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Tennis - Sinner accepts three month ban - won't miss Roland Garros (4 Viewers)

Master of Past and Present said:
Unscheduled Nadal press conference coming up, word is he has a wrist/hand in a cast/brace

Officially withdrawn, left wrist injury.
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Great news, he's unlikely to compete at Wimbledon also.  I was starting to get a tad worried about Nadal as he was starting to look good on clay, I still felt confident that djoker world best him, but better safe than sorry.

 
Dentist said:
Great news, he's unlikely to compete at Wimbledon also.  I was starting to get a tad worried about Nadal as he was starting to look good on clay, I still felt confident that djoker world best him, but better safe than sorry.
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lol, I was waiting for the Dentist Nadal hate post.  Good stuff.

 
Rain out today, bottom half with Murray and Wawrinka are a round ahead of Djokovic who now faces 4 matches in 6 days.  While his draw didn't look hard until the finals, certainly adds a twist.  

 
Theim-Djokovic and Wawrinka-Murray for SF.  Djokovic seems to have navigated the shorter schedule well enough that he should be fine for Sunday especially if Wawrinka-Murray winner doesn't boat race the other and he doesn't completely fall on his face against Theim.  

 
Master of Past and Present said:
Theim-Djokovic and Wawrinka-Murray for SF.  Djokovic seems to have navigated the shorter schedule well enough that he should be fine for Sunday especially if Wawrinka-Murray winner doesn't boat race the other and he doesn't completely fall on his face against Theim.  
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Djokavic shouldn't drop more than 12 games today.

Murray Wawa should be a tight match that should go 4-5 sets.

I'll be rooting for the Wawa Murray winner in the final, but honestly there's no bad result here.    I'm fine with Djokavic getting his 12th major.. I'm fine with him getting up to 14 maybe even 15 majors

I like Nole...  I hope that at the end of his career he supplants Pete as the 2nd best player of all-time.

He's going to have an insane number of masters titles... end of year titles,  and probably one of the higher weeks at #1 totals.

 
Well, I was off a bit, he only dropped 7 games..

I can't say I'm surprised Stan is about to bite the dust... in reality I'm still shocked he's won 2 GS titles, same number as Andy.

But I don't really care for Nole/Andy finals..   Although Murray has won 2 of them.. he hasn't in a long while

 
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Really impressed with Murray.  This was a guy 15 months ago that was a clay after thought with no titles on the surface.  Since he's won Master 1000 finals over Nadal and Djokovic and last year played Djokovic to 5 sets in the SF.  

If Murray wins it may be one of the oddest finals major stat lines.  1-0 at French, 1-1 at Wimbledon, 1-1 at US Open, 0-5 in Australia.  

As cool of a story for Murray's rise on clay, still rooting hard for Djokovic to achieve history and keep like the Grand Slam chance (and Golden Slam being Olympic year).  If he does it, he would have beaten the #2 seed in each final.  

 
Dentist said:
I like Nole...  I hope that at the end of his career he supplants Pete as the 2nd best player of all-time..
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 For sure, may even pass Agassi as the GOAT before his run is over. 

Agassi probably salivating at the field Djokovic just strolled through to win this tournament. I liked the trophy lifting after every match shtick for Nole though :thumbup:

 
As bad as the scores looked in the 2nd and 3rd, Murray was hardly ever out of a Djokovic service game.  I didn't see Murray fading, I saw Djokovic picking up his level.  

Found match entertaining, lots of great angled shots you get to see more on the clay courts than the other two surfaces.  Djokovic especially had many sick angles.

Mission 1 accomplished, now is their a letdown for Wimbledon?  Olympic Gold is probably hard not to look forward also for him.  As much as he may want the Grand Slam I'm still guessing Gold and French were goals 1 and 2 this year.  

 
Ramblin Wreck said:
When does Dentist start his anti-Novak schtick?  Novak is passing Federer no later than 2019 in Slams.
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I actually came in here to post that effective as of his next slam victory that I'm rooting against him almost as hard as I do against Nadal.

I don't hate him or his tennis like I hate Nadal... and I think Djoker has only cost Federer about 5 or 6 slams... whereas Nadal cost him about 8..

He has no current peer that's pushing him anymore now that Nadal is basically through...  Federer isn't going to get any better so I suspect unless Nole was upset that if they were to meet again in a slam final that it would go exactly like the last 3 have,  Murray seems to be improving but it's not enough, and no one else has really risen up and is very consistent.

