Tennis: Eastbourne 2021
Jun. 27th, 2021 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI realised I might be able to catch a little more of this tournament with seagulls than ever before, thanks to having iPlayer on my TV set.
Monday was rained out, so in the evening, I watched the start of the BBC’s coverage, which was a chance to build up the tournament and talk more generally about the state of tennis. I didn’t think all that much of Annabel Croft’s contribution – you cold play some sort of drinking game for every time she said ’artistic/artistry’, and Claire Baldwin and she somehow discussed Osaka’s withdrawal without using the word ‘depression’ and so seemed a bit useless. Claire Balding was theorising that all the questions about the Tokyo Olympics was the trigger; I have no idea if that has merit. Then Sam Smith turned up and was a lot more sensible.
However, I thought that the point that Annabel Croft (IIRC) made about experience on grass really helping at Eastbourne this year when they hadn’t played on the surface throughout last year, might have merit. It certainly seemed to the next day, when I started watching as Heather Watson broke the mighty Iga Swiatek again to go up 4-1 in the third. Swiatek hadn’t won on grass as a senior before.
Maybe what ensued was because I was watching. Watson was up 40-0, and then dropped a point, and another, and yet another (all game points), and suddenly Swiatek was playing herself back into her front-foot, big-strike form, rattling though games. Watson held her serve eventually, but it wasn’t enough. Instead of playing the clever, containing game she had apparently been, she was making mistakes and Swiatek was playing much, much better. The Grand Slam champion is in the top 10, while Watson has only beat three top 10 players in the past, and last week at Brirmingham aside, hasn’t had a great 2021.
I also learned that Karoline Pliskova, the defending champion, was the big seed who was out of the tournament, although, honestly, in women’s tennis, it would now be more shocking if all the seeds made it through to the end.
It took ages for the uninterrupted play of day three to appear on iPlayer. Zipping through it with haphazard fast-forwarding, I got to see Svitolina (no. 2 seed) come second best to Rybikina, and Andreescu (no. 3 seed), who I still feel I haven’t seen properly, lost to Kontaveit Gauff and Jabeur were also out, denying Claire Balding of some of her Stories immediately.
I did something similar for the quarter finals, i.e watching a bit of the two matches on centre court and fast-forwarding. Both matches went to three, and in both cases, the first set was deceptive, Sabalenka, being a similar (power) player to Giorgi, seemed to back up her last seed standing reputation, but that didn’t last for long.
And so both semi-finals would feature unexpected ball strikers, with Ostapenko being the biggest name, although Kontaveit had showed form at Wimbledon before, and Rybakina sounded like a rising star when they started detailing her past couple of years. (I am perhaps jaded about a player who beat Serena Willias at the French these days.)
Like everyone who’d seen Giorgi get the break back, I was a stunned that she called for the physio and then retired. Not in any way how Kontaveit wanted to get into a final, and back to the studio for mad filling. The commentators (Sam Smith and Anne Keothavong) pointed out the two players had been practicing on another court when the news came through, which is quite understandable as the first semi was at the tail end of the first set.
I believe Ostapenko had decided that she wasn’t going to repeat her slow start in the quarters. Well, in as much as she had any say over it, given the unusual circumstances. She broke in the first game. And then, on this day of weirdness, a lady fell ill in the stands and the umpire paused play while she was attended to and taken away. The Beeb didn’t let us see much of that, mindful of what happened with that poor footbeller, and this was a watcher, not a player.
At the restart, in fairness, Ostapenko continued her form and rattled off two more games in a way that made them rightly say that, like Kvitova, when she’s on, she’s unplayable. I watched Rybakina fight her way back into finding some answer, winning the next two games, before I pressed pause.
I had the rest of the second semi on in the background the next morning, when it sounded like Ostapenko was still playing tennis that was too hot to handle, and then Rybakina’s body let her down
Minutes later, I was actually watching the final coverage, where in the build-up, we learned that Kontaveit had a good perspective on tennis in the age of coronavirus and had acquired a somewhat English accent from her former coach. As Ostpenko talked about playing more smart tennis in her interview, both sounded like mature young women. The cognoscenti claimed it was too close to call, though I thought that if the former French Open champion maintained her form, she could win it. Annabel Croft (who’d be happier with a small mike pinned to her clothes so she could gesture freely) drew attention to Ostapenko’s return of serve.
Well, you couldn’t ignore that return as she started off hot (having learned from the semis that coming straight off the practice court worked for her.) She really was in unplayable form, frustrating Kontaveit as she returned consistently brilliantly and hit winners like nobody’s business. There was that brief blip when she lost a rare service game to love in a game with no first serves, thus making the first set a more respectable 6-3 than the 6-1 it could have been.
Could she continue the blistering form in the second set? Why yes. Kontaveit did well to hold some games, as Ostapenko continued to neutralise or undo her weapon of a serve, and then after the Estonian started stretching and not always running fully, we moved to a courtside shot that showed the different and difficult balls she was having to deal with off the Latvian’s racquet. Ostapenko didn’t show any nerves when she served for the tournament, and won very convincingly.
I don’t remember anyone talking up the returns quite so much at the French Open, but this was a bit like the Ostapenko who won the French, only with more nous and variety. Unseeded, she’ll be a player none of the seeds or anyone else, for that matter, will want to face 0 if she keeps that play up. It’s a shame that Halep won’t be able to return in the defending champion slot.
Although I saw more tennis, most of it wasn’t live, and it’s really not the same as giving yourself over to a match, however long it takes. Bits and pieces are better than missing it, though. (And of course, there was a men’s tournament going on that the BBC didn’t have rights to, and so ignored. Apparently most of the women played doubles too to get match practice on grass and possibly to stave off boredom as they’d otherwise be stuck in their hotel rooms.)
