The 2019 tennis season begins....

[Janik]

Pliskova was on fire. Not just beating Kerber today, but all week. Her set score line for the whole tournament reads 6-3 6-3 6-1 6-2 6-2 6-0 6-1 6-2 6-1 6-4. That's Nadal-in-Paris-like.

[Janik]

Does being a Gatto-Monticone make her a mountain cat of some sort? Eye of the, er, Snow Leopard!

[Janik]

Summary of where we are at this week, then.

Jo Konta’s loss to an inspired Ons Jabeur was covered above. On Konta’s side of the net apparently her movement was very tentative as she appeared wary of the slipperiness of the surface. That won’t have helped. A shame after she battled through the previous round against Maria Sakkari.
Jabeur backed that win up by recovering from a set and match points down to beat Alize Cornet in three in the QFs. Sadly, she could take the court for her Semi today against Angelique Kerber after an ankle injury she picked up late in set three against Cornet flared up a bit overnight. She seems reasonably confident that the withdrawal is precautionary and she will play Wimbledon.
The day off was probably good for Kerber. She will go into her Wimbledon defence in pretty good form, Semi in Mallorca and Final here, but with quite a bit of Tennis played. It’s very rare for players to play for four consecutive weeks, which is what Angie is facing if she wants to defend her Slam crown. She is yet to drop a set on the South coast, the best win of the lot being against #6 Simona Halep in the QFs.
On the other side of the draw we got a reprise of last year’s final, #8 Aryna Sabalenka vs #11 Caroline Wozniacki in R3. Sabalenka got revenge in that, but was then dumped out in the QFs by #3 Kiki Bertens (having another good week on grass after the Rosmalen r-up). That set Bertens up for a Semi against #2 Karolina Pliskova after Pliskova beat Ekaterina Alexandrova in the QFs. Alexandrova had benefitted from a retirement from Jelena Ostapenko in R3, and this one may not have been precautionary – Ostapenko was clearly hobbling as she made her way up to the net to shake hands. If she is hurt, that is a real sickener for her; she was just beginning to shows signs of form at long last after the QF in Birmingham the previous week.
Pliskova beat, nay thrashed, Bertens in today’s Semi 2&1. That sets up a very good quality final tomorrow of two players with strong previous records in Sussex. Pliskova was the runner-up in 2016 (l to Cibolkova) and winner in 2017 (bt Wozniacki). Kerber the runner-up twice previously in 2012 (l to Paszek) and 2014 (l to Keys).
In the doubles, the only British pair, Dart/Watson, lost in R1 to # Melichar/Peschke. It was close, 10-6 in a match breaker, but these were the only seeds to survive R1. D’Oh! The final is Flipkens/Mattek-Sands vs Chan/Chan.

On the Men’s side, most of the R1 matches were still unplayed last update. Let’s start with the R1 losses. Joining Paul Jubb on the sidelines were Jay Clarke and James Ward, who both lost from a set up against Juan Ignacio Londero and Thomas Fabbiano respectively. Cameron Norrie beat Jeremy Chardy and Dan Evans topped #8 Radu Albot though. That produced a very British segment of the draw as R2 pitted #3 Kyle Edmund vs Norrie and Pierre Hugues-Herbert (who gets quasi-Brit status for the next few weeks on the grounds that he is playing with Sir in the Wimbledon doubles) vs Dan Evans. Those matches were both straight sets wins for the expected players, Edmund beating Norrie 2&2 and Evans topping Herbert 3&5 (I maintain that is as expected on a grass court).
That means Edmund vs Evans in the QFs on Thursday. Pre-match I wouldn’t have been certain at all on the call on that, but the higher ranked player came through, Kyle recovering from losing the opening set 6-1 to take the next two 6-3 6-4 from Evo. That sent Edmund through to a Semi against Big Serving Taylor Fritz (said so often one assumes that is his full name), who beat Hubert Hurkacz (a very promising youngish Polish player) in the QFs. The Semi went Fritz’s way in two to mean no Brits in the Final.
Instead the title match will be an all-American affair as Fritz faces Sam Querrey after the later beat #5 Fernando Verdasco in the QF and Fabbiano in the Semis. Fabbiano had earlier beat #2 Laslo Djere and #6 Gilles Simon (the Queens finalist), so he had a good week and James Ward shouldn’t beat himself up to much to have lost to the Italian.
The final is Querrey’s first title match in well over a year and Fritz’s first since reaching the final in Memphis back in 2016 in what was only his third ATP level event. It’s a big match for both players then. But don’t expect many (any?) service breaks. The Women’s Final should be a whole load more watchable as a spectacle.
On the Men’s side there was arguably more interest in the Doubles than the Singles. For a handful of days, until A.Murray/Melo were beaten in R1 by top seeds Cabal/Farah. In fact, the Colombians went on a Brit-hunting session, following that up by beating Evans/Glasspool in the QFs (I think I mentioned their R1 win over Bambridge/O’Mara up thread) and #4 Inglot/Krajicek in the Semis. Indeed Cabal/Farah have taken the title, beating #2 Gonzalez/Zeballos in the final.
The other British pairs involved in this, K.Skupski/N.Skupski, Clayton/Ward and Norrie/Londero, all exited in R1.

