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Post by janie on Jun 12, 2012 7:59:00 GMT -5
Men Goffin  Goodall Golding J Baker Ward Haas Hewitt  (one to go) WomenRobson Watson Konta Broady Shvedova  Razzano (2 to go)
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Post by DBBN on Jun 12, 2012 9:57:22 GMT -5
Surprised Barty didn't make the first cut...young + last year's junior winner + citizen of UK Jr.
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Post by janie on Jun 12, 2012 10:31:18 GMT -5
Barty already had 2 Slam MDWCs -- not pretending that I remember this, but I read it at TF -- and she didn't impress. Enough for her already. She can try to go through qualies. |
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Post by janie on Jun 12, 2012 15:54:25 GMT -5
Qualy WCs
Qualifying Gentlemen's Singles
1. Luke Bambridge (GBR)
2. Liam Broady (GBR)
3. Kyle Edmund (GBR)
4. George Morgan (GBR)
5. Luke Saville (AUS)
6. From wild card play-off
7. From wild card play-off
8. TBA
9. TBA
Qualifying Ladies' Singles
1. Ashleigh Barty (AUS)
2. Tara Moore (GBR)
3. Samantha Murray (GBR)
4. Melanie South (GBR)
5. From wild card play-off
6. From wild card play-off
7. TBA
8. TBA
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Post by janie on Jun 12, 2012 15:56:27 GMT -5
Oh, and all the doubles WCs go to the familiar Brits. Except for the one awarded to this lovable pair:
Lleyton Hewitt and Chris Guccione (AUS)
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 12, 2012 16:57:01 GMT -5
Yay Shvedova and Goffin! Maybe Shvedova can follow the footsteps of Zheng, the last player to receive a WC as a former doubles champ taken out by injury.
For all Bimbledon's faults, at least it's prepared to give WCs to players based on impressive results rather than the reciprocal circle-jerk.
It would have been indefensible to give Barty a THIRD Slam MD WC this year...but the one she shouldn't have received was the RG one. Her WC here is based on merit as last year's junior champion, rather than reciprocal bullshit.
I think Konta has lived in Britain most of her life, but has had to deal with passport issues to represent GBR rather than AUS...and in all her years as AUS she never benefited from any WC so it's nice that she finally does now.
If no one makes waves at Edgbaston they'll probably give it to the next on the MD list anyway. Lazy. Give it to Vekic, she trains in London.
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Post by DBBN on Jun 12, 2012 18:55:04 GMT -5
Someone ridiculous will make a big run at Birmingham and get a WC. Probably for the men too.
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 13, 2012 1:47:58 GMT -5
It will probably be Riske again. Maybe she can just do this every year.
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Post by Traveling Man on Jun 13, 2012 10:20:00 GMT -5
What happened to Brian Baker? Reading all the stories during RG one would assume he'd be given a WC.
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 13, 2012 10:34:34 GMT -5
100% USian hype. The way the USian media blows up the back stories of its players and acts like no foreign player has ever done those things is shameless.
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Post by Old Hag on Jun 13, 2012 11:22:06 GMT -5
I think Baker is deserving, though. However, Bimbly's history of non-awful Brit WCs is to veterans like Haas Been and Hewitt first. You can thank Goran forever.
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Post by DBBN on Jun 13, 2012 11:23:22 GMT -5
100% USian hype. The way the USian media blows up the back stories of its players and acts like no foreign player has ever done those things is shameless. Completely agree. He does not deserve a Wimbledon WC AT ALL. |
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 13, 2012 12:38:31 GMT -5
I'm not saying Baker hasn't had impressive results or an admirable story, but...so does half the tour. I dunno, picking a name at random, Arantxa Parra Santonja came back from years out injured to make a MM final last year. NOC. It's not like he got his ranking in the top 100 after the cut-off. And he lost in Queen's qualies unimpressively. And he ALREADY got a Slam WC that no one with his ranking would usually get an opportunity for. Just go away, Slam nations.
