Tennis 2020: There is an I in Thiem

I've rarely seen a tennis match in which fortunes fluctuated as quickly and as often as they have in this one. I think I heard a stat early in the fourth set that five times in the match a player had broken the other player's serve in the game after being broken himself. Thiem at times has looked on the verge of needing ventilation, then in the next game comes out and rifles winners as fast as anyone in the tournament.
 

jon abbey

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Thiem just ran out of energy, Schwartzman takes it 6-2 in the 5th.
 
Not much excitement at Roland Garros today. Collins-Kenin was fun for a while, but Kenin ran away with the final set. Tsitsipas was very good against Rublev, although Rublev rather wilted after failing to serve out the opening set. Is there any chance at all that Carreno Busta can get Djokovic angry again like he did in New York last month?
 

jon abbey

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Djokovic with a nice comeback win, so we've got Djokovic (1) against Tsitsipas (5) and Nadal (2) vs Schwartzman (12) in the semis.

For the women, we've got the must-see Swiatek/Podoroska in one semi and Kenin (4) vs Kvitova (7) in the other.

It seems to me like Kvitova is always in contention but amazingly this is only her second semi (losing the final of the 2019 Australian) since she won 2014 Wimbledon.
 
It seems to me like Kvitova is always in contention but amazingly this is only her second semi (losing the final of the 2019 Australian) since she won 2014 Wimbledon.
In Kvitova's defense, she was stabbed in her home at the end of 2016 and had to recover both from the injury and the trauma associated with it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38387278
 

jon abbey

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In Kvitova's defense, she was stabbed in her home at the end of 2016 and had to recover both from the injury and the trauma associated with it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/38387278
Oh, right! I wasn't actually taking a shot at her, but I did forget that.

My point (not well made) was more towards that she seems to be a strong contender in every Grand Slam recently (during the actual tournaments), so I was surprised to look at her actual results.
 

jon abbey

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Also amazingly she only missed one Grand Slam after that, the 2017 Australian. Her results for the two years before the attack were pretty underwhelming also (just one QF in 8 Slams).
 
Women's tennis is weird. Well, tennis in general is weird when you don't have a Big Three in the men's game or the likes of Williams/Graf/Navratilova dominating the women's game, but there's really so much parity in the women's game right now, or perhaps (to be less charitable) it is so difficult to control your nerves and play your best when you're a favorite. Sofia Kenin really could end this week as a true superstar if she picks up a second slam in the same calendar year, particularly a calendar year in which Wimbledon didn't take place. (Angelique Kerber in 2016 is the most recent woman to achieve that feat, and the only woman not named Serena to accomplish that since Justine Henin in 2007.)
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, there have been at least a few number 1s for the women before they’ve won any Grand Slams, very odd.
 
Speaking of women's tennis and parity/weirdness, here's a great stat courtesy of Matt Roberts of The Tennis Podcast: by the time Saturday is done, there will have been only four matches between seeded players in the women's singles at Roland Garros this year. (Svitolina vs. Alexandrova, Sabalenka vs. Jabeur, Halep vs. Anisimova and Kenin vs. Kvitova, if you're keeping score.) Since 2001, when they started having 32 seeded players at each of the Grand Slams, the previous record low in terms of the number of matches between seeded players was eight, at the 2016 Australian Open. I mean...wow.
 
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jon abbey

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Not only hasn't she come close to losing a set, she has lost only 23 games in 6 matches/12 sets.

6-1, 6-2 (against #15 Vondrousova)
6-1, 6-4
6-2, 6-3
6-2, 6-1 (against #1 Halep)
6-3, 6-1
6-2, 6-1
 

cromulence

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Kenin pulls it out. I gotta say, I enjoy watching her fight herself out there. She was so mad at herself for the way she played those last two service games.
 
I know why the roof is open today, and why it was open yesterday. But these early matches - with the late sun extending shadows slowly across the far side of the court - are very tough to watch with it open, simply because the cameras can't reduce the contrast sufficiently so that both ends of the court are shown with equal clarity.
 

jon abbey

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Djokovic hit a bad patch towards the end of the third set and is having trouble closing out Tsitsipas. Tsitsipas hadn't broken him all match but then broke him twice at the end of the third set to take it 7-5, now on serve in the third at 3-3. Nadal rooting for a 5th set (presumably)...
 

jon abbey

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Djokovic had 4 break points that game and couldn't convert, still on serve at 4-3.
 

cromulence

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Bleh. He's totally out of gas. Oh well, at least made Novak work a bit. Get him, Rafa.
 

jon abbey

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Don’t remember ever seeing nearly that many drop shots in a men’s match before.
 

cromulence

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Me neither. He pretty much never missed, and Tsitsipas had no answer for them. By the end, you could tell his legs were totally gone from all the running.

