Early AO 2019 thread

[Murat B.]

I am very impressed with what Basilashvili has been doing and if he is focused, he may break some hearts in this tournament.

 

[Horsa]

There are a zillion comments by Bautista Agut about Nadal being his hero, a huge inspiration and the reason players like him even exist. Unfortunately they are in Spanish and I don't have the time to post them and translate them, so what you guys can do is take a Spanish language course, change the settings of google into Spanish, and then you'll be able to find and read pages and pages about this. ¡Que tenga un buen día!.

How do you know we can't understand Spanish? There's google translate if people want to use it too. Buenas tardes, Senor! My keyboard doesn't have upside down exclamation marks or tildes & I don't have the option to insert so you'll have to excuse the lack of an upside down exclamation mark before Buenas & the tilde over the n of Senor.

 

[herios]

I am very impressed with what Basilashvili has been doing and if he is focused, he may break some hearts in this tournament.

I am also vetv impressed. Watching him closely to see how far he will still climb from here on.

 

[herios]

Shapo went through "Sophomore Slump" last year and so his poor form and play last year is kind of expected and condonable. But, he needs to come back up with a vengeance this year, being a junior year. Otherwise, he will be following the book of Gasquet titled "How to go from most promising young player to yet another nobody".

I think many of you guys expect too much too soon from Denis.
Let's be fair, he did not have a bad year in 2018. He started the year ranked 50 and ended 27. For a 19 year old I would say that is not bad at all.
Did you expect him to zoom right into the top 10 or 20? I certainly didn't.
Yes, he got stuck in the last 6 months or so, but one is to get stuck, and another to have a setback which many players experience after climbing too fast.
Do you expect him to be a dominant player leading the pack? That is too soon to project. Plenty of time for further development and improvement. He still is the youngest among the top 100.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here are the (my) definitions.

Favorite - The player with the best chances to win.

Contenders - Players with a good chance to win - If they win it is not a surprise.

Pretenders - Players seeded #12 or less and who have reasonable chances of winning - if they win it will be a mild surprise.

Dark Horse - Any player outside the top 12 seeds considered to have some chances of actually winning the whole event - if they win it will be a major surprise.

Dangerous Floaters - Any unseeded player (outside the top 32 seeds) who are likely to cause an upset or two, but who are not likely to win the event.

 

[Moxie]

I think those are good definitions. Of course, sometimes there can be more than one Favorite. Not in this case, though.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

There are a zillion comments by Bautista Agut about Nadal being his hero, a huge inspiration and the reason players like him even exist. Unfortunately they are in Spanish and I don't have the time to post them and translate them, so what you guys can do is take a Spanish language course, change the settings of google into Spanish, and then you'll be able to find and read pages and pages about this. ¡Que tenga un buen día!.

Sorry mate but you must understand (or, per common respect requirements, assume if you don't know ) that most people on this forum are intelligent enough to understand the world speaks many languages. People in general do know how to deal with those languages unfamiliar to them, e.g. with the help of google translate. By taking the opposite assumption (i.e. that people you communicate with don;t know how to deal with e.g. Spanish) you've shown a great disrespect to all people on this forum but also have proven again that u r out of touch with reality. The reality is: there are many fluent Spanish speakers on this forum. Your comment is highly offensive to them.

I repeat, I haven't asked about your opinion about supposed "zillion comments" by RBA. I've asked about the proof of at least one such comment. Your disrespectful, rude reply is that I am 1 of those "guys" who is unable to understand said "zillion comments" unless I "take a Spanish language course". Sorry again mate, but I don't need your advice what language courses to take. I speak enough languages (mainly European, and Roman where Spanish comes from) , and I've even been working on natural language processing algorithms that I understand how google translate works and how to use it to complement my reading of any language I find. I don't want to brag about my language skills here, but to tell you how wildly delusional are your assumptions about your fellow bloggers. And I'm by far not the only one on this forum. Hopefully you reconsider your thoughts and you do apologise.

Meanwhile, I want to leave behind that inconsiderate rudeness, and willing to hear said "zillion comments" by RBA. Just the comments themselves, even better if they are in his mother tongue, because English translation might have distorted some of their minute aspects. And I don't want to hear your offensive comments falsely alleging I might not understand RBA's mother tongue.

 

[Moxie]

^ At the risk of inserting myself here, all Nadalfan2013 initially mentioned was Rafa's "influence and inspiration" on RBA. Agreed that it was not important at that moment to insert Nadal into RBA's big win. However, I would say that, generally, you could make a claim that Nadal has influenced and inspired all of his Spanish compatriots in tennis. That is unavoidable. But as you rather cornered NF2013, he made a claim that there's more to it. I actually looked for some and didn't find in, in English or Spanish, which I am a speaker of, since that's in the conversation. What you're really complaining about is that Nadalfan2013 is fannish enough to insert Rafa where he doesn't feature. Yes, but look at his forum name. There are super-fans around here who campaign for their favorite more than they discuss tennis. It's a feature of forums. I get the frustration. And Nadalfan2013 gets mad at me for complaining about it. Generally, it comes with the territory, but carry on your fight at will.

