Tennis

@Trousers, I know I was an asshole, and although she ultimately didn’t get the win, your girl Anisimova is played better in Miami than she has anywhere else in a long time. She’s got some salt in her attitude too, which is kind of fun to watch.
Getting ready to defend those 2019 clay swing points before they finally drop off! Good to see Bianca stringing wins together too though.
 
Naomi played a bit of a shocker today, but I'm kind of glad the 'winning streak' is over.
Also kinda relieved she didn't go into the European swing as number one where she's likely to have a few more losses that won't help her mood.

I guess the focus for her now is Tokyo.
 

londonrain

Staff member
Bianca getting to a final and then having to retire from it due to yet another injury...disappointing is putting it mildly.
She was patchy from the beginning but was getting into her groove a little bit by the end of the first set... and then she fell over and twisted her ankle. Barty was just way too consistent for her.
 
The French Open has been pushed back a week to 30 May, meaning there will be just two weeks between the finals and the start of Wimbledon. The players will love this, I'm sure.
 
I don't think Roger has mentioned skipping RG, but he has said that his focus is on Wimbledon so I don't know if this will change anything. And I agree about the Williams sisters, especially Venus who hasn't won a match there since 2017 and hasn't troubled the quarter finals in 15 years.
 
This definitely gives the players something to think about. Low key, I’d be okay with Roger/Serena/Venus just skipping the clay season entirely. And I don’t think they’d be alone in feeling like they’d be better off staying at home and preparing for Wimbledon/Olympics.

Does anyone know if they were forced to postpone for a week, or is it because they want the best chance of a live crowd? If the latter, they might have shot themselves in the foot by scheduling so close to SW19.
 
I think the hunger is still there, even at her worst slam. And her results at Roland Garros take on a very different hue when you look at who she's actually lost to - the eventual champion has had to beat her along the way on no fewer than six occasions, plus you have Stosur, Muguruza and Kenin who all went on to win a slam within two years.

In fact when you think about it, the losses to Razzano and Srebotnik were the only real WTF moments, and even they were both top 20 players at one point.
 
Not a fan of the trend of Simona looking brilliant for a couple of matches, then getting absolutely blown out of the court by someone with a decent amount of power. I don't see her ever winning a slam on hardcourt now. In fact, I'd say Wimbledon is her most likely, if she avoids Kvitova and Muguruza, and the AO version of Serena.

Aslan-Novak pretty much shredded my nerves, especially all the times Aslan would get to the net, have an open look down the line, and instead send it cross-court to Novak who'd inevitably hit an unbelievable passing shot. This could be a mentally huge stepping stone for Aslan.

I see more and more people stepping over to the Barty train/bandwagon on twitter... I do appreciate her as someone showing real consistency, but I can't quite get behind her in stan mode.
 
Sabalenka is way too prone to letting her emotions get the better of her, and I think that was her undoing today. The more she missed, the more she unravelled mentally, and throwing her racket at the end really wasn't a good look.
 
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