ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

She also hit one amazing dropshot winner on the run in the first set and has tried to replicate it, like, six times since, all ending in terrible failure. That one barely made it over her own service line

It's so weird to me that Peng's career high ranking (14) is higher than Zheng's (15), comparing the two significant non-Li Chinese players of this era. Zheng's reached two Slam SFs, Peng's never gone beyond the last 16. Zheng has four titles, Peng has none. But Peng had that one super-consistent year in 2011 where she put up a solid, if not spectacular, result in almost every tournament she played, whereas Zheng's never managed to sustain her health or her form over a whole year.

wow such a textbook choke from Peng smh

Delbonis has no control over his game, Harrison has no game. This match is terrible

Like, why does Delbonis keep coming to the net when his volleys are so terrible? I don't think he's made one.

Vekic d. Kuznetsova 76 75 :D

Nice to see Donna emerge from her slump...

Tomic just lost 06 16 to Nieminen in 28 minutes. I know he's been injured, but...that's got to be the shortest ATP match in some time. Like, decades.

Or indeed EVER, as it's just been confirmed. A very Tomic-like record to set.

shved serving for 1st set and serena breaks her

such a weird game. and so LOUD

yea serena is fucking shouting

like, from 30-0 down Serena played two incredible points BUTTTTT she got hugely lucky to win the weird net cord one that would have given Shvedova 40-15. and then of course Shvedova flopped BP down

is the crowd drunk or something?

what the fuck is wrong with the crowd, seriously? I can't even tell what they're booing for.

Shvedova DF on SP, NID

that 4hand @ 7-7 was niice

wow garcia won a match in two tie-breaks

last point in the Tomic "match" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvDLOfu5Ols

lmao

today's play hasn't even started and Halep and Kleybanova have both w/d. ugh, had been looking fwd to the Halep/Venus 3R

also, it needs to be said that the disparity between men's and women's TV coverage is embarrassing - no way can this tournament lay claim to "fifth Slam" status when about a fifth of women's matches are televised as men's.

from a fan perspective I've always loved joint tournaments, and really it makes little sense that the ATP and WTA are so separate (in terms of ranking points, calendar etc) but this really demonstrates why a joint tour would just screw the women over completely

otm, it's pretty infuriating

Svitolina beating Bouchard is not really surprising given their h2h...

Bit disturbing how quickly the wheels have come off Muguruza's stellar start to the year though.

that last game between sharapova and safarova was outstanding

I went to bed when Ma$ha broke in the third set. Her hysterical fighting warrior mode remains the most insufferable of all.

This Vandeweghe run of actually winning matches is hideous.

Oh and is that Lisicki giving her third walkover in six tournaments this year? For "the flu"?

Vandeweghe winning matches is so gross. It's like... tennis gods adding insult to injury on top of Del Potro maybe being out for a year. CANNOT TAKE THIS.

That set wasn't as close as the scoreline. Only went to a TB because Li had a disastrous four-game stretch from 3-1 up, DFing and UEing all over the place. Outside of it, she had few difficulties and surprisingly, Keys never really imposed her power on Li. Keys seems to have plateaued if not actually regressed this year, her big weapons don't seem as effective for some reason.

meanwhile, baghdatis has come back to life here. but wtf is up with tsonga this season?

just switched to that and Tsonga looks dreadful

Peak Baghdatis dropshot/lob

lmao

SP Tsonga, Baghdatis holds up play by flapping around about a wasp, Tsonga DFs.

lol this is amazing

Hahahahaha something karmic about that

Keys is particularly dire on big points. She had every chance to break Li back in that last game and did nothing about it except hit errors

Tsonga keeps digging himself holes with woeful errors then saving BPs with excellent play

Well, Tsonga escaped there...mess of a match. His footwork was especially painful.

Aga closed out Vesnina with an ace, a service winner and an ace!

So annoyed that I fell asleep in the first set of Nishikori/Dimitrov, I was enjoying it.

Hahahaha Stephens got bagelled and breadsticked by 2014 Wozniacki. 0-4 H2H now. She won five points in the second set.

seems like Chang has helped Nishikori

lololol I hope Annacone is getting a hefty flat fee for his services rather than asking for a % of prize money.

haven't seen lajovic play before, he looks pretty good. nice one-hander as well

he looks pretty good in more than one sense if u know what i mean

http://unseededandlooming.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/oh-hi-dusan-lajovic/

Lajovic chokes for the match and the rain arrives.

oof that terrible call at 5-5 in the TB screwed Lajovic over completely. two points from his career best win! two points he then lost tamely.

(he should have closed out the match at least twice before that, to be fair)

Petra hitting home runs for fun apparently

She got her FH together in a satisfying way but this match has entered full-on LOL-at-Ivanovic territory

3-6 6-0 6-0 lmaooooooo

Thank-you, Ana, for the first Petra match I've been able to watch in years without any nerves

Ivanovic is back, back, back! Back to her amazing 2012 form, right!