 

[Nadalfan2013]

Sorry mate but you must understand (or, per common respect requirements, assume if you don't know ) that most people on this forum are intelligent enough to understand the world speaks many languages. People in general do know how to deal with those languages unfamiliar to them, e.g. with the help of google translate. By taking the opposite assumption (i.e. that people you communicate with don;t know how to deal with e.g. Spanish) you've shown a great disrespect to all people on this forum but also have proven again that u r out of touch with reality. The reality is: there are many fluent Spanish speakers on this forum. Your comment is highly offensive to them.

I repeat, I haven't asked about your opinion about supposed "zillion comments" by RBA. I've asked about the proof of at least one such comment. Your disrespectful, rude reply is that I am 1 of those "guys" who is unable to understand said "zillion comments" unless I "take a Spanish language course". Sorry again mate, but I don't need your advice what language courses to take. I speak enough languages (mainly European, and Roman where Spanish comes from) , and I've even been working on natural language processing algorithms that I understand how google translate works and how to use it to complement my reading of any language I find. I don't want to brag about my language skills here, but to tell you how wildly delusional are your assumptions about your fellow bloggers. And I'm by far not the only one on this forum. Hopefully you reconsider your thoughts and you do apologise.

Meanwhile, I want to leave behind that inconsiderate rudeness, and willing to hear said "zillion comments" by RBA. Just the comments themselves, even better if they are in his mother tongue, because English translation might have distorted some of their minute aspects. And I don't want to hear your offensive comments falsely alleging I might not understand RBA's mother tongue.

:cuckoo:

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I think those are good definitions. Of course, sometimes there can be more than one Favorite. Not in this case, though.

Ya, sure co-favorites are possible.

 

[Moxie]

Ya, sure co-favorites are possible.

We used to have some internal draw challenge for Majors, with a favorite, and 2nd choice, a dark horse and a wild card, I think. @britbox...do you remember? Anyway, it caused a lot of arguing about the difference between a "dark horse" and what you're calling the "dangerous floater." Given that Stan, Andy and Nick will all be unseeded, doesn't that make them both dark horses AND dangerous floaters?

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Kooyong Classic (that I've been watching today) probably belongs to this thread.
I've watched part of Cilic (Cough Drops) vs Kandy match. I was so negatively surprised how much procrastination Cilic's serve routine involves. In particular how many silly ball bounces he makes before he finally serves it. Perhaps he has even increased the number of bounced recently. Today we was doing routinely 5 bounces, then paused to look at Kandy, then resumed a silly routine for further 10-13 bounces, with the last bounce prolonged. That's almost 20 bounces! More than Joker who recently has curbed his silly routine to maybe around 10. Cilic must be holding a record in this shameful statistic of procrastination.
I know he's been called for time warnings on court but I don't remember anyone called him on this forum while we've been talking about time violations. We've been talking mainly about Joker & Rafa. Why does Cilic fall off the radar? Because he's only #6 and not a big4? He deserves to be called out as much as Joker because his routine is equally (ATM even more) annoying as that of Joker. So I searched and found out that Cilic has been feeling issues with his service routine for at least 6 years since early 2013, as he personally revealed on his FB:

where he confesses that time violation they've been trying to enforce since then, puts "a lot of pressure on players". And what has he done to comply, i.e. improve his routine in 6 years since then? Apparently nothing.

 

[britbox]

We used to have some internal draw challenge for Majors, with a favorite, and 2nd choice, a dark horse and a wild card, I think. @britbox...do you remember? Anyway, it caused a lot of arguing about the difference between a "dark horse" and what you're calling the "dangerous floater." Given that Stan, Andy and Nick will all be unseeded, doesn't that make them both dark horses AND dangerous floaters?

Yeah, I remember. I think @El Dude ran that sideline comp.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I wonder what people think about the match point between 2 brats (Tomic def Kyrgios) at Kooyong Classic:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...ick-kyrgios-ahead-of-australian-open/10702796
Here's what I think.
Kyrgios did not mind conceding that point and match (as he said later he was happy for Tomic to win this exo) but I think in more serious circumstances a receiver of such "sneaky serve" would have grounds for objection. The rules say the receiver should not deceive (e.g. by moving from side to side) or otherwise confuse the server during his service motion. There should be a reciprocal rule for the server: do not confuse the receiver as to if he serves or just pretend to serve, especially while playing with two balls, do not deceive which ball is actually the one being served and which is kept as a spare for the eventual 2nd.
Even more obviously, there is a rule that only one ball can be in play, all other balls must be invisible. If an extra ball becomes visible during the play, it becomes a game distraction (similar to wrong "out" call or ball-boy encroachment onto a court) and the umpire is supposed to call let and replay the point. By throwing his "sneaky serve" and starting to bounce the second ball before the serve landed, Tomic has deliberately created a game distraction, i.e. he and only he is at fault here. The penalty for "at fault" distraction by a player is a violation warning and a loss of point. So, in calling GSM Tomic (rather than violation against Tomic and second serve, per the rule book), the umpire has shown misunderstanding of rules. His call was such serious mistake that it should disqualify him from umpiring or at least redirect him to PIP.
I wonder why no one else picked up that incident because people are not talking about it on inet. Or maybe it's not worth talking about it because it's just exo. So no one cares and everybody wants to just have fun at Kooyong. What's your take?

