Predicted Winners in BOLD
My picks yesterday were not good on the women’s side of the draw. I will try to do better. With Serena losing, anyone left in the draw has to like her chances better of winning the title. This should be interesting.
Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) [20] vs. Maria Sharapova (RUS) [3] – If an opponent can force Sharapova to play defensive tennis, she can pull an upset. I am not sure that Cibulkova is that player.
Sloane Stephens (USA) [13] vs. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) [2] – Sloane is a good player with a bright future. I think Vika advances, but this is no easy match for the two-time defending champion.
Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) [5] vs. Garbine Muguruza (ESP) – Radwanska came close to winning Wimbledon 2012. This draw offers her a chance to win a Grand Slam. I don’t think she is likely to win this event, but she is in the mix.
Jelena Jankovic (SRB) [8] vs. Simona Halep (ROU) [11] -Halep is an up and comer. I am sure JJ may be motivated by Ivanovic to not cede all Serbian attention to Ana and of course Nole. Still, I think Halep builds in 2013 and reaches the quarterfinal round.
Tennis Abides: Dan Martin on Tennis and Life 
maria has looked shaky at this slam so far. her game could use rounding out. i haven’t seen any of vika but a rematch with sloane could be good! radwanska dropped a set last round. Jelena has such a good game but she’s so inconsistent and error prone. i guess picking halep is reasonable although i could see JJ being inspired by Ana’s win.
i kind of hope Ana wins the whole thing now after taking out Serena and Stosur.
But Na Li and Vika are probably more likely.
yep, as i thought… maria’s weakness may do her in. tonight. she’s down only 1 break in the third as a write, but she’s struggling mightily. not sure she can take this.
Just seen the result. Cibulkova is two breaks up in the third set. Will there be another upset?
Yes there will be. Sharpie is out too! Very interesting…
If Vika wins a 3rd Aussie Open, where does that leave her legacy?
Unfortunately, a lot of players won three AO: in my time, Navratilova, Seles, Hingis, Serena… But, it is always better to win three than two.
Agreed. 3 of the same slam is better than 2, but variety helps as well.
JJ won’t allow Ana to be the better player in this tournament. Anyway, a tense match.
She’s lost set 1….
That’s what she usually does. To be honest, usually she also loses set 2…
^ ha ha. Well, she’s up a break now.
Meanwhile, it seems that you were right about Dimitrov and BA. Dimitrov has still to learn patience… He is even able to lose this match, rushing to win.
^ i know. i don’t have full faith in dimitrov. the fact that he said “i expected to reach the 2nd week of a slam” makes me feel like that was his goal or something. he should be talking about WINNING slams, not reaching week 2. even if he wins tonight, if i were the betting type i’d bet he’d lose to rafa in straights.
BTW, did you that I won the TX contest this year? Picking the 10 best?
The more I watch Dimitrov, the more I am convinced that he doesn’t dare come back home if he wins…
Just joking, of course.
But this match is a monument to the Spanish tennis school. Bautista Agut is an average player, but — and there lies the main difference between him and Dimitrov — he always has a clear cut plan of play. Dimitrov, on the other side, has no clue how to open the court when a rally is engage and is mostly reactive. While he understands well the elementary “big serve, big FH”, He doesn’t understand anything about angles, he changes the pace without good reason, without thinking [he just proved me wrong while I am writing this], and, in general, doesn’t move well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we finish with an all Spanish QF, between Rafa and BA.
congrats on winning the TX contest!!! 🙂
yeah, i don’t know about dimitrov. there is no doubting his talent, but i question his tennis acumen and his motivation.
maybe now that sharapova lost he wants to get out? lol.
actually it’s looking like he’ll go 2 sets up here. but he’ll get pummelled by rafa.
i see JJ is slouching out….
embarrassing – a bagel???
Something about JJ has never overly impressed me
She’s a spoiled kid, always was. When the going gets tough, most of the time, she’s not the one that keeps going. Despite her sublime athleticism, on court intelligence, she managed to lose every single important match in her life.
I watched ten minutes of that match. Jelena was the player doing everything. A bagel seems strange when the match was even in the first set, and JJ won the second easily.
i agree dan. she’s never been consistent. and she pushes too much.
i like ana’s game WAY MORE.
don’t you find her too passive sometimes mat4?
I don’t know. I remember her in a match against Venus, a few years ago, when she literally got mad and destroyed the older Williams. I don’t know how she managed to lose this match against the Romanian: for the few games I watched, she was the dominant player, although one could see she was tense.
