Tennis 2020: There is an I in Thiem

jezza1918

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Im far too emotionally invested for a third round match. My standing heart rate must've been 100 BPM during that breaker and I'm struggling to type this out. What a win.
 

InstaFace

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She's lost four Grand Slam finals in a row, all in straight sets, all to different players, I think the window may have closed.

That being said, Patrick McEnroe strongly disagreed right after the match and said she is still good enough to win majors, so what do I know?
Isn't the fact that she reached 4 straight GS finals kinda evidence that she is obviously still good enough to last the fortnight and win them? Given her career history in finals, it's a huge fluke that she lost all of those.
 

shawnrbu

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Serena has lost the last 4 GS finals she had played in. She has made the final in 4 of the last 7 majors.

Big fan of the 10 point tiebreaker in the last set. Like to see it at all the majors, although each major having its own unique format is fun.
 

jon abbey

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Isn't the fact that she reached 4 straight GS finals kinda evidence that she is obviously still good enough to last the fortnight and win them? Given her career history in finals, it's a huge fluke that she lost all of those.
I mean, she’s 38 now, don’t think the career history is too relevant. Going from memory, she hasn’t been tested much leading into those finals and finally now young players like Osaka and Gauff and Andreescu are emerging.
 

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But that was said before about Muguruza, Kerber and Halep, and before that it was Safarova, Azarenka and Radwanska, and before that it was Sharapova, Henin (perhaps her closest rival other than Venus), Clijsters, Li Na... waves of top-10 women's players who showed promise have come and gone, and Serena is still there. Moreover, her game is the exact style that ages really well - power strokes where she's dictating the point, precision serve that gets her out of jams, high topspeed on court coverage (but not elite agility) and great footwork. If her knees and shoulder hold up, and her motivation doesn't deteriorate, I don't see why she would fall out of the top contenders list for any Slam, any more than Tom Brady should get counted out of the ranks of elite, SB-contending QBs because he's getting older and isn't as mobile. What's between her (and his) ears, and their respective desires to keep training and staying at peak physical condition, are far more important.

edit: also, Roger Federer is older than Serena, I don't see anyone else suggesting that his window of contention is over. Dude's been in 2 slam finals in the last 24 months, Serena's made it to 4. Fed just happened to win one of those.
 
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jon abbey

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Fed came two points from winning Wimbledon, but yes, I think he’s done winning majors also.
 

jon abbey

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Also I love Serena but I don't think she is an especially savvy player, which is why she hasn't been able to pivot mid-match in any of the last four Grand Slam finals and has lost all in straight sets. I don't think Brady is a good comparison, as he never relied on being the best athlete at what he did. Serena always has been and now at long last I think she is being passed by many younger players (the difference between now and the waves of earlier players you mentioned above is that now Serena seems to be slipping).
 

jon abbey

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Just went through her Grand Slam results since coming back from having a kid:

Vs top 16 players: 7-5
Vs others: 26-2

Same as Fed, they can still get deep into a tournament with a favorable draw, but it’s unlikely they can beat enough top players in a row to win another title.
 

jon abbey

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The last major Fed won was 2018 Australia, a really favorable draw. He beat #6 Cilic in 5 sets in the finals, but was able to avoid Novak and Nadal and anyone else tough.
 

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she has a winning record against top players, and this is listed as a weakness?

If you're 7/12ths likely to win a match once you get to the QFs, your odds of winning the title out of the 8 players remaining are 20% (vs 12.5% baseline). That might well be the highest of any given competitor among the 8. It still doesn't mean you're favored against the field.
 

jon abbey

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I did top 16 players, not top 8, so your math should be for round of 16 onwards.

I hope I'm wrong, we'll see.
 

shawnrbu

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WTA is such a crapshoot. The players are so hard to predict. Look at Pliskova playing right now. She is the 2 seed. Imagine having money on her to win. Absolutely maddening to figure out which player you will get from match to match (set to set, etc).
 

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I did top 16 players, not top 8, so your math should be for round of 16 onwards.
Well, perhaps obviously, the top 16 ranked or seeded players don't all make the round of 16. Median expectation seems to be about half do.

Regardless, we're using made-up numbers here anyway. My point was just that both Serena and Federer have proven their ability to still win the big ones by virtue of getting very, very close to doing so. They might not, but I'll happily put even money on either one of them reaching a GS semifinal in the remainder of this year.
 

