TENNIS: Mainly Eastbourne 2023
Jul. 2nd, 2023 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI don’t think I realised before that more points are available in the women’s tournament of Eastbourne, so with that and the fact that they’ve got a more physical challenge of up to five sets at Wimbledon, the men’s tournament is a weaker field and that’s why the BBC hasn’t been interested in airing it.
Again, there was a choice between the BBC and Amazon for the women’s side. I got a glimpse of what the BBC was offering, and they seemed to have got women who appear on Five Live coverage – which is good, but it did seem to mean sticking to whatever they chose to air. With Amazon, you could pick the match (including men’s matches and matches from concurrent events on the Continent.)
So, I chose to watch Ons Jabeur vs. Camila Giorgi’s second round match (on Amazon). Only the one commentator, which is better than none, but not as good as two, which is what the BBC offered. The Tunisian was seeded, while the Italian had dropped out of the top 50 this year. It sounded blustery. For six games, neither player could hold her serve, until the seventh, when Giorgi started getting some rhythm. It still eluded Jabeur, and Giorgi was playing some attacking tennis to win the first set 6-3. She didn’t drop off in the second set and was already up 2-0 when Jabeur finally held her serve. The Tunisian was increasingly frustrated as there were still errors off her racquet and apparently her footwork was dodgy. Giorgi played with more purpose and accuracy, and when she was serving for the match with new balls, did so very effectively. She will now face Ostapenko.
(I will be muttering ‘not if she plays like she did at Eastbourne’ every time someone mentions Jabeur as a potential Wimbledon champion.)
Day four and I managed to watch Gauff vs Pegula’s quarter final on catch-up on iPlayer. The two Americans are established doubles partners, which meant they knew their opponent’s game. Pegula is the higher ranked player, but Gauff has the better results on grass and in slams. Laidback but knowledgeable commentary from Sam Smith and Anne Keothovong.
The first set didn’t quite catch fire, Gauff was more comfortable, Pegula was a bit subdued. Gauff broke towards the end of the set and won it. But Pegula reset at the start of the second set, and got up to 3-0. Gauff was clearly determined to win her serve, and having done so, began to build. More errors crept into Pegula’s game, and she lost game after game, or rather Gauff won them to proceed to the semis. There were a couple of spectacular lobs.
I watched the next match on Centre Court, a contrast in styles, and Kasatkina seemed to have the answers for Garcia’s big serves, big groundstrokes and willingness to come in. Her angles were a thing of beauty, and I was impressed by how well she was serving. (Annabel Croft pointed out that playing Pliskova in her previous match had given her useful recent experience of facing a big serve. There was a bit of the former player correcting the other commentator going on.) Garcia handed her a double break with a double fault.
She called the trainer on in the break after the first set, and after it became clear that the second set was going to be much of the same she retired. I don’t know whether the various ways Kasatkina was playing the ball aggravated the injury or just stymied the French player. This meant Kasatkina was through to the semis.
Semi finals day and the BBC’s scheduling didn’t match Eastbourne’s scheduling. We joined the second women’s semi, just as Daria Kasatkina was turning a 4-1 lead into 5-1. This was against Giorgi, because Ostapenko had also retired. Soon enough Kasatkina won the set, although Giorgi had finally managed a hold.
But the second set looked like it was following the same pattern, Giorgi was making too many errors (three double faults in one game!), and Kasatkina was looking like a player on the verge of returning to the top 10 against someone much lower down the rankings, until at 4-1 up, her intensity dropped and things started clicking for Giorgi. Well, Kasatkina still had a break, until she played a very nervy service game and it was even stevens. But Giorgi could not hold her serve, and this time Kasatkina could, meaning she was through to her first grass-court final.
A bit of chat based on the Wimbledon draw (and if Swiatek and Rybakina are both not quite in rude health, I’d make Sabalenka the favourite too. I think more women are closer to it than the pack of men – Kyrigos and Berettini are due to play, though, but both are returning from injury with little match play – behind Djokovic.)
And then we got to watch Gauff, whose career is in the ascendency, having established herself in the top 10, and the comparative veteran Madison Keys. Big hitting ensued, and Keys got the better of it, winning the first set (in slightly less intriguing points than in the previously aired match where you weren’t sure what Kasatkina would do on purpose, and what Giorgi might pull off.)
But Gauff started the second set better and was up 2-0; however, Keys reset and rebuilt, breaking back to equalise. Gauff started chuntering like I’ve never heard her chunter before about what she needed to do better. Meanwhile the purity of Keys’s shots and the effectiveness of targeting Gauff’s forehand were bearing fruit. Then Keys had a nasty fall, but she seemed capable of stretching it off, and her movement seemed fine and she resumed, winning against the favourite in two sets. It should be an interesting final because of the contrast of styles, and I sincerely hoped that Keys didn’t wake up too injured/hampered.
