125 year-old clowns
1. The Wimbledon schedulers are idiots too
After having a go at the monkeys at typewriters setting the order of play in Paris on a regular basis it just wouldn’t be proper to let those at Wimbledon off the hook.
Last week we had the ridiculous scenario where Dimitry Tursunov was forced to play four days in a row.
On the second day his match against Ernests Gulbis didn’t finish until late evening because for some bizarre reason its resumption at the back end of the third set was scheduled for after a men’s singles match.
It was far from a one-off as late starts, rain delays and bad planning meant that several matches throughout the week were carried over for two days.
Oh well, surely after one chaotic week there was enough time to get things right and start afresh in the second?
Apparently not. The delayed singles matches sparked a chain of suspended doubles matches that meant that defending champions Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner didn’t play their first round match until today.
I’ll leave the final word on the organisers (for now) to Petzschner:
”125 years of Wimbledon and the people making the scedule are the same age then the tournament! its a fcking joke”
Incidentally, Team Melzschner recovered from a set and a break down to see off the young American pairing of Travis Rettenmaier and Ryan Harrison.
I can only imagine what Petzschner would have tweeted had they lost.
2. Stop the MTO madness
Don't ask
Or at least regulate it properly. Despite Del Potro’s hip problem presenting a strong argument against banning mid-set medical time-outs I’m going to stand firm.
I said it after the Fognini-Montañes debacle and the shambolic scenes in the first set of the Nadal Del Potro match today just reaffirmed it.
The match was stopped for a total of eight minutes before the first set tiebreak after Rafa appeared to tweak something in his ankle. Eight minutes.
Given that Del Potro had the momentum of holding serve from set-points down, such a ridiculous delay was grossly unfair on him.
I have no idea if Rafa was hurt badly or if there was some gamesmanship on his part, it’s not really the point.
The only way to prevent such scenes is to ban medical time-outs during a set. You can’t finish the set without treatment? Tough. You forfeit. Players need to man up.
As Federer put it: “I’m almost in favour of saying, you know what, if you’re not fit enough, just get out of here.”
3. Royal overload
The greatest royal of all
Wimbledon wouldn’t be Wimbledon without the archaic fawning over the Royal family but with the Will and Kate in the crowd today it reached a new level.
The camera was never off the pair for more than five minutes and Murray was even asked afterwards (presumably by the cretinous Garry Richardson, I didn’t see it) what it was like to play in front of them.
I don’t mean to sound like a bitter Irishman but seriously what year is this?
As for the question of what it’s like to play in front of them, I can’t come up with a better smartass answer than Mark Carpenter did on twitter:
“Is there any possible reasonable answer to the question: ‘What was it like playing in front of the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge’.
‘I know Wills would have liked to see me come in a bit more, but I had to keep to my gameplan, hopefully Kate was happy with my 1st serve %’
Too good.
If we’re going to have a Royal presence at Wimbledon then at least make it Prince Philip. In fact put him in the commentary box, sit back and let the comic old-fashioned racism commence.
It would beat listening to McEnroe, Castle, Rusedski et al, that’s for sure
4. Juan Martin All-Courto
Ok not exactly, but at times during his defeat to Nadal, the lanky Argentine showed a dose of subtlety and variety that I never knew he possessed.
He threw in some serve and volley, some chip and charge, and generally looked very comfortable in doing so.
It made a pleasant change from his usual ball-machine mode and he showed enough today to suggest that he can win the title in future.
He has a lot of work to do though and looked extremely vulnerable when forced to deal with short low balls. Nadal didn’t make him play very many of them but Federer or Murray for example, could torture him with that tactic.
He also threw in another audition for the lead role in the Bambi on Ice stage production but overall there were more positives than negatives for him to take from today’s defeat.
5. “A throw back to the good old days”
Not these good old days
That’s how Jason Goodall described the five setter between Lukasz Kubot and Feliciano Lopez.
It was certainly a match-up that you don’t see too often these days with both players regularly playing serve volley behind first and second serves.
The variety from both was highly entertaining but my favourite blast from the past moment came when Kubot was stranded at the net and Lopez blasted it straight at him, Lendl style.
Kubot, no stranger to such tactics as a leading doubles player, didn’t bat an eyelid and just got on with it. It’s a valid tactic and an effective one at that.
Players are shit-scared of offending one and other these days, apologising profusely if they so much as hit within a foot either side of an opponent at the net.
Said opponent at the net often responds to this perceived slight in an insulted manner more suited to finding out the guy at the other side of the net has been sleeping with his sister.
Tennis is a contact sport. Bring it back.
Nice article.
AO and USO for me are far better in scheduling. Nadal might be injured or not, but there is no rule to forbid him from calling the trainer at 6-6, maybe a rule should be introduced.
I suppose the picture in 3 is wrong :p This is not royal at all
Delpotro played well today. He showed he actually can play well on grass
Everybody relevant for tennis these days is an all-court player. The only players currently in the top-10 who clearly don’t do very good on all surfaces are Fish and Roddick who, just like most of Americans, struggle on clay.
And yeah, after Nadal’s overall performance in the following sets, I guess you can have your answer for the Nadal MTO question.
If Nadal’s foot/ankle was bothering him, he could have called for a trainer 2-3 games before the tiebreak, not right before. Why the game had to be stopped for eight minutes is another mystery—the entire conversation he had with the trainer consisted of, “Where does it hurt? When did this happen? Are you on medication?” They could have taped up his foot, sprayed painkiller and done the whole thing in much less time. Add to that the bathroom break he took right after the tiebreak. How many more rules did he need to take advantage of during that match?
Del Potro’s MTO I’m more partial to defend, because I could plainly see how he fell and thus needed the treatment for an injury incurred *during the match,* as opposed to Nadal’s injury which seemed more like a carryover from something he had before.
One area where Federer is indisputably the best tennis player is in his lack of MTO-drama. You never doubt the legitimacy of his wins. I may be wrong, but I’ve never seen Federer take an MTO during a crucial point in the match that he could end up losing. Taking an MTO right before a tiebreak is really bad form and I think Federer’s take on the MTOs is more right than wrong—if you need one, either consider retiring or wait until the set is over.
Excellent stuff there especially on the Petzschner situation as for Nadal, when you move like that it’s strategic. I differ slightly with the timeout rule and it’s a joke.
Something else I wish I would see more often is the underhand drop serve. Whenever I bring it up they say it’s bad sportsmanship but I say that’s garbage if it’s not against the rules. This is followed up by saying any pro should be able to put it away easily. If that’s the case then why is it perfectly acceptable to play during rallies? I mean if you have someone like Nadal standing 8 feet behind the baseline to return a serve then why is it not considered a smart play? In cricket you have people that bowl over a huge range of speeds and in baseball you have knuckle ball pitchers that go as low as 55mph. Yet in tennis it’s considered unacceptable even though it was the norm for women several years ago.
Forgot to mention table tennis as well. The best serves are the one that go as slow as possible with the lowest bounce. Serves are used to setup up the next shot rather then to win the point outright. I can see an underhanded serve with heavy side spin being extremely difficult to hit a winner off of and could theoretically be used to setup a winner..