Coco Came, Coco Saw, And Coco Is Going To Conquer

What did Simon say?

I think the other players like Rafa, he won the Stefan Edberg good sportsmanship award, voted on by the players, this year. It was the 2nd time he has won it.

A Rafan on another site reported the incident with the ball girl. As I said then, Rafa is a true gentleman!

Scoop, I don’t imagine Bouchard is still in Melbourne, to be available to support anyone.

Rumors deserve challenges. Just the way rumors are. These kinds of things don’t become public knowledge. I’ve heard some unfortunate things about Bajin as well that live on social media. Sportswriters hint at things sometimes but they say them in a way where they can be overlooked and are only recalled when the next instance of bad judgment erupts regarding a player, coach, etc. Sportswriters/journalists to me go ahead and write in a way to reveal but conceal what’s happening, so that at a later date they can write about it more plainly for another kind of feature and won’t be accused of using kid gloves, and they can say to the effect, “I had heard of this, but at the time it wasn’t a significant part of the story, and in hindsight it was a larger part”.

I’m sure that players lives are more obvious in person, but unless you’re Kyrgios and you publicly humiliate Vekic and Wawrinka players, coaches, etc show more discretion in airing their laundry.

Lots of people tell stories, gossip, not just in tennis, because it gives them a sense of importance. In the UK we’re deluged with stuff in the media from ‘sources’ and ‘royal insiders’ – probably the street cleaners outside Buckingham Palace.

We all heard stories from muck raking reporters trying to squeeze some more scandal – usually in a pub where they paid for the drinks. The bad thing – you could tell them almost anything and they’d print it. From ‘a source’.

I’m more with Andrew overall. As for online generally – plenty of rumours repeated over and over. 1 in 1000 might be true. I’ve also seen some stuff about Bajin, pre Naomi.

Bouchard – that was a prank. Nick’s idea of a joke. And yes, I tend to think Genie started that one herself. It’s the kind of thing she’d do because it wouldn’t hurt her at all and Nadal wasn’t going to say anything.

Seems players have an interest in discretion and when there are violations there it’s ugly. A case in point, the bizarre Kyrgios taunting Wawrinka over Vekic and Kokkinakis, with Ryan Harrison somehow defending someone in then going after Kokkinakis IN PERSON after their qualies match, after which, if he already wasn’t concerned, expressed he couldn’t sleep because it was bizarre. That was a confusing hot mess.

Andrew – most players have an interest in discretion, for obvious reasons. A pact. It was Nick’s violation of that which shocked a lot of people. He had that nasty little streak then, not so much now.

(In former times Stan would have called Nick out and there would have been tennis racquets at dawn.)

Beautiful writing, Steve Tignor on Bellis-Muchova.

https://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2020/01/cici-bellis-tennistory-karolina-muchova-australian-open-2020/87026/

EXCERPTS FROM TENNIS.COM PIECE:
“Present was also the fitting word to describe Bellis’ 6-4, 6-4 second-round win on Thursday over 20th seed Karolina Muchova. Moment to moment, shot to shot, point to point, game to game, set to set, Bellis’ focus was unwavering. So intense was Bellis, so engaged was she in earning this win, that the 3,000 fans packed into the Australian Open’s 1573 Arena found themselves thoroughly enthralled.”

“An inch short of six feet tall, Muchova’s playing style was also a breath of fresh air, permeated with a nice range of spin, shape and forward movement. Versus Bellis, though, Muchova was curiously listless, the tone set in the first game, when she missed four of six first serves and double-faulted at break point down. Even though she broke back to level the set at 3-all, Muchova remained distraught.”

“The slightly blustery conditions favored Bellis. Akin to such wind geniuses as Rafael Nadal and Lleyton Hewitt, Bellis’ feet churned like pistons as she continually forced Muchova to constantly hit yet one more ball. Perhaps the versatile Muchova possesses more of the temperament of an artist than a warrior.”

“And yet, given Bellis’ ceaseless presence, what is an unforced error? Over the course of this 83-minute lockdown, Bellis applied pressure with such intent that in rally after rally, Muchova frequently blinked. Even though Muchova was a superb 18 of 24 at the net, her own ability to disrupt Bellis was futile.”

“Time away has aided Bellis’ technique. Previously, she seemed to be snatching at the ball, her wrists and forearms rolling excessively, often appearing to be making contact late—perhaps factors that contributed to her injuries. This was all gone today, Bellis a model of technical efficiency.”

I’ll spare you the rest. One of Tignor’s best pieces this year in a career of excellent pieces.

Men’s results to make round 3
Wawrinka d. Seppi in five.
Khachanov d. Ymer in five.
Verdasco d. Basilashvili
Popyrin d. Munar (and Spain’s next gen is gone)
Monfils d. Karlovic
Kyrgios d. Simon
Goffin d. Herbert
Carreno Busta d. Gojo[…]
Goffin d. Herbert
Rublev d. Sugita
Bautista Agut d. Mmoh (good job in getting rd 2 for Mmoh, the forgotten U.S. next gen player!)
Gulbis d. Bedene
Thiem d. Bolt in five sets.
Medvedev d. Martinez (who has done great since qualies at US Open, a fine run)
Zverev d. Gerasimov

Some predictions for round three:

Kyrgios to beat Khachanov. It’s a home crowd, now or never kind of match.

Isner to beat Wawrinka, has nothing to lose.

Goffin to beat Rublev. Too much game for the kid.

Verdasco to beat Zverev. It was good while it lasted.

Paul to beat Fucsovics. Fucsovics likely ends the party, so this is a “would like him to win” versus “will win”

Raonic to beat Tsitsipas. I think Raonic is playing well and Tsitsipas enters the match cold and screams at himself.

Schwartzmann to beat Lajovic. I am now a Schwartzman fan given his stellar play at the US Open and this autumn.

Andrew, outside of Raonic and Schwartzman, you picked against all the guys I hope will win!

I can speak to Bellis. When she was young, we saw her training at high performance in Boca. She was very thin and got all her power from a very stiff Babolat frame. She did very little strength training and wanted to play tennis, tennis, tennis.

Then when we saw her in Orlando on several occasions over the past 2 years, totally different. She had to lay off any hitting and instead she did all fitness and strength training. She now is a lot stronger.

She always had focus, always had great tactics, a very good tennis brain. She is extremely intelligent.

In a way her injury might have helped long term. She has the same tennis brain she always did but with strength to go with it.

Michael, I am a big Khachanov fan, so I was on pins and needles during that match TB. But I agree that Ymer the Younger played very well, and has been doing well for a while now. He is at No.73 in the live rankings, and I think he will continue to climb the rankings in the coming season. He is a lot of fun to watch.

I got to see Karen a couple years ago at the Rogers Cup. He wasn’t well-known at the beginning of the tourney, so was on a small outer court and we fans were practically on top of the players. You could almost feel the power of that FH! You could certainly hear it.

Like M. Ymer. Hope he does get to work with Edberg, he hoped to.