Tennis

Actually wasn't a bad few matches. The first, with Kyle Edmund, was really something in the first 3 sets before he tired out and realised the situation. The doubles was electric, breaks all over the place with both doubles players playing their part behind strong services & returns from the high ranking singles players. Murray's as a doubles act had ups and downs but were great tactically and weren't over reliant on Andy to get by. Jaimie although the weaker server and returner was solid in the all round department.

Murray's final match was a mere formality although far more competitive than the score line suggested. It was a fun watch but maybe because it was on Clay and on the Belgiums home turf. If it was reversed to be played in London on grass then this might have been quite a boring final.

Australian Open the next two weeks! I'll probably only see the night sessions, but stay tuned!

Rafa Nadal is fucking done dude.

So... first round is over, let's run through the top seeds and their draw.


DJOKOVIC[1] won in Doha, including a trashing ofNadalin the final. Played a decent enough first round against korean rising starChung.

R64:Halys, a french wild card with a good serve who beatDodig.
R32:Seppi, who surprisingly did not play 5 sets to win his first round match.
R16:Simonis the only seed (Karlovicretired) in a very tame part of the draw.


NISHIKORI[7] lost early in Brisbane toTomic, but beatKohlschreiberin straight sets for his first round.

R64:Krajicek(first name: Austin - a distant relative of former dutch player Richard) unkown 25 year old american with very few ATP matches. Probably a good challenger level player?
R32:Garcia-Lopez[26] orBrands... Guys who can play tennis for sure but...
R16:Tsonga[9] is the lone surviving seed with 17th seedPairelosing in three breakers to 19 year old american wild cardRubin.


FEDERER[3] played a good tournament on the very fast courts of Brisbane even when suffering from some mild flu like symptoms, but played a bit of a lame match against a goodRaonicin the final. No coughing or runny nose for his express first round victory against unheralded georgian hard hitterBasilashvili.

R64:Dolgopolovone of the best ranked (35) and toughest non-seeded player. The guy is unpredictable though and had more lows than highs in recent years.
R32:Dimitrov[27] played a decent match against Federer in Brisbane and reached the final in Sydney where he lost an epic match againstTroicki.
R16:Goffin[15] is the top seed, butThiem[19] are also around.


BERDYCH[6] played ok tennis in Doha reaching the semi and forcingDjokovicto a breaker. Won in straight sets againstBhambriwith a slow start.

R64:Basic... unkown player from Bosnia who beat dutch veteranHaasein the first round.
R32:Kyrgios[29] orCuevasbecause with the young australian the question is not IF he will blow up in flight, but when.
R16:Cilic[12] should reach this stage unless he breaks his teeth on theBautista Agut[24] wall.


NADAL[5] played ok in Brisbane and is said to be in good form and happy with the way he trains as, for the first time in a while, he is 100% fit and can train hard. Well.. he still got beat 6-1 6-2 byDjokovicin Doha and managed to lose his first round match againstVerdasco. Nadal vs Verdasco was an absolute epic a few years back at the AO (2009 semi final) with an insane level of play. Today it was a whole different story, with Verdasco randomly alternating between craptacular and unplayable on a point per point basis and Nadal not doing much of anything. End results: 5 sets of topsy turvy tennis where Verdasco, lead 0-2 in the fifth, managed to win 6 games in a row to win... WTF...

In this part of the draw the next seed wasAnderson[11] who retired in his match againstRam, so suddenly there is a sport in quarter final for Verdasco,Sela,Kuznetsov,Chardy(winner 13-11 in the fifth overGulbis),Monfils,Mahut, Ram or french journeymanRobert. The only safe bet is that Monfils will make a mess of this huge opportunity.


WAWRINKA[4] went in India to win Chennai once again. The draw was tame but he played well. He also played well enough against hard hittingTursunovto bag two sets before the russian retired.

