Anyone like Tennis?

Today's matches are pretty lame so far.

Nadal is gone but Murray is through easily. Sharapova dispatched her up and coming successor and Halep turns in a terrible performance to get beat opening up the way for Sharapova to the finals.

Berdych broke an 0-17 losing streak against Nadal
Tomas was good but I don't see him going all the way.

There was something wrong with Nadal.
Maybe a hamstring problem.

He didn't have the famous range on the court.

I read another article that said that Berdych actually had a really good game plan developed by his new coach and did the same thing a lot of people had been trying recently - going right into the teeth of Nadal's forehand. Apparently the strategy is to cut out Nadal running around his backhand to hit insane inside out forehands or super heavy spinning backhands.

Changing topics, really good win for Sharapova. I don't know anyone who has been consistently playing strong tennis over the last year like she has been.

Andy Murray is giving Tomas Berdych a bit of a workover right now. Could soon be 2 sets to 1.

At least Berdych is decorative. No-one could say that about Murray.

Berdych goes down. I've never given thought to his decorative value before. Maybe the announcer will ask him to "give a little twirl". Sharapova will try to break her Serena jinx on the women's side. If Serena had lost and Sharapova had won it all, she would have overtaking Serena as number one but with both in the finals they will continue to be one and two regardless of the result.

I've been feeling Nadal's shorts. Hhis style game is moving up.

So has she

Serena said something I thought was very true and telling in a recent interview. She was talking about how badly she wants this Championship, and she said something like "there's a lot of pressure on me - after all, it's only news if I lose, not if I win".

About Nadal's shorts - am I the only one who notices he has a ritual he does incessantly where he has to pull his shorts out of the crack of his butt, then touch the hair at both temples - before almost every serve or receipt of serve?
Watch him as he waits for a serve - it's so OCD it's really funny.

I haven't seen it (no tv for eons) but have read about it from time to time. He's Mr. Ritual.

True re Serena and what is news with her name. Fed is a bit like that too, but she's in a way better zone these days than he is.

I haven't been following - what happened re Dimitrov? Ah, I see, Murray happened.

Dimitrov was serving 5-3 in the fourth and collapsed. He had the best racket smash ever though. He put every once of his weight in slamming that racket into the court. When he picked it up, there was nothing but little pieces of ceramic tied with string.

He's on my staff.

I caught one of his game balls at the US Open, so I have to follow him. After the match, the winner signs the balls and hits them into the stands and I got lucky.

And I read he lived or lives in Manhattan Beach with whatsername. Not my town, but I met a favorite man there a long time ago, your basic funny story, one of us with a full leg cast, meeting in a beach bar. She was the one who played football, lived across from one of the beachboy places. Thing is, she walked well with that cast on the sand.

Past that, Dimitrov has caused my attention when I do read up.

As she gets closer to passing Steffi Graf for most major singles titles,
people will start to take more notice.

EDIT -- In the "open era", I mean.

I'm no judge, I like both of them. Very different women.

Djokovic is going to win but Wawrinka really made him work for it.

Murray has to be loving it that Djokovic is out there playing five sets.

Serena locks down number nineteen. Pretty high quality stuff here but Sharapova just doesn't match up well against Serena.

From si.com

Drat! I missed it.
DVR's not smart enough to switch channels

if there is one thing that the "rivalry" between Sharapova and Williams really shows is just how good Williams is. Sharapova is right at the top of her game right now. This was the first match she has lost in 2015. She's been in the finals of the French for the last three years, winning twice and that is her weakest surface. She has an incredible baseline game off both wings and an aggressive return game. And she has lost to Serena sixteen straight times over a 10 year period. Serena absorbs her ferocious ground strokes and gives them back just as hard. If Sharapova's return game allows her to win over half of the second serves coming to her, Serena will hit all first serves and in this latest match, over half of Serena's first serves were outright winners - Sharapova couldn't even put them into play. Sharapova is known as one of the toughest fighters in the game and she dodged several bullets in this match, but Serena's gun never seems to run out of ammo. At 33, Serena is building her legacy right on top of Sharapova. If Serena had retired a couple of years ago, Sharapova would be winning two slams a year and making a case as one of the greats of the game. As it sits today, she is just the lens through which we come to appreciate Serena.