USO finals

Much better that it's Anderson in the final than PCB. If Anderson has a hot serving day and is really on he can cause some problems. Sadly I think the pressure of his first (and likely only ever) GS final will be too much and he'll play badly.

Not massively convinced by Rafa, as said below he's standing too far back. He can only beat what's in front of him, but to win a grand slam beating the world number 28 as the highest rank opponent is quite lucky.

Didn't see the match but sounds like Delpo fell off a cliff. Anderson shouldn't go away physically at least. If Anderson really shows up it could be interesting, my feeling is the pressure will be too much.

Would be a shame for Anderson if for his (likely) one and only final he performs under-par - hope he doesn't disgrace himself and keeps the score respectable.  Got a feeling though that post-final most of the chat on here will be about Nadal's achievements and overall standing in the game rather than the match itself (bit of a repeat of this year's Roland Garros final in that respect).

2 slams each for both Federer and Nadal this year, at this stage of respective careers, and after injury issues both have had, is an incredible achievement.

I can only see a straight-forward win for Rafa in the final. Anderson will be delighted to have reached a slam final whilst Rafa will be hungry for this title. Anderson will do well to win a set for me but here is hoping it is am exciting and competitive final.

The women's final could go either way. Rafa a clear favourite in the men's and I fear that it might all be too much for Anderson.
   Interesting point on the semi-final topic thread about age of winners/finalists this year. You would have thought that this, of all Slams, would have been the one for the younger players to step up. But no.
   All four Slams will be won by 30-somethings this year (and quite a lot of the other big tournaments, too).
   Will it change next year ? Well, Rafa and Rog will still be around and then there's the little matter of three multiple-Slam 30-somethings returning, hopefully, after injury.

Stephens takes 1st set 6-3, Keys playing more contained compared to previous matches, needs to be more aggressive if she's going to have a chance of coming back.

I did feel Stephens had a touch more about her game and it would appear so thus far. I do believe that a year or two ago she was being touted to be the one to take over from the Williams sisters. I still think not a chance but at least she is showing she can win slams.

Stephens isn't in the same league as Serena, and is a completely different style of player.  Nevertheless, glad to see her fulfilling her early promise - she's certainly bounced back well from injury this year and its good to have another player capable of winning slams.  I don't see her as dominant player winning lots of slams, but amongst the younger players I don't see anyone other than say Muguruza winning more than 3-4 slams.

Staggering to think that if Rafael Nadal wins tomorrow, he'd have more titles than Novak Djokovic in New York. Djokovic for my money the best hard court player of the modern era, yet has rather ordinary 2-5 record in US Open finals. Despite Djokovic being 6-0 in Melbourne, he's also curiously 0-5 in Cincinnati finals as well. Total bizarre!

to Anderson and Nadal. Please make it a good final.

Well, we sure need a good Final. Let's hope the eventual scoreline is very different from the women's.  If Rafa were to run away with the Bo5 equivalent, I can't imagine that even his most ardent fans would find it particularly exciting or memorable.

Am I right in thinking that these two Finalists have progressed through the whole tourney, after facing - between them - just ONE player ranked inside the Top 20 ..... in the shape of Carreno Busta ??

My prediction for the final?  Straight sets for Nadal, with Rafa getting off to a dream start breaking Anderson within first couple of games, taking the 1st set quickly, before Anderson warms up a bit, with a tie-break in either 2nd or 3rd set and one break for Nadal in the other.

Won't be a classic by any stretch of the imagination but I'm reasonably optimistic it will be less one-sided than either Roland Garros or Wimbledon finals this year.

I expect this forum to be busy with Nadal v Federer/GOAT threads in the next week or so!

MrInvisible wrote:

......................................

I expect this forum to be busy with Nadal v Federer/GOAT threads in the next week or so!

Oh dear, I seriously hope not  

And in fact I very much doubt it will be, simply because the small group of posters who still contribute here do not - I sense - have much appetite for such stuff, having grown rather tired of it all some time ago ......

(just looked at the dedicated GOAT sticky, and I see that during course of this year so far, it has had the grand total of just ONE post ...... consisting of just ONE word !)

Well done to Sloane Stephens. I was out for the final but I caught some of the closing stages of the semi and it was pretty entertaining stuff.

Venus Williams is a curious one. By next years's Wimbledon she's on course to reach the sad state of being 10 years without a slam which is to be far probably the same state most players that have played for 10 years have been in. But there's something a bit sad about being a multiple slam winner past your best. I sort of feel like she deserves one more after all the efforts of this year in particular, and I think she would be a popular winner, but maybe it's not to be.

