Here Comes Sebi Korda!

Hip surgery at such a young age is really dangerous (as in, dangerous to longevity in this game). Just look what happened to poor Kuerten — his career was derailed just as he was about to take it into another level.

Looking at how Kyrgios walks with poor posture all hunched like Gasquet, I see no reason to doubt Kyrgios has hip problens. He has a very gangly, awkward and frail look about the way he walks.

Tomic had an operation for his hip problems and he’s not been the same since. Don’t know if there’s a connection.

Catherine, I agree that the preview info on Flashscore is very useful. I was just reading about the 2 matches today that I am especially interested in – Mischa vs Dimitrov and Kasatkina (or Dasha2 as we call her on another site, Gavrilova is Dasha1) and Begu. They had good news about Dasha, she is the favourite in her match. She is on my treats list, so am rooting big time for the young Russian.

The news for Mischa was not so good, he and Grigor have not played often, but Dimitrov has won all their matches.

Catherine, and the guys on this site have lots of obsessions in addition to Nick. Vince Spadea, anyone? (I know, I know, I read the book!) So I got your “tongue in cheek” comment. And I think this means I we have licence to talk as much as we want to about the players who interest us. 🙂

Speaking of players who interest me, I was delighted with Kasatina’s win over Begu. The match just finished and Dasha2 won in SS, 6-2, 6-3. It had a lot to do with Begu’s poor play, she had over 40 UFEs.

This was one of the few times that I saw OCC – usually they go to commercials during it. And one of the very few times it seemed helpful. Dasha was not doing as well early in the 2nd set. Her coach reminded her she was playing well, had won the first set, so no need to panic. But he also said she was not being aggressive enough, was waiting for Begu to make errors. (Not a totally unreasonable tactic for Dasha, given how many UFEs Begu was making.) But he said she should be more aggressive “in the legs and in the head.” She listened respectfully to him and put his advice into practice.

Scoop – I think Bouchard would like to be remembered as something more than a reincarnation of Kournikova. In any case, that role can’t be played twice.

Really Scoop, I don’t know. But I suspect most women players would like a career which focussed on their achievements rather than their looks and which didn’t end at 21, although that was unfortunately the result of injuries.

And I didn’t say there was anything bad about being compared to Kournikova, just that you can’t do the same thing twice and Kournikolva was a one-off.

The WTA has announced their player awards.

Garbine Muguruza – Player of the Year
Jelena Ostapenko – Most improved
Sloane Stephens – Comeback player
Cici Bellis – Newcomer of the Year
Angelique Kerber – Jerry Diamond Aces Award, for off-court
promotional and charitable activities
Martina Hingis and Chan Yung-Jan – Doubles

Dimitrov is pretty good looking in his own right – he could have had a decent career as a model himself but I suspect he’d rather win Wimbledon 🙂

As for super-models, they wouldn’t be super-models without their looks. What else could you focus on ?

Catherine, I don’t think Genie is ready to become a doubles specialist yet. It is more of a fun thing for her. She is still just 23 years old, so she has time to turn her singles career around. And she is not hurting for $. According to a Sporting News piece on Canadian tennis players, Genie won $557,215 in prize money this year ($US), but had a whopping $5.5 million in endorsements in 2016. Presumably some of that $ was from multi-year deals which will end if they haven’t already.

Milos was the top earner with about $1.4 million in prize money and about $7 million in endorsements in 2016.

Interestingly enough, it is Shapovalov’s name in the article’s title, although he had just $626,869 in prize $ (from just 18 ATP matches). He has sponsors like Nike and Biosteel but obviously did not make Forbes’ 2016 list. But he is the Canadian player with the star power right now.

Don’t misunderstand me, I think she wants to win those doubles matches, she is a competitor after all. And despite all the emphasis that is placed on her looks (and she does take advantage of that), Genie describes herself as a jock. Perhaps it is more accurate to say she enjoys playing doubles, as I said before, she feels less pressure in those matches. Part of her problem playing singles is the incredible pressure she puts on herself.

I think the early endorsements were not the best thing, perhaps not even so much because of the money but because of the time commitments that go with them. It must be hard for a young player to balance everything and to keep the necessary focus on tennis itself. Just like Kerber had to suddenly deal with everything that went with being the No. 1 player.

I like young Kasatkina. She is a fairly aggressive player, despite not being a “Big Babe.” And she can grind it out when necessary – that was her tactic against Ostapenko when she won against her a couple times. She just kept getting the ball back again and again, driving Jelena nuts. Dasha’s win over Ostapenko for the title in Charleston meant I had a lovely European-style cake from a local deli. She is the only treats-eligible player in action this week, so I desperately want her to win Moscow. Besides, it will be very nice for the local fans. 🙂

Hartt – sorry about Dasha – but good win for Julia. You’ll have to wait for your treat 🙂

Sigh, my stream for Dasha’s match was not working very well, so I just saw a couple minutes here and there. I did see the exchange at the end – yes, that was good to see. And Goerges’ teary embrace with her coach.

As for treats eligible players, there are 12 altogether, 3 WTA players and 9 ATP. They are players that I feel a connection with, and am not always sure why I am especially keen on those particular players. Some are top players, such as Federer, some are Canucks such as Milos and Denis. But others I simply liked from the first time I saw them play, such as Kohlschreiber, Kvitova, and Kasatkina. They must win a title for me to have a treat.

Because I could not see Dasha’s match I did watch part of the first set and the last 2 sets of the Bouchard/Flipkens doubles match. I had not heard of their opponents and must admit I don’t know their names. Bouchard/Flipkens lost in 3 sets, but it was a close match. Flipkens played well at the net, making some terrific volleys. But her serve was totally AWOL and her double faults were very costly.

Genie was fine, she played better as the match went on, and seemed to find more confidence in her shots. The opponents were simply a bit more steady in the last 2 sets.

Hartt – you probably know this but the whole Dasha/Georges match is up on Youtube already if you’re interested in a retrospective.

German double today – Witthoeft wins SS in Luxembourg, her first title.

Something strange – pics of her on court don’t look remotely like her mugshot on Flashscore which presumably comes from the WTA. Odd.

I’ve heard that Fognini is well-liked by many of the players. So if he can contain his behaviour on court that will be a huge step. I thought he must have a “good” side because I could not imagine the lovely Flavia marrying a complete jerk.