ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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!

Full-on hilarious collapse now. Some of these FH misses have yet to land.

LOLOLOL. It took her about 10 minutes to lose the match after having a point for 4-0.

lolllll ivanovic

clijsters winning ugly as always then. welp.

I actually thought that my hatred of Clijsters would decrease after not seeing her play for 10 months but oh well...

benesova def stosur 6-4 6-2 :D

embarrassing and crushing 1r australian open defeat plz

Seeing Ivanovic lose from 3-0 up is possibly even more gratifying than having her trounced like 6-1 6-1 which would be the logical outcome if Kim were playing at her best. So much life!

ihfznhkjfznjfnjfksfjkjgnjgnknjkg

serena's ankle roll

why lord just why

w/o for hantuchokeva i'm sure

Stosur and her famed ability to cope with home pressure. AO should be fun!

Kanepi beating A-Pav love and three? I expected the win but not that scoreline.

I saw Jaziri take a set off Tsonga yesterday btw, he's good - can see why he's been steaming up the rankings and should be top 100 soon. Big serve, swashbuckling attitude to the net, some beast returns.

Seeing Ivanovic lose from 3-0 up is possibly even more gratifying than having her trounced like 6-1 6-1 which would be the logical outcome if Kim were playing at her best. So much life!

if you think about it, both of these happened! Kim basically won 6-1, 6-0 with a 10-game walkabout in the middle.

A-Pav really is one of the most overrated players going. Not overranked, per se, but everyone seems to think she is a lock to go top 10. Not in the shape she's in! Kanepi played really really well.

Shitova turned up but even that was good enough to make Mattek-Sands look like the scrub she really is (fun though her presence is).

In "actually watching a men's match SHOCKAH", Murray's split two tight-ish sets to Muller. Forehand passive, backhand intermittently good, second serve just got murrrrdered. Lucky to still be going, because Muller has been playing so smartly, keeping it low and volleying well. Then the tie-break came and he stopped doing both these things. Murray's point at 5-2 was pretty spectacular though.

Mardy Fish looks like he's wearing overalls from the bank. Bethanie Mattek-Sands is wearing a Pat Cash-style headband. This is appalling.

from the back, rather.

serena out of brisbane

fuck life

OMG this gif of Jie "Jay-Z" Zheng

http://kworb.net/zheng.gif

Which is what she did to Sweta today

Meanwhile Hantuchova gets lucky a-fucking-gain. Into the final over St Kim 6-7 3-1 ret. What is wrong with these women that they can't keep themselves healthy? Do they do any injury prevention work at all? Sharapova, Clijsters and Serena all injured and the season isn't even a week old yet.

<3 Jie. If she were like, 3 inches taller, total Slam contender.

Hantuchova IN A FINAL after Clijsters withdraws. Whatever.

Kaia Kanepi is playing better than I've ever seen her. Ok, Schiavone looks tired, but such power, and such great touch at the net from Kaia!

kaia is such a fucking weirdo lol. whatever i'll enjoy this good patch whilst it lasts :D before she starts losing 10 matches in a row again

what's the deal with rain