Tennis 2022

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Nice to see Andy Murray still playing. Thought he was retired.

The magic in his wrist remains, but looks a lot more stationary than before.
 
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Suedesi said:
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Hats off to Rinky. Ombelievable!
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I was at the game. My one chance to watch Nadal, who knows when he will retire.

Anyway Rinky was awesome. Fantastic effort. Showed a lot of heart. looking forward to his rise, hopefully.
 
On a side note, how easy is it to get tickets for this and what's the general price? Considering going next year.
 
Not going well for Rafito. Usually I'd gloat over him stinking up a joint, but can't this time. His wife was recently hospitalized and she is also pregnant. I hope her health and baby's health is well. Playing injured is hard but if someone you love struggles with health that's extremely hard burden to carry.
 
Missed the match, but going by the stats not a good performance. A lot of unforced errors. Fognini's even worse, as he lost more points on serve than he won.

Hope it was just a sloppy performance from Rafa and that his health is okay.
 
Fognini to get the first break and win one set was 8/1. Easy money honestly.
 
saivet said:
Missed the match, but going by the stats not a good performance. A lot of unforced errors. Fognini's even worse, as he lost more points on serve than he won.

Hope it was just a sloppy performance from Rafa and that his health is okay.
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Standard early rounds Rafa. He was horrid in the first set last round as well. Just needs to get through this first week unscathed. Dropping these sets will get him competitive Atleast.
 
wr8_utd said:
Standard early rounds Rafa. He was horrid in the first set last round as well. Just needs to get through this first week unscathed. Dropping these sets will get him competitive Atleast.
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With Gasquet next he'll be fine but will have to step up in a potential R4 match vs Tiafoe or Diego.

Hope he gets a day match as I've missed all the night session matches so far.
 
30 years after it took place, I recently watched this YouTube recap of the 1992 US Open:



It looked like a thrilling tournament, and Edberg's title run with epic matches against Krajicek, Lendl and Chang followed by beating Sampras in the final (so he beat opponents with a range of different playing styles to boot) was incredible.

I've said in the past that on the women's side there was basically no serious depth outside the top 10 or top 20 at most until we were into the 21st century. It was regularly mentioned how the standard of early round matches was a complete joke, the tournaments only really started properly from the QF stage (or sometimes even only from the SF stage), and that 128 player grand slam draws were excessive for the women.

On the men's side in contrast, it seems like there was already pretty strong depth overall and within the top 100 from when the open era began in 1968 and certainly in the 70s when Connors and Borg were on top (when Borg won Wimbledon 5 in years in a row he had to come through numerous tough early round matches against dangerous serve-volleyers for example). It seems like the depth in the ATP 100 was far superior in 1992 than it currently is 30 years later (would anyone seriously doubt that it was also far superior 10 years ago in 2012 than it currently is as well?), and that men's tennis nowadays has began to resemble women's tennis in the 80s and 90s more and more. I guess that for men, tennis has become a less glamorous career option for aspiring male athletes, with the gulf in money in team sports (plus golf) and tennis widening considerably over time), plus the fact that lower ranked / challenger players are financially worse off nowadays than in previous eras (playing expenses have increased at a faster rate with inflation than lower level / challenger prize money) so it has actually become harder to make a good living from the sport at least in comparison to many others. That has surely contributed to a shrinking talent pool.
 
saivet said:
With Gasquet next he'll be fine but will have to step up in a potential R4 match vs Tiafoe or Diego.

Hope he gets a day match as I've missed all the night session matches so far.
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The way he's starting matches, he'll probably drop a set to Gasquet as well tbh. But yeah, he'll need to up his level vs either of Diego (who only seems to turn up vs Rafa) or Tiafoe.
 
wr8_utd said:
The way he's starting matches, he'll probably drop a set to Gasquet as well tbh. But yeah, he'll need to up his level vs either of Diego (who only seems to turn up vs Rafa) or Tiafoe.
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The problem as far as I saw is it wasn't his usual bad start, he seems like he is syill bothered by the abdominal injury, at least unti the medical break, he wasn't able to hold his serve and his serve speed was rather low.
 
Got to admire Murray's fight, even when outgunned just refuses to lie down.
 
