TENNIS: Eastbourne 2014
Jun. 22nd, 2014 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI hadn’t watched any of it until the final, and had only heard a little about Heather Watson’s fortunes in the championship. I think I’d heard Madison Keys’s name mentioned in the conversation about young American female players, but hadn’t seen her play before. I knew Kerber was a quality player.
The introduction set their encounter up as a newcomer versus experience. In the abstract, it’s very exciting to see someone on the rise, or rather, I should say someone else on the rise. I got very frustrated that it took most of the match for the commentators to mention the French Open (particularly Taylor Townsend) and some of the developments that we saw there. This was another interesting ladies match, just for the contrast in style and their positions in tennis life.
Very quickly, it became clear that Keys had a serve worthy of being talked so highly of and that the game was on her racket. She started hot and snatched the first set. Kerber did find a way back in, not being quite so stunned by the serve and getting deeper into the rallies, and made the third set a decider, but I still felt that Keys was the more attacking player and it was hers to win, although Kerber wasn’t going to give it to her. (I do think Kerber might have preferred having Hawkeye than being allowed coaching overall, though. Especially given that she couldn’t win the championship two years ago.)
Anyway, it was thrilling to see someone win their first final. You can see why grass suits Keys’s game, many of her errors were positive ones, in that you feel that she can finetune them. Certainly she's got potential, and getting over the hurdle here will help.
As for Wimbledon, people are asking who will win and I don’t know. Yes, it could believably be both the number one seeds, but it could be other people entirely. I think Nadal, Djokovic and Murray have to be favourites (Murray did enough at the French to deserve to be put into the conversation, and he is defending champion). It’s getting to be quite a while since Djokovic did well at a slam, isn’t it? But then it could be someone else entirely (Federer and Dimitrov won the run-up championships) as at the Australian. The women’s side is, again, unpredictable - I’m really pleased that they’ve invited Lisicki to take Bartoli’s champion slot – as per last year and the French. Will it be one of the riding players or an established name? I hope there are some quality matches as we find out!
The introduction set their encounter up as a newcomer versus experience. In the abstract, it’s very exciting to see someone on the rise, or rather, I should say someone else on the rise. I got very frustrated that it took most of the match for the commentators to mention the French Open (particularly Taylor Townsend) and some of the developments that we saw there. This was another interesting ladies match, just for the contrast in style and their positions in tennis life.
Very quickly, it became clear that Keys had a serve worthy of being talked so highly of and that the game was on her racket. She started hot and snatched the first set. Kerber did find a way back in, not being quite so stunned by the serve and getting deeper into the rallies, and made the third set a decider, but I still felt that Keys was the more attacking player and it was hers to win, although Kerber wasn’t going to give it to her. (I do think Kerber might have preferred having Hawkeye than being allowed coaching overall, though. Especially given that she couldn’t win the championship two years ago.)
Anyway, it was thrilling to see someone win their first final. You can see why grass suits Keys’s game, many of her errors were positive ones, in that you feel that she can finetune them. Certainly she's got potential, and getting over the hurdle here will help.
As for Wimbledon, people are asking who will win and I don’t know. Yes, it could believably be both the number one seeds, but it could be other people entirely. I think Nadal, Djokovic and Murray have to be favourites (Murray did enough at the French to deserve to be put into the conversation, and he is defending champion). It’s getting to be quite a while since Djokovic did well at a slam, isn’t it? But then it could be someone else entirely (Federer and Dimitrov won the run-up championships) as at the Australian. The women’s side is, again, unpredictable - I’m really pleased that they’ve invited Lisicki to take Bartoli’s champion slot – as per last year and the French. Will it be one of the riding players or an established name? I hope there are some quality matches as we find out!
