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SMB Tennis thread

The sad thing is, there's far more thread activity on the Brazil vs Jamaica Women's World Cup group match that's buried on the red button than a competitive grand slam final on ITV4 - just shows how not very popular tennis is on the SMB.

Nadal is apparently 98-0 in BO5 clay matches when he has taken the first set.

That was a pretty quick set.
 
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The Bridge Lad said:
The sad thing is, there's far more thread activity on the Brazil vs Jamaica Women's World Cup group match that's buried on the red button than a competitive grand slam final on ITV4 - just shows how not very popular tennis is on the SMB.

Nadal is apparently 98-0 in BO5 clay matches when he has taken the first set.

That was a pretty quick set.
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Venus, kvitova, Konta barty and osaka all playing Birmingham next week
 
An absolute nightmare start to main grass court season. The weather has played havoc in both the Netherlands and particularly Nottingham, where the bulk of matches had to be played on indoor hard, and a lot of the men's matches were played indoors off site at one of the University's.

Caroline Garcia beat Donna Vekic in 3 sets in the Nottingham final earlier today - which was completed entirely on grass. Alison Riske won her 10th grass match in a row (she won Surbiton ITF 100k last week) by beating top seed and local favourite Kiki Bertens in the Netherlands WTA event. Adrian Mannarino won the Dutch ATP 250 event (beating Jordan Thompson) and Mattero Berrettini continued his fine recent form by beating Auger-Aliassime in the Stuttgart 250 final.

Top seed Magda Linette beat 3rd seed Zarina Diyas in the final of the Manchester 100k ITF event and Dan Evans is currently on court now in his equivalent Nottingham Challenger final with Donskoy. He's a set and a break up and it can be watched here -
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Next week it's the Birmingham Premier (as @chopsfc007 mentioned above), as well as the smaller WTA Mallorca Open (still a cracking field with Kerber, Azarenka, Bencic, Garcia and Sharapova all involved).

Two 500 events on the men's side - Queen's and Halle, both have very strong fields as usual. There's also the Ilkley Challenger for the men and Ilkley 100k for the women.
 
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The Bridge Lad said:
An absolute nightmare start to main grass court season. The weather has played havoc in both the Netherlands and particularly Nottingham, where the bulk of matches had to be played on indoor hard, and a lot of the men's matches were played indoors off site at one of the University's.

Caroline Garcia beat Donna Vekic in 3 sets in the Nottingham final earlier today - which was completed entirely on grass. Alison Riske won her 10th grass match in a row (she won Surbiton ITF 100k last week) by beating top seed and local favourite Kiki Bertens in the Netherlands WTA event. Adrian Mannarino won the Dutch ATP 250 event (beating Jordan Thompson) and Mattero Berrettini continued his fine recent form by beating Auger-Aliassime in the Stuttgart 250 final.

Top seed Magda Linette beat 3rd seed Zarina Diyas in the final of the Manchester 100k ITF event and Dan Evans is currently on court now in his equivalent Nottingham Challenger final with Donskoy. He's a set and a break up and it can be watched here -
You must be logged on to see external links


Next week it's the Birmingham Premier (as @chopsfc007 mentioned above), as well as the smaller WTA Mallorca Open (still a cracking field with Kerber, Azarenka, Bencic, Garcia and Sharapova all involved).

Two 500 events in the men's - Queen's and Halle, both have very strong fields. There's also the Ilkley Challenger for the men and Ilkley 100k for the women.
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Aye some strong line ups might catch some of them whilst on my jollies quite enjoy the grass season although it's my brothers birthday and the cricket final the same day as the men's Wimbledon so might miss that.
 
Evans won so is now up to 63 in the rankings and he has absolutely nothing to defend over the next few weeks, so there's a great chance IMO that he could match or surpass his career high of 41 in the coming weeks. Mind, he has a very tough R1 match against Wawrinka at Queens on Tuesday, but he's now won 10 matches in a row and successive grass titles at Surbiton and Nottingham. The competition will start to get much tougher now, but an excellent start and encouraging signs.

chopsfc007 said:
Aye some strong line ups might catch some of them whilst on my jollies quite enjoy the grass season although it's my brothers birthday and the cricket final the same day as the men's Wimbledon so might miss that.
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Yeah, it's my favourite part of the season by a mile. Just hope the weather improves as this past week was awful for the players, organisers and spectators - they weren't allowed inside, so it was a bit of a mess, but they got through it.

