WTA Tennis

[Brooklyn]

I just cannot believe this news - Ash Barty retires at age 25:



https://tinyurl.com/2cak2rrd


I hope she is just taking a year or two off and that she will return soon thereafter. Much too good a player, and such a wonderful personality, for her to leave the game so soon.

[JoeMauer89]

I just cannot believe this news - Ash Barty retires at age 25:



https://tinyurl.com/2cak2rrd


I hope she is just taking a year or two off and that she will return soon thereafter. Much too good a player, and such a wonderful personality, for her to leave the game so soon.

She's likely going to try her hand at the LPGA Tour. She's "retired" before and returned. But she really loves Golf and Aussie Rules Football, so wouldn't be surprised to see her try her hand at professional golf. She is an excellent player.

Joe

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Hysterical racket smashings by Vera Zvonareva

[Brooklyn]

The Queen is back. An awesome match with Harmony Tan at Wimby:


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/spor ... ledon.html
https://nypost.com/2022/06/29/what-was- ... rtbreaker/



She has complained of a sinus problem and wore a medical bandage on her face. Great effort despite the obvious wear and tear on her legs.



https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/s ... &strip=all

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

The Queen is back. An awesome match with Harmony Tan at Wimby:


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/spor ... ledon.html
https://nypost.com/2022/06/29/what-was- ... rtbreaker/



She has complained of a sinus problem and wore a medical bandage on her face. Great effort despite the obvious wear and tear on her legs.



https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/s ... &strip=all

Her performance yesterday signaled that she should just go ahead and retire. She’s a bit embarrassing out there at this point.

[Brooklyn]

Her performance yesterday signaled that she should just go ahead and retire. She’s a bit embarrassing out there at this point.

Harmony Tan isn't even in the Top 100 of the WTA rankings. If she is rapidly rising in the rankings and does well henceforth then it would be to her credit and not so much a sign of Serena's decline. But if she loses right away then it may be a sign Serena's career is in serious decline. On that basis it might be a good idea to go into coaching since her little girl is already showing some promise in tennis.

[Brooklyn]

Simona Halep > Kirsten Flipkens


https://www.wtatennis.com/tournament/90 ... es/3923051



Kirsten announces her retirement after 21 years in the tennis. Wow. Doesn't seem like that much. Will be missed as she has always been a true class act.


https://www.wtatennis.com/news/2657515/ ... -wimbledon

[LaxFan2000]

Simona Halep > Kirsten Flipkens


https://www.wtatennis.com/tournament/90 ... es/3923051



Kirsten announces her retirement after 21 years in the tennis. Wow. Doesn't seem like that much. Will be missed as she has always been a true class act.


https://www.wtatennis.com/news/2657515/ ... -wimbledon

Flipkens is an excellent player and a better person. Agreed.

[Brooklyn]

Simona Halep > Kirsten Flipkens


https://www.wtatennis.com/tournament/90 ... es/3923051



Kirsten announces her retirement after 21 years in the tennis. Wow. Doesn't seem like that much. Will be missed as she has always been a true class act.


https://www.wtatennis.com/news/2657515/ ... -wimbledon

Flipkens is an excellent player and a better person. Agreed.

kudos!

[Brooklyn]

Harmony Tan steam rolled Katie Boulter 6-1 6-1 in the Wimby round of 32. Evidently she is on a tremendous hot streak. On that basis it appears her win over Serena was not quite flukey as it appeared to be at first.


https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/katie-b ... 47041.html


If this keeps up her WTA rankings will go up considerably. At the same time it may prove that Serena is not quite finished. We shall see what happens next.

[Brooklyn]

Queen Serena announces her retirement.



https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/stat ... gr%5Etweet

https://sports.yahoo.com/tennis-serena- ... 09349.html

[LaxFan2000]

Queen Serena announces her retirement.



https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/stat ... gr%5Etweet

https://sports.yahoo.com/tennis-serena- ... 09349.html

Excellent player, great competitor. Let's see if she can tie the GS record at the US Open!

[Brooklyn]

Queen Serena announces her retirement.



https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/stat ... gr%5Etweet

https://sports.yahoo.com/tennis-serena- ... 09349.html

Excellent player, great competitor. Let's see if she can tie the GS record at the US Open!

I bet the tv ratings will go way up for her matches.

