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Tennis Volume 6


Calibandar

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22 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

Federer has said he can still go on. As I said, he's modifying his style of play to this end.

The sure thing is in two years the rankings will suffer an earthquake. Many of the top 100 are nearly their 30's or over it.

I say I'm going to win 30 Grand Slam titles. Saying so doesn't make it true. He needed a break, which is why he took one, and I think it will be difficult to get into the right mindset again after half a year.

21 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I do think Federer retiring now would be premature. Premature for a couple of reasons actually, one of them being that he still loves to play tennis at the highest level and is very obviously still capable of doing that. Another reason will be that he feels he has some unfinished business; I think if he felt in his body that he was breaking down or not able to keep up, he would grudgingly retire, but outside of Djokovic nobody is outplaying him even at age 34. Another point is that he has the sort of effortless highly skilled sort of game ( which so few players still have in this era) that will allow him to grow old on the court gracefully. I think winning slams will be hard for him because of the best of five element, but I can definitely see him win Masters tournaments still if his form is great. Finally I think he wants to continue because he himself feels he can still be the best or among the top 4 for two more seasons. 

As for Djokovic, I certainly do not think he is past his prime, and see him play for many years yet. He's 29 years old.

Let's look at the ages of the top players in the 2017 year:

Djokovic: 30

Murray: 30

Nadal: 31

Federer: 35

Wawrinka: 32 ( bit of a late bloomer isn't he)

Del Potro: 28

Nishikori: 27

Raonic: 26

Outside of Federer all of these top guys have a few years left, all depending on injury. 

If anything ushers in a new era it's the young range of top talents. Americans have high hopes for Fritz, Tiafoe, Opelka, Donaldson. Kuznetsov, Zverev, Kyrgios, just to name a few names.

Federer is still pretty good, but rapidly declining, which means he won't be able to keep this up. He had a good run, but now he has to admit that it's over. He has no unfinished business whatsoever, he can look back at his career proudly and has achieved everything except an Olympic Gold Medal in the singles event. There is no way he will achieve that, so there's no reason to continue.

Djokovic peaked in the last couple of years but will now go the same trajectory Federer did some time ago, which means his dominance will slowly but surely be over. Arguably, the last few months have shown some weakness, and that will continue, ending his career in about 3-5 years.

You are right about the young talents, they will soon overpower the old guys and start a new era of tennis. I think we could see a domino effect, where the top players of nowadays will retire one after the other once the young ones start winning some slams.

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24 minutes ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I say I'm going to win 30 Grand Slam titles. Saying so doesn't make it true. He needed a break, which is why he took one, and I think it will be difficult to get into the right mindset again after half a year.

 

I don't get your response here. Maybe you should go to my first post, in which I pose the idea of him modifying his playing to a more agressive stance to not burn his energy in the early rounds of tourneys. That's a clear indicator of the man pushing forward. 

I feel Fed is trying to prove himself he still can grasp another slam or major title. That's his motivation. He knows he isn't top notch as before but he still can take most of the top 100, which is pretty much awesome at his age. 

Any ways, I do think that 2017 is his last active professional year. 

 

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4 hours ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

I don't get your response here. Maybe you should go to my first post, in which I pose the idea of him modifying his playing to a more agressive stance to not burn his energy in the early rounds of tourneys. That's a clear indicator of the man pushing forward. 

I feel Fed is trying to prove himself he still can grasp another slam or major title. That's his motivation. He knows he isn't top notch as before but he still can take most of the top 100, which is pretty much awesome at his age. 

 

Yup. He thinks he still has a chance and I am not disagreeing with him.

Furthermore he loves playing the game so much and he sees that he is still competing at the highest level even if he isn't as good anymore as he was 10 years ago.

Barring injuries though, I think he will continue for at least two more years until the end of 2018, and quite possibly 3 more years until end of 2019.

5 hours ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I say I'm going to win 30 Grand Slam titles. Saying so doesn't make it true. He needed a break, which is why he took one, and I think it will be difficult to get into the right mindset again after half a year.

Federer is still pretty good, but rapidly declining, which means he won't be able to keep this up. He had a good run, but now he has to admit that it's over. He has no unfinished business whatsoever, he can look back at his career proudly and has achieved everything except an Olympic Gold Medal in the singles event. There is no way he will achieve that, so there's no reason to continue.

