Thursday, May 26, 2022

RG.5- The Pole Who Waits


Iga...Iga...Iga...IGA!




And there you have the world #1's most heart-pulsing moment of suspense so far at this Roland Garros, as she continues to await her first true challenge on the terre battue.




=DAY 5 NOTES=
...while Top 10 seeds have been dropping like bad music all week in Paris, #3 Paula Badosa can count herself as one of the three exceptions who have survived into the 3rd Round. The Spaniad made sure of that today, finally taming Slovenian Kaja Juvan in three sets.

After twice being broken when serving for the 1st set, Badosa put together a break-and-hold combination to close out the set at 7-5. After Juvan, fresh off her three-TB tussle with Angie Kerber in Strasbourg and tight 1st Round win over young Hordette Oksana Selekhmeteva (coming back from 4-5, love/40 down in the 1st, then 0-5 in the 2nd to win in straights), claimed the 2nd to force a 3rd set, Badosa reasserted herself by taking an early break advantage, then carrying it through for a 7-5/3-6/6-2 win to reach her third straight 3rd Round in Paris (after 4r/QF results the last two years at RG, she's already reached the second week at four of the last six majors).



The past year or so, listening to Badosa's surprisingly raspy/husky voice, I've been trying to figure out what switch it's been somewhat tripping in my brain, and today I finally figured it out. Her voice reminds me of Golden Age actress Marlene Dietrich (see the Jukebox).



...apparently, #11 Jessie Pegula just loves Paris. So much so that she's willing to stay out on the court for as long as possible, even when she's just a single point from ending her match. She just keeps coming back for more. After leading Wang Qiang 6-2/5-1 in the 1st Round, Pegula needed ten MP to finally get the win. Today wasn't much different.

Pegula led Anhelina Kalinina 6-1/4-0 today, then 5-1 in the 2nd. She had three MP at 5-2, only to see Kalinina reel off six straight games to get to the 3rd. Once there, again Pegula took a break lead at 3-1, then broke for 4-1 on her seventh BP of a 14-minute game #5. Serving for the match at 5-4, Pegula staved off three BP, and had her fourth MP. And fifth. And sixth. And seventh. Finally, after chasing balls from corner to corner deep in the backcourt, Pegula converted on MP #8... with a volley at the net. Her 6-1/5-7/6-4 win advances her into her third straight slam 3rd Round, and sixth in the last eight.



...fittingly, as the NCAA Championships (at the moment, the women's doubles competition is underway) are held in Illinois, Paris has seen a spate of former college players making moves at Roland Garros, with the likes of Danielle Collins (Virginia), Mayar Sherif (Pepperdine) and Fernanda Contreras (Vanderbilt) making headlines (there are still more in doubles, including former USC Trojan Giuliana Olmos).

Another of those former college players is French wild card Léolia Jeanjean, the 26-year world #227 who saw a much-hyped tennis future as a junior corrupted by an injury that led her to quit the sport, not playing for two years. She eventually made the decision to head to the United States, attending college and playing tennis at Baylor, Arkansas and then Division-II Lynn University in Florida, where she'd earn a finance degree.

After reaching three challenger finals this season (including a $60K at Croissy-Beauborg), winning a $25K in April, Jeanjean lifted her ranking into the Top 250 (she was #838 at this time last year) and was given a RG wild card by the FFT. In her tour-level debut, she upset #45 Nuria Parrizas Diaz in the 1st Round. Today she took out #8 Karolina Pliskova, becoming the third-lowest ranked player to defeat a Top 10 opponent in '22 (after #409 Dasha Saville and #231 Laura Siegemund, both accomplished players returning from injury layoffs, upset Ons Jabeuar and Maria Sakkari, respectively).



Jeanjean's 6-2/6-2 win comes in the shadow of Sherif's withdrawal from the 2nd Round with an injury that will keep her out for essentially the balance of what remains of the summer, while Contreras fell to #20 Dasha Kasatkina and #9 Collins was upset by fellow Bannerette Shelby Rogers. But Jeanjean remains, the lone "who's that?" figure in this draw, and perhaps positioned to write one of the few stories that might challenge the slam fairy tale penned by a certain Brit in New York last year.

Such a thing probably won't happen, of course. But if you'd said that Emma Raducanu was going to be the U.S. Open champ after she topped Zhang Shuai in the 2nd Round at Flushing Meadows last summer you might have had people following you with a straitjacket. You. Never. Know.

