Sam Querrey Shows Snarl vs Smyczek in Delray Battle

Issue is the Bryans. They are the Nadal of doubles now.

Courier’s job is to make tough calls that are difficult because of the automatic decision on the Bryan brothers. Here’s my (somewhat radical) pitch.

Ditch the Bryans. They’ve been on a losing streak and are no longer the top team. Sock’s developed doubles chops and could partner with anyone, which gives the U.S. more flexibility.

Watch Australia. They firmly believe they will beat the U.S. on grass in Australia. And probably because they believe they can win that doubles match against a team that’s still great but slipping.

why not play Ram on grass, he may be the best US grass court player. Or at least put him on the team.

Impressive win by Harry over Cilic in Mexico. Harry is great south of the border. He should only play tournaments in Mexico. What a great third set service performance he put on. Cilic was having trouble getting Harry’s second serve back.

Fritz’s win over Chardy is impressive, too, but Chardy is wildly inconsistent player. When he’s on, he’s great, when he’s not, he’s the French QBall.

For Kyrgios to win that match against Klizan was also damn impressive. I saw the first set and the beginnings of the second, and Klizan was playing well. Kyrgios is a man in a hurry. The announcers were saying no one plays to a faster pace than Kyrgios. He was averaging 11 seconds in between points and Klizan, who was not moving at a Nadal-pace, averaged 21.

Pmac’s A squad : arod, blake, bryans..

Courier’s A squad : isner, sock, bryans..

And his reluctance for subbing others may cause another 1st round loss in Davis cup..

Rafter too

I was in Newport two summers ago when Hewitt absolutely schooled Sock on grass, made him look like an amateur. I remember being at the Aussie-US Davis Cup tie in Boston in 1999, I think, when Rafter and Hewitt kicked US butt. I remember watching Todd Martin play and saying out loud that watching TMart play was like watching grass grow and a lady in the stands turned around and gave me a grave stare. She must’ve been Todd’s mother.

Querrey beats Nishikori! Nishikori was playing nowhere near his best, but still Querrey played well — I am now certain that he is going to return to top 20 by the end of the year.

Fritz defeated Estrella 1 and 3! Amazing! Fritz seems to be already playing top 25 tennis by having defeated two top 35 players in two weeks.

I think Fritz will defeat Querrey in the QF. Fritz can come close to Querrey serve and is equally aggressive from the back of the court. But Fritz does not make as many errors as Querrey, and returns better as well, so I would expect Fritz to win. Fritz would probably play Dimitrov in the SF, and will probably loose. However, Ram defeated Dimitrov last week, it could mean Dimitrov is not playing well, in that case Fritz has a chance.

Note that Fritz is already at #80 right now in the live rankings, and will get to #62 when he defeats Querrey. That will be extremely impressive to put it mildly.

So with Q through against Kei I am asking myself is Kei hugely overrated? His talent is undeniable – but the guy is made of glass. He will exist in that realm inhabited by Birdman and Tsonga: very good possibly great; but not top of the top.

I’m not a big QBall fan, but I looked up his coach, a German guy, Henner Nehles (now that’s a name) who played at UNLV, and he impressed me. Was never a pro coach before, but had a good junior background coaching in Las Vegas before starting to work with Qball, and he seems to have QBall playing better. I saw in Delray them practicing before a Qball match and he had Qball working.

I don’t think at this stage that Fritz is going to beat Qball. Sam has shown in the past, say against Smyczek or Kozlov, that he doesn’t lose to these quasi-Challenger-like players, and while Fritz is more than that, he still has not beaten any big-time players unless you’re calling SteveJo and Jeremy Chard-less big time players.

Does anyone feel the same kind of sick way about Sam as I do since he went on that dating show and said he hadn’t had a date for like three years? I mean the guy’s fiancee left him and then he can’t get a date even though he’s a millionaire pro tennis player living in Vegas, I can’t help watch him play and feel kind of sad for Sam.

It’s shocking to me to be seriously considering Fritz for an upcoming Davis Cup tie. It’s not happening. He’s becoming an emerging force, but he’s just not getting the nod this time.

Really has to earn it. That’s Courier’s system. Courier doesn’t sidestep the rankings. Unless you want to go back to the PMAC system of favoritism, which I don’t think anyone wants, you need a simple way to determine. First, it’s ranking. Then, it’s player interest. Player interest is determined by Courier and his ability to get his players to play. But if Courier doesn’t go by ranking, he will upset a lot of players and divide the squad.

