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The Tennis Thread

Serena just went down at Wimbledon. Her 2014 is possibly the most disappointing thing I've ever seen in the decade+ I've been watching tennis. I still have faith she'll join the 18 majors club but she is really letting down right.
 
i just want to save this here so i never lose it

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At least that saves me from double posting.

I'm extremely excited about how the Men's draw is going. For one, because I would be happy with any of the remaining players winning. And more importantly, this is the closest Roger Federer has been to a major title in a long time (for him.) Honestly, if I had to pick one player right now, it would be him. I'm not saying I think he's going to win, as much as I hope he does. I'd pick the field over him, but I'm giving him the best shout out of any one. It'll be one of the greatest achievements in tennis for him to get a man into the 18 major club.

I almost don't even want to talk about the Women's draw because the female stars really disappointed, Serena just having a terrible year at the majors all around. I can forgive Sharapova, she won the French. :) Btw, who is Victoria Azarenka? I'm rooting for Simona Halep, who could be the young star the women's game really needs. There hasn't been anyone new and exciting for a while now. SO much more likable than Azarenka, too. Sharapova is a young star in her own right, but she's been relevant for so long it's hard to even think of her that way haha.
 
fairytale said:
I almost don't even want to talk about the Women's draw because the female stars really disappointed, Serena just having a terrible year at the majors all around. I can forgive Sharapova, she won the French. :) Btw, who is Victoria Azarenka? I'm rooting for Simona Halep, who could be the young star the women's game really needs. There hasn't been anyone new and exciting for a while now. SO much more likable than Azarenka, too. Sharapova is a young star in her own right, but she's been relevant for so long it's hard to even think of her that way haha.
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Did you see the match with Serena yesterday? Was really strange! She had next to 0 co-ordination, couldn't catch balls form the ball girls/boys, looked like she didn't know what she was doing, couldn't even serve properly. She was a mess and she played on for three games before Venus called it quits. Some harsh viral infection or something, really fucked with her balance and stuff. I was amazed she could walk!

Mens side is getting interesting now that Nadal is out. Fed has been playing some beautiful tennis over the last few days, so I hope he keeps that form. If he keeps it even Djok can't keep with him. Murray's been playing "ok" as have the other men left. But yeah, a lot of good players left in the mens.

I'd like to see Lisicki go all the way, but Kerber is playing some great tennis atm. Beating Sharapova on grass is no easy feat.
 
Anyone watch Fed shut Raonic down today? I can barely wait for Sunday's Federer-Djokovic final. I didn't watch Djoker's semi today, but Federer looked great against Raonic. He barely broke a sweat on his serve (one break point faced in the entire match), and dismantled Raonic on just about every point unless Raonic blasted his serve. Although Djokovic has much better court movement than Raonic, I think Fed can get #18 on Sunday :)
 
Did anyone see the Serena VS Caroline match for the Roger's Cup... on paper it seems like Caroline did well to push Serena all the way to the very end, barely losing 6-4 5-7 5-7 but the thing is Serena was her own worst enemy, not Caroline... the latter was far too passive and there were plenty of times when she could have gone for winners but still played defensive anyway and half the time she only won points because Serena was either dumping the ball into the net or out of court... at times Serena managed to score 3 consecutive aces, but at others (Especially the 4th game Caroline obtained in the 3rd set) she didn't manage to get a first serve in and Caroline won all the points in that game from Serena's unforced errors... good on Caroline for being consistent, but if a top 5 or 10 player is on-form she doesn't really have a response; she won't be winning Grand Slams unless she can get more weapons in her play; she hit less than half of the winners Serena did in the entire match.

TL;DR version: Unlike Serena, Caroline is not in control of her own fate since she rarely goes offensive and relies on her opponents making mistakes. Any on-form player in the top 5 or 10 will not find Caroline a huge problem unless she develops more weapons... heck Andy Murray is defensive but at least he knows when to go for winners.
 
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Well she won anyway... but who in the world expected Peng Shuai in the semi finals, I most certainly didn't... I predict a Serena-Caroline final which would be most interesting; Caroline's demolition of Sara Errani showed an offensive side of her we've never seen before, let's see how that will fare against Serena.
 
Australian Open 2014 with Wawrinka :P

But holy shit yesterday was crazy. Djokovic and Federer weren't just both beaten, they were blown off the court. Rooting for Nishikori tomorrow, he's been astounding this tournament. He's played so many long, physical matches that he should have been gassed against Djokovic.
 
