Definitely sucks, but if he has even an Irwin-Allen’s-chance-in-hell of being a top three player again, a shut down for the rest of the year (including Oly’s) is the right thing, as should Nadal, to really let that wrist get better. Unfortunately, RN would play if he was down to nothing but the Grail’s Black Knight torso, which is why he’s playing in Rio, where of course he’ll aggravate his injury. And then of course for a nice little nightcap he’s gonna thrash on himself on the hard court best-of-five shenanigans at the US Open.
Watched Zverev lose earlier today at the Rogers Cup. Seen him play better. Definitely look forward to his development. Right now watching beginning of pvr’ed Berdych/Coric match. Talk about another up-and-comer! Borna Coric is a 19 y.o. Croatian who’s 54th in the world (funnily enough his highest ranking - 33 - was exactly a year ago - to the day). Cool that there’s a couple of great young players coming up, like Thiem, who’s at no. 7 and still 22.
And then yesterday this Canadian was happy to see 17 y.o. Denis Shapovalov beat everyone’s favourite, beloved, high-fived-over, always-cherished Nick Kyrgios at that touney.
Nice bit of recognition for him, but perhaps a surprise choice? Maybe when the obvious one, Pele, pulled out they didn’t want to pick another footballer as that could have been seen as divisive?
Decent final by all accounts, Murray just too good for Del Potro in the end. It looks like the latter could be a serious threat at Flushing Meadows - anyone know where he is likely to be seeded?
He is, without doubt, the best player in the world at the moment and thoroughly deserves his ranking and all the plaudits that come with it.
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, once these big four come to the natural end of their dominance we’ll be looking back and realising what an incredible decade it has been. Definitely the strongest era ever.
Yes, a great first set by him, forcing Djokovic into too many errors. Amazing that he achieved this despite a much lower first serve percentage than Djokovic. It was good to hear the crowd, despite being heavily partisan towards Murray, giving Djokovic proper respect and appreciation as well (although there were the usual idiots shouting out between serves - can’t you keep quiet for more than 10 seconds at a time?). It looked like Novak was going to do his usual Ironman act and pull out a comeback at the end of the second, but Murray held firm (using all his experience, no doubt) and it appears Djokovic has just slightly come off the boil compared with earlier in the season - which of course he had to at some point as he was untouchable for a while.
Full Marks to Murray. He’s definitely deserved it.
I note that he has beaten the no.2, 3, 4 and 5 in world last week so that’s as good as you could expect.
I did detect yesterday perhaps an added venom to some of his groundstrokes. I’m not sure you’d ever describe him as a shrinking violet anyway but there were some powerful shots that caused me an intake of breath. It may well have been his plan to bully as much as possible for a two-set win knowing that the tank may have been empty for another 3-hour epic.
Oh, and anyone holding up a phone at an event should have it forcibly removed then forcibly given back rectally. Idiots.
The crowd was also out of line with the prolonged cheering on match point. It’s the critical moment of the match, the guy you want to win needs every ounce of concentration, and keeping to the rhythm of play will help him do that. So why not break that rhythm and disrupt his concentration because you’re all excited?
Because you’re not little goddam children, that’s why.
OT, but earlier this year I was lucky enough to visit the Caves of Drach on Mallorca. After walking through the caves the visit ends with a short concert played by musicians who are rowed on boats around an underground lake, in almost total darkness. Despite announcements in no fewer than 5 different languages beforehand that cameras were not allowed, several entitled pricks saw fit to disrupt everyone else’s enjoyment with their glowing screens and flashlights. I nearly snatched one guy’s phone and threw it in the lake myself. Except that would have been a ridiculous over-reaction. Still - grr.