Marciano490

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I hope this isn’t a landmine, but I’d imagine being naturally lighter like Federer is more conducive to longevity in a sport like tennis.

If she’s able, I wonder if Serena wouldn’t benefit from losing some muscle.
 

jon abbey

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I'll happily put even money on either one of them reaching a GS semifinal in the remainder of this year.
Right, no one cares whether those two make the semis or not and no one is talking about that, it is all about titles or not for them and Nadal and Novak. Serena is trying to beat Court, the three men are trying to end up with the most Slams, it is little consolation to Serena that she has made four finals in the last two years, I am quite sure. You can say those finals show that she is close, and I say that the four straight asskickings in finals show that she's not really that close.

My point was just that both Serena and Federer have proven their ability to still win the big ones by virtue of getting very, very close to doing so.
And my point, more for Serena than Federer, is that when she runs into someone both good and playing well these days, she generally loses and it's not usually close.
 

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Anything is possible, and Serena could, probably most especially at Wimbledon still pull one out, especially because it is the women's game, and it is entirely possible she could get through a major not facing any top 10 opponents, or maybe facing one of the top 15.

But getting old is undefeated. She is a very limited player compared to her peak. She still can have dominant stretches with her serve, and her power game is still as strong as anyone in the game. And she is smart, and intimidating (the intimidation is still enough by itself to cause some opponents games to drop). But there are a lot of people who move better on the court than she does now. And there are people who can handle the power, and are more consistent on their groundstrokes.

In terms of Roger. He has always had dips in his game, which became more pronounced with age, and even more so. And with the body getting old and creaky trying to be there 100% 7 times in a row has proven to be a challenge. Wimbledon seems his best chance, but the old serve just isn't what it used to be

Roger's problem is he has maybe a 1/10 chance to beat Novak, better chance to beat Nadal, but then has to deal with most likely needing to beat both in a row to win anything
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, agreed with all that.

Pliskova and #6 Bencic losing today seems to open up that half of the draw for Halep.
 

jon abbey

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On the men’s side, Novak and Nadal are rolling towards another finals matchup, Nadal through two sets easily tonight.

Nadal would have Medvedev (or Zverev or Rublev) in the semis (and maybe Krygios next round). Fed is still the fave to make the semis against Djokovic until he actually loses, but looking like Novak/Nadal right now, no surprise.
 

jon abbey

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Kyrgios/Khachanov about to start, should be fun if both players are on (which Khachanov has not been).
 

jon abbey

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Actually looking at it more, Nadal's half of the draw is quite loaded. Five of these eight are through and two more are leading (Medvedev the other):

Nadal (1)
Kyrgios (23)

Monfils (10)
Thiem (5)

Medvedev (4)
Wawrinka (15)

Rublev (17)
Zverev (7)

Kyrgios wins his first set tonight 6-2, that would be a tough round of 16 draw for Nadal if Kyrgios keeps his shit together the rest of this one and that one. Nadal leads their career head to head 4-3 but they do not like each other going back to Kyrgios knocking Rafa out of Wimbledon in 2014 when he was 19, also in the round of 16. They played again at Wimbledon last June, Nadal in 4 but 6-3, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, really close.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, six of the top ten women went out in two days, crazy.

Kyrgios unable to put away Khachinov, who pulls out tight tiebreaks in both the 3rd and 4th, onto the 5th now, fun match as always with crazy Nick.
 

jon abbey

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This is by far the longest match of Krygios’ professional career, 4:13 now, 3:53 previously longest. They’re about to start the 10 point 5th set tiebreak, Khachanov’s last match got to this also.
 

jon abbey

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Krygios makes a bad error in a tight breaker to give Khachanov a 8-7 lead and two serves for the match...

and he wins the next three points and takes the match 10-8. Nadal next!
 

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I hope this isn’t a landmine, but I’d imagine being naturally lighter like Federer is more conducive to longevity in a sport like tennis.

