AO Opening Day Intrigue Matches

Hartt – there you are, when Fisette dumps Naomi he’ll be ready to poach Bianca.

Schwartzman, Rublev, and Fritz are the highest rated singles players in the doubles draw..

WTA and analytics, O’Shannessy first got his “proof” in 1995 with a WTA player. So if it’s the case they don’t use it much on the WTA (judging from women’s matches so far at the Australian: THEY DON’T), it’s funny because WTA was where they started!

Quote from that Tennis.com Tignor piece:

—->>
“The statistics were so primitive,” he says. “Everyone was guessing about what worked. Was serve and volley dead? Should you hit more forehands than backhands? I didn’t want to guess, so I started counting.”

O’Shannessy felt like he was onto something at the 1995 Australian Open, when a 17-year-old he was working with, Dally Randriantefy of Madagascar, came out of qualifying to reach the third round.

“Her first-round opponent sliced her backhand, and she couldn’t keep it deep consistently,” O’Shannessy recalls. “I said, ‘If she hits three backhand slices in a row, move in, because one of them will be short, and she can’t pass you with it.”

In a surprise, Randriantefy won that match, and her next one, before losing to eventual champion Mary Pierce. It was obvious to O’Shannessy that, contrary to conventional tennis wisdom, a player could go a long way with a scouting report and a strategy. Now all he needed were the numbers.
——END OF QUOTE

Ha Catherine that was funny. I don’t think players are being coy. I think they just don’t do this. Don’t have the discipline and live in their own worlds. Goes for the men’s and women’s tour, anyone with a racquet, me too – struggling against whatever player, I’ll worry about MY GAME not whether the opponent, who can do no wrong, is thinking about.

Players with a scintilla of awareness do a fine job out there. There’s no substitute for thinking your way through a match. Delightful when it happens. Something I hope for from the sports young talents. Some of them are very cerebral and coachable and I hope they make this part of their vast array of skills – it would set them apart and give them a long career.

Andrew – Kerber had never played Dayana before, although she claims they know each other very well which I don’t believe for a minute, and Angie just played as she always does, as far as I could see and then she started thinking about her injury and introverting away about that and the match was over. I wonder how much scouting Kindlmann had done ? Bajin knows how Angie plays, he must know how most of them play, he’s been around long enough.

Players don’t change much after 30 or so, unless they’re called Federer or Nadal, or maybe Agassi, so I can’t see Kerber doing anything different to make up for her loss of speed and power, which is considerable.
I don’t think women are very good at this.

Catherine, the top guys go “against instinct”. Whatever they are doing now isn’t comfortable at all or normal. If coaches just want to get paid they do whatever the player wants.

I’ll say it again to bore everyone, the single most interesting phrase I heard from Michael Joyce as a coaching philosophy was that he helped the player do whatever they do a little more consistently. Basically, don’t tweak anything don’t touch anything don’t mess anything up, just get the player to do what they’re doing more consistently, aka the path of least resistance.

“Be yourself, but more consistent and in better shape”.

It’s very safe yet would lead to a higher ranking and increase the player’s income, which means Joyce would get paid.

I’ll have to listen to him again, I don’t want to misrepresent what he was saying. I think that’s what it was. “Be yourself, just more consistent.”

In this case it would have extended this kind of match, but still wouldn’t be a win. Just “losing with things that are going better”.

Personally I think when you have champions that believe they are great and already have slam wins, it’s tough. It was big of Muguruza to say you know what, I am losing and I am miserable and as stubborn as I am I need someone here who I respect CONCHITA MARTINEZ PLEASE PLEASE COME BACK!!!!

At least Muguruza read the writing on the wall, either get back to how she had been playing and training or never win another match again. Somehow she recognized reality.

https://www.wtatennis.com/news/1580608/mladenovic-aims-to-parlay-fed-cup-triumph-in-australian-open-return

Here’s an interview with Kiki which has interesting bits, particularly where she makes a veiled reference at the end to being let down by a certain (unnamed) coach,and how she felt about it and got over it. She doesn’t seem in a hurry to hire a new coach outside the family.

Sad that this kind of Fed Cup tie is now gone. Just can’t see the new one working although I may be wrong.

Great Mladenovic piece, thanks for posting it! Surprised by the decision to make Dubai a home base of sorts, and that France doesn’t lend itself to training.

That was interesting about doubles too in that Mladenovic makes it the core of her pro career, and how much she brings from the doubles to singles, how it helped her. I liked what she said about playing Barty, and how she was proud of herself for pushing through it.

