Roland Garros, Paris 2020

[stotty]

Borg did lose 2 out of 3 matches at US Open on clay(I know not red clay) to Connors(the best player of the 70's to me). Borg was a great clay courter no doubt. To me, he retired early mainly because he had a very difficult time dealing with McEnroe being better than him. Anyway to me, Nadal is simply unparalleled on clay. Borg was a tremendous athlete though, to me in his day, the best ever.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/a-life-in-reverse-how-the-ice-borg-warmed-with-age-2299142.html

[stroke]

I agree, he was an unbelievable athlete, the best ever at the time when he left tennis.

[stroke]

The greatest player by decade is an interesting discussion to me. 60's Laver seems pretty secure, I would go with Connors 70's but Borg is in discussion. 80's I would go with Lendl, but McEnroe is there. 90's Sampras. 2000's Federer. 2010 Rafael and Novak. 2020's maybe Tsitsipas, we will see.

[don_budge]

The Latest and the Greatest...yada, yada, yada.

The latest and the greatest and who is going to win. All wonderful topics for discussion and purely speculative for sure. The greatest? Impossible...you must separate the players into eras of equipment in case you haven't noticed the entire paradigm of the game changed with the equipment. The definition of the game changed. From artistic interpretation to bang ball. Very simple. With Roger Federer somewhat overlapping both eras. The only player to do so. Or was he? Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors actually did as well. So the jury is not only still out...it has never convened. Never will. Just yada yada yada. But it's fun isn't it? I wouldn't know. I only have my little old teaching paradigm. Tilden, Gonzalez, Budge, Hopman and Federer. Paradigm buddies. Entwined in a snare of don_budge's making. Of don_budge's musing.

My wife and I have been spending a good deal of time nursing the Siberian Husky girls...Bowie and Saja back to health. Bowie had a very large tumour removed and it amounted to a mastectomy of sorts. She had complications after her surgery that required another procedure and it seems that she is 80 or 85 percent back on the road to recovery. Saja all of a sudden was going blind so we took her in and she diagnosed with diabetes. Many owners are too busy or their lives are too complicated to take on this challenge but my wife is no such animal. These animals are her first priority...much as golf is mine. Yesterday we took nine blood samples and readings so that we could have a curve for the vet to make his next decision regarding insulin injections. I find all of this a bit unnerving as my quest is always about perfection and sometimes in life perfection is tossed out the window along with the dirty dishwater. We manage. I should say...my wife manages. Truly a super human being. My father thinks she is somewhat of an angel...but he knows me. She has put up with me for going on 16 years.

But anyways...I digress. Per usual. The things are twofold. Number one...the tennis is different but to somebody not intimately involved with the game for the past fifty years it probably is not discernible. The racquets don't look that much different on television. Not on the computer. Just more electronically generated images that have blurred reality from virtual reality. But from all appearances it looks like the players of today are just hitting the ball a zillion miles an hour faster than those of yesteryear. This clay court play on Roland Garros is a joke to me. The speed of play is due to one thing and one thing only...the change in equipment. Don't even start with the physical evolution of the human being in just fifty years...that takes many generations. You might want to touch on drugs and performance altering substances if you have just a little common sense but I don't want to get my expectations up. You know what happens when you do that don't you? Inevitably you are disappointed and I cannot afford that.

The second thing about this tournament that has not even crossed anybodies mind except the hyper observant don_budge is the use of the towel as a ploy. I wand statistical feedback on the number of times that the players are using the towel. Now the use is down about ninety percent which raises the question...was all of that towel usage done with the assistance of the ball boys and girls merely a ploy? Why is the usage down? Because the players are too lazy to walk the ten meters to get their own damn towel. That distance is going to add up over the course of five hours or three out of five. So they don't do it. They don't need to do it either. It was all a ruse. The same as the infernal bouncing of the tennis ball before serving...this was ruled out somewhat with the constraint of the time clock. So you see...don't even start comparing the players of yesterday with todays pampered and babied bunch. The skill levels are on a par with the towel question. You put this bunch of cookie cutter monotonous drones on the slick grass courts of the 60's and you will be looking at a bunch of fishes out of water. I can just imagine them flopping about and even the endless bouncing of the ball preserve. The crowd would have chased them off the premises for wasting their time. Back then...there were discerning tennis fans.

