That’s not what Johnny Mac said. He said that the federation has the ability to make judgment calls and change the seeding.
The draws are out, any surprises?
I’ll read up some more, but I thought it was based on that formula.
Federer and Nadal could meet in the quarters. That really doesn’t feel right. The winner could get Murray or Tsonga. The top half of the draw has Djokovic and Ferrer, although Ferrer could get Raonic in (I think) the fourth round.
Some interesting early matchups: Ryan Harrison vs. Jeremy Chardy, Hewitt vs. Wawrinka and Cilic vs. Baghdatis in the first round, Tomic vs. Querrey with the winner possibly getting James Blake, Tsonga vs. Gulbis in the second, a possible Dimitrov-del Potro match in the third round, Isner vs. Nadal in the fourth. Lukas Rosol made the draw and he could play Federer in the third. Murray could get Mahut in the third round if Mahut can get by Tommy Robredo.
On the women’s side, Serena Williams.
OK, some matchups. Lisicki vs. Schiavone and Robson (UK) vs. Kirilenko in the first round, and an interesting one between two young players: Heather Watson (UK) and Madison Keys (US). Sloane Stephens plays Jamie Hampton (US) in the first round, could get Petkovic in the second, and might eventually play Wozniacki in the third. If you can picture her winning that, which could happen, she could get Errani in the fourth. All Stephens and those others are in Sharapova’s quarter.
You are correct. TPTB can fiddle with the women’s seeding, but not the men’s. From Wimbledon.com:
MEN
The seeds are the top 32 players on the ATP Entry System Position (ESP), BUT then rearranged on a surface-based system. Since 2002 a seeding committee has not been required for the Gentlemen’s Singles following an agreement made with the ATP. The seeding order is determined using an objective and transparent system to reflect more accurately an individual player’s grass court achievements: The formula is:
•· Take ESP points at 17 June 2013
•· Add 100% points earned for all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months
•· Add 75% points earned for the best grass court tournament in the 12 months before that.
LADIES
The seeding order follows the WTA ranking list, except where in the opinion of the committee, a change is necessary to produce a balanced draw. There are no changes this year.
So, I wonder what John McEnroe was talking about. Of course, he’s been wrong before. Another recent error was when he thought that the referee Pascal Maria (?) had incorrectly assessed a point penalty against Nadal for his 2nd time violation as a server. They said that the correct penalty should have been a fault. Later, they corrected themselves, saying that Maria was correct because they use a different set of rules for the majors.
Here’s what he had to say about seeding Nadal 5th for the French Open. FWIW, I agree with him.
http://tennis.si.com/2013/04/24/rafael-nadal-french-open-seed-john-mcenroe/
Thank you for confirming that. I guess McEnroe was misremembering or rambling. I don’t mind if the other majors change the way they do business - although there is less need for this on clay or hardcourt than on grass because there are so few grass tournaments - but I would prefer they use some kind of formula instead of having a committee do it, for example. You can always change a formula but an unaccountable NCAA-style committee is more trouble than it’s worth. They could also tweak their handling of injury-protected rankings for cases like Nadal’s. I don’t think he was out long enough to get one of those.
Commentators are wagging about the Serena/Sharapova ‘feud’ guess you have to talk about something. :rolleyes:
Nadal down two sets to love against … Steve Darcis?
Nadal looks like he’s out, he’s knee is bugging him.
Dude, one more game to go and it’s over.
Nadal loses.
I worry about that knee. Rafa maybe needs to consider that he really doesn’t want a fucked knee for the rest of his life.
Man, I hate to see Nadal lose in the first round and certainly don’t want to see him out for another 7 months because of his knee. However, that does open things up nicely for Federer. I would love to see him win again, but there was no way he was going to beat Nadal, Murry, and Djokovic in the same tournament - even Wimbledon.
And props to Darcis - Nadal injured or not, he played a hell of a match!
I had a dream this morning that Warwinka lost to Hewitt. I hope that doesn’t come true.
I have some bad news for you…
If you start dreaming about Lottery Numbers, please let me know!
Apparently I’ve turned psychic in my dotage. I wonder if I should get a 900 number and turn this into a cash cow.
In completely superficial news: I hate Hewitt’s new haircut.
Nadal was gracious & humble as ever in his post-match interview. I’m glad he did get a bit snippy with the reporter who was the 4th one to ask if it was his knee that caused his loss. Jeez, asked & answered!
Well, that sucks.
That was pretty shocking. It might be even weirder because something similar happened last year, if that’s possible. Darcis played great but Nadal just didn’t have a lot of energy or aggression out there. What I took away from the press conference is that the knee was bothering him and that he wanted to play at Halle but didn’t think he could. And he sort of suggested that he’s played more matches on the comeback trail than he expected- before Wimbledon he made the final of every event he’s played since returning, and maybe he wound up playing too much and pushing himself a little too far. Everybody takes a break after Wimbledon anyway, so he’ll do the same and play a judicious number of U.S. Open Series events, I guess. The funny thing is that this won’t hurt him much in the rankings since he’s now lost early at Wimbledon two years in a row. We’ll also have to see if Azarenka is OK. She twisted her knee during her match, but she did recover and win.
Federer looked really good in the first round (so did Murray), and this makes Federer’s life a lot easier for sure. He’s going to play Stakhovsky in the next round and maybe Jurgen Melzer in the third, and now you’d maybe expect him to get Isner or Hewitt or Paire in the quarterfinals.
I think that’s very, very premature. He’s never even had surgery. His knee was badly inflamed last year and he took a long time off to get rest and physical therapy, but that was all he needed. It has major implications for his sports career but it’s not like he’s had multiple microfracture surgeries and has trouble walking.
I meant to say something about this last week, but I didn’t get a chance. Guess who finally won his first career title? Nicolas Mahut! He’s 31 and was overdue for a big win: he built up a lot of karma in that Isner match and more recently he lost in the doubles final in Paris. His only career singles finals were in June and July 2007, both on grass. He upset Stan Wawrinka in the final at 's-Hertogenbosch, and good for him.
Might be Murray’ s year.