ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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.

prob was too much overlap but it wouldve been amazing to see in person in one day each or fed rafa and novak play twice

kyrgios wow, that podcast was p hilarious that all he truly wants to do in life is get iced coffees shoot hoops and hang out ~ ok bro

nadal wins two matches and drops two total games o_O

Horrific shank wide from Delpo on double MP vs Djoko, after he'd been nailing FHs all night. I don't think I can bear to watch the 3rd set.

excellent match, both have missed tons of massive opportunities

love how now both are playing to the crowd~

Obv I continued to keep an eye on it. Absurd drop half-volley from Delpo to save BP, but ultimately to no avail.

Nice to see Dustin Brown having success on the grass in Stuttgart - plays Zverev next!

DB's win over Millman today was his first at ATP Tour main-draw level since 2017 US Open; he's been plugging away on the Challenger tour. He even won a title on clay at Sophia Antipolis in France in April to get himself back in the top 200. He got 9000 euro for that. Less than a fifth of what he'll get if he get into the main draw at Wimbledon.

And Dustin wins! 6-4 6-7 6-3. With the help of... FOURTEEN double faults from Zverev.

I really shouldn't be enjoying Zverev's slow implosion this much

I bet he wins Wimbledon now. Weird thing is, his first-serve percentage was pretty good: 69%. He only had to hit 32 second serves in the match. He missed the box with almost half of them.

dreddy vs faa is a wildly entertaining matchup, 3rd set rn

felix comes back from a break down in the 3rd to take it in a tiebreak; similarly coric did the same thing in den bosch earlier tday

Heading to Wimbledon for the first time this year, first two days, hoping for ground passes. Would we be likely to get those arriving at, say, 6 in the morning?

haven't been for ten years but back then yeah you'd be fine don't think it has changed too much in the meantime but could be wrong

Was thinking of taking a day off next week for Roehampton qualies (used to be you could just rock up and walk in - now it's £10 tickets online + photo ID at the gate) but the forecast is not great. If I could be *sure* the weather was terrible Tue-Thu, I'd go the Friday and there'd be a glut of matches left (I did this in 2016). But... the event is supposed to be over by Thu, and so there are no tickets for Fri. Meh.

xp thanks, hopefully

feli is having a week @ queens club, upstaging andy

today:
4:07pm: starts singles SF

6:23pm: wins singles SF

6:44pm: resumes doubles QF

6:57pm: wins doubles QF

7:08pm: starts doubles SF

8:51pm: wins doubles SF

Simon was terrific earlier - Medvedev couldn't break him down. Painted the line on 49th stroke of rally to save bp early in 3rd, and went on from there.

Maybe I'd never noticed before, but FAA has same b'day as Fed. 19 years younger. FAA, RF, Laver and Sampras all have their birthdays within four days of each other August. I'm one day outside of that group, hence my lousy overheads.