Grass Court season

First topic message reminder :

So the run up to Wimbledon started in pretty poor weather but with generally great success for the British players:

KAtie Boulter defended her Nottingham title, including hard-fought victories over Raducanu and Dart.

Jack Draper with his first ATP title with a win at the Stuttgart Open, beating former Wimbledon finalist Berretini in the final.

Alex De Minaur (can we claim him as nearly British...) won S'hertsogenbosch

Medvedev takes the first set on a tiebreak from Alcaraz who has committed way too many UEs and has served poorly.

Carlos, it seems, often starts slowly and has the ability to raise his game. it could happen again today but he's going to have to tighten his game considerably.

Would be nice in some ways to see a Medvedev Vs Musetti final

Alcaraz far more consistent in that second set to take it to level the match. There were some magic points to get the break early on. Still a bit scrappy and far from a great match.

LATER: Another early-in-the-set break by Alcaraz takes him to a two sets to one lead. Still a bit scrappy with some moments of excellence mixing with UEs and poor shot selection.

Will someone tell Medvedev you can go to net to shorten the point when you hit a good approach. How did he get to semi finals?? Just not a smart grass court game, stunned that Sinner lost to him. Brilliant hard court player but he plays way too far back

Alcaraz came thru in four but it was far from convincing, with too many UEs and some dodgy shot selection.

I certainly thought Medvedev would have played better. He looked fairly flat and the only set he won was mainly due to numerous errors and poor serving from Carlos.

It could be that Alcaraz has TOO many shots at his disposal. He seems over-obsessed with the drop shot. You feel that if it's as scrappy as this in the final then the Spaniard will be runner-up this year.

Musetti v Djoko coming up. I'd be amazed if the Italian won. Just hope for the crowd's sake he cans give Novak a good game.

Been listening to Kyrgios on the BBC. He gabbles but appears quite shrewd and sensible. But did the BBC want him to be controversial and outrageous? If so, they've been disappointed.

As expected, Djoko saw off a spirited Musetti who came up with some good shots.

So a repeat of last year's final. I'm taking Alcaraz to repeat his win of 2023. I'd have been less certain if he had played brilliantly against Medvedev but he was far from his best -almost as if he was saving himself for the big effort always needed to beat Novak.

I think Alcaraz will win in 4. Phenomenal effort for Djokovic to reach another grand slam final at 37

Must say I didn't think Djoko would get this far after his injury issues. As Slasher says, a remarkable feat.

Don't suppose you'll get very good odds from the bookies for either of the two singles finals, although I would make Krejcikova and Alcaraz slight favourites.

Not a great women's final so far, with Paolini playing fairly horribly in the first set and K falling away in the second to make it one set all.

I should think some of the other contenders are wondering how they didn't get further watching a poorish-quality title match.

LATER: After a fairly mediocre encounter, K crept over the line on her 3rd Championship point. Decidedly NOT one of the great matches.

Will Djoko get revenge today for last year? He's done amazingly to get this far after his recent surgery.

But I'm going for Alcaraz who will have plenty of confidence after winning last year. Carlos seems to have the ability to have blinding purple patches in matches which have spectators gasping in awe.

He may well need some of those as Novak appears to be playing as well as ever.

Alcaraz gets an early break in the final and already has doubled the number of games he got in the first set of last year's final.

This could be over quick. That's an absolute shocker of a set from djokovic, really looks his age out there now

Bit of a 'mare so far for Djoko who loses the first set 6-2 and then is broken early in the second. No doubt he'll fight back....

This will be over very quickly. Djokovic playing like a club hacker.

Long way back for Djokovic now, with Alcaraz taking the second set 6-2.

Not sure if it's Carlos' power or Novak's poor play, but the Serb looks very much out of sorts - missing shots he would normally have no trouble with.

What impresses me most about Alcaraz is the amount of balls he gets back in play from seemingly hopeless positions.

Said it since January, Djokovic form this year issue far off. He looks much slower and hitting so many unforced errors. A shadow of the player he was, age has caught up with him despite some deep runs in slams

I may be being hopelessly optimistic but I still feel Djoko can stage a comeback. There are signs he's playing better - certainly serving better.

A few sniffs for Djoko in that 6th game but no break. It remains on serve.

Three incredible shots see Carlos break for 5-4 and serve for the match.

OMG - Three Champ points disappear and it's 5-5...