(Insert "simply irresistible" notions here.)



Meanwhile, Pliskova is the second Czech ousted by a wild card (Saville def. #32 Petra Kvitova) at this RG, and while she'll be playing at Wimbledon she won't be defending the runner-up points she earned at SW19 last summer.

...in the match between #30-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova and Irina-Camelia Begu, it was a day of controversy and comebacks.

First, the match particulars, as Alexandrova rallied from 5-3 down in the 1st to win a TB, then Begu staged a comeback from 4-2 back in the 3rd. The Hordette knotted the set at 4-4, but the Romanian broke in game #9 and held to win 6-4 in the 3rd, reaching the 3rd Round in Paris for a fourth time since 2015 (including a 4th Rd. in '16). Now the rest.

Down 2-0 in the 3rd, Begu bounced her racket in mild frustration in the changeover area, only to see it take a wild bounce into the stands, hitting a young boy. After consultations between chair umpire Anis Ressaissi and a tournament supervisor, which apparently included the parents of the child, Begu wasn't DQ'd and was allowed to play on (and ultimately win).



While what happened was clearly accidental, Begu *should* have been disqualified and Alexandrova advanced to the next round. It wasn't a case of the racket slipping out of Begu's hand, or a ball flying off the frame mid-point. The racket was bounced as a result of some level of pique, so the standing rules should apply. It would have been a tough break for Begu, but what's the point of having player match behavior rules if they're going to be so inconsistently enforced? It's this sort of thing, when an official (aka Carlos Ramos regarding Serena, plus whoever the umpire was in the Djokovic incident at the Open) actually does their job, that leads to accusations of favoritism, prejudice, racism, sexism or whatever other charges might be thrown their way when decisions are made for/against other players. Stick to the rules and no one can put forth an argument with any legitimacy.

The FFT and Roland Garros can still correct this and disqualify Begu before she plays her next match (of note, vs. Jeanjean), but I doubt that will happen.

...there was less controversy when #1 Iga Swiatek met Alison Riske. I figured the over/under on this match when it came to games won by Riske *had* to be, what, 2? Maybe even 1. I was thinking something like 6-0/6-1, or maybe 6-1/6-1. It turned out to be 6-0/6-2, as Swiatek claimed her 30th straight win.

The "biggest" moment may have been when Swiatek, after winning the opening game of the 2nd set, took a seat in the changeover area and just stayed there, absentmindedly (or maybe she was ultra-focused) thinking it was time for a full changeover rather than simply the players changing sides of the court (though players always stop, get a drink, towel off, etc. along the way). As silence prevailed and Riske made her way to the backcourt, the smiling umpire had to gently remind Iga that it was time to play, which caused her to jump and then sheepishly grab her racket and run out onto the court.



Haha. And everyone thought Ash Barty was the "most relatable" tennis champion of recent times.

(Of course, if this had happened against Osaka the Twitter legions would have accused Swiatek of playing "mind games" and complained about how "unfair" it was to Naomi... and a full-scale social media battle would have surely ensued. I mean, if you're going to accuse the tournament of trying to get "payback" against Osaka -- unseeded, remember -- by having her blindly drawn to face the seeded Amanda Anisimova in the 1st Round, you're going to find conspiracies *everywhere*, right?)



...meanwhile, quietly, Danka Kovinic is having quite a nice season. Today the Montenegrin reached her second consecutive slam 3rd Round, both career best results, with a straight sets wins over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. Before Kovinic, no player from her country had ever played so deeply into a major. In 2022, she's also reached the 3rd Round at Indian Wells, won a $100K challenger (def. Schunk in Wiesbaden) and matched her career best win (third Top 10) with an upset of Karolina Pliskova in March.



..."Simona on Simonne" had a nice ring to it on Day 5, but it left a bad aftertaste.

Facing young Chinese star-to-be Zheng Qinwen, who she defeated 3 & 2 back in January right in the middle of the 19-year old's super-hot start to '22, on Court Simonne-Mathieu, #19 Simona Halep led 6-2/2-1. She held three GP for a 3-1 lead in what turned out to be a five-deuce game that ended with the #74-ranked Zheng converting on her third BP. Two games later, Halep went up 40/love on serve, only to lose five straight points to fall down a break at 4-2. After holding a BP to get back on serve a game later, Halep saw Zheng again run off a string of points to hold, then extend that streak to seven consecutive points (and five games) to take the 2nd at 6-2 and push things to a 3rd set.




