WTF - London 2018 (and maybe a little bit of 'nextgen')

The favoured 8 seem to look this this at the moment (assuming that Isner will want to join the party):

Djokovic
Nadal
Federer
de Potro
Zverev
Anderson
Cilic
Thiem
Nishikori
Isner (?)

Poor old del Boy has been out for some time, and Nadal surprised nobody today by confirming he is out - seems to be a combination of the abdominal problems we have heard about as well as some arthroscopic ankle surgery he's chosen to have, which was news to me.

Surely Isner, who is in ye top 10 for the first time, will want to finish off a banner year with his first WTF appearance? If not, Kachanov is next in line.

We would therefore seem to have Djoko, Fed, a clutch of big-hitting tall guys who play without much trickery or variety, and Nishikori. Beyond thinking that every year is worth catching these days since it might be Fed's last, there's not a huge amount to look forward to at this WTF, and we are also reminded of how dull the post-Fed landscape may look. Dimitrov has comprehensively failed to build on his 2017 - who's surprised?

Yes I fear Isner will want to join in though I'd much prefer to have Khasha now. 

But to be fair, without Nadal and Zverev with a shoulder problem, we are likely to have 2 very unbalanced groups anyway. I can see Federer and Djoko meet in the final again and I can't see Federer doing any better than in Paris.

A few players who had their best ever years last year have gone backwards in 2018.

Dimitrov was up to #3 and is now #19.
Carreno Busta (who was first alternate last year) is at #23.
Goffin went up to #7 but is now down at #22.
And Jack Sock has fallen to #105 from #8. 

The 1990-2 generation for you!

Groups are out:

"Guga Kuerten"

Djoko
Zverev
Cilic
Isner


"Lleyton Hewitt"

Fed
Anderson
Thiem
Nishikori

LS you gitttt, stolen my post in 4 seconds 

hehe.

Would not mind a Fed-Djoko final and one final crush from Fed!!!

Let's see how tired/injured are the field, will be one poor quality WTF I expect.

I think Fed has the easier group.....but not much in it.

I think the bracket names are a bit silly, and they are also very 'contemporary', largely a product of Fed's extraordinary longevity:
(i) Kuerten/Hewitt won in 2000-2002, the last three season enders before Fed's first win in 2003; 
(ii) Isner is the only participant this year who is closer in age to Federer than Federer is to Kuerten - he is 4 years younger than Fed who is 5 years younger than Kuerten;
(iii) Hewitt is 6 months older than Fed.

Can't see anything other than Fed v Djok really...  although Fed may end up with Cilic / Zverev in SF  and then he might get beat.

Not much interest I see.

Well KA beat Thiem in 2 and Feds and Nishi are playing shite in first set. Error fest.

Feds playing PANTS!
Nishi 5-1 up in TB.

Kei takes 1st set.

Fed breaks on set 2, loses break immediately.

Like someone switched his racket, huge amount of UEs, FH 5m flying out of court, serve poor, return of serve even worst.

On court behavior starting to get bitchy.

Wake the fuck up!!!

Awful.

I think Fed is not playing badly but Nishi serves better than his usual.

Wasn't expecting that second set performance. So poor!

It seems to me the court is playing fast, much faster than previous years which makes Nishi's serve a little more efficient than usual. 

Fed making mistakes due to pace of court. 

I fancy Fed making a come back in the next rounds.

Federer's serve at 122mph....That's fast by his today's standard.

Anderson served at 141 today, so that tells us it's fast this year.

So we cried 10 years for courts to get fast for Fed, now its no good for him cause he is slow 

He will go to the Final

So Nadal breaks the time rule (even with the clock) about 20 times a match and gets no warnings, but knocking a ball into the crowd, suddenly the umpire gets hissy?  lol.  Sounds like a lot of bias going on.

Federer was dreadul in that match and he only has himself to blame for not skipping Paris.  He's not even reaching SF on that form.

Jahu wrote:Anderson served at 141 today, so that tells us it's fast this year.

So we cried 10 years for courts to get fast for Fed, now its no good for him cause he is slow 

He will go to the Final

Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.

Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.
======================+
Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.
If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

Tenez wrote:Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.
======================+
Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size  is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.
If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

What conclusion was wrong?


Court pace is never measured by any unit available. Most players/commentators share thier view playing or talking to players or observing the matches played.

Jahu wrote:Kei takes 1st set.

Fed breaks on set 2, loses break immediately.

Like someone switched his racket, huge amount of UEs, FH 5m flying out of court, serve poor, return of serve even worst.

On court behavior starting to get bitchy.

Wake the fuck up!!!

His form has been poor the entire year, nothing even close to what he was in 2017. Maybe an injury, but regardless he has been playing poor all year despite winning AO. He lost his edge/form when he lost to Goffin in WTF SF last year. Never recovered since..

I think the Delpo loss after having 2 MPs in IW final accelerated the down-hill slide.  This year I can't remember any good match where he played good and won. Almost all his important wins have been scrappy.

I think he isn't even training well.

I suspect it's training too. Maybe he's just not so motivated, but then he always talks like he is.

Or maybe he's just gone over the edge. It was supposed to happen a long time ago.

This Fed is not going to win this WTF. So him being in the finals against Djoko ( assuming he gets there ) will be almost a walkover. 

