Julia Goerges is blogging from Bad Gastein. And playing doubes. The German, who was the top seed, was upset in the first round by qualifier Richel Hogenkamp of The Netherlands. Goerges is a former Bad Gastein champion; Hogenkamp is ranked number 211 in the world.
Birmingham top seed Francesca Schiavone went out in the second round. Schiavone, who had a wild card into the tournament, lost to Misaki Doi. In the first round, qualifier Melanie Oudin defeated 10th seed Sorana
Cirstea, and Mona Barthel went out yet again. 2nd seed Sabine Lisicki
was defeated in the second round by Urszula Radwanska, and 3rd seed
Daniela Hantuchova was upset by Melinda Czink.
Don't miss Marija's lovely tribute to French Open champion Maria Sharapova.
Sharapova will carry the Russian flag at the 2012 Olympic Games. (USA television commentators--eat your hearts out.)
Andrea Petkovic has withdrawn from Wimbledon because of her right ankle injury. Petko also had to miss the Australian Open and the French Open.
7 comments:
Diane, thank you for promoting my tribute! :)
You're welcome, Marija--I enjoyed it.
I see that Jankovic is busy fighting off bees and saving sets points in Birmingham. Hmmm, could the queen of chaos be set to make her overdue reappearance? ;)
I'm telling you, it's the Curse of Jankovic. In Charleston this year, we had escaped all the predicted bad weather, then--when Jankovic stepped onto the court--it went dark and the lighter buildings started shaking a bit in the wind. We all had to run for our lives!
Did unread Virginia wade's article? Would like to know your thoughts on it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2157037/Virginia-Wade-says-todays-women-tennis-stars-robots-personality.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Goodness. Miss Ginny is angry, yes?
While I share her distaste for "power" tennis (give me real tennis with wooden racquets any day) and her concern about how much attention is paid to players' looks, I find the rest of her complaints....ridiculous.
Picking on Vika especially gets to me, since Vika has injected more personality into the tour than anyone lately (although she seemed to have mysteriously lost it in Paris). Serena, Maria, Francesca, Venus JJ, Petra, Sam, Sveta, Petko! They are all full personalities and add so much to the game.
Just a few notes on some of Wade's comments:
"No wonder women’s tennis has become somewhat predictable."
...hmmm, does eight different women winning the last nine slams = predictability? Meanwhile, three men have won 28 of the last 29.
Take Belarusian tennis star Victoria Azarenka, the current world No 1. Even during the off-season, she spends two hours in the gym each day followed by a rigorous regime of hill sprints.
...so, now striving to be a better conditioned athlete is a BAD thing? With the rigors of the season, if players don't work year-around they're constantly injured. Also, in some quarters, they'd be criticized for not being "real athletes."
(Wade on BJK) "She was as memorable off court, campaigning for the equality of women in sport, as she was on it.
...so, she's actually expecting today's players to be just like Billie Jean? All the work BJK did has helped to allow today's players to live the lives the sport allows them to enjoy. While I sort of understand where she's going with this, Wade also has to realize the realities of the sport in 2012.
"Steffi Graf and Monica Seles grabbed the attention of tennis fans with a similar rivalry (to Navratilova and Evert) in the Nineties."
...really? Granted, it may have become a great rivalry but, after Seles started beating Graf like a drum, Monica was stabbed and it was never the same. I think Wade's memory is playing tricks with her there.
"The crux of the problem, though, is advertising and marketing. This is the one way fans can really get to know players outside the tennis circuit."
...she's onto something there, but that should be placed on the back of the tour, not the players. Also, as some of the British players/ex-players note in article's sidebar, over the last year and a half those personalities and rivalries that Wade is yearning for have actually started to become a reality on tour.
Very weird timing for her to say some of these things.
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