Zheng ran the streak to eight games in the 3rd, and as the set wore on Halep became the worse for wear. She took several MTOs, which included her having her blood pressure checked (hey, where's Maria when you need her?). While she's often pulled herself up from the brink of collapse and/or illness in the past, she wasn't up to the feat today. As the Romanian veteran wilted, Zheng pulled away to win 2-6/6-2/6-1 to reach her first career slam 3rd Round.



While today's result likely falls on the back of what Halep later termed a "panic attack," it's still safe to say that with her 2022 results (Zheng is now 19-8, showing power and mettle since the start of the season as she's reached a tour SF, made her slam debut and got her maiden match win at the AO, claimed a $60K title and cracked the Top 100) we seem to have identified the next true Chinese champion, the long-awaited inheritor of Li Na's national throne. Whether Zheng rise to such historic heights, or if her success might finally lift the Wangs (Xinyu and Xiyu, no relation) to the level to which so many think they *could* climb, remains to be seen, but she surely seems to be following that path.

Truthfully, though I noted her expected rise, I undersold Zheng at the start of the year. While I listed Zheng on the "Player Whose Name You'll Know..." preseason short list, it's clear that she *should* have been placed atop it.


...in the night session, the juicy match-up between #13 Alona Ostapenko and French vet Alize Cornet filled the bill as the first women's match to be featured under the lights at a fully-attended Roland Garros. While the FFT's scheduling, as always, at this slam is consistently up for questioning, the tournament organizer's instincts must be applauded in this case as, even while the volatile nature of both players makes depending on a match such as this a risk that could blow up -- in both good and bad ways -- in the faces of all involved, it was *worth* the risk.



As it turned out, we didn't get the sort of classic, crazy, nut-bar-with-caramel match-up that would define the careers of both women, but we did get the hold-onto-your-seat, up-and-down, whoa-boy-look-out sort of match that, while not spectacularly played at times, still managed to hold up the "Most Interesting Tour in the World," "simply irresistible" banners when it comes to the entertainment value of women's tennis even when you're not talking about future Hall of Famers or "the greatest of... whatever" jumping between the lines to compete.

Sometimes you just want a good "page-turner," right? I mean, it's why pulp fiction, trashy romance novels and straight-to-DVD/On Demand potboilers were invented and will never die. Even in it's most "lowest common denominator" form -- which this match was not -- Cornet/Ostapenko would always provide something worthwhile to hold one's attention for a while, provide some smiles, maybe a few tears, and likely release some intense emotion after a few points, too. And we *did* get that on Night 5 on Paris on Chatrier.

I mean, what did we *expect* out of this 2nd Round match? As far as wishing for something *more* than the nearly full-match smirk that occurred, we'd have really only needed to have an equally chaotic courtside presence (say, Jelena Jankovic) waiting to pounce with a microphone once the match was over.

Of course, we knew that the Parisian crowd would offer full-thoated support of Cornet, not quite as much the "crazy queen of spectacle" of her tennis youth (you know, basically, her entire twenties) but still able to hold her own in the drama department; while Ostapenko -- the 2017 RG champion who has been, is and likely always will be the tennis version of unexploded ordnance buried beneath a busy intersection -- is the sort of player who'll fill every match photographer's roll with gloriously winning expressions during play, then in victory or defeat say the ultimate result of the match was always "on her racket" (and she'd be correct, of course, since for stretches her opponents can be rendered as much a "spectator" of the match as the fans in the stands).

Neither Cornet nor Ostapenko are for *everyone* but, let's be honest, if the combination isn't for you, well, you have no soul.

As expected, the match contained multiple wild swings of momentum. Throughout the 1st set -- cough if you've heard this before -- Ostapenko's unforced errors and poor serving left her chances adrift in a sea of red dust. Cornet broke for 2-0 and took the set at love, while the Latvian registered a 43% first serve percentage (while winning no points on the shot) and posted 3/16 W/UE numbers, as Cornet won 12 of 14 return points and converted all three BP chances she saw (Ostapenko saw none).



