ATP 250: Queens, Halle

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Better quality in what way?

Is that not kind of obvious?

Better quality in that I am guessing that if the players from Queens were to play the players from Halle, and all four were playing at the level they are playing at right now, the Queens players would probably end up doing better.

How else would you propose to measure quality?

 I am not convinced with that actually. To me it seemed that both Falla and Fed were able to keep the ball in court longer despite Falla probably hitting pacier BHs than the other 3 players. Dimi and Lopez serve better than Falla but after that they have short or slow rallies.

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Better quality in what way?

Is that not kind of obvious?
Better quality in that I am guessing that if the players from Queens were to play the players from Halle, and all four were playing at the level they are playing at right now, the Queens players would probably end up doing better.
How else would you propose to measure quality?

I think people are unnecessarily harsh and critical of Fed. He has played so many fantastic shots and points today and I doubt anything Dimi or Feli did could come close.

Sorry, no beating about the bush from me   

I'll have a look at Queens final, hopefully it's still going...
Main thing is, both Queens and Halle will have a SBH winner , and may it be the case in Wimbledon, too  

Momentum has swung now in favour of Dimi after some incredible points, and one match point saved.

Tenez wrote: I am not convinced with that actually. To me it seemed that both Falla and Fed were able to keep the ball in court longer despite Falla probably hitting pacier BHs than the other 3 players. Dimi and Lopez serve better than Falla but after that they have short or slow rallies.

These kinds of judgments are obviously quite subjective, I am not going to pretend I am convinced I am right.  But I actually think that Dimi and Lopez are keeping the ball in court better - I had the impression there were more cheap errors in Halle (at least in the first set I saw), some good Halle points notwithstanding.

It would have been rough on Dimi to lose in straight sets - for most of the match he has been the one holding serve more convincingly.

Just saw the TB....Queen's grass is definitely in much better condition than Halle's. As for "the quality" well...no magic and thrill there, let's not kid ourselves...just an ordinary ATP grind and semi-percentage tennis.

noleisthebest wrote:Sorry, no beating about the bush from me   

But that is exactly what you are doing; you choose to see only the angle you want to see, focus on the good points that Fed played and airbrush the bad ones.

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Sorry, no beating about the bush from me   

But that is exactly what you are doing; you choose to see only the angle you want to see, focus on the good points that Fed played and airbrush the bad ones.

Not really. Every player has to play some bad points and Fed didn't play many of those at all. It was only due to Falla being very solid from the base-line that drew those errors. Fed was not bad at all, not perfect, but much better than in last year's Halle final.
Comparing that match to what I am seeing in Queen's now it is still superior even as a match, better ball-striking, better serving...
Feli actually plays nicer and purer tennis of the two, but looks a bit tired.

Funny to see Molina in Feli's box...

Win for Fed, good but he certainly could have done better performance wise. Somehow he doesn't read Falla's serve or the fh easily. Falla has always troubled Fed.

noleisthebest wrote:As for "the quality" well...no magic and thrill there, let's not kid ourselves...just an ordinary ATP grind and semi-percentage tennis.

Quality is not about magic and thrill.  Percentage grind can easily be far higher quality than magic and thrill.

How exactly do you measure quality (without beating about the bush this time)?

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Win for Fed, good but he certainly could have done better performance wise. Some he doesn't read Falla's serve or the fh easily. Falla has always troubled Fed.

Yes, Fed's returning is the only thing that needs a quick fix if possible. His serving was very good on the whole.
I wish there was another week of tournaments for grass prep. One week is ridiculously insufficient.

As a result, I can see Fed win Wimbledon, but also lose in the second week if he doesn't keep his match focus 100%.
No wobbly closing service games there...things happen so fast!

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:As for "the quality" well...no magic and thrill there, let's not kid ourselves...just an ordinary ATP grind and semi-percentage tennis.

Quality is not about magic and thrill.  Percentage grind can easily be far higher quality than magic and thrill.

How exactly do you measure quality (without beating about the bush this time)?

