US Open

[stroke]

Chris Fowler reported that Novak requested this time slot. No surprise there. Certainly would have been a huge surprise if Novak was not granted his preference here. Clearly Novak is not concerned about the hotter conditions.

[jimlosaltos]

Chris Fowler reported that Novak requested this time slot. No surprise there. Certainly would have been a huge surprise if Novak was not granted his preference here. Clearly Novak is not concerned about the hotter conditions.

It's been reported before, at the Australian Open, that Djokovic requested a hot, day slot when he believed his opponent had problems with the heat (then Monfils). Worked

Back before his nasal surgery, Craig Tiley started giving him all night matches to keep him in the tournament.

[stroke]

Novak kind of went Star Trek "Borg" on Fritz, pretty much saying resistance is futile.

[jimlosaltos]

Novak kind of went Star Trek "Borg" on Fritz, pretty much saying resistance is futile.

Searching for something positive to say .. Fritz earned more break points than Djokovic, just couldn't convert: Fritz 2/12 BPs (17%) vs Djoko 6/9 (67%)

[stotty]

So a routine win for Novak in the quarters.

Carlos still has much to do potentially. I am not watching the tournament as I am unwilling to subscribe to yet another channel to watch tennis. It's so annoying how tennis gets passed around between providers over here.

Getting back to Carlos. To make the final, he will have to beat an increasingly in form Zverev followed by a potential ding-dong with Meddy. Not easy. You'd rather have Novak's half for sure.

[arturohernandez]

So a routine win for Novak in the quarters.

Carlos still has much to do potentially. I am not watching the tournament as I am unwilling to subscribe to yet another channel to watch tennis. It's so annoying how tennis gets passed around between providers over here.

Getting back to Carlos. To make the final, he will have to beat an increasingly in form Zverev followed by a potential ding-dong with Meddy. Not easy. You'd rather have Novak's half for sure.

The main thing will be whether he is able to drop shot and take the net. If he can drag his taller, clumsier opponents into the net or take the net from them, it will be a long day in the office. Meddy cannot stay with Carlos from up close on the baseline. If he stays back he will get drop shotted and S&V to death.

Zverev will also have trouble dealing with all the drop shots and S&V play.

We are back to the 90's finally!!

[arturohernandez]

Watching Tiafoe vs. Shelton

Tiafoe's lack of rotation on his serve is painful. He is probably losing something by basically not rotating at all.

Shelton is like a reborn Sampras/Roddick hybrid. The great serve with an attacking game. It is the 90's back to life.

Finally, a relief from the spinball deep in the court tactics.

[stroke]

Watching Tiafoe vs. Shelton

Tiafoe's lack of rotation on his serve is painful. He is probably losing something by basically not rotating at all.

Shelton is like a reborn Sampras/Roddick hybrid. The great serve with an attacking game. It is the 90's back to life.

Finally, a relief from the spinball deep in the court tactics.

Hard to imagine two more contrasting ATP service techniques than Sheldon and Tiafoe. Sheldon obviously has a very extreme set up position leading to his explosion to contact. Looks similar to what Sam Groth used to do, and Sam also had a huge serve.

[stroke]

https://www.tennismajors.com/us-open-news/its-not-rocket-science-fritz-explains-his-loss-against-djokovic-711674.html

[stroke]

Sheldon may have replaced(to me) Raonic and Nick as the best non giant serve in tennis. No better opportunity for his to test the mettle of his serve than vs Novak. It is kind of like the ultimate test of a righties one handed backhand playing Nadal. Oddsmakers have Novak at a 93.3% implied probability of winning vs young Sheldon.

[jimlosaltos]

Watching Tiafoe vs. Shelton

Tiafoe's lack of rotation on his serve is painful. He is probably losing something by basically not rotating at all.

Shelton is like a reborn Sampras/Roddick hybrid. The great serve with an attacking game. It is the 90's back to life.

Finally, a relief from the spinball deep in the court tactics.

Frances is all fast-twitch muscles, a latter day Dolgopolov. I know the word "snap" is a no, no here but that's what he does -- serve is almost all forearm/ wrist and he can hit 135 MPH doing that.

