prob has to win this pt at 2-4
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:04 (four years ago) link
that backhand! novak
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:06 (four years ago) link
3 CPs
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:07 (four years ago) link
done
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:09 (four years ago) link
happy for him
unbelievable
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:09 (four years ago) link
Yuck
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:10 (four years ago) link
This and the cricket at the same time. Too much.
― Michael Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:10 (four years ago) link
This should have been Federer 3 sets to 0 but whatever. Blergh.
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:11 (four years ago) link
Never in doubt
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:12 (four years ago) link
yeah Fed deserved this, Djokovic a master of tranquility though.
― Ludo, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:12 (four years ago) link
lol who eats grass
― brigadier pudding (DJP), Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:13 (four years ago) link
Madness
Total points wonRoger Federer: 218Novak Djokovic: 204— Tumaini Carayol (@tumcarayol) July 14, 2019
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:14 (four years ago) link
fed w two champ pts on his serve is gonna stiiing gdamn
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:15 (four years ago) link
Give it about five years before I can stand to watch highlights of this. Particularly the Fed MPs.
― Michael Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:16 (four years ago) link
Lol Fed. "I'll try my best to forget it"
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:16 (four years ago) link
yeah tbh that's it, two CPs, had it there and then..
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:17 (four years ago) link
Didn't think I'd be broken up for a man who has 21 slams but there you go
Booooo. I hate watching Djokovic play.
― Yerac, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:18 (four years ago) link
Would he have quit if he had won? Like.. immediately?
― Ludo, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:19 (four years ago) link
(Fed obviously, Djoko is gonna continue playing until he surpasses Fed's 20)
Doubt it, Fed has said he wants to be around for Tokyo Olympics.
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:20 (four years ago) link
And he likely will if he keeps playing like this!
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:21 (four years ago) link
has fed ever lost a final from up champ pt before
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:21 (four years ago) link
i understand djokovic haters but he is just so good, cant hate him
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:24 (four years ago) link
Not Slams. But he lost to Del Potro from MP up in Indian Wells F last year. Also Nadal in Rome F 2006. And Novak has done him at least twice now. Not finals though (USO sf once or twice and possibly Paris Masters sf last year - 76 57 76).
― Michael Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:26 (four years ago) link
yeah!
― Ludo, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
I didn't hate Djokovic but his continued public support of Justin Gimelstob is unconscionable and a huge reason why men's tennis is a mess rn. Andy Murray he is not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/sports/novak-djokovic-atp-player-council.html
― Roz, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:37 (four years ago) link
he's just so deeply unlikeable to watch. in everything. even those stupid uniqlo ads.
― Yerac, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:42 (four years ago) link
i can hate him
― imago, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:44 (four years ago) link
someone should ask fed in this press conf if he is pro/con/indifferent to the 12-12 tiebreak rule
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:55 (four years ago) link
& he said "it is what it is" ok
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 18:56 (four years ago) link
the gimelstob affair is unfortunate but tbh just seems like a convenient excuse for people who've always hated him regardless
― groovemaaan, Sunday, 14 July 2019 19:00 (four years ago) link
it smacks of generic eastern european bias imho
― groovemaaan, Sunday, 14 July 2019 19:02 (four years ago) link
My dislike of him was compounded by the Becker connection, who I hated more than anyone who has ever played the game. Give him his due, he may have dips in intensity and focus in matches but seemingly never when it really matters. Fed’s winner-UE diff was +32, Nole’s was +2. How on earth, I blame the electoral college, etc etc
― Michael Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2019 19:31 (four years ago) link
1 could say that fed wins this match vs any other man in history
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 14 July 2019 19:40 (four years ago) link
he's for people who thought Sampras was the ultimate in charisma black holes.
― Yerac, Sunday, 14 July 2019 19:43 (four years ago) link
Also the 12-12 t/b thing - ok in the sense it keeps the tournament moving, prevents players being spent for the next round because they had to toil for six hours plus, but I think they should have suspended it for the final(s). These guys are doing nothing until August and there’s a roof.
― Michael Jones, Sunday, 14 July 2019 20:19 (four years ago) link
I really didn't see the need for that change at all. And Novak was cynically playing for the TB whereas Fed was really going for the break on the 5th (The only come back would be that this match would lenghten out what was the longest final ever even further).
Watching the highlights late last night I was reflecting on why Djoko so confident of winning the breakers against a man who isn't bad at anything to do with the goings on in a tennis and that got me to armchair-thinking of what you have to do to get to this level at his age. The management of it, my assumption that Fed plays a lot less (and its here that someone who follows the ATP tour all year around can fill in the gaps) to get to slams in that competetive shape that can last out for two weeks...but one which also leads to a severe lack of sharpness at the moments that decide the matches in a close contest. The edge that perhaps only be ironed out through volume of matches. But maybe idk Novak plays a similar volume of matches throughout the year and is bringing the confidence of winning multiple slams recently.
