Wimbledon 2024
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@KiwiPie said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Billy-Tell said in Wimbledon 2024:
Despite her being kiwi Swiss I have never heard of lulu sun before. Sounds like an exotic bar dancer rather than a tennis player. But fair play to her.
Born in NZ, Croatian father and Chinese mother. Switzerland from age 5 for school then USA for college.
Probably explains why I, an nz based NZer had never heard of her either ...
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@KiwiPie said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Billy-Tell said in Wimbledon 2024:
Despite her being kiwi Swiss I have never heard of lulu sun before. Sounds like an exotic bar dancer rather than a tennis player. But fair play to her.
Born in NZ, Croatian father and Chinese mother. Switzerland from age 5 for school then USA for college.
Was playing for Switzerland but changed to NZ to have a better chance of making the Olympics. Her timing appears to be impeccable....
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@canefan said in Wimbledon 2024:
@KiwiPie said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Billy-Tell said in Wimbledon 2024:
Despite her being kiwi Swiss I have never heard of lulu sun before. Sounds like an exotic bar dancer rather than a tennis player. But fair play to her.
Born in NZ, Croatian father and Chinese mother. Switzerland from age 5 for school then USA for college.
Was playing for Switzerland but changed to NZ to have a better chance of making the Olympics. Her timing appears to be impeccable....
She will have a very accurate watch.
There will be hordes of Swiss in their leather shorts descending from the Berner Oberland to dump sacks of Nazi gold and Toblerones at the gates of Roger Federer's mansion and demand she is bought back.
Literally thousands arriving between each chime of the cuckoo clock.
How are we doing, Billy?
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@nostrildamus I had a Swiss flatmate many years ago who was very insistent that the cuckoo clock was not theirs.
They've made a lot of money from them, though!
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@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:
@nostrildamus I had a Swiss flatmate many years ago who was very insistent that the cuckoo clock was not theirs.
They've made a lot of money from them, though!
Ah, sounds like french fries..
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@nostrildamus said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:
@nostrildamus I had a Swiss flatmate many years ago who was very insistent that the cuckoo clock was not theirs.
They've made a lot of money from them, though!
Ah, sounds like french fries..
Yum
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Vekic has been going to Grand Slams for 12 years.
She's been to the QFs twice - once in Oz and once at the US - she's lost both times.
That might be the sort of experience that will actually help Lulu - she'll have the fearlessness of youth on her side and the crowd should be less hostile than Raducanu's home crowd.
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Looking at the QFinalists, Donna Vekic is the one I would have picked to play if I were Lulu - so that's good.
And much to my surprise - Emma Navarro toppled Coco Gauff, who I had as comfortably the favourite to win it all. So if Lulu gets to the semis, that might be good - except she will have to beat the woman who beat Gauff - or the woman who beat the woman who beat Gauff.
Interestingly, for the Americans, Jessica Pegula (seeded 5) and Navarro are both the daughters of billionaires.
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@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:
Looking at the QFinalists, Donna Vekic is the one I would have picked to play if I were Lulu - so that's good.
And much to my surprise - Emma Navarro toppled Coco Gauff, who I had as comfortably the favourite to win it all. So if Lulu gets to the semis, that might be good - except she will have to beat the woman who beat Gauff - or the woman who beat the woman who beat Gauff.
Interestingly, for the Americans, Jessica Pegula (seeded 5) and Navarro are both the daughters of billionaires.
Pegula's parents own the Buffalo Bills and the NHL Sabres
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@1kiwi said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:
Looking at the QFinalists, Donna Vekic is the one I would have picked to play if I were Lulu - so that's good.
And much to my surprise - Emma Navarro toppled Coco Gauff, who I had as comfortably the favourite to win it all. So if Lulu gets to the semis, that might be good - except she will have to beat the woman who beat Gauff - or the woman who beat the woman who beat Gauff.
Interestingly, for the Americans, Jessica Pegula (seeded 5) and Navarro are both the daughters of billionaires.
