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Szlia

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That being said, Del Potro doing well after he beat Djokovic is half a surprise... Monica Puig in the gold medal match though? That's several orders of magnitudes more surprising... oh and as I write this it seems Kerber is not 100% as she hobbles after points...
 

AngryGerbil

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Szlia

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45 winners in 3 sets, great length on ground strokes, amazing backhand cross-court, great shape on the forehand (attacking the open court with deep and heavily lifted balls that pushed Kerber wide AND back), able to surprise with short slices, ready to step forward and attack anything short, ready to close rallies at the net and defending it well, fighting for every point, unphased by errors, even at critical junctures: the best player won the gold and it is World N°34 Monica Puig! Very impressive match.

EDIT: It should be added that for her title she beat Muguruza (W. N°4), Kvitova (N°14) and Kerber (N°2) so not exactly a wide open draw. She avoided the two Williams sisters as they both lost early, but considering how they played and how Puig played, I am not sure it would have made much of a difference.
 
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Szlia

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They're not the favorites! I think the swiss pair played together before in Fed Cup but I could not find when (so that must be like one or twice ages ago) and Bacsinszky plays some double here and there but with average results. On the other hand the russian pair always play together and won several grand slam titles and also are very good in single!
 
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Szlia

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So yeah the russians Makarova and Vesnina won the gold in women's double (Safarova and Strycova for the bronze)

In a match I could not see Nishikori won the bronze in men's single over Nadal (the japanese served for it in the 2nd set, but got broken, got break chances right after but did not convert and that scored just the one point in the breaker! It had Nadal written all over it after such a scenario, but nope, Nishikori broke Nadal early and went straight to the finish line).

In a match I did not watch, Mattek-Sands and Sock beat Williams (Venus) and Ram in the all american mixed double final (Hradeka and Stepanek(!) winning the bronze). That being said, there is something a little nauseating in having mixed double be an olympic discipline. They play with a draw of 16 teams, with teams that are put together at the Olympics and they do the pity format of a super tie-break instead of a decider. To add insult to injury, the mixed double is a joke competition, not a discipline in itself, only available at Grand Slams to pad the match counts for the organizers / public or in some exhibitions. The cherry on top is that tennis, as a sport, does not give a damn about the Olympics. It's the Olympics that want Tennis for its star athletes. In 2020 there will be Mixed Double medals but no wrestling medals... /puke
 

Szlia

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After checking a play by play of the bronze medal match. Nishikori lead 6-2 5-2 and was at deuce on his serve, so he served twice for the match and both time he got broken without even leading in these service games! Nice mental effort to be able to win the thirds set after losing the 2nd in such a fashion.
 

Szlia

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The Big Four is still at work: Murray for the Gold (defending his title) over Del Potro. You have to wonder about the best of five format in the final after the schedule of the week, because both guys were spent in the third set already. That might also be related to the number of rallies where Del Potro hit forehand after forehand at full strength running around is backhand, and Murray running from side to side way behind his base line attempting to survive for one more ball or maybe even counter-punch. Anyway, despite leading twice with a break in the fourth set to force a fifth (including one where he served at 5-4), Del Potro failed to extend the match and even to reach a breaker, falling 7-5 in the fourth.

Too tired to be demonstrative, Murray stood there, on the edge of tear, almost punch drunk, incredulous, before falling in the arms of Del Potro at the net. Two players who know each other from their junior days and with a long and not always friendly history.
 

AngryGerbil

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I think it's okay that the Olympics are not the same as a Major.

I think it's okay that the Olympics are 'bigger' than the Majors. (I mean a bigger production, not of a bigger prestige)

The Majors, all 4 of them, have to cater to the sport itself.

But the Olympics doesn't have to cater to the sport itself, it just has to cater to sport, itself.

Olympic tennis is always a little jarring to me because the players do not represent themselves, they represent their country. That means that we did NOT just see Andy Murray defeat Juan-Martin Del Potro. We saw Great Britain defeat Argentina. We saw Puerto Rico defeat Germany. Its nationalistic, not individualistic. I make no judgements on that, I only observe it.

The Majors will want to have the best possible tennis on display during their respective tournaments. They are competing against each other. They are producing a product, and that product is 'the best tennis'. They are invested in the idea that the athletes be as rested, fed, relaxed, and prepped as possible.

But Olympics is about NOT being special. You are not 'Roger', you are merely the #1 seeded entrant from Switzerland. You are, only now, your flag.

I think I like the culture of the Tour better than that of the Olympics, as interesting as they both are. The Tour is more individualistic and libertarian. The Olympics are more collectivist and globalist. But I won't lie, both are fascinating to watch.
 