I have been playing tennis since i was like 4 (Now i'm 17 so it's 13 years) but now i'm a bit tired and took a break this year. I heard federer and wawrinka won davis cup, that's really impressive and i'm glad a champ like roger won one of the few things left in his awesome carrier (even if i am a Nadal supporter :P)
 
Sigh, I'm happy that Fed finally decided to play Davis Cup and I'm happy that he finally could add it to his trophy collection, but I just want to rant on how the French really messed up in the final. First of all picking Clay courts when both Fed and Wawrinka are excellent clay-courters...I mean, Fed would have at least 5 French Open titles right now if not for Rafa, and Stan considers clay his best surface. Gasquet, Tsonga, etc. have the majority of their best results on hard courts and Monfils is still extremely threatening (like, if you watched him at the US Open this year). The second thing is playing Gasquet vs. Fed. Like ok, Tsonga was injured, but I mean it's not like you have Simon in the back...I mean before 2011, Simon had a perfect 2-0 record against him. Both of the matches they've played on a big stage (GS) have gone 5 sets, and Simon took Fed to two tiebreaks in their most recent match in Shanghai (where Simon showed he was in form by reaching the finals). On the other hand, Gasquet is 2-12 against Federer, and one of those wins was from back in 2005 so that doesn't even count. 9 of Federer's wins over Gasquet have been in straight sets, like jeez man, Gasquet simply doesn't match up well against Federer. Honestly they could've played like Benneteau over Gasquet and it probably would've still gone better. Speaking of Benneteau and Gasquet, who decided that they would be a good pairing vs. Federer and Wawrinka.....it's not like you have doubles specialist Llodra, or Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who is Benneteau's current doubles partner (they won the French Open this year). I'm pretty sure that team's like #3 in the world or something rn, sigh...I mean sure Fed/Wawrinka won the Olympics back in 2008 but I mean, still a better idea than Benneteau/Gasquet...

SIGH since apparently Tsonga picked up his injury like a week before the finals started, they should've just played Monfils / Simon / Bennetau / Roger-Vasselin...I swear this is one of the biggest chokes in Davis Cup history

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Simon won his only match w/ Stan very recently in Shanghai, making him a much better choice for singles than Gasquet, who hasn't beaten Wawrinka since like 2006...sigh
 
fairytale said:
Serena just went down at Wimbledon. Her 2014 is possibly the most disappointing thing I've ever seen in the decade+ I've been watching tennis. I still have faith she'll join the 18 majors club but she is really letting down right.
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Thankfully, Serena did the best that she can do to clean up that mess of a year with major wins in US Open and YEC. It was really baffling as to how badly she followed up her stellar '12-'13 seasons. Yep, for the first half of the past season, Serena was visibly struggling. She suffered several upsets both in the slams and in the tourneys; perhaps the most notorious villain to her campaigns was none other than Alize Cornet.

In retrospect, it wasn't all that bad as she rebounded on the second half of the season quite well. Fast forward to now actually, and history has been written by Serena! Not so recently, she broke past Martina and Crissie's slam records, going into 19! I guess now she's arguably a step ahead in GOAT debates, teehee.

Anyways, Serena is now eyeing her 8th title on Miami and if she just calm her nerves, focus, and sharpen up, I think she should be fine. Just finished watching the Serena-Simona match, and it was a roller coaster ride. Serena dipped in form indefinitely, going from a very strong first set to a tentative and error-prone performance in the second. Given though, that Simona did played better but still, Serena made it harder for herself, especially on the third set. Hopefully, she can pull it all together in the finals and bag the title. GO AT IT, SERENA!

Oh, and can I just mention...the Romanian crowd??? >:I
 
Serena is now 64-16 against top 3 players, incredible. Legend. When she won the AO, she became the greatest of all time for me
 
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Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse for Gulbis... 1-6 0-4 atm vs Haider-Maurer

All in all, not enjoying this season too much. Too much Djokovic for my taste. IW final was disappointing after the 2nd set comeback, but it seems to be the way all the important fedovic matches go lately (Wimby 2014, IW 2014-15), with Federer making an unlikely comeback yet still fading away in the end.

EDIT: 1-6 0-6 and 41 UEs in 13 games... no comment.
 
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What a performance by Stan the man!! All through the fourth set I expected Novak to somehow pull through and take it to a fifth even though Stan was playing so well, but wow he was just incredible mentally in that set. Especially when he let two break points go and was 0-40 down at 3-4, I thought he was going to crumble from there so full credit to him. You've got to feel for Novak though, the career slam continues to elude him and this was his best chance till now with Nadal out of the way. Fully expect him to bounce back at Wimbledon.

Also damn that backhand o.O especially the one he hit that went around the post and was pretty much under the top of the net lol, that was just outrageous.
 
Federer please win the whole thing now... Seriously the match against Gasquet was insane, he could even be playing his best tennis in this us open since the 2011 rg / us open / WTF.
 
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