Tennis 2024

[Jippy]

Was in Melbourne last week and could see the Aussie Open banners around.

Today's reminder of the perils of playing down under.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Samid]

Rafa playing AO?

 

[GuybrushThreepwood]

I'm interested to see how Naomi Osaka does this year.

Before her pregnancy, she was increasingly look de-motivated and the only tournaments that she seemed to care much about were the hard court grand slams and events held in Tokyo - it was like she wanted to play the bare minimum to maintain an active career, keep the endorsements rolling in etc.

Hopefully she'll come back motivated to least play in more events during the season, and also to try to improve on clay and grass. Clearly that would be wonderful for the sport given her huge star status.

On the men's side, I really hope Sinner can continue his recent rise and become a grand slam title contender.

 

[Nani Nana]

Breakthrough year for Sasha Zverev? You read it here first

 

[ExoduS]

Breakthrough year for Sasha Zverev? You read it here first

This should be Sinners year. Zverev is too mentally unstable and has a capacity for creating serious off court problems for himself. Tennis requires enormous mental stability to succeed.

 

[MattofManchester]

Nadal looks good. Thiem looks the best I've seen him since his comeback.

Rafa re-inspiring his comeback?

 

[MattofManchester]

Nadal looks good. Thiem looks the best I've seen him since his comeback.

Rafa re-inspiring his comeback?

Well, Thiem looked good until he lost the first set.

Complete mental collapse in the second. Safe to say that his issues post-injury are more mental than physical.

Nadal looks really good. Haven't seen movement, but his shotmaking is still top notch. If he stays fit, hard not to see him getting close at RG and the Olympics this year.

 

[saivet]

Nadal was pretty good and agree with @MattofManchester that there were promising signs for Thiem too (in the first set).

It will be interesting to see how Nadal does this week as I think it will be a good indicator of how he can do at the AO. My early impressions are that he would be a nightmare R1 or R2 draw for any of the seeded players at the AO.

Likely to be Kubler next round, so I think he should be looking for another straight sets win. Hoping he can make it to the SF and play Dimitrov or make the final and play against Korda, Rune or Shelton as I think that will give a better indication of where he is.

 

[Skills]

Djokovic seemingly has got a problem with his wrist. This might open the AO up

 

[saivet]

Djokovic seemingly has got a problem with his wrist. This might open the AO up

If serious wrist injuries may be the most difficult to deal with, so I think we'll know early on in the AO if this will hamper him significantly. I didn't see his match but I suspect 10 days rest will be long enough for him to be fine for the tournament.

 

[Skills]

If serious wrist injuries may be the most difficult to deal with, so I think we'll know early on in the AO if this will hamper him significantly. I didn't see his match but I suspect 10 days rest will be long enough for him to be fine for the tournament.

Yeah no doubt. It took Nadal out for most of 2016

 

[ExoduS]

Wrist injuries derailed Del Porto’s career and I think Thiems as well. There is no healing that sadly.

 

[saivet]

So far another very good opening set against Nadal. Jordan Thompson will be a more difficult test but I would expect Nadal to get past him if he plays at the level shown so far.

It will be interesting to see how he fairs against Dimitrov if they both make the SF. Dimitrov is a top 20 player, far and away at a higher level than anyone he will have played in a while. It's a lopside head to head in Nadal's favour but they've had some good matches in the past, so should be a good test if they play each other.

 

[Duafc]

So far another very good opening set against Nadal. Jordan Thompson will be a more difficult test but I would expect Nadal to get past him if he plays at the level shown so far.

It will be interesting to see how he fairs against Dimitrov if they both make the SF. Dimitrov is a top 20 player, far and away at a higher level than anyone he will have played in a while. It's a lopside head to head in Nadal's favour but they've had some good matches in the past, so should be a good test if they play each other.

Yeah thought he looked great, be interesting to see how he goes against better players and in successive tournaments but he is absolutely monstering the ball, BH also looking great. So hope he has a good year and would love to see a meaningful match against Alcaraz.

