Tennis Prose




Aug/18

14

Sock Smoked In Cincy

The ATP’s worst slumping singles player of the 2018 season continues his downward spiral into the abyss. Jack Sock got smoked once again today by Hyeon Chung 62 16 26.

Sock is now a brutal 5-15 on the season in singles – he hasn’t won a singles match since he beat David Ferrer 63 64 in Rome.

Still somehow ranked 20 in the world, Sock lost first round in Cincy last year to Sugita and also he lost first round at US Open to Jordan Thompson, 46 in the fifth. So Sock could gain a lot of desperately needed points if he can somehow summon a strong US Open run in two weeks.

Of course Sock has a ton of points to defend at Paris Indoors (defending champion) and semis at London World Tour Finals.

Sock, who turns 26 next month, has two weeks to figure out what’s wrong and to come up with a solution. Maybe a new coach – the Mark Knowles experiment has not produced even one singles win so far. Maybe a new racquet? Maybe a new fitness regimen?

Whatever it is, Sock needs to make some changes. Or he may soon be relegated to playing qualies and Challengers.

59 comments

  • Scoop Malinowski · August 15, 2018 at 5:36 pm

    Well said Hartt, but when you’re winning Futures matches at 14, I expect him to be winning ATP tournaments at 18. Or did he win a challenger match at 14? I forget.

  • Hartt · August 15, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    Felix was the youngest player to ever win a Challenger match – he was 14 years, 11 months, to be exact.

    That was an amazing accomplishment, but it was a one-time thing. His next big accomplishment was winning his two Futures titles at age 16, and of course the Lyon Challenger at 16.

    I’m glad that Tennis Canada and his team are trying to keep expectations under control, and allowing Felix to develop in a way that works best for him.

  • Dan Markowitz · August 15, 2018 at 8:17 pm

    Duke,

    Were you on the court that day with DY and Harry? Do you know what was said? No, you don’t so don’t brand people racists when you don’t know all the facts. DY has had to go it alone for more than a decade as the only African-American player on tour. Think about it, when Mala Vai Washington was good, there was Bryan Shelton, Todd Nelson and Levar-Griffith.

    DY’s been out there since Blake retired about five years ago and Tiafoe just came on the scene as the only African-American player and I think he’s done a pretty fair job, not great, but when you win 124 tour matches, you’ve obviously been doing pretty well.

    You can compare Sock and DY, but Sock has been a top 10 player and he’s been the no. 1 American male player. DY’s never been that good so even though he’s fallen badly this year, I still respect him as a player and person. When you’re the only black player out there, it’s not easy. You can never feel completely comfortable, but DY’s always battled and even though he doesn’t look like a tennis player (his build is much thicker than any other player I’ve ever seen on the pro tour), he’s persevered. I don’t count him out yet even though he’s no. 238.

  • Scoop Malinowski · August 15, 2018 at 10:56 pm

    Dan you seem to be trying to make Young out to be some kind of victim of racism. The truth is he’s been treated like a king, nobody has gotten more WCs than Young. Josh T Rey did the research years ago and found that Young earned around $300,000 just on WCs alone. Young has always been treated well by fans and media. To try to make DY some sort of victim of being the only black American tennis pro for years is a stretch. Young has had a fine career with not one single episode of racism, otherwise we all would have heard about it to the point of nauseum as the media would have turned it into a historical event.

  • Dan Markowitz · August 16, 2018 at 12:17 am

    Scoop,

    Have you ever been the only white person anywhere? It’s not comfortable. I’ll give you a story, when I was a high school basketball player, I went to a summer basketball camp and was the MVP of the camp. A white guy who played for UCONN at the time asked me where I lived and I said Mamaroneck and he told me, “You’re never going to get really good playing ball in Mamaroneck. You’ve got to go to New Rochelle and Mt Vernon everyday and play against the black guys.”

    I thought about it. I wanted to get better and I knew playing against all the great black guys in the playground would improve my game, but I didn’t get on the bus everyday and make the ten mile trip to Mt Vernon because I didn’t want to be the only white guy in a playground full of black guys I didn’t know and might beat me up or steal my ball or expose me on the court.

    I’m not saying DY has experienced overt racism on the pro tour although I’m sure he has at certain times, but to be the only black American guy out there has to have been daunting. If I get a press pass at the Open, I’ll ask him that question.

  • Scoop Malinowski · August 16, 2018 at 10:00 am

    Many times Dan, once in particular was argonne park I used to play in and of course once I established dominance over all the black guys there there were some powder keg moments. They all were serious players, James Blake’s dad used to play with these guys and there were some younger ones too. But I beat their best and you know it’s never easy when the new sheriff comes to town, I was called Boy and other veiled insults and one or two tried to threaten me but I don’t back down from a fight. I remember this big psycho former hoops player tried something a few times but nobody scares me, I know how to fight and throw punches that can bring down bigger guys. Now I play with several of the guys at another park and we are friends. We overcome the differences. It all worked out mutual respect. But yes I definitely felt racism against whites and attempted bullying.

  • Scoop Malinowski · August 16, 2018 at 10:01 am

    DY has not experienced any racism on the Tour, if he did we would know about it and whoever did it would have been run out of the sport and his life and career would have been destroyed.

  • Dan Markowitz · August 16, 2018 at 11:25 am

    I know you’re a tough guy, Scoop, but let me just say this, I’ve been playing tennis almost as long as I’ve been playing basketball, and I’ve never seen one fight where guys really go after each other, on a tennis courts while I’ve seen many many (some of which I was in the middle of–although I’m not a particular tough guy) fights break out on basketball courts.

    That being said, DY and I’d imagine Tsonga and Monfils, they’ve experienced racism. Come on, that’s like saying Jackie Robinson didn’t experience racism. It might be more subtle now, but you can bet your bottom dollar, DY’s experienced racism. Why aren’t African-American men on the pro tour except for DY now? (I’m sorry, I don’t really count Tiafoe or Mmoh, they are African-American’s, but with African parents, their experiences I imagine were a lot different than DY’s), maybe Christopher Eubanks, who’s a friend of DY’s, will rise now too.

    If there was no racism, we’d see more African-American men on the pro tour because they are better athletes than white Americans, there’s no questioning that. So even if it’s a socio-economic racism, it’s still racism.

    Come on, Scoop, I know with a last name like Malinowski, you’ve experienced prejudice against you. Maybe you didn’t let it bother you, and that’s good, but with a last name like Markowitz, I’ve experienced anti-Semitism and conversely, I’ve also probably been helped by having an obviously Jewish name.

    DY, by the way, didn’t receive all those wild cards when he was a teen because he was a promising African-American player; he received them because he was damn good, probably the best American junior player ever, and that’s saying a lot.

  • Scoop Malinowski · August 16, 2018 at 12:51 pm

    DY Tsonga and Monfils have not suffered any racism, if they did we would know about it. The media would have dug it up and stuffed it in our faces. The media loves to incite racial division and disharmony that’s a fact. I will say it again, DY, Monf and Jo Willy have not suffered racism, the media can point blank ask them in a press conference for examples if they did. Then the media can run away with it. White people are not inherently racist, some may become because of a trigger event. White people love and support blacks in sports, NBA, NFL, boxing, music, etc. In all my years of playing and covering tennis I have never once seen any racism or even a hint of racism against blacks. I have seen whites cheer on black players like the Williams, Dy, Tiafoe as if they were family. I have witnessed the US Open crowd snub John Isner and cheer on Monfils over Isner.

1 2

<<

>>

Find it!

Copyright 2010
Tennis-Prose.com
To top