Tennis

Ugh, the ever increasing mega hype from the British media over Laura Robson is getting nauseating. I know she is a pretty good player but come on... stop it with the "definite future grand slam winner" comments already

Szlia, What is your impartial view on her?

I did not see enough of her to form an educated opinion, but nothing stroke me as exceptional in her game in the little I have seen. An unexceptional game well executed can yield great results though.

The british media are pumped because she won junior Wimbledon several years ago and voil?. It was a big thing because it was the first british girl to win a junior slam since 1984 (they obviously did not remember that Croft also played her best pro slam in 1984 by reaching the third round).

On that note, it should be reminded that junior titles is not a surefire predictor of professional success: Djokovic and Nadal never won junior slams (possibly because they did not play in junior very long!), but Daniel Elsner won three and ranked as high as 92 in the world. From 2000 to 2008 there were 30 different boy junior slam winners and 11 of them never broke into the top 50. It's a bit of a better predictor for girls as out of 27 that won in the same years range, only a couple did not make it to the top 50 and most reached the top 30 or thereabout.

Saying "definite future grand slam winner" is a serious claim though as from 1984 to 2008 only three boy winners won as pro (Federer, Roddick, Murray - so 2 US Open shy of just the one ) and just seven girls (Sabatini, Capriati, Davenport, Hingis, Mauresmo, Henin, Azarenka). Even if you look at it from the other side it's not very bright as, out of the last 20 Grand Slam champions for men, only the aforementioned 3 were also junior champions and only 6 of the last 20 women champions.

Neki_sl said:

Ugh, the ever increasing mega hype from the British media over Laura Robson is getting nauseating. I know she is a pretty good player but come on... stop it with the "definite future grand slam winner" comments already

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Another advantage of not reading newspapers most days it seems, the BBC and a couple of other websites seem quite calm related to that in their pundits thinking on average she has a good chance of hitting the world top 10 but stopping well short of saying she's going to be a superstar. She seems a nice enough lass from the odd interview I've seen, hopefully she doesn't get ground up and/or corrupted by the media machine too quickly.

By reaching the fourth round she is guaranteed to be inside the top 30, a feat no british lady managed to do since 1987, so rejoicing is not totally out of place.

Oh indeed, first time we've had representation in the second week of both sexes since the 80s I'd never even heard of the last woman to make week two in '98, it was Sam Smith apparently. I thought Jo Durie was the only decent-ish player we'd had since Wade/Barker. Then again a quick wiki shows Smith reached a high of 52 in the world so Durie was the best in the meantime.

It does seem we've had a few players trying to crack the top 100 for a while, Baltacha and Keovthavong initially and then Robson and Heather Watson were trading places almost weekly on which one was more likely to break out and zoom up the ladder.

Outside of Murray though our mens tennis is in the shithouse as well it seems, seen quite a few articles this week on "WTF do we have to show for all the money we've poured into the sport?!"

This Serena/Lisicki 3rd set is intense.

Holy shit, what a match~

Day 6: Poland Day

I only got to watch some of the early afternoon matches and bits and parts of the late matches But we have our quarter finals:

Djokovicbenefited from an erratic Haas to win the first set 6-1, he lost focus a little, Haas played a little better, and suddenly the german was a break up in the second, but he couldn't keep it long enough to plant the seed of doubt and the world N?1 broke again to find himself two sets to the good. The third got a lot tighter, with both competitors playing well, but another break and an easy hold brought Djokovic to 5-2 in the third. Unhappy with his performance, knowing full well that he might only have one or two opportunities left to play the world N?1 on center court at Wimbledon, Haas refused to lose. Finding good serves, suddenly outlasting Djokovic in grueling rallies from the back of the court, the veteran held with his back against the wall for 5-3, broke Djokovic as he served for the match and then held while saving a match point for 5-5. The crowd was on their feet chanting 'Tommy! Tommy!' and Djokovic was not amused, even less so when he found himself into a tie-breaker. You don't get to become World N?1 by accident though: Djokovic raced to a 5-1 lead soon turned into a 6-2, but the german still refused to lose and managed to claim a mini-break back on match points, saved another on his serve for 6-4... but the buck stopped here. Too bad, because a fourth set
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Berdychfound himself in a funny old match. Losing the first set in a breaker, he managed to even the score in an other breaker. A break late in the third and one early in the fourth and it was all she wrote for Tomic who will mull over some of his missed opportunities.

