OT: Pro Tennis Thread

[rhymes450]

Crikey! The power's back and so is Fed, at least for the time being. Serving for the 3rd set!

He gets it. Now he can only hope for darkness and hope the game will be postponed for tomorrow. Rafa started hitting a few unforced errors. Close game.

No chance of darkness on this side of the pond. Fed closed out the Djoko match just after 9.30 pm and it's only 6.30 pm here now. Unless it rains, this one is going to finish today. Phew!! Fed fails to take advantage of 3 break points in the opening game of the 4th.

[JackB1]

I am amazed at the lack of interest there was here for the French Open. Great great semi's and
the final was also very riveting at times.

I am also amazed at the overall lack of interest in tennis in general. I went to my local sportsbar
at lunchtime to watch the end of the Fed/Djoko semi's and it wasn't even on any of the TV's! I had to
ask the manager to turn on NBC to watch it.

It's a shame that this country shows no love for the great worldwide sports such as tennis and soccer.

[wco81]

Other than the Williams sisters, the sport is dominated by Europeans now.

They will need players like Sampras and Agassi to bring back American interest.

[10spro]

Other than the Williams sisters, the sport is dominated by Europeans now.

They will need players like Sampras and Agassi to bring back American interest.

But that's the thing. Why a Sport like tennis has to look at a particular nationality to be enjoyed?

[Rodster]

Other than the Williams sisters, the sport is dominated by Europeans now.

They will need players like Sampras and Agassi to bring back American interest.

But that's the thing. Why a Sport like tennis has to look at a particular nationality to be enjoyed?

Exactly !

I have always viewed Tennis as an international sport anyways. Even at it's peak in the 80's the sport was dominated by international players like Edberg and Lendl. When Sampras and Aggasi showed up it helped the sport here in the US but I remember reading how interest in the sport was down overall.

I loved tennis in the 80's with characters like Conner's, Johnny Mac, Guillermo Vilas and others. One all time favorite was Ivan Lendl. The guy was just clinical on how he dominated matches.

[wco81]

Well look at futbol, how tribal it is. It's not players from a particular nation but a town or neighborhood.

Why do you think the WC and the Olympic Games are such huge draws?

Or when non-global sports leagues like the NFL stage world championship games?

[10spro]

For a first ever appearance at a GS event in a cathedral of Tennis that is Wimbledon, Kvitova showed no nerves in disposing heavy favorite M. Sharapova in straight sets. Her lefty serve handcuffed the screechy Russian and wad solid with her ground game. First southpaw female finalist since the great M. Navratilova.

Sunday's men finals should be a true Church Road classic. No matter what happens Djokovic is guaranteed of his well deserved #1 ranking in the world. Of course Raffa will try to repeat his French Open performance by stopping the hot Serbian but I am going to go with Djoko in the finals.

His return of serve is as good as I've seen in his young career, he's serving well which is huge on grass and there's no more questions about his stamina. More importantly his mental aspect of the game is very strong and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he wins it all tomorrow against the gritty Spaniard.

[rhymes450]

For a first ever appearance at a GS event in a cathedral of Tennis that is Wimbledon, Kvitova showed no nerves in disposing heavy favorite M. Sharapova in straight sets. Her lefty serve handcuffed the screechy Russian and wad solid with her ground game. First southpaw female finalist since the great M. Navratilova.

Sunday's men finals should be a true Church Road classic. No matter what happens Djokovic is guaranteed of his well deserved #1 ranking in the world. Of course Raffa will try to repeat his French Open performance by stopping the hot Serbian but I am going to go with Djoko in the finals.

His return of serve is as good as I've seen in his young career, he's serving well which is huge on grass and there's no more questions about his stamina. More importantly his mental aspect of the game is very strong and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he wins it all tomorrow against the gritty Spaniard.

Didn't catch the women's final. Saw a bit of Kvitova in the French Open and she looked to be a big hitter but cumbersome in terms of movement. Caught some of Sharapova's match against Robson, where she struggled and looked on the point of fainting every time she stepped up to the line to hit a 2nd serve. I believe she hit 13 double faults in the semis, which suggests that she might have a problem there. In any case, a great achievement for Kvitova. Let's see if she can sustain it.

