ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

amazing. will save for future use...

also, i'm not a fan of either wozniacki or azarenka, but their twitter banter to each other is pretty charming.

lynx?

US Open - djokovic

i dont have a lot of faith in his game tbh in fact i can see this being a discouraging year for him

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef012876b6002d970c-pi

awwwww

it's funny that wozniacki was the one who gave in eventually. obviously.

saw the first set of henin/ivanovic last night before falling asleep - justine made ana look like a joke. after a while, ana just joined in with that. all i could think while watching was, how the fuck did you ever win a slam and get to no 1. (ah that's right, because justine "retired"!)

KOLYA! ruining my dreams of a Fedal final. Oh well, Rafa would've crushed Fed anyway, this is a much better matchup.

But in troubling news, the commies suggested that Fed may have tweaked his wrist, which wouldn't surprise me at all given how hard Gulbis was hitting to him yesterday. And he really did look uncomfortable today. As in, worse than usual Fed-error mode. I just hope he'll be okay once the AO starts.

king kolya! :)

idk i know i predicted federer to win wimbledon this year but it wouldn't surprise me if he went slamless. i mean...he kind of backed into RG and wimbledon last year! a month before RG he looked washed up! and now he's got the 15...

it wouldn't surprise me either honestly. I'm more curious to see if this is the year his ridiculous semi-finals streak gets broken!

unless he gets ambushed by someone random, or injury, i don't think so...even murray and djokovic, who beat him regularly in tour events, haven't learnt to do it in slams yet, apart from djokovic once. (that said i think this is the year they learn.) those two + nadal + del potro and davydenko are the only five players i can even imagine beating him in a slam - like even give a chance, not even favour - and he wouldn't ever meet 3 of them before the SF, so...

I still have this ridiculous idea/hope that Fed can do a calendar year Grand Slam; this is the last year he could possibly do it, I think (he was only a few points away last year, to be fair). Nadal is back at something like his best then? Because in London a few weeks ago he played like a decent top-20 scrapper, out of his depth.

hahaha yeah - hearing lex and roz talking like fed is vulnerable im like... COLON LEFT BRACKET

Oh well, Rafa would've crushed Fed anyway, this is a much better matchup.

this is what i get for sleeping the eoy tournaments! last time i saw footage of nadal he was still very tentative and nowhere near his 08 level.

yeah i dunno guys, Haas came so close to beating Fed at RG last year, and Soderling nearly pushed him to a fifth set at the USO QFs, and this was with Fed playing better than he has been in the past week and throughout the indoor season. i feel like an upset could def happen if he ran into someone with a habit of suddenly getting on fire, like a tsonga or a gonzo in say, the fourth round or the QFs.

but of course, the tough part is that anyone who wants to beat Fed probably needs to do it in straights because you just know the longer a match goes on, the higher the odds favour Fed.

re Nadal: yep playing much better. should've really beaten troicki 6-1 6-1 today - got a little ahead of himself serving out the match but it was still very much a one-sided affair. he's remembered how to play on hard court and i think the davis cup win at the end of last year did wonders for his confidence.

Is Laura Robson is getting more out of the Hopman Cup experience than Andy Murray? Murray supposedly skipped a defence in Doha to get three guaranteed matches in Perth but he's won them all so easily it's barely been a workout. Robson's lost hers, as expected, but it'll be a while before she plays people of this calibre again. They've won all their mixed and they're in the final!

It'll prob be useful for her when she plays the AO qualies next. she beat MJMS today while Andy lost his singles match in three against Robredo, and now Andy's continuing to be useless while Robson's outhitting Robredo from the baseline! I think I love her.

Kim vs Justine is on. Hurrah. First impression after five games is that Clijsters is playing a bit better but is chucking in a few errors that is making the games go closer than they need to and robbed her of a break.

Oh Justine, double faults.. less good.

oh dear down a set and two breaks.

looking up at Carlos. just like old times...

Now zero breaks. What a terrible run of games from Clijsters. As if she's forgotten the ball needs to land inside the lines.

looooool 4-1 up to lose it 4-6. Epic choking Kim.

Lololol, that was practically a 0-6 set with a brief introduction on it.

Women's tennis, eh.

like nothing's changed. :')

terrible officiating in this match - why hasn't brisbane splashed out some dough for hawkeye yet?

Yeah, definitely. Even the commentators are pointing it out (correctly). Shame, as the game has just re-sprung into life. as a result!

the momentum swings in this match is ridiculous - clijsters wins her first game out of 8 and suddenly she's broken back and leveled up.

Zomg wtf, Clijsters was just hiting the ball so ridiculously hard and then flubbed the smash on the tape.

And that was to go down a (presumably decisive) break.

or not...

Wow. This is ridiculous now. Henin is probably wishing she hadn't stood so close to the net there.

WOMEN'S. TENNIS.

terrible officiating in this match - why hasn't brisbane splashed out some dough for hawkeye yet?

It's a small tournament, something like $200k total prize money. Presumably Hawkeye would have wiped that out.

Two match points saved! Maybe I've watched too much men's tennis which is filled with players who take an eternity to serve the bloody ball, but I think Kim's charging through the points a little quickly.

5-5! I need to find a stream of this...

http://www.atdhe.net/7635/watch-wta-brisbane

You've just missed a love service game from Henin which included Clijsters doing the splits as she often does.

xposts things like hawkeye are what sponsors are for. I worked at the even smaller tournament in KL and we had hawkeye. it's the tournament director's job to secure enough funding for the best tourney possible.

Four backhand errors that game. Atypical for Justine. And this is a tie-break.

Mini-break to Kim. But not over yet, there's a little part of me that kind of expects one of them to reveal that they're actually Elena Dementieva wearing a mask.

Gah, can't get any feeds to work. Looks like this is all over... 2nd-serve ace for 5-1 for KC?

Not yet. But probably. 5-3 now.

6-3.

6-4...

looked in

Oh drama! Clijsters thought she'd won but her ball which was very close got called out at the last minute. Very very close.

zomg wtf drop shot!

6-6!

And a good one too but Henin hit an awesome angle there.

Oh dear, a double fault from Justine - she's been hitting those on all the wrong points.

wow

Wow, that was kinda epic. I mean it was junk from 4-1 in the second set, but then back to life and it's a shame that some of the dodgiest calling came during some of the best play. I loved the look of Kim's game when she was just smacking the shit out of the ball.