Also been impressed with Osaka & Radacanu - thought she especially looked surprisingly good vs Svitolina for 2 sets. Both I think should be pretty pleased with their play despite early exits.

 

[GuybrushThreepwood]

I also thought that Raducanu was pretty impressive during the first 2 sets against Svitolina.

Sure she has made mistakes during her career, notably regarding her choice of coaches. But I think she has received far too much criticism.

Her stunning US Open triumph came when she barely played any tour level matches (even in the past when 16-17 year olds have won grand slams in women’s tennis, they’ve played at least a full season on the tour). While she was 18 at the time, she had the tennis experience of a 16 year old, especially after taking time off from tennis to focus on her school studies (with her achieving excellent results there).

Even if she is a ‘flash in the pan’, that ‘flash’ during the summer of 2021 was absolutely incredible and historic.

 

[Ibi Dreams]

I like Raducanu but I've still never seen her actually win a match every time I see her play she loses

Came very close yesterday though against a strong player. Hope she can stay injury free, that's been just as much of a problem for her as anything else

 

[saivet]

Yeah thought he looked great, be interesting to see how he goes against better players and in successive tournaments but he is absolutely monstering the ball, BH also looking great. So hope he has a good year and would love to see a meaningful match against Alcaraz.

Also been impressed with Osaka & Radacanu - thought she especially looked surprisingly good vs Svitolina for 2 sets. Both I think should be pretty pleased with their play despite early exits.

Didn't see much of Raducanu but was impressed with Osaka too. It's probably draw dependent but I think she's a contender at the AO.

A much tougher test so far for Nadal today - currently a break down in the first set against Thompson who is playing vey well. Nadal has struggled to make an impact on return games so far.

 

[Brophs]

The Raducanu situation is interesting. For a long time there seemed to be an unspoken pact among the media and tennis types to leave her alone, particularly where the chopping and changing of coaches is concerned. But in the last few months that has started to slip a bit and there have been a few references to it in some articles and podcasts. The most damning comparison I heard was with Todd Boehly. The people around her - the most vocal being her parents by all accounts - believe that everyone else in tennis is doing it wrong, despite the fact their experience of the game is almost nil and better qualified people are telling them they’re wrong. They are of the view that you can learn everything a coach has to offer within a matter of months and then move on to mine information from the next coach. Which seems a spectacularly daft idea to me but then I’m not a US Open champion.

 

[Jev]

Really good final between Rune and Dimitrov in Brisbane. Very few errors and great quality on both sides of the net. Will be interesting to follow Dimitrov this season. There were good signs from him last year as well. I could see him being a top-8 player this year.

 

[Mickeza]

https://x.com/rafaelnadal/status/1743922671312867675?s=46&t=3cSPEXx54yOkvLX_Hq8XPw

Rafa out of the Australian. Small muscle tear.

 

[GuybrushThreepwood]

It's a shame that Nadal, after flying all the way down to Australia and also flying from Brisbane to Melbourne, has to pull out after yet getting injured so early on during his comeback.

Clearly though the priority for him this season was going to be remaining healthy enough to enter the big tournaments on clay, notably Roland Garros, the Olympics (at Roland Garros), and probably the tournaments in Spain as well (especially Barcelona which means more to him than Madrid). From a British perspective, I'd love to see him at Wimbledon one last time as well.

His body has taken an absolute pounding during his career, and whether it holds enough across best of 5 set matches and numerous tournaments still remains to be seen.

Other than the grand slams and a single lead up tournament before each of them, I always thought he should limit his activity on hard courts (which are rougher on the body than clay or grass) anyway. I saw that is next scheduled to be Dubai, when I thought that if he is fit enough to play at all during that period a South American clay court event surely would have been a better choice. And at this stage of his career, Indian Wells and Miami, which lead up to nothing, are a waste of time. I'd argue that they're a waste of time for Djokovic as well - he really wanted to play in those events last year, but couldn't as he wasn't allowed to enter the US at the time, which IMO benefited him and his title chances at Roland Garros (the 'enforced' break did him good).

