He’s earned the right to be arrogant, I suppose, but I still bristle at his comments. I’m not the only one who thinks this, as a lot of my friends think he’s really smug.
I don’t know. I didn’t hear an interview with him.
I did see Li Na break down in tears at the post-match interview. Poor thing.
I guess it’s really hard to read a book by its cover, but I’ve always been bristled by Djok’s more in-your-face kind of arrogance. I’m sure all these guys are insanely competitive people. Djok seems to wear it on his sleeve, while I guess Federer might be more smug. I bristle most at the faces and fist pumps that Djok makes during a match. It’s only more aggravating now that he seems unbeatable.
The “reading between the lines” comments that I hear of suggest that all of the top four people at the moment are actually pretty good guys. As someone has said, they are insanely competitive but when you consider some of the on and off court antics that other top sportsmen get up to…well, you just don’t hear anything similar with Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and Murray.
I can forgive Djokovic his aggression, Nadal his petulance, Federer his smugness and Murray his dourness as none of them seem to have those traits to a destructive or overbearing degree.
And let us all agree, the tennis we see in the men’s game is fantastic, we are so lucky to exist as spectators in this era.
Me neither.
Oh, I thought you meant Tomic sounded arrogant.
Poor Li Na.
Lleyton Hewitt is serving for the 3rd set against Djokovic. He is, of course, down the first two sets already.
Not to go on about this, but can Berdych be fined for this kind of thing? Is shaking hands “required” in any way?
Hewitt wins the third set.
I’m watching the Australian feed here at work(can’t get ESPN3 to work). Dude, the Australian announcers are not very good. They were convinced, wrongly, that Djokovic “gave” Hewitt a game in the third set. In no way did it look like that. And then, he lost the set!
Who are the Australian announcers? Anyone know?
The Australian feed in Australia didn’t have announcers suggesting that. We had Jim Courier, Todd Woodbridge, and someone else.
Ah. I shouldn’t have assumed. I was listening to a feed that was very pro-Hewitt and had Australian-sounding announcers. No idea, though.
It was definitely not Jim Courier, though. I would recognize his voice,
And Serena is out: Makarova dumped her in straight sets. She didn’t look right out there. Her movement wasn’t great, but Marakova was also looking very strong and she didn’t seem to be feeling the pressure.
In maybe the biggest upset of the tournament so far - depending on how you feel about Stosur - Nishikori beat Tsonga in five sets. He’s the highest men’s seed to lose so far, and Nishikori is the first Japanese man to reach a major quarterfinal in 16 years. He’s already the highest ranked men’s player to ever come out of Japan. He missed this tournament last year, so he might get into the top 20 based on this performance. The quarterfinals look like this:
Novak Djokovic SRB (1) vs. David Ferrer ESP (5)
Andy Murray GBR (4) vs. Kei Nishikori JPN (24)
Juan Martin Del Potro ARG (11) vs. Roger Federer SUI (3)
Tomas Berdych CZE (7) vs. Rafael Nadal ESP (2)
Nishikori and Murray might get interesting because they’re both grinders, but obviously the most interesting match there is Del Potro and Federer recreating the 2009 U.S. Open final.
The top four women also made the quarterfinals, but so did two unseeded players:
Caroline Wozniacki DEN (1) vs. Kim Clijsters BEL (11)
Victoria Azarenka BLR (3) vs. Agnieszka Radwanska POL (8)
Ekaterina Makarova RUS vs. Maria Sharapova RUS (4)
Sara Errani ITA vs. Petra Kvitova CZE (2)
Since the women’s rankings are sort of a perpetual controversy, I’ll mention this in case people didn’t know: coming into this tournament the top six women all had a chance to get to #1. Na and Stosur are already out of the running, obviously, and whatever happens will depend on how Wozniacki does. I think Kvitova is close enough to get to #1 if she wins no matter what else happens, and since she also won Wimbledon I think most people would agree she’d deserve it.
Is Del Potro back to his 2009 form? I thought he was going to join Novak, Roger, and Rafa at the top back then…before his injuries. If he is in top form, he can win.
