I love Rafa! Fair play to Medvedev. Great match
Tennis 2019
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Love Rafa but he behaved really poorly with the time issues at the end . The umpire being absolutely awful didn't help either. Umpire should have punished Rafa more but also needed to get a better control of the crowd or just let everything go . You can't be punishing players when the crowd is making noise . Rafa though really is going to have more struggles with this as time goes on
Rafa's going bald 
Poor umpire got boo'd 
Medvedev sounds like a great guy.
Forget those two. You'll feel older when you hear that this was the final grand slam of the decade.
He'll get better treatment from the crowds aft er this. It'll be a hard loss for him, but he'll be ready for his next final now.
The US crowd are terrible. I hate crowds like this who have favourites and just are disrespectful.
Also Nadal wastes so much time. They need to get a rule in about time between first serve and second serve.
Also Nadal wastes so much time. They need to get a rule in about time between first serve and second serve.
Terrible crowds. Very unfair!
Don't think that the crowd today had a favourite or was biased , just a bit rowdy (I assume lots of alcohol had gone in already)
To be fair same moaning about crowds every event, I’m guilty of it too. Wimbledon and French crowds can be annoying. Aussie is usually fine besides the idiot shouting Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!
I don't think it'll be that hard a loss on Medvedev. The guy was down and out, 2 breaks and a break down and then again 2 breaks down in the final set. I don't think he's going to be gutted and if anything, it'll give him the confidence to know he's good enough to beat the best.
The USO is particularly bad but this year has just proven beyond doubt that there's no worse crowd in the world than NYC. Even if it's not all the booing, they just don't shut up. Every tight game you'll have people shouting during points, during serves and when the player is waiting to serve. Also the number of fans who come in late and then the players have to wait for while they get to their seats is ridiculous.
Also there’s no excuse for not doing five sets in the women’s final atleast. It makes things more interesting. Imagine if this was three sets it would have been a dull final.
The chair umpire is supposed to keep the crowd in control and ensure they aren't screaming and he just didn't do it. They just kept shouting when the players were ready to serve.
Poor guy's been going bald for a while nowRafa's going bald
I won't lie, there were many times in the 3rd, 4th and 5th sets I was hoping this had just been a best of 3
Also Rafa has won 5 slams since turning 30. That’s the most by any player past 30. Remarkable considering most people thought he’d be long retired by now early on in his career.
I also think he’d be the last one to retire. Obviously Federer will be first you expect. I don’t expect Murray to be top 10 sadly with his injury, I hope I am wrong and I can’t see him sticking around if he’s just gonna be there to make up the numbers after challenging for so long. It’s between Djokovic and Nadal. I just feel Nadal will survive longer. Djokovic will pick up more injuries which obviously most tennis players do post 30 and for his elbow injury he was refusing for like two years to have operation and prefer for it to heal naturally. When he did eventually have the operation he was better. I think he was doing the same with his shoulder these past months where he was refusing to take pain killers.
I also think he’d be the last one to retire. Obviously Federer will be first you expect. I don’t expect Murray to be top 10 sadly with his injury, I hope I am wrong and I can’t see him sticking around if he’s just gonna be there to make up the numbers after challenging for so long. It’s between Djokovic and Nadal. I just feel Nadal will survive longer. Djokovic will pick up more injuries which obviously most tennis players do post 30 and for his elbow injury he was refusing for like two years to have operation and prefer for it to heal naturally. When he did eventually have the operation he was better. I think he was doing the same with his shoulder these past months where he was refusing to take pain killers.
I don't see Nadal outlasting Djokovic to be honest. He's not played much tennis this tournament, he's not played Cincinnati and yet he looked absolutely shattered towards the end of the final set.
I think he'll stop playing once he feels he's not competitive anymore and sadly I think that will happen by 35.
Djokovic and Federer hardly looked better and they didn’t play Toronto. Djokovic also looked shattered in the final set vs Federer and Federer choked it to be honest. He’s not invincible.
Nadal also had a few injury problems after Indian Wells and had average clay season by his standards. Usually he picks up Barca and Monte Carlo with ease.
Yet he has won the most titles and 47-6 for this year which is the most victories on the tour. Djokovic is 41-8 and Federer is 43-7.
