Zverev Digs Deep For First Major Semifinal

Barty has flaws under pressure. Remember she lost the Fed Cup for Oz when Kiki bt her in Perth. That shouldn’t have happened.

yes, good call Catherine, Barty folded in Fed Cup. That would have shown that with the world’s pressure she began to make a few uncharacteristic errors, or just shows some things to work on, including playing a little differently when the stakes are highest.

It’s tough. Barty did great to make the semis, but I’m sure that she, and Australia as well holding out for a miracle run (or an uplifting run).

Now that we’re on this thread…didn’t see if Kenin had made an Aussie pledge for the wildfires. Maybe something I have missed.

re: mountain climbing, I’m sure it DID affect Muguruza – she said she was affected. Not like she was commenting on how she couldn’t play her game, she actually scaled an enormous mountain with some help, under-went a personal journey, and returned recommitted to the sport. I say this after saying, of course, that a mountain climb alone doesn’t explain a change of heart. I don’t think it does. But it may have imparted some perspective, and she may have felt she has nothing to lose by giving everything she’s got again.

Remember that Mugurza’s year last year was pretty terrible on the court. And she can be a bit sour!

After the French open she was on quite the losing streak, and only made up a little in China before ending the year with a thud and a loss to Kenin.

Someone else on the board said Kenin already beat her and that’s true, so Muguruza may have something else to play for here.

I think Muguruza is tough to beat when she’s in the zone as she has been. And like Scoop said, there’s something about Muguruza’s single-minded pursuit of the slam, and having been there and done it already, that may disrupt Kenin’s outstanding tournament.

Kenin will have to keep her head down again and give Muguruza nothing. Muguruza will have to keep her head down and give Kenin everything. Should be an interesting match.

LOL, you can always count on the WTA site for a chuckle.

But, to be fair, I came to report on a fairly good piece they have on Muguruza and Martinez. Martinez said they worked very hard in the off-season.

“There was a lot of time actually to work on things, on things that were needed,” the coach reflected of their winter together. “And I think the results are here. It’s very nice to see things that you been working in pre-season, and you see her on the court, she’s doing these things.

“She’s very, very aggressive as she was when she was playing her best tennis. Physically, I see her very well. She’s getting to the balls early enough. You can see she’s holding her ground really well, accelerating, finishing at the net a lot. That’s always nice to see.”

https://www.wtatennis.com/news/1591095/-we-re-like-brad-and-jen-martinez-happy-to-be-back-with-muguruza

Yes, WTA “features” aka some articles can be very solid and good reporting, with whoever wrote them having either been at the match or at least watched it, as the observations are good.

Muguruza said she saw the Kenin match, thought Kenin was playing more freely and that Barty let the moment get to her.

The Guardian play by play was priceless, again what a great feature. I’d hope the sports-writers have more time to post their articles, because they have a lot better source material in the play by play feature than in their articles, which seem too pro forma aka static and, under pressure, better than the WTA bios but worse than outlets that have a little more time to polish off a piece like Steve Tignor at Tennis.com.

Found this comment: Federer has become the Brett Favre of Tennis while he thinks he’s still the Tom Brady of Tennis.

Kevin Mitchell at the Guardian is not a great lover of women’s tennis. He was primarily a boxing writer and now may be part-time. I’m not a fan of his columns.

The play by plays are good in football and cricket too. It’s a nice format.

As far as donating to Australian fires, we don’t know how many players donated – some may have done so privately. Not everyone wants to make headlines. Unfair to pick on Kenin and Muguruza here.

The crowds weren’t good at the women’s matches today, largely because they were played in 100 deg heat in the middle of the day in front of open stands. Even if Coco had been there I doubt you’d have had a crush. The empty seats has probably been sold.

