US Open 2014: MOTD Day 10 Wed 3/09/2014 Men's Quarter finals

summerblues wrote:I can watch one more set maybe; and will have to check out after that.  I was hoping the match could end in ~2.5 hrs

Same here.....but hoping the match will last 6 sets!

Tenez wrote:Murray a perfect case of a player improving his shots past 27! His FH is easily 10 times better than his 23-25 "peak".

Please let's not turn every thread into this now.

Tenez wrote:Same here.....but hoping the match will last 6 sets!

LOL, fair enough.

Nole throws in his overhead special.

5.35 AM here...and I am woken up by a bunch of yobs yelling in the street

Two TBs...looks like there has been some ghastly slugging going on, glad I was asleep. Nole with a break in the 3rd. Hopefully just one more set

GO NOLE!!!

Mr Muscle looks like he's running out of steam. The power FH can't even go over the net any more...
That means his new mixed aggression game is going to switch to the old pushing one.
Nole needs to be very focused now and not let it go to 5 sets.

Correction!the power FH is now used only very sparingly on Murray's service games, but nit Nole's.
And even there he is missing.
Still Nole's FH is superior, much more variation and placement on it.

T&SB seem to have disappeared after Nole won the third set.
No prizes for guessing why

What is Murray moaning to Pascal Maria about?

Nole looking a bit stiff in his back his BH, hope he's ok.
Serving looks good.

Nole desperate to start expressing his frustration in his expressive emotional way, but one look at Boris and the "breezy" facade is quickly back on. I like that!
Murray always keenly observes Nole look for any signs of negativity in his spirit.

Nole making Murray run and serving well, perfect formula for the end of 4th set.
5:4.
Time to pounce on Murray. Let's see the pressure nerves on his serve now.
IDEMO NOLE!!!!!

2 MPs for Nole!

IDEMOOOOOOO!

And he takes the first one

BRAVO NOLE!!!!

We have a UNIQLO USO SF!

In the end...all panned out exactly as I thought it would. Murray's muscles and shots are bigger than last year, but he can still only last 2 sets in his A Mr Muscle mode.  The better player won

Tenez wrote:

summerblues wrote:Mhmm.  At 1:4 and BP down I was wondering if Nole was running away with it, and now all of a sudden we are back on serve.

Fairly boring - though steady - stuff so far.

Same thing in the 2nd set!

Murray v Djokovic is one of the most boring matches out there. They both keep playing safe steady stuff with neither having any creativity or skill to do any better.

noleisthebest wrote:What a match from, Nishi!!!!
So happy for him

Awesome tennis from both players. Stan's poor % of first serves let him down. Serving was going to be a major advantage for him, but he couldn't take it. Lots of UE's too..

But Nishikori played just fantastic. He deserves a final spot.

Djokovic looking like he will win this year...  Need Nishikori to really wear him down (or beat him. like in their last encounter)
Also, really wish the BBC would shut up trying to suggest that Murray is on Djokovic's level.

Murray has been improving his FH continually even before Lendl.

That improvement has always been very artificial i.e. physical, as it came mainly from bulking up and a little bit from his timing. His moving to Miami and putting  on 6 kgs  of muscle in the 2010 off-season was his "milestone".

You can see he likes the power those muscles and improved timing have given him on both the BH and especially the FH.

I think Mauresmo has been trying to loosen Murray's predictable combination of rare attacking FHs & pushing shot-selection a bit and mix it up into a more natural use of his FH and she's done a good job.

However, Murray is having to pay the price of all that power as he can't last long with it, plus, his game is still fairly predictable despite all the hype to the opposite it gets.

On top of that, the rest of the field is improving and moving on, too so it's always a game of catch-up there.

I am glad to see that almost all players are trying to shorten the points as much as their ability is allowing them to.
I am grateful for that latest development in tennis evolution.

If it comes to Fed-Nole final, it will be interesting to see if Fed can maintain the edge, as he is the ultimate leader in this new wave of attacking tennis with this brilliant S&V-ing he has been playing recently.

Plus, his serving has been outstanding.

Tenez wrote:Murray a perfect case of a player improving his shots past 27! His FH is easily 10 times better than his 23-25 "peak".

And Murray has won what past 27 compared to before?  He quite obviously isn't winning nearly as much, or reaching as many finals.  He is on the decline, and his record is bearing it out.

After this loss, Murray slides to number 10,  Nishi taking over at number 9.

http://live-tennis.eu

Race to London looking interesting, too. I'd love to see Kei and Earnie make it, but please no Raonic...

Any news on Nadal's "recovery"?

Doesn't look he is far from his 110% judging from this video taken just before USO...

Tenez wrote:1. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) [32]
2 - Kei Nishikori (JPN) [33] Joker
3. Serena Williams (USA) [23]
4. Novak Djokovic (SRB) [26]

My "suggested GP" picks (he wanted to pick but is offline the rest of the day).
1. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) [32]
2 -Wawrnka  
3. Serena Williams (USA) [23]
4. Andy Murray Joker

Thanks T,
But my joker went to Djoko.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:

Tenez wrote:

summerblues wrote:Mhmm.  At 1:4 and BP down I was wondering if Nole was running away with it, and now all of a sudden we are back on serve.

Fairly boring - though steady - stuff so far.

Same thing in the 2nd set!

Murray v Djokovic is one of the most boring matches out there. They both keep playing safe steady stuff with neither having any creativity or skill to do any better.

That was not the case for Murray though. ...at least in that 2nd set. He really was going for broke. Pretty impressive FHs, BH and some good volleys. You can see Mauresmo's influence.

Congratulations to Nole, that is a great win and think that Murray was a quite mouthful in his current form.

I saw only the first three sets between Stan and Nishi. I rooted for Stan, but from what I saw Stan was subpar on his very good level. He totally lost his forehand body move and didn't play his forehand in the right stand. It was similar to his forehand misery, when he played with Berdych at DC in Switzerland. Stand hitted many balls rather from backhand than forehand. Each third hit from forehand side was UE.
From what I saw Stan looked nervous and didn't keep his serve composure, which had an enormous effect on his overall performance. The question is whether Stan also suffer from any back issue.


On the other hand a hat off to Nishi, his early clear ball striking from both wings was superb and his mentality looked quite strong. Well done from Nishi and great job from Chang.

I will not be able to login later so here are my picks:

Fed (joker)
Cilic

For any other match, let's say I always pick the higher seed.

For matches between two unseesed players or teams I pick alphabetically.

Cheers.

I seriously underestimated Nishikori here, great win for him, managed to boss Wawrinka around with his groundstrokes who found himself on the backfoot more often than he'd like too. Nishikori now won 10 sets in 3 days, impressive stuff. Now on to Djokovic... the 2 days of rest will hopefully help the speedy recovery and give Nishikori a good chance.

Murray - Djokovic... nothing new, really, the match unfolded as predicted. They were very evenly matched apart from Murray's atrocious second serve until Murray ran out of gass at the end of the third set. From then on it was smooth sailing for Djokovic and only a matter of time til the win.