Djokovic peaked in the last couple of years but will now go the same trajectory Federer did some time ago, which means his dominance will slowly but surely be over. Arguably, the last few months have shown some weakness, and that will continue, ending his career in about 3-5 years.

You are right about the young talents, they will soon overpower the old guys and start a new era of tennis. I think we could see a domino effect, where the top players of nowadays will retire one after the other once the young ones start winning some slams.

Federer has said he took the rest of the year of to recover and get his injured knee and any remaining back issues sorted, on the explicit advice of his doctors. Specifically they told him that if he ever hoped to play pain free again, he should now rest. To me that is someone who is out recovering from an injury, not someone who deliberately took a leave of absence because he needed a break from the game. That is not the case at all as far as we know.

I'm also not sure he is "rapidly declining". In the last 3 years he's made some modifications to his game that had professional commentators repeatedly say "Federer has never moved better". Now, the game has changed, and I don't believe that when he comes back he will be moving better than ever, personally. But I do think that outside of counterpunchers who get back every ball he hits, like Djokovic and even Murray, no one else presents an insurmountable hurdle for Fed even now.

But I will agree it's been quite a while since we've seen a super Federer. He did have a few such massive games in 2015, beating Djokovic in straight sets etc.

I'm not convinced Djokovic is starting a decline btw. 

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1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

I'm not convinced Djokovic is starting a decline btw. 

Well, this is just my personal opinion, maybe he will be stronger than ever next year, but I personally feel like his best days are done and we'll see whether that is the case. The only thing we know is he hasn't been playing particularly well lately, by his own standards.

What I meant in regards to Federer's break was that his body clearly couldn't keep up with the strain he put on it and that's why he took a break. This is a concern. Before this season I believed that Federer should keep playing as long as he is a) healthy and b ) in the Top Ten, but one of these conditions is no longer there. For someone who has been playing throughout his entire career without any longer injury breaks, it could be quite difficult for him to come back. We just don't know how he will recover from it, I could see anything from total disaster to total dominance for a few months followed by him flaming out. I tend to believe the former will happen, but either way leads to him retiring next year.

Once again, this is just my opinion, and maybe Federer will rise to number 1 again and take another 17 Grand Slams, who knows, I would be happy about that, but this is just how I believe things will turn out.

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I have an impression that Federer hopes to make a Sampras style exit, which means grabbing just one more major title (preferably at Wimbledon I guess) and then retiring immediately after. I would very much like to see that happen. He deserves to go on a very high note.

As for Djoko, I believe he is going to find himself under the consantly rising pressure next year. Delpo's comeback, Stan's great performance in the most important matches, Murray's stability, new talents' possible appearance, it will all weight on him. It doesn't mean he won't grab another few Grand Slam titles of course. But I don't think he will be as dominant as in the past few years.

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14 hours ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

 

What I meant in regards to Federer's break was that his body clearly couldn't keep up with the strain he put on it and that's why he took a break. This is a concern. Before this season I believed that Federer should keep playing as long as he is a) healthy and b ) in the Top Ten, but one of these conditions is no longer there. For someone who has been playing throughout his entire career without any longer injury breaks, it could be quite difficult for him to come back. We just don't know how he will recover from it, I could see anything from total disaster to total dominance for a few months followed by him flaming out. I tend to believe the former will happen, but either way leads to him retiring next year.

 

It is a concern, certainly, for him as well.

If he gets back to normal fitness though, which is the plan, I would expect him to still be top 4 next season.

Mostly I don't really care whether he wins another slam or not, and I certainly don't expect him to lead the field and become no.1 

What I do care about is seeing some fantastic games from him next year.

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52 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

It is a concern, certainly, for him as well.

If he gets back to normal fitness though, which is the plan, I would expect him to still be top 4 next season.

Mostly I don't really care whether he wins another slam or not, and I certainly don't expect him to lead the field and become no.1 

What I do care about is seeing some fantastic games from him next year.

He should definitely have some fantastic matches left in him.

