TENNIS- Grass season is upon us. Wimbledon is around the corner.

[Raahh]

Panic! the thread was ending.

Gatecrashing the thread to say I cannot believe it's necessary to remind grown adults (I don't see any children in the crowd) to wear sunscreen and drink water. FGS 🙄

And I thought Eastbourne was women only?

Gen X managed to get to adulthood with barely a drop of water passing their lips and without even knowing what sunscreen was hence the reminders I suppose

Eastbourne was women only until 2009. They did a bit of chopping and changing with Nottingham since then but I think they’ve settled on mixed now.

Dan Evans wins his first W qualifying match! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Wimbledon committees have lost the plot this year.
Serena Williams getting a Singles WV is absolutely disgusting.
IMO those weight loss drugs will be treated as performance enhancing in the not too distant future.
It feels like the tournament is bending over backwards in allowing her to market a commercial product.

It will get worse if they give her favourable court assignments ahead of current players.

I don't think it's a coincidence that along with the Serena 'coming out of retirement news' was lots of stuff about how she was back on the drug- testing list since whenever.
It's like they were trying to prove a point.

Is this out of the blue or have I just not heard anything about it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/c36yjz55z3zo

I have heard things about Marketa- I didn't realise it had got this far.

It seems extreme that the ban is so long- for not actually testing positive, but just refusing a test- compared to others who have actually had a positive result.

(She has not been taking part in events but this has expalined away as illness/injury).

Well done Jack, first match back.

Damn - Liam Broady lost the first set in his qualifying match. I like Liam

Oh, come on Liam!!!

Well done to the 2 Jack's!
I saw Dan's on-court interview with Annabel. I thought he was quite philosophical!

Four years seems extremely harsh for Marketa. I thought I'd read a while back that the tester should have showed up in the morning, so was actually about 12 hours late. Could be misremembering but, if true, it's even more harsh!!

Confused here. Have they always started Wimbledon fortnight with qualifying matches. And why is it not on the ordinary telly? I only realised it was Wimbledon fortnight as I had to drive somewhere at rush hour this morning and there was no traffic so then I realised it was Oldham Wakes which always coincides with Wimbledon. My mum was a teacher and loved the fact she could spend 2 weeks watching the tennis.

Wimbledon itself starts on Monday (they started the qualifying at Roehampton today). For a few years now , the qf matches have been available to watch on the red button/ iplayer.

Liam has had a shave and a haircut for his Wimbledon stint. He's looking good in white. He's about to take the second set.

Of course Jane

Just catching up on the scores - well done Dan and Jack - I really hope that Evo gets through qualifying

I think a 4 year ban for Vondrousova is harsh - I think she refused the test as she said that the tester didn’t follow protocol and she was feeling anxious and didn’t want to open the door - I’m sure there must be more to it but 4 years will effectively finish her career

Liam is serving well, but can't convert the break points he is getting from Holmgren who has so far served 18 double faults.

Holmgren however, has a massive serve to compensate for the faults- and has served 16 aces.

If Liam can hold now, we are getting a match tie break.

Oh damn.

I jinxed Liam .

I have no idea what happened to Liam in that last game. John Lloyd is pretty stunned too

I can’t watch qualifying but I saw a bit of Jelena who has just beaten Fran Jones who was wearing short shorts.

Do other sports have the same type of surprise drug testing as tennis? I saw Sascha talking about being ordered to return home for one when he was on his way to the airport to collect his little girl which put him in a difficult position.

Just catching up on the results although I did have a bit of Eastbourne on in the background of my work meeting! We’ve got rain, thunder and lightning here now - it’s gone really dark. Glad it’s still sunny in Eastbourne and Roehampton!

She will only be 30/31, which isn't that old these days- but it's a long time to be out of competition.
Maybe she can appeal the length of the ban- but that could take ages, and look how things went for Simona.

Sad about Liam
I see Goffin also lost earlier at Roehampton.

A 4 year ban for just refusing a test does seem harsh, but I read something that said they basically have to treat a refusal as if it was a positive test - they obviously didn’t think she had good enough reasons for refusing. I hadn’t heard anything about it before so it was a surprise to me.

I think it must be a thing in athletcis, the random drug testing. Not sure about sports like football- I don't think it's talked about as much , but I'm sure it happens.

kazza I'm sad about Goffin, too. I like watching him on grass. I hope he got a good send off- he did at RG qualifying.