ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

shapo is kinda having a breakout, into the semis in paris (& then will play next gen yr end i think?)

also a formidable doubles team w 39 yr old rohan bopanna shap/bop

ah n/m i see shapo (and felix) withdrew from nextgen

tsisty wins atp finals, after winning nextgen last yr o_o

Terrific final, and despite my nascent ST fandom I started to root for Dom at the end.

Sinner was scary good last week in Milan. Don’t think he’s quite ready to do the same double but he’ll be top 10 in two years.

So... a 4:04am finish in the ITA-USA Davis Cup doubles last night and most sites seem to be leading on the fact that, despite this, both countries are eliminated? Is this actually the case? By my reckoning, if FRA and KAZ get thumped 3-0 today, and GER-CHI is a 6-0 whitewash in sets one way or the other, then the USA will rise to second spot in the runners-up table (3-3 in match wins and 7 sets won), and get a QF place. ARG will be group winners and not a factor. I must be missing something. (And this would be thanks to CAN forfeiting the "dead" doubles rubber to USA in the first match - counts as a 6-0 6-0 win for USA).

(When I went to bed last night Fritz had just pinched the second set vs Berrettini, so I thought there'd be a 1am curfew and they'd play the doubles this morning.)

dunno why the aussies played millman over kyrgios ~ pospisil is canadas secret weapon, dude has been playing well the last few months

Oh yeah - that had passed me by. Back to back Challenger titles.

lotta compelling angles to the final -- v interested to see how rba/faa goes

stylistically this match is prob on faa's racquet; id worry rba is too solid & felix will eventually hit too many errors

this fed latin american tour doc is good fyi -https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/28319373/roger-federer-everywhere-home-debuts-tuesday-espn-espn-app

watching 16 yr old carlos alcaraz, 1st atp level match in rio vs ramos-vinolas ~ alcaraz is scary talented

how bout elena rybakina this yr

finals @ shenzhen
wins hobart
loss to barty at ao
finals @ st pete
now finals in dubai

o yea also fed out after knee scope, hope to see him for grass season

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/28785010/maria-sharapova-retires-tennis-19-year-pro-career

Sharapova burst onto the tennis scene at 17 by upsetting Serena Williams to win Wimbledon in 2004. She would beat Williams again at that year's season-ending tour championship to improve to 2-1 against the American -- and never won another one of their matchups, dropping the next 19 in a row.

Even in retirement, Sharapova is stuck in Serena's shadow.

Stood in a queue for 40min at Schipol airport Friday evening (lesson learned, train *both* ways in future), watching Monfils edge closer to victory on my score app. “No one beats Gael Monfils seventeen times in row”. 6-3 in the t/b. Marvellous. And then he blew it. By the time I was on the tarmac in the pouring rain walking to the plane Novak had levelled. I guessed the rest.

Up to that point Monfils had won 25 consecutive sets. One decent serve for 26. Damn it.

So, Novak and Rafa win their respective post-AO ATP500s and nothing changes. We better see some upsets in IW and Miami.

crossposting

Glenn Greenwald had planned to produce a documentary about Martina Navratilova, with Kimberly Peirce of Boys Don't Cry renown. And then...

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/14/cancel-culture-martina-navratilova-documentary/

sabalenka/gauff is p compelling, though each now have double digit double faults

serena v venus tomorrow btw

serena, desperately trying to end the match serving at 0-5 down, saves 7 match points and holds lmao

incredible as always from Naomi Osaka, and the rest of the tour have joined her lead

pic.twitter.com/miKzgSdGxY

— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) August 27, 2020

pic.twitter.com/l7cOoEMU8z

— wta (@WTA) August 27, 2020

I enjoyed this: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2906596-you-can-be-a-role-model-at-any-age

Sofia Kenin became the first top five player and reigning Grand Slam champion to be defeated by a 'double bagel' (6–0, 6–0) scoreline since Maria Sharapova was defeated by Lindsay Davenport by such a scoreline at the 2005 Indian Wells tournament. Kenin was defeated by Victoria Azarenka in the second round

Oof, brutal. I remember Lendl double-bagelling Connors at Forest Hills in spring '84, when Jimmy was reigning US Open champion. (A few weeks later Connors got his revenge in the Wimbledon semi).

Actually, now that I look it up, I see that Lendl led Connors 6-0 1-0 in the Rotterdam final a few weeks earlier, when it was abandoned due a bomb scare. Lendl won their match prior to that, so that's a minimum of 20 straight games heading into that Wimbledon semi-final.

paire/fognini head case battle @ atp cup, 1-1 rn in broken racquets

theres 89 matches today btw

There's a LOT of tennis going on. I was surprised to see 15/25-level Futures events going on all through January, in Egypt, Turkey, France, US, etc.

So, these two "one-year license" ATP250 events (Great Ocean Road and Murray River) are happening *at the same venue* in Melbourne as each other *and* the ATP Cup? Crazy. But I guess it's no busier than it'll be next week when the actual Aussie Open starts. Wawrinka/Dimitrov top two seeds in one, Goffin/Khachanov top two in the other.

RBA-DeMinaur looked like the best of the ATP Cup Day 1 matches. Nadal sat it out. Hoping Shapo would upset Novak, but he came closer last year. RUS and ITA already in the semis. GRC-AUS has gone to the doubles.

