ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

Khach/Nadal had that great us open match last yr too ~ I see rafa and fed both advancing though for the dream semi

svitolina just beating vondorousova was amazing

oof monfils now w/draws due to injury - top semis is milos/thiem

get sampras out there to hit w someone to entertain the crowd

fucking hell, bianca andreescu....outgrits svitolina which is really saying something

outstanding win by thiem

I had to shut down the stream at midnight and get some sleep - at that point Fed was 6-3 1-2, and Thiem kept kicking his serve to the BH with no great effect. Fully expected to wake to a straight sets win though.

Wish Amazon was showing the WTA portion of these combined events. Have seen none of Andreescu’s amazing run.

I didn't see much of Andreescu but what I did see made her one of my favorite players on the tour right now

she came back and won tday miami rd one, was down a set and 1-5

felix now into the 4th rd @ miami, into the top-50 rankings

andreescu still hasnt lost in a whiile, beat kerber again

krygios hit an underhand ace, no look volley winner, & is jawing w a fan non-stop all w/in the last 5 minutes

I don't know why Kerber being such an incredibly poor sport about Andreescu is so funny to me but it really is

Delbonis was emphatically hitting through Novak for about 25min last night before he started to miss, and that was the end of that. Novak does not look happy though. But he didn't at Wimbledon, where this whole sweep back to #1 started. Continuing in the vein of turning off the Amazon stream around midnight GMT just before a match takes an unexpected turn, couldn't quite believe Ferrer came back against Sascha.

Now to find a Nick K highlight reel. And Andreescu on YT.

Nick K tells a spectator "F U", incurs a penalty point for a double-break in the 3rd and spends his last change of ends sarcastically applauding the ump for failing to control the crowd.

Bautista Agut loses first seven of first eight games vs Novak but outlasts him over three sets. Really good stuff towards the end. Both players looked utterly spent. Not sure what 25C + 77% humidity feels like, something like the Central Line in summer I'm guessing.

yea rba is a tough dude & having a nice start to 2019

id've prob thought it more likely of novak winning both of indian wells+miami as opposed to neither but these things happen

Back to fragility of the early months of his 2018 return - only takes a minor setback to have ND looking at his box, chuntering away, pushing the shot clock. You knew he was in trouble last night as soon as RBA got a toe-hold in the 2nd set. Can't serve out sets, take BPs. No doubt he'll sort it out, and the Slam format is so much more forgiving of these mid-match distractions. Last year's Wimb QF vs Kei was maybe a three-set defeat in another venue.

Seeing shots of Thomas Carbonell in RBA’s box... the one thing I know about TC (from World of Tennis annuals of the 1980s) - he was born on exactly the same day as me. I think Thomas has seen a little more sun over the years than me :/

Shapovalov-Tiafoe very entertaining. Federer playing at very high level vs Anderson. Two thirtysomethings and two teenagers left.

yiiikes, felix has chances to serve out each of set 1 and set 2 vs isner and gets broken, notably w 3 double faults the first time

Isner this week:
7-6 7-6 7-5 7-6 7-6 7-6 7-6 7-6 7-6 7-6

Jfc.

And the climax vs Edmund was a farce. Not my favourite player.

Fed with way too much variety for Shapo, even on a bad serving day. ATP website did point out how way down the rankings RF is in BP conversion though (which killed him in his last three Slam exits / vs Thiem last week) and today was also only 3/11. I fear a 6-7 6-7 vs Bloody Isner. "Penalty shootout and I'm the goalie," said RF about the final.

With a win Fed would top the Race to London.

i think fed can handle isner, frankly faa shouldve handled isner tday

fed is obv complementary to everyone but i liked him saying nice things abt isner, i actually also dont dislike watching his matches

tough finish w isner hobbling, 3 service breaks in the 1st set tell the story tho, fed played really well this tourney

Seems like everyone struggled a little with the new venue - the shadows on the stadium court, the gritty, low-bouncing surface, the ball-fluffing humidity, the crowd. Fed just maximised every opponent's discomfort. He's downplaying the clay return (has he entered more than Madrid?) - "I can't even remember how to slide." Yeah ok.

very satisfying to see fed take the first set 6-1. too bad isner got hobbled in the second, but i can't help but feel federer would've found a way to pull it out anyway. i can barely stand to watch a match of isner's. all that lumbering around. it's bullshit. my distaste for him is legendary around my living room. ask the cats.