If she’s able, I wonder if Serena wouldn’t benefit from losing some muscle.
I don't think it's a taboo subject, I just think it'd be a poor idea from the perspective of what her game is all about:
- Serve and groundstroke power, so she needs shoulder and leg muscles and big guns, always has. Big hitters like Muguruza, Keys and Pliskova have big guns too.
- She also needs to avoid injury more than anyone else on tour, and given that she goes for ~90% power on the vast majority of her groundstrokes, I think losing a little muscle would put her at a greater injury risk.
- Her speed is fine by WTA standards, but no amount of losing muscle is going to have a good ROI for her because she's such an offensive player. She can't suddenly become a pusher like Svitolina or Konta, just can't be done. She's going to be dictating points, so power and accuracy matter way more than being able to get a little incremental positioning on defense.

Like, you want to see someone who's got tools Serena doesn't, watch Halep in a baseline rally. Sideline to sideline she might be the fastest player on tour, can stop on a dime, amazing acceleration. Dropping 10-15 lbs of muscle won't give Serena that ability - but that ability also doesn't age particularly well, just ask Radwanska.

For >20 years, Serena's game has been about dictating points. Pushing opponents around the court with bold shot selection and a lot more power than they're used to. I can count on one hand the number of her matches I've seen where her points-decided (winners + unforced errors) was less than her opponent's. If she has the endurance, confidence and mechanics to make her shots, she overpowers her opponents, even the top in the world. If she's a little bit off, she's hitting nets and spraying it wide and anything could happen. Hers is, as Jon Abbey said, a very different game than Federer's finesse-and-surprise game, or Nadal's topspin and forehand game.

Nadal lost a bit of weight and took some pressure off the knees that were sending him to an early retirement. In combination with playing fewer tournaments, he's managed to hang around a few more years without his main skills deteriorating. But that's a specific solution to his specific problem, and Serena doesn't have that problem imo.
 

uncannymanny

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Am I reading ESPN correctly that Coco isn’t even ranked? Caveat, I know shit about the professional tennis apparatus.
 

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Am I reading ESPN correctly that Coco isn’t even ranked? Caveat, I know shit about the professional tennis apparatus.
Anybody participating in a grand slam is "ranked", even if they came from qualifiers or had a sponsors' exemption to participate after a long layoff period.

Coco is in fact ranked #67, though she's listed as Cori because that's her name. Her ranking qualified her for direct entry into the main draw.

Coco Vandeweghe, however, is ranked #204 after a long layoff that saw her only start her 2019 campaign in late July. She might not even get into the qualifiers based on ranking, if it wasn't for a sponsor's exemption or organizer's wild card. The USTA gave her a main-draw wild card to the US Open main draw, which was a great opportunity for her to get enough ranking points to resume playing the top-level tournaments, but she lost in the first round.

Basically, the top 96 or 100 players in the world have the rights to direct entry into the main draw of a grand slam. Some withdraw due to injury or other considerations, and their slots are filled by the next-up ranked player. There are usually 8 wild cards (for a grand slam) awarded by the tennis association running the slam (US, FR, UK, AUS), 16 slots for qualifiers (= 128 total quallies), and a few other wildcards and exemptions. Late withdrawals after brackets have been set are filled by "lucky losers" who lost the final match of their qualifier tournament and then are randomly selected to fill in. Slots in the quallies are filled by the next however-many rankings first, and then if anyone in that "access list" declines or withdraws, the next-up ranked person. So anyone inside the top ~200 or so can probably at least make the quallies of a grand slam. Other top-tier tournaments like Miami or Indian Wells have smaller draws but also a lower acceptance rate from top players.
 

uncannymanny

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Awesome thanks. So what do you make of the rank annotations here, just visual space concerns?

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pantsparty

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It's also worth noting that the position of seeds through the draw isn't handled like the NCAA tournament/NBA playoffs/etc. The distribution of seeds throughout the draw is much more random because players are likely to play multiple tournaments during a year where they're similar if not the same seeds, and it would get boring to see the same players always facing off in the same rounds. The number 1 seed is only guaranteed to see the 2 seed no sooner than the finals, the 3/4 no sooner than semis, 5-8 no sooner than quarters, etc.
 

jon abbey

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It's also worth noting that the position of seeds through the draw isn't handled like the NCAA tournament/NBA playoffs/etc. The distribution of seeds throughout the draw is much more random because players are likely to play multiple tournaments during a year where they're similar if not the same seeds, and it would get boring to see the same players always facing off in the same rounds.
While this is the official reason, there’s no reason to think it has any overlap with reality. Rankings change every week and a full 1-128 seeding for each Slam would absolutely not produce constant rematches. Meanwhile as it is, Gauff and Venus have played each other in the first round in 2 of the last 3 Slams, and we’ve seen Gauff/Osaka in the third round in consecutive majors.