Have seen both Rafa and Djoko and I'd say Rafa is actually playing the better of the two, and a fair bit better than in the French. Fish, who played a fabulous 3rd set, and Murray, with an excellent first set, were able to pressure him, but the difficulty is sustaining that pressure over 5 sets. Djoko's got the stroke production on both wings and now that he's added that angled cross-court forehand that you mentioned in a previous post (something that not everybody seems to have picked up on...there's far more talk of improved mentality, fitness etc., but that's a very important technical improvement that generally seems to be overlooked) he's able to stretch Nadal in a way that maybe only Davydenko has been able to do in the past. I still think that Nadal might try to go after Djoko's forehand wing but he's unlikely to get as much change out of that tactic as he did against Murray. Rafa's peaked at the right time, but Djoko's got the perfect game to neutralise him...I'm gonna go for Rafa to break his 4-match losing streak against Djoko, but I wouldn't put my house on it (not that's it's actually worth very much these days). Should be a hell of a match.

[wco81]

I know it's probably just a spontaneous celebration but Djokovic, or any other Serb for that matter, should try to refrain from screaming with him mouth wide open in a European venue.

Or pumping his fists in the air.

[fsquid]

I am amazed at the lack of interest there was here for the French Open. Great great semi's and
the final was also very riveting at times.

I am also amazed at the overall lack of interest in tennis in general. I went to my local sportsbar
at lunchtime to watch the end of the Fed/Djoko semi's and it wasn't even on any of the TV's! I had to
ask the manager to turn on NBC to watch it.

It's a shame that this country shows no love for the great worldwide sports such as tennis and soccer.

it had its day and now it is fading like horse racing. I'm sure if someone really carasmatic comes along, tennis will get the ratings again here. I noticed how the US events have faded from the ATP calendar too.

[wco81]

There are no top-level Americans, that's why there's little interest.

Well the Williams sisters are competitive but they're old news.

Does anyone really expect Americans to give two shits about a Swiss, a Serb and a Spaniard?

[fsquid]

Does anyone really expect Americans to give two shits about a Swiss, a Serb and a Spaniard?

Only in the SI swimsuit issue

[10spro]

I've never seen the crowed so quiet at the big W. Djokovic is serving huge with well angled shots and returning Nadal's serve with ease. The Spaniard looks stunned, it'll be a high hill to climb being down 2 sets down but if there's a guy that can do it, it's Nadal.

[Rodster]

Rafa is back, down 1-2 sets.

[rhymes450]

And he's got the break back in the 4th. Beginning to get a bit of change out of Djoko's forehand wing. Still all to play for!

[10spro]

Djokovic dropped his level in the third set obviously, couldn't continue bombing his serves accurately and committed more unforced forehand errors. He was taking too big of a swing on Nadal's serves while he was so successful at just simply blocking it while using Raffa's pace with pin point accuracy. Too bad Raffa couldn't stretch it to the 5th set but ultimately his forehand wasn't as sharp in the 4th set as he was the one making the unforced errors. Not the grind of a match perhaps everyone wished to see but credit to Djoko for elevating his game this year. Well deserved #1 ranked player, you just don't beat Nadal 5 times in mid season.

[rhymes450]

Djokovic dropped his level in the third set obviously, couldn't continue bombing his serves accurately and committed more unforced forehand errors. He was taking too big of a swing on Nadal's serves while he was so successful at just simply blocking it while using Raffa's pace with pin point accuracy. Too bad Raffa couldn't stretch it to the 5th set but ultimately his forehand wasn't as sharp in the 4th set as he was the one making the unforced errors. Not the grind of a match perhaps everyone wished to see but credit to Djoko for elevating his game this year. Well deserved #1 ranked player, you just don't beat Nadal 5 times in mid season.

Yeah, hats off to Djokovic. He's really come out of the shadow of Rafa and Fed and particularly seems to have the perfect game to beat Rafa. Curiously, Fed seems to suffer far more against Rafa than against Djoko, so it's a pretty interesting little triangle there. No doubts about who's the top dog today though. And you couldn't say Rafa played badly. The problem is that for practically the first time in his career he's come up against somebody who's beating him in the longer rallies and trying to force the pace to the extent he had to today doesn't really come that naturally to him. Being the fastest gun in town is more Fed's terrain. Interesting American hard-court season ahead.

[Rodster]

What was the deal with Djokovic pointing to his head when he was closing out the match? I didn't catch that. It appeared like he was taunting Rafa, i.e. i'm in his head, he can't beat me.

