Running Tennis Thread 2022

She was busy being a designer for KMart. I think she’s the one that’s said take the sheets off the windows and put them on the bed.

 

Swiatek, who doesn't have much track record on grass, was a -10000 favorite today and got pushed to a third set. I took Ons Jabeur to win before the tournament and I'm sticking with it.

 

She’s a solid pick.

 

Swiatek in some trouble again. Dropped the first set to Alize Cornet but has rolled to a quick lead in the second.

 

When I typed that last post, Swiatek was up 40-15 on serve, up 2-0 in the second set. She lost the set 6-2. She gone. Jabeur now the betting favorite at +210, Halep at +410. I put a taste on Ons at +900 pre-tourney so I'm feeling OK about that now.

 

Who is Kyrgios talking to ?

 

Nine of the final 16 women unseeded. Only two in the top 11 left

 

This is the first time matches have actually been scheduled on middle Sunday from the get-go.

Only times middle Sunday was used previously --- 1991, 1997, 2004 and 2016 --- were because of bad weather the first week and a heavy backload of matches.

 

As we’ve seen elsewhere this week, TV network rights money (and the decision making it produces) beats tradition 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 every time.

 

Well, the reasons before were to give the grass a reprieve and give the players an extra day of rest. But then you'd have "Manic Monday" when everybody played to make up for that day of rest, and if there were any weather woes, players were still sometimes having to play three days in a row. Kind of defeats the purpose.

And technology has improved --- they say --- where court maintenance is a lot better than in previous decades.

 

Been crazily busy the past week (the past three or four weeks, actually) so today was the first time I had a chance to watch much of Wimbledon. Here are some thoughts:

1. I felt dirty watching Wimbledon on the middle Sunday. It just ain't right.

B. The fact that Harmony Tan has made it to the fourth round tells you just how soft Serena's draw was for this tournament. Tan has a whole lot of nothing. Of course, the women's draw overall is a wreck. I mean, Swiatek getting taken out by... Alize Cornet?

iii. The announcers openly rooting for Francis Tiafoe was ridiculous. Yeah, I get he's the American, but come on. It was way over the top. They finally acknowledged Goffin a bit after he won, but up until then, it was really bad.

IV. BTW, my one big takeaway from that match is neither of those guys are that good and the winner (Goffin, as it turned out) will likely get beat handily by Norrie in the quarters.

e. On the other hand, the third-set tiebreak in the Sinner-Alcaraz match was very high-level stuff. I'm looking forward to Sinner-Djokovic in the quarters.

6. Speaking of that match, it's the one I most wanted to watch. But after Sinner ran off with the first set, they cut to the more competitive Goffin-Tiafoe match (and at times Jabeur-Mertens, which was a good one). That was disappointing -- I still would rather have watched Sinner-Alcaraz.

G. Van Rijthoven was a great feel-good story, having come back from all the injuries and operations and everything just to make it to Wimbledon in the first place, and then to advance to get to play Djokovic, which he said was his dream. It was really nice of Djoker to give him a set before finishing off the usual demolition.

viii. Maybe I just didn't watch long enough, but I can't believe I never heard Brad Gilbert, the man of a million nicknames such as "Escape From" Alcaraz, refer to "Baron" Van Rijthoven.

IX. I loved the mixed doubles team of Andy Murray's big brother Jamie and Serena Williams' big sister Venus, and it was great they won a match. Alas, the dream ended with a three-set loss today.

 

Ons was definitely tested against Mertens. She should have a fairly straightforward path to the final now, as her draw is super weak. She gets Bouzkova (ranked 66th) in the quarterfinals and will face either Maria (103) or Niemier (97) in the semis should she advance. Badosa (4) is the only top-10 player left on the other half of the draw.