Tennis Thread - Grand Slams & The Tour

Did he beat the Bling King?
Good for him!

 

I watched a bit of Harris v Shapo.
Harris is doing well,looks like a Springbok Tsitsi!

 

Dubai final is a qualifier v a wild card.
Interesting to know when that last happened in a 500.

 

Watching Bling v The Lion I've realised that Aslan has switched clothing since Qatar.
He's now with Adidas.
Probably means he has signed a reasonably lucrative contract as his Nike kit was old I think.

 

Comfortable for Tsitsi over Musetti 3 & 1.
Zverev has more trouble with Koepfer,winning 4&6.
A good week for Neil and Ken Skupski. They defeated Soares and Murray in the semi final. This would be sweet revenge for Neil who became another victim of Murray dumping his partners.This morning they beat Ram and Salisbury to reach the final in Acapulco.

 

Djokovic withdraws from Miami next week.
Jack Draper,at 310 in the world receives a wild card.
The only reason I can think of is a trade with the USTA for Wimbledon.

 

Fantastic for the Lion King!

 

Zverev wins in Acapulco 4&6 against Tsitsi.

 

Murray draws Harris,the Dubai runner up in Miami.
Draper plays Kukushkin.
Evans v winner of Tiafoe and Travaglia.
Norrie v Nishioka.
Liam Broady is into the second round of qualifying having squeezed past Shang Juncheng 8-6 in the final set tie break.
Konta awaits a winner too as she is seeded.

 

Murray withdraws with a groin strain.
Murray has recently welcomed his fourth child into the world.
Coincidence?!

 

Murray mentioning retirement in his latest interview.
I would imagine,as I said before,that he will retire at Wimbledon.

 

Broady qualifies for the main draw in Miami.

 

Nishioka is decent too.
However Norrie is very good at making people play.
I find him terminally dull to watch but very efficient.
A tennis version of Jurado. Never does anything exciting but rarely does a lot wrong.
A good 6.5/10 pro.
Felix AA v Herbert will be an interesting second round on Friday.
May try and catch that if I haven't beaten myself to death with my DBS documents in the meantime!

 

Boulter beats leftie Pliskova,who constantly disappoints.
Watson out.
Pospisil apologies for threatening to sue the ATP . Must have been a terrible umpire,I just wanted to hit them not sue them!

 

Gaudenzi was quite combustible as a player as I recall so it's not hard to imagine.
Gimelstob before him was quite opinionated too.
Must be something about the post!

 

Drama in the Draper v Kukushkin ( the spit of Southgate I always think).
Draper either ill or injured or both and he falls over at set point down in the first set.
Defaults and Kukushkin through.
Still being treated on court now.

 

Doctors came onto court very quickly.
He had Covid recently.
I hope he didn't play with any ill effects in a desire to make use of the wildcard.

 

Konta through as Linette donates 11/12 lasts points.
Possibly the worst 5 all game I've ever seen on tour from Linette.
Two doubles and then two missed second shots.
Konta could probably have let a ball boy play and have broken serve.

 

Barty wins in three,having been 2-5 down in the third.
Gauff and Keys out.
Boulter plays Mertens at 3pm GMT.
Broady loses in three.
Norrie v Dimitrov at 4.30pm or thereabouts.

 

Dimitrov blew it in the first set,served for it and had set points.
He has never fulfilled his considerable talent,unlike Norrie who extracts everything from his very limited game.
Boulter was an early break up on Mertens but lost 4&1.

 

In women's tennis anything is possible!
It's a means of getting the ball into play to a great extent.
Name the great female servers?
Martina,Billie Jean to a degree although her volley far outstripped her swerve,probably because the serve wasn't always tip top.
Davenport,Serena and Venus,Sam Stosur,sometimes. Steffi.
Not many in comparison to the men going all the way back to Big Bill Tilden,the father of modern tennis one hundred years ago,the great showman. The man who would hold five balls in his hand,serve four aces in a row and then throw the other away as a flamboyant gesture.
Thanks Frank Deford for that from his seminal book 'Big' Bill Tilden.
Wonderful book.

 

Evans out to Tiafoe in three. That's a tough second round draw.
Harris withdraws which means both players in a first round match withdraw,he was due to play Murray.
Surprising loss for Zverev to the Finn Puki,err Ruusonouri.

 

Indeed they are,'the red and black'''. Occasionally the Italians are creative with nicknames,"Flying Donkeys" for Hellas Verona,apparently because someone said it would be more likely to see flying donkeys than HV reach Serie A. Most often they are just the colours of the kit.
Mr Finnish chap has been floating around the tour for a couple of years I think but I don't recall him beating anyone in thee top 10 before.

 

Comfortable starts for Medvedev and Tsitsi winning for the loss of four and five games respectively.
Another great win for Konjuh,three years out through an elbow injury.
She backs up her victory over Keys with a three set win over Swiatek.
Karatsev now 27 in the world is cruising past Southgate look a like Kukushkin.

 

Kvitova thrashed Konta losing three games.
Paire and Fognini appear to be in their own competition to see who can tank the best/worst.
This is rather distasteful especially when you consider that there is very little tennis going on below the main tour. This means that players ranked below 125/150 in the world have little way of improving their rankings and of course earning money.
The left hand side of the draw is very poorly funded any way so the pyramid is in real danger.
Poor show from two very talented men. If you don't like it do what Simon did and don't enter. Leave your spot for someone who isn't going to tank.

 

And only just finished.
Dinner must have got his second course as he looked cooked after the first set.