Tennis

[sixesandsevens]

Great news!! The Brits are 2-1 up in their tie against Lithuania so the dream tie is looking good in the summer!!!

[Grey Boy]

The GB Lithuania tie is in the balance again. GB will be favourites as Evans is ranked 252. The Lithuanian is ranked in the 500's, but home advantage and all that. Goes against the grain but I hope GB win.

[Grey Boy]

Ireland win 4-1. Lithuania bet GB 3-2 so we'll meet Lithuania next round.

[HarpoJoyce]

Disappointment on all sides of the Irish Sea as
Great Britain suffer humiliating Davis Cup defeat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8554231.stm
"Laurynas Grigelis's 6-7 7-5 6-0 2-6 6-4 win earned Lithuania a tie with Ireland while Great Britain will face Turkey. "

Last time GBR fell through the floor in the mid-nineties, they spent two years in the Davis Cup third tier before climbing out and being a yo-yo team between World group and Group I.

The World Group ties are interesting Spain, France, Russia, Croatia and Czech republic have won their first round ties. Serbia's Djorkvic is on court at the minute against USA's John Isner. He's 2 sets to 1 up.
Chile are 2-0 on Israel. That tie is a day behind because of the earthquake there.
Israel should win the doubles but Chile haveFernando Gonzalez again in the singles.

[SkStu]

damn. Too bad. Ive been following this thread with interest. Good to read the opinions of enthusiasts on minority sports in Ireland.

still, onwards and upwards for our boys. Thats the main thing.

[paudie]

Congrats to the Irish team even if we didn't get the dream tie in the next round

[Dodge]

Mightn't be as high profile but Lithunia had guy in the 500s playing today. Tie is winnable

[Stevo Da Gull]

Not the tie we were all hoping for but, as has been said, it's one we can win. Good luck to the lads and here's hoping for a home tie!

[sixesandsevens]

Yep a winnable tie alright, but I would have preferred the GB team, as much as an embarrassment as it was for GB to lose to Lithuania they'll be no pushovers. The best thing about the Lithuanians will be the fact that they don't have a major player to pull out of their hat the likes of Britain and Cyprus had last year. If Sorensen can stay fit for the tie in the summer I think we should win.

Not the tie we were all hoping for but, as has been said, it's one we can win. Good luck to the lads and here's hoping for a home tie!
On the Davis Cup site it says that we have a choice of where the tie is played, so it looks like a home tie is on the cards, no doubt it'll be played on grass which the Lithuanians will hate :D

[Grey Boy]

Looks like Conor Niland will be well placed in the top 200 after the Israel open. Hes in the final tomorrow having knocked out the 75th and 122nd ranked players in the world. Also Louk Sorenson should be back in action next week. It's great to have 2 players pushing for the top tournaments and doing so well in the Challenger tour. Augurs well for the upcoming Davis cup tie against Lithuania.

[Grey Boy]

Niland won the Israel open. Beat some serious quality to do it too.

[Stevo Da Gull]

Impressive! I suppose Schuettler was the biggest scalp, although his heyday wasn't quite yesterday or the day before. Well done to Conor :)

[Stevo Da Gull]

The French Open is on at the moment. Murray came from two sets down to beat Gasquet today. It was a terrific match for two and a half sets but Gasquet ran out of gas and Murray knew he just had to outlast him, without necessarily playing that well. Gasquet had played ten matches in the previous fourteen days and requested that this match be played tomorrow. I was happy enough with the outcome, seeing as I put money on Murray when he went two sets down :)

Federer coasted through against Luczak. Nadal should find it easy enough tomorrow, and is the clear, clear, favourite to win the event. I'm personally nervously looking forward to Hewitt - Chardy, though Eurosport will be showing a womens match instead.. damn women! :D

[paudie]

Womens semi finalists mean there will be a first time Grand Slam winner

Dementieva v Schiavone
Stosur v Jelena Jankovic

[Stevo Da Gull]

Schiavone wins it! She would have been the least fancied of the last four, and wouldn't have even been considered a contender before the tournament but she shocked the world.
Well done to her.

Nadal takes on Soderling in the mens final tomorrow. A real grudge match between two guys who don't like each other, but more importantly a match for the French Open crown.

[Dunny]

Nobody watching this game then? :D

57-57 atm

'mon Isner.

[Stevo Da Gull]

I'm up for Mahut myself, but it'll be terrible for whoever loses.. not to mention the fact that whoever wins is fudgucked for the next round!

Truly sensational.. it'll surely never happen again!