Also worth noting that Gauff hasn’t been allowed to play a full schedule yet because of her age or her ranking would likely be higher already.
 

jon abbey

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Khachanov did not lose consecutive points on his serve for the entire match against Kyrgios, until he was up 8-7 in the 5th set tiebreaker.
 

jon abbey

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Everyone seems to be picking Kenin over Coco tonight, we'll see. Another huge test for Gauff, this one is in the day session so easier to watch if people are interested (should start around 10 or 11 PM EST, I think).
 

BigMike

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Actually looking at it more, Nadal's half of the draw is quite loaded. Five of these eight are through and two more are leading (Medvedev the other):

Nadal (1)
Kyrgios (23)

Monfils (10)
Thiem (5)

Medvedev (4)
Wawrinka (15)

Rublev (17)
Zverev (7)

Kyrgios wins his first set tonight 6-2, that would be a tough round of 16 draw for Nadal if Kyrgios keeps his shit together the rest of this one and that one. Nadal leads their career head to head 4-3 but they do not like each other going back to Kyrgios knocking Rafa out of Wimbledon in 2014 when he was 19, also in the round of 16. They played again at Wimbledon last June, Nadal in 4 but 6-3, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, really close.
Lots of young talent that we have been waiting 3=6 years to take the next step in that group.

Interesting to see Gabby Muguruza hanging around and playing well this week. It is a major so you never know with her,
 

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Everyone seems to be picking Kenin over Coco tonight, we'll see. Another huge test for Gauff, this one is in the day session so easier to watch if people are interested (should start around 10 or 11 PM EST, I think).
"Everyone"? Are you, too, a lurker over on TennisForums?
 

jon abbey

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Heh, I just did a quick google but I think that was part of it (but I think that might have been the first time I ever saw that place).
 

jon abbey

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Interesting to see Gabby Muguruza hanging around and playing well this week. It is a major so you never know with her,
Yeah, she demolished #5 Svitolina last night, very impressive. It looks like she’ll face Kerber in the quarters and the winner will get Halep in the semis.
 

jon abbey

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Kvitova struggled and lost the first set in a tiebreaker but seems to have found it, in a third set now. If she wins and Barty wins, they face each other in the quarters, two of the three top 8 seeds remaining.

The matches scheduled before Coco are done, so she should be starting around 10:30 EST. They also just said that Coco has the fastest serve for the women so far this tournament, around 118 MPH. Go Coco!!!
 

uncannymanny

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This is pretty epic. Someday I won’t have to relearn set scoring every time I watch tennis.
 

jon abbey

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Fun first set, both women are tight as neither has ever made a Grand Slam quarter before. Coco got broken in the first game, got the break back midset and it went to a tiebreak. Coco got up 6-2, Kenin won 3 in a row but Coco managed to squeeze out one more and won the set 7-5. In the tiebreak, she hit a 119 MPH serve, her hardest to date.

Go Coco! Kenin is good, she's not going away easily.
 

uncannymanny

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Coco seems to make a lot of mental errors in her game, or at the very least plays it pretty close with getting over the net (even on serves).
 

jon abbey

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Coco seems to make a lot of mental errors in her game, or at the very least plays it pretty close with getting over the net (even on serves).
I think as Chris Evert is saying, she is a bit burnt mentally, and also Kenin is a very smart and tricky player.
 

uncannymanny

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I’m probably seeing the former, looking at points just given away (eg two serves into the net). I noticed the same thing at the end of the USO so endurance makes a lot of sense.
 

jon abbey

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Also I think she feeds on the energy in the stadium and there is much less in this match than many of her previous ones, in part because it is a late afternoon match and not in the evening session. That was a very sloppy set from her though.

Kenin gets a break mid-set in a game where Coco double faulted three times and holds on 6-3, off to the third.
 

jon abbey

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2-0 for Kenin. Coco came back from 0-3 down in the third set in her second round match, but Kenin is looking too tough right now.
 

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Gave Kenin a second break now.

I've seen Serena come back from 0-3 and 2 breaks down in the 3rd in a major (against a brit on Centre Court no less), but you certainly wouldn't put money on it being done by anyone, nevermind a 15yo.