AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2017

Wow @ this Zverev-Murray match. Mischa 2 sets and a break up - net-rushing, serve and volleying like a champ.

Wow! Murray out!

Terrific match! Murray outplayed.

First time both men's top seeds out before QFs since RG'04.

hahahahahahahaha

so tragic for Murray but am here for an ATP era of chaos

NO RAONIC SLAM THOUGH

NO FEDAL NOSTALGIA EITHER

The way Nishikori fell apart in that 3rd set though :-(

Can't see N returning from this - epic 4th game

Holds, come on!

and breaks!

game away from a 5th

Wins 4th and now has kept that level up straight on the 5th

ugh

Lol how did I just know that Nishikori would mess this up somehow? Fell asleep when he was up 4-0 in the first set, can't believe that not only is this match still going, old man Fed is somehow winning.

:-(

Nishikori's career is a torment, embodied in that match :(

*looks at the draw* well, if Tsonga gets past Stan (and maybe its a big if idk)...its an opportunity

ugh fuck this now

MONFILS SLAM plz

Fucking Vandeweghe thrashing kerber :( :( hoping for a Williams sister final (i trust this kind of nostalgia is allowable?) At the moment concerned it will be Vandeweghe v Konta/Pliskova which, no

Vandeweghe was OK, but Kerber was woeful. How can a number one player be routinely serving the first serve in the 130s and 140s?

I had such a great day the other day - saw the last few sets of Istomin/Carreno Busta, Gavrilova/Bacsinsky (tho always horrid to be reminded of how dickish Australian crowds are in this situation - half AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI and a bunch of people making Russian jokes, just lay off cunto) then DImitrov destroying Wussquet. Finished at 2.30am!

How can a number one player be routinely serving the first serve in the 130s and 140s?

don't make me do it...

Lucic-Baroni through :D :D :D

Raonic's inside-out FH has to be the most tedious shot in tennis

PressedT by Vandeweghe's continued existence in this tournament, by 100% power players left in the women's draw and by Raonic in general

LUCIC though, such an amazing story

Bacsinszky/Gavrilova has been my fav match of the tournament, so much fun

I don't have Roddick levels of disgust for Raonic but when Bat-Agut missed break points at 4-4 in the third, I knew what was coming :/

Monfils not making much impression on Rafa so far either.

Mischa's net-charging leftie craft (where is his backswing?) vs Murray probably the best bits I've seen.

Once again, my cursory interest in the WTA means another huge story passes me by - Lucic-Baroni? As in the 1999 Wimb semifinalist? 16 years between tour titles! Kimiko Date only managed 13. I do vaguely remember the win over Bartoli at Wimbledon, the year before Bartoli was champ. But I'm still not sure I joined the dots with...last century.

Monfils pinches the 3rd set, serving out from 0/40. 6-1 Nadal in the 4th would be the likeliest outcome here, but maybe...

lmao Monfils just broke in the fourth with a dead net cord. playing really well though now

yes, Lucic as in the '90s teenage prodigy, Wimbledon '99 SFist and domestic abuse survivor who spent most of the '00s off the tour, financially unable to afford to travel. She's beaten a top 10 player at each Slam since her comeback - Halep at RG '15 and the USO '14 as well.

your QF line-ups, which don't make me very enthusiastic. no counterpunchers left in the women's draw :(

Coco Vandeweghe (USA) vs. (7) Garbine Muguruza (ESP)
(13) Venus Williams (USA) vs. (24) Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)
(5) Karolina Pliskova (CZE) vs. Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (CRO)
(9) Johanna Konta (GBR) vs. (2) Serena Williams (USA)

Mischa Zverev (GER) vs. (17) Roger Federer (SUI)
(4) Stan Wawrinka (SUI) vs. (12) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (FRA)
(9) Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. (3) Milos Raonic (CAN)
(11) David Goffin (BEL) vs. (15) Grigor Dimitrov (BUL)

I really need Muguruza to destroy Vandeweghe

im def a sucker for lefties w quirky games so may try to get up early tomorrow am for mischa/fed

I was able to see some of fed beat kei, kei had to work so hard to get that fourth set that I am not surprised the 5th wasn't v close

dimitrov knocking out gasquet had the us announcers speculating dimitrov could get into the top-5 in the rankings by year end...lol it was impressive but pump the brakes on that imo

I really need Muguruza to destroy Vandeweghe

― (The caption: “fine dining.”) (DJP), Monday, January 23, 2017 3:23 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seconded. So annoyed with Vinci and Parmentier for not doing it especially as Vandeweghe was gagging for her life vs the latter. In the Bouchard match it was very weird to see Eugenie be the more likeable player on court by far!