Novak-Kohlscr just had eight consecutive breaks of serve. And Novak saved 3BPs in the next game.

Novak now up a break in the decider but that, as we have established, means nothing. (Every game held to love from this point, I'm guessing).

novak drop shotting the hell out of meds (to varying effect) ~ looks destined to go 3

jeez pella has broken rafa 1st 3 service games, up 4-1

Tuned into Amazon Prime in time to see Pella fall apart.

fognini/lojovic final!

Rafael Nadal calls loss to Fognini ‘one of my worst matches on clay in 14 years’

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/apr/20/rafael-nadal-thrashed-fabio-fognini-monte-carlo-masters-semi-final-tennis

I saw only the very end of this - in fact, I got home at 6-4 5-0 30/0 and Fabio was so tight for 10min that I thought I was going to see another Rafa comeback. Extraordinary that FF saved five break points to avoid going down 4-6 1-5 vs Rublev in r1. He was getting pasted by Coric for 45min yesterday too.

A clay Masters final without the top two. Let's have a couple more.

Fognini is hilarious to watch. Even when he’s dialed in and playing amazingly, like today, he gives off this aura that makes me think he would really just rather be at the bar.

farewell ferrer

michael jones, u would like this book prob

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ANDYgwDRL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

good match in estoril, tsitsy grinds thru the local joao domingues who played p well

Is anyone else low-key enjoying the Zverev implosion?

Bought that Circuit book on Kindle; a fair enough run-through of a year I suppose, but I felt the writing jarred at many points. I sensed a discrepancy between ambition and performance. Now, in some blurbs after the end of the actual book, it turns out the guy is apparently a published poet in his (I presume?) native English, which made me question my own (non-native-English) judgment a bit, but... nah, unless you are some hitherto unknown contortionist, I do not believe you can lie prone on your back, even if your leg is hurt badly. And if you can, I do not believe a professional tennis player soon does it after you, right there on court. It would have made some news.

(That was just one jarring example; I flinched or goggled at a few other vocabulary choices as well, but maybe they could be taken as poetic licence or something, I dunno)

interesting idk i read it & enjoyed.. did not notice that specifically, i felt he did try to add sorta unnecessarily florid language @ times but it usu did not bother me

Yeah, the florid language thing probably added to my feeling that attempted style clashed a bit with ability.

And I didn't mean to be too harsh either -- I agree that it is a fine enough first essay into a niche which could have some real potential; there are plenty of sports books on single seasons seen either as a whole or from a particular team's viewpoint in e.g. soccer or baseball, and I see no reason there couldn't be a tennis literature of this sort as well. There were several things I enjoyed and found insightful, such as his stuff on Goffin and the particular unglamourous insiderness of the post-US-Open indoor swing.

(But you simply cannot lie prone on your back. The word the author was looking for is supine. :-P )

juicy madrid quarters:

novak/cilic
fed/thiem
tsitsy/sascha
stan/rafa

have some dignity stan

no shame when its vs rafa

It seems like Fed loses a lot of matches from MP up in the twilight of his career. Pretty good battle though and Thiem is a master of clubbing his way out of trouble. Hopefully he can win this.

yea thiem is confident in his serve & groundstokes at all times basically, i dont fault fed too much for squandering those match pts

And... Thiem just comes up short vs Novak. Up a break in both sets, ultimately a DF in the second set t/b did for him. Oh well, go win the French.

Genuinely great performance from Tsitsipas. The slices! He’s my guy for the next decade I reckon.

quite a day in rome

Yep. Wednesday washed out = Thursday So. Much. Tennis. Amusingly, the first six WTA matches of the day all went the distance too, pushing the schedule ever later. Not sure of the circs surrounding Serena's withdrawal - meant that Venus was the only person to progress yesterday (after 3hr+ vs Mertens on Tuesday). And now she gets to rest ahead of Konta match in mid-afternoon L16, who just played 2hr30 vs Stephens this morning.

Nadal seems to be peaking at the right time? Even in defeat, performance vs Tsitispas (Madrid) > vs Thiem (Barce) >>> vs Fognini (MC), and he's just allowed Chardy a single game here.

And... Nick K chucks a chair and gets DQ'd. He *started* his first round match with an underarm serve.