ATP 500: Queens, Halle

Murray played with quite a variety today. Not much power in his groundies and played all manner of shots. 

Federer pretty much in cruise control. Seppi was the aggressor in the first and fell apart in the TB.

8 Halle titles is quite a feat. To think it could've been 10!! Shame there is not a grass masters.

Murray has decent hands and should use them more than those muscles especially on grass.
His footwork is clumsy and FH average for S&V-ing, though. Not to mention serve.
He may have been tired as he played Troicki SF match, as well.

Yes, it's a great shame there is no grass masters, I really enjoyed watching tennis in Halle, mainly Fed.
Almost like never before, probably because of that dreadful ball they used in RG this year, tennis was awful and players were falling to bits from bashing.

And then this blissful contrast: silent, ball placement, flattish hitting, low bounce...it's a tennis dream!

Though come Wimbledon, percentage baseliners will again ruin fun...hopefully not!

Well going into Wimbledon Andy and Roger are the form players. We have no idea what to expect from Novak until the early rounds. Dimitrov and Raonic are not in form from their exploits last year. Nadal is out of sorts. Wawrinka is hit and miss. Nishikori could be carrying an injury. 

It's intriguing. If Federer gets a draw similar to RG, at Wimbledon he must fancy this as his last chance of an 8th.

I don't think he came in much, because he didn't need to.

He was utilising drop shots a lot, lobs, taking it early, returning very well. 
He hit quite a few bhdtl which was impressive.
But it's all well and good doing that against a limited player like Anderson, so he was able to show an array of different shots.

legendkillar wrote:I look at Africa for example and corruption is extreme. I am always getting links to stories of how either a procurement professional is done for accepting bribes or killed. It's that extreme.

I don;t think corruption is more extreme in Africa, Corruption is just more basic there and easier to see. I think the more a sophisticated society, the more sophisticated its the corruption, hence harder to expose.

Now in terms of sport you have to have a degree of perspective. The talk here of draw rigging or doping, yes that is something that can potentially happen in the realms of things. Other sports have seen it so yes it is given due consideration. Now in terms of Hawkeye being corrupt, no-one here has any idea how the software or technology for it works and whether the applicator can corrupt it during a match. So for me that is dead in the water. 

I think it woudl be very easy to run HE with 4 outputs:
one where the lines really are, one with the lines slighthly left, right, down and up. So if you want the ball in or out you pull the output that fits.

It would be extremely easy to do technically.

I always find truffins posts interesting. Because of his personal experiences. That's the thing is about understanding how it takes place. 

Truffin knows how corrupt the business world can be and sport is big business.

Look at the FIFA scandal. All the time countries profiteered from the event, no-one said a word. Once one party doesn't get its way, pow a can of worms is opened. Paper trails are being picked up left right and centre and what is so hilarious about the FBI investigating it is that the US 94 bid was full of backhanders.

Exactly, and it is important to be aware that under the US management FiFA won't be any less corrupt...more if anything, cause this is why they want to get hold of it.

Kim Jong-Un wrote:

Tenez wrote:And the fact you don't even question HE shows some credulity here.

I think everything should be held to scrutiny, but you have a habit of randomly making up theories that sound nice to you and not providing evidence for it.

Same with draws being rigged. Because you and the millions of fans  never questioned draws being possibly rigged some were happily rigging draws as exposed in the US Open.

Some woudl not even have questioned LA thinking that there was enough testing going on not to suspect him.

This is what is killing. You and millions like you will never learn...and this is why corruption will be as rampant as ever.

luvsports! wrote:So someone has to manipulate it to suit a player?

It's not perfect but it works most the time. This just proves that.

Yes, it works on average much better than the human eye I think (though a friend of mine is a line judge at Queens and Wimby and have told me HE gets it wrong too. Humans can also be told to cheat or help one side over the other. We have seen that many times.

However I think HE can/could be tricked too. I am not saying it has yet...but woudl not surprise me if it had been rigged on some occasions.

