Nadal’s Intensity in Rio is awesome

Raonic = big loser. I see early round loss at US Open after “draft dodging” Rio. Agassi said that when he talks to kids (aka future tennis fans) they want to know about his gold medal in Atlanta – not his epic battles with Pete Who? Shows where tennis is in the pantheon and why the Olympics works in tennis favor.

We knock Raonic for being too analytical and staying bottled up. He decides hey, no Davis Cup for me…and Canada loses to France. Then he gets the Wimbledon final, an outstanding effort, and loses in an uninspired way (sure he fought hard, and to make the final was his career highlight just getting there to the final day – any athlete’s highlight, but something was missing). He foregoes Rios out of fear, says it isn’t that important.

Raonic is tone deaf. He’s the one that missed it this time. And I think he’s going to get eaten up by players who come back from the Olympics ready to clear the court of those with no heart.

Isner’s reasons for skipping who knows – he could have benefited too, but Isner’s been slumping this year and he probably wanted to give other players a shot. And give them he has – Sock and Johnson nabbed the Bronze medal and are now Olympic bronze medal holders.

The confidence tank is filling up for players that take risks like that.

I think Raonic will do fine but not at US Open because he messed up.

Re Rio withdrawals: I was also disappointed (not personally , I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other) that out of the top 10 women Simona H was one of only 2 who did not go.

Although the surface was probably not the best for her I think she may well have won a medal, gained experience and confidence and begun to get away from the reputation she has of doing well in tournaments outside the GS.
If Simona can make that push it can only be good for the women’s game – we are looking beyond Serena.

However – we’ve moved on now and there’s always Tokyo
🙂 🙂

Sock and Sands win gold mixed dubs. CONFIDENCE TANK FILLED.

Lendl wins again. Murray, two time gold medalist. DelPo gets the silver.

U.S. Mens Rankings pulse check
Some considerations:
a. Opelka is 6’10 or 6’11”. He’s not going to stay in 300s.
b. Baker’s been playing well all summer. He won’t be in 300s for long either.
c. The youth moment in U.S. mens tennis has already taken over at the lower rankings. Kudla, through his rankings drop from near the top 60, has been passed in the rankings by Fritz, Donaldson, and Tiafoe, while Fritz has passed DY and is on the verge of breaking the top 50.
d. Say what you will on Ryan Harrison, but he’s acquitted himself well this summer. He did not qualify for Cincinatti, losing in three tough setts to Millman. Kozlov lost to Jaziri and Baker lost also – US men had trouble in the Cincinatti qualies.

22. Isner
23. Johnson
25. Sock
29. Querrey
54. Fritz
57. DY
103. Ram
115. Smyczek
116. Fratangelo
117. Harrison
119. Novikov
122. Donaldson
123. Tiafoe
124. Kudla
137. Krajicek
163. Kozlov
196. Rubin
207. Escobedo* *Direct entry into US Open, Qualies pts
216. Paul
220. Sarkissian
224. Krueger
237. Nguyen
247. Bangoura
263. Sandgren
285. Meister
291. Kuznetsov
338. Baker
355. Quigley
364. Opelka
370. King
375. Kobelt
386. Mmoh* *Direct entry into US Open, Kalmazoo champ
387. El Mihdawy

Dan, you don’t think Sock’s Olympics experience will motivate him the rest of the summer? I know Sock’s backhand is horrendous, but he does justice to the post-Agassi/Sampras consensus of “huge serve, huge forehand, defense to offense” way of playing.

Your take on Kudla sounds right. After some more than decent results in 2015 and a best ranking for him, the guy’s attitude has been bad – he blames the court surface nowadays for every loss. A guy who grew up on hard courts now says they are the reason he loses. I don’t buy it. I’m hard on Kudla because he has a nice all around game and had said that his effort and willingness to grind pushed him up the rankings. Now though it’s about this court is bad, that one is bad…we know where that leads.

I’m not with you on Harrison because Harrison already qualified this year in DC and at the Canada Masters tournament and posted good showing in both. I think making it to the bitter end of the third set in Cincatti qualies against a good player in Millman does at least show some effort. Harrison’s also out-performed the guys around him in the rankings. Regardless of what I think his results have spoken better this summer than last summer.

And maybe it’s better he isn’t playing Cincinatti this year in the singles. Remember last year he was at Cincinatti with the Wawrinka-Kokkinakis bizarre dust up that Harrison was involved with, something about Donna Vekic-Wawrinka and getting back at Kyrgios through picking a fight with Kokkinakis to defend Wawrinka’s honor, or whatever. Probably not the best tournament for him to play for the singles 🙂

Isner’s last stand? Gimelstob leaving was more important than we thought.

