AO 2016 - Day 11

First topic message reminder :

Order of Play - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/schedule/schedule16.html

Live Scores - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/scores/index.html

Day 11 Preview - http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2016-01-27/day_11_preview_can_roger_buck_the_trend.html

My predictions...

Williams in 2, Kerber in 2.

Djokovic in 5.

The one match this tournament Federer finds below 60% of first serves and he loses the match

TRuffin wrote:

paulcz wrote:

TRuffin wrote:

socal1976 wrote:Has there ever been fans of another player who get nastier and more petulant than Fed fans when their anointed one loses? If you beat Fed a lot you must be doping, or taking advantage of him because he is old. I mean did Fed feel sorry for Djokovic when Novak was 18 or 19 and Roger was in full pomp? In my history of watching tennis and commenting online I have never seen worse losers than Roger fans, obviously not all of them some of them who are gracious and knowledgeable. But really, I am so tired of post fed grandslam loss followed up by baseless allegations of doping for one of his great rivals. Pretty disrespectful and juvenile behavior.

If we are going to lump groups of fans-  I'll say that I've never seen a more nationalistic and frankly gutter talking group of fans across the internet universe than Djoko fans.  The ATP Site, Twitter, Facebook- every article I have looked at this morning has comments from guys with long ethnic names saying bizarre things like comparing Djoko to deity, talking about his Serbian blood makes him a god, then vulgar things like Federers wife wants to be with Djoko now, Federer was on his knees taking it from Djoko, on and on to the point they drown out any tennis talk.   It's bizarre talk and nothing I've ever seen even at the height of the Fed/Nadal fan wars.  It never got to vulgar level like that...    

Hi Truffin, I dont think that your comment on Novak's fans is fair. I think we all remember the period about a couple years ago how much there was offense between Nadal and Federer fans and every second post was deleted then. I read Czech and Slovak tennis forums and must say that vast majority of fanatics recruit from Fed and Nadal camps. It has its reason, both come from western countries with a bombastic promotion and media support. Now their pomp is running away and many these can't handle with. It is foolish to refer to Serbian tennis forum, facebook and such things, Serbia is very small nation with its history, so we can leave their talks. But the gauge is nonbalkanian fans and my experience is quite different as their fandom is much more fair and modest.

You missed my greater point- We all have our views and my point was just as Socal can use the postings of a few or minority of Federer fans to lump Federer fans together as nasty and petulant, I can easily do the same with the comments from Djokovic fans that I am seeing all over the place. Both are unfair.

I haven't gone to or referring to comments from Serbian tennis forums. I'm reading comments from the ATP site which people use facebook to reply to, from the Australion open site, from various world wide newspaper sites. When I see the comments sections littered with guys named Dragan or Yosma talking about Federers wife, talking about Federer in graphic Djoko raped him terms- then I can just as easily draw the same conclusions that socal did after seeing a couple fed fans on here say something negative about Djokovic.. Just in your post you make assumptions about Nadal and Federer fans and western fans while saying Balkan fans are much more fair.. we all have our views and bias.

I working in pro sports and am clearly a massive fan of Federer and other athletes. My view is ALL fan bases have bad eggs and fanatics that take it too far. I just think its unrealistic when one says to the other- we are pure and you aren't..... just doesn't work that way.

My apologies if I offended you though. I’m not trying to get into a fan war or have interest in that. I quite like Djokovic and have said loud and clealry I view him as a potential best ever.

No offense taken or meant. I just can't do anything other than say that from the outset I made it clear that it wasn't all fed fans and when you challenged me I further clarified that again I was referring to vocal minority within federer fans. The way I identified them as such is that they support him on the match thread and other posts, that is how they self identify.

Again I can't comment on other sites I haven't seen but I can tell you that in the 606 and 606v2 history the only fans of any player that routinely smear other players as dopers with no objective evidence are fed fans. I have yet to hear a Murray fan level that charge when he loses to Novak. No Novak fans currently posting has leveled that charge on any other big 4 player. And no Nadal fans. So you know I just don't buy your moral equivalency. There is only one group of fans who routinely accuse other greats of doping and particularly after slam losses to said rivals. 

