2020 Australian Open...ATP 2000...Melbourne, Australia

[stroke]

Novak up 4-3 with a break. It seems that Thiem just has to red line his game to make a real impact on things out there vs Novak. Novak does not. So tough out there to take Novak out.

[stroke]

Well that's 8 Australian Opens for Novak. Now we can see if Rafael can get his 13th FO. These 3 are the best ever and at a time when margins appear to be so small. I feel bad for Thiem, but he did not choke and his fitness was there. Well played.

[arturohernandez]

Well that's 8 Australian Opens for Novak. Now we can see if Rafael can get his 13th FO. These 3 are the best ever and at a time when margins appear to be so small. I feel bad for Thiem, but he did not choke and his fitness was there. Well played.

Nole was lucky to escape this time. He was punch drunk but Thiem could not deliver a KO punch.

Thiem is coming to knock down the castle and others are closing in as well. How long can the big 3 hold the fort?

Like my mixed metaphor?

[stroke]

Nole was lucky to escape this time. He was punch drunk but Thiem could not deliver a KO punch.

Thiem is coming to knock down the castle and others are closing in as well. How long can the big 3 hold the fort?

Like my mixed metaphor?

If the big 3 were 10 years younger, they could hold it another 10 years

[don_budge]

2020 Australian Open Finals...Dominic Thiem vs. Novak Djokovic

Does anybody here not understand that by winning four of the last five meetings that Dominic Thiem thinks he can win. That he thinks that he is supposed to win. That by defeating Rafael Nadal on the big stage in Melbourne he has arrived at a very, very elite status. Novak Djokovic isn't looming so large in his eyes that it takes his belief away. Thiem came back after the huge win against Nadal with a very credible win over a seemingly rejuvenated, not to mention, reinvented Alexander Zverev. Dominic comes to the court today feeling that this is his destiny. It's about damn time too.

We started to track Dominic's ascent here on the forum a number of years ago. Who was it that saw him first on the radar screen? I remember klacr and I kicking it around at one point. But here he is and he is ready.

Novak looked absolutely indestructible against Roger Federer the other day but if Roger was at ninety percent that is enough to enable Djokovic to dominate Roger like a wet blanket. Such are the margins...Federer had the slimmest of margins and that was revealed at 1-4, love-forty on Djokovic's serve in the first set. Roger blinked and it was over. Is Novak at the absolute zenith of his meteoric career? It is hard to tell but the measure of the tape is this. The key might just be this. Novak is 32 years old and Dominic is 26 years old. The key mitigating factor is miles...kilometers in both of their lexicons. The legs.

Thiem has looked more and more impressive. Stronger and stronger. He's hungry and he is putting in the work. It has been a long two weeks and this is the climax. Novak has coasted in a draw gifted from heaven. Quick draw Milos Raonic in the semis hardly even caused Novak to break a sweat. He went through Roger like a hot knife through butter. He is largely untried. But Dominic has just gotten stronger and stronger and his highest hurdle will be the nerves. Novak has been here...so many times. Dominic is still on the learning curve. This match another huge mark on his report card...looming.

So take your pick. It's even. They start at zero to zero. It will be Dominic's nerves against Novak's legs. Who will serve the best on the big points? The big points. There is the acid test.

I hope that the match goes the distance. I have a date in town. Priorities. Inspired by Roger Federer over the years. Hopefully something rubs off. After all...he is the Living Proof. I will pull for Dominic here. I'm an American at heart. Americans like the underdog.

A rather good performance overall for Dominic Thiem. Things take time...and experience. Experience won over youth once again because youth doesn't seem to understand that he must take the legs out of Experience's legs before he can get the horse in the barn. Novak for sure knows this and he did a surgical removal of Roger's legs in the semis. I think it was one of the first points in the tie-breaker that there was a twenty some stroke point and that was it for Roger. Legs taken out of the equation.

I only watched the fifth set as I had priorities of my own. You see...I am at the halfway point of a six month physical fitness or prehabilitation program or what ever you want to call it. It is a critical juncture at this point as fatigue has set in. I missed my first workout in three months on Friday and Sunday is a double workout day. Strength and core stability. It's challenging and I wonder to myself if I have ever challenged my self like this in my whole life. For whatever reason I am dedicated. Determined. Driven. But it is relevant even to you...maybe it will give you food for thought that somehow you too might improve your position or condition in life.

But in the fifth set of a Grand Slam final it is all about you. You had better have your priorities straight without any sort of hesitation or doubt and this is where the experience of Novak Djokovic paid off in spades. Dominic Thiem time and time again missed shots where he went for the glory when he should have been working on the legs of Djokovic one block at a time with the goal being to cause them to collapse. Dominic doesn't have the experience to make this tactic work...yet. But he is learning. This final will give him so much to work with in the future and it may even pay off as soon as the French Open as a couple of posters have posited.

For me the tennis was drab and really uninspiring. For sure I can appreciate a good groundstroke. A good rally. But point after point was just more of the same. Ridiculously monotonous. Much less the mosaic piece of art that I wrote about in the 1980 U. S. Open final when I compared the McEnroe/Borg final to a hallucination that I had while at the top of the Eiffel Tower looking on Paris below me. Where every point was like a stroke of the brush in the painting of a masterpiece. Ask yourself...was this a masterpiece? If you answer yes I want to have some of what you are smoking. Just kidding...don_budge is like a virgin these days. Pure as the driven snow. But this was one drab, monotonous bore. Thank God I am true to myself and went to the gym torture myself rather sit in front of his five set gobble gook.