See I disagree with you on Sock. He doesn’t have a huge serve. It’s big, but he’s not an ace machine like a Sampras or even a Federer. And unlike the real great servers, I don’t think his second serve is all that big either. The other negatives Sock has is that he’s a cramp waiting to happen. He doesn’t seem to play the long matches well. Also, his backhand is very one-dimensional. All this and he just doesn’t seem to mind losing too much. I don’t care if you have walking pneumonia (btw, what’s the difference between walking and drop-dead pneumonia?), you can’t go into the Olympics and lose to Taro Daniel or the US Open and lose to Reuben Bemelmans.

Lots of well informed stuff here about up and coming US male players – but are there any girls ? (and no Dan, I’m not looking at you for comment)

Just out of interest – is it just Sloane and Madison ?

As an outsider – they’re the only names I’m hearing. So I’ve maybe missed a few.

PS – betting on Simona for Cincy – to prove my point 🙂

Andrew –

No that’s fine – there’s always been more ‘drama’ on the women’s side because of their perpetual inconsistancy and possibly higher drop out rate from junior to senior ranks.
In men’s, as you suggest, there’s more of a smooth progression and such a crowd of hopefuls as well.

(I saw Monica P as PR rather than USA but that’s a debatable point I gather)

So Opelka didn’t get a US Open wildcard after all, Tiafoe, Ram and Frantangelo as well as the direct wildcards, Christian Harrison got a wildcard into the qualies

Escobedo, wilcard for highest point total for summer challengers among us players.

First, pretty stingy here on wc. Harrison must be upset, he is a spot below Fratangelo. SMYCZEK MUST be upset too, given he is ahead of Fratangelo. Ram at 103 should be granted entrance.

The calculus on Tiafoe makes sense.

If anything Harrison has motivation for the qualies. He had a legitimate case for the open wildcard.

Qualis is going to be fun w/ all these top Americans in it. One could make strong argument now that JD and Opelka have brushed past Fritz and Francis now.

Catherine, there a few lower light women on the American side. Chirico, Crawford and Shelby Rogers come to mind as do the small fry, Lauren Davis and Cici Bellis.

We’d need Greg Sharko to confirm it, but I believe that 33 male American players in the top 300 of the world rankings is the highest number since the late 1980s.

What’s more interesting is that this is quality depth. Most of these players (even Evan King in the low 300s, who beat Nishioka in Aptos) have a win over a top 100 player in the past year. While most of them won’t make a permanent home in the top echelon, the promise of breaking through the challenger treadmill is there.

Most of those who “make it,” on tour, even temporarily, have at least one stroke or attribute (forehand, serve, speed, mental toughness, etc.) that is top-50 caliber. By this measure, most of the young Americans who are ascending (including the cluster near the top 100, soon to include Opelka)are well positioned, while others (Paul, Mmoh, MacDonald, and Rubin for instance) are not.

Bradley Klahn is still hoping to return to the tour, although his professional future is uncertain. http://ontherisetennis.blogspot.com/2016/05/catching-up-with-bradley-klahn.html Kosakowski, unfortunately, has disappeared.

May I give some props to Steve Johnson as an overachiever? Two years ago he was out of shape and in freefall and now– even with a game that often looks underwhelming– he manages to take Murray to a third set tiebreaker in Rio. For the most part staying in school is a disadvantage for players hoping to reach the top rungs but it has worked out well for Johnson.

And kudos to silver medalist Ram who deserves his Open wildcard on results and who (along with Sekou Bangoura, mentioned in this space) may well be the nicest guy in tennis.

Raonic beat Isner in SS. Guess what – both sets went to TBs!

Dan, a summer burst isn’t how rankings determined. Rankings are democratic. Ram is the #7 player from the U.S. He’s the first “non direct” entry into the open. The US Open cut-off ranking is the top 104 players in the world by mid July. I’m assuming that Ram was right around there and maybe slipped just outside of it – all they are doing is honoring that. It’s not controversial for Ram.

Now granting one guy with one good summer result a WC – that makes no sense. Opelka if he stays healthy is going to be a great player, his serve with some placement will make that possible. He doesn’t need a direct entry wc after a mere few months and an abysmal year over-all on tour thus far outside of Atlanta. He’s all potential, no results outside a nice run to the semifinals in Atlanta.

So why would anyone wc Fratangelo? Here’s a guess. Escobedo, Krueger, Fratangelo, and Tiafoe all finished in the top four for the US open challengers this summer. Seeing Krueger isn’t top 200, they went ahead and gave wildcards to the #1 player on the challengers this summer in Escobedo, as well as Fratangelo and Tiafoe.

Krueger was left out even though he was #3 this summer among u.s. players, including Opelka.