Szlia

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I don't disagree but... Olympic Medals for mixed double in tennis? Will they add a legend tournament in Tokyo?
 

Sterling

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I don't disagree but... Olympic Medals for mixed double in tennis? Will they add a legend tournament in Tokyo?
You'd probably be more excited about it if Federer was playing since it would have been Federer/Hingis right? They'd have to have been one of the favorites!
 

Szlia

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Oh I would have been able to both cheer for the victory AND find the event stupid. I am pretty sure Federer never played a single match of mixed double in his career.
 

Sterling

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KInd of as a side note, sort of weird knowing that Hingis has more doubles titles now than she has singles titles. I mean I know there's 2 shots at a title at each event for doubles, but still would never have expected this to be the case.
 

Araxen

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They should not have the men play the Semi's and Finals on back to back days. I'm fine with the finals being 5 sets, but there should have been a rest day.
 
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Szlia

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KInd of as a side note, sort of weird knowing that Hingis has more doubles titles now than she has singles titles. I mean I know there's 2 shots at a title at each event for doubles, but still would never have expected this to be the case.
Well, at the end of her first career in 2003, she already had more double titles in Grand Slam than single titles (9 vs 5 - including a Calendar Slam in Double in 1998) and as many Masters' Cup titles in double than single (2). She also hardly played any mixed (5 times vs 30 for single and 25 for double).

In her second career, she hardly played any grand slam double nor mixed (still managed to win the 2006 AO in the discipline though), so it's really in her 3rd career that she dumped single and is playing both double and mixed every chance she gets (for mixed that means 4 times a year as it is only available in Grand Slams). Good idea because it resulted in a combined 7 Grand Slam titles, one Masters' Cup and an Olympic Silver Medal (that could have been 2 golds if 3/5th of the swiss tennis team did not withdraw)!

It is true though that, on my count, Hingis had slightly more WTA single titles at the end of her 2nd career than double titles (43 to 42) and now it's 43 (a number that is very unlikely to change!) to 60.


On a side note, Hingis has a win/loss ration in career above 80% in all three disciplines! 548–135 (80.23%) in Singles, 413–90 (82.11%) in Doubles and 40–8 (83.33%) in Mixed! The Big 4 can't compete with that! I would guess only another Martina did better: Navratilova.
 

Szlia

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Side effect of the Olympics, a tired bunch showed up in Cinci (or, in the case of Djokovic, didn't) and only three of the top 8 seeds reached the quarter finals! In the bottom half it's Cilic that benefited from the seedicide, but he contributed as he beat Berdych for the right to face Coric (instead of Nadal) and Dimitrov (instead of Wawrinka or Tsonga). In the top half, Murray did his job and downed Tomic (instead of Nishikori) and Raonic.

In the final, Cilic found himself having the very rare opportunity to win a Master 1000 title while facing just a single member of the Big 4. Despite a semi-final against Dimitrov that ended well past 1 AM (which translates into a bed time of about 4 AM...), Cilic rose to the occasion in a final played in windy conditions and won in straight sets. With one US Open title and one Master 1000 title, he is now the sole N°6 among the active players (tied with Del Potro before).
 

Szlia

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I guess it's the US Open? I watched some of it during the first week but I thoug, heh, let's wait until the round of 16 :p


DJOKOVIC [1] played a very strange opening match where he looked unconcerned and flat. It is known that he is not 100% healthy, but not much transpired about it. Luckily for him he faced a very out of competition Janowicz who faded hard after winning the 2nd set. It's tough to say where is Djokovic at since then as he got a walk-over in the 2nd round and played 6 games against Youzhny in the 3rd before the russian retired...
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EDMUND the youngster from England who may or may not be an albino (probably not though since albino tend to have neurological issues and very bad eyesight) did some (tired) giant slaying as he beat Gasquet [13] in straight sets in the first round and Isner [20] in the third. I have hardly ever seen him play, but he is one of the 8 (?) players 21 and under to be in the Top 100.


TSONGA [9] faced a test against Anderson [23] but past it with flying colors, playing a full match, serving well, returning well, making the right choices, giving very little. A reference match for the frenchman who is among the best players to never have won a Grand Slam title... if Djokovic is not 100%, maybe there is something to be done in this part of the draw for him?
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SOCK [26] reached only the 2nd 4th round of a Slam in his career. This is very hard to explain as he is a guy with big weapons (serve, forehand) who is a pretty decent competitor and, off the top of my head, kept a pretty decent ranking. Maybe the wear and tear of best of 5 matches does not suit him as he plays also a lot of double and some mixed? I don't know. This year though, after a five sets battle against american youngster Fritz he discarded Zverev (Misha the older brother of Alexander) to the loss of only 4 games and then dominated in 3 sets former champion Cilic [7]! The croatian was slighty off color, but Sock played an excellent match, serving well, moving very well to hit a lot of forehands to safe yet aggressive targets. It should be noted that in Rio Sock won a bronze medal in double and a gold medal in mixed double. You know all the good I think of mixed double being an Olympic event, but that nevertheless is a confidence booster and the american might besurfing that wave of confidence right now.


