Tennis Thread 2014

[Tom]

With the Australian Open starting overnight thought it was time to start a new thread.

Murray plays Soeda of Japan in the opening round (ranked 112) and a qualifier in the second round.

Laura Robson has a tough start against 18th seed Kirsten Flipkens, while Heather Watson came through qualifying amongst general disappointment for the other Brits with no one else making the final round. She plays 31st seed Daniela Hantuchova. So bad starts for the girls, especially Heather although i'm not sure whether I'd have expected her to win R1 anyway. She didn't seem to be playing particularly well in the qualifying matches, her 2nd match apart, and even that 2nd match was a match I thought she'd win easily anyway. It was more a case of getting the job done.

No Murray on Day 1 but both Heather and Laura are on show courts, Court 2 for Heather, and Court 3 for Laura. Neither is one of the 3 main courts so Eurosport I assume won't show them unfortunately, (but will double check on the off chance i'm wrong). But they should be streamed though, Show Court 3 was covered on the Australian Open site in qualifying. Unfortunately they are both playing at the same time, in a exact repeat of Day 1 at the US Open last year when both Dan Evans and Laura kicked off the day's play. Guess it could be worse, they could be in the middle of the day's play...

[Panda]

Pat Rafter's coming out of retirement to play in the doubles with Lleyton Hewitt!

[Elmer]

Murray is already the only British competitor left and he's not even struck a bat yet.

[Tom]

Jan 13, 2014 23:31:52 GMT 1 Elmer said:

Murray is already the only British competitor left and he's not even struck a bat yet.

Panda didn't know that!

Hardly a surprise though with the draws that Laura and Heather had.

Didn't see either match but heard the 5 Live coverage for the majority of both matches and judging from the scorelines and the comments, an awful performance from Laura but a decent one from Heather. They blamed Laura's performance on being very rusty but whether that can explain a performance as bad as that i'm not sure. Of greater concern is that she was set to see a specialist today. If she has to rest and misses the Fed Cup next month then it's unlikely that GB will progress to April's promotion play-offs. In fact they may not even finish top of their group to reach the final of the round robin stage (where the winners of the ties go through to the April playoffs) if they get a tough draw. Last year's draw seemed like it was a good one, I remember just feeling relieved that we got through, so we may not get one as good as that this year. It was always going to be tougher this time round when the squad is weaker.

Heather on the hand can be really pleased with her Australian Open. I did read a comment from one person before the main draw that she was back to her best, didn't agree at the time and whilst i'm still not sure i'd go that far now, she's not far off it. Unfortunately it's going to be tough for her to get back into the Top 100 as she's going to drop to around 160 apparently, didn't realise it would be quite as far as that. 

Saw the last 2 sets of the Murray match this morning and from that and reading about the first set on the BBC site, whilst it was a match where he didn't have much to gain it was a fairly good performance. Incredible that today's play in any of the matches wasn't suspended when temps hit 42C! It's funny I thought there was an Extreme Heat Policy for things like this, if this isn't a good time to implement it then what's the point?

Finally, apparently Kyle Edmund is very likely to play in the Davis Cup against USA next month on clay. Surprising but Leon Smith Davis Cup captain made a surprising and big call in each tie last year and was vindicated both times.

[Panda]

Jan 14, 2014 21:13:15 GMT 1 Tom said:

Panda didn't know that!

They lost in the 1st round.

[rewardman]

It will be interesting to see how Murray does in the later stages against some tougher opposition.

Presumably he is completely fit after the time out to fix his back but how match sharp can he be after the lay off?

[rewardman]

Watching the Federer match right now.

[rewardman]

It's Andy Murray now versus some French chap called Millot.

[rewardman]

Watching Fognini (Italy) -v- Querrey (US)

[Tom]

Jan 16, 2014 0:35:11 GMT 1 Panda said:

Jan 14, 2014 21:13:15 GMT 1 Tom said:

Panda didn't know that!

They lost in the 1st round.

Yep, straight sets too. They were playing 2 Top 50 players, but I dunno, thought they might do a bit better than that. I did wonder whether they might extend the partnership beyond this tournament (not thinking general tour events here, just slams) but after this defeat I assume they'll put it to bed and treat it as a one-off. If they had won they'd have played Jamie Murray and his Aussie partner in the next round... Speaking of Jamie, on Thursday after his first round win he suffered from heat exhaustion 20 mins after the match finished and had to be treated for a couple of hours afterwards, just as well the match didn't go to a third set! (Andy seemed to be affected by Jamie's health for the first 2 and half sets of his 2nd round match later in the day - the commentators suggested, probably without knowing why, that he looked like he had a lot on his mind). Unfortunately I feared it might have a knock-on effect and sadly I was right to be as they lost overnight 6-4 6-4, really poor, to opponents who they'd already faced twice this year, first a straight sets win 6-3 6-4 and gave a walkover in the second (Jamie was suffering from a back injury going into the AO which during his co-commentary on 5 Live on the first day he said wasn't 100%). Butorac is also Jamie's former long-term doubles partner (who he played with again a couple of years ago at Wimbledon IIRC). Hewitt/Rafter's scoreline against the same opponents incidentally was 6-4 7-5.