The only thing that's going to beat him in the forseeable future is himself via injury or loss of focus (a la most of 2012 and 13, 2014 USO)

However, just when you think things are cruising along and you're unstoppable... something always seems to happen... the guy is nearing 30, and it's pretty rare to keep things going after that age....   who knows.. just as Novak's explosion in 2011 was somewhat unforseen (he was always in the mix, never dominant)...  maybe some other dude is going to rise up and start crushing it.

 
I think Joker passes Fed next year.  No one is close to his level of tennis right now.  He's beating the same 4 guys over and over.

Dentist you should be happy it's him and not Nadal passing Fed.

GOAT

 
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So if Murray isn't a peer, then I would assume that Philippoussis, Safin, Roddick, Hewitt, Baghdatis, Gonzalez, Soderling aren't either then.  So Federer has 4 major wins vs peers.   Djokovic has 6.  Nadal has 10. 

 
Master of Past and Present said:
So if Murray isn't a peer, then I would assume that Philippoussis, Safin, Roddick, Hewitt, Baghdatis, Gonzalez, Soderling aren't either then.  So Federer has 4 major wins vs peers.   Djokovic has 6.  Nadal has 10. 
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Of course murray is a peer, that was a misguided comment, I just wish he were better.

 
And men born in 1989 or later have not won a single title of note. No major, no Masters, no tour final. The entire generation of men younger than Djokovic who should be leading the sport hasn’t lifted a single significant trophy.
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Fed, Djokavic, Nadal and Murray have combined to demolish the subsequent generation of players.  20 years worth of greats came through men's tennis in a 10 year span and then the pipeline came to a sudden stop.

 
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wdcrob said:
Fed, Djokavic, Nadal and Murray have combined to demolish the subsequent generation of players.  20 years worth of greats came through men's tennis in a 10 year span and then stopped.
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It's really pretty incredible that since 2003 we've had 3 guys that won all but like 7 majors (wawa 2, murray 2, cilic 1, delpo 1, safin 1)

Basically to have 3 all-time top 5 guys in such a short time frame either is a historical anomaly,  speaks to the homogenization of surfaces, or another factor I haven't fully thought of.

And really..  Pete had just quit when Federer started winning and he's a top 5 guy also...

 
Dentist said:
speaks to the homogenization of surfaces
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I've read decent arguments for and against this theory, but lean towards thinking it explains so many guys winning so many majors across all surfaces now.

Which takes nothing away from the fact that three guys have basically demolished everyone else for over a decade now.

 
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wdcrob said:
I've read decent arguments for and against this theory, but lean towards thinking it explains so many guys winning so many majors across all surfaces now.

Which takes nothing away from the fact that three guys have basically demolished everyone else for over a decade now.
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Yet,  at the same time,  Nadal was clearly better on clay than on the faster surfaces... there was some difference.

Djokavic and Federer and Murray were clearly better on faster hard court and grass surfaces.

So some difference remains..  maybe the gap is a lot less than it was 15 years ago...   or maybe the players are truly just better...   Could Pete have won a French Open in the homogenized era?   Who knows... if playing Ralph I doubt it.

 
Probably the whole mixture of changes created the need to be an all surface player.  I think it would center around the ATP maturing over the years.  Before you had guys in different promotions and schedules were more about appearance fees.  ATP now has a pretty easy to understand schedule, 4 majors, 9 Master 1000s, many 500 and 250s, a season ending tourney with the top 8. 

The better they got at getting the top players to be at the same place consistently and predictably, the easier it was to get TV money.  What happens with TV money, they want the most entertaining product.  

It's not just a different grass used at Wimbledon that creates a bigger bounce, they use balls designed for a higher bounce to induce more rallies.  The '94 final between Sampras and Ivanisevic wasn't entertaining.  Watching ace, serve-return out, serve-return-volley, serve-return pass, serve-return-volley-pass can be really uninteresting if that's all the match is.  

Throw in racket technology where you can turn defense into offense in one shot.  

Ambition to be the best means right now you don't have a choice.  Guga was a clay court specialist who was year end #1 in 2000.  Besides winning the French, he went 1R, 3R, 1R in the other three majors.  Obviously you aren't getting to #1 these days on that.  And it seems legacy means more today to athletes than it ever has before.  At least the ones who want to be the best, still plenty that are happy to make a certain amount of money and live the life.