[Brooklyn]

The unstoppable grace of Serena Williams
Racist resentment shadowed Williams’s long career. That she never allowed it to slow her down made her many achievements shine infinitely brighter.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/08/30/ ... -williams/


We are rapidly approaching that heady altitude where people who lobbed racist slurs at Serena Williams, complained about her uncompromising style of play, and accused her and her sister Venus of tanking matches when they played against each other will pretend that they were rooting for her all along.

With the end of Williams’s unparalleled tennis career drawing near, there’s a stampede to find the right superlatives for this woman: Champion. Queen. The Greatest.

But never let it be forgotten that Williams not only elevated the game she loved but had to do so while stalked by the long, stubborn shadow of racism.

After Williams won her opening match Monday at the US Open, there was a ceremony with tennis icon Billie Jean King and a video tribute narrated by Oprah Winfrey. At the end, the capacity crowd, which included former President Bill Clinton, singer Gladys Knight, filmmaker Spike Lee, and tennis great Martina Navratilova, flipped over cards to reveal the phrase, “We ♥ Serena.”


This wave of unvarnished love will flow for as long as Williams remains in the tournament playing singles or doubles with her venerated older sister, Venus. When she plays her next match Wednesday, the cheers when she walks on the court will be deafening, the sellout crowd giddy and on her side. But those tributes won’t include how both fans and announcers once didn’t quite know what to make of the Williams sisters — two Black teenagers from Compton in an overwhelmingly white sport who wore braids and beads and had been taught the game by their father, Richard Williams.

There will no references to the racist hostility the sisters faced at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in 2001. During the final, Williams was booed, called the n-word, and told to “go back to Compton” by the mostly white audience. She won the tournament but it would be more than a decade before either of the sisters would return there.

“I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to give these people the satisfaction,” Williams wrote in “On the Line,” her 2009 autobiography.

Black people can never merely exist in America. Every path is a series of navigations as fraught as a minefield. To move within spaces that white people have deemed exclusive, Black people are expected to abide by unwritten but well-established rules. That’s the steep price of admission that is often transitory.

In “Citizen Ashe,” a documentary about Arthur Ashe, the tennis legend contrasted his gentle on-court demeanor with that of John McEnroe, who behaved like a jerk. But his petulance was embraced as evidence of his passion to win.

“McEnroe had the emotional freedom to be a bad boy. I never had that emotional freedom. If I had been like that, I am convinced the tennis world would have drummed me out of it,” Ashe once said. “My race wouldn’t allow me to be like that. So when I see John going off half-cocked, I’m very irritated at him and I’m envious because I would like to do the same thing, but I don’t feel I have that luxury.”


Williams never contained her humanity or emotions. She did not shrink for the comfort of racists. She screamed after an unforced error. She wailed in delight and pumped her fist after a hard-won point. If Williams disagreed with a call, she would sometimes verbally tear into the judges. But her outspokenness was rarely treated as a symbol of her pursuit of perfection. She was called “difficult,” which as every Black woman knows is shorthand for being branded as an “angry Black woman.”

That Williams refused to conform was a rebuke to those who want Black women to be rarely seen and never heard. Contemporary players like Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and Madison Keys all point to Williams as an inspiration.

“Sometimes being a woman, a Black woman in the world, you settle for less,” Gauff, the 18-year-old rising star, said. “I feel like Serena taught me that, from watching her, she never settled for less.”


To deny Williams’s eminence is to deny the heat of the sun. She even won her last Grand Slam while pregnant with her daughter, Olympia, in 2017. Watching Williams at her best was nothing short of divine.

So remember the 23 Grand Slam titles. Remember all the years when her name was synonymous with American tennis. But don’t forget all the racist resentment Williams endured, blocked out, and rose above as she became the greatest individual athlete most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. That’s a testament to the heart and soul of a phenomenal Black woman who, for more than 20 years, blessed us with her presence, prowess, and power.




The true Queen of tennis.


Her Princess:



https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublish ... MSY5JI.jpg

[Brooklyn]

Watched the beginning of Billie Jean King Cup as Danielle Collins won her first round. Should be an interesting series. Sadly, however, international politics has been allowed to disrupt the games as Russia and Belarus have been disqualified from the competition. What the heck is that? The players have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Why punish them for the actions of the politicians? Nothing like this was done to the USA when traitor Bush invaded two innocent Central Asian countries and killed off a million people. The world of pro tennis needs to stay out of politics and should NEVER apply its standards on such a selective basis.

[Brooklyn]

Most ironic comment in sports:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tenni ... -2024.html


'The Olympics are the biggest dream and ultimate privilege for athletes. They are the largest platform for inclusion and diversity in sports, capturing the attention of the world,' Svitolina said in a statement on Twitter.

