SMB Tennis thread (note there is a specific Wimbledon 22 thread)



Arkle said:
Both Swan and Watson won. Big surprise win for Swan in straight sets. Her section is left with no seeds now so may be a bit of a lottery. She plays the junior US Open champion (Wang Xiyu of China) and, if she wins, either Tamara Korpatsch, a 24 year old German who's yet to qualify for a Slam or Kristína Kučová, an experienced Slovak, who, at her best is a top 100 player.

Watson now meets Valentini Grammatikopoulou, a long named Greek, who's never gone beyond 2nd qualifying in a Slam but has had most of her best results on clay. After that, either the Swiss-Italian Romina Oprandi, who was ranked 32 (in 2013) at best and is here on a protected ranking after a long spell out, or Varvara Lepchenko, an ex-Uzbek American, who was ranked 19 at best and was reaching the second week of Slams a few years back. I'd take Watson to beat the Greek but less sure about whichever she faces next.

Out of interest, does anyone know why there are 12 qualification places in the women's singles but 16 in the men's? ATP and WTA differing or just tradition?
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Yeah, I was absolutely stunned by that Swan scoreline, she's barely beat anyone of note for almost a year and had fallen back outside the top 200. A real pleasant surprise. I'd probably back Xiyu to come through this little section now, she is fresh from winning a clay ITF last week so has a bit of momentum and did beat Puig earlier in the year when awarded a Miami WC due to her IMG links, would love to see Katie continue her run though. Quite a few seeds have gone in the women's section.

The qualifying is more to do with the slam than the WTA and the French is actually the only slam still to utilise a 96 women qualifying field rather than 128. Ironically, Wimbledon changed theirs just this year and as a result, Watson is 4 places off getting in directly and would have got in had they kept their original format, but the bigger draw is much better IMO, and hopefully the French will follow suite in the coming year.

These are the initial Wimbledon entry list:

Men: https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/MS_0520.pdf
Women: https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/LS_0520.pdf

French Open draws are sometime tomorrow.
 
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The Bridge Lad said:
Yeah, I was absolutely stunned by that Swan scoreline, she's barely beat anyone of note for almost a year and had fallen back outside the top 200. A real pleasant surprise. I'd probably back Xiyu to come through this little section now, she is fresh from winning a clay ITF last week so has a bit of momentum and did beat Puig earlier in the year when awarded a Miami WC due to her IMG links, would love to see Katie continue her run though. Quite a few seeds have gone in the women's section.

The qualifying is more to do with the slam than the WTA and the French is actually the only slam still to utilise a 96 women qualifying field rather than 128. Ironically, Wimbledon changed theirs just this year and as a result, Watson is 4 places off getting in directly and would have got in had they kept their original format, but the bigger draw is much better IMO, and hopefully the French will follow suite in the coming year.

These are the initial Wimbledon entry list:

Men: https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/MS_0520.pdf
Women: https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/LS_0520.pdf

French Open draws are sometime tomorrow.
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Swan through, Watson out. Essentially, the opposite of what I expected. Watson had match points as well. Swan plays Kucova now.
 
Arkle said:
Swan through, Watson out. Essentially, the opposite of what I expected. Watson had match points as well. Swan plays Kucova now.
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Yeah me too, happy to be kept proving wrong by Swan. The highest ranked player she has beaten since last August was 193 before this week, and now she's got 2 above that in a couple of days. Shame about Heather, she was in a commanding position throughout that third set and I was able to watch most of the set, but you never really felt confident - on to the Surbiton grass for her, in single's anyway, pretty sure she is playing WD with Maria.

The FO main draw is on Eurosport 2 from 6-7pm. Quite looking forward to it as there's a fair few dangerous non seeded players floating about on the women's side. Boulter is technically still in the draw, but she'll almost certainly pull out before play starts and collect half of the 1st round prize money.
 
The Bridge Lad said:
Yeah me too, happy to be kept proving wrong by Swan. The highest ranked player she has beaten since last August was 193 before this week, and now she's got 2 above that in a couple of days. Shame about Heather, she was in a commanding position throughout that third set and I was able to watch most of the set, but you never really felt confident - on to the Surbiton grass for her, in single's anyway, pretty sure she is playing WD with Maria.

