Tennis: All Purpose Tennis Thread XV

[Tuggy]

Felix down a set to #205 ranked Dutch player Tim Van Rijthoven. In FAA's defense, Tim has been serving like a madman all week.

And Felix loses in a 3rd set TB.

 

[kihei]

Quite a story. The 25-year-old Van Rijthoven had not won a single match on the ATP tour before this tournament. Now he faces Medvedev in the final.

But for Felix, an embarrassing loss.

 

[kihei]

Murray over the usual self-destructing Nick in straight sets. It is amazing to see how Andy is absolutely thriving on grass this week. He looks more confident, more relaxed, like he is enjoying himself.

 

[Tuggy]

Marino cruises through qualifying in Birmingham. She is very much in form and given her serve, very dangerous on grass.

 

[Tuggy]

Quite a story. The 25-year-old Van Rijthoven had not won a single match on the ATP tour before this tournament. Now he faces Medvedev in the final.

But for Felix, an embarrassing loss.

Then Van Rijthoven has little trouble with Medvedev in the final to claim the title

 

[Tuggy]

Shaky few games from Felix cost him a straight sets win over Giron but Felix gets it done in 3 in Halle.

Pospisil playing his first match since March after another lengthy injury layoff. He's playing the CH event in Ilkley.

Andresscu also a winner in Berlin yesterday.

Marino up against Ostapenko today. We'll see if she can keep up her form.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Serena Williams to play Wimbledon after return

The 23-time Grand Slam champion hasn't played since injuring her leg when she slipped on wet grass in the first round of Wimbledon last year.

theathletic.com

If she plays like a top 16 player and doesn't hit too many double faults and unforced errors, I'm all for it.

 

[kihei]

That second set of Felix's was another real head scratcher. Against a glorified tomato can, Felix twice blew a service break, made awful errors, had his technique on his backhand desinigrate, and slowed his racket speed occasionally down to a crawl. Mystifying.

 

[Ben Grimm]

... Against a glorified tomato can, Felix twice blew a service break, made awful errors, had his technique on his backhand desinigrate, ...

I love the first quoted phrase, but I think it's disintegrate.

 

[MsMeow]

That second set of Felix's was another real head scratcher. Against a glorified tomato can, Felix twice blew a service break, made awful errors, had his technique on his backhand desinigrate, and slowed his racket speed occasionally down to a crawl. Mystifying.

As soon as I saw the bolded part I knew you wrote this without even checking!!

 

[kihei]

Just caught up with the Paul/Shapo match. Such à contrast between two players, one with a carefully thought through plan, the other just banging away.

 

[MsMeow]

Just caught up with the Paul/Shapo match. Such à contrast between two players, one with a carefully thought through plan, the other just banging away.

Felix is slow and steady and going upwards while Denis is falling back. He may be spectacular at times but that doesn't win in the long run.

 

[kihei]

Felix loses a heartbreaker of a first set to Hurkacz 7-6. Felix served brilliantly, kept his unforced errors to under one per game, but had no answer for Hurkacx's service. The breaker went downhill fast..

 

[kihei]

Felix continues to serve like an absolute demon. Never seen him this dominant on serve. But we are still heading for a second set tie breaker, it seems, 5-all.

But he loses another tie breaker and is defeated despite a 41-15 w/ue differential and 27 points won on unreturned serves. Only one break point opportunity allowed between them.

This match puts both Felix and Hurkacz front and centre in the Wimbledon conversation concerning challengers to Nole.

 

[kihei]

Nick, playing very well and mostly minding his p's and q's,, is into the semis in Halle. Wouldn't it be wild if he drew Nole in the first round at Wimbledon?

 

[kihei]

Medvedev makes his second straight grass court final, defeating Otte 6 and 3. He looks even better on grass this week than he did last week. He would almost certainly have been Nole's most serious threat at Wimbledon.

 

[kihei]

Superb grass court tennis as Hurkacz defeats Kyrgios in three extremely close sets, 7-6 in the third. Serving from both was awesome.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Can someone tell me hw Kyrgiosnis considered a big name in the ATP tour? The guy hasn’t done shit. By shit, I mean it doesn’t even have to be a GS title. He hasn’t even cracked the top 8 to qualify for the WTF. The Australian media really knows how to overhype their tennis prospects. Just like Tomic. They also did it with Hewitt. While he did have a solid career, they made him out to be the next Sampras.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Ons Jabeur on teaming up with Serena Williams: 'Really lucky that she picked me. I'm really nervous to play'

Fresh from winning her second title of the season and rising to a career-high No 3 in the WTA Rankings, Ons Jabeur admits she is "nervous" ahead of her next big challenge: teaming up with Serena Williams in the doubles at Eastbourne.

www.tennis365.com

WATCH: Daniil Medvedev has meltdown during Halle final, yells at his coach

For the second week in a row, Daniil Medvedev lost a grass-court final as he was beaten by Hubert Hurkacz in the Halle Open, but this time his emotions got the better of him.

www.tennis365.com

Matteo Berrettini once again the king of Queen's as he joins star-studded list by retaining crown

Matteo Berrettini fired a Wimbledon warning as he defended his title as the king of Queen's, winning the cinch Championships for a second consecutive year.

www.tennis365.com

Beatriz Haddad Maia goes bottom tier events to back-to-back WTA titles after winning Birmingham crown

An emotional Beatriz Haddad Maia made it back-to-back grass-court titles when opponent Zhang Shuai retired at the Rothesay Classic Birmingham.

www.tennis365.com

 

[MsMeow]

Can someone tell me hw Kyrgiosnis considered a big name in the ATP tour? The guy hasn’t done shit. By shit, I mean it doesn’t even have to be a GS title. He hasn’t even cracked the top 8 to qualify for the WTF. The Australian media really knows how to overhype their tennis prospects. Just like Tomic. They also did it with Hewitt. While he did have a solid career, they made him out to be the next Sampras.

It's because he's talented as hell but doesn't care, behaves badly and does well enough during some majors. He's completely sabotaged his own career because he should be in the top 10.

 

[kihei]

Draper, who looks like he might become the best British player since Murray, clobbers Brooksby 2 and 2. This season anyway, Jenson looks like he would rather walk on snakes than play on grass.

 

[Tuggy]

Convincing win today for Andresscu in Bad Homburg. Into the SF.

She is in good form heading into Wimbledon.

 

[Tuggy]

And she gets a walkover into the final as Halep can't go.

 

[kihei]

Seventh time lucky for Thiem who lost in the first round of a Challenger last week. In Bastad, he beat Ruusuvuori 7-6 in the third set for his first win of the year when helpful Emil double faulted on match point. Quite a weight off his back.

 

[kihei]

Yet another terrible loss for Felix at Newport. He blows a match point and then a 3-1 lead in the subsequent breaker with sloppy unforced errors. Kubler has had a teensy bit of a splash on grass this summer, but he is ranked #102 and is a career minor leaguer for good reason. For the past year and a half, Felix is averaging one of these beyond # 40 ranked player disasters roughly once a month.