Like, this would not matter at all - one player in grass can get anywhere near Fed's level to find that out. One or two other players in clay lay out those lack of edges in Fed for us to see. Just yet another layer to Fed's incredible accomplishments. To do all this with slightly younger greats like Nadal and Djoko. And Djoko will almost certainly only surpass his slam total because absolutely no one seems to be coming through apart from Thiem who has made two slam finals - and this is on clay.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 July 2019 08:34 (four years ago) link
This is a good piece on Djokovic that maybe gets close to why he's so mentally tough, a willingness to win ugly: https://www.theringer.com/2019/7/14/20693870/novak-djokovic-roger-federer-wimbledon-final-2019 Anyway, I kind of think Fed will win the US Open now. He's been quietly doing well all year, and apart from his RG blowout to Nadal, all his other losses in 2019 have been to in-form players in extremely tight matches. He's taken those losses maybe a little too well, and it cost him yesterday's title. He won't want to repeat those mistakes again.
― Roz, Monday, 15 July 2019 09:01 (four years ago) link
Good piece, the para laying out all the stats from the match is pretty heartbreaking. I think the gap in it though is to ask where has Fed's ability to close out slams, after winning 20 of them, gone. Fed has always had that adulation from crowds and has coped perfectly well before.
and maybe what's missing is the thing you can do only when younger -- i.e. you can play as many matches, win the smaller titles, as a way of preparing for the bigger ones. Then again Novak is ridiculous on the big points too.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 July 2019 09:18 (four years ago) link
Since he last won a Slam (which was only 18 months ago), Fed has... lost from two sets and MP up vs Anderson, lost a tight four-setter under lights in insane humidity vs Millman, lost a tight four-setter in which he missed dozens of break-points vs Tsitsipas, and been thumped in straights (in which he actually played fleetingly well) on clay by Rafa. And then yesterday. Four of those five Slam exits seem like "old man loses edge" but I think the Federer of 2013 would have lost all of those matches too, maybe not even competitively. Meanwhile, he's sailing through most other rounds and continuing to win at 1000/500/250 level. I think the reduction of schedule (and Edberg's 2014-15 retooling of his game, the new racket, etc) is giving him chances he wouldn't have had at this age to go deep in these events.
And, what's more, he hasn't even played a light schedule in 2019! 43 matches (47 if you count Hopman Cup) by the middle of July is maybe more than anyone else on the main tour. It's more than he played at this point at his peak in 2007.
At 8-7 40/15 all I could think about was those US Open semis. It had to be an another ace or nothing. Novak was going to find a way to get out of it. Fed net-rushing on that nothing FH at 40/30 was disastrous. Those BPs at 11-11 were Fed's last chance. Knew how the t-b would go.
The article above is very good - nails it pretty well.
― Michael Jones, Monday, 15 July 2019 10:41 (four years ago) link
I wonder if Roddick took a little sour delight in this. He outplayed Fed for long stretches in 2009, lost a couple of tie-breaks and eventually gave it up in a marathon fifth on a frame mis-hit. I guess that was a feature of Fed Slam finals in his 20-something pomp - he *always* won the breakers.
― Michael Jones, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:05 (four years ago) link
Thanks for the additional info - quite fascinating seeing all of these tight losses...and if he is doing that against Anderson then he will do it against Djoko.
That approach at 40/30 was...yeah, waking up in the middle of the night sweating and screaming stuff. How can you work yourself into that position and do this when you get to it? idk, and maybe nobody else does.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:17 (four years ago) link
I'd say 18 months is a big-ish gap from winning one slam to another. In most individual sports when a 'great' starts winning the big ones they just stack 'em in batches. Seems like a habit that once broken is hard to get back on.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:21 (four years ago) link
Gotta say I am not sure about Djoko hate as portrayed in that article. Novak is more hated than Nadal? If it wasn't for an injury or two Fed might have never won the French Open, surely a bigger crime than the tantrums and Grass-eating (The gimelstob affair is more recent, as grooveman says). Bringing in the Kyrgios tweet is funny but part of you is thinking the guy is sitting at home writing that shit instead of troubling anyone in the last stages of a slam.
Maybe there is something to anti-Eastern European (and Russian) bias. That little corner of the world is piling up slams across women and men's games. Maybe there is a correlation between the hate Novak gets and Lendl did? Novak has double the number of slams tho'.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:40 (four years ago) link
eh insanely successful people who are also desperately needy are easy to dislike. not much more complicated than that. also the stupid number of ball bounces before serving that he did in the early bit of his career.
― oscar bravo, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:46 (four years ago) link
lendl was great and still wish he had a wimbledon rather than pat cash
― oscar bravo, Monday, 15 July 2019 11:48 (four years ago) link
No-one seriously thinks this about 'anti-Eastern Europe' bias, do they?
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Monday, 15 July 2019 11:52 (four years ago) link
Goran was adored, late in his career at least. Safin hugely popular. Can't claim to be too well up on WTA crowd popularity, but I think Ivanovic, Jankovic and Azarenka were all pretty well liked? Halep and Pliskova are too.
― Michael Jones, Monday, 15 July 2019 12:23 (four years ago) link
To name but seven of the legion of popular Eastern European players over the years - especially in the women's game.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Monday, 15 July 2019 12:27 (four years ago) link