Percentage play is no quality, it's safe shots, waiting for an UE or going for a safe winner. Plenty of scrambling, too.
Quality tennis on the other hand is creating the game and going for your shots straight away, in short: attacking.
That is much harder to play and obviously requires a lot more from players on every level.

Anyone can play percentage tennis, but not anyone can attack and win. The fact that Fed does it so spectacularly is a "just" a bonus.

In fact, since he loves the base-line, I wish Dimi played as gutsy as Masha....she'd do a netter coaching job for him than Rasheed, I'm sure!

noleisthebest wrote:Percentage play is no quality, it's safe shots, waiting for an UE or going for a safe winner. Plenty of scrambling, too.
Quality tennis on the other hand is creating the game and going for your shots straight away, in short: attacking.

We have been through this before.  You are confusing "style" and "quality".

I disagree.
Attacking and percentage play are not a matter of style.
They are the essentials of quality (or lack of).

In my opinion, the idea of quality is not to keep the ball in play, but to solve the problem of winning a point as efficiently as possible, and from that point of view Lopez is playing a higher quality tennis than Dimi.

noleisthebest wrote:I disagree.
Attacking and percentage play are not a matter of style.
They are the essentials of quality (or lack of).

I think it looks like our argument is about semantics rather than substance.  You can, at the end of the day, define "quality" any way you want and then be correct within your definition.

It is like if you decided to call a table with four corners "round".  It would be non-standard, but not really "wrong".

noleisthebest wrote:In my opinion, the idea of quality is not to keep the ball in play, but to solve the problem of winning a point as efficiently as possible

This goes to the crux of the matter, and here is where we define "quality" differently.

To me, quality is not about the problem of winning the point efficiently, but purely about winning it.  Having a higher probability of winning the point means you play higher quality - by definition.  You use a different definition.

As I said in my previous post, I do not think we necessarily disagree on substance.  I think my definition is more standard of the two, but that is neither here nor there.

Lopez didn't have that extra bit of bottle...

Well done Dimi.  Great match by both. Nice to see some variety after that useless clay season.


As for quality...  winning  a point does not indicate quality.  Seen Nadal play run of the mill moonballing tactics enough to know that.

Poor Feli...

Nice win for Dimi.  I would say deserved overall, as he looked a touch better player throughout (with my definition of "better") even though Lopez was the more attacking one.  I quite liked Lopez's game today - kind of classic grass courty.

As fun as today has been, I can also see why people do not want to speed up the game - we had 5 TBs in five sets.

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Win for Fed, good but he certainly could have done better performance wise. Somehow he doesn't read Falla's serve or the fh easily. Falla has always troubled Fed.

Not convinced by that. I think it was 61 62 last time they played in Halle....and yes Falla gave Fed trouble in Wimby but that was after Fed pulled a muscle in the Halle's final.

summerblues wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:I disagree. Attacking and percentage play are not a matter of style.They are the essentials of quality (or lack of).

I think it looks like our argument is about semantics rather than substance.  You can, at the end of the day, define "quality" any way you want and then be correct within your definition.
It is like if you decided to call a table with four corners "round".  It would be non-standard, but not really "wrong".

If you want to put it down to semantics, then the word "quality" needs to be looked at.
Oxford dictionary defines it as:
"The standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something "

I understand SB points but I am not sure SB perceives how fed's timing (and extra time he gives himself) plus this nonchalencee can make the match look of "lesser" quality than a match played where players look more rushed and fast.

I am not sure Dimi woudl have beaten Fed today. I think Fed would have returned more balls.

Anyway, 5 TBs for 5 sets! That's grass at its best i guess!

Third title of the year for Dimi; he joins Rafa, Nole and Stan as the fourth player with 3+ titles this year (Rafa is the only one with four).

I understand SB's point, too, but am not sure whether SB understands mine.
I'll give it another try:
Let's compare Nole and Fed: a first class percentage player vs a first class attacking player.
They are both excellent players, but who plays tennis of higher quality?
I'd say Fed.
For all the same reasons I mentioned in previous posts.

Nole would love to play Fed's tennis, but he simply can't, hence the percentage tennis. Same for most other players.
Again, it's not "prettiness", just simple difference in the level of quality.

