Tennis Thread

[LilWharveyGal]

Oh, fudge.  I'm not a fan of Murray, particularly when he's on his home turf.  Let's go Raonic!

[Flippant]

So Andy plays his first Major final where his opponent is not Roger or Novak, and where he is the favorite.

It will be interesting how he handles it.   

[truthaboutluv]

It'd be just like him to lose anyway. Or maybe that's just the evil part of me wanting that because it would amuse me. 

[topanga]

I wonder why neither the Tennis Channel nor ESPN showed any of todays doubles matches (or maybe I just missed them). But I've been watching tennis off and on all day, and every time I turn on the tele, it's the Roger match or the Andy Murray match. They've each run 3 times already, and they're scheduled to run at least once more tonight.

[truthaboutluv]

Congratulations to Serena on reaching #22. I had a feeling she would win this one and once I saw how well she was serving when the match started, I knew she had it in the bag. The scoreline doesn't show how good this match was though. Kerber just had a few bad points at the wrong moments but she really showed some brilliant stuff out there today and made Serena work for the win. I actually enjoyed this final and hopefully Kerber can continue to build on her success so far this year. 

[blackwing]

What a great day for Serena Williams!  Her singles match was fantastic.  What a great performance from both her and Kerber.  Kerber is a powerful player and I loved how strong they both seemed.

Doubles match was such a joy to watch.  In some ways I think I love watching doubles more than singles.  I love the fast pace, the rallies, the amazing shots, the net play and above all, the communication and teamwork.  So thrilled for Venus and Serena to be able to win this together.

I miss Bud Collins.  He just loved the "ovas" and many times today I could "hear" him saying "Yaroslava Shvedova" over and over.  He would have just loved her last name.  I still fondly remember how he insisted on calling her Maria "shuh-RAHP-uh-vuh" as opposed to the widely Americanised "share-uh-POE-vuh".  RIP Bud.

[Flippant]

Finally Getting that 22nd Major must have been like lifting the world off her shoulders.   Hope Serena can exhale a bit now.

Never thought it was possible, but if she stays healthy, who knows if she could possibly reach Martina's 9 W titles, another  seemingly unmatchable record.

[truthaboutluv]

Well congrats to Murray. He rose to the occasion when he needed to. I just wish I cared more. 

[Dejana]

Great effort from Murray and kudos for not collapsing to the ground after the win, it's so overdone from tennis players. Heh, did he point out David Cameron just so the home crowd could boo him? Shady!

[MyAimIsTrue]

I'd like to apologize to Milos Raonic for possibly jinxing him by rooting for him.

Congrats to Andy Murray for playing an amazing match.

[Ohwell]

Congrats to Murray but I felt bad for him when he was trying to win the last point and the knuckleheads in the audience wouldn't STFU and let him concentrate on the serve.  

I don't mind players collapsing on the court and in Murray's case, he deserved to collapse if he wanted to, given all the pressure.  The only one I don't like to see do that is Federer who always looks like he fell out of a wheelchair.

[topanga]

6 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Congrats to Murray but I felt bad for him when he was trying to win the last point and the knuckleheads in the audience wouldn't STFU and let him concentrate on the serve.  

I don't mind players collapsing on the court and in Murray's case, he deserved to collapse if he wanted to, given all the pressure.  The only one I don't like to see do that is Federer who always looks like he fell out of a wheelchair.

Great metaphor for Federer (and no offense to anyone who's actually fallen out of a wheelchair). 

I like Serena's on-court reactions: she usually acts surprised that she actually won. But then she gets herself together so she can go to the net to shake hands with her opponent. 

[cesstar]

Congrats to Murray, it's always nice to see the players do well on their home courts - although not sure if 'home' is how Murray thinks of England! But regardless, he always has a lot of pressure on his shoulders from the press at Wimbledon, and he handled being the frontrunner today very well.

