2025 Green Acres: The Strawberry Lounge

[Oploskoffie]

Welcome to the Strawberry Lounge! Where the strawberries are organic, plump, and above all: tasty! Where the cream is heavy, yet whipped up into state of fluffiness on par with the dreamiest of clouds! And where any and all players, results, weather conditions and everything else can be discussed during this year's Green Acres

[Oploskoffie]

Now, while the orange dust hasn't even had a chance to settle in Paris, the grass court season had already started during the second week of Roland Garros. Or their third week, depending on who you ask Anyways...

Several category C through E players played in the Birmingham ATP Challenger/WTA 125 tournament and the seeds, overall, have not had a great week with Parks, Belluci, Eala and Nishioka out in the first round. While we tend to focus on the (usually) higher scoring category A and B picks, last year's tournament was won by a difference of a mere 43 points, proving once again that every choice can count.

The ATP Challenger results can be found here: https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/curre ... 4940/draws

The WTA 125 results can be found here: https://www.wtatennis.com/tournaments/1 ... 2025/draws

[jazzyg]

No D players picked made the quarterfinals of any of the four tournaments. For that matter, no D male player period made it to a quarterfinal. Suzan Lamens, whom I've never heard of, and Tatjana Maria made it for the women.

Opelka, who got into the Libema Open draw as a lucky loser, and Andreescu made it from E. Cocciaretto, who was not picked, joined them.

[ashkor87]

Welcome to the Strawberry Lounge! Where the strawberries are organic, plump, and above all: tasty! Where the cream is heavy, yet whipped up into state of fluffiness on par with the dreamiest of clouds! And where any and all players, results, weather conditions and everything else can be discussed during this year's Green Acres

the strawberries in this lounge sound much more tasty than what you actually get at Wimbledon- I get disappointed year after year.. the strawberries are ok but the cream is weak and watery and just plain yuk

[Oploskoffie]

the strawberries in this lounge sound much more tasty than what you actually get at Wimbledon- I get disappointed year after year.. the strawberries are ok but the cream is weak and watery and just plain yuk

That sounds like quite the disappointment And apparently a portion consists of about five strawberries?

[Oploskoffie]

No D players picked made the quarterfinals of any of the four tournaments. For that matter, no D male player period made it to a quarterfinal. Suzan Lamens, whom I've never heard of, and Tatjana Maria made it for the women.

Opelka, who got into the Libema Open draw as a lucky loser, and Andreescu made it from E. Cocciaretto, who was not picked, joined them.

The battle of the E's! While I didn't seriously consider Opelka, I did keep an eye on him, saw he lost in qualifying and thought "toodles" only to find out the next day he was in the main draw after all. Still, from last year I remembered Andreescu really, really enjoying being at the Libema Open and thought she had "a draw with opportunities...". So far, so hopeful!

[ponchi101]

My strategy for the E players is truing to pick somebody that will actually get to play a lot, and that may have a shot at a QF here and there.
My trophy chest shows how good that strategy is.

[jazzyg]

Andreescu went down in flames today when she appeared to have a clear path to the final after winning easily over Sun, who had more grass credentials than anyone she would have faced until then.

[texasniteowl]

well...I basically flipped a coin between Keys and Rybakina and ended up going with Rybakina...who lost today. I also went with Samsonova over Alexandrova. Those are only 2 of my week 1 regrets....

[jazzyg]

Alexandrova blew 11 match points over three games in the second set against Mertens today. That has to be close to an all-time record on the WTA tour.

She had five at 5-4 on Mertens' serve, five more at at 6-5 on Mertens' serve and one on her own serve at 6-5 in the tiebreak. She was up 6-2, 5-3 at one point. Then she was up 4-3 and a break in the third set. Unbelievable.

Meanwhile, Keys never broke 37-year-old Maria's serve and had only one break point in her 6-3, 7-6 loss at Queen's Club. Maria took out both of my A players (Rybakina and Keys) in back-to-back matches, which had to be a 1,000 to 1 chance going in. For anyone who wants to point out her prowess on grass, Maria was 2-6 on grass in WTA 250 or above tournaments since her run to the Wimbledon semis in 2022, and she was coming off a first-round loss to the No. 229 player in the world at a 125 before this event. I have no words.

[ponchi101]

I just saw the highlights for the Maria/Keys match. maria just slapped every shot with underspin and slice. Maddie (in the highlights) maybe hit two shot that were over her knees.
A masterful display of junk tennis.
And the Alexandrova debacle is nothing short of miraculous. Guess who had Rybakina and Alexandrova on his team?

[jazzyg]

Vondrousova is the only E pick to reach a quarterfinal this week.

Bublik made it there from D.

Boulter and lucky loser Jabeur made it there from C.

Ashkor picked all but Jabeur from those groups before heading to the Himalayas.

[ponchi101]

And a lot of us switched Sinner for Zverev.

[Oploskoffie]

All I can think of at the moment is how amused I'm going to be if Medvedev wins Halle after I traded him out, being the only one to pick him in the first place. Obviously/probably Sinner and Alcaraz were the more logical cat. A options, statistically at least, but still.

[jazzyg]

I knew Lehecka was playing better than Draper all week at Queen's Club, but I didn't really think he would beat him after watching him serve four consecutive double faults last week in the final game to hand Shelton a match after being dominant on his serve to that point. But both of them played like they had all tournament in a very high quality match, and Lehecka won, ending any realistic chance of me winning this thing.

So while Oploskoffie understandably rues dropping Medvedev, being one of only two Lehecka pickers makes up for it.