Lags, I'm only an occasional poster on here (on around slams) so maybe things have changed in last few months - I do remember a lot of Fed/Nadal/GOAT discussions though previously.  

Have noticed too that there's less people around than previously - maybe tennis forums are dying a bit - appears the heyday in terms of number of forums was around 10 years ago.  I used to post on the old 606 BBC boards which had plenty of traffic (though quality of posters varied enormously), then ended up on CCTennisWorld forum which died a couple of years back.  Although its quiet on here of late I do prefer it to rec.sport.tennis on google groups, which appears to be unmoderated, full of off-topic stuff, some misogynistic opinions and some tedious GOAT discussions.

Back to the tennis, the success of Federer and Nadal this year has shown that when Djokovic and Murray are out of form/injured that their (i.e. Fed/Nadal's) level is good enough to beat just about everyone else in the big matches.  It does seem astonishing that no-one else has come close to winning the slams this year.  

Here's hoping Anderson and Nadal serve up a decent match - the tournament needs it after the non-event of the womens' final (which followed what was actually a pretty decent womens' tournament).

MrInvisible wrote:Lags, I'm only an occasional poster on here (on around slams) so maybe things have changed in last few months - I do remember a lot of Fed/Nadal/GOAT discussions though previously.  

Have noticed too that there's less people around than previously - maybe tennis forums are dying a bit - appears the heyday in terms of number of forums was around 10 years ago.  I used to post on the old 606 BBC boards which had plenty of traffic (though quality of posters varied enormously), then ended up on CCTennisWorld forum which died a couple of years back.  Although its quiet on here of late I do prefer it to rec.sport.tennis on google groups, which appears to be unmoderated, full of off-topic stuff, some misogynistic opinions and some tedious GOAT discussions.

Back to the tennis, the success of Federer and Nadal this year has shown that when Djokovic and Murray are out of form/injured that their (i.e. Fed/Nadal's) level is good enough to beat just about everyone else in the big matches.  It does seem astonishing that no-one else has come close to winning the slams this year.  

Here's hoping Anderson and Nadal serve up a decent match - the tournament needs it after the non-event of the womens' final (which followed what was actually a pretty decent womens' tournament).

It was much the same last year Djokovic won a lot up until Roland Garros. Murray picked up during the clay season and then really dominated from the grass season onwards (USO excluded). Most of the time really only one of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray were fit or on form but the one that was won the most of the tournaments. With age injury, motivation and some players like the younger Zverev coming through I think we are beginning to see some chance of things gradually changing.

On tonight's final can't see past a Nadal win. Anderson needs to start better than he did against Carreno Busta or it could be a quick match.

Anderson is struggling to hold serve already. Sometimes Rafa's victories have an inevitable quality about them, probably not to his fans but to the rest of us. Anderson defending the BPs in the first two games, but he's going to have to start holding more easily with more cheap points.

This forum is quiet. Some posters defected to another forum they set up a few years ago and were steadily followed by a few others, so that is a specific issue. However, I think overall the younger generation doesn't seem to do forums any more, of if they do they are different types of forums, reddit or more facebook instead of other internet sites or something else I don't know about.

Did I see someone say on here a while ago this forum doesn't display well on smart phones? If so, that's a factor as well perhaps.

Have seen enough already to make me think this won't be a close match. I just can't imagine Anderson maintaining a good enough level, over a long enough period, to put Nadal in any danger.

There is a 'classic' option available on smartphones otherwise it's not great. The main problem is new members - it's almost impossible to find the forum on a google search unless you know it's called 606v2

Just tried a google search and I couldn't find this forum after trying the first few pages of several searches, e.g. for "tennis forum" and "sports forum". As you say. You don't attract new people and decline is inevitable. It's possible that the admin/owners of v2 found the tennis section more of a hassle that something they wanted to develop, so they may not be interesting in getting new members, or at least not interested enough to do much work on it (I could be wrong).

Credit to Anderson who has played quite well so far, but he has had to battle for every service game. Lags comment above looks about right.

But for the time being there's enough intrigue to keep us interested, until Nadal actually goes a set up, then it will be boring. So as a neutral we hope Anderson can sneak the first set.

Does the point get replayed if a ball falls out of your pocket? Or was it already a dead point for some other reason? Watching with the sound off...

Yeah - first time the point gets replayed. If it happens again, Anderson loses the point.

Thanks. A few errors creeping in here from Anderson. Had the chance at 15-30 on Rafa's service to get to 15-40 and then missed it. Then a few errors on his own service again.

Listening on the Radio - sounds like a typical Nadal squeeze of a lesser player who needs to play to a higher standard than he can maintain consistently to beat Nadal, hence his UE count is catching up with him.

