Ready for the best tennis of the year?

[Guinevere]

I am!

Le sigh.

[MajGenl.Meade]

le sicki

[Lord Jim]

Here's a great story:

17-year-old Victoria Duval upsets former champ Samantha Stosur

Victoria Duval, a 17-year-old American who had never before won a match at a Grand Slam, defeated 2011 U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur in three sets Tuesday night, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

Duval, a Florida native with a harrowing personal history, never looked like an unseeded qualifier playing the No. 11 seed in the U.S. Open's second-biggest stadium. She's small in stature and smaller in voice -- she sounded like a giddy preteen in her post-match interview -- but played a superb all-around game against one of the hardest hitters on the women's tour.

Duval was seeded 296th; here's that "harrowing personal history":

WIMBLEDON - Out on Court 10, where the backhands stray and the back stories are so much better, Victoria Duval was slamming her way into the junior girls' quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory that left her the very last American player in any Wimbledon singles draw.

Duval, wearing funky sunglasses, had no coach, no support group monitoring her victory.

"We're working on that," she said. She is a strong-willed survivor from Bradenton, Fla., a 15-year-old girl who has been through more than anyone should endure, who still smiles and revels in the interview process. Born in Miami, she's been held hostage by robbers and her father was rescued near death from the earthquake rubble in Haiti, so a few break points are unlikely to rattle.

You start with the armed robbery at her aunt's house back in Port-au-Prince, when Victoria, 7, and her cousins were held for hours by gun-wielding thieves. Generally in Haiti, this is a death sentence for the occupants. In this instance, the children were freed. "It was pretty terrifying," Duval said.

Victoria's mother, Nadine, a physician, thought this was not what she wanted for her family. She moved back to South Florida with Victoria and two boys, giving up her own neonatal practice and leaving her doctor husband, Jean-Maurice, behind in Haiti to continue the gynecology and obstetrics practice he had built along with a Port-au-Prince clinic.

"My family made a lot of sacrifices, but my mom's pretty good about not putting it all on my head," Victoria said. "If she did, I wouldn't want to play tennis."

By this time, Victoria had given up her first love, ballet, and was moving up the junior ranks through her work at the Bollettieri Academy.

Nadine moved with her to Atlanta, where the young player worked with Melanie Oudin's coach, Brian de Villiers, at the Racquet Club of the South. It was during this period, in January 2010, when the devastating earthquake struck Haiti and Jean-Maurice was buried alive, pinned by collapsing walls outside his house.

The father dug himself out after regaining consciousness, but he was in desperate straits - his legs broken, his left arm shattered and doomed to paralysis, his seven fractured ribs puncturing his lung and infections spreading. An Atlanta family connected with the tennis club, the Kitchens, donated a large amount of money to airlift the gravely ill man to a Fort Lauderdale hospital. The feat could only be accomplished after Jean-Maurice's passport was found in the rubble of the family home.

"They lost a lot of patients in that earthquake and we lost a lot of family," Victoria said. "But what I want to know from my father is, 'Why are you still in Haiti when you could be here?'"

Victoria knows the answer, really. Her father went back, despite his paralyzed left arm, to continue the good medical work that is so necessary down there. She speaks to him by Skype, and he will be back in Florida visiting when she returns. He has ordered her to bring home a metal trophy.

So she is not alone out there on the courts, not really. Her mother is in London, though Victoria doesn't want Nadine watching by Court 10 because it makes the player nervous. And her unofficial coach, Nick Bollettieri, offered a few tips last week before returning to Florida himself.

"It's not easy not having a coach here, but I'm so used to it," she said. "I've done a good job pushing myself."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more- ... z2dGDQvDkA

[dgs49]

On what factor do you base your assertion that this will be the "best tennis of the year?"

Hardcourt? Calendar? U.S. jingoism?

The lad pictured at the top of the thread would seem to be, as Rush Limbaugh might put it, "History." Best days behind him.

I was disappointed to see Sam Stosur lose so early, as I find her sexually attractive, but as pointed out here, from a tennis standpoint, it was a good story line.

[Long Run]

You can make a good case that the U.S. Open has the best tennis. Of the majors, it has the truest courts. Wimbeldon is great but the grass and other factors sometimes mean that the tennis is not at its best. As for Federer, he is the greatest and most complete player ever, and Guin can have her crush just like DGx appear to enjoy the appearance of a good woman player.

[Big RR]

That's true LR, although I like the clay of the French Open better; then again, clay courts were the first I recall in watching tennis, so maybe that's why. FWIW, I never really like watching the grass courts of Wimbledon. But I do think the position at the end of the season makes for some of the best tennis of the year tennis in the US open.

[dgs49]

FWIW I do not like the sport that top-level tennis has evolved to.

Real tennis is Serve-&-Volley. Doubles is much more fun to watch.

I'm not being critical of the players; with the baseline power being demonstrated today, S&V would be suicidal, but this baseline shit is not near as much fun to watch. 47 groundstrokes, then someone hits it into the net. Yawn.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The man has a point. Back to smaller wood rackets and let's get some subtlety back in the game. But you're all wrong if you don't recognise that Wimbledon is THE only major worth spit and grass is the way to go. That is, lawn grass... fescue.... whatever the green stuff is.

[Sean]

'S funny... People used to complain about the lack of rallies in 'serve & volley' tennis and now they complain about the rallies...

[rubato]

"best tennis of the year"

"best okra of the year"

yrs,
rubato

[RayThom]

Bobby Riggs:


Billy Jean King:


I think they were separated at birth. The resemblance is uncanny.

[Gob]

Bobby Riggs:


Billy Jean King:


MGM:



I think they were separated at birth. The resemblance is uncanny.

Added.

[rubato]

Bobby Riggs always seemed like a happy guy. Especially after beating Margaret Court (then women's #1).


yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

I love the U.S. Open -- I prefer hard court tennis to just about any other -- and the tournament itself always seems to bring the best out of the players,* maybe because its the end of the season, maybe because so many matches are played in the largest tennis venue in the world (including the largest stadium for tennis in the world), maybe because that venue is always full of interested, knowledgeable spectators.

I've been to the tournament many times, and it is one of the great sporting spectacles of the year.

*my Swiss boyfriend excepted, in the Robredo match, which was incredibly painful to watch

[MajGenl.Meade]

Headline of the interwebs day:

Defending champ Murray goes down in straights to Wawrinka in quarterfinals
Thursday, September 05, 2013/by AP


Well our only hope for a women's final worth watching is Flavia Panetta.... vs. Li Na

[dgs49]

I have never heard ANYONE complain about a "lack of rallies" in tennis. In contrast, I think most afficionados welcomed the Navratilova era, which ushered out the Chrissy Evert bore-a-thon years.

On third thought, I think the USOpen might offer the best tennis of the year because the other three Grand Slams are largely impacted by (1) God-awful heat in Australia in January, (2) the silly red clay of RG, or (3) the slowly deteriorating grass surface at Wimbleton. Hard courts are the truest surface and the truest competition, only marginally affected by swirling winds.

Still, this year's competition has suffered from Inevitability of Result as Nadal, Djokovich, and SWilliams roll over their opponents without even breaking a sweat.