And Fucsovics beats Stan in the fifth set tiebreaker! What a match.
Now Djokovic is running the table in the third set, up 3-0 and one break. I can see Tiafoe feels pressured to end points. Djokovic when he’s on his normal game is something of a defensive wall who can in a single shot switch to offense. Tiafoe knows he can’t really out-rally Djokovic to win points. He has to hit a big shot to win points, and he’s making errors going for them.
It’s interesting, that set shouldn’t have been close. It was close because Nole only picked up 1 of 5 break opportunities and Tiafoe took the only opportunity he got. Otherwise the stats aren’t really close. Djokovic won 13 more points in the set than Tiafoe.
That was an amazing tiebreaker. As the commentators pointed out, in a normal tie breaker he would have lost that match, but since this tie breaker went up 10, it gave him more breathing room to make a comeback. Of course, he still had to actually come back from behind, 10 point tie break or not. Kudos to Fuscovics.
Tiafoe surprised me in how much he kept up with Djokovic. He’s been around long enough now that I had him pegged as not good enough to keep up with top players.
I think Fucsovics is a quality player with a strong game, and underrated. He’s only beaten one top ten player, Medvedev, at Roland Garros last year, but he’s beaten Stan twice in 5 tries. He’s made it to the 4th round of a slam 3 times, to the third round once, and to the second round once, all in the last three years. I think he’s more dangerous in 5-set matches than people give him credit for. He doesn’t go away easily.
20-30 years ago, I think that was a fair conclusion to reach about a 23-year-old who doesn’t have any wins against top-tier players and whose best result was a QF run at the Australian Open a few years ago. Now, I think it’s too early to write a player of that age off as a mere journeyman. I expect the norm to be tennis players peaking in their late twenties moving forward owing to the more physical nature of the sport. It takes longer to develop strength and endurance than more innate tennis skills like reaction time and hand-eye coordination. Thiem is the first player born after 1988 to win a slam, and that was last year when he was already 27.
Not saying Tiafoe is a future slam winner, just that he still might be with the right development.
I remember reading an article years ago about promising junior tennis players and it asked them what their career ambitions were. Most said things like, “to be a steady tour player” with the more ambitious saying, “to be ranked in the top-ten.” Fucsovics was the only one who said, “to be #1 in the world.” I remember being impressed by that attitude. Though, I’m pretty sure some of the more modest ones were people like Thiem and Zverev.
One of the shocking things to me about the Borg vs McEnroe documentary I mentioned a few posts up is that Borg played tennis professionally from Age 15 to 25. 10 years, and it he was burnt out. Living in hotels basically for the prime young years of his life. McEnroe felt betrayed at the time Borg retired and implored him not to, but his peak came from Age 19 to Age 29. Also 10 years, and then McEnroe was also pretty burnt out, though he did keep playing for longer and stayed involved with the sport. Both were young prodigies and had their peaks when they were young.
But yeah, I agree it’s quite different now.
Yeah, it’s weird seeing Wawrinka starting winning slams in his late 20s, a guy like Isner winning a Masters event in his 30s, and even people like Federer, Lopez, and Karlovic competing in their 40s when you’re used to things like 20-year-old Lleyton Hewitt winning the US Open and Sampras retiring at 31.
A fun fact about McEnroe is that he won a tournament in four different decades: ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s, the latter being a doubles tournament he won in 2006 with Jonas Bjorkman. He probably could’ve played doubles at a high level for another two decades after he was done winning singles slams if he wanted to (he won Wimbledon doubles in 1992). Of course, the glamor of singles and doubles are quite different.
I know we mention some factors all the time like traveling with entourages, having a whole team that travels with you and keeps you healthy, etc. But after watching that documentary I think maybe another factor is the rivalries. Without Borg around to push him to get better, McEnroe says he never got the same drive as those two years in 1980 and 1981 when he had that rivalry with Borg.
I think if Nadal hadn’t come around when he did, I think perhaps a Federer that won a lot of tournaments for a few years might have lead to an early retirement instead of a prolonged career. Rivalries, especially sustained ones, are actually pretty rare.
Just watching the highlights right now on ESPNNews about “last night’s” matches. Looks like the DVR didn’t record the night matches. Some of these looked amazing. Like Kyrgios vs Humbert 5 setter and the first 2 sets of the Halep match.
I’ll change my recording settings from New episodes only to New and Reruns. Hopefully that will catch the night match sessions too.
Ugh. I’m using the ESPN Play features to watch replays of the match. Is that an option with your service?
Looks like a couple of long matches overnight to watch today. I just woke up and we are still an hour or more from Nadal’s match, and from Medvedev’s.
Looks like Djokovic is going to have a hard path from here. His likely path is Fritz (27), then Raonic (14), then Zverev (6), then Thiem (3).
Nadal is making short work of Mmoh, as he should. He will likely face Norrie, then Fognini / De Minaur, then Tsitsipas, then Medvedev or Rublev.
Seems more likely to me that Djokovic hits a speed bump than Nadal does, but you never know.
Sigh. Catching up on last night’s broadcast that ended at 2am my time, it only got to 2-2 in the fifth set in the Tsitsipas vs Kokkinakis game. I guess I need to figure out what’s on ESPN 2 after that program and record that too? I hate the idiosyncrasies of trying to record live sports.
EDIT: Looking up the result, I’m surprised to see Tsitsipas pulled out the win. It felt like Kokkinakis had good momentum.
Fifth set Fognini-Caruso all italian tie breaker from the DVR is tight. Some really safe tentatively play and suddenly some great shots out of those rallies.
A lot of fighting with each other after the match in Italian that no one understood.
Live news doing today’s matches. That Australian province of Victoria going into lockdown. So this will be a TV only event for the next few days I guess? Anyway, the tournament goes on.
Watching Raonic v Fuscovics: I have always liked Raonic, when he’s good he’s good. The trouble is he is inconsistent (within matches not just between matches) so every match with him is regular frustration. Almost like latter day Federer actually.
I might be biased, but kyrgios is notably inconsistent too but so entertaining to watch him play it’s worth it. Looking forward to seeing him face Thiem in a couple of hours.
He’s playing well but really almost insufferable. I haven’t seen any reason for him to be taunting Thiem the way he is when he wins a point, but he just keeps doing it. Fuck him, he’s a blight on the game.
Nadal has some sort of serious back issue and he seems downbeat on his chances of improving before the difficult matches start. I think his chances are slim.
I know more people who feel as you do, but for whatever reason i don’t see it. I don’t mind personality in the game, and I find his style of play very engaging as someone who doesn’t watch more than the aus open every year (mostly because of timezones).
I never pay attention to off court antics either.
Djokovic was up a break on Fritz but has lost it. It’s about to be 5 all in the first.
Djokovic wins the first set in a 7-1 tiebreak.