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Mar/19

19

Miami Open day one photos

Bouchard strangely lost to Hibino. Up a set and 30-love in the first game of set two she then lost 60 64.

Lloyd Harris really impresses me.

With friend and coach Gabriel Matteozzi.

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17 comments

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 8:53 am

    Know idea why photos are flipped sideways, sorry!

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 8:54 am

    Maybe the wind blew them or the tennis ghost of crandon park is not happy.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 8:55 am

    Or Marcelo Rios hacked our site.

  • catherine · March 19, 2019 at 11:48 am

    Scoop – I just happened on a Youtube of Gabriella Price when she was 9 and going to be the NBT and then found a follow-up 5 years later and she certainly hasn’t fulfilled that. Was coached by Rick Macy. General comment was that she was over-hyped. Do you know anything about her ? She looked like a high school player to me.

  • Hartt · March 19, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    Hibino seems to be Bouchard’s kryptonite – I think Genie has lost to her 3or 4 times recently.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 1:23 pm

    Catherine, yes she is undersized and lacking weapon. She was overhyped, became a target. Still a good prospect, don’t count her out yet. Must keep these young talented girls out of the press until they do something. Too much hype is a mistake and burden. I hope Gauff doesn’t fall prey to the hype machine. It’s Swiatek, 17, just beat Diyas. Keep an eye on Swiatek. So relaxed and cool under pressure.

  • Dan Markowitz · March 19, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    You’re right, Scoop, Price is still potentially going to be a good pro. She’s only 15. I haven’t seen her play, but she got to Easter Bowl semis this year it looks like. Look I was with Rick Macci at his place when he was boasting about Price and I saw her at like 10 return a male college player’s serve as she stood halfway between the service line and the baseline.

    She’s a 5 star recruit on tennis.recruiting.net (but so is my son actually), but I imagine going to college for her would be a big disappointment. I remember Macci saying to me that he never went out (except with Venus to her first pro tournament) with any of the players he coached, but he’d like to go out with Price and be her box if she made the US Open finals at 18. He actually said she would be in the hunt to win a US Open finals by 18.

    I don’t know if she’s grown, but she was stocky but short when she was ten. I remember Macci saying that in the women’s game it’s not so important to be tall (Cibulkova had just reached a slam finals I think) because women don’t use the serve as a weapon as much as the men.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 5:33 pm

    Dan, questionable to make such a bold prediction for a young girl, it puts too much expectation and pressure on her. I think the way to say it is, “this girl has a bright future if she works hard, keeps enjoying the battle, keeps improving and toughs it out through adversity. But as good as she is now, we take nothing for granted. It’s a long journey.” Why can’t Price be a Kenin type? Under the radar is best route. Earn the publicity and hype with big results.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 19, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    Japanese reporter told me today she sensed Naomi didn’t really like Sasha around us open, she stopped saying good things about him. Just a case of two people just not really liking each other so much, as it’s important for player and coach to be united as a team. So the money angle appears to be false.

  • catherine · March 20, 2019 at 3:26 am

    I never believed the money angle with Naomi – but still a case of immaturity on her part – even if she no longer ‘liked’ him she should have been advised to say nothing at all and leave the whole situation to her agent. Sascha without a job as far as I know. The fall-out could be worse for him. BTW I wonder if Muguruza and Symyck like each other ?

    Re Gabriela Price – I got a strong impression from the clip I saw of her at 9 yrs old that her father was a major factor in pushing her as a prodigy. In the later clip she was playing a Japanese girl in a junior tournament and she really didn’t look anything exceptional.As you say – best under the radar.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 20, 2019 at 7:55 am

    Price is ranked 73 in itf which is good. She can play the junior majors. She has time to improve.

  • catherine · March 20, 2019 at 8:56 am

    I just watched some of Bouchard’s match – OMG. I seldom use the ‘t’ word but nothing else seems appropriate for that display. The pre-pre-qualifying might have been the place for her if there was such a thing.

    Maybe she just doesn’t want to play anymore. No disgrace in admitting it and just quitting. She could be happier doing that.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 20, 2019 at 5:28 pm

    She wants to play, she worked hard in the off season and got off to a strong start of the year but she had a disappointing loss at AO to a strong player and that loss seemed to wreck her momentum and it’s been mediocrity since, she lost confidence and inspiration. To be the best she has to sacrifice a lot of useless activities and be a full time player with all her heart and soul blood sweat and tears.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 20, 2019 at 9:40 pm

    Great story from Josh Rey the ATP media guy. He was at Long Island NY Open and Brayden Schnur was being cheered by three young guys. After one win early in the week, in the on court interview he was asked if he knew the kids and he said he didn’t and thanked them and later leaving the court, Schnur met and talked with the guys and gave them his phone number and offered them tickets the rest of the week which they accepted and continued to cheer him on vociferously, helping Schnur reach the final vs Opelka which he lost despite saving 5 match points. Schnur created some Schnurmania in NY OPen.

  • Hartt · March 21, 2019 at 7:02 am

    Catherine, I was curious to know what Stephanie Myles had to say in Tennis.life about the Bouchard vs Hibino match because she saw it in person. I said earlier that Hibino is Bouchard’s kryptonite, Myles used the word “nemesis.”

    “In 2018, Eugenie Bouchard faced 24-year-old Nao Hibino three times, all on hard court.

    All three times – all within two months, at the Vancouver Challenger, in Hiroshima and in Tashkent, Uzbekistan – Hibino won. Bouchard managed just one set in those three defeats.

    Against Hibino, everything sort of started well, then unraveled. Again, the cumulative pressure of having the ball come back, of trying to finish points off too quickly. It was fairly similar to her other losses to Hibino – plus, at this point, the Japanese has to be in Bouchard’s head, understandably.”

    It sounds like Genie is still trying to make a comeback, “she has entered the International-level Monterrey WTA event the week of April 1 and the same-level tournament Bogota the following week.”

    I expect she will play Fed Cup in late April as well.

  • Scoop Malinowski · March 21, 2019 at 11:40 am

    Hartt, I was at Bouchard vs Hibino and saw the turning point. Bouchard came out to serve to start second set. She was at the line looking at a young guy and woman in the front row for a couple of seconds then served and was up 30-love in the first game of the second set. Then she just started missing and fell apart. Just loose errors out of nowhere. I don’t know why. Was she distracted by looking at that couple? Who knows. She also started fidgeting with something in her wrist or wristband in that first game second set. Maybe Hibino is a tough customer and just that fractional loss of concentration was the cause of the loss? Fractional lost of intensity and focus? If she keeps her head in the court and not looking at people in the crowd she can’t lose focus. Just speculating on a bizarre loss from the winning position.

  • Hartt · March 21, 2019 at 12:55 pm

    Scoop, thanks for the info on Bouchard’s match. This is the fourth time in a row that she has lost to Hibino, and I suspect that Myles is correct, that Hibino now is in Genie’s head. She must pray that she doesn’t meet her nemesis in her next few tourneys.

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