The only reason it's not even more obvious is because of slow playing conditions.

He, he, so we have Fed and baby-Fed win this week!

Strange to see so many "big" names fall away early: Nadal, Stan, Murray, Raonic...

Wimbledon will be quite interesting. For me, last two were especially thrilling with Nadal going out early, that made it so memorable.

Draw coming out on Wednesday.

Nadal isn't unexpected really...  guy has no real variety or shot making ability.  Faster the surface, more he is found out.  Let's hope he gets what's coming at Wimb and US.

Tenez wrote:I understand SB points but I am not sure SB perceives how fed's timing (and extra time he gives himself) plus this  nonchalencee can make the match look of "lesser" quality than a match played where players look more rushed and fast.

Oh I know what you mean.  That is one of the things I so loved about Fed in his prime.  You would watch two other top players play each other and - at first glance - it would look so much more intense than what Fed was doing but you would know that under the hood, the reality was the opposite.  Fed just had this way to make it look so easy.

And you may even be right about today's matches - I am not saying I am 100% certain Queens finalists played better.  In fact, I am certainly hoping I am wrong.  But, from what I have seen, I did not feel Fed was playing all that great today.

noleisthebest wrote:If you want to put it down to semantics, then the word "quality" needs to be looked at.
Oxford dictionary defines it as:
"The standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something "

I do not want to put it down to semantics, I just think that is where the difference lies - i.e., it is not so much that we disagree about tennis itself, but rather about the words we use to describe it.

Your dictionary definition does not resolve our terminology differences.  We now have to decide what constitutes "excellence" in tennis, and I suspect we will find we have the same difference in terminology there.

noleisthebest wrote:I understand SB's point, too, but am not sure whether SB understands mine.

Hehe, this happens to be the mirror image of how I see it

noleisthebest wrote:I'll give it another try:
Let's compare Nole and Fed: a first class percentage player vs a first class attacking player.
They are both excellent players, but who plays tennis of higher quality?
I'd say Fed.
For all the same reasons I mentioned in previous posts.

Indeed.  And I say, on current level of play it is Nole.  As I said in my previous post though, I do not think we are really disagreeing on tennis, our disagreement seems to be on a trivial terminology issue.

Suppose we are comparing players A and B.  Player A is more talented and plays with more variety and flair, but player B, even though he is playing more pedestrian style of tennis, manages to play it to a level where he tends to win more than player A.  I think we will both agree that:

(a) Player A plays with more genius (in fact we will likely agree that we both prefer to watch him), and
(b) Player B will likely have more success in terms of tournament wins and ranking

Based on that, you will call player A "higher quality" and I will call player B "higher quality".  We do not really disagree on substance, just on terminology.

summerblues wrote:I did not feel Fed was playing all that great today.

On this we certainly agree. But frankly I was not impressed by the other 2 either. If anything Falla is the one who impressed me most....in relative terms.

Tenez wrote:

raiders_of_the_lost_ark wrote:Win for Fed, good but he certainly could have done better performance wise. Somehow he doesn't read Falla's serve or the fh easily. Falla has always troubled Fed.

Not convinced by that. I think it was 61 62 last time they played in Halle....and yes Falla gave Fed trouble in Wimby but that was after Fed pulled a muscle in the Halle's final.

Yes, but the same year at Wimbledon, Falla served for the match leading 2-0 sets. The last time before they met yesterday was at London olympics and there too Fall had taken a set and ran Fed close.

But as you know, the scoreline doesn't necessarily suggest the match play. Falla is a good player and for some reason Fed has had trouble against him. Its the matchup of a Lefty perhaps.

Must be annoying to win a hard fought tournament and not get a single move up the ranking.

Main thing is he's seeded 4th for Wimbledon.

Falla was a surprise for me and 7-6 7-6 is not a bad score for him cause he’s more of a clay player. Cheers for Federer!

summerblues wrote:
I do not want to put it down to semantics, I just think that is where the difference lies - i.e., it is not so much that we disagree about tennis itself, but rather about the words we use to describe it.
Your dictionary definition does not resolve our terminology differences.  We now have to decide what constitutes excellence" in tennis, and I suspect we will find we have the same difference in terminology there.

