Changing of the guard?

[gzhpcu]

Nadal's comeback not looking good. Loses at the Olympics, now losing to Coric 1-6, 3-6.

Djokovic loses to Sam Querry at Wimbledon, then first round Olympics to Del Potro.

Roger Federer is a question mark. His friend Severin Lüthi says he will return stronger than ever. Wait and see.

[stotty]

Nadal is finished and has been for some time.

Even Djokovic cannot win 24/7 and has to dip some time. He's not done yet.

Roger could well be finished, certainly it will tough to resume at his age.

Murray could be coming into his zenith.

[stroke]

Besides Novak and Murray, it looks like Raonic is the next up at US Open. Kyrgios could/should already be top 5.

[stotty]

It's tough to say who the next Great will be. Coric and Zverev are still very young and may develop well over the next three years or so. Roger was 22 before he really came of age, and Djokovic too. Kyrgios has got some growing up to do to go any further.

When you consider how well Roger and Novak train and take care of themselves, you really have to figure that Kyrgios and others like him cannot expect to be as good unless they take up the same type of regime. You simply cannot afford a sideshow going on when striving to reach that kind of level.

I can see Raonic replacing the old guard as they file out but I cannot see him being anywhere near as great. I don't see much entertainment in watching him either.

It could just be that the game is in for a slump in level in the next couple of years. The standard could go down, probably will. It's difficult to replace Roger. He's so exceptional. We may have to wait another decade for someone like that.

Stotty

[klacr]

A change of the guard? Perhaps. But the incoming guards do not impress me that much.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

All good things must come to an end....

[don_budge]

A change of the guard? Perhaps. But the incoming guards do not impress me that much.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Now we have it...truly a changing of the guard and the beginning of the post Roger Federer era. See it for what it is...it is a culmination point. They occur every 15 to 17 years or so in the game of tennis. William Tilden spoke of such matters.

Take a look at the names in Dubai tournament. Malek Jaziri, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Roberto Bautista-Agut, Borna Coric, Filip Krajinovic, Evgeny Donskoy, Yuichi Sugita, Lucas Poille. Look at the Acapulco tournament. Feliciano Lopez, Jared Donaldson, Hyeon Chung, Kevin Anderson, Juan Martin del Potro, Dominic Thiem, Ryan Harrison, Alexander Zverev. Perhaps a couple of holdovers of the old guard in Acapulco but you can see that on the ATP 500 level that something has or is about to fundamentally change. At least in terms of personnel. Not so much in "STYLE". If they speed up the courts in an attempt to once again change the trend all of these players will be vulnerable to the all-court attacking style of tennis. The bounce has been engineered to be high and slow...if it is low and quick...LOOK OUT. Things are going to change.

The current style of play will be more or less incompatible with quicker conditions.

But for the time being Roger is still around. Fitting...isn't it? He is once again "The Once and Future King". Where have I heard that before? I guess I was calling him that some time back. But here he is on top of the heap. And that is exactly what it is...a heap of the same boring style. Roger is ruling the lower classes on his way out. But how long can he keep it up? The top five other than Federer has been decimated. Too much scrambling around in the backcourt. Not enough fluid service motions that win points outright. Just grind...grind...grind. Grunt...grunt...grunt. Not very pretty. Except for Roger. Not a peep out of him...the occasional "Come On". Glide...glide...glide. Touche´...touche´---touche´.

It's coming. Something wicked this way comes. Isn't it funny how tennis can metaphor life?

[gzhpcu]

As things are at the moment, looks like when Roger retires, there will no longer be a real dominating force in tennis. A different winner for every Grand Slam event...

[don_budge]

To Everything There is a Season...(Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8)

All good things must come to an end....

Turn! Turn! Turn!...The Byrds (1965)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late


The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes, as found in the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), though the sequence of the words was rearranged for the song. Ecclesiastes is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon who would have written it in the 10th century BC, but believed by a significant group of biblical scholars to date much later, up to the third century BC.