Tennis 2013

Okay, I know this is a bit out of left field, but bear with me. I had to track down an online version of this story which has a lot more to run, lots more! About 50% of the truth has actually come out and I've never heard anything like this in my life. My apologies for the rotten translation, but you'll get the gist.

Russian tennis player has earned a suspension, brutally beaten partner team

Russian player Vladimir Osminkin disqualified for a year for beating a team partner Matthew Minin. The father of the young tennis player, also beat Minin, a lifetime ban to attend the tennis competitions.
Osminkina expelled from the national team and banned from taking part in competitions throughout the year, the press service of the Russian Tennis Federation .
Also for the year were disqualified Osminkina sister Angelina and junior tennis team Nikita Grunichev who were present at the beating Minin.
Incident of which tennis players were disqualified, occurred on 25 January this year at the Universiade in Kazan.Then between the two national team players had a conflict. Osminkin and his father went to the hotel room and beat Minin tennis.
Add that Osminkin is the leading Russian rating among juniors.

Not much of a racket there ;)

This chick that somehow beat Serena today is quite the specimen.
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...prVjORviUbivFA

Some fantastic play from Del Potro today as he continues to hang in there against Djokovic in the Wimbledon semi-final. Great match of tennis so far.

Gary Lineker's really enjoying things...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...52644356_n.jpg

Yeah, because he has a freebie there, undoubtedly.

Should stick to the crisps...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

Gary Lineker's really enjoying things...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...52644356_n.jpg

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Well it's won't do at his age :D

Missed this topic until now, Delighted Jerzy got that far, I've been tracking his progress for a few years, and Kenny De Schepper is finally showing what he's capable of!

James McGee our Ireland #1 had a big win this week, he beat world #136 Alex Kuznetsov in a challenger in Lexington. Playing a young american kid in the mid 200's later today in the 2nd round of the comp.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acornvilla

James McGee our Ireland #1 had a big win this week, he beat world #136 Alex Kuznetsov in a challenger in Lexington. Playing a young american kid in the mid 200's later today in the 2nd round of the comp.

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Had 3 match points last week in that second round match and threw them away.
Has won through two qualifying rounds in the Vancouver Open this week and is now playing the winner of last weeks competition and British #2 James Ward in round 1.

Irish James has just won the 1st set 6-4, it's a big ask for him to win this but going well so far.

Edit: lost 6-4, 3-6, 5-7

He had a break point at 5-5 in the 3rd set. Must be really frustrating for him, to be honest he's definitely good enough to get around #150 in the world but he's just not either getting the breaks or mentally tough enough to take his chances.

Agreed on James (about the mix of breaks and mental toughness), he gets a bit too het up at times and loses the run of himself, though he has the ability alright to get close to 100. James Cluskey won last week and is developing into a really fine doubles specialist. While Sam Barry had a good run in Dublin and recently in Turkey, but the big gap remains for all our players (including women) in funding. Without money to travel you're limited, but without money for a coach, you're really limited. Any player worth their salt will have a tour coach, will bring in hitting partners, can take the time to practice, rest and plan for the year. Any other way and it's a nightmare. A couple of years back we had 2 really promising players and the only thing standing between them and breaking the top-100 was a well planned schedule and tour coach. The Irish players are lucky in one way in that they have one of the best coaches in Europe (I can't say the World) and support set ups to come home to, but most don't take advantage, they can't. They have to keep on the move winning money and points.

If Sam and Amy get decent backing they'll both be top-100 in 2 years.

Yeah I know an English chap who played Futures for a while and hovered around the top 1,000, it seems an absolutely impossible existence for anyone outside the top 200, unless you're lucky enough to have a governing body like France, Spain, USA etc. who are willing to help people break through.

Sam Barry looks a prospect alright, losing to Olivetti last week is no embarrassment either, I've been watching the big Frenchman a lot the last few weeks, he's one of the biggest servers in world tennis, being 6' 8'' sure helps, and is beginning to improve the rest of his game finally. (still only 21) He'll be a top 150 player eventually no doubt if he starts playing more tournaments.

With James I really believe it could be as simple as him making a breakthrough and winning one challenger event to push him near 120 or so, that's when he'll suddenly get easier draws and be able to afford a proper schedule to give himself the best possible chance, I'm glad hes playing usta at the minute, the money and points are very good considering the standard of competition is so so, he's been very unlucky in the draws (due to his ranking) and in how both tournaments ended so far, he really is good enough to win one before the us open starts.

I'm not sure what the cut off point is for the us open as regards getting a spot in the qualifiers, but all James needs to do is keep doing what he's doing and he should just about make the cut.

