2013 women's tennis thread....

by shivfan Thu 27 Dec 2012, 10:46 am

First topic message reminder :

Just to offer a little variety, on a forum where the focus seems to be primarily on men's tennis....
Cool

Who do you think will be the main contenders for the first Slam of the year? Serena Williams? Vika Azarenka? Maria Sharapova?

by The Special Juan Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:03 pm

Takes the first set 6-2 Cool

Her first serve percentage is only 29% though. Still, she breaks to love at the start of the 2nd and is on a bit of a charge.

by lydian Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:05 pm

Robbo's won 1st set 6-2

by lydian Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:05 pm

Oops...repeat!

by The Special Juan Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:08 pm

And Robbo hands the break back with 3 doubles picard

by The Special Juan Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:30 pm

A nice workout for Robbo. 6-2 6-2 she wins and will play fellow teen Eugenie Bouchard in the second round.

by The Special Juan Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:35 pm

And Robbo is the new British Number 1 too clap

by lydian Tue 02 Apr 2013, 8:49 pm

Nice easy win, woohoo on the #1, good to have 2 British players pushing each other on.

by LuvSports! Tue 02 Apr 2013, 9:03 pm

And young ones at that, it wasn;t the same having keothavong and baltacha at 26/27 pushing each other to break into the top 100.

by djlovesyou Tue 02 Apr 2013, 9:05 pm

The Special Juan wrote:A nice workout for Robbo. 6-2 6-2 she wins and will play fellow teen Eugenie Bouchard in the second round.

Might be a tough one for her given they're best friends.

Didn't work out too well for Laura this time last year when they met at Osprey. Laura's been through a lot since then though so should have enough.

by ryan86 Tue 02 Apr 2013, 9:20 pm

Lydian's favourite young German currently on court against Jessica Pegula at the moment.

by sirfredperry Wed 03 Apr 2013, 9:22 am

April 2 2013 - mark the date. Laura could and should be the British number one for a good many years. She, I'm sure, with her big serve and huge ground strokes will go much higher than this.
Only things holding her back will be injuries or a poor mental approach. Nice to see she seems to have pals on the tour and appears to be a happy soul.
Not so sure about Heather Watson. I hope I'm wrong but I think she may have already got as high in the rankings as she'll ever get.

by The Special Juan Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:06 pm

Ouch, EB takes the first set. Robbo was broken 3 times in a row at the end there so I can assume her serve is letting her down again.

@sfp, I agree with you. Aside from Errani, all the best WTA players have power which Hev lacks. Although I'd like her to do it, I can't see her cracking the top 40. She's just been diagnosed with glandular too.

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:10 pm

Yeah... Laura being a big softie against her friend "Genie" and losing a break lead numerous times.

Loses first set 6-4.

Breaks again to lead second set 1-0, but I think we can safely assume she's going to get broken again... raspberry

by The Special Juan Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:19 pm

Robbo holds consecutive service games!!

by The Special Juan Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:23 pm

A double break!! She must hold serve twice more now for the set. There's a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go you feel.

by The Special Juan Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:31 pm

Ah....

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:46 pm

Laura breaks again to take the second set 6-3. Good.

Final set it is...

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 5:55 pm

They say serving first in the final set is a big advantage... Not in womens tennis... Whistle

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 6:02 pm

Bouchard breaks once more to lead 2-1. Four breaks in a row...

12 breaks in 22 games. Feels like more than that. Erm

by The Special Juan Wed 03 Apr 2013, 6:06 pm

You get the feeling receiving is more of an advantage. How does EB play? I've never seen her play so I can't make a comment but either she's a great returner or Robbo's having "one of those" days on her serve.

by Calder106 Wed 03 Apr 2013, 6:09 pm

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere but have just seen that Heather Watson has glandular fever.

http://www.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/200599.html

I wish her a full recovery.

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 6:13 pm

I've never seen her play either, but I just looked her up on YouTube and here's a video of her getting hammered by Sharapova last week in Miami.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ3ABh1TTzk

You can try and judge how she plays from that if you like. Wink

This is surely game over now. Eugenie holds, breaks, and holds again to lead 5-1. Long way back for Laura.

by Cogen Wed 03 Apr 2013, 6:19 pm

And there it is. 6-1 final set to Bouchard. Laura, Laura, Laura... picard

I suppose the only consolation for me is that EB is Canadian!

I suspect she'll be getting quite a lot of media attention too, in the years to come... Whistle

by Danny_1982 Wed 03 Apr 2013, 8:22 pm

She'll get some Danny attention if that picture is anything to go by!

Oh and best wishes Heather. Hope she's back soon.

by lydian Wed 03 Apr 2013, 9:04 pm

ryan86 wrote:Lydian's favourite young German currently on court against Jessica Pegula at the moment.

Damn, I missed that!

by Born Slippy Wed 03 Apr 2013, 9:08 pm

Bad result for Robbo. Has to do something about the serve which is a real liability at the moment.

by ryan86 Wed 03 Apr 2013, 10:28 pm

lydian wrote:
ryan86 wrote:Lydian's favourite young German currently on court against Jessica Pegula at the moment.
Damn, I missed that!

