Iga with all her changing shoes, tying her laces, changing her racquet shenanigans. I like her, but each time she does this stuff she loses a little bit of respect from me.
I’m so glad I got to see the matches in person today. My first Grand Slam was excellent! What an atmosphere, especially during the Rune/Tsitsipas match! I love an underdog winning, but I fell in love with Stefanos and his deliciously curly long hair. He’s so handsome! That first set of Zheng/Swiatek was brilliant, it started off very one-sided then Zheng just kept smacking it back. It was a shame that she seemed to get injured or lost her way with the second set because it seemed like another upset might’ve been on the horizon. Side note: Iga’s shoes were so squeaky, it was quite funny that it was so noticeable. I was quite disappointed to see Keys just look visibly defeated and frustrated from early on. Maybe it just wasn’t her day. I can’t wait to go next year again!
Racquet changes never bother me as they're over so quickly, but I agree the shoe change right before the tiebreak was egregious. It seemed bizarre to me she didn't receive a time violation warning when Zheng had received one a moment before, after she took a few extra seconds following a lung-busting rally. The thing, for me, about Iga's streak is that the playbook to beat her isn't this enormous mystery. Both Samsonova and Zheng have shown the way, it's just a matter of whether someone can close. I don't mean to downplay Iga's success though, I like her and I like her tennis. I just wish the competition were tougher.
It would be good if we had three or four top players challenging Iga's dominance, but from the tournament's perspective they must be relieved she came through yesterday. As messy as the bottom half of the draw has been, the quarter-finalists still include a former slam champion possibly on the comeback trail, a recent losing slam finalist and the young player being hyped to the heavens by the tennis media as the future of the sport. Whereas if Iga had lost yesterday, the top half would be an absolute disaster in terms of name recognition and compelling narratives.
She's going to win a slam at some point, probably several, but if she does so within three years of that Wimbledon debut she'll be proving Martina Navratilova right. I can't live in a world where that happens.
Proposed new rule in tennis: people who shout out when the players are ready to serve should be dragged out of the venue by their fucking eyelashes. It's bad enough anyway but why the FUCK would you delay a match that's already run past 1am?
It seems Sloane and Martina have never actually played each other, so I wonder what the story is here? Her comment was too shady in its tone to just be an endorsement of Coco.
I wasn’t actually sure if I’d be able to trust Novak to beat… *that*… over best of five, and beating… *that*… is the number one priority for every man left in the tournament, so Rafa’s the better one to send to do the job.