I've oscillated on this point over recent years, and mostly since 2014 I have thought Fed's slam tally is just out of Nadal's reach, but I am now thinking once more that Federer's record slam tally is genuinely at risk.

Once a player with Anderson's serve has this much trouble holding, you just know the writing's on the wall.

Has all the signs of a fairly swift surgical procedure, this Final. Let's hope he can he surprise us.

Nadal's record of winning matches after taking the first set is c.94%.  It's all over - only question is whether it's breadsticks and bagels all round like it was vs. Federer in RG 2008.

I thought Anderson played well given his ranking and the fact that he could easily be out of his comfort zone.

Slightly premature Barrystar, athough I'd give Nadal 95% chance to win this match at this point, so OK. I'd say it's oscillated between 50/50, Federer slight favourite, and Federer heavy favourite over recent years.

I never thought after Rafa won 2009 Oz Open he would end up with 1 Australian Open and potentially 3 US Opens (if he wins today). I would have thought it would be more the other way around. But things seem to sometimes fall into place for him at the US Open in terms of no injuries for him and no-one else (of the big players) in peak form there in the years when he is. Whereas the Australian Open he tends to get injuries or other issues, or comes up against other players playing well. And the US Open did seem to get slower at some point so it wasn't much faster than AO.

Barrystar, I think the thing was there was a feeling in recent years that Rafa would struggle to add to his slam total outside of the French Open, and now that he's showing the ability to do that, things look different again. There's also the possibility that he could still be winning French Opens 3-4 years from now.

Surprised to see in-play odds of only 12/1 for an Anderson match win. I think you could safely offer 100/1 !

Not much money to be made on Rafa of course : quoted now at 1/50

12/1 is reasonabe when you factor in bookies profit margin and it should be 20/1

who thought rafa woud lose to fognini, wasn't he 2 sets up in that? admittedlly while not in the same form that year

the chance of him getting an injury and having to retire is more than 1 in 100 when you factor in his history

Henman Bill wrote:Barrystar, I think the thing was there was a feeling in recent years that Rafa would struggle to add to his slam total outside of the French Open, and now that he's showing the ability to do that, things look different again. There's also the possibility that he could still be winning French Opens 3-4 years from now.

Close to my thinking - the key is whether he is able to win slams away from RG looking forward.  I'd not say he can win RG for 3-4 years; to me that's looking too far ahead for a 31-yr-old; but my general drift is that his form this year and the collapse of his genuine opposition (hoping Fed's back is temporary) means that after he wins this tournament, another 3 slams over the next two years is far from an outlandish possibility which would leave him on the brink.  It's difficult because although when he's dominant it's easy to see him continuing to be, that's how it felt in 2010 and 2013 and he's never managed two years in a row of >1 slams before.

If Fed is like one of his fans over his slam record, he'll be feeling a bit more edgy now than he has for 3 years I'd think.  If Anderson does the unthinkable, then I'd say things are v. different.

Yeah ....  I guess those (potential) factors (in HB's post above) do influence the bookies somewhat. Although ..... not a hint of any current/impending injury in Nadal's game throughout the 2 weeks.

cute point that he hasn't won multiple slams for 2 consecutive years.

i suppose the odds of injury for Rafa are very low at this point, injury retirements are quite rare when a player is winning

nice to see Rafa got the key break by going to the net and volleying

looking more short term, Rafa has to take the opportunity to get year end no 1, he is in a very strong position right now.

also the chance to finally get the WTF this year given the depleted field. I believe stan, novak and probably murray are all absent. But Federer indoor is still an issue and in fact any good player can have a crack at Rafa indoor so it will be challenging but it may be his best chance. will be interesting to see how he plays for the rest of the year. for all i know, he may take the rest of the year off.

he looks slightly ahead of the pack in terms of favourites for the Australian Open. Djokovic and Murray should play I think, but hard to say if they will build up to good form or not. Federer you doubt he will ever pull off the AO again.

As soon as Nadal broke Anderson's serve in the 1st set there's been an inevitability about this match. But whilst the outcome has been predictable its not been a bad final by any stretch of the imagination and has been more enjoyable to watch than either the French Open or Wimbledon finals have been this year. Anderson hasn't disgraced himself - acquitted himself fairly well, keeping the scoreline fairly respectable, and whilst its extremely unlikely he'll get anywhere near as far as this in a slam again I think he can use this run to push on, win a couple of tournaments and do well in the indoor Masters with his improved ranking.

fair points mrinvisible, I agree with most or all of that (shame no break points for Anderson at all)...wins it with a serve volley...