[Lev Yashin]

Sat gobsmacked at that match...Athletes...Isner was out on his feet...it was like two boxers going blow for blow.

[passinginterest]

Incredible stuff and the first and last time it'll ever happen because the rules will almost certainly be changed after this. Fascinating as it is, it sort of sums up all that's wrong with men’s tennis; two big servers completely unable to get a break point, just monotonous.

[seand]

It is fascinating but as passinginterest says it sums up men's tennis. 155 games and only 2 breaks. Only 20 odd break points! The two boys have now almost doubled the previous record for aces in a match - I think they are on 95 and 98, the previous record being 51. It would be a pity to introduce a tie-break in the final set, but probably inevitable. There's a strong case for slowing down the men's game or raising the net a couple of inches. Isner is 6 foot 9!

[Aberdonian Stu]

I think it's a little harsh as there's a lot more to it than the pair of them being big servers. In order for something this insanely close you need a few things to happen. Firstly fitness is a factor, crazy long sets usually don't reach a 30 game total because one player will give way to fatigue first. Their fitness level has to be remarkably tightly balanced (as in far more than two pros typically are) to be still going this long, ditto on mental strength. Their overall ability on the surface (Isner is a much better all-rounder but both have shaky grass records) must in turn be phenomenally close. Finally this must give way to the advantage of serve, in that if neither player shows a sufficient difference in fatigue (although Isner looked more likely to go first it wasn't requisitely different to end the match) then the difference in energy being expended on service games as opposed to return games becomes more pronounced. While the amount of effort required to serve as opposed to returning is neglible early it becomes more prevalent the longer a match goes and once you reach a 150 total game count well then it's really quite big. Essentially this match is a perfect storm.

[Stevo Da Gull]

It is fascinating but as passinginterest says it sums up men's tennis. 155 games and only 2 breaks. Only 20 odd break points! The two boys have now almost doubled the previous record for aces in a match - I think they are on 95 and 98, the previous record being 51. It would be a pity to introduce a tie-break in the final set, but probably inevitable. There's a strong case for slowing down the men's game or raising the net a couple of inches. Isner is 6 foot 9!

Raising the net would make it even harder for smaller guys to compete. A guy under 6 feet tall would have to hit heaps of top spin serves.. and a guy like Isner would probably enjoy that. As for slowing down the game - Wimbledon has actually slowed down a fair bit already, and there are much longer rallies from the baseline these days than there were twenty years back. The balls in use are heavier, the grass composition is different and the advances in racket technology make it easier to hit passing shots and heavy strokes from the back of the court.

I agree that guys like Karlovic and Isner have an advantage because of their height, but you can't really do anything to combat that without hurting others - Roddick for example is a brilliant server, but at 6'2 that is a stroke that he has perfected and is no less fair than any other player's best stroke. You could also argue that a guy like Isner is disadvantaged by his height when it comes to dealing with low slices etc

While Isner has always been a bug server, you have to give huge credit to Mahut for continuosly holding serve while serving to stay in the match, the mental strain is huge. Also, Mahut came through qualifying where he won his last two matches 24-22 in a third set against Bogdanovic before coming from two sets down in the final qualifying round, which is played in the best of 5 format. Including qualifying he has spent about 20 hours on the court and he's still in the first round!

Also, I doubt that Wimbledon will introduce a final set tiebreak at 6-6, perhaps at 20-20 or something like that.

[OwlsFan]

I didn't see it but it smacks of a fix. Were there no service games broken in the earlier sets?

[osarusan]

A break each in the first two sets, but then two sets to serve won by tie-breaks followed by 137 games to serve, followed by a final break.

[dfx-]

It also has to be remembered this is a freak 5th set. There have been plenty of astonishing servers playing each other in past campaigns and yet the record was only 24-22. There's no need to change the rules on the back of one match.

[culloty82]

Federer finished?

I suppose we should have seen the signs after he went two sets behind in his opening match Monday week, but after today's shock defeat, we may have seen the end of Federer, it's difficult to see him returning to the Grand Slam circuit if he feels he can't regain his peak standards. That said, Nadal has looked far from invincible this fortnight either, so Murray may never have a better opportunity to reach his first Wimbledon final.

[Dodge]

On the challenger tour, Conor Niland had a decent win over former World No 1 Thomas Muster in Germany (Niland was last direct qualifier so even one win helps his cause)

[Stevo Da Gull]

With Muster's style of play, it'll be tough for him to beat many pro's at 42 years of age.

Rafael Nadal wins Wimbledon 2010. Congratulations to one of the all time greats.

