Running tennis thread 2024

Swiatek just rolled over Vandrousova, 6-0, 6-2. She's lost just two games total in her past four sets.

 

BREAKING NEWS

Djoker is out. Torn meniscus in right knee.

Djokovic withdraws from French Open due to knee

 

Hard to fathom. 2 games in 4 sets, in the Rd16 & Qtrs of a major, without a huge serve.

Bummer about Djoker, he was showing some guts and glimpses of the greatness. Can't root for Zverev, the abuser. Would love to see Alcaraz get the third leg of the career Slam.

 

Paolini is a breath of fresh air. Sweet.

I hate how the camera shows the hard ass male in woman’s box, Svengali like. Takes away from the woman. Passive mysogynistic message.

 

Huge win for Paolini. Before this year she had never gotten past the second round in a major. This year, she get to the round of 16 in Australia and now to the semis at Roland Garros. The win will boost her into the top 10 next week -- she began last year ranked 59th and was 30th at the start of 2024.

Seemed like no one could hold serve in the last two sets -- 10 breaks in 20 games in that span. One stat that caught my attention was serve speed. Paolini's fastest serve (110 mph) was slower than Rybakina's average first serve (111). Illustrates the big disparity in power between them. For the match, Paolini had 22 winners and 22 unforced errors while Rybakina had 35 winners but hurt herself with 48 unforced errors.

 

Paolini not the youngster I thought, she’s 28.

 

That's one reason I like her. She's been grinding it out for years, slowly but steadily moving up in the rankings.

I love that about her, and as I've mentioned here before, I love her game -- she's undersized, scrappy and fearless, she lacks raw power but moves well and plays the angles. And if you've seen any of her interviews, she's just so overjoyed to be doing this.

 

Agreed, she’s like the Italian who beat Serena at the Open (forgot her name)

 

You mean in Serena's last match? That was Ajla Tomljanovic, who's from Australia.

 

Andreeva comes back from a set down to beat Sabalenka, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4. I think the kid's legit.

43 winners to 26 unforced errors. Also, she pulled out 12 drop shots and won the point with 10 of them.

 

No at US Opwn when that long time Italian bear her with slices etc.

 

Wow, great call -- I had to look this one up. It was Roberta Vinci in the 2015 semifinals. She was unseeded and ranked No. 43.

Vinci lost to fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta in the final.