Had no idea Fed had a record of 43-7 this year, incredible, all those players incredible, in a few years once they retire the state of men's tennis will be so sad, while women's tennis looking better than ever imo
It was a 5 hours match, of course he'll be tired at the end at 33 y.o, what did you expect? He did manage to win against an excellent Medvedev too.
The match was really high quality, I don't know how high some of you set your expectations but really not many matches, if any, better than this one this year.
He is definitely the best player beyond the top 3 atm, I expect big things from him in the next few years.
I think he's going to need to backup this summer with performances for the rest of the season and next year as well so we can find out if it was just the momentum and winning habit that took him through this summer or is he the real deal.
He does have a spectacular game so I think it's going to be the latter but we need to see how he deals with the expectations. I hope he doesn't turn into the Zverev/Tsitspas type and struggles after promising performances.
Also can’t have been easy for Nadal to ditch his Uncle after all the success they had. But Carlos Moya has played a key part in Nadal winning his last 5 slams. I thought he was done after 2015 and 2016.
Any consideration to moving up the tournament by a day to avoid the first NFL Sunday? Maybe not much of an issue now with the sexy names still playing.
Been that way for years now.Rafa's going bald
You are an absolute mess when it comes to nadal. Re-read your posts man, it’s @Sarni in the NBA thread all over again
Who would've thought back in 2009 that Rafa would win 4 US opens? It was the GrandSlam he took the longest to win first time around.
Earlier I used to think it's just me and my paranoia and then I discovered Rafa fans on Twitter and realized almost all of us are the same total wrecks during his matches.You are an absolute mess when it comes to nadal. Re-read your posts man, it’s @Sarni in the NBA thread all over again
Rafa is a lot like United under Fergie. We'd never like to do it the easy way and make things as hard as possible for ourselves. Also, as Rafa fans, a lot of us have a lot of scars from 5th sets in Slam finals
Maybe so but the cameramen seemed brutally interested in that thinning crown in this match
probably just a really sweaty night.I think the manner of the defeat will make Medvedev stronger now - the strongest of the contenders. The comeback may seem to have started with a couple of errors on pivotal points from Nadal - but he went toe to toe for so long, and with such quality and variety in his play that I doubt even he knew he could be as consistently good. We shall see.
I think for most of these kids, the true test is to see how they respond to adversity. Right now Medvedev is riding a wave. He's in form, he's made 4 finals in a row and just had an unbelievable summer but the true test now is going to be once there is expectation on him now to keep making it deep in tournaments and be consistent. Going to be intriguing to follow his progress in coming years because he definitely feels like he's got a lot more tennis intelligence than his embarrassing Next Gen peers.Maybe so but the cameramen seemed brutally interested in that thinning crown in this match
I think the manner of the defeat will make Medvedev stronger now - the strongest of the contenders. The comeback may seem to have started with a couple of errors on pivotal points from Nadal - but he went toe to toe for so long, and with such quality and variety in his play that I doubt even he knew he could be as consistently good. We shall see.
It's been entertaining every year but not sure how the Laver Cup will work long term with plenty of players not interested and it so heavily favouring Europe.
Felix and Kei have already turned them down. I hope the interest in this dies down and it eventually crashes and burns.
I’d be surprised if Nadal does singles.
But participation fee and each members getting 250k for winning isn’t a bad incentive. Better than the ATP cup or Davis cup alternatives.
Raonic also most likely is a doubt. You probably got Pella, Schwartzmann and De Minuar as the alternatives.
They were probably better including three women and three men. The women’s rest of the world is vastly superior to the mans. Would have made it interesting.
This is honestly nothing for the likes of Rafa, Novak or Roger who get 3-4m per Slam they win. Good incentive for the lesser players who don't go deep in Slams or Masters titles.
When is the Laver Cup? I think Rafa will be too exhausted to play the singles.
I think those tournaments have the potential to be more interesting, though they are basically the same thing but with a different name.
I think they should do a mixed competition as the only version of that we got was the Hopman Cup which has been canned. They really could do with having one big team event as that could capture the interest of casual fans.
When I meant better, I was speaking in respects of more money and participation fee. I don’t think players make that much for Davis cup unless Pique has changed it. ATP Cup appeals more probably because there’s going to be ranking points, I read somewhere.
USA/Canada plus Kyrgios then.
Picking Jack Sock makes sense though so they can win some doubles matches