I heard a snippet of an interview with the new presenter of Today at Wimbledon on the radio (his name didn’t sink in) and he does seem to like tennis, and they do seem to be retooling the programme given the likelihood that there’ll still be live tennis on at 9 p.m., which may make it a decent programme for catching up on the previous day’s events in the morning.
And so, the women’s finals at Eastbourne and Madison Keys seemed good to play. Indeed, when she started to play, she was very good indeed, not letting her opponent get very much in. Both women were playing the wind (which I haven’t mentioned much, although Eastbourne is notorious for it, and it was a factor in the semis too), but Kasatkina must have felt she was playing ‘an American net’ too. The first set was done very quickly and it looked like the second set would go much the same way as Keys raced to 4-1, and Kasatkina became visibly frustrated. But in part that was because she couldn’t convert break points on Keys’s serve, until she managed to extend the rallies, and turn pressure into points won, which became games won, and it was 4-4, then 5-5, then…6-6.
Tiebreak! And what a tiebreak it was, fitting for a set that was twice as long as the first set. Keys started off the better, Kasaktina pegged her back, but Keys reached championship point, and just could not win it, whether it was her serve or not. Next Kasaktina got set points, but she couldn’t win any either, regardless of whether it was her serve or not. They kept changing sides, Keys got more match points and finally, finally held her nerve to win it and her second Eastbourne title.
During the match, I got an answer to something that had been puzzling me – the last woman to go on to win Wimbledon after winning at Eastbourne was Jana Novotna, which is quite some time ago now. Keys’s play – the ball striking, the balance between freedom and control – was better than her ranking of 25, and this win and the fact that she didn’t drop a set to get it, makes her worthy of being mentioned as a real threat at Wimbledon after a not great year. But Annabel Croft mentioned that doing this double means winning 12 matches, and that’s a lot emotionally.
I am shocked that we’re supposed to applaud the fact that the WTA are finally hoping to give women equal prize money with the men for Masters level tour events. Where they literally play the same amount of sets? Why hasn’t this been the case for years? I think the argument for parity there is stronger than at the grand slams, where women don’t play best of five (minority view, there, but I’ve always taken the view that you should get equal pay for equal work. A marathon is the same length for women as men.) And in a few years after that, the WTA plan to have got all the tournaments at about equivalent level. Wow!
Again, there was a choice between the BBC and Amazon for the women’s side. I got a glimpse of what the BBC was offering, and they seemed to have got women who appear on Five Live coverage – which is good, but it did seem to mean sticking to whatever they chose to air. With Amazon, you could pick the match (including men’s matches and matches from concurrent events on the Continent.)
So, I chose to watch Ons Jabeur vs. Camila Giorgi’s second round match (on Amazon). Only the one commentator, which is better than none, but not as good as two, which is what the BBC offered. The Tunisian was seeded, while the Italian had dropped out of the top 50 this year. It sounded blustery. For six games, neither player could hold her serve, until the seventh, when Giorgi started getting some rhythm. It still eluded Jabeur, and Giorgi was playing some attacking tennis to win the first set 6-3. She didn’t drop off in the second set and was already up 2-0 when Jabeur finally held her serve. The Tunisian was increasingly frustrated as there were still errors off her racquet and apparently her footwork was dodgy. Giorgi played with more purpose and accuracy, and when she was serving for the match with new balls, did so very effectively. She will now face Ostapenko.
(I will be muttering ‘not if she plays like she did at Eastbourne’ every time someone mentions Jabeur as a potential Wimbledon champion.)
Day four and I managed to watch Gauff vs Pegula’s quarter final on catch-up on iPlayer. The two Americans are established doubles partners, which meant they knew their opponent’s game. Pegula is the higher ranked player, but Gauff has the better results on grass and in slams. Laidback but knowledgeable commentary from Sam Smith and Anne Keothovong.
The first set didn’t quite catch fire, Gauff was more comfortable, Pegula was a bit subdued. Gauff broke towards the end of the set and won it. But Pegula reset at the start of the second set, and got up to 3-0. Gauff was clearly determined to win her serve, and having done so, began to build. More errors crept into Pegula’s game, and she lost game after game, or rather Gauff won them to proceed to the semis. There were a couple of spectacular lobs.
I watched the next match on Centre Court, a contrast in styles, and Kasatkina seemed to have the answers for Garcia’s big serves, big groundstrokes and willingness to come in. Her angles were a thing of beauty, and I was impressed by how well she was serving. (Annabel Croft pointed out that playing Pliskova in her previous match had given her useful recent experience of facing a big serve. There was a bit of the former player correcting the other commentator going on.) Garcia handed her a double break with a double fault.
