ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

I like Thiem's game a lot but this Struff match is demonstrating that off clay, he really can be smothered by power

the Giorgi-Sanders match is an early candidate for worst match of 2015

I know it's easy to mock Rodionova but her Twitter snark about Tennis Australia's favouritism was right. Can't believe they snubbed her for an AO WC in favour of utterly useless ITF journeywomen who'll never achieve even her modest career. Someone should tot up how much cash Rogowska's earned in SEVEN years of getting free Slam WCs just because she's Australian, despite a) never being ranked high enough to enter directly, b) never successfully coming through qualifying when she's actually made to play it, c) never reaching the top 100.

Well, yeah. I mean, Rodionova scarcely deserves one, but that amount she does deserve one dwarfs the amount Rogowska does. Rogowska is pathetic. Can we please remember that match with Safina at the US Open? I mean, that was about the worst match I've ever seen at a professional level. At 3 main draw wins, her record only looks good next to Marinko Matosevic.

How is she 23? I feel like she's been losing in the first round since about 2002.

Time for Tennis Australia to give her the Bogdanovic treatment.

I watched that Fast4 thing and it was terrible and it was possibly rigged.

Can we please remember that match with Safina at the US Open? I mean, that was about the worst match I've ever seen at a professional level.

And that's her career highlight!

And the thing is Rogowska in turn still deserves a WC more than any other non-ANasty AUS woman. Rodionova's terrible sister and Storm Sanders, really? And you have some vaguely promising juniors but they're all so unproven, and none of them made a move in either your summer ITFs or the warm-ups.

Wimbledon instituting the 250 ranking rule for GBR WCs was such a positive step - plus the willingness to give WCs to foreign players. The AO bills itself as the Slam of Asia-Pacific but only reserves one measly WC for Asian players. Tanasugarn, who was the finalist in the Asian play-off, or Doi, who just won the HK 50K challenger, would both be better choices than Sanders or Rodionova Jr.

(To be completely accurate, the worst match I've ever watched was Cornet/Scheepers at Sydney three years ago.)

Looking forward to seeing where Giorgi/Sanders will fit into this, bless the Hobart tournament for archiving it for posterity

Radwanska: gone. Halep: withdrawn.

WIN THIS PETRA, I MEAN IT SHOULD NOT BE HARD.

Good decisions by Aga and Simona there to rest up for the AO. Petra should follow suit if she has any sense.

BZS dismantling Shanksur right now <3

meanwhile Watson extends her h2h vs Stephens to 4-0 in Hobart, except Stephens didn't even get a set this time. 63 61.

Back in Florida, the Nicole Vaidisova comeback hits another barrier: 17-yr-old former top 15 junior Anna Bondar of Hungary, in the first qualifying round of a 25K, 63 57 16. I don't see Vaidisova sustaining her motivation if she ends up having to shlep around these US challengers losing to college players and juniors for too long...

I actually thought Aga was showing some semblance of racquet head acceleration against Cornet, though her play could still have been better. Just saw the end and she was totally "don't care"

the Kerber/Gavrilova 3.15am finish was crazy, Gavrilova was just fried at the end. Hilarious on-court coaching call by Kerber, her coach was like "Angie it's 3am can we not do this right now, just play better"

Great tweet by Dasha afterwards https://twitter.com/Daria_gav/status/555049313806462976

Pironkova was so confident and brilliant against BZS. We need to treasure the two times per year this happens. If she defends from qualies again!

P3tra v Gajdosova was decent quality bashing, though Gajdosova totally fell to pieces after not breaking at 4-3.

Incredulous and so impressed that after staying out there til 3am last night, Kerber is still playing - and winning - at midnight today, having come back from a bagel set down.

Great to see Delpo's comeback off to a good start too!

You can totally see Kerber *fighting* again in the SF and then losing again to Pironkova.

You really can.

Kerber well on the way to a fighting win, that is to say, she's lost the first set.

bombshell

http://time.com/3694659/serena-williams-indian-wells/

woah

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9UMnwOIcAAb9ip.jpg:large

Myskina on-court coaching Masha.. what a sight.

First caption that came to mind with that picture was "Good job. I could still have you killed."

For some reason they're all smiles

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9U5brAIYAAdZ7o.jpg:large
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9VI0F4CQAEusSs.jpg:large

It's been 10 years! I don't know why anyone is surprised. A few catty remarks a decade ago ≠ depthless hate 4eva.

How about that Petkovic, 12-10 and 8-6 in the third victories on back-to-back days to clinch the tie. Fed Cup MVP.

Victor Estrella Burgos in Quito, first Dominican to win an ATP title! His late-career blossoming has been pretty great to see.

mathieu is playing well v dimitrov

wow dimitrov ripped some winners @ mp down a la sharapova

that was Peak Niculescu against Flipkens there, no other player's game puts such a huge smile on my face. The slices, the lobs, the volleys, that ridiculous moment when she ran around her BH so far she was standing in the tramlines and just smacks an impossibly angled inside out BH winner.

muellers playing well, just took out dimitrov & won 90% of his 1st serve pts

yeah I thought that might happen, the bits of Muller's matches I've caught this year have been pretty whoa. Bit of a servebot but just in great form

Niculescu <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olGFuVtzdas

Kerber was very flat admittedly but that was some performance from Fran <3

xp problem is that peak niculescu is just not that great w/r/t most of the tour, any player better than flipkens would not have let her dictate play like that

took great enjoyment in that 2nd set smack down of bouchard that mona b just inflicted. hope she can keep it up in the decider.

yes! well done mona 4-6 6-1 6-2.

MONA!

Also, Bouchard seems to have stolen Azarenka's coach in the past few weeks. Vika tweeted this after the match:

https://twitter.com/vika7/status/565980142447919104

Barthel's next opponent is Zahlavova-Strycova...and her coach is Zahlavova-Strycova's husband.

only saw the scoreline but lol @ murray

didnt realize nishi was playing memphis, awz

wow krajicek goes s&v @ set pt hm

he def needs just to win on 1st serves

getting to be a p epic game here @ 5-4 kraj

this match has been really good

Young v Tomic was hilarious. Young was playing at a much higher level throughout (Tomic inexplicably passive, mostly) but kept flopping on BPs, needed a terrible Tomic DF to edge the first set TB. Then as soon as he started to take BPs he'd immediately flop his next service game. Choking for his life throughout the third set yet Tomic couldn't take advantage. Probably the best I've seen Young play in terms of shotmaking though that's not saying much.

The Rodionova sisters' head-to-head is hilarious, of course.

R2 Las Vegas $50K, 2012: Anastasia d. Arina 52 ret.
Q2 Dubai 2015: Arina d. Anastasia 62 01 ret.

Puig v Tomljanovic is such patchy, bash-and-hope tennis. Rallies ending in either a huge winner or a wild miss seemingly at random.

berdych is steamrolling thru simon