ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

that's really sweet of your wife. congrats on the anniversary! :)

schedules for sunday and monday are out and yeah looks like group B will be playing wednesday, but if you're lucky you might get djoko-sod, kolya-nadal, or djoko-nadal rather than sod-kolya.

Click play.

The Bryan Brothers Band feat Novak Djokovic & Andy Murray - Autograph

I... have no words.

(can we start a tennis lols thread?)

I was right about the Bryans and half-right about the singles - it's Nadal-Kolya, which suits me fine.

Nadal/Kolya should be amazing, lucky you Mike. Predicting a Kolya win. I haven't had the time to even pay attention to this tournament let alone watch it yet, was going to get a ticket for today but am sooooo snowed under :(

I don't have the strength for Andy Murray rapping just now :/

haven't missed much lex - despite all the three set matches, it hasn't really been that fun except for Kolya-Nole yesterday and the last set of Delpo-Verdasco today. It must suck to be a Verdasco fan though. The guy can play fabulous tennis but when it comes to closing out tight matches, he always goes away in the last two minutes or so. it's so depressing.

you can save Muzz rap for after his match with Fed (trying to decide whose loss would be funnier - Fed's been trash-talking Murray in interviews lately, but Murray losing to Fed in London would be just... lol.)

Murray currently alternating between dominating and double-faulting. Federer again with the weird errors. When they work up a good rally it is absolutely beautiful.

Roger's forehand is all over the place. First set stats - 1 winner, 12 unforced errors. ;_;

lol never mind one set later, it's 19 winners to 11 UFEs.

Amazing rallies in this match btw.

Federer really starting to motor, up 3-1 in the 5th and...the BBC3 feed drops out. I mean, c'mon...it's not exactly being broadcast from the other side of the world.

Wow, this is pretty poor.

Oh hello.

How insanely jealous am I that Michael is witnessing this amazing match live right now? Holy shit Kolya and Rafa...

Great win for Kolya, expected him to win anyway. Those were some ridiculous rallies at the end of the set there.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46805000/jpg/_46805408_nadal_new_credit.jpg

That was truly a great experience - what a venue. I was on the second row of the highest tier and had a fantastic view. The scale of the Dome is absurd - outside the arena but within the complex there's a cinema, restaurants, bars - and a funfair with a bloody rollercoaster.

Bryan/Bryan vs. Paes/Dlouhy - the twins just do everything right, don't they? Like robots in baseball caps. Dlouhy was all over the shop - sublime touch and then flubbed putaways, great pickups and dismal mistimes off 80mph second serves. 6-3 6-4 to the Yanks.

Nadal was getting crushed for the first half-hour - I don't think he won a single point off his second serve until well into the second set. The manner of his comeback though - saving five break-points at the beginning of the 2nd, eventually dropping serve, then roaring back to lead 5-4 - really got everyone involved. I doubt they've had a better atmos at the O2 this week. And the tie-breaker was sublime. Shame we didn't see a 3rd set but we may well have been into night bus territory by that point.

I didn't risk taking the DSLR (it would probably have been confiscated), so borrowed a friend's zoomy compact:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2669/4134362149_08d41f82bd.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2497/4135113532_66c56ab95a.jpg

Awesome.

Verdasco missed an easy volley a couple of games back and proceeded to hang himself over the net, then he got two or three net-courts in the tie break that he went on to win. Shouldn't the net have been measured/tensioned/whatever-it-is-they-do after he draped himself over it? Would a man putting his entire weight on the net be enough to loosen it up enough to turn faults into lets?

yeah they usually do correct the net - I thought it was weird they didn't.

BTW this match is fucking hilarity. Not sure how Murray managed to win the first set serving at 47% but he did. And then the same thing happened with Verdasco in the second and yet he still somehow managed to save like 10 break pts, and then Muzz goes ahead and DFs on set pt in the TB to bring the match to one set all.

It's like neither can decide who wants to play worse at the moment.

Ugh Verdasco is such a beautiful failure. Just once I'd like to see him gut out a deciding set TB.

