Talk About Tennis 2.0

The main reason that I loved Pete, other than the game, was his poise while playing. He simply played like: "I am not impressed. I can play like this all the time". It was psychologically brutal on the opponent.
But Rybakina goes to another level. If they just show you the post match moment, you can't tell if she won or lost. She makes Borg look like Leyton.
It is hard to get excited about her, indeed.

SO, I watched a bit of Felix in the 1st set (solid), 3rd set (same), and 4th set (good enough to beat Cerúndolo). Example- up 5-3 in the 4th, Felix plays great to get to 0-40- and then, yet again, fuddles around, and lets Cerúndolo. He's gotta cut this nonsense level he's been getting to in 2023, too often. Look- he was definitely better than the first two rounds. His serve, for the most part, has been holding him up when the rest of his game has been falling to crap. But- he really has gotta step it up when the tougher guys are his opponents.

But, hey- he's in R16- which is a better result so far than might have been expected from his level in the first two rounds.

I find Taylor Fritz to be at least just as 'bland' as Rybakina.
Fritz is vanilla (which is fine with me - that's simply his personality).
But he's American, and so is far less likely to have his personality critiqued by Americans than is someone from overseas, I suppose...

The extremes in this sport are often perplexing...
Keys rolled through the first set easily...
Then Azarenka easily rolled through the next 2 sets to win.

Hurcacz has blown a 2 set to love lead over an erratic player he should beat.
Anyone who goes two sets up on Shapovalov should win the match without blowing the lead. Especially a guy like Hucacz, who is much more calm and much more steady than Denis.
2 sets all now, on serve at the beginning of the fifth.

Hubie pulled it out in the end - 6-3 in the 5th. He got the break... but then it was love-40 on Hubie's serve for Denis to break back in the 9th game. Hubie dug deep, though, with some clutch serves, got it to deuce, and then won it.
But it really should not have gone to a 5th set.

Over on Laver, Korda is ahead of Medvedev 7-6, 4-1.

.

So much for Medvedev being a serious title contender...

His decline has been perplexing. After that USO title and climbing to #1, it seemed he was a serious threat at all slams, at least the ones on hard courts. And no, he just simply has become a so so player. Not even the best Russian.
Also:
Yes, Rafa lost to McDonald AND his injury. But McDonald had won the first set convincingly. Then, McDonald gets beaten by Nishioka in a rather routine fashion.
Nelslus said it earlier. There is something more than meets the eye about Rafa, regarding his game. It is just not the injuries.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:44 am The main reason that I loved Pete, other than the game, was his poise while playing. He simply played like: "I am not impressed. I can play like this all the time". It was psychologically brutal on the opponent.
But Rybakina goes to another level. If they just show you the post match moment, you can't tell if she won or lost. She makes Borg look like Leyton.
It is hard to get excited about her, indeed.

And Pete gave you something to work with. I'm not claiming it was all the time, but he would definitely give a smile, a smirk, a laugh, a small fist pump on a good point, a bigger fist pump on a trickier shot or more crucial point, sometimes even to the crowd. He engaged you more even if many would say not enough. Watch a highlight reel of him and it's easy to see.

That is a great way to put it about Rybakina, I wouldn't know if she won or lost a match looking at her most times.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:00 pm
Yes, Rafa lost to McDonald AND his injury. But McDonald had won the first set convincingly. Then, McDonald gets beaten by Nishioka in a rather routine fashion.

It's almost always been the case that players bring their A Game against the greats, and I'd guess it was as simple as that. We've seen so many pedestrian players (not saying McDonald is that fwiw) take top ranked players to 3 or 5 sets depending on the tournament and then basically never heard from them again. And we've seen better players (like McDonald) play them very close and sometimes beat them, and we're like, wow, he's got so much more to his game than I realized, only to never make that kind of noise and give that type of performance again.

Ajla is an example of this against Serena. Hasn't had her first career title, but came up with one of her best career performances that day. May never see her that dialed in again. But if she played even close to that clutch most other days, she'd have reached the top 20 in her career at least once and collected a title by now. And I don't know what Harmony Tan has been up to since beating Serena at Wimbledon, but it sure as heck hasn't been winning tour-level matches.

And Roger played a second round match at Wimbledon against someone one year so pedestrian I can't even guess at that name. Seemed like he'd certainly be ascending in the sport, if you can play Roger like this, you can beat a ton of players on tour, and he never registered a blip to my knowledge to after that. But he had Roger sweating that day.


As for Nishioka's routine win over McDonald? McDonald suffered an abdominal injury in the match and was seriously serving underhanded point after point to get the ball in by the 3rd set, frustrating Nishioka to no end, but he refused to retire. But also, Nishioka beat him routinely two weeks ago in Adelaide (the reason he was my SP pick yesterday).

JazzNU wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 6:17 pm

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:00 pm
Yes, Rafa lost to McDonald AND his injury. But McDonald had won the first set convincingly. Then, McDonald gets beaten by Nishioka in a rather routine fashion.

...

And Roger played a second round match at Wimbledon against someone one year so pedestrian I can't even guess at that name. Seemed like he'd certainly be ascending in the sport, if you can play Roger like this, you can beat a ton of players on tour, and he never registered a blip to my knowledge to after that. But he had Roger sweating that day.


As for Nishioka's routine win over McDonald? McDonald suffered an abdominal injury in the match and was seriously serving underhanded point after point to get the ball in by the 3rd set, frustrating Nishioka to no end, but he refused to retire. But also, Nishioka beat him routinely two weeks ago in Adelaide (the reason he was my SP pick yesterday).

Alejandro Falla once led Roger 2-0 in sets, before faltering. Simply could not sustain the level.
And, of course, down here they did not even bother to mention the McDonald/Nishioka match because they had to show Cerundolo/FAA. So, I had idea of that injury to Mackensie.
I am liking him more. He seems pretty cool.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:00 pm His decline has been perplexing. After that USO title and climbing to #1, it seemed he was a serious threat at all slams, at least the ones on hard courts. And no, he just simply has become a so so player. Not even the best Russian.

Forgot to mention it earlier, but for anyone who wasn't able to watch any part of this match. Korda won it. He was on from the first point and Daniil seemed to know he was in trouble as soon as the match began. Korda broke Daniil's serve in a long game to open the match. Medvedev called the trainer immediately and didn't use him just had some words with him and then got like rubdowns on changeovers barely 20 minutes into the match. It was odd, like he was setting up his excuses for the loss he saw coming. Sebi truly played a fantastic match.

Both Medvedev and Nadal became fathers in the past year. That may have something to do with their (relative) tennis decline. When you become a parent, tennis very likely becomes less important - suddenly, your main focus in life is not tennis.
With Medvedev, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the attention that gets him, may also be affecting him.

One of the better on-court interviews this week...
"I'm definitely the worst athlete in the family so far."