A TD of an ATP250 who paid Nadal or federer $1M guest fee would not mind paying the HE operators a few $10k to help them get to the next round.

Tenez wrote:

legendkillar wrote:I look at Africa for example and corruption is extreme. I am always getting links to stories of how either a procurement professional is done for accepting bribes or killed. It's that extreme.

I don;t think corruption is more extreme in Africa, Corruption is just more basic there and easier to see. I think the more a sophisticated society, the more sophisticated its the corruption, hence harder to expose.

Now in terms of sport you have to have a degree of perspective. The talk here of draw rigging or doping, yes that is something that can potentially happen in the realms of things. Other sports have seen it so yes it is given due consideration. Now in terms of Hawkeye being corrupt, no-one here has any idea how the software or technology for it works and whether the applicator can corrupt it during a match. So for me that is dead in the water. 

I think it woudl be very easy to run HE with 4 outputs:
one where the lines really are, one with the lines slighthly left, right, down and up. So if you want the ball in or out you pull the output that fits.  

It would be extremely easy to do technically.

I always find truffins posts interesting. Because of his personal experiences. That's the thing is about understanding how it takes place. 

Truffin knows how corrupt the business world can be and sport is big business.

Look at the FIFA scandal. All the time countries profiteered from the event, no-one said a word. Once one party doesn't get its way, pow a can of worms is opened. Paper trails are being picked up left right and centre and what is so hilarious about the FBI investigating it is that the US 94 bid was full of backhanders.

Exactly, and it is important to be aware that under the US management FiFA won't be any less corrupt...more if anything, cause this is why they want to get hold of it.

The first point. Yes it is sophisticated elsewhere, but it is still extreme. I remember that Amir from cricket who took part in dot balls and was just 18 and threats were made against his family if he didn't comply. Corruption sadly is necessary evil. For example Nike is frowned upon on this forum. Clamp down on their influence and say they withdraw their money which enriches top athletes. Where will the money come from? I like you share a romanticism for sport to be played in its purest, but at some point we will have profited (no matter how small) from someone else's suffering.

About HE. Again I don't know the technical in and outs. Framing as I will call it would have to be very precise and again you would need a lot of bad calls for that to be considered misused. I can't say I recall a match where a HE call good or bad resulted in a match being turned into a win or defeat.

On FIFA. My point was that the U.S were up in arms not securing the 2022 bid and then went on this manhunt and effectively crapped in their own backyard when uncovering corruption as their bid was on backhanders. 

I agree with you. Sport is easily corrupt due to the lack of transparency. Imagine if sport had the FOI act to comply with or the Sunshine act? Little things like that could force sport to be much more compliant.

legendkillar wrote:

About HE. Again I don't know the technical in and outs. Framing as I will call it would have to be very precise and again you would need a lot of bad calls for that to be considered misused. I can't say I recall a match where a HE call good or bad resulted in a match being turned into a win or defeat.

I don't know either how it can be done. What I know is that the images are first analog images and then they are digitised. Once they are digitised, it's very easy alter them. Again, not saying they do....but they could....so important to keep an eye on that.

On FIFA. My point was that the U.S were up in arms not securing the 2022 bid and then went on this manhunt and effectively crapped in their own backyard when uncovering corruption as their bid was on backhanders. 

Exactly but I suspect the real reason they went on this FIFA rampage in the first place was not clear FIFA of corruption but to control (corrupt) them under their own influence.
Find out about who rules the Nobel prizes for instance and you will see that it is also under American control.

I agree with you. Sport is easily corrupt due to the lack of transparency. Imagine if sport had the FOI act to comply with or the Sunshine act? Little things like that could force sport to be much more compliant.

Yes....but again as long as one is gullible and naive, one will be cheated. And I don't think we quite realise as gullible we are.

The thing I can't fathom is people's reaction when you tell them tennis players dope (draws rigged etc...)

It's like you poked them in the eye!

