Tennis: All Purpose Tennis Thread XVI

[kihei]

Caught up with ADF's 7-6, 5-7, 7-6 win over Rune. Rune blew hot and cold and Alejandro played very well, even, dare I say, intelligently,.....that is, until he tried to win things. He served for the match at 5-3 and that service game might go down as the funniest comedy of judgmental errors that we will see this year, with ADF butchering every point like a Keystone Kop, usually with wildly ill-advised drop shots. From that point, the blunders didn't cease, but Holger wasn't quite sharp enough to take advantage., Still, a big, big win for the talented underachiever.

 

[kihei]

Shevchenko absolutely giving Medvedev all he can handle right now wow this third set is unbelievable tennis!

Some crazy good tennis in there, Alexander sure is boy-band cure. Looked like Daniil's Mini-Me out there the way he moved the ball around and was persistent as hell.

 

[kihei]

Karatsev may be making a comeback. He won a highly entertaining three setter against Demon by doing his best to knock the cover off the ball every chance he got. Demon was like a speedy, ultra-mobile hockey goalie making save after save, but even he couldn't keep up with the onslaught.

 

[Filppula]

I don't think he is the exception to the rule, but I had to think about this some; having done so, however, I would credit Ruud with an elite forehand. I did so after trying to figure out who my top ten would currently be in this regard, and this is what I ended up with:

Nadal, Nick, Alcaraz, Nole, Tsitsipas, Berrettini, Sinner, Ruud, Fritz, Rublev (with maybe Cerundolo creeping up on these guys).

That's a pretty elite performing group, I would argue.

Great list, hard to argue.

Based on today only (is that how tennis works?!), Karatsev wound be on that list. 18 FH winners as he takes down Medvedev. Wow. He played unbelievable. His ball striking huge, ROS so aggressive.

 

[kihei]

Great list, hard to argue.

Based on today only (is that how tennis works?!), Karatsev wound be on that list. 18 FH winners as he takes down Medvedev. Wow. He played unbelievable. His ball striking huge, ROS so aggressive.

Haven't seen this match yet, but I know what you mean. Karatsev was absolutely Del Potro-esque against Demon.

Carlos vaporozed Zverev today, 1 and 2. Made Zverev look third tier. Alcaraz is getting farther and farther ahead of the field by the day. And certainly in terms of his serve, he has plenty of ceiling left. Scary.

 

[kihei]

Can't remember a 1000 tournament early in the year in which this many qualifiers got to the quaterfinals:

Carlos beat Khachanov in straight but tricky sets
Coric beat Altmaier (qualifier) in straight sets

Karatsev (lucky loser) beat Zhang (qualifier) in straight sets
Struff (qualifier) beat Tsitsipas in three sets (!)

After Stef came back to win the second set against Struff 7-5, I stopped watching. Figured Jan Lennard's chances were effectively zilch. But he road his serve to victory and with Tsitsipas playing well, too. Now, ironically, Struff gets a rematch with Karatsev, the player who beat him in qualifying.

 

[Filppula]

Can't remember a 1000 tournament early in the year in which this many qualifiers got to the quaterfinals:

Carlos beat Khachanov in straight but tricky sets
Coric beat Altmaier (qualifier) in straight sets

Karatsev (lucky loser) beat Zhang (qualifier) in straight sets
Struff (qualifier) beat Tsitsipas in three sets (!)

After Stef came back to win the second set against Struff 7-5, I stopped watching. Figured Jan Lennard's chances were effectively zilch. But he road his serve to victory and with Tsitsipas playing well, too. Now, ironically, Struff gets a rematch with Karatsev, the player who beat him in qualifying.

One of the best matches I’ve seen in Madrid the Struff match, really enjoyed it.

 

[kihei]

Coric put up a good fight, he reallly did, but in the end Alcaraz just had more of evertything Borna had, 6-4, 6-3.

 

[kihei]

I forgot how quickly and inexplicably Karatsev cann go off the boil (pulled thigh muscle didn't help). Struff makes his first 1000 final, a "lucky loser," at that.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Rafael Nadal, 10-time champion, pulls out of Rome Masters with hip injury

The King of Clay has withdrawn to continue rehabbing his injured hip.

sports.yahoo.com

@kihei Dang, your av is grayed out.

 

[kihei]

Rafael Nadal, 10-time champion, pulls out of Rome Masters with hip injury

The King of Clay has withdrawn to continue rehabbing his injured hip.

sports.yahoo.com

@kihei Dang, your av is grayed out.

That's what it's like in the deep, dark ocean.

 

[kihei]

Sabalenka defeats Swiatek in three wonderfully entertaining sets, 6-3 in the third. Both players seem to bring out the best in each other. Every match they play now seems like a pitched battle with very little separating one from the other. Sabalenka had one of her best matches of the year.

