Oudin breaks to open the third set, hitting a drop shot winner to get the game! She’s got brass ones, and the crowd really loves her.
Is it just me, or was that injury timeout a very calculated move on the part of Sharapova to break Oudin’s momentum? It seemed to work, and now they’re trading breaks (5 in a row!). The first to hold serve seems likely to win…
And that’s precisely what happened. Oudin held to win 7-5 in the third.
So Melanie Oudin finally holds serve and knocks off a shakily serving but still hard-hitting Sharapova. This kid’s gonna be around for a while, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her take the whole damned tournament. Her height does gimp her, I think, in the same way it did Michael Chang, but I can see her taking a major or three in her career.
I really hate these post-match interviews, though; even the most eloquent of players end up sounding either smug or robotic, parroting the sickly positive and bland sports victory language that ends up saying nothing. After all, they’ve just been playing for hours, their mind is in a very non-verbal place, and their bodies are flush with adrenaline from winning. If they’re not eloquent or just very young, you get the bubbly incoherence that Oudin just displayed, which while cute, is really kinda pointless. We can see her joy just from how she reacts to winning match point and everything afterwards; we don’t need to see them stumbling to formulate sentences. It just dilutes the moment.
Yes, it was. Sharapova wasn’t fully healthy, but even so, that was gamesmanship.
Nah. But I can see her taking some majors and having a Henin-style career if she stays healthy. She can really hit her shots. The difference between her working the angles and Sharapova’s blunt power was very clear, and she was all over the court.
That said, it was reported earlier in this tournament that Sharapova is still not all the way back and was really hoping to compete at the Australian. Her serve today was absolutely awful. She’s still working on that new motion.
Still no major upsets on the men’s side. Haas was challenging Verdasco, but the Sauce is now up two sets to one. Soderling beat Querrey, which must be disappointing for Querrey - he had a very good summer. But Soderling is the better player and he’s still building on his French results, which is nice to see.
As a topic for discussion, I read this column earlier today and it really pissed me off. I was not aware that they’re now shortening doubles matches by making the sets five games instead of six. (Great way to win new fans to tennis: put less tennis in the matches.) As always, Bud Collins is pushing his “the racquets are too good” argument.
This would be the “overpowering” that has seen Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal establish one of the best rivalries in the history of the sport while playing 100% different styles and winning on all surfaces. Yes, something must be done about this, it’s positively awful. It’s ruining the sport.
Time to retire, Bud. And not just because of your awful clothes.
While I haven’t read the linked article yet, it makes me sad to hear they are apparently messing with doubles. Just a few days ago I was thinking how much I’d be slightly peeved at the Williams’ getting TV coverage for their doubles match, but not my own if I were more of a doubles player than a singles.
You have to admit it would take a lot of TV coverage (perhaps even a whole channel’s worth) to get in the feature singles and doubles matches in. Not even mentioning mixed doubles, sheesh. Grand slams have a ton going on I realize, it just makes me slightly sad the uber doubles teams get little to no mention in the least unless the Williams are playing. :rolleyes:
One of these days I’ll have something good to say about them, I swear. 
As for Bud Collins, but who is going to be the one to tell him he’s being put out to pasture? No one has the guts to tell the guy that’s covered decades worth of Slams, “Hey old man, you’re off your rocker and sitting in my seat. Now move it or else that blinding tie of yours is going unpleasant places.”
This being tennis, I suppose they’d word it slightly differently. Unless they get Serena to do it.
EDIT: One other thing, go Gary Oldman!
I really don’t understand your problem with the Williamses. They deserve more TV coverage than most doubles teams: they’ve won the career grand slam together. They’ve won nine majors as a team, including the Australian and Wimbledon this year. They’ve also won the Olympics twice. As a doubles team, they’re a threat to win any slam they enter. They are an incredible team. They don’t even play that often and they’re seeded #4.
Definitely true. I admit I’d rather watch singles, and I’m enough of a fan that I’ll tune in even if a big name is not on TV. I’d rather see two unknowns play a great match than a big name play a dull one.
NBC cut him lose several years ago. ESPN can do the same.
By the way, Isner has taken the first two sets against Roddick, so either Andy has to pull off a big comeback, or he’s going out surprisingly early.
Well, normally I’d agree with you that Oudin is still young, inexperienced, and not developed enough to go all the way. However, and this will probably sound chauvanist, the top of the women’s game is dominated by inconsistent headcases. The Williams sisters are dominant when on, but they’re also capable of just bombing. Safina is undeniably suffering from confidence issues.
And whoever else is left, I think Oudin clearly hangs with them, defeating Sharapova (who is admittedly coming off an injury, but still fierce), and Dementieva, who HAS recently played well. Melanie’s clearly a dark horse, and she may very well start choking the brighter the spotlight gets, but she has a slim chance.
