USO - The Quarter Finals

First topic message reminder :

Two men's and two women's quarters today. Schwartzman may be fatigued after his tremendous efforts so far, so CB may have the edge in this one.
   Querrey v Anderson is tough to call. Q won a long five-setter between the two at Wimbledon. I think the American will win but it could go either way.
   Same thoughts about Venus v Kvitova. If Petra plays well she'll probably have too much for Venus, but it's another 50-50 match. I'm taking Sloane S to win her quarter.

Henman Bill wrote: And the third set against was only barely lost on a very tight tiebreak.

Federer threw away the third-set TB with some very poor shots. It is his to lose.

kemet wrote:Rafa would slaughter Roger based on the display I am seeing tonight

Unlikely, that Federer will make it.

laverfan wrote:

kemet wrote:Rafa would slaughter Roger based on the display I am seeing tonight

Unlikely, that Federer will make it.

Yep this is why I used the conditional tense.

I'm struggling to reconcile Del Potro's form during the year with the calibre of this performance today. His record this year is 18-11 with Delray Beach being his only semi final appearance. Dimitrov, Shap, Gulbis and Nishikori were recent losses with no wins against top ten players for quite some while prior to the US Open.

Federer's timing was off by some margin right from the start of the match. Delpo the favourite to take this match now methinks. As I mentioned upthread a day or so ago, Delpo has the power to upset Federer when he's in the zone (as history tells us......). The much-awaited Fedal USO clash is just not meant to be - and as kemet says, perhaps a good thing given current respective levels. Delpo can give Rafa a better match if he maintains this sort of form.

Fed has played a lot of matches this season even though he has taken time out. I think things have just caught up with him, the ability to focus constantly does get harder as the years go by.

Terrible overhead from Roger at deuce. Funnily enough I was just at the time wondering why Del Potro keeps bothering lobbing given how on point Fed's overheads had been night. And after that , Del Potro has hits another great pass to break. More key points lost from Federer at the net.

lags72 wrote:Federer's timing was off by some margin right from the start of the match.  Delpo the favourite to take this match now methinks.  As I mentioned upthread a day or so ago, Delpo has the power to upset Federer when he's in the zone (as history tells us......). The much-awaited Fedal USO clash is just not meant to be - and as kemet says, perhaps a good thing given current respective levels. Delpo can give Rafa a better match if he maintains this sort of form.

Fed has played a lot of matches this season even though he has taken time out. I think things have just caught up with him, the ability to focus constantly does get harder as the years go by.

I had a bad feeling about this match all day (and night).

Maybe a Rafa-Federer meeting at the US Open would somehow cause a paradox in the space time continuum and therefore cannot possibly happen. After all, Federer had to lose to Robredo otherwise it would have happened, how plausible is that...hmmm...

Well-deserved win from Juan Martin Del Potro.

The Rafa-Roger match is simply not going to happen in New York City.

Congratulations to Nadal, on his USO 2017 trophy. What a resurgence for Nadal, and he retains #1.

PS: Well played, DelPo.

Big congrats to Delpo. A fine example of the rewards that can come if you put in effort & dedication through years of adversity

Goodnight all !

laverfan wrote:Congratulations to Nadal, on his USO 2017 trophy. What a resurgence for Nadal, and he retains #1.

This is a bold prediction to be sure. With that said, Juan Martin is going to have to player a few levels higher than what he showed tonight to beat Rafa in the semi.

kemet wrote:

laverfan wrote:Congratulations to Nadal, on his USO 2017 trophy. What a resurgence for Nadal, and he retains #1.

This is a bold prediction to be sure. With that said, Juan Martin is going to have to player a few levels higher than what he showed tonight to beat Rafa in the semi.

Indeed, it is. Not much doubt in my mind, though.

Some cracking shots at the end there from both of them. That one from Del Potro straight at Federer, did he leave it or was it so hard he could not react to hit a shot straight at him? Really enjoyed this match actually, there were a few bad errors in it, but a lot of good stuff too.

