ILE rolling non-slam Tennis thread

also I saw that result and was like "lol I bet the only person on Earth happier than me right now is Lex"

Francesca Schiavone (ITA) d. Kaia Kanepi (EST) 75 46 75

man this was such an awesome match

Caroline Wozniacki is your new Women's Tennis No 1, everyone! RIP WTA.

more like RIP Caroline Wozniacki; it seems like that ranking has been a complete curse for everyone except Serena in the past few years

Also, Venus is calling a presser this afternoon, and the Italian press is speculating that she'll announce her retirement, which...seems unlikely, given that just one or two days ago she released a statement saying she was looking forward to the 2011 season. But what on earth is the presser for, then? She's already announced she's ending her year.

looool seriously I quite like Caro shameless flirt that she is but looooollllll

re venus: Possibly announcing her retirement after 2011? Making a final go-round ala Safin... I don't know why any player would do that though - surely they know they're going to get the same questions over and over and over again for a whole year.

Wozniacki is a nice girl and obviously because she is a raging Pollack I can't hate her. But the idea that she would even get five games off an in-form Serena is surely highly amusing.

Oh hello:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/176746250.jpg

If that didn't work, http://twitpic.com/2x8aa2

exciting week this week. kimiko date-krumm broke her own record as the oldest woman to beat a top 10 player - stosur joined the wall of shame this time - but fell to tamarine tanasugarn in the final. oldest wta final ever, apparently. i <3 tammy so it's ok.

and murray pretty much thrashed the field in shanghai, ending with a brilliant 3 and 2 dismantling of federer. do it in a slam now, this is old news.

on a side note, the crowds in shanghai were so enthusiastic and excited - such a contrast to wta events where no one bothers to show (including the players). i've said it before, but imagine how good the wta could be now if the williamses and belgians had comported themselves like the big four on the men's side instead of being pampered divas who deign to show up to 6 events per year and blow off the tour at every opportunity they get. this year's ATP YEC will be super-exciting, even with all the players knackered from a long season. this year's WTA YEC is going to be a fucking embarrassment (again). if clijsters doesn't show - and she hasn't since the us open - the only slam winner in the field will be schiavone. who i hope wins it all.

no one could beat Murray if he played like this at a hardcourt slam. This is getting ridiculous-- fucking win one.

Winning 7 five-setters is a huge jump from winning this week - he seems to be over his youthful stamina issues but his mentality is questionable & although he has a great head to head against the top two his record over five sets isn't so good. He doesn't seem to be able to maintain that high standard over longer matches and tournaments.

That said, I still think he has it in him to win one and is maybe most likely to be the next new winner of a hard court slam.

WTF... My love Vera beat Jankovic 6-3 6-0 in the year-end ch's? I'm going to start watching this dried out tournament if Vera is in top form. Meeting Azarenka next. I hear Jelena tanked it like a polaroid picture in the 2nd set though.

that match was dreadful. women's tennis is so, so bad now. just cancel this farce of a tournament.

the schiavone-stosur match is pretty good

This Azarenka -- Zvona thing has been prettty good.

I mean, yes Zvona V chokes in finals now, but she's stopped choking otherwise! Some shoddy serving now and then, though.

Dementieva just RETIRED! I thought she'd stick around in pursuit of that elusive Slam forever. Have a nice life, you amazing headcase.

Her finest moment? Maybe killing Capriati's dreams yet again in the USO '04 SF despite That Serve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei9_HL6Zuq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY2fICGc6Uo

I remember one of those serves being measured at 38mph.

nooo! :( :(

Happy I got to meet her once though - she was really sweet and gorgeous in person.

aw

aw, Demented's finest moment. I love her reaction to actually winning something big for once, it's like she can't quite believe it's happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5wZ3vmTOhk

ATP finals on the BBC, woo! Murray desperately needs a haircut.

so did anyone see the nadal-murray match last night? easily match of the year for me in terms of crazy shot-making and drama. (Rafa breaks Andy. No wait, Andy breaks back! No wait... Holy fucking forehand! etc.)

murray lost that one narrowly but for once, it was a loss he could be proud of. wish he would play like that in big matches more often.

yeah so glad i watched that - i attended on mon (djokovic/berdych) but this week have been soooo busy i haven't caught much tennis. that match was crazy good though.

i didn't particularly prefer either player but it was much more important for murray - winning the YEC could well have been a v important foundation for him to actually go ahead and win a slam for once. it's been a crucial step for lots of players who underwhelmed at slams.

oh yeah and i'm not all that impressed with the tournament - maybe i'm just spoiled by how cheap the wimbledon ground passes are, but it strikes me that £17 (or less, as in previous years) for a wide array of matches and players, and being able to get right up close to the court, is better value than £34 to sit in the nosebleeds (not even the very cheapest seats!) and take your chances on 1x doubles and 1x singles (in our case, both were ok but hardly worth it). i mean maybe people really are suckers for the very biggest names but when you can see top 20 players on outside courts, as well as future elite players on the way up...

pretty uncompromising from roger there.

he was pretty much on it throughout - really aggressive play. rafa played well in the second but just looked exhausted in the third, roger can thank murray for that. good match!

Good stuff! I think there was a break point for Nadal in the third where I third Roger would throw away the lead, but after that it was all business. Loved the delayed reaction at the end --- a match point should always have a twist!

where I thought*

I'm proud happy that Roger won. Sets the tone for next year

(another year which I will be rooting Nadal)

holy shit:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-1208-dwyre-20101208,0,1757631.column

Sampras has been robbed of the majority of trophies, medals, plaques, crystal and rings that are a testament to a career that brought a then-record 14 major titles and status as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Three weeks ago, he found out that the dozens of boxes containing those symbols of his career had been stolen.