 

[kihei]

Struff, with the perfect strategy to rush Carlos and shorten points, managed to take the match to three sets (his sixth straight three-setter in the tournament), but Carlos, sometimes struggling and not as sharp as usual, managed to raise his game when he needed to and took the match 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Alcaraz returns to number one in the world where he might stay for a very long time.

Later: Nole stays as number one by five points. My error.

 

[Ben Grimm]

'Sexist' ball girl outfits, silencing the women's finalists and small birthday cakes: Madrid Open causes controversy | CNN

One of the most prestigious tennis tournaments outside of the four grand slams, the Madrid Open attracts the biggest names in the sport.

www.cnn.com

Is @kihei running the Madrid Open?

 

[kihei]

Rome

Nole/Rune
Paul/Sinner

Davidovich Fokina/Hurkacz
Tsitsipas/Alcarez

Sinner/Rune
Hurkacz/Alcaraz

Sinner over Alcaraz

'Sexist' ball girl outfits, silencing the women's finalists and small birthday cakes: Madrid Open causes controversy | CNN

One of the most prestigious tennis tournaments outside of the four grand slams, the Madrid Open attracts the biggest names in the sport.

www.cnn.com

Is @kihei running the Madrid Open?

Madrid organizers must still be deep in the last century. They deserve every single bit of criticism they are receiving.

 

[kihei]

Wearing a sleeve, Nole looked pretty damn good in his first match in Rome against Etcheverry. The court was a source of complaints, though, as it seems to have way too much clay on it, resulting in uneven bounces and messed up timing. There were times when it appeared more like a sandbox than a tennis court.

Sinner looked Alcaraz-like in a two set demolition of Kokkinakis.

Felix, looking understandably rusty, lost in three sets to a red-hot Popyrin.

 

[kihei]

To my surprise, Wolf completely bullied Hurkacz into a 3 and 4 loss. I got to give up on Hurkacz. His forehand is just too great an impediment. I don't know if I would even call it a top 75 forehand at this point. It is like a big hole that the rest of his fine game can't overcome anymore.

 

[kihei]

Nole defeats career punching bag Dimitrov 6-1 in the third set. I'd give him a "B" today. Still needs more work on his groundies but definitely rounding into form.

 

[Filppula]

So Alcaraz just lost to Marozsan?!!

Nole defeats career punching bag Dimitrov 6-1 in the third set. I'd give him a "B" today. Still needs more work on his groundies but definitely rounding into form.

I’d say B+. Sure that streak that Dimitrov went on in the second set was aided by a dip by Novak, but Dimitrov did just redline and catch every line.

 

[kihei]

Who the hell is Fabian Marozsan?

 

[kihei]

That was the second greatest upset I have seen in tennis this century. Alcaraz, soon to reurn to #1, loses to Fabian Marozsan, a Hungarian player, who is ranked #135 and playing in his first ATP tournament event ever. Before this tournament, Fabian had a 0-2 career record at the ATP level, both Davis Cup defeats. Previous to Rome, he had only faced four players ranked in the too 100 in his young career, all at the Challenger level.

And he really beat Alcaraz, too. Carlos wasn't great today, but a lot of his misses were due to the pressure that Marozsan was continually putting on with his aggressive backcourt play, his beautiful drop shot game and his fine returns, especially on second serves. An eye-popping win.

Sidenote: the greatest upset, to me, was Schwatzman in Davis Cup losing to Belarusian Daniil Ostapenkov, the 68th ranked junior player at the time and entirely unranked on the ATP board.

 

[kihei]

Medvedev with an impressive win over Zverev 3 and 6. This year he has to be in the conversation as a legit challenger to win the French Open. Sure, Carlos, Nole and even Nadal (if he plays) are the most likely candidates, but Daniil is definitely in the next group of two or three.

 

[kihei]

Interesting match ups in three of the the quarters at Rome:

Djokovic/Rune
Ruud/Cerundolo

Tsitsipas/Coric
Medvedev/Hanfmann

 

[MsMeow]

Rune takes the first set easily but goes down a break and loses his mind over a call he thought was long. Crowd turns on him and he implodes for a bit but then breaks back and is now about to serve 4-5. If he is able to feed off the negative crowd that will help him over his career.

 

[kihei]

Rune survives the bad call and dominates the third set, taking the first four games on route to a 6-2 win.

Impressive and maybe even a little scary for the Djokovic camp. Sure, Nole is not at 100% efficiency yet, but Rune was bigger, faster, stronger, and more confident and has the stamina to outlast Nole in long rallies. Novak was desperately trying to shorten points in the latter stages of this match as it was clear that Holger could stay on court all day and was not intimidated in the least.

If Nole is going to win #23, he'd better win it in the next four GSs because Alcaraz, Rune and Sinner are only going to get better and better while Nole gets older and older.