Pegula's parents own the Buffalo Bills and the NHL Sabres
I guess they don't have to worry about paying for the cost to get to that level. Still have to have a high level of natural ability though
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It kind of makes sense, for a team sport you have massively wealthy teams that are actively trying to find and develop talent, so people who otherwise couldn't afford to get into an academy are more likely to get found. There are some programmes for individual sports (national organisations, US universities both spring to mind) but nothing like say the English football pyramid with over 100 clubs investing in players. So 'parents can afford top coaching' has more influence. Tennis in particular seems to have some incredible stories about parents working multiple jobs to pay for kids to get into academies etc.
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nah, not for tennis. no amount of coaching is going to make an average player that good, there are just too many players in the world.
Having a billionaire daddy behind you has never been a bad thing, but i don't think there is any amount of money that gets you to a grand slam QF (well, outside of outright bribery).A super quick google tells me 87 million tennis players globally, with 3,800 professionals. 128 women get in to the Wimbledon draw. you have to win 4 matches to make the quarters. No one is getting there because dad is loaded.
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@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:
@canefan said in Wimbledon 2024:
@KiwiPie said in Wimbledon 2024:
@Billy-Tell said in Wimbledon 2024:
Despite her being kiwi Swiss I have never heard of lulu sun before. Sounds like an exotic bar dancer rather than a tennis player. But fair play to her.
Born in NZ, Croatian father and Chinese mother. Switzerland from age 5 for school then USA for college.
Was playing for Switzerland but changed to NZ to have a better chance of making the Olympics. Her timing appears to be impeccable....
She will have a very accurate watch.
There will be hordes of Swiss in their leather shorts descending from the Berner Oberland to dump sacks of Nazi gold and Toblerones at the gates of Roger Federer's mansion and demand she is bought back.
Literally thousands arriving between each chime of the cuckoo clock.
How are we doing, Billy?
Good thanks mate. Swiss don’t really do marches, protests or strikes so that’s where your tale falls down…Oh, and toblerone is no longer made in Switzerland (Czech Republic from memory) hence why the Matterhorn mountain had to be replaced by a generic peak.
And yes cuckoo clock comes from Bavaria I think.
Trust you are well too.
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Absolutely loved Novak’s paranoid little tantrum on centre court last night after his match with Rune, irritated that the crowd were shouting Rune’s name which sounds a bit like booing. What a ridiculous dick that man appears to be. He said he’s seen more hostile crowds, and I’m sure he has, not least because they weren’t particularly hostile beyond wanting his opponent, who was getting crushed, to play up a bit. Really hope he’s irritated the Wimbledon crowd enough that we turn on the ultimate passive aggressive British nature and simply stay silent and tut every time he wins a point throughout his next match.
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@mariner4life I reckon what it gives them is the insurance to grind it on the lower tours which must get really expensive without the backing. Can take most players a long time for their ranking to get high enough to get into the big tournaments.
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That was a bit unfortunate for Lulu - she was looking good through to 3-3 in the second and then she ran out of gas pretty much at the same time that Vekic started choking (she served 4 or 5 double faults at 5-3 to let Lulu back into the set). Lulu's level dropped a few percent and suddenly it was pretty easy for Vekic and she stormed away without a noose in the third set.
In hindsight, the fourth game of set 1 was pretty costly - more than 10 deuces on Lulu's serve before she held - that was like four service games. A quicker hold there and she would have had gas at the end of the second.
Not all is lost. Venus and Skupski and Routliffe and Dabrowski are both through to respective doubles QFs - and Venus and Routliffe through to the third round in Mixed.
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@KiwiPie said in Wimbledon 2024:
@mariner4life I reckon what it gives them is the insurance to grind it on the lower tours which must get really expensive without the backing. Can take most players a long time for their ranking to get high enough to get into the big tournaments.
Yeah listened to an interesting podcast on this recently. Something you don't have to do if you have money.
Black Forest Cuckoo Clock History | Bavarian Clockworks
Match fixing in tennis - Wikipedia