TENNIS: Back to the European clay

[JaneJeffer]

I am watching Matteo, and thought he was going to serve out the match, and Tabilo could level up this set instead.

Well done, Matteo.

That would be a nice side hustle

Jannik has withdrawn from Paris with tonsilitis.

Poor Jannik seems to get ill more often than he gets injured.

The Italians seem to have terrible luck!

I think Holger has withdrawn too because of his injury - his post is in Danish so I'm going by sad face

Emojis can be useful like that

Poor Holger - at least they are young enough to have a couple of Olympics in their future-if they want to play.

His actual face Raahh not an emoji

It's tough on them

That makes more sense

That’s a shame for Jannik and Holger. Jannik does seem to get sick a lot, maybe he needs to eat more carrots.

I love the Olympics, can’t wait for Rafa and Carlos in the doubles.

Maybe Jannik's problem is he only eats carrots?

I get very over invested with random sports when the Olympics are on.

Last time, I discovered bouldering/ the climbing wall thingy . It was mesmerising.

This time around break dancing is included. Sorry- 'breaking' .

It's a sport. Apparently.

Rafa has really got into technology with his shake to reveal post

at the sad face confusion

Poor Jannik and Holger - are they allowed to have people take their places? I'm sure there would be lots of Italians able to take Jannik's place (not sure about the Danes though)

Can't wait for Nadalcaraz! Rafa has come a long way since his lockdown zoom call with Roger

Apparently Djok is not staying at the Olympic village - he probably didn't fancy the cardboard beds!

More like everyone would know what he's up to!

I heard that about the break dancing Raahh. Surely that's 40 years too late

Better carrots than figs

I also stumbled on the sport climbing last time Raahh, it was incredible. The sports they add do seem to get more and more random.

I have seen something saying that Andy is likely to withdraw from the singles and concentrate on the doubles. This would mean his last singles match would be the one at Queens where he had to withdraw - a sad ending to a singles career.

I'm still not sure what happens if a player withdraws - not sure if there will be someone to replace them? I think Andy seems more at peace with his decision to retire now (he probably hasn't got much choice with his body)

Holger and Wozniacki were due to play mixed doubles which could have been interesting...

Bublik and Rybakina are down to play mixed which could also be interesting

Just seen that Andy has withdrawn from the singles at the Olympics

Fizzy Bublik and Rybakina will be very interesting- can't think of a more contrasting pair, temperament wise.

Not sure whether countries have alternates for if players withdraw- there are other tournaments still going on up until the end of this week when the Olympics start so players are not all available (which is why I still don't understand why the commentators - even yesterday- were still insisting Matteo was playing for Italy- he was never one of the players listed for the team- his ranking at the time of selection wasn't high enough. )

I believe that for the singles, if someone withdraws they are replaced by the player with the next highest singles ranking, who is already registered to play doubles. Nationality irrelevant. Not sure how the doubles works but assuming it would be similar in that they could only be replaced by someone of same
nationality who was already qualified to play singles. Certainly Matteo isn’t going to be joining the team at the last minute, which is a shame! Still great for him that he’s playing tournaments and increasing his ranking.

That seems complicated Ice - so Andy's withdrawal doesn't mean that he's automatically replaced by another Brit?

Potential second round match between Rafa and Djok - eek!

Hopefully Djok will have a nightmare Olympics and lose in the first round. It's unlikely though.

The draws are out, Rafa vs Djok in R2