That's not gonna work with Nadal, though. Or at least, not nearly as well.
 

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Swiatek's court coverage is pretty impressive. Kenin has seemed to have a lot of errors, possibly because she's trying to hit into smaller windows. (Or maybe it's just that rallies are running longer.)
 

cromulence

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Kenin is awful today, looks like she's doubting every shot before she hits it. Unless Swiatek suddenly gets nervous, this is over.
 

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Kenin is awful today, looks like she's doubting every shot before she hits it.
I think a lot of that is that Swiatek is getting to pretty much everything. There have been a lot of shots where I thought it was a point to Kenin, but Swiatek not only got to it, but hit a tough shot.
 

cromulence

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Swiatek definitely played well, but Kenin really was bad. She looked like she had no clue what she wanted to do out there and completely lost confidence, and early in the second set it looked like she was about to burst out crying in the middle of a game. That medical timeout was almost definitely a "get my shit together" break, but it didn't help at all. She looked completely shook out there, and Swiatek looked calm from start to finish.
 

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Roof is on. I think that favours Novak.
Nadal doesn’t seem to agree..all kidding aside Djoker has to be incredibly mentally discouraged right now. Even the points he’s winning he’s had to work so hard for I can’t imagine he’s thinking anything but “how the hell am I going to win three sets worth of points?!”
 

cromulence

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It's really hard to wrap your mind around 100-2 career at the French Open. It just seems impossible.
 

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I have to assume that Nadal has one more major win in him, so he’ll pass Federer. But I think Novak has three or four in him, so he could also pass Federer. Amazing.
 

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I love talking about which player is the greatest: Roger, Rafa, or Joker. It's a question with no wrong answer, really.
 

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Unforced errors:

Djokovic: 52
Nadal: 14

Mind-boggling. I only saw a bit - I'm watching the full highlights now - but that is some next-level shit from a guy who's 34 years old. A decade ago, nobody on this site thought he'd ever be within spitting distance of Federer, myself included.

 

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I love talking about which player is the greatest: Roger, Rafa, or Joker. It's a question with no wrong answer, really.
You really can. They all have some weaknesses in the resume:

Federer: Fewest Masters titles, losing H2H record vs both
Nadal: Far fewer weeks at no. 1 than the two other guys, never won the tour finals.
Djokovic: Fewer Grand Slams than the other two.
 

InstaFace

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Someday they're gonna do an oral history or lengthy retrospective about the day Robin Soderling beat Rafa Nadal at RG. Much the way they did about Kathy Horvath beating Martina.

edit: just for grins, here's the history of bagel-ings in a major final by one of the Big 3:

2004 WM: Federer def Hewitt 6-0, 7-6(3), 6-0
2006 AO: Federer def Baghdatis 5-7, 7-5, 6-0, 6-2
2006 WM: Federer def Nadal 6-0, 7-6(5), 6-7(2), 6-2
2008 RG: Nadal def Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0
2015 AO: Djokovic def Murray 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-0
2020 RG: Nadal def Djokovic 6-0, 6-2, 7-5
 
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bosox4283

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You really can. They all have some weaknesses in the resume:

Federer: Fewest Masters titles, losing H2H record vs both
Nadal: Far fewer weeks at no. 1 than the two other guys, never won the tour finals.
Djokovic: Fewer Grand Slams than the other two.
I think total number of match wins is an interesting statistic, too. Federer has 1,242, Nadal 999, and Djokovic 930. Incredibly, Federer needs 33 to pass Jimmy Connors -- I wonder if part of his continued focus on playing is to earn the #1 spot. Can Nadal and Djokovic average about 50+ matches won a year for the next five years? Maybe. They will all certainly finish top-4 all time, which is remarkable.
 
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bosox4283

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One more is total tournament wins. Much like number of match wins, I think Nadal and Djokovic have an uphill battle to meet Federer, but it is in reach.

Federer: 103
Nadal: 86
Djokovic: 81

Looking at these statistics, I never realized how impressive a career Jimmy Connors had. He won 109 tournaments!
 

jon abbey

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I think total wins is an interesting statistic, too. Federer has 1,242, Nadal 999, and Djokovic 930. Incredibly, Federer needs 33 to pass Jimmy Connors -- I wonder if part of his continued focus on playing is to earn the #1 spot. Can Nadal and Djokovic average about 50+ wins a year for the next five years? Maybe. They will all certainly finish top-4 all time, which is remarkable.
To put some context on that, including losses and W/L percentage:

Federer: 1242-271 (82.1%)
Nadal: 999-201 (83.3%)
Djokovic: 930-189 (83.1%)

Not sure those numbers matter at all, to be honest. The relative strength of different tournaments means that wins shouldn't all be equal.
 

