re: The Unofficial 2018 Non-GS Tennis Thread

Feds only chance against novak is in these best of three masters but today he came up just short. I don’t see him beating novak in a best of five ever again. He’s just too old although it’s remarkable he’s still at this level for his age.

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3.5 hrs for a best of 3?

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Damn pushers

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He's 6'6, 22 years old, moves well, and has all the shots. The only NextGen player that is clearly a step above him is Zverev. As luck would have it, they will face off in about 45 minutes. Zverev won their last meeting at the French in 5 set

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I'm actually having trouble figuring out who the best prospect is among those guys. Alex was better a year or two earlier than the other guys, but isn't CLEARLY the superior player, imho.

Between Teetsy, Daniil, Swaggy K, and Alex, they all seem like they are on the same tier right now.

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All I know is you have to have mad respect for a guy like Murray to win three majors and two gold medals in the midst of all of this. He'd probably have eight or ten without these GOATs.

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I agree with you here. Murray is the most interesting case. He was such a damn good player at the absolute worst possible time.

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I feel bad for lostgen players like Nishikori and Grigor.

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And Milos. But I don't feel sorry for them.

I think Stef ends up with the best career. I'll bump this in 13 years when speak of Goatsipas is ubiquitous.

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MidnightVibe

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Read this carefully as it will be my last post about tennis on this site.

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Alex was better a year or two earlier than the other guys, but isn't CLEARLY the superior player, imho.

Between Teetsy, Daniil, Swaggy K, and Alex, they all seem like they are on the same tier right now.

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Nope. It's not a debate. There is no argument. It's an absolute fact. To put it another way to make sure you understand: What I said was absolutely right, and what you said was absolutely wrong. There is zero question about it.

When I posted that (3 matches ago), these were the stats:

Masters Titles:
Zverev: 3
Tsitsipas: 0
Khachanov: 0
Medvedev: 0

ATP Titles:
Zverev: 9
Tsitsipas: 1
Khachanov: 3
Medvedev: 3

In case numbers aren't your thing, as of two days ago, Zverev had MORE Masters Titles and MORE ATP Titles than all three of those guys COMBINED. Karen Khachanov was not on your (or most people's) radar when I wrote that post. He was also 1 point away from losing to Isner in the 3rd round. Since then, he knocked off Zverev, Thiem, and Djokovic in straight sets, and now all of a sudden you are all over his nuts. If anyone could come in here and gloat about something, it would be me for posting about the guy immediately before he beat 3 top players in a row, but that's not what I'm about.

Do you happen to remember who picked Alex Zverev to win the US Open less than two months ago? Hint: It's the same guy who is now claiming that Medvedev, Khachanov, and Tsitsipas are on the same level as Zverev. What you said is akin to saying Kevin Anderson is on the same tier as Basilashvili. So either you only have 2 or 3 tiers in all of tennis, or you don't understand how tiers work. And this is not about 2019, or 2025, or any other time in the future. I specifically said that Zverev was clearly better at that time.

I don't know if you think you get some type of e-cred for liking every player who plays well for a few weeks, or if you need attention that badly, or if there is something else involved. I'm not too familiar with bipolar disorder, but maybe you have that and have a wild range of emotions. Most of the time, I can tolerate the way you operate, but every now and then you feel the need to pick out one line out of dozens from one of my posts, and start something for no reason. And the majority of the time, my posts are not directed at you, or anyone in particular.

Why I post here:
1. I like tennis
2. I watch and play a lot of tennis
3. To interact with other fans and learn more about the sport
4. To share my knowledge of tennis with lurkers who may not have the time or experience to learn or understand it
5. To share how/why I bet on tennis. I don't claim to be great at it, but better than most.

NOT why I post here:
1. Attention
2. Upvotes
3. To start a debate
4. To start an argument

Almost every day people write things that I disagree with, but I can probably count on one hand how many times in my TD existence where I've gone out of my way to nitpick their posts to get under their skin or feed some need for attention. On the other hand, you are the exact opposite in this regard. We've touched on this before, but it's obvious that you have no intention of changing.

So, rather than continuing to hold back my thoughts, I feel it's better to just step away. I've tried to do my part to keep the tennis thread active during dead times, but it's not really worth the hassle to have to think twice about every word I type in case I have to defend it later on. And it's even worse when I post things that aren't even debatable, and still have to explain them.

Best of luck going forward. To everyone else, thanks for the banter and good times.

