ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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

lloyd harris takes out rafa; wonder if nadal will go play canada

Watching overnight highlights on Amazon Prime without knowing the scores - Harris-Rafa didn't look it was going to go that way! And Brooksby taking out FAA in straights... seems to have a decent amount of variety, is having a great week, but we've seen WC-aided Americans fail to break through before...

commentators have said it enough that im convinced brooksby is the next coming of murray m/l
if he can serve a little bigger he is scary, i really like watching him

brooksby routined & dominated millman

If he’s the new Murray that completes the quartet, seeing as we already have Sinner, Musetti and Alcarez :)

It had passed me by that Brooksby won back to back Challengers in Florida in the spring, and reached the final in Newport. He’s piling up the wins.

i like that next-next gen analogy. we'll see how brooksby/sinner rd 1 goes

RIP Brooksby

Jenson Brooksby is the sort of player I love to watch…lots of variety..high tennis IQ….great in defence..🔥
His slice and backhand volley are almost identical to Florián Mayer.#tennis @atptour

— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) August 6, 2021

really happy to see that petko got her first title since 2015.

1st set still going in dc, mackie has saved ten (10) set points

cant save the 11th

happy 40th to fed btw, hope he can play the us open but its not looking good

this jannik/mackie match.......

Nice to see Double-Mc winning matches again. Don't think he's registered with me since this same event three years ago, when he lost over three hours to a labouring Murray. McMc seems to have missed half of the 2019 season with injury, so a long road back.

So: a SE for him into Toronto (va Paire, who seems to have started to give a damn again), a WC for Brooksby (and Kyrgios)... no such treatment for Tiafoe: doesn't make it out of qualifying.

Oh yeah, bonne anniversaire to FAA too, only 21.

Always a glut of men's elite birthdays around this time (Sampras, Laver; Sinner turns 20 next week)... or maybe I only notice the birthdays around my own. (North Cheshire tennis club, round of 16, May '86).

Also: "always"..."around this time". This is how birthdays and calendars tend to work, of course. Double fault.

tiafoe back in as a lucky loser for korda

rafa now w/draws from toronto & cincy

opelka through tsitsy in toronto o_o

servebot showdown averted, medvedev easily past isner 2 & 2

Both servebots hitting 75%+ first serves too, but Daniil apparently no trouble picking it out - limited Isner to four aces. Bodes well for the final.

Sadly no prospect of a Medvedev North American ATP1000 double displacing Novak as #1 because, as far as I can tell, Medvedev is also effectively defending champ in Cincy. I've rather lost track of when and how many points drop these days, but I assume DM's 1000 from Cincy '19 drop on 23/8, to be replaced by either 500 (-> Aug '22) or a better result from this year's event (or is the 50% rule over now?). Novak's 1000 from "Cincy" '20 have no lifespan beyond next week?

DM has more to defend at Flushing Meadow, of course, however you slice it.

Slice it?

Oh, and he has!

“Spin it” may also have worked. Lob, not so much.

wonderfully frosty handshake from sabalenka to pliskova after pliskova beat her in the semis yesterday.

ugh https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/tsitsipas-refuses-take-vaccine-unless-it-becomes-mandatory-tour-2021-08-16/

still haven't heard anyone in the tennis media give a compelling reason as to why naomi osaka should be attending pressers. nothing is gained from it from a fans perspective imo and clear harm being done to the player because of the process not necessarily the questions.

missed this from last week. coco vandewegue refusing to warm up before the third set (after a weather delay) then when being told it was compulsary just barely moving and soft lobbing the ball back to her unimpressed opponent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMZ-BA96dU

Liking the look of the Winston-Salem semis - Ivashka-Ruusuvuori, Alcaraz-Ymer. The 18yo Alcaraz being the only seed left!

So it's Ivashka-Ymer.

That Ivashka has the chance to be the first Belarusian to win an ATP singles tournament since Max Mirnyi beat Federer on the way to the Rotterdam title 18 years ago is one thing, but Ymer is the *first Swedish finalist* on the main tour since Soderling at Båstad ten years ago. Having grown up with the post-Borg generation, that's nuts.

(Not sure I realised that Soderling was pretty much at his peak - in the top five - when he got ill in summer 2011, and that Båstad title was his last event, at 26).

And now I wish I'd written Söderling in that post :)

this metz match btwn basilashvili & davidovich fokina is amazing

Glad for heads-up there - caught the last couple of games on Prime. DF's hair is a bit of a disaster though.

It's Laver Cup time again. I know, pointless, contrived exhibition, but I do quite like it. Or maybe it's just Roger and Rafa cracking each other up that I like, and there's none of that this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuO-X_eV8mQ

it does feel rather pointless w/o fed and rafa; nonetheless, i am attending the day session tomorrow, hope to see some fun matches

Oh cool - enjoy!

From the conversations I’ve had, the players’ public silence isn’t because they don’t know or don’t care, but because no one is asking them on record.

They know about it, and they have strong opinions about it. But they’re very unlikely to speak out unprompted.#askthequestions

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) September 25, 2021

McEnroe: “Fuck this guy.”

Isner: “He said that? Fuck him…”

Schwartzman: “What did he say?”

McEnroe: “He said that’s the last point we’re gonna win.”

Opelka: “He also said he’s innocent.”

McEnroe: “Yeah, good point.”

h/t @tennisems #LaverCuppic.twitter.com/NPJ2IpTAxq

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) September 25, 2021

seeing zverevs backhand in person was v impressive

Ugh, Zverev was right. Will they still play some of the singles?

only 1 more match & the changed it to dubs ruud/meds v felix/diego

indian wells ~ was thinking medvedev would be unbeatable here considering his form and sloww hard courts are perfect for him ~ watched him vs dimitrov today and shut it off at meds a set up and 4-1......& grigor comes back to win... the degen in me wonders what the live bet price was

Ha, I flipped over at the end of Norrie-Paul in time to see DM disintegrate. Some lovely Fed-esque early ball striking from Dimi but he didn’t have to do a lot to close it out other than slice and steady. No 45sec holds from DM on this surface anyway and his serve was off.

Such a peculiar part of the world, that desert valley. I have dim memories of USA-GB Davis Cup final in Palm Springs in ‘78 and the reports at the time saying it was being staged “in the middle of nowhere”.

Hard to say if they'll go through with this, but glad that they're saying it anyway - it's a huge step considering how many WTA tournaments China hosts and the amount of money/advertising dollars at stake.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/wta-prepared-pull-tournaments-out-china-over-peng-allegation-2021-11-19/

Meanwhile, really hope Peng Shuai and family are safe. At some point, they'll prob release a video of her saying she is but looking anything but. :(