The 2013 In Between Grand Slam Thread

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

JosephPatrick wrote: »

Any predictions on Monte Carlo? Draw isn't out yet of course but its hard to bet against Nadal. I hope Djokovics' twisted ankle won't be an issue, I imagine he would have retired from his match if it was a genuine risk to the next few months, he has a lot of points to defend from a final appearances at Rome and Paris.

Djokovic was flying back to Monte Carlo today/yesterday/overnight (time zones?!?) and was getting an MRI once he got there to assess the damage. He did an interview with Serbian media after the match and he started crying when talking about the injury. Seems pretty serious.

Taking that into account it's hard to see past Nadal. At Indian Wells it looked like he'd never been away and that was on his hated hard courts. On clay I assume he'll be as unbeatable as usual.

JosephPatrick

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Djokovic was flying back to Monte Carlo today/yesterday/overnight (time zones?!?) and was getting an MRI once he got there to assess the damage. He did an interview with Serbian media after the match and he started crying when talking about the injury. Seems pretty serious.

Taking that into account it's hard to see past Nadal. At Indian Wells it looked like he'd never been away and that was on his hated hard courts. On clay I assume he'll be as unbeatable as usual.

Just watched him there on YouTube. Absolutely bizarre. Will be fascinating to hear what's the story is with the ankle during the week.

Bykobap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99SykJCac50

Floppybits

Murray batterd of the court by Wawrinka 6-1, 6-2.

RosyLily

Surprising, but Wawrinka can be exceptional. Love his backhand...so fluid. I hope Stan can build on this win; he'll play Tsonga in the QFs.

Murray's supposed to be playing Madrid & Rome before RG. Still has loads of time to get his clay game sorted.

Berdych was beaten by Fabio Fognini, 6-4, 6-2.

yerwanthere123

Del Potro out too. Would have been a great chance for him to win a few ranking points, considering he didn't play last year. Ah well.

Statistic about Andy Murray I find utterly amazing: He's never won a clay court tournament! I know clay is an obvious weakness of his, but still, you'd think he'd have at least won a 250 or something, or at least even made a final!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Statistic about Andy Murray I find utterly amazing: He's never won a clay court tournament! I know clay is an obvious weakness of his, but still, you'd think he'd have at least won a 250 or something, or at least even made a final!

Yeah, you'd think he'd go play a tiny tournament with no real competition instead of doing MC, Madrid and Rome before RG. A few wins, even against lower ranked players would do his confidence the world of good.

RosyLily

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Statistic about Andy Murray I find utterly amazing: He's never won a clay court tournament! I know clay is an obvious weakness of his, but still, you'd think he'd have at least won a 250 or something, or at least even made a final!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Yeah, you'd think he'd go play a tiny tournament with no real competition instead of doing MC, Madrid and Rome before RG. A few wins, even against lower ranked players would do his confidence the world of good.

It's strange. Surely if you're not good on a surface you start at the smaller tournaments and work your way up? I know the big names mightn't play the 250 clay tournaments but, like you said TME, a few wins under the belt before RG would be great for the confidence.

Nadal had a good win over Dimitrov earlier, beating him 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. He's looking healthy and moving well. He plays Tsonga in the SFs...should be a fun match!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Djokovic has a dislocated bone in his ankle according to his coach and Sky. Can't see how it makes any sense for him still to be playing.

RosyLily

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Djokovic has a dislocated bone in his ankle according to his coach and Sky. Can't see how it makes any sense for him still to be playing.

Broken bone and still playing???

I find that really odd! He could do more damage to himself and miss Roland Garros...and drop ranking points.

Withdraw from Monte Carlo. Better to be safe than sorry imo.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

They said dislocated bone, not broken, I don't know how different that is though. Seems stupid in the run up to RG to be making it worse.

mickmackey1

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Statistic about Andy Murray I find utterly amazing: He's never won a clay court tournament! I know clay is an obvious weakness of his, but still, you'd think he'd have at least won a 250 or something, or at least even made a final!

very surprising, if I'm not wrong he spent most of his teenage years practising on clay courts in Spain!

Fed back to No.2 by the way.

yerwanthere123

So we're looking at a Nadal-Djokovic final. Will be interesting to see if Nadal is back to full health (if there's any doubt left) and whether he'll be able to win his 9th consecutive title. If Nole wins then this could be a game-changer heading into RG.

walshb

Novak on fire. 3-0 up.

walshb

Novak wins his first Monte Carlo title in straight sets; 62/76.

mickmackey1

jaw-dropping stuff at times from djoker, and so ends one of the greatest streaks in tennis history.

yerwanthere123

Maria battles through to the final where she will probably play Li Na. It's been quite a tough few days for her, three three-set matches against Safarova, Ivanovic and Kerber. Not easy for your first three clay-court matches of the season! Getting to the final is great but I doubt she'll win if it's against Li Na.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Sharapova picks up another Porsche.

RosyLily

Good win for Sharapova! Kinda surprised she won it in straight sets.