Novak Djokovic wore the numbers and initials of his "friend" Kobe Bryant. More like Facebook friends. Or whatever. To make a public spectacle of your grief or mourning is inappropriate as far as I am concerned. The worship of celebrity. Fawning over themselves as fans fawn over their digital heroes. What would Orwell say? He would say..."I told you so!" What did Novak say in his interviews? I don't know because I turned it off immediately before it ended. The foregone conclusion and there were no words I had to hear to explain it to me. Did Novak eulogise his dead friend? I would bet that he did. Another reason he will never be Roger Federer. He's boring. As boring as his game.

So there you go. One down and three to go. The matches of the tournament were still "Roger vs. Anybody". Once he lost it was over. He was more or less a foregone conclusion going into that match with Djokovic. As boring as Djokovic is...he is the gold standard of Modern Tennis. It's perfect. It is what it is. Old Limp Leg. I missed most of the match but from what I understand he did his best rendition of the old limp leg again. Did he look as if he was going to collapse and then suddenly turn around and start pounding on his opponent. It is the old rope a dope...let your opponent punch himself out and then when you see he is a bit tired you turn on the heat. A perfect tactic against the younger opponent. Djokovic isn't stupid. At least in that regard. See you guys at when Roger shows up again. Otherwise it is just too boring.

[klacr]

I think everyone was rooting for Dominic Thiem but we also knew how good Djokovic truly is. Another masterful performance. Finding a higher gear and not wavering in clutch situations. Phenomenal champion.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Delray Beach
SETS Consulting

[arturohernandez]

A rather good performance overall for Dominic Thiem. Things take time...and experience. Experience won over youth once again because youth doesn't seem to understand that he must take the legs out of Experience's legs before he can get the horse in the barn. Novak for sure knows this and he did a surgical removal of Roger's legs in the semis. I think it was one of the first points in the tie-breaker that there was a twenty some stroke point and that was it for Roger. Legs taken out of the equation.

...

So there you go. One down and three to go. The matches of the tournament were still "Roger vs. Anybody". Once he lost it was over. He was more or less a foregone conclusion going into that match with Djokovic. As boring as Djokovic is...he is the gold standard of Modern Tennis. It's perfect. It is what it is. Old Limp Leg. I missed most of the match but from what I understand he did his best rendition of the old limp leg again. Did he look as if he was going to collapse and then suddenly turn around and start pounding on his opponent. It is the old rope a dope...let your opponent punch himself out and then when you see he is a bit tired you turn on the heat. A perfect tactic against the younger opponent. Djokovic isn't stupid. At least in that regard. See you guys at when Roger shows up again. Otherwise it is just too boring.

I also had the sense that Thiem did not have a game plan for how to win the final set without hitting winners. Someone like Medvedev would have tried to tire Djokovic out, knowing that he really could not handle long exchanges.

I don't think Nole was faking it. He did not feel well and any long point wore him out. His serve was good but not great and he was not close to brilliant. He is approaching 34 and I think we may see more of these days from him. And as he starts to not be able to play at such a high level as in the past, he can only battle so long. I mean he was hitting drop shots and serving and volleying. This is probably a hint of what is to come.

The question is whether Djokovic 3.0 is as good as Djokovic 2.0. Roger got to increase his racket head size. He always had the game to shorten points. But if Djokovic tries to shorten points, will he lose his edge?

Can he face three of these young guys in a row and win without emptying his tank?

This one will sting, like it stung Nadal after WB 2007 and it stung McEnroe in his epic match with Borg.

He will go back to training and thinking about the next time. And, hopefully, next time he will make Djokovic run, again and again.

It's time for a changing of the guard. We need some new blood.

I am hoping that Thiem represents that change this year.

Here is hoping!

[bman]

I also had the sense that Thiem did not have a game plan for how to win the final set without hitting winners. Someone like Medvedev would have tried to tire Djokovic out, knowing that he really could not handle long exchanges.

I don't think Nole was faking it. He did not feel well and any long point wore him out. His serve was good but not great and he was not close to brilliant. He is approaching 34 and I think we may see more of these days from him. And as he starts to not be able to play at such a high level as in the past, he can only battle so long. I mean he was hitting drop shots and serving and volleying. This is probably a hint of what is to come.

The question is whether Djokovic 3.0 is as good as Djokovic 2.0. Roger got to increase his racket head size. He always had the game to shorten points. But if Djokovic tries to shorten points, will he lose his edge?

Can he face three of these young guys in a row and win without emptying his tank?

This one will sting, like it stung Nadal after WB 2007 and it stung McEnroe in his epic match with Borg.

He will go back to training and thinking about the next time. And, hopefully, next time he will make Djokovic run, again and again.

It's time for a changing of the guard. We need some new blood.

I am hoping that Thiem represents that change this year.

Here is hoping!

He's only 32.

[stroke]

55 of last 66 majors for the big 3, pretty much says it all. An article I read pointed out that "only Andy Murray(3), Stan(3), Roddick, Del Po, Cilic, Gaston Gaudio, have been able to deny them in what amounts to 16.5 years of Grand Slam tennis.

On a side note, the year Gaudio won his FO in 2004, Nadal was already the best clay court player in the world but was out injured. His inimitable run began in 2005.