track of things a bit since USO - are either of them much off the boil atm?

sweet! They just played each other in the Paris-Bercy final last week. Fed looked good, Jo-W not so much. The last three games of that match was pretty dramatic though as Tsonga looked like he was about to make a comeback - he didn't but the match could be closer this time around since he's generally less nervous when not in front of a French crowd.

Fed/JWT is probably one of the most promising match-ups in the group stages, jealz!

Yes, great group-stage match to get!

Fed has won his last two tournaments, Kat, but hasn't had to beat one of the Big Three to do it. Murray's only lost twice since August, Djokovic's shoulder is troubling him, Nadal is having his usual end-of-season slump. Rather like 2009, could be a chance for one of the Other Four to take this...

Awesome, thanks dudes! Will report back in full :)

Jealous. The ATP rank nuttiness Lex has alluded to seems to be in full swing. Though I am really happy to see Tipsarevic in the top 10, I wonder how long he'll stay in it, I guess he has less to defend for first part of the year but a really big slam run always seemed to be beyond him. Tsonga in top 5 would make me v happy if it happened!

AUSTRALIA :D

serena wins her first match of the year (yay); other people also win

mattek-sands was up 5-1 30-30 against wozniacki in the 1st set of that hopman cup thingy and lost it in a TB

oh & federer lost to djokovic 1 & 2 or something in abu dhabi i think

Part of me kind of hopes that stupid Abu Dhabi exo (wasn't Nadal whinging about making the season shorter?) is the harbinger of the End Of Fedal.

First match I watched was the Dokic collapse against Barthel. Safarova choking, Dokic tanking, Wozniacki getting outplayed but still winning, Serena making an idiot of herself whenever she opens her mouth, welcome back Women's Tennis!

Watched a bit of Harrison/Baghdatis too. Starting to think Harrison is a bit overrated.

Haha I just remembered that Monica Niculescu will be seeded at the AO :D

Oh god, Woz/Mattek-Sands was.. just.. there were no words. I knew at 5*-1 that she'd choke one service game, but to do it twice, and so appalingly was just... there were no words. The Danish mang also did the same when had a really rusty Fish on the ropes too. Had some lols at Woz's new IMPROVED FOREHAND (nothing of the kind) and Stosur's backhand which was about as shit as I've seen it (you know, she actually was hitting it well in the US Open final) in Brisbane.

I'm actually getting a stack of free tickets to the Sydney International so shall do as much stalking as I can!

Stosur's BH can actually be a weapon when she's confident enough to just hit the damn thing (see: USO final). That just doesn't happen very often.

CAKE d. Gajdosova 6-0 6-0, lol.

I really hope that this year gives us a bit of a Serena/Kvitova rivalry. I want to see how they match up, and one last rivalry in the last years of her career might be what Silliams needs, motivation-wise. Also wondering what sort of champion Kvitova will be - she could potentially be dominant, like a shoe-in for at least one Slam every year. Or she could be a Sharapova/Kuznetsova type and just win one every few years. Either is plausible right now.

hahahahahahaha I tuned into St Kim/Ivanovic at 3-0 40-30 for Ana in the third set and my immediate thought was "oh, Kim will win then," and GUESS WHAT IS HAPPENING!