Tennis Talk 2016

[GrandSlamGuru]

I'm sad about Tsonga as well. I hope he comes back strong real soon. Pleasantly surprised that Monfils is still in it. Novak vs Kei should be interesting. I'll have to tape that one.

[tikigirl]

Hell of a win (yet again!) for Serena over Maria. I hope Serena isn't sick. I want her to win this GS. I've come to admire Maria's fight, but Serena blows my mind.

Roger's looking good against Berdych. Hope I didn't just jinx it...

[GrandSlamGuru]

Azarenka is out! What the what? Sadly I missed watching it. I wonder if she played poorly or if Kerber was just on fire. Very interesting.

[breezybee]

Azarenka is out! What the what? Sadly I missed watching it. I wonder if she played poorly or if Kerber was just on fire. Very interesting

.

Kerber was on fire for much of the match. Most of the first set and the last part of the second set she was hitting crazy angles and just pushing Azarenka around the court. Azarenka looked slow but I think it was just in comparison to what Kerber was throwing at her. In the second set Azarenka was up 5-2 and serving for the set. Kerber reeled off 7 games in a row to take the match.

[roseha]

I'm sorry to hear that too, I hope Vika does better in the future.

Fed-Djokovic is tonight (late in the US) - alert for anyone who like me thought it would be tomorrow night. I guess they are splitting up the men's semis.

[falafaclese]

It's interesting. In the last two majors, when Serena, despite her otherwise unquestionable dominance, couldn't make it across the finish line, the so-called second-tier women who would have naturally been the most likely to win after Serena, couldn't capitalize. Flavia and Angelique didn't come out of nowhere. They were both players who had the game to give top players plenty of trouble, but neither would have figured into most people's list of top 5 contenders after Serena. Of course 3 of the last 6 champions who weren't Serena went ahead and retired not too long afterwards, so maybe it's not that odd that we keep seeing new unexpected champions. It's undeniable that Angelique brought it though. She beat the two players who everyone pretty much agreed were the top two in-form contenders for the title.

I was enjoying seeing how Raonic had improved his game this year. He has always felt like he had so much potential, it's nice to see him gradually putting it together. It will be interesting to see if he can keep improving. Djokovic though, is just untouchable right now. It's pretty impressive.

I feel like both singles events ended anticlimactically for very different reasons this year.

[harry24]

Hi, everyone -- I enjoyed reading your posts during Oz, but didn't have much to say myself. Which I think is kind of an indicator that tennis is a bit, shall we say, boring right now. At least to me.

Falafaclese, I agree with you about Raonic. I feel like he is the only one of the younger generation, man or woman, who has the huge, unequivocal hunger to be a big time champion without any internal conflict about it. He keeps improving in ways I didn't think possible. I also thought his injury in the semi was the last hope for any interest in the final. I don't think he would have crumbled emotionally, and I think he has enough firepower possibly to bother Djokovic.

Otherwise the (relative) wimpiness of the younger generation is just killing excitement in both the men's and women's draws, at least in the majors.

[breezybee]

Agreed Harry, particularly with men's tennis right now. It was like this when Federer was so dominant too. Every major except the French the only question was "who will lose in the final to Federer". It was boring to me and I liked Federer! I'm enjoying women's tennis more than the men right now because there at seems feels like there is an element of suspense. I'm not watching or following as close as I usually do. It doesn't help either that I haven't been able to play since November due to having surgery on my hand. I'm too jealous to watch I guess.

[harry24]

Okay, so none of the big tennis stories of the past few months has prompted me to post: Sharapova's suspension; Federer missing the French; Djoker losing a few times, etc.

So, you ask, what has led me to post today?

This abomination besmirching befouling many of the cutest ATP players:



Argh!!!!



Gah!!!!!



I just ... can't ... !!!

[roseha]

I guess I'll jump in - anyone here?

I just came home from a trip to Newfoundland (so beautiful!) last night and was able to catch up on some tennis today. Saw the end of Venus' very dramatic extended 3rd set victory - very inspiring especially when you realize she's 36! I enjoyed watching the end of Roger's match also, nice to see him enjoying himself and not struggling. I didn't see Delpo's win but I'm very happy for him, he seems overjoyed.

I didn't even know Djokovic has gone 2 sets down to Sam Querry! What do people think - will Novak come back or will this be the match that keeps him from the calendar slam?

As for Sharapova, putting out a story that she's "attending Harvard Business School" the same week as Wimbledon...I don't know how anyone can give her any credibility after that, on top of the doping business.

[falafaclese]

Glad Venus got the extra days off. She's got two winnable matches ahead in the next two rounds, so I hope she can do it.

It's so crazy that Querrey was able to pull out that match against Djokovic. UNfortunately I can't imagine he's going to be able to sustain his level.

Kyrgios/Murray could be a pretty amazing match. What if they both start acting out at the same time? I could come to fisticuffs. Even without actual fighting, it should be pretty entertaining.

BTW, there is a women's doubles team made up of Daria Gavrilova amd Daria Kasatkina. Double Daria! OK, pay no attention to me.

[falafaclese]

I hope everyone's enjoying The Open. Miss the clever collective stream of consciousness here, but I've really been enjoying the tennis.

[georgeramsey]

Haven't played tennis for a long, long time. Have recently bought a racquet. Now will try hard to remember everything I used to do. There are so many so different racquets out there! scorum.com/en-us/tennis/@allaboutsports/how-to-choose-a-tennis-racket-review-of-the-best-tennis-racquets-of-2018