Australian Open - Day Seven

First topic message reminder :

The top half of the draw reaches the fourth round stage and pick of the day's matches are:-

Andy Murray V Mischa Zverev - Murray to win in 3 or 4 sets.

Roger Federer V Kei Nishikori - This is hard to predict. For me Federer has to win in straight sets as if this becomes a long match Kei becomes warm favourite. Nishikori in 4 for me.

Stan Wawrinka V Andreas Seppi - Stan to win in 3 or 4 sets.

Jo Tsonga V Dan Evans - Tsonga to win in 4. However, if Dan frustrates Tsonga and gets in his head Dan could win.

Danny_1982 wrote:How on earth is Federer playing this well against a top player after 6 months out?! And outlasting him physically The man is incredible.

Probably because he's won 17 gand slams & Nishikori hasn't won any. All this six months out nonsense is just that. He's had a long training period, whilst out & if he wasn't fit & able, he wouldn't of even got on the plane to Aus.

Just John wrote:

Danny_1982 wrote:How on earth is Federer playing this well against a top player after 6 months out?! And outlasting him physically The man is incredible.

Probably because he's won 17 gand slams & Nishikori hasn't won any. All this six months out nonsense is just that. He's had a long training period, whilst out & if he wasn't fit & able, he wouldn't of even got on the plane to Aus.

Elements of truth to that. The break has freshened him up and I would imagine allowed him to get in his best ever fitness training regime. Nishikori has had his own fitness issues of late and they seemed to haunt him today but you can't take anything away from Roger. However, this is one randow win which he now has to replicate against Zverev (do-able as expectation will now be higher on Mischa), Wawrinka (do-able if Stan has mental lapses which he has had in this tournament already) and maybe Nadal who we know has long had an Indian Sign over Roger. In short the bigger challenges lie ahead.

I like the look of Dimi. Watch him lose, now

I am more at Murray's exit than Federer's romp.

The icing would be to see a Fedal final, which would be the biggest shocker for me this year.

Terrific win for Fed today. The Murray shock is along the lines of the Rafa upsets at Wimbledon (Rosol, Darcis, Brown ) Fed's loss to stakhovsky and of course the Djoko defeat by istomin. There are times when a lowly ranked guy plays the match of his life. Istomin did really well to follow up with another win but it's asking a lot of M Zverev to repeat his heroics. For me the Fed win took away some of the pain of the Murray defeat.

I stopped watching after the first two Murray-Zverev sets were split evenly. Murray was pushed quite a bit by Zverev. Both brothers are/were doing pretty well at AO 2017.

Vandeweghe meeting Kerber is equally

CaledonianCraig wrote:

banbrotam wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:Of course he'll be back banbrotam nobody is saying otherwise but however you look at it it was a very disappointing loss for Andy. Saving grace? The No 1 slot looks to be his for a good month or two now. Hopefully, he can get back to winning ways at the upcoming Masters events.

In my reply to BS, I'm referring to the US Open loss as it don't see that as an event "thrown away" when he'd just won The Olympics and Wimbledon

Nobody's not calling this a disappointing loss. Any loss is disappointing, when you're world No.1

Yes I also disagreed it was a slam flung away - it wasn't. Even if Andy had won today his bigger tests lay ahead. I would have agreed if this had been the semi and waiting in the final already had been a player he would have been hot favourite to beat. But that just wasn't the case.

Andy hadn't lost to anyone left in the draw as at the end of last night since Monte Carlo last year. Other than a defeat to Fed in 2014 immediately after his back surgery, he hadn't lost to anyone other than Novak in Oz since 2010.

Miraculous though Fed's win yesterday was, he wouldn't be beating Andy on these courts straight after a 5 setter. I'm comfortable that Andy would beat Stan and he'd be strong favourite against whoever comes through from the other side.

Perhaps thrown away is a little harsh given his level yesterday was good enough to win most matches. However, he has a very short window left to win slams and this was a great shot.

As for the US, i accept he had had a tough run. However, he still lost to a player he owns after getting distracted by a gong. It may be harsh but those are probably the easiest two slams he could have picked up, at a time when he's made the final at least of every non-slam hard court event from the Olympics onward. It's very definitely two he has let go.

