WTA 1000 ATP 1000 Miami 3/21 - 4/2 2023

[ti-amie]

Wednesday, March 29, 2023 Day 10

Stadium Starts At 1:00 Pm

Sorana Cirstea VS (2) Aryna Sabalenka
Not Before 3:00 Pm
QF
Emil Ruusuvuori VS (10) Jannik Sinner
Not Before 7:00 PM
(18) Ekaterina Alexandrova VS (15) Petra Kvitova
Not Before 8:30 Pm
QF
(1) Carlos Alcaraz VS (9) Taylor Fritz

Grandstand Starts At 1:00 Pm

(1) Wesley Koolhof/Neal Skupski VS Santiago Gonzalez/Edouard Roger-Vasselin
Followed By
QF
Nathaniel Lammons/Jackson Withrow VS (5) Lloyd Glasspool/Harri Heliovaara

Butch Buchholz Starts At 1:00 Pm

(8) Nicole Melichar-Martinez/Ellen Perez VS Hao-Ching Chan/Latisha Chan
Not Before 2:30 PM
(6) Storm Hunter/Elise Mertens VS (2) Coco Gauff/Jessica Pegula

[ponchi101]

...

Pffffffffffffft. You got your Rafa, I got my Roger. Time for some Carlos tour slaughter, I sez.

SERIOUSLY, though- I don't think Carlos is going anywhere near Novak/Rafa/Roger level of owning the tour. The likes of Sinner, Medvedev, probably Rune, etc. are gonna get their Slam titles. (*AND, one US Open title for Tiafoe, please!) And, I think it's gonna take a minute for Alcaraz to seriously contend at Wimbledon.

OH- and there's.....ummmmm.....Novak.

AND- let's remember the women's tour....Naomi's gonna take over the tour....then Barty.....then Iga.....then Rybakina, no, it's Sabalenka, no, we were right the first, it's Rybakina....

We are all gonna have to wait and see. (Still- GO ALCARAZ!!!!!!! Dominate, baby!!!!!)

You never got it . I am not a Rafa fan. And I am not a Roger fan. I am a fan of both. The matches between them were excruciating for me.
It was like the 1992 USO Final. My favorite player of all time is Pete. My second favorite player is Stefan. I loved and hated that final all the way.

And, yes. It will take a while before Carlitos can even come close to any sort of domination like what we saw, because of, yes, Novak. But right now, he is looking very solid.

[ponchi101]

BTW. Had never seen Eubanks before. Lovely, lovely 1 hand BH. Specially for somebody so tall.

[ti-amie]

[nelslus]

You never got it . I am not a Rafa fan. And I am not a Roger fan. I am a fan of both. The matches between them were excruciating for me.
It was like the 1992 USO Final. My favorite player of all time is Pete. My second favorite player is Stefan. I loved and hated that final all the way.

And, yes. It will take a while before Carlitos can even come close to any sort of domination like what we saw, because of, yes, Novak. But right now, he is looking very solid.

OH, I got it- as all Roger fans got it. Don't try to back it up now, you, you, you.......Rafa fan!!

As for Eubanks- John and I have seen Chris play a few times in the scrub leagues- including Winnetka, IL. As is true for a number of players in the scrub tour- Chris has always had talent. Thing is, he's like Tiafoe on steroids- goes for everything, with precious little margin for error. When he plays well, it's really fun to watch him play. He just hits the snot out the ball- and, indeed, has a great and beautiful one-handed backhand. Hope he can take out Mannarino and be able, hopefully, to play all of the Slams this year, at least.

[ti-amie]

[Deuce]

Seeing Pegula drying the lines herself (with the foot/towel technique) was an interesting and refreshing novelty.
Usually, rich kids will call for the butler or the maid to do those things...

Forecast says only 5% chance of rain at 11pm and the rest of overnight.
Play should resume within 30 minutes.

Mannarino - Eubanks to continue on Grandstand...
Sonego - Cerundolo has been moved to Buchholz.
Medvedev - Halys still scheduled for Stadium after Pegula - Potapova (which hasn't started yet).

[Deuce]

Interesting 1st set between Potapova and Pegula...
Pegula won the first 2 games... then Potapova won the next 5 games... then Pegula won the next 2 games... then Potapova had 3 set/break points on Pegula's serve, capitalizing on the third one.
6-4 Potapova.

Eubanks won the 1st set tiebreak over Mannarino. They're at 4-4 in the 2nd.
Mannarino really looks like some random guy pulled out of the crowd with his plain beige/khaki t-shirt with no markings on it, plain burgundy shorts, also without markings, and it looks like he's wearing regular running shoes/sneakers rather than tennis shoes (probably not, but they look like regular running shoes)...

Sonego won the 1st set over Cerundolo.

[Deuce]

Eubanks wins over Mannarino in 2 tiebreak sets.
Eubanks seems to be quite a genuine and engaging down-to-Earth guy. I hope he remains this grounded if he continues to rise in the rankings and get more attention (and I hope he does continue to rise in the rankings).

Pegula took the 2nd set 6-3, after being down 0-2.
Onto the 3rd. Potapova has won the most 3rd sets this season thus far...

Cerundolo also won the 2nd set 6-3. Onto the 3rd there, as well...

