WIMBLEDON 2014

sweet xcourt fh

SHOT Lucie

her dad looks like Popeye's dad. she is playing well

would accept win for Lucie if it meant people learned how to say her name correctly (including myself lolol)

the previously established pronunciation of her name was one of my favourite to say, gutted by how wrong it is

ha yeah as much as I was amused by people have to say Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova, Safarova's is the most-mangled name on Tour. I've heard it pronounced properly and I don't even think I can approximate it.

money

strong point there

Really feel Safarova has been the braver player out here this set

And yet, you always felt that blink was coming...

whoa

safarova probably sitting there thinking she played that set p much how she would want to

actually may want to up the 1st serve %

really clutch stuff from both, but Petra looking ferocious

Safarova was even transcending her own limitations (movement, RETURN GAME) in that set. She literally just blinked once on that FH at 6-6 in the TB. Petra was the steady one weathering the storm, it felt like!

hope this set isn't a runaway

fought so hard there to no avail

Petra has her eye on the finish line...

been all business today tbf

How much of this can we attribute to her dumping Stepanek and getting back with that foetus of hers from pre-Stepanek?

She got back with her ex?! I didn't know that, lol

haha she's been more animated with every win here than that time she actually won the Slam

The Queen Czech. GET IN!

God I wish we could have Chakvetadze commentating for us, she seems amazing going off Russian tennis twitter. Apparently she just referred to an amazing Errani get as "cockroach defence"!

SI Tennis ‏@SI_Tennis 47s
Breaking news: Li Na has split with coach Carlos Rodriguez. More to come.

!!!!!!!

oh nooooo Halep slipped and jammed her ankle

so much tape it may as well be a cast at this point!

good hold for Halep after letting 0-30 slip in the previous game. still not sure how affected she is by the ankle, but it might force her to be more aggressive?

this match is pretty tense - almost like both are playing 60% of the points really well, and 40% completely random errors

I don't think Halep's movement is anywhere near 100% :/

Halep wins a brilliant rally to take us into the TB. Such smart wrong-footing throughout

best point of the match

And then one rudimentary error from each to start off the TB

Aaaaand someone ill in the crowd, what a time for this

Bouchard's coach is LITERALLY SHOUTING COACHING WORDS TO HER while Nouni's back is turned, smdh

same thing happened when i was on court 3 last week, took a looong time for the medical people to respond.
also in the same match Leo Mayer aggressively shushed someone in the front row for talking :D

that was a lot quicker

imagine how guilty you'd feel if you visibly halted one player's momentum, luckily in this case neither of them really had momentum

what a shot to save SP

bollocks, fuck that lucky net cord at 4-3

Well. At least no conflicted feelings in the final, and a better match-up for Petra :)

Such a flop game from Halep

welp

lol why is Bouchard getting into it with Nouni at this stage

Halep just looks way too tired to take advantage even if Bouchard chokes uncharacteristically

Bouchard is bricking it and Halep can't even make her play -_-

BLECH

Messy 2nd set, don't know if it was the ankle or what. Bouchard solid but not spectacular. Peaktra will take the title, Shitrova may show up and things get dirtier.

http://www.forvo.com/word/barbora_z%C3%A1hlavov%C3%A1-str%C3%BDcov%C3%A1/#cs

Halep just looked exhausted in the second set, she looked like she knew between that and the ankle it was too big a hill to climb. Tough turnaround from the RG final run, that's one factor I forgot about. If the TB net cord had gone the other way she'd have had a 5-2 lead but Bouchard always seemed to hit the spots in dangerous moments.

Really no idea how Bouchard keeps so many balls in court with that technique, especially with that power game she's willing herself to play. Takes extraordinary discipline, she's like Petkovic plus. But...it works. She has her share of wild errors and shanks but it seemed like the deeper in the game, the more accurate she became. I'm not worried for Petra though.

BLECH again @ the triumph of someone marketed hyper-aggressively because she's blonde/white/pretty over someone who the media and marketers completely ignore because she's undemonstrative and ~unmarketable