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Post by rubcale on Jul 18, 2016 18:00:56 GMT 1
Got very edgy in the third set.
I thought he was finished when he failed to serve out at 5-4, he did well to take it to the tie-break but it looked all over when he trailed 2-4.
Had the match gone to a fourth set I really think he was gone - his legs had gone leaden.
Don't really know enough about him to have a strong opinion - wasn't impressed with him at Wimbledon but then clay would appear to be his best surface.
He really needs someone a la Lendl to guide him immediately. Does he relly have the dedication?
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Post by rubcale on Jul 19, 2016 11:42:43 GMT 1
AndyM has decided not to defend his Toronto Masters title next week (beat Djokovic in last year's final) saying his body requires more time to recover from Wimbledon.
Probably a wise decision as even if he won USO in addition to retaining Toronto he would still lag Djokovic in rankings. He seems to have his mind set on retaining the Olympic title.
I don't know how the system operates. I thought the Masters events were mandatory but you quite often hear of a player dropping out of one for no apparent hard and fast reason.
Don't think I will be re-watching the Wimbledon final very much. Put it on last night and it felt a bit flat and curiously unexciting.
The 2013 final is different though - no atter how often we view it it's nerve tingling and compulsive viewing. The final game is excruciating.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 19, 2016 18:29:16 GMT 1
Got very edgy in the third set. I thought he was finished when he failed to serve out at 5-4, he did well to take it to the tie-break but it looked all over when he trailed 2-4. Had the match gone to a fourth set I really think he was gone - his legs had gone leaden. Don't really know enough about him to have a strong opinion - wasn't impressed with him at Wimbledon but then clay would appear to be his best surface. He really needs someone a la Lendl to guide him immediately. Does he relly have the dedication? He was disappointing at Wimbledon but I've thought for a few years now that that's his worst surface, just doesn't look as comfortable on it on the whole.
Struggling to get what you mean by that last line. He's maybe changed coaches too much for someone so young, but he is still young and maturing as a player. I get the impression he's always looking at the long term, purely in age terms he's still a long way off his peak, and he's also level-headed, not sure I've come across a British player more so than him which I think helped at the end of that third set after he'd failed to serve it out. I think many other players could have lost it 7-5 after that.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 19, 2016 18:35:45 GMT 1
AndyM has decided not to defend his Toronto Masters title next week (beat Djokovic in last year's final) saying his body requires more time to recover from Wimbledon. Probably a wise decision as even if he won USO in addition to retaining Toronto he would still lag Djokovic in rankings. He seems to have his mind set on retaining the Olympic title. I don't know how the system operates. I thought the Masters events were mandatory but you quite often hear of a player dropping out of one for no apparent hard and fast reason. Don't think I will be re-watching the Wimbledon final very much. Put it on last night and it felt a bit flat and curiously unexciting. The 2013 final is different though - no atter how often we view it it's nerve tingling and compulsive viewing. The final game is excruciating. I didn't expect him to play Toronto this year in the first place but surprised he's pulled out at this stage. He's talked about going for the No 1 ranking which he's never been bothered about before but I think this ends any chance of him doing it this year. Even if he had played and it was close at the end of the year I thought the Davis Cup not having ranking points anymore would prove significant. He's got a lot of Davis Cup points coming off from the quarter finals onwards.
And not sure how the Masters events operate either but it seems you can maybe skip one of them.
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Post by rubcale on Jul 23, 2016 11:57:02 GMT 1
Johanna Konta has reached the semis in Stanford but she struggled to baet Zhend who is ranked 56 places below her 6-2 4-6 6-3.
She now plays Dominika Cibulkova in the semis and this is the sort of match she should be winning if she is to rise further up the rankings.
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Post by Tom on Jul 23, 2016 19:14:31 GMT 1
Johanna Konta has reached the semis in Stanford but she struggled to baet Zhend who is ranked 56 places below her 6-2 4-6 6-3. She now plays Dominika Cibulkova in the semis and this is the sort of match she should be winning if she is to rise further up the rankings. I was following the score last night and when she dropped the 2nd set out of nowhere I got worried she was going to throw it all away. Thankfully regrouped, presumably after her customary break before a third set (there was a break before the third set started), and got the job done. Interesting that she's played Zheng 3 times this year now, straight sets win at the Australian Open, straight sets defeat in Nottingham and now this 3 set win.
Also interesting that you seem to think it's going to be a straightforward win tonight. Cibulkova is higher ranked and beat her in Hobart at the start of the year so I think this may be where her run ends, especially after the win last night which took 2hr 21 mins. She has got a doubles match after so hopefully she can win one of them at least.