A key to this match will be how well Berdych will react to seeing a lot more of his serves come back than usual. If he accept that and keep his mix of cool and aggressiveness, it could be a very competitive match.


Ferrerstill does not like grass, but still found a way to win against Dodig.
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Del Potrostill does not like grass, unlike Seppi, but.. yeah.. straight sets.

I am surprised to see both those guy reach this stage, but I would be even more surprised if the winner is able to win a semi against Djokovic or Berdych.


Kubotwon the first battle of the unseeded against Mannarino, which unsurprisingly took 5 sets.
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Janowiczstarted by getting broken against Melzer, which gave the tone of a tough battle that also lasted five sets.

There is a mental element to this match for which we miss some keys. Do Kubot and Janowicz know each other? Like each other? Will Kubot, who has been the polish N?1 for a while, play to prove a point?



Verdascokept his cool against De Schepper (tall, leftie and serve and volley kind of player, when receiving, looking to come to the net as early as possible even on mediocre approach shots) and conceded only 2 break pont for the 14 he obtained.
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Murraywas very close to find himself at one set all as Youzhny served for the 2nd set, but the scott reeled the russian back in and broke his will by winning the 2nd set in a breaker, making the third a formality.

If you asked me 'Verdasco vs Murray on grass?' a month ago, I would have said Murray is the huge favorite, but seeing the spaniard in action this week has been very impressive.

Btw I saw some of the Kanepi vs Robson match and I think she might achieve great things for British tennis, but not much for tennis in general. She has a useful serve (lefty always help) and some good groundstrokes (particularly the forehand which is rarer on the WTA tour), movement is not a liability, but there is zero variety. No change of pace, no change of trajectory, no point craft. She has one good quality though: she recognizes short balls early, move in the court and is very competent at dispatching them but that's that. The problem for Robson is that there are 20 girls who play just like that and do it better and/or have additional weapons as seen yesterday against Kanepi. I am sure she will win a lot of matches, probably win a title here and there, maybe enter the Top 10 if she has a good run at some point, but unless she makes her game evolve, unless she fleshes it out, I don't see her winning slams. On the up side, she is still young so the potential for evolution is here.

Tarrant_sl said:

Stupid Tommy Haas and being all terrible. ugh.

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Gotta forgive Haas for he is like what, a million years old now?

He is 35 but he also will be ranked 11 in the world comes Monday. Considering he lost first round at the US Open in 2012 reaching 10 by the end of the year sounds a very real possibility, but he will need a great result or two if he wants to have a shot at playing the Masters Cup (realistically by becoming World N?9 and having someone in the Top 8 not play the event - as it is often the case).

Day 7: Women tennis.

I'll leave you with this quote from Youzhny's press conference after his defeat to Murray:

Q. Do you think the performance from Andy today is good enough to beat Djokovic?

MIKHAIL YOUZHNY: I think it's long story before the Djokovic.

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Day 8: Plastic man, glass man, canon man and lucky man.

I only get to see the first two sets of the Berdych vs Djokovic :/

Djokovicis Plastic Man. His ability to stretch himself to reach the most ludicrous of balls and manage from these awkward positions to still produce very good shots is just uncanny. Berdych played a very good match, but as Djokovic gave him precious nothing, the few mistakes of the underdog were magnified and costly. A tie break in the first set, down three love double break in the second and still Djokovic managed to win in straight sets.
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Del Potrois Glass Man. After a wrist injury that kept him away from the tour for months, he is now playing with a fubared knee that he can't stretch fully and the first 15 minutes of his quarter final against Ferrer had less tennis than him getting treated. Still, he conceeded only two break points in 15 service games and saved them both. Knees are overrated.