The 2nd set then played out like the flipping of an old 45 record, with the Latvian Thunder "B-side" playing a role equivalent to "Maggie May," as the thought was that a "Rosetta Stone" match for what is "the crazy women's tennis tour" (i.e. a 6-0/0-6/6-0 scoreline) was entirely possible. Not surprisingly, Alona's racket provided her own life jacket.

Ostapenko broke Cornet in the opening game, then held in a three-deuce game and broke at love to jump to a 3-0 lead. Cornet held for 4-1, ending "the dream," but she did so at love, and that sort of made it okay. Ostapenko took the set 6-1, winning 92% of her first serves (11/12), never facing a BP (while converting 3 of 4 on Cornet's serve) and firing 15 winners.



So, it was down to one set for glory (to the Tennis Gods in the highest, and in Paris to people of good will. Amen.).

Cornet broke at love to open the 3rd set, then held in a ten-minute, five-deuce game, saving four BP. She broke again for a 3-0 edge, as Ostapenko committed a pair of DF. But no Ostapenko match is ever set in (almost Rosetta) stone, as she broke and held serve to get to 3-2. A game later, perhaps with the match hanging in the balance, the Pastry fired a hard, deep serve at 30/30, eliciting a return error from the Latvian, giving Cornet just enough of an edge that Ostapenko's miss on a swing volley down the line a point later gave her a 4-2 lead.

After being up 40/love in game #7, Ostapenko's DF cut her lead to 40/30. A netted forehand brought on deuce, but she managed to hold. Late in the game, though, Cornet had tweaked her groin while sliding into a shot in the backcourt. Serving a game later, the 32-year old French woman often winced between points, but with few rallies lasting double-digit strokes, and with the 10-point TB meaning a marathon final set couldn't be in order, Cornet played on without seeming *too* concerned. Her 40/15 lead in the game drifted away, but she won back-to-back points from deuce to hold for 5-3 on a point during which someone from the crowd seemed to make an "out" call on a shot from the Latvian. Ostapenko complained to the chair umpire, trying to talk over a chorus of boos from the partisan crowd, but the result of the point stood.



Needing to hold to stay in the match, Ostapenko nicely put away a volley (she *is* a very good doubles player, after all), but the point was surrounded by a series of loose errors that saw her fall behind 15/40. Ostapenko's netted forehand ended the 6-0/1-6/6-3 match, sending Cornet into her first RG 3rd Round since 2017 (hmm, who won the title that year?) as Ostapenko covered her ears to drown out the cheers as she walked to the net (then was ridiculously booed loudly by the French "fans" as she left the court).

After dominating play in the 2nd set with winners flying off her racket, Ostapenko had just 8 vs. 23 UE in the 3rd. She converted 1 of 6 BP, while Cornet put away 3 of 4.



And, thus, the curtain came down on a night of entertainment in Paris. Whether anyone was hawking "I Survived Ostapenko vs. Cornet" t-shirts outside Court Chatrier is unknown... but someone *should* have been. (THAT SHOULD SERVE AS A NOTE TO SOMEONE FOR NEXT TIME... and hopefully there *will* be a next time.)



And... scene.





..."AND MAKE IT SNAPPY..." ON DAY 5:




...OPENING UP THE DOUBLES DRAW... ON DAY 5:

2022 has been so 2020 for Krejcikova





...GOOD ON DAY 5:

Tatiana Golovin covering RG on the tournament's social media.





...QUESTION ON DAY 5:

With #7 Aryna Sabalenka's win over Madison Brengle today, Belarus has now improved to 6-0 at this Roland Garros.

Again, I wonder if Marta Kostyuk knows about this, and how she wants to proceed in order to handle this situation. Perhaps forcing Aryna, Vika and Aliaksandra to start every game down love/15, or maybe play while holding their racket in their opposite hand, or possibly while dragging along a very large baguette tied to their left leg by a piece of twine? We shall await the message with our instructions, which we expect will arrive forthwith.


...REFRESHING ON DAY 5:

Imagine, an athlete who recognizes that they're in a competition and doesn't fall into the waah-waah-waah trap that far *too many* WTA players do about not wanting or liking to compete against a friend, or sister or whatever. Seriously, my thought on that is always, "then don't play a competitive sport and go write greeting cards or something then." I mean, kick their butt this time, and offer them the chance -- if they can -- to kick your butt the next time. Martina and Chris were great friends, but it didn't mean they didn't want to crush the other between the lines.




