WIMBLEDON 2019

Hah right?

RIP k3vin k.

shit did she win? I had to go to a meeting

incredible. I turned it off at 3-5 I think?

She did win, which I believe means she is now President of the WTA

Also, I am not expecting Gauff to win Wimbledon, or the US Open, or the Australian Open, or the French Open in the next 12 months, BUT if she does she will be the youngest first-time Slam winner EVER. If she wins Wimbledon next year after losing the other tournaments, she would miss Hingis by half a week.

obviously rooting for her and she capitalised on the situation amazingly but the hercog missed smash on her own mp is the worst thing i've seen

wow pliskova broken at love serving for the match vs muchova at 11-10 3rd set

plish now has to hold to force the historic first ever 12-12 tiebreak

oof muchova wins on a net cord, props to her tho

fed in full goat mode

1 hour 14 min

i like this pella fella

and he's thru raonic!

Novak: 3, 2 and 3; Rafa: 2, 2 and 2; Fed: 1, 2 and 2. Lol men's tennis. Quarters should be interesting though.

Much-Plish was outstanding, of course.

I'm reaching a bit here, hoping the hegemony is broken, but curious to note that Fed, Rafa and Novak have each lost their most recent encounters with their respective QF opponents. Goffin beat Djokovic on clay in Monte Carlo 2017, Querrey beat Nadal on hard court in Acapulco 2017, and Nishikori beat Federer in that opening round-robin match at the O2 last November. I'd be happy to relax my always-Fed stance, but only if the other two fell first. And then RBA for the title.

lol def reaching, prob its more likely that none of the 3 lose a set again

In the Nadal/Querrey QF today there was a strange, really obvious scoring screw-up that nobody commented on, not the players or the announcers. It didn't affect the outcome, but I've replayed it a couple times to be sure I wasn't missing something.

7th game, 1st set, Querrey served at 30-love. Nadal's return crosscourt went a foot or two wide, and it was loudly called wide. Then the chair umpire announced 30-15 and the scoreboard displayed 30-15. Should have been 40-love, of course. Nobody said anything. Querry went ahead and served and won two more points for the game. Anybody else see this?

I just watched that incident on iPlayer. The suggestion seems to be that the umpire overruled the out call on Nadal's return, but he said nothing other than the score. At 40-15 Nadal starts to walk to the chair (commentator: "he's forgotten he got the overrule"). At change of ends Querrey looks puzzled (Ump: "did you hear/see(?) it?" Querrey: "er, no"). Weird one.

Getting pretty tired of the relentless length and pressure of Novak; Goffin was a break up and then lost 10 in a row. Hard to see RBA hurting him on grass. Can't call the other semi at all. 10 days ago you'd say Fed but he looked a little laboured vs Kei.

After re-watching the whole game, I figured it must have been that - an unannounced overrule that left everyone confused, Nadal included. By the time anybody might have questioned it, it wouldn't have made any difference, and the game was soon over. Nadal's shot still looked clearly out to me by inches, if not by as much as I first described.

These remaining matches do give me a numbing feeling of inevitability. With all the chatter about Federer v. Nadal for the first time since blah blah, has anyone mentioned that this is the first time the Big 3 have all been in the semis at a major since the 2012 French? Looking back over the records, from 2007 to 2012 I lost count of how often that happened. More often than not.

what a hold (fed getting to 4-1 3rd set)

how many match points must get dissed

great match, great drama

fucking hell both these guys

nadal didnt serve well enough and couldnt end rallies

Tennis, bloody hell

id be happy to be wrong but i dont think fed can beat djoker on sunday

I don’t think so either. This was great but not quite the display vs Murray in the semis in 2015; that level was only good enough for a set vs Novak two days later.

Fingers crossed for a distracted, UEing Serb.

Nadal didn't play well but that was still tremendous from the old man. So much patience today on the long rallies, forcing Rafa into uncharacteristic errors.

Not sure if it will be enough against Nole, but I hope to be proven wrong too. I've really gone off Djokovic these past few weeks over his poor attitude re: Gimelstob.

I kept expecting Nadal to take charge and Federer to fold, but aside from S2, he hung in there like never before. Even in the final game, RF made some great first serves which Nadal kept returning strong, but Fed kept pouring on the pressure. I really don't think that Rafa played poorly so much as Federer stayed strong and outwilled him.

I'll be surprised if Sunday is one-sided.

yeah nadal played pretty well, if he breaks in that final game i dont think its outlandish to think he comes back to win tbh

Incredible, flawless performance from Halep today - 6-2, 6-2 over Williams in under an hour and just three unforced errors!

Never seen anyone read Serena's serve like that, and her court coverage was Djokovic-like.

mahut just got tagged in the head on an overhead ~ hope hes ok

Hard to believe that's the same Halep who six weeks ago in Paris got clobbered by Anisimova, never able to even begin getting into the match.

I don't often keep watching through all the after-ceremonies and celebration, but it was touching to see how much it meant to Halep. Apparently, she was quite honored to be in the presence of royalty! Also surprised by the BBC lady in the on court interview disparaging Halep's French Open win by comparison.

Apparently, she was quite honored to be in the presence of royalty!