NADAL [4] is not exactly a hot bookmaker favorite these days, but he still has to lose a set after three rounds where he played solid players in Istomin, Seppi and Kuznetzov. The seed he should have faced was Ramos [31] so it would not have been much sterner a test. In the little I have seen I found him pretty sharp. Sharper in fact than in the last few months. It's very surprising when you consider that he got destroyed 1 and 3 by Coric in Cinci!
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POUILLE [24] the young frenchman made good use of his seeding but still played 14 sets in three matches! In the 2nd round he broke the heart of swiss veteran qualifier Chiudinelli who served for the match in the third to no avail, fought back in a breaker he finally lost and then scored just two games in sets four and five, out of gas. In the third round, the frenchman scored a very good win against Bautista [15]. One of Pouille's strength is that he has an aggressive game but stay level headed. Never too down when he misses, does not go crazy when he makes big shots and he keeps his cool even when things don't go his way. A good competitor. The next step I guess is being able to win his first round matches more convincingly to arrive fresh against the likes of Nadal.


MONFILS [10] in 2016 seem to have found a better balance between using his athleticism and using his brain as well as having fun while playing and competing well. End result in this Open: three matches without losing a set. Not bad since he faced in the first round ace machine Muller who is playing well this year too and spaniard and former staple of the Top 20 Almagro who just had a good win over Cuevas [18].
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BAGHDATIS... yep... on paper this should have been Raonic [5] but the canadian youngster faced in the 2nd round an inspired Harrison and, to make matters worse, injured himself a bit. Baghdatis though made the most of it as after upsetting 32nd seed Pair in the 2nd round he beat Harrison in four sets. That will be an interesting test for Monfils as Baghdatis is a talented and no-non sense aggressive baseliner. When he is feeling it, the guy can play at made pace without ever missing, so the opponent better be smart and play a clean match something Monfils has not always done in the past. Strangley, these two guys who both have been on tour for more than a decade only faced each other three times! Once in 2006, once in 2007 and... once a couple weeks agao in Cinci! Monfils won that one 7-5 6-0.


Intriguing top half as we have no idea of the level of Djokovic and the other 7 players have been pretty solid on their way to this stage. Curious to see what a Monfils-Nadal match could turn into... Some answers tomorrow.


THIEM [8] I have not seen play, but after a tough first round against australian Millman he lost just 1 set in his following two matches avoiding the seeded Querrey[29] who fell in the first round to Tipsarevic.
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DEL POTRO is unseeded which is a kind of joke that Johnson [19] and Ferrer [11] certainly did not find funny. The tall argentinian has still to lose a set despite facing two top 20 players...


MARCHENKO I have rarely seen play, but that guy is pretty good. He put up a very good fight against Kygrios [14] until the bonker autralian hurt himself medway through the 2nd set. After that Marchenko continued to play a solid match against the ghost of Kyrgios, winning sets two and three when the australian, dejected, almost in tears, withdrew.
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WAWRINKA [3] has a singularity among the top guys: his top level is extremely high, but his bottom level is dramatically lower than most of his peers at the top of the ranking. After two decent matches, including a straight set victory against currently unseeded Verdasco, he played a craptacular match against Evans. Piles of unforced errors that became even worse as, probably because he was increasingly nervous, his footwork became more and more sluggish. Saving a match point in the fourth set he somehow managed to forced a fifth set, helped a little by an Evans who forgot that consistency, not risk taking, was what brought him close to the finish line. Feeling like he might have missed his chance and with his body in the red, the englishman faded sharply in the fifth. When he was one or maybe two breaks down he turned to his box and said that it was over and that he had no shot at winning this... In front of my TV I was like "Are you serious? Did you somehow forgot the guy on the other side of the net spent his evening missing the court and is not currently playing any better?". "I can't win" being one of the most often self-fullfilling prophecy in sport, Evans did not win, though I am not sure Wawrinka really did!