The worst part of Federer and Nadal's massive drop in form is that we don't have as many of those absolutely magnificent matches as we did from the "Big 3" a few years ago. Murray and Wawrinka, though they do win trophies, just don't make up for that.

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4 hours ago, baxus said:

He should definitely have some fantastic matches left in him.

The worst part of Federer and Nadal's massive drop in form is that we don't have as many of those absolutely magnificent matches as we did from the "Big 3" a few years ago. Murray and Wawrinka, though they do win trophies, just don't make up for that.

With the top 100 dominated by players on their 30's or near that mark, these next few years will be VERY interesting for me, as a tennis follower. Will become a kind of interregnum full of bloodshed and ranking movement. :P

A year and half ago, only 6 players below 20 years old covered the range of 1-150 (I remember this because my countryman Nicolas Jarry was 180th, and at the time the 6th below'20yrsold better ranked in the world). Now there's a lot more, and even more incoming. Thing as they are, younglings mature nearly their mid 20s (Zverev pushed up early and this foothold will really help him as his technique improves), part of which is due they have to face a lot of experienced players already camped in the top 50. This whole setting is interesting. Sure, there aren't any decisive replacements of the top 5, but that means that the competition will become more unpredictable.  

 

 

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On 19-9-2016 at 11:38 PM, Leap said:

So, disappointed that GB went out, but also really happy for Delpo. He's beaten Murray, Nadal, Stan and Novak now in the last 3 months. Wow. It's better to go out having played strongly against a superior side than to have let yourself down.

 

I watched good bit of that Davis Cup game and really thought Murray had it in the bag, especially after he won the 3rd set. But Del Potro has shown this year he has incredible tenacity, much more than I thought he'd have. He's conservative with his slice backhand but it works fine against players like Murray who thrive off the pace of agressive players but who was trouble creating his own shot.

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  • 1 month later...

Raonic might as well withdraw, because all he does to Murray is lose. No chance.

I know that's a bit mean to say, but I get a bit tired of watching Raonic beat his way past lesser opponents with what seems like ease, only to then by knocked out again by the same guys.

It was interesting to see Djokovic actually lose to Cilic. He's been well below his best for the last few months but because he took a significant break after the US open, he avoided actual beatings. When he did play, he managed to beat a few guys, never in convincing fashion, so it's good to see that Cilic, a guy who always loses to Djokovic, was able to exploit the clearly diminished Djokovic.

The World Tour Finals have never looked as uninteresting in my opinion.

I alwaus look forward to that tournament, but with Federer out, Nadal out, Djokovic playing at 60%, Nishikori's inconsistency ( I've seen him play much better than he does of late), Stan's inconsistency and a remaining field of guys who stand no chance, I am left wondering what the excitement could be. If Stan and Nishikori could play out of their mind it could be good. Or maybe a good clash between Djokovic and Murray because these two guys constantly avoid each other in the draw the last few months ( mainly because Djokovic never makes it to the final anymore).

 

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3 hours ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

And Murray is #1 now, since Raonic withdrew. This is great, I like Murray and he deserves this.

The best thing about ATP list is that it's the fairest way of showing who's been the best player over the last year.

It is very clearly defined how many point each tournament result gets you, tournament schedule is posted well in advance and you are given the liberty of choosing which tournaments you want to play in  within a rather loose set of rules and guidelines.

At the end of the year, you clearly see who's won the most points and was therefor the best over the course of the year.

Well done Murray, and I hope he gets to enjoy being #1 for a while.

And Djokovic needs a boot up his backside to get him out of this slump.

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  • 2 months later...

So, Australian Open has started.

Interesting storylines as far as I'm concerned:

  • Loads of new young players rising in the ranks the last year. We know about Zverev and Kyrgios, but what about the 4 Americans, Fritz, Donaldson, Opelka and Tiafoe. What about the young Russian talents Kuznetsov, Chatchanov, Rublev, Bublik?
  • How will Federer hold up in his first Slam in quite a while? Due to his ranking having dropped he now faces serious opponents in early rounds, such as Berdych in the 3rd round, and Nishikori is a likely 4th round opponent.
  • What about Nadal?
  • Will we get the predicted final  as a 5 hour slugfest between Djokovic and Murray?