Romania was a kingdom from 1881 to 1947, until the advent of communism put an end to the monarchy. Many Romanians think back fondly on this supposedly resplendent period to better cope with the horrors of the Gheorghiu-Dej/Ceaușescu era, so royalty (much like Christianity) is viewed in a positive light by a significant segment of the population. There was even talk of restoring the throne after 1989, as Michael I was still alive at the time. Thankfully, that never happened.

men's doubles final is fantastic

It is ridiculously good. Let’s have five tie-breaks.

Halep irresistible from about 2pm on Tuesday.

Rooting for the French team if only because I can remember ER-V’s dad beating Connors at the French. I am old.

the grounds pass only folks have had to wait a long time 2 get in here lol

omg mahut

colombia!

I feel sorry for Mahut

I feel like that many nutshots deserve a victory

its true, and yet

Eye socket, throat and knackers - here, have a runners-up trophy to put next to the little trinket we gave you in 2010 for losing an 11-hour match. Also, I’m still sore on his behalf for the loss at Queen’s to Andy Bloody Roddick all those years ago.

Bit of a shame MxD final gets pushed to No.1 court today. I know it was past 9pm when the Colombians won last night, hence no LD final, but how late was it two years ago? Muguruza-Venus was a longer match than Halep-Serena and Kubot/Melo won the MD 13-11 in the 5th. They squeezed the LD final in under the roof back then... admittedly it was a double-bagel blowout and didn't trouble the curfew.

yerman has followed up 3 UEs with 3 extremely good points

aaaand an UE

aaaand another one?!

literally six UEs to throw that tie-break

Final should be over, v v poor from Fed at the end there.

Actual LOL

when you say Tony Virgo you, of course, mean John Meo.

Gaaah! I knew it wasn't right when I posted it.

:D

This, from the Ringer, rings (npi) true most of all:

"This is, in essence, the whole tragedy of Djokovic. He arrived either a little too early or a little too late in the Federer-Nadal screenplay—too late to seem like an equal partner in the story, too early for the story to have ended without him—and as a result has always felt weirdly extraneous, even as he’s won 16 majors and been the best player in the world for most of the last 10 years."

Novak is more hated than Nadal?

Yes. There were as many "Vamos Rafa"s as there were "Come on Roger"s during their semi, but the final was a completely one-sided affair. Like Michael pointed out, Djokovic was much more loved by the public when he was just starting to win Slams - all those funny press conferences, the Sharapova impressions, the Djoker nickname. I guess that kind of thing just stopped being cute once he started really threatening the Roger-Rafa duopoly (The Ringer otm). Djokovic is not my fave for various reasons, but purely tennis-wise I'd prob still root for him over Rafa.

and re Federer: This is just my personal impression but I get the sense that since 2016, post-knee surgery and back problems, Fed has been treating his career basically like an extended farewell tour - happy to play on as long as he remains healthy, not putting pressure on himself, not sweating the small stuff. This has translated to breezing past the losses and not really doing anything to fix the late-stage mental lapses: like, even if he doesn't win, it's all good as long as he's still making semis and finals.

Yesterday was the first time in a very long time that I felt that he really, really wanted to win but couldn't, simply because he hadn't bothered to really look at himself and see how he's been reacting in these tight situations. And it's weird given how good he's been at analysing his own game in the past and fixing what needed to be fixed (adding the dropshot which he used to hate, coming in to the net more often, beefing up his backhand). Yesterday's loss was probably a good wake up call for him - it's no use having all the tools in his repertoire if he can't bring it during the most important moments in a match.

This, from the Ringer, rings (npi) true most of all:

"This is, in essence, the whole tragedy of Djokovic. He arrived either a little too early or a little too late in the Federer-Nadal screenplay—too late to seem like an equal partner in the story, too early for the story to have ended without him—and as a result has always felt weirdly extraneous, even as he’s won 16 majors and been the best player in the world for most of the last 10 years."
― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, July 15, 2019 8:58 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't follow tennis super duper closely but this feels correct. Honestly I think a lot of the anti-Djokovic sentiment is a function of everyone's love for Fed. Novak is a real threat now to surpass Fed's record for majors and I think the average fan doesn't want to see that happen. Kind of like a low-grade version of Bonds passing Aaron on the HR list (actually maybe a better example is Jimmie Johnson trying to overtake Earnhardt and Petty for NASCAR titles. there are probably other better examples I'm forgetting too).

Any examples that someone outside the US might understand?

well shit, I guess NASCAR isn't the global phenomenon I thought it was.

Federer singles record, since his return from injury at start of 2017 (incl Hopman and Laver Cups): 152-21 (87.9% W/L, 14 titles (18 if you include the SUI/Europe team titles)). Of those 21 defeats, 7 have been from match point up (Donskoy, Haas, Del Potro, Kokkinakis, Anderson, Thiem, Djokovic). You can probably throw another couple of squeakers in there (Djokovic, Paris Masters sf 2018, when he never lost serve; Thiem, Indian Wells f 2019, when he was coasting up a set + break). Maybe not counting the Slam exits vs Millman/Tsitsipas as they didn't go five (though Fed had a bunch of chances). OTOH, I think Fed has got out of jail maybe 12 times in this period (down mp vs Monfils, Kyrgios twice, tight matches vs Coric, Wawrinka, Berdych, that AO final vs Nadal, etc).

My suspicion is that, in the small subset of total matches which really go down to the wire, Novak is rather better than Fed's approx 12-9 recent record. Maybe not.