[sixesandsevens]

Looks like the Irish are having a tough time of it this weekend in Davis cup. Niland and McGee lost their opening matches to the Lithuanians last night. It's all up to Cluskey and King to keep the tie alive in the doubles!

[culloty82]

Niland's also getting some slagging from Off the Ball for suggesting Serena Williams couldn't beat any male players in the top 1,000 (to be fair, he was only responding to Murray's comments). On a serious note though, it's surprising that women's tennis hasn't become a five-set game to date, physically the players are a lot stronger than previously, so they'd be able to go the full distance.

[Grey Boy]

Conor Niland is in the final of the Salzburg Challenger today. Made the semis at Loughborough last week. A win today should see him in the top 130 in Mondays world rankings.

[Grey Boy]

For the record Conor won the title 7-6,6-7,6-3. Should see him well up the rankings tomorrow.

[Aberdonian Stu]

The ATP Tour Finals started today. Murray beat Soderling earlier, Federer playing Ferrer now. A lot of it is down to how much Nadal is willing to push himself. Much like last year he's entering it a bit banged up and may choose to look after himself rather than go all-out.

[Spudulika]

Conor Niland went out to an experienced journeyman pro 7-6 7-6 in the first round of qualifying for the Aussie Open. Very disappointing performance which will hammer his ranking.

[Spudulika]

While our men are improving steadily, womens tennis in Ireland has been pretty poor the last few years. However this week has been good for 2 of our players. Amy "The Beanpole" Bowtell has made the last 8 of a 10k event in Portugal and herself and her partner, Julia Moriarty (Australia born but Irish parents) reached the last 4 of the doubles. Bowtell is one to watch unless injuries mess her up. Moriarty is a solid top 700 player but not much more. Bowtell could crack the top 200 in 3-4 years and make top 100 in 5.

[sixesandsevens]

Conor Niland went out to an experienced journeyman pro 7-6 7-6 in the first round of qualifying for the Aussie Open. Very disappointing performance which will hammer his ranking.

Niland had no points to defend in Australia so his ranking is safe for the moment. He'll be disappointed not to have done better but he's consistently picking up points and I'd be confident that he can break the top 100 this year barring any injuries. He's already made the quarters of a challenger event in Germany this season and his ranking is stable for now.

The biggest worry really has to be for Louk Sorensen who's had a terrible time since last years Ozzie Open. Looks like he'll be out of action for the Davis Cup tie against Luxembourg in March which is going to be a tough tie with Gilles Muller in their side.

[sixesandsevens]

While our men are improving steadily, womens tennis in Ireland has been pretty poor the last few years. However this week has been good for 2 of our players. Amy "The Beanpole" Bowtell has made the last 8 of a 10k event in Portugal and herself and her partner, Julia Moriarty (Australia born but Irish parents) reached the last 4 of the doubles. Bowtell is one to watch unless injuries mess her up. Moriarty is a solid top 700 player but not much more. Bowtell could crack the top 200 in 3-4 years and make top 100 in 5.

Womens tennis is well behind the mens game alright, whats needed is more girls in the game who want to take the sport seriously, but unfortunately the interest just isn't there at the moment. The future's looking brighter though with Bowtell and Moriarty who should form the backbone of womens tennis for the next 5-6 years. Sinead Lohan could be another serious prospect she makes the step up to the pro tours.

[Spudulika]

Agreed on all fronts. What's quite annoying is that for a small (-ish) investment women's tennis can blossom. I was at DCU speaking with the head coach and he pointed out some of the youngsters they have under contract. One of the girls stood out right away, she was as good as anything I've seen here (which is a big deal) and as he said, for a small investment they'd get big returns. Of course injuries, boyfriends, partying might disturb things, though there is a future for women's tennis in Ireland, though it does boil down to funding.

[sixesandsevens]

Thats the nature of the sport I'm afraid - it takes a lot of money to get a player even on the lower rungs of the pro tour, be it male or female. We're still a long way behind a lot of European countries with the bang they get for their buck but the center at DCU is a great facility for the sport and the investment is starting to show albeit more slowly in the womens game.

[Spudulika]

Agreed on everything. DCU is excellent, their program top class, and their support network really impressive. For a player ranked 300-600 it costs roughly around 80,000e to take part in c. 20 tournaments, have a coach for some of them and have sufficient back up to make an impact. That's out of the reach for most countries and in Ireland there isn't the belief in what we have. Though there is such a small difference between, for example, Fed Cup Division 2 and 3 with Ireland well capable of going up. The step further up the ladder is tougher, but again in a couple of years it's easier. But then again, our media are a little reticent in backing tennis in Ireland. There was a time when RTE televised the semi's and finals live of the Irish Open - which was the second oldest Open tournament in the world. With some media backing there might be a difference.

