Grass Season 2018 Stuttgart, Hertegenbosch

First matches on grass are being already played in Stuttgart and Hertogenbosch.

Tomic beat Brown...and we know it's the season when everything is possible.

I don't know about you, but I am so glad clay is over. I can't recall a single epic match, though there has been some nice tennis mainly from the Italians and Shapo while he lasted.

So...main news is that Fed is back!

I hope he's had a decent rest and brought much needed freshness to his legs.
He did look very, very tired in Miami and IW.
How else can we explain his losses to Delpo and Kokkinakis.

Biggest question is of course, can he bag Wimbledon No9?

I think he can, esp if he has worked on his neo-bakchand which did look a bit neglected earlier in the year.

Nadal...let's hope he gets a normal draw.

Nole, will he play at all? I think he should.

Kyrgios? what's been happening to him? Injuries etc...noone wants to see him close in their draw on grass.

Cilic will be very dangerous, maybe even Kev...at least in week one.

Shapo, well...not sure. He didn't do much last year, but this one is another story.

Now that I've said all this...it's still Fed that shines as any real interest...

God save tennis when he retires!

Draw for Stuttgart:



http://www.protennislive.com/posting/2018/321/mds.pdf


Draw for Hertegenbosch:



http://www.protennislive.com/posting/2018/440/mds.pdf

Dont expect much from nadal on grass

its too long ago that he visited the final round (2011) and since then, almost anyone has beaten him 

but I think wimbly will be won by a new face

(maybe RG too??)

Only 4 matches to win the title for Fed.  But the first three could be Misha Zverev - Shapovalov - Kyrgios.  Quite juicy.  The bottom half is much weaker.

noleisthebest wrote:Shapo, well...not sure. He didn't do much last year, but this one is another story.

Shapo had better do well this year if he is to advance as quickly as his talent suggests he could.  Last year does not matter - at his age one year makes huge difference.

I am hopeful.  I was actually quite pleased with his clay court season.  He is not a clay courter and yet he was probably among the best 15-20 performers on clay this spring.  He should aim to be better than that on grass and HC.

He should have an outside chance to win the title at Wimbledon.  Of course, that is not very likely, but he should certainly at least make sure that if he loses, it will be to a superb performance from an opponent. He should aim quite high - I would consider SF to be successful, QF so-so and anything below that disappointing.

naxroy wrote:Dont expect much from nadal on grass

Don;t worry, we won't. The ball might be a bit too fast from him.

Fed should lose early this week. He frankly is too old to play 3 tournaments including a slam in 6 weeks.

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Shapo, well...not sure. He didn't do much last year, but this one is another story.

Shapo had better do well this year if he is to advance as quickly as his talent suggests he could.  Last year does not matter - at his age one year makes huge difference.

I am hopeful.  I was actually quite pleased with his clay court season.  He is not a clay courter and yet he was probably among the best 15-20 performers on clay this spring.  He should aim to be better than that on grass and HC.

He should have an outside chance to win the title at Wimbledon.  Of course, that is not very likely, but he should certainly at least make sure that if he loses, it will be to a superb performance from an opponent. He should aim quite high - I would consider SF to be successful, QF so-so and anything below that disappointing.

I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.


The fact Samoras didn’t just says he wasn’t that good after all.
Same with Nadal.

Tenez wrote:

naxroy wrote:Dont expect much from nadal on grass

Don;t worry, we won't. The ball might be a bit too fast from him.

My bad english

I was trying to say that I dont expect much...

noleisthebest wrote:

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Shapo, well...not sure. He didn't do much last year, but this one is another story.

Shapo had better do well this year if he is to advance as quickly as his talent suggests he could.  Last year does not matter - at his age one year makes huge difference.

I am hopeful.  I was actually quite pleased with his clay court season.  He is not a clay courter and yet he was probably among the best 15-20 performers on clay this spring.  He should aim to be better than that on grass and HC.

He should have an outside chance to win the title at Wimbledon.  Of course, that is not very likely, but he should certainly at least make sure that if he loses, it will be to a superb performance from an opponent. He should aim quite high - I would consider SF to be successful, QF so-so and anything below that disappointing.

I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.


The fact Samoras didn’t just says he wasn’t that good after all.
Same with Nadal.

sampras was that good

I am not sure he was that good at all. 
His game was very limited and worked well on grass because of his serve(which was fantastic and had to come from some kind of talent)....and because grass was fast then.

Fed beating him in Wimbledon exposed the gap in class.

In a way he is a reverse similarity of Nadal who can only thrive in slow conditions, primarily because of his fitness and larger frames....so he’s had it a lot easier than Sampras did in his day on clay.

any sportsman who dominates his/her sport  worldwide at some point is because he/she is extremely good. Not to mention sampras or nadal have been on top for a long time.

the way you want to underrate sampras, rafa or whomever, just shows you have no real idea what does it mean to be number 1 in the world in any field.

noleisthebest wrote:

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Shapo, well...not sure. He didn't do much last year, but this one is another story.

Shapo had better do well this year if he is to advance as quickly as his talent suggests he could.  Last year does not matter - at his age one year makes huge difference.

I am hopeful.  I was actually quite pleased with his clay court season.  He is not a clay courter and yet he was probably among the best 15-20 performers on clay this spring.  He should aim to be better than that on grass and HC.

He should have an outside chance to win the title at Wimbledon.  Of course, that is not very likely, but he should certainly at least make sure that if he loses, it will be to a superb performance from an opponent. He should aim quite high - I would consider SF to be successful, QF so-so and anything below that disappointing.

I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.


The fact Samoras didn’t just says he wasn’t that good after all.
Same with Nadal.

Nadal has been in 5 Wimbledon finals, winning 2. He’s also won 4 hard court slams. Feels an odd player to mention in this context.

