US OPEN THREAD

[nuraman00]

Time for Fed to retire. You can tell he knows its done.

Yeah he really needs to retire. If he doesn't then last yr should be his last yr for sure

I'm fine with Fed just playing for love of the game.

Human slime who celebrate his losses are not tennis fans at all, so I guess what they say shouldn't bother rational humans. It's still hard to see their glee.

Anyway, it will be fun to see if Djokovic and Murray can keep Rafa from breaking Fed's record. I think Rafa will get it.

RE: The topic on whether FED should retire

I agree with cezero, that I'm fine with someone just playing as long as they still enjoy playing.

For example, Hewitt had a great win over Del Potro a few days ago. I don't even like watching Hewitt play, but I enjoy watching a vet have another memorable moment in his career.

The same could be said of Tommy Haas. He's not the # 2 player in the world anymore, but he's had several good runs in tournaments this year with some impressive wins. The consistency from match to match isn't there, but every now and then he's still capable of a memorable one every few weeks.

Same with Venus. Her movement isn't quite up to par anymore, and she hits the ball long a lot now. But still, her shot-making, when she wins some points, is still pretty good and more unique than a lot of other players.

If it's someone like Henin, back in 2008, who felt she could no longer compete, and quickly retired, then I'm fine with that too. It's up to the individual.

I don't think a "storybook" ending of retiring after a big win is always the right choice.

For example, Bartoli retired because she was tired of rehabbing from injuries this year, earlier in the year, before winning Wimbledon. But had she retired just for the sake of retiring, and not because of injuries, I'd always wonder whether she could win another one, especially on hard courts where I think she plays well too. Or even get to another Finals. I'd also wonder if she could win the FO, as there isn't a dominant clay court player right now, and she's been to the FO SF once, so she has a chance.

Some players like Kuznetsova and Safin took 4-5 years in between winning another major, although at least they had an occasional SF and Final in between.

 

[nuraman00]

Hoping Robredo can close it out here. A 4th set could get ugly

For whom? FED still would have been down 2-1 sets, so FED would still have to prove that he could play well enough to take a 2nd set. IMO. I don't think Robredo would have started playing poorly or getting tight. Sometimes that happens with some opponents, but I don't think it would have happened with Robredo.

I agree with you, nuraman, but you're responding to somebody who clearly knows nothing about tennis.

An example where I think someone could start getting tight and playing poorly after having a 2-0 sets lead and losing the 3rd set, would be if its a 50-100 ranked type player who's never been to the 2nd week of a major.

But just from watching Robredo play, he seemed to keep his errors down, and FED would be the ones making mistakes, so I would think his steady play would keep up and he wouldn't start making a bunch of errors.

Kim Clijsters is actually one of the few who, when the wheels come off, they really come off, even if she was ahead at one point. Her loss at the 2011 FO, when she was up big in the 2nd set with a 1 set lead, is one of those like that. Hard to comprehend. The whole time, even the broadcasters were talking like it would just take a quick turnaround for her to finish it off, but it never happened, and got even worse in the 3rd set.

The broadcasters would usually say that she plays fast in between points, so when things were good, she'd win quickly in a hurry, and when they were bad, they'd snowball quickly.

 

[nuraman00]

Damn, Tipsarevic played poorly in the 4th set tiebreaker.

 

[cezero]

I like Tipsarevic as a player, but not as a person, so I'm happy to see Ferrer win that one.

Ferrer will take on either Gasquet or Raonic, and I think that will be an excellent quarterfinal match.

 

[cezero]

Kim Clijsters is actually one of the few who, when the wheels come off, they really come off, even if she was ahead at one point. Her loss at the 2011 FO, when she was up big in the 2nd set with a 1 set lead, is one of those like that.

Clijsters was so hard to watch sometimes. lol. Like you said, when she fell apart, it was usually a rapid descent.

 

[bksballer89]

Nadal takes the 2nd. It is now a best of 3

 

[nuraman00]

Speaking of all the blowout matches on Ashe, I think it's been like that the past few years, where 4/5 of 5/5 matches in a day will all be straight sets wins, or something like that.

Have the scheduled matches on Rod Laver Arena; Chatrier Arena; and Center Court, have been as bad, at the other majors, respectively, the past few years? I've been wondering about that.

 

[nuraman00]

I'm starting to get tired of Raonic in majors, when he loses it doesn't seem to be competitive.

