That was poor from Rublev in fairness. Third set, break down. This could be over quickly.
Tennis 2023
- Thread starter GuybrushThreepwood
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Rublev poor. But also not a problem solver. But this has been the case with him every time.
Trying to crack winners off the return, but missing most of the returns.
You have a potentially injured opponent. Draw out the match and make him play.
Just feels like Rublev is doing everything that's perfect for Djokovic's state and style to fly through the match.
Same with Tsitsipas. AO is already over, technically. We know who the winner is. Will be a procession from here.
Trying to crack winners off the return, but missing most of the returns.
You have a potentially injured opponent. Draw out the match and make him play.
Just feels like Rublev is doing everything that's perfect for Djokovic's state and style to fly through the match.
Same with Tsitsipas. AO is already over, technically. We know who the winner is. Will be a procession from here.
Well, if Rublev was like this I guess Paul is going to get battered.
Djokovic is playing ridiculous tennis right now. Competition is underwhelming but Novak isn't giving them any hope.
Tsisipas is the only hope left to beat Djokovic. He'll have to serve brilliantly and have his forehand and backhand on point to do it though. Basically play the best match of his career so far. Medvedev and Thiem have done it before and so can he. Unlikely though.
Obviously 3 titles in New York is still a hugely impressive record, but the difference between Djokovic at the Australian Open compared to the US Open has always been interesting to me. With his hard court ability, the fact that he has won fewer US Open titles than Nadal just looks strange. At the 2021 US Open, he did go into the final against Medvedev after a difficult semi-final win against Zverev, and facing more pressure in an individual match than any male player has ever faced (with him being the only male player that has been so close to winning the calendar grand slam in the internet age let alone the social media age).
I remember reading summaries from pundits at the time about how Borg during his career seemed to be equally lucky at Wimbledon and unlucky at the US Open, and that he could easily have ended up with 3 Wimbledon and 2 US Open titles instead of 5 Wimbledon and 0 US Open titles. Maybe it's similar for Djokovic (though at least he has his multiple US Open titles), and simply a case of things often landing in his favour in Melbourne, but landing against him in New York.
I remember reading summaries from pundits at the time about how Borg during his career seemed to be equally lucky at Wimbledon and unlucky at the US Open, and that he could easily have ended up with 3 Wimbledon and 2 US Open titles instead of 5 Wimbledon and 0 US Open titles. Maybe it's similar for Djokovic (though at least he has his multiple US Open titles), and simply a case of things often landing in his favour in Melbourne, but landing against him in New York.
I just don't think he has the tools or variety to be able to mix things up. He's about as one dimensional as it gets.
Tsitsipas is much more rounded player and can change things up but think he has too many obvious weaknesses that will naturally get exposed by Djokovic.
He will have the biggesr chance but not a big one if he makes the final.
My theory why Novak is poor at USO vs AO is time of the final. USO final starts at 4pm while AO final starts at 7:30pm. Local time obviously. Novak has made same number of USO finals as AO finals but lost 6 USO finals while not lossing AO final or semi final. Night matches are Djokovic's bread and butter.
Conditions at USO can be heavy: humid and hot. Djokovic hates it.
Also court speed and bounce work in his favor at AO. Ball bounce is lower than USO this he is hitting from a sweet spot.
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No surprises there, send them back to their beloved Putinistan, watch how excited they’ll be then. While Serbia is just mini russia for the most part, they love a bit of the nazism.
Good points. Yes even though they are both hard court slams, there are some noticeable differences as you pointed out. The timing of the 2 slams would also play a major factor. The Australian Open is isolated from the other 3 slams, and is the only to be held during an 8 month stretch.
Agassi, when he he became re-committed to tennis from the late 90s, trained incredibly hard during the off-season including on Christmas day, and that paid dividends at Melbourne from 2000-2003. On the flipside I remember reading that Kuerten, who had a disastrous record at the Australian Open relative to his ability on hard courts (probably the single biggest example of a player underachieving at an individual slam), like to unwind and party during the off-season.
Ultimately I tend to think of Djokovic's Wimbledon titles as being his most significant ones in terms of his career trajectory. In 2011 his SF win against Tsonga ensured that he'd become world no. 1 for the first time, and then his win over Nadal in the final (his first win over him in a slam) saw him win the tournament that he dreamed about winning the most growing him and prove that he was truly the best in the world. His win over Federer in the 2014 final was crucial as he had repeatedly come up short in grand slam finals and semi-finals during the previous 2 and a half years. His 2018 win including the big SF win against Nadal marked his comeback after a 2 year decline / slump. And his 2019 win (in those crazy circumstances in the final) was when I personally thought that he'd probably end up as greater than both Federer and Nadal.