[wco81]

I think it was more like "used my head" after placing a serve correctly which led to a easy point.

What's creepy is his entourage all pumping their fist and screaming. Probably scary to Bosnians and Montenegrins.

[fsquid]

Breakfast at Wimbeldon is done after 43 years. ESPN has outbid NBC for the rights. All matches on ESPN with highlights on ABC during the weekend.

[JackB1]

The Wimby final was definitely disappointing. Rafa fell apart after the 3rd set and Djoko stopped hitting
as hard as he was in the 1st 2 sets. Like McEnroe said, they were both playing "clay court tennis" on grass.
Djoko won most of the long rallies and Rafa just seemed to lose his competitive edge. All in all Djokovich
came out on fire and Nadal couldn't recover after getting down 2 sets. It looks like these 2 will be meeting
in the Finals every major now for a while, so maybe a good rivalry will develop?

[NoJoke]

Why even have different surfaces at this point? Power hitters could not get winners through this court. Joker ran sideline to sideline retrieving balls slowed by the green clay. I dont want a return to acefests, but i would like to see courts create some variety in play. Soon the men's tour will look like the wta, all mindless baseline bashers with no variety and no volley skills. I think this has something to do with the dwindling popularity of tennis. Why become invested in rooting for any individual, when they all play the same?

[JackB1]

Why even have different surfaces at this point? Power hitters could not get winners through this court. Joker ran sideline to sideline retrieving balls slowed by the green clay. I dont want a return to acefests, but i would like to see courts create some variety in play. Soon the men's tour will look like the wta, all mindless baseline bashers with no variety and no volley skills. I think this has something to do with the dwindling popularity of tennis. Why become invested in rooting for any individual, when they all play the same?

If the court was faster, they would play more alike. I think the slower court forces more finesse and variety. Pull someone to one side and then drop shot them the other way, etc.
Faster courts just lend to mindless baseline bashing like you are trying to avoid.

IMO, If they wanted to bring more variety and finesse to the game, they would ban polyester strings. That is what changed the game and made serve & volley virtually impossible.

[rhymes450]

Why even have different surfaces at this point? Power hitters could not get winners through this court. Joker ran sideline to sideline retrieving balls slowed by the green clay. I dont want a return to acefests, but i would like to see courts create some variety in play. Soon the men's tour will look like the wta, all mindless baseline bashers with no variety and no volley skills. I think this has something to do with the dwindling popularity of tennis. Why become invested in rooting for any individual, when they all play the same?

If the court was faster, they would play more alike. I think the slower court forces more finesse and variety. Pull someone to one side and then drop shot them the other way, etc.
Faster courts just lend to mindless baseline bashing like you are trying to avoid.

IMO, If they wanted to bring more variety and finesse to the game, they would ban polyester strings. That is what changed the game and made serve & volley virtually impossible.

It's a pretty complex issue with lots of variables, including the strings, but I'd say that the speed of the courts has become more uniform and therefore the same basic type of game prevails on all surfaces. Federer (if I remember correctly, he uses a combination of natural gut on the main strings and synthetic on the cross strings, with different tensions...the mind boggles ) said that the courts in Miami this year were practically like playing on clay (tho' the movement is totally different). Apparently, one of the faster courts, if not the fastest, on the Masters 1000 circuit was the indoor court at Paris Bercy, where LLodra, one of a dying breed of players who comes in behind both serves, did very well. There's no question IMO that if the courts were faster, the serve/volley game would prosper more. I posted a link to an article about the generally slower courts a few pages ago on this thread. Regarding the strings, here's the link to an interview with Pat Cash in which he argues that the polyester strings favour the big hitters from the baseline and reduce feel for volleys.

http://www.tennis.fm/tennis-blog/tennis ... -pat-cash/


I still think that the surfaces are more important, but the combination of the two factors probably spells the death of serve and volley. What is true is that Federer and Murray are excellent natural volleyers, Nadal is almost at the same level and Djokovic has improved greatly in that department. The volley is still an important weapon but it would be nice to see matches between baseline and serve and volley specialists in the manner of Borg/McEnroe.

[pk500]

The HBO documentary "McEnroe vs. Borg: Fire and Ice" was compelling. Great cinematography, script and narration, just like all HBO documentaries.

Really enjoyed it.