[stroke]

Yahoo Sport Australia: 'Doesn't sit right': Fans question Djokovic injuries after comeback win.
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/french-o...212858514.html

Novak does seem to have a bit too many injury issues during some matches, which tend to be the ones he is not winning ha. If Tsitsipas has 37 winners and 16 errors or so as he did vs Rublev, Novak may need the medical staff on tap early.

[stroke]

PCB though was a real class act out there during Novak's drama, as almost all Spanish players seem to be. The only one I can think of right off hand as being a bit of a princess out there is Verdasco. Even going back to Moya, Ferrero, Albert Costa, Ferrer, and now guys like PCB and RBA, just extremely professional. To me, hard not to respect their developmental program.

[doctorhl]

“Discerning tennis fans”? Professionalism, driven by the tour administration, media and equipment industry dictate the direction of the sport. Efforts to generate an appeal to a broader base of fans(whether for financial or altruistic reasons) changes the nature of the sport and therefore different fan exposure. Most of the racket sports of today have followed the same professionalism trend. Touch and control in discernment by fans has given way to power discernment along with different fan expectations in player and fan behavior. Racket sports have let the “ drivers” of the sport push toward more power generation in the game and resist efforts to reduce it. Each decade, however, evaluates these changes differently. Pickleball, a relatively new racket game started in the U.S., will be interesting to observe for parallel development. Primarily a “ touch” game played mostly by Seniors and projected to overtake tennis in participation numbers, it has started a pro league and changes in the speed of the game have already escalated in equipment and ball technology. I suppose I am a closet “woodite”——-wood rackets, paddles, clubs, please!

[arturohernandez]

“Discerning tennis fans”? Professionalism, driven by the tour administration, media and equipment industry dictate the direction of the sport. Efforts to generate an appeal to a broader base of fans(whether for financial or altruistic reasons) changes the nature of the sport and therefore different fan exposure. Most of the racket sports of today have followed the same professionalism trend. Touch and control in discernment by fans has given way to power discernment along with different fan expectations in player and fan behavior. Racket sports have let the “ drivers” of the sport push toward more power generation in the game and resist efforts to reduce it. Each decade, however, evaluates these changes differently. Pickleball, a relatively new racket game started in the U.S., will be interesting to observe for parallel development. Primarily a “ touch” game played mostly by Seniors and projected to overtake tennis in participation numbers, it has started a pro league and changes in the speed of the game have already escalated in equipment and ball technology. I suppose I am a closet “woodite”——-wood rackets, paddles, clubs, please!

I guess we all wonder if tennis had done what baseball did. Outlaw anything that is not wood. I think the game would be just as interesting today as it was in the past. Everyone still watches baseball.

[stroke]

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/djoko...tsitsipas-next

If Tsitsipas takes the early lead(say wins the 1st set), I would not be massively surprised if the trainer is called on scene ha. I am not certain Stef would be as polite as PCB.

[stotty]

Novak has been rope-a-doping for years so don't even think there is anything wrong with him. He's just trying to get into Rafa's head before the final even though he knows he still has plenty of work to do to get there...Rafa too come to that.

Both Stephanos and the Little Geezer have to win the first set to put the spanner in the works and have any real hope.

[stotty]

Player of each decade:

1920s Bill Tilden
1930s Don Budge
1940s Jack Kramer
1950s Pancho Gonzales
1960s Rod Laver
1970s Bjorn Borg
1980s Ivan Lendl (tempted to say McEnroe because of his sublime early 80s tennis...but Lendl earns it over the decade)
1990s Pete Sampras
2000s Roger Federer
2010s Novak Djokovic
2020s ??

[stroke]

Player of each decade:

1920s Bill Tilden
1930s Don Budge
1940s Jack Kramer
1950s Pancho Gonzales
1960s Rod Laver
1970s Bjorn Borg
1980s Ivan Lendl (tempted to say McEnroe because of his sublime early 80s tennis...but Lendl earns it over the decade)
1990s Pete Sampras
2000s Roger Federer
2010s Novak Djokovic
2020s ??

Cannot disagree, we except maybe 70's ha

[don_budge]

2020 French Open...Match of the Day...Men's Semifinals (Novak Djokovic vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas)

Cannot disagree, we except maybe 70's ha

Yeah...and I couldn't exactly say that I agree either. Out of principle. It's better just to state your point of view as clearly as possible and succinctness is an option. But just to play it safe...why not opine who the top two players were of any decade? Just to confuse the matter even further or to try and cover just one more base. Just a thought. It sounds like fun though...maybe devote a thread to it and watch it run.