Well, well, some idiot calls out on Championship point and Djokovic ends up breaking back.

Alcaraz wins - taking it on the tiebreak. Thankfully for him, the nightmare game in which he lost three MPs is forgotten.

Djoko finally showed up for a few games in the third set but he generally looked a step slow and there were some uncharacteristic errors.

But hey, he's 37 and has been injury beset of late - and he was up against a great player.

I certainly didn't expect a win in straight sets and it might even have been shorter than it was if Alcaraz's nerve had not failed, briefly, at 5-4 in the third.

Well, that's four Slams now for Carlos and he's only just 21. I make him the first new male player to get four Slams since.....Djoko.

It felt like a proper changing of the guard type match.

Alcaraz four slams already, only 21. Wow. Wouldn't bet against him adding one or two more before he reaches 22!

Said it since January, Djokovic form this year issue far off. He looks much slower and hitting so many unforced errors. A shadow of the player he was, age has caught up with him despite some deep runs in slams. I think he should hang up the racket after us open. Pains me to say it as a long time fan

Slasher - yes, Djoko off the pace today although at least for the crowd there were glimpses of the old Novak in the third set.

Guess he'll soldier on for a bit. The demolition job by Alcaraz - and it was a demolition apart from that blip in the 10th game of the third - reminded me a bit of what happened to Sampras when he met two of the young guard at successive US Open finals. He was demolished first by Safin and then by Hewitt.

Perhaps Djoko can take heart from the fact that Sampras came back to beat Agassi and take the US title in 2002. But he had not win a single tournament for around two years and it proved to be his last match.

So how many Slams can Carlos win? Safe answer is a good many. May be asking a lot of luck, fitness and longevity for him to match the totals of the the Big Three. Kyrgios, who proved an incisive, descriptive and shrewd commentator IMHO, may have been particularly perceptive when he said he thought Alcaraz might win around 15 Slams.

Andy Murray said a few years ago that he thought Carlos would get to number one, given his extraordinary power of stroke from deep positions. Doubt, though, whether anyone thought the Spaniard would be this good and this successful so early on.

I make it that Alcaraz has now won four of the last eight Slams and, I think, that he is the first player apart from the Big Three to win more than one GS title in a season since Agassi won two in 1999.

As far as I can see, we have to go back to 2002 to find a year when none of the Big Three won any of the first three Slams of the year.

sirfredperry wrote:I make it that Alcaraz has now won four of the last eight Slams and, I think, that he is the first player apart from the Big Three to win more than one GS title in a season since Agassi won two in 1999.

As far as I can see, we have to go back to 2002 to find a year when none of the Big Three won any of the first three Slams of the year.

Some of these statistics are just ludicrous. And if Novak or Rafa don't win the USO it will be the first time (as far as I can see) that none of the big 3 have held at least one of the Slam titles since Wimbledon 2003. That's only 21 years ago. And bar the start of 2017 (where Fed won the AO), one of Rafa or Novak has held a slam title back to 2010.

I'm amazwed how well Djokovic played this Wimbledon considering the knee injury and surgery. Reached the final without too much stress but then found the defending champion too good. Yes, there probably is a decline (even Djokovic can't cheat age) but it's been slight so far.

Reflecting generally on Wimbledon, I thought that either Sinner or Alcatraz would win it but what I didn't expect was that Djoko would do so well.

This year now looks like a battle between Sinner and Alcatraz as to who will be the year-end number one.

The women's game Slam-wise has become more predictable apart from.....Wimbledon, where it seems almost anyone can win it. The prize of a title at SW19 gives the likes of Swiatek, Sabalenka and Gauff something to aim for.

dummy_half wrote:... Djokovic ... there probably is a decline (even Djokovic can't cheat age) but it's been slight so far.

I would suggest that there would have had to be a massive decline in certain physical abilities but that these declines have been negated in part by improvements in other areas of his game - that must include body and energy management and experience = reading the opponent, shot selection, knowing what balls not to chase after, trying to manoeuvre the opponent around the court.

There was once a long and occasionally tedious discussion on this site about the dominance of the Big 3/4 being down to it's being a weak era.

For me, this topic has arisen again due to the emergence of Alcaraz and Sinner. Alcaraz's feat of chalking up four GS titles while only a few weeks past his 21st birthday has highlighted the feats of previous teenage Slam winners in the form of Becker, Wilander and Sampras.