Everything seems to just be a funnel where being good on all surfaces was the end result.  That said, if Djokovic and Miurray fade away and no one else is good on all surfaces, it will be interesting if guys are as determined to be good on all if say they can just be good on hard courts and get to #1 and win the two hard court majors over and over again.  How much of this boils down to Federer was able to be good at them all and Nadal wanted to climb to the top so he needed to be good at them all and then Djokovic wanted to be at the top so he had to be good at them all and Murray trying to compete does the same thing.  If these guys fade away and no one takes the spot because they just became good at all the surfaces, will there be the same push from the guys behind that guy to be good at them all?

 
this Sharapova ban seems pretty harsh?  2 years for a substance that was just banned on 1/1 that was in a medication she had been taking for years?

Are there more details to this that I am not covering?  I certainly have not been following closely, so there may very well be a lot more to the story.

 
Believe 2 years is the max if you don't think or can't proven that the intention was cheating.  With the number of Russian athletes being tested positive for this and the main use of her medication would have been a heart condition, the belief is she was cheating but they couldn't prove intent to cheat.  

This was also medication she had to get from Russia as wasn't approved here in the US where she mostly lives.  The drug from what I understand is also a timed usage drug and not an everyday use over long periods of time drug.  The fact she uses it now for 10 years seems suspicious for the drug type.  

Basically they gave her the full amount of time they could without being able to prove intent.  The full 4 years was asked for so it's believe that intent was there.  Some expected a year if they truly believed her story (Russia was hoping back by Olympics even) but with her getting two years, I think that sends the signal they also believe intent was there but are admitting they can't prove it.  

 
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I still say this was the greatest player I ever saw play.

I remember the guy winning a point by throwing his racket up to knock a lob down rather than run back to chase it down...catch his racket and get ready for the return that never came.

And no one ever did the fist pump better...#TigerWho?

 
Wimbledon Possible SF:  Djokovic-Federer and Murray-Wawrinka

Possible seeds:  3R - 4R - QF

Djokovic:  Querry - Kohlshreiber, Ferrer - Raonic, Sock, Anderson, Goffin

Federer:  Dolgopolov - Simon, Monfils - Cilic, Karlovic, Cuevas, Nishikori

Wawrinka:  Pouille - Tomic, Bautista-Agut - Thiem, Sousa, Zverev, Berdych

Murray:  Paire - Kyrgios, Lopez - Gasquet, Tsonga, Isner, Troicki

 
wdcrob said:
I've read decent arguments for and against this theory, but lean towards thinking it explains so many guys winning so many majors across all surfaces now.

Which takes nothing away from the fact that three guys have basically demolished everyone else for over a decade now.
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Everyone basically plays the same style of tennis now as well

 
Murray now roughly 50% to win, as the big favorite.  Federer 2nd fav at ~21%.  No one else better than 10% to win (Maronic).

Probably his last best chance.

 
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wdcrob said:
Murray now roughly 50% to win, as the big favorite.  Federer 2nd fav at ~21%.  No one else better than 10% to win (Maronic).

Probably his last best chance.
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Fed better pull it together and beat Murray.  18 slams would be epic and it looks like he'll need them all to stay ahead of Djokovic

 
James Daulton said:
How is @Dentist not in here telling us how the loss by Joker will impact Fed's chance for one more slam?
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If you'd seen Federer at any tournament since the ao and his surgery, especially the grass court tune ups, you'd know he's in no shape to win a major right now.  If this upset happens either of the last two years, he absolutely wins, but right now it would take a minor miracle.

Murray should win, or else some random I suppose.

 
Dentist said:
If you'd seen Federer at any tournament since the ao and his surgery, especially the grass court tune ups, you'd know he's in no shape to win a major right now.  If this upset happens either of the last two years, he absolutely wins, but right now it would take a minor miracle.

Murray should win, or else some random I suppose.
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If you think he doesn't have a chance, I'm calling it for Fed.

 
Abrantes said:
Not very subtle with the reverse jinx attempt there.
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It's just not a reverse jinx, I watch a lot of Federer matches, when I saw him lose twice on grass to scrubs in the last month, I knew this tournament wasn't a realistic shot.

The good news is that with joker losing it's already a successful tournament for the fedlegacy.

 
What are those strings made of?  Jack Sock punched his racquet lightly out of frustration and he cut his hand.

 
Zigg said:
What are those strings made of?  Jack Sock punched his racquet lightly out of frustration and he cut his hand.
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I don't know, but that was one of the dumbest things I've seen in tennis. Throw or break your racket, but don't punch anything and injure your hand, might as well just resign.

 
Crazy that Isner has reached the Round of 8 only once in a Grand Slam.  You would think that serve could make a run a little more often.

 
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