ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

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. :(

An emotional moment for everyone watching 😢 @delpotrojuan #ArgentinaOpen pic.twitter.com/eK4W6NhrQV

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) February 9, 2022

have spent the past few days being very down about this. It wasn't surprising but he was my very favourite player and I'd always hoped he had one more comeback left in him.

class act to the end

Juan Martín del Potro's last time on a tennis court. He leaves his headband in the net...😓 pic.twitter.com/yXKyMxzqoB

— Juan Ignacio Astaburuaga (@jiastaburuagac) February 9, 2022

Oh man. I'd seen he'd accepted a couple of wildcards, but I didn't realise it was a farewell.

I see Opelka won Dallas last week, without dropping a set, and only facing a single break point (saved) all week: 76 76 63 64 76 76 76 76. The second set t/b of his semi vs Isner (who had beaten Anderson earlier by the hugely surprising scoreline of 76 67 76) went 24-22. Thank goodness the tedium of '90s servebots is long gone, eh? Are the courts in Delray Beach any slower?

(Kinda curious to watch that t/b though)

With all the gaps/missed serves edited out, it only takes five minutes!

15 aces and 11 other unreturned serves in that 24-22. But it starts with a 19-stroke rally! And I do like the colour scheme of the Dallas courts.

yep i watched that t/b live. it was less boring than you'd think

opelka was particularly good vs brooksby in the final, jenson got a lot more serves back in play than isner had & opelka was up to the challenge

delray is lots windier

suprised to learn:

Here are all the scenarios in which Medvedev would climb to World No. 1 on 28 February:

Medvedev wins the Acapulco title, regardless of Djokovic’s results in Dubai
Medvedev reaches the Acapulco final and Djokovic does not win the Dubai title
Medvedev reaches the Acapulco semi-finals and Djokovic does not reach the Dubai final
Medvedev reaches the Acapulco quarter-finals and Djokovic does not reach the Dubai semi-finals
Medvedev reaches the second round in Acapulco and Djokovic does not reach the Dubai semi-finals
Medvedev loses in the first round in Acapulco and Djokovic does not reach the Dubai quarter-finals

Djokovic has Musetti in r1 Dubai. Come on, Lorenzo.

Meanwhile, Opelka has lost his serve a couple of times this week, but is still in the Delray Beach final (vs Norrie, starts shortly). Alcaraz-Schwartzman in Rio. FAA finally won a title, but is back to his usual this week - straight sets defeat in Marseille vs Rublev. Ostapenko saved mp vs Kvitova in three-hour qf in Dubai and went on to win the title. There's a lot goin' on!

alcaraz wins rio, opelka ran out of steam in delray... both withdraw from acapulco

Fair enough. Has Acapulco ever had such a strong draw? Five of the top seven.

Norrie managed to take 30-odd points off Opelka's serve, not enough to ever break, but enough to put him under constant pressure and the inevitable 76 76 scoreline.

RBA won in Doha too!

i wondered to myself if opelka knowing his 1st rd match @ acapulco was vs rafa played any factor in his withdrawing

…but i did see him take a medical timeout vs norrie & his semi vs millman was a 3 hr grind….he really surprisingly rallied p well the last two weeks, tho strategically he prob needs to find a way to avoid the longer rallies altogether

Musetti was 0/7 in bps... pretty typical for an early-round Nole match, chances not taken. Meh.

It's 4:20am in Mexico and Brooksby-Zverev have only just started the 3rd set... Zverev saved mps in a 112min second set, 12-10 in the t/b.

I assume the Dimitrov-Koslov epic was immediately before this but… having already got to 1am wouldn’t you just cancel the last match of the day and roll it over to day two?

Zverev wins at 4:54am. I see now that there were three matches in the 6pm session, under lights - they all went well over three hours.

Acapulco has some form in this regard - Ferrer-Tomic and Dimitrov-Murray in previous years went beyond 2am. Is it entirely a floodlit event? Seems it's 25-32C regardless of when they play.

wow. "latest finish in history" i am seeing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ScH5xN8hyc

whoops, meant to be this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9RuO690uXY

guy accused of abusing his partner has a temper problem, who would’ve guessed?

That doubles defeat clearly finished him off, cos he's withdrawn from the singles now.

He was booted out of the tournament

Ha, just shows what you miss when you follow tennis via the occasional stream, a score app, and the ATP site (which has said *nothing* about this).

What an idiot.

jiri vesely takes out novak in dubai ! meds will reach #1

vesely is now 2-0 vs novak btw

Had it on my phone during the tail end of a meeting :)

Vesely failed to serve it out once, and was unlucky with a bad call (played-two after a challenge) in the t/b - but Novak tossed in a double to hand back the advantage.

Not quite sure why it took so long for Novak's non-entry to the US to be confirmed... Indian Wells men's draw shuffled around overnight, Dimitrov now #33 at bottom of draw.