Eurosport have Birmingham, BT Sport have Mallorca, Amazon Prime have Halle, and the BBC and Prime have joint rights to Queens, so coverage is really spread out this next week.
 
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The Bridge Lad said:
Evans won so is now up to 63 in the rankings and he has absolutely nothing to defend over the next few weeks, so there's a great chance IMO that he could match or surpass his career high of 41 in the coming weeks. Mind, he has a very tough R1 match against Wawrinka at Queens on Tuesday, but he's now won 10 matches in a row and successive grass titles at Surbiton and Nottingham. The competition will start to get much tougher now, but an excellent start and encouraging signs.



Yeah, it's my favourite part of the season by a mile. Just hope the weather improves as this past week was awful for the players, organisers and spectators - they weren't allowed inside, so it was a bit of a mess, but they got through it.

Eurosport have Birmingham, BT Sport have Mallorca, Amazon Prime have Halle, and the BBC and Prime have joint rights to Queens, so coverage is really spread out this next week.
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Might see if I can get sky go working I'm in salou marra

You getting to the Sunderland games this season @The Bridge Lad
 
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Session said:
Wimbledon wildcards should be announced this week?
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Yeah, the committee are meeting tomorrow and initial wildcards will be announced on Wednesday.

Very small pool on the men's side. Jay Clarke will be nailed on and I still think James Ward will get one, despite his age, just because of the lack of other options. He's ranked more than 150 places higher than last year and did qualify for Queen's and pushed a top 40 player to a 3rd set tie break today. I can also see last years Jr finalist Jack Draper, and Paul Jubb getting one as well, Jubb had a good win at Ilkley today. They normally give WCs to those who win the GB Challenger events, but Dan Evans has won both so far and he doesn't need one.

As for the women, I think Boulter (if she is ready), Watson, Dart, Swan, and last years jr winner Swiatek (who is now pushing the top 60, but just missed out on direct entry) will all be certs as well as the Ilkley winner on Sunday, if that's needed. Nobody is imperative after that, so it'll just be who's flavour of the month with the LTA / AELTC.
 
Lleyton Hewitt retired three and a half years ago. He's played in four slams, ten tour tournaments, two challengers and two Davis Cup ties since with another Wimbledon coming up. I don't think I understand the term 'retired' anymore.

Glad to see Jubb got a wild card, assume Baghdatis is retiring soon as well so fair enough on that. Must be a blessing to be born in a country with a Grand Slam tournament. Mahut's had about 90 WC's into the French Open, James Ward can't be far behind on Wimbledon wildcard entries.
 
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MarcoG said:
Lleyton Hewitt retired three and a half years ago. He's played in four slams, ten tour tournaments, two challengers and two Davis Cup ties since with another Wimbledon coming up. I don't think I understand the term 'retired' anymore.

Glad to see Jubb got a wild card, assume Baghdatis is retiring soon as well so fair enough on that. Must be a blessing to be born in a country with a Grand Slam tournament. Mahut's had about 90 WC's into the French Open, James Ward can't be far behind on Wimbledon wildcard entries.
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But just not as much in Britain as the other 3 slams. AO, FO and USO would have definitely filled all 8 slots with home players including the reciprocal agreement, which they would get back anyway. If the FFT were in charge of the picks here then Emma Raducanu would have got in as an equivalent of either Parry or Janicijevic, and Katy Dunne and Maia Lumsden would be the equivalent of, if not better, than Harmony Tan and Audrey Albie who both got one 5 weeks ago.

It's no real surprise and the picks are pretty much what I was thinking a couple of days ago other than Boulter is clearly not ready yet and they've gone for a QWC for young Draper instead of a MDWC. If the Ilkley womens' winner is won by someone already in the Wimbledon draw (like Surbiton and Manchester were) then they are effectively only going to be giving out 2 wildcards on the women's side, Katie Swan and Hariet Dart, as Watson and Swiatek's will change to next in as they are just 3 and 4 places out.