Who should be in the finals to make a match of it? 

Zverev? Anderson? Nishikori?

I'd say that, but I said it in Paris and really he was a touch unfortunate to be on the wrong side of one of those oddball results where he broke and the other guy didn't. Losing 6-7, 7-5, 6-7 is unusual and under no circumstances can be called a beating.

His match this year v Kyrgios was amazing....  That one stands out amongst the train wrecks.

bogbrush wrote:I'd say that, but I said it in Paris and really he was a touch unfortunate to be on the wrong side of one of those oddball results where he broke and the other guy didn't. Losing 6-7, 7-5, 6-7 is unusual and under no circumstances can be called a beating.

In my opinion after watching the whole match in Paris vs Djoko, the scoreline makes it look much closer than it really was.

Fed didn't create enough chances on his return games. While he himself was struggling throughout in his own service games having to fend of BPs after BPs. Fed has rarely won TBs in big matches when he is struggling so much to hold serve.

Djoko like Nadal has developed a complete game-plan against Fed and he is disciplined enough to stick with it throughout the match. He has resources to pull it off as well. This is the reason for Fed's struggling h2h against Djoko in the last few years.

Fed and his team need a counter game-plan. But does he have enough time left?

Obviously not, he's 37 and the clock is at 11:50.

He skipped the training too.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/federer-skips-practice-ahead-of-crucial-thiem-clash

"I hurt my hand training at the start of the grass season," Federer said at Basel tournament which he won.
"It's had more consequences than I thought. I dragged this pain for about three months."

Guy's an idiot for playing. Rest up for Australia man!

Damn right, especially Paris was totally unnecessary. 

Watch the Master tonight dish a big lesson to the junior, just the way he likes.

Well, based on that result today Federer should probably be crapping himself playing Anderson!!! He just slaughtered the guy who beat Federer.

More likely that Nishikori has just done a Nishikori and beaten someone useful at the expense of his fitness. No doubt a retirement is coming up before his 3rd match.

Seriously, that's actually a great result for Federer as it kills Nishikoris game difference. If Federer wins in 2 tonight he has a slightly better chance of qualifying if he beats Anderson.

If he can't win both then he's out anyway.

God play, set 1 in the bag, Thiem starting to suck just like Zverev on big tournaments.

Fed will beat Anderon too, then maybe no DJoko in SF.

All done, good exercise for Fed.

Thiem needs Norman to channel his power a little Stan style (i said this 60 times, maybe Thiem can hear me??)

Big difference between Stan and Thiem. Stan had a heart and powerful shots.

Nishikori should retire permanently.  He's an utter embarrassment.  The ambassador of this generation.

I think there is a clear intent to speed things up to prevent Djokovic to walk away with it. Everybody is serving faster thanks to fast balls.

But Djoko returns fast too, he beat Isner badly!!! Returned his serve bombs just as quick back leaving Isner asleep.

Zverev at his usual crap level, got crushed today, moron.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

Tenez wrote:Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.
======================+
Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size  is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.
If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

What conclusion was wrong?


Court pace is never measured by any unit available. Most players/commentators share thier view playing or talking to players or observing the matches played.

Tenez...  I was about to correct you as well.

It only goes to show your bias.  That you used a non existing stat to back your argument up and didn't know it.

What are you on about? What don't you understand again? and like peaking in tennis, will it take you 5 years to understand you were wrong? 

What I am saying here is that court conditions are measured on 2 factors: court speed and ball velocity. Those 2 factors are the main ones affecting court conditions, besides the less controllable ones such as air temps, or humidity and so on. 

So if players serve faster than their usual, it probably means they are serving with faster balls, and faster balls make court conds faster. 

What is so difficult to understand?

Jahu wrote:But Djoko returns fast too, he beat Isner badly!!! Returned his serve bombs just as quick back leaving Isner asleep.

Zverev at his usual crap level, got crushed today, moron.

 Isner is carrying some injury for some months now. Also just had his first child born very recently, his mind is definitely not 100% on tennis. He is probably playing coz this is his first WTF and this has been his career-best season.


Zverev is as his usual. No will to fight and a tame submission if things don't go well. BPs to go 5*-4 up which Djoko saved and then lose the next game and the 1st set. Yet Djoko wasn't playing good. But Zverev wasn't willing to fight it out. Didn't looked like he wanted to be on the court any more.

 Just Compare Zverev to a young Nadal. How Nadal would lose a match in 2004-05. You may win but he would make you earn every bit of it. 

Zverev has a series of tame endings and this shows his mental weakness.

Isner's video : https://www.atpworldtour.com/en/video/video-search-results/john-isner-happy-family-life--oncourt-success

nice one.

Thiem beats Ninja 6:1, 6:4 so Fed is into SF unless he wins less then 4 games??

Djoko to lose in purpose to Cilic to avoid Fed in SF?

Happy for Isner & Baby

Ouch! Kevin giving 2 DFs in that broken game. He is so weak mentally. I'd expect him to beat the best players if it was not mental in his case.

Ffs, breaks and gets broken, hold on to a fucking break man!!! wtf is this panic?

Fed into SF anyway, gone over 4 won games soon.

Break again!!! Good, take the set, match, SF, F winnnnnnnnn 100 !!!!!