She is too soft. She just doesn’t “need” to win. And she simply doesn’t mature as a player, nor as a person — something very strange for a former no 1, since one needs character and intelligence to become a number 1 (Safin excepted :).
Dimitrov won. Bautista Agut did all the right things, except that he didn’t do them right. He became to tense after the second set, and he wasn’t tired enough not to think about the result. We had a player who knew what he had to do, but didn’t deliver, and another one who was just better.
I don’t see how Dimitrov can win a set against Rafa, not to mention three. I don’t see what could be his gameplan, neither, against the Spaniard.
rafa gets all the inexperienced upstarts. his draw really turned into somewhat of a cakewalk. he won’t lose a set before the semis and maybe not even then …
Dimitrov will have to know how/when to attack & will have to use his young legs to have any chance. Him being 6’3″ rather than 6’1″ may help with high bounding shots to his backhand. Still, his chance to win relies totally on displaying something he might be able to do but has never done before – aka not much of a chance at all.
Do you guys think Dimitrov could use a new coach? Do you think his coach is any good???
I think some of it is how willing is he to internalize coaching. Tennis players are tricky to coach. Any coach might be able to tell him do x instead of y but only a coach who finds a way to get him to trust this advice can work. I am not sure who that would be. He’d likely listen to Roger, but Roger is a little busy right now.
kei does get some nice pop on his serve considering how small he is. but his second is a liability.
He’ll need a lot of free points to stay in this match
Yeah. Definitely.
i find it really tough to gage andy’s form because of his draw. the only player inside the top 100 was lopez, and andy pretty much has always had f-lo’s number. all these other guys are outside the top 100 and way overmatched.
i know rafa will win tonight but kei has exposed some vulnerabilities methinks. twice kei was up breaks and he let rafa back in. a better opponent might not do that.
i still likely see rafa getting to the final on this side though. not sure fed can beat him anymore – doesn’t seem like it – and not sure andy can beat fed then rafa back-to-back. or even tsonga then rafa.
Felt asleep. A little recapitulation:
On a faster court with lower rebound, Rafa is not the unbeatable machine he is usually. Nishikori lacked a bit of nerves, a bit of power to create a sensation, although had had his chances.
I am content that Rafa got warning for coaching and time violations — he abuses of both so much in the past. I hope he will abide the rules in the future.
As a Novak fan, I am certainly biased, but there is a flagrant disparity between Rafa behaviour on and off court. While he seems to be affable in everyday situations, is objective and respectful in his interviews (his body language reveals that he is sincere even when he says, before the first round of a slam, “If I play my best, I think I have a chance, no?”), I perceive his on court behaviour as something very close to gamesmanship. Working in education for years, it is difficult for me to think that such different kind of behaviour are completely separated in one person, so I guess it is cultural inheritance — Rafa is the product of a milieu with an elaborated culture of sport and winning.
Murray’s focus is not optimal yet. While he won easily three sets, he lost a TB.
Dimitrov has the shots, but he lacks the game. He has to put it all together to improve. jane asked about his coach: in general, it is better to have a coach than not to have one. Roger Rasheed coached Monfils and Tsonga lately. With LaMonf, there’s nothing to do. But he didn’t achieve much with Jo, neither. I don’t know.
Meanwhile, Roger is winning. Didn’t watch the match, nor did I see any sequence of it, so — not much to say, except to repeat that his tactical acumen, his on court intelligence probably made the difference. Let’s not forget that Tsonga tends to cramp most of the time (WB semi against Novak; FO semi against Ferrer, etc.) when big opportunities are presented to him. I am sorry for Jo (the match isn’t over yet, hey!), since I believe that he has the quality to make another slam final.
Thanks mat4. Yeah, whether it’s Toni only or whether Nadal knows what he’s up to, the coaching during matches is not cool – the fact that the generally mild Stan Wawrinka complained about it suggests it’s rather obvious too. I’ve always found Rafa to be a “Jekyll and Hyde” type. He’s utterly different on and off court, which is rare, I think. He completely transforms. A lot of people feel he indulges in gamesmanship. I don’t know. I think he has a kind of OCD thing. I mean the way he obsesses over the water bottles, the rituals with his picking etc., it seems like it’s almost uncontrollable. Perhaps it’s like with the ladies who screech. Could they play without screeching? Could Rafa train himself not to pick and take extra time? Who knows! I agree with you about Rafa’s upbringing; he comes from such a sporting family, so I am sure his level of compete is inbred on some level. He’s definitely a brilliant athlete.
Good thoughts on Dimitrov.
I’ll move to the other thread now.