"I have 13 of my 14 Grand Slam trophies," he said. "Some are at home and some up at NikeTown [in Portland]. My first Australian Open trophy is gone, and so is everything else."

Seven Wimbledon and five U.S. Open trophies, and one Australian Open trophy, remain.

"Everything else" includes trophies for winning 64 tour tournaments, and finalist hardware from 24 others. It includes what he was presented for winning five season-ending ATP World Tour titles, for being on two Davis Cup winners, and for taking 11 ATP Masters event titles. It includes an Olympic ring, seven ESPYs and six trophies awarded to the player who was No. 1 in the year-end rankings. Sampras, now 39, was that from 1993 to '98.

much as I want to feel sorry for him, what kind of idiot puts all of his trophies in a public storage facility in West LA? And on top of everything, waits *three weeks* before issuing a public notice? I mean, dude.

Nishikori teaming up with Brad Gilbert... let's hope he can make Kei more consistent on court.

right so Lukas Lacko has always been one of those dudes with plenty of talent but with no consistency at all, but I've never seen him play this well before, especially with Rafa not even playing that badly. Lost first set narrowly in a TB, before proceeding to bagel the current number one player in the world. When was the last time Nadal was bageled?

Unsurprisingly, Rafa immediately breaks in the first game of the third - I've no doubt he'll pull out the win (duh he's Rafa) but it's pretty nice seeing someone come out of nowhere bringing some game to him.

http://cowbell.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83423e30253ef0147e2e32061970b-pi

Ranked 484 three weeks ago and now he's back in the top 100 at 89. Dude's such a champ.

:)

watched it last night - Pony looked as if he'd hit the wall of fatigue before the first set was over (no wonder, given how much he's played without being match tough of late), but he just kept holding it together - had a few issues with putaway shots but in general his power and clutch serving was so impressive. Tipsy was...yeah. Let's just say "women's tennis" and leave it at that.

What with Djokovic looking probably as dominant against Fed as he ever has and BEPA completely dismantling Wozniacki, last week was a good one in tennis, I feel.

Bepa 3 :D

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/ap/72/fullj.2431c87199d07dee44526db035124387/ap-6caf6de8e81e427cb2a75dab15286e73.jpg

Only her second Tier II-or-over title, can you believe it. (Actually...yes, you can, very well.)

xpost yeah - didn't see the Pony match, but Fed looked utterly flummoxed in that final against Nole.

and Bepa was pretty awesome against Woz, who didn't even play too badly I thought - that match was the first time I felt she was trying to do something other than just get the ball in.

I wanted to see Schiavone/Dokic, appaz poor Fran got injured and was near-immobile in set 3? And it was still only 6-4! Still, god for Jelena's double-faultwinner count.

YIKES @ the Serena news - seriously scary. I don't know enough about pulmonary embolisms or hematomas to really know what's ahead, but from what I've read she could be out for another year? It'd really suck if the sport lost Serena and Justine for good at the same time.

(also Roz, are you at the women's KL event this week? whenever I've tuned into the livestream there appears to be pretty much no one in the crowd)

An old boss of mine had pretty much this exact thing happen to him a few years ago (he was... 35?) and it knocked him out of commission for about a year. It was seriously scary; he almost died.

it's really scary to think that this all stems from just stepping on broken glass, and despite what I assume has been the best possible medical treatment. I wonder if the restaurant settled with Serena financially already? cuz if she's so minded, she could take them to the cleaners for loss of earnings.

I don't know if this is a general physical indicator, but the big thing they were terrifying my former boss/bandmate with was the possibility that this was an indicator of some variant of cancer.

Basically with him, he had tweaked his leg on a ski trip and gotten a clot in a major artery in his leg, which slowly built up over a period of several months to encompass THE ENTIRE ARTERY.

lex, I was there for the Bartoli-Camerin and Safina-Han matches on Tuesday, both of which were awful.

Cake is leaner and taller than she looks on TV, her serve unfortunately still isn't prettier. Safina-Han started off with four breaks in a row before Dinara got a handle over her groundstrokes. Han did not hold serve once the entire match. :/

Working the rest of this week, but I should be there over the weekend. Crowds are pathetic because the whole tourney is horribly disorganised - they only landed BMW as a main sponsor in November, which left them with just two months to promote the event in a country where tennis isn't a big deal AT ALL. especially not women's tennis. The venue isn't the most accessible either - Bukit Kiara is basically an ultra-posh country club. It's sad that the crowd turnout is still so low, even though entry was free for the first three days (and is still free for BMW owners/white card members).

re Serena: definitely scary. I'm not sure if stepping on broken glass alone would've caused it - she's a tennis player who spends long hours on airplanes and has been bed-ridden lately, both of which increase the risks for a pulmonary embolism. Risks also increase if she's on the pill, which i wouldn't be surprised if she was.

The thought of her leaving the game is really scary and highly possible - even if she recovered enough to play in the next few months, I doubt her doctors would allow her to travel long distances for tournaments very often after this.

lol Dima: http://twitter.com/TursunovTales/status/45782199257141251

geez Murray.

was just thinking of bumping for that. shameful. can't think of a worse loss in his career!

didn't see the match but guessing he still hasn't gotten out of whatever funk he's been in since the AO final. srsly thought my screen was broken when I read Donald Young (Q) def. Andy Murray (4) 7-6, 6-3. Donald Young!

anyway, go Delpo.

I saw Delpo beat Ljubicic last night! It was a good match, had no idea Ljubicic could still play well like that (in patches only though). Also had forgotten he was the defending champ, lol.

I also see that Sweta failed to win a set off a girl who isn't in the top 100 #rmde