Day 12 - It's everything or nothing!

lets hope that his final moment of glory will be to win the gold medal at the olympics

I'm taking this loss in a sense that Fed would of lost this SF anyway were Djoko there, so this feels much better losing to Raonic or anyone else and not Choko.

At least was a great come back against Cilic.

it still sucks when you look at how well he played in the 4th set,he rrally raised his level and i was beginning to think hat he could steal the title on sunday

bogbrush wrote:I fancy Raonic to win this now - Murray really is a tedious player and Berdych is useless.

he is a boring player.....isn't he? "Right, left, left right..I run I run....."

Veejay wrote:it still sucks when you look at how well he played in the 4th set,he rrally raised his level and i was beginning to think hat he could steal the title on sunday

You know what they say...., I can cope with the despair, it's the hope that kills me!

totally agree BB,its painful when your hopes are crushed

cant see berdych wi this match...dreading another wimbledon final with murray and all the pass me the bucket comments from his muppet worshipers
dont think im going to watch the final..it will be way too sickening

Just had a look...Berdych 3:5 in the second set...

I know what I won't be doing on Sunday afternoon!

Hopefully, there will be some like-minded foreigners at the club...

Murray-Raonic will be visually the ugliest final ever.

Especially if the camera keeps panning out to those grossly obese fans...

Well LK, 

here is your "youngster" and new generation. Enjoy!

Not the 'youngster' I'd prefer watching...

25 is the new 18!

legendkillar wrote:Not the 'youngster' I'd prefer watching...

25 is the new 18!

Exactly.

noleisthebest wrote:Murray-Raonic will be visually the ugliest final ever.

Especially if the camera keeps panning out to those grossly obese fans...

Well LK, 

here is your "youngster" and new generation. Enjoy!

Nadal v Berdych was worse....and all the Djoko v Murray were far less interesting for me. At least here I know who I will be rooting for.

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Murray-Raonic will be visually the ugliest final ever.

Especially if the camera keeps panning out to those grossly obese fans...

Well LK, 

here is your "youngster" and new generation. Enjoy!

Nadal v Berdych was worse....and all the Djoko v Murray were far less interesting for me. At least here I know who I will be rooting for.

God help me, I was at that match in 2009. The most hideous match I've ever attended, and the final!

bogbrush wrote:
God help me, I was at that match in 2009. The most hideous match I've ever attended, and the final!

Don't worry, the final a year later in 2010 was a lot better.

DONALD TRUMP wrote:Best is when he does the combo of a piercing backhand slice, bringing his opponent forward but in no man's land, and then he'll cream the backhand down the line.

Yeah I love that

Disappointing result today, Fed losing a winnable match.  But the way he was playing - plus the fatigue he would have felt on Sunday - he was only going to get destroyed by Andy anyway.

Raonic I think actually has a better chance on Sunday than Fed would have had.  Though of course, Andy the favorite.

Might have helped if Federer had the piddle draw that Murray had.

Maybe Federer should have kept his mouth closed about his second serve after the Cilic match. 3 DF's cost him the match against Raonic.
Amazingly stupid match by Federer. Despite what the "pundits" said, i thought he was in control. And despite how badly Raonic was returning Fed's second serves, apparently Fed felt the pressure on the most crucial points...Stupid words about his second serve  

The saddest thing is (next to Murray winning easily now)  that this foolish performance could very well be his last one on CC

What a mess.

What did he say about his second serve? The problem was clearly his back...but despite that I agree he should have won. His real mistake was his stubbornness of trying to outsmart Rao by playing his FH DTL while he had an easy put away cross court. Twice it cost him at crucial moments.

And what's really frustrating is that even in that form (1st 3 sets) I would have fancied his chances v Murray. Another weird loss from Fed.

Maybe Fed has lost his killer instinct.

He has been "here" before. Many of those missed BPs last USO.