But back to the matter at hand. We don't even need to talk about Rafa Nadal and Diego Schwartzman in the bottom half of the draw do we? A foregone conclusion? Nadal owns a 9-1 head to head against the little guy. Among the nine wins for Nadal are numerous and sundry beat downs on various surfaces. The lone win for Diego coming most recently in Rome. I didn't see that match but there was some discussion about how much effort Nadal put into it. From what I gather it was as if he couldn't wait to get out of Dodge...I mean Rome. Did he tank? You can't put it past the skunk. He is a real skunk too. Just look at his little towel ordeal now. How many times does he walk over and get his own damn towel? But he still milks it for all it is worth. Watch him to go to the towel at key points in the match. It's a tactic. He thinks he is clever. But he is as transparent as they come. If you are really watching. Most people don't want to see it. He's heroic. He's a monster.

So let's be nice now and talk a bit about Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas. This is a real interesting discussion. On the one hand we have Novak Djokovic who is another skunk in a sense but with a nice smile. A sense of humour even. Especially after any given match. He can yuk it up with the best of them. But during a contest he is an assassin with a smile. He has been known to play the gamesmanship card as well. I remember how I used to refer to the Andy Murray ploy of "clutch and grab". He was always coming up lame for an instant...just to throw his opponent off for a moment. Another transparent idiot. Though he is sorely missed on the tour. One of the "Big Four". The "Big Four" are dwindling now. It is down to the "Big Two" for the moment. But Novak is a bit of a clown at times. You cannot trust clowns though. Kramer of "Seinfeld" fame had a real phobia about clowns. He is not alone. They don't call him "The Joker" for nothing. Some say "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke"...Novak says, "joke 'em if they can't take a fuck". Go figure. He has a 3-2 edge with Stefanos in the head to head.

Stefanos has beaten Novak in a couple of ATP 1000 events so that is a good thing. I don't think that Novak throws away those level of events. But that isn't the same as a Grand Slam. Best of five. Novak can be giving his opponent the old "limp leg" routine and then turn around and proceed with the beat down. Like a couple of days ago. That was a beat down lite. He was only expending as much as he needed to. I was watching the "limp leg" routine in the first set with my wife. The announcers were worried that Novak didn't seem to be himself. I was telling my wife I had seen this routine before. It went as I said it would. He miraculously regained his composure and sent Busta...Mista Busta...packing. He pounded him into next week. It was revenge for Busta forcing Novak to hit the lineswoman in the throat at the U. S. Open. He tortured him a bit...and then the stiletto. He's an assassin with a smile I tell you.

Tsitsipas doesn't care for this kind of treatment. He has to flex his muscles here if he wants to show Novak who is boss. Djokovic has coasted so far. Hardly breaking a sweat in the cool Parisian air. He is primed for whatever it takes and believe me it is going to take a lot. But I think Tsitsipas has it in him. He surely does. Maybe not today. Maybe today. It is all about performance. His performance against Rublev was really incredible. It bordered on Federesque...which all we can possibly hope for. Rublev came out gunning and Tsitsipas took the initial body shots, shook them off and then came out swinging. Bing...bang...bye. See you never Andrey. Well that is what it is going to take to take down Señor Djokovic. From start to finish. If he has to weather a couple of storms in between the beginning and the end...so much the better. Stefanos has become a man right in front of our eyes. He should take one of these Slams while he is young to make a statement to the tour. To the tennis world. I am the king of this mountain. Here me roar!

I am tempted to say that Djokovic is the only one who can take Nadal down at Roland Garros. That might be the case. But Stefanos has to be saying to himself...I can do it! And then...he has to do it. Otherwise it is Djokovic vs. Nadal. Hopefully that outcome goes against that hated skunk. The skunk of skunks. Just watch him. The devil is in the details. Every microscopic detail. Please someone put a stop to the infernal creature. Make him stop. I like Tsitsipas. Always have. From the first time I saw him. He has been compared to a swashbuckler. He could be a matador. Plunging the sword squarely and precisely between the shoulder blades. Cut off the tail and sling it into the crowd at Roland Garros. Just do it.

[stroke]

Oddsmakers have Novak at a 75% implied probability of winning the match vs Stef. Nadal is at 86%.

[stroke]

As DB pointed out, Tsitsipas looked as good as I have ever seen him in defeating a very tough Rublev. He seized control of the match and just finished him. Rublev did not go away. He had 37 winners or so in 3 sets and less than half of that errors. Can't help but think he will need those kind of numbers again to beat Novak or Nadal.