Comment from one of the presentation party : "Number 16 for you Rafa ..... they don't get easier do they ...?" (er ....actually they do sometimes ..... this one did !)

Impressive performance. . And good speeches

A pretty weird slam season all around with the most bizarre of all reserved for the collapsed draw of this last slam. Nadal has done great, but Federer has come out easily the biggest winner this year. Think he's done enough this year to keep his slam record safe. His fans must have feared the worst when Rafa went a break up in that final set in the AO final. Had he lost that and Nadal won the French too, that would be panic stations stuff.

The injury returnees should add real spice to next season and hopefully, a few of the younger guns could finally make the step up.

Vamos Rafa!

lydian wrote:Vamos Rafa!

Congrats to Nadal on #16. Good to see ya, Lydian.

Congrats to Rafa and his fans.  I did not get to see the match, but it looks like it was about as straightforward as Rafa could have hoped for.  Very impressive year.  After a couple of years where it was starting to look like he might be fading, this year has been just about as good as any for him.  He won two slams, reclaimed #1 spot, and is in a good position to stay there through the year end.  He did not get any closer to Fed's slam total, but he did not lose any ground either and if he can keep his current form for another couple of years, who know, he might still have a chance to catch up with Fed.

Congrats again!

 

Rafa now has a good chance of the year-end number one. Suppose it's asking too much to have a Rog-Rafa final at the O2 with the number one hanging on the balance (like last year).
   Bit of a strange Slam at New York, with the absentees and the collapse of the bottom-half seeds. A number of players must be kicking themselves (Thiem and A Zverev in particular, not to mention Cilic) at missing out on semi and final slots. 
   Looking at the year-so-far points, those not playing again this year (and that could include Murray) may be hoping for Rog and Rafa to hoover up all the big remaining points so that the current absentees are not too lowly ranked come the AO in January.
   As for the women, people reckoned it was wide open and almost anyone could win it. But a Stephens-Keys final was a little unexpected to say the least.

I still can't believe how far behind Nadal stands on return. It's suicidal on hardcourts (and he's been terrible on hardcourts for a long time)and I still believe he was lucky he didn't meet players who could have made him pay for it. It's why he lost to Muller at Wimbledon too.

mthierry wrote:I still can't believe how far behind Nadal stands on return. It's suicidal on hardcourts (and he's been terrible on hardcourts for a long time)and I still believe he was lucky he didn't meet players who could have made him pay for it. It's why he lost to Muller at Wimbledon too.

I think you are right.  It says more about the state of tennis that he won a major when playing (by his standards) quite poorly.

The mens draw had the worst of both worlds - some people get bored of the big three (four or five) winning everything and moan there is no competition. Others moan when a draw is so open that literally anyone can get through.

In the top half we had Nadal, an all-time great, winning without serious test against not great opposition.

In the bottom half, it opened up massively with Murray withdrawing and then Zverev and Cilic losing early. Anderson, a nice guy and good player, took advantage. But this led to a fairly obviously one sided final - we all know Nadal is a better player than Kevin Anderson and so it proved.

If the whole tournament was like either half it would have been good. As it has been since the AO, all of the major finals have been boring and one sided.

great win for nadal

back when he was clearly defeated by Nole at RG 2015 I thought that was the end.
I really felt he would never compete at the highest level again

I was of course thankfull for his great career, but sad to see it was almost over....
2016 didnt make me wrong... but then AO2017 happened and one felt he could still do something... just maybe

in the end, 2017 has been or is being one of his best seasons, and it is incredible really.

of course we all know, the scenario plays its role, and the fact that murray and djokovic almost dissapeared has been a major factor, but nadal toook his chances.
it is a pitty he didnt hold that break in 5th set in melbourne, but federer was better that day
I also think nadal could have gone the distance in wimbledon hadnt it been for a superb muller

but even with some frustrations, the year is amazing

Naxroy: Quite agree about Rafa and Wimbledon. I thought he had a good shot at that, right up until the last point against Muller.
  Let's hope the wounded can get themselves fit for Melbourne, which could be a fascinating GS with the seedings/rankings all over the place.
   I see that Pat Cash has Fed being the man to beat in 2018, which suggests he doesn't think that Rafa can keep this up. However, Cash excludes the French from his overall prediction of possible Rog dominance.
   IMHO, it's going to be asking a lot for Fed to win the AO again and then he has to defend maximum points at IW and Miami. Will he play some clay court stuff if he doesn't do so well in the early months? 
   Difficult to forecast what will happen in 2018 as we have to wait and see just how well the current absentees recover from their injuries. Djoko, for one, could come roaring back in the same way that Rog and Rafa have done this year.