Running tennis thread for 2023

She bothers me more than any other current tennis announcer because she openly roots for certain players.

 

Wow, Swiatek got blasted 5-1 in the third set by Jelena Ostapenko and is out. Iga looked great in winning the first set, but Ostapenko just bombed her with winners the rest of the way.

Ostapenko is now 4-0 against Iga. She gets Gauff next. That’ll be an interesting one.

Iga’s loss means she will drop out of the No. 1 spot after 75 weeks on top. Sabalenka will take over starting next week.

 

Bummer because I think Iga is a wonderful, thoughtful champion. Man Ostapenko much have been on fire given Iga’s footwork.

It’s all set up for Coco, please do it. (I’m Evert now)

Man I’m old, I remember Bryan Shelton playing.

 

Ostapenko has tons of firepower. She tries to knock the cover off the ball on every shot. She fires lots of winners but makes lots of unforced errors. In her second round match, she finished with 58 winners… and 80 unforced errors. And she won.

She doesn’t care how many times she misses — she just keeps blasting away. If she gets hot and keeps the errors down (or sometimes even if she doesn’t keep the errors down), she can beat anyone.

She and Coco have played twice, with each winning one. In their most recent meeting, Ostapenko won in straight sets to knock Coco out of the Australian Open.

 

Jess Pegula is the top-ranked American woman and is No. 3 in the world.

But she still has never made it past the quarterfinals in a major.

 

Soooooo women's bracket all sorts of crazy now

 

The more I see that Heineken “Viking” commercial the more I want to go medieval on whoever it is who thought it was a good idea to run it during seemingly every break of the Open broadcast.

 

Sabalenka just goes for it every point. Plus she has arms like a bodybuilder.

 

Fantastic outing by Sabalenka in her first match as No. 1-to-be. Kasatkina has been completely outgunned.

 

We're watching and Ms. SixToe asked this: "What can the players' coaches tell them? Do they help them significantly? What are they not allowed to say?"

I have no clue. Help.

 

They can talk tactics. Great example is Gauff’s first-round match. In the first set, Siegemund was killing Gauff by coming to the net again and again and brilliantly anticipating Gauff’s attempts to pass. Coco was clearly getting frustrated.

So her coach, Brad Gilbert (also one of ESPN’s broadcasters), told her to lob over her every time. Gauff started using the lob and it paid off, effectively neutralizing Siegemund’s net tactics.

 

Women's quarters

20 vs 6
30 vs 10
17 vs 9
23 vs 2