2025 Tennis

jon abbey

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Pre-Australian tournaments going, right now Coco vs Swiatek is about to start in the finals of the United Cup. This is a team tournament, each country with one man and one woman who play singles and then mixed doubles if it’s tied 1-1. This is the final, US vs Poland, Fritz/Hurkacz next.

Coco was 1-11 career vs Iga before beating her in the WTA Finals in December, this is their first match since then.
 

jon abbey

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Great match so far, they are on serve at 4-3 Ccco but this is how they got there:

2-0 Coco
0-3 Swiatek
2-0 Coco

Two breaks each way, both are clearly geared up for this and hitting way harder than they have previously this week (and Swiatek beat Rybakina last round).
 

jon abbey

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Coco breaks to take the first set 6-4!

All 11 of Swiatek’s wins have been straight sets, so now it is 23 sets to 5 career for Swiatek, but Coco has 3 in a row.
 

jon abbey

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Swiatek up 4-3 and a break in the second set, Coco battles back to tie it at 4-4 after a ten minute game, amazing level of tennis for both players.
 

jon abbey

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Coco finishes it with two fairly easy games after that, 6-4, 6-4, just under two hours.

First 12 career matches:

Swiatek 11-1 (sets 23-2)

Last 2:

Coco 2-0 (sets 4-0)
 

Mr. Wednesday

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If anyone was wondering, Fritz beat Hurkacz in three sets (winning the third set tiebreaker 7 - 4), so the U.S. won the tournament.
 

jon abbey

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If anyone was wondering, Fritz beat Hurkacz in three sets (winning the third set tiebreaker 7 - 4), so the U.S. won the tournament.
I watched this whole match too but was too sleepy to post. Fritz was in control early, Hurkacz stormed back and Fritz barely won, I think maybe just one point lost on serve between them in the final tiebreak. The national team aspect added a nice intense atmosphere, Coco going nuts for Fritz (and probably hoping she wouldn't have to play doubles if he lost, heh).

Anyway I had no idea this tournament existed until two days ago, nice surprise at 3 AM.
 

Mr. Wednesday

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I think there were three mini-breaks in the tiebreaker. Hurkacz got the first to go up 2 - 0, Fritz got one to tie and then a second to win.
 

jon abbey

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I think there were three mini-breaks in the tiebreaker. Hurkacz got the first to go up 2 - 0, Fritz got one to tie and then a second to win.
Ah, right. To be fair it was like 6 AM or something when I was watching... :)
 

jon abbey

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Draw is out, some fun first round matches. Coco gets Kenin (former champ here who knocked her out of Wimbledon last year), Sabalenka gets Sloane Stephens, and on the men's side, one fun one is #9 Rublev vs the 18 year old Brazilian kid people are very excited about, João Fonseca.
 

jon abbey

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Been tuning in to TC b/w 7-9 pm CT the last three nights and have been getting Monfils matches each night
Which reminds me of maybe the best first round matchup potentially, thank you. Monfils plays Perricard, both French, 38 against 21! LeBron/Bronny is 40/20, not so far off.

Perricard has been flying up the rankings, 6'8" with a massive serve. Somewhere I saw listed him as the #7 betting favorite to win this whole tournament.

https://www.atptour.com/en/players/atp-head-2-head/giovanni-mpetshi-perricard-vs-gael-monfils/m0gz/mc65
 

jezza1918

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Which reminds me of maybe the best first round matchup potentially, thank you. Monfils plays Perricard, both French, 38 against 21! LeBron/Bronny is 40/20, not so far off.

Perricard has been flying up the rankings, 6'8" with a massive serve. Somewhere I saw listed him as the #7 betting favorite to win this whole tournament.

https://www.atptour.com/en/players/atp-head-2-head/giovanni-mpetshi-perricard-vs-gael-monfils/m0gz/mc65
If that #7 thing is true that's kind of insane to me. GMP is terrific and has more upside than Opelka did when he was 21, but he's never even been in the main draw down under...and outside of his nice run to the 4th round at Wimby has no other slam wins.
Monfils beat a 19 year old American last night/today/whatever the massive time thing confuses me to make it to the Auckland finals. The kid he beat, Nishesh Basavareddy, is actually a pretty cool story as well - was fully planning on returning to Stanford for is jr year but crushed the challenger tour, qualified for the NextGen finals, and received a WC to main draw in Oz, so turned pro.
 

jon abbey

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jon abbey

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Unbelievable day 2 here, already watched Coco beat Kenin, Alex Michelsen take out #11 Tsitsipas and Tiafoe survive in 5 after puking on court.

