re: The Unofficial 2018 Non-GS Tennis Thread

There's something going on with the conditions at this tourney that I haven't been able to figure out yet. I've only seen parts of about 5 or 6 matches, but the majority of the tennis I've seen has just been bad. I'm talking numerous shanks, crossed-up footing, routine rally balls going 13 feet long, short balls being dumped into the net for no reason, etc. Some guys have given up and started chipping every return back. I've even seen two complete whiffs on 2nd-serve returns.

Regarding 1st-serve returns, I've never seen a tournament with numbers anywhere near this bad. Some examples:

Goffin 0/27 vs. Raonic
Tiafoe 5/47 (1/39 in 1st 2 sets) vs. Raonic
Donaldson 3/30 vs. Paire
Edmund 7/35 vs. Schwartzman (Yeah, that Schwartzman)
Pospisil 2/24 vs. Coric
Verdasco 4/20 vs. Gojowczyk in a 6-2, 6-2 win
Ferrer 6/36 vs. Klahn
Coric 7/52 vs. Cilic
Wawrinka 8/55 vs. Kyrgios
Mannarino 3/27 vs. Querrey
Krajinovic 5/33 vs. Khachanov
Johnson 5/30 vs. Fognini
Dzumhur 5/41 vs. Tsitsipas
Nadal 3/17 vs. Paire
Querrey 9/49 vs. Schwartzman (Yeah, same one)
Thiem 2/40 vs. Tsitsipas
Djokovic 9/55 vs. Tsitsipas
Medvedev 1/23 vs. Zverev

I even left out 4 or 5 examples from Isner and Anderson matches that were equally as bad.

The 0/27 for Goffin is not only the worst effort of his career... it's the only time he's been under 7% in a completed match. Medvedev's 4.3% is the 2nd-worst in his career. The 5% for Thiem is also his 2nd-worst. We're talking about entire careers with several hundreds of matches played across different surfaces.

Djokovic is arguably the greatest returner the sport has ever seen, and he went 2 full sets today without even creating a break point chance, and finished the match 0-2 on break points. I would say Tsitsipas has an above-average ATP serve, but it's clearly not like facing Isner or Raonic.

On the flip side, the 1st-serve win percentages of 81.6 and 80% for Diego are both in the top 10 of his career. If you sort Shitsipants by matches vs. players in the top 100, his 3 Toronto matches are all among the top 15 in his career, with the 95% vs. Thiem being his career best.

You might say, "Well, in the case of Goffin, it makes sense that his career-worst match on returns would come vs. Raonic" or "Tsitsipas is playing his best tennis right now", and I wouldn't argue with either statement. But with all of the data above, you can't tell me everything is kosher.

The question is... WTF? That's what I don't understand. There's been the usual chatter about the courts being slow, but nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, slower courts would produce the opposite results on serve, and you wouldn't see rallies looking so awkward.

I pulled up DecoTurf on Wikipedia, and apparently it is used at the following events:

Dubai Championships
Canada Masters
Cincinnati Masters
US Open
China Open
Japan Open
Shanghai Masters

These are mostly faster hard courts, but since Shanghai is commonly referred to as extremely fast, I have to assume that there are various types of DecoTurf. It's a cushioned surface, so maybe it reacts to weather differently than a regular hard court? I don't know.

Basically I'm left with one, or both, of these possible conclusions:

1. The constant rain and humidity doesn't mesh well the surface, and makes for awkward bounces.
2. The players who didn't play the American hard court tourneys in the previous two weeks were making a transition from either clay or grass and were not prepared at all.

Any other ideas?

I thought some commentators said DC is super fast. I know Cincy usually gets that label. No idea about Toronto or Montreal. Here is what Rafa had to say a few days ago.

quote:

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“I think what can happen here or in Cincinnati will not have a big impact on the US Open,” the three-time Rogers Cup champion said. “Of course the good results would be good for the confidence but the conditions are completely different – courts, the ball especially.

“I know from my experience if I play well here and Cincinnati it’s a little bit easier to play well at the US Open but not decisive. Last year I didn’t play very well (in Montreal) but I played well at the US Open and won it.

“In 2005 I won here and I lost third round at the US Open. If you win, you play well in these two events and create this extra confidence to play well there, but if you lose it doesn’t matter, the conditions are completely different.”

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LINK

Indian Wells uses Plexipave. People have said that slower hard courts usually have more sand in the concrete.

gotta say, kevo has been playing extremely good tennis as of late

Zverev pain train baw

He comin

Not me. That’s a fact.

Now if you said something like...

quote:

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Alex is winning the Open. Book it.

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Zverev: “I don’t think he played well. It was an absolute pathetic match.”

He will probably take some heat for that, but he’s not wrong.

Absolute spanking. Cilic playing out of his mind. Rafa being uncharacteristically inaccurate on gimme shots.

Rafa up a break in the second. Game on.

Back on serve now. Weird match in the sense that Cilic destroyed in the first, yet Rafa was coming on at the end. Feels like Rafa completely turned the tables in the second, yet we're back on serve.

If you put a lump of coal up Cilic's arse in that last game he would shite out a diamond