Great 3 set win for Ross Hutchins on his grand slam return on Wednesday alongside Colin Fleming, and though I didn't give them a hope of knockout out the 7th seeds overnight it seems they didn't do quite as well in the 3 set defeat, lost 6 games in a row in the final set started off by Fleming being broken to love. 

[rewardman]

Glad to see that Murray has made it to the Q-F relatively unscathed.

Next up is Federer.

[rewardman]

It was not to be for Murray :-(

www.bbc.com/sport/0/tennis/25805085

[rewardman]

Watched some of the Nadal match earlier. Now it's Federer against Murray. So far Federer has been excellent.

To be honest it would have been better if Federer and Nadal could have contested the final given the loss of Djokovic in his quarter however that can't be due to the seeding.

If I could get my wish it would be for Federer to go on and win the tournament now.

[Tom]

Jan 22, 2014 17:24:29 GMT 1 rewardman said:

Watched some of the Nadal match earlier. Now it's Federer against Murray. So far Federer has been excellent.

To be honest it would have been better if Federer and Nadal could have contested the final given the loss of Djokovic in his quarter however that can't be due to the seeding.

If I could get my wish it would be for Federer to go on and win the tournament now.

4 set defeat for Murray as I expected and a really good performance from him. He got better with each set.
I wouldn't rule out Wawrinka just yet, assuming he gets past Berdych which I hope he will. I think he's capable of beating Nadal, but if he faces Federer I'm not sure I see him winning. To be even contemplating Federer winning a grand slam title though isn't something I thought i'd be saying this year. At the start of the year I thought the first half of the year was defining, plenty of points to defend and failure to defend them meaning that he'd be seeded to play the big guns earlier at Wimbledon or US open. Ultimately I thought his place in the Top 8 and the tour finals at the end of the year would be under threat, and if he didn't make it he'd probably retire. But so far so good, he's defended his points from last year and if he can go on a run at Wimbledon (assuming he defends his points at the French) he could even challenge for the Top 4 again. I can't help but think this may be his best chance of winning a grand slam title though.

One for Panda Dom Inglot had an excellent win against the 7th seeds (who'd beaten Fleming/Hutchins in the previous round) and then faced Butorac/Klassen who after beating Hewitt/Rafter and Jamie Murray/Peers in the previous rounds then knocked out the Bryan brothers
And they then knocked out Inglot and Treat Huey to reach the semi finals which was a disappointing result, didn't even sound like it was a high quality match either. Apparently Klaasen played off his head against the Bryans though so it puts Hewitt/Rafter and Jamie Murray's results against them into perspective.

[rewardman]

Federer has been such a tremendous ambassador for the game that I just think it would be terrific for him to get one more slam title before he does call it a day.

It is a testament to his work ethic that he still has the game and fitness to reach this stage of a tournament.

I tend to agree that if he were to slip down the rankings that his pride wouldn't let him keep playing on.

[rewardman]

Stanislas Wawrinka beat Tomas Berdych to reach his first Grand Slam final and raise the prospect of an all-Swiss title decider at the Australian Open.
The 28-year-old, seeded seventh, defeated the Czech eighth seed 6-3 6-7 (1-7) 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7-4).

BBC Sport online

[rewardman]

Roger Federer believes Stefan Edberg can help him end a seven-year losing Grand Slam run against Rafael Nadal.
Federer, 32, will take on Nadal in the semi-finals of the Australian Open at 08:30 GMT on Friday.

And the sixth-seeded Swiss believes his new coaching set-up will be an asset in his attempt to beat the world number one.
"I'm looking forward to speaking to Stefan," said Federer, whose last win over the Spaniard at a major was in the 2007 Wimbledon final.

BBC Sport online

[rewardman]

Just woke up and discovered that, sadly, Nadal was too strong for Federer in the semi. A straight sets win for the Spaniard.

[rewardman]

Watched the latter stages of the clash between Federer and Nadal.

Sad to see Roger walk off court at the end after his defeat.

I think he may well call it a day at the end of this season if he doesn't reach a grand slam final never mind win one.

I just don't think he wants to hang around making up the numbers after all those years of great victories.

[Tom]

Jan 24, 2014 17:23:42 GMT 1 rewardman said:

Watched the latter stages of the clash between Federer and Nadal.

Sad to see Roger walk off court at the end after his defeat.

I think he may well call it a day at the end of this season if he doesn't reach a grand slam final never mind win one.

I just don't think he wants to hang around making up the numbers after all those years of great victories.

He said his main aim this year was to win two titles IIRC, but what stood out to me was that he didn't specifically mention grand slam titles. He stated in the past he wants Olympic gold in the singles in Rio 2016, not something he's done before. But I said last year that I didn't see him hanging around that long if he's not a genuine contender to win and nothing has changed. He may carry on another year depending on how the year pans out, but I'd be shocked if he's still playing in 2016.