Never really thought about what happens when a coach leaves the player high and dry, and the Mladenovic response, which was first a public shaming via Twitter and second proving herself on the Fed Cup stage, was totally amazing. Glad she shared how she did that, basically going back to her family, filled with coaches, and working with them so that she could still make the most of the rest of the year after “The Moscow” thing.

The Monica Puig reaction and Mladenovic reaction after their coaches jumped ship were very similar. Apparently Puig’s shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise as Murray said he had talks with her family (yet she lived in Chicago TO TRAIN WITH HIM, so maybe don’t trust what he says).

I’ll never get over this stuff. It’s tennis. So competitive that the person coaching you one day (one week, one month, etc) could soon be coaching other players HOW TO BEAT YOU the next day.

Better just to hire the analytics guy to give you the stats on your opponent. Who needs Sacha Bajin anyways 😉

Hartt you seem upset on Shapovalov. Did you catch the match? It’s the toughest test – how to tame an opponent firing on all cylinders. He made a nice statement that’s up on the match report for the ATP Tour. Shapovalov is a credit to the sport for being generous for for congratulating his opponents.

“I feel like my game is there to beat any of the top guys, but of course there are so many great players out there and if I’m a little bit off, a little bit nervous, anyone can beat me as well,” said Shapovalov. “It is just about learning going forward and obviously it is a disappointing one but there is nothing to do now except learn from it.”

Has anyone here who plays tennis asked a person they spend a good amount of time hitting with, what their ball feels like to hit?

No, that’s what Brad Gilbert did for Agassi. He told Agassi, here’s how players experience your game. Agassi said it was a revelation for him to have someone break down his game for him and then add a few elements.

I told people what it was like playing them. They didn’t appreciate it unless it was “yeah I can’t beat you”. Can’t really tell people hey your shot there, you telegraph it. Yeah your ball you have to hit that flat because I know it has spin on it and that gives me time to punish X shot.

Andrew, yes I watched Shapo’s match carefully. In fact I did a match call for Match Call Migrants.

I was concerned about how he played. For years coaches, and even other players like Daniel Nestor, have been telling Denis that he needed to play with more patience, that he had the skill to win rallies and didn’t have to for the big winner so soon, when the shot wasn’t there. They also talked about playing with more margin, not going for the lines so much, especially when he wasn’t “on.”

Denis obviously found it difficult to take this advice. Being aggressive seems to be in his DNA, along with going for spectacular shots. That playing style can be fun (or terrifying) to watch, but he wasn’t making much progress. It looked like Youzhny actually was able to get through to him, and he started to play with more patience and more margin. A big difference was he used a block return much more often, instead of using a big backswing. These changes brought much better results during the fall and again at the ATP Cup.

Then last night it was as though he had forgotten all that, and was back to his bad old habits. He was spraying the ball like crazy, making 62 UFEs to 38 winners. He became very emotional, frustrated, and downright petulant, with lots of complaints to his box.

After he threw his racquet at least 3 times the ump gave him a warning, and he lashed out at the ump, saying something like: “It’s my racquet, I can do whatever the hell I want to with it. It’s a terrible call. Do your job.” Shapo has the mistaken idea that smashing a racquet warrants a code violation only if you break it. He said that, and more, at the press conference. He needs to read the rules before spouting off like that.

Tom Tebbutt has an article on the match, “Learning the Hard Way.” That pretty well sums it up. I just hope that Shapo did learn some valuable lessons from that match, and doesn’t repeat these mistakes.

That’s interesting Shapovalov departed from the Youzhny plan. A lot to think about and now spare time. Shapovalov may be the “first victim” of the ATP Cup.

Saw the match, then read two stories about the match. Neither had a quote from Fuco, like he wasn’t there, or they got lost on the way to his presser

But, Shapo was same, always wins R1 Australia. Someone had to lose. Maybe not enough Canadians in Australia to cheer him on. These guys need fans! Their games are not enough to overcome a lack of fans.

Over/ Under

ESPN 15 minutes of Coco hype before they show live tennis?

Same here in US.. but at 9pm it switches to ESPN. They will sit around talking up Coco and probably SW before they show live tennis.. hype machine gotta keep on rolling

Tennis channel said they will stay live to completion of any 10:30 am started match

Fila can start an NBA team
Opelka 7’0. ( guess he left NB)
Isner 6’10
Q ball 6’6

Ernie takes the first set from FAA, interesting telecast..think Jacob Hlasek is doing the match..pretty good…ESPN app

Scoop, always hate when Wilbon says same time tomorrow knuckleheads, want to go through the TV and slap him every time.