Over in Antayla the final is not yet fixed as a brutal first Semi between Miomir Kecmanovic and Jordan Thompson, which featured zero breaks up served, used up all the light. Kecmanovic won the breakers 5-7 7-5 7-1. The other Semi stands at 6-3 5-5 to Lorenzo Sonego vs #4 Pablo Carreno Busta overnight. Kecmanovic will be making his ATP final debut tomorrow, as would be Sonego if he were to finish off. Carreno Busta has been in finals and won titles before (actually fewer than one would expect, just 3-3 previously) but never on grass and not inside the last 24 months.


And finally, Wimbledon qualifying.
As basically covered up thread by a combination of me and EEG, Liam Broady was the only British man to survive Q1 and he went on to be two sets up* in Q3 against #12 Gregoire Barrere. Set two was even a bagel, 6-0, but this was the high point as Barrere won the next three to turn it around.
* - Wimbledon is the only Slam to play best-of-five in qualifying, and only does it in Q3.
On the Women’s side, Gabriella Taylor and Samantha Murray won their Q1 matches against Chloe Paquet and Peng Shuai prespectively. Taylor lost in Q2 to Ysaline Bonaventure but Murray beat Cristina Bucsa before losing to another Spaniard, Paula Badosa in Q3 in a three setter. To date three Lucky Loser spots have been announced for the Women’s Singles main draw (withdrawn players include Katie Boulter) but none of these have gone to Murray.
For reasons I don’t understand there was no Doubles qualifying this year. Just straight to a main draw. I think this was a very late decision.

Oh, and a note on non-Brits coming through qualifying or not. In addition to 15 year-old Cori Gauff winning through and landing a plum R1 match against Venus Williams, a player at the other end of the spectrum got lil’ sis - that is Giulia Gatto-Monticone, who is 31, has battled on through a pro career (she has had a world ranking every year since 2002) without ever breaking the top 150 until, well, now. She finally made her Slam debut last month at Roland Garros, losing in R1 to Sofia Kenin (in three), after winning through qualifying there. And now she has gone back-to-back, qualifying again and this time she gets to play Serena Williams, hopefully on a big show court. Shades of Roger Federer vs Marcus Willis in terms of one to keep a video of to show the family in later years.
The one who didn’t make it through was Sabine Lisicki. She fell at the final hurde to Lesley Kerkhove, despite winning set one 6-0.

[Janik]

Martina Navratilova 's weird and brief comeback tops that.

2004 French Open R1: Navratilova (18.10.56) l to Gisela Dulko (30.01.85) - 28 years and 7 months between them, compared to 26y 7m for Date/Bencic and 23y 7m for Williams/Gauff.

She also lost to Dulko again in R2 of Wimbledon that year after bridging a 23-year gap to beat Catalina Castano in R1.


Edit - the biggest ratio of the three is Date-Bencic: 43/16 = 2.69. Of the others, 39/15 (Williams/Gauff) = 2.60, 48/19 (Navratilova/Dulko) = 2.53.

[Southport Zeb]

Cori Gauff drawn to play Venus in R1! Apart from the wonderful story of young Cori playing an African American tennis legend, there's also the amazing age difference stat. Venus born 17.6.80. Cori born 13.3.04. That may be an all-time record for an age difference in a slam singles match. I bet for sure it's the all-time record for age ratio in such a match.

Thinking of age differences between players leads to thinking about Kimiko Date (DoB 28.07.70). I've not looked at all her opponents in her latter years, but I have found that she lost to Belinda Bencic (DoB 10.03.97) in the first round of the 2014 Australian Open.

[Janik]

Put them on Centre! Put them on Centre!