Bayou,

I’m confused. I literally just scratched my head before putting my fingers back on the keyboard. I’m at a loss for what it is about that statement that might have set you off. That was definitely not an attempt to start something. Or nitpick at you or anybody else. Not even a little. Indeed, I didn’t believe it to be a particularly bold statement at the time, and, on further inspection, I still do not believe it to be a particularly bold statement. I’ll go through why.


I first wrote

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“Alex was better a year or two earlier than the other guys”

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With this, I’m acknowledging that when it comes to career accomlishments thus far, that Alex is on a much higher level than the other three. This cannot be denied in any way, and for the various reasons you have pointed out. 3 Masters Titles. 9 ATP wins. Was ranked as high as #3 in the world. Has made 12 million smackers in prize money at the tender age of 21. Earned a spot on “Chopped Steak”, which is MidnghtVibe’s fantasy team name, and, on that note, had me so bullish on his prospects for success during this hardcourt season that I was repeatedly sprinkling in the optimistic #summerofalex mantra in as many posts as I could have it make sense in.

And so, yeah, if we’re talking “better” in terms of a career resume test, you are indeed 100% correct that it is not debatable. And because the first clause of that sentence, which is quoted above, is expressly backward looking, you and I certainly have nothing to disagree about before that first comma. After that first comma, I wrote the following:

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“but isn't CLEARLY the superior player, imho”

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The word CLEARLY there is an upfront qualification for what comes next, and not a subtle one. I’m saying “yeah, the jury may still end up coming back with a “guilty as being better” verdicts, but not without some legitimate, straight-faced deliberation. And to unpack that a little further, let’s do some legitimate, straight-faced deliberation on the question not of whether Alex has compiled the better resume so far, but whether the evidence is clear that he will be the superior player going forward.

2. Alex Zverev v. Stefanos Tsitsipas

Tsitsipas finished strong in 2017, sneaking into the nextgen atp finals as the alternate, and then carrying that momentum into the 2018 season where he started out ranked #91 in the world and worked his way all the way up to #15. Starting from Barcelona, the greatest waiver wire pickup in the history of my tennis fantasy league ::pats self on back:: has a match winning percentage of 67%, with an overall W-L record of 37-18. In that time span, he lost in the finals of Barcelona to the Great Great Rafa Nadal on clay, and followed that up with a respectable semifinal loss to Sousa in Estoril. He was steady but not spectacular in the next few tournaments, and did take a pretty good butt whupping in DC at the hands of Alex.

But he bounced right back from said butt whupping at the Canada Masters. He made it to the final of the Canada Masters -- taking out Alex Zverev along the way -- only to fall to an in-form man from Mallorca in the final. He got his first ATP career win in Stockholm just a few weeks ago. He’s a year and four months younger than Alex and clearly still improving. He arguably has more upside in that he’s the better athlete between the two, but thi is arguabl offset by the fact that he rocks a one-handed backand, which is just an overall inferior product imho.

But, for what it’s worth, Teetsy reached his career ranking of 15 on his 20th birthday. When Alex turned the big two oh, he had yet to crack the top 20.

Are you sure that Alex will have greater success going forward than Teetsy? Because I am picking up some doubts on that, and they are of the variety that I would tend to place under the “not unreasonable” umbrella.

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Almost every day people write things that I disagree with, but I can probably count on one hand how many times in my TD existence where I've gone out of my way to nitpick their posts to get under their skin or feed some need for attention. On the other hand, you are the exact opposite in this regard. We've touched on this before, but it's obvious that you have no intention of changing

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I won't beat a dead horse, but to quickly recapitulate. You said that Alex was clearly the better player. I responded to that post by saying that I wasn't so sure that he was in fact the clear superior to those three right now

That was not knit-picking. That was my opinion. An opinion that I have now elaborated on more.

Had somebody asked me today what I wrote that post in response to or who the poster was that wrote it, i honestly would not have had the first damn clue.

Point is: I wasn't picking a fight with your or needling you in any way. At all.

If you were just having a bad day and were a bit on edge, no harm no foul. I'm sure your headspace was no less idyllic than mine after Houston lost outright to SMU and singlehandedly flipped my first winning week in the last three to another one in the red.*

*Coming the realization that a thing that you really enjoy and put a lot of time and thought into is nonethless something that you really suck at is a kick in the dick.

Thanks, Bunk, glad you agree with me.