ATP MASTERS: World Tour Finals, London 2014

Murray has always been like that.  He got very lucky to win at the Olympics and US Open, for starters.  Lucky that players in final were knackered (due to mammoth semi finals) or that there was a monsoon.  Can only play what you get dealt, but he could have easily ended with no slams.  All I hear about is how he is part of the big 4. Nonsense.  There was a big 3 and that was it.

Murray played some good, aggressive tennis in the last few weeks and now he is looking like a poor man's Nadal.
Very average returning, too.
Raonic playing rubbish and still holding serve,

Raonic nervous as hell, subpar serve, robotic game, wooden body and Murray has full hands with him. Not nice tennis, but it is  funny to watch how Murray will go on to the end of the second set.

In the end good win for Murray, so he has still a chance.

Fed's gonna rip him apart, more than likely.

Hope so  and come on nish!

FedererKing wrote:Murray has always been like that.  He got very lucky to win at the Olympics and US Open, for starters.  Lucky that players in final were knackered (due to mammoth semi finals) or that there was a monsoon.  Can only play what you get dealt, but he could have easily ended with no slams.  All I hear about is how he is part of the big 4. Nonsense.  There was a big 3 and that was it.

I agree with that. But he knocked at the door of slams enough times to deserve that chance.

 Fed

Any thoughts on Nole-Stan match?

I have a feeling Nole will steamroll Stan.

I am not sure about steamrolling but I can't see him lose a set.

WTF and top 10 are missing Delpo.
Big time!

Cilic and Raonic are a joke.

summerblues wrote:How did Berdych get a vote?  If I had to pick one guy I am most certain will not win, it would be Berdych by some distance.

The question for today: will Berdych be able to snatch a win or will he go down 0-3? He would have been my choice for that place before the start of the tournament in group A. 

Tough to say who was worse in their starting matches though - he or Cilic. Berdych managed one winner vs. Wawrinka, Cilic got to 6 vs. Djokovic.   

In the other group I would have had Murray for 0-3, but I couldn't have guessed just how meekly Raonic went down. Murray was just pushing for the most part and Raonic obliging with errors on every other groundstroke, some sitters among them. Now Raonic looks poised to go home without a win, can't see him get past Nishikori here who will be a lot more aggressive than Murray.

As for the other match - everything but a comfortable Djokovic win would be a shocker.

Doesn;t that proves how slow is London? To me they are all talking about "medium pace" but clearly that's a nice way to say it;s dead slow.

Serves are retrieved so easily, it;s a joke.

I think Stan might provide more trouble than anticipated cause this slow surface also allows him to place and time the ball better. Djoko shoudl be doing his fair share of scrapping tonight. Federer must be desperate for Stan's win.

Murray was not returning well at all.
Raonic was serving quite badly, in fact.

O2 is quicker than Paris. Not fast but not as slow.
It has always played the same slow-medium with low bounce.

Cilic is playing worse than ever. No serve, no FH, just dull percentage tennis. Unbelievable.

Same, old unhappy, self-doubting, confused expression.

None of that mad glint in the eye from USO...

Very disappointing.

Pathetique! It's terrible tennis....poor crowd!

noleisthebest wrote:Cilic is playing worse than ever. No serve, no FH, just dull percentage tennis. Unbelievable.

Same, old unhappy, self-doubting, confused expression.

None of that mad glint in the eye from USO...

Very disappointing.

I couldn't see that, but that was my luck. Cilic is a mental player. He wins only 4 games with the weakest player out of 8.
Just the same player as Goran, once per a three years he might win something big.

Tenez wrote:Pathetique! It's terrible tennis....poor crowd!

Supposedly there were a lot of free seats. These lumpished players are not worthy seeing even for free.

paulcz wrote:

Tenez wrote:Pathetique! It's terrible tennis....poor crowd!

Supposedly there were a lot of free seats. These lumpished players are not worthy seeing even for free.