I am sure there are many  obnoxious Novak and Nadal fans who step out of line. So? My point is specific to one particular type of nefarious conduct and really the only group who does it systematically is a small (minority) of self identified fed fans. A significant but minority of them for sure. other than stating this over and over again I am talking about a few and not the whole there is nothing I can do to avoid lumping you in with those make these allegations. I have tried every formulation of words conceivable to avoid lumping the majority of knowledgeable and fair fed fans in while expressing the fact that the only group making these baseless smears is always a subgroup of one particular player's fans.

@ruffin on the match i think it is why we see Fed hit so many errors against Novak and also why he can't get into net more. That first ball in tennis especially at the men's tour is so important in deciding things. Fed is not used to blocking A return that gives him no time to shuffle step over and hit the off FH. He can execute that over and over against other players because no one returns his serve like that. It is hard to move around the mid court ball and make it a FH when it's on you so fast. I bet on average Novak's return gets on him a quarter second faster because it bounces just inside the line as opposed to just passed the service line. This makes shifting over to hit a FH a frantic endeavor especially since Roger wants to be right up on the baseline. This is one factor that creates the misfires we see particularly on fed's mid court Fh

The match was a little different from what I expected.  I expected a fairly easy win for Novak, perhaps straight sets, but I did not expect to see 6:1, 6:2 sets.  Straight sets like maybe 7:5, 6:4, 6:3 would not have surprised me at all.

Novak started brilliantly and Fed was not at his very best, and I suppose 6:1 and 6:2 can then happen.

Funnily enough, even though this match was far more one-sided than their USO, or even Wimbledon, finals, mid-way through the 4th set Fed was in with a better chance than at the same stage in either of those two matches.  Tennis scoring system can be funny.

The whole thing did not last too long, so I managed to go back to bed and catch another hour of sleep before I had to get up, which was also nice.

Obviously Novak a huge favorite for the final, but one never knows.  Murray at his best can be difficult.  However, the last time Murray was playing anywhere near the required level was in Canada last year.  He will have to reproduce that.  Even though Andy will have a better chance against Nole, I am actually rooting for Raonic tonight.  I have not seen him yet this year, and people seem to be saying that he has enhanced his game.  If he wins, I will get to watch him play (and likely get destroyed by) Novak.

summerblues wrote:The match was a little different from what I expected.  I expected a fairly easy win for Novak, perhaps straight sets, but I did not expect to see 6:1, 6:2 sets.  Straight sets like maybe 7:5, 6:4, 6:3 would not have surprised me at all.

Novak started brilliantly and Fed was not at his very best, and I suppose 6:1 and 6:2 can then happen.

Funnily enough, even though this match was far more one-sided than their USO, or even Wimbledon, finals, mid-way through the 4th set Fed was in with a better chance than at the same stage in either of those two matches.  Tennis scoring system can be funny.

The whole thing did not last too long, so I managed to go back to bed and catch another hour of sleep before I had to get up, which was also nice.

Obviously Novak a huge favorite for the final, but one never knows.  Murray at his best can be difficult.  However, the last time Murray was playing anywhere near the required level was in Canada last year.  He will have to reproduce that.  Even though Andy will have a better chance against Nole, I am actually rooting for Raonic tonight.  I have not seen him yet this year, and people seem to be saying that he has enhanced his game.  If he wins, I will get to watch him play (and likely get destroyed by) Novak.

I have only seen him play a couple of sets so it is hard to say he has made a significant improvement over what we saw last year. But what I saw was a player who was returning markedly better than in previous years. If Raonic can pick up just a few points in break percentage you got yourself a multi slam winner in the future. He isn't going john isner and just cranking every return. He is stepping back and just trying to make clean contact and trusting in his legs,strokes, and lungs to keep him competitive. I like the strategy he isn't Isner he moves a lot better than Isner, he doesn't have to whack kamikaze returns on every first ball. These big guys who just take one big cut are doing it out of desperation Milos moves more like JMDP or Berdych and is built like them instead of isner or Karlovic. Plus he looks more confident moving in at net and hitting his backhand. If he can make a small but significant gain in his returning that is all he needs to be winning slams