Born Slippy wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:

banbrotam wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:Of course he'll be back banbrotam nobody is saying otherwise but however you look at it it was a very disappointing loss for Andy. Saving grace? The No 1 slot looks to be his for a good month or two now. Hopefully, he can get back to winning ways at the upcoming Masters events.

In my reply to BS, I'm referring to the US Open loss as it don't see that as an event "thrown away" when he'd just won The Olympics and Wimbledon

Nobody's not calling this a disappointing loss. Any loss is disappointing, when you're world No.1

Yes I also disagreed it was a slam flung away - it wasn't. Even if Andy had won today his bigger tests lay ahead. I would have agreed if this had been the semi and waiting in the final already had been a player he would have been hot favourite to beat. But that just wasn't the case.

Andy hadn't lost to anyone left in the draw as at the end of last night since Monte Carlo last year. Other than a defeat to Fed in 2014 immediately after his back surgery, he hadn't lost to anyone other than Novak in Oz since 2010.

Miraculous though Fed's win yesterday was, he wouldn't be beating Andy on these courts straight after a 5 setter. I'm comfortable that Andy would beat Stan and he'd be strong favourite against whoever comes through from the other side.

Perhaps thrown away is a little harsh given his level yesterday was good enough to win most matches. However, he has a very short window left to win slams and this was a great shot.

As for the US, i accept he had had a tough run. However, he still lost to a player he owns after getting distracted by a gong. It may be harsh but those are probably the easiest two slams he could have picked up, at a time when he's made the final at least of every non-slam hard court event from the Olympics onward. It's very definitely two he has let go.

It's a massive opportunity lost. Once his main rival (and six time champion) went out, he became clear favourite. He was odds on with the bookies for the title.

Still, we all know Murray has had these types of losses down the years. More often than the others, which is why he's just a level below them. No shame in that. I suppose he will want to be filling his boots during this period though, so an opportunity very much lost IMO.

Do we? At the Australian, he's not lost to anyone other than Fed or Novak in 8 years. I can't even think of a match where anyone has come near to beating him.

At the French, he's not lost to anyone other than Novak or Rafa since 2012.

At Wimbledon, he's lost one match to a non big 4 player since 2006.

The only event, oddly, he's become erratic at is the US Open where, since he won it, he's become strangely inconsistent.

Overall, that was his first defeat at a slam to an unseeded player since the Oz Open in 2008. Pretty sure all the other big 4 have more unseeded defeats in that time.

Murray's record to opponents outside the big 4 in slams stands comparison with the others. It's his record against the other big 4 members which creates the gap between them.

Born Slippy wrote:Do we? At the Australian, he's not lost to anyone other than Fed or Novak in 8 years. I can't even think of a match where anyone has come near to beating him.

At the French, he's not lost to anyone other than Novak or Rafa since 2012.

At Wimbledon, he's lost one match to a non big 4 player since 2006.

The only event, oddly, he's become erratic at is the US Open where, since he won it, he's become strangely inconsistent.

Overall, that was his first defeat at a slam to an unseeded player since the Oz Open in 2008. Pretty sure all the other big 4 have more unseeded defeats in that time.

Murray's record to opponents outside the big 4 in slams stands comparison with the others. It's his record against the other big 4 members which creates the gap between them.

Maybe it is just my opinion, I am obviously remembering the US Open defeats - Anderson, Nishikori, Wawrinka (before he was a slam winner) etc.

He always seemed more vulnerable to me.

I would hardly include Nishikori defeat in there and Wawrinka defeat was a result of a wrist injury which he took time out from afterwards. So I would agree more with BS here that it is his defeats against all-time greats that has cost him far more.

The US is an oddity though. Since 2009 he's lost there 5 times to non big 4 players:

Cilic
Wawrinka
Wawrinka again
Nishikori
Anderson

At Australia and Wimbledon combined he's lost to three players:

Verdasco
Roddick
Zverev

None of those defeats were between 2010 and 2016.