Tennis Forever

[JamesDap]

Exactly. Some of the smaller courts are still quite gritty and grinding but in Ashe it seems to be zipping away. As fast as at any time from 2001 onwards.

[raagadevan]

Stan managed to drop a set against Belluci. Wow-rinka indeed! Seeds tumbling as usual in the women's draw. Pliskova served quite well to help Ivanovic choke herself to defeat. Radwanska lost to veteran Shuai Peng yesterday. Court is playing pretty fast this year, expect more upsets along the way.

^ True..Arthur Ashe especially...Supposed to be the slowest of all courts there, but seemingly the fastest this time around.

Exactly. Some of the smaller courts are still quite gritty and grinding but in Ashe it seems to be zipping away. As fast as at any time from 2001 onwards.

I am sure that "You Know Who" and Uncle Toni (Antonio "Toni" Nadal Homar) have to be (somehow) responsible for that

Hey guys... I'm just joking!

[JamesDap]

Eh, maybe, on a serious note, the Grand Slam organisers did get fed up of their incessant whining and the lack of decency to even just serve within 25 seconds and not crib if the umpire docked him points for time violation. Because all three, Aus, Wimb and US Open have played faster this year than in quite some time. That has also been the case with Brisbane and Toronto. I called Brisbane on this thread at that time itself, if you recall. Maybe they decided it's time for a change, again.

Kyrgios won easily against Seppi. Faces a potentially tricky match against Robredo. Still, if he keeps his head together and serves well, he should probably win. I hope he will. Verdasco falls to another promising youngster Kuznetsov.

[raagadevan]

Continuing "on a serious note", there is more than enough evidence that the "the Grand Slam organisers" have been scheming, manipulating and fixing schedules and matches so that the "popular with the crowd hero" will keep winning more tournaments (eg. Ferrer losing to Federer in the third set (2-6) of the finals at the Cincinnati Open after drubbing him 6-1 in the second set) and make "our" guy the GOAT (and of course sell more tickets for the tournaments)!

[JamesDap]

I think the Ferrer case has more to do with Fed's own wild swings of rhythm because otherwise he is flat out the better player and has never lost to Ferrer ever. But on the larger point it's true that organisers do try to align draws and schedules in such a way that unduly favours the crowd favourites. Even yesterday morning, they put Azarenka-McHale on Ashe because McHale can pull local crowds. Whereas Nishikori and Andujar were put on the Grandstand and they were playing a much more entertaining match. As it happened, Andujar withdrew 2 sets down but this kind of thing has been happening for a long time and as their TV revenues increase, is getting worse. As I said in my last comment on this topic, the viewers also have to take some of the blame for this. They are lazy, they want to see stars all the time, they are not necessarily interested in just good tennis. I wonder how RG would have been marketed in the 90s if such had been the mentality at that time because it was completely unpredictable. I thought the unpredictability adds charm to events like the Slams or the Football World Cup but I wonder if a lot of people don't think like that anymore.

[raagadevan]

Sure! We will ignore the allegations of ATP fixing the outcomes of Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympics (tennis) finals in favor of a player (not "you know who!), and we sure will believe that a certain old player's sudden resurrection into winning Masters 1000 and possibly more Grand Slam events is just the result of that player being the GOAT!

[JamesDap]

I am not ignoring them. I only said in this particular case I am not very much convinced and you will have to live with that. Please, he just beat Ferrer, Raonic and the likes, not Djokovic or Nadal (THAT would have merited some serious attention). It is not comparable to his 2012 Cincy when he bageled Djoko in the first set in the final.

I do find the cries of Federer the favourite for US Open suspicious because while he has found a second wind, it is not so overwhelming as to conclude that a player who lost to effing Robredo last time would suddenly become the hot favourite. My favourite for the tournament is still Djokovic, it's only a matter of whether he gets to the final or not. Either the commentators are being very fanboy-ish or this is an attempt to build up hype. It is well known that the US audience cares more about Fed and not so much the rest (in his absence), except maybe Nadal (who is also not playing). So claims of a Fed revival would get crowds back to the tournament. Overall, it is not a good prognosis for tennis. I think people should be more excited about the rise of Kyrgios than an 18th slam for a player who already has the record.

[JamesDap]

And out of curiosity, what evidence exactly do you have which you claim is more than enough to PROVE that Cincy was fixed? Pl share it if there are any links, would like to read. You are talking about it as if it's all out there and it isn't.

[JamesDap]

Whatever I have said about Nadal is in the papers. I don't have to reach too far to back it up. It was he who said he hated Sampras's brand of tennis and called it boring. So much for respect for a past champion and all time great. Seeing as it was 2012, probably his pastings at the hands of power hitters at Wimby since then might be Karmic retribution for his hubris. It is he who has often painted hard courts as enemy no. 1 of tennis just because it possibly hurts his knees, arguing for fewer tournaments when faster courts and shorter matches would suffice to reduce the extent of physicality in tennis. It was his uncle Toni who decried the reports of Aus Open playing faster (even before the tournament was even a few days old, maybe even before it started, I don't remember the exact timing) as it would deny the spectacle of long rallies. It is not too much to conclude that for a time ATP may have slowed down the courts to give Nadal a leg up on the traditionally faster surfaces because they like match ups and rivalries. We HAVE seen the courts slow down and we have seen some of them play faster again. It's not made up stuff. Basically he and his uncle can't seem to be able to keep their big mouths sewed lately (used to be that they were more subtle and less forthright about it for a long time).

On the other hand, if you want to say a sudden dip in form and a rebound is due to fixing and not something that just happens in tennis matches, you have to substantiate it. I am all ears if you can show some indications for it. Did you see Ferrer miss absolutely routine shots for no reason at all in the third set? Anything that or more blatant? I have seen that kind of stuff in cricket, that I can say for sure. It has to be a bit deeper than only circumstantial indications. I know that Fed winning Cincinnati is what the ATP wants to see and I wouldn't rule out rigging even if I am not personally convinced based on what I saw. But if you are going to argue that it was rigging beyond all doubt, then I need more than that to agree with you.

[Arvind Srinivasan]

I for one will not rule out the possibility of the draws being rigged to get favorable matches for the who's who of tennis. But just that and not any further. After that its left entirely to the players to get the win IMHO. Going by your logic RR, am sure the organisers would have wanted a Federer win at Toronto. Wonder why that didnt happen. Was Federer's play that day so horrible he couldnt even force a rigged win ?