[sixesandsevens]

I'd like to think that media backing would be there if we can get Andy Murray over to Fitzwilliam, thats if we can get past Luxembourg in the Davis Cup. They were set to meet last year before the Brits made a show of themselves against Lithuania. Rumor was that RTE were very interested in getting involved for the tie if Britain had gotten through their round- I'm sure the interest would be there again if results go according to plan this year.
RTE's interest in the sport really has waned since the early 90's and they don't even seem too interested in screening Wimbledon highlights anymore, you'd hope that a traditional power like Britain could drum up a bit of badly needed interest. And there's the catch - without the media interest the players can't get the sponsorship opportunities to fund those 20 odd tournaments they need to play in each year.

[Stevo Da Gull]

An Ireland - Britain tie in the DC would be great for generating a bit of interest.

There are some great kids playing in this country and there is hope for the future, though it seems to me that a lot of our young male players are lacking in height, which makes a difference in today's game. The women's side looks more likely to produce a top 100 player in the foreseable future. Things aren't made easier by the courts we have here and the courts on the tour. Once our kids go to Europe they're usually on clay against clay-courters, while many of our players have been practising on artificial surfaces.

On a seperate matter, I don't think that there is enough variety in the courts on the pro-tour. It's mostly slow hardcourts and clay. A real grass season and the return of green clay to the tour would be nice. I also really enjoy watching tennis on a clay court that allows aggressive play, which is more possible on green clay or on red clay when dry or at altitude, indoors, or composed correctly. It allows some contrasting match-ups to flourish which are great to watch.

[sixesandsevens]

our young male players are lacking in height, which makes a difference in today's game. The women's side looks more likely to produce a top 100 player in the foreseable future.

Not so sure on that one Stevo. Sam Barry is a great prospect and his coach has full confidence that he can make the top 100. Although he's no giant he has plenty of height at around 6'1"/6'2" which is more than enough to make a good go of it in the future. Here's hoping Bowtell and Barry can both break the top 100, that would be a great result for Irish tennis. :)

Britain and Ireland have a major problem with their clubs installing artificial grass courts which are great on the knees of the fee paying old dears who have the major say on facilities but are terrible for developing a high performance game.

[Spudulika]

Hard and carpet courts are important, artificial grass has no place on the ITF/WTA/ATP tours, though it is possible to play an entire season without ever setting foot on a clay court - if one chose to. I don't know, Stevo, if hardcourts could be termed slow, it depends on the type of manufacture. Also at the Academy in DCU they have red clay, though as you said clay differs. Agree with sixesandsevens about Bowtell and Barry flying the flag into the top 100, it would be a big step for the Irish game.

Roll on Ireland vs GB, though get a tricky tie with Luxembourg out of the way first. Muller is a very good player and Niland beating him would give us a real chance.

[sixesandsevens]

Davis Cup kicking of this afternoon in Riverview. Major shock, looks like James McGee has been dropped from the team for some reason and Barry King will be playing as No2 in the tie. Its a real gamble throwing King in the deep end when King is ranked about 300 places lower than McGee. I hope they know what they're doing, cause it looks like the side has been seriously weakened by this!

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/tennis-mcgee-shock-as-king-gets-nod-2565565.html

[sixesandsevens]

Ireland up at the moment. Niland had a straight sets win in the first rubber. King is looking like an inspired decision at the moment, he's a set up against world no.90 Gilles Muller at the moment!!!!

[Spudulika]

Disappointing line fluffing today at Riverview. The Irish pair played well, but both seemed to lack that little bit of composure at crucial points. Muller is a class act, you'd expect it from a former World number 1 and quality pro. Can't wait for tomorrow, the Niland-Muller showdown will be worth it, if we win that it's game on. The 2 18 year olds for Luxembourg look like children, and are tiny too!

[sixesandsevens]

let's hope that Niland can keep up with his good form today then. I think Barry King showed Muller is beatable on Friday night, hopefully Niland can pull it out of the bag today

[sixesandsevens]

All over at Riverview Niland has lost the fourth rubber in straight sets 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to Muller. Luxembourg can't be beaten at 3-1

http://www.rte.ie/sport/tennis/2011/0306/daviscup.html

[legendz]

Disappointing defeat. Hopefully they'll be able to beat Tunisia and avoid dropping to Group III.