Talk About Tennis 2.0

Yeah, the Houston ATP tournament is also suffering from bad weather postponing a bunch of matches. Both tournaments are being played on clay, which is the surface most forgiving to wet weather, of course. But there are limits to its capacity to absorb/drain the water.

Next time, you should buy tickets for the nice days.

Meanwhile... 2 days into the tournament (not even 2 full days, due to the weather), and 2 in-match retirements in Charleston, as the disturbing trend of at least 1 withdrawal or in-match retirement per day continues...

atlpam wrote: ↑Wed Apr 06, 2022 2:56 am Managed to catch bits and pieces of several matches today, including Hailey Baptiste, Bencic, Sloane, Riske vs McNally, and Pliskova vs Zavatska (before the storms moved in). Zavatska has great defensive skills forcing Pliskova to hit another ball.

Power was out when we got back to the hotel and just came back on. Tomorrow’s weather forecast isn’t looking great, which is disappointing as there are a lot of players on the schedule that I’m hoping to see play.

Still sounds like you had a good time and were able to see some action.
Hope the weather forecast will be all wrong and you will get to see a full day of action tomorrow. Fingers crossed

---0---
About the retirements. This is one thing that happens when you have a sport that does not carry a lot of statistics: you can't judge whether the retirements are taking place due to a new phenomenon that is truly a risk for the players ("35% of retirements are due to injuries to players legs/ankles/feet", for example) of if the retirements are due to something bland ("40% of retirements are happening due to players suddenly losing a second set and feeling they have had enough").
I remember once at RG that Marat Safin asked for the trainer. The Parisian crowd started to boo him and he waved him away, which only incensed them more. He then lifted his right hand and the camera was able to see the dimension of his blisters; you could see the raw flesh exposed.
The crowd shut up.
The trainer came in and basically told him there was nothing to be done because there was no clean/dry flesh to apply the bandages. So he retired, but that day, that was completely understandable.

I maintain that human beings are not more physically fragile today than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. But when you compare apples to apples, there are far more in-match retirements and in-tournament withdrawals today than there were back then.
And so, if the human animal is not more physically fragile today than in the past, it must be because the definition of 'injury' has changed drastically - in that players today are much more prone to retire with what were deemed mild injuries 20, 30, 40 years ago.

While some may argue that the game is more physical today than it was back then (this is debatable, as I remember watching Pat Rafter serve & volley from up close 25 years ago, and that was just as physical as anything done today - probably more so). But even if we accept that the game is a little more physical today, it is still a non-contact sport. And, most significantly, the players of today are in better physical condition than the players of yesterday - they train more, they have access to training methods that yesterday's players did not have... and still, there are more retirements today than there were back then.
Thus my conclusion that today's players are significantly more spoiled and feel far more entitled than yesterday's players - because of the huge increase in money, sponsorships, and attention they get as compared with yesterday's players.

In all my years of watching tennis, I have never seen a player who beats herself more than Sabalenka. Even when she wins (as she did today), she still beats herself more than her opponent beats her.
She tried really hard to give the match to Riske today, but couldn't quite accomplish it.
Better luck next time...

Saw more tennis today than we expected - caught some of Anisimova, Maddy Keys, the end of the Pliskova Zavatska match (highest quality match that we saw), Sabalenka (Allie Riske is a tough out). Watched a little of Rybakina but was annoyed by her coach talking to her the whole time. Saw the end of Fruhrvitova vs Bencic. Definitely potential there. Saw the beginning of the Badosa match before they cleared the stadium for lightening, at which point we decided we were done for the day. Disappointed I didn’t get to see Jabeur and Fernandez, but a good trip overall. Seats in the main stadium were good (200 level). Apparently we were visible on TV at one point. Once I get home, I’ll try to clean up and post some pictures.

Glad you got to see an almost complete day of tennis...

Navarro's dad intervened tonight and created a thunderstorm just as his daughter was about to lose to Jabeur (3-6, 2-5).
That will only take 5 minutes to complete, obviously (unless Mr. Navarro makes the rain endure for the rest of the week)...