Monday was rained out, so in the evening, I watched the start of the BBC’s coverage, which was a chance to build up the tournament and talk more generally about the state of tennis. I didn’t think all that much of Annabel Croft’s contribution – you cold play some sort of drinking game for every time she said ’artistic/artistry’, and Claire Baldwin and she somehow discussed Osaka’s withdrawal without using the word ‘depression’ and so seemed a bit useless. Claire Balding was theorising that all the questions about the Tokyo Olympics was the trigger; I have no idea if that has merit. Then Sam Smith turned up and was a lot more sensible.
However, I thought that the point that Annabel Croft (IIRC) made about experience on grass really helping at Eastbourne this year when they hadn’t played on the surface throughout last year, might have merit. It certainly seemed to the next day, when I started watching as Heather Watson broke the mighty Iga Swiatek again to go up 4-1 in the third. Swiatek hadn’t won on grass as a senior before.
Maybe what ensued was because I was watching. Watson was up 40-0, and then dropped a point, and another, and yet another (all game points), and suddenly Swiatek was playing herself back into her front-foot, big-strike form, rattling though games. Watson held her serve eventually, but it wasn’t enough. Instead of playing the clever, containing game she had apparently been, she was making mistakes and Swiatek was playing much, much better. The Grand Slam champion is in the top 10, while Watson has only beat three top 10 players in the past, and last week at Brirmingham aside, hasn’t had a great 2021.
I also learned that Karoline Pliskova, the defending champion, was the big seed who was out of the tournament, although, honestly, in women’s tennis, it would now be more shocking if all the seeds made it through to the end.
It took ages for the uninterrupted play of day three to appear on iPlayer. Zipping through it with haphazard fast-forwarding, I got to see Svitolina (no. 2 seed) come second best to Rybikina, and Andreescu (no. 3 seed), who I still feel I haven’t seen properly, lost to Kontaveit Gauff and Jabeur were also out, denying Claire Balding of some of her Stories immediately.
I did something similar for the quarter finals, i.e watching a bit of the two matches on centre court and fast-forwarding. Both matches went to three, and in both cases, the first set was deceptive, Sabalenka, being a similar (power) player to Giorgi, seemed to back up her last seed standing reputation, but that didn’t last for long.
And so both semi-finals would feature unexpected ball strikers, with Ostapenko being the biggest name, although Kontaveit had showed form at Wimbledon before, and Rybakina sounded like a rising star when they started detailing her past couple of years. (I am perhaps jaded about a player who beat Serena Willias at the French these days.)
Like everyone who’d seen Giorgi get the break back, I was a stunned that she called for the physio and then retired. Not in any way how Kontaveit wanted to get into a final, and back to the studio for mad filling. The commentators (Sam Smith and Anne Keothavong) pointed out the two players had been practicing on another court when the news came through, which is quite understandable as the first semi was at the tail end of the first set.
I believe Ostapenko had decided that she wasn’t going to repeat her slow start in the quarters. Well, in as much as she had any say over it, given the unusual circumstances. She broke in the first game. And then, on this day of weirdness, a lady fell ill in the stands and the umpire paused play while she was attended to and taken away. The Beeb didn’t let us see much of that, mindful of what happened with that poor footbeller, and this was a watcher, not a player.
At the restart, in fairness, Ostapenko continued her form and rattled off two more games in a way that made them rightly say that, like Kvitova, when she’s on, she’s unplayable. I watched Rybakina fight her way back into finding some answer, winning the next two games, before I pressed pause.
I had the rest of the second semi on in the background the next morning, when it sounded like Ostapenko was still playing tennis that was too hot to handle, and then Rybakina’s body let her down
Minutes later, I was actually watching the final coverage, where in the build-up, we learned that Kontaveit had a good perspective on tennis in the age of coronavirus and had acquired a somewhat English accent from her former coach. As Ostpenko talked about playing more smart tennis in her interview, both sounded like mature young women. The cognoscenti claimed it was too close to call, though I thought that if the former French Open champion maintained her form, she could win it. Annabel Croft (who’d be happier with a small mike pinned to her clothes so she could gesture freely) drew attention to Ostapenko’s return of serve.
Well, you couldn’t ignore that return as she started off hot (having learned from the semis that coming straight off the practice court worked for her.) She really was in unplayable form, frustrating Kontaveit as she returned consistently brilliantly and hit winners like nobody’s business. There was that brief blip when she lost a rare service game to love in a game with no first serves, thus making the first set a more respectable 6-3 than the 6-1 it could have been.
Could she continue the blistering form in the second set? Why yes. Kontaveit did well to hold some games, as Ostapenko continued to neutralise or undo her weapon of a serve, and then after the Estonian started stretching and not always running fully, we moved to a courtside shot that showed the different and difficult balls she was having to deal with off the Latvian’s racquet. Ostapenko didn’t show any nerves when she served for the tournament, and won very convincingly.
I don’t remember anyone talking up the returns quite so much at the French Open, but this was a bit like the Ostapenko who won the French, only with more nous and variety. Unseeded, she’ll be a player none of the seeds or anyone else, for that matter, will want to face 0 if she keeps that play up. It’s a shame that Halep won’t be able to return in the defending champion slot.
Although I saw more tennis, most of it wasn’t live, and it’s really not the same as giving yourself over to a match, however long it takes. Bits and pieces are better than missing it, though. (And of course, there was a men’s tournament going on that the BBC didn’t have rights to, and so ignored. Apparently most of the women played doubles too to get match practice on grass and possibly to stave off boredom as they’d otherwise be stuck in their hotel rooms.)