R64:Stepanekthe 37 year old set a record for oldest ever qualifier at the AO, but he also managed to win his first round match! He has not beat Wawrinka since 2009 though, so he better keep his time machine at hand.
R32:Sock[25] orRosolor their ghosts as both had to play five sets in the australian heat to go through.
R16:Raonic[13] is playing well (title in Brisbane) but so doesTroicki[21] (title in Sydney).


FERRER[8] is an enigma wrapped in mystery. 2015 was a bit lame for his very high standards and this year he had a couple surprising losses toMarchenkoandSock, both time after he won the first set... He still won his first round match cleanly.

R64:Hewitt!!! Today was supposed to be his last professional match, but he proved too solid for his young compatriotDuckworth. Who knows what will happen against Ferrer!
R32:Johnson[31] orBellucci.
R16:Isner[10] orLopez[18]. Big serving but not exactly top form at the moment.


MURRAY[2] finished 2015 with a lame Masters Cup followed by a win in Davis Cup. For his first round he trashed german rising starZverev.

R64:Groththe big serving australian.
R32:Sousa[32] orGiraldo
R16:Tomic[16] or why not big servingMullerwho just beatFogniniby bagging three out of four breakers?

Australian Open match fixing? ATP Tour rejects claim - CNN.com

New report charges major match-fixing scandal at highest levels of tennis | Busted Racquet - Yahoo Sports

Tennis match fixing: Evidence of suspected match-fixing revealed - BBC Sport

Match-fixing claims rock tennis world as Australian Open gets under way | Fox News

Roger Federer demands to hear the names oplayers involved in tennis corruption scandal | Daily Mail Online

It's very difficult to comment on it because the story amount to "Betting sites reported several occurrences of suspicious betting patterns to the anti match fixing body of the ATP and no one ever got suspended for it." We don't know at this point who are the players and matches involved so it's pretty much hot air for now.

It should be mentioned that there is one suspicious match we know of, a match that in fact prompted the creation of the anti match fixing body of the ATP, which involved Davydenko and some argentinian journeyman in Sopot a few years back. You can find online the whole report made on the event and it is super shady (World N?4 Davydenko lead by a set and break and still massive bets from a group of russian users on the same network backed his opponent and Davydenko threw the towel in the third set because of a foot injury), but even in that case that initially looked like a slam dunk, the involvement of the players could not be proven.

Round 2 is over!

SEEDICIDE WATCH: The top half of the draw was totally uneventful with all the favorites winning. The bottom half saw a couple minor heads rool. Chardy [30] probably not fully recovered from his first round marathon fell to Kuznetsov (not related to Kuznetsova but that last name literally means Smith in russian so that's not rare). Young american Sock [25] fell to giant slayer and dangerous unseeded player Rosol. Fun fact: Rosol won in straight sets by saving all 10 of the break points he faced and converting one of the two he had! Sock must be furious.

It should be noted that the Nadal slaying curse was at work once again as Verdasco lost to another veteran, the diminutive israeli Sela. The spaniard almost forced a fifth set, breaking Sela when he served for the match in the fourth, but lost in the breaker.



DJOKOVIC[1] cruised during 2 sets against Halys, but the young frenchman, swang a little more freely in the third and forced a tie-break.

R32:Seppiwon his second round in straight sets, so he will be fresh to try to get his first win ever against Djokovic...
R16:Simon[14] survived in an ugly match against Donskoy and will face Delbonis next who also played for 5 sets.

Djokovic reaching the quarter finals seems like a very safe bet...


NISHIKORI[7] won in straight sets in a match I did not see.

R32:Garcia-Lopez[26]
R16:Tsonga[9] is the lone surviving seed but he will face french youngster Herbert who is an in form tricky customer. A Grand Slam Winner in double, Herbert is an old school net rusher. A style facilitated by a very good serve. Since Tsonga is not exactly the best of returners that could turn into a tie-break fest.

