WIMBLEDON 2016

Switched on to see a zombified Kryrgios go through the motions. #retireAlready

What happened to Gasquet? I'm not exactly rushing home for Vesely-Berdych.

Cibulkova/Radwanska = match of the year after Radwanska/Vinci? And at least Domi's QF opponent also went 9-7 today (Vesnina/Makarova was a thriller too, quality not as superlative but incredibly tense - can't believe Vesnina closed it out in the end, first Slam QF for her!)

Gasquet and Nishikori both came out obviously hobbled, obvious Gasquet (against an opponent fresh of a 19-17 fifth set yesterday) threw in the towel first. Nishikori's first set lasted 16 minutes, which is only 6 more than THAT 5-5 game between Domi and Aga.

All these years I've seen Pavlyuchenkova be utterly clueless on grass (including the second set of her R1 here vs Hsieh, she was totally saved by the rain) and suddenly she makes the QF? Not that I'm complaining when Vandeweghe loses.

Goffin losing from two sets up vs Raonic makes me livid, luckily I had the Pouille/Tomic epic to console myself with. Pouille is so good, multiple highlight reel shots. Tried his best to throw it away as well but inevitably Tomic tired first.

Murray/Kyrgios had all the intensity of an exhibition between two mates, which is sort of what it was. Curious that for such a supposed ~bad boy, Kyrgios can be so wholly deferential when he puts his mind to it.

I'm not sure we got the best QFs possible out of that. (Oh yeah, Keys never seems to get major injuries but without fail some minor niggle happens to her at the most ill-timed moment possible? This is a pattern now. Sheer bad luck or psychosomatic?)

Women's QFs:

(1) Serena Williams vs. (21) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
(19) Dominika Cibulkova vs. Elena Vesnina
(5) Simona Halep vs. (4) Angelique Kerber
(8) Venus Williams vs. Yaroslava Shvedova

S.Williams 5-0 Pavlyuchenkova
Cibulkova 3-3 Vesnina (Vesnina 1-0 on grass, Cibulkova 2-0 since 2009)
Halep 3-1 Kerber (Kerber 1-0 this year)
V.Williams 0-0 Shvedova (!!!!)

Williams final would just mean Serena wins, right? still, for nostalgia buffs, you can't beat it.

Vesely-Berdych not bad, actually. Tomas failed to serve it out and now it's 5-5 in the 4th. Pavic/Venus-J Murray/Soares are 12-12 in the 5th (I guess they've gone back to best-of-5 from the last sixteen onwards in the Men's Doubles) after nearly five hours.

Vesely-Berdych some way above "not bad" now. Berdych has triple match point at 5-6 0/40, Vesely wins 11pts of 12 to level and go five set-points up in t/b. Vesely pushes sitter into tramlines with set at mercy. They switch Hawkeye off due to darkness. Berdych saves another s/p with shot on line (no challenge available). Now a correction / play-two on match point to Berdych.

9-9 in the breaker. 9:20pm and overcast. Berdych claimed he wanted to come off 20min ago.

Vesely takes set with a drop-shot. Now Berdych wants to play the 5th set on Centre.

back tom.

Didn't know a Berdych match could be that fun. Loved it, excited for the 5th.

Great day. Radwanska/Cibulkova was a NID classic, lol @ anyone with a ground pass not RUSHING to court 3. Serena's 2nd set under the roof was also holy. Doi/Kerber was also far better than that scoreline. SAD FOR DOI :(

Speaking of NID, Murray/Kyrgios was useless as ever.

in that match, with the number 10 guy against the unranked guy, the commentator said: "Never underestimate the importance of playing the winning patterns." which basically meant that the number 10 guy could win because he knew how to win. because he had won before. my college dorm room mind was blown off its hinges!

words to live by though. gonna remember that one.

but then the number 10 guy lost. he forgot the winning patterns. plus, it was dark.

Didn't know a Berdych match could be that fun. Loved it, excited for the 5th.

seriously! I didn't even bother watching until Vesely was down 2-5 in the fourth which turned out to be exactly the time to start watching. lol @ Berdych complaining about the darkness the minute he went down in the TB.

he was right that they should have moved it to Centre though.

Drama of umpire (who had practically lost his voice) barking CORRECTION on Berdych's baseline call on m/p. And Berdych wasting two minutes of light complaining about darkness at change of ends. I had that on the laptop and the marathon doubles on the TV (suspended at 13-13 after multi-deuce game). What a mixed bag of a Manic Monday. Two retirements, three non-events on Centre but elsewhere a good measure of madness.

great work edwardo, kuznetsova didn't win another game and raonic degoffined the tournament instead

sorry everyone. but srsly now I know why England had to go around colonising the world, needed SOMETHING to do during rain delays

this isn't the first time berdych got fucked by the umpires because of the light. happened two years ago as well against cilic so i understand his frustration.

