ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Rafa losing to Lopez off grass, the decline is even more real than I thought.

Schmiedlova's win over Radwanska in R1 was a beautiful masterclass, it's so nice to see a player peak like that. Her BH is a gorgeous shot and she can do so much with it. Even out-dropshotting Aga too. No surprise to see her in the SF, wouldn't be surprised if she beats JJ as well (against whom Pliskova gagged horrifically - she's so emotionless that it doesn't seem like she's nervous, but those DFs and errors...)

Somewhat impressed by Wawrinka scraping through given the week he's had. I tuned in to Djokovic/Goffin with Goffin up a break in the third and then Djokovic just steamrolled to the end.

bencic & Sloane w/drawing from new haven sucks, I was hoping to see them o well I understand for sure

murray is showing some nice scrapping

It must be hard for Serena to motivate herself to start well against Ivanovic when she knows that even if Ana wins a set, the collapse will be inevitable and absolute.

feds service game is so good

feli had 0-40 on rog's serve that turned into a rog hold and then fed broke feli rip

post-handshake this is charming imo

feli "you're fuckin flying all over the court"
rog putting his arm around him & smiling "we've got a few more years"

Bad boy Daniel Köllerer notches up another fail by being voted out first from the house in the third season of the German Celebrity Big Brother

dolgo really squandered his chance to win that tiebreak

That wasn't predictable at all

fed/novak final tomorrow

lmafo that last service game

i cant take dramatic serena

Federer peaking at net and continuing his Yung Bartoli returning approach today...Djokovic looks flummoxed and furious

Three DFs from Djokovic in that service game :o

lol what does young bartoli mean?

Returning from midway up the court, she used to do that all the time in juniors and when she first came on tour

i finally figured out the best sesh new haven to go to and went -- 3 qtrfinals, tserenko/pliskova abt to start

followed by safrova/cibu then radwanska/kvitova

rad, enjoy yrself!

*jealous*

tsurenko looks really good

cibu has been v feisty

wow drop shot after a long rally in the tbreak to take the set

Cibulkova is a personal fave, love it when her game is on

there are these chatty yung moms behind me that are like 'did u see serena in that article photos she looked like normal and not like a monster'

cibu really battled to get back in the 2nd set, had 40-0 to get to 5-5..........then hit b2b double faults at deuce to lose the set

I remember doing those fed service returns against one of my buddies who had a terrible second serve, which resulted in him almost killing me with a tennis ball

someone did 1 of those against me just on tuesday, but he was mostly joking, and i won the pt anyway so

match was def close enough that cibus bad serving and bad use of challenges was what cost her imo

wow murray/kyrgios rd 1 us open

I will be surprised if Kyrgios gets more than 10 games.

Kvitova trolling her fans by winning a couple of matches a row and facing her pigeon friend in the New Haven final. Out in R1 of US Open, then.

lmao at this result and scoreline from Davis Cup

Egor Gerasimov (BLR) d. Joao Sousa (POR) 06 16 62 62 64

Sousa was playing at home!!!

(I'm in Glasgow covering DC, for a while it looked like Tomic's gigantic choke was going to make Dan Evans relevant again but he got it done in the end)

The way Bencic has turned round her h2h vs Wozniacki is beautiful.

2014 Istanbul R1, 06 06
2015 Indian Wells R3, 64 64
2015 Eastbourne SF, 30 ret.
2015 Toronto R2, 75 75
2015 Tokyo SF, 62 64

Third Premier final this year for Bencic and I'd say she's favourite over Radwanska.

Radwanska is not messing around here. Winners everywhere!

actually p hilarious to see Nole toying with Rafa like this

and those last two Rafa FHs that barely reached the net, screaming

I've only just noticed that the ATP250s have a 28-player singles draw. The top four seeds go straight into the last sixteen? What kind of bullshit is that? Four matches to win a title? When did this happen?

In MY day everything was best of nine sets, 256-draw and you didn't even get a week off for Davis Cup, you just played those matches *at the same time*.

Thiem's Umag title was my favourite 250 title run this year. R1 bye, R2 retirement, QF retirement

byes are bullshit but top players are pampered babies who call the shots

the WTA end of year is turning into its traditional clusterfuck, as well as everyone being injured/fatigued/absent somehow no one managed to notice that Luxembourg, the final tournament that's meant to count to YEC standings...ends after the YEC starts because it has a Sunday final. So points won't count. This particularly screws over Bacsinszky, who's in 10th place (effectively 9th with Serena out), 20 points behind Pennetta, but has only got Luxembourg scheduled

The alternate YEC this year is like a consolation tournament for the 9-20 ranked players, new depths of pointlessness there. I can't imagine Venus hanging around in China to play it and even Aga is whinging

Well the amount of points on offer at that consolation tournament is mind-bogglingly large. Where else would you have access to that many points without one of the top eight being there to stop you? Such bullshit.

(watch Wozniacki win it, obviously)

Federer did not look like he gave a fuck losing in R2 of Shanghai to... Albert Ramos-Vinos. Obviously. Last time they played, he got three games in a Bo5.

djokovic continues to barrel toward GOAT status

Pennetta was pathetic today. Venus must be so pissed sitting on the sidelines watching this group of mostly-injured-or-exhausted women.

Who all outperformed her this year though.

Radwanska should be ashamed that she couldn't beat a Sharapova who hadn't completed a match since Wimbledon and who was completely falling apart at the end.

Rosol is rosoling Rafa again

Rafa just broke himself with a terrible challenge, lol. His groundstrokes are barely holding up against Rosol's power

Halep v disappointing against Sharapova yesterday (though to be fair Sharapova's half-year off just means she's a zillion times fresher than anyone else in the field here). Feel like Halep's spent 2015 desperately clinging on to her top 3 position, and to her credit has just about managed it despite threatening to fall off more than once, but there's a definite sense of regression, that the next step is further away than before and that she might not actually be able to take it.

Watched the replay of Panetta/Radwanska; what a fun match!

Kerber/Muguruza is really good (again this year). Kerber = WTA MVP for being part of so many high-quality matches