The biggest challenge for Nishikori is the accumulation of matches and the toll it takes on his body. Things are in the green for now with two straight sets victories.


FEDERER[3] discardedDolgopolovwith ease in what could have been a very tricky encounter. The scoreboard does not tell the whole story though, because while I felt the swiss was really very sharp with his movement, the shot production was not entirely satisfying, with a number of unforced errors.

R32:Dimitrov[27] certainly did not impress against unheralded argentinian Trungelliti, but found a way to win in 4 sets.
R16:Goffin[15] andThiem[19] will duke it out.

Federer's draw is pretty tricky and I am not overly convinced by his ground game. On the up side he is serving very well at the moment, making him very hard to beat no matter what.


BERDYCH[6] just dropped 7 games to Basic.

R32:Kyrgios[29] is still here and won in straight sets against Cuevas. This should be a good one.
R16:Cilic[12] should discardBautista Agut[24] with ease since the spaniard played 10 sets in two rounds.

Berdych rarely loses to people ranked below him, but both Kyrgios and Cilic, with their big game, are always a threat. The regularity of a Bautista Agut is also a tough challenge to overcome should Berdych be on a slightly off day for their match.



MONFILS[23] played a solid match against Mahut and with the elimination of Chardy, he is the only remaining seed in this part of the draw. Next he will face the happy go lucky french journeyman Robert (a very sympathetic guy who plays a strange brand of unpredictable tennis as a way to pay for his globetrotting!). The winner will face the winner of a very unpredictable Sela vs Kuznetsov match.


WAWRINKA[4] played two easy sets against Stepanek who put a good effort in the third, resulting in a number of very spectacular points.

R32:Rosolsaved 20 of the 21 break points he faced in two rounds... he will be hard to beat if he keeps posting such numbers.
R16:Raonic[13] is still playing well, but so doesTroicki[21].

Tricky draw for Wawrinka, but he spent very little time on the courts and is playing ok, so he certainly has a good shot at reaching the quarter finals.


FERRER[8] played a solid match to give a proper send off to Hewitt, who, once again, fought hard until the very last point, but could not preveil against someone with a similar game but who does almost everything a little bit better. A great champion that will remain the embodiment of the saying "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

R32:Johnson[31] scored a very convincing win overBellucci.
R16:Isner[10] orLopez[18]. The spaniard played an absurd epic against Pella that ended in four tie-break sets and a 6-4 decider. The way Pella saved a couple match points in the fourth was just about unreal. A tip of the hat to Lopez who still managed to keep his focus in the fifth set even if the match should have ended two or three times before that. How much gas left to play Isner though?

Ferrer is playing ok and a Ferrer who plays ok requires some quality offensive tennis to beat. I would not be surprised to see him reach the quarter finals.


MURRAY[2] made extremely light work ofGroth, breaking the australian ace machine over and over like it was nothing.

R32:Sousa[32] scored a good win, but the buck will most probably stop here.
R16:Tomic[16] barely avoided a fifth set against Bolelli and he will face compatriot Millman who edged past Muller in five sets.

It would take a very very good Tomic to beat Murray, so smart money is on the scott reaching the quarter finals.

Oups! A bit late: R32 got played and the surprises were few and far between. In fact all the matches were pretty one sided in favor of the favorites, except Bautista Agut, you know that guy I thought would be too tired to compete, who discarded Cilic in straight sets! The surprise guest of the round of 16 is Kuznetzov who beat Sela in 4 sets. So we get:

DJOKOVIC vs SIMON

A match played as I write this. Simon junk-balled Djokovic during five sets and made him commit 100 unforced errors! The serb stepped on it in the fifth to kill the suspense but it was not a conforting sight for his fans.


TSONGA vs NISHIKORI

A match played as I write this. Tsonga tried to rush Nishikori by staying close to his baseline. End result: 6-4 6-2 6-4 for Nishikori... By the frenchman's own account, this strategy worked on the slower clay, but on hard court he just could not find the time to execute his powerful strokes and as such lost the main advantage he has over his opponent. Why he noticed that in the press room instead of on court, we'll never know. He stuck to a losing plan and lost...