 

[Nani Nana]

Breakthrough year for Sasha Zverev? You read it here first

Wins United Cup, called it

 

[tentan]

I hope Djokovic wins Olympic gold to complete the set.

 

[Jev]

Rublev just beat Seyboth Wild in a match tiebreak after a fantastic five-setter. Seyboth Wild came back from two sets down and saved four match points in his own serve at 5-6. His shot-making was insane at times. If you get the chance to watch his hold from 0-40 at 1-2 in the decider, take it.

 

[Avatar]

Rublev just beat Seyboth Wild in a match tiebreak after a fantastic five-setter. Seyboth Wild came back from two sets down and saved four match points in his own serve at 5-6. His shot-making was insane at times. If you get the chance to watch his hold from 0-40 at 1-2 in the decider, take it.

Was Rublev sub-par or Wild just impressive?

 

[Jev]

Was Rublev sub-par or Wild just impressive?

The latter. Rublev actually played very well, also did well to hold it together mentally when Seyboth Wild turned games around with impossible shots. Rublev also turned the match tiebreak around from two mini-breaks down.

 

[jojojo]

Well done to Prizmic for getting through that tiebreak. I'm not expecting Djokovic to drop many more games but that's quite a thing for an 18 year old.

 

[saivet]

Well done to Prizmic for getting through that tiebreak. I'm not expecting Djokovic to drop many more games but that's quite a thing for an 18 year old.

Yeah very impressive. Don't expect he can keep this up and even if he did, I think it would then catch up to him physically.

 

[Duafc]

Where are we watching this? Not working on prime on my phone for a reason I can’t seem to divine.

 

[saivet]

Where are we watching this? Not working on prime on my phone for a reason I can’t seem to divine.

It's on Eurosport or Discovery+

 

[RORY65]

Where are we watching this? Not working on prime on my phone for a reason I can’t seem to divine.

Prime don't have tennis anymore, the ATP and WTA have gone back to Sky, but the Australian Open has always been on Eurosport (Discovery+).

A long way to go still and I'd expect Djokovic to figure this out but Prizmic has been so impressive in this 3rd set, it would be understandable if his level had dipped and if this set had got away from him quite quickly.

 

[jojojo]

I'm watching on Eurosport1 on Sky.

Prizmic gets a break to go 3-2 up. He lost his opening service game this set but has broken twice now. A fair few errors from Djokovic but Prizmic is playing well to keep the pressure on.

 

[Duafc]

cheers! Discovery it is, shame re Amazon, always liked that set up.

 

[jojojo]

Reality being restored - Djokovic serving for the set now.

 

[Jev]

That’s a shame, thought Prizmic deserved that set. Huge respect to the kid. To go toe to toe with Djokovic in those baseline duels and stay patient really takes something. Kinda feel like Djokovic could still get in trouble again.

 

[Duafc]

Courts/Play seem so slow - thought it with the Sinner highlights too.

Really quite enjoying Kyrgios in commentary.

 

[Kevin]

That’s a shame, thought Prizmic deserved that set. Huge respect to the kid. To go toe to toe with Djokovic in those baseline duels and stay patient really takes something. Kinda feel like Djokovic could still get in trouble again.

Fourth set destruction.

 

[saivet]

Have to say, Kyrgios is a pretty good commentator. He's guilty of talking through points at times, but I've found him to be quite good.

 

[Jev]

Classy from Novak there at the end.

 

[Kevin]

Had he met Djokovic in any other tournament but a grand slam and he would have won. Obviously according to this result it would have been 2-1 in sets for novak but we all know the difference in mindset of these goat players who are at a point where they have nothing else to play for but grand slams.