Weeks 26 & 27: Wimbledon (grass) - doubles

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Weeks 26 & 27: Wimbledon (grass) - doubles

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

The third set goes the way of the second: 4-6. cry

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

They started well, but couldn't quite bridge the gap. Jonny broken to 30 in the final game:

R2: (15) Juan Sebastián Cabal & Marcin Matkowski (COL/POL) CR 61 (27+34) defeated Jonny Marray & John-Patrick Smith (AUS) CR 131 (47+84) by 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4 6-3 cry

I bet they'd have relished a crack at the Bryans. I wonder whether there's any mileage in the partnership. They seem quite at ease with one another on court.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
They started well, but couldn't quite bridge the gap. Jonny broken to 30 in the final game:
R2: (15) Juan Sebastián Cabal & Marcin Matkowski (COL/POL) CR 61 (27+34) defeated Jonny Marray & John-Patrick Smith (AUS) CR 131 (47+84) by 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4 6-3
I bet they'd have relished a crack at the Bryans. I wonder whether there's any mileage in the partnership. They seem quite at ease with one another on court.

Assuming the Bryans win smile

one set all at the moment

paulisi · Tennis legend

The Bryans will win - 2 sets to 1 up, but they are not the force they once were.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
No idea, SC, that result makes no sense at all

A possible clue: TCH was scheduled to play mixed doubles with Lisa Raymond, but they have been replaced by Michael Venus & Alicja Rosolska. Raymond played (& lost!) her women's doubles match with Liezel Huber earlier, so maybe he was carrying/picked up some kind of injury during the match. If so, I trust it's not serious.

Josh · Challenger level

This is only the Bryans' 1st round match, they'd still have to play Kyle & Stakh's conquerors in the 2nd round.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Josh wrote:
This is only the Bryans' 1st round match, they'd still have to play Kyle & Stakh's conquerors in the 2nd round.

I know. I'm aware that they are no longer almost invincible, but I was working on the assumption that they would then nevertheless go on to beat Bautista & Sijsling. wink

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Murray and Peers up two sets to nothing ::))

(It's seems to have been pretty poor from our doubles lot so far - they all appear to have dropped like flies. And I thought doubles was our speciality?)

Maybe Jamie can salvage some honour, fingers crossed.

Jaffa · Challenger level

To be fair CD I think that's harsh, I've just got back from Wimbledon and I saw a lot of the action - I'll put a report up shortly when I get to a computer

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Jaffa wrote:
To be fair CD I think that's harsh, I've just got back from Wimbledon and I saw a lot of the action - I'll put a report up shortly when I get to a computer

You may well be right about the actual matches.

And I didn't mean the play was poor; I meant that, net net, the results were poor.

We have a lot of top doubles teams - I'd thought we would have more success, that's all.

Skupskis? Colin/Ross ? Dom/Treat?

It can't be counted as a good showing if they all lost in the first round.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

R2: (14) Jamie Murray & John Peers (AUS) CR 65 (32+33) defeated (WC) Jamie Delgado & Gilles Müller (LUX) CR 494 (112+382) by 6-3 7-6(7) 6-3

Spectator · All-time great

I'm not sure that, with the exception of Huey and Inglot, most of the losses are a complete shock ... and even with Huey and Inglot, while they've had a number of very good results in 2014 (QFs at Australia, SF at Acapulco, QF at Indian Wells and winning Eastbourne) they've also gone out in their first match seven times. With the others, Cuevas and Marrero aren't exactly grass specialists, but they are a good, established (seeded) pairing; and Dustin Brown on grass is always a threat.

indiana · Tennis legend

While not saying a disaster or generally individually shocking, I do see where CD is coming from. For me, on the face of it the collective net results are rather disappointing.

Be interested to hear first hand reports.

Jaffa · Challenger level

Right I've finally got round to doing this, sorry for the incredibly late reports

I saw virtually all of the Skupskis match, they were on fire for the first set and a half. They had a break point on Struff's serve in the second set and Brown framed a volley for a winner and they held. In the next game Neal served, Brown hit a hotdog lob and then the next point a perfect half volley from behind his legs causing him to really work the crowd and get really quite excited. Ken and Neal had targeted him to this point because he was the worse of the two but that changed and the match was very even. If I was going to be critical I'd say that Ken's return wasn't great and as a consequence they didn't get a look at many return games. It could've gone either way but ultimately without playing really bad or anything I'd rather just tip my hat to Brown/Struff

Saw the fourth set of Colin and Ross, they looked like the better pair actually but on the whole Cuevas and Marrero got a LOT of first serves in so they never got a proper look. Went to a breaker and Cuevas middled a return right at Ross' feet to take the initiative, next few points went with serve and then Cuevas made a return winner down the line and that was all she wrote!

Didn't get much of Marray but from what I saw above I'd echo those sentiments, very concise in instructions and looked at home with each other. I hope they give it a go but I think Smith is also a chally singles player isn't he?

Top and bottom of the Treat & Dom match was that Treat didn't serve well and Dom couldn't return to save his life. Their level was poor unfortunately.

I saw the third and fourth sets of Delgado/Muller and you've got to give them both so much credit. They went a break down twice in the third and Gilles gave Jamie a bit of a telling off at the changeover (found that quite amusing actually) but it worked and there was only one winner once they got the break in the fourth, the other team looked out of ideas to me. Gilles has a huge serve and it got him out of jail a few times.

Didn't see Smorrie unfortunately although I caught Dan and had a chat to him afterwards and he said that Nielsen was on fire. Fair enough! Told me he's going to play 15k's and Challengers almost exclusively then maybe have a couple of cracks at ATP qualies later in the year if his ranking continues to improve.

Now... to my real gripes I'm afraid. I saw the first couple of sets of Jamie/John V Dan/James as it was next to the Skupski's. You could just tell they weren't doubles players, there was no real strategy and to me it was a complete waste of a wildcard. I'd have much rather seen Rice/Thornley or Burton/Willis there as IMO they would have given Jamie/John more of a game. The amount of times Wardy was passed at the net was silly.

Kyle confirmed to me that he IS one for the future but the LTA have to let him do it the hard way now. He's a good volleyer so in future I'd like to see him come in a bit more in his singles. Once they were figured out they ran out of ideas unfortunately but that was to be expected.

So, on the whole yes the results of the doubles were very poor but from what I saw, they didn't really do much wrong.

-- Edited by Jaffa on Saturday 28th of June 2014 09:48:26 AM