I don't know what Del Potro is doing at this stage of the tournament, even less so when injured, so who knows what will happen, but I would not be surprised by a very easy Djokovic victory.


Janowiczis Canon Man. 16 service games, 30 aces. Maybe Kubot was gambling on the return and it could have paid off as he got 6 break points, but he convereted none and had surprisingly little success on his own delivery, having to fend off hosts of break points and failing to do so on three occasions, once in each set.
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Murrayis Lucky Man. It did not seem like it at first as Verdasco showed in the first two set perfect opportunism, converting all three of his break point chances, but after a one sided third set, Murray was the one clinching the fourth on a single occasion while saving four break points and he also was the first to get a break opportunity late in the fifth and immediately capitalized on it to close his come back in 3h30.

I think the scott's return against the Janowicz serve will be better than the 23rd seed's return against the Murray serve giving the edge to the World N?2, but again it's Janowicz who won their last meeting in Paris at the end of 2012...

Of course he's going to walk out champion, no question.

I hope Lisicki wins this so she can afford an oral reconstruction.

Adam12_sl said:

I hope Lisicki wins this so she can afford an oral reconstruction.

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Teeth too sharp, would not bang?

I didn't say that. Would bang, but would be concerned about a blow job.

Modern video camera are very sensitive, so it can look bright on your TV screen while being pretty dark in reality. That being said, light declining or not, unable to get an answer from the umpire as to when the roof will be closed or not, losing focus in a grand slam semi final to the point of losing five games in a row is a bit amateurish. More than amateurish it was extremely costly, because Murray was shaking in his boots, playing negative tennis, hoping for Janowicz mistakes that did not come instead of making things happen on his own terms (a good example of that is the 2nd set tie-breaker where Murray does precious nothing), but Janowicz put his opponent back on the saddle and put himself the knife between his teeth. To use a colorful saying that I once heard some south of france rugby commentator use on the air: the flies went to the other donkey. Janowicz was unable to make them switch again as Murray produced some great serves when he needed them most (20 aces to Janowicz's 9!).

Producing great serves when needed was also a predominant feature of Djokovic's game (22 aces to Del Potro's 4!!) and for most of the match it felt that this quality of serving was imperative as if any kind of rally started, Del Potro would just pummel the ball and make Djokovic retrieve impossible shot after impossible shot until he could no longer. The Del Potro serve on the other end was well read by Djokovic, finding time and time again great length on the return, causing all kind of problems to Del Potro. In fact the match should have been a lot shorter if not for the combined effect of Djokovic not making the most of his opportunities and Del Potro's consistently finding an extra gear or two when cornered. This made for a number of spectacular rallies, putting on display both the tremendous power of Del Potro (as olympic champion Marc Rosset mentioned, some of his forehand cross court should require a weapon's permit) and the supernatural athleticism of Djokovic. Sadly, after seeing Del Potro force a breaker in the fourth from a break down and then bag it from 5-2 down (?) the fifth set was a bit of a let-down as Del Potro seemingly ran out of gas.



PS1: this match showed why Del Potro, who is not a good grass court player, managed to push the world N?1 to five sets in a Wimbledon semi and get a bronze medal at the Olympics while losing to Hewitt both times they played on the surface: He hits the ball so hard that it is very difficult to change pace or direction, to find the variations needed to turn the points into grass court points. Del Potro forces his opponents into his comfort zone: a boxing match where he is heavyweight and the others are not. Hewitt's success probably comes from the fact he is adept at aikido-tennis: using the pace of the opponent's shots to redirect the ball fast and early.

PS2: As soon as Federer and Nadal lost, the consensus was that the final would be Djokovic vs Murray. It is indeed what happened, but the road was more than a little bumpy, which is both a demonstration of the depth of men tennis and the character of Djokovic and Murray.