BaseballJones

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Which era was more fun for tennis fans:

1. The Fed/Rafa/Joker era, which also included a guy like Murray who, in most other times, would have won a bunch of slams?

or

2. The Sampras/Agassi/Courier era

or

3. The Borg/Connors/McEnroe era

or

4. The Becker/Wilander/Edberg/Lendl era

I know that it's all fuzzy in terms of "era", as there's some overlap of course. So YMMV with how you categorize this. For me, the top of the men's game during the Roger/Rafa/Joker era is the best it's ever been. But I loved the other eras too, as I felt like not only were there great players at the top, there were also (it seemed to me anyway) greater depth in the men's game. Or at least, maybe the top guys weren't SO dominant that they won virtually every major tournament, so it was a little more up in the air when a slam began.
 

jezza1918

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You really can. They all have some weaknesses in the resume:

Federer: Fewest Masters titles, losing H2H record vs both
Nadal: Far fewer weeks at no. 1 than the two other guys, never won the tour finals.
Djokovic: Fewer Grand Slams than the other two.
The H2H record for Federer against both of these guys isn't quite a fair comparison in my opinion - primarily because their peaks just didnt really match up. From 04-09 when Fed was at his absolute prime Nadal and Djokovic simply weren't getting to finals all that consistently. He was 1-1 against them in that stage in hard court slam finals (win over Djokovic at 2007 US Open, loss to Nadal at 2009 Australian). For example he is 11-9 against Nadal on hard court...something tells me if he had faced Nadal more at those hard court slams earlier in Nadal's careers while at the peak of his own , the H2H would look a little better. In a way he is almost penalized reputation wise for being the 2nd best clay courter of that period by routinely making the finals and having to face Nadal. Conversely, Nadal didn't make a hard court slam final until winning 2009 Australia.

All that said, splitting hairs about just how dominant these trio has been for my entire 'adult' life (I graduated college in 2004), is fun but somewhat fruitless in my opinion. At the end of the day you can make valid arguments for any of them being the GOAT (as opposed to say, Brady vs Montana...)
 
Which era was more fun for tennis fans:

1. The Fed/Rafa/Joker era, which also included a guy like Murray who, in most other times, would have won a bunch of slams?

or

2. The Sampras/Agassi/Courier era

or

3. The Borg/Connors/McEnroe era

or

4. The Becker/Wilander/Edberg/Lendl era

I know that it's all fuzzy in terms of "era", as there's some overlap of course. So YMMV with how you categorize this. For me, the top of the men's game during the Roger/Rafa/Joker era is the best it's ever been. But I loved the other eras too, as I felt like not only were there great players at the top, there were also (it seemed to me anyway) greater depth in the men's game. Or at least, maybe the top guys weren't SO dominant that they won virtually every major tournament, so it was a little more up in the air when a slam began.
Just a matter of personal taste, but I preferred other eras in which the best players weren't so much better than the next level of players. Between 2006 and 2019 inclusive, 48 of the 56 slams were won by Federer, Nadal or Djokovic - and 6 of the remaining 8 were won by either Murray or Wawrinka. (Čilić and del Potro are the only other men to have won Slams in that period.) That's insane...and it also means so much of the game's power and prestige are concentrated in the hands of the very few, it's harder for second-tier and third-tier players to really make a name for themselves, which means once you start watching matches not involving the Big Three - or the Big Three and the Next Two, if you want to add Murray and Wawrinka - the Q rating really starts to dip precipitously.

Of course, the women's game is almost exactly the opposite - since 2007, the only players to win a 4th Slam or more are Clijsters (4 in total), Sharapova (5) and Serena (23), and only a handful of others have even gotten to three. That's spreading the wealth a bit too thin, to the point that there aren't really any big rivalries any more. (Are there?) Somehow I don't think the WTA would have as many problems getting marquee matches scheduled on the main courts at joint ATP/WTA events if there were a Big Three, or Big Five, etc. for more casual fans to rally around.
 

BaseballJones

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For me, the Sampras/Agassi/Courier era was my favorite. Maybe it's because of the such contrasting styles between Sampras and Agassi. Throw in the craftiness of Chang and the animal play of Courier, plus there were enough other good players in there that other than basically Wimbledon (which Sampras always won), the other majors were up in the air, and not just between the top guys. Of course, I loved the Borg/McEnroe/Connors time as well.
 

jon abbey

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If the choice is between those four sets of players, I will take the current one, because each of the other three had one star who I hated watching (Borg, Lendl, Edberg, Sampras). There were some nice contrasts in styles and I did love a lot of the Borg/McEnroe/Connors era (Roscoe Tanner!) but in this era, every Slam now affects the GOAT discussion, which is pretty cool. It's a bit like LeBron, Jordan and Bill Russell all competing for titles at the same time, we are very lucky.