[SoCal Mema]

On 7/8/2016 at 3:58 PM, topanga said:

I wonder why neither the Tennis Channel nor ESPN showed any of todays doubles matches (or maybe I just missed them). But I've been watching tennis off and on all day, and every time I turn on the tele, it's the Roger match or the Andy Murray match. They've each run 3 times already, and they're scheduled to run at least once more tonight.

ESPN did show some doubles, which was nice for a change. 

[crimsongrl]

Victoria Azarenka is pregnant!

[Ohwell]

Good for her.

[dcalley]

No Del Potro, Berdych, or Bryans in DC. (Also no Kyrgios, meh.) They've all withdrawn. And it's going to be so hot.

[Ohwell]

1 hour ago, dcalley said:

No Del Potro, Berdych, or Bryans in DC. (Also no Kyrgios, meh.) They've all withdrawn. And it's going to be so hot.

Del Potro, in particular, not showing up is a real bummer.

I went yesterday and walked around only for an hour or so.  Yeah, it was hot as hell.  Usually, in the past, I'd see Bagdhatis, Berdych, Raonic, Querrey, Isner, Dimitrov, Nishikori and some others whose names escape me right now.  Anyway, the only one I saw who looked familiar was Dolgopolov.  I'm surprised that Monfils showed up, I saw a picture of him practicing there on Friday even though I didn't see him yesterday.  It used to be nice to walk around but there's so much corporate shilling going on, too many booths, which makes it too crowded now.  And I refused to pay $5 for water.   

Oh yeah, the women. : ) I was expecting to see Sloane Stephens but didn't.  I did recognize Christina McHale.  

Edited July 18, 2016 by Ohwell

[Ohwell]

Congrats to Monfils for winning the Citi Open!  I didn't realize it was his first ATP 500 win. 

[topanga]

14 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Congrats to Monfils for winning the Citi Open!  I didn't realize it was his first ATP 500 win. 

Yes, that was a fun match to watch. And it was close throughout--that's one of the things that made it so interesting.

Monfils played a very clean match. Despite his passionate play and risky shots, he made very few unforced errors. It was nice to see. 

I didn't watch the women's match, but the score made it look quite one-sided. 

[truthaboutluv]

Wow, Djokovic out of singles medal contention at the Olympics, as well as the Williams sisters for the doubles. Good for Del Potro, he was amazing all match. And all that after getting stuck in an elevator for 40 minutes, before the match.

[dcalley]

That was a great match. I'm pretty sure a replay (for the US) is available here.

[dcalley]

2016 ITF Olympic Book - "Tennis players share their medal-winning memories from the Olympics and Paralympics"

I've only flipped through this a little, but it's pretty nice.

[dcalley]

Del Potro got a US Open wildcard!

[Ohwell]

Yaaasssss!!!

[sacrebleu]

Hope Del Potro is around long enough for me to see him-- I'll be there the second Monday and Tuesday (4th round & Q's) I'm  excited to see what they've done with the place. (new roof, new grandstand etc)

[Ohwell]

Wow, I envy you!

[khyber]

Arthur Ashe kid's day today on TV.

[Ohwell]

Wow, that was a great U.S. Open opening ceremony with Phil Collins.  He's not playing drums anymore, but his 15 year old son did a great job stepping into his father's shoes.  

The 18 year old American kid who played Isner put up a good fight.  It's a shame he wasn't able to outlast him.  

[BitterApple]

Phil's son was awesome. I can't imagine performing in front of all those people at 15. I did laugh however at Mayor DiBlasio telling the crowd how New Yorkers would be pulling for Puerto Rican Monica Puig. Too bad she'd already lost to Zheng three hours earlier.

The teen who played Isner was impressive. The poor kid was heartbroken after the match but I hope he looks at the loss in the positive sense that he can hang with the top players.

On a shallow note, I love Rafa, but wtf is up with his hair? It's like a wispy bird's nest. Either get hair plugs or give in to nature and shave it.

