Australian Open 2018

Gwynplaine

Well done Roger. A true gent and a great champion.

As regards the "big 4". In my opinion it's the "big 3". How does Murray with 3 slams fit into the "big 4" bracket? He consistently comes up short. Why isn't it the "big 5"? Stan has 3 slams too.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Well done Roger. A true gent and a great champion.

As regards the "big 4". In my opinion it's the "big 3". How does Murray with 3 slams fit into the "big 4" bracket? He consistently comes up short. Why isn't it the "big 5"? Stan has 3 slams too.

Djokovic has done well but I'd put Nadal and Federer at the very top. Djokovic is on his own at 3 and then everyone else is pretty far below. Murray deserves credit because he has been in the mix for Slam finals more than the likes of Stan, Cilic etc.

yerwanthere123

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Well done Roger. A true gent and a great champion.

As regards the "big 4". In my opinion it's the "big 3". How does Murray with 3 slams fit into the "big 4" bracket? He consistently comes up short. Why isn't it the "big 5"? Stan has 3 slams too.

This has been explained many times. Murray's consistency over the years has been far greater than Wawrinka's ever has been, or will be. Murray has 45 title to Wawrinka's 16. Wawrinka's h2h against the big 3 is 11-57, Murray's is 29-56, so he's been able to run them a lot closer over the years. He's also reached 11 grand slam finals to Wawrinka's 3. Andy has for the majority of their respective careers been streets ahead of Wawrinka, and indeed most of the rest of the field.

jr86

Is there some kind of quota every slam every year of things to discuss?

Equal pay, best of 3 v best of 5, speed of courts, Federer v nadal, and now the "is it really a big 4" is getting it's annual run out!

WickIow Brave

no.8 wrote: »

P.s. Not sure what the poster meant about giving adv. To Cilic opening the roof. It's not exactly cold in the summer where Rodger grew up
Congrats to Cilic as well. Impressive

The Australian Open is an outdoor tournament. The rules are that the roof only closes if it is above a certain temperature which was never reached in Melbourne today. The roof was open during the women's final and the temperature was actually higher that day. Federer knew the roof would be closed and warmed up indoors, Cilic did not know and warmed up outdoors. Also, Fed is a better indoors player than Cilic and as he's like 8 years older the heat because of the open roof would impact him more. Why was the roof open for the women's final and closed for the men's? Where's the consistency? It was done for the benefit of Federer and that's deeply unfair. Basically one player is bigger than the sport.

yerwanthere123

Also deserves to be mentioned that Simona Halep was hospitalised for four hours yesterday after the final due to the heat.

mickmackey1

WickIow Brave wrote: »

The Australian Open is an outdoor tournament. The rules are that the roof only closes if it is above a certain temperature which was never reached in Melbourne today. The roof was open during the women's final and the temperature was actually higher that day. Federer knew the roof would be closed and warmed up indoors, Cilic did not know and warmed up outdoors. Also, Fed is a better indoors player than Cilic and as he's like 8 years older the heat because of the open roof would impact him more. Why was the roof open for the women's final and closed for the men's? Where's the consistency? It was done for the benefit of Federer and that's deeply unfair. Basically one player is bigger than the sport.

Jaysus... the roof would also have been closed if it was raining :rolleyes::rolleyes: This 'controversy' has to be the most threadbare excuse dreamed up by Fedophobes over the years... the combined temps/humidity was 5 degrees higher today but shur don't lets facts get in the way of a good rant.

Disappointed that Cilic waffled on about it at the press conf... maybe without blisters or roofs he wouldn't have lost 9 times to Fed :pac:

walshb

Why does RF have to go ruin these moments with his sissy ass crying like a six year old schoolgirl?

WickIow Brave

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Jaysus... the roof would also have been closed if it was raining :rolleyes::rolleyes: This 'controversy' has to be the most threadbare excuse dreamed up by Fedophobes over the years... the combined temps/humidity was 5 degrees higher today but shur don't lets facts get in the way of a good rant.