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Post by rubcale on Jul 23, 2016 19:20:30 GMT 1
Johanna Konta has reached the semis in Stanford but she struggled to baet Zhend who is ranked 56 places below her 6-2 4-6 6-3. She now plays Dominika Cibulkova in the semis and this is the sort of match she should be winning if she is to rise further up the rankings. I was following the score last night and when she dropped the 2nd set out of nowhere I got worried she was going to throw it all away. Interesting that she's played Zheng 3 times this year now, straight sets win at the Australian Open, straight sets defeat in Nottingham and now this 3 set win.
Also interesting that you seem to think it's going to be a straightforward win tonight. Cibulkova is higher ranked and beat her in Hobart at the start of the year so I think this may be where her run ends. She has got a doubles match after so hopefully she can win one of them at least.
I'm not expressing myself well. I actually think JoKo will lose tonight but it is the level of player who she needs to stand nose-to-nose with if she is to make further progress. I'm not optimistic about the next few months when she starts to have to defend good points.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 23, 2016 19:27:23 GMT 1
I was following the score last night and when she dropped the 2nd set out of nowhere I got worried she was going to throw it all away. Interesting that she's played Zheng 3 times this year now, straight sets win at the Australian Open, straight sets defeat in Nottingham and now this 3 set win.
Also interesting that you seem to think it's going to be a straightforward win tonight. Cibulkova is higher ranked and beat her in Hobart at the start of the year so I think this may be where her run ends. She has got a doubles match after so hopefully she can win one of them at least.
I'm not expressing myself well. I actually think JoKo will lose tonight but it is the level of player who she needs to stand nose-to-nose with if she is to make further progress. I'm not optimistic about the next few months when she starts to have to defend good points. I would say i'm more worried about Broady. Won her first tour match in months in Washington and then despite a kind draw failed to back it up, losing in the next round. She's got absolutely loads of points to defend for the rest of the year so I could see finishing the year well outside the Top 100 and basically back to square one. Her grass season, which must be the worst one she's ever had, may come back to haunt her.
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Post by rubcale on Jul 24, 2016 17:49:47 GMT 1
Great, if surprising win for JoKo 6-4 6-2 - according to reports she played really well. Could be that Cibulkova is feeling the after effects of her marriage.
My feeling is that Jo may have been feeling the home pressure during the grass season in England.
Could be an interesting final against Venus Williams. Not unwinnable.
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Post by Tom on Jul 24, 2016 19:04:09 GMT 1
Great, if surprising win for JoKo 6-4 6-2 - according to reports she played really well. Could be that Cibulkova is feeling the after effects of her marriage. My feeling is that Jo may have been feeling the home pressure during the grass season in England. Could be an interesting final against Venus Williams. Not unwinnable. Great and surprising win, that's what I would say too. I think you're right about the home pressure but I also feel like it confirms that hard courts are her best surface. She's always gone on runs on hard courts, which apart from the grass last year and Eastbourne this year (which even before this week I can actually see her winning one day if the pressure doesn't get to her - think she loves playing at her home event) she hasn't really done anywhere else. I know you think she's over ranked, and based on the grass this year and losing so easily at the French I can see why you think that, but I thought she'd done enough to crack the Top 20 before she did, and on hard courts I think she's got the potential to be Top 10 standard based on what I've seen this year, which actually that Cibulkova match suggests.
Certainly will be an interesting final tonight. Not seen any of her matches but based on the comparison of the matches against Zheng and Cibulkova this week compared to the meetings earlier in the year, whilst she may not be in her Australian Open form she seems to be better than on the grass and as good or better compared to any other tournament this year. She beat Venus comfortably at the Australian Open, this is a different match and Venus will presumably have the crowd on her side as well but not unwinnable sounds right.
Incidentally she lost her doubles last night, but given that the singles was the bigger match and her and Maria Sanchez (who she played with at Wimbledon) were the underdogs I'm not bothered by that!
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Post by rubcale on Jul 25, 2016 12:24:31 GMT 1
You're right about the hard courts Tom - definitely her best surface. The good news is that she has won her forst WTA Tour main title beating Venus in the final 7-5 5-7 6-2 but the score doesn't tell half the story. Apparently she belted the ball for the first set and a half and led 4-1 in the second with a double break then choked big time, regrouping however to take a good final set. I don't know the full story but there are accusations of her taking an elongated strategic toilet break to swing the momentum of the match. I'm reserving judgment of her overall credentials until I've seen how she goes at USO. Interesting to see how she reacts to this win at Montreal this week.
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Post by Tom on Jul 25, 2016 14:25:36 GMT 1
You're right about the hard courts Tom - definitely her best surface. The good news is that she has won her forst WTA Tour main title beating Venus in the final 7-5 5-7 6-2 but the score doesn't tell half the story. Apparently she belted the ball for the first set and a half and led 4-1 in the second with a double break then choked big time, regrouping however to take a good final set. I don't know the full story but there are accusations of her taking an elongated strategic toilet break to swing the momentum of the match. I'm reserving judgment of her overall credentials until I've seen how she goes at USO. Interesting to see how she reacts to this win at Montreal this week. Great win, followed the match on the WTA live scores though not much of the 1st set. It's fair to say I was rather pleased when she won! When she was 4-1 up in that 2nd set with less than an hour gone I thought she was well on the way to a straight sets win, but then the old Konta came back serving a few double faults on the way to her choking the set away. Dreadful set to lose but it wasn't even as bad as it could have been, she actually saved a couple of set points at 4-5.
Interesting you mention the toilet break at the end of the 2nd set. I made it 8 mins before the 3rd set started, at first I wondered whether there was a rain delay then I feared that she might be injured, especially after the way that 2nd set ended, and started worrying how bad the injury might be etc. It came as a relief when they finally got going. That 3rd set must be one of the best sets she's played this year, convincing scoreline, 4 aces 0 DFs and a final game which whilst not Murray Wimbledon final 2013 lasted at least 9 mins and saw 2 match points go but also save 3 break points.
As for how she does at the USO I've got some thoughts on that but i'll save them for later.
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Post by Tom on Jul 25, 2016 14:36:13 GMT 1
Forgot to add, up to a career high 14 in the rankings now, and i'm probably getting a bit carried away but I think she has an outside chance of a medal in Rio.
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Post by LittleChristmasTurkey on Jul 25, 2016 15:13:07 GMT 1
Only 'a bit' carried away?
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Post by Tom on Jul 25, 2016 17:38:40 GMT 1
Only 'a bit' carried away? Well maybe more than a bit and obviously it’s draw dependant but at her best I think she’s a top 10 player on hard courts. Also, whilst I expect Serena and Kerber to get two of the medals I think the other is wide open now that Azarenka has withdrawn as she’s pregnant. Halep is also not competing and having a look at the current Top 10, ignoring the Top 2, she hasn’t played all of them before but of the ones she has faced I think she’s beaten all of them in the past at some point. Presumably she’ll be competing in all 3 events so it would still be a bonus if she got one, but I’d say it’s unlikely rather than highly unlikely. The main talking point about the Olympic tennis though is whether the venue is completed in time as from the pictures I’ve seen the main court in particular is so far away from being finished it’s laughable! Some other bits of news.
It was a big week for Dan Evans too as he reached the 3rd round in Washington, including a straight sets win over Dimitrov in the 2nd round, after pulling out of the Davis Cup with a shoulder injury and other personal issues. It does look a bit of an excuse that he pulled out of the Davis Cup with it being on clay which he dislikes, but apparently he did have an MRI on his shoulder so there must have been a worry that it was serious. I was going to watch his first match but it was delayed by the wind and rain. I know the wind seems to be a problem in the US but it was something else. At one point the umpire’s chair got knocked over! Luckily the umpire and players had left the court by then. With the withdrawals recently he actually could have got into the Olympics but turned it down a week ago as not wanting to disrupt his schedule. I’m sure ranking points are also on his mind atm (he must have a shedload coming off before the end of the year) and it would have meant probably having to skip two tournaments to take part but it’s a shame he won’t be competing. Who knows whether he’ll get another chance and he’s always been someone who thrives on the big occasion. Speaking about GB Olympic entries, a couple of weeks ago noticed that Kyle Edmund, Dom Inglot and Colin Fleming had all got added. Glad for Inglot as he deserved it, felt for him when it looked like he’d miss out despite being ranked high enough to get in, Kyle benefitted from the withdrawals, but Fleming was a surprise as I didn’t think he was ranked high enough and he hasn’t played Davis Cup for ages. Finally, I was thinking of the last time Murray won Wimbledon, IIRC Konta won two challenger titles back to back that summer on the back of that with Evans reaching a challenger final. Evans went on to qualify for the US open reaching the third round whilst Konta crashed out in the first round of qualifying. At the time it seemed like she’d peaked too early and struggled to deal with the pressure of having ranking points to defend (R2 as a qualifier the year before). Looks like a good omen for Evans but not good for Konta, and I do have this concern that Konta may peak too early this summer, she may have played a lot of tennis by the time the USO comes around.
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Post by rubcale on Jul 30, 2016 18:00:09 GMT 1
Having had a gimme run to the quarter finals in Montreal (and fair enough it's not JoKo's fault - she has no control over whom she has to play) she loses to the world's #121 (yes one hundred and twenty one.
The tragedy is that if she had won she would have entered the world's top 10 when the next rankings are announced.
Maybe she finally suffered a reaction to last week's win or today's pressure got to her but apparently she made 41 unforced errors - not a great result.
I'm still not convinced she is a top 10 player but the USO will be telling. In the long run it's how a player performs at the Slams that tells the story.
Big story on the men's side. Federer is out for the rest of the year following a knee injury which seemed to occur during his semi against Raonic. This almost certainly means that he will never win the Olympic title since he would be 40 in 2020.
If he returns for AO he will be ranked around #15-18. This means that if the players justified their seedings there would be a 50% chance of a last 16 match between either Djokovic/Murray and Federer.
Unthinkable just a month ago!
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Post by Tom on Jul 30, 2016 18:59:36 GMT 1
Having had a gimme run to the quarter finals in Montreal (and fair enough it's not JoKo's fault - she has no control over whom she has to play) she loses to the world's #121 (yes one hundred and twenty one. The tragedy is that if she had won she would have entered the world's top 10 when the next rankings are announced. Maybe she finally suffered a reaction to last week's win or today's pressure got to her but apparently she made 41 unforced errors - not a great result. I'm still not convinced she is a top 10 player but the USO will be telling. In the long run it's how a player performs at the Slams that tells the story. Big story on the men's side. Federer is out for the rest of the year following a knee injury which seemed to occur during his semi against Raonic. This almost certainly means that he will never win the Olympic title since he would be 40 in 2020. If he returns for AO he will be ranked around #15-18. This means that if the players justified their seedings there would be a 50% chance of a last 16 match between either Djokovic/Murray and Federer. Unthinkable just a month ago! JoKo's defeat was very disappointing, not to mention a shock considering she hadn't dropped a set all week. It should be mentioned that Kucova beat Bouchard from a set down in her home event in the previous round and has come down through qualifying to get to the semis, so must be doing something right, will be interesting to see if she goes any further. That said, before the tournament started I wouldn't have minded if JoKo had pulled out this week. I thought it was interesting that she didn't play doubles, maybe there was just nothing left in the tank? Now got a full week to prepare for the Olympics. I had assumed she'd be playing all 3 events but I don't think there's room for both her and Heather to play in the mixed so presumably she won't play that event.
Federer's knee injury goes back to when he twisted it whilst in the bath picking up one of his kids (think I've got that right). It was definitely a freak accident and his injury problems this year go back to that. I'm not 100% sure he'll be back, but he does seem to love the game so that may help to overcome the disappointment of going out earlier than he'd like in slams. I think injuries may prove to be the important factor though.
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Post by Tom on Jul 31, 2016 9:49:25 GMT 1
Kucova ended up losing to Madison Keys 6-2 6-1.
It makes you wonder about Konta feeling the pressure. She was one win away from the Top 20 a few times before she made it. There's been various talk about her possibly making the tour finals at the end of the year but I don't think that's really realistic unless she reaches at least the quarter-finals at the USO with her 4th round points (+qualifying) from last year.
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Post by rubcale on Aug 10, 2016 9:55:53 GMT 1
Weird happenings at the Olympics - Djokovic out early in both singles and doubles, Murray Brothers beaten in first round of doubles.
I know Serena has been prone to unexpected defeats recently but she has lost to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in l16. Never heard of this player before and also she and Venus are out of the doubles.
What is going on?
It will be disappointing if AndyM doesn't go on to win this but as it's on clay there may be surprises yet - maybe this could a breakthrough for Tsonga?
Brilliant win for JoKo over Svetlana Kusnetsova 7-5 final set. She was a break down and also at 0-40 serving at 5-5. Kusnetsova a former French champion had faded for couple of years but has been back in top form and I wasn't expecting this on clay.
The gutting aspect is that she comes up against Kerber in the next round who will probably now win the Gold.
Any other part of the draw and Johanna had a real shot at a medal.
Quite surprised to see the mixed doubles berth given to JamieM and Konta - had thought with her Wimbledon triumph they might have gone with Watson.
Thye have nominated a second pairing of AndyM and Watdon but they would only gain entry if two other teams dropped out which is unlikely.
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Post by Shireblogger on Aug 10, 2016 9:59:10 GMT 1
I think the Olympic courts are hard, not clay. (Certainly looked that way to me from the brief clips I've watched).
Konta/Murray have been drawn against the USA in the first round. I don't know who that will be, but I presume it is a really tough draw.
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