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*Official* Tennis Thread

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
The man was a class act off the court in his later years. Its amazing when you juxtapose the start of his career and the end, its a total transformation, and not really from 'bad' to 'good', but simply just two totally different characters.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Pure class act for majority of his career. If he had taken his career little more seriously he could have had more grandslams.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
ATP Masters Cup Shanghai

What are people's thoughts on this year's tournament? I know we've got a few tennis fans on here, and this is always one of my favourite events of the year. The 8 best players of the season going at it in the final tournament of the year... great concept.

Fairly upset that they aren't showing the games live on Foxtel this year in Aus. They're showing them on delay, and so are ABC on free to air if anyone's interested. Federer vs. Nalbandian is being shown now.

I love the 8 that qualified this year.

Federer
Nadal
Davydenko
Ljubicic
Roddick
Robredo
Nalbandian
Blake

For me all 8 were comfortably the best this season, though Baghdatis was looking a certainty to qualify until the last few tournaments when he well and truly fell away. Haas came on strong later in the year, but he had to win the ATP Paris to qualify, and was unable to do so. Safin has had a horror year but from the quality of tennis he played in the later tournaments, I reckon he'll make the Masters Cup next year, or at the least come close.

Red Group:
Federer
Roddick
Ljubicic
Nalbandian

Gold Group
Nadal
Davydenko
Robredo
Blake

The first 2 matches of the Red Group have already occurred. Federer vs. Nalbandian was a match of two halves... the smart Nalbandian and the idiot Nalbandian. The first set was all Nalbandian as he attacked Federer's serve and made him run around, and hence won the first set 6-3. He then became an idiot, tried to be too fancy and gave Federer an opening. Anyone should know that you don't give the world's best player an opening to come back. Nalbandian then lost the next 2 sets 1-6, 1-6. The defending champ looks no hope this year to be perfectly honest.

Second match was Roddick vs. Ljubicic which could have gone either way. I went with Roddick with the multi-bet I made, and he ended up taking the match 6-4, 6-7(9), 6-1.

Nadal vs. Blake and Davydenko vs. Robredo are the next 2 matches. Favourites should win there, with Nadal being better than the out-of-form Blake, and Davydenko being in ripping form. Probably the man in the most form heading in, considering the dominance in which he took out the ATP Paris.

Whilst I think Federer will likely win the whole thing, I got on Nadal to win at $10. Federer was favourite at some ridiculously short price, and Davydenko was second favourite at $8. But considering Nadal's mental edge he holds of Federer (yes, even on hard court) who knows what he can do. I also got on Nadal to top his group, I still think he's better than Davydenko.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Nadal you jackass. Piss poor performance against Blake.

4-0 up in the second set and still loses in straight sets. Argh.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Nah, won far too many matches this year to be that.

He just chokes against Blake for some reason. Can't beat him. I should have taken the 0-2 record into account when betting on Nadal, but Blake was in crap form recently.

Honestly can't believe he didn't win a point in the tie-break though. How is that possible? Must have just died after not being able to serve out the second set.
 

Simon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Federer vs Blake in the final for mine, apart from Federer everyone in the Gold group has played some rubbish tennis, Blake has been on fire and should be able to beat whoever he comes up against.
Federer vs Nadal in the semi if it goes that way should be good, nadal always lifts but i think on this surface federer will be too good...
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Blake has been playing very good tennis, but let's be honest, had Davydenko not choked he should have been 1-1 down. He served crap in that first set, lost his first 5 service games. You should never win a tennis match if you lose your first 5 service games, no idea how Davydenko could let him off like that.

And Bronco, I sort of disagree regarding your assessment of the Gold Group, because each one of them has managed to get on top of Federer for a little bit (Nalbandian owned Feds in the first set of their match, and Roddick had Federer well and truly on the ropes with 3 match points against him which would have allowed him a straight sets win).

Roddick was brilliant against Ljubicic never giving away a break point, and Ljubicic was ill so to take Roddick to 3 sets was good. Nalbandian has been playing stupidly by starting off well and then changing his game for no reason, but how good was he against Roddick? Its been a mixed bag the Gold group, and it makes sense that all 3 players other than Federer only ended up with 1 win.

I'm thinking a Federer vs. Nalbandian final myself. Would love Nadal to win for the sheer fact it'd get me some cash, but Federer and Nalbandian seems the case in my view.
 

Great Birtannia

U19 Captain
Jono said:
Nalbandian has been playing stupidly by starting off well and then changing his game for no reason, but how good was he against Roddick?
Nalbandian is always like that. I don't follow the circuit the year around but at the grand slams he will end up in 5 set marathons against opponents Federer, Safin, Roddick and co. would brain in a little over an hour. He chokes up worse than me with a racquet in hand.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
broncoman said:
Federer vs Blake in the final for mine, apart from Federer everyone in the Gold group has played some rubbish tennis, Blake has been on fire and should be able to beat whoever he comes up against.
Federer vs Nadal in the semi if it goes that way should be good, nadal always lifts but i think on this surface federer will be too good...
Wow, spot on. Good call Bronco.

Blake smashed Nalbandian.
 

Simon

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Blake will finish up at number 4 this year too, pretty amazing for him after all the problems he had with his Dad and then his neck injury. I never used to rate him that highly but hes done very well this year, fair play to him...
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Well Federer had no trouble swatting away Blake in 3 straight sets.

Still, good effort by Blake considering he almost missed out on the Masters Cup.

With regards to Federer, what a legend. Honestly, just keeps breaking every record there is in the book.
 

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
Watching tennis is almost painful for me these days. Really, there's just no competition, as good as his winners are to watch, I just can't get into it like I used to be able to. I despise clay court tennis as well, so I don't see Federer lose, really.
 

Simon

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He's quite simply too good. Hopefully he will come back to the field for one reason or another. In a perfect world guys like Safin, Kuerten, Ferrero, Haas, Joachim Johansson would be fit and play their best tennis consistently and we'd see a bit more competition at the top.
I guess all we can hope for is Federer losing some passion for the game or something, but i cant see it happening until hes won 25 grand slams...
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Roger Federer is just amazing, I watched some of the game against Blake last night and some of the shots he pulled out were awesome. Complete legend and is dominating the sport much the same way Tiger Woods was dominating golf a couple of years back.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
I love that Tiger Woods and Federer are friends. Its just awesome, the talent of those two men is amazing.

Bronco, what do you think happened to Juan Carlos Ferrero? He is not even close to the tennis player he was in 2003/2004.

With Safin, you know its all mental and he could be back next year and challenge Federer again (who can forget his classic win over Federer in the Aus Open semis in 2005), but Ferrero looks like he's never coming back to the top 20 :ph34r:
 

Anil

Hall of Fame Member
looks like federer is also gaining confidence against nadal....would be interesting to see how he fares if they meet up on clay next year....
 

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