Tennis 2023 Discussion

The Game Room
1

A new tennis season has started with the new year.

Did anyone else watch the United Cup? It’s a new team tennis competition; this is the first year. It’s played in Australia, to give players practicing for that Open something to do. Teams are mixed gender, and represent 18 countries.

Format is best of 5 matches: two mens singles, two womens singles, one mixed doubles. Teams are split into six round-robin groups, then play single-elimination. (With the fourth semi-final spot given to best eliminated team.)

I should’ve posted earlier, but it’s all over now. Lots of good tennis. The mixed teams are great. The teams can sit in the corners of the courts and cheer their teammates between points. And coach when they switch ends.

The U.S. team, Taylor Fritz, Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, and Frances Tiafoe, won the tournament.

2

I watched parts of quite a few matches. Players seemed to be very engaged. I think more of the top men were missing, but haven’t looked closely.

Pegula taking out Swiatek was the highlight for me.

3

Something you don’t see every day. Nadal asked for one of his raquets to be stringed and the ball boy…took the one he was currently playing with, which Nadal had set down. It had his vibration dampner on it, so he had to get a new dampner and continue. Just a little funny moment as he couldn’t return to court for a moment.

4

The Australian Open started. I haven’t had time to watch any matches. If you happen to have ESPN+, every match is available for replay.

I did manage to watch an exhibition match of Novak Djokovic vs Nick Kyrgios. Great fun to watch; very humanizing for both men, who don’t always project winsome personalities. They played some variant of Fast Four–no ads, no lets, tiebreak at 3-3. Djokovic, who obviously didn’t pay attention to the rules before starting the match, lost the first point served to him that happened to be a let. (My kids, who play plenty of Fast Four, were mocking Djokovic for that.)

After splitting sets, they brought two top-ranked wheelchair players to make it a doubles match. Everyone was mic’d up which captured some interesting banter. At this point, they were making up rules as they played, as far as I could tell. Still, fun to watch and I’m happy to see wheelchair tennis get more publicity.

After that set, they swapped out the men for two kids and played doubles with them. Very silly at that point and not much plot. Still, fun to watch.

5

We watched this as well. Very fun, especially with the kids and wheelchair athletes.

6

Inevitable at the advanced age, but always the fighter - even though he was physically destroyed, he still referred to it as being mentally destroyed.

7

Felix Auger-Alliasime was almost the second major upset of the day but rallied after a slow 6-3, 6-3 deificit to finish off Slovakia’s Alex Molcan 3, 2, and 2.
Coco Gauff edged out Emma Raducanu in an apparent power serve-fest.

8

Murray v Kokkinakis have been playing over 5 hours and it’s 3:20am in Melbourne - madness!

9

I notice that Medvedev didn’t shake hands with the chair umpire after his loss in straight sets. I didn’t watch the whole match, but was he upset with something? Was it in reaction to the fine he received at last year’s Australian Open?

I haven’t noticed any other recent (post-Covid) refusals of handshakes of any matches I’ve watched.

10

Very unfortunate develpment…

Sure, kick dad out.
Revolting.
I’ve been completely unaware of this in the ESPN coverage I’ve been watching - am I out to lunch, or is the network just not giving it any airtime?
By the end of the article I was like yeah this is gross.
Unfreakingacceptable.
Almost Pittable.

11

Not in the least bit surprising.

12

Sorry, could you clarify - do you think Djokovic Sr’s behaviour is revolting, or the decision to ban him from the tournament is revolting? I think either position is probably defensible but I’m genuinely not sure which side you are taking.

13

Uh, isn’t kicking out a spectator totally their right?

14

Wouldn’t “Sure, kick dad out” have made my position immediately clear?
Also, if I consider the article “gross”, would that not just simply reinforce my position? (and thus - you seriously think I’d have even the slightest issue with the reportage as well?)

15

I first read “Sure, kick dad out.” as sarcastic, and your entire post as being outraged that he was being punished for “thought-crime”

I looked up your posting history and concluded that I was misinterpreting your post.

16

Well, apologies, then, if more than one poster has been misled by what I guess could’ve been slightly better wording on my part.

17

No apology necessary. I came into this expecting someone to defend Djoker-dad, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time in my mental map :slight_smile:

18

Like Mighty_Mouse, it seemed to me “Sure, kick dad out.” could be sarcasm, and you thought it was revolting he was being treated this way, gross that the tournament organisers would take such a step, and annoyed that the ESPN coverage had not mentioned what an injustice this is. Your subsequent posts still haven’t completely clarified this, but it appears to me that in fact you are glad Djokovic Sr has been excluded. No need to apologise, I was just curious. Not particularly interested in debating it either way - I’m no fan of Djokovic (less still, Putin) either. Ideally politics would not be a factor in sport, but sadly that’s not realistic.

19

No problem with no line judges, but no hawkeye* replays for close line calls I find mystifying and disappointing.
Instead of human voice sounds for the calls, they should use maybe a quick foghorn or squeaky punch cushion or car-skidding-then-crash, instead.

*Correct 99.9% of the time; humans - 75%.

20

I vote for Sad Trombone.