Kobeunderbite wrote:Is the ump who coached Kyrgios out of his mind? He should never officiate an ATP match again, although I'm sure he will thanks to his track record to date. Can you imagine Joe West heading out to the mound to try to pump up John Rocker lol?
Read an article on this earlier.
WTF was the chair ump thinking?
LOL
"The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe you might block every shot."
Bill Russell
"I'm just 'bout that action, boss"
L.O.B. = Love our Brothers.
Damn. Millman may have played the match of his life, but BRUTAL way for Fed to go out with all those double faults and unforced errors piling up. That tiebreaker was a train wreck. Djoker’s road to the final gets a lot less tricky now.
Novak would have handled Roger easily anyway. I have no doubt about that. He didn't break a sweat in the Cincinnati final and these conditions are far less favorable for Fed.
I think this is actually the lesser of two evils for Roger's legacy, another h2h loss in a slam to Djokodal would have been worse than this sort of ending.
Can't ever count him out but you have to wonder about how much more Roger has left in the tank. He was already hinting earlier in the tournament about the Laver Cup in Geneva '19 being a fitting setting for a final match/event. I don't think he cares about making it to another Olympics even though people have suggested that was part of his appeal to Uniqlo.
Rafa has a steep climb to the final still. He should make it but he's far from home. He will likely lose to Thiem today if Thiem zones like he did vs. Anderson. Thiem is the only guy in 2018 who has beaten Rafa convincingly and in less than 5 sets (of Rafa's three losses on the season). Del Potro is similarly one of the 3-5 guys on tour who can hit Rafa off the court and likely awaits in the SF.
Bottom line is that Rafa needs to raise his level and he's running out of time to do it. When players like Kachanov and Basilashvili blast 60+ winners against Rafa in back to back rounds, you know he's leaving the ball short and serving poorly like he did in 2015-16. Wouldn't be otherwise possible. The record humidity, a classic achilles heel of Rafa's is not helping matters.
Novak has a bye to the semis, maybe Cilic can given him a run for his money there but probably not.
What's really concerning is that Rafa has had a lighter year and it didn't save his knee from making it through the critical portion of the season. What a sad end result, not as devastating as the withdrawal vs. Cilic given that Roger went on to win #20 but still a tough blow.
Rafa needs another non-clay slam to have a chance at 20, not going to be easy but at least he plays at a high level everywhere again.
I don't think JMDP has much of a chance against Nole, he'll need to really zone which is unlikely statistically speaking.
Make that #14 for Novak and #15 to surpass Pete likely coming up in a few months in Melbourne. Assuming Rafa is limited the rest of 2018, Nole is in good position to reclaim year-end #1 and hold that top spot for a while. No points to defend the rest of 2018 and not much to defend during the first half of 2019 until Rome. Time to put that non-calendar year Grand Slam watch back on track.
So we’re going to have three players from this current era (wel I guess Fed is a bit older than the other two and Rafa peaked earlier thank Djokovic) ranked 1-3 in all-time grand slam count, potentially all 5+ clear of the field when they’re done. Are these guys the three best men’s singles players ever or is major count not a great metric?
One thing I’ve noticed is there are only a couple guys (Emerson and Laver) who have won each of the four GS events twice, though I don’t know if the fields were as tough or even if the surfaces were the same as they are today.
