Tennis Thread: Countdown to the Return of Delpo at a Very Specific Time

[JaneJeffer]

New thread for February. Happy St. Brigid's Day everyone

Barbie Bramblett! Fantastic name. And that is indeed some comeback.

You'd never want to play again, if you lost from that scoreline, would you? It would really mess with your head!

That's what I was thinking - I wonder if Ann carried on playing?? 18 match points?!?

PS good point Raahh about the joint TV coverage - they'd be bound to give the men precedence and then come in for heaps of criticism! I hadn't thought of that!...

Private I freely admit, that I often prefer to watch the men's matches, rather than the women (although sadly this year's Aussie open final proved sometimes the women's matches are better), but they should be given better scheduling.

18 match points??

Woah. Nope, I'd have hibernated!

Yes I prefer to watch men's matches overall as well, but not always - sometimes the match ups in the women's look great, and if I had a channel that showed them I would watch for sure. Especially if the men's match at the time was Isner v Medvedev (just to pick two totally random examples )

Like in Slams, I probably watch 70/30 men/women... But then maybe that's because more men's tennis is shown in the first place?!

But obviously I'd watch Delpo, Rafa etc over anyone!

Barbie Bramblett.....sounds like a porn star

I was just thinking it sounds like a drag queen name

Hmm. So Sascha has lost to this young fellow me lad (sorry - don't know why that phrase popped into my head) Munar in Marrakech eh?

He's not going to like that one bit, I would've thought.

No, Sasha will not be happy. Is he still with Lendl? If so, he won't be thrilled with some recent form either.

I think they're still working together - afaik anyway.

I've just been browsing some stats - as you do - wondering whether Zverev will still win a Slam etc. There's been no first time Slam winner (men's) since Cilic in 2014?? He was 25 at the time. So I was thinking Zverev has plenty of time to step up. But there is a good crop of youngsters right behind him, probably a better group than there's been for ages. So maybe he's feeling the pressure of that a bit as well?

I think he has too much expectation on him anyway, since he was so young. Like Richard Gasquet.

As we keep saying private it's the weight of that expectation. Dimitrov was going to be the new star, won Queen's, rose right up the rankings and now........
Just goes to show how good Fed, Rafa, Djok, Murray and Stan are /were. But they are not going to be around for ever, so someone has to eventually make the breakthrough and make it stick!

Mini Rafa on the horizon

Wow. 15?! That's v impressive!

Meanwhile Rafa Sr is about to start the Monte Carlo draw ceremony...

Rafa looking sharp in his suit at the draw ceremony - not a napkin in sight!

Think he has got a decent-ish draw. Could play Shaggy in the third round. Djok could play Kohlschreiber in his first match hopefully Phil can back up his Miami win (or was it IW?).

Private it was IW, I think. Phil must be sick of Djok- there was a real run of tournaments a few years back where he seemed to draw him in the first round all the time, including slams. Everything crossed for another upset. .

Yes it was IW - when he was checking those plant pots beforehand

Kokkinakis has got a wild card and plays Kohlschreiber first, then whoever wins will play Djok. And now we have to wait two more whole days for it to actually start

Ooh Stan's blazing a trail with his personalised reusable water bottles! I bet loads of others will follow suit...

Aww, they've got his name on! No though, that's a shame!

It would give Rafa something else to worry about, though. All the labels are different colours, what does that mean??!

Oh yes I never thought of that! No perhaps Rafa should steer clear!!

Can't believe Stan didn't think of the idea - very disappointing!

Stan - humph. Grouchy, he makes me, grouchy.

Personalised water bottles = *£%"$ prat!

(Not in the Stan fan club, in case no one had realised that )

I'm glad you pointed that out magi because I hadn't realised. So a Stan water bottle won't be on your Christmas list this year then....?

Always happy to oblige, kazzaD.

I'll do you a list of all the people I don't care for if you want.

(Might fill the rest of the thread if we have non players )

Glad you cleared that up magi - there was I thinking you were a Stan Superfan