Yeah but the time to complain was at 5-5, did he think they were gonna stop mid-TB? Vesely collapsed today anyway for, again, a less interesteing QF line-up:

(28) Sam Querrey vs. (6) Milos Raonic
(3) Roger Federer vs. (9) Marin Cilic
(10) Tomas Berdych vs. (32) Lucas Pouille
(12) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs. (2) Andy Murray

Querrey 2-1 Raonic (1-0 on grass, 1-0 at Slams)
Federer 5-1 Cilic (1-1 at Slams)
Berdych 0-0 Pouille
Murray 12-3 Tsonga (5-1 on grass, 3-1 at Slams plus 1-0 in juniors)

In the circumstances, pretty happy that Berdych is through (three breaks to Vesely's one in today's deciding set).

NINE breaks of serve in the Halep-Kerber opener; AK takes it 7-5.

turn it on for ten minutes and shvedova tanks the first set tiebreak with 4 consecutive UEs from 5-2 up

not the same as yesterday's turn it on for ten minutes experiment lol

Kerber-Venus SF? Drool!

Vesely is back on court shortly in his *first round* mixed doubles. They're playing third round matches today too. They're taking a pretty relaxed attitude to the backlog elsewhere, with the outstanding r2 women's doubles not scheduled until 4th on court 8. Putting the brakes on the catch-up could be Serena-Venus-related, I guess. They're due on this evening (r3).

I was amazed Vesnina not only went back out for her doubles with Makarova yesterday evening but came back from a set down.

Good to see Halep fight for once but she is so much further away from a Slam title than she was in 2013-14 imo. Her game has been kind of wrecked by the constant chorus back then of "she has to be more aggressive". No, counterpunching worked for her and horrible errors don't have a good enough pay-off!

Wonderful story for Venus. First Slam SF in six years at the age of 36!

PEDs are an amazing thing

Lendl effect paying off for Vesnina :D
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmnLf-4WgAAL5A0.jpg

Cilic takes the first set against Federer in tb (4), Raonic-Querrey 64

Fed not getting anything off the Cilic serve, even when gifted with two doubles in game four of that set. Two sets down, as is Querrey.

Perhaps surprisingly, Cilic-Federer is out-aceing Querrey-Raonic 25-14 right now.

Heading back to be office once I've seen a couple more feeble Fed BH returns off second serves.

well Fed did take the 3rd (no tv/stream, can only follow live scores sadly)

he saved 3 break points in an earlier game too

Fed's BH was actually beginning to click when I left the pub.

In other news, Querrey actually has a break point. And now a break!

cilic really hates break points doesn't he

hates them less now

he's very audibly swearing in serbo-croat, the umpire should intervene lol

raja

dear lord

Hot damn, that was tense. All the way we go.

Raonic through in four. Bleh. But it was Bleh either way.

literally don't care about work in the morning, don't care, don't care

no way I'm missing another 30 minutes of Goran Ivanisevic looking like he wants to die

lol federer being a dick to the lino

end of 4th set was choketastic

Yeah, Goran is in knots, isn't he? Compare and contrast with someone like Lendl.

I may dip in again on my phone in about 15min but I didn't get a thing done during that t/b. Sometimes I wish grass-court tennis was somehow an evening/night-time activity. Work days are torture during the second week.

always think that if they must have a day off it should be the second mon or tue, not sun

can the crowd be banned from saying anything

LOL that is the worst challenge I have ever seen

can someone who watches more tennis than me confirm likewise

lol remember when cilic blew three break points in the middle of the third set

Desperation.

Didn't think Old Rog would pull that out. Slam #18 on Sunday or it'll never happen.

Yeah coming back from two sets down was something I didn't think he was still capable of. Was mildly rooting for Marin but I suppose I'd rather have Fed playing Raonic.

Funny how the first two sets appeared kind of close but from middle of set 1 thorugh middle of set 3 it didn't "feel" close, to watch it looked like Cilic was winning easily. Based on the sights, the comeback was unexpected but the score was never a blow-out. I cashed out on Cilic midway through set 3, turning my fiver into $25, five of which I'm going to waste on Tsonga! Hah!

Worst sound in the world? Todd Woodbridge trying to pronounce "Pouille" btw. (Also he kept saying Federer was geeing himself up in Swedish which was quite funny)