So, day 1, Federer has advanced past Melzer but dropped a set. Three of the young Russians advanced to the second round whereas Kutznetsov pushed no.5 ranked Nishikori to 5 sets.

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Wawrinka was very close to being knocked out by Klizan. He was down a break late on in the fifth, but the pressure got to Klizan and Wawrinka won three consecutive games to win. There was a rather controversial moment when Wawrinka fired the ball right at Klizan, who had given up on the point in the middle of that run.

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1 hour ago, Horse of Kent said:

Wawrinka was very close to being knocked out by Klizan. He was down a break late on in the fifth, but the pressure got to Klizan and Wawrinka won three consecutive games to win. There was a rather controversial moment when Wawrinka fired the ball right at Klizan, who had given up on the point in the middle of that run.

Yeah there are signs of an early exit for Stan the Man, because he did not play well leading up the Aussie Open either.

I see a 4th round matchup with Kyrgios that we could look forward to :)

36 minutes ago, Leap said:

 

Surprised that both Wawrinka and Nishikori went to five sets. Hopefully that's good news if Federer has to face them. I can't see him struggling with Berdych, he seems to have a block against the top players. God I hope Federer wins. Touch wood!

 

I would consider it a bad omen for the rest of the season if he cannot beat Berdych, and like you I expect him to advance. I know he's just back, but his basic level should be good enough to beat Berdych.

His Tennis at the Hopman Cup two weeks was decent; lost to Zverev in a tight game, but beat Gasquet and Dan Evans.

Nishikori also does not tend to have the game to beat Federer, but obviously he's improved over the years.

As for Nadal, he looked very good in the first few games of the year. Keen to see him continue in that style.

It's interesting to see how he still needs to get used to how much more capable players seem to be off the baseline nowadays.

He sees guys hitting incredible shots and he just has to accept that; he used to win nearly almost every rally in his heyday, and the difference is certainly not just a decline on Nadal's side. The sport has increased it's depth.

Him and Zverev had a great match already last year btw.

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On 16.01.2017 at 4:53 PM, Calibandar said:

Yeah there are signs of an early exit for Stan the Man, because he did not play well leading up the Aussie Open either.

I see a 4th round matchup with Kyrgios that we could look forward to :)

Seems like there won't be a Wawrinka vs. Kyrgios matchup, and not because of poor performance of Stan the Man. :) Second round was quite a different story for him and I hope he can make it much further. At least to the semis with Murray/Federer/Nishikori.

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12 minutes ago, Leap said:

Not sure if the Kyrgios loss was the usual tank or a genuine turnaround, by the sounds of it it's a bit of both though.

It was a typical tank, although Seppi didn't go away and obviously had to play a part in winning the last three.

Kyrgios is getting a bad rap for this stuff. He goes off the boil so easily, everyone who plays him must feel like they still have a chance no matter how far behind they are in the match.

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21 minutes ago, Leap said:

 

In better news, Evans beat Cilic! That really is shocking, but I'm glad all the same. Evans and Edmund have really put in a strong showing since the Davis Cup win. Another shocker is M. Zverev beating Isner. The Jamie Murray to A. Zverev's Andy. Glad to see him finding some success.

Fed up against Berdych next should be an interesting match. Berdych doesn't have a great history of playing the top players, but Fed's not at his best either. 

 

Haven't seen the Fed game but the result was not overwhelming, though he did not drop a set.

Of course, we have seen a slow start from Fed before the last few years, before starting to play better. 

Not surprised by Evans in the sense that Evans has been in the form of his life and Cilic can be so inconsistent.

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What an upset, Djokovic out. It doesn't seem many of the big names in the men's draw are having an easy time of it. Murray has had a couple of easy matches and must be the nailed-on favourite now.

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Wow, that was unexpected. But that just reinforces my opinion, that beating Federer's Grand Slam record will be very difficult for Djokovic. Especially now that he's no longer number one in men's tennis and the new generation of players is finally knocking to the door of fame. Such upsets will become more and more common, I predict.

So, is it going to be Murray now? Wawrinka? Raonic, Nishikori? Or perhaps Nadal or Federer? Some other "young wolf", like Thiem or Dimitrov? What say you? I'm rooting for Stan the Man, but if it could be Federer, I would be delighted.

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