And Clijsters pwns Venus 6-0 in their opening set! :eek:
While not exactly pulling a Safina, Venus is definitely doing HER headcase act. And the ridiculous thing is, it’s still pretty much even money on her to get it together and win the thing even after not even winning a game in the set! (this counts on Clijsters retreating a bit from her brilliant play so far)
Silly Williams.
I agree that the men’s service game is annoyingly dominant, but regardless, the top of the men’s game (namely Nadal and Federer) are pretty deep in all aspects of play and give us a lot of great rallies every match. And fortunately, the next tier of players (like Djokovic, Murray and Roddick) contains a lot of guys who know how to save, defend, and get the damned ball, giving us lots of nice rallies, as well.
Both the men’s and women’s draws have a lot of uncertainty in who will get into the final days of this slam, but for the women, it’s because we don’t know who’ll crack up next, whereas for the men, it’s because we don’t know who will play an uncharacteristically ungodly match next (like Isner just did). The men’s game is, in general, far more fun to watch right now.
And now it’s 5-0 Venus in the second!
Boy do I hope this third set is going to be competitive. It was fun watching Kim go 6-0, but the novelty wore off really damn quickly when Kim got a taste of her own medicine.
Oh look, Venus finally decided to show up in the second set and this time Clijsters decided to check out. Two sets in 50 minutes, it’s like they decided they wanted to play a one set match and arranged to trade sets beforehand.
6-0, 0-6… Who will decide to show up in the third? Ridiculous.
This article, among others, says Sharapova can crank it up to 100 decibles. They say Seles was once measured at 93, and the Williamses get to around 85 to 90 at their worst. Sharapova is shriekier and higher pitched than the others, though. And then there’s Larcher de Brito.
The Venus-Clijsters match is shaping up as one of the weirdest I have ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen 0-6, 6-0 in a women’s match. I think it goes without saying that the third set needs to be resolved with a long tiebreak. 
I think it’s a combination of two things: the women are overhitting, so they trade accuracy for power, and since they’re not as strong, it’s harder to hit the ball all the way through the court for winners.
So Sharapova can, after tennis and modeling, have a third career as horror movie actress?
She once said she’d like to play a Bond girl. I don’t think I want to hear that love scene.
I don’t think I’d want to hear it, so much as participate in it. I mean, damn.
They could just cast her as someone like Famke Janssen in GoldenEye. You remember her right? 
Well Clijsters - Williams is finally a match. Both players actually playing like they want to win this thing, with good movement and slightly less error-prone play. Seriously, did they rig this to be a one-set match? 
Personally, I wouldn’t mind her screaming like there’s no tomorrow if we’re having some fun in bed. I’m sure it would be a lot hotter given the circumstances. Plus it would be a fun way of bragging to the neighbors that you’re sleeping with Maria Sharapova. They’d be able to hear her from several houses away and you’d never even have to say a word about it. 
And Clijsters does it! A remarkable run for her first grand slam in years. I think she has to be considered a legitimate contender for the title now, if, of course, Serena has an off day.
I wonder if a reason for her success is that she has so little pressure on her compared to everyone else; the yips probably don’t mean all that much to this new mom who’s ranked something like 1814232th in the world.
I vote the women. It’s almost rare for a women’s match to have more winners than unforced errors, more aces than double faults, and it’s even fairly common to have more service breaks than not. It just leaves me with an impression of incompetence. Also, every shot is soooo slooooow compared to the men’s. During the Clijsters / V. Williams match they were talking about hard the two were hitting during one rally, and while Kim’s forehand winners were quite peppy, even those seemed to be the normal pace of the average men’s baseline hit. (Ignoring slices.)
I think my intense dislike of the William’s sisters has helped sour me on the women’s game over the past half-decade, but even when they were out of the game for those couple years I couldn’t help but feel like the women’s game was a clearly inferior product.
I still say the women should play 5 sets or the men should play 3. The men play 3 sets in non-majors, so it’s not like it’s unheard of. Aren’t women supposed to be the equal of men? Wasn’t that the point of equalizing their purses in the majors? How is it that equal competitors are too delicate to play the same length match?
I think the first game of each set should be served by the winner of the previous set, instead of being whichever didn’t serve the final game of the previous set. Serving first affords a minor advantage, and the way it works now, that advantage propogates throughout the match. There are only so many scores a set can end on:
First serve stays the same
6-0
6-2
6-4
7-5
First serve alternates
6-1
6-3
7-6
There are more ways to keep the first serve than lose it. Also, barring tiebreak, the only way to wrest first serve away from your opponent is to win the previous set on a service break, and service breaks are supposed to be difficult and fairly rare. So it seems that the opening coin coss gets unfairly propagated through the rest of the match.
I think winning a set should give you the advantage going into the next set as a minor reward for success. I get that Venus Williams won the coin toss to serve the first set, but it seemed really unfair that she posted a donut in the first set and then got to serve the second set as well. She ended up serving first all three sets.
Zvonareva and Pannetta are putting on a good show, FWIW.
Tennis Magazine (from USTA) had an article last month about women’s tennis following the Williams’ sister debut. Their power game changed the way women trained and now we’re seeing all the William sisters’ proteges taking court. The main complain was that there is very little distinction in playing styles between the top 20 women. Hantuchova, Zvonareva, Williams, Safina, Sharapova…it’s like watching the Stepford wives slug it out.
Case in point: Melanie Oudin’s drop shot in the third set was memorable not only because it was really gutsy (bravo!), but because it was an actual change from the hit-it-as-hard-as you-can game it had turned into. I’d love to see more variety, because that’s the game I fell in love with, but I fear that both the racquets and the coaching will make drop shots and slice serves a thing of the past. I think Patty Schnyder may be the lone old-school woman left now.
Yea, Pannetta saved 6 match points with amazing rallies for the majority of them. Rare composure, and refreshing to see in a women’s match. In contrast, Zvonareva seems like she’s cracking emotionally, seeming to cry even during a couple points and reportedly during the intermission between 2nd and 3rd set, and now throwing mini-tantrums with her injured leg. Fortunately, she’s still playing decent tennis for the most part, though showing some fatigue.
I say it’s Pannetta’s to lose, as she seems fresher, not injured, and more composed.
I wish these hard hitters would take a page from Federer’s playbook, or even, say, Hingis’ and add the variety to their game. Hard-hitter vs. Hard-hitter with craftiness- it seems simple which one is better. I don’t understand why every shot has to be a screaming (literally) hit, when it’s pretty well known in sports like baseball that the speed differential in pitches is what throws off the person trying to hit the ball with his stick. Hit some backspin, pull some drop shots, put some lobs in there, and then blast away sometimes, too. Seems simple, but it’s rarely seen.
Yes, and even Roddick seems to understand that, now. His match at Wimbledon against Federer demonstrated that he’s not just a serve it fast and blast it back guy any more.
I mean, just because Tiger CAN hit a drive 330 yards doesn’t mean he always does, or that he doesn’t work on his wedges. 