Did Nadal Shatter Zverev?

Scoop, speaking about the crab pot here, where expectations remain either way too high or way too low and there’s no Lloyd Carroll or Tim Mayotte on staff to light a clearly needed fire to motivate any next Gen player including USA next Gen men and the guys above them, are USA men’s players on the verge of even a Dabid Wheaton or Mal Washington career? Aren’t they all one or another version of the Maleeva sisters, with varied games and decent but not HOF results?

I mean, not to make you brag, but Scoop and Dan have authored many books on tennis pros, fantastic ones and ones that wanted more out there. So you guys are capable of being able to recognize whether players are low balling it or putting themselves in pole position to smash through the glass ceiling of this sport.

But seriously, aren’t guys like Sock low balling it? Shouldn’t they, like Zverev, want to push themselves past their low expectations?

I don’t want to diminish what they’ve accomplished – the USA men have rescued the USA from the tennis death star. They were on life support in February 2014 when only Isner and Brad Klahn were the USA’s only two top 70 players.

But why are they still living under the delusion that avoiding the Euro clay season is a great idea? That the us summer hard court swing will save their rankings?

Where’s the impatience and the urgency that motivated Nadal and Djokovic and Murray? It’s almost entirely absent from us men.

These guys should study Konta. I don’t love her game, but she has shown the ability to take it to the sport’s best players. And she seems to be one of the few players with the courage to go for a slam like Kerber did last year and Pennetta before her and Puig at Olympics. Part of this is opportunity, but most of it is mindset.

Scoop that sounds right about game plan against the top guys versus the rest. Nadal in 2006 French Open I think watched videos of himself beating Federer in the 2005 French Open semifinal to remember the energy level he brought into that match, which was stepped up a few notches from the previous match. That means even Nadal had to convince himself to play bigger than ever against a player he was already beating because of the stakes.
Just proves your point.

The decision of the AEC not to invite Nastase to sit in the Royal Box at Wimbledon is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard, just about. When you think of some of the people who’ve sat there. Probably Jimmy Savile for one.

I suppose the club is planning to invite Serena, if she can still travel by then.

Wimbledon’s a great tournament but I sometimes wish the AEC would just dissolve itself. It’s a relic.

Thanks for the tip about the Angie piece. Will definitely have a look. It is interesting that she likes to read about herself on social media. And am with her about thrillers – I almost always have 1 on the go, and they are a terrific diversion from real life.

I would be surprised if a tennis player was an actual intellectual. Milos is very smart in an academic way. He finished high school at 16 with excellent marks. His parents, both engineers, made good grades a condition of his playing as much tennis as he wanted to. And they were very disappointed when he changed his mind about taking a university scholarship to turn pro. Even then they insisted he take some university courses and put a condition on how long they would continue their financial support. If he did not make the top 100 within a certain period he was to go to university full time. He does read serious books and seems like someone who thinks about things, but is not an intellectual.

What surprises me is the players who don’t read at all, not even thrillers. But especially books on tennis players. If I were a tennis player I would definitely want to read Scoop’s “Facing” books and Agassi’s “Open.”

Hartt
I read a lot of thrillers too, as you probably gathered from an earlier conversation – just finished the latest Peter Robinson but it isn’t nearly as good as his earlier ones. He’s writing to a bit of a formula now.

I’m not really surprised that players don’t read books about tennis – they probably get enough on the court. I shouldn’t think policeman read police procedurals either.

Lots of players, more women than men I suspect, pore over their twitter accounts – the appeal of that passes me by but then I’m from a different generation. You risk developing a kind of double identity – the public one where everything is hunky dory and the real one you’d never tell anyone about.

Angie is a pretty honest person I would think but in spite of everything she’s said in various places we don’t have much idea of how she really feels about the awful year she’s having.
I hope Madrid can show an upturn in her fortunes. The women’s game needs her.

Hartt –
There are a couple of other writers I’ve read who are American but write about Britain – Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes. Elizabeth George writes awfully long books of varying quality – her best I think is called A Traitor to Memory. Martha Grimes’ books aren’t published here any more so I haven’t read her latest.

You’ve probably done Josephine Tey – Miss Pym Disposes has the best kick at the end of almost any crime novel I’ve read.
Angie’s thrillers are all German – I didn’t recognise the one she mentioned. But maybe she reads translations as well.
Writers in that genre I can read again and again – Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.
Christie’s plots are so easy to forget that it’s like reading a new book each time 🙂

Tennis – Schiavone has reached the final it looks like but can’t see her winning. Still, a good run. Really deserves a WC for Rome.

I saw a couple close, tense matches this morning. Raonic won over Tomic, 7-6, 7-6. Tomic was in one of those moods where he played his best tennis and gave Milos a tough match. Milos’ serving saved the day – he had 25 aces and a first serve % of 69%. Milos extended his lead in their h2h to 5-0.

Sascha Zverev survived a tough battle with Struff, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6. Struff played very well, was solid throughout the match and also made some terrific shots that had you wondering, how did he do that? But, as the commie said, Sascha showed mental toughness and grit and prevailed in the end.

Schiavone will play Pavlyuchenkova in the Rabat final. She is now No. 77 in the live ranking and if she wins tomorrow will jump several more spots. Her success in recent tournaments makes the decision by the Rome bigwigs to refuse her a wild card look dumber by the day.

Escobedo and Donaldson are in the qualifying at Madrid. No idea why Tiafoe isn’t. You can add Donald Young to the list of top 50 Americans that isn’t in Madrid either.

Schiavone lost final in Rabat but 5-7 5-7 so obviously put up a good fight. I hope someone puts on a goodbye show for her in Rome even if she’s not in the draw.

This was a good day for some of my favourites, who will be in various finals tomorrow. Milos had an easy win over Troicki in SS, even though I don’t think he played his best today. He will face Cilic in the Istanbul final.

Carreno Busta won over Ferrer and was clearly the better player. So, as Ferrer is approaching the end of his career, PCB is taking off. His opponent in the Estoril final will be Muller.

And in Munich, Sascha Zverev won over Bautista-Agut. As you would expect, RBA did not make it easy for the youngster, but Sascha prevailed and will play Pella in the final.

I think all my faves stand an excellent chance of winning the titles tomorrow. 🙂

Hartt
I’ve started posting on Madrid further up but as you’re here I thought I’d note the needle match Bouchard/Sharapova coming up – watch out for the handshake whatever the result 🙂

Scoop, I hope I am bringing those players luck! Have decided to limit the treats-eligible players to 10. So far I have 7 ATP players and 2 WTA, so the final spot will go to a female player. Will probably wait for Kvitova to be back – one of the rules is I have to feel an emotional tie to the players, have to care a lot whether they win. Kvitova fits the bill, although she is so inconsistent I probably don’t have to worry about too many calories on her account! But she makes a good balance to the 2 youngsters – Bianca Andreescu and Daria Kasatkina.

Doubles news: Kyrgios/Sock won over the fine doubles team Rojer/Tecau. And it’s always great to see Tommy Haas get a win in his final year – he and Mirnyi won against Verdasco/Zimonjic in 3 sets.