It's quite wet right now (even on clay), with the rain continuing, and thunder and lightning still around, and no sun to help dry it once it stops, obviously... so it's looking like Leylah probably won't play tonight.
I estimate they'll give it until 10:30pm or so - and if Jabeur and Navarro aren't on the court by then, Leylah won't be playing tonight - which means she may have to play 2 matches tomorrow.

And, of course, there was the daily in-match retirement today - Zheng retired at 2-5 in the 3rd vs. Alexandrova. I don't know the story there - but unless she fell and broke her leg, retiring at that point in the match is not a good way to create a positive reputation. It's very disappointing, as she's young (19), and I see her as potentially being the dominant player that people thought Sabalenka would be.

Play cancelled for the day (night).
Jabeur and Navarro finish tomorrow, as the 2nd match on centre court (1st match begins at 11am), and Leylah vs. Linette are 2nd on court on Althea Gibson (first match there also begins at 11am).

Day 6 Order of Play Charleston

Credit One Stadium

Starts at 11:00 AM

BLR A. SABALENKA (1) vs USA A. ANISIMOVA (15)
SUSPENDED
TUN O. JABEUR (4) vs USA E. NAVARRO
6 5 -
3 2 -
FOLLOWED BY
USA M. KEYS (9) vs SUI B. BENCIC (10)
FOLLOWED BY
USA C. LIU vs ESP P. BADOSA (2)
FOLLOWED BY
TBD vs ROU I. BEGU
NOT BEFORE 7:00 PM
RUS E. ALEXANDROVA vs CZE K. PLISKOVA (3)
FOLLOWED BY
SVK T. MIHALIKOVA/CZE K. PESCHKE vs KAZ A. DANILINA/BLR A. SASNOVICH

Althea Gibson Court

Starts at 11:00 AM

USA C. VANDEWEGHE vs USA J. PEGULA (6)
NOT BEFORE 12:30 PM
CAN L. FERNANDEZ (7) vs POL M. LINETTE
FOLLOWED BY
FRA A. CORNET (12) vs UKR A. KALININA
FOLLOWED BY
TBD vs EST K. KANEPI
FOLLOWED BY
Quarterfinal
CHI A. GUARACHI/USA J. PEGULA (3) vs CZE L. HRADECKA/IND S. MIRZA

Court 3

Starts at 11:00 AM

GER V. HEISEN/CHN Y. XU vs NOR U. EIKERI/UKR N. KICHENOK
SUSPENDED
Round of 16
TPE H. CHAN/CHN Z. YANG vs SUI B. BENCIC/UKR A. KALININA
3 2 -
6 2 -
FOLLOWED BY
POL A. ROSOLSKA/NZL E. ROUTLIFFE vs SLO A. KLEPAC/POL M. LINETTE (4)
FOLLOWED BY
Quarterfinal
TBD vs HUN A. BONDAR/POL M. FRECH

Deuce wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 1:19 am Glad you got to see an almost complete day of tennis...

Navarro's dad intervened tonight and created a thunderstorm just as his daughter was about to lose to Jabeur (3-6, 2-5).
That will only take 5 minutes to complete, obviously (unless Mr. Navarro makes the rain endure for the rest of the week)...

It's quite wet right now (even on clay), with the rain continuing, and thunder and lightning still around, and no sun to help dry it once it stops, obviously... so it's looking like Leylah probably won't play tonight.
I estimate they'll give it until 10:30pm or so - and if Jabeur and Navarro aren't on the court by then, Leylah won't be playing tonight - which means she may have to play 2 matches tomorrow.

And, of course, there was the daily in-match retirement today - Zheng retired at 2-5 in the 3rd vs. Alexandrova. I don't know the story there - but unless she fell and broke her leg, retiring at that point in the match is not a good way to create a positive reputation. It's very disappointing, as she's young (19), and I see her as potentially being the dominant player that people thought Sabalenka would be.

I heard there was a lightning strike on the grounds last night. Weather definitely got ugly again last night so no surprise they had to cancel the rest of the night session. I saw the Zheng score but did not hear any details as to what caused her to retire.

