ROSAMUND wrote:

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indiana wrote:

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dodrade wrote:

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indiana wrote:

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The Naomi Broady episode was pretty ridiculous but made much worse by the Broady family 'principled' overreaction to a temporary punishment and their choice to divorce from the LTA and their funding. That's what really cost her in subsequent years.

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 I assume that's finally over now?

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 As far as I know it has never been over ftom the Broady 'side'.

Quite a few years ago now the LTA actually named Naomi in their funded group for the year and were told to take it out. So there seemed some misunderstanding at that point. And it's her choice that she hasn't been funded or available for GB teams. At least the LTA seem to treat her OK for WCs - I've read suggestions that they shouldn't but I'm glad they do. 

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 Ideally when she had her highest singles ranking in spring 2016, that's the year when she should have played Fed Cup. Jo had pulled out after the Aussie Open  semi final and that was the time for her to play.  However instead on a rare occasion when we throw  young players in the deep end Katie Swan played instead.  

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 I'm pretty sure Judy Murray did ask Naomi to play and she refused.

Andy refused to play for John Lloyd too.

Understandably.....

TTMan wrote:

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The organisers can't help the rain BUT Zverev (6), Konta (9) and Azarenka (10) all outrank the players selected for Chatrier with the exception of Halep. Azarenka has walked off in disgust with the conditions and why have they only scheduled 4 matches on Chatrier? Also watching a blurry Sakkari on my laptop with rain all over the camera lenses. Will they actually complete this tournament?

Last year, Jo's SF was dumped from a sunny day on Lenglen to a day with dire conditions on Mathieu with no crowd and a humiliating buggy ride from the main area.

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I thought they might have had more matches this year on Chatrier with the roof and the adverse weather, but if they are just going with 4 matches (and 2 of each), then I think their selections today were pretty sound.

I think most would agree that Murray-Warwrinka is the most anticipated match of the day (or entire round) with it containing 2 of the sometimes considered 'big 5' and 6 slams between them, and their battles over the years. I think there'd have been more people questioning it had Zverev-(Austrian) Novak taken priority, despite Zverev being the highest ranked of the four. They went with the #1 seed and recent RG champion on the women's side, which is fair enough, even if there probably were more interesting actual match ups elsewhere (including Jo vs Coco), and for their other women's match they went for arguably their biggest French (women's) name in a fairly hard to call match against a top 20 seed who has been in decent form since the restart. Had Konta vs Gauff been at any other slam then I'm sure it would have taken priority over Garcia-Kontaveit.

Sinner-Goffin was probably the most surprising pick, but then again it's a well established name (and 11th seed) from a nearby country, against a very promising teen.

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Sunday 27th of September 2020 01:26:22 PM

ROSAMUND wrote:

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TTMan wrote:

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Konta v Gauff R1 - great match up, can't wait. Until you realise one of them will take no further part in the singles. Then not so great!

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 This is Gauff's debut in the main draw in Paris. She won the juniors in Paris 2018  beating Fernandez and McNally   in the  last 2 rounds. Not sure what  difference Jo not having a coach will make.  My feeling is that Gauff will win. Jo had a brilliant clay court season  in 2019  but prior to that she only had 7 wins .out of 19 matches  in  seasons 2016 to 2018 and 2 of those wins were over Rybarikova.  Because of the 2 year ranking business Jo keeps her points from 2019 for Rome and Paris. which is to her advantage.  

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I believe Jo's loss to Gauff was a perfect storm of many factors. It was entirely down to UE's, as Jo otherwise looked the superior player to me. Jo set up numerous good points and break points, only to fail in final execution. She also won 15 net points to Gauff's 8. Jo lost by just 10 points (63 to 73) so it wouldn't have taken much.

My gut feeling is had this match been on Chatrier (where it should have been) things might have turned out differently. The dire weather related conditions on Lenglen and the situation of not being on the appropriate court and lack of crowd support would have likely sparked off bad memories for Jo of the 2019 SF against Vondrousova.

The avoidable clash of scheduling with the Murray match might also have impacted with Jo, as well as the non presence of Zavialoff (as opposed to the absence of any coach). Jo certainly didn't look happy from the start, in stark contrast to 2019.

The poor coverage of Jo's match by GB TV (Eurosport couldn't even provide a proper commentary on the stream I watched), by the media and lack of pundit analysis is embarrassing. I think when Jo retires I'll give up watching tennis on a regular basis and save on the subscriptions.

 

No, sorry, but no way that Jo's 'should' have been on Chatrier.

The tournament umpire does his schedule based on status, balance, home bias, crowd appeal, and many other factors.

Two women's matches, two men's, were chosen for balance for the crowd.

Andy v Stan was a slamdunk match and a delight for the organiser.

You have to have at least one French match so Caroline was as good as any.

Halep is women's number one.

So your two women's matches are sorted.

And the other men's one was (as Indy says) the most debatable but there's lots of Belgian in Paris, and Sinner has made a lot of headlines (and there are some Italian family connections in the main bods in the FFT)

But would it have been on centre court in Australia ?

After all, Coco's American, Jo's British, so it's normal that the British and US grand slams would give it high coverage.