I don't thing there is a difference in terminology.
You equate excellence and quality with success, I equate it with ability and skill. They often go together, but as the conditions have been changed to make it less obvious, people are being confused.
I had a little look at Sampras Fed 2001 match...the court played so much faster than now and the skill was easy to see.
Nadal wouldn't make it through even in the qualifying draw there. His lack of skill would be exposed very clearly.

You'd say: but he is playing now and showing excellence in these conditions...but I keep the perspective and the etalon of the skill and still make the distinction in quality.

noleisthebest wrote:Main thing is he's seeded 4th for Wimbledon.

I am not sure about that. Murray being the title holder they might squeeze him past Federer. They have this special seeding system, remember?

Tenez wrote:

noleisthebest wrote:Main thing is he's seeded 4th for Wimbledon.

I am not sure about that. Murray being the title holder they might squeeze him past Federer. They have this special seeding system, remember?

But then, hopefully because Federer has been better than Stan, he would over take Stan and become 4th?

For anyone like me who didn't know exactly how it worked; the seedings for Wimbledon works as follows:

Taking their ATP Entry System Position before the tournament begins, adding 100% points earned for all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months and then adding 75% points earned for best grass court tournament in the 12 months before that.

I presume that's what NITB did in the Wimby thread. That would mean taking into account Fed's 2012 win. Nice one!

Not sure how this would work in details. Maybe Nadal won be in the top 4 after all....and Djoko most likely the top seed then.

Maybe. Does anyone fancy trying to work it out, and show the workings out old school maths style?

Also, another interesting tidbit. Even though we're only about half way through the tennis calendar, I've worked out that Fed is only about 1000 points from his total points tally of last year (excluding Davis Cup).
If he made it to the WTF last year, then surely he'll be there again.

Just realised that NITB worked it out in her Wimby thread. So it's Stan dropping to 5 it seems.

Nadal has too many points to drop further than 2nd.

So it's Djoko, Nadal, Murray and Federer....in that order....STan 5th.

It's amazing that Nadal is still seeded so high bearing in mind his poor/non-existent grass results in the last two years.
I'd prefer Fed to be in his half.
No Delpo this year to wear anyone out for the final
Draw is coming out on Wednesday.

noleisthebest wrote:It's amazing that Nadal is still seeded so high bearing in mind his poor/non-existent grass results in the last two years.
I'd prefer Fed to be in his half.
No Delpo this year to wear anyone out for the final
Draw is coming out on Wednesday.

I am surprised by that. I think seeding is out on Weds and Draw on Friday......isn't it?

I've just checked, you are right...it is Friday!

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/scores/draws/ms/index.html

Cheers for Federer! He nailed Halle and now he’s ready for Wimbledon  

noleisthebest wrote:I don't thing there is a difference in terminology.
You equate excellence and quality with success, I equate it with ability and skill.

But that is a difference in terminology - we equate quality with different items, i.e., we define quality differently, i.e., we use different terminology.

As a sidenote, I would point out I do not quite equate quality with success, but for the purposes of the current discussion it is a close enough description.

noleisthebest wrote:You'd say: but he is playing now and showing excellence in these conditions...but I keep the perspective and the etalon of the skill and still make the distinction in quality.

But I do not have to give up the perspective.  I will just use different terminology to describe the same concept.  I can always say something to the effect of "his game would not have been successful in the old conditions".  If game of tennis changes from skills based towards athleticism and endurance based, then who is to say that skills should be equated with "quality".  Why not equate endurance with "quality" instead.  By equating skills with "quality" you attempt to give a sense of absolute to something that is simply your preference.

On a separate - though related - note:  what word would you use to describe the concept I was initially describing?

I watched Halle and Queens matches and I felt that if players from Queens were to meet players from Halle, Queens players would - on the level of play they were playing - have had a better chance to win.

I use the term "quality" and say that I feel that Queens players were playing at higher quality than Halle players.

You reserve the term quality to mean something else.  So what term would you use to describe what I was describing?