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Post by janie on Jun 13, 2012 12:42:20 GMT -5
100% USian hype. The way the USian media blows up the back stories of its players and acts like no foreign player has ever done those things is shameless. True. It's ridiculous. Other countries do the same thing, unfortunately, though their global media presence is not as overwhelming as ours is, so it goes more unnoticed. India, France (remember the craziness over 15-year-old Gasquet?), Serbia and Britain are probably as bad as the US inside their own lands. And I'd love to see what they say about their players in Poland and China! |
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Post by DBBN on Jun 13, 2012 14:49:28 GMT -5
I'm not saying Baker hasn't had impressive results or an admirable story, but...so does half the tour. I dunno, picking a name at random, Arantxa Parra Santonja came back from years out injured to make a MM final last year. NOC. It's not like he got his ranking in the top 100 after the cut-off. And he lost in Queen's qualies unimpressively. And he ALREADY got a Slam WC that no one with his ranking would usually get an opportunity for. Just go away, Slam nations. Exactly. If there wasn't a Slam WC exchange between France and the US AND he had not won the WC, NOC including Wertheim and everyone else pushing for the Wimbledon WC. In fact NOC about him at all were it not for that. They should be paying attention to resurgent players, but they wouldn't have without the circumstances, and that's the point. |
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Post by Old Hag on Jun 13, 2012 15:14:55 GMT -5
Two slam WCs would be a lot for Baker. I just think he's deserving because he could probably win some matches.
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 13, 2012 16:26:59 GMT -5
It wouldn't be as bad as that year Rogowska got like three Slam WCs.
Watson's moved into the MD, people seem to think South will get her WC due to moving close to the 250 mark after this week. Thanks, Mirjana.
I wonder if Chakvetadze and Kleybanova have been considered...
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Post by DBBN on Jun 13, 2012 18:31:16 GMT -5
Two slam WCs would be a lot for Baker. I just think he's deserving because he could probably win some matches. Maybe. But you could say that about a lot of players who don't have L. Jon stumping endlessly for them. |
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 1:28:40 GMT -5
100% USian hype. The way the USian media blows up the back stories of its players and acts like no foreign player has ever done those things is shameless. True. It's ridiculous. Other countries do the same thing, unfortunately, though their global media presence is not as overwhelming as ours is, so it goes more unnoticed. India, France (remember the craziness over 15-year-old Gasquet?), Serbia and Britain are probably as bad as the US inside their own lands. And I'd love to see what they say about their players in Poland and China! I can't speak for the other nations, but I think the US is worse for over-hyping stories that aren't out of the ordinary and acting like their players are special flowers, whereas the UK is worse for putting pressure on our few half-decent players and setting them up to fail. The default British attitude is "they're probably shit". Robson and to a lesser extent Watson have received tons of press but no one's actually said they'll be future Slam winners or anything, just a bit better than what we've had. Most people think Murray is a bottler who'll never win a Slam. |
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Post by janie on Jun 14, 2012 6:53:22 GMT -5
Yes. I think you're right that the default US media attitude is These players are So SPECIAL and they WILL be great champions! It's unbearable. And, yeah, the default Brit attitude is They Never -- while secretly hoping one or two of them will at least reach a semifinal. And let's face it, it really has to be a Wimbledon SF because that's the only tennis Britain cares about. Unless things have changed drastically in the last 5 years. janiehub and I spent many Wimbledon weeks in the UK over the years, vacationing in Cornwall. Reading multiple UK papers every day, I sure felt sorry for Tim Henman. The intensity of the coverage about him, and the love and hate poured on him in equal measures, had to be seen to be believed. In the US, the tennis media overhypes players like crazy, but national tennis coverage never, ever reaches the heights it does in Britain during Wimbledon. Even in NYC itself during the 2 US Open weeks, tennis is just one of the sports getting media attention, and probably even then less than US football. |
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Post by Old Hag on Jun 14, 2012 12:19:24 GMT -5
The default British attitude is "they're probably shit". Robson and to a lesser extent Watson have received tons of press but no one's actually said they'll be future Slam winners or anything, just a bit better than what we've had. Most people think Murray is a bottler who'll never win a Slam. But, they're right. Except about Robson being better than the Keothavong types. Janie is correct that tennis isn't popular here enough for any of that nationally. Even during US Open. Maybe it's just because we don't have any realistic winners (besides the Williams, and there is an odd overall reaction like they're above the fledgling USians). There's no excitement or pressure to win for the country here anymore. Which I actually like. If there's any 'stories' then the media will latch on and beat it in the ground. Like Fish's fitness and Oudin's believing. That's not exclusive to tennis, that's how our entire stupid, worthless media works now. |
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Post by DBBN on Jun 14, 2012 12:24:18 GMT -5
L. Jon pun intended? Seriously, this is why the Olympics piss me off. I don't care about this jerk's story. I WANT TO SEE HIM/HER DO SPORT. SHOW MORE RACE. GRRR. |
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 12:39:09 GMT -5
Yes, the media is getting worse in that regard as it gets more desperate due to the fact that it's a dying industry.