It seems emotions are messing him up as he either overhits or mistimes the ball...or even worse...tries to be clever and do it the hard way like this Wimbledon.

Yes it hurts.

And it sucks no end he won't be playing in the final.

More than even me having to cheer for Raonic tomorrow.   

The margins are small, people are making too much of it.

I didn't see any suggestion he had lost his nerve or whatever when the saved 3 mps against Cilic.

I agree. I don't find myself in a state of mourning because Federer isn't in the final. His best chance of 18 was the US Open 2014 when the draw opened up. 

He didn't have the matches under his belt to win it. That in itself is an alarming state of affairs that a near 35 year old can show up to a Slam and still make the semis with hardly any matches played.

If that 4th set went to a TB, I reckon the outcome would've been different. The little breaks make the difference.

Born Slippy on 606v2:

This is the classic tennis battle of good versus evil. On the one hand, we have a player blessed with grace and touch, who produces 2-3 moments of genius per match. On the other, we have the robotic Raonic, who last did something interesting on a tennis court when he cheated his way to victory over Del Potro in 2013. It's basically Rocky versus Drago.

If this was a film, there would be only one winner. A Raonic win takes tennis back to the dark ages of the 90s, so tennis more than ever needs Murray to turn up in a slam final. However, unfortunately this is real life. If Raonic serves well he's very tough to beat on such quick courts. I suspect Murray will go a set down, losing a break early, and it's a 50-50 match from there. Just got to hope the coin flip lands the right way.

Great post. Raonic a dull servebot, other than that he just whacks it hard from the baseline with not much accuracy, and is ok at the net simply because of his good reach.

Tenez wrote:What did he say about his second serve? The problem was clearly his back...but despite that I agree he should have won. His real mistake was his stubbornness of trying to outsmart Rao by playing his FH DTL while he had an easy put away cross court. Twice it cost him at crucial moments.

This is what he said

Q. Two of the match points you faced were on second serves. You didn't hit safe ones. You were pretty aggressive. How do you get yourself prepared to do that? One miss and it's over.
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, but I didn't double fault in five sets. I believe in my second serve. So even if I go bigger, it's still not that much of a risk for me, I feel. That served me well throughout my career.
I think Pete once said, You're only as good as your second serve. I'm happy that my second serve has always been there for me. Yes, I've served double faults, served poorly sometimes as well. I feel when it's most important, it's never going to let me down. Today as well.
That's why I believed, Yeah, bigger second serve, yeah, I can do it. You just hope that he's not there just ready to clock one because then who cares about your big second serve, it's still not a first serve.

DF on setpoint cost him the first set, 2 DF's cost him the fourth set.
The failing of his second serve during the most crucial moments cost him the match, and maybe a 18th slam titel.

DONALD TRUMP wrote:Born Slippy on 606v2:

This is the classic tennis battle of good versus evil. On the one hand, we have a player blessed with grace and touch, who produces 2-3 moments of genius per match. On the other, we have the robotic Raonic, who last did something interesting on a tennis court when he cheated his way to victory over Del Potro in 2013. It's basically Rocky versus Drago.

If this was a film, there would be only one winner. A Raonic win takes tennis back to the dark ages of the 90s, so tennis more than ever needs Murray to turn up in a slam final. However, unfortunately this is real life. If Raonic serves well he's very tough to beat on such quick courts. I suspect Murray will go a set down, losing a break early, and it's a 50-50 match from there. Just got to hope the coin flip lands the right way.

Great post. Raonic a dull servebot, other than that he just whacks it hard from the baseline with not much accuracy, and is ok at the net simply because of his good reach.

So murray is the good guy now? Hmm, although i prefer him over Djoko and Nadal, he's clearly still a dark force in tennis.

DONALD TRUMP wrote:Born Slippy on 606v2:

This is the classic tennis battle of good versus evil. On the one hand, we have a player blessed with grace and touch, who produces 2-3 moments of genius per match. On the other, we have the robotic Raonic, who last did something interesting on a tennis court when he cheated his way to victory over Del Potro in 2013. It's basically Rocky versus Drago.

