The season proper starts tomorrow with the Aegon Championships at the Queens Club and the Gerry Weber Open getting under way in Halle.
The centre of the world for Irish tennis fans today is at the Queens Club with James McGee in qualifier action. Good news this morning with a first round qualifier win over Borna Coric. Not such good news to report now though. He won the first set against Alex Bogomolov but has just gone down 7-5 in the 3rd. Still could make it in to the first round proper as a lucky loser.
The season proper just finished about 10 minutes ago, mate.
The greatest player of all time won the greatest slam of them all for the 9th time.
Terrific day for British tennis at the Queens Club as the eagerly awaited 2014 grass season gets underway. Good win for James Ward over Blaz Rola but the result of the day was Dan Evans recording a dramatic 3rd set tie-break win over Jurgen Melzer.
who do you think will be crowned World Tennis Champion at The Championships in July @Manuel Zelaya ?
Its hard to see past one of the top three seeds - Nadal, Djokovic or Murray.
Andy hasn’t played a lot over the last year with his back injury and surgery and could be the freshest of the three and at this stage I’d tentatively make him favourite. He performed credibly on his least favourite surface in Rome and Paris and now has some important game time in his legs. Most pertinently he’s evolved into the best grass court player in the world over the last two years.
Novak is likely to be in the final but his big problem now is he just keeps losing Grand Slam finals. He’s lost 5 of the last 6 - 2 French, 2 US Opens and a Championship Final. His only win in that sequence was in the poorest relation in Australia in 2013.
Its difficult to know with Nadal. He’s followed up French Open wins in the last two years with exits to Rosol and Darcis, players outside of the Top 100. He’s obviously all but unbeatable on the clay in Paris. Outside of Paris, he’s got a decent enough record of 11 Grand Slam Final appearances, winning 5 of the 11. He’s also prone to going out early though. An early exit to Gilles Muller at the Championship also springs to mind and early US Open exits to James Blake, Mikhail Youzhny & David Ferrer. If he gets to the second week he’ll get into the mix but equally he could go out early.
As regards Federer, at this stage in his career, he could tumble out early like he did last year. I’ve felt since 2010 that the only Grand Slam he could win was the Championship. Stefan Edberg has been hired with the specific aim of winning that record 8th. This is his absolute last chance to do it, he’s got at best an outside chance but it’ll take something pretty extraordinary for it to happen.
Of the rest, Dimitrov is a guy that should have the game to win the Championship and its about time to start delivering on that unfulfilled potential. Raonic with his big serve could go well and Stan Wawrinka is a decent grass court player as well.
Is it easy get a ticket for wimbledon? Any half decent match will do me
You can queue up on the day I think
yes, in the first week
here is what you do pal,
head down to London on the Friday, get yourself over to The Griffen for a feed of pints, you have these old dolls in there taking off their clothes , its a great spot, full of working class types, all you need to do is fire a quid in the bucket after each dance, theyll have SSN on the TV in the background, you cant go wrong.
On the Saturday, get the bus out to wimbledon for around 11/12 after a decent breakfast and head to Wimbledon common and join " The Queue".
“The Queue” is the official queue and is a bastion of English civility and organisation, each year we have been there we have arrived around 12-30pm and received a ticket number between 10-11,000. this is your Queue number and your place.
The best of order is observed in The Queue, officials from The Lawn Tennis and Croquet club will be on hand to answer any questions.
The Queue proceeds to move in glorious motion until the entrance which you will get to around 4-30pm,. be prepared , be armed in the queue with newspapers, grub , sun cream and a load of beer. The Queue is one massive, civilized booze up, there is great banter and savage talent on show. there are plenty of shitters and fast food options, you can also walk back and forth to the village (about 15 mins) as you have your ticket
you will pass thru security where a “reasonable " amount of acohol can be taken in, you pay 15 quid at the enterance, this allows you access to all courts except center, 1 and 2.
In order to get to center, 1 or 2 you need to queue for resale, these are tickets from punters who have gone home , their seats go back on sale for a fiver that goes to charity… you will always get in, two years ago we got into a savage five setter on court one between Verdasco and Ferrero, it was gas , we are about 10 seats from the baseline, it was half six and the 3/4 full stadium full of boozed up fuckers from the queue who got lucky on resale, I cracked open a can as a serve was about to be played, much to the disdain of my wife… another fella behind me was munching crisps, fellas smoking and roaring " come on tim”, you need to cop yourself on tho as the met police will ask you to leave.
its a great day, if you are stuck just mosey on over to court 18 or something to watch a girls singles games on your todd with 2 Pimms, you wont be disappointed
any updates @Manuel Zelaya on the state of play ?
The tournament is starting to hot up. The defending champion and King of Grass, Andy Murray had a good win over the tricky Paul Henri Mathieu yesterday. Feliciano Lopez beat the four time champion Lleyton Hewitt, Jo Willie Tsonga beat David Golfin, Radek Stepanek beat Bernard Tomic and Ernest Gublis surprisingly lost to Kenny De Scheeper.
Over in Halle the big surprise was Milos Raonic losing to home favourite Peter Gojowczyk.
I heard this guy brown that nadal is playing today is a bit hit and miss but could cause an upset.
Are seedings done on a ranking basis in Wimbledon?
Murray will be outside the top 4 if this is the case.
S Stephens v A Riske just about to start. My girl Sloane will win. Priced at 4/7.
[QUOTE=“Il Bomber Destro, post: 960511, member: 2533”]Are seedings done on a ranking basis in Wimbledon?
Murray will be outside the top 4 if this is the case.[/QUOTE]
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[QUOTE=“Il Bomber Destro, post: 960511, member: 2533”]Are seedings done on a ranking basis in Wimbledon?
Murray will be outside the top 4 if this is the case.[/QUOTE]
No, they don’t follow the rankings. The rankings are part of the mix in setting the seedings but they also take into account performance on grass courts over the past three seasons. Nadal quite likely to be bumped down to 2 if that’s the case after two early exits last two years to players outside Top 100. Federer likely to be bumped ahead of Stan as well.
I’d predict the top 5 will be as follows 1. Novak 2. Nadal 3. Andy 4. Federer 5. Stan
[QUOTE=“Il Bomber Destro, post: 960511, member: 2533”]Are seedings done on a ranking basis in Wimbledon?
Murray will be outside the top 4 if this is the case.[/QUOTE]
No Wimbledon seedings are done based on the players grass court record over and their ranking. You might see Murray in the top 4 seeds since he has only lost 1 match on grass since the 2012 final.
Sensation of sensations at the Queens Club. Radek Stepanek has beaten Andy 7-6 6-2.
Brown destroying Nadal here. Took the first set 6-4 and is 4-0 up in the second.
I see nadal lost 6-1 in the second. Murray went out if Queens as well. Djokovic the smart bastard took the time off.
Think its important for any player as part of their Championship preparation to play either Halle or Queens. I’m open to correction on this, but I think Nadal didn’t play either last two years? Just reading some of his comments after the French Open final on Sunday, he was making positive noises about have a right cut at the Championship this year. Be interesting to see how he reacts to today’s hiding.