I’m really enjoying Fernando Verdasco’s march through the draw. He’s a quality player who always plays with heart and effort and occasionally punches way above his abilities. I’d love to see him keep advancing, if for no reason other than to see him get some personal gratification, some points, and some more money.
Venus vs Serena coming up. I have to go for my daily walk, so I’ll miss the first hour. Hopefully it’s a competitive match so it will still be going when I get back.
Man, Kyrgios is a thoroughly useless player. Tremendous talent and potential, and not an ounce of determination to win.
He’s certainly one of the more maddening players to watch, speaking as a Kyrgios fan. He played well in the first and third sets, including two fantastic points in the third, but it wasn’t enough. I can almost forgive him for his, um, effort, in the second after going down an early break considering how well Federer was serving. Tactically, perhaps it made more sense to conserve energy for the third since a break seemed unlikely. But then, he was already down a set at the time and coming back from two down is a tall order, especially against Federer.
Federer’s got a journeyman up next so he’s looking like a lock to get to the quarters, presumably where he’ll face Djokovic. The tournament has been good so far and looks to be shaping up nicely for later round matchups: Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic are still alive, del Potro is looking good, Thiem has a chance to do something off clay, and Cilic has been straight-up murdering his (admittedly unaccomplished) opponents. Not too many young guys left, but Zverev has a favorable draw to the quarters.
Edit: On the women’s side, I’m hoping for the very personable Naomi Osaka to make it to the final against Serena. The crowd would be electric.
Kohlschreiber should charge Zverev for lessons. Wonder what Ivan will have to say to Sasha?
After the French Open I thought Zverev had turned a corner. Kohlschreiber’s had a solid career, but Zverev’s won a few Masters titles and is ranked #4. He should not be losing to Kohlschreiber at this point in their respective careers. On the other hand, Zverev seems to behave like an entitled brat, so his slam struggles don’t bother me too much aside from my general desire to see a guy under 30 do well at a major.
Yeah, kohlschrieber is one of those guys who probably isn’t going to win, but he is going to make you play.
I’m 100% behind del Potro now. He’s likeable, has a style of play I like (big hitting and aggressive), and I’ve always felt bad for how his career was derailed multiple times by injury after his lone US Open title. He’s got Isner next, which is tricky, but del Potro has a good record against him. It will be interesting to see who gets crowd support. The US Open crowds tend to be less partisan along national lines than other slams and Isner rarely plays inspiring tennis. I remember him getting pissy a few years ago when Monfils was getting bigger cheers than him.
The 19 year old Australian kid De Minaur, he was amazing to watch. I’ve never seen anyone quite like him. They kept saying he’s like Leyton Hewitt, but I don’t know, maybe it’s been too long since I saw Hewitt play, maybe it’s because Hewitt didn’t look so young when he caught our attention, but De Minaur just really impressed the hell out of me. I’m not quite sure what happened to him that he lost the match against Cilic though. I saw the first two sets, and he was destroying Cilic, taking his massive serve early as it bounced off the ground, it was really something. But then I tuned away, and later switched my phone back to SlingTV late at night to switch off the chromecast streaming, and the match was still going. I watched most of the fifth set too. De Minaur had lost the third and fourth sets, and then was a break down in the fifth.
But then, after I started watching, he came back! He kept his serve after a marathon game at 2-5 after he was down 0-40, and he broke Cilic again, but then had a somewhat careless game on his serve at 5-6, and he lost the match.
It’s not often you see a young player, and you think, wow, this kid is the future, but I definitely thought that while watching De Minaur. I can’t wait to see more of him.
EDIT: Not sure how long this link will keep working, but the US Open has a highlight reel of the match on their site:
Looking at that highlight reel, Cilic had to play some really good tennis to win that match.
Agree, De Minaur was really impressive, and the quality of his tennis seemed almost effortless. Given what’s happened with other young players, though, I wonder if the same guy will show up next time? I hope so!
Yeah, that’s been the pattern. Young guy has some great matches and then young guy loses early in the next tournament, etc. I’m not sure that Zverev has even made it to the quarters in a major. Thiem has made a run now and then but then he loses early a lot too. I like Denis Shapovalov but he’s inconsistent too – of course he’s only 19 so you gotta give him a bit more time.
I’m just waiting for one or two of these guys to show that they can play with the big guys. None really has yet.
Did nobody tell Millman that it’s better to avoid Federer’s forehand if you can? As unlikely as it seems, he doesn’t seem to know that.
Fed was up 5-4, 40-15 on his serve and couldn’t close it out. Millman broke, held, and broke again after Fed was up 40-15 again to win the 2nd set.
Millman is pounding his groundstrokes and Fed may be tiring. It seems to me like Fed is trying to shorten the points.
He’s let Millman into this match. The guy has nothing to lose.
Gotta go to bed. Millman just won the third in a tiebreak. Fed doesn’t look right, too tired. It’s either the heat or he came into the match not feeling well. Millman is playing well but Fed isn’t setting up the points the way he usually does. He’s going for winners too soon on a lot of the points.
Wish I could watch the rest but it’s an early day for me tomorrow.
Fed was up 4-2 in the fourth set, it was advantage Fed. He set up the play beautifully. A big serve, a couple of strong shots to setup a strong volley at the net, and all he had to do was put away the overhead. And he smashed it into the net.
Gah. He never really recovered after that. Lost that game, the set went to a tiebreak where he served two double faults in a row.
What’s funny is that all this is so familiar to me as a fan of Edberg, as a fan of Wilander, as a fan of McEnroe, as a fan of Chang, as a fan of Agassi, etc. Sometimes you have a bad game, and you go down early. But for Federer, this is only the fifth time in his career he’s been beaten before the quarterfinals.
This match was basically decided by mistakes. Federer didn’t serve well for long stretches of time, struggling to get a first serve in, and ended up under 50% first serves and with 10(!) double faults. And he hit a lot of errors, 76 to Millman’s 28. He was -11 net winners to unforced errors to Millman’s +19. That’s a 30 point swing, the equivalent of 7 games. Millman kept his focus and nerve and took advantage of all the mistakes.
Yeah, something wasn’t right with Fed. What I saw of him was him playing a bit rushed, trying to finish the point earlier than it was ready to be finished. So we’d see some beautiful winners from him and some awful mistakes, balls out by three feet.
Oh well, now he rests until the year end Masters, no doubt. Leaves that side of the draw wide open for Djokovic to get to the finals.
He said in the post-match press conference that he was trying to hit winners to end the points. He said he was bothered by the humidity, and that the balls and court were playing very slow because of the conditions.
Think he won’t go to Shanghai? It’s hard court, I thought he would.
He might. I think he is winding down. I wouldn’t be surprised if 2019 is his last year.
Right now he knows he can still win any given match, but I think he’s beginning to see that winning the five-set match tournaments which go two weeks is getting harder and harder. He’ll give them at least one more go to say farewell and be feted, but I suspect if he doesn’t win the Aussie or either of the Sunshine Double tourneys, he may be in his final year.
Not to say he couldn’t make some other appearances in 2020, maybe in Switzerland or Dubai, but I doubt he will want to compete when he feels he can no longer win.
Then again he’s Roger Federer. He may come back strong next year.