By the way, what do you guys make of these small murmurs of Henin making a return?
Personally, a few things:
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I knew she’d be back. You can’t love a game, quit right in the middle of you doing your best and stay gone. Not in my opinion at least. Sure she had some disappointing finishes preceding her retirement, but still, come on.
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I hope she does come back and comes back stronger than ever. I’m getting kind of tired watching the women almost always just fighting themselves. Sharapova being a good example of this earlier today with 20 (!!!) double faults. Think of how badly she’d have beaten Oudin if she could actually get a decent first serve in. But no.
Same goes for Safina, slightly. Dinara still is managing to win, but her inconsistencies aren’t going to fly when she has to face a more determined player later in the tournament.
Henin I hope wouldn’t have these types of problems and would just go back to dominating. I think it would be awesome for her to unretire only to practically start at the top of the women’s game again simply because she has the mental fortitude not to implode. And no injuries to recover from of course.
The commentators kept trying to portray Isner as a big lumbering oaf who needs to force opportunities to come to the net, and they’re just now finally admitting that the big oaf is plenty quick and capable of playing a good baseline game. Poor Roddick. He’ll never be one of the all-time greats, but I thought he really deserved Wimbledon.
I’m rooting for him, even though his game is not exactly my favorite to watch.
Roddick has found his game! With an amazing game at 4-3, he manages to break Isner with some amazing points and takes the third set 6-3. Here’s hoping it goes the distance.
And Isner pulls out the match and upset in the 5th set tiebreaker!!!
:eek::eek::eek:
Andy losing makes me a sad kitten.
That’s happened before. What usually happens in those situations is the Williamses win. 
Oudin has been terrific but I don’t think she’s quite ready to win one of the big ones. She needed a lot of chances to put Sharapova away: she had a 5-1 lead in the second set and lost it, and blew three or four breaks in the last set. I’m happy she won, but if Sharapova had served less than abysmally, it might have been different.
I think there have been murmurs of a comeback since she quit. Is she practicing much or playing on any tour? I don’t think she has been.
I’m not really sure she loved it that much: tennis was everything for her, but then things changed in her life and it seemed like she found it a relief to put it away. She got divorced, and then reunited with her family after being estranged from them for a long time. Clijsters never needed tennis that much, which may have kept her from winning more. Henin didn’t have anything else in her life for a while, and then she did.
I used to be a very big Henin fan, and I’m glad she found some happiness. But she lost me after the way she cheated against Serena in the French Open a few years ago.
There were new murmurs that she has begun practicing again because of Klijsters’ comeback. She doesn’t want Kim stealing the Belgian spotlight or some such.
Explain. :dubious:
It would only be a good thing if she’s playing pro tennis again. But I’m skeptical of this explanation, because if she cared that much about the spotlight she would not have quit in the first place. Clijsters was already retired when Henin quit last May.
Henin and Serena played in the quarterfinals of the 2007 French Open. While Serena was serving at a critical point in the match - I’ll look it up if you like, but I’m a little surprised you have never heard about this - Henin stepped back and put up her hand to call time out. Serena had already started her service motion and hit a fault. The chair umpire did not see Henin call for time, and she asked Henin if she had done so. Henin pretended not to hear the question, so she got a free shot at a second serve. She broke and won the match. It was completely unsporting and a very surprising move from somebody who otherwise never did anything like that.
Ohhhhh that! I remember it well, because I saw it. 
I’m just really bad at remembering such things, especially since it was pretty early in to when I started getting into tennis so not a whole lot of significance was mentally placed on the event. I do remember it though.
As for her actually returning or not and why or why not, only time will tell I suppose. I do hope she does and in spectacular fashion wrangling away #1 from whomever may have it at the time.
I’m not sure it would look very good for women’s tennis if a player who’s been retired for more than a year came back and went back to #1 in a few months, but what the heck. She was definitely a great player.
Safina is already struggling. She’s dropped serve twice and trails 4-3. Robredo and Blake are just starting. I’ll be pulling for Blake but it’s hard to have confidence in him these days. Robredo appears to be hitting well.
Well she obviously wouldn’t get #1 back all that quickly, but still, it’s not good for the women’s game right now for a lot of the high profile players to be serving so badly. As has been mentioned already by other posters.
Would be nice to see Henin just come rocketing through the rankings, showing all the others how to serve, how to close out a match, and how to continually do well (I’m looking at you Ivanovic).
I want to root for James so badly but he’s so stressful. All I see him doing lately is losing or just barely winning. And I mean that with as little disrespect as possible. He seems like a great guy and so I don’t wish anything bad upon him, but damn I would like to see him really just start kicking ass and taking names.