TENNIS: all to clay for

[JaneJeffer]

sorry

I have - and they were talking before it started about how he is known for it - always leaves things til as long as he can. I think it's mainly when they are waiting around. Flavio seemed to be waiting ages before Sascha made an appearance.

Today has been a little disappointing. Glad Mirra won though.

I think the tournament is going to limp to a foregone conclusion, with Jannik winning.

Maybe Rome can throw up a surprise winner?

It could even be Norris.

Forza! Flavio is working hard.

It's scary to think how young the players are now. Or maybe I'm just getting on. .

It won't be long before there's a champion born on the 2010s

Flavio giving it the full Italian

Colin? Have we lost you Colin?

Scary Botox face 😱

Well played Flavio

Flávio doing better this set but not sure if it will be enough

Madrid is always a bit of a weird one I think (I blame the altitude) - no wonder Feli always looks a bit bored - he’s always on his phone!

I’m looking forward to Rome - especially if Cam wins - it usually coincides with my birthday as well - although I can’t get excited about that - I’m going to be old but not even interesting old!

Hopefully Lore will bring back his Sexy Dentist look (and stay in the tournament long enough for me to see it!)

Think this could be it now - Sascha just needs to hold his serve

ooh...

plot twist.

Great serve

Well, it was nearly an interesting ending.

Well done Sascha

Well done Sascha ,

At least he avoids another Sinner semi

I was expecting a bit more of an exciting match

Me too.

Flavio beat him in Munich- Sascha claimed to be 'tired' , maybe he was.

I may have slightly lost interest in the tournament going forward,

And I hate 'Golden' , as being warbled in the background of the Kostyuk/Potapova match.

Nishikori has announced he is retiring at the end of the season. To be honest, I thought he already had retired.
Keith is one of those who were amongst a group that seemed to look like they would do something big but didn't really. Kei was always really good on clay though- gave Rafa decent competition, and won Barcelona a couple of times.
He grew on me, after seeming a bit dull.

Then of course, he admitted to cheating on his wife. .

So many retirements this year!

I haven’t seen Kei play for ages and having checked I see he’s in the mid 500s in the rankings, so won’t be playing the higher profile tournaments. No wonder I had forgotten about him (sorry Kei)!

I’ve just seen that and also thought that he’d already retired

Unfortunately the main thing that I’ll remember about him was him cheating on his wife (and taking five sets to win matches that he should have won in three!) but yes he was up there with the big players at one point (and he did beat Djok at the US Open)

I thought he retired last year!

He definitely retired before. I'm sure he did.

Yes, beating Djok at the US Open was a big deal. In fact 2014 was a funny old year all around. Cilic beat Roger, and won the whole thing.

It's a shame Flavio lost. We seem to be heading for another Jannik-Sascha final and I'm really not interested in seeing that again. Even though Jannik mostly beats everyone, I'd rather watch him beat someone different
Maybe Arthur can get the upset today. But not getting my hopes up.

Ice I know, I was hoping for something different.
Which is hypocritical, given how many times I happily watched Rafa beat the same players
Will be interesting to see what Jannik has left for Rome though- it will be his 3rd clay Masters in a row, and he didn't do that last year. Will he be able to keep up the pace?