Irony is he'll be back at #1 unless Medvedev has a deep run here (Medvedev drops his Marseille '21 points this week, Novak loses nothing). Djokovic is only ATP player in top 25 absent (next highest absentee is Federer! Grimly holding on to those half-price 2019 points); women's draw rather spottier - Barty, Krejcikova, Collins, Pavlyuchenkova missing.

i read meds keeps #1 if he makes the quarters...his path looks like monfils then alcaraz or bautista agut.... gotta think he's like 75% or so to do that

Thanks to the Davis Cup interruption to the calendar, he's already beaten Pat "One-Week" Rafter anyway :)

Also seems like IW22 and IW21 points both count, until IW21 drops off in October (unlike, say, FO20/FO21)? I guess IW21 was sort of where Shanghai would normally be in the schedule, so it'll drop when that comes around again.

nadal comes back after korda was serving up 5-2 in the 3rd... great 3rd set, korda is uber talented

watched brooksby defend and torment stef last night, incredibly impressive... they said in the atp live rankings brooksby is now ranked #40 (!)

opelka also beat shapo yesterday

brooksby, opelka, fritz & korda are all 24 or under... that group bodes p well for us mens tennis imo

Not for the first time, I switch off a Medvedev match thinking "he's got this", and check 30min later and he's barely won a game since.

Harriet Dart in the last sixteen is unexpected; saw her play Wimbledon qualies a few years back. Alcaraz taking out RBA two and love is scary stuff. Kyrgios flying too.

man this breaks my heart a little bit

Used to be rackets and strings, now this🙄🙏🏻🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/hdYjMDlMuo

— Alex Dolgopolov (@TheDolgo) March 16, 2022

Age while entering the top-15:

Rafael Nadal - 18y 10m 16d
Carlos Alcaraz - 18y 10m 17d

— YoungTennisGuns (@YoungTennisGuns) March 18, 2022

Wow didn't see this one coming

World No.1 Asheigh Barty has announced her retirement from tennis.

Full video with Casey Dellacqua on Instagram: https://t.co/4dvdLMIgOQ pic.twitter.com/4A6bhh3pJT

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 23, 2022

mad respect though, going out on top

back to cricket

1 of the matches of the year thus far diego/stef in monte carlo, wow

Whoa, that's the one match I saw nothing of today! I saw it was 6-2 5-2 and didn't think it was even worth checking the score again!

yep diego came back to win the second in a tiebreak, then had a point to go up 5-0 in the 3d….but stef got momentum back & pulled it out, complete w a dive volley in his last game

Carlos Alcaraz won this tennis match pic.twitter.com/8Bj3es7QWT

— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) April 24, 2022

hes only lost 3 times this yr

The improvised shovel down the line to save the MP depicted above was bizarre.

Felt a bit sorry for Norrie in the midst of all the Barcelona rain - 3hr+ vs Fucsovics and then another epic vs De Minaur same day, while ADM's earlier last-16 match was a 6-0 (ret).

Grimly predictable recoveries from set (or set+break) deficits all week from Novak in Belgrade, only to get bageled in the decider by Rublev in the final. Excellent. Everyone is peaking too early again though! By the time Roland Garros is here, you know what's going to happen.

Swiatek finally dropped a set, but she's in Williams territory with this run. Even if Barty hadn't retired she'd be a long way off #1 by now.

Re: Russian/Belarussian ban at SW19 (sorry, strictly off-topic, but it's too early to start a Wimb thread)... where's the spirit of '73 in the ATP/WTA? I'm not sure what to make it of myself, but if the players' federations are completely against it then there has to be some action?

Loving the rise of Alcaraz/Swiatek. Never was too into Tennis but I've been fortunate enough to be around a lot of live matches lately by way working in the TV industry. Have quickly become a big fan. Seems like an exciting time with the tides of the Big 3 turning...

Alcaraz: first player ever to beat Nadal and Djokovic on consecutive days on clay. 62 16 63 vs Rafa yesterday (I saw CA getting his foot taped at 62 12, saw that he lost the next four games, and didn't bother tuning back in!), 67 75 76 in 3h35 vs Novak just now. He has a 10-1 record in final set t/bs? Ridiculous.

Tsitsipas-Zverev almost a non-event in comparison. Funny how the Next Gen, having failed to truly break through against the old guard (three of them have lost Slam finals from two sets up ffs!) are now becoming a supporting act to this teenager. My money was actually on Sinner or Musetti eclipsing them (or, once upon a time, FAA), and that may still be the case at Slam level.

(Entirely possible Zverev beats Alcaraz today, of course!)

Yeah about that

Tim Van Rijthoven, ranked 205, who had played precisely one ATP main-draw match before this week (as a lucky loser, Winston-Salem 2016), has just won 's-Hertogenbosch as a wildcard. Beat Fritz, Auger Aliassime and Medvedev.