I don't agree with the comments about Federer's overall performance being poor and his timing being off. Considering the power that DP hits at I thought he was doing really well to send those shots back with interest, and serve return was decent also on some power serves. I thought he played mostly well although there was the odd bit of dubious shot selection but overall considering his age it's amazing the level he is playing at.

You just get one or two big points that decide a very close match like that, it was not a match where one player is dominant over the other. In the end, Del Potro does lead total points 131-125, but that is still pretty close.

The stats are saying Federer won 64% of net points, which feels right to me. And that's also where he lost the match.

Set 1 - doesn't do enough with a makeable volley and gets passed, the only break point of the set.

Set 3 - the TB ends with Fed at the net, I think a volley he could not get into play.

Set 4 - the missed smash at deuce, then a Del Potro pass to break. Then Fed missed a volley at 30-30 when DP was serving for the match. I am not sure if he was stretching and it was out of his reach or just snatched at it.

So the conundrum of the match is that Federer's tactic of attacking the net won out more often than not overall, but not at these critical points. So was it nerves? Did he over play going to the net, perhaps he should have used it slightly less sparingly instead of racing to the net when he had no advantage in the point?.... possibly. Or maybe just bad luck.

Rafa now 500 points ahead of Roger in the rankings race. If he wins the title he will be almost 2000 ahead.

Very honest and open assessment by Federer himself ...... expressed in pretty blunt, no-nonsense terms.

Confirms what I - and no doubt many others - felt since the start of the event.

https://sports.yahoo.com/federer-del-potro-better-chance-051404073.html

Damn that Andy Murray. If he hadn't been so selfish we would have had a Fedal final instead of just a semi-final

Well done Del Potro. Didn't think he would have much chance but happy to be proved wrong.

lags72 wrote:Very honest and open assessment by Federer himself ...... expressed in pretty blunt, no-nonsense terms.

Confirms what I - and no doubt many others - felt since the start of the event.

https://sports.yahoo.com/federer-del-potro-better-chance-051404073.html

Hopefully this video works across the pond.

A dejected Roger Federer reacts to his quarterfinal loss to Juan Martin del Potro at the 2017 US Open.

Henman Bill wrote:I'm struggling to reconcile Del Potro's form during the year with the calibre of this performance today. His record this year is 18-11 with Delray Beach being his only semi final appearance. Dimitrov, Shap, Gulbis and Nishikori were recent losses with no wins against top ten players for quite some while prior to the US Open.

Someone said yesterday (I think it was you) that they have the theory that Delpo can hit the ball hard, but at the risk of injuring his wrist. I get the feeling that he now only extends himself when he feels it is worth it. Maybe he needs the adrenaline he gets from the crowd, like when he was down in the Thiem match and at the Olympics last year etc.

He can clearly still play at a high level, just doesn't seem able to reproduce too often.

laverfan wrote:Congratulations to Nadal, on his USO 2017 trophy. What a resurgence for Nadal, and he retains #1.

PS: Well played, DelPo.

Agree with this. He's certainly not losing to PCB or Anderson in the final.

Only nagging doubt is that Rafa hasn't played anyone at all yet, so Delpo could test him. Then I remember that Delpo doesn't have a backhand and Rafa has made an all-time great career out of exposing backhands.

I never saw anything of the match but I am delighted for Del Potro and hope he goes on to win the tournament. It would be an incredible achievement considering he has had injuries that almost ended his career and forced him to re-invent aspects of his game. I like his attitude and he is always gracious even following bitter defeats  - a great trait. Well done Juan and hopefully you can go on to even better things in New York.

CaledonianCraig wrote:I never saw anything of the match but I am delighted for Del Potro and hope he goes on to win the tournament. It would be an incredible achievement considering he has had injuries that almost ended his career and forced him to re-invent aspects of his game. I like his attitude and he is always gracious even following bitter defeats  - a great trait. Well done Juan and hopefully you can go on to even better things in New York.

Agreed. The Big 4 may all have had injuries that kept them out of the game for periods of time, but none have had to deal with anything that affected them nearly as much as JMDP. I believe he could have been a multiple slam winner and even a No 1 (yes, I know - 'what if?').

