The New King Is Here, His Name is Stefanos

Simona wins in 3 sets – WTA will be disappointed. From the amount I saw it was not a terribly interesting match – mainly baseline rallying, which could have been predicted.

I thought the Simona-Sloane match was outstanding. A great final and Simona deserved this title.

Yeah the women’s field has had trouble with young players improving. Yet don’t forget there are still quality players out there like the Montreal finalists, Kerber and I suppose Woz.

It’s time for a Maddie Keys to step up.

One issue I have is the lack of personalities in women’s tennis. Petko is still the most interesting gal and she is ranked in the 90s. Kerber is good too. I blame the social media – girls figure it is enough to look pretty on IG and not develop social skills.

I thought Simona/Sloane was a great display of baseline tennis and not much else. Simona is currently the best in the world there but we’d all become extremely bored if that was the only style on offer.( Frankly, I saw more variety when Cornet beat Kerber in Montreal.) That final was the kind of passive play which can be nicely labelled ‘women’s tennis’.

As for young players improving, what’s happening to Ostapenko, Svitolina, Kasatkina ? They should be making finals and they’re not. Could add a couple more to that list.

Unfortunately you can’t grow a ‘personality’ on demand. It’s a pretty vague and subjective notion. And not truly available to the public, surely. People used to complain that Steffi had no ‘personality’ and that Billie Jean had too much of one. And to me, Angie has a pleasant though rather subdued personality but I suppose after winning Wimbledon all sorts of new qualities can be discovered. Last year nobody could find a good word to say about her.

Petko is becoming a better writer than player. That’s her future.

Social media ? It’s one of those peripherals I’ve mentioned before. Useless distraction but mandatory for publicity. A WTA rule. And ‘social skills’ have nothing to do with playing tennis. It’s what you do on the court that counts, not in interviews and all that rubbish.

My fear is that as long as Simona dominates, beginning players will want to play like her and that would be one way to kill the women’s game. Girls can run forever from side to side but up and back is another matter. Coach that. (I didn’t see many dropshots yesterday, any actually, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention.Please do correct me)

I wonder what Mouratoglou would have to say about all this. Perhaps Tsitsipas might inspire some ambitious girl at Patrick’s academy.

There should be lots of interesting tennis in Cincy, but I will also be keeping an eye on the big Challenger in Vancouver, As you’d expect, lots of Canadians are playing there, including Felix, Pospisil, and Polansky. For the women, the Canucks include Bouchard and Rebecca Marino.

Angie uses the slice dropshot – sometimes overuses it 🙂

Scoop, as you know, I follow Felix’s career like a hawk, so a small correction. His match at the USO boys tourney vs Stefanos was the SF. He went on to cream poor Kecmanovic 6-3, 6-0 in the final.

Felix is playing in a big Challenger in Vancouver this week. I hope he does well and can get some valuable ranking points.

It’s rare in tennis that the players remember all the coaches, or financial backers,once they make it..

In the Bolitieri bio pic, his right hand man was always trying to get something in writing from the families, that if they made it, they might pay something back. Probably why NB takes credit for SW, and VW, he probably never got any other compensation.

I’m sure there are some that did the right thing, but I would guess that’s rare

More stupidity from none other than Andy Murray, who lost today to Pouille in three sets.

He irresponsibly took video of him on the roller coaster with Kyrgios – which is a safety hazard. The amusement part asked him to remove it. Then he posted about how dumb it is and took a shot at our gun laws in a comparison that doesn’t even make any sense.

He isn’t even an American to understand how this country works. It would be like me complaining that he bows to the queen. Just ridiculous.

As the commies said, Shapo stole that match from Tiafoe. I was yelling at the TV screen like crazy, especially when Denis was making all those DFs. But he showed his fighting spirit and then started to hit aces at the very end.

I hope he can play better against Edmund, he was far from his best today.

Scoop, I did not realise I had so much power! Unfortunately, what I was yelling was nothing special – mostly just “Get your first serve in!” And “Stop with the DFs!”

LOL. If I had any power, am afraid I would not use it for Young or Dr. Ivo. I would save it for Milos, Shapo and Felix! 🙂

We discussed that Abramovic stuff before here a few months ago. It’s an old story. She’s just a weird performance artist. No big deal. Gilkes is well connected and I can see Maria sticking to him.

Cornet ousts Penko 6-0 3rd set. Serena moves smoothly past Gavrilova. Looking good. Konta gone already. Julia G retires v Kiki. Kiki’s first win for a while. Julia had an injury in Montreal – she should rest up.

Ka Pliskova’s just doing the Czech thing – dumping her coach. She’s probably concentrating more on wedded bliss now anyway. Czech’s should be more concerned that they seem to have no coming younger generation.

Murray’s behaving oddly. Kim should have a few words.
He’s a married man with responsibilities. Nick’s a kid with none.

I had another look at Serena on highlights and although she’s improved she’s still not moving that well and Gavrilova wasn’t the toughest competition. Kvitova, providing the right Petra shows up, could be a more realistic test. Amazing how many comments a Serena match attracts.

I looked up Abramovic before when she was being discussed and I don’t have much more to say about her. It’s Maria’s life anyway and she can do what she wants with it. I don’t imagine she’ll be around tennis for that much longer.

I’m sure Andy and Nick are great buddies. But I don’t know how much enjoyment is ahead for Andy – I suspect his hip is going to go on causing trouble and he won’t be the same player again. He says he would like to coach eventually – doesn’t want to commentate etc.
I can see him in the role.