Roland Garros Talk: Is Serena Breaking The Rules?

Serena says she is wearing the catsuit style for medical reasons, to do with her blood-clotting condition, so I assume she would get an exemption for that.

I imagine she is on blood thinning medication permanently – don’t know if that has anything to do with it.

Don’t think it’s the same as a TUE exactly, and I can’t imagine many players wanting to sport that outfit – but it’s true Serena does spontaneously develop blood clots, which could easily have killed her by now so she’d want to take preventative measures. Don’t see it gives her any advantage actually.

In other events she’s worn a dress/skirt, but with her arms and legs covered.

The great Gojo fined for “tanking” his first-rounder

https://www.ubitennis.net/2018/05/peter-gojowczyk-fined-e25000-poor-performance-french-open/

One great thing about women’s tennis is no one can be proven to tank a best-of-3 match. Or do the ladies just not do it? Maybe they are better thespians than the men.

One way to avoid these fines is to smash a racket or two, like Coco today. No one suspects you are tanking if you break your equipment. Let’s hope the players read this site.

Duke – CoCo always smashes a racquet or two, she doesn’t have to tank either – by a third set she’s usually worn out.

Yes, you can tank a 3 set match. I’ve seen quite a few women’s matches where the 3rd was a joke. But maybe people expect women to fold up like that 🙂

On this topic I always refer to the famous Wimbledon final tank.

I doubt players read T-P. I doubt they read anything much on tennis apart from Twitter.
Except Johanna Konta. She obviously reads her reviews.

Serena bts Barty – as I predicted. But in 3 sets and looked like a good match.
(the outfit Serena wears is designed to help circulation and prevent blood clots forming. Wouldn’t have any performance enhancing effects.)

3 Germans got through today – Kerber, Georges and Petko. Angie may go furthest. I notice she isn’t wearing the clothes she modelled in adidas’ photoshoot for RG. Neither was Ostapenko – the stuff she wore in the promotion was awful.)

Angie’s serve might be a problem. 5 dfs in her match.

Well, it’s up to designers to create styles which reduce wind resistance to the minimum without players needing to climb into a catsuit. They’re probably already working on it 🙂

Those lawyers aren’t going to get rich on this.

Serena served 9 aces, 4 dfs. Quite a few UEs.

(For the first time in a long while Julia G served no aces at all.)

Hartt – if you are around, what did you think of Denis’ play ? His attitude seems quite positive, in what he said post-match.

I’m having a bad time at this RG – can’t find (free) streaming and useless highlights. Flashscore are good for stats though.

I don’t see how Serena’s outfit helps her and I think it’d be ridiculous for anyone to file a lawsuit about it. Give Serena credit. Barty came out swinging from the heels, but Serena took her down. What she’s doing is amazing and frankly her match today I found more compelling than either the Nadal blowout or the Izzie servefest against Zeballos.

Got to hand it to Kevin Anderson, he’s making a nice late-career surge after a spree of injuries, and he took down the tough Cuevas today. Nishikori v Paire was the only five-setter with Kei coming back from two sets to one to notch the final two sets.

Dan – I think Scoop was joking 🙂

Yes – Anne White did wear a similar outfit at W’don, I saw her, but the reason was the cold or something like that. Can’t remember if she had to change – she may not have won her match anyway.

Barty didn’t have the confidence or the experience maybe to lift her game when it mattered – she’s had a fairly poor year in singles. Might end up a better doubles player.

I think you’ll find the same in men’s tennis when Fed/Nadal go. For a while there won’t be a dominating player.

Alex seems a nice guy – contrary to some views expressed, I doubt Serena married him for his money.

Exit Svitolina. I’m very surprised – bad for Elina and bad for the tournament. Don’t know if there was any injury problem etc. We’ll find out.

If not, then I’d say this is a setback. I really thought she’d make the final this year.

Catherine, as you can imagine, I was glued to Shapo’s match. He wasn’t at his best, with a poor first serve % and way too many UFEs. With his high risk game, he needs to be “on,” especially against a solid player like Marterer. But I am not too concerned. He has gone from not winning any clay court matches last year, to being quite respectable on the surface. As he said, European players, who grow up on the surface, have a distinct advantage.

But Denis does have a very good attitude. He understands that he is still learning his craft, and his main job right now is to improve as a player, in order to have good results down the road. He was very clear that he wanted to play as many clay tourneys as possible, whatever the results, to gain some much needed experience.

The Romanian guy at Match Call Migrants posted a link to a WTA piece about Buzanescu from a few weeks ago. She had such severe problems with injuries that she thought she would have to quit tennis, and was working on her PhD. After unsuccessful knee operations the pain continued. But she played some tennis in Holland, and discovered that suddenly she was pain-free. So she probably would have had a bigger career if it weren’t for the injuries.

That said, I was shocked that Svitolina lost that match. I thought she was a strong contender for the title.

Hartt – Denis should’ve been around in the 70s when the courts in Rome looked like a messed up playground and they used Tretorn balls which were unpressurized and when wet must have weighed as much as cannonballs – wood racquets too 🙂

Catherine, the coverage is bad for me as well. I can find some streams but not too many.

Kyrgios has entered the Surbiton tournament, next week, along with a few other dropouts from Paris. Maybe Svitolina will turn up – I think it’s a mixed event and she lives in London.

Surbiton and Beckenham used to be good pre-Wimbledon grass events – interviewed BJK at B’ham once, in a caravan – but B’ham’s been gone for a while.

Those were the days 🙂

Nick’s stock is slightly higher than Jack Sock. Expect Fed to reward them with coveted Laced Cup spots no matter how fall they fall.

Sasha showed me a lot today. I thought h eddd was heading out.

Anyone see the Dutch girls comments on the WTA, Rachel something? Nothing big but said she is happy Serena is back. What was more interesting was she sort of dismissed Eli and Simonas tour dominance as a result of SW being out. Which is true but shows the girls don’t fear those two.

She said she does fear Shazza. Part of Shazzas m.o. is to be aloof to intimidate and it works. Good for her. Clowns like Kyrgios and Sock could learn from Masha.

I didn’t see the comments Duke’s referring to but honestly, everyone’s living in a dream if they think Serena’s going to be around for very much longer as a top ranked player and somehow the rest are all going to fall in behind her and know their place.

The game changes, in the same way the men’s game will change when Federer retires, and that’s a good thing. There’s a period when someone dominates and then there’s often a kind of interregnum.

The ‘girls’ may not fear Simona or Svitolina, or Petra for that matter, but all the top 10 deserve their rankings. Petra’s won 4 tournaments in 2018 and those titles haven’t come to her by accident.

And Sharapova ? Aloof and feared or not, she hasn’t been overpowering since her return. Her reputation has outrun her achievements.

If rain doesn’t interfere 3 Germans play at the end of the women’s program – Petko, Georges and Kerber. They’ll all go down like ninepins, one after the other. Must feel like Fed Cup 🙂

Until Nick wins three or four matches in a row, he can’t be taken seriously. He might be better suited to work as a circus clown or minor league hoops player if he keeps wasting his talent.

Bad Petra day, sorry Hartt. Goes out to Kontaveit – 10 dfs didn’t help.

Catherine, I watched that match. At least it was close, and Petra wasn’t quite good enough. But Kontaveit deserves credit, she played very well for the most part.

Hartt – I don’t know what Petra’s record is like at RG. Will look it up. But I didn’t see her as a favourite this time. She’s probably looking forward to the grass.

Unfortunately, for the reasons I mention above, I probably won’t see any of the match.

Petko/Halep coming up. If I were Andrea I’d rush the net on every point. At least it would be over quickly.