The guy Nadal was losing against, I wish that game hadn’t been filled with rain delays. It would have been interesting to see if Rafa could come back in that match without the stopping and starting.
Congrats to Halep on her first Grand Slam. I wish I could have watched the match this morning, but I had to get to work, and I haven’t subscribed to a DVR service yet for the sake of the upcoming World Cup. OTOH, I should be able to use it for the World Cup and for Wimbledon. The Wimbledon final should be on the same day as the World Cup final. (July 15th).
The final was pretty boring after the first set. There were a few moments of fight left in him in the second and third set, but Thiem mostly didn’t look like he stood a chance after that first set.
Congrats to Rafa for major number 17, and his 11th French open. I’d say he’s probably got at least 3 more French Opens wins in him, maybe more.
I really thought Thiem could make it kind of close, but nope. How Nadal keeps winning French Opens—at his age, on that surface, with his playstyle, and his injury history—boggles the mind.
The young generation isn’t stepping up. Zeverev is the best of the bunch so far. Thiem is ok but he’s really just a guy. He will be 25 in September. Denis Shapovalov is promising at 19 but he could end up being just a guy too. I like Nick Kyrgios game, but between injuries and a flaky brain, he may never win a major.
Really, so far the young players are just the guys the Big 4/5 end up stepping on. They fill out the draw but don’t do a whole lot. And with Fed and Nadal still dominating and Djokovic getting better, they may continue to step on them for another year or two. I hope there are a few 16-18 year old players ready to burst on the scene and make some noise.
Fed and Nadal have basically dominated two generations of tennis, excepting a couple years when Djokovic held the crown.
It’s an almost astounding surfeit of excellence, and I say that as someone who became interested in tennis when Sampras and Agassi were at or near their peaks.
He’s number one again, though he needs to win Halle to keep that ranking. If he wins Halle and then Wimbledon that will be wins 99 and 100. Connors leads with 109.
Murray’s comeback started today and went much better than expected. Yeah, he lost, but did so in three sets to Kyrgios, who’s great on grass when his head is in it. Probably too much to expect anything of him at Wimbledon, but I reckon the British press will anyway. Maybe the World Cup will distract them if England should be so lucky to still be alive by the time Wimbledon starts. Federer’s looking good to win Halle again. Alex Zverev was the two seed and already lost, while Thiem’s the three seed and his results are relatively spotty off clay.
Nadal’s taking the week off. Looking at the draw, Federer’s biggest competition at Halle is, I don’t know, Kohlschreiber or Nishikori? Maybe a young guy like Coric or Tsitsipas steps up. Queen’s Club is the more competitive of the two big pre-Wimbledon tournaments this year (it has several high-ranked players and/or grass-court specialists like Cilic, Muller, Wawrinka, Querrey, F. Lopez, Djokovic, Kyrgios, Dimitrov).
Been a long time since Nadal has made it to the quarters at Wimbledon. He was runner up in 2011 and hasn’t made it to the quarters since. Grass is not his surface. He also said he wasn’t sure he would play Wimbledon due to fatigue from the clay court season, but I expect to see him there.
Halle’s wild this year. Federer, Kohlschreiber, and Bautista-Agut are the only seeds left and the second round isn’t even finished. I don’t know much about Khachanov other than him being one of the up-and-coming young Russians, but he beat serve-and-volleyer Mischa Zverev in the first round and now Nishikori, so he could develop into a great grass-court player soon.
He’s 6’6" so he probably has a good serve. These warmups for Wimbledon are played on faster grass than the Wimbledon grass. It really promotes net play.
Yeah, Halle is wild right now. Most of the seeds have disappeared. I want Fed to win so he keeps his #1 ranking.
A great day for Croatian tennis. First, the youngster Coric beats Federer in the Halle final, then Cilic beats Djokovic at Queen’s Club, both in three sets. This means Nadal returns to #1 tomorrow, though Federer will presumably still be the #1 seed at Wimbledon since they reorder seedings based on grass court results.
And in other tennis news nutty Nick Kyrgios, well, let TMZ take it from here:
Tennis star Nick Kyrgios was slapped with a hard fine of $17,500 for pretending his water bottle was a penis … and masturbating it on the court.
It all went down Saturday during his Queen’s Club Championship semi-final match when cameras caught the tennis bad boy simulating a 5-knuckle shuffle on his water bottle … complete with a finish.