Not happening. Courier’s astute and is capable of making tough calls – but not stupid calls. He’s a lot smarter than PMAC on this.

Dan, can you clear this up. Did Spadea win every practice match in Seville? There was something posted on another site about a rumor that Fish beat Spadea in practice and that did it for the 2004 Davis Cup final in Spain.

Anyways, Moya was surprised not to play Spadea, probably as much as Ferrero was surprised to be benched in favor of Nadal.

If I understand correctly, Spadea was being considered IN MARCH 2004, after he beat up on everyone to win Scottsdale. At the time, Fish was ranked higher.

The pressure started to go up then on picking Spadea for duty – and he wasn’t, probably because even though his results were better than Fish, he had losing records to the Swedes that were playing the April 2004 Davis Cup team.

At the same time, PMAC was talking about having a young team – so that was PMAC’s bias. He liked having a young team of Roddick, Dent, Blake, Fish. More likely, he didn’t want Roddick to bolt.

Roddick at the time had said:
“”Vince has put up the best results over the last month,”But that being said, he’s never played a live rubber in a Davis Cup before. You have to take into consideration the guys who have and the matchups. So I’m glad I’m playing and glad I’m not the captain right now.”

Davis Cup semifinal, final rolls around and Spadea’s been passed over. Then, he writes a letter to Pat McEnroe AND sends it to the media. The pressure ratchets up on PMAC who relents and lets Spadea come to Spain as an alternate.

Spadea from what Dan says wins everything in practice.

PMAC says you go with the team that brought you, excludes Spadea. Moya gets an easier match, Roddick gets a harder one than he anticipated, loses both matches, and the rest is history.

I don’t think the U.S. would have won – but the point is that the U.S. didn’t go with its best players the whole season and it made no sense they lost so poorly.

I don’t think it’s so complicated now because you have more of a straight shooter in Courier, whereas with PMAC you had the buddy system.

Could be money. Spadea I think leaked the letter to media because PMAC had said if Spadea does significantly better than Dent, Fish, Blake, then he’d be very much in consideration. Spades did his part and wad still passed over. PMAC likely wanted to keep Roddick, us open champ and all of what. 21 years old? From bolting. Plus he had already made what I think is the mistake of picking Fish for the previous ties and getting the hopes up of Dent , though probably not Blake, who after his injury in 2003 was playing awful tennis in 2004, and who likely had more on his mind like his dad who was dying of cancer.

So that left Fish, Olympic finalist. I don’t know Fish but I think he probably knew better, so sounds like Roddick threw Spadea under the bus. PMAC didn’t strike me as an idiot, but if his best player is making a stink maybe he folded

Yeah I think Spadea did the right thing. He made PMAC keep his word, at least some of it, and then basically rode the bench. He knew he belonged out there, but also knew that it was unfair and couldn’t change it. And I think he got the players respect as well, even if he was odd man out, older than the core group that should have brought in a vet who deserved it.

Qball escapes in 3. Fritz showed zero fear of u.s. vets unless named smyczek.

To a degree, Vince did it to himself, in that he was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks in Boca. His parents didn’t have any money unlike the McEnroe’s, Roddick’s and I imagine Fish had some money growing up. And Vince is half-Italian (how many Italian-American tennis pros do you know who got very high in American tennis…there’s Frantangelo, but he’s not Top 50 and then there’s Vince). Vince is also half-Hispanic, Columbian, so guys like McEnroe and Fish and Roddick, they’re looking at this cat, who comes from the wrong side of the tracks, learned the game on public courts and doesn’t try to mix with the main guys so much (although there was a story in Break Point where Vince hangs out with Roddick and a couple of models), why should PMac give him a chance? Vince wasn’t in their ilk. Now PMac broke a promise, according to Vince. He said if Vince beat Fish in practice, he’d play Vince at No. 2 singles, and Vince destroyed Fish and PMac still went with Fish. Maybe one day PMac will give his side of the story.

Thiem played well yesterday, but Dimitrov is a diminished player, losing to Ram in Delray. He obliterated a racquet yesterday when he went down a break in the second set. Maybe he needs to do more of that and get himself a coach who shows some emotion, too. Because this union with Davin is not starting off well and Dimitrov can’t afford another down year.

Kyrgios, Thiem going for the top now.

Yeah, Fritz keeps this up and he’ll re-write the U.S. tennis script from “hoping for a slam quarterfinal” to “first u.s. slam finalist since 2009”.