The Tennis Thread

[Soapsuds]

Its a hard pass for me. The women's tour is such a snooze.

[I Am A Swede]

I only watched a little bit of the Jabeur-Sabalenka match, and damn how annoying Sabalenka's screeching was. 

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  I'm sure the roof being closed added to it, but still.....

[Faulkner]

 

[Toups]

Alcaraz vs Djokovic in the finals. See, this how you set up a tournament, by having these two in different sides of a draw.  These is the match up most people want to see at the end of the tournament.  Just hope none of them get hurt and the match is competitive. 

[ChitHappens]

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Alkie doesn't nerve himself into cramps this time.  I want a 5 set death match!  

[Faulkner]

Oof. After surviving that monster draw, it must be gutting for Ons to lose that final in straights after being up breaks in both sets.
 

Good on Marketa for being the first unseeded player to win Wimbledon. She still had to beat solid players like Vekic and Pegula, but nothing like beating four slam champions, including two Wimbledon champions, like Ons had to.

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Faulkner

[Soapsuds]

Ons is a hot mess.

[DramatistDreamer]

The constant drone of relentless baseline tennis on grass courts is why I watched less than a handful of matches in their entirety. If Ons is ever going to be more than a finalist, she needs to makes some tweaks to her approach on grass. Being aggressive is necessary on grass but playing an aggressive baseline game could only work if you can overpower your opponent, otherwise, you will do what Ons obviously did and exhaust yourself by the time you get to the championship match. If she knew that she was having trouble summoning enough reserves in energy, why didn’t she come into net more often? Adapt a more offensive strategy? Instead she hit so many drop shots, Vondrousova knew where the ball would land, even before the ball left the strings of Ons’ racquet. People swoon over Ons’ “variety” in her game but if she’s so mentally and physically fatigued that she can’t summon the mental strength to mix up her shots to create the variety that is integral to her style of play, her game is in immediate jeopardy. And today she couldn’t summon anything unique to save her tennis life out there.
From what I have observed over the years, grass court tennis rewards athleticism and the type of aggressive game that takes risks…it doesn’t pay to be safe out there, that’s clay court tennis.

For a similar reason, Svitolina couldn’t reach the final but since she had a baby less than a year ago, and is dealing with a lot of geopolitical stressors, I will show her some grace, it was a very good result for Elina, especially considering her game is not meant to win on grass.

For me personally, this relentless churn of baseline tennis (aggressive or not) is just not the most interesting to watch. I have no interest in seeing players trade dozens of shots from behind the baseline with no apparent focus on how to create a winning shot, just endless hitting until one player drops out of frame from exhaustion. Not very interesting.

Edited July 15, 2023 by DramatistDreamer

[ChitHappens]

Ons fell apart for no reason.  It was pitiful and I felt her pain in her speech.  However, I have a soft spot for lefty Czechs so I'm happy with the results!  

[DramatistDreamer]

The commentators seem to believe that she had nothing left after having to beat five former GS winners. With her style of play, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case. She also seemed to revert to the same problematic style of play from last year where her shots became entirely predictable. When it became obvious that Vondrousova had saw that she was telegraphing her shots and could then read where they were coming from and where they were going, it was as if Ons sank even further. You could see it in her body language. Most of it was her mentality.

[Toups]

33 points, 7 break points, 27 minute game.  Unbelievable play by both. 

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[I Am A Swede]

Wow, a single game lasting more than 25 minutes! On grass nonetheless!  

I remember Steffi Graf beating Natasha Zvereva in Paris and the entire match only lasted about 10 minutes longer than that, on clay!!

Edited July 16, 2023 by I Am A Swede

[Faulkner]

Novak has nothing to prove but man, that collapse in the 2nd set TB really put him in a bind.

Congrats to Carlos! He’s only 20 and already has the most prestigious major title under his belt.

[Toups]

The best one was defeated by the next one.  Congrats, Carlos!!  What a great match! The US Open better not screw up by having these two on the same side of the draw. 

[Soapsuds]

Just love Novak losing smiling smirk at the end.

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I so wanted to be seated between Chris and Stefan.