The Tennis Thread

[Paddingtonwolf]

Konta won the final pretty convincingly by all accounts, and is looking like a realistic grand slam prospect, especially as Serena won't be around forever. She needs to find some way to beat Angelique Kerber as she has beaten all the other top contenders (bar Serena) but there is no reason to think she can't be a real force.

Such a shame that the comments on the BBC page about her triumph are all about her parentage and place of birth.

 

[jd1981]

Strange goings on at the Fed cup game between Romania and Britain, Ilie Nastasae escorted out of the stadium for abuse aimed at Jo Konta.
Reading the story seems Nastasae seems an absolutely shit bag of a person who has no place near professional sport sounds like he might have some MH issues with some of the things he's come out with.

 

[The Bear]

He's already made racist comments about Serena Williams' unborn baby too.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Nastase is a very odd man indeed. And clearly a racist. Romania could easily have defaulted the tie for what he appears to have said. The authorities at the tie have been quite generous

 

[FrankMunro-371]

Maria Sharapova won on her return to tennis.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Fed giving Roland Garros a miss. Looks like he's going all out for one last Wimbledon title.

Hard to see past a rejuvenated Rafa in Paris now. Nole and Murray are nowhere near at the moment.

 

[Freddeno]

agree Rafa has to be the favourite, what in the earth has happened with Djokovic?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

There's definitely something wrong off court. He alluded to it at Wimbledon last year and nothing has improved since. Sacked his entire coaching staff last week, the ones he's had for his entire professional career.

He is 30 next week, no-one with that style lasts forever I guess. It's been a really sharp downturn though because a year ago he looked unbeatable.

 

[Freddeno]

I dont think age has anything to do with it, physically he is a beast..motivation? something outside, is he married?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

There were some crappy rumours about his marriage last year, don't think they're true...I dunno. It can be quite a draining lifestyle when you have a young family I suppose. He's won everything, he never has to play again if he doesn't want to, he hasn't been on a losing run for a very long time...different characters react differently. I always use the example in snooker, Steve Davis played until he was 60 just because he could, even though he went 20 years at the end without winning anything. Stephen Hendry called it a day when he was still easily one of the best ten players in the world because top ten was no good to him, it was number one or nothing.

 

[Freddeno]

aye

 

[Lord Knows]

Djokovic confirms he'll work with Agassi in Paris.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Angelique Kerber out in the first round at Roland Garros with possibly the worst performance I have ever seen from a reigning world number one. Unbelievably shit. Held serve twice in the entire match.

Edit: Maybe Hingis vs Dokic was worse. Not by much though.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Dan Evans on ITV4 now. Just taken the first set 7-5 against Tommy Robredo.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

One set all. Evo starting to struggle a bit physically, it's over 30 degrees in Paris today.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Lost three sets to one, was never really in it after the first two sets.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Murray safely through in four (looked better as the game went on).

However Konta is out in the first round again, she doesn't seem to like it very much at all here.

 

[lemonjelly]

Thought she won the first set easily? I didn't bother checking back after that.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

She did. Then it all went downhill.

 

[lemonjelly]

British players tend to struggle in France tbh. Don't know whether we just don't adapt to clay well.