Gauff has talked about how Serena inspired her to play. She didn't mention Venus. She is probably too young to have been watching and appreciating Venus in her pomp.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Cori Gauff drawn to play Venus in R1! Apart from the wonderful story of young Cori playing an African American tennis legend, there's also the amazing age difference stat. Venus born 17.6.80. Cori born 13.3.04. That may be an all-time record for an age difference in a slam singles match. I bet for sure it's the all-time record for age ratio in such a match.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Potential R2 tie Nadal v Kyrgios is one to watch out for isn't it, given that Nadal is one of the players who has been most obviously provoked by Krygios's disrespect of his peers.

Of course, when Kyrgios was still outside the top 100, in 2014, he was player no.3 in that marvellous sequence of four consecutive players each ranked outside the top 100 to eliminate Nadal from 4 consecutive Wimbledons (Rosol - Darcis - Kyrgios - Brown, the perfect sequence question for a tennis-themed special edition of Only Connect).

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Wimbledon’s unique system for seeding the men has promoted Kevin Anderson to fourth. As Anderson has been struggling with an injury, if whichever 5-8 seed in that quarter is not great on grass then that could be an interesting section of the draw to watch for an unexpected semi-finalist.

A Zverev is the 5-8 player who has lucked out by getting into Anderson's quarter. He has (per seeding) to get past Khachanov first though. And I suspect that if he does make the QF, his QF oppo will more likely be Raonic (or Wawrinka) than Anderson, if the latter is not fully fit.

[Janik]

The minimum age is 14. However, above up to the age of 18 that there are restrictions on how much a player may play, both in total and at particular levels. At 15, Gauff may play up to 10 tournaments in the year and in the Fed Cup (that doesn't count against the 10). She is only allowed to take one wild card into events of a higher category than WTA Internationals, which she had already used up to play in the main draw in Miami, where she won a round. However, the slams are not technically part of the WTA and retain the right to give wild cards to players of their choosing - Gauff also played in the qualifying at Roland Garros (and the main draw doubles there) and is surely a shoe-in for a main draw WC at Flushing Meadows.


Oh, and as mentioned a few days ago.

Wimbledon
the first tranche of wild cards for Wimbledon were announced yesterday... The others were both interesting selection; former runner-up Sabine Lisicki, whose combination of repeated injuries and loss of form now means she needs a wild card to even play Wimbledon qualifying, and young American Cori Gauff, who won the 2018 French Open girls singles and over a year later is still only 15!.

Gauff beat Alona Bolsova in the first round of qualifying. Bolsova was only in Wimbledon qualifying as the points she gained making the last 16 at Roland Garros are yet to be reflected on entry lists (there is a six week lag on these, to allow people to schedule ahead). Bolsova is a top 100 player and was the top seed at Roehampton.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A 15 year old has qualified in the ladies singles, the beeb tells me - the youngest ever in the Open era. I thought they'd introduced a rule about needing to be 16 to compete now but I might have misremembered that about gymnasts at the Olympics?

[Janik]

Hope is not lost for either - the new rules on late withdrawals getting half-prize money mean more Lucky Loser spots than ever are pretty well certain.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

One wouldn't normally expect to see British qualifiers for Wimbledon, what with the generous doling out of WCs to home players meaning that those whose ranking is at qualifying tournament level tend to get WC direct entry into the main draw, and the Brits in the qualies have mostly not earned the right to be there by ranking but are themselves WCs at that level, lower ranked than their oppo. And unsurprisingly most British men and women exited in Q1. But Samantha Murray and Liam Broady both made it to Q3, where sadly they both lost today, both of them taking their matches the distance (in Liam's case losing from two sets up).

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Wimbledon’s unique system for seeding the men has promoted Kevin Anderson to fourth. As Anderson has been struggling with an injury, if whichever 5-8 seed in that quarter is not great on grass then that could be an interesting section of the draw to watch for an unexpected semi-finalist.

[Janik]

Wow, that is extraordinary. And a real blow, as I thought Jo was on to finally win her hometown event.

[Jimski]

Blimey, Konta loses 6-3 6-2 to Ons Jabeur, despite Konta committing only 8 unforced errors (versus 15 winners) in the match. Indicates that Jabeur must have played insanely well.

[Janik]

Yes. At 12-all in the final set, for both Men and Women. It's a standard first-to-seven breaker, not the first-to-ten that the Aussie Open used.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Is it this year that the Isner tiebreak comes into force at Wimbedon?

