ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Care Bear reels off five games in a row for the title following the Jay-Z/Kanye intervention and Wozniacki's sour face as she approaches the net is a glorious sight to behold :D

Haha that's great

it was even sweeter because prior to Jay and Kanye, Wozniacki had won four games in a row herself following a HIGHLY DUBIOUS medical time-out that broke Kerber's momentum

omg lollllllllllllllllllllllllll at woz losing the woz invitational :)

Kerber will be up to 14 this week. Not bad for a fluke Slam SFist! And the people ahead of her are injured Petko, probably injured Lisicki defending SF at Wimbledon, Li and Fran defending W and F at RG, and Zvonareva, who is Zvonareva, only more so than usual this year. She'll be at least #9 by June.

I have no idea what to say about this other than that until I saw the finished product, I was sure they were kidding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_dbcPMsK_Q&feature=player_embedded

lol at some angles, the dude looks like conan o brien

sometimes i feel sorry for her, i'm not sure she realises how much of a joke she is.

I half expected the German Shepherd to put its paws over its eyes at the end.

In further Wozniacki joke news, did anyone else see the utter beating Kerber just laid on her. That was just...an impeccable match from start to end. Kerber absolutely brilliant in offense and defense and in knowing which to play when. Just an absolute joy to watch. The 1 and 2 scoreline flatters Wozniacki if anything.

Wozniacki was obviously powerless to do a single thing and becomes more irrelevant by the day :D

Some of Kerber's FHs were just <3 <3 Putting the ball where the fuck she wanted to.

That amazing defensive point early in the second set where she got back about 4 impossible shots, lobbed Wozniacki and then THUMPED the weak reply for a FH DTL winner <3 <3

ugh i am still on easter holiday and constantly bored yet still manage to forget this tournament's happening

lol @ woz altho at this point it's just like... yeah w/e just go away 4ever you're not even funny to watch any more

The rest of the WTA needs to watch Mona Barthel nearly beat Azarenka - twice in one year now. She's not really significantly less beatable than Wozniacki. Maul her in the final, Petra!

Lol Murray lost to Raonic on clay.

why is murray still playing tennis i'm so over him

isn't the operative word there "nearly"? Barthel played out of her mind but Azarenka was always...there. Always getting balls back in court, grinding and always right there scoreline-wise. And of course Barthel with her poor footwork and hit-or-miss second serve cracked first.

Cibulkova proved in Miami what we already knew, that Vika's game in and of itself is not a transcendently dominant one. But it's far sturdier than Wozniacki's and unlike Caroline, Vika just doesn't crack these days. It's tremendously aggravating.

Hopefully Kvitova saves us and lays b2b beatdowns on Ma$ha and Vika!

I'm not surprised Raonic is doing well on clay, he has groundstrokes that are actually up to rallying unlike most freakish big servers...

True, dat, but I've heard people say that Murray is one of the very best at dealing with big servers, so...

I'm thinking if Maria barely beats her bitch Stosur then Petra should be safe if she doesn't go slightly nuts mid-match. I mean, it's clay, it's indoors, Masha is nothing special on clay except and Petra doesn't lose indoors, right? Right?

Radwanska hit plenty of winners against Li (for her) so maybe she'll bother to hit some against Azarenka.

Barthel hit 62 winners v Azarenka, btw. Sadly, 16 doubles.

Clay is Sharapova's best surface though. But Kvitova should still win easily, especially after Maria's 3 hour match last night. I hope Petra wins so she can lay yet another brutal beatdown on Vika :D

Kiki Bertens has just become the FOURTH tournament winner ranked outside the top 100 of the year in Fes (joining Arruabarrena Vecino, Babos and Hsieh). Surely a record, and it's only April.

Totally into these events having random young titlists instead of your usual AMGs, Benesovas and Unforced Erranis though.

LOL.

Chris Bradnam: "Who would you pick to serve out a match or set for you? Serena, obviously."
Jo Durie [brightly, high-pitched]: "Well! That's interesting!" [conspicuously fails to name anyone else]

Cue Sharapova DF.

Jo Durie: "...Djokovic?"

can kvitova learn to hit a ball in court
this match is soooo boring

literally LOL @ that kvitova miss on set point up. now 5-5

seriously. 8 break pts and not one converted.

-_-

Such an aggravating match

Oh joy @ another sharapova/azarenka final

This Sharapova/Azarenka match... is good??!?!? What weird bizarro dimension am I in where I am enjoying this?