Edited August 30, 2016 by BitterApple

[topanga]

On 8/29/2016 at 10:47 PM, BitterApple said:

Phil's son was awesome. I can't imagine performing in front of all those people at 15. I did laugh however at Mayor DiBlasio telling the crowd how New Yorkers would be pulling for Puerto Rican Monica Puig. Too bad she'd already lost to Zheng three hours earlier.

The teen who played Isner was impressive. The poor kid was heartbroken after the match but I hope he looks at the loss in the positive sense that he can hang with the top players.

On a shallow note, I love Rafa, but wtf is up with his hair? It's like a wispy bird's nest. Either get hair plugs or give in to nature and shave it.

I was fortunate enough to have a seat at the Isner-Tiafoe match. Incredible. That 18-year kid has a bright future ahead of him. And Isner was great, too--his serve was consistently amazing, and his body language stayed positive, even after being down 2 sets and even when Tiafoe served for the match.  Great comeback from Isner. 

[Ohwell]

The only issue I had with the Isner/Tiafoe match was that Isner did seem to be a bit miffed that the crowd began to root for the Tiafoe as the match went on.  He needs to remember that that's exactly what happened to him when he first came on the scene.  I remember several years ago when nobody had yet heard of him and he was playing at the Citi Open (it might even have been Legg Mason back then) and I was walking around and heard the crowd just screaming.  I went over out of curiosity to see what was going on and it was Isner and people were talking about this really tall kid playing such a great match.  So yeah, Isner needs to remember when he got all the cheers.

[truthaboutluv]

Isn't he always like this? I remember a match a year or two ago at the U.S. Open where he tweeted after about the crowd cheering for his opponent and even brought up the fact that he was American. I thought it was incredibly obnoxious and entitled. 

Edited August 31, 2016 by truthaboutluv

[crimsongrl]

Was anyone else bothered by the acoustics during the night matches in Ashe stadium? I've only watched Serena play at night but is was really annoying! They talked about it a bit on Tennis Channel Live and said Venus and some other players mentioned it. I hope Espn can do something about it for tv.

Edited August 31, 2016 by crimsongrl

[BitterApple]

I remember Isner having a hissy fit over the crowd rooting for his non-American opponent. Maybe he doesn't realize that the crowd pays big money to attend these events and they just want to see good tennis. So if a kid is coming back, they're going to root him on to extend the match. 

Crimsongrl, I haven't noticed the acoustics, but they really need to tell the guy who does the post-match interviews not to drag it out so much. I was dying laughing when Serena finally had enough and just walked off. 

Edited August 31, 2016 by BitterApple

[Ohwell]

56 minutes ago, truthaboutluv said:

Isn't he always like this? I remember a match a year or two ago at the U.S. Open where he tweeted after about the crowd cheering for his opponent and even brought up the fact that he was American. I thought it was incredibly obnoxious and entitled. 

 

13 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

I remember Isner having a hissy fit over the crowd rooting for his non-American opponent. Maybe he doesn't realize that the crowd pays big money to attend these events and they just want to see good tennis. So if a kid is coming back, they're going to root him on to extend the match. 

I try not to watch many of Isner's matches because they usually last so long, so I wasn't aware that he's acted like this before.  Dude just needs to get over himself. 

[dcalley]

I remember that Isner match and the resulting tweet!

John Isner beats Gael Monfils, but 'disappointed' in New York crowd

[topanga]

8 hours ago, dcalley said:

I remember that Isner match and the resulting tweet!

John Isner beats Gael Monfils, but 'disappointed' in New York crowd

That's a scary tweet--I know it's three years old, but still. So the rest of the country isn't God's country, whatever that is? 

[BitterApple]

Oh, wow, he was playing Monfils? Gael is a huge crowd favorite and incredibly entertaining to watch. Isner reminds me of Djokovic where they take it WAY too personally if the fans don't support them to the extent that they'd like. 

