ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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

Brisbane tournament's officiating is so terrible. Linespeople calling things in that are 15cm out (not exaggerating). Umpires (particularly the one in this generally very good Simon/Dolgopolov match) DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CHALLENGE SYSTEM.

Discount Ma¢ha lost 3 and 0 to Arvidsson in Sydney qualies, lulz. I hope this foreshadows an entire year where she gets stuck in qualies.

Sydney draw is absolutely stacked, so many ridiculous 1R/2R matches (Sweta vs. Bepa, Fran vs. Sam) and then in the middle of of it all there's Holland vs. Dokic like some sort of 25K remnant.

Kaia had better kill Hantuchova in this final!

Meanwhile everyone is injured. Apparently this is just the second time Federer's quit a tournament with an injury (and never mid-match). That's in 996 career matches. Serena and Kim do that once a month!

Kaia killing Hantuchova :)

can def confirm that Kanepi has gone UP a level this year. if she keeps this up we're looking at her in the top 10 by year end.

she's won 12/13 points in the 2nd set so far

16/17 :o

Brilliant BH DTL winner there.

Ugh commentators. Saying Kanepi must have been confident because she didn't enter a tournament next week. SHE ENTERED SYDNEY QUALIES. Had to pull out b/c she's still here. DO YOUR RESEARCH.

KAIA WINS! <3

The only player who took a set off her this week was...Alexandra Panova.

I'm going to Sydney tomorrow. Taking a friend who's skint so we're just doing outside courts. Since the marquee match is Safarova v Ivanovic, that's OK - like Safarova but do not want to jostle with Ana fanboys and probably watch her squeak and win. Grr. GIVE UP ANA.

Prob take in Hercog v Makarova because I like Makarova and she will probably win - the other court has the dire Scheepers/Cornet match which would be like pulling teeth, but following that U-Rad v Vania King! <3 so much.

Then maybe Czink/Daniilidou because Daniilidou is my mum's favourite player of the last 15 years so I might try to get an autograph.

anyone know what the Fish/Dimitrov bust-up in Hopman Cup was about?

Not a kind event to Fish's top 10 ego, getting aced by Wozniacki then trashed by Dimitrov.

I understand Dimitrov was being intense and cocky - a net cord may have been involved at some point. Fish spat in the direction of Bulgarian fans and there was also shouting.

Just back from Sydney! Despite the stunning lineup, looks like the prize matches will be on tomorrow when I have to be at home to let a pest control man in HARUMPH.

Anyway. Makarova v Hercog got good towards the end, but basically Hercog was unable to tailor her game to playing a lefty, so pretty much everything she hit went straight to Makarova's forehand, who used severe angles to Hercog's backhand, where invariably the slice went long. So that game was over fast, so retired to the covered area to watch Safarova dice up Ivanovic which was GREAT because of the scoreline above everything else.

Sadly Vania King withdrew so I didn't get to see her play U-Rad. Instead, my friend and I watched the last half of Dulgheru/Arvidsson which was of remarkably high quality given how the former is mostly known on clay and the latter is generally unremarkable. Dulgheru pushed, basically, using lots of spin, and Arvidsson hit lots of flat shots. Every time her back was against the wall, Arvidsson would go on a spree of hitting winner after winner after winner and she did some well-timed and effective lobs that Dulgheru wasn't fast enough to cope iwth.

We then saw Vera but the line-up for an autograph was MASSIVE and it was steaming hot so I just waved and said I loved her in Russian, and she gave no sign at all she could hear, which is for the best. We checked the practice courts and I got brushed past by none other than Juan Martin del Potro who is gorgeous in the flesh as you'd hope.

Schiavone is a total beast, I mean, it's true that on screen tennis looks way slower than it seems in real life, but she was murdering the ball against her hottt practice partner. I guess losing to Kanepi is no shame this week, because she was looking very very sharp. Saw Sweta looking great, not sure about the hair tbh, but maybe she'll have it styled differently on game days.

Then watched JARK THE SHARK blast off a Frenchman who put up some fight but then, when serving to stay in the match, blew three volleys I could have made.

I am quite sunburnt but I am prob going back Tuesday!

Oh, and I was a bit surprised to hear Chanelle Scheepers' surname pronounced as "Skeppers" by the umpire from behind me. Alize Cornet looked extra stroppy when I turned around to watch that game.

hello tennis thread (and ilx!).

I am flying to Melbourne next week for the AO. :D Got me three day passes and a QF match on Rod Laver - figured I'd give myself a big birthday treat since I worked throughout the Christmas and NY holidays. So excited!

edwardo, am sooo jealous you bumped into Delpo! I might have swooned.

I would have swooned if I had seen him coming before he touched me! But I only realised who it was when he'd got about a foot away from me and I realised he was taller than all the spectators in the area!

Tossing up whther to go down for the A.O. Since I'm unemployed atm I could go. But, er, because I'm unemployed, maybe I shouldn't!

well let me know if you do, we'll get drinks. :)

i just can't wait to get off work already - haven't been able to watch much of the tune-ups. Enjoyed a little bit of Kvitova/Bartoli earlier though, and this Raonic/Tipsy match right now is loads of fun, goofy errors notwithstanding.

Facepalm moment: TV coverage of Brisbane promos the upcoming Stosur/Schiavone first round match (First round! While Dokic beats another wildcard 6-0 6-0, we get two Slam champs, the Radwanskas playing each other ffs and Dulgheru being parachuted in as a lucky loser and getting Arvidsson who beat her in finals of qualifying! Stuffed tournament and 8 seeds, nuttiness)... has footage of both players hitting the ball to the sounds of "Dedication To My Ex (Miss That)".

Fortunately NOT including the bit which goes "I miss that pussy, that pussy", but still, "oh no" indeed, given what people mutter about these two women...

Li Na report: played OK against Makarova, should have won even more easily than 6-0 6-3 but sprayed a few out mid-second set. Her English has improved but has retained its charming frankness, which is good because playing quality tennis is far more important than learning to engage in idiotic small talk with commentators.

When asked the banal question on whether she gets tired of hearing that she's the French Open champion, "I'd like to hear it more often!".

Are there any noteworthy players who don't speak any English at all? NOTHING would make me happier than some television robot going up to a winner and having them go "Sorry, no English" and having the commentator look embarrassed.

Also FUCK OFF NOW Azarenka.

So jealz edwardo! I want to see some live tennis NOW.

In the department of lol revenge - the day after Arvidsson takes 3.5 hrs to beat Dulgheru in qualies...Dulgheru thrashes her 1 and 1 in the main draw. Losing the battle, winning the war. Also guess which one of those players is actually fit enough to recover from an epic the day before.

No mercy shown to little sis by A-Rad, that was 1 and 1 as well.

Bepa won three games off Sweta. I'm predicting that this year Bepa's time as an elite player is up and she'll plummet out of the top 10.

Good to see Chak's return after her various travails and brief foray into politics get off to a surprisingly good start - thrashed Niculescu 0 and 4. I remember back when she first started slumping really badly she lost to Niculescu and afterwards disconsolately said something like "if I can't beat a player of that level, who can I beat?"