Nadal knocks Gasquet out with very little challenge.
Good call. I saw the final set due to seeing your post and it was good tennis between the two of them. Shapovalov is someone that pinged my radar a while back, though I have not watched him play that often. He acquitted himself nicely even if he did lose the match.
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I officially have almost no one in women’s tennis that I support or care about all that much. Now that Serena is retired(I guess Venus is still going?), I think I’ve lost almost all touch with women’s tennis. I used to support and follow Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf, Maria Sharapova, Amelie Mauresmo, and countless others.
I can barely name most female players now. I don’t even know who is number one in the world.
Has anyone else seen their interest in women’s tennis fade?
I fear the same, but maybe not quite as severe, will happen with me when The Big 3 guys are all retired. We’ll need some very strong new blood to carry the sport.
Corentin Moutet is playing(and losing) to Ruud and Moutet has been complaining to the umpire about everything for over an hour. It’s really pathetic and annoying.
And now Nick Kyrgios is whining about everything in the first set. What a baby.
And Kyrgios won too. Ugh. I really hope he gets knocked out soon. His next opponent is Khachanov, a 6’6" Russian ranked at 27.
Monica Seles and (bit later) Kim Klijsters and Agnieszka Radwańska were also ones I kept tabs on, and when I was a kid of course Evert and Navarilova were giants, especially the latter, who brought a lot more power into the women’s game, with her absolutely booming serve and overall dauntingly sound game.
(Always intrigued by the diminutive Justin Henin and how she ‘waifed’ her way through her victories)
For the current batch, I was holding out for compatriot Bianca Andreescu, who blew me away with her convincing 2019 US Open championship win over a (still strong) Serena Wiliams. Beset with injuries, BA also looks like she could have potential weight issues as time goes on (like I think the case is with Victoria Ostapenko) and her mental game needs tons of work.
Coco Gauff, on the other hand, is amazingly composed for someone who’s been 18 for only a couple of months. I can’t see her trajectory waning, really, so hopefully she’ll be a strong mainstay of the future to keep an eye on, along with Leyla Fernandez, and hopefully Emma Raducanu, if she put behind her unfortunate past year.
So, a couple out there to hopefully follow a lot down the road.
Also, there’s Ons Jabeur, who’s getting on 28 now, but I hope will keep it at for a good while yet considering she’s by far my favourite current women’s player to watch. (On the men’s side probably Carlos Alcaraz is the only men’s player I’d consider appointment tv.)
I was never a big fan of Serena, so her retirement will not have that much of an impact on my interest in the Women’s game. You are right there is not someone right now to latch onto. For a while it seemed like Osaka could be that one, and now maybe Coco Gauff. What has been nice is to see some of those that were in Serena’s shadow getting a chance to shine. In general though, Women’s tennis has gotten better than it has been in a long time, so while I might not latch on to a particular player, I will enjoy the quality of the matches.
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Frances Tiafoe is playing the absolute best tennis of his life. He’s now up 2 sets to 1 against Rafael Nadal.
Incredible.
Tiafoe just got an “audible obscenity” warning. Last night, Nick Kyrgios was swearing a ton, to the point of the announcers somewhat apologizing(well, acknowledging) it. No penalty.
WTF?
Kinda wondered about that too.
Update: Tiafoe won the fourth set 6-3, eliminating Nadal.
I watched him beat Diego Schwartzman, and I’ll tell you what, that man was playing some A++ tennis. He had a scare in the first set - broken to fall behind 6-5 - but took care of business and didn’t look nervous about it at all.
Next he has to play Rublev, who has also looked excellent. That’s a tough draw but, hell, he just blew away Rafael Nadal.
He was amazing. Nadal played quite well, to be honest. Tiafoe just had a big moment and played as well as any of the top guys do. It happens in pro sports sometimes. I remember the worst NBA team beating the best NBA team in a year where the best team only had single digit losses.
Tiafoe played like a #1-#5 ranked player in the world. He could have beaten Novak or Roger(at his best) like that today.
Nadal proably played his B- game, but even that would beat about 95% of players most days.
I’m pulling for Tiafoe to win the whole thing, now.
With Cilic going out, there will be a new men’s slam champion this week.
And only Swiatek stands in the way of a new women’s champion.
Busy weekend and I didn’t have time to post. Lots of great games.
Quarter finals are set and will start in an hour.
Świątek (1) vs Pegula (8)
Plíšková (22) vs Sabalenka (6)
Gauff (12) vs Garcia (17)
Jabeur (5) vs Tomljanović (unseeded)
Six months ago I would’ve said Świątek was the prohibitive favorite, but she’s not playing at the level she was before. Still, she’s got to be the favorite. I’ll be cheering for her, as well as Gauff and Jabeur.
For the men’s quarter finals:
Kyrgios (23) vs Khachanov (27)
Berrettini (13) vs Ruud (5)
Sinner (11) vs Alcaraz (3)
Rublev (9) vs Tiafoe (22)
I expect Alcaraz to win it all. As my spouse said, “he’s a god!”. He gets to the the ball and makes shots that are amazing. He has the raw talent of one of the greats, and he seems to have the mental composure to keep with it. We’ll see.
Nadal merely played well, which is a downgrade from his younger self. He makes great shots, but doesn’t have the mobility he used to.
This is very true. There’s no single player to dominate the rest, although Świątek is coming close. American women are doing very well lately. There’s 2 Americans in the top 12, 4 in the top 20, and 7 in the top 31 (yeah, I picked favorable cutoffs). While men’s tennis has incredible athleticism and power, I feel that women’s tennis has more variety in tactics. That is, women’s tennis is closer to how regular people play and is more relatable. I watch both, of course. 
Coco Gauff has a ways to go, I think. She is only 18. Caroline Garcia kind of whopped her, even though the score doesn’t show a big blow out.
This Garcia girl seems nice, hope she does well.
I saw the Jabeur vs Tomljanović game live today! Both of them were fine, strong players. (The day ticket also included the Berrettini vs Ruud match but I couldn’t get away from work in time to get to it, but my friends and husband, who did, said that it was fun to watch. In spite of the score looking one-sided, Berrettini did put up a good fight)
Lots of fan support for both Jabeur and Tomljanović this afternoon. It was surprising to me that they kept on breaking each others’ service. The tiebreaker had me confused as well; maybe I’m just not used to it.
Disappointingly, all the outdoor matches were cancelled because of rain; there’s usually something interesting to see there.
Kyrgios has just been eliminated in what’s been described as a dull match, even though it was close.
And I hope that Alcaraz’s good run continues!
Yeah, he only smashed a couple of racquets and a water bottle, pretty tame by his standards .
It was dull. Both players were trying to win with power serves. Most points were an ace or no return. Any rallies tended to be over quickly.