And no further opportunities this week as she rather bombed out 7-6 6-1.

by lydian Wed 03 Apr 2013, 11:07 pm

by kingraf Thu 04 Apr 2013, 10:23 am

Anyone catch the Oudin-Jankovic match? Oudin sent down 60 winners and still lost. Must have been a thriller.

by kingraf Thu 04 Apr 2013, 12:39 pm

Cant believe its been nearly a week since the Sharapova-Williams final and no-one commented on Grigor Dimitrov. His ex-girl vs his current love. Getting sloppy

by The Special Juan Fri 05 Apr 2013, 9:21 am

I see v2's new favourite Eugenie has kept it up and beaten Stosur. Ah Robbo, one can only think of what might have happened.

by ryan86 Fri 05 Apr 2013, 5:14 pm

Looks rather chilly in Charleston today.

by shivfan Mon 08 Apr 2013, 11:51 am

Serena came from a set down to beat Jankovic in the final on clay at Charleston....
clap

by shivfan Fri 10 May 2013, 12:19 pm

Good to see Serena beating the ball-tampering Medina Garrigues in three sets in the quarter-finals at Madrid.

by lydian Sat 11 May 2013, 8:43 am

Can't believe Garrigues isn't being taken to task by WTA over this blatant example of cheating. Take a look at this:

http://tennis.si.com/2013/05/10/anabel-medina-garrigues-serena-williams-balls-video/

Outrageous!

by hawkeye Sat 11 May 2013, 9:00 am

lydian. That's outrageous! In full view of everyone including Serena. Maybe no one has thought to make a rule against it?

I hope it doesn't give Novak any funny idea's... When he meets Rafa in the quarter finals of RG he might be tempted to take along a bucket of water to soak the balls in at change of ends... Rafa could complain to the umpire as much as he wan'ts and look sadly at Uncle Toni but it would be to no avail... If it's not against the rules.

by lydian Sat 11 May 2013, 9:29 am

It is against ITF rules which WTA Madrid plays under. The rule states "No one is allowed to change the condition of the ball during a tennis match."

Can't believe the umpire didn't see her throwing the balls out one by one from her chair after scuffing them...or that the balls were passed to her in the first place. I've never seen anything like it in tennis before.

Garrigues has even admitted it...so what will the WTA do?

by djlovesyou Sat 11 May 2013, 11:08 am

So it's not illegal then?

by kingraf Sat 11 May 2013, 11:15 am

But you use that rule to the letter, then bouncing the ball before serving should be outlawed, as should hitting a ball away after a point. Some things shouldnt be made rules, they just need common sense and good sportsmanship.

Must say it would be funny if Nadal argued with an umpire about this rule... He hates them enough as is.

by djlovesyou Sat 11 May 2013, 11:20 am

It's not great sportsmanship at all, clearly that's true.

Perhaps fluffing up the balls to slow things down is something that's encouraged by event organisers in Madrid. They've certainly gone to extreme lengths to make sure everything else is as slow as possible.

by LuvSports! Sat 11 May 2013, 11:21 am

you're right he does hate the rules of tennis Wink

by shivfan Sat 11 May 2013, 11:38 am

Serena beat Errani 7-5,6-2 to reach the final....

by The Special Juan Sat 11 May 2013, 12:05 pm

I'd have liked to have seen what would have happened if the culprit wasn't Spanish.

by The Special Juan Sat 11 May 2013, 12:50 pm

Poor Laura. In Rome next week she's drawn Venus in round 1 and then Serena in round 2 Laugh

by djlovesyou Sat 11 May 2013, 1:56 pm

That ones going to get Shivfan's post count up. He hates Laura with a passion and the Williams are his two favourites.

by **laverfan** Sat 11 May 2013, 1:58 pm

kingraf wrote:But you use that rule to the letter, then bouncing the ball before serving should be outlawed, as should hitting a ball away after a point. Some things shouldnt be made rules, they just need common sense and good sportsmanship.

Quite agree.

Pace bowlers in Cricket shine the ball by rubbing it on their clothing. There have been cases of true ball tampering (using nails on the seam, vaseline, etc.)

Serena had quite a few challenges in that match. Garrigues could not cope with the power. Lots of FH/BH errors, especially in the second and third sets.

by **laverfan** Sat 11 May 2013, 2:00 pm

djlovesyou wrote:That ones going to get Shivfan's post count up. He hates Laura with a passion and the Williams are his two favourites.

Hating a tennis player? chin

Robson can probably take out Venus, if not Serena.

by djlovesyou Sat 11 May 2013, 2:14 pm

well, maybe hate is a strong word, but for one reason or another he seems to take a lot of pleasure out of her defeats.

by lydian Sun 12 May 2013, 1:32 pm

Serena dispatches Maria routinely 61 64.
She's head and shoulders above the women's tour right now and clay isn't her favourite surface by a long chalk.
Perhaps Maria should have tried some ball tampering...

by **laverfan** Sun 12 May 2013, 2:21 pm

lydian wrote:Serena dispatches Maria routinely 61 64.
She's head and shoulders above the women's tour right now and clay isn't her favourite surface by a long chalk.
Perhaps Maria should have tried some ball tampering...

We need Karsten Braasch back on the WTA tour. Wink

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