Running tennis thread for 2023

I don’t know. When is the rain supposed to stop? How long after that does it take to get the courts in shape to play?

 

I vividly remember watching Wimbledon on HBO when I was a kid.
That wasn’t the highlight of my viewing experiences to be sure on that glorious channel.
My word, the day the new HBO guides came out was a celebration.

 

Looks like they still had issues with the weather this morning, so the 8 a.m. start on the outer courts would not have been feasible. The McEnroes were going off this morning about Wimbledon's decision to delay the first match on Centre Court and Court 1, both of which have retractable roofs (rooves?), because tournament officials wanted to play them with the roof open as the weather cleared.

Johnny Mac said, "We spent millions to put a roof on the court, but let's just wait to play until the rain stops. Yeah, that makes sense."

Edit: That's not a direct quote, but that was the gist of it.

 

Through the magic of DVR, here's J.P.'s actual quote:

"You spend all this money, Patrick, for roofs -- crazy amounts of money for roofs. People like ESPN are begging, 'PLEASE, get some matches out there!' But no, we've got to wait for the sun to come out. OK."

 

Another top 10 seed ousted in the first round: No. 8 Maria Sakkari knocked out by Marta Kostyuk, who came back to win after being bageled in the first set.

 

Some players have played twice; some haven’t played at all. Makes no sense except that we couldn’t think of having our precious 1 seeds play at a different time than we set up weeks ago.

 

Probably thankful they stopped taking the middle Sunday off last year. I've been traveling, but if I'm correct, everything except for the covered show courts was washed out on Tuesday? I did get a chance to see Andy Murray beat a fellow Briton named Peniston, who gave a very flaccid performance.

 

there are still seven first round matches that havent started. theres a number of ones that have been stopped, not sure on that one

 

Big shocker on the men's side: No. 4 seed Casper Ruud eliminated in the second round by England's Liam Broady, currently ranked 142nd in the world. Ruud was bageled in the fifth set.

 

That's definitely a stunner but Ruud doesn't strike me as a grass courter.

On the other side, watched a little Tsitsipas today, man what a forehand and serve combination with a beautiful one-hander to boot. Moves well for a big guy, not afraid of the net. Murray was playing some sweet defense and moving well but you could see he's outgunned.

 

Tsitsipas’ backhand is a liability, especially in return of serve. I’m not watching this match — I just got back from an errand and I’m actually headed out to play tennis right now — but I suspect Murray is taking advantage of that in his service games, which is why Tsitsipas hasn’t broken him. And frankly, Tsitsipas has not been playing well lately. He’s 1-3 for the grass court season.

I think Murray wins this match (of course, that’s easy to say when he’s up two sets to one.