2018 Western and Southern Open...ATP 500...Cincinnati, Ohio USA

[stotty]

It's tough to play someone with a good serve when you only have half a serve yourself. It invites the opponent to take bigs swipes on returns and seize control of the rallies. Del Potro wins 6-2 6-3.

[stroke]

That will not be an issue with his opponent later tonight

[stroke]

or maybe tomorrow

[stroke]

oddmakers have Del po at about a 66% winning chance vs ol Vanilla Ice

[don_budge]

Ice Baby...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE

[don_budge]

Vanilla hopes to deliver a little "Hammer Time" of his own...service wise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo

[don_budge]

Dance Moves...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EZVIMjACF4

[don_budge]

Proud Mary...

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

[don_budge]

Ladies and Germs...we return you to your regularly scheduled tennisplayer.net forum.

[stroke]

I hope Ice's knee is better so he able to give it his best out there. And hopefully he has not gotten in street knife fight since he gutted out his last win vs Coric.

[don_budge]

Roger Federer...The Road to The Big Apple

Just shows what a talented player can do to a bunch of robots...dick around and still win.

But don't underestimate a robot. Djokovic is the game's greatest ever robot and even the talented have their work cut out taking him on. Virtually the whole forum, the whole world actually, have Roger down as a better player than Novak. The stats/facts in slams tells a different story. Novak has beaten Roger twice in his own back yard...at SW19 and is well up in their slam encounters. How can that be? Roger seemingly does everything better and has thrice the natural talent? I guess it's because Novak just does one thing only but does so it well....he specialises. I am looking forward to seeing how Novak and Roger will match up next time round. I hope play each other again soon.

I like Novak and I do not think you can give him too much credit or heap too many accolades on him and his career when one looks how he has competed vs Nadal and especially Fed. No only is Fed so talented but the crowd is always so much with Fed and not Novak when they play each other. One can sense that Novak actually wants the crowd love that comes so naturally to Fed. He has overcome a lot in some massive wins vs Fed.

Regarding any discussion about Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and all of the attached relatives let me just say this. Roger even looks better in Djokovic's old clothes...the new line he is wearing. I don't even know what the hell it is called but he is looking dapper. Really dapper. I would love to see him change the shoes and the racquet. Preferably a Dunlop. Something traditional looking.

I woke up at four something this morning with wolf boy, Puntzie and the lovely Abba look alike from years gone by. Wolf boy finally gets a handle on his bladder. Wolf dogs take a longer time to house break than a normal dog. Fortunately we have zero carpet in the house. I take him and Puntzie out barely with my eyes open in the surrealistic morning glow as the sun threatens to rise once again in the Swedish countryside. After the dogs take care of their business I meander upstairs while the Agnetta clone goes back for a couple more winks. I go to my office and lo and behold it is Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer dueling it out under the lights in Cincinnati. The first set had gone to Wawrinka in a tie-break and Federer was serving to stay in the match at 4-5. He manages to square things to the tie-break where he gets up a early mini-break but he squanders it with a shanked forehand on a short approach. No matter he makes amends as Wawrinka could not sustain the unbelievable hitting that I witnessed for the last four games.

The "rallying" was really, really impressive. It's hard to imagine the tennis ball going back and forth with the speed, spin and placement these two were creating. It's an illusion I have to remind myself. The bigger racquets give such an illusion as to what tennis is as to what it was yesteryear. The tennis is every bit as surreal as a Swedish morning in the countryside at four in the morning. Roger managed to win the tie-break and continued on to take the third handily. Roger played some very clever balls early in the third to Wawrinka playing so far behind the baseline. Roger played it low and short...even threw in a slice forehand for good measure. Clever play...such as Stefano Tsitsipas alluded to when he defeated Alexander "The Not So Great" Zverev the other day.

Great to see Wawrinka returning to form. Watching the two Swiss duelling in the night was extraordinary. With Del Potro playing back into form this gives the U. S. Open two more viable contenders. Roger to play the giant Argenting next. Should be a very, very interesting match...as should Cilic and Djokovic. Cilic has a chance to make good on some missed opportunities in the past.

It's a tournament. Roger is in the house. Now it's off for nine holes of golf. 7:15 AM.

[klacr]

Federer will be playing Goffin in the semifinals. Not Del Potro.
The Fed-Wawrinka match was the first entertaining match I saw this week, hence my urge to post.
It was a classic match that featured variety, blistering power, attacking tennis and some tactical adjustments. Federer is delightful to watch, and the Wawrinka backhand is simply wonderful. They should play every week.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[don_budge]

Federer will be playing Goffin in the semifinals. Not Del Potro.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

I stand corrected...again.

[don_budge]

I woke up at four something this morning with wolf boy, Puntzie and the lovely Abba look alike from years gone by.

It's a tournament. Roger is in the house. Now it's off for nine holes of golf. 7:15 AM.

Well it has been a long day. I managed to play twelve holes and not very well at that. But I am starting to count. Count the number of shots on each hole. I have given up swearing too. Instead I say "Gosh Darn". There's a story behind this. But it is getting late now...it is nine in the evening. It's funny that there is darkness now here in Sweden. All summer there has been light...long days and very short nights. There has been a tremendous amount of heat and very little rain. The average temperature in Stockholm is 17 degree Celsius (63 F) but this year the average was closer to 28 or 30 which is low to mid eighties which seems like some sort of Saharan Desert here this far north. We had a truck come with a tank of water to fill our well this year as it went dry. Normally there is plenty of rain to keep it full. I guess the sun is having a bit of a hissy fit. It's been a long day. Lots and lots of activity. Dogs...horses. Yawn...

So here is the snoozer of the day. It is Novak Djokovic versus Marin Cilic. Spare me...two robots. I wonder if I can go to sleep and wake up and one tomorrow morning to watch Federer take revenge on David Goffin. Remember that match in London at the Tour Championships. Very hard to believe that one. Roger pinned his ears back the first set then sort of disappeared in this air after that. It was one of the more hard to believe losses that I had witnessed out of Federer. So now it seems that he might just go full machine on Goffin.

Goffin is a really good competitor though. He defeated young Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round or was it the second? His win over Del Potro caught me by surprise as it was pointed out to me by klacr. I hear Puntzie snoring in the other room. It's about that time. ZZZzzzzzzz.....what does that sound remind you of. I'll give you a clue.

[stroke]

I have a lot of respect for the robots. It is real world, like most of us. All of us would like to be geniuses, to be artists, but those like Fed, Michael Jordon, Bobby Fischer(going way back) are really not realistic. Djokovic I am fairly certain would like to be able to play tennis like Fed, but he has certainly maxed his potential, a worthy accomplishment.