UK tennis coverage is the worst. Wall-to-wall obsession during Wimbledon, you'd think the entire country were huge tennis fans. Rest of the year, it doesn't exist. It's not healthy.
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Post by janie on Jun 14, 2012 12:50:00 GMT -5
I don't know if it's healthy or unhealthy, but it's definitely shocking for visiting foreigners who follow tennis and foolishly think the other 3 Slams are pretty important.  We made the mistake of going to Britain early one year; by chance it was during RG. Our hotel had only the 4 or 5 normal British tv stations, no cable, and I soon discovered that there was zero RG coverage on those channels, until maybe the final, but maybe not even that. Even finding daily scores was tough; I had to look for the tiny type in certain newspapers only. No actual articles appeared until very late in the tournament, and that was extra disappointing because Britain had the best tennis writers in the world. |
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 12:53:12 GMT -5
That's still the case. Luckily, this year ITV4 (a Freeview digital channel that most people have) had daily coverage.
For an actual newspaper article to happen about tennis, either there has to be a Serena-grade upset, or Murray needs to do whatever. No other player exists.
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 12:55:04 GMT -5
And I meant it was unhealthy for tennis's growth as a sport, but it's unhealthy for the GBR tennis media too - their fortunes are inextricably tied to Murray. If he's not involved, their editors won't care.
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Post by janie on Jun 14, 2012 12:55:26 GMT -5
If there's any 'stories' then the media will latch on and beat it in the ground. Like Fish's fitness and Oudin's believing. That's not exclusive to tennis, that's how our entire stupid, worthless media works now. This is true. The wall-to-wall coverage of celebrity doings and flashy crime details makes the most egregious tennis-player coverage look tame. Biggest, most nauseating example was when every network halted their normal tv schedule in order to cut to the most important news story in the world: Tiger Woods reading a statement pretending to feel bad about his "infidelity". Makes you want to move to Iceland or something. |
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Post by janie on Jun 14, 2012 13:01:12 GMT -5
That's still the case. Luckily, this year ITV4 (a Freeview digital channel that most people have) had daily coverage. For an actual newspaper article to happen about tennis, either there has to be a Serena-grade upset, or Murray needs to do whatever. No other player exists. There used to be huge photos of Anna Kournikova, though. Even on the front page of the Times, there she was, daintily fallen on her butt on the clay of RG, a tournament they weren't otherwise even acknowledging. I don't think most USians, and maybe not Canadians, either, have any idea how gigantic Porni's daily presence was in UK media, at least during Slams. I remember Wimbledon rain delays where BBC would air tape of some exho featuring AK rather than any actual Wimbledon matches (since she had lost in r1 that year!) |
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 13:01:37 GMT -5
The Diamond Jubilee the other weekend here was the most disgustingly OTT example. Indeed the entire deluge of royal propaganda we've been subjected to this year. It makes me think this nation is addicted to servitude in a horrible, self-loathing kind of way.
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Post by lexpretend on Jun 14, 2012 13:02:31 GMT -5
Oh haha yes, Pornikova. She was a one-off who'll never be replicated, though, as much as SEWTA attempts it.
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