Australian Open 2014 (Draw, Predictions etc...)

The Draw

is coming out around midnight UK time. It can be watched via this live stream:

http://www.ausopen.com/mobile/404.html

Predictions

Nole to win it for the record 5th time against a surprise finalist.




Let the first slam of the year begin!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s

Let me predict an easy draw for Rafa...Ferrer on his side again.

Or Murray who probably won't make it that far.

Here is the list of seeds, Almagro has withdrawn in the meantime:

   
1. Rafael Nadal (Spain)
2. Novak Djokovic (Serbia)    
3. David Ferrer (Spain)
4. Andy Murray (Britain)
5. Juan Martin del Potro (Argentina)
6. Roger Federer (Switzerland)    
7. Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic)
8. Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland)
9. Richard Gasquet (France)
10. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France)
11. Milos Raonic (Canada)
12. Tommy Haas (Germany)
13. Nicolas Almagro (Spain)
14. John Isner (U.S.)
15. Mikhail Youzhny (Russia)
16. Fabio Fognini (Italy)  
17. Kei Nishikori (Japan)
18. Tommy Robredo (Spain)
19. Gilles Simon (France)
20. Kevin Anderson (South Africa)
21. Jerzy Janowicz (Poland)
22. Philipp Kohlschreiber (Germany)
23. Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
24. Ernests Gulbis (Latvia)
25. Andreas Seppi (Italy)
26. Gael Monfils (France)
27. Feliciano Lopez (Spain)
28. Benoit Paire (France)
29. Vasek Pospisil (Canada)
30. Jeremy Chardy (France)
31. Dmitry Tursunov (Russia)
32. Fernando Verdasco (Spain)

Dangerous 1st round floaters: Hewitt,  Tomic, Karlovic, and if they qualify: Herbert and Berankis.

While we are waiting for the draw...

Nadal will get Del Potro and Murray on his half of the draw.

Julia Santamaria wrote:Nadal will get Del Potro and Murray on his half of the draw.

Nice one! Your jinxes always work!

noleisthebest wrote:While we are waiting for the draw...

I remember that one! Who says Lendl was not talented? a few years ago I used Lendl's picture with this saharian cap on as my avatar on the centre court forum. I really loved that attire on Lendl's head I thought it gave him such character.

Yes, he was the  Desert Fox....
I like the pride there, so much guile.
No need to clap opponent's shot - you just do one back or better!
Players and the game were in perfect proportion then.

Draw ceremony starting!!!

thankyou for the link noleisthebest

No problem!
Look forward to seeing your draw prediction fulfil   

noleisthebest wrote:
Look forward to seeing your draw prediction fulfil   

It will lol, once this annoying long winded introduction finishes.

I won't stay awake for the draw.....looking forward to waking up to it.....night!

Tenez wrote:I won't stay awake for the draw.....looking forward to waking up to it.....night!

 
Just joking, good night, T.

I'm trying to find something to break.

Julia Santamaria wrote:I'm trying to find something to break.

Why?

Here's the draw:

http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/draws/ms/index.html

Delpo in Nadal's quarter.
Fed in Murray's quarter, both in Nadal's half.

Tomic -Nadal 1st round should be a cracker!

Stan in Nole's quarter!

Interesting draw - quite a number of potentially exciting matches.  Rafa's draw is the worst.  Fed's is perhaps even tougher, but due to his ranking his draw was always likely to be bad.  Very unbalanced draw with the top half by far the harder one - Rafa, Andy, Delpo and Roger are all there, plus good many dangerous lower ranked players too.  Very weak third quarter - should give a chance to someone to make their mark - maybe another SF for Jerzy?  Or maybe Berdych can use it as a launching pad for something big here?

Overall, Nole has been very lucky with the draw.  He has Wawrinka in his quarter, which makes it at least look exciting but - realistically - even if Stan makes it there, how likely is he to repeat his performances from the AO and USO yet again?

Nole will be happy, Rafa not so much.

Top half looks very interesting. bottom half will provide some lucky draw points to some players.

Fed's draw is tough with tsonga in 4th rnd, Murray in QF, Nadal in Semis and if he survives that, perhaps Djokovic in finals.. Tough road to victory.

Djokovic must be rubbing his hands for yet another virtual ticket to the final. It will be surprising if he doesn't make it that far.

It's amazingly unbalanced. It seems it makes a difference for Nadal when they show draws live. Almost like they wanted to prove the 2008-11 period was just pure conspiration.

Yes Fed's draw is probably even tougher....For most of us the AO is going to have a day off every other day.