FEDERER vs GOFFIN

Since the swiss did not play the cleanest of matches, it's possible that the very clean striker of the ball that si Goffin could prove to be more of a challenge that in their previous meetings.


BERDYCH vs BAUTISTA AGUT

A match played as I write this. A bit up and down, Berdych also posted a meager 3/22 on break points. Since Bautista was a lot more efficient and, I assume, on his usual even keel, the match lasted 5 sets.


MONFILS vs KUZNETZOV

In press conference, Monfils explained that he takes his young opponent very seriously and he should. With the frenchman it is unclear if it will translates into a very serious match though.


WAWRINKA vs RAONIC

The abominable canadian is winning a lot sadly and made surprisingly light work of a very much in form Troicki. Wawrinka is also playing well so we'll see.


FERRER vs ISNER

The american won the server war against Lopez but will now face an entirely different proposition in Ferrer. The american can't out-rally the spaniard, so he will have to go big and go early, so it will really be a matter of execution.


MURRAY vs TOMIC

Murray was a bit tested by Sousa while Tomic was the heavy favorite of his first three matches, thanks to the early loss of Fognini and the elimination of ace machine Muller. I guess we'll get to see of what metal the young Australian is made of. In three matches the youngster still has to win a set off his elder, the fact they have a not too dissimilar game plan with Murray doing about everything a little bit better does not help his cause.

Late again, but we have our quarter finals:

DJOKOVIC(see previous post)
vs
NISHIKORI(see previous post)

I would be very surprised if Djokovic manages to win this one in an uneventful straight sets match. I doubt Nishikori will go with Simon's game plan though (soft balls in the middle to let Djokovic attack first from a poor position).


FEDERERobliterated a gun shy Goffin. As long as he was not defending, the swiss had only one thing in mind: attack. Even what might look like neutral shots, like his shortish backhand slices down the line are in fact keys to open the attacking floodgates as the replies from these slices are more often than not mediocre top spin forehands cross court creating huge openings for Federer down the line or to play behind the back of opponents scrambling to get back in position. Two sets and two breaks down, with his back against the wall, Goffin let his arm loose and managed to make the contest closer, but it was too little way too late.
vs
BERDYCH(see previous post)

Berdych had a lot of ups and downs in his matches. That could very well cost him dear against Federer. If he maintains a high level of play through the whole contest though, the match will be very competitive as a good serving and hard hitting Berdych is never easy to beat.


MONFILSdid the job against Kuznetsov, but managed to hurt his pinky diving... that did not hinder him during the match so I doubt it will hinder him for the quarter final.
vs
RAONICprevailed over a slightly under the weather Wawrinka. The swiss managed to force a decider after being lead two sets to love, but the buck stopped there.

That's an intriguing match-up. The very powerfull and offensive minded Raonic against the very athletic and defensive minded Monfils... Will the court coverage of the frenchman force Raonic to red line his game and miss a lot? Will the constant focus the candadian's big serve imposes on his opponent be too much for Monfils?


FERRERdelivered a business like performance against Isner. A break in each set, discarding all three break points he face and voil?.
vs
MURRAYwon in straight sets a very odd WTA match against Tomic: 8 breaks in 20 games in the first two sets... Murray alternated between passive and pro-active while Tomic alternated between the very bad and the great. The scott was furious during the match and who knows what would have happened if Tomic won the 3rd set breaker...

The ranking and the head to head favors Murray as does the recent meetings, but still, Ferrer beat Murray six times on different surfaces. If the scott is too passive Ferrer will dictate and when Ferrer dictates, you run and in the end you lose...

Murray Ferrer, always a strange affair. Ferrer some how always pulls something off.