Tenez wrote:Fed should lose early this week. He frankly is too old to play 3 tournaments including a slam in 6 weeks.

Agree with this, except if he sees his opponents can be beaten in 50 min, then he will give it harder effort.

Federer treats these things as training sessions, he won’t try to lose but he won’t break his neck to win. Until Wimbledon.

nadal might not play queens

Why bother after the RG win, show up at W, maybe a good draw and give it a go, good enough.

naxroy wrote:nadal might not play queens

I hope he doesn't play Eastbourne either!

well, I think he is ok with his knees and he hasnt played that much this year, so I would like him to play some grass before wimbly

not hoping much from nadal on grass at this point, but the more points he gains the better for his number 1 status

Federer might regain it in stutgart though

I have just added draws for Stuttgart and Hertegenbosch.


Fed's not got it easy with a potential match with Shapo in round 2 followed by Kyrgios in round 3.

Hertegenbosch has a decent field, too - Tsitsipas, Muller, Gasquet (ok he can play on grass...)

naxroy wrote:well, I think he is ok with his knees and he hasnt played that much this year, so I would like him to play some grass before wimbly

not hoping much from nadal on grass at this point, but the more points he gains the better for his number 1 status

Federer might regain it in stutgart though

he might want to keep a low profile and get some practice in Boodles. No pressure.

I just realised if Fed gets to Stuttgart semis (125 points?), he is back at number one!

noleisthebest wrote:I just realised if Fed gets to Stuttgart semis (125 points?), he is back at number one!

he must reach final

noleisthebest wrote:

naxroy wrote:nadal might not play queens

I hope he doesn't play Eastbourne either!

if he needs rest, playing eastbourn would be perfect for him, so that he could rest a week now and then train another week on grass before eastbourne, where he would be able to play a couple of matches before entering wimbly

naxroy wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I just realised if Fed gets to Stuttgart semis (125 points?), he is back at number one!

he must reach final

that's what I meant.

Would be good if he can do it, though he is defending points in Halle the week after.
Still...I am just happy he is playing and putting so much care and work to be competitive at his age. That is truly special.

noleisthebest wrote:I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.

That sounds nice in theory, and with surfaces playing more similar than in the past, is closer to truth than ever, but there are still differences between how well players do on different surfaces.  I will be disappointed if Shapo does not do better on grass than he did on clay.

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.

That sounds nice in theory, and with surfaces playing more similar than in the past, is closer to truth than ever, but there are still differences between how well players do on different surfaces.  I will be disappointed if Shapo does not do better on grass than he did on clay.

My comment referred to times before surface slowdown.
McEnroe, Borg, Fed...all true talent that won on all surfaces when they were at their natural speed.

No way would Nadal have won anything on fast grass or hard courts in those days. He simply does not have the skill, can't take the ball early. It's all about physical effort with him. Without it there is NOTHING.

Now if Shapo is able to translate his game to clay in this era (and he is very close), it will be just as impressive, if not even more.

Because he plays tennis with a SBH and attacks. And doesn't muscle the ball and stand 6m behind the baseline or wait for and UE.

Can Nadal do it? Not in his wildest dreams.

I shouldn't have to spell all this out, it's obvious!

noleisthebest wrote:

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.

That sounds nice in theory, and with surfaces playing more similar than in the past, is closer to truth than ever, but there are still differences between how well players do on different surfaces.  I will be disappointed if Shapo does not do better on grass than he did on clay.

My comment referred to times before surface slowdown.
McEnroe, Borg, Fed...all true talent that won on all surfaces when they were at their natural speed.

But that is not true.   McEnroe's era is a great example.  McEnroe never won at RG - nor did other great Wimbledon champions of his era.  Borg was unique at the time - and he was actually going the other way around.  He was a clay courter who succeeded on grass.  So none of the grass court players of that time could win at RG.

Plus I am not sure why you are arguing with me, when you really seem to be in agreement with what I am saying.  You yourself say that it would be very impressive if Shapo could translate his game to clay.  That is a different way of saying what I did - his game is better suited to grass.

noleisthebest wrote:

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I think a good player plays well on all surfaces.
If you can play well on grass you can/should be able to play well anywhere.

That sounds nice in theory, and with surfaces playing more similar than in the past, is closer to truth than ever, but there are still differences between how well players do on different surfaces.  I will be disappointed if Shapo does not do better on grass than he did on clay.

My comment referred to times before surface slowdown.
McEnroe, Borg, Fed...all true talent that won on all surfaces when they were at their natural speed.

No way would Nadal have won anything on fast grass or hard courts in those days. He simply does not have the skill, can't take the ball early. It's all about physical effort with him. Without it there is NOTHING.

Now if Shapo is able to translate his game to clay in this era (and he is very close), it will be just as impressive, if not even more.

Because he plays tennis with a SBH and attacks. And doesn't muscle the ball and stand 6m behind the baseline or wait for and UE.

Can Nadal do it? Not in his wildest dreams.

I shouldn't have to spell all this out, it's obvious!

when were courts slowed down? I always thought it was after 2001.

naxroy wrote:when were courts slowed down? I always thought it was after 2001.

Wimbledon? started before the 2001...but drastically in 2002 when they bigged up teh balls and used 100% clay making the surface more solid with higher bounce. It has never been constant. After 2002, they reverted to faster conds as they were surprised to see teh effect of larger balls in 2002 with Hewitt and Nalbandian reaching the final.

They tried to make it even slower last year by cutting grass from 9mm to 8mm and starving it of water.

Fed v Nadal still sells.

reading some interviews, I am not sure if nadal is going to play this wimbledon

Interesting! he is now in turn going to concentrating on RG v2.