Tag: Jessica Pegula

A Few Days In Eastbourne, Mostly For The Tennis, 25 to 29 June 2024

Leylah, you’ve got me on my knees…

Janie and I had enjoyed our time at Eastbourne so much in 2023…

A Short Break In Eastbourne, Mostly For The International Tennis Tournament, 25 to 28 June 2023

…we decided to book three days of Eastbourne tennis for 2024: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Tuesday Evening

On the Tuesday evening we met Linda Wrobel (formerly Linda Phillips) for dinner. Linda lives in Bexhill, which, me being a died-in-the-wool Londoner, seemed to me to have no proximity whatsoever to Eastbourne. But last year, when I posted about our Eastbourne trip on Facebook, Linda messaged me wondering what the hell Janie and I were doing in Eastbourne without contacting and meeting Linda!

Linda first came to our Airbnb to have a look around, then we wandered round to the same Thai place that Janie and I had tried the previous year.

So deep in conversation were we, that we completely forgot top take pictures of each other or of the food. Here is a picture of Janie with the food from the previous year.

It was a very enjoyable evening with Linda.

After that, three days of tennis and picnics.

We took an infeasible number of photographs on those three days, which could do with some editing into a highlights album. If you like canonical, the 200 or so pictures are in the following album:

Wednesday

On the Wednesday we saw:

  • Sebastian Baez v Miomir Kecmanovic
  • Jelena Ostapenko v Katie Boulter;
  • Emma Raducanu v Jessica Pegula;
  • Taylor Fritz v Thiago Seyboth Wild (actually we just watched the first five games of that last one).

Here are some sample pictures from the Wednesday:

Baez serves

Kecmanovic serves

Barrista serves

It was a very hot day, that Wednesday, hence the iced coffees quite early in the day.

The Boulter bounce

The Pegula pose

The Raducanu Racket March

Fritz in the Frame

The Cyborg Wildebeest

Thursday

On the Thursday we saw:

  • Flavio Cobolli v Billy Harris,
  • Jasmine Paolini v Katie Boulter,
  • Daria Kasatkina v Emma Raducanu,
  • Taylor Fritz v Juncheng Shang (again we just watched the first five games of that last one).

Cooler and breezier, it was, on the Thursday and the Friday.

Colourful Flavio

“Cousin” Billy grey in contrast

Pocket-Rocket Paolini

Dashing Daria

Hark At these Two

We can’t wait to see Juncheng Shang (depicted) play Zhizhen Zhang (who we saw last year), if only to hear umpires and commentators trying to distinguish between the names.

Friday

On the way to the ground, Janie took some pictures along the front. She even made me park up so she could photograph the bandstand

On the Friday we saw:

  • Leylah Fernandez v Madison Keys,
  • Daria Kasatkina v Jasmine Paolini,
  • Max Purcell v Billy Harris,
Leylah…

…you’ve got me on my (Madison) Keys

Jasmine & Daria chat with Kader “Barry White” Nouni

Giving the serve Max

Eastbourne seagull – conspicuously indifferent to tennis and to being photographed.

In short, we had a really great time in Eastbourne.

You can see the results of all the matches we saw on the results centre page of the tournament website – click here.

A Day At Wimbledon, Quarter Final Tuesday, Mostly On Court One, 11 July 2023

To the umpire’s left hand – Marketa Vondrousova, to his right hand – Jessica Pegula

We’ve had several lucky years of late in the Wimbledon ballot, not least last year when we scored really good centre court tickets:

And Finally…We Visit Wimbledon Centre Court On A Finals Day, 7 July 2022

This year – nada. Oh well…

…but wait! An opportunity to snap up a pair of returns…Good ones?…Quarter-finals Tuesday on Court One? Yes please!

So there we were again.

Forgive us if we look a tiny bit smug

The weather forecast was less than special but if you are on Court One you are guaranteed your main action of course.

As it turned out, it looked as thought the weather would hold through the morning, so we did our usual thing of setting off reasonably early to catch a bit of smaller court action before our main event.

First up, we fancied seeing some juniors tennis and chose Viktor Frydrych (of Great Britain) v Darwin Blanch (USA) on Court 12.

17-year-old Frydrych top, 15-year-old Blanch below

We saw Frydrych win the first set but I thought Blanch the more promising player given the age difference, plus the power and accuracy Blanch demonstrated at such a young age.

We moved on to Court 3 to catch the first set of a doubles match: Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski v Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson:

Umpire Fergus Murphy explains the rules to all four of them

Skupski top, Thompson below

Koolhof serves as Skupski waits to pounce

Koolhof and Skupski started slowly and looked a little out of sorts for the first 10 minutes or so, then quickly seemed to find their footing on a blowy day. Never let it be said that I don’t spot winners when I choose our morning of outer court viewing.

Still looking a bit smug

Then we needed to hot-foot it to Court One to be sure to catch the start of the quarter final action. Jessica Pegula v Marketa Vondrousova.

Do we look a little out of breath? We were there in time, just about. The nice lady with the pink cardigan behind us turned out to be even more of a tennis badger than us – she’s a self-confessed addict.

In truth, I wasn’t expecting this to be a great match because I thought that Vondrousova’s lack of form/experience on grass would be exploited by Pegula. What do I know?

In the end, it was actually a great match, with twists and turns and passages of great tennis.

Pegula top, Vondrousova below

After the rain/roof delay, Vondrousova took control and turned the match around. We were very impressed with her but still, frankly, did not expect her to win the tournament – I don’t suppose many people did. Still, well done her.

Rishi Persad asked Marketa Vondrousova penetrating questions of the “how does it feel to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon?” variety. “Crazy” was Marketa’s pleonastic response word.

Next up, Jannik Sinner v Roman Safiullin. We were very excited to get a look at Sinner live, as we think he is a player with great potential. Again, I thought this match might be a one-sided affair as Safiullin has neither a track record on grass, nor going deep in slams. Again, this turned out to be a better match than we expected, with Sinner winning in four sets.

Safiullin serving, Sinner receiving

Apparently Sinner’s Gucci bag caused a fashionista stir

After that, rather than stick around for Invitation Doubles (or “Old Git Doubles” as I rather impolitely tend to call it), we took advantage of the improved weather and headed back to Court 3 where Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff were taking on Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva in third round doubles action.

Lovely views across Wimbledon from our seats there

Richard Haigh officiating

Laura Siegemund top, Vera Zvonareva below

Jessica top, Coco below

This was also the perfect opportunity to finish our picnic before going home. We had enjoyed our prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches during the Ladies Quarter-Final, but hadn’t felt hungry for our pork and apple sauce ones until after the Men’s Quarter-Final.

Sandwiches duly finished and Court One crowd mostly dispersed, we took our leave of Wimbledon towards the end of that Ladies Doubles match and wended our way home, “super tired but super happy”, as the young folk say.

All the photos (there are 80+ in all) can be seen on Flickr by clicking here or below.