I haven’t seen too many of his matches, but aside from a hiccup in the first set of his first matches, it looks like he’s been kicking butt. He was #11 in the world coming in, so it looks like he’s most of the way back at least.
Pretty good final set in the Clijsters-Woz match. I was really hoping for a 3rd set.
Great win for Ducky Clijsters. Wozniacki hung tough in that second set, but it wasn’t enough. Wozniacki covers the court better than Clijsters - although not by a ton - and I could see she was trying to be more aggressive in places. Maybe that will pay off as she gets more comfortable taking it to her opponents. But in this match it wasn’t enough. I don’t know if she needs to get stronger, change her grip, her racquet, or something else. Clijsters was just better at changing the direction of the ball and forcing Wozniacki back on her heels.
Clijsters’ win also means Wozniacki will definitely lose the #1 ranking. Kvitova, Azarenka and Sharapova are all in the running. (I was wrong Na having a shot at it - it was Radwanska, who is now out of the tournament and won’t be #1 anyway.)
Federer and Del Potro are playing a competitive match. Federer was up 3-0 in the first and almost got to 4-0, but ultimately lost the lead before breaking Del Potro’s serve in the last game to win the set 6-4. Federer is up a break in the second set now.
Incredible show by Federer. Those first three games were God-like. And I don’t feel like Potro played badly at all. I just hope that if he meets Djok he isn’t embarrassed because I’m beginning to worry that Djok is a cyborg sent from the future to prevent any human from ever winning a grand slam again.
That was a great match by Federer. I agree Del Potro didn’t look bad - he just didn’t have answers.
He has to get through Nadal first, and lest we forget, Djokovoc didn’t do anything last year that Federer didn’t do in several other seasons, and Nadal won three majors in 2010 himself.
The only person on the planet that seems to fluster Djokovic these days is Federer. So I’m hoping for a Djokovic/Federer final, even though it runs contrary to my earlier assessment that Fed wouldn’t be in the running for a title any more. Frankly, I’d love to see it. I’d love to see Federer break Djokovic’s crazy good streak, but my brain says Djokovic is still mentally in the zone and Fed doesn’t have a prayer.
If, however, Nadal makes it through (and he probably will because he can derail Federer’s game plan, in part because of Federer’s man-crush on Nadal), Nadal won’t win unless he changes up his simplistic strategy to dictate play from the baseline. Hint: It doesn’t work against Djokovic. I’d love to see Nadal adjust his game plan, JUST ONCE, and see how it goes. Every time he hits one of those great angles that gets his opponent off balance, I nearly give myself a coronary shouting at him to MOVE IN and take the ball early, but so far he hasn’t listened to me. If he’d do that, he’d be unbeatable. Sigh. He won’t be the first pro who’s not heeded my advice, at his own peril.
Shocked that Tsonga is out. Didn’t see any of the match, but I wish Nishikori well. He seems like a lovely chap.
Surprised that Clijsters could play, let alone beat Wozniacki, with that sprained ankle. I have an achy Achilles and it’s difficult for me to play two days in a row. Can’t imagine doing that with a sprained ankle.
Aside from her occasional mental walkabouts, Sharapova is looking sharp. Didn’t see the Kvitova match, but she’s playing really well, too. It’s difficult for me to assess Azarenka because I cannot get past the shriek owl imitation. It goes right up my spinal cord.
I don’t think Djokovic will have much trouble with Ferrer tonight. I’m curious to see what happens between Nishikori and Murray. Murray has the big edge in experience, but they seem to play a similar game.
Huh? They’re relatively friendly off the court, but I don’t think they make less of an effort on the court because of it. I admit Federer doesn’t seem to like Djokovic and that may fire him up a bit. I wonder how much it will help Federer in the semis (if at all) that he’s had some more rest than Nadal, and then there’s the question of Nadal’s knee.
The problem is that it’s very hard to make this work against Djokovic (or Nadal, for that matter). His court coverage is exceptional, he makes it difficult for you to get in good position, and if you approach on a shot that’s less than great, he is probably going to blow it past you. There are places Nadal can be more aggressive against Djokovic, but it’s not that easy. It would also help him if he were serving as well as he did in 2010.