Now Sinner and the very good 6’7” Chilean Jarry are in the 2nd, both have held all ten times.

Later Alcaraz, Djokovic and Kyrgios (just his second match in two years) are inexplicably all scheduled at the same time, the first night match on the three show courts.
 

jon abbey

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I slept a bunch but most favorites advanced, Kyrgios lost in straight sets and Osaka played an impressive match to win in 3 against Caroline Garcia (who knocked her out here in the 1st last year).
 

jezza1918

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18 year old qualifier Joao Fonseca takes down Rublev in straight sets. Quite a moment for him,

Rublev is so confounding. He acts like such a petulant child so often he’s tough to root for, but then he looked so genuinely happy for Fondseca at the net I still find him endearing enough to root for.
 

jon abbey

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Damn, I wanted to see Fonseca but I fell asleep. If he and Tiafoe both win again, they play each other in the third round, that should be fun.
 

jon abbey

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That was an incredible tiebreak, not so well played but so tense, with those massive pendulum swings (let's see the point by point win probability there). Also the last point specifically, it was like Uchijima had given up with her groundstrokes even though it was on serve! Unless it was some kind of sudden onset exhaustion, it was presumably a tactic, to hit weak shots to the service line and dare Andreeva to beat her. It confused me, it seemed to confuse Andreeva for a while too (wtf!) but it did not work.

I was thinking at 8-6 that this would have been a bad loss on Andreeva's record, she is just 17 but super disappointing to go out like that. Then she pulled it out!!
 

jon abbey

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Switching over to Osaka/Muchova, it’s like a different sport, so much more aggressive. They have traded 6-1 sets, third set starting now. 32 minutes to Muchova, then 38 minutes to Osaka.
 

jon abbey

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Osaka is up 4-2 in the 3rd, hitting some incredible shots. If she can finish this out, her ridiculous path next sees Belinda Bencic, who is just 27 and got as high as #4 before having a kid last year and coming back in October. Bencic beat #16 Ostapenko in straights in the first round.

And if Osaka gets past that one, we will likely get an alltime epic round of 16 match between her and Coco, Coco knocked her out here in 2020 when she was just 15.
 

shepard50

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Osaka is up 4-2 in the 3rd, hitting some incredible shots. If she can finish this out, her ridiculous path next sees Belinda Bencic, who is just 27 and got as high as #4 before having a kid last year and coming back in October. Bencic beat #16 Ostapenko in straights in the first round.

And if Osaka gets past that one, we will likely get an alltime epic round of 16 match between her and Coco, Coco knocked her out here in 2020 when she was just 15.
Great win for Osaka, super happy for her coming back after having her bub.

Faria testing Djokovic in the 3rd set here. Some amazing 30 shot rallys.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, Djokovic did well to close that in 4. It is really unbelievable how many years he gives up almost every match, Faria is 21 to his 37.

Coco at 3 AM, gonna try to stay up.
 

shepard50

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Learner Tien (great name) takes the first two sets from Medvedev. Very good tiebreaker in the 3rd. Medvedev saves match point at 6-7 with an Ace. Wins the breaker 10-8 as the 3rd set finishes a little past 1:00 AM local time.

Medvedev immediately breaks in the 4th. Could be a 5 setter going close to 3:00 AM.
 

jon abbey

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Women are down to 32, a loaded field still:


[1] Sabalenka vs. Tauson
[13] Andreeva vs. [23] Frech
[12] Shnaider vs. [18] Vekic
[27] Pavlyuchenkova vs. Siegemund

[3] Gauff vs. [30] Fernandez
Osaka vs. [PR] Bencic
[11] Badosa vs. [17] Kostyuk
[7] Pegula vs. Danilovic

[6] Rybakina vs. [32] Yastremska
[10] Collins vs. [19] Keys
[15] Haddad Maia vs. Kudermetova
[4] Paolini vs. [28] Svitolina

[8] Navarro vs. Jabeur
[9] Kasatkina vs. [24] Putintseva
[LL] Lys vs. Cristian
[2] Świątek vs. Raducanu
 

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Learner Tien (great name) takes the first two sets from Medvedev. Very good tiebreaker in the 3rd. Medvedev saves match point at 6-7 with an Ace. Wins the breaker 10-8 as the 3rd set finishes a little past 1:00 AM local time.