Szlia, why is the draw screwed up in this tourney? They put the 1 & 3 seed in the top half, and 2 & 4 at the bottom. Thus we get Federer-Djokovic semi instead of final like we did at Wimbledon/US. Quarters should always be 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5, semis 1-4, 2-3, and finals 1-2.

I am not 100% sure how the draw is made, but it's a lot more flexible than your proposed solution. The thing is there is not that much change in the Top 8 in the course of a year, so if you set the draws in stone like you propose, there would be very little variation. Plus, you can't really tell if a draw will become unbalanced before the matches are played. This year at the AO all the big upsets happened in the bottom half of the draw, you can't foresee that.

Anyway we have our semis:

DJOKOVICplayed a much more solid match than in his previous round and made relatively light work of a somewhat off color Nishikori.
vs
FEDERERstill has some cracks in his game, most notably with the number of unforced errors on the backhand side (and we are not talking errors when he takes risks, but with regular rally shots under low pressure), but the quality of the serve and of the movement along with the quality and variation of the offensive patterns allowed him to beat a pretty good Berdych in straight sets.

I am not super optimistic about that one. Djokovic was not extremely convincing during the event, but at the same time I don't feel like Federer will be able to win many rallies at all with the current state of his top spin backhand. If Djokovic maintains good length, that will make it tough for Federer to force shorter points and we might see a lot of errors and passing shots...


RAONICended up being too solid for Monfils. The frenchman played a pretty ok match with an unusual focus, but he was maybe a little too conservative in his choices a little too defensive to bother Raonic. Both ended up having pretty similar stats when it comes to serving efficiency (almost 40% of unreturned serves!), but the the frenchman only mustered the two break points chances (converting one which earned him the 2nd set) while Raonic converted 3 out of 8. Raonic's game is pretty dull, but from time to time he shows that he can do more than hitting big serves, big inside out forehands or big backhands down the line. The thing is he does not have to. Ultimately, he is not here to entertain us, he is here to win tennis matches and that he does very well.
vs
MURRAYwas in a pretty close contest with Ferrer, but then rain was about to come so the roof got closed despite Ferrer's protestations that it should be closed when it actually rains. He complained for a very simple reason, with an opened roof there is wind on the court, so you have to manage the margin of error the wind creates, something Ferrer with his no-nonsense play style is a master at doing. With the rood closed, no wind, so suddenly you can take more risks in the attacks, in the serves and, perhaps most importantly, in the return of serve. That helped Murray tremendously. I think it was one set all with the scott being a break down in the third and from there Ferrer only scored a couple of games before the handshake.

Good luck calling that one... I would say that Murray's return qualities and tactical abilities (Raonic is extremely predictable in his shot selection) should give him the upper hand, but their head to head is currently sitting at 3-3 and Raonic is playing better than he ever has so... yeah: Good luck calling that one. Also it should be noted that being predictable is not really an issue if the quality of the execution is very high and that's the standard Raonic set from the beginning of 2016.

Oups! Almost forgot the update (busy week between the AO and a film festival). We have our final:


DJOKOVICstarted his semi in beast mode while Federer did not. The swiss looked like he was always half a step late and Djokovic had answers to everything Federer threw at him. The fact the World N?3 did not serve so well and made a number of unforced errors certainly did not help his cause. End result: the defending champion raced to a two sets to love lead with a brutal 6-1 6-2. In the third, Djokovic's level dropped slightly. In conjunction with Federer serving a bit better and varying more during the rallies, the match became a lot more competitive. The swiss even managed to break first after a 10 minutes long game and, to most of everyone's surprise, he surfed this advantage until the end of the set. Between set 3 and 4 the roof got closed, but it did not change matters much. Both players were still very close, until Federer shit the bed on serve. The swiss pulled some heroics to go from 0-30 to 30-30, but he never went further, loosing the next 6 points and the match.
vs
MURRAYdodged a bullet. The scott had his back against the wall against an inspired Raonic, but the canadian injured his leg and it turned the match on its head, Murray ultimately winning in five sets.


