Year Round The Tennis Thread

[goldb]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

Yes but that's during service, this was a break for treatment that went on too long.

 

[Hardy]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

But in the end it's the same tactic. He gets a rest of his exhausting playing style and gets his rival a bit off the game at the same time.

 

[Atobe the king]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

Nadal is sort of "notorious" for this (depends on how you look at it). Famous examples:
-VS Haase and Pechzner at 2010 Wimbledon, calling MTO's when they were filled with adrenaline and momentum
-VS Del Potro 2011 Wimbledon, in the middle of a tiebreak, del potro was obviously rattled and tried to retaliate with his own MTO
-VS Federer 2011 FO, Federer in god mode playing the best clay-court tennis of his life, up convincing 5-2, nadal calls MTO, federers concentration breaks, loses that set 5-7
Some other instances i may be forgetting, MTO is there but whenever this happens it generally happens when his opponent is up. Fans, and even commentators alike have alluded to the fact that this is disguised gamesmanship. I was on a tennis forum browsing during the final, several people said "MTO is coming if stans breaks early in the first set" and behold it happened. His injury does seem legit though.

Also hi, it's been a while. I enjoyed this tournament. It was full of upsets lol, glad I'm not a betting man.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

Nadal is sort of "notorious" for this (depends on how you look at it). Famous examples:
-VS Haase and Pechzner at 2010 Wimbledon, calling MTO's when they were filled with adrenaline and momentum
-VS Del Potro 2011 Wimbledon, in the middle of a tiebreak, del potro was obviously rattled and tried to retaliate with his own MTO
-VS Federer 2011 FO, Federer in god mode playing the best clay-court tennis of his life, up convincing 5-2, nadal calls MTO, federers concentration breaks, loses that set 5-7
Some other instances i may be forgetting, MTO is there but whenever this happens it generally happens when his opponent is up. Fans, and even commentators alike have alluded to the fact that this is disguised gamesmanship. I was on a tennis forum browsing during the final, several people said "MTO is coming if stans breaks early in the first set" and behold it happened. His injury does seem legit though.

Also hi, it's been a while. I enjoyed this tournament. It was full of upsets lol, glad I'm not a betting man.

Nadal would've lost the 2012 Roland Garros Final to Djokovic, if not for the timely rain delay that served as a MTO. The 2013 Roland Garros SF was just as tight.

 

[Atobe the king]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

Ah yea, Djoker had all the momentum and Nadal urged play to stop after Djoker was up 2-0 in the 4th iirc. Don't remind me of Djokers bad smash that cost hin RG ;-;

 

[goldb]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Australian Open (13/01-26/01)

Thread bump!

I heard about the ITPL coming through and the teams being chosen, what do you guys think about it? Obviously it'll be more work(and fatigue) for the players, but also more money for them and more tennis for us. (Article is HERE)

Also Indian Wells has been going on, with finals to be tonight?(I think). Federer against Djoko, with Murray having been knocked out a few rounds back. I don't think Nadal was in the draw this time.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

I like the idea of it, Bob, but I think that the tennis season should be a little shorter in general anyway.

 

[goldb]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

I like the idea of it, Bob, but I think that the tennis season should be a little shorter in general anyway.

I, too like the idea but my primary concern is players being fatigued from the end of season and not being fresh enough for the beginning of the next one.
I think over the years, we've seen some of the top players reduce their tournament schedules to allow for proper recovery, as matches become more physically demanding on the body, and I think we'll see more of that with this now in place. Especially for the likes of Nadal and Federer; who I'd see to be more injury-prone than the other top players.

---------- Post added March 29, 2014 at 07:59 AM ---------- Previous post was March 16, 2014 at 05:59 PM ----------

So both semifinals at Miami were walkovers? wtf? BOTH?! So annoying for the fans who pay their tickets and travel to see players. Well, at least it sets up a mouth watering final between Nadal and Djokovic.

 

[Atobe the king]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

That was so eerie lol....and the final was a comprehensive beating lol.

 

[Josef]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

Wow, no talk about the french open? It seems Novak can't just beat Rafa on clay, it really means a lot to Nadal when he plays on clay, but currently and overall I think Rafa is the better man of the two in terms of tennis. Wimbledon is filled with surprises so there can be some twists and turns, but Roland Garros is the shining example of Rafa's top dominance and form in a year.

As for the ladies, there are always twists and turns there, Sharapova is one day down, one day up, her form however has been a bit more consistent now. Hope to see more from her.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

Yeah, Novak just didn't have it today. After the first set, he started to look out of energy and ended up putting in some poor efforts at the end of sets. There were moments in the second set where it looked like Djokovic had it, but then it slipped away.

In terms of Sharapova, her opponents utterly mentally collapsed in those third sets. Halep was the only one who didn't completely fold. I think that this says more about the state of women's tennis than anything. It was pretty pathetic to see as a whole tournament.

 

[Atobe the king]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

I wanted Bouchard to take the womens :< biased, i find her cute lol.

Djoker was throwing up in the third...Nadals back flared up and he was so sore he couldn't even pose for the trophy. It was nice seeing both of them moved to tears..the passion is there. This is the first time i saw the wear and tear finally apparent in these guys, especially Nadal. The final was dramatic but the level of play compared to their epic last year was zzzzzz. Hopefully wimbledon is interesting.

---------- Post added at 04:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------

Wow, no talk about the french open? It seems Novak can't just beat Rafa on clay, it really means a lot to Nadal when he plays on clay, but currently and overall I think Rafa is the better man of the two in terms of tennis. Wimbledon is filled with surprises so there can be some twists and turns, but Roland Garros is the shining example of Rafa's top dominance and form in a year.