Around this time Agassi was also winning tournaments as a teenager. Now, contrast this with the period 2008-16 where, I think I'm right in saying, no teenager even reached a main tour final. Cilic and Nishikori won titles as teenagers in 08 and it was not until Zverev won a final in 2016 that anyone under 20 years of age triumphed again.

Of course, the Big Three would probably have dominated in any era. But say they had had to compete against a brilliant young talent like Alcatraz. We'd already seen pre-2008 how the young Nadal had halted Fed's virtual monopoly of the Slams. Later the young Murray and Djokovic would enter the scene to stop "Fedal" winning everything.

But you have to wonder whether the Big Three would have raked in more than 60 Slams between them if an Alcaraz or Sinner had been around a little earlier.

All this is conjecture, of course, and it's not meant to detract from the achievements of the Big Three or to denigrate the era. But considering the achievements of the young players now and those of the pre-Big Three era, the period 08-16 does seem comparatively barren in terms of young talent.

As they say in exam papers - Discuss.

sirfredperry wrote:...

But you have to wonder whether the Big Three would have raked in more than 60 Slams between them if an Alcaraz or Sinner had been around a little earlier.

All this is conjecture, of course, and it's not meant to detract from the achievements of the Big Three or to denigrate the era. But considering the achievements of the young players now and those of the pre-Big Three era, the period 08-16 does seem comparatively barren in terms of young talent.

As they say in exam papers - Discuss.

I think the old Wee Kiera argument was heavily over-stated, but that what happened was there was a strong cycle with Sampras / Agassi etc coming to an end around 2000, a slight fall off for a couple of years where the likes of Hewitt and Roddick were the top dogs and then the emergence of another strong (probably the strongest ever, noting that homogenising of playing styles across surfaces has played a part in their domination across the season) cycle with Federer preceding Nadal and Djokovic, with the likes of Murray and Stan clinging to their coat tails. Normally, this generation would have tailed away by the mid-late 2010s, but a combination of quite how outstanding they are and a somewhat poorer batch of players now in the say 28-35 age range (plus them having a LOT of mental scars from being beaten up repeatedly by the Big 3, and a couple falling by the wayside because of injuries) has allowed Djokovic in particular to continue running his slam totals up at an age when most pros would be happily retired (i.e. if Federer's slam total benefitted from a weak era from 2003 to say 2007/8, Djokovic has since about 2018 until 2022).

It does seem like Alcaraz and Sinner are objectively better players than the likes of Zverev and Medvedev, but that is playing against the Zverev and Medvedev who've spent a decade being beaten down by Djokovic and Nadal, might be a different story if they were contemporaries. I do like Alcaraz though, as he seems to have done a good job of marrying the back court game of Djokovic with more court craft and feel. I've thought for quite a few years that the next great player would be someone as solid from the back as Djokovic but whoul could add a bit more of an all court game to it - I thought for a while Tsitsipas might have the sort of game to do that, but he's found a level around the edges of the top 10 .

You have to think that Tsitsipas may not have a GS title in him, although you can never say never in this sport.

It's more likely that Zverev will finally get across the Slam threshold. You can probably envisage Medvedev taking a GS title again but Sinner and Alcaraz could dominate the glittering prizes.

It was good to hear that Rafa has chalked up wins on successive days in Bastad in Sweden - first in the doubles yesterday and then in the singles today where he defeated Borg's son 3 and 4.

Apparently, Rafa was - understandably - a little rusty with some uncharacteristic UEs creeping in. But you feel that if he can get match fit he can still make some headway.

His big goal, of course, is the Paris Olympics on his favourite RG court. I think I'm right in saying that a few weeks ago he said 2024 was not definitely his last year and he would have to see how things went.

I'd love to see him playing Alcaraz but it would be traumatic for Rafa's many fans if it proved a bit of a mismatch.

The top four/three grouping destroyed two generations of tennis players that followed them.  Before they arrived on the scene the maximum number of slams won in the gentleman's game was 14.  We now have: Djokovic 24, Nadal 22, Federer 20 - all in the same "era", with Djokovic banned from competing in Australia and the USA during the Covid travel restrictions.

Alcaraz: 21 years old.
Sinner: 22 years old.
Djokovic: 37 years old.
Nadal: 38 years old.
Federer: 42 years old.