NISHIKORI [6] is around. Four sets per round. Yep.
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KARLOVIC [21] is having a good year. After winning in five sets against veteran Lu in the first round he beat in straight sets Young and american youngster Donaldson (19 so... 18 years younger than Karlovic!). There are two very good signs for the tall croatian. The first is that more than half the sets he won did not reach a breaker and the second is that he won the huge majority of the breaker he played. You would think that, with a serve like his, Karlovic would always win most breaker, but that is not the case: he is at about 50% in his career.


DIMITROV [22] is still around. These days he loses more than he wins it seems, so seeing post a couple good wins against Chardy and Sousa is encouraging.
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MURRAY [2] played two very solid matches in round one and two, but his third round match that should have been the easy dismissal of unheralded veteran journeyman Lorenzi, a very respectable player but with more heart than weapons, turned out to be a pretty big fight for two sets and a half between the rugged italian and a slightly off color Murray.


The bottom half of the draw is also difficult to predict. Will Del Potro continue to dig through the draw? Will Wawrinka play well or poorly? Can Nishikori play a clean enough match to not give Karlovic opportunities? Can Dimitrov go back to his giant slaying days?
 

Szlia

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They played the top half of the draw yesterday: Djokovic is fine... well... at least he was for two sets and then the discomfort he feels, apparently in his arm, came back or something and he became all somber and dejected but since Edmund is not the best competitor he courteously made 4 unforced errors in a row at 4-5 in the third... It will be curious to see how things will fare against stronger opposition, namely Tsonga who played another full match to win in 4 sets against Sock (only dropping the 3rd set in a breaker). Monfils played a solid match against Baghdatis (who, amusingly, got a warning for texting his wife mid match!), but the story of the day obviously was Pouille beating Nadal.

I did not see the first two sets. Pouille won the first 6-1 and lost the second 2-6... but from the third set on it was pretty clear why Pouille had success against the spaniard. We're in 2016 so we have known for a while what is the game plan to beat Nadal: play his backhand until you have an opportunity to attack and then attack the forehand. It's sounds extremely simple, but not all players have the discipline to do it, not all have the shots to do it (you need an aggressive backhand cross court or good footwork and a good inside out forehand) and not all have the quality of decision making that allows to chose correctly whether to go to the backhand once more or to attack. Pouille has the discipline, the shots and the cold blooded decision making abilities. Better: to make the anti-Nadal plan even more effective, he made it anti-Nadal+, adding just enough variations to keep Nadal guessing. Maybe he'll throw a serve and volley in the mix, maybe he'll gamble on the return, maybe, when the opportunity arises, he'll attack down the line, wrong-footing Nadal that anticipates another attack in the open court. The even keel temperament of Pouille also helped. Things go well? Ok, next point. He missed, made the wrong shot selection? Ok, next point.

Pouille is not perfect though, at time he lost the plot or missed some easy shots and Nadal is not stupid and worked hard to thwart his opponent. He tried to be more aggressive with his backhand to make it difficult for Pouille to make him play several backhand in a row (as Nadal is expert as running around his backhand if anything is a bit too slow or a bit too short or a bit too centered) and in sets four and five he also went to the net a lot more, because, obviously, the anti-Nadal plan even in its '+' version does not account for a Nadal at the net. It was almost enough. Almost. But Nadal still lost in the fifth set breaker.


I thought this Pouille vs Nadal match could be a bit like the Federer vs Sampras match, but I guess it should have been at the French Open and should have been the one and only meeting between the two. For reference, they faced each other once before in Monte-Carlo last year. Pouille was ranked 108th then and Nadal won 6-2 6-1. Less than 16 months later, Pouille is ranked 25 and will play his second Grand Slam quarter final in a row.
 

Szlia

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I only saw the night session today. In the afternoon, Del Potro beat Thiem (or more exactly lead Thiem by a set and break before the young austrian retired with a thigh injury), Wawrinka dominated Marchenko but was forced to play a fourth set after the ukrainian won the third in a breaker and Nishikori managed to win in straight sets against Karlovic. I saw the end of that one, and you can see how the japanese is a very tricky opponent for the big serving veteran. Nishikori returns well, his wristy forehand and clean backhand allow him to fire venomous passing shots (to pass directly - notably with some top quality lobs - but also to force Karlovic to execute very difficult volleys than he can often track down with his great court speed) and control baseline rallies. As a result, Nishikori broke early in the first two sets and hardly lost any points on his serve. Karlovic fared better in the third as he reached a tie-breaker just as his opponent was deserted by his first serve... A great opportunity right? A bit too great for the nerves of the veteran who served two double faults and quickly found himself 0-6 down! That must not happen to him that often and what a bad time for it to happen! It obviously looked done and dusted, but somehow Karlovic managed to claw his way to 6-4, regaining two of the mini-breaks he lost, but a cheap forehand error prevented him from grabbing a third. I have seen Gulbis recover from 0-5 down in a breaker in Rome, but I don't think I ever saw someone recover from 0-6 down.