Gasquet, at least can provide an occasional high-drama match.

 

[nuraman00]

I had really wanted Clijsters to win the FO during her comeback from retirement, especially after having been to the Finals twice.

Unfortunately, during her 3 + years comeback, she missed the FO twice due to injury, and lost in the 2nd round the one year she played, 2011.

 

[bksballer89]

Speaking of all the blowout matches on Ashe, I think it's been like that the past few years, where 4/5 of 5/5 matches in a day will all be straight sets wins, or something like that.

Have the scheduled matches on Rod Laver Arena; Chatrier Arena; and Center Court, have been as bad, at the other majors, respectively, the past few years? I've been wondering about that.

I would assume so because let's face the facts. There aren't much competitive matches with the top players for the first 3 rounds or so. The competitive matches w/the top dogs start with the round of 16. You know that Serena, Sharapova, Rafa, Novak, Andy, and Roger will always be on the top court at GS unless a rain delay messes up the schedule. Outside of that you usually see the occasional hometown kid playing on the top court so at the FO you will see Tsonga/Gasquet on Chatrier while at the US Open you will see someone like Sloane who doesn't typically play on the top court in the early rounds, and at the Aussie Open you have Hewitt and Tomic on Laver.

 

[cezero]

Kohlschreiber could only keep it hard and deep to Rafa's backhand for so long.

Pretty much only Nole and Murray can keep it up for more than 1 or 2 sets.

 

[nuraman00]

I would assume so because let's face the facts. There aren't much competitive matches with the top players for the first 3 rounds or so. The competitive matches w/the top dogs start with the round of 16. You know that Serena, Sharapova, Rafa, Novak, Andy, and Roger will always be on the top court at GS unless a rain delay messes up the schedule. Outside of that you usually see the occasional hometown kid playing on the top court so at the FO you will see Tsonga/Gasquet on Chatrier while at the US Open you will see someone like Sloane who doesn't typically play on the top court in the early rounds, and at the Aussie Open you have Hewitt and Tomic on Laver.

This makes sense.

With respect to early rounds in general, I think the other majors have just had "luckier" scheduling for more competitive matches. For example, I remember a good Murray-Gasquet 1st round FO, or Isner-Nadal, or Berdych-Monfils this year. I think the AO has had a few good early round matches too.

And Wimbledon has gotten lucky that there's been some upsets or near upsets of FED and Nadal the past few years, providing more good early round matches.

For whatever reason, I feel the USO early rounds are the worst. The Hewitt-Del Potro turned out good, and same with Monfils-Isner. I just can't shake this feeling about the USO in general, subjectively.

If there was a blogger for tennis like there are for NBA or MLB, then I'm sure someone would have come up with a "competitive" formula at the majors to show whether this really was the case or not, and it would be interesting to see. What I mean is that some NBA and MLB bloggers are heavy into stats and coming up with articles like this, and if tennis were bigger, I think there could have been someone willing to do the analysis for tennis too.

 

[bksballer89]

35 aces for Raonic and were not even done the 3rd set.....Ridiculous

 

[bksballer89]

Court 17 is rocking during this Gasquet/Raonic tiebreak

 

[bksballer89]

Going to a 5th

 

[cezero]

I won't even bother watching the Robredo/Rafa match. That will be a horrible beatdown.

Rafa wouldn't have struggled against Fed, either, but wow, his road to the final just keeps getting easier.

 

[nuraman00]

I like the enthusiasm that Brad Gilbert announces the winner with, after a match. "Moving on, RAFAEL NADAL!". A little bit of Michael Buffer there. I've really noticed it during this tourney.

 

[nuraman00]

Court 17 is rocking during this Gasquet/Raonic tiebreak

Cool, watching via ESPN 3 now.

 

[bksballer89]

Nadal is going to destroy Robredo

 

[nuraman00]

I won't even bother watching the Robredo/Rafa match. That will be a horrible beatdown.

Rafa wouldn't have struggled against Fed, either, but wow, his road to the final just keeps getting easier.

Even though I had predicted a Tipsarevic-Nadal SF, I still would have liked to see it over a Ferrer-Nadal SF, just because I've seen plenty of those matchups, some good, some not, but never seen Tipsarevic-Nadal. Would have liked to see what Tipsarevic could have done, given the stakes.