Kenin Dominates at AO 2020

In her press conference Sofia said she hadn’t been able to check her social media, which was blowing up. But she knew she’d had congratulations from Bianca, Billie Jean and Kim.

Safina has been a big supporter, and there were videos showing the two hugging after Sofia’s matches.

A poster said she prefers Sofia for official stuff, and that her family and friends call her Sonya. Mattek-Sands, who has played doubles with her calls her “Peter”, although Bethanie said Sofia is not keen on that. 🙂

During the final, Evert talking women power players, Serena and Coco.. do they get upgraded rooms or meal vouchers every time they sneak Gauffs name in..

Lenin’s win will not stop the Coco hype train

Awesome win for Kenin!!

A terrific final! What a pleasure to see a women’s final go to 3 exciting sets.
Brilliant, gutsy and clever tennis from Kenin, my new favourites player along with Mikael Ymer on the men’s side.
My prediction for tomorrow: Thiem will beat Djokovic in 4.

Scoop – Kenin isn’t your typical pretty American girl next door. How could she possibly be ? Wouldn’t it be better to accept her for what she is and not try to put her in some stereotyped category which is essentially false ?

And I hope I’m not included in those who mock her looks – I just said she’s not glamourous, which is a compliment in my view.

And where did Cocoa come from ? Seems strange to me. Has she changed her name ?

Jayita Belcourt’s piece, best on Kenin I’ve read. Superb writing. A tribute to the two players Kenin Muguruza, and to the Aussie. Thanks for doing this.

How’s WTA going to market this one? “Technically superior and more knowledgeable player decimates WTA field and ruins our marketing efforts”

Favorite thing: TP commenters doing the WTA marketing job for them with the emphasis on looks. Glad everyone here has doubled down on the WTA approach of “looks first, performance second or last”

Kenin won a major is all that matters right now.

Ad agencies and media know what most people consider good looks, that part is out of our hands. A young Sharapova got tons more endorsements than Serena and other players. Brad Pitt got more movie roles than better actors who were not as handsome. It is what it is.

Kenin won’t be marketed. The Gauff hype will return next major. And if Anisimova starts getting deep in majors, she will also be marketed heavily.

Andrew – We haven’t seen Bianca play yet so we don’t know and I wouldn’t include Kerber – she won’t win another Slam although she may play some good matches.She’s a veteran now.

And I’m still curious about ‘Cocoa’ – is this her chosen name now ? To me she’s still Coco or Cori.

Yes, but it’s not her name. I shall continue to call her Coco.

Seeing some of the junior AO girls, plenty more competition is on the way.

I’ll tell you one thing, Gauff is years ahead of the girl that won the Aus juniors…that was a hard match to watch. The Polish girl has a sweet one hander, but 3 years older and couldn’t handle the pressure..the winner is going to have to hope she grows, gets stronger, and more athletic to do anything big at the next level

Kenin’s tournament was spectacular. Haven’t seen this kind of under-stated, under-appreciated triumph for a while – a memorable tournament win would be (if they could have or DO pull it off) Medevedev at last year’s US Open, or Thiem up next within the next 24 hours.

I’d put this one up with (for a first time winner) Seles at the 1990 French Open. Seles was new on the scene and shocked the world with her triumph there. I wouldn’t match this up with Andreescu last year because Andreescu has already been playing outstanding tennis since March 2019 – she snuck up on the field then when she was back pulled the equivalent of “flooring it” with the pedal to metal from Toronto right through to the US Open last point.

We’ve seen a Kenin type run on the men’s tour before (I think) – even there, incredibly incredibly rare.

This was a special, special run with a “player’s player”. I don’t think many people (truly, as in absolute number of people) outside of tennis writers will truly grasp what Kenin pulled off – she is under-sized for the sport (though she isn’t say Amanda Coetzer), she demonstrated a tennis IQ of genius throughout the tournament, she seemed to possess the ability to rev her game up or down as required, she zero-ed in on her competitors’ game flaws, and she executed as if it were the fifth set of Agassi’s win in 2005 against Blake, one of the more special efforts burned into the memory of tennis fans world-wide.

I agree with others, especially Jon here, that this is going to be tough to replicate. The field is good. I don’t think they can do what Kenin did – Madison Keys isn’t all of the sudden going to develop the ability to match her game to her opponent and make the subtle changes that bring out the worst in their opponents, while executing the best stuff.

But tennis is a game of match-ups and some players match up beautifully to Kenin, and they will be very tough in the tournaments ahead. Once you have snuck up on the field, it’s tough. This is a tough field with many ambitious players, and other players want glory too and they will believe they can do it. As to whether they can or not, that’s what tournaments are for.

Anyways…special, special win. Only a few like this – it’s like this to all slam winners, but few come close in how they did this. Maybe Andres Gomez? Maybe Jim Courier, each with their French wins?

The AO girls finals was not great to watch. The nerves were obvious. Some of the girls who lost along the way are going to be better than the finalists at the next level. We have seen some at different tournaments through the years.

A one handed backhand is hard these days on the girls side. Girls can hit with such hard and flat pace, its not easy for a one hander to do much with those balls. But its still nice to see the occasional one handed backhand from a young lady.

I don’t think male and female tennis fans are really that much different in being affected by a player’s “looks.” In any field, good looks are a plus, however unfair that may be. But it’s not the whole story. Chris Evert wasn’t the best looking tennis player of her era, but she was the one who appeared on SI covers because she was both reasonably attractive and a great player (and, of course, with SI, it helped to be an American). I don’t think it is wrong to be favorably affected by looks, but I do object to the need to make nasty comments about players’ looks. It’s pretty clear that Hartt, Catherine and I don’t have the same taste in men – and that’s fine. But maybe we would be better to stick to what we like and stay mum on what we don’t like (especially if we are advocating the position that looks “don’t matter”).

It’s too early to predict how Kenin will do over the long term, but I’m not one who thinks she will be a one-slam wonder. Her feistiness will stand her in good stead. There is a little bit of “Evert” in her mentality. She doesn’t strike me as mentally fragile.

I was rather hoping that “Coco” hysteria would ease up a little, not because I don’t like her, but because it all becomes a bit much to listen to nonstop hype. As for Anisimova, if she is to be hyped over a new slam winner like Kenin, it can only be because Nike is more powerful than Fila.

Scoop, saw Kenin first at Toronto last year, and she was surprisingly good to me – at the time I thought she played with a boring YAWN style. I noticed she was more aggressive than Mc-Davis – combine McHale and Davis…I couldn’t resist 🙁

As once seen in person, McHale’s coach to Giorgi after Giorgi had hit for a few minutes with her practice partner: “Would you like to hit with Lauren?” Giorgi: Shaking her head no…

So, I thought that Kenin was aggressive in her style, hit with a lot of drop shots in losing a match to Andreescu, but playing another version of “bbtennis” aka big babe tennis of the Vaidisova era.

Well I was wrong. She was way better, superior mentally, superior strategically.

This WAS a shock the universe kind of win for Kenin, even as a seed going into the tournament. An unseeded Muguruza win was a lot more plausible.

So – I was wrong. Totally and utterly wrong. Kenin just a much better player. Doesn’t do it all, doesn’t do it all well but her ability to lure players into mistakes and play with this incredible court knowledge – it’s not thrilling, but it is incredible stuff. Sparkling strategy.

A tennis player’s tennis player.