Apart from well done to Del boy, who I have always had a soft sport for, two thoughts:

(1) Del Potro is one guy that can hit through Nadal with his forehand, but as Guest82 has pointed out, Nadal is pretty good at exposing weak RH backhands.....  I'd say that Nadal is a strong favourite to win this.

(2) Federer is HUGELY disappointed - you get a sense of the burning competitiveness within that drives him on and persuades him not to sit on his laurels whilst he still has the physical ability to play.  That competitiveness is often hidden on Court by the way he plays - like a swan you can't see the furious paddling.

I haven't seen it but looks like a great display from DP. You'd have got long odds on him being in the SF when he was 1-6 2-6 down to Thiem a couple of nights back. I thought Fed would be too clever for him but a lot of comments suggest Fed went into the forehand too much and got burned.

Del Potro so clearly deserved that win. It's good to see him back on the tour.

Federer was really below par all of the USO - in fact since the Montreal semi - and would have gone out earlier if he'd met anyone of note.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Agreed. The Big 4 may all have had injuries that kept them out of the game for periods of time, but none have had to deal with anything that affected them nearly as much as JMDP. I believe he could have been a multiple slam winner and even a No 1 (yes, I know - 'what if?').

You're not the only one - in his prematch interview Fed talked about what a shame it was JMDP got injured just as he had a shot at number 1.

reckoner wrote:

JuliusHMarx wrote:Agreed. The Big 4 may all have had injuries that kept them out of the game for periods of time, but none have had to deal with anything that affected them nearly as much as JMDP. I believe he could have been a multiple slam winner and even a No 1 (yes, I know - 'what if?').

You're not the only one - in his prematch interview Fed talked about what a shame it was JMDP got injured just as he had a shot at number 1.

He did, and in the same breath he said the same thing about Davydenko, who beat Del Potro in the 2009 WTF final (and retired with a rare +H2H vs. Nadal).  I thought it was an interesting thing to say because 2010 was, of course, Nadal's Annus Mirabilis.   Was Fed making a back-handed point that Nadal got lucky in 2010?

barrystar wrote:
He did, and in the same breath he said the same thing about Davydenko, who beat Del Potro in the 2009 WTF final (and retired with a rare +H2H vs. Nadal).  I thought it was an interesting thing to say because 2010 was, of course, Nadal's Annus Mirabilis.   Was Fed making a back-handed point that Nadal got lucky in 2010?

It's possible I guess, but it would be out of character. He's had nothing but positive things to say about Nadal and is playing with him in the Laver Cup.

Unless of course he set up the Laver Cup so that he could play with Nadal at close quarters to further dissect his game...

Guest82 wrote:

Henman Bill wrote:I'm struggling to reconcile Del Potro's form during the year with the calibre of this performance today. His record this year is 18-11 with Delray Beach being his only semi final appearance. Dimitrov, Shap, Gulbis and Nishikori were recent losses with no wins against top ten players for quite some while prior to the US Open.

Someone said yesterday (I think it was you) that they have the theory that Delpo can hit the ball hard, but at the risk of injuring his wrist. I get the feeling that he now only extends himself when he feels it is worth it. Maybe he needs the adrenaline he gets from the crowd, like when he was down in the Thiem match and at the Olympics last year etc.  

He can clearly still play at a high level, just doesn't seem able to reproduce too often.

Right it was me, that it was I was getting at. This is the best explanation I've got as well, although hard to guess.

Henman Bill wrote:

Guest82 wrote:

Henman Bill wrote:I'm struggling to reconcile Del Potro's form during the year with the calibre of this performance today. His record this year is 18-11 with Delray Beach being his only semi final appearance. Dimitrov, Shap, Gulbis and Nishikori were recent losses with no wins against top ten players for quite some while prior to the US Open.

Someone said yesterday (I think it was you) that they have the theory that Delpo can hit the ball hard, but at the risk of injuring his wrist. I get the feeling that he now only extends himself when he feels it is worth it. Maybe he needs the adrenaline he gets from the crowd, like when he was down in the Thiem match and at the Olympics last year etc.  

He can clearly still play at a high level, just doesn't seem able to reproduce too often.

Right it was me, that it was I was getting at. This is the best explanation I've got as well, although hard to guess.