I mean, that looked like 2004 Sharapova, which honestly I am totally in favor of

Two days later and just thinking about all of those break points in the Kvitova/Sharapova SF still enrages me. How can you have a break point in EVERY GAME in a set, one of which was also a set point, and only manage to actually break when she's serving for the match.

LOL maria!! yes girl

until about two mins ago I thought it was madrid this week. wtfffffff who cares about budapest or w/e

so tommy haas has beaten tsonga huh

LOVE the blue clay in Madrid! Crystal clear visibility of the ball and it's wonderfully aqueous too, something very sea-like and relaxing about it. Such a huge change to the frustrating weekend streams where you couldn't see the ball at all.

didn't watch the match, but Petra did not like that blue clay huh? :/

I don't like it much either actually. Yes, love that you can see the ball better now but with the TV distance, it just looks like any random outdoor hard court. Doesn't help that the clay in Madrid has always been dryer and thinner due to the altitude.

Biased though. I love fiery red clay - it made tennis look so warm and spirited when I was living in Melbourne and watching clay tourneys in the winter months.

lack of proper tv coverage is really annoying. not that i want to watch azarenka vs. ivanovic but still...

I'm so sick of this Petra Shitova alter ego. This year has been terrible for the players I like ;_;

Madrid is just...a gigantic fail of a tournament all round though. The blue clay is probably the only good thing about it. I wouldn't like RG to change colour but I prize being able to see the ball over other considerations...

I really don't know why the WTA scrapped or screwed over so many tournaments that were well liked by players and fans to replace them with the empty stands and unmotivated play we see in Dubai, Madrid and Beijing. Well I do, £££££££, but ugh @ tennis leadership yet again

Li's year is not too bad really, and will be on a sharp uptick if she manages to beat Azarenka next round. Please, please, please.

wrt TV coverage, did anyone see Federer/Raonic and was it any good?

Raonic will undoubtedly be a major force in the game if he stays healthy so with that in mind I refuse to actually watch him play until it's abolutely necessary

oh whoa I've just seen the score. though actually it's not really surprising at all given his game.

w/r/t Li, she may not be crashing and burning like stupid Kvitova but she hasn't won a title this year and also is responsible for one of the most annoying losses in a year that has been very generous with them

http://www.wtatennis.com/player/vesna-dolonc_2257889_12874

Vesna DOLONC (SRB). OK then. Third name change in 14 months.

YEEEEEEEES SERENA

if she'd lost that, it would've been pretty major

serena/sharapova QF :D :D :D

just tuned in in time to see Verdasco double-fault three points in a row. -facepalm-

I don't think I've EVER seen Rafa play as awfully as he did in the final stages of that match. Literally couldn't put a ball into court. The penultimate FH that bounced before the net on his side. It genuinely looked like some sort of protest against the surface.

Rewarded with shirtless Nando though!

ya that was unexpected. stopped watching after Nadal went up two breaks in the third, then I looked up the scores five minutes ago to find that FeVer had somehow crawled his way back and won! still amazing though - don't think anyone apart from Djokovic has done something like that successfully against Rafa on clay before.

Oh Na Na, why you no break loud shrieking bitch when she seemed so determined to serve DFs?

Serena eviscerating Maria will never get old.

I swear even if she suddenly had to play Maria in the depths of some Eastern European autumn tournament on the eve of a Kardashian wedding she'd still bring her A game to this match-up.

It could've been even easier had she not attempted that lazy and kinda arrogant "dropshot" that was worthy of Dementieva on her point to go up 3-0 in the second set but even though that allowed Maria to claw her way back for two (2) games, those three Maria DFs at 2-2 were hilariously inevitable.

HEHEHE

disappointed with the lack of bagels YET AGAIN though, Serena. :@

Don't ask me why, but I'm putting myself through the second, presumably final set of Azarenka/Radwanska. A-Rad drops her serve at 2-2 despite having a game point (lolol let's get on the back foot, hit with no depth and then make errors when pressed even slightly). Then, Azarenka gets smashed, broken to love:

00: BH return winner from Radwanska
15: Laughable drop-shot attempt from Azarenka.
30: Great FH return that Azarenka gets barely a racquet on
40: DF from Azarenka

So now my hopes are up and I envisage them being ruined again.

My hopes are now firmly pinned on Serena utterly molesting her in the final.

serena doesn't lose tournaments she beats sharapova in. ever.
and serena doesn't lose to azarenka. ever.

so i am not nervous.