Amusing discussion of coaching of Sheldon by his father. Coach/ dad tells him "You're muscling it. Be lose" then later something like "Variety. Don't go for so many big ones". After which young Ben hits a double fault doing 143 MPH then 140 MPH second serve <g>. Announcer says, "Dad's shaking his head - 'kids' " <g>

[stroke]

Frances is all fast-twitch muscles, a latter day Dolgopolov. I know the word "snap" is a no, no here but that's what he does -- serve is almost all forearm/ wrist and he can hit 135 MPH doing that.

Amusing discussion of coaching of Sheldon by his father. Coach/ dad tells him "You're muscling it. Be lose" then later something like "Variety. Don't go for so man big ones". After which young Ben hits a double fault doing 143 MPH then 140 MPH second serve <g>. Announcer says, "Dad's shaking his head - 'kids' " <g>

Yes Tiafoe seems to basically serve going from a very fast internal to external to internal rotation using the Mouratoglou "free the wrist" thing.

[stroke]

https://www.tennispanorama.com/archives/74224

Well who cares about prices?

[jimlosaltos]

NYT has an article describing in layperson's terms how tournaments measure and set court speed.

It warmed my tennis fan's heart to see them say Indian Wells is one of the slowest hard courts on tour.

filedata/fetch?id=102097&d=1694037627&type=thumb

That's a segue to one of my pet peeves -- tennis commentators who continue spreading falsehoods about how the environment impacts ball speed. Last night, one of them said the humidity would make the serves slower during the Tiafoe-Sheldon match. That's not simply wrong it is 180 deg wrong. The physics behind that is 300 years old. . Indian Wells' courts were reportedly made extremely slow to compensate for "dry desert air making the play ball fast." At sea level (dense air), in March (moderate, if varying temperature), in dry air -- which is denser than humid air because oxygen molecules are pushed out by lighter water molecules.

So, they made Indian Wells' courts glacially slow to compensate for mythical thin air, making the overall playing conditions perhaps the slowest of any court in all of pro tennis.

ESPN even did an entire episode of "Sport Science" years ago explaining this -- in the context of why more home runs are hit in stadiums where it is humid.

Sir Issac Newton knew this -- 300 years ago !

Pilots know this, they have to calculate the lift their wings get for takeoff and (hint) they generate less lift when it is humid.

Rant over. Sorry. <g>

Fog Mountain Tennis does an excellent job on this:
https://fogmountaintennis.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/atmospheric/
Excerpt:

> Contrary to common intuition, humid air is less dense than dry air, and therefore creates less drag on a ball. This is a consequence of the ideal gas law, which implies that at a given pressure and temperature, a given volume of any gas contains the same number of molecules. Dry air consists almost entirely of nitrogen molecules (N₂, molecular weight 28) and oxygen molecules (O₂, molecular weight 32). Diluting it with molecules of water vapor (H₂O, molecular weight 18) makes it lighter.

The other problem with blaming humidity for slowing down or speeding up play is that, in the conditions under which most tennis matches are played, the effect of humidity on air density is very small. At 70?F (21?C), a change in the humidity from 0% to 100% decreases the air density by a mere 1%, which increases the speed at which a fast groundstroke arrives at the opposite baseline by less than 0.3 mph (0.5 km/h).

> And what about the balls themselves when it is humid? Makes them ever so slightly faster, not slower.

"Balls used at 61% humidity were effectively 0.6 mm smaller on average than balls used at 25% humidity. This difference is small, and just barely statistically significant—it’s only slightly larger than the typical variation between the individual balls I tested. But to the extent it affects balls’ behavior in the air, it only adds to the density-reducing effect of humidity, making balls travel further and faster.

NYT article eSubscriber link:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/02/sports/tennis/us-open-tennis-court-speed.html?smid=url-share

Humid air density:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_of_air#Humid_air

#

[jimlosaltos]

Women's semis day. Three big hitters plus, after her own big first serve, Coco is becoming a great defender.

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/schedule/index.html

Starting at 7 PM ET

Coco- Muchova
Sabalenka - Keys