WIMBLEDON 2015

Second consecutive Slam where I've watched Svitolina win a three-setter despite being far the less imaginative, creative and versatile olayer on court. Doi was dominating every rally and never really stopped but suddenly was unable to put a finishing shot into court. It was kinda hard to watch because that's exactly my problem on court too

Brown/Lu obviously tremendous fun, lots of diving volleys and angled passes and all sorts of delightful shotmaking

Petra serving for the match, having not lost one point on serve. DFed, obv.

35 minutes. Quicker than any of the three double bagels so far. (Weirdly - there had been no double bagels at Wim since 2009!)

"the hors d'oeuvre is over"

sounded like andrew castle obv

Lucic-Baroni beats Shvedova 75 67 75, sinks to her knees. Has a shot to take out Muguruza next.

It's really beyond doubt for me that Pospisil is the hottest ATP player

total package yeah

Very rusty by Robson, as expected, but glimpses of her old form. Rodina was very average but solid in every department, a good foil to see where Robson is at. Nearly got horrendously screwed on MP though

There really is no greater disparity between physical talent and mental strength in the top 100 than Garcia. Watson choking for her life and chucking in puffball serves and Garcia just smacks errors.

Coric dealing with Stakhovsky's wily game surprisingly well...

LMAO Bouchard is a set down to Duan Ying-Ying. Duan choked three SPs before finally taking the TB; she's generally hampered by a total unwillingness to run or move (at one point a ball bounced ~3ft away from her and she just sort of lunged and stumbled at it) but was bashing the ball a whole lot better than Bouchard.

Duan's sole career grass experience prior to coming through qualies was one Australian ITF 25K in 2012, where she qualified and lost R1 to Arina Rodionova.

Duan to serve for the match after Bouchard completely panics at 4-4...

DUAN WINS. Served out to love. Seventh career match on grass, beats last year's Wimbledon finalist. Bouchard out of the top 20 now...

yeah i was watching that match and duan seems very...movement averse

I can't believe Bouchard only tried one dropshot, which worked perfectly. Or just, y'know, not bash full pelt at the ball with your horrible technique and maybe take a bit off and just move Duan around

Halep hitting error after error in solidarity with Bouchard right now

on one point in the first set bouchard kind of took a half-swing on a return; the return landed around the service line and duan couldn't get to it

I'm experiencing what I will call a "schadenfreude sandwich":

1) lol Bouchard
2) Something is going on with her, right? This is some super dramatic peak/valley shit and I hope everything is okay with her.
3) LOL BOUCHARD

Coric cramping badly at 4-4, deuce in the 5th...

Coric actually won multiple extended baseline rallies to hold despite being unable to run

Bouchard had nine opening round losses last year so it's not like she was ever a player who went deep into tournaments every time. Obviously the pressure is affecting her, but there's also 1) she massively revamped her game to become ultra-aggressive in the 2013-14 off-season; it always takes the Tour a while to collectively figure out a new way to beat you (Petra helpfully wrote the set text on this in last year's final); 2) that revamp happened despite her fugly technique which may have worked while she was confident and her opponents hadn't figured it out, but now that neither is the case...

Beautiful volley by Cepelova to get to MP on Halep...

lol halep

HALEP OUT TOO

Cepelova has struggled so much with illness and injury of late, great to see her playing well again!

aw, I can't really indulge in schadenfreude with Halep

okay maybe a little

Coincidentally I was reading this piece on stalkers and women's tennis earlier - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/sports/tennis/womens-tennis-still-has-safety-concerns-22-years-after-the-monica-seles-attack.html - and Halep's poor form seems to date from the Stüttgart incident

Wow, Coric wins 9-7 in the fifth. Of all the young guns I think he has the greatest need to win

outlasting Robredo at RG and Stakhovsky here is pretty impressive. nb i didn't watch much of either match

jesus, that stalking article is depressing

er, Zheng Saisai is owning Woz right now :o

Two breaks up with some pretty zany, creative tennis - have a slice! have a moonball! here I am at net knocking off your shitty FH! - but as per the playbook, Saisai crumbled :(

Three mothers in R2: Tatjana Maria, Evgeniya Rodina and Casey Dellacqua

Must be heartening for Keys to look at her coach for support and see Davenport fiddling around on her phone

ha she looks so nervous

Voegele has great eyebrows

I've heard a lot of comms mangle players' names but I don't know how this guy is getting "Vergulla" from Voegele

Rybarikova FINALLY wins a match at Wimbledon on her 8th try...via retirement over Knapp

I can totally see how you might get Vergulla from Voegele. I mean, it'd be more Furgələ but if your German was even worse than mine you could get that. Or does Stefanie pronounce it Italian-style? Is that a thing.

Looked at some highlights from Bouchard/YYD and nearly laughed. Bouchard may as well have played on one leg like she said she would if she had to. If Serena wins this tournament it's going to be the biggest gap between 1 and 2 ever isn't it.

Coric and Rublev look like the best young guns to me, since Kyrgios is a flake and Zverev seemingly a clay specialist in style

Tomic played his first round match with a popped collar

Berdych-Chardy was enjoyable last night, esp as they were suggesting coming off at 4-4 in the 4th and ended up playing the set to a t/b conclusion, beyond the point at which Hawkeye had stopped working due to lack of available light. 9:28pm finish (and Wimb a week further away from solstice this year).

the FH halfway up the net at 5-5 in that TB encapsulated Chardy's career somewhat

Grass-court tennis looks great near-dusk and I'm sure that's just nostalgia at play. They need to get the old illuminated scoreboard back in.