[Janik]

Over in Roehampton, they got all of the Men’s Q1 matches played yesterday. And for the British Men, it was rather a massacre. Liam Broady was the only one to win, though he did so comfortably, 3&1 over #20 Martin. He plays Griekspoor in Q2. Ryan Peniston came the closest of those eliminated, beaten 8-6 by Arnaboldi in the deciding set. None of the others got a set, though Evan Hoyt would feel hard done by not to have done so after both of his versus Dutra Silva went to tiebreakers that he lost 12-10 7-5.

Will the Women do better? Here is what they face, starting today.

Aliona Bolsova Esp [1] vs Cori Gauff USA [WC]
Ma Shuyue Chn vs Valentina Ivakhnenko Rus [Alt]
Emma Raducanu GBr [WC] vs Liang En-shou Tpe
Julia Glushko Isr vs Greet Minnen Bel [19]

Lauren Davis USA [3] vs Bibiane Schoofs Ned
Maryna Zanevska Bel vs Francesca Di Lorenzo USA
Naomi Broady GBr [WC] vs Kristie Ahn USa
Robin Anderson USA vs Tamara Korpatsch Ger [32]

Misaki Doi Jpn [4] vs Kimberly Birrell Aus
Arina Rodionova Aus vs Asia Muhammad USA
Naiktha Bains GBr vs Danielle Lao USA
Danka Kovinic Mne vs sachia Vickery USA [25]

Whitney Osuigwe USA [9] vs Cristina Bucsa Esp
Peng Shuai Chn vs Samantha Murray GBr [WC]
Liu Fangzhou Chn vs Deniz Khazaniuk Isr
Patricia Maria Tig Rou [PR] vs Paula Badosa Esp [22]

Nao Hibino Jpn [11] vs Fanny Stollar Hun
Katarzyna Kawa Pol vs Francesca Jones GBr [WC]
Elena-Gabriela Ruse Rou vs Sesil Karatencheva Bul
Irina Bara Rou vs Allie Kiick USA [18]

Ysaline Bonaventure Bel [12] vs Jamie Loeb USA
Gabreilla Taylor GBr [WC] vs Chloe Paquet Fra
Ekaterine Gorgodze Geo vs Anna Bondar Hun
Magdalena Frech Pol vs Arantza Rus Ned [26]

Olga Danilovic Rus [14] vs Eden Silva GBr [WC]
Rebecca Sramkova Svk vs Amandine Hesse Fra
Anna Zaja Ger vs Myrtille Georges Fra
Paula Ormaechea Arg vs Beatriz Haddad Maia Bra [17]

Tereza Smitkova Cze [16] vs Barbara Haas Aut
Valeria Savinykh Rus vs Yanina Wickmayer Bel
Maia Lumsden GBr [WC] vs Kaylah McPhee Aus
Han Xinyun Chn vs Liudmila Samsonova Rus [31]


You may have noticed Naomi Broady’s name in there, after I said she was missing out on playing singles this year. She has benefitted from qualifying coming a week too soon for Katy Dunne.

[Janik]

She has quite a lot of competition on that one. But expecting an opponent to overrule a line-call in your favour? That very rarely happens. It's not something most players would expect of their opponents. Double bounces, yes, players have a professional understanding with each other that they will own up to those (and go ballistic when someone doesn't and, um, but also). But line-calls? No.

It does look like a bad call on Zhang for what it's worth. Which isn't much.


Anyway...
What happened yesterday? Well, a rash of withdrawals in the Women's event at Eastbourne. The most notable being Ash Barty after all. A pity for the event, but probably wise for her. If she had played, and got a distance in, it would have meant four straight weeks of Tennis assuming a deep Wimbledon run. And six out of seven, given the French Open win. That is too much. Barty cited a long standing arm injury as her reason, but it's only a niggle and her participation in SW19 is not in doubt.
Julia Goerges also pulled out (reason given: a bug) and Anastasija Sevastova and Wang Qiang. That is a quarter of the Women’s seeds gone (no.s 1, 9, 12 and 15) without hitting a ball and too late to bump players up to the replace them. The draw is now really distorted with Lucky Losers in seeded spots. Six of these in total in fact, as two non-seeds also backed out. There were only six matches in the final round of qualifying, so all the players who played in that are now in the main draw!
Actually on court, #5 Elina Svitolina was struggling again against Alize Cornet when the weather intervened. Apart from that, not a great deal of action occurred yesterday on the Women’s side.
On the Men’s, one completed match was Paul Jubb losing to Taylor Fritz on his ATP Tour debut. Cameron Norrie got to 3-0 in the first set against Jeremy Chardy before being curtailed. A doubles match involving Brits was played though Evans/Glasspool (WC) beating Bambridge/O’Mara.