They sure dont help Novak with his popularity. Not to mention his dad took a photo with a Putin flag too. And Novak with fans with chetnik symbols, but maybe they unhurled the flag a second before he took a selfie with them..
Almost for sure, I mean if you had to pick someone ont he tour that wasn't Russian who supported Putin and the war in Ukraine, you wouldn't pick Djoko or pops surely.
White bite
Looking forward to this women's semi. Rybakina vs Azarenka
Laura Robson is so fineeeee 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/64409618
Its possible but less likely than the simpler explanation.
Don't think there's many idiots bigger than big dad Djokovic.
Unfortunately, he had a son who happened to be a heavily influential figure as one of the best tennis players in the world.
Naturally, I imagine Novak shares all the idiotic beliefs of his moronic father.
It really isn't helping his case, that alongside this, Novak took a pro-nationalist stance against Kosovo, has been spotted with someone accused of committing atrocities in the past on more than one occasion.
Djokovic the tennis player may be one thing, but off court, it's unfortunate that he is probably as delusional and irrational as his father.
Unfortunately, he had a son who happened to be a heavily influential figure as one of the best tennis players in the world.
Naturally, I imagine Novak shares all the idiotic beliefs of his moronic father.
It really isn't helping his case, that alongside this, Novak took a pro-nationalist stance against Kosovo, has been spotted with someone accused of committing atrocities in the past on more than one occasion.
Djokovic the tennis player may be one thing, but off court, it's unfortunate that he is probably as delusional and irrational as his father.
It was a tongue in cheek. He's all about I dont care about stuff like that but its not the first time he took a picture with fans who had problematic flags.
I dont know where's Goran Ivanišević in this and does he have a problem with Novak's and especially Novak's dad stance on some things.
Only thing Novak's dad was supposed to do is go to Australia and cheer for Novak. That is it. He couldn't help himself and had to cause a situation which can derail Novak from playing best tennis of his life or very close to it.
Everybody knows that Novak is not exactly a good person outside the courts.
Not only he is the best PR for anti-vaxxers, he also has as some of his friends who are part of far right serbian militias and he is even friend of former war criminals. His visit to Bosnia a couple of years ago did not go well and he even needed personal protection due to him bring associated to these kind of militias.
Total bs. Djokovic is highly liked in all ex Yugoslavian republics. Not everyone likes him for sure, but one of most liked athletes in the Balkans.
Awkward, embarrassing or even criminal parents (fathers, mostly) are such a given in tennis, yet Djokovic Sr. is just a big idiot.
This match might be long. 4-5 hours. Early take but it looks they have hard time hitting winners.
Titsy after breaking Khachanov is making it hard on himself.
Edit; that was in the 1st set.
Edit; that was in the 1st set.
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Titsy celebrating a bit too early. Karen saves a match point and wins the third set. We got a match now.
Feck’s sake, I was getting ready to go back to bed for a couple of hours before the next match.
Stef does his job. Glad he's made the final, only one left who could....but probably won't challenge Novak.
confident service game from T. Paul.
fecking hell Paul is struggling here.
He's highly liked all over the world as a GOAT of tennis, but after he shown his true political colours by being friend of ex-militaries who did some terrible things at Bosnia during the war, he won some hatred there.
Look, I like him a lot as a tennis player, he's probably the best tennis player ever to set foot on this planet IMHO and is one of the players I feel excited to see a match when he's playing, but I know he is the official unofficial PR of a lot of negative things (anti-vaxxers movement, Alt right paramilitary movements, etc).
I can separate both things. I can perfectly ear Richard Strauss works without caring about his political views.
Paul showing a good fighting spirit to be honest. I was expecting a battering, but he's proving me wrong.
Deceiving result, but show how Tennis is in its essence a sport who highly rewards consistency. Novak is ahead of the game fair and square, but the match is being more "balanced" than the result is showing.
Novak serving for the set. I think he will close it now for 1-0. But Paul is doing a very solid match. If he somehow manages to improve from what he's showing he will be doing a very good season.
Good on TP
Paul breaks and suddenly we are back on serve in the first set. Djokovic playing terrible. 20 unforced errors already.
Did I jinxed it?
Switched off at 5-1 to focus on work and just checked the score. I didn't think Djokovic was playing particularly well and Paul was doing okay and thought the AO app was playing up as I hadn't seen a first set notification.
Such an anticlimax. Ateast get a tiebreak.
what a way to ruin it all. he'll win 4 points total after this.
It was not sustainable to win so much games in a row, even though Paul did an immense 1st set.