During Rafa's match last night I definitely noticed the noise level in the stadium. The umpire was having a tough time reigning everyone in.

[topanga]

15 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

Oh, wow, he was playing Monfils? Gael is a huge crowd favorite and incredibly entertaining to watch. Isner reminds me of Djokovic where they take it WAY too personally if the fans don't support them to the extent that they'd like. 

During Rafa's match last night I definitely noticed the noise level in the stadium. The umpire was having a tough time reigning everyone in.

And the crowd wasn't especially raucous. I heard that Venus and Serena complained to...someone...about the noise level during their 1st round matches, which also didn't have a huge amount of crowd noise. 

[truthaboutluv]

I don't think it's coming across as clear on the screens because McEnroe and Fowler, during Rafa's match admitted that it was a bit noisier than they remember in recent years. The issue seems to be that there is just a lot of personal conversation, chatter and people kind of doing their own thing instead of watching the matches, which wouldn't be so bad until you factor thousands of people all doing it and so it becomes a bit distracting. 

[dcalley]

The roof (open or closed) makes the ambient noise worse, and now the rain on the roof is adding to the din.

[truthaboutluv]

WTF, did Djokovic sprinkle some magic dust over his opponents? Dude gets a walkover the previous round and his opponent retires after six games today?

[Ohwell]

Djokovic is one lucky dude.

I love that they're playing Phil Collins' music throughout the Open.

[topanga]

Can I say I just love Mary Carillo? She's funny, smart, and she's great at interviewing players and her fellow tennis analysts. She really has a chance to shine on the Tennis Channel's evening show--US Open Daily, I think it's called? Her ad-libs are the best. 

And I know people complain about too much coverage of the Williams sisters, but right now I'm trying to watch the Serena Williams match, and ESPN keeps cutting away to other matches. I have DirecTV, so other matches are being broadcast in their entirety on other channels. But not Serena's match. Even when Serena's running away with a match, like she is now, I like being able to have the match on in the background. 

[mojoween]

Well fuck.  I was really pulling for Rafa.

[Ohwell]

I usually root for the underdog, so I was pulling for the kid.  He's got ice water in his veins.  I did feel bad for Rafa though.

Also, Serena's coach sitting at the desk with the other announcers annoys me for some reason.  If he's angling for a job after Serena retires he could at least wait until she does.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Ohwell

[truthaboutluv]

45 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Well fuck.  I was really pulling for Rafa.

Obviously he's my fave so I'm always pulling for him but I feel like Rafa needed one of those wins. He hasn't had a big, dramatic, clutch match win in forever. Even at the Olympics, he couldn't pull it out against Del Potro and couldn't against Nishikori even after having that amazing comeback in the second set. I think it would have been great for his confidence moving forward in the tournament if he'd pulled out the win. But that shows again how he's nowhere near the player he used to be because Rafa of old found a way to win those matches.

And the thing is he had the match on his racket after going up the early break in the fifth. However, I think he was waiting for Pouille to just go away at that point, which is silly, since the guy has had tight  5-setters in all his previous matches, and when he wouldn't, Rafa got tight and had that one loose game that lost him the break. Great for Pouille I guess but I really kind of don't give a crap about him and will be rooting for Monfils to make his first Grand Slam final since the French, many years ago.

Edited September 5, 2016 by truthaboutluv

[Ohwell]

29 minutes ago, truthaboutluv said:

Great for Pouille I guess but I really kind of don't give a crap about him and will be rooting for Monfils to make his first Grand Slam final since the French, many years ago

I was rooting for Pouille as the underdog, but I'll be pulling for Monfils in this match because he is my guy.  I don't know if he's played Pouille before, but I just hope he realizes that this will be a dog fight and he needs to put him away ASAP.  

[mojoween]

Monfils looked good against Barghatis (sp.) and Monfils is hot and I'm shallow so I'll be pulling for him too.