The Tennis Thread

The Tennis Thread

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Discussion

sidicks

25,218 posts

221 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Patent said:
Are you going?
Looks like it's on!
Saw some great tennis on Friday and Saturday - have not long been back and will be watching the singles tomorrow on TV.

Edmund looks a serious player - his backhand is currently a weak point and needs some work, but when his confidence was high in the first two sets, he looked a potential top 20 player. Such a shame that mentally he fell apart on Friday, although Goffin did improve significantly as the match went on.

Patent

804 posts

173 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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sidicks said:
Saw some great tennis on Friday and Saturday - have not long been back and will be watching the singles tomorrow on TV.

Edmund looks a serious player - his backhand is currently a weak point and needs some work, but when his confidence was high in the first two sets, he looked a potential top 20 player. Such a shame that mentally he fell apart on Friday, although Goffin did improve significantly as the match went on.
Goffin is a quality player - but he looks too slight to mix it with the top top players. Murray should win, he only lost narrowly at the French in the semi finals to Djokovic. Clay is far from his strongest surface but he seems to have found a way to play on the dirt. He won back to back titles this year and scalped Nadal in the final of one of them.

Still, it wouldn't be Murray if he didn't make life difficult for himself - Murray in 4/5 sets!

sidicks

25,218 posts

221 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Patent said:
Goffin is a quality player - but he looks too slight to mix it with the top top players. Murray should win, he only lost narrowly at the French in the semi finals to Djokovic. Clay is far from his strongest surface but he seems to have found a way to play on the dirt. He won back to back titles this year and scalped Nadal in the final of one of them.

Still, it wouldn't be Murray if he didn't make life difficult for himself - Murray in 4/5 sets!
Agree totally.

However, Murray wants this badly, and therefore the pressure he will put on himself will be immense. I think he'll do it, but I think there will be lots of ups and downs and it will be a stressful watch for the rest of us! Let's hope I'm wrong.

Robbo66

3,834 posts

233 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Murray playing well, too physical for Goffin. He is still very difficult to warm to though.

Leithen

10,885 posts

267 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Bloody marvellous!!!

GG89

3,527 posts

186 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Robbo66 said:
Murray playing well, too physical for Goffin. He is still very difficult to warm to though.
You don't need to like him as a person but respect him for what he is, a bloody cracking tennis player.

Patent

804 posts

173 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Well done GB!

truck71

2,328 posts

172 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Sorry to be a killjoy here but WTF is the point of the Davis cup? We've got a great player in a team of average players beating never been heard ofs. What am I missing?

Leithen

10,885 posts

267 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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truck71 said:
Sorry to be a killjoy here but WTF is the point of the Davis cup? We've got a great player in a team of average players beating never been heard ofs. What am I missing?
Tennis competition. It's been going for 115 years. We haven't won it for 79 years until today. It's a big deal.

You haven't heard of the No.16 tennis player in the world? Pay attention at the back. wink

FourWheelDrift

88,512 posts

284 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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truck71 said:
Sorry to be a killjoy here but WTF is the point of the Davis cup? We've got a great player in a team of average players beating never been heard ofs. What am I missing?
No different to other Davis Cup teams, each one has it's star. Previous Davis Cup champions were Switzerland, name Federer's 2014 team mate?

Babw

889 posts

146 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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FourWheelDrift said:
No different to other Davis Cup teams, each one has it's star. Previous Davis Cup champions were Switzerland, name Federer's 2014 team mate?
Probably not the best example there...Federer (word number 3) is lucky enough to have the world number 4 as his Davis cup team mate. I agree with your point though, it shows off tennis can be a highly competitive and entertaining sport even if the superstars aren't playing each other.

MiniMan64

16,924 posts

190 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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The big players can't all play the Davis Cup, in previous years particular players or countries have entered stronger line ups in order to win it.

Murray is the only one of the "top 4" not to have won it, and now he has! Yay.

Separately to that I do feel that the scheduling needs looking at. Playing it every year is a bit mad, every other year at the most might make it bit more special and teams could enter stronger teams. Holding the final a week after the ATP finals doesn't help either.

Robbo66

3,834 posts

233 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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GG89 said:
Robbo66 said:
Murray playing well, too physical for Goffin. He is still very difficult to warm to though.
You don't need to like him as a person but respect him for what he is, a bloody cracking tennis player.
I do, believe me. If he had his brothers character, he would have been a mighty ambassador for Britain and the game. As it is, I agree with David Lloyd.

Edited by Robbo66 on Monday 30th November 07:02

Smollet

10,568 posts

190 months

Monday 30th November 2015
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I think it was on 5live yesterday someone said Judy Murray's womb has produced more champions than the whole of the youth tennis programme.

Babw

889 posts

146 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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Anyone else watching Edmund in Qatar. Wow I'm impressed, consistent heavy shots and if anything he probably just needs to ease it off at times to mix it up. Berdych is looking super lean also .

Digger

14,669 posts

191 months

Thursday 7th January 2016
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I had a little chuckle at this.

Great to see! smile


http://youtu.be/Q24vr-nwpbI

Babw

889 posts

146 months

Saturday 9th January 2016
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Djokovic just violated Nadal 6-1 6-2. Suddenly I'm not looking forward to the Aus Open, hope someone challenge the No 1.

BlackLabel

13,251 posts

123 months

Sunday 17th January 2016
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If they aren't fixing they are doping (allegedly).


beeb said:
Secret files exposing evidence of widespread suspected match fixing at the top level of world tennis, including at Wimbledon, can be revealed by the BBC and BuzzFeed News.

Over the last decade 16 players who have ranked in the top 50 have been repeatedly flagged to the tennis integrity unit over suspicions they have thrown matches.

All of the players, including winners of Grand Slam titles, were allowed to continue competing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35319202

JNW1

7,787 posts

194 months

Monday 18th January 2016
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BlackLabel said:
If they aren't fixing they are doping (allegedly).


beeb said:
Secret files exposing evidence of widespread suspected match fixing at the top level of world tennis, including at Wimbledon, can be revealed by the BBC and BuzzFeed News.

Over the last decade 16 players who have ranked in the top 50 have been repeatedly flagged to the tennis integrity unit over suspicions they have thrown matches.

All of the players, including winners of Grand Slam titles, were allowed to continue competing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35319202
Would be interesting to know the names of the Grand Slam winners who are allegedly involved in this. Given those outside the top 100 don't exactly make a great living from the sport I can see there might be a temptation for them to get involved in something dubious but I can't see a top ranked player having anything to do with it; they've worked hard to get to the top of the sport - and as a consequence earn enough not to need any match fixing bungs - so why risk their reputation with something like this?

Derek Smith

45,656 posts

248 months

Monday 18th January 2016
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JNW1 said:
Would be interesting to know the names of the Grand Slam winners who are allegedly involved in this. Given those outside the top 100 don't exactly make a great living from the sport I can see there might be a temptation for them to get involved in something dubious but I can't see a top ranked player having anything to do with it; they've worked hard to get to the top of the sport - and as a consequence earn enough not to need any match fixing bungs - so why risk their reputation with something like this?
You are using good sense and logic. For some reason, it doesn't always work that way.

If there is little or ineffectual oversight, some will cheat or look to other ways of increasing their income. If it was need that generated such behaviour one might feel sympathetic. However, it is greed.

If you look at other sports, some sports had endemic drugs taking because the regulators and disciplinary bodies refuse to take action.

If there was no oversight in a sport, it would be remarkable if there was no cheating.