...BEFORE SHE LEFT PARIS... ON DAY 5:




...AWWWWLLL, IT'S SO CUTE (yeah, that's the word for it)... ON DAY 5:

...how all week on ESPN's (aka the "grand slam network" not showing Roland Garros) "PTI" Tony Kornheiser has been enlisted to do a rundown of all the big results in women's tennis in Paris for the day, managing to wrap his mouth around the tough names (we know because he makes sure to note it every day) and noting how many Top 10 women have lost so far. I know he doesn't know anything about anyone he's talking about, but at least they're making an effort (after not even mentioning the women's champions of the U.S. Open, a slam aired by ESPN, in recent years on the Monday shows). Is the segment a bit condescending? Sure. But at least *someone* is forcing it to happen, which is "progress," I guess.

Don't think comments like these mean I don't like Kornheiser. I was a huge fan of his columns and radio show (from the start in D.C.), still listen to his podcast and watch "PTI," and even wrote a "fan letter" to him (he wrote back, too) when I was in high school... but hearing him talk about the current state of tennis would be like me doing a preview of the Premier League final. And, yeah, I know that that's already happened... but I didn't when I began writing the sentence. (So you get the idea.)


...SEARCHING FOR FUTURE WTA STARS... ON DAY 5:











Do people even remember the great Marlene Dietrich anymore? She was one of if not the original iconic "rule breaker" in film history, and a singular presence know for her androgynous film roles as she openly flirted with the sexual norms of the day. I still think Madonna really missed out on portraying her at some point in her movie career (well, maybe it's not *too* late), as it always seemed like a perfect match of performer to role.

Since I mentioned the Badosa voice comparison earlier. From her breakout role in "The Blue Angel," Here's Marlene singing the song that became her signature, followed by a later, richer recorded version of "Falling in Love Again," and the most famous scene of her career (though you'll have to be sent to YouTube to view it)...








Dietrich's final on-camera film role in "Just a Gigolo" with David Bowie, with a last singing performance that put an emotional wrap on her entire career ("There will come a day, when youth will go way, what will they say about me?"). NOTE: Bowie and Dietrich never actually met, as he filmed his scenes in Berlin, and she shot hers in Paris...








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*RG FINAL 32 BY NATION *
6 - USA (17-8; Anisimova, Gauff, Keys, Pegula, Rogers, Stephens)
3 - BLR (6-0; Azarenka, Sabalenka, Sasnovich)
3 - FRA (8-10; Cornet, Jeanjean, Parry)
3 - RUS (7-6; Gracheva, Kasatkina, V.Kudermetova)
2 - ITA (4-2; Giorgi, Trevisan)
2 - SUI (4-1; Bencic, Teichmann)
1 - AUS (3-2; Saville)
1 - BEL (1-5; Mertens)
1 - CAN (3-2; Fernandez)
1 - CHN (2-4; Q.Zheng)
1 - CZE (6-6; Muchova)
1 - ESP (2-3; Badosa)
1 - EST (2-1; Kanepi)
1 - GER (3-4; Kerber)
1 - KAZ (3-1; Rybakina)
1 - MNE (2-0; Kovinic)
1 - POL (3-2; Swiatek)
1 - ROU (4-6; Begu)
1 - SLO (2-1; Zidansek)

*RECENT RG "EARLY-RD. TOP PLAYER" WINNERS, w/ FINAL RESULT *
2010 Venus Williams, USA (4th)
2011 Samantha Stosur, AUS (3rd)
2012 Maria Sharapova, RUS (W)
2013 Serena Williams, USA (W)
2014 Simona Halep, ROU (RU)
2015 Angelique Kerber, GER (3rd)
2016 Lucie Safarova, CZE (3rd)
2017 Samantha Stosur, AUS (4th)
2018 Elina Svitolina, UKR (3rd)
2019 Karolina Pliskova, CZE (3rd)
2020 Amanda Anisimova, USA (3rd)
2021 Iga Swiatek, POL (QF)
2022 Iga Swiatek, POL