Not much to say about the night session match. Murray played rock solid from the beginning to the end and Dimitrov just found himself unable to win points. It must almost have been soul crushing for the bulgarian, who is finally having some success after months of poor results, to be so thoroughly outclassed. He tried to be patient... Murray tracked down every ball and refused to miss. He tried to attack... Murray counter punched with winners. It was more than a bit ridiculous. Three or four times Dimitrov fired great down the line backhands and followed them to the net only to see Murray reply with running forehands cross-court that seemingly traveled at the speed of sound to the opposite corner of the court... To add insult to injury, Murray during the match had his fastest serve on record ever... 6-1 6-2 6-2 for the scot. Ouch. That one will be hard to recover from for Dimitrov.


Soooooooooooooo the quarter finals!

DJOKOVIC [1] vs TSONGA [9]
If the frenchman continues to play at the same level as he did in his previous two matches, this will be the first big test for Djokovic. In case the World N°1 is struggling, I would be shocked to see Tsonga self destruct like Edmund and Janowicz did. PS: Their head to head is 15-6 for Djokovic, not that horrible... but 5 of those Tsonga wins are from 2010 and before...

POUILLE [24] vs MONFILS [10]
Intriguing match. I wonder what Pouille has left in his tank considering he played 19 sets in 4 matches! He is twenty two though and his temperament probably helps him save a lot of physical and mental energy. On the other side of the net, I wonder how Monfils will manage this match as far as focus go. No matter his ranking, Monfils always considered himself to best of the french players and undoubtedly he sees himself as the overwhelming favorite in this match. More, he probably feels he is owned the win by seniority alone, so if Pouille proves harder to beat than expected I wonder if Monfils will be able to maintain the new found business like attitude that allowed him to make a great 2016 season.

DEL POTRO vs WAWRINKA [3]
Not a good day to be a tennis ball. As often, I feel the outcome will depend on Wawrinka's level. He is a lot better in the backhand to backhand diagonal, which should help in a match that will be about who can take the offense first, and defends a lot better, which should help when he can not take the offense first! Wawrinka's weakness though might be the return of serve as he tends to block a lot of returns. It can be a neutralizing shots against players who have a hard time generating their own pace, but we know that, if he has time to set up, Del Potro can turn even the deepest dead balls into blistering forehand winners. That said, the head to head gives the edge to Del Potro (4-2), who won their previous meeting in this year's Wimbledon.

NISHIKORI [6] vs MURRAY [2]
From the top of my head I would say this has the potential to be a very close match, but, much to my surprise, Murray totally dominates their head to head 7-1 with Nishikori's lone win coming in the Masters' Cup in 2014 (in that same edition Murray lost to Federer 6-0 6-1 so, yeah...). The only glimmer of hope for Nishikori is that one of their few close matches was played in Davis cup earlier in the year an epic battle that saw the japanese come back from two sets down to force a decider (and lose). Since then Murray had a clean win over him in Rio, but yeah...
 

Szlia

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The two quarters of the top half got played... sorta. Tsonga did in fact self destruct, but not exactly in the way I thought he would not: he injured himself. A stern Djokovic was dominating proceedings when mid-way through the 2nd set Tsonga showed sign of discomfort when landing after his serve and then when moving. Bad footwork lead to a bucket of unforced errors and Djokovic quickly lead two sets to love. The physio tried to stretch Tsonga's in his knee area and then put some tape to support the patellar tendon, but after serving a double at the start of the third, Tsonga conceded. For the set and half it was a competitive match Djokovic played extremely well, covering the court brilliantly and hardly missing a ball. But again, he also did that during two sets against Edmund, so what will happen if he is actually tested?

We might have our answer in the next round as a very focused Monfils disposed with ease of a clearly tired Pouille. Monfils has yet to lose a set in this US Open and he is firing on all cylinders. The glass half full is that he is reaching the semi final almost as fresh as Djokovic, the glass half empty is that he reached this stage with a pretty mild draw (quality players for sure, but a tired youngster, a tired veteran, an out of competition veteran, a newbie, so his biggest test was probably the first round against in form big serving veteran Muller). What I am trying to say is that he dealt well with matches where he was the favorite, but what will happen against stronger opposition and when things don't go as smoothly? We'll see on Friday (unless he falls ill and Djokovic gets the benefit of a fourth withdrawal...).