Seeing a lot of Bouchard/Kournikova comparisons which just seem lazy and inaccurate...it's just not the same situation at all, let alone the same career arc. Kournikova was ultra-talented but chased the money and off-court stuff before her game was wrecked by injury. Bouchard, despite how she's written about, actually does minimal off-court glam stuff and seems more motivated by the tennis than the fame, and last year did the absolute best she could with her limited game.

I see Hantuchova as a better parallel - big breakthrough year sees a few very flashy results and very consistent Slam showings take her to the top 5, gets hyped up beyond belief, various factors including the over-hype lead to a death slump the following year, she'll eventually stabilise and have the #10-#30 career that befits her talent.

Christina Macfarlane ‏@chrissymacCNN 10m10 minutes ago
BREAKING: Gates have been temporarily closed at @Wimbledon...officials say there has been a fire on Court 1. More details to follow

!!!

Urszula Radwanska is now 0-9 in Slam R2s with this loss to Stosur. Quite surprising that a former top 30 player and top junior hasn't made even one R3 but I guess if you can't beat Stosur on grass...

kei withdraws :(

:(

The AUS fans are somehow even worse this year than usual

Keys trying her utmost to choke at the end there but Voegele couldn't do anything

my annual hatewatch is in progress, cmon hoegenkamp

*hogenkamp, even

There's definitely an "ATP lacks depth despite being incredibly strong at the top" argument but that's been true for the past decade.

Hingis and Paes slaying out there

Absolutely - but its only really in that one year (2011) that you felt that Djokovic could have a level of dominance of peak Fed or Nadal.

He is favourite for the US open, but you always feel there is something unexpected around the corner. xp

Goodness. Peya and Babos barely winning points

Wow. A 41-minute 61 61 massacre. Martina Hingis, double Wimbledon champion just like 1997. And three trophies go to India!

Roll of honour:

Men's singles: Novak Djokovic
Women's singles: Serena Williams
Men's doubles: Jean-Julien Rojer & Horia Tecau
Women's doubles: Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza
Mixed doubles: Martina Hingis & Leander Paes
Boys' singles: Reilly Opelka
Girls' singles: Sofya Zhuk
Boys' doubles: Nam Hoang Ly & Sumit Nagal
Girls' doubles: Dalma Galfi & Fanni Stollar

Ly - first Vietnamese Slam champion in history, I assume? I love the global diversity of this sport.

A good Wimbers this year I think.

Jesus!!!!!!!!!! Look at the Boy's champion!

He's freakishly tall.

New rankings!

1. Serena Williams (1)
2. Maria Sharapova (4)
3. Simona Halep (3)
4. Caroline Wozniacki (5)
5. Petra Kvitova (2)
6. Ana Ivanovic (7)
7. Agnieszka Radwanska (13)
8. Lucie Safarova (6)
9. Garbiñe Muguruza (20)
10. Carla Suárez Navarro (9)
11. Ekaterina Makarova (8)
12. Karolina Pliskova (11)
13. Angelique Kerber (10)
14. Timea Bacsinszky (15)
15. Venus Williams (16)
16. Andrea Petkovic (14)
17. Elina Svitolina (17)
18. Madison Keys (21)
19. Victoria Azarenka (24)
20. Sara Errani (19)
21. Belinda Bencic (22)
22. Sabine Lisicki (18)
23. Samantha Stosur (23)
24. Svetlana Kuznetsova (25)
25. Jelena Jankovic (30)
26. Eugenie Bouchard (12)
27. Flavia Pennetta (26)
28. Alizé Cornet (27)
29. Shuai Peng (28)
30. Irina-Camelia Begu (31)
...
32. Coco Vandeweghe (47)
41. Monica Niculescu (48)
47. Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (54)
49. Magdalena Rybarikova (65)
51. Heather Watson (59)
62. Tatjana Maria (78)
81. Olga Govortsova (122)
110. Kristyna Pliskova (134)
130. Jelena Ostapenko (147)

Lucic-Baroni back in the top 50 after a 15-year absence, that's kind of amazing. And Tatjana Maria has a better career high ranking as amother than she did in her first career now...

1. Novak Djokovic (1)
2. Roger Federer (2)
3. Andy Murray (3)
4. Stan Wawrinka (4)
5. Kei Nishikori (5)
6. Tomas Berdych (6)
7. David Ferrer (7)
8. Milos Raonic (8)
9. Marin Cilic (9)
10. Rafael Nadal (10)
11. Gilles Simon (13)
12. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (12)
13. Richard Gasquet (20)
14. David Goffin (15)
15. Kevin Anderson (14)
16. Grigor Dimitrov (11)
17. Gaël Monfils (18)
18. John Isner (17)
19. Feliciano López (16)
20. Viktor Troicki (24)
21. Tommy Robredo (19)
22. Leonardo Mayer (21)
23. Roberto Bautista Agut (22)
24. Ivo Karlovic (25)
25. Bernard Tomic (26)
26. Andreas Seppi (27)
27. Pablo Cuevas (23)
28. Dominic Thiem (30)
29. Vasek Pospisil (56)
30. Juan Monaco (35)
...
37. Borna Coric (40)
41. Nick Kyrgios (29)
80. Dustin Brown (102)
81. Alexander Zverev (74)
89. James Ward (111)

wow, when's the last time the top 10 remained unchanged after a slam?

rewatched this final, incredible level the first two sets ~ what can you say abt fed in the 2nd set tiebreak? legendary

novak then bouncing back w the early break in the 3rd, he hit really hard and clean the last two sets and forced rog to make errors. the drama got sucked out of the match, & the rain delay didnt help either. wildly impressive performance regardless

Ha, at Tom D's:

Jesus!!!!!!!!!! Look at the Boy's champion!

Ah, Reilly Opelka, have ya stopped growin' yet?

Perhaps the only way to stop Novak was a global pandemic for which he will ultimately to refuse to take the eventually-developed vaccine.