They are smart and sell the tickets for sessions when it's still unknown who will play. One of the reasons why I'd prefer to visit tournaments with day tickets. But else I guess it would be very tough to sell Berdych - Cilic or a Raonic match maybe. 

Didn't recognize the USO champion in that impersonator today. Maybe he had a real injury? Maybe something else is amiss? I wasn't sure before the match who is in worse form because of the very different opponents they faced in their first match, he or Berdych - I guess that question is answered now.

noleisthebest wrote:Murray was not returning well at all.
Raonic was serving quite badly, in fact.

O2 is quicker than Paris. Not fast but not as slow.
It has always played the same slow-medium with low bounce.

It's depressingly slow. Even Stan can get to all balls. It's exactly like Paris...just the camera angle is different.

More than the surface it must be the ball. The returner can even have a whack at the first serve. No wonder the big servers felt completely useless, no wonder Murray is pushing the ball more than ever, No wonder Stan can get to all balls. Djoko can even have a cup of tea in between shots.

Poxy slow courts/balls.

What's annoying is the sky commentator talking about Djoko's great shots when clearly the strength is his mouvement. He is everywhere with time to spare to execute his shots. The ace count has been ridiculously low for all players.
'''''
Ah last Greg mentions Djoko's mouvement and says he has never seen such mouvement...sure but the slow conds emphasises that.

And the other american (Flemming) talks about tennis being all about the mind!


News: Flemming now talks about the slowness of the court.

Nole with Fed should play somewhere else a different tourney between only themselves and the schedule would be to play three matches between them. Who would reach two wins would be the winner of that WTF.

That was the game, which I appreciate from Nole. Well done.

Only saw the last three games of the Djokovic-Wawrinka match. What a disappointing tournament, no even match ups at all, only blowouts. To think these are the the top players of the world at the moment. 

I wonder whether the ATP will wake up now. It's disgusting.

The commentators try to put a positive spin on it, but they have a hard job of it.

Autumnleaf wrote:Only saw the last three games of the Djokovic-Wawrinka match. What a disappointing tournament, no even match ups at all, only blowouts. To think these are the the top players of the world at the moment. 

I wonder whether the ATP will wake up now. It's disgusting.

I wish but they clearly don;t want to. It's still all about Nadal...but they don;t realise that Djoko is the one benefitting from it nowadays.

Maybe, but is this the best product they can offer? Is that really, what the audience wants to see? Why is it still Fed who is chosen fan favourite year after year? 

Nadal even doped up to the gill won't ever win this event anyway, with Djokovic barring his way.

Oh well, I guess this is what happens when you skew surfaces/ equipement heavily toward defense and have a group consisting of the best mover/defender in the game and a bunch of heavy hitters.

Can't see past Novak here for the title. Group B looked a bit more competitive among themselves, but nowhere near solid enough to challenge him.

Autumnleaf wrote:Maybe, but is this the best product they can offer? Is that really, what the audience wants to see? Why is it still Fed who is chosen fan favourite year after year? 

Nadal even doped up to the gill won't ever win this event anyway, with Djokovic barring his way.

I read today on yahoo.fr that Nadal was the most popular foreign athlete across all sports. It says it all. !

Today they were comparing the great champions? Borg, Nadal, Pete Fed and maybe Djoko. They were sayong that after Pete they never though one player would beat the 14 slam record and certainly not so soon after. Then fed broke the record, then Nadal joined them and djko would have been with a real chance had he not wasted 7 slams finals. But what they don't realise is that those guys can line up slams wins cause simply based on fitness. "you are fit, you win". Regardless the (slow) surface.

Whereas fed did it purely on aggressive, creative tennis. A completely different league in that respect. 1 slam from Fed = 10 from the retrievers.

Pete and Federer won 7 on the best and most difficult surface in terms of skill.  Borg did it 5 times.

That's the benchmark I look at most.

Just looking at Wimbledon is the best way of getting the best players at Wimbledon

....and steamrolling it was!

Brilliant match from Nole.
He played even better than in Wimbledon.

Disappointed by Stan's lack of fight. But again, maybe wise to spare himself for his last RR match.