LDUred said:
Got to admire Murray's fight, even when outgunned just refuses to lie down.
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That was always his game. Even at his best he never had the weapons to dominate a rally, but he would make his opponent work for every point.
 
Skills said:
That was always his game. Even at his best he never had the weapons to dominate a rally, but he would make his opponent work for every point.
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You are right. I thought in his prime Murray's backhand was always a strong shot and one of the best around, but his gut is what makes him unique.

Competing like he is on a metal hip should be impossible.
 
syrian_scholes said:
The problem as far as I saw is it wasn't his usual bad start, he seems like he is syill bothered by the abdominal injury, at least unti the medical break, he wasn't able to hold his serve and his serve speed was rather low.
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He hasn't mentioned anything about it and Rafa is generally very transparent when it comes to his injuries. So I'll assume that it's rust, although you might well be right.

It's possible to play your way into form, but he can't keep dropping sets because this is all going to be more hours spent on the court and it will catch up with him if he advances far. Ideally, he'll up his level and starts to finish some of the next few matches in straights.
 
Serena coming up clutch in this second set breaker. Fighting for her tournament life
 
Serena Williams' career ends after a 3rd round defeat. Ran out of steam in the final set and lost 6-1.

She didn't play necessarily well and wasted a 4-0 /5-2 lead in the second set (had 2 set points at 6-2) before squeeking out the tie breaker. Looked overmatched in the 3rd set.

It's crazy to think that she won her first slam 23 (!) years ago.

She has an argument to be called the greatest female tennis player ever and retires with the most singles slams in the open era.
 
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Gauff a dark horse for the title, in case Swiatek somewhat loses it? That girl is shaping up as a handy player, just 18yo and three years under the spotlight already. Raducanu, on the contrary, is still an amateur in so many aspects: for example, she always has blisters… wtf?? And yet, I would wait a couple years, before starting declaring her a fluke a la Ostapenko and similar one-Slam-wonders… just consider Muguruza and Kvitova, great game today, still going strong at 30 and “just” two Slams each, none in the last five years.
 
Bepi said:
Gauff a dark horse for the title, in case Swiatek somewhat loses it? That girl is shaping up as a handy player, just 18yo and three years under the spotlight already. Raducanu, on the contrary, is still an amateur in so many aspects: for example, she always has blisters… wtf?? And yet, I would wait a couple years, before starting declaring her a fluke a la Ostapenko and similar one-Slam-wonders… just consider Muguruza and Kvitova, great game today, still going strong at 30 and “just” two Slams each, none in the last five years.
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Stronger than a dark horse for me. I've been really impressed with her progression over the years. Making the RG final was one massive step but she's been making steady progress and crazy to think she's still only 18!
 
saivet said:
Gasquet must be sick of the sight of Nadal
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In that 2nd set he didn't win a single point when Nadal made his 1st serve and didn't hit a single winner, it's not a great watch at the minute because Gasquet seems to have no answers although this is the best that Nadal has looked in the tournament.
 
Got to feel that the winner of the Nick Medvedev match will make the final fairly easily.
 
Good win by Kyrgios.

Medvedev struggles with the matchup (1-4 now) and also struggled with the humidity and visibly tired through the match.

Would expect Nick to beat Khachanov but the winner of Berrettini-Ruud would be tougher for different reasons in the semis.
 
SinNombre said:
Rafa hasn't looked at his best and his route to the final isn't easy with Tiafoe, Rublev and Alcaraz/Sinner.
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Yeah the Alcaraz match up will be tasty if we get there. I'll settle for a Carlito vs Kyrgios final if Rafa gets knocked out.
 
Desert Eagle said:
Yeah the Alcaraz match up will be tasty if we get there. I'll settle for a Carlito vs Kyrgios final if Rafa gets knocked out.
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Carlos is playing very well right now so I can see him beating Rafa, if he gets there. However if Rafa does get through these games, he should have enough for Nick even though this is a tough match up for Rafa.
 
Like most, I always assumed that after years of dicking around, Kyrgios’ potential had been squandered and his ability to win at the top level pretty much gone.

This purple patch may well not amount to very much in terms of titles etc. but it’s good to see him taking himself a bit more seriously, if nothing else.
 
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