I'd love to see him do it again I must say.

I think I'd favour Del Potro to win the title now as well. He is the only player he can will the title and say he did it with a difficult, challenging route. Anyone else wins it it's because they've had the luck of the draw.

Federer's presser initially confirms exactly what I was saying. He says he didn't play bad and just that Del Potro was better on the big points.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/interviews/2017-09-06/2017-09-06_roger_federer_interview.html?chip=0

However much of what he then goes on to say was slightly more negative assessment of his performance than I thought, and agrees with what some of what the rest of you were saying. "I feel I have no place in the semis and he will have a better chance to beat Rafa, to be honest. The way I played or playing right now, it's not good enough in my opinion to win this tournament."

"I knew going in that I'm not in a safe place. Might have depended too much on my opponent, and I don't like that feeling. I had it, you know, throughout the tournament, and I just felt that way every single match I went into. I didn't have that feeling at Wimbledon or at the Australian Open."

"I wasn't good enough, in my mind, in my body, and in my game. If you set up to a forehand, you don't know where it's going to go, I mean, you know it's not going to go where you want it to go, you're, like, Hmm, doesn't feel great."

Q. You mentioned your body being a little off. How much of a factor was the back after all?

ROGER FEDERER: I mean, I was serving okay, you know, finally. It was getting better, you know, as the tournament progressed, so that was positive.

I'm happy I was able to overcome that, and that all the hard work we put into it with my team, that was what I was looking for throughout the event is actually it was going to get better, my back. Otherwise I wouldn't entered the tournament if I knew that the back was going to get worse.

There was a relief there that I was able to play a lot of tough matches, you know, and a quarter here. That gives me confidence.

But did it take away something from my overall performance? Maybe not on the night. But leading into the night, you know, I just think it slowed down my rhythm and whatever it was throughout the tournament, you know, because I was never really able to turn it on completely. I played okay, you know, but I never felt like I got to the great level I can play at, but that's okay.

__________________

he then goes on to add, in the answer to the next question:

I mean, in a way it's been a struggle for everybody here, except maybe Carreno Busta. He's just been cruising. The rest of us have all been fighting something, you know. I'm sure other players are fighting injuries, you know, but they're not talking about it. I unfortunately had to because of the Montreal and Cincinnati situation. Otherwise I wouldn't have talked about it, either.

Interesting comments about other players having injuries and not talking about it. He may just be making a general point but it seems a bit more than that?

Del Potro has now beaten Federer twice in Majors(USO 2009 and USO 2017). He's also taken Federer to five sets twice at Roland Garros( 2009 and 2012. And Delpo probably should've won both matches at Roland Garros.

I'm in two (very different !) minds as to what we might see in the Rafa-Delpo SF.

Hopefully Delpo can continue in similar vein and put Rafa to the sword. A see-saw 5 setter would be tremendous entertainment ; and if Delpo could actually edge it, safe to say it would be a very popular victory - and due reward for all those long weeks/months/years when he was putting in the hard slog, trying all he could to get back to something close to his glory period.

The other part of me feels that Delpo has been under some sort of magical spell since that third set v Thiem - BUT that the spell will, sadly, be broken just as soon as proceedings get under way in the SF.

Federer has, I read, confirmed that he fully intends to follow through with his original schedule of Shanghai, Paris, Basel, concluding of course with his much-favoured WTF London. In the meantime some R&R no doubt, ahead of the Laver Cup.

Not very impressed by Federer's season so far.  Okay .... he did win two Slams, two Masters (along with something else too, IIRC) ; and his h2h with big rival Rafa is a vaguely respectable 5-5 over the last ten meets. But he then gets summarily dumped out at the QF's here in New York. And for a guy as young as 36, right in his prime, it's all rather poor I'd say.......

I am guessing not too many players hold two wins over Federer in grand slams...?

Nadal and Djokovic obviously. Berdych & Tsonga.

Clement, Corretja, Nalbandian from the early days - Nalbandian really should have won a slam.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Damn that Andy Murray. If he hadn't been so selfish we would have had a Fedal final instead of just a semi-final

A shame Barrystar for Nalbandian that there wasn't a slam when he had that hot streak at the end of 2007 of beating Nadal and Federer both in the same tournament achieving the feat at two tournaments in a row (!) - Madrid and Paris.