The pessimistic Murray fan will note that the World N?2 very rarely beat Djokovic in Grand Slams. The optimistic Murray fan will note that the scott does everything a little bit better than Simon and that Simon went the distance. Well see it soon...



On a side note, Serena Williams stumbled over Kerber and lost to the german in the women's final.

Djokovic had another great start, bagging the first set 6-1 in 20 minutes, but after that Murray made it much more of a contest. The scott, credit to him, tried to be the aggressor. The problem is that he often hesitated a fraction of second before following a good shot to the net, losing a meter in the process. A meter that makes the difference between a volley you can play above net height and be aggressive with and one you have to play below net height, with a lot less options and most of them difficult to execute. Also, if being aggressive with his trusted backhand is not an issue for Murray, his less technically sound forehand has a tendency to let him down, resulting in unforced errors or attacks that Djokovic could defend with ease to stay in the rally or even turn defense into attack.

Very well aware of these issues in Murray's attacking game, Djokovic decided to be the world's hardest shield and just let the not hard enough spear shatter when trying to pierce him. The serb is without a doubt the world's hardest shield. To rub salt in Murray's wounds, just about every opportunity he got ended with a serbian ace or a scottish unforced error. Murray could very well have won sets two and three, but Djokovic's cold realism prevailed in both. The third set breaker ended up being emblematic of the match: Djokovic won it thanks to two mini-breaks gift wrapped by two Murray double faults...

In the end, it's a bit of a shame that the guy who tried to win the match has nothing to show for it, while the guy who decided to watch his opponent lose the match is lifting the trophy.

I had the pleasure to read a live match report whilst watching it and the amount of hatred spewed towards Murray was fun. Especially his 'non' forehand. Now I've witnessed him play flat and hard with his forehand in the past it's not something he's incapable of. Much like his backhand that he hits very well and deep. Thing is, it kind of looked like it was working when he was using it - he'd just end up hitting 1 more net cord, 1 more fault. The rallies didn't look too bad at all and if he's playing a relatively 'safe' forehand, it should reduce his error rate plus he'd be able to pick his spots easier. He could manoeuvre Djockovic to where he wants before he hits a backhand winner for example. I'd even say that hitting hard and flat power strokes would be detrimental if you are playing against a brick wall, you yourself have less time to react to the return.

But as I said, just more faults and errors, and especially during a break point he didn't always get the chance to convert. If indeed the difference comes down to the Serb just being mentally stronger, something Murray will never aspire to be given he displays his displeasure at almost anything (which I guess attracts most of his internet hatred), this result will never change. Unless he has a nation cheering him on during a Wimbledon final.

Fed won't be at the FO. =(

No Federer (back problems), no Monfils and after two pretty uneventful rounds in crappy weather, no more Nadal has he was nursing a left wrist injury and his doctors said he had to stop playing for a few weeks or risk having to stop playing for a few months...

Nadal's retirement opens up a semi final spot in an interesting part of the draw with spaniard Granollers, youngsters Zverev and Thiem, the diminutive belgian Goffin, veteran spaniard and former top 10 player Almagro, giant slayer and all around madman Gulbis and, last but not least, the 6th seeded frenchman Tsonga. Granollers is probably the weakest link here, but still it's pretty open and all these guys must be thinking "I have a real shot at this."

It's a shame for Nadal. Guy was playing good Tennis before the French from what I was reading. The injury bug will continue to get worse and worse for him as he gets older sadly.

As mentioned above, Tsonga was in Nadal's part of the draw and he retired today when leading Gulbis 5-2 in the first set... adductor problem (possibly the return of a problem he had earlier in the year). So yeah... Grannolers, Thiem (clear winner of the battle of the youngsters), Gulbis and Almagro or Goffin (currently playing, 1 set all) for a semi final spot!