As for the ladies, there are always twists and turns there, Sharapova is one day down, one day up, her form however has been a bit more consistent now. Hope to see more from her.

*Novak can't beat Rafa @ Roland Garos. He beat him at Rome a few weeks ago and was on a 4 match win streak. Novak looked actually sick out there (throwing up like i mentioned earlier). Novak has been more consistent than Rafa pretty much everywhere else this year except for Australia..losing to the man who took out both of them anyway. Last two years the effort of RG has caused Rafa to severely under perform at SW19 (probably why the FO/WI double is such a revered achievement).

If Nadal doesn't go out early again he's defending nothing at Wimbledon so he can pick up points. Novak defending a final...after that however Nadal is defending Canada/Cinci/USO...so it'll be interesting to see how that works out for him.

Also hoping Del Potro makes a return this year...really tired of the guys who can mix things up getting injured all the time.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

Also hoping Del Potro makes a return this year...really tired of the guys who can mix things up getting injured all the time.

I think that it's that they have to push themselves so hard to stay with the true top guys that they end up hurting themselves. Soderling obviously has mono, so that's a different story, but Del Potro's had wrist issues for most of the time that we've known his name. Wawrinka lacks consistency and hasn't been the same player since the Australian Open, #3 ranking be damned.

Look at Raonic. He needs to develop his game a bit more before he can actually challenge the top few, but he's already got his entire arm in a sleeve, which can't bode well for the future. Gulbis has tape on his leg or something, I think.

I get the feeling that when Nadal and Djokovic retire (and I think Murray might retire before they do), men's tennis isn't going to have that one or two dominant guys anymore, sort of like how it used to be. 97/100 days, Nadal or Djokovic beat anyone that they face, but the rest of the top 15 men can win or lose to any of the other 10-15 guys. I'm including Murray in that second tier, even though he did get two Majors last season. Federer's obviously in that second tier these days.

 

[Atobe the king]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

Yeah old man fed is in that second tier. Murray is...somewhere in between haha. He's slowly getting back to his form. He did make roland garros semis when clay is definitely his weakest surface. I don't think he's retaining this wimbledon title though.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- French Open (26/05-08/06)

Yeah old man fed is in that second tier. Murray is...somewhere in between haha. He's slowly getting back to his form. He did make roland garros semis when clay is definitely his weakest surface. I don't think he's retaining this wimbledon title though.

Yeah, Murray is somewhere in between. I'd say that Murray had the easiest path to the SFs, though, and he would've lost to Kohlschreiber in the third round if the match hadn't been suspended due to darkness. Monfils blew the fifth set (losing 6-0 in the final set after you'd won the fourth 6-1, really?), handing Murray that match in the QFs.

Both Djokovic and Nadal had pretty tough opponents at times on the way to the SFs. Ferrer seemingly had the easiest opponents of the four through the QFs (obviously losing to Nadal there), but he made it to the Final last season and we know he's quality on clay.

Gulbis actually had to face Federer, Berdych, and then Djokovic in a row, which is quite difficult. He's ranked #10 now, so props to him for cracking the top 10 for the first time.

 

[goldb]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Wimbledon (23/06-06/07)

I've added a poll question to the thread, about Nadal and his reign in Paris. Interested to know your thoughts.

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Wimbledon (23/06-06/07)

I think that Nadal can win 4-5 more, Bob, assuming he packs it in when he starts getting older and doesn't keep stretching it out. It's clearly not going to happen for Djokovic at Roland Garros at this point, and there aren't any other players that can push Nadal over five sets on clay, barring that one match with Isner a few years ago, so...

Of course, that's all dependent on Nadal's body not falling apart within the next year or two.

 

[Hardy]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Wimbledon (23/06-06/07)

I wanted Bouchard to take the womens :< biased, i find her cute lol.

Of course, that's all dependent on Nadal's body not falling apart within the next year or two.

I'm pretty sure it will, lol.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a revelation for a while now. Like, Nadal used to kick ass since his teens, there isn't anything like that atm

 

[FrostyMouse]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Wimbledon (23/06-06/07)

I'm pretty sure it will, lol.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a revelation for a while now. Like, Nadal used to kick ass since his teens, there isn't anything like that atm

Well, his body has fallen apart at times, but it's always recovered. Last year, I thought that Nadal was done, but then he came back perhaps stronger than ever.

 

[goldb]

Re: The Tennis Thread- Wimbledon (23/06-06/07)

I think that Nadal can win 4-5 more, Bob, assuming he packs it in when he starts getting older and doesn't keep stretching it out. It's clearly not going to happen for Djokovic at Roland Garros at this point, and there aren't any other players that can push Nadal over five sets on clay, barring that one match with Isner a few years ago, so...

Of course, that's all dependent on Nadal's body not falling apart within the next year or two.

With Nadal winning RG, the question for the last few years has been about his fitness and how his legs can cope with the pressure he puts on them. I myself believe he can win another 2 at least. I'd like him to reach 10 before he retires. That number and I'll be happy with and he'll also be only 2(?) behind Federer; assuming he doesn't win any other Slams before RG 2015.

And about Gulbis; he has been around for a quite a number of years now. I would say I'm rather disappointed that it's taken this much time for him to break into the top 10. That's to say I had seen his potential early on and I think it's taken him a lot longer to realise them that I would've thought. Also, this speaks to the difficulty of cracking that men's top 10 and the ability of the players within that.