Wimbledon Tune-ups

Quiet Speed

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It’s the time of the year when grass court tennis takes the stage for a short while. A few warm-up tournaments for the big show have been taking place. Today Roger Federer won his 10th championship at Halle, Germany. He was looking in the groove. Over in England, Feliciano Lopez won at the Queen’s Club Championships. An underlying story there may be number one seed Stefanos Tsitsipas was knocked off by Félix Auger-Aliassime, the young Canadian who is black or half-black. Auger-Aliassime also reached the finals in the Stuttgart Open last week losing to Matteo Berrettini. So I expect a lot of buzz with him. Nadal and Djokovic have been idle as for as I know during this time.

Ashleigh Barty took over the world number 1 ranking by defeating Julia Goerges at the Birmingham Classic today. Russian-American Sofia Kenin won the Mallorca Open against a fine player who finally is over some injuries, Belinda Bencic. Years ago I remember watching Kenin train when she was five years old. Had wonderful control even at that early age. I’ll see if I can find some video of her playing back then.
 

Quiet Speed

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This is the final week before Wimbledon and there is some grass court action taking place. The Eastbourne International lacks a stellar men’s field. Not a surprise considering that there is no gap between it and Wimbledon. On the women’s side, the likes of Angelique Kerber, Simona Halep, Karolina Pliskova, and Kiki Bertens (world’s number 4) participated. Kerber has taken out Halep and goes on to the semi-finals against an unranked Greek player. The other semi-finals will be Pliskova against Bertens. The men’s semifinals will be Sam Querrey against Thomas Fabbiano and Taylor Fritz vs. Kyle Edmund.

Novak Djokovic did play a non-ATP event, something called the Boodles Tournament. I believe he was beaten by new generation hot shot Denis Shapovalov. Djokovic is seeded number one at Wimbledon.
 
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