The FO main draw is on Eurosport 2 from 6-7pm. Quite looking forward to it as there's a fair few dangerous non seeded players floating about on the women's side. Boulter is technically still in the draw, but she'll almost certainly pull out before play starts and collect half of the 1st round prize money.
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The draw hasn't been kind to the British men. Norrie has the enigma that is Kyrgios, Evans has Verdasco and Edmund, in Chardy, has a home favourite.

Konta looks okay. Boulter, as you say, likely to pull out.
 
I've seen better draws for number one seeds than both Djokovic and Osaka have. If either of them come through that to win then fair play to them.

Auger-Aliassime has never qualified directly for a Slam until this one and he's seeded for the tournament. Can't imagine that's happened many times before. He's an absolute joke.
 
Nadal on easy street till the semis where it will probably be Tsitipas again.
Ideally want Djokovic out early but hope coric,zerev, thiem can progress to stop him.
A fully fit delpo would be a great test but think he will face before potentially meeting thiem in the quarters.
Federer has a great shot at the 4th round without a major test hopefully but schwartzman and Tsitipas await after
 
scotch said:
Nadal on easy street till the semis where it will probably be Tsitipas again.
Ideally want Djokovic out early but hope coric,zerev, thiem can progress to stop him.
A fully fit delpo would be a great test but think he will face before potentially meeting thiem in the quarters.
Federer has a great shot at the 4th round without a major test hopefully but schwartzman and Tsitipas await after
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Isn't Federer like 20/1for whole thing
 
Swan's surprise run came to an end. There will be 2 LL spots as Boulter and Giorgi withdrew (after taking their £20k prize money of course*), but Swan won't be in contention for those due to her low ranking.

Norrie has had a bit of a reprieve, Kyrgios has withdrawn as well, so Cam now plays a French QWC ranked outside the top 250.

*Bit of a grey area that. It's far better than Boulter and Giorgi turning up, losing a couple of games and then retiring with full pay like the old's days as that's no good to the paying fans or tournament, but it isn't great when they've known for weeks that they wouldn't be able to play and someone else could have had a go at qualifying rather than Lucky Loser spots opening up. On the other hand, slams are by far the biggest payers and they have earned their right to claim by being ranked high enough and are not breaking any rules. It would have been better if they were still paid half the prize money once the entry lists were released 4 or 5 weeks ago and they could have withdrawn before qualifying starts - hopefully that will happen in future because the amount of money they make, surely the slams could afford to pay out 2 or 3 extra £20k's.
 
chopsfc007 said:
Iv been a bit out of the loop recently who do you reckon for the women's I watched some qualifiers the other day a lot of pundits seem to be going for halep.
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Halep is the rightful favourite given she has won 13 of her last 14 matches at this tournament and her path is fairly straightforward until the QF (her R1 match might actually be the most tricky), but then she is only about 4/1. Probably more value in Bertens, but she's often choked in the early rounds of slams especially since she's transitioned from 'clay court specialist' to genuine slam contender, but I can see her doing well here. I'd rule out Serena, and Osaka's draw is extremely tough as mentioned above, so I can't see 3 slams in a row for her. Bar Mladenovic, who now has Osaka's coach who won those 2 slams (Sascha Bajin) and is playing better and will have home support, Pliskova's path to the QF looks pretty clear and she won her last event in Rome, so those in bold would be my 3.

Kerber has barely played on clay due to injury and it's her worst surface so I'd also rule her out. Svitolina has lost her last 3 matches since getting injured in mid March and Barty's still not too comfortable on clay to be considered a genuine contender. Muguruza can peak out of nowhere, especially here, likewise Sloane who hasn't had a great 2019, but I wouldn't be confident enough to put a bet on either of those.

RG is my least favourite slam, but I am really looking forward to it, especially with the usual Sunday and Monday when people are off work - although most might be a bit distracted on the Sunday...
 

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