TENNIS: Queen's 2021 so far
Jun. 19th, 2021 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI should admit that by some reckonings, I have been a bad Welshwoman, I didn’t think to watch Wales in the football on Saturday, when I watched the women’s finals at the French Open, and I didn’t watch most of the match on Wedesday.
Instead I watched Queen’s. It seems particularly sedate compared to the intensity of the French Open, a matter of ITV’s style versus the BBC’s, but also the difference between the sharp end of a Grand Slam and an outdoor grass court tournament that is for most a chance to get some grass-court tennis before Wimbledon. Some lesiurely stream of consciousness commentary (particularly from Andrew Cotter, who knows the least about tennis, but some of his colleagues’ references seem very much three generations ago), and John Inverdale now reduced to holding the post- match interview.
I saw glimpses, but from Tuesday, worked out how to watch uninterrupted coverage, avoiding the 6 o’clock cut-off, so I watched the final match of the day: Shapalov’s first appearance. Apparently, he’s the no 2 seed, which typifies Queen’s, as higher ranked players get seeded, while players with better grass-court pedigree and history at this tournament probably being the crowd favourites.
And then I saw a bit of Cilic against Fognini. Fognini was in a very hot pink that didn’t necessarily go with some of the hoardings. He was in a fog for the first set, while Cilic served well, but the second was more competitive, until they both seemed to accept it was going to a tiebreaker. Which Cilic won.
In the next round, it turned out that top seed Berettini has an excellent serve and Murray hadn’t had enough matches. Shapalov too beat Lopez, and I watched the end of the Troicki and Tiefo match, with the latter winning and the former heading off into retiremen, apparently. So there was a sense of a generation winding down, with Nadal announcing that day he was withdrawing from Wimbledon and the Olympics (understandable if you’d seen the clip of him hobbling the day after his semi-final loss.) Talk turned to the favourite of the men at Wimbledon: Djokovic, obviously, and then everyone else. I mean, we’ll have to see how he recovers after the French, but he wants this. As for the women’s side, it’ll be a woman who wins seven matches. I can tell you that much.
Well, unless if an opponent defaults or retires.
I was expecting Friday to be a wash-out, because Sue Barker was expecting it to be a wash-out, but in the late afternoon, they managed to play most of the quarter finals.
Berettini and Evans was an interesting enough contest, although once Berettini had won the first set tiebreak, the complexion of the match changed, and he gained confidence/settled down more. Fair enough that he admitted he’d come to Queen’s to win - he is the top seed, and his grass-court form is developing rapidly, so he should be looking for progression at Wimbledon. I’m not entirely buying Andrew Castle and his talk of arrivals. (Cilic was out in three to De Minour – or ‘Demeanour’ as it almost sounded like.)
They also completed the second all Brit querter final, which meant that there would definitely be a Brit in the semis. It was my first chance to see Jack Draper play, and there were some exciting things about his game – already big serve, aggressive game and good reaction when he was broken. We had some right-handed bigotry from John Lloyd (wah-wah, right-handed players find lefties hard, left-handed people have to navigate a world build for right-handed people so get a sense of proportion), because both he and Norrie are left handed.
Anyway, Norrie soon showed he’s the more experienced and match-hardened player, havin a good year. He managed to get the match played on his terms – cold and moist conditions helped slightly – and certainly played the bg points better to win in two. He goes into the semis with the advantage that his opponent will have to finish his match today.
Instead I watched Queen’s. It seems particularly sedate compared to the intensity of the French Open, a matter of ITV’s style versus the BBC’s, but also the difference between the sharp end of a Grand Slam and an outdoor grass court tournament that is for most a chance to get some grass-court tennis before Wimbledon. Some lesiurely stream of consciousness commentary (particularly from Andrew Cotter, who knows the least about tennis, but some of his colleagues’ references seem very much three generations ago), and John Inverdale now reduced to holding the post- match interview.
I saw glimpses, but from Tuesday, worked out how to watch uninterrupted coverage, avoiding the 6 o’clock cut-off, so I watched the final match of the day: Shapalov’s first appearance. Apparently, he’s the no 2 seed, which typifies Queen’s, as higher ranked players get seeded, while players with better grass-court pedigree and history at this tournament probably being the crowd favourites.
And then I saw a bit of Cilic against Fognini. Fognini was in a very hot pink that didn’t necessarily go with some of the hoardings. He was in a fog for the first set, while Cilic served well, but the second was more competitive, until they both seemed to accept it was going to a tiebreaker. Which Cilic won.
In the next round, it turned out that top seed Berettini has an excellent serve and Murray hadn’t had enough matches. Shapalov too beat Lopez, and I watched the end of the Troicki and Tiefo match, with the latter winning and the former heading off into retiremen, apparently. So there was a sense of a generation winding down, with Nadal announcing that day he was withdrawing from Wimbledon and the Olympics (understandable if you’d seen the clip of him hobbling the day after his semi-final loss.) Talk turned to the favourite of the men at Wimbledon: Djokovic, obviously, and then everyone else. I mean, we’ll have to see how he recovers after the French, but he wants this. As for the women’s side, it’ll be a woman who wins seven matches. I can tell you that much.
Well, unless if an opponent defaults or retires.
I was expecting Friday to be a wash-out, because Sue Barker was expecting it to be a wash-out, but in the late afternoon, they managed to play most of the quarter finals.
Berettini and Evans was an interesting enough contest, although once Berettini had won the first set tiebreak, the complexion of the match changed, and he gained confidence/settled down more. Fair enough that he admitted he’d come to Queen’s to win - he is the top seed, and his grass-court form is developing rapidly, so he should be looking for progression at Wimbledon. I’m not entirely buying Andrew Castle and his talk of arrivals. (Cilic was out in three to De Minour – or ‘Demeanour’ as it almost sounded like.)
They also completed the second all Brit querter final, which meant that there would definitely be a Brit in the semis. It was my first chance to see Jack Draper play, and there were some exciting things about his game – already big serve, aggressive game and good reaction when he was broken. We had some right-handed bigotry from John Lloyd (wah-wah, right-handed players find lefties hard, left-handed people have to navigate a world build for right-handed people so get a sense of proportion), because both he and Norrie are left handed.
Anyway, Norrie soon showed he’s the more experienced and match-hardened player, havin a good year. He managed to get the match played on his terms – cold and moist conditions helped slightly – and certainly played the bg points better to win in two. He goes into the semis with the advantage that his opponent will have to finish his match today.