Disappointed that Cilic waffled on about it at the press conf... maybe without blisters or roofs he wouldn't have lost 9 times to Fed :pac:

Like I said earlier, if Cilic is relying on extreme heat to beat Federer then he doesn't deserve to be winning anything so I'm personally not bothered in that respect. Take nothing away from Federer. The issue is the lack of consistency, nothing to do with 'Fedophobia' at all. The fawning Fed sycophants are a bigger issue, it's like a cult. I can sort of tolerate them giving him night matches on Laver all the time, he's earned it tbf, but they were taking the p!ss this time.

justback83

glasso wrote: »

no.

Fed only cares about 3 slams these days - 6 weeks of the year he really prepares for.

could go on for another few years.

he's just so professional and loves winning GS's and isn't bored of it.

20 in the men's game is some number.

What are you talking about?!! He won 7 tournaments last year, 2 of those were back to back in Indian Wells and Miami!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

WickIow Brave wrote: »

Like I said earlier, if Cilic is relying on extreme heat to beat Federer then he doesn't deserve to be winning anything so I'm personally not bothered in that respect. Take nothing away from Federer. The issue is the lack of consistency, nothing to do with 'Fedophobia' at all. The fawning Fed sycophants are a bigger issue, it's like a cult. I can sort of tolerate them giving him night matches on Laver all the time, he's earned it tbf, but they were taking the p!ss this time.

They give him the night matches on RL because he's still the biggest draw in tennis. They schedule matches for TV, not for the benefit of players.

Alf Veedersane

walshb wrote: »

Why does RF have to go ruin these moments with his sissy ass crying like a six year old schoolgirl?

The irony. That's something a six year old schoolgirl would say.

walshb

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The irony. That's something a six year old schoolgirl would say.

And she’d be spot on!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The irony. That's something a six year old schoolgirl would say.

It's like something a six year old school boy would say.

walshb

FFS, guys, or gals....it’s something a 6 year old gender neutral would say.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Anyway.... lots of positives on the women's side of that tournament. Kerber looks like she's back, Wozniacki and Halep playing like that all year would be great. Couple of younger players like Osaka and Davies really put it up to Halep too. Kostyuk had a decent run and she's only 15.

The men's side wasn't as exciting but there were one or two bright spots. Hopefully Hyun Chung can continue the form he had these past two weeks. Likewise Kyrgios appeared to be playing his best, though that can change week to week.

Pero_Bueno

glasso wrote: »

totally unforeseen fall-off in quality in men's tennis in terms of the incumbent top 5 (Djko, Murray, Stan) and failure of the younger generation to be able to contend properly at the 2-week 5-set grand slam format (Zverev, Krgios, Dimitriov etc) has allowed Fed back in to take 3 slams after it looked like he was done as his last slam was 2012 before last years AO.
Absolutely nobody would have predicted Fed and Nadal sharing the slams at 2 each in 2017 at the start of last year.

what were these banned posts about anyways? the only interesting thing about the thread.

I was reading through - seemed a bit of a car crash allright.
But as mentioned, fair enough remove all the political nonsense about
Tennys Tenner Tsandgren - and the cheap shots about Anna and the kids,
but some posts were flat out deleted that made great points about the ATP in general and the lack of new talent.
And it was evident in this years AO so it wasn't off topic.

Of course, maybe these posters were re regs and the account was just wiped - along with all posts ?

dunno, either way maybe the next gen deserve their own thread :P

jr86

I don't think NK got going here at all, wouldn't say he was near his best

Second best on most of the stats to Tsonga and beaten with a degree of comfort by a mediocre dimitrov

As for cilic - if he was complaining about the roof well at least he gave it all and left it all on the court today. His wimbledon final performance was an embarrassment

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

I was reading through - seemed a bit of a car crash allright.
But as mentioned, fair enough remove all the political nonsense about
Tennys Tenner Tsandgren - and the cheap shots about Anna and the kids,
but some posts were flat out deleted that made great points about the ATP in general and the lack of new talent.
And it was evident in this years AO so it wasn't off topic.

