The Tennis Thread

[Chaky]

looking at that draw,i think anna could be a very dangerous floater in that part of the draw. kuzy better keep her focus at a high level.

caroline's half doesn't look much easier either. she's potentially got suarez navarro(returning from injury i know but still a tough early round),safarova,rezai and maybe sharapova.

Anna's first round looks okay, then it gets a lot tougher. Shvedova can be good on her day and Li Na is certainly no pushover on hard courts. What Anna has at the moment that she was lacking before is confidence enough to get her out of tricky situations. She's winning the three-setters that she was just losing last year.

Safarova could potentially give Wozniacki a workout but the real test will be Sharapova in round four.

Bottom quarter looks interesting: Clijsters, Ivanovic, Dementieva, Bartoli, Safina, Hantuchova and Stosur. Daniela and Dinara play each other first round and I think perhaps Stosur will flame out early but there's some good hard-courters in there.

An article I read in my paper this morning says that with the absence of Serena and Justine, most people are pretty much ignoring the women's draw this year. A bit unfair. Venus and Sharapova are still pretty big draws. Clijsters is defending champion and Wozniacki won the US Open Series. They are all playing.

As for the men's draw: Can Federer make it past the quarters? (He's permanently signed up Annacone now.) Has Murray's time finally arrived to get a slam? Will Nadal fare any better at his worst slam? Will the Americans get anywhere?

 

[Scott]

^that's awful indeed. not to mention sveta who's started to play well again and is a former champ and R-U herself. and there's no guarantee anyway how either serena or juju would have played anyway.

yeah and safina has finally started to find that spark again herself. too bad she has to have a re-match with daniela as they just played this week in new haven which dina won a tight battle. could go either way,actually.

oh roger. you know,in spite of the positive win at cincy and annacone coming into his life, i am still not 100% convinced yet. i just wonder given his performances in majors,of late,can he survive an entire fortnight?

 

[pierixie]

I really hope that Roger will make a striking comeback to US Open.His backhand shots sometimes make me worried.
As for women,I want to see Sharapova taking the crown back.

 

[colourmepretty]

Yeah, I get a little nervous when he hits with his backhand but he did really well at the US Open Series tournaments where he didn't hesitate to use his backhand. So I guess that just shows that he's taking chances with his backhand and testing it out even if it's not as good as it has been for him in the past.

I would LOVE for Maria to take it! She has as good a chance as anyone. And especially with Serena out, there are going to be a lot of contenders in the women's side.

And just a shout out to Juan Martin. I'm so sad that he couldn't defend his title here; I hope he has a speedy recovery and is back in no time because he's just a little jem. Very humble and hardworking too.

 

[Scott]

oh there are definitely a lot of contenders this year this is the widest and the deepest the open has been....ever. and mainly that's so because a few of the players like dementieva,maria,kuzy and vika azarenka are ranked below top 10 at the moment. but there are at least 15 women who have a legitimate chance to win it,imo.

and with the question marks on certain players in the top 10,i have a feeling that it might one of the players seeded between 10-14.

i hate that dina had to face hantuchova so early. couldn't they have thrown her a bone given just last year she was the number 1 and has been dealing with injury? not sure if she'll drop in the ranks again though seeing as she didn't have a lot of points to defend anyway from her third round loss last year.

 

[Chaky]

 

[Chaky]

Anna came into the US Open having won 15 of her last 16 matches (including two titles). Yet she still managed to lose in straight sets to a player who has only played eight singles matches all year and is recovering from a bad back injury.

I have no words.

 

[Scott]

omg,vika just collapsed and eventually had to be wheeled off the court. hopefully she'll be okay.

 

[Eyrene]

Teymuraz Gabashvili was impressive. I was actually hoping for him to win

 

[Chaky]

omg,vika just collapsed and eventually had to be wheeled off the court. hopefully she'll be okay.

They just replayed it here. That looks awful. I hope she's okay.

 

[Scott]

^and it did not look like she was responding very well when the trainers and everybody rushed to her aide. very frightening.

i dunno what was going on with her but she looked off from the very start. then she saw the trainer for an elbow injury but then she wasn't moving very much either.

 

[Scott]

okay vika has released a statement-

she was sprinting for a shot during her warm-up prior to the match,fell,hit her head and elbow and has been diagnosed with a mild concussion.

 

[Chaky]

Wow, that is so dangerous. Remember what happened to Natasha Richardson?

 

[AnaBGD]

That moment with Vika was awful, it reminded me of when Pierce collapsed in Linz.

Amazing win for Tipsarević against Roddick! He was so good under pressure. I'm also glad Ana seems to be in a good form, I wish she could manage to play a few good tournaments in a row without getting injured.

 

[Scott]

btw i have to clarify what i said....she wasn't sprinting for a shot just doing sprinting exercises on a sprinter's machine. that's what she hit her head on.

ana,what a great point. i hadn't thought about that mary pierce moment. but you're right,both of those moments have been the most frightening i have ever seen.

btw,kudos to the always classy dulko for immediately rushing over to see about her and doing whatever possible to help. she was even instructing the ball kids to bring water and ice. and i felt bad for gisela too because she looked extremely worried & scared herself. again,a lot like that linz incident when zvonareva rushed to check mary.

anyway,last night that was a indeed a good match from janko. i dunno but andy looked really flat....too defensive. and by the time he a got a little spark in him it was already the fourth set. and janko played so much better than andy in that tie-break.

 

[Chaky]

Vika says she got medical staff to check her out before she went on. But apparently she called the trainer during the match complaining of blurred vision and loss of feeling in her fingers... and they let her carry on playing!

Concussion is a serious thing. Even if it doesn't seem bad at the time it can turn out to be extremely serious later on.

I'm just surprised no-one spotted anything before she passed out on the court.

 

[Chaky]

Didn't see the Roddick match (it was the middle of the night here) but this looks really uncalled for:



He said in his press conference he wasn't having a go at her for footfaulting but because she got confused between left and right.

 

[AnaBGD]

Caroline... I hope she makes it all the way, she certainly could. Too bad she can meet Maria in the 4th round. Too bad for Maria I mean.

 

[Scott]

how about mirjana lucic?! she had a nice run and played a good match against JJ yesterday. it's the best she's played since not only returned to the game but also the best she's played in about 10 years. good for her. i hope she takes some positives because i was a big fan of her when she initially active and i still love how she plays and how she fights.

and it was really sweet in that match against molik. she and alicia have actually been friends since they were juniors and they kept in contact with each other while lucic was away. she gave mirjana a big hug at the end.

 

[Chaky]

I'm not such a big fan of Lucic. To me she has no strategy whatsoever and just tries to hit every shot as hard a possible. And when she misses she misses big! It's impressive when it goes in but that didn't happen so much against Jankovic and in the end the unforced errors stacked up.

Did you see that fight at the Djokovic match last night? It's hit the tabloids in Britain today. Not a good advert for the US Open.