Only a three-set win for Del Potro would leave the Scot's place in doubt, at which point it would come down to the percentage of games won by Murray, Federer and Del Potro.

So Federer and Del Potro can now work out the perfect scoreline between them to put Murray out? Nice :)

Get the calculators out, chaps - Fed has levelled.

Murray: 44-43
Del Potro (currently): 39-40
Federer: 41-34

Federer is definitely through, even losing this set 0-6. Murray goes through with a Federer victory or any tight Delpy win (6-4, 7-5, 7-6). Delpy wins this set 6-3 or better and Murray is out.

Fed had three break-points there to send Murray through. I think Andy M will trash his Holiday Inn suite if Fed drops serve here.

0-40. The mini-bar is shakin'...

Delpy serving for it, 30-0.

So Federer and Del Potro can now work out the perfect scoreline between them to put Murray out? Nice :)

― nearly 50 in vagina years (onimo), Thursday, 26 November 2009 19:34 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see Germany vs Austria FIFA WC 1982

You reckon? Del Potro put a 112mph 2nd serve on the back-edge of the line to save break-point at 3-4. Sorry, no way.

This tournament lives up to its acronym. Couldn't tell you how I much I was laughing when Fed double faulted to set up the BPs in that last game.

how much*

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46810000/jpg/_46810815_jamie_murray_getty466i.jpg

Murray's brother Jamie was an interested spectator at the O2 Arena

evidently.

I really have nothing to add, except 'lol'.

from the ATP twitter: Federer's games won/lost were 44-40, with Del Potro 45-43 and Murray 44-43. What a nailbiter!

Dayum. Conspiracy theorists can say whatever but with the numbers this close, I really doubt that they would've managed to work it out beforehand. It all came down to Fed winning that second set in the end.

JMDP was really, really lucky there. Or Murray was really, really unlucky.

can't believe i'm only watching this for the first time - year-end champs in my own damn home town and probably the tournament i've followed least closely in the whole year. this week has been mental. didn't even know who'd qualified for the SF until today. pissed off that i seem to have missed a ton of great tennis, and insanely jealous of mike getting to go!

anyway, roger's in full on fed-error mode here. go king kolya!

Roger's been doing that in the first set in every match so far, before recovering beautifully in the second. He's doing it again now. :/

oh damn it Kolya.

This is great stuff now!

whoo. kolya played so well to come back from 0-30 when serving at *4-5 in the third, after some outrageous genius from fed...

KOLYA BREAKS!

come on Kolya don't fuck this up now!

30-0 to 30-40... :/

FOREHAND! deuce!

WOOO!

:D

first win over fed for kolya, i believe.

Kolya's H2H vs Federer now: 1-12. :D

Magnificent last set. Fed looks devastated.

I wonder if Kolya will quote Vitas G in his post-match interview? "NO ONE beats Nikolay Davydenko thirteen times in a row!"

only got to watch the final set but pony boy was fabulous there coming back from a break down and going on to play a superb TB.

More bad news for Murray, if Delpo goes on to win the title, he'll take over Muzz's spot at no. 4.

Mauresmo retired

I wish you well, you awesome burly headcase

:( I loved her, even though it was goddamn painful to watch her most of the time.

Enjoy that cellar full of red wine Momo!

memories of mauresmo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQP6mNYkKAQ

so, justine's back! and drew petrova in her first match back - nadezhda obviously wasn't going to let her 94843948th chance to prove her uselessness pass, and accordingly fell in straight sets.

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

i love this pic of nadia drawing justine's name during the draw ceremony. "Oh fuck me."

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4931/nadsdrawbrisbane.jpg

didn't she draw sharapova on her first match back as well? fact: tennis gods hate nadia petrova. to her credit though, her match against justine wasn't bad at all, she just choked at the end as she always does. about 300% better quality than the ivanovic-dokic match before anyway.

twitter is basically making me love all of the players I hate. :/ I should stop reading them.

watching justine play for the first time in 2 years!! god i've missed that backhand. she's just taken the first set over sesil karatantcheva, stream at http://www.freedocast.com/forms/PopOut.aspx?sc=5320427231E3213D109B