Interesting that in both groups 2nd place is wide open.

That should make R3 a bit more competitive.
I am really curious to see how Murray goes tonight.

Tenez wrote:Doesn;t that proves how slow is London? To me they are all talking about "medium pace" but clearly that's a nice way to say it;s dead slow.
Serves are retrieved so easily, it;s a joke.
I think Stan might provide more trouble than anticipated cause this slow surface also allows him to place and time the ball better. Djoko shoudl be doing his fair share of scrapping tonight. Federer must be desperate for Stan's win.

I don't know how much you have seen this week, but really, it's only Nole that seemed to return with ease.
Not the much lauded for his returning Murray, not even Fed against Raonic.

Nole is in very sharp form and is standing out this week. I am beginning to think his best "surface" is actually indoors (apparently, he hasn't lost a match indoors since Paris 2012).

I don't think O2 is playing any slower this year than before.

In fact, I am quite disappointed with the level of unprofessionlism from Cilic, Raonic and Stan, even Berdych.
You cannot blame the surface for the poor level of tennis they have shown.
O2 is certainly not slower than AO.

I knew this line-up was not going to be good and said so before the tournament.

Autumnleaf wrote:Only saw the last three games of the Djokovic-Wawrinka match. What a disappointing tournament, no even match ups at all, only blowouts. To think these are the the top players of the world at the moment. 

I wonder whether the ATP will wake up now. It's disgusting.

I saw the full match and it was a disaster. This Stan is no way even close to the Stan of early 2014. Not a single BH winner? Barely any first serve, no plan no clear idea of what to do. Just going through the motions.

It was   performance. I didn't expect Stan to win, but not this.

Only Federer can beat Djokovic in WTF-2014, maybe Nishikori too if he plays his better game. Others have no chance.

Tenez wrote:Today they were comparing the great champions? Borg, Nadal, Pete Fed and maybe Djoko. They were sayong that after Pete they never though one player would beat the 14 slam record and certainly not so soon after. Then fed broke the record, then Nadal joined them and djko would have been with a real chance had he not wasted 7 slams finals. But what they don't realise is that those guys can line up slams wins cause simply based on fitness. "you are fit, you win". Regardless the (slow) surface.

Whereas fed did it purely on aggressive, creative tennis. A completely different league in that respect. 1 slam from Fed = 10 from the retrievers.

 Media and press always tries to sell the current players as the best ever. In other sports too its the same story. In cricket they are showing how great is Virat Kohli (India) to score the fastest 6000+ runs in One-Day-Internationals. They don't even mention that now the game has become so bastman-friendly. The outfield boundaries have been so much brought inside to reduce the risk of out field catching and all going for 6s instead, Severe field restrictions like never was just to increase the scoring rate, mandatory change of the old-reverse swinging ball so that batsman can sore easy runs, Power-play etc etc. 

Old players can't be compared in this record-line when the game has changed so much.

Raonic withdraws from WTF!!!

Ferrer to play Nishi instead. Hugely disadvantagous for Nishikori.
Even more disappointed with gutless Raonic. i don't believe a word of that quad injury.
Or shall I let the conspirationist in me speak its mind?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/30040329

On second thoughts, at least we are going to see a decent match...we know Ferru never fails to deliver his best.

Still...how odd!

If I was at the O2 today I would be thrilled to see Nishikori-Ferrer rather than the original match.
I had the scenarios sorted, but my brain hurts from the different set qualification permutations after Raonic's departure, so I found this:

1) Regardless of score, if R. FEDERER defeats A. MURRAY and K. NISHIKORI defeats D. FERRER, then R. FEDERER wins the group and K. NISHIKORI qualifies 2nd.
2) Regardless of score, if R. FEDERER defeats A. MURRAY and D. FERRER defeats K. NISHIKORI, then R. FEDERER wins the group and K. NISHIKORI qualifies 2nd.
3) Regardless of score, if A. MURRAY defeats R. FEDERER and D. FERRER defeats K. NISHIKORI, then A. MURRAY wins the group and R. FEDERER qualifies 2nd.
4) If A. MURRAY defeats R. FEDERER in 2 sets and K. NISHIKORI defeats D.FERRER in 2 sets, then D. FERRER is eliminated and order of remaining players is determined by % of games won.
5) If A. MURRAY defeats R. FEDERER in 2 sets and K. NISHIKORI defeats D.FERRER in 3 sets, then A. MURRAY wins the group and R. FEDERER qualifies 2nd.
6) If A. MURRAY defeats R. FEDERER in 3 sets and K. NISHIKORI defeats D.FERRER in 2 sets, then R. FEDERER wins the group and K. NISHIKORI qualifies 2nd.
7) If A. MURRAY defeats R. FEDERER in 3 sets and K. NISHIKORI defeats D.FERRER in 3 sets, then R. FEDERER wins the group and K. NISHIKORI qualifies 2nd.

He, he...regardless of all that, it will be a Nole-Fed final.

Proper match and high quality tennis guaranteed.

noleisthebest wrote:He, he...regardless of all that, it will be a Nole-Fed final.

Proper match and high quality tennis guaranteed.

Oh I do hope so! That's one match up I haven't had the pleasure of seeing live yet, but I'm desperate to see.
I was talking to Rob Koenig the other day, and he was clearly disappointed with the level of play this week. Wouldn't it be ironic if the best match so far would be Nishi-Ferrer! Ferrer should have been there from the start!

I saw the two play live twice, in O2 ('12, '13) and both matches were excellent.
Fed will most likely play Stan which on paper means he should be fresh for Sunday and make the match competitive as Nole is in excellent form.
I haven't spoken to Robbie Koening, but could've told you the same thing as soon as I saw who qualified.
There is a reason why the new generation hasn't won any slams and made the breakthrough, and that reason is neither slow courts nor physical tennis, just the simple old lack of talent.

noleisthebest wrote:I saw the two play live twice, in O2 ('12, '13) and both matches were excellent.
Fed will most likely play Stan which on paper means he should be fresh for Sunday and make the match competitive as Nole is in excellent form.
I haven't spoken to Robbie Koening, but could've told you the same thing as soon as I saw who qualified.
There is a reason why the new generation hasn't won any slams and made the breakthrough, and that reason is neither slow courts nor physical tennis, just the simple old lack of talent.

To be honest, knowing who had qualified, I expected more. (Although I wouldn't choose to go and watch Berdych or Raonic play. I wish they hadn't qualified.) But everyone else, I know they can produce great matches. Other than Djokovic last night, even the winning players have been disappointing. Just doing what they had to do to win, nothing special. They've been riddled with unforced errors.

noleisthebest wrote:Raonic withdraws from WTF!!!

Ferrer to play Nishi instead. Hugely disadvantagous for Nishikori.
Even more disappointed with gutless Raonic. i don't believe a word of that quad injury.
Or shall I let the conspirationist in me speak its mind?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/30040329

Disappointing ..but I cannot see why he woudl pull out if he was not injured.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:
Old players can't be compared in this record-line when the game has changed so much.

Exactly.....and Nadal, Murray and Djoko's wimbledon are certainly not the same wimbledons played in the 1990s.

But the most important factor is that competition then was not the same as competition now. I believe it now requires much more work and probably less talent to succeed (certainly in tennis).

Polly 81 wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:He, he...regardless of all that, it will be a Nole-Fed final.

Proper match and high quality tennis guaranteed.

Oh I do hope so! That's one match up I haven't had the pleasure of seeing live yet, but I'm desperate to see.
I was talking to Rob Koenig the other day, and he was clearly disappointed with the level of play this week. Wouldn't it be ironic if the best match so far would be Nishi-Ferrer! Ferrer should have been there from the start!

You were talking to Rob Koening??? He is my favourite commentator...well now with Henman when Henman does not try to sell Murray and others!

Yes I was  He's one of my favourites too. Also a nice guy.