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Tennis Volume 6


Calibandar

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That 10 podium, Rafa banners and special trophy would have been rather embarrassing had Wawrinka won. Not that anyone other than Nadal doing so looked at all likely from the start of the tournament. Two comprehensive wins over the next two best players at the tournament in the semis and final.

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On 2017-6-10 at 4:22 PM, Leap said:

Well, I was working during the Murray-Wawrinka match unfortunately, but I caught most of the Nadal/Thiem match and that was a little disappointing. Thiem had some strong moments but never really threatened Nadal, and you could see that by the third set it was wearing on him. It's all well and good going for winners every other shot, but if your opponent is keeping it in even when you hit it well, it's not going to end well.

 

Very excited about the match tomorrow, and I really hope it's not a let down like Nadal/Thiem. Stan is a little more proven in the late stages of Grand Slams though, and with how well he played against Murray - it should be a stormer.

I didn't even watch a lot of the final. I expected another beatdown from Rafa and combined with my lack of interest in clay court tennis I just didn't bother. As expected, another very easy win. And he did it against Thiem as well, who knocked out the Djoker, so you thought, could he upset Rafa? But no chance at all.

An extremely dominant display from Nadal. From what few games I saw today he absolutely crushed Stan, who is not exactly Mr. Mental Fortitude anyway. Nadal's been incredible though, what I am now interested in is, can he carry this through into grass and hardcourt?

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  • 4 weeks later...

So I just witnessed one of the most pathetic performances (if you can call it a performance) from Bernard Tomic today, and that's saying something given the tripe he's offered up in the past. Basically gave away multiple second serve aces to the opponent, playing returns without even trying to get back to the centre of the court, and generally tanking the match. The scoreline is generous to him (4/3/4) but that was as listless a eprformance as I've seen. Too bad Australian tennis has fallen to the depths of Kyrgios and Tomic.

 

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span data-node-flag="true">a

Did you see the Interview he did afterwards?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/40498212

He's bored and has not motivation for Tennis anymore, but still plans on playing for the next 10 years so he can rake in the cash and never work again.


20 hours ago, Jeor said:

 

So I just witnessed one of the most pathetic performances (if you can call it a performance) from Bernard Tomic today, and that's saying something given the tripe he's offered up in the past. Basically gave away multiple second serve aces to the opponent, playing returns without even trying to get back to the centre of the court, and generally tanking the match. The scoreline is generous to him (4/3/4) but that was as listless a eprformance as I've seen. Too bad Australian tennis has fallen to the depths of Kyrgios and Tomic.

 

 

 

Did you see the Interview he did afterwards?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/40498212

He's bored and has not motivation for Tennis anymore, but still plans on playing for the next 10 years so he can rake in the cash and never work again.


 

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At least he's honest and didn't crap on about how he was injured or some other rubbish.

The good thing is with that sort of attitude, he's not going to be able to play the next 10 years and earn enough money to never work again. He'll be out of the rankings for automatic Grand Slam qualification at this rate and tennis is not the sort of sport you can make gazillions in, unless you're a Top 20 player who regularly challenges for titles.

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12 hours ago, Pebble said:

span data-node-flag="true">a

Did you see the Interview he did afterwards?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/40498212

He's bored and has not motivation for Tennis anymore, but still plans on playing for the next 10 years so he can rake in the cash and never work again.

 

 

 

Did you see the Interview he did afterwards?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/40498212

He's bored and has not motivation for Tennis anymore, but still plans on playing for the next 10 years so he can rake in the cash and never work again.

 

 

Can't really fault him.

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9 hours ago, Leap said:

I think it would be pretty hypocritical of me to criticise Tomic for doing Tennis purely for money, since that's the prime reason that I have a job too. However, I also do the work - if not for myself, then for the people relying on me. Tomic should have some respect for his fellow players and for the fans of the sport - he should certainly appreciate the damage he's doing to sportsmanship and Australian Tennis. Hopefully he'll be gone before long, but probably not. He'll be gone just as long as it takes him to realise he has to really practice if he wants to make any real money.

When I have read that he "lost respect" for the game, all I could have thought was"who the hell are you to lose respect for anyone or anything". Seriously, he is someone who never commanded any respect so his opinion doesn't or shouldn't matter at all. It is repugnant behavior and something he should be ashamed of.

But, as we say in my country, smart's shame is fool's pride.

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Tomic can say he's doing it for the money, but if this were a normal job he'd have been fired for underperformance and non-attendance. The world has a natural way of correcting things, though, so he'll plummet down the rankings and won't be able to make a living from it. Just the other day there was an article about the unglamorous life of some main-draw, low-ranked Wimbledon players who were staying in share accommodation with friends, have only part-time coaches etc. Pretty sure that's not the sort of lifestyle Tomic is after, and it's not one that after 10 years will allow him to never work for the rest of his life.

The one mitigating point I'll concede is that to be a top-flight tennis player, you do have to be phenomenally driven. Firstly, it's an individual sport, so unless you have a really good coach, there's no one to really push you, or pick you up when things go badly. Secondly, the lifestyle is pretty lonely - unless you have the money to pay to fly your family around with you, you're forever on the road away from your loved ones, and only really get a month and a bit off at the end of the year. Thirdly, the income is highly volatile but the expenses (flights, accommodation) are ever-present. For any but the top players (or those who can attract more reliable endorsement deals) it really is a task to manage the touring life.