Wait, there's three WTA events too?! Gippsland Trophy, Yarra Valley and Grampians.

shapo/djoko have now played 4 times in like 15 months, i feel like i've seen all or most of those matches; theyre good competitive matches & shapo often feels on the brink of taking games/sets etc but novak really hones in against him and its not a good matchup for denis he cant sustain a hi enough 1st serve % and eventually hits badly timed errors, etc

fed pulls out of dubai after losing to basilashvili -- matches on back to back days was always gonna be a hurdle, is he just gonna get ready for grass season now?

meanwhile, muguruza into the dubai finals, she has been great lately -- her "offseason" regime of training w the spanish civil guard has seemingly really paid off

kinda crazy the recent dubai mens champs & this yr aslan karatsev O_o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Tennis_Championships#Men's_singles

how bout this monte carlo rafa/rublev match -- rublev 6-2 first set (rafa played badly for his level), 2nd set rublev gets up an early break but gives it back @ 4-3 (on an awkward slam at net that rafa guessed right and hit an open court winner on & then rafa proceeded to hold and break for the set)

hard to believe rublev can come back 3rd set after such a momentum swing.....then he breaks every rafa service game in the 3rd set and wins 6-2 holy hell

rublev played stellar defense this match & just committed to out rally rafa on clay (insane)

Only saw bits of the first set; Rafa’s serve was awful though he was still playing staggering defence at times. V surprised at the result after the 2nd set recovery. I’ve been enjoying Evans this week. “Can’t play on clay” and “not competitive at Masters level” both swept away in a few days. I expect it ends today but 360pts is not a bad week’s work. Beats winning that Les Patterson Memorial Classic or whatever it was in Feb.

(I should have said Dame Edna. Sir Les is a Sydneysider)

tsitsy is on a nice run, hasnt dropped a set yet on clay, into the semis in barcelona vs sinner

There should surely be some kind of rule about competing in venues that bear your name. But at least it's entertaining if said player loses there...

So, nice to see Novak losing at the Novak Tennis Center at his family's Belgrade ATP event (returning to the calendar after 8 years)... Karatsev saved 23 of 28 BPs. Highlights reel I just watched focused on Djoko's ridiculous shotmaking to pinch the second set from 2-4, sadly little of the Karatsev's heroics in the decider!

I guess tomorrow we'll see if the Legends can be taken down a further peg, with a defeat for Rafa on Pista Rafa Nadal.

lotta respect for steph but rafa will win imo

tsitsy getting from 2-4 down to 6-4 up in the 2nd set tiebreak was wildly impressive

great match, great momentum swings.. each player w championship pts

nadal was below his peak, costly doubles, uncharacteristic errors but in toto not a staggering amt; stef was just solid throughout, cant say enough for his play really

match time: 3:40

That horrible forehand error at 5-5 15/0 seemed to be the moment it swung away, but even then, it was no capitulation - chances to hold, and to break back. 3hr 40!

My Amazon stream had no commentary. It was really quite nice like that.

In Belgrade, Berrettini lost only six points in the deciding set vs Daniel last night, and whitewashed Karatsev in the 3rd-set breaker today. Strong finisher.

A flurry of grass court action, even overlapping with Roland Garros this year, thanks to the re-schedule.

Jo Konta wins her first WTA title in four years in Nottingham... also in Nottingham, a pair of strong-draw ATP Challenger events: Evans top seed in week 1, loses qf, Tiafoe takes title; Gasquet top seed in week 2, ongoing... Cilic wins Stuttgart, as FAA maintains his 0% record in ATP finals (now 0-8, and 0-16 in sets!)...

And now we're on to 500-level events at Queen's Club (Murray takes out a barely-arsed Paire, will face top seed Berrettini tomorrow; Jack Draper beats Sinner in straight sets from 0-4 down), Halle (Federer through, will face birthday-twin FAA! Medvedev out), Berlin (Sabalenka, Svitolina, Andreescu top three, Osaka absent).

Of course, "grass court season" isn't an exclusive thing, and there are four ATP Challengers on clay this week - Almaty, Aix-en-Provence, Prostejov, Forli, albeit with lesser draws than Nottingham - plus some Davis/Federation(BJK) Cup. And who's that familiar name turning out for Georgia vs Iceland in Davis Cup? Ah, it's the GRANDSON of the 1973 Wimbledon finalist Alex Metreveli. Not even a kid, 27yo, ranked in the 600s.

(Ok, I'm not quite that old. I don't remember watching Kodes win it in '73... I feel like I saw the Taylor-Borg QF but that's only cos they used to show it so often during rain delays).

FAA beats 19y-his-senior Fed. For a three-setter, not particularly close - Fed only had one bp (and took it), FAA had 15 (took three).

yea wow was gonna say losing in 3 to felix is not a bad loss per se, but that break pt differential don't look good

rafa is not playing wimbledon & olympics

tiafoe/brooksby in dc has had some incred rallies

now rafa/sock has also been v compelling, great fight by both…

nadal looked to somewhat reaggravate his foot injury but props to him for gutting out this match, sock is back in p decent form actually