Lots of Brits in action today. The highest profile is hometown girl Konta (seeded #4), who plays Maria Sakkari third on Centre Court. That follows Dan Evans vs #8 Radu Albot (nominal start 11:00am) and the conclusion of Norrie vs Chardy, which may take a while to get through given it’s barely started! Other British singles players in action are Jay Clarke, who plays Juan Ignacio Londero first on Court 2 (Londero in as a lucky loser following a scratch from Clarke’s originally scheduled opponent Leonardo Mayer) and James Ward who plays Thomas Fabbiano third on Court 1. If anyone had ground tickets for Eastbourne today, I would suggest making a beeline for Court 3, which has some extraordinary matches for an outside court, Marketa Vondrousova vs Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei vs Simona Halep the standouts.
A fair number of British doubles players in action as well. Not before 4pm on centre is A.Murary/Melo vs Cabal/Farah. There is a Women’s Doubles (non-British) that follows this, for gender balance which is obviously important at Eastbourne. On the more usual outside courts, Dart/Watson, Clayton/Ward, N.Skupski/K.Skupski, Norrie/Londero and Inglot/Krajicek are all scheduled to play their R1 matches, weather depending.


Meanwhile, in Antalya, Bernard Tomic won a match! Three sets against #7 Andreas Seppi. That is just Tomic's 4th ATP main draw match win of the season, his first since Houston back in April, and only his 7th of 2019 if we also include qualifying and Challenger levels.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Zhang Shuai makes a pitch for "second most dis-likeable player on the WTA Tour".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/48742099

[Janik]

Wimbledon Men's qualifying draw (the bits with Brits)

Henri Laaksonen Sui [2] vs Jason Kubler Aus
Norbert Gombos Svk vs Zdenek Kolar Cze
Jack Draper GBr [WC] vs Yasutaka Uchiyama Jpn
Mirza Basic BiH vs Evgeny Donskoy Rus [23]

Yannick Maden Ger [3] vs Hiroki Moriya Jpn
Ryan Peniston GBr [WC] vs Andrea Arnaboldi Ita
Evgeny Karlovskiy Rus vs Kimmer Coppejans Bel
Filip Horansky Svk vs Pedro Martinez Esp [21]

Stefano Travaglia Ita [5] vs Blaz Rola Slo
Daniel Brands Ger vs Mark Whitehouse GBr [WC]
Marc Polmans aus vs Mohamed Safwat Egy
Joao Domingues Por vs Kwon Soon-woo Kor [24]

Antoine Hoang Fra [10] vs Kaichi Uchida Jpn
Arthur De Greef Bel vs Marcos Giron USA
James Duckworth Aus vs Jan Chionski GBr [WC]
Viktor Galovic Cro vs Facundo Bagnis Arg [28]

Gregoire Barrerr Fra [12] vs Emilio Gomez Ecu
Evan Hoyt GBr [WC] vs Rogerio Dutra Silva Bra
Tallon Griekspoor Ned vs Pedro Cachin Arg
Liam Broady GBr [WC] vs Andrej Martin Svk [20]

Dennis Novak Aut [14] vs Thiemo de Bakker Ned
Jannik Sinner Ita vs Alex Bolt Aus
Li Zhe Chn vs Dustin Brown Ger
Adrian McHugh GBr [WC] vs Mikael Ymer Swe [19]

[Janik]

That is a pity. Hsieh/Strycova would be a very subtle and watchable team. The champions roll from last week ran as follows:-

WTA

Edgbaston
Singles – Ashleigh Barty
Doubles – Hsieh/Strycova
Ash Barty two set win over Julia Goerges (cover above) means she is now the World no.1 and no.1 seed for Wimbledon. She is also over 1000 points ahead of the race standings. Win Wimbledon, which is a very distinct possibility, and she will reach a points total that it’s unlikely that anyone will surpass in 2019 (Kvitova is still #2 in the race and she is injured).

Mallorca
Singles – Sofia Kenin
Doubles – Flipkens/Larsson
Tight singles final, Kenin beating Belinda Bencic 6-4 in the third after the first two were shared on breakers. Second career title and second of 2019 for the young American (20), who has played her way into a Wimbledon seeding.