You're dead right, it's impossible at times. None of the top players has gotten there without very well off parents and/or helpful federation, and/or sponsor. The LTA are often criticised for backing British players (in some cases it's warranted) though you can't survive without it. And draws are vital, a player we have (who is just after hitting a career high) won last week in Wrexham ($25k) and now in playing in Germany and in her first match - drew the 2nd seed and clay court specialist! But there's nothing else she can do as the budget we have only allows her to play tournaments in Europe and now it's all clay - and she hates clay!

One of those players I mentioned before we got a fighting fund together and sent her to Thailand for 2 tournaments, she won one of them ($25k) and suddenly her career was on the up. Players have to travel to god awful places to pick up points and it takes money to do it.

I think, for the qualies, in the US Open James will miss out. Normally it's 200 and you're safe, but it can be down to 220/30. He's outside 250 (I think) and the cut off is soon - but if he gets a push on and some funding, he'll be okay for Australia.

Yeah It was the top 241 for Wimbledon, James was #241 at the time :D

He took a 3 week break after that so his ranking dropped back to 290 or so. He is now at 263 following last weeks competition, the points he gets for the loss today should probably push him up to 250 or so by the weekend. Winning one of the usta events or even making a semi would literally push him right on 200 or so thou, so he's not as far away as it may look. Ward who McGee played last night for instance jumped a massive 60 places (to #179) after his challenger win last week.

Theres actually a very good article written by James on his blog (and was later published on thescore.ie (i think) all about the trouble hes going through just to survive. I'll try and dig it up.



In other news, the worlds fastest server might finally have gotten his own break this week, Sam Groth lost in the second round of the Citi Open an ATP 500 event to Raonic 5-7, 4-6 which is a pretty damned good performance for a man ranked 300 or so places lower, he'll get a relatively big windfall points and money wise from that given that he played through all of the qualifying and won the 1st round. His record is 160 mph or so, only broke 147 last night :P
He has less than 50 points to defend until Christmas so he could well push himself up into the top 100 now. It's funny watching him, his serve is immense but he can be so bad at everything else, it'd be interesting to see how far he could come on with proper coaching etc.

Janowicz and De Schepper have made huge improvements in a relatively short space of time (Jerzy more so obviously), so it'd be interesting to see if Groth was able to emulate them in any way. For those guys all it took was a few big wins here and there to get the ball rolling, I remember watching both of them in challengers all throughout 2012 thinking they had potential but something was missing, now all of a sudden Jerzy is a top 20 player and Kennys in the 70's after spending his entire career around 200.

http://www.thescore.ie/james-mcgee-f...87173-Jul2013/

Here we go!


As I mentioned Jerzy in my last post. I heard recently that the Polish federation have a budget of only 1m per year, considering they have Kubot and Janowicz in the top 20/100 as well przys just outside the top 100 within the mens game and the Radwanska sisters at #4 and #30 or so in the wta, they're doing quite well with relatively low funds, I know 1 million is astronomical in comparison with what Ireland have to work with, but it'd also be nothing compared to a lot of nations. Really puts into perspective how tough it is for any Irish players..

Forgot James was playing tonight, his draws this month have been horrific, now playing Ryan Harrison the #104 in the world, he made the semi final of the 250 event in Atlanta a few weeks ago and beat Leyton Hewitt in the Washington 500 event last week..

Game postponed at 1 set each 6-3, 3-6 will be resumed latter today..

James was totally dominating and was 0-40 up on Harrisons serve in the 1st game of the second set. Harrison went on to hold and James struggled thereafter getting broken immediately and failing to take another break point in the next game.. He has the beating of Harrsion, but again mentally hes letting himself down.

James ****ing McGee!! was 5-1 down in the 3rd set, won 5-7!!

Unfortunately lost the next round 2 sets to love against Farruk Dustov. Well beaten in truth, I think the exertions of the Harrison match took their toll. Wasn't Harrison the player that knocked Niland out of US open qualies a few years ago incidentally?

I don't think it is, just had a quick look and I can't see any matches between them in the us open from 2012-2007, Harrisons way to young to have played before that so I didn't check :P

The Harrison win is a pretty big deal thou and he had to win a few q rounds again this week to make it into the main draw.

In other news what in the name of god drugs has Pospisil taken, he won one of the bigger challenger comps of the season last week and is now a semi finalist in the masters. He's jumped from #93 to easily in the top 40/50 with this result. Beating Isner and Berdych is no mean feat as well. Stepanek I actually fancied Vasek to win, Step is crap most of the time in singles now..

The other James, Cluskey, is over this way (should be in Kazan now). Will try to catch one of his matches as I've a couple of free days this week, though will probably only see him in Moscow. We've some great results coming through from the kids to seniors, so all it takes is one to break.