*BEST 2022 SLAM RESULTS*
[qualifiers]
AO 2nd Rd. - Hailey Baptiste, USA
AO 2nd Rd. - Lucia Bronzetti, ITA
AO 2nd Rd. - Martina Trevisan, ITA
AO 2nd Rd. - Zheng Qinwen, CHN
RG 2nd Rd. - Fernanda Contreras, MEX
RG 2nd Rd. - Olga Danilovic, SRB
RG 2nd Rd. - Aleksandra Krunic, SRB
RG 2nd Rd. - Donna Vekic, CRO

*RECENT RG "LAST QUALIFIER STANDING"*
[2015]
(2nd) L.Dominguez-Lino/ESP, P.Kania/POL, S.Karatantcheva/BUL & T.Pereira/BRA
[2016]
(2nd) C.Buyukakcay/TUR, V.Cepede Royg/PAR, L.Chirico/USA & V.Golubic/SUI
[2017]
(4th) Petra Martic/CRO
[2018]
(2nd) C.Dolehide/USA, A.Dulgheru/ROU, M.Duque-Marino/COL, M.Frech/POL, G.Garcia-Perez/ESP & R.Peterson/SWE
[2019]
(4th) Aliona Bolsova/ESP
[2020]
(SF) Nadia Podoroska/ARG
[2021]
(2nd) Hailey Baptiste/USA, Anhelina Kalinina/UKR & Varvara Lepchenko/USA
[2022]
(2nd) Fernanda Contreras/MEX, Olga Danilovic/SRB, Aleksandra Krunic/SRB, Donna Vekic/CRO



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Lordy, "GoodFellas" was a great movie (and it's "GoodFellas," not "Goodfellas," a longtime pet peeve of mine).

Ray Liotta's death has brought out all my hiberating love for that film. It's quite possibly my all-time favorite... and Liotta put that thing on his back in the role of his career. If his performance had wavered at all the entire film would have felt hollow, but it's one of the best movies ever made. That he wasn't nominated for an Oscar for the performance is one the biggest whiffs in Academy history (except for maybe Martin Scorsese not winning Best Director for "GF" rather than getting it later for the overrated and vastly inferior "The Departed," unless it'd be topped by "Dances With Wolves," a very good movie for its time that probably hasn't aged well, winning Best Picture over "GF" in 1990), and it was probably because the showier role went to Joe Pesci (who won a Supporting Actor Oscar). As great as Pesci was, his would have been a just a great performance without Liotta injecting humanity into Henry Hill, the character who acts as the "window" through which the audience sees (and can enter) the story, bringing the whole thing together.

Unfortunately, I don't think Liotta ever really had the post-GoodFellas career, as good as it was, that he should have. As far as using TV characters as an example, Liotta should have had his "Tony Soprano" (The Sopranos) or "Walter White" (Breaking Bad) star turn that lasted years and provided the opportunity for him to gradually peel back the layers of a role, but he never got that. Still, he *will* always be remembered for playing the guy who "always wanted to be a gangster."









Oh, and Liotta was part of some of the best scenes in "Field of Dreams," too.










TOP QUALIFIER: #2q Jule Niemeier/GER (slam MD debut; 7 games lost in 3 Q-matches)
TOP EARLY-ROUND (1r-2r): #1 Iga Swiatek/POL
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q2: #10q Viktoriya Tomova/BUL def. Marina Melnikova/RUS 2-6/7-5/6-0 (trailed 6-2/5-1; reached MD as LL)
TOP EARLY-RD. MATCH (1r-2r): 1st Rd. - #21 Angelique Kerber/GER def. Magdalena Frech/POL (2-6/6-3/7-5; Kerber saves 2 MP, fans chant name)
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr.-WC): xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: #26 Sorana Cirstea/ROU (def. Maria/GER)
FIRST SEED OUT: #6 Ons Jabeur/TUN (1st Rd. to Magda Linette/POL)
FIRST SLAM MD WINS: Fernanda Contreras/MEX, Elsa Jacquemot/FRA, Leolia Jeanjean/FRA, Katie Volynets/USA
UPSET QUEENS: France
REVELATION LADIES: Czech Republic
NATION OF POOR SOULS: Hungary (0-4 1st Rd., Galfi 2 MP in loss)
LAST QUALIFIERS STANDING: Fernanda Contreras/MEX, Olga Danilovic/SRB, Aleksandra Krunic/SRB, Donna Vekic/CRO (all 2nd Rd.)
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: in 3r: Jeanjean/FRA, Saville/AUS
PROTECTED RANKING BEST: Bianca Andreescu/CAN (2nd Rd.)
LAST PASTRY STANDING: in 3r: Cornet, Jeanjean, Parry
Ms./Mademoiselle OPPORTUNITY: xx
IT "TBD": Nominee: Parry, Jeanjean, Q.Zheng
COMEBACK PLAYER: Nominee: Saville
CRASH & BURN: #6 Ons Jabeur/TUN (1st Rd. to Linette; Madrid W/Rome RU - previous three who reached both finals also reached RG final); #2 Barbora Krejcikova/CZE (DC; 1st Rd. to Parry, led 6-1/2-0)
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF PARIS: Top Nominees (of far too many to list here): Stephens (1st Rd.: set and 4-4 down vs. Niemeier, sitter for love/30 down on serve in 2nd; 2nd Rd.: down 6-2/2-0 vs. Cirstea, won 12 con. games); Kerber (1st Rd. - Frech served for match, held 2 MP); Danilovic (3 Q-round comeback; 1st Rd saved 2 MP vs. Galfi)
DOUBLES STAR: xx
VETERAN PLAYER (KIMIKO CUP): xx
Mademoiselle/Madame OF THE EVENING: Nominee: Cornet vs. Ostapenko
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: xx
Légion de Lenglen HONOREE: Alize Cornet/FRA
Coupe LA PETIT TAUREAU: Diane Parry, FRA (one-handed backhand) Additional nominee: Swiatek