Did you see Tennis Twitter dragging the fuck out of Isner for his Trump support the other day Dan?

I'm really fascinated by how Mischa and Sascha Zverev have such completely different games. I know a decade separates them but there's just nothing in common about their strokes, styles, approaches, anything.

Did you see Tennis Twitter dragging the fuck out of Isner for his Trump support the other day Dan?

I missed that. IMO fuck that dude (my lingering tolerance of him has pretty much evaporated)

faster courts really are having a big impact aren't they. feels like a different tournament
no way Venus or Federer are looking this imperious on slow hardcourts, for example

man monfils was 57 winners 64 UEs and rafa was 21 and 27

vandeweghe bagelling garbi T_T

UGHHHHHHHHH

Fedal/Serenus finals was not the way I intended the world to go back to the mid-late '00s, but it's a start.

just for lex:

Roddick said he has been a Clijsters fan since they first met.

“I think we were 13 and at a world youth cup event in Japan,” Roddick said. “Try being more awkward than a 12- or 13-year-old at a dance with a bunch of teams from all around the world who may not speak your language and may not understand your culture and may not whatever.

“But there was this one girl who was going around and just being really friendly to everyone and went out there and started dancing by herself and just couldn’t have cared less. She was just going to let kindness rule, and then all the sudden, five minutes later, everyone was out there with her.”

That girl was Clijsters.

Lucic-Baroni takes the first set! At work unfortunately but thrilled by this scoreline.

took 3 sets but she's done it! Such a pleasing result

When Konya went up 3-1 in the second I said to myself "this is over, Serena is going to win the next 5 games in a row"

Then she did and I was like "lol, knew it"

I like Konya tho

Mirjanaaaaaaa

Stupid body started falling asleep halfway through the second set (at which point tbf I thought Pliskova would come back)

The theme of this year's SFs is "the '90s teenage prodigies who got me into tennis, now in their thirties"

It's really apt that Lucic plays Serena next because they're the same age and in 1997-98 they were spoken of in the same breath as the potential future greats of the tour, and then their careers diverged massively, and a good part of that is because one had a loving family who protected her from the pitfalls of being a teenage prodigy, and the other had an abusive father who beat her and when she fled had no institutional support and got treated like trash by her own management company

Classic Rafa. Raonic has six set points, Rafa saves the lot, takes the set on his first. Up 2-0.

Oh, and I see Raonic DF'd one of those SPs away.

watch Wawrinka play spoiler now

Wawrinka-Dimitrov final may be good. Fed-Nadal final could be spectacular (but I understand the oh-no-not-again feelings) but I don't think my nerves could stand it.

I'd be interested in watching Fed/Nadal just because it's been so long, it's the fawning nostalgia that will accompany it that I can't stand

Dimitrov has owned Wawrinka in recent years, weirdly. Not that I think Dimitrov is capable of rising to the occasion in his first Slam final. I mean, I give him 0.00001% chance against Nadal.

On the women's side the most important thing is that VENUS STOPS THIS NONSENSE. Either a double bagel, or a comeback saving a zillion match points that breaks Vandeweghe's career for good.

lex OTM, Vandeweghe must be destroyed

It is really hard as someone who by default wants to root for all of the players from his country to have ppl like Isner and Vandeweghe in the mix. Basically, the Williams sisters can never retire and I need the currently-rising young guns on the men's side to pull through and take over.

I've got no time for the awful nostalgia which is inevitable for a Fed/Nadal re-match - please Stan don't let us down.

xp the female US players other than Vandeweghe have all impressed me politically of late - Keys, Hampton, Min, several of the ITF-level players and especially Nicole Gibbs have made some pretty smart, on-point statements. I haven't seen anything like that from any of the men except retired James Blake, who has been extraordinarily patient with some of his compatriots lately.

On the subject of rising US men, you all heard about 19yo Taylor Fritz becoming a daddy six months after his sudden marriage last summer? Such sensible decisions being made there.

Federer was able to hit the backhand like that because the court was fast. That's always what it's about with this matchup.

The interesting wrinkle to me is that instead of slicing the backhand in defensive positions he used moonballs and it was very effective

He also seemed to hit every return deep and right at Rafa's feet

I felt Rafa didn't change up his gameplan much in response - thought he was on to something at the start of the second set when he started coming to net and varying height