If this was a film, there would be only one winner. A Raonic win takes tennis back to the dark ages of the 90s, so tennis more than ever needs Murray to turn up in a slam final. However, unfortunately this is real life. If Raonic serves well he's very tough to beat on such quick courts. I suspect Murray will go a set down, losing a break early, and it's a 50-50 match from there. Just got to hope the coin flip lands the right way.

Great post. Raonic a dull servebot, other than that he just whacks it hard from the baseline with not much accuracy, and is ok at the net simply because of his good reach.

Over dramatic nonsense. His ignorance knows no bounds.

Ignorant??
Born Slippy is a great analyst.

Obviously the good vs evil and the analogies were slightly light hearted, I mean this is tennis after all.
But his analysis of Raonic being quite dull I think is shared by most tennis fans.
As for Murray, I'm not his fan, but it is true that he comes up with a few genius points every match.

He isn't a great analyst. His view is typical of many who only ever watched Wimbledon in the 90's and nothing else. 

I could guarantee if Tenez went to 606V2 and declared that Djokovic/Nadal/Murray were boring roadrunners, a plethora of posters would pulling meaningless stats or YouTube clips out of their arses to prove otherwise. I saw lags actually provide a more accurate post to counter that nonsense.

I don't support either Murray or Raonic. Normally I like supporting the underdog in Grand Slam finals when Nadal isn't playing; so if not for playing style I would have been supporting Raonic.

Yep, you can bring out the stats for Raonic.
For Raonic, his percentage of return games won his nowhere near the others in the top 10. The BBC showed a stat where 50% of Raonic's serves are unreturned so far this Wimbledon. Just imagine that, if there's 6 points in a game it's a headstart of 40-0 to Raonic simply with 1 shot. And then if there's another 1-2 punch followed by a big serve, that's it bye bye for the returner.
Now he's a few retirements away from being the favourite to win every Slam apart from RG.

If you go to the Wimbledon website you can see serve stats. Oddly enough he isn't top of 1st or 2nd serve percentages.

Spectators might not be vociferous in support of Raonic, however it doesn't mean to say on that basis he is a crap player because of it. 

There has been an argument that the strength of Nadal/Murray/Djokovic lie in the legs and that debate has raged on. If someone wanted to, they could make a fist of Raonic not being any more 1 dimensional as the 'roadrunner' brigade.

Your summary of Raonic I would guess is by what you see with your eyes. I have no issue with that. However, a similar view is held with Djokovic/Nadal/Murray. What most see is endless running.

I 'try' to enjoy it even if the players playing aren't my cup of tea. Like yourself

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Murray-Raonic will be visually the ugliest final ever.

Especially if the camera keeps panning out to those grossly obese fans...

Well LK, 

here is your "youngster" and new generation. Enjoy!

Nadal v Berdych was worse....and all the Djoko v Murray were far less interesting for me. At least here I know who I will be rooting for.

that was definitely the worst Wimbledon final of this era...

bogbrush wrote:The margins are small, people are making too much of it.

I didn't see any suggestion he had lost his nerve or whatever when the saved 3 mps against Cilic.

I think he rushed that last game of the 4th set cause he was 40-0 up cause he could see the finish line playing the tie break

funny how he won the match he should have lost but lost the match he should have won...

he is still showing the ability to compete at the highest level but not winning may start to affect his motivation to continue playing

gallery play wrote:

Tenez wrote:What did he say about his second serve? The problem was clearly his back...but despite that I agree he should have won. His real mistake was his stubbornness of trying to outsmart Rao by playing his FH DTL while he had an easy put away cross court. Twice it cost him at crucial moments.