All for Day 5. More tomorrow.

posted by Todd.Spiker @ 8:28 PM 

6 Comments:

Blogger colt13 said...

Begu should have been defaulted.

Cornet had both quads taped in her AO loss to Collins, would not be surprised to see that in her next match.

Too many errors into the net for Ostapenko.

Jeanjean really used the dropshot effectively vs Pliskova, plus hit a ton of low balls that she could not get back. Pliskova went to net often, but success rate lower than expected.

Stat of the Day- 26- Number of active women with a grass title.

No Serena. No Venus. No Barty. Grass season is coming. And it will be wide open. First, let's look at the active women with a title.

WTA Grass Titles-Active:

4- Kvitova
3- Kerber
3- Pliskova
3- Halep
2- Vandeweghe
2- Keys
2- Garcia
19- One title

But does this tell us anything? The top of this list is over 30, so is it relevant? Maybe not. So let's also take a look at the last 5 grass seasons(2016-19, 21) and look at QF.

Most QF-Last 5 Grass Seasons:

9- Kerber
6- Pliskova
6- Vandeweghe
6- Mladenovic
6- Ostapenko
5- Riske
5- Halep
5- Sevastova
5- Garcia
5- Sabalenka
4- Vekic

Hmmm, some different names pop up. With 7 events, this should be very interesting.

Thu May 26, 10:54:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Diane said...

It was gratifying to watch Cornet stand and applaud Ostapenko as she left the stands—while some of her idiot countrypeople booed. The French Open is my favorite major, but the crowds make me sick.

And your coverage of the match is as entertaining as the match was! I had a meeting but did it via Zoom so I could see some of the match (you know you’re a tennis fan when…….). The person at the other end said things like “oh I can hear Cornet!” Later, I watched it again on demand.

Don’t know if you saw it, but Naomi Tweeted today that she doesn’t know why “people are always talking about me.” Heh. And yes, dozens came to her “defense.”

Thu May 26, 11:55:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Todd.Spiker said...

C-

Hoping for some Samsonova grass success (in whatever events she can and will play) to finally get her season on a straight line. Her Berlin title run last year was one of the best performances of the entire season.


D-

Thanks. Personally, I particularly liked having come up with (not sure how) that "(Ostapenko) likely always will be the tennis version of unexploded ordnance buried beneath a busy intersection." ;)

It's funny how it always seems to work out that way for Naomi, isn't it? Now "the wait" for her "big Wimbledon decision" begins, I suppose. :/

Fri May 27, 09:18:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Nicolas said...

I've thought Serena was coming back at Wimbledon's. Sorry to hear that she is not.

Fri May 27, 08:39:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Todd.Spiker said...

I wonder if we might ultimately see a Sampras-like one-slam, go-for-it-or-bust return, and then the book will be closed.

Fri May 27, 11:37:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Nicolas said...

I think this will most likely be the case.

Sat May 28, 06:47:00 PM EDT  

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