San Jose aka Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic WTA 500

[jimlosaltos]

This, to me, is a great sign for Naomi Osaka. Despite losing to Coco in a night match, she hung around signing autographs and doing selfies, continuing on out into the parking lot.

Hope she stays happy, and secondarily commits to her tennis.

Fan photo unk.

[stotty]

I do love these impact shots where the ball shows thru both front & back of the racket at the same time.

Requires severe smackage Veronika Kudermetova can deliver.

She was a semifinalist yesterday in singles and in doubles.

P.S. If you're a real wonk, and have a good monitor, you can see the strings distended on the back and how the ball is asymmetrically compressed.

Click on the image to enlarge slightly. Click twice more and you can enlarge a bit more. Just discovered that.

Stunningly good impact photo. Has anyone told you you're pretty good at this taking photos business?

[jimlosaltos]

Stunningly good impact photo. Has anyone told you you're pretty good at this taking photos business?

Ah, gee shucks. Thank you! Glad you liked them.

Yes, on occasion, but I can stand hearing it more often <g>

[jimlosaltos]

Daria Kasatkina capped a good week all around by winning the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose Sunday.

Dasha had an up-and-down week but played great when she needed to. She had to beat Rybakina, the WImbledon champ in the first round !

Then, she and Aryna Sabalenka had one of the absolutely worst matches of the year -- combing for 36 double faults between them. When MC Krasney tried to give her an excuse about the wind (which actually didn't show up in the morning) to her credit she laughed and "There is no excuse. We played terribly". Sometimes you gotta' win ugly.

But next she raised her level multiple notches to take out number two seed Paula Badosa and Sunday, surprise finalist Shelby Rogers, who seemed to beat all the other seeds that Dasha missed.

Against both bigger hitters, Dasha pushed them back by hitting high top spin shoots with remarkably consistent depth up the middle to push them back, then hit some great wide winners on run. Celebrated by hugging her girlfriend, after bravely coming out against the war in Ukraine and as gay - both of which can get her jailed back home in Russia.

Per a local paper the event had 4 consecutive sell out days of "2,250 fans packing into the temporary tennis stadium on the San Jose State campus" and "a venue record of 23,250".
Let's try a second link, click here.

From Ann Killion's article:
.

She spoke with empathy about Ukrainian athletes who have nowhere to train.
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“I can’t imagine what it’s like to have no home,” she said.
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But the reality is that Kasatkina might have no home country after her comments.

.

One final photograph:

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[klacr]

Awesome second day of San Jose (and I don't often say that about a tennis tournament's early rounds).

Naomi Osaka is happy. Playing tennis. And happy about playing tennis. Great news all around! Needed her big serve, 11 aces worth to get by 19 year tennis phenom Zheng Qinwen.

Zheng looks like the real deal. Beat Halep at the French, Sloane at Wimbledon, and was the first woman at Wimbledon to get a set off Iga. Very athletic. Possibly taller than her listed 6 ft 1 in. Great groundies. Not sure about her service motion ( John, have you seen her ? )

First time for Camila Giorgi in San Jose and she put up a spirited fight losing in 3 but the gymnastic athleticism was fun to watch.

I wonder what it is like to coach Camila? Coach: "Our strategy will be to hit everything as hard as you can." CG: "Great idea, coach! What if I hit ever harder on big points?" Coach: "Awesome ! "

Up soon, Coco vs Naomi -- popcorn match ... two of my photos copyright me, Camila and Zheng ⬇︎

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Sorry I'm late to this thread. Thanks for starting this Jim.

I have some intel and familiarity on Qinwen Zheng. I am close friends with her coach Pere Riba. I have also consulted with them the past 3 years (since 2020) when Qinwen was based in Spain doing home gym workouts at the house of another friend and colleague, Julian Alonso. She trained and practiced with WTA player Arantxa Rus throughout Covid under quarantine on a private court.

Her team and I had a mini training camp earlier this year after Australian open and will have another one scheduled in a few weeks after the Cincinnati tournament here at my club in Boca Raton. Qinwen needs to be more stable in some parts of her game. She likes to hit the ball at various speeds, and by various speeds I mean hard, harder, hardest and nuclear. Her serve is a work in progress (then again, aren't we all?) . Her results are up and down because of her wide variance in levels. Trying to rein that in.

The good news is, she is young, hungry and represented by IMG so her future looks bright.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA, PTR
Delray Beach
SETS Consulting

http://www.setsconsult.org

[jimlosaltos]

Sorry I'm late to this thread. Thanks for starting this Jim.

I have some intel and familiarity on Qinwen Zheng. I am close friends with her coach Pere Riba. I have also consulted with them the past 3 years (since 2020) when Qinwen was based in Spain doing home gym workouts at the house of another friend and colleague, Julian Alonso. She trained and practiced with WTA player Arantxa Rus throughout Covid under quarantine on a private court.

Her team and I had a mini training camp earlier this year after Australian open and will have another one scheduled in a few weeks after the Cincinnati tournament here at my club in Boca Raton. Qinwen needs to be more stable in some parts of her game. She likes to hit the ball at various speeds, and by various speeds I mean hard, harder, hardest and nuclear. Her serve is a work in progress (then again, aren't we all?) . Her results are up and down because of her wide variance in levels. Trying to rein that in.

The good news is, she is young, hungry and represented by IMG so her future looks bright.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA, PTR
Delray Beach
SETS Consulting
http://www.setsconsult.org

Thanks a lot for the input Kyle!

Good luck. She looks very promising.