Week 34 - WTA ($220K) - Texas Open, USA Hard

Julia Carrot · All-time great

RE: Week 34 - WTA ($220K) - Texas Open, USA Hard

Peter too · Tennis legend

There are now no seeds left in Bally's half of the draw.

indiana · Tennis legend

That's briliiant. A truly goerges win smile

Hopefully with hr day off, she'll be back ready to go on Thursday.

steven · Tennis legend

Ventured into TF for the first time in ages looking for TBE's rankings thread and got sidetracked by a thread about last night's match. I don't know whether to be amused or disturbed by the amount of Bally-hating going on in there (actually I think I'll go for option 3, i.e. not care!) - yes, she did "come on"/"davai" on one Görges DF and no doubt she shouldn't have, but to me it looked very much heat of the moment and from the way it was directed, aimed at firing herself up, not a deliberate attempt to be nasty to Görges.

As for complaints about her playing slowly, I noticed in R1 at Wimbledon that she was doing a good job of getting the match played at her pace (I always find stuff like that more noticeable when I'm at a match live), but I think that's fair enough (all part of the mental game) if it doesn't go too far - it was nowhere near as bad as Nole's ball bouncing and all of Rafa's pre-point antics.

At the times when I wasn't watching, Ken didn't mention anything dodgy apart from a bit of needle between the two of them at the start of the 3rd set.

-- Edited by steven on Wednesday 24th of August 2011 03:17:25 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

I'm a big fan of Bally, but having seen her live in action at Nottingham she without doubt stretches the rules to the maximum. But thats why I greatly admire her, if you can get away with it why not, at the end of the day its all about the winning within reason. Does she intentionally try to get her opponent out of rythym, don't know , probably not. Look alot of players say come on after a player makes a mistake, Andy is a prime example, and it does seem to be considered OK as long as you don't do it all the time. Bally's pre point routine where she goes to the back of the court before getting into position when receiving can quite often mean that the server is delayed before serving and it can cause annoyance from her opponent.

wolf · Tennis legend

I went to bed with Bally at 2-6 1-2* down, when Bally had just held a long game to keep in it. Thought wryly I would kick myself if she won from there but really didn't think it would happen. Some fan I am.

steven · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:
I went to bed with Bally at 2-6 1-2* down, when Bally had just held a long game to keep in it. Thought wryly I would kick myself if she won from there but really didn't think it would happen. Some fan I am.

I've paid for it today LOL ... I was intending to work and just have Ken's commentary in the background but got really sucked into it and when Görges came back in the 2nd set, I was thinking I'm really, really going to regret spending all this time on the match if she loses in straight sets after all. I ended up very happy, but still questioning my sanity wink

indiana · Tennis legend

Rezai beat Cirstea 6 - 2 7 - 6 (4) so we have :

QF : Elena Baltacha WR 61 vs (Q) Aravane Rezai (FRA) WR 114

..which sounds all very splendid unless the Rezai that was WR 15 as recently as last October turns up. She has though had a pretty tough year, which has included two losses to Bally, 6 - 2 6 - 1 in Eastbourne and 6 - 4 6 - 4 very recently in Toronto. And, of course, Bally has already disposed of a current WR 20 this week.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Rezai beat Cirstea 6 - 2 7 - 6 (4) so we have :
QF : Elena Baltacha WR 61 vs (Q) Aravane Rezai (FRA) WR 114
..which sounds all very splendid unless the Rezai that was WR 15 as recently as last October turns up. She has though had a pretty tough year, which has included two losses to Bally, 6 - 2 6 - 1 in Eastbourne and 6 - 4 6 - 4 very recently in Toronto. And, of course, Bally has already disposed of a current WR 20 this week.

Reasons for the Iranian-French player's tough year include her father getting banned just before the AO - see the "Personal life" section of her wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aravane_Reza%C3%AF for more details.

indiana · Tennis legend

Cheers Steven, I was just meaning "tough" in terms of Rezai's results, but I had in the back of my mind that there had been some sort of problems. And hmm, her father does seem a real problem. The number of pretty high ranked female players that have fathers that shall we say ( being very polite ) are problematic.... disbelief