 

[GameSetAndMath]

We used to have some internal draw challenge for Majors, with a favorite, and 2nd choice, a dark horse and a wild card, I think. @britbox...do you remember? Anyway, it caused a lot of arguing about the difference between a "dark horse" and what you're calling the "dangerous floater." Given that Stan, Andy and Nick will all be unseeded, doesn't that make them both dark horses AND dangerous floaters?

A "dangerous floater" is someone that you are NOT picking to win even in your wildest imagination. You are only picking them to cause an upset or two and then move away.

The notions of "dark horse" and "wild card" are similar. In both cases, you are picking the person to win the tourney. "dark horse" is a player to whom you are giving an outside chance to win the event. "wild card" is a player who can win only in your wildest imagination. In other words,
"dark horse" winning the event is more probable than "wild card" winning the event.

 

[britbox]

I wonder what people think about the match point between 2 brats (Tomic def Kyrgios) at Kooyong Classic:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01...ick-kyrgios-ahead-of-australian-open/10702796
Here's what I think.
Kyrgios did not mind conceding that point and match (as he said later he was happy for Tomic to win this exo) but I think in more serious circumstances a receiver of such "sneaky serve" would have grounds for objection. The rules say the receiver should not deceive (e.g. by moving from side to side) or otherwise confuse the server during his service motion. There should be a reciprocal rule for the server: do not confuse the receiver as to if he serves or just pretend to serve, especially while playing with two balls, do not deceive which ball is actually the one being served and which is kept as a spare for the eventual 2nd.
Even more obviously, there is a rule that only one ball can be in play, all other balls must be invisible. If an extra ball becomes visible during the play, it becomes a game distraction (similar to wrong "out" call or ball-boy encroachment onto a court) and the umpire is supposed to call let and replay the point. By throwing his "sneaky serve" and starting to bounce the second ball before the serve landed, Tomic has deliberately created a game distraction, i.e. he and only he is at fault here. The penalty for "at fault" distraction by a player is a violation warning and a loss of point. So, in calling GSM Tomic (rather than violation against Tomic and second serve, per the rule book), the umpire has shown misunderstanding of rules. His call was such serious mistake that it should disqualify him from umpiring or at least redirect him to PIP.
I wonder why no one else picked up that incident because people are not talking about it on inet. Or maybe it's not worth talking about it because it's just exo. So no one cares and everybody wants to just have fun at Kooyong. What's your take?

This is a video of the point Chris mentioned:



Personally I think if this happened in a match outside of an exho, then it's a problem.

 

[Moxie]

This is a video of the point Chris mentioned:

Personally I think if this happened in a match outside of an exho, then it's a problem.

That video is hilarious, including the interview with the 2 afterwards. I thought it looked like Tomic was flicking the ball away to the ball boys, and it went in the service box. He looked as surprised as anyone. Seemed like Nick took it with good humor, and in the spirit of an exho, let it be the match point. @Chris Koziarz, I think it's interesting to bring it up, because we tennis nerds like to examine the rules. I think the best point you make is the one about 2 balls being visible on court. I don't see anyone ever trying to develop that as a tactic, but should it ever happen in tour play, it would have to be dealt with. If it happened like that, as a fluke, play a let. If it were intentional, I agree with you that a warning for unsportsmanlike play could be in order.

 

[herios]

I think nobody is following the qualifying rounds at the AO but me.
Sadly, Felix Auger lost in R2 to Eubanks from US.
Baghdatis also lost today.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

From the description of Chris, it looked like Tomic did something wrong. No, clearly Tomic did not intend to cheat. He was just knocking away one ball which accidentally happened to go to Nick's side. The only party who is guilty here is the referee, who could not even figure out what is going on.

Surely, Nick did not fight it because it is an xo. Otherwise, he would have fought it.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Yeah, I remember. I think @El Dude ran that sideline comp.

An even more interesting competition is the "death pool" (is that the right name) that Peter Bodo used to run on tennis.com. You have to pick just one player each day to win. But, the catch is that you cannot name the same player as the winner on another day. As a result, you have to save whoever you think as the favorite for the last day. Roughly speaking in every round, you want to pick someone who will clear that round, but not the next round to maximize your chances.

Perhaps someone should run it here again.