Week 24 - WTA Premier 600k - Eastbourne (grass)

Maza1987 · Challenger level

RE: Week 24 - WTA Premier 600k - Eastbourne (grass)

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Blame it on my fury; grammar can be sidelined when 1 in 3 R2 British matches make the TV court.

I guess we have to pray that they can squeeze another match out and surely then we can watch them. If not I guess its a treat saved for next weeks Wimbledon match, hopefully!

Maza1987 · Challenger level

Well, the organisers just lost 1 TV viewer.
I'm definitely watching the world cup matches now. If Heather was playing, I would've been there with bells on.

-- Edited by Maza1987 on Tuesday 15th of June 2010 09:20:00 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

Knowing Wimbledon they'll probably follow the same path as Eastbourne i.e British players on outside courts apart from Andy of course. Probably will only get a chance to watch our players via the BBC interactive service, very sad.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

murray_2k9 wrote:

Yeh. My choice would be:

Heather
James
Bally - Brit v Wimbledon SFist is a good match in my eyes
Clijsters.

The ATP event should play 2nd fiddle to the WTA this week, the star power just isnt there.

There's definately no star power in the men's event but I imagine somewhere the tournament director has been told to split the order of play so that there are equal numbers of men's and women's matches on the centre court (or it could be Eurosport demanding it, and they rely heavily on the TV contract - I don't know)

I imagine if they did put all the women's matches on the centre court, the men would not be happy about it and the top men (or those who are the top seeds here) wouldn't come back and thus the event would get even weaker than it already is.

I possibly expected them to do what they did today and go for 5 singles matches on the show court and thus being able to squeeze in Clijsters and the two Brits, or at least one of them and then one of them and then either Stosur or Kuzzy's match last on when people have started to go home.

indiana · Tennis legend

Probably a pathetic worry that Heather might be gubbed, a half-empty rather than half-full attitude.

This to me was a no-brainer and I too would probably have been saying it should have been a "shoe in"

Anyway, I learn from World Wide Words that :

This one is spelled wrongly so often that its likely it will eventually end up that way. The correct form is shoo-in, usually with a hyphen. It has been known in that spelling and with the meaning of a certain winner from the 1930s. It came from horse racing, where a shoo-in was the winner of a rigged race.

In turn that seems to have come from the verb shoo, meaning to drive a person or an animal in a given direction by making noises or gestures, which in turn comes from the noise people often make when they do it.

The shift to the horse racing sense seems to have occurred sometime in the early 1900s. C E Smith made it clear how it came about in his Racing Maxims and Methods of Pittsburgh Phil in 1908: There were many times presumably that Tod would win through such manipulations, being shooed in, as it were.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Another thought is that it could be a cynical decision by the organisers to force you to come to the event and buy a ground pass rather than just stay at home and watch it on TV, and thus getting more money out of the spectators.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

indiana wrote:

Probably a pathetic worry that Heather might be gubbed, a half-empty rather than half-full attitude.

This to me was a no-brainer and I too would probably have been saying it should have been a "shoe in"

Anyway, I learn from World Wide Words that :

This one is spelled wrongly so often that its likely it will eventually end up that way. The correct form is shoo-in, usually with a hyphen. It has been known in that spelling and with the meaning of a certain winner from the 1930s. It came from horse racing, where a shoo-in was the winner of a rigged race.
In turn that seems to have come from the verb shoo, meaning to drive a person or an animal in a given direction by making noises or gestures, which in turn comes from the noise people often make when they do it.
The shift to the horse racing sense seems to have occurred sometime in the early 1900s. C E Smith made it clear how it came about in his Racing Maxims and Methods of Pittsburgh Phil in 1908: There were many times presumably that Tod would win through such manipulations, being shooed in, as it were.

Thanks for that, makes me feel a little less stupid.

I do wonder whether this will affect Heather, will she feel slightly deflated that the tourny have treated her like this? I suppose the problem is that if she is put on CC and the top 10 players are forced off they may choose to play in Holland instead like the likes of Dinara, Henin, Ivanovic etc (not that they did better than the Eastbourne seeds.)

But never mind Heather, its a slight kick in the teeth to tennis fans who have stepped away from the World Cup and all its hype to support the tennis, if we get the likes of this to watch!

gjr · Club Coach

Stosur is the highest seed left in the comp. Where else you going to put her?

steven · Tennis legend

gjr wrote:

Stosur is the highest seed left in the comp. Where else you going to put her?

You'd still expect them to put the match most people wanted to see on Centre Court, and I'm pretty sure that if you polled the people there and the people watching on TV, the majority would want to see Heather or Bally instead of Stosur and Almagro!

Heather's win and press conference: http://www.lta.org.uk/Watch/AEGON-British-Tennis-Series/AEGON-International/Video-Audio/

steven · Tennis legend

The bookies give Elena a 34% chance of winning today, Wardy a 22% chance and Heather a 18% chance.

That implies:

All 3 win - 1%
2 or more win - 15% (exactly 2: 14%)
1 or more win - 58% (exactly 1: 43%)
All 3 lose - 42%

philwrig · Hall of fame

Lets face it we are looking for respectability today, anything else would be a bonus.

steven · Tennis legend

I'm more demanding - I'd be happy with two respectable + 1 win.

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Well chuffed with Heather. To qualify and reach round two is brillient. And to beat two players from the top 100 as well. Well done. Can't see her winning today but what an opportunity to play another big match. Heathers like Laura. She really feel the top 100 is beckoning for these two and a life on the main tour. Wish some of their formula could rub off on the guys.

I so hope Heather and Laura get winnable 1st round matches next week and do win.

rebel_rebel · Lower Club Player

I am really pleased with how Heather is developing as a player. I have noticed on other forums that people have been dismissive of Heather in the past when comparing her to Laura. Am glad she is proving the doubters wrong!