Of course, maybe these posters were re regs and the account was just wiped - along with all posts ?

dunno, either way maybe the next gen deserve their own thread :P

I deleted one post last night that was from a poster banned by other mods for being a "spambot". It was mainly a pile of quotes from last week and the bit they did post started with attacking another poster.
I deleted 3 posts this morning that were nonsense about Federer and his family. That's it.

EDIT: I had a look back through there and there are some posts that were deleted by other higher up Mods from a re-reg account.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

jr86 wrote: »

I don't think NK got going here at all, wouldn't say he was near his best

Second best on most of the stats to Tsonga and beaten with a degree of comfort by a mediocre dimitrov

When I say at his best I mean like actually making an effort as opposed to tanking it after a set or two. Mentally he seems to be in a better place than he has been for a while. To be fair Dimitrov is currently ranked #3 in the world and Tsonga is ranked above him also.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

JUST TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP HERE. HAVING GONE THROUGH THE ENTIRE THREAD I REALISE THAT THERE WAS SOME CONFUSION EARLIER AS TO WHICH POSTS WERE BEING DISCUSSED AND THIS LEAD TO TWO POSTERS RECEIVING WARNINGS AND ONE POSTER SUBSEQUENTLY BEING BANNED. I WAS NOT AWARE OF A SERIES OF POSTS THAT WERE DELETED BY MORE SENIOR MODS, POSTS WHICH WERE ON TOPIC. THIS LED TO THE CONFUSION WITH THE TWO POSTERS WHO WERE INSISTING I HAD DELETED ON TOPIC POSTS. I HAD ONLY DELETED THEIR VERY MUCH OFF TOPIC POSTS EARLIER THIS MORNING. LONG STORY SHORT, I HAVE UNBANNED THE POSTER IN QUESTION.

Rob2D

Ardillaun

I hope Djokovic can recover his old form. It looked like he was going to eclipse even Federer for a while there and now he's way off, struggling to recover from injury.

It only struck me when they were talking about Sandgren's forename that it's the same as Tennyson.

Hector Savage

^^ I think Djokovic should have used those 6 months off to get surgery on his elbow.
I don't think it will get better otherwise - a pity I hope he can come back to full form, a peak 2011/2015 Djokovic would have been a
sterner test for Federer yesterday - having said that Cilic did well.

Anyway, I never thought I'd say this but this year I enjoyed the ladies tennis a lot more, really competitive rounds in there and delighted to see Wozniacki finally win a slam.

Felt bad for Halep , she is in a similar situation and also deserves a slam.

walshb

A 2011/2015 Nole would have been too strong for Fed yesterday. No doubt..

TomSweeney

Just listening to RTE Sean O Rourke
Embarassing.

So Federer won his 6th grand slam, and a few years back was in tears after losing to Andy Murray(!) in a wimbledon final - embarrasing really!
This is the national broadcaster and in this information age there is no excuse to get such easy facts to check wrong !!!

Terrible journalism.

Joe_ Public

TomSweeney wrote: »

Just listening to RTE Sean O Rourke
Embarassing.

So Federer won his 6th grand slam, and a few years back was in tears after losing to Andy Murray(!) in a wimbledon final - embarrasing really!
This is the national broadcaster and in this information age there is no excuse to get such easy facts to check wrong !!!

Terrible journalism.

Was only half listening to be honest but think the 6 was referring to his Australian wins which would be correct on that front at least.

TomSweeney

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Was only half listening to be honest but think the 6 was referring to his Australian wins which would be correct on that front at least.

Yes but still she said 6th Grand Slam , and the other guy was making it sound like he struggled in the 5th set .... 6-1 ...

no.8

mickmackey1 wrote:

The simple facts? Federer 86 hard court titles, Nadal 23. If that fact is not simple enough for you then you're beyond help.

Here here

ballyargus

While we're at it Davydenko had Nadal in his back pocket on *hardcourt* H2H. Davydenko post-peak too :pac: