Punches Fly in Beijing at Zhang-Kerber Box

Jeff – I suppose we should be grateful that the attendance is so low at these tournaments otherwise we could have been looking at a full scale riot. Over women’s tennis.

I will post this here because the old thread is extremely long. Bianca just took the 2nd set TB to win her match against Mertens. This was a perfect example of finding a way to win when you don’t have your best stuff.

Bianca was the better player in the first set and won it 6-3. But the 2nd set was a major battle, and Mertens was the better player through most of it. Bianca’s first serve was MIA and Mertens was consistent, and made some great shots as well. Bianca had several long service holds. Then Mertens had a poor service game, with 2 DFs, and Bianca broke and served for the match. Mertens broke back and the TB was close, but somehow Bianca managed to win.

Despite being just 2 sets, this was a grueling match, and it must have taken a lot out of the youngster. But Bianca showed that absolute determination to win, no matter what.

I am not sure it is a matter of Bianca shaking off the attention. She took a long break from competition after the USO and was back on the practice court less than a week after the tourney. She said the practices were going well. I think she just had a poor day and of course Mertens is a very good player. Also, some of the wins she had at the Rogers Cup and the USO were tough, going 3 sets.

That said, I thought before the tourney that winning 2 matches would be a good result, and she has done that. If she does win her next match she will pass Simona for the No.4 spot in the rankings.

Andreescu d. Mertens. Sorry to Bertens.

I said on another site that Naomi’s big $ in endorsement money came in handy. Apparently she bought Nick Jonas’s mansion, so it is probably quite the place.

I hope Bianca and Naomi do meet, that could be an interesting match.

Thiem must finally be over the effects of his illness because he played very well in his match against Zhang. Zhang did not play poorly, and Dominic had to come up with good defense. Dominic acknowledged his opponent with a thumbs up at the end of the match.

Scopp, I think the days of someone dominating like Steffi or Serena are long gone. So I doubt Bianca or anyone from here on out will win more than 2-3-4 Slams at most.

Too much has changed. First, the money. They get like $4 mil per slam plus endorsements. Players can feel they are set for life after a few years of winning.

More importantly, the game is so physical. You go to ITF events and many 14-16 year old girls are 5’10” and 140 pounds of muscle. Pretty much every other match these days players face big, strong, physical opponents. Even matches vs first or second round opponents, the better players take a pounding on the body.

The field is so competitive and so many girls are getting elite training around the world that somewhere there are 5-10 16-18 year olds that will be as good or better than Bianca soon.

Scoop, when Bruneau and Bianca were asked about the “drama queen” quote, Bruneau gave a nice considered response. But Bianca ended her reply with “a drama queen who won the US Open.” I don’t think she is too bothered about being called a drama queen. 🙂

I finally got around to watching a couple of Coco Gauff’s USO matches, and she is way more dramatic than Bianca on the court.

Hartt – I agree with you re drama queen – I think Bianca is actually quite subdued on the court. I’ve no idea what she’s like off it, but she’s certainly not dramatic during her matches. It’s all work.

This drama queen stuff will stick to Bianca like glue, long after everyone’s forgotten who actually said it, where and why.

Scoop, We’ve never agreed about the Drama in Miami. I don’t think Bianca acted up purposefully, and I haven’t seen her do anything similar since. Kerber should have ignored Bianca, turned her back and just got on with the match. That she didn’t says a lot about her. The whole thing was a big mess for Angie and lost her a few fans. And it’s possible she also realised at some point during the match that she would never beat Bianca, who was the future, and she was already the past.

Kerber has her hands full with herself and her slump as she sails out of the top thirty…

Murray, anyone else surprised? Quite a week. Is the ATP so weak that Murray can blow by a slam semifinalist in Berretini and Dimitrov get dumped by Rublev, who then loses? Or is this the NBA equivalent of garbage time, as in this part of the season doesn’t matter. Zverev seems to care kind of, sending Tiafoe home.

Graf wasn’t a drama queen. Different champs have different dispositions and tactics. The drama queen reminds me of her brethren Dancevic, who I was convinced once needed to head straight to the emergency room, but instead miraculously recovered. He was all of sixteen or something.

Scoop, there is a reason you did not feel much difference between the 14 year old and the older female player….there is little difference in power. There was an amazing book put out around 8 years ago where a Polish PhD did extensive studies on 1000s of athletes of various ages. The difference between males and females is striking.

A girl who is trained will peak in both speed and power by age 13-14. Some mature and flat line even earlier, early maturing girls peak at age 12. There literally is almost a flat line from ages 14-20 for females as far as increases in power and speed.

To be clear, that is when a female is training with speed and resistance….if they are untrained and start training at age 17, then of course they will greatly improve. So the bottom line is a girl who plays tons of tennis and does physical training will reach her peak speed and power by age 14. This was confirmed by Richard Ashby of the USTA who has worked with female players for decades. The only improvement tennis wise is through match experience or adding new shots. Another reason why we can not extrapolate that is Cori Gauff is doing this at age 15, she will be that much greater at age 23. Unless she adds to her game in some fashion, she will be not continue to improve dramatically from here. Her speed and power is at its peak right now since she has had world class training since age 7.

Males were found to be totally different. Boys improvement in speed and power continued on a steep slope right until ages 20-22. That is what some tennis coaches miss, females simply stop increasing speed and power at age 12-14, boys continue great improvements all the way through the teen years. This was shown with countless boys and girls training side by side.

Many tennis parents of girls and the players themselves get frustrated because they won everything at ages 8-13 and their improvement was so rapid. Then they stagnate and every single 1% of improvement in strength and speed after age 13 takes so much work while the boys just keep getting faster and stronger without nearly the effort.

Zverev going up, Tiafoe slowing down. The Laver Cup boosted Zverev, and Tiafoe, in his first match since the five set loss to Zverev in the second round of the US Open, has now lost two in a row to Zverev and three sets in a row to him, and also lost in seventy minutes.

I get that this is garbage time for men’s pro tennis players and the season is too long blah blah blah. But…if so why does Zverev still care? Maybe Laver Cup, maybe because he has a chance to defend his ATP finals title.

As for Tiafoe, it’s a tough first rounder and his first match since the US Open, but losing in seventy minutes to a guy you were closing in on with a friendly crowd behind you is…it could have been better. He should have at least pushed the match a little. Maybe he’s hanging out too much with Osaka as was suggested.

Happiness over success.

I suspect the difference between boys and girls which is discussed above may be due to a basic physiological difference related to evolutionary need. Females have to be strong enough to start reproducing early. Might sound fanciful and I just made it up, but it seems logical to me.

I’m obviously not a coach or an expert on anything, but as an observer I’d say the comments are largely true. Girls who don’t add new shots at the right time will stagnate. And why so many tennis prodigies, the ones you never hear of again, are girls.

So what are the consequences for coaching girls ? That the focus should be on developing new shots etc after
a girl has reached what would seem her peak power/speed at 14-15 as Jon K suggests ? And if this window is missed then improvements will not happen ?