Medvedev immediately breaks in the 4th. Could be a 5 setter going close to 3:00 AM.
And right on cue, tied 5-5 in the 5th set, it starts raining. Got the roof closed, but ended up being about a 5 minute wait.
 

soxhop411

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Ok, this is funny.
The Australian Open might look a little different this year if you’re livestreaming it on YouTube. That’s because the tournament has put an animated overlay on some of its matches to avoid broadcast licensing conflicts, making players look an awful lot like Wii Sports characters, as reported earlier by The Guardian.
The animated players follow all the same movements as their real-life counterparts as they travel across a cartoon-ish court, while the “whap” of the ball, chatter from the crowd, and commentary all remain authentic. But the animations aren’t perfect, as the players’ sneakers seem to clip into the court at some points, while Naomi Osaka’s animated tank top looked like it was ripped during her match against Caroline Garcia.
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344285/australian-open-livestreaming-wii-sports-style-tennis-matches
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imMGr6cSAYM
 

shepard50

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He did it!
Learner Tien (great name) takes the first two sets from Medvedev. Very good tiebreaker in the 3rd. Medvedev saves match point at 6-7 with an Ace. Wins the breaker 10-8 as the 3rd set finishes a little past 1:00 AM local time.

Medvedev immediately breaks in the 4th. Could be a 5 setter going close to 3:00 AM.
And right on cue, tied 5-5 in the 5th set, it starts raining. Got the roof closed, but ended up being about a 5 minute wait.
This may have been the best match of the tournament so far, And I take extra joy that young Tien beat Medvedev. My dislike of Medvedev:

So much racquet abuse and complaining
Looks like a a tennis player drawn by a three year old given the instruction "draw an evil tennis player"

Great rallys!

My girls and I are heading down Next week to see three days live - tips for players to see (we like it all: wheelchair, doubles...whatever) welcome!
 

jon abbey

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Osaka was 17-1 at the US Open from 2018-2020, with titles in 2018 and 2020. In between Belinda Bencic knocked her out in the round of 16 in straight sets. Bencic also has the edge in their career H2H, 3-2. Another tough challenge for Osaka, and if she and Coco both win tonight, they play each other next.

That one starts around 1 AM, Coco and Djokovic both at 3 (???), Alcaraz now, Zverev soon…
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, that was a bummer, she was playing very well again and then pulled her abdomen muscle and quit soon after.

20 year old American Alex Michelsen had his second straight set win over a seed here, this time over #19 Khachanov. He is up to #34 in the live rankings and he is younger than all 33 players ahead of him, I wonder when the last time that was true for an American man (younger than everyone ahead of him).

Monfils is giving Fritz all he can handle right now, a set apiece and on serve late in the 3rd.
 

jon abbey

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A very impressive follow-up win by Learner Tien, so often you have an epic late night match at a Slam and the winner loses in the nest round, but Tien looked impressive in a straight set win over a cramping Moutet. He has another winnable match in the round of 16, against Sonego.

Tien is up to #80, now ahead of Fonseca at #99 so he also is younger than every player above him now. Basavareddy is a third US teen who took a set from Djokovic in the first round here, that will be a fun wave of US men to keep an eye on.
 

jon abbey

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Monfils is giving Fritz all he can handle right now, a set apiece and on serve late in the 3rd.
This match was close the whole way but also Monfils was really in control the final three sets, a very impressive display. It was his first career win against a top 4 seed in a major, and he did it at 38!!

So Monfils is into the round of 16, he has never made a major final and just two career semis, the 2008 (!!!) French and the 2016 US. He has made the quarters here twice before (2016, 2022) and is playing great right now.
 

jon abbey

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Sinner has a really easy path to the final, only three other seeds left on his entire half of the draw: Rune (playing later tonight), de Minaur and the winner of Shelton/Musetti (tied in the 3rd currently), although he could play all three. Alcaraz, Djokovic and Zverev are all on the other half, will be an upset I think if Sinner does not win this again.