Will be interesting to see if she can mount a challenge at Madrid or Rome.

yerwanthere123

Great performance from Maria, she's #1 in the race as a result of this win. Barring a meeting with Serena, I'd put her as the clear favourite to win RG.

yerwanthere123

Also, Lukas Rosol has been quietly creeping up the rankings this year. He won his first title in Bucharest today, which takes him to #35 in the world. If he could get a seeding in time for Wimbledon it would be interesting.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

She was flawless today but her three matches before that she was anything but. Of course that could just be her getting settled on clay again, and I suppose Kerber and Ivanovic are no slouches, but still, she'll have to play like she did in the final today rather than how she did in the lead up to it.

She's unbeaten on Red clay since 2011 now Which is so hilarious when you consider how awful she used to be. You have to give her credit for working out what wasn't working and fixing it.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Also, Lukas Rosol has been quietly creeping up the rankings this year. He won his first title in Bucharest today, which takes him to #35 in the world. If he could get a seeding in time for Wimbledon it would be interesting.

A seeding would make it a lot easier for him to defend his points from last year.

I was reading today that his dad only died the other weekend. He had a stroke while watching the Czech Davis Cup match on TV. Rosol dedicated the win today to him.

RosyLily

Some very sad news from the ATP tour today.

Brad Drewett has passed away as a result of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). He was 54.

Desperately sad! It was only announced in January that he was suffering from ALS. I first heard on Twitter a few minutes ago; honestly thought it was a mistake. Many people are confirming it now.

RIP Brad Drewett

yerwanthere123

Pavlyuchenkova wins her second title of the year in Portugal, will be interesting to see whether she'll make a move at the slams this year. I'm not really holding my breath though.

Madrid shall be interesting too as this is Vika's first tournament since Indian Wells. She hasn't exactly got an easy draw for her debut on clay, Pavlyuchenkova in the 1st, possibly Safarova in the 2nd and Bartoli in the 3rd. For some reason I don't Vika doing much on clay this season. I genuinely think Sharapova is going to defend her title at Roland-Garros. Obviously a little too early to tell though

Fed will be back too, it'll be good to see what kind of shape he'll be in. I doubt he'll be defending his title though!

RosyLily

Since 2009, the male winner of Madrid has gone on to win that year's Wimbledon.

The women's competition started today in Madrid. Sloane Stephens lost in the first round again, this time to Hantuchova. Hope she can pull herself together. Definitely some tough opening matches for the WTA; Azarenka vs. Pavy should be good!

yerwanthere123

RosyLily wrote: »

Since 2009, the male winner of Madrid has gone on to win that year's Wimbledon.

The women's competition started today in Madrid. Sloane Stephens lost in the first round again, this time to Hantuchova. Hope she can pull herself together. Definitely some tough opening matches for the WTA; Azarenka vs. Pavy should be good!

Didn't know it had already started. Sloane out already? Christ. She needs to get her act together pronto. Laura Robson won her opener too, someone who also needs to to her act together. Sabine even won a match!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I saw this mentioned earlier about Sloane Stephen's needing to get her act together. I'm pretty sure this is her act.

She had a flukey run at the Aus Open which elevated her ranking way higher than it probably should be. Now she's back to playing how she always did. Obviously the Aus Open showed she's capable of better, but it's not like she was a world beater and started slumping, she's just as she always has been.

p.s. Anyone following the Jimmy Connors/Chrissie Evert drama?

yerwanthere123

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I saw this mentioned earlier about Sloane Stephen's needing to get her act together. I'm pretty sure this is her act.

She had a flukey run at the Aus Open which elevated her ranking way higher than it probably should be. Now she's back to playing how she always did. Obviously the Aus Open showed she's capable of better, but it's not like she was a world beater and started slumping, she's just as she always has been.

p.s. Anyone following the Jimmy Connors/Chrissie Evert drama?

:eek:
I definitely wouldn't call her run in Australia a fluke. I'd call her win against Serena a fluke alright, but she certainly deserved to get to the quarter-finals. She was making all the right moves before Australia to suggest that she was going to become a top player, 3rd round @ Wimbledon & US Open and 4th round at Roland-Garros. She also gave Serena a good match in Brisbane the week before Melbourne too. I do agree though that her ranking is inflated.
Just my opinion!

And I'm following the Jimmy Connors thing alright, but tbh it doesn't bear much significance with me as these are players that were at their tennis peak long before I was even born

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

:eek:
I definitely wouldn't call her run in Australia a fluke. I'd call her win against Serena a fluke alright, but she certainly deserved to get to the quarter-finals. She was making all the right moves before Australia to suggest that she was going to become a top player, 3rd round @ Wimbledon & US Open and 4th round at Roland-Garros. She also gave Serena a good match in Brisbane the week before Melbourne too. I do agree though that her ranking is inflated.
Just my opinion!

And I'm following the Jimmy Connors thing alright, but tbh it doesn't bear much significance with me as these are players that were at their tennis peak long before I was even born

Maybe fluke wasn't the right word, but to me that would be the surprise tournament rather than these ones where she's losing.

I don't remember Connors or Evert playing either but it's a pretty $hitty thing to reveal about someone without even telling them that you were going to do it.