The Little Guys In Paris

It is one of the fun things about tennis, that such a wide variety of players can be successful.

Chardy played some great ball in taking out Medvedev. Chardy has always had the talent. Chardy and DY were in the same junior draws.

Struff too with Khachanov. Still doubtful on both of these power players even given Khachanov very very good year as a top ten player. Don’t think Struff can maintain that tennis.

Dimitrov a winner, his opponent Umbert? was like Nadal without the skill!

Interesting note – Dr Sheryll Calder, currently working with the England World Cup rugby team as a vision coach, maintains that spending too long on mobile devices, particularly on match days, ‘hinders athletic performance’, because, as I understand it, your eyes become unaccustomed to the kind of vision skills you need for top performance. Don’t see why this shouldn’t apply to tennis where competitors certainly spend a great deal of time on ‘mobile devices’.

Ref -Article in today’s Guardian sport online (mainly on rugby).

No Cahill magic today – Svitolina bts Halep SS.

Raonic nearly gets Thiem. That’s the Raonic we are used to seeing. He’s not done whatsoever. Credit Thiem for pulling out the win barely, glad Raonic sees himself differently than may who write this beast off. He’s Canada’s second best player behind Bianca Andreescu.

So far Shapo acquitting himself well against Fognini. Will it be enough against the magician?

For a while this morning I had 3 Canadian players on at the same time, with mixed results.

Milos did play well, just not well enough to beat Dominic.

Bianca with yet another injury, knee this time, and she had to retire from her match with Pliskova.

Shapo had a good win over Fognini. It was good to see Youzhny there with Denis. This is the right time for Denis to have a former top pro as his coach.

Stinks to see Bianca injured. But that is why we will likely never see another female player be dominant long term. The sport is too grueling, the fields too deep these days. Once the sisters and Pova retire, I doubt we ever have another active WTA player with more than 4 career Grand Slams ever again.

Of the top Canadian players only Shapo hasn’t had a lot of problems with injuries. I wonder if his body type helps in that regard. He is 6’1″ and 165 lbs, so fairly light.

Hartt – yes, Shapo does seem to have a good body shape – he’s not too tall, doesn’t seem to have weight problems and moves very well. Bianca, on the other hand, could be a double for Raonic in being injury prone. As I mentioned once before, there’s something about her build which seems to make her liable to get injured but I’m not exactly an expert and have no idea if that’s true or not.

I wonder if she practises too much?

Catherine, on another site we were wondering if Bianca should lose a bit of weight. I think they could use the off season to work on strengthening her core, and also the muscles around her knees. She changed trainers after the USO, so hopefully they are happy with the current one. She has a full-time physio now, so that should help.

You made a good point about Bianca injuring her knee when she stretched for a very tough shot. She is so competitive and so aggressive in her play that it is probably difficult for her to leave those shots, but it sounds like she would be wise to do just that, if it helps her avoid injury.

Several posters on Reddit talked about how they had bought the very expensive tickets for the GB vs Switzerland ATP Cup match purely to see Fed. Roger should have not have committed to play it if there was a good chance he would withdraw.

I agree, Scoop. This is a very disappointing move by Fed.

I don’t blame Federer. He just won last week and it’s an opportunity for another player to win Paris Masters. His opponents don’t feel bad that he’s no longer in their draw. It’s a payday for them and they should write Federer a thank you note for the bonus of winning a round of prize money and ATP points without breaking a sweat.

Andrew, the issue wasn’t Fed pulling out of Paris, but out of the ATP Cup. With no top player (because Stan had not entered) Switzerland won’t even be in the tournament. Fans had bought tickets for the group that Fed was in purely because he was playing. They were guaranteed matches with Fed in that format, whereas they are taking their chances in a regular tourney. They wondered about getting refunds, but how likely is that?

Poor fans…(not!). That’s the risk – if you’re flying overseas to do so and it’s a few months out, cancel your plans, it isn’t as if it’s taking place tomorrow!!!

The ATP etc shouldn’t have scheduled so many cups. Federer is always going to make decisions on what works for him. So will Nadal (see Kazakhstan Exo post marital bliss). So will Djokovic. If you really want these events to fly do what some tournaments and events do and get players who will be loyal in the future.

I’m sure the WTA finals is upset about Osaka. But trust me she’s well, good, holding down the fort with a $680,000 payday for under a week’s worth of work in Shenzen. Don’t she’d too many tears 😉

Hope some tournament somewhere does this, supports up and coming players. They remember it and often not always return to those events out of good feelings etc.

Cahill is a very fine, excellent coach. This to Halep on Svitolina: “She’s living off your errors and most of your errors are coming off panic shots.”

No better description of the Svitolina game. She is a grinder with phenomenal consistency. She will backboard her way past her peers, then get beat by only a few players.

And from the Scoop book of magic: she pumps herself up on court. She has the emotion thing down.

Gossip – according to tennis tonic Jack Sock is still with Katie Boulter, British player who hasn’t done much on court since she suffered a back injury. Sock got together with Katie a couple of years ago but I’ve read accounts of Jack with various other ladies recently so what is the truth ? He’s now unranked I believe so has plenty of time for romance.

Well, tennis tonic is misinformed and I expect there will be red faces there shortly.

Catherine, Andreescu is something! These quotes are going to rev up competitors. That should get back to the Pliskova camp, maybe Ka. Pliskova will even wake up. For her to hear about that from Andreescu says a lot to the Andreescu competitiveness, but so rarely is this expressed so bluntly by players.

If I were Pliskova I’d run on that and go for an Oz title. She should be offended and use it to improve.

I don’t see anything wrong with the stuff Bianca comes out with – in fact I like it. Better than the butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth insincerity around a lot of players who seem terrified of the WTA. And what Bianca says is true. She rates Simona higher than Ka and who wouldn’t,seriously ?

She’s young, headstrong, but basically a nice person I’d guess. Who hasn’t done and said foolish things when they were 19 ? Being injured so much is putting her and those around her under a lot of strain. I just hope everything settles down in time. And Bianca goes on telling it like it is.

Dan, the big thing about Sock is not that he he is ranked No.253, but that he is about to have no ranking at all. It seems unimaginable that he could fall so dramatically, from winning Paris and making the ATP finals two years ago to basically disappearing. People who have seen him play say he is out of shape, so it is hard to have much sympathy for him.

As far as Bianca goes, the injury problem is even more serious. She has had back problems this year as well as shoulder and knee injuries. Earlier in her career she also missed a lot of time from injuries. I wonder if Catherine is right, that her body type is one cause. She also hits with a lot of power, and perhaps that is a factor. In any case, it is frustrating that injuries are having such an impact on an exciting young player.

What she said about Pliskova wasn’t diplomatic, but it was true. I doubt if anyone will disagree, even Ka if she is being honest. But Bianca isn’t making friends with some of her comments.