She called the trainer on in the break after the first set, and after it became clear that the second set was going to be much of the same she retired. I don’t know whether the various ways Kasatkina was playing the ball aggravated the injury or just stymied the French player. This meant Kasatkina was through to the semis.
Semi finals day and the BBC’s scheduling didn’t match Eastbourne’s scheduling. We joined the second women’s semi, just as Daria Kasatkina was turning a 4-1 lead into 5-1. This was against Giorgi, because Ostapenko had also retired. Soon enough Kasatkina won the set, although Giorgi had finally managed a hold.
But the second set looked like it was following the same pattern, Giorgi was making too many errors (three double faults in one game!), and Kasatkina was looking like a player on the verge of returning to the top 10 against someone much lower down the rankings, until at 4-1 up, her intensity dropped and things started clicking for Giorgi. Well, Kasatkina still had a break, until she played a very nervy service game and it was even stevens. But Giorgi could not hold her serve, and this time Kasatkina could, meaning she was through to her first grass-court final.
A bit of chat based on the Wimbledon draw (and if Swiatek and Rybakina are both not quite in rude health, I’d make Sabalenka the favourite too. I think more women are closer to it than the pack of men – Kyrigos and Berettini are due to play, though, but both are returning from injury with little match play – behind Djokovic.)
And then we got to watch Gauff, whose career is in the ascendency, having established herself in the top 10, and the comparative veteran Madison Keys. Big hitting ensued, and Keys got the better of it, winning the first set (in slightly less intriguing points than in the previously aired match where you weren’t sure what Kasatkina would do on purpose, and what Giorgi might pull off.)
But Gauff started the second set better and was up 2-0; however, Keys reset and rebuilt, breaking back to equalise. Gauff started chuntering like I’ve never heard her chunter before about what she needed to do better. Meanwhile the purity of Keys’s shots and the effectiveness of targeting Gauff’s forehand were bearing fruit. Then Keys had a nasty fall, but she seemed capable of stretching it off, and her movement seemed fine and she resumed, winning against the favourite in two sets. It should be an interesting final because of the contrast of styles, and I sincerely hoped that Keys didn’t wake up too injured/hampered.
I heard a snippet of an interview with the new presenter of Today at Wimbledon on the radio (his name didn’t sink in) and he does seem to like tennis, and they do seem to be retooling the programme given the likelihood that there’ll still be live tennis on at 9 p.m., which may make it a decent programme for catching up on the previous day’s events in the morning.
And so, the women’s finals at Eastbourne and Madison Keys seemed good to play. Indeed, when she started to play, she was very good indeed, not letting her opponent get very much in. Both women were playing the wind (which I haven’t mentioned much, although Eastbourne is notorious for it, and it was a factor in the semis too), but Kasatkina must have felt she was playing ‘an American net’ too. The first set was done very quickly and it looked like the second set would go much the same way as Keys raced to 4-1, and Kasatkina became visibly frustrated. But in part that was because she couldn’t convert break points on Keys’s serve, until she managed to extend the rallies, and turn pressure into points won, which became games won, and it was 4-4, then 5-5, then…6-6.
Tiebreak! And what a tiebreak it was, fitting for a set that was twice as long as the first set. Keys started off the better, Kasaktina pegged her back, but Keys reached championship point, and just could not win it, whether it was her serve or not. Next Kasaktina got set points, but she couldn’t win any either, regardless of whether it was her serve or not. They kept changing sides, Keys got more match points and finally, finally held her nerve to win it and her second Eastbourne title.
During the match, I got an answer to something that had been puzzling me – the last woman to go on to win Wimbledon after winning at Eastbourne was Jana Novotna, which is quite some time ago now. Keys’s play – the ball striking, the balance between freedom and control – was better than her ranking of 25, and this win and the fact that she didn’t drop a set to get it, makes her worthy of being mentioned as a real threat at Wimbledon after a not great year. But Annabel Croft mentioned that doing this double means winning 12 matches, and that’s a lot emotionally.
I am shocked that we’re supposed to applaud the fact that the WTA are finally hoping to give women equal prize money with the men for Masters level tour events. Where they literally play the same amount of sets? Why hasn’t this been the case for years? I think the argument for parity there is stronger than at the grand slams, where women don’t play best of five (minority view, there, but I’ve always taken the view that you should get equal pay for equal work. A marathon is the same length for women as men.) And in a few years after that, the WTA plan to have got all the tournaments at about equivalent level. Wow!
