Tennis 2020: There is an I in Thiem

BigMike

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This is just to painful to watch. Maybe if I stop an go to sleep I'll find out it was all a nightmare.
 

jon abbey

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Raonic hadn't been broken or lost a set all tournament, Novak is 9-0 career against Raonic, only losing 2 sets total, so something has to give tonight.

Unsurprisingly the first thing to give was Raonic being broken on Novak's 9th chance to win the first set 6-4.
 

jon abbey

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Wow, Patrick McEnroe thinks Thiem will beat Nadal tomorrow. Thiem has been looking great but I will believe that when I see it.
 

jon abbey

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Gauff/McNally lost in straight sets in the quarters of women's doubles to the #2 seeds, since I talked about it earlier.
 

jon abbey

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Novak had some contact lens issues but still rolled through the third set tiebreaker, he is so impressive. Novak/Fed Wednesday night!
 

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I went to bed after Sandgren had a tough hold and saved a break point to put it to Roger at 6-5* in the 4th set. It was 1:41AM and I'm a wreck today.

Seems like I missed the best part.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aRqBXfyiZY

Two of those points are absolutely sick, the 6-5 tiebreaker and then the set point he ultimate won. He had no business being in either point. A legendary performance by a living legend who isn't done yet. And now he gets till Friday to recover for the semi, no?

Here are the full match highlights:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX1hT3FUuqU


I didn't know until this replay turned up the volume bigtime that Roger knew the line judge who called him on the obscenity was Swiss. That's how you know you've been on the tour a while.
 
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jon abbey

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The winners today in the two women's quarters today have to come back and play again tomorrow, so Halep's demolition of Kontaveit (6-1, 6-1, under an hour) should help her tomorrow against Muguruza (who just won a close first set) or Pavlyuchenko. It's looking like Barty/Halep in the finals currently IMO.
 

jon abbey

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Muguruza through in straight sets, so three of the four women left have won majors before, plus Kenin.
 

InstaFace

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I literally don't know who to root for in the women's semis. I like all 4 players.

Not so much for Zverev vs Wawrinka right now. It's way past time for Stan's deal with the devil to come due.
 

jon abbey

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Stan crushing Zverev early, 5-0 in the 1st.

Assuming one of Novak/Nadal/Fed/Stan wins here, that will make it an absolutely insane 58 of 60 Grand Slams for those four plus Andy Murray (Del Potro 1, Cilic 1).
 

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What was this kerfuffle over Navratilova and McEnroe and Tennis Australia? I only caught the end of that telecast bit. I gather Martina talked some shit about Margaret Court?

edit: okay, easily googled from that. Yeah, so after their Legends match together, they led an impromptu protest of Margaret Court's retrograde views on queers, calling for the venue to be renamed Evonne Goolagong Arena. And Martina climbed up into the umpire's chair to address the remaining crowd until the feed was cut off. She then penned this editorial. Good for them.

And maybe Goolagong is a worthy choice, but if you ask me, the WTA ought to rename everything they can lay their hands on after Billie Jean King. Because she, more than any other person, was responsible for legitimizing women's pro sports and crafting, through force of will (and no small amount of help, but her as the driving force), the first credible women's professional sport tour. Not even the Olympics took gender equity seriously until the last few decades, but King sold the world on watching female athletes for their athletic abilities, not just as objects. There's no such thing as too much recognition for her, in any sporting context. She changed the world, and made Navratilova, Serena et al possible.
 
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Marciano490

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I literally don't know who to root for in the women's semis. I like all 4 players.

Not so much for Zverev vs Wawrinka right now. It's way past time for Stan's deal with the devil to come due.
Otherwise known as the Richard Mille v Audemars Piguet classic.
 

Marciano490

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Zverev has his own RM model that retails at about $130k. Though he’s not wearing it to play for some reason.

https://www.ablogtowatch.com/richard-mille-rm-67-02-alexander-zverev-edition-watch/
Nadal’s orange and red watch costs about 3/4 of a million.

Warinka is just a brand ambassador. He doesn’t have his own watch. Though, AP doesn’t do that too often anymore. Even Serena doesn’t get her own model, though Messi, Schumacher and Jay Z did.
 

Marciano490

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Zverev has a big ol’ serve. Bet if he was born in Texas he would’ve had a helluva fastball.
 

jon abbey

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Not watching this one so closely, but Zverev took the 2nd/3rd sets easily and then broke Stan to open the 4th, would be nice to have one of these younger guys make the semis at least.
 

jon abbey

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Biggest win of Zverev's life, into his first Grand Slam semi, good for him.

Psyched for Nadal/Thiem but that's two hours away, maybe I can do some work for once.
 

jon abbey

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Wow, Nadal and Thiem have only played once before on hardcourt, Nadal won 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6 in the quarters of the 2018 US Open. Good chance this one will still be going when people get up in the AM...
 

jon abbey

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Good chance this is the match I am most psyched for this tournament (including future ones), Novak is my guy but he just dismantles people and this should be a real war.
 

Marciano490

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Adidas needs to make a shoe commercial out of Thiem snagging his ankle, popping up unhurt, then powering back against Nadal like that.
 

jon abbey

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Living up to the hype so far, Nadal led 5-3 in the 1st and then 2-0 in the tiebreak before Thiem blitzed him and took it 7-3. Now Nadal is up a break again at 3-2...
 

jon abbey

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Two sets that Nadal took a break lead in, two times Thiem broke back to tie, two times they went to tiebreakers, two times Thiem won them, 2-0 Thiem.

Nadal has lost his last 14 Grand Slams he's been down 2-0 in sets, he generally comes up short in Australia (just one title here).
 

jon abbey

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It's been 13 years since Nadal has come back from 0-2 down in a Grand Slam, but I wouldn't totally rule it out here.
 

jon abbey

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Thiem with a terrible service game serving for the match, 5-5 now. Really want a 5th set!
 

jon abbey

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Thiem choked a few times in that match when on the brink, but came up big in all three tiebreakers and closed it out in 4.

Old guy semi: Federer (38) vs. Djokovic (32)
Young guy semi: Thiem (26) vs. Zverev (22)
 

BigMike

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Thiem gets it done. With the blown service game, and then the blown match point when up 6-4, where he dumped a very easy forehand into the net, I was afraid he wasn't going to finish, but in the end he was the better player tonight.

Maybe now we are finally seeing a changing of the guard. Djoker is still the favorite to win this, but the finals is going to be a war.
 

jon abbey

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Since the start of 2019, Thiem is 2-1 against Nadal, 3-0 against Federer, and 2-1 against Djokovic. Impressive!!!
 
I think Thiem has clearly established himself as the #3 player in the world - behind Nadal and Djokovic, ahead of Federer and the field. (Medvedev maybe played better in the second half of last year, but Thiem has the much longer track record.) He nearly choked away the fourth set today, but he outplayed Nadal for most of the match. Gun to my head, I think Thiem will win the next slam not won by Nadal or Djokovic; it may happen this week, but if not, he could hang with Nadal at Roland Garros, and he's a definite threat for the US Open.
 

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Huge Fed fan and would love to see him beat Novak to capture some sort of grand slam redemption for the heartbreaking Wimbledon loss last year (though he did beat him in the ATP Finals) but Fed's not playing well at all. Needing miracles to beat unranked players that he would normally destroy plus had the injury timeout in the last match. I could see Novak in straight sets in this one. Hope I'm wrong.
 

jezza1918

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What was this kerfuffle over Navratilova and McEnroe and Tennis Australia? I only caught the end of that telecast bit. I gather Martina talked some shit about Margaret Court?

edit: okay, easily googled from that. Yeah, so after their Legends match together, they led an impromptu protest of Margaret Court's retrograde views on queers, calling for the venue to be renamed Evonne Goolagong Arena. And Martina climbed up into the umpire's chair to address the remaining crowd until the feed was cut off. She then penned this editorial. Good for them.

And maybe Goolagong is a worthy choice, but if you ask me, the WTA ought to rename everything they can lay their hands on after Billie Jean King. Because she, more than any other person, was responsible for legitimizing women's pro sports and crafting, through force of will (and no small amount of help, but her as the driving force), the first credible women's professional sport tour. Not even the Olympics took gender equity seriously until the last few decades, but King sold the world on watching female athletes for their athletic abilities, not just as objects. There's no such thing as too much recognition for her, in any sporting context. She changed the world, and made Navratilova, Serena et al possible.
Overall I love this movement & love that McEnroe has joined the cause, though not so sure about this line in her editorial - "Would it not be appropriate if the Staples Center were renamed as a tribute to Kobe Bryant?" But I guess I'll spare everyone the cross-threading too much...

As for Fed-Djokovic the only way I see this being close is if Djokovic has an off day AND Federer serves at 70% or better. Aka I'm not expecting to enjoy my morning coffee with this match still going. Djokovic in straight is my prediction.
 

BigMike

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Huge Fed fan and would love to see him beat Novak to capture some sort of grand slam redemption for the heartbreaking Wimbledon loss last year (though he did beat him in the ATP Finals) but Fed's not playing well at all. Needing miracles to beat unranked players that he would normally destroy plus had the injury timeout in the last match. I could see Novak in straight sets in this one. Hope I'm wrong.
Very little chance for Fed. First off he has to be 100% healthy, which he isn't. So odds he comes out tomorrow and feels great physically for 4 hours seems like a longshot. Even if that happens then there is the question of whether on his best day he can beat Doker in a 5 set match, and even that is a bit of a longshot, as I don't think he is there mentally (too many demons at this point)
 

InstaFace

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Women's semis scheduled for tonight: Barty-Kenin at 10:00pm ET, Halep-Muguruza to follow, ~11:30pm ET.

Some very contrasting playing styles, particularly in the latter match. I like Halep to take this whole thing, but Barty would be just too good a story to not root for, I think. As would "an American not named Williams winning a slam".
 

InstaFace

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These two are hitting the safe shot nearly every time. Trying to play low-error but it ends up just not being as fun to watch.

I've only seen one match each for Halep and Garbi but that match might be the real final.

Speaking of semis, funny stuff by Pam Shriver there - "the only semifinal I ever won was the first one". I go look it up and, yup, US open final 1978, then went 0-8 in the future (plus 10 QF losses). All while she was racking up 21 Doubles slams in a 9-year span.
 

InstaFace

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also it's driving me bonkers that they're both brown haired women wearing green shirts, white hats and blue pants. Doesn't anyone's media team talk about things beforehand?

if it wasn't for Kenin's ponytail I literally wouldn't be able to tell them apart without constantly double-checking on who's serving.
 

jon abbey

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They’re saying the conditions are tough, although not sure what that actually means except it’s hotter than it’s been.

Kenin was down 6-4 in the first set tiebreak and won 4 straight points to steal the set.
 

InstaFace

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They’re saying the conditions are tough, although not sure what that actually means except it’s hotter than it’s been.
I've played a decent amount on field turf in conditions similar to this. If you stand around for more than 3 seconds at a time, your feet start burning and your shoes literally start melting. I've had to junk several pairs of cleats or trainers after sessions like that. You have to constantly keep moving to prevent giving yourself a hotfoot. There's less humidity in Melbourne than most places I've played but it'll still feel like a hot cloak draped over them both.

I'm sure it sucks very much to be either of them right now.
 

InstaFace

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I had forgotten that in her run to the 2019 French Open title, Ash Barty only lost two sets, and one of them was to Sofia Kenin.
 

jon abbey

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I've played a decent amount on field turf in conditions similar to this. If you stand around for more than 3 seconds at a time, your feet start burning and your shoes literally start melting. I've had to junk several pairs of cleats or trainers after sessions like that. You have to constantly keep moving to prevent giving yourself a hotfoot. There's less humidity in Melbourne than most places I've played but it'll still feel like a hot cloak draped over them both.

I'm sure it sucks very much to be either of them right now.
Yeah, I didn't realize until after posting just how hot it is there, they are saying 120 F on the court and it is close to unplayably hot.