I'm wondering - if Del Potro wins against Nadal would he be the first player to beat them both in the same grand slam tournament two times. He obviously did it already in 2009.

The question is whether Djokovic or anyone else has already done it. Djokovic achieved this at the 2011 US Open but I can't think of another occassion.

Murray can feel a bit less sheepish now but he isn't completely off the hook yet, there's still the chance that Del Potro will beat Nadal and be too exhausted to get the job done in the final.

Guest82 wrote:I am guessing not too many players hold two wins over Federer in grand slams...?

Nadal and Djokovic obviously.  Berdych & Tsonga.  

Select group of eight.

Nadal x9
Djokovic x9

Clèment x2
Corretja x2
Nalbandian x2
Berdych x2
Tsonga x2
Del Potro x2

Henman Bill wrote:A shame Barrystar for Nalbandian that there wasn't a slam when he had that hot streak at the end of 2007 of beating Nadal and Federer both in the same tournament achieving the feat at two tournaments in a row (!) - Madrid and Paris.

I'm wondering - if Del Potro wins against Nadal would he be the first player to beat them both in the same grand slam tournament two times. He obviously did it already in 2009.

The question is whether Djokovic or anyone else has already done it. Djokovic achieved this at the 2011 US Open but I can't think of another occassion.

2009 and 2011 are the only occasions the same player beat Nadal and Federer in the same Major.

Thank you.

Where do people get all this stuff from? Is it from memory or have you googled it. When people suddnely say Corretja beat Federer twice in slams, you have either done some googling or yo are some kind of tennis knowledge legend. It would be nice to see sources so I know if you are guessing or have cross checked against some reliable source.

In this case I suspect you are right, but I just mean this as general feedback to everyone not trying to criticise any individal. I do it myself plenty of times (post info without sources) I am just wondering if giving more sources might be a good direction.

Everyone seems to be able to pull obscure stats out of their hat like you are all wizards. I just wonder if there is some magic website tennisstats.com that I don't know about!

Within the select group is an even more select group ..... those with a great story for the grandchildren :

"No, I didn't actually win a grand Slam. But on my way to never winning one, I beat that guy called Roger Federer. Twice."


HB : I think there's a lot of tennis stuff out there if one has the time/inclination. Amongst many others, the official ATP site (even though in current format not as good or user-friendly as the previous version, IMO) can be a good source of archived data.

Henman Bill wrote:Murray can feel a bit less sheepish now but he isn't completely off the hook yet, there's still the chance that Del Potro will beat Nadal and be too exhausted to get the job done in the final.

I'm still puzzled as to what Murray should be "sheepish" about in the first place

I'd bet my house and family he wouldn't have given a flying frig about the inconvenience of his terrible behaviour ruining the chances of the potential Fedal final and breaking the hearts of the 'followers'

I actually admire him for been, for once, very selfish and he will have gone up further in my estimation if he did it to totally wreck the love in

It's like it's 2009. As soon as Novak or Andy do something that undermines any of the two guru's status off go the followers (or those simply obsessed with Fedal matches - strange really as barely a quarter of them have lived up to expectation ) wringing their hands in frustration. It's like having bogbrush and Tenez back (well not quite as bad )

Henman Bill wrote:Thank you.

Where do people get all this stuff from? Is it from memory or have you googled it. When people suddnely say Corretja beat Federer twice in slams, you have either done some googling or yo are some kind of tennis knowledge legend. It would be nice to see sources so I know if you are guessing or have cross checked against some reliable source.

In this case I suspect you are right, but I just mean this as general feedback to everyone not trying to criticise any individal. I do it myself plenty of times (post info without sources) I am just wondering if giving more sources might be a good direction.

Everyone seems to be able to pull obscure stats out of their hat like you are all wizards. I just wonder if there is some magic website tennisstats.com that I don't know about!

http://www.atpworldtour.com/players/roger-federer/f324/player-activity?year=all&tournament=gs