What’s also annoying is the men’s matches are at 7:30 pm Aussie times. This means they go at 3:30 am EST which means they’re basically unwatchable. I got up at 5:30 am today and saw the end of the Djoko-Fed match, but if the matches were held at say, 3 pm Aussie time, that would make for an 11 pm EST match and while that wouldn’t be perfect, at least, it would be a lot better than 3:30 am.

Pasha and Schnur into semis in the Burnie Challengers with two wins, the first over the No. 1 seeds. Amazing to see Brydan Klein still out there. He won a singles match in Burnie. Klein is now 30 and ranked no. 392. Remains to be seen if he’ll play more challengers this year outside Aussieland.

According to a Tennis World article, citing “The Age,” 15 men and 1 woman have been fined so far at this year’s AO. Some you would expect – Paire, Fognini, Kyrgios.

But there were a few surprises – Cornet for swearing and Pospisil for racquet and ball abuse. Thiem received a $4500 fine for coaching.

True, Cornet is a drama queen. Somehow I never minded it with her. From what I’ve seen of her matches, she is not nasty, just very dramatic.

Scoop was probably making a tongue-in-cheek comment up the thread about saying a few words about British doubles semifinalist Joe Salisbury, but I’ll take the bait anyway.

The key thing about Joe is that he is quiet. If that bestseller by Susan Cain *Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won’t Stop Talking” had a cover subject, Joe would be the first pick. He’s also a terrific tennis player, with surprisingly good hands and a big serve and great court sense. All this makes him a perfect doubles partner for extroverts, and he has played with a number of them just in my recollection: the outgoing Irishman David O’Hare, the ageless Freddy Nielsen, and currently Rajeev Ram– who is one of the nicest guys on tour but is as gregarious as Salisbury is retiring.

Joe went to the University of Memphis, one of an armada of British doubles players who have played US college tennis. A few other things about Joe: he has perfect posture, which makes him look even taller than he is, and he is probably around 6′ 5″ anyway, and he appears to be old school in many ways, including– this is refreshing to me– being someone who is always observing what is going on around him and not staring at his cellphone. And he is pretty decent at basketball, for what it is worth, although when I shot around with him a few years back he said nothing, much like Lee Child’s legendary fictional thriller character Jack Reacher, who speaks only with his fists.

My thoughts: should have closed the roof. But tennis is always dealing with the conditions, and Australian conditions have always been hardest of slams. Beyond this, interesting Muguruza was trying to win as quickly as possible…to escape the heat!

All these articles, they say the same thing. Whoever writes them, they say the same. Less is more IMO. You just use your eyes and your head and you’ll come to the same conclusions.

This AO is a tournament which has left a number of players suddenly looking old.

Garbine is the favorite but don’t count on Kenin. A win for Mugs and she is one U.S. Open title away from the career Slam. She has only played Americans in Slam finals, with three matches against the Williams.

I’m taking Mug in three tight sets

Scoop, I think you are right that Federer was not really injured. Kind of a weak thing to say that he had a 3 percent chance of winning and seemed to credit himself for just showing up. If so he should have retired but he seemingly didn’t want to do that so hard to accept that excuse.

I was thrilled to see Thiem win over Zverev. I like both players, but I think Dominic has a better chance against Novak. Also, he is a few years older than Sascha, so has fewer years when he can win Slams.

I saw the last 2 sets, which were entertaining. Both guys played well, with Dominic just a bit better.

Now Dominator just has to live up to his nickname and win the title. It is time for the Big 3 domination to end!

Jeff – Kiki and Dom didn’t play mixed doubles surely?

A few male coaches who have coached both men and women said the biggest difference is they can be more direct with the men, and have to be more careful with how they put things to the women.

It is a shame there aren’t more female coaches. I understand how difficult it is to combine family life with travelling on the Tour, but there must be a few more women who could do it. Also, female coaches working with younger players, but not travelling so much, could make a difference.

Tauziat has worked with Tennis Canada for a few years, and has helped a variety of players, including Genie and Bianca. She said she loves coaching, although I don’t know how much she travels with the players.