[Deuce]

Pegula was tiring in the first half of the 3rd set... She missed three easy overheads long, and generally wasn’t moving well... And she was missing other routine shots.

The 3rd set was rather low quality play by both.
Potapova had a couple of match points at 5-4, but was eventually broken. Then she broke Pegula right back to go ahead 6-5... at which point Pegula, naturally, broke back to send it to a tiebreak.

In the end, Pegula found a second (or third or fourth) wind, and pulled it out - 7-2 in the tiebreak.
At Indian Wells a couple of weeks ago, with the same two players, Pegula won 7-5 in the 3rd.

In the on-court interview after the match, Pegula looked and sounded exhausted as she said to the crowd “Thank you everyone for coming to watch whatever just happened tonight.”

Cerundolo won the 3rd set over Sonego...
Medvedev still isn’t finished, but looks to be on his way to a straight sets victory over Halys.

[jazzyg]

What a gutsy win by Pegula. She was down two match points to Potapova at 5-4, broke for 5-5, got broken again, then was down 30-15 but came back to break again before dominating the tiebreaker.

I love her game. She's cannot play at the level of Sabalenka, Swiatek and Rybakina when they are in good form, but she gives everything she has and is nearly impossible to beat for anyone else. She moves well, hits her forehand and backhand well and plays smart tennis.

[nelslus]

What a gutsy win by Pegula. She was down two match points to Potapova at 5-4, broke for 5-5, got broken again, then was down 30-15 but came back to break again before dominating the tiebreaker.

I love her game. She's cannot play at the level of Sabalenka, Swiatek and Rybakina when they are in good form, but she gives everything she has and is nearly impossible to beat for anyone else. She moves well, hits her forehand and backhand well and plays smart tennis.

WELL, just this year, so far, Petra beat her at IW (and also BTW beat her at the United Cup at the very end of last year), Krejčíková beat her in Dubai, and Azarenka beat her at the Aussie Open....then, at last year's WTA final, Jabeur and Sakkari beat her, Garcia beat her at Cincinnati, Halep beat her at the Canadian Open, Gavrilova beat her at the Citi Open, Martic beat her at Wimbledon....

Truly, no disrespect meant- and I admire the heck out of Pegula's record. She just keeps grinding, and winning a lot of matches in singles and doubles. But, it is just not true that she is nearly impossible for anyone else to beat her. She IS quite beatable for plenty of players- as is true of almost all of the players, on any given day. I do just respect how she keeps going.

[nelslus]

SO geeked that Eubanks managed to win today. I watched some of the match on Tennis Channel Plus- and Chris was so clutch in the tiebreakers- winning the big points with huge shots. Great backhand winner down the line on Mannarino's second serve to win the match. LOL, sure, I STRONGLY suspect this is the end of the road with this tournament for Chris with his next opponent....

IN any case....Terrific win, gets him in live rankings to #85- which I DO now hope means he gets to play at all of the Slams this year. Hopefully, he can win some matches at some of the higher level tournaments he'll now be able to get in, in the near future. He's 26. So, health permitting, time is on his side, and he can stay on the main ATP tour for awhile.

[ponchi101]

About Pegula.
She is a prime example of what I call the tour's parity. She now goes against Rybakina, who is playing on fire recently. And Pegula has beaten her in both matches they have played.
The one player that has separated a little bit from the rest is Iga, in that she seldom loses to very low ranked players. But then, you remember Wimbledon last year (Alize) and you see that she is like all other players today. Very, very good. Not invincible.
There is nobody in the tour right now that you can say is a Serena/Steffi/Martina. Players than when they lost to the #5 player in the world you were truly surprised.
Having said this about Pegula: GO ELENA! I just simply love it when I come home, turn on the TV and ESPN is showing her walking to the net after the match is over... and I can't tell if she won or lost.

[jazzyg]

WELL, just this year, so far, Petra beat her at IW (and also BTW beat her at the United Cup at the very end of last year), Krejčíková beat her in Dubai, and Azarenka beat her at the Aussie Open....then, at last year's WTA final, Jabeur and Sakkari beat her, Garcia beat her at Cincinnati, Halep beat her at the Canadian Open, Gavrilova beat her at the Citi Open, Martic beat her at Wimbledon....

Truly, no disrespect meant- and I admire the heck out of Pegula's record. She just keeps grinding, and winning a lot of matches in singles and doubles. But, it is just not true that she is nearly impossible for anyone else to beat her. She IS quite beatable for plenty of players- as is true of almost all of the players, on any given day. I do just respect how she keeps going.

You're right. I totally overstated the case. What I should have said was Pegula is terminally underrated by almost everyone as a tough competitor who wins with consistency but is not a top talent. She's a lot better than that in my opinion. I believe she is one of the five most talented players on the WTA tour at the moment but not quite good enough to compete with Sabalena, Rybakina and Swiatek when they are in form. She also lacks the creativity to neutralize their power the way Krejcikova can when she's feeling right.

Pegula's ranking of 3 is slightly inflated because of her consistency, but her ability is higher than almost anyone thinks, in my opinion. Better than, say, Bencic or Gauff unless Gauff figures out how to fix her forehand. I will be surprised if Pegula's level dips without an injury. I believe she is here to stay near the top of the game for a few years. It will be tough for her to win a slam, but not impossible with the right breaks.