Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Ewwwbourne

Sunday in the seaside town of Eastbourne left us with one of the best series of coaching timeouts. In what was Dasha Kasatkina's first grass court match ever against 2014 Wimbledon Junior Champion Jelena Ostepenko. After a break laden first set won by Kasatkina to say that Ostepenko was not pleased with this outcome or her surroundings would be putting it lightly.



Ostepenko then won the second set after disagreeing with many line calls on the hawkeye-less Court 1.
She was also unimpressed by Dasha's spin laden game.  

For Kasatkina a very well fought match for her first competitive experience on the surface. Her coach put it well when he said the most important thing is intensity. This was a great set of pointers of how you must play on grass.


Overall it was a very entertain match by all involved. Looking foward to these two playing each other in the future. As well as how Kasatkina's develops her game for grass in the future.

In her second round match today Ostepenko lost in straight sets to Cibulkova but not without more fan fair.









Hope you ended up enjoying your stay in Eastbourne Jelena.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Fed Cup


Fed Cup was this weekend and provided a worthy kick off to a big year of national team based tennis with the Olympics this summer.
  • Sveta played and lost a four hour match in Moscow. Sharapova was nominated for doubles purely to insure Olympic qualification (or to pacify Tarpishev). The Dutch showed up. For all the talk of Young Russian Lady Watch the first week in Australia. This was a baffling performance by Russian veterans.  
  • Germany/Switzerland could have very well been the final. Two stacked teams where every player with a singles ranking is inside the top 40. Then you had two doubles specialist in the top 30. So Germany with TEN players in the top 100 are into the World Group Playoffs.
  • Garbine showed up as a real Fed Cup number 1 routinely winning both her matches. She and Carla can make it to the World Group with the supporting players they have they could be favorites for the title. 
  • The Great Britain team just cannot get a grasp of that Zone group play off. Here is hoping they they get lucky with it next year. This group of ladies could really draw a home crowd if they get the chance to. 
  • The new Adidas national color kits are really good. 



  • The German version of the kit was by far the best. I mean the under arm detail makes the kit. 



  • Amelie's shorts. 



  • This sums up Russia's weekend nicely. 



  • Why does it feel like the she won the Australian Open a month ago. Longest Fed Cup week ever. 



  • The Czech played and away tie and Petra was bad. Good think Karolina was there to save the day winning all three of her rubbers. 
  • If the Czech are to win the Cup this year it will be entirely on the road. Considering it feels like they have played home ties every round for the past three years it is about time. 
  • Sam Stosur wore a headband and it was awesome. She also won three rubbers to send Australia to the World Group playoff. The headband needs to stay. 
  • Matches of the Weekend-
    • Kerber/Bencic
    • Hongenkamp/Kuznetsova - for all the wrong reasons
    • Beck/Bacsinszky 
  • Semi Finals 
    • France vs Netherlands - Dear FFT: Can this please be at Roland Garros. Thank You
    • Switzerland vs Czech Republic 
    • Final: France vs Switzerland 
  • World Group Playoffs
    • Romania
    • Germany
    • Italy
    • Russia
    • Australia
    • USA
    • Spain
    • Belarus 
    • Teams through to World Group: Germany, Spain, USA, Australia