ROLAND GARROS 2021

It’s not on The Tennis Channel?

it was this morning but tennis channel coverage signed off shortly after 1pm when mertens/sakkari ended iirc

i know humidity is high in paris right now, but there is something to be said about federer sweating less compared to koepfer. it looks like federer uses his energy more efficiently, while koepfer is a lot stronger and uses muscle power a lot more

this 1st set fed/koepfer has been p high level by both

koep is gaining confidence

i wonder how many sets like this koepfer will be able to endure

seems like he can endure as long as he needs to

feds level is dipping, if he loses this 3rd set its hard to see him enduring 2+ more hrs to come back

love mcenroe constantly making digs @ peacock

cant blame koepfer for boiling over a bit now, hes played p great & fed has played houdini 2 be up 2-1

I didn't fancy Fed to get past Berrettini and now I don't think the winner of this will take a set off Mario.

koepfers defense has really been wildly good

yea this is def good for matteo

I have no idea why I called him Mario! It's late. (Later still in Paris - first post-midnight session?)

Actually, UK commentator has just reminded me of the Nadal-Sinner QF last year, which was a 1:26am finish.

great match, rog willed himself to that win

incredible. this is the andy murray tweet again:

Im not bothered by the outcome of this match at all. Just seeing Federer at 39 off the back of 2 knee surgeries playing to an empty stadium at 12.30am getting fired up is inspirational to me. Do what you ❤️

— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) June 5, 2021

At times that was as rough as Fed was for 2+ sets vs Sandgren in Melbourne 18 months ago (which, at the time, seemed to come a little out of nowhere, after a pretty great 2019). I think days like this are inevitable at 39, and he found some magic right at the end.

Welp

The Roland-Garros tournament organisers have learned that Roger Federer has withdrawn from the fourth round of the tournament. #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/BncPpTLUzl

— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 6, 2021

It’d be pretty funny if last night’s scheduling mess turned out be Fed’s final match at RG

id think its more likely than not to be his last

somewhat surprised he didnt wait until tomorrow to make this decision, makes me think it must be more than fatigue

womens bottom half, one of these gals will be in the final

rybakina/pavlyuchenkova

badosa/zidansek

Davidovich Fokina - Delbonis has been fun. ADF serving for it now.

Musetti is legit

novak needs to get his unforced errors under control

this changed fast lol, looks like it will be the 5th set to decide it

This is pretty horrible now. Oh well, plenty of great players had high-profile draining losses from two sets up early in their career... Federer, Nadal, Murray, Edberg all spring to mind.

kinda wild that this will be the only 5-setter in this round.

Not expecting miracles from Sinner then?

perhaps i should walk that back. that would be exciting! but hard to fathom still.

musetti won four (4) points in the 4th set

...and broken out the gate. this won't take long.

Briefly turned this back on when I saw "Medical timeout: Djokovic" on my score app, but it was a little graze on a finger? Bah. Go hit a line judge or something.

yea he slipped and fell, & still got the ball back & won the pt

I've always said it should be best of three before the QF*

(* I have never actually said this)

its a reasonably wild outcome (not the part of novak coming back obv)
but of someone to crater like that w/ no injury (right?), no extreme heat or humidity,
after 2.5 ish hours of playing @ your top level

shows just the pressure of the situation is a lot to bear, i think

boss hitting from Sinner right now

Don’t have much confidence it will last though, Nadal being Nadal

yeah tough to get broken @ love serving for the set, but also not unexpected cuz rafa

felt so bad for sinner there - worked so hard to get back on serve from 4-0 down only to be broken to love :/

two fantastic, very close women’s quarter finals so far. both went down the wire: Zidansek beat Badosa 8-6 in the final set, and Pavlyuchenkova took out Rybakina 9-7 to advance to the semis for the first time after six failed QF attempts in the past ten years.

tsitsipas just went 2 sets up and lookin pretty dominant from the bit i've been able to watch. medvedev is a weirdo and could bounce back though. tbd.

breaking at 2-2 in the 3rd i thought medvedev ALMOST got the hook into the match he needed to turn it. good on tsitsipas though. good stuff.

great match by stef

Swiatek in real trouble right now - down a set and a break versus Sakkari.

Incredible performance from Sakkari, so solid and impenetrable on serve. Iga looks perplexed.

Wow at Sakkari just blowing this women’s draw wide open. Four first-time semi finalists!

Also the first time two Greek players have made the semis at the same Slam.

also a semi where the highest-ranked player is #17, can’t have happened too often?

i absolutely wish no ill physical will upon nadal or djokovic, but surely we're just a couple of years away from that kind of blown-open draw on the men's side, right? (fed wanted to retire at wimbledon, right?)

I think Fed will end his career in Basel which, given that it's just been cancelled again, means Oct 2022. I can see him giving Wimb two more goes, probably no more clay court tennis and a limited shot at the hardcourt Slams. I'd like there to be a proper handover - Tsitsipas beating Nadal here, Shapo / Medvedev / FAA / etc taking them out at QF or earlier in SW19 and Flushing Meadow. But I feel like it will only be injury that stops Novak and Rafa.

I kinda wish Musetti, as great as he is, had lost to Cecchinato cos if Novak was going to spray UEs around for two hours, I don't think Cecc would have folded and let him off the hook. Djoko was ultimately pretty fortunate to be up against a teenager who was redlining.

As for blown-open, I dunno. We already have a pretty stable second-tier on the ATP side, who would likely dominate latter stages of Slams for a bit. They're not, as a group, anything like as consistent as the Big Three came to be, but if we did a Logan's Run cull tomorrow, I think it would be pretty familiar names in 3-4 slots of each Slam semi line-up for a while.

i love that in your scenario you have tsitsipas beating nadal and not zverev and i hope you are correct! and i think you're right on about all of that.

But to completely undermine my point, the Big Three vanish at the QF stage of Wimb 2019 and we end up with Goffin-Bautista Agut and Querrey-Nishikori :) 8, 21, 23 and unseeded.

(Oh, please for a Greek double!)

best of 5 really cuts against a blown open mens draw