Yes, the halves are like chalk and cheese.

Jt's happened a few times recently, in fact, remember when we had "interesting" and "boring" match days depending on which half played?

It's amazing to see Federer, Nadal, Murray, Del Potro and Tsonga (add Monfils there for good measure as well, btw, where is Raonic?)
all in the same half, what's that - 33 slams between them, plus Tsonga a 2008 finalist, Murray also three time AO finalist....crazy!

Nole has Lacko, though, and had the court been the predicted "ice-rink" , it could have been tricky, but now it will probably be slaughter for Lacko.
Fed's path is loaded, but if he gets past Tsonga (and he did beat him in this exo the other night, handled his serve fine in those few games I could actually see before picture turned grey and disappeared in that link for some reason!), then anything is possible.
An early Nadal exit could give everyone in that half wings!

Raonic is in Nadal's quarter NITB.

Julia Santamaria wrote:Raonic is in Nadal's quarter NITB.

Ouch!












Yesss!!!!!!!  

Sign up for TFF NITB, with this draw in place you can make wise choices with the players you select.
I'm wondering whether to change my team to have Hewitt in it.

I may later, I am notoriously lazy with rules for that kind of games, it has to be dead easy.

There are no rules, you just pick 10 players.

noleisthebest wrote:I may later, I am notoriously lazy with rules for that kind of games, it has to be dead easy.

I'm also more than happy with a local prediction game. We will have it definitely this this. AO schedules comes out well in advance for everyone to see and make it in time.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I may later, I am notoriously lazy with rules for that kind of games, it has to be dead easy.

I'm also more than happy with a local prediction game. We will have it definitely this this. AO schedules comes out well in advance for everyone to see and make it in time.

Yhat would ne great rotla!

Does anyone know which side of the draw is playing on Monday?  I presume Rafa vs Tomic will be a night match, which means it could be starting 3am my time . This is the toughest part of the season on my tennis watching calendar.

Monday's schedule of play is out - and the bottom half is playing. So I suppose it means that not only did Nole get a nice draw, but he will also have an extra day off before the final.

They must like their Nole there....down under.

A little bit too late.
The way they treated him in 2009 can't be turned back.
Who knows how things would have panned out for Nole if they liked him then as they do now.

noleisthebest wrote:A little bit too late.
The way they treated him in 2009 can't be turned back.
Who knows how things would have panned out for Nole if they liked  him then as they do now.

Not sure why you think they treated him bad in 2009 but surely they more than made up for it last year?  So this year is just bonus for him - pure Aussie love.

Tenez wrote:They must like their Nole there....down under.

Till a player like Ferrer is in top-4, no draw is ever going to be fairly balanced. Ferrer and his stupid game have been making the draw highly imbalanced for perhaps the last 5-6 Grand slams. His fortune is favoring him a lot. Earlier it was Nadal's absence, now Murray's ..has been benefiting him. I hope by the end of this year, this imbalance is resolved and we have a a top-4 who are capable of at least challenging each other.

Agree rotla....

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:A little bit too late.
The way they treated him in 2009 can't be turned back.
Who knows how things would have panned out for Nole if they liked  him then as they do now.

Not sure why you think they treated him bad in 2009 but surely they more than made up for it last year?  So this year is just bonus for him - pure Aussie love.

A quick reminder:

"Djokovic, 21, was the fourth player to quit in mid-match in two days, saying he was cramping and sore, as the on-court temperature at Rod Laver Arena soared above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). He had lamented that he didn't get to sleep until 6 a.m. Monday after his previous match against Marcos Baghdatis ended at 2:26 a.m. Monday, costing him practice time. He said he had requested another night match.
"Didn't really have time to recover," Djokovic said. "Conditions were extreme today. It did affect more on me than him, as you could see. But, you know, that was the situation. I just have to cope with it. Really tried my best, but sometimes you can't fight against your own body."



Serena Williams, got a different treatment which enabled her to stay in the tournament and eventually win it:

"Svetlana Kuznetsova has strongly criticised the Australian Open organisers' decision to close the stadium roof mid-way through her 5-7, 7-5, 6-1 semi-final defeat by Serena Williams.

The Russian eighth seed was a set up against the second-seeded Williams, who looked to be struggling in heat. The temperature had reached 43C (109F) when play was suspended and the Rod Laver Arena roof closed, following the implementation of the extreme heat policy in which all matches on the outside courts were suspended.

When the players returned Williams, rejuvenated in the cooler conditions, went on to win the remaining two sets to secure victory, although Kuznetsova had unsuccessfully served for the match at 5-4 up in the second.

