#my actual experience of the iga match was sleeping through it which has happened with much of the tennis tonight i fear

[batsplat]

caught up with the iga match. she is on one this tournament

welllllll I have been here too often with igatha at this point... like I think it's lovely for her that she has such ready access to the bakery when she's comfortable in a match-up, but she's also had plenty of tournaments by now where she's looked very potent in early rounds and ultimately ended up being quite disappointing. when she's winning and feels comfortable winning, she often posts ridiculous scorelines!! it's a cool calling card and obviously raducanu is a bit of a Name, but I am trying to resist reading too much into it

I saw most of her second round match against sramkova and she looked really good, forehand firing and all that, but again - this doesn't NECESSARILY give me much confidence for how she'll fare in latter stages. I didn't see much in that match I haven't seen plenty of times before, which is FINE because she doesn't need anything other than her A game to beat that type of opponent. but still!! we need to see her in situations where she needs something other than her A game

that being said!! she does have something important going for her that she hasn't in quite a few non-rg slams in the last couple years: the draw. I didn't have raducanu circled as someone who could cause iga trouble - and actually looking at her draw, she's now distinctly short on anyone who SHOULD be able to challenge her until the semis. she's playing lys next and then the winner of navarro/dasha. in the semis she might have to face rybakina or keys or collins (for her it'd be good if paolini makes it through that section) but... as far as I'm concerned, if iga makes semis then that'd already be a positive tournament for her. that's further than she's gotten in *any* non-rg tournament since winning uso 2022. I think she'll make it! if you look at all her slam losses since that time --

-- they all do fall in the category of 'surprising but I can see how that happened'. (this isn't just hindsight 20/20, these were all prospective matches that were categorised at least as 'tricky' in my head.) noskova, penko, putintseva, ryba hard flat hitters who iga struggles against; svito, jpeg just generally high quality opponents who played a tactically smart match and also played an offensive game in those specific matches. nobody in her draw path until the semis has the same vibe as one of those names. I have to say, I am kind of hoping rybakina makes it to the semi to face her there... swiatek's beaten her this year already but rybakina has looked pretty scary herself in this tournament. they've actually both looked a bit more convincing to the eye test than sabalenka or gauff, though I still think sabalenka and gauff are the favourites for the title. idk!! my pre-tournament prediction was sabalenka and I kinda stand by that, but I really would like to see all four of them in the semis for once so that we can actually have it out