Certainly fortunate for Ward being born here though, and even more so that there are so few British men ranked in the top 300 for realistic replacements, but Wimbledon generally don't hand them out for the sake of it, certainly not compared to the other slams anyway. Ward got a QWC last year (got the the final Q round) and has improved his ranking by about 150 spaces, but at his age, he's not really going to progress much further.

I'm also pleased they have given one to Jubb - NCAA winner, so would have got a US Open WC if he had been American, and he's had a couple of good recent wins on grass, so he can obviously compete and has nothing to lose.
 
The Bridge Lad said:
But just not as much in Britain as the other 3 slams. AO, FO and USO would have definitely filled all 8 slots with home players including the reciprocal agreement, which they would get back anyway. If the FFT were in charge of the picks here then Emma Raducanu would have got in as an equivalent of either Parry or Janicijevic, and Katy Dunne and Maia Lumsden would be the equivalent of, if not better, than Harmony Tan and Audrey Albie who both got one 5 weeks ago.

It's no real surprise and the picks are pretty much what I was thinking a couple of days ago other than Boulter is clearly not ready yet and they've gone for a QWC for young Draper instead of a MDWC. If the Ilkley womens' winner is won by someone already in the Wimbledon draw (like Surbiton and Manchester were) then they are effectively only going to be giving out 2 wildcards on the women's side, Katie Swan and Hariet Dart, as Watson and Swiatek's will change to next in as they are just 3 and 4 places out.

Certainly fortunate for Ward being born here though, and even more so that there are so few British men ranked in the top 300 for realistic replacements, but Wimbledon generally don't hand them out for the sake of it, certainly not compared to the other slams anyway. Ward got a QWC last year (got the the final Q round) and has improved his ranking by about 150 spaces, but at his age, he's not really going to progress much further.

I'm also pleased they have given one to Jubb - NCAA winner, so would have got a US Open WC if he had been American, and he's had a couple of good recent wins on grass, so he can obviously compete and has nothing to lose.
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Oh yeah I 100% agree. The amount of incredibly low ranked French players that get a wildcard in Paris is mental. You'll never hear from half of them ever again after that one tournament. I'm sure they'd give out another eight if they could.

I've not really got any issues with who they choose to give them to but I do like the way USTA give the Americans a chance to earn a wildcard into the French Open. The other three giving each other a wild card for every Slam is a better idea I think. Not sure why Wimbledon aren't involved in that actually.
 
MarcoG said:
Oh yeah I 100% agree. The amount of incredibly low ranked French players that get a wildcard in Paris is mental. You'll never hear from half of them ever again after that one tournament. I'm sure they'd give out another eight if they could.

I've not really got any issues with who they choose to give them to but I do like the way USTA give the Americans a chance to earn a wildcard into the French Open. The other three giving each other a wild card for every Slam is a better idea I think. Not sure why Wimbledon aren't involved in that actually.
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It's mainly because the other 3 slams are owned and ran by their respective governing bodies whereas Wimbledon is the AELTC, a private club, rather than the LTA. Had it have been the LTA then I'd imagine much more WC spots would be filled by Brits and they likely would be involved in the reciprocal wildcard arrangement as well. The AELTC are obviously full of their traditions and principles.

It is a beneficial agreement and would certainly benefit British tennis, like it particularly does with the French, due to the lower number of appropriate candidates, and they could either simply nominate their best player(s), outside of the cut, to get overseas slam experience, or arrange some sort of WC playoff, or do it tournament based like the USTA does for the French as you say.
 
Yep, great to see him back in any capacity. Confirms he's playing Men's Doubles with Herbert at Wimbledon, but is still looking for a WTA partner for the mixed and has been rejected by a few already. apparently
 
Auger-Aliassime hadn't play a match on grass above junior level until the start of last week. He's just reached the final at Halle last week and has now beat Kyrgios, Dimitrov and Tsitsipas without dropping a set in the space of just over 24 hours to reach another semi final this week.

18 years old. Mad.
 
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