"I was definitely angry," she said. "Why should I not be? The game was going my way. I'm fine playing with the roof open. I think the guys yesterday had the same weather. Everybody was playing with the roof open. Why today [did] they have to close it? I didn't get it, that was why I was angry."


http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/jan/28/australian-open-womens-draw

At the time, Federer was not sympathetic with Nole's plight and told him to get fitter...

"I'm almost in favor of saying, you know what, if you're not fit enough, just get out of here. If Novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth. Thanks to Andy that he retired in the end. Andy pushed him to the limits. Hats off to Andy."

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/aus09/news/story?id=3863682

you know what, if you're not fit enough, just get out of here. If Novak were up two sets to love I don't think he would have retired 4-0 down in the fourth. Thanks to Andy that he retired in the end. Andy pushed him to the limits. Hats off to Andy."

Hard to disagree with this sentiment.

In any event, AO gave Djoko a freebie last year, and a good draw this year, so on balance he has nothing to whine about.

My prediction and belief is from QF to final as follow:
QF
Nadal - Delpo
Kohlschreiber – Tsonga
Berdych – Ferrer
Nole – Stan

Semi
Delpo – Tsonga
Berdych – Nole

Final
Tsonga – Nole

and it is useless to write the winner, who should be no. 1 soon   

So, I don't see any reason for Nadal's mourners re the hard draw, because only Delpo is able to smash him on his way to the final.

I also think Delpo is ready for a breakthrough.
This is what Nole said about him today:

"He's fitter. I feel that on the court he's ready to go the distance. That was, I believe, his biggest issue in the past. He played a couple of tournaments well, then didn't play for the next few weeks or month, couldn't really sustain that level of consistency physically.

He won a Grand Slam. He's definitely one of the best players in the world. I believe he has the potential to win Grand Slams and to be definitely one of the players to fight for No. 1. Why not?

In this year or next year, that's something that I don't know exactly.  It depends really of how consistently he can play throughout the whole year. It's not about playing one or two Grand Slams well, or a few months. In order to be No. 1 of the world, you have to play consistently well 10 months.”

noleisthebest wrote:I also think Delpo is ready for a breakthrough.
This is what Nole said about him today:

"He's fitter. I feel that on the court he's ready to go the distance. That was, I believe, his biggest issue in the past. He played a couple of tournaments well, then didn't play for the next few weeks or month, couldn't really sustain that level of consistency physically.

He won a Grand Slam. He's definitely one of the best players in the world. I believe he has the potential to win Grand Slams and to be definitely one of the players to fight for No. 1. Why not?

In this year or next year, that's something that I don't know exactly.  It depends really of how consistently he can play throughout the whole year. It's not about playing one or two Grand Slams well, or a few months. In order to be No. 1 of the world, you have to play consistently well 10 months.”

Everybody likes Delpo, no wonder. He is such a lively overgrown mole    I don't think that Delpo has a chance to become no. 1. His tall body just doesn't allow him to take this spot. But no. 3 is surely open for him.

I think Federer was particularly harsh in that comment in that AO 09. But I think he can be excused cause Djoko has/had a history of giving up then and even worse, pretend he was injured, tired, or else to unsettle his opponent. Federer saw that first hand in that DC where Djoko complain about something, yet went all the way to beat a really injured Stan.

Djoko is Djoko....we know him. Had he needed to kill his mum to succeed, I am not sure what his decision would have been. I think she can be happy he did not need to!

Tenez wrote:I think Federer was particularly harsh in that comment in that AO 09. But I think he can be excused cause Djoko has/had a history of giving up then and even worse, pretend he was injured, tired, or else to unsettle his opponent. Federer saw that first hand in that DC where Djoko complain about something, yet went all the way to beat a really injured Stan.

Djoko is Djoko....we know him. Had he needed to kill his mum to succeed, I am not sure what his decision would have been. I think she can be happy he did not need to!

Ten, you know, somebody can learn his lesson and somebody stays the same idiot for all his life. Thanks God, that Nole belongs to the first ones.

Tenez wrote:I think Federer was particularly harsh in that comment in that AO 09.

But why so?  Which of his statements do you disagree with?  What he says seems perfectly right - perhaps too honest, but not incorrect.  He also seems to be consistent with himself; this is what he said yesterday:

"It's just a mental thing. "If you've trained hard enough your entire life or the last few weeks and you believe you can do it and come through it, there's no reason. If you can't deal with it, you throw in the towel."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/tennis/25724815