Tennis All Over the World

Devonshire Park was still closed to the public yesterday evening, as the work deconstructing the stands around Court One, and the south and most of the east stand to Centre Court, continues for a couple more days. And the grounds that included the outer courts for the Aegon International are being prepared for public and tennis club use once again. There will be several tournaments throughout the rest of the summer, of course - including the county championships that Andy Murray surprisingly competed in a couple of years ago, before heading to the ATP Masters Series events in North America - but nothing on the professional scale of last week.
No sooner has the curtain gone down on Eastbourne's Aegon International, of course, before the curtain goes up on Wimbledon. This year, it seemed there wouldn't even be a day's break in-between, as bad weather threatened to spill the final matches over into Sunday. But with Centre Court less than a quarter full at 8:30pm on Saturday evening (in stark contrast to the packed house that saw Marion Bartoli defeat Petra Kvitova in the women's final a few hours earlier), the event was declared over as Janko Tipsarevic retired at 3-5 down in the deciding set of the men's final, Italy's Andreas Seppi taking his first ATP Tour title. Tipsarevic had been complaining about bad light since the start of the final set, around 7:15pm, and after a 20 minute rain delay he slipped and took a heavy tumble on the grass. He continued playing after treatment before pulling out as Seppi served for the match. His Wimbledon fears appeared justified, as yesterday he withdrew during his first round match against Ivo Karlovic.
On Saturday evening the crowd was told that the Eastbourne tournament was over for another year, and the decision had been taken to cancel the men's doubles final, the title to be shared. As I mentioned in my previous post, the final was to feature hotly-tipped youngster Grigor Dimitrov, teaming up with a certain Mr Andreas Seppi, taking on the recently reformed partnership of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram (who are no strangers to Eastbourne - the Israeli duo winning a crucial doubles match en route to a win over Britain in a 2006 Davis Cup tie). There was later a change of heart, however, with the final played on Sunday, not in Eastbourne, but Roehampton, South London, the site of the Wimbledon qualifying matches. Seppi was denied another title, with Erlich and Ram triumphing.
So, the circus has packed up and left town for another year. The international tennis tournament is a huge boost to a southern English resort, but of course it's only one of tens of stops on the WTA and ATP tours during the course of the January to November tennis season. In such a global sport as top level tennis, the contrasts of this big wide world were evident last winter (the English winter, that is), as I walked through Devonshire Park, days after the ten inches of snow had cleared (an unusually large amount for this part of the UK). I popped into the cafe which has the newspaper cutting on display, the one that features Caroline Wozniacki extolling the virtues of the cafe's ice creams. Wozniacki raved about these ice creams during her post-match press conference back in 2008, after her career's first big win, a second round triumph over Svetlana Kuznetsova. Now, two and a half years later, she was world no. 1 (and indeed, six months later, still is), and on the other side of the planet, the tennis world was preparing for the Australian Open. Down Under the climate was, of course, considerably different.
But last Australian summer, Queensland bore the brunt of the extraordinary, horrifying floods that brought catastrophe, and even tragedy, to large areas. I was in touch with my relatives in Brisbane, who were extremely lucky to avoid the waters that temporarily engulfed many parts of the city.
Days after the Brisbane International - a combined ATP and WTA tournament (and it was announced a few weeks ago that from next year the WTA event will be upgraded to Premier status) - the centre court was under water.
Sam Stosur, who had encountered the devastating effects of flooding as a child, when the Queensland town she lived in experienced such a fate, was among the tennis stars involved in fundraising.
Last week I had the pleasure of finally speaking with Sam Stosur (in 2008 I was present at her press conference at the beginning of her return to form after a lengthy lay-off through debilitating illness, but was only taking notes). I'd received an email from my uncle in Brisbane to say that he'd noticed she was playing in Eastbourne. I told her that my relatives were very proud of her as a fellow Queenslander, and she appeared genuinely chuffed.
This was after her great quarter-final win over in-form Vera Zvonereva. Sadly, this was one of her few really good recent victories. She fell 6-3, 6-1 to Marion Bartoli in the Eastbourne semi-finals, never getting her game going in very windy conditions, and yesterday tumbled out of Wimbledon in the first round to Hungary's world no. 262 (though former world no. 37) Melinda Czink.
It was the second year running Stosur has crashed out in the first round at Wimbledon after reaching the Eastbourne semi-finals. Indeed, she has reached the Eastbourne semis three times in the last four years, but has never progressed beyond Wimbledon's 3rd round. She can clearly play on grass, even though she believes it's possibly her worst surface. She can volley to back up one of the best serves in the women's game, and has a stellar doubles history, topping the world rankings for over a year in 2006-07; and has won four Grand Slam doubles titles (two Womens, two Mixed).
But she hasn't really lived up to expectations since her terrific run at last year's French Open really put her on the map, in terms of the singles game. There, she became one of the few players to beat both Henin and Serena in the same tournament, on her way to the final, where her surprising loss to Schiavone perhaps knocked her confidence. That's a shame, as she is one of the most enjoyable players to watch.
Many of Stosur's early round losses this year aren't as shocking as they appear, however, when you look at the names she lost to - mainly top players who have slightly slipped down the rankings, but enjoying a, sometimes brief, resurgence in form - or up-and-coming starlets: Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina, Maria Sharapova, among the former; Petra Kvitova, Julia Goerges, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, among the latter. But her 3rd round French Open loss to Gisela Dulko, and now this Wimbledon defeat, are highly disappointing. She is a genuine contender to win any of the four Grand Slam events, but post Roland Garros 2010 has yet to play like that when it really matters.
Yet she's one of a large number of players who have a game, and a back-story (in Stosur's case, recovery from serious illness to reach new heights in her singles career), for crowds to savour; and hopefully there will be many such players gracing the Eastbourne tournament for years to come.