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ITF general talksI was up early this morning and decided to check a few streams. What a surprise! !! Sharipova vs hsieh.... I turned it off after watching 1 service game from each. Ultimate pushers. They are not even Top-100 material in my book. Svitolina vs some girl.... boring. 1 game is enough. Then I saw some ITF names I had not noticed before and decided to check out the match. What a surprise! !!! Finally a tennis match. 2 very fine power players at each others throats. The serve. The returns. The take-no-prisoner ground strokes... charging the net at every opportunity.. <b>And neither of them was spraying</b>. Is this for real? What the heck! !! So I looked them up at the WTA site. They are both 19. what??? very strange.!!!! One is ranked 1200+ from France. The other 800+ from Switzerland. This is unreal. They are both wayyyyyy better than Sharipova and hsieh and a bunch top-150s. What's the story here? These 19-year old should be out of ITF by now, specially the one ranked 1200+. She's the biggest returner I have seen at the ITF level, this French girl. This is mystery to me. You can't play this kind of tennis and not be at least top-100 at 19. Check out Mathilde and Maina (Let me get the last names rights) Edit.... Mathilde Armitano --- French. most dangerous returner at ITF. Even Aiva doesn't have that kind of return Maina Karamoko --- Switzerland. very fine power player. (needs to place net balls better. tends to hit it straight to her opponent) Both ITF 800+. Can't explain it, folks. Note: Maina won the first set. Was serving for the match at 5-4 30-30 and fell hard. Couldn't get up right away. 2 Trainers came on court and it took a while for her to get up, walk it off and restart play. She was not the same player after that. Got broken. Took it to a tiebreak and lost the set. She lost a hard fought 3rd set. This match was worthy of a WTA top-100. Still can't believe I was watching ITF lower ranked girls. Last edited by Ace2Ace on Feb Tue 28, 2017 9:17 am, edited 9 times in total. WTA is a strange place. Errani and Navarro make the top-10. Hsieh and Diyaz make top 100, top-50, even top-32. But Amitano and Maina are 1000+. Or is this one of those days everything is landing? These girls are better than Puig and Giorgi. lol lol. Some fine power game to go along with those huge returns and serves. Advice to ITF girls: forget power tennis. Push, push, push and you'll get out of ITF. Once you reach top-100, then play your power game. Otherwise, you'll turn 28 still driving around ITF events. Last edited by Ace2Ace on Feb Tue 28, 2017 9:20 am, edited 8 times in total. #ed_op#font color="brown"#ed_cl#@ #ed_op#b#ed_cl#Ace2Ace#ed_op#/b#ed_cl#:#ed_op#/font#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl# #ed_op#br#ed_cl#Look at my comment on Kalinskaya earlier today in Kuala Lumpur. 18y old: played already 8 ITF finals, and won 4 of them....#ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl#you should try to find highlights of her match vs Garcia today.... I think you'll like her.#ed_op#br#ed_cl# "Never argue with an idiot - they take you down to their level and then beat you on experience" "Don't wrestle with a pig: you both get dirty, but the pig actually likes it" Sure ... I'll look her up. The more power players, the more fun. Couldn't believe Hsieh vs Sharipova ... The balls were so slow it's not even funny. Last edited by Ace2Ace on Feb Tue 28, 2017 8:58 am, edited 2 times in total. A semi final 3-set thriller between Aiava and the brazilian Kvitova, Haddad Maia Beatriz.#ed_op#br#ed_cl#What a match, folks !!!! Better than the pushing fest we endure at WTA tournaments!.#ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl#Vondroussova, in the other Semi Final, was just too much for her opponent. These girls are good.#ed_op#br#ed_cl# #ed_op#br#ed_cl#Add another French player Lechemia, one fine, craftly lefty youngster and you have some fine fine ball hitters coming down the pipe.#ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl#I'll repeat my message to the current slamless top-10: hurry up to steal one, because in about 2 years or so, it will be too late for you. You got tough competition coming.#ed_op#br#ed_cl# Last edited by Ace2Ace on Mar Sat 04, 2017 11:42 pm, edited 4 times in total. Re:ITF general talksIt's rather hilarious that Ace is now raving about players on the lower ITF tour after he said it should be abolished not too long ago. 15-year-old Amanda Anisimova has reached her first professional final in Brazil. This is her path to the final: QR2: 6-0 6-0 QRF: 6-0 6-0 R1: 6-4 6-1 R2: 6-2 6-2 QF: 6-1 6-2 SF: 6-2 6-1 She just beat #89 Khromacheva in the SF. There you go again. #ed_op#br#ed_cl#Never said ITF should be abolished. I said it should have its own ranking system. And the top ITF players at the end of the season should move to the WTA, while the bottom of the WTA moves to ITF.#ed_op#br#ed_cl# Last edited by Ace2Ace on Mar Sat 04, 2017 12:55 pm, edited 2 times in total. #ed_op#iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HH4QjsBgMwk" allowfullscreen="" height="360" frameborder="0" width="640"#ed_cl##ed_op#/iframe#ed_cl##ed_op#p#ed_cl#I don't see anything special yet. Just a girl with nice ground strokes, nice ball control.#ed_op#br#ed_cl#Maybe Anisimova (in black here) has improved since this match. #ed_op#/p#ed_cl# Last edited by Ace2Ace on Mar Sat 04, 2017 11:46 pm, edited 2 times in total. Will have a better idea when she faces Kuzmova, Aiava, Haddad, Lemechia, Vondrousova ... Armitano ..#ed_op#br#ed_cl#I want to see how she handles the raw power of those other youngsters.#ed_op#br#ed_cl#so far, I see nice groundies .. stable game... spreads the court nicely...No devastating serves and returns. I like to see those as part of the package, not just never ending ground strokes.#ed_op#br#ed_cl# Last edited by Ace2Ace on Mar Sat 04, 2017 12:54 pm, edited 5 times in total. same as for Potapova.#ed_op#p#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5zNod69fJ4M" allowfullscreen="" height="360" frameborder="0" width="640"#ed_cl##ed_op#/iframe#ed_cl##ed_op#/p#ed_cl##ed_op#p#ed_cl#Edit:#ed_op#/p#ed_cl##ed_op#p#ed_cl#Watching this highlight, I thought Potapova's opponent, Yastremska, was the better player. Never seen that name before... So I checked the current ranking.#ed_op#/p#ed_cl##ed_op#p#ed_cl# Ranking As of Feb 28 2017:#ed_op#/p#ed_cl##ed_op#p#ed_cl#316 Dayana Yastremska 5/15/2000 UKR 132#ed_op#br#ed_cl#725 Amanda Anisimova 8/31/2001 USA 24#ed_op#br#ed_cl#849 Anastasia Potapova 3/30/2001 RUS 14#ed_op#br#ed_cl#Add 30 points so far to both Anisimova and Potapova for making the Final. the winner gets an additional 20 points. Which moves both in the #500s#ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#br#ed_cl##ed_op#/p#ed_cl# Last edited by Ace2Ace on Mar Sat 04, 2017 11:50 pm, edited 4 times in total. |