'With this in mind we must stick to banning Russian and Belarusian athletes... that we are united in the sanctions imposed against Russia and Belarus and that there are consequences for the heinous acts of their governments.



https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022 ... tolina.jpg

One the one hand Olympics are for inclusion and diversity. On the other hand she calls for banning people. Imagine if people said words like that when traitor Bush launched his two wars in the Middle East.

[Brooklyn]

Caro is making a comeback!



https://www.vogue.com/article/caroline- ... -to-tennis



When Caroline Wozniacki retired from tennis in 2020 after a Grand Slam-winning 15-year career that saw her ranked as the world's best player—twice—she wasn't “taking a break” or considering her options: She was done. Recently, though—after having two children with her husband, former NBA player David Lee—Wozniacki began hitting the ball again with a renewed sense of purpose, and with the support and encouragement of her family, she's decided to return to the game she loves.




https://wallpapers.com/images/high/caro ... tizzc.webp


Everyone wins with this scenario.

[Brooklyn]

Tennis Russian, Belarusian players denied entry for Prague WTA event


https://www.reuters.com/sports/tennis/t ... 023-07-28/


Czech police stopped a Russian tennis player from entering the country ahead of the WTA Prague Open tournament, organisers said on Friday, as a new government resolution banning athletes from Russia or Belarus caused the event to scratch other competitors.

The Prague Open starts on Monday and was expected to see a handful of Russian and Belarusian players, including Evgeniya Rodina of Russia or Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus, competing as neutrals, without any national flag or symbol.

But the government approved a resolution at the end of June banning athletes from Russia and Belarus from competing in events on Czech territory, allowing police to revoke visas to those nationals.

Tournament director Miroslav Maly said police had stopped one Prague Open participant from entering the country on Thursday and organisers informed other Russian and Belarusian nationals not to travel for the tournament after the incident.

"She was the first participant to arrive to the Czech Republic with a Russian passport," Maly said, adding she had already left the country.

"The management of the tournament fully respect the current stance of state authorities. We do not expect any player with Russian or Belarusian citizenship to take part in the tournament in this situation."

The WTA had no immediate comment.

Czech world number 29 Marie Bouzkova, who lost to compatriot and eventual champion Marketa Vondrousova at this month's Wimbledon, won the Prague Open in 2022 and will defend her title. The tournament will also feature China's Zhu Lin and Zhang Shuai and France's Alize Cornet among the top seeds.

Czech police had planned to make sure the government resolution was upheld for the tournament, a police spokesperson told CTK news agency on Thursday.

A week ago, Polish authorities also denied entry to Russian tennis player Vera Zvonareva, a 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, for reasons of state security and public safety.

Central and eastern Europe states have been some of Ukraine's staunchest allies since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

Since June 2022, the Czech government has stopped issuing long-term visa to Russian citizens, who can gain entry only through short-term visas if they have relatives with European Union citizenship or are seeking entry on humanitarian grounds.




Sad that the WTA tolerates this. After all, USA players were not banned during the USA's two imperialistic wars of colonialist terrorism in Afghanistan-Iraq. Always the double standards. Always.

[Brooklyn]

Women’s Sport Is ‘Not for Failed Male Athletes’: Tennis Legend Navratilova Slams USTA for Turning Women’s Sports Into ‘Fallback’ for Trans Athletes


https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/tennis ... 12#image=2


Athletes Who Have “Affirmed [Their] Gender Identity as Female” Can Compete
According to the USTA’s official website, individuals assigned male at birth are allowed to compete in women’s sports if the athlete “has affirmed her gender identity as female” and has undergone hormone therapy “in a verifiable and sufficient manner to mitigate gender-related advantages in sports competitions.”


Navratilova’s response came in reaction to a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) by Kim Shasby Jones, founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS).

‘Unjust and Unequal’
“Come on @USTA – women’s tennis should not be a platform for male athletes who didn’t succeed elsewhere, regardless of their age.

This is unjust and unequal. Would such a scenario be acceptable at the upcoming US Open? Merely based on self-identification? I find that highly unlikely,” Navratilova expressed.

On August 5th, ICONS revealed that Alicia Rowley, a trans woman, won a championship competing against biological women.

...



Recall in past years how Navratilova claimed to have been a victim of discrimination. Now she is practicing the same prejudices that she used to criticize. The old 'it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" rule is now gone thanks to hypocrites like her. Double standards, much??