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2020 French Open


shadow_operative2.0

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Starts at 4 am Central on TC. 

Men's draw

Thiem in the bottom with Rafa. Will Novak drill anyone? 

 

Women's draw

Simona is the pretty heavy favorite, at least as much as a woman can be. Top half is WAY more loaded, someone like Sabalenka could make a run from the bottom if she can keep her head on straight. 

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23 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

It's going to get dark earlier this year. I bet a lot of matches get suspended due to darkness. More matches than usual, at least. 

I just watched a highlight of a match on Chartrier and there are lights.  But the rest of the place? Je ne sais pas.  I've to RG three times and it stays light until after 9pm, so you're right, that's going to impact the order of play.  

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9 hours ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

Ain’t gonna be many attractive kits for the ladies in this weather either. 

This tournament (and Strasbourg) have provided apparel companies to show new options for cool/cold weather tennis. It also is an eye-opener to the casual/warm weather only tennis player  

I hope that we see some Yoga Pants w/o Skirts or Shorts to help increase viewership during Americans football season. It’s for the good of the sport  🙏

Re: Lights

I’m watching replay on Tennis channel and they just said that there are lights around the grounds that have been put up this year. They have had plenty of time to plan & execute the installation of lights. 

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I like Gael Monfils and he was playing great before the lockdown, but has been fairly shitty since coming out of Svitolina for roughly 5 straight months. After I watched some of Bublik's matches in Hamburg, I felt that this would be a very difficult match for Gael and I was unfortunately right, though I find Bublik's play very entertaining and will add him to my list of players I pull for.

S. Williams v Ahn was the chunky challenge of the day. I only saw a few points early in the 2nd set, but I doubt that Serena makes it to next Monday. (Of course I said the same about NYC.)

During a match I watched on Sunday, I think that Lindsay Davenport pointed out that most of the late fall/end of year Women's tournaments have been cancelled. She specifically mentioned that with Venus' loss in the first round, her 2020 season may be over. It sounded awful that she won't have any more first round matches to lose until 2021. My guess is that after tomorrow (Tuesday), Sloane Stephens will be saddened by the same thing.

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1 hour ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

Yep, the only WTA tourney left is Ostrava, Czech Republic October 19-25. 

Yes, but it's funny that Venus has made it to the 2nd round once (ONCE!) all year and Lindsay Davenport is acting like it's a shame that she can't embarrass herself and the sport more times this year.

 

http://www.espn.com/tennis/player/results/_/id/403/venus-williams

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2 hours ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

17-year old Clara Tauson sent Jenn Brady home, 9-7 in the third. 

Watched from about 4-4 in the 3rd.

This kid absolutely smashes the shit out of the ball. Jen(n) Brady was playing great tennis, hard shots, covering tons of ground, but this Clara Tauson kid is about 6' to 6'1" (and towered over the 5'10" Brady when they tapped racquets at the net) and looked like she was hitting a forehand smash to right near the lines on every forehand and most backhands. It was unreal. It was almost like Delpo or Stan Warinka-esque.  

Jenn had two match points at 6-5 (40-15) an Tauson just kept on playing like she was unloading groceries from her parents' car by smashing the shit out of them as hard as she could. I say "unloading groceries", because the kid's facial expression was almost like she was bored. Great forehand winner, dumping a ball into the net, racing down a drop shot... didn't matter. She had this slackjawed, uninterested look on her face, but finally made a few screams in the last 3 games. Then when she won, covered her face a bit with her hands to hider her embarrassed smile.

Tauson won the 2019 Juniors Aussie Open over Leylah Fernandez from Canada, who had a good run in Acapulco (or was it Monterrey) this year before the COVID shutdown at 17 years of age. Leylah has turned 18 since and won her first match yesterday, knocking out the #31 seed, Magda Linette.

I don't know if Leyla was 5'7" yet when they played in late January/early February of 2019, but here is a photo of Tauson & Fernandez at their awards ceremony. If this were wrestling, they would practically be at opposite ends of the weight class spectrum.

137776611_15484904698941n.jpg

They look like they are 3 years apart, at least!

But they are less than a year apart and Fernandez is the older one.

I'm bummed about Brady, but she just got a perfectly awful draw. This Tauson kid is a beast and fun to watch.

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8 hours ago, satyanash said:

Oof. Missed call on set point cost Kiki the first set.


1) That obviously shouldn't be left up to the players to call... especially when it is pitting Germany vs France. There should be video review.

2) If it appears that Laura Siegemund actually was aware that it had bounced twice, she should be fined and/or disqualified. (in my opinion)

That one point could have changed the entire match for a frustrated Mladenovic. That is total bullshit. The lack of video review at the French Open screws over a French player. 

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52 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

Eva Asderaki was in the chair, she’s usually one of the best too. 

Just like the strike zone in baseball, offsides/ball completely crossing the goal line in soccer, the ball breaking the goal line in football, the ball being touched down for a try in rugby, whether feet are being the 3-point line & whether the ball has left the shooter's fingers before the buzzer goes off in basketball...

There is ZERO reason for line judges to call IN or OUT in tennis and there is zero reason that video review can't be used on an important point in tennis to see whether the ball bounced twice.

The sport is supposed to be about the players and the competition, not about some human error regarding interpreting the game by non-participants.

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59 minutes ago, satyanash said:

 

Smart move by Serena. 

She wasn’t going to win, she was likely to get embarrassed in a few rounds, she’s injured, and with her age & weight, she could very easily hurt herself even more than she’s already hurt. 

She needs to take off the rest of the year and focus on the Aussie Open and then focus on Wimbledon. I don’t think that she’ll ever win another major, but she doesn’t have a prayer on clay. Especially if she is injured.  

PS- So many seeds continue to fall to unseeded players. Love that Isner’s tired ass is gone. Korda Ian fun to watch. 

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9 hours ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

Genie wins in 3, Vika routed 2 & 2 by Schmiedlova. 

 

8 hours ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

Genie's practice kit is... something. 

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Genie and Schmiedlova looked outstanding today. 

They played well too. 

Genie looked powerful and focused in the sets that I watched and Schmiedlova looked calm and steady, and powerful as well, as Vika sprayed unforced errors all over the place. She looked nothing like she did in the two tournaments in New York.

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2 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Danielle Collins went toe to toe with that tall teen who out hit Brady. Knocked her out in straights 

I watched the final points and some highlights. 

The Great Dane was injured and was nowhere near to being the player who knocked out Brady. Jenn got so unlucky to play a cannon, because Collins went toe-to-bandaged leg with an invalid.

 The girl who beat Brady would have smoked Collins in under an hour. Really shitty luck for Brady, because she would have beaten Collins in 70 minutes or less. 

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12 minutes ago, ConferenceRoom said:

I'm glad Shapovalov is out, although he got screwed on a critical point. I don't think I can handle his screaming anymore. 

I didn’t see the screw job. The girl who beat Coco also got screwed on an important point, but overcame it. The lack of use of technology will be one of the stories of this tournament. Totally unacceptable. 

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47 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

I expected Anisimova to put up more fight against Halep than that. 0,1 yeesh

She looked completely lost.

She should probably take off a few months and get her mind clear. She doesn't appear to be over her dad's passing. Occasionally she would have ridiculously awesome forehands that you would say "Woah! Why isn't she doing that more often?", but the rest of the time it was long, wide, in the net, long, wide...

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