The Order Of Play right now has Leylah vs. Linette as the 2nd match on Althea Gibson court, and the winner of that match facing Kanepi in the 4th match on that court. There is no indication that the 4th match will only be played after a certain hour of the day.
Apparently Linette has a doubles match scheduled today, as well, and so could potentially play 3 matches today - which is ridiculous.

It would also be ridiculous to have Leylah or Linette play their second singles match potentially 90 minutes or 2 hours after their first singles match.

Meanwhile, the winner of Jabeur - Navarro gets a significantly longer period of rest before they must return to play their second match of the day, even though the completion of their first match will likely take about 5 minutes, as Jabeur is up a set and 5-2.

Unless they know something which is not indicated on the official Order of Play, this is very strange scheduling.

Anisimova over Sabalenka in 3. Sabalenka won the 1st set.
Anisimova did what she had to do... but Sabalenka once again did her best to give the match away. This time, she succeeded.
Sabalenka had completely disappeared in the 3rd set, and Anisimova was up 4-0 when she lost a first serve due to a second time violation (which seemed unwarranted to me, as she was starting her service motion when it was called). She got broken in that game, and Sabalenka won the next game on serve easily. Anisimova was clearly flustered by the time violation penalty. But Sabalenka didn’t take advantage, losing Anisimova’s next service game at love, not putting even one return in play.
Plenty of double faults at bad times for Sabalenka, as well...

Meanwhile, Jabeur, of course, finished off Navarro - it didn’t even take 5 minutes - closer to 3 minutes.

And the original ‘Coco’ - Vandeweghe - (a ‘lucky loser’) surprisingly beat Pegula in 3... Interesting 3rd set - Vandeweghe was up 5-1... Pegula narrowed it to 5-4, then, serving to tie it at 5, Pegula ran up for a short ball and hit a winner - but in so doing, she just barely touched the net, giving Vandeweghe a match point, which she converted.

In the previous round, Gasanova wouldn't shake Vandeweghe's hand.
I watched some of the first set of Sabalenka-Anisimova, and Anisimova was very frustrated. Couldn't get anything going on Sabalenka's serve - which has improved. Good turnaround. I was surprised to see the result.

Deuce wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 5:33 pm Anisimova over Sabalenka in 3. Sabalenka won the 1st set.
Anisimova did what she had to do... but Sabalenka once again did her best to give the match away. This time, she succeeded.
Sabalenka had completely disappeared in the 3rd set, and Anisimova was up 4-0 when she lost a first serve due to a second time violation (which seemed unwarranted to me, as she was starting her service motion when it was called). She got broken in that game, and Sabalenka won the next game on serve easily. Anisimova was clearly flustered by the time violation penalty. But Sabalenka didn’t take advantage, losing Anisimova’s next service game at love, not putting even one return in play.
Plenty of double faults at bad times for Sabalenka, as well...

Meanwhile, Jabeur, of course, finished off Navarro - it didn’t even take 5 minutes - closer to 3 minutes.

And the original ‘Coco’ - Vandeweghe - (a ‘lucky loser’) surprisingly beat Pegula in 3... Interesting 3rd set - Vandeweghe was up 5-1... Pegula narrowed it to 5-4, then, serving to tie it at 5, Pegula ran up for a short ball and hit a winner - but in so doing, she just barely touched the net, giving Vandeweghe a match point, which she converted.

Sabalenka is doing a disappearing act for some months now. Only #22 in the race.

Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 6:01 pm Sabalenka is doing a disappearing act for some months now. Only #22 in the race.

After that first set, I thought she had turned things around for the year. Oh well. Rough road this year, but last year was very good. Her results might always be up and down. Her serve is better, at least. Very good in the first set.

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 5:53 pm In the previous round, Gasanova wouldn't shake Vandeweghe's hand.

^ Heh... I'd wager that's not a first for Vandeweghe...

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 6:04 pm After that first set, I thought she had turned things around for the year. Oh well. Rough road this year, but last year was very good. Her results might always be up and down. Her serve is better, at least. Very good in the first set.

^ ... and not very good in the 2nd or 3rd sets.
She might actually be the most inconsistent player within a match in the history of tennis.