ATP

Queen’s
Singles – Feliciano Lopez
Doubles – F.Lopez/A.Murray
Lopez beat Gilles Simon 7-2 on a final set tie-break to claim his second Queen’s title. His first, two years ago (also secured via a final set tie-break vs Cilic) was a rather emotional victory, as it was effectively the biggest and most prestigious title of Feliciano’s career and one he had been chasing for years. That was also his last tournament win and indeed final prior to yesterday. The win has lifted the veteran Spaniard back up to 51 in the world and means his record-breaking run of Grand Slam singles draw appearances won’t need a wild card to reach 71 at the US Open as no.70 at Wimbledon requires.
Lopez then dusted himself down and won the Doubles at the same event. I don’t remember the last time that happened on the Tours, though a few have come close mostly on the WTA [looked it up, Berrettini, Gstaad 2018 was the last on the ATP so not as long ago as I thought]. It’s rather common for players making deep runs in the singles to pull out of the Doubles (cf. Barty/Goerges at Edgbaston), but Lopez couldn’t do that given the partner he had…
And I’m focusing on Lopez, because in a fair world he ought to be the biggest story of Queen’s 2019. But he isn’t. That is his doubles partner who pretty unexpectedly won a title in his very first tournament back after hip surgery once thought to be career ending. Whilst singles remains an open question, I think last week shows Andy Murray could be the World No.1 in doubles if he wants that.

Halle
Singles – Roger Federer
Doubles – Klaasen/Venus
Not just one 37-year-old winning a prestigious title, but two as Federer beat David Goffin in two to win his 10th Halle title. There were only two events on the ATP last week. For both to be won by what is, in Pro tennis terms, ultra-veterans is remarkable. I’ll bet that has never happened before!


ITF and ATP Challenger
Men’s – Dominik Koepfer
Women’s – Monica Niculescu
Both get Wimbledon main draw wild cards as a rather large bonus.


As for this week, Eastbourne got well underway yesterday. Indeed, all the British Women in the main draw played their R1 matches yesterday. Harriet Dart’s good but ultimately futile showing against Anett Kontaveit is covered above. Katie Swan was in her third set against Zhang Shuai when I wrote that. That also went against Swan. Heather Watson was beaten in two by Alize Cornet. #14 Jo Konta won though, 2&4 against Dayana Yastresmka. She now plays Maria Sakkari in R2 with the possibility of a meeting with top seed Barty in R3.
The Men’s main draw is yet to commence (they have one round fewer to fit in, of course). It will feature not one, but two British qualifiers. Paul Jubb’s win over #3 Andrey Rublev was noted above, which was a good win. It was later followed by James Ward impressively downing #2 Denis Kudla for the loss of just five games. That is the second week in a row that Ward has qualified, and against much higher ranked opponents in each case (Kudla is WR 79). Ward plays fellow qualifier Thomas Fabbiano in R1 (Fabbiano is still (just) a top 100 player mind). Jubb, fresh out of the US College system and obviously a much better player than his current ranked of 500+, plays Taylor Fritz in his main draw match, which is also his full Tour debut. Well that isn’t that surprising. This was his first ever attempt at qualifying for an ATP event. In fact, he played his first ever Challenger Tour tournament in Surbiton three weeks ago (l to Ward, which we now know as a tough draw!).


In other news, the last singles wild cards for Wimbledon have been awarded. In addition to the ones listed a few posts up thread, main draw places go to Lopez and Koepfer in the Men’s and Niculsecu in the Women’s as noted above. The other two Men’s and three Women’s spots have been left vacant, with the place instead going to the next direct acceptance on the entry lists. Wimbledon is absolutely the only slam that ever does this.
The play-offs for the two Qualifying wild cards were held last Thursday and Friday. The Men’s ones were taken by Ryan Peniston and Mark Whitehouse and the Women’s by Eden Silva and Samantha Murray. Whitehouse will be playing his first ever Wimbledon qualies, aged 26, whilst Silva and Murray’s wins came over previous Wimbledon regulars Naomi Broady and Tara Moore, who therefore miss out this year.
The Men’s qualies are already underway at Roehmapton, I’ll post the draws up ASAP.

[Jon]

On-court interviewer

Who is, according to my brother, Blue Peter's Mark Curry.

On the LTA website it says "The doubles final will continue indoors due to the weather. Sadly there are no viewing areas for spectators. " Shame.

Anyway, it seems to have been won by Strycova and Hsieh, the number two seeds.

[Janik]

On-court interviewer "What is the plan for tonight. How do you intend to celebrate?"
Barty "Get into the car and drive to Eastbourne!"
The whoop barely audible in the background was from the Eastbourne Tournament Director.