So, there’s entirely fair treatment here in terms of how they decided this. I think it’s well known among players regarding the cutoff rankings by mid July as well as the alternative way of getting in, which is the US open challenger series. They then took the rankings into consideration.

Bottom line. Opelka didn’t earn a wildcard. Smyczek messed up by not doing well enough. And guys like Harrison took his chances by playing mostly ATP events this summer and rolled the die that they might grant him one.

Not bad thinking to me.

22. Isner
23. Johnson
25. Sock
29. Querrey
54. Fritz
57. DY
103. Ram
115. Smyczek
116. Fratangelo
117. Harrison
119. Novikov
122. Donaldson
123. Tiafoe
124. Kudla
137. Krajicek
163. Kozlov
196. Rubin

Cincinatti QFs:
ATP
Murray vs. Tomic
Raonic vs. Thiem*
Cilic vs. Coric**
Johnson vs. Dimitrov***
WTA
Pliskova vs. Kuznetsova****
Muguruza vs. Babos
Radwanksa vs. Halep
Kerber vs. Suarez Navarro*****

*Thiem got through with a Monfils walkover. Monfils had won his previous match with a 6-0 2nd set against Badghdatis.

**Coric beat Nadal 6-1, 6-3. That’s a bad result for Rafa.

***With win vs. Tsonga in rd of 16, Johnson overtakes Isner as top ranked U.S. player. Wow.

****I stand corrected. Kuznetsova plays probably the most exciting brand of tennis on the WTA when she’s on. She’s what Giorgi should probably aspire to – erratic but when on her game, she’ll pull a huge tournament championship.

*****Kerber is living up to her #2 WTA ranking. For the first time I think in a long time, there is a legit #2 player who can stake out their legacy. She is taking the role seriously. Even with a seismic V like that of Puig’s at the Olympics, Kerber is showing up tournament after tournament. I don’t think Kerber is the future, but she’s making the most of the present.

catherine, what is Murray w/o Lendl…what if his coaching helps players make slam finals only?
(this is a joke, I think Murray’s a great strategist. But he only wins slams and olympics with Lendl).

catherine you seem to be high on Halep. I’m of the opinion a player only shows they can win a slam when they’ve done it, so jury’s still out here. She marshmellows under pressure.

Do you think the leapfrogger is someone like Keys, who didn’t medal but didn’t dodge the chance either and slowly, steadily, has gotten top 10 with ambition, or Puig, who stepped it up in an out of nowhere performance?

I get that Kerber is doing what she can. I think she is committing and going for legacy. The boost in Germany after winning the Australian has put her in a lot of sentences that begin with, “Steffi Graf was the last player to do X before Kerber”, “Kerber is the first player since Steffi Graf to…”. Nostalgia.

Andrew – I believe Andy has learned a lot from Lendl but I don’t believe Andy’s nothing without him. It’s a psych dependence IMO. Andy knows how to win – and so he should at 29. He’s got a good tennis brain and has shown, unofficially, he knows how to advise players and be respected and liked. What more in a coach ?

Yes, I do rate Simona although I know a lot of people don’t.
She’s very focussed and ambitious, maybe a bit tunnel vision, and her game is still developing variety. But as you say,you’re nobody without a GS – eventually I think she can do that . Not this year perhaps. As I mentioned before (somewhere) the danger for her kind of player is they get fixed on winning the in-between tournaments. Result: a second rank career.

Madison/Puig – let’s wait awhile ? Keys has to get a bit more consistent – does she have a coach now ?

Hartt, true enough. Could be an inspired Iva Majoli-Nico Massu-like run to the gold.

I like Puig and like how she plays. It means something, but a player needs to repeat that performance. That and the fact of what Scoop’s talked about before – that big target that someone becomes after a big result. Suddenly, you can’t sneak up and grab a title out of nowhere because now your opponents are awake and consider beating YOU a highlight.

Maybe Rafa ought to tie the knot. He often equates playing awesome with happiness, the good feelings on the court etc. There’s a saying that what got you here wont get you to the next milestone, and Rafa has performed at a similar level to Chang after Chang got to #2 in the world. Dont get me wrong, Chang and Nadal dont belong in the same sentence when it comes to the record books, but Nadal has been in a slump. His true peers-Federer, Murray, Djokovic, are all basically dads. They play I think in part so their kids will have a memory of seeing them perform on the world stage. Wawrinka had a less happy personal life , but he too may be driven in part by a different dimension of legacy. I’m sure the large brood of Nadals and his moms family follow him in Mayorca. But bottom line is Nadal isn’t happy these days.

Fritz playing Tiafoe again first round Winston Salem, Tiafoe took the last meeting at Indian Wells.

The quality of the in court coaching is low. Maybe because tv can listen in. The best I’ve seen from players is when they look at stats during match and change their strategy for set two. Have seen a few pros do this.