So on the one hand it's understandable Tomic has hit the wall. If you're not 110% committed to the sport and to your career, all of those factors above are going to eat away at you until you eventually snap. It's just a shame he did it so publicly and is such a brat about it.

EDIT: Also McEnroe has a theory that Djokovic is pretty much on the same trajectory, with personal problems eating away at his motivation etc.

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18 hours ago, Jeor said:

At least he's honest and didn't crap on about how he was injured or some other rubbish.

The good thing is with that sort of attitude, he's not going to be able to play the next 10 years and earn enough money to never work again. He'll be out of the rankings for automatic Grand Slam qualification at this rate and tennis is not the sort of sport you can make gazillions in, unless you're a Top 20 player who regularly challenges for titles.

Let's be honest and say that most of top 20 players are not anywhere near regularly challenging for titles.
It's been the same 4 players winning majority of trophies for about a decade now. Sure, there have been occasional breaks from someone else, but nowhere near regular.

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50 minutes ago, baxus said:

Let's be honest and say that most of top 20 players are not anywhere near regularly challenging for titles.
It's been the same 4 players winning majority of trophies for about a decade now. Sure, there have been occasional breaks from someone else, but nowhere near regular.

I'm talking all titles, not just the Slams or even the Masters series - there are plenty of top 20 players who win the 250 or 500 series tournaments. E.g. if you look at the current 2017 calendar year, guys who have won titles include Bautista Agut, Dimitrov, Muller, Tsonga, Zverev, Thiem, etc.

Winning a 250 tournament would net you around $100K I think. So get a couple of good runs to the final in smaller 250/500 tournaments, add in a couple of decent 4th round appearances at the Slams ($200K each) and you have yourself a good income to pay for all those hotels, flights, entourage etc. Mind you, that will probably only last for a few years. The sort of players who regularly get to the fourth round of Slams and challenge for the smaller tournaments are your Top 20 players, hence my comment earlier.

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3 minutes ago, Jeor said:

 

I'm talking all titles, not just the Slams or even the Masters series.

There are plenty of top 20 players who win the 250 or 500 series tournaments. E.g. if you look at the current 2017 calendar year, guys who have won titles include Bautista Agut, Dimitrov, Muller, Tsonga, Zverev, Thiem, etc. Winning a 250 tournament would net you around $100K I think. So if you're a Top 20 player, get a couple of good runs to the final in smaller 250/500 tournaments, add in a couple of decent 4th round appearances at the Slams ($200K each) and you have yourself a good income to pay for all those hotels, flights, entourage etc. Mind you, that will probably only last for a few years. The sort of players who regularly get to the fourth round of Slams and challenge for the smaller tournaments are your Top 20 players, hence my comment earlier.

It all comes down to what we consider a good paycheck from the sport or what Tomic may want. Simply, Wawrinka so far earned 30 million dollars, and the rest of top 10 - Raonic, Nishikori and Cilic are around 15 million, and the current n.20 - Kyrgios has earned 4,5 million dollars so far. Yes, there are more to it, but so there are expenses. Being professional tennis player is not cheap. So, if he is there for the big bucks, I suppose he is barking at the wrong tree. 

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5 minutes ago, Risto said:

It all comes down to what we consider a good paycheck from the sport or what Tomic may want. Simply, Wawrinka so far earned 30 million dollars, and the rest of top 10 - Raonic, Nishikori and Cilic are around 15 million, and the current n.20 - Kyrgios has earned 4,5 million dollars so far. Yes, there are more to it, but so there are expenses. Being professional tennis player is not cheap. So, if he is there for the big bucks, I suppose he is barking at the wrong tree. 

The other thing that the Top 10ers have over all the other players is that most of them have pretty hefty endorsement deals with clothing, racquets, other things. When you're a top 10 player regularly getting into the late stages of Grand Slams you have the sort of visibility that brands want, but if you're outside the top 10, good luck finding the endorsement money.

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Federer looked immense, he is into his 50th grand slam qf, how ridiculous is that?  

Nadal serving to stay in the tournament looks very wobbly, considering his form since the start of the french open, already had to save match points. 

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That was... unexpected.

Federer, per usual, impresses whenever he is on court. Nadal was, well rightly beaten. It will be interesting to see how this resolves. I do hope Federer making it to n.19 :D 

 

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Federer not that convincing so far, but that was solid against Dimitrov, who admittedly crumbled far too easily.

Shame kyrgios went out so early. Zverev had a much better tournament this time around but that 5th set was poor.

 

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14 hours ago, Leap said:

Well, I was hoping for a Federer win anyway but a Fedal final would have been nice, hell - even a Murray/Nadal Semi would have been amazing. That certainly improves Federer's chances, but there's a long way to go yet - Raonic, and then possibly Djokovic. Speaking of whom, they really ought to have put him on Centre Court last night when the Rafa match went to a 5th set. 

Like everything related to Djokovic, this created a ton of noise in Serbian media. Some of them went that far to argue that this was intentional in order to give Murray and Federer bigger chances of success. As I always said, Serbian comment section has done nothing if not created 5 different conspiracy theories regarding Djokovic (my favorite one is that Djokovic is playing badly because he has been forced to do that by the big sponsors. They have something on him :D )

That said, I understand why Djokovic doesn't play on Center Court (simply, the crowd Federer and Murray bring in Wimbledon is much larger than that Djokovic could bring). But, the moving is a bit problematic, not because I believe they have some malicious intent, but simply because I believe it was just one of the mistakes organizers made. It is simply a mistake. I believe in good in people. I would rather think that someone is stupid than evil :D  

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