This is what he said

Q. Two of the match points you faced were on second serves. You didn't hit safe ones. You were pretty aggressive. How do you get yourself prepared to do that? One miss and it's over.
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, but I didn't double fault in five sets. I believe in my second serve. So even if I go bigger, it's still not that much of a risk for me, I feel. That served me well throughout my career.
I think Pete once said, You're only as good as your second serve. I'm happy that my second serve has always been there for me. Yes, I've served double faults, served poorly sometimes as well. I feel when it's most important, it's never going to let me down. Today as well.
That's why I believed, Yeah, bigger second serve, yeah, I can do it. You just hope that he's not there just ready to clock one because then who cares about your big second serve, it's still not a first serve.

DF on setpoint cost him the first set, 2 DF's cost him the fourth set.
The failing of his second serve during the most crucial moments cost him the match, and maybe a 18th slam titel.

if I remember correctly its also what cost him the title in 2014

he did the same thing with Djokovic in the 3rd set tie break when he could have gone up 2 sets to 1

I recall there were several times he did that in that match

Veejay wrote:

bogbrush wrote:The margins are small, people are making too much of it.

I didn't see any suggestion he had lost his nerve or whatever when the saved 3 mps against Cilic.

I think he rushed that last game of the 4th set cause he was 40-0 up cause he could see the finish line playing the tie break

funny how he won the match he should have lost but lost the match he should have won...

he is still showing the ability to compete at the highest level but not winning may start to affect his motivation to continue playing

I don't know if anyone remembers it, but there was a point, I think in the third set where Federer had Raonic under wraps, it looked the rest of the match was a formality.

Federer was in the court, flying toward the net and attempted one of his inside out FH dropshots.

One of his trade-mark gorgeous shots he plays when he is in full flight and in good mood.

I can't remember whether he netted it or whether it went out but I said loudly: I hope this does not cost him.

He went on to play well so I concluded he'd be ok.

Later in the match he fell flat on the ground and after the consultation with the doctor when he returned to play, his hair around the face was stuck to it, as if cold sweat flushed him.

It was a chilly sight.

What am I trying to say with this....


Not sure...maybe that this win just wasn't meant to be and that's how the loss needs to be viewed.

The main thing is to keep going and fighting. And that is what Federer did.

And nobody does it as well as him.

legendkillar wrote:

DONALD TRUMP wrote:Born Slippy on 606v2:

This is the classic tennis battle of good versus evil. On the one hand, we have a player blessed with grace and touch, who produces 2-3 moments of genius per match. On the other, we have the robotic Raonic, who last did something interesting on a tennis court when he cheated his way to victory over Del Potro in 2013. It's basically Rocky versus Drago.

If this was a film, there would be only one winner. A Raonic win takes tennis back to the dark ages of the 90s, so tennis more than ever needs Murray to turn up in a slam final. However, unfortunately this is real life. If Raonic serves well he's very tough to beat on such quick courts. I suspect Murray will go a set down, losing a break early, and it's a 50-50 match from there. Just got to hope the coin flip lands the right way.

Great post. Raonic a dull servebot, other than that he just whacks it hard from the baseline with not much accuracy, and is ok at the net simply because of his good reach.

Over dramatic nonsense. His ignorance knows no bounds.

Yup.  That is ignorant.  Especially considering Murray's game is nothing but defence and putting the ball back in play.  Raonic actually goes for his shots - and he doesn't scream and bawl and whinge when things go wrong. Raonic is how grass tennis is meant to be. Not Murray.

legendkillar wrote:He isn't a great analyst. His view is typical of many who only ever watched Wimbledon in the 90's and nothing else. 

I could guarantee if Tenez went to 606V2 and declared that Djokovic/Nadal/Murray were boring roadrunners, a plethora of posters would pulling meaningless stats or YouTube clips out of their arses to prove otherwise. I saw lags actually provide a more accurate post to counter that nonsense.

Personally, I think Born Slippy's take on Raonic is a bit OTT (I expect he was exaggerating for effect), but no way is he the kind of superficial tennis fan you describe. The guy clearly watches loads of tennis and has great knowledge. Of course, his views will always be coloured by personal preference for certain playing styles, but that's the same for everyone.

Along with Socal, I do remember him strongly challenging your viewpoint about the current state of the men's tour, which seemed to precipitate your sudden departure from v2. Is it possible your nose is still out of joint about that?

Socal? He's/She's bat shit crazy.

Aut0Gr4ph wrote:

legendkillar wrote:He isn't a great analyst. His view is typical of many who only ever watched Wimbledon in the 90's and nothing else. 

I could guarantee if Tenez went to 606V2 and declared that Djokovic/Nadal/Murray were boring roadrunners, a plethora of posters would pulling meaningless stats or YouTube clips out of their arses to prove otherwise. I saw lags actually provide a more accurate post to counter that nonsense.

Personally, I think Born Slippy's take on Raonic is a bit OTT (I expect he was exaggerating for effect), but no way is he the kind of superficial tennis fan you describe. The guy clearly watches loads of tennis and has great knowledge. Of course, his views will always be coloured by personal preference for certain playing styles, but that's the same for everyone.

Along with Socal, I do remember him strongly challenging your viewpoint about the current state of the men's tour, which seemed to precipitate your sudden departure from v2. Is it possible your nose is still out of joint about that?

Not at all.

I am entitled to my view and I stand by it. 

I take it you have a soft spot for him and care a lot for him which I can understand.

No matter how bad it got I never thought I'd quit 606 for good, but they finally pulled it off. 

Initially it was the terrible modding policy (with the inevitable ridiculous ban) but then I looked again and realised there's nothing gets said on there that I'm interested in participating in.

I hope Raonic wins today; both for a new name on a title, and because I want to see the running game come second.

I agree BB. Why I left a second time. I am floating around between forums, but just don't have the enthusiasm to keep on debating the same subjects over and over.

Aside from lydian, HMM and emancipator, there's no-ones views over there I really enjoy reading.

In terms of Raonic, he needs to hope Murray gets tight. Hence the small margins are small and he needs to take full advantage.

Well...you are all welcome here.

I'd like to believe we are all mature enough to handle strong opinions.

Socal is the best poster I've ever seen on any tennis forum.

Aut0Gr4ph wrote:

legendkillar wrote:He isn't a great analyst. His view is typical of many who only ever watched Wimbledon in the 90's and nothing else. 

I could guarantee if Tenez went to 606V2 and declared that Djokovic/Nadal/Murray were boring roadrunners, a plethora of posters would pulling meaningless stats or YouTube clips out of their arses to prove otherwise. I saw lags actually provide a more accurate post to counter that nonsense.

Personally, I think Born Slippy's take on Raonic is a bit OTT (I expect he was exaggerating for effect), but no way is he the kind of superficial tennis fan you describe. The guy clearly watches loads of tennis and has great knowledge. Of course, his views will always be coloured by personal preference for certain playing styles, but that's the same for everyone.

Yes, obviously Born Slippy was slightly kidding with that dramatic analogy, but he's still a superb analyst.

bogbrush wrote:No matter how bad it got I never thought I'd quit 606 for good, but they finally pulled it off. 

Initially it was the terrible modding policy (with the inevitable ridiculous ban) but then I looked again and realised there's nothing gets said on there that I'm interested in participating in.

I hope Raonic wins today; both for a new name on a title, and because I want to see the running game come second.

I second that!!

I hope that Roanic blows smug Murray right off the court
He showed that he has the ability to beat Murray at Queens
Hope that its going to be a real shocker and Murray gets stunned!! lol

If Raonic plays his best, he wins. Murray can scream and talk about his love affair with Lendl until he passes out - it won't make a jot of difference. And I think Raonic will do it in 4.

The first set is crucial. Murray is as weak as toilet paper once things start to go wrong.