Nadal beaten by a next gen player, Tsitsipas. Maybe the new generation is finally going to breakthrough. We will see tomorrow when he plays Djokovic.
Nadal looked a bit odd. He made more unforced errors than I typically see from him on clay. I don’t think his forehand is as dominant as it used to be and he probably doesn’t move quite as well, but he still is formidable out there.
I’m not sure that Nadal has ever made it this far into a clay season without a title.
The weird thing is Tsitsipas beat Nadal by aggressively approaching the net and getting extreme slice angles. It was almost like he thought he was playing on grass. Clay is most likely his worst surface given his playstyle, so this is quite the upset for a variety of reasons.
I was surprised at how consistent Tsitsipas was. He was hitting some big groundstrokes and wasn’t missing much. He was putting a lot of pressure on Nadal with his groundstrokes.
He’s only 20 so he has some room to get better before he peaks. Maybe he’s the guy who will breakthrough instead of Zeverev, who seems to be going backwards this year.
I think Zverev must be in full-on crisis mode at this point. I don’t think he’s made a run at any of the bigger tournaments this year. Plus, he won Madrid and made the final at Rome last year, so his ranking is going to start slipping soon if he doesn’t find some form.
He’s already dropped from 3 to 4 and I think after this week he will be at 5. Thiem will move ahead of him.
Tsitsipas was really impressive this tournament. The kid has game and it will win out at some point.
The interesting thing about the last few weeks is: Thiem has a lot of upside, the guy can play. Same with Tsitsipas. Lendl has to make an impact on Zverev; he’s got all the skills but is just not making them pay. Both Federer and Nadal are still forces to contend with, but both will struggle make it all the way through a tournament to contend for the title on a consistent basis. And Djokovic controls his own destiny.
They may be the older generation, but last night’s Djokovic-Del Potro match was nothing short of spectacular, a grueling 3-hr shoot-out for the ages. The hitting in the first set was at a whole ‘nother level, especially from Del Potro.
Nadal beat Djokovic by the bizarre score line of 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 to win Rome, avenging his loss to Tsitsipas along the way. That makes three different winners of the three clay masters, plus Thiem won Barcelona to make four different titlists of the big pre-French clay tournaments. I guess Nadal’s still the best clay courter in the world, but the answer to that question is less clear than it has been in 15 years.
After the Del Potro and Schwartzmann matches, Djokovic had nothing left in the tank. Nadal ran away with the first set. Nole started to loosen up in the second set and Nadal choked to let him take that set. But Djokovic couldn’t overcome his errors and stiffness and — frankly — pretty bad decision-making. Nole had 6 drop shot unforced errors! He just kept hitting drop shots from the baseline off his back foot. Even the ones that made it over the net were easily picked up by Nadal. It was, in a word, ugly.
I’d say Nadal is the favorite for Roland Garros, but not by very much.
Reminder to fellow cord cutters like me: For the third (fourth?) year in a row, the French Open will not be on ESPN. It will only be on Tennis Channel. I don’t think Tennis Channel is an option on services like SlingTV, Hulu LiveTV and Youtube LiveTV. At least, it wasn’t last year.
But there is a new service this year, called STIRR.
They have the Tennis Channel, so I’m going to try it out this year. Looks like it’s just Live TV though, no way to watch on demand. I checked it now, they seem to be showing a mixed doubles match between Serena Williams and Roger Federer (with a mixed double partner from their own country to back them up).
You can get Tennis Channel through UKTVNow / TVTAPNow, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week; though quality and service can be spotty. Also, Roland Garros is on ESPN in Latin America as far as I know, if you can find a way to get that feed.
Thanks for the pointer to Stirr, I’ll take a look at it.
Not sure if this a surprise to anyone, but Murray has announced he most likely will not be playing Wimbledon singles this year. Strangely, he specifically stated he might play doubles. His partner is TBD as his brother Jamie has said he won’t be playing with Andy, which is understandable since Jamie is a doubles specialist with a committed partner who can’t derail his season and abandon said partner to play with his badly out-of-form brother merely to satiate the interests of the UK press.
Does anyone understand how they do draws these days? If you look at a classic bracket of the top 8, it looks like this:
1 vs 8
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
4 vs 5
For Roland Garros, we have this:
1 vs 5
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
4 vs 8
That makes no sense.
I know it’s partially randomized with the stipulation that the 1 and 2 seeds have to be opposite halves and the 3 and 4 seeds have to be on opposite halves. Beyond that, I think it is setup so that each quarter looks this, with unseeded players between the seeds so that the earliest two seeds can meet is the third round:
1-4 seed
25-32 seed
17-24 seed
13-16 seed
9-12 seed
17-24 seed
25-32 seed
5-8 seed
I’m not sure if the 9-16 and 17-32 seeds are subdivided into smaller groupings, but I think that’s the case. As to why they don’t do straight-seeded matchups like other tournaments, I guess it’s to create uncertainty in the draw. They still have formal draw ceremonies, so they need some suspense.
Anecdotally, it has always seemed to me that Djokovic is more likely to be put into tougher sections than his rivals. I’m not saying there is a conspiracy against him, but. . .
Me, too. I always put that down to confirmation bias, but still. At RG, Nadal will first play a qualifier, then the winner of two qualifiers. Djokovic…will not.
You can do a simple draw strength test by summing the seed numbers in that quarter. Assuming equal number of seeds per quarter, the lowest sum is the toughest draw. Every time I’ve done it for a Slam, Nole has had a tougher draw. I haven’t done it for this one though.
Edit:
Now I have. Here are the draw strengths of the 4 top seeds:
Djokovic: 122
Thiem: 134
Federer: 138
Nadal: 134
So, Djokovic has the toughest draw and Federer the easiest, at least based on rankings.
I think that’s a side effect of Fed always getting the easier draw because, seriously, Fed pretty much always gets the easier draw.
They love Fed. They doubled the price of tickets at Rome when Fed made a last minute decision to play.
So, they’re giving him an easier draw deliberately…?
I have no idea. I kind of doubt it, but the reality is he’s the brightest light in the game now and all the tournament directors know anytime he plays their tournament, it may be the last time. They’d like to see him in the semis and finals.