It must stem from the fact most like to believe they are "good".

Amen nitb. Spot on.

Did you manage to get any journo accreditations for Wimbers this year, or will it be the schmoozing adventures again?

Haha good memory!

I am going to the wimbledon press tour 2mo with my journalism course mates but apart from that it looks as if the wimby queue and schmooozing beckons!

I must say in my short Wimbledon visiting life (started in 2011), I have had some crazy experiences...starting with being kicked out of my CC seat on the final day first time I went there...

That will never be matched by anything else...and despite usually going with debenture tickets, it's actually the schmoozing times I enjoyed most.
I managed to get in twice (out of two tries!!!) and totally loved it, the adrenaline rush was phenomenal.

So I am very grateful you mentioned it here.

As someone once said: the best thing in life are free!

Yes madam!

noleisthebest wrote:The thing I can't fathom is people's reaction when you tell them tennis players dope (draws rigged etc...)

It's like you poked them in the eye!

It must stem from the fact most like to believe they are "good".

I don't think it's that they are completely in disbelief. It's a simple matter of education and experience. Take the LA's and FIFA's and people are like how? They don't realise how subtle a bribe can be whether it be a wink across the table or a handshake in the corridor. It's those little things not visible to the naked eye. People expect there to be some strigent transparent regulation that goes on. Your a top athlete on the juice and ping a positive test comes up. They panic. Phone the agent and I am sure something on the lines of "I'll make this result disappear" and pow it does. Or we would like to host the next major sporting event. Come aboard my yacht. Oh before you go I think you forgot your briefcase.

I don't think it's people not believing or even wanting to. Just some don't think of the little details.

Me I play devil's advocate. Yes the evidence doesn't directly point, but I know what can be done if there is purpose.

What do you make of this Ten?

Stumbled onto it when watching Rogers famous 2007 rant on Hawkeye.

https://youtu.be/GH0rN-K3qok

Interesting but freeze the clip at 34s and you will see the mark which HE shows. Hewitt is mistaking here it seems.

I think Federer was complaining about it because it disrupts the course of a match. In that sense he has a point. Having to wait between 2 serves for instance because of HE is annoying.

But if it is very accurate its a good addition to the sport. It's not always though.

legendkillar wrote:What do you make of this Ten?

Stumbled onto it when watching Rogers famous 2007 rant on Hawkeye.

https://youtu.be/GH0rN-K3qok

What do you mean by Roger's rant?

This is Stan vs Hewitt.

In the close up you can see two marks and they are both showing out.

What annoys me is how some umpires have gone lazy with HE, a lot of them don't watch the ball at all.
Even yesterday there were several huge outs which both umpire and linesmen missed.
Don't ask me how and why, but it's not good and I really feel sorry for players.

noleisthebest wrote:
In the close up you can see two marks and they are both showing out.

As mentioned, in frame 34, the HE mark seems spot on. I think it's a case of hewitt trying to show the wrong mark or HE showing a previous serve......but I'd trust HE over Hewitt here.

noleisthebest wrote:

legendkillar wrote:What do you make of this Ten?

Stumbled onto it when watching Rogers famous 2007 rant on Hawkeye.

https://youtu.be/GH0rN-K3qok

What do you mean by Roger's rant?

This is Stan vs Hewitt.

In the close up you can see two marks and they are both showing out.

What annoys me is how some umpires have gone lazy with HE, a lot of them don't watch the ball at all.
Even yesterday there were several huge outs which both umpire and linesmen missed.
Don't ask me how and why, but it's not good and I really feel sorry for players.

When Roger played Nadal in 2007 Wimbledon and there was a ball that went long and HE showed in and consequently Federer lost his serve and he displayed his disbelief and displeasure that so many calls were going Nadals way. That's how I stumbled on the Hewitt clip.

yep - I remember that. Terrible. I wonder how Fed kept his cool and went on winning.

It deffo impacted him in the 4th set when he lost it 6-2 but regrouped well.