Mists, mellow fruitfulness and, er.. the French Open 2020, surely not?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Qualifying almost complete (well done organisers for having qualies unlike the US) and the main event takes up the two coming weeks, which means most of it will be in, er, October rather than the usual end May and mainly June timing. That should prove a bit organisationally challenging (on top of the minor issue of epidemic control), given that the days are shorter (though I guess all courts will have floodlighting installed?) and currently there is at lease some rain forecast for eight consecutive days during the tourney (30 Sep to 7 Oct inclusive), see weather forecast link below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2988507

Brtish singles interest limited. Just two women in the main singles draw - Konta (who faces Gauff in R1, pick of the round perhaps) and Watson. Four men, after Edmund withdraws, but Broady qualifies to join A Murray, Evans and Norrie. Evans' notional R3 opponent is Nadal. Wild card Murray faces Wawrinka (probably the pick of R1 on the men's side), whom he beat last autumn in the final of a 250 event but who is doing rather better than Andy now, seeded 16.

In the men's singles, I expect Djoker to win but would like Thiem to do so (well, obviously I'd like Murray to, but hey..). I've really gone off Djoker in the last year or so.

In the women's I would tip Halep. I've no strong positive or negative feelings about any of the seeded players (apart from mild flag-based support for Konta). [Edit: that's because of the absence of Barty, easily my favourite female tennis player at present.] I suppose on balance I'd like Serena to win, mainly in order to stop Margaret Court having an unmatched slam singles titles record.

[Satchmo Distel]

I won't be surprised if Serena withdraws given she won't be allowed to stay in a private flat and she has had fitness issues.

Nadal to beat Djokovic I would have thought.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Nadal not looking forward to playing outdoors in the chilly weather:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54299336

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Azarenka also unimpressed with the weather:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54316255

[Sporting]

Azarenka also unimpressed with the weather:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54316255

Poor thing

[ad hoc]

I'm not convinced "I live in Florida" is an argument likely to win people over to her viewpoint

[Sporting]

You have to imagine she was misquoted or something because if not?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Nadal to beat Djokovic I would have thought.

I would have thought probably not. Nadal is getting his excuses in early, moaning about the type of balls being used.

[Janik]

Rafa always has a gripe about something pre-tournament. At this point it just seems like part of his mental preparation. I would go with Nadal as a very strong favourite still, even more so in cold and slow conditions.

And Vika still has outbreaks of the tunnel vision that once characterised her. The more rounded and contextualised personality she talked of having developed (due to circumstances) is clearly there, but not always. She is probably right that the conditions do increase the risk of injury, for all that that is worth.

[Satchmo Distel]

She seemed to do some damage limitation in the quote in the last paragraph, recognizing that there are other players who need the money and ranking points.

Maybe they could stay standing between games, rather than sitting down with a towel?

The Brits have had tough draws today but at least they got a day in the spotlight. I wonder if Venus really wanted to be there.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

So, if Heather Watson wins her R1 match tomorrow she will be the only British player, male or female, in R2 of the singles at this event. British tennis is at a bit of a low at the moment, singles-wise.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Watson loses. No British player in R2 of either men’s or women’s singles. First time that’s been the case in a slam since 2013 French, last time before that was 2008 Aussie.

[Satchmo Distel]

I suppose you have to go back to pre-Henman for when that was a regular occurrence (except at Wimbledon, where I can't recall it ever happening in the women's singles).

[ad hoc]

I presume Serena has withdrawn. I can't find any news on it but the web seems to have Pironkova on a walkover

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yep. Achilles issues.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54356293

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

She's probably not going to overwrite Margaret Court's record now, is she?

[Tony C]

Without wishing in any way to 'size shame', Jack Sock is an unusually solid unit for a tennis player.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Sounds as if Sara Errani has made a solid early bid for "arsehole of the tournament", though there is room for others to out-do her over the remainder of the two weeks I'm sure.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54356446

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Ostapenko seems to be on form, based on her R1 and R2 results. A potential repeat of this tournament's 2017 edition, I wonder? She does seem to be an all-or-nothing kind of player.

[Tony C]

Christian Ruud is a vastly improved young player in very good form, a lower seed who most top tenners might see as a tough challenge and potential banana skin.That Thiem swatted him aside like a mere irritation tells you how well the Austrian is playing. That backhand is phenomenal.

[Tony C]

Nadal drops only six points in winning his first set.

[Greenlander]

There's been some pretty exciting tennis this last week but the ITV4 coverage isn't improved by having that colossal twat John Inverdale blathering over the top. The last match to finish last night saw qualifier Martina Trevisan eventually beat her 20th seed opponent and reiterating that saying about leopards and spots all he could utter was some guff about the squeal of ecstasy she'd emit at the end. When she won the last game which seemed to last forever (it was deuce when coverage annoyingly cut to an add break and still deuce when it came back), she was so knackered she pretty much collapsed to the ground and then trotted to the net to bump rackets. Sorry John but it seems to Mrs G. and myself that you still have something against women's tennis going on there.

Oh, and what's all this about hawkeye for TV but not the umpire and players. Some of the calls have been bonkers.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Iga Świątek is quite the player of the moment, isn't she? 4 very convincing wins in R1 to R4, the latest a rather thorough drubbing of no.1 seed Halep (so there goes my prediction). Pronounced approximately "Shfyontek" (based on my attempt to read the IPA script rendition of the pronunciation on her wiki page)? Looking like a potential debut slam title winner right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iga_%C5%9Awi%C4%85tek

Edit: the text in that link makes me think that if she ever wants a youtube handle, she could do worse than call herself "Iga %C5%9Awi%C4%85tek". I wonder if her tennis strategy is to play the percentages.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

As a general comment, the women's singles are very much not going with seeding. The 32 seeds make up a quarter of the 128 starters. Of the 16 players who made it to R4, only 6 were seeds. That's 3/8ths, which is not that much higher than a random selection. At the time of writing, two QF places have been decided - neither of them a seed, as both Halep and Bertens lose in R4.

(The most obvious and immediate comparison is with the men's singles of the same event, I suppose, where 10 of the 16 R4 players were/are seeds. I think - without checking and at risk of being shown to be talking out of my arse - that in recent years the seeds have tended to be even more dominant in the men's slams.)

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

There were 4 unseeded players in the men's R4 last year, and 3 the year before that. In the women's, last year there were 7 unseeded players at this stage, and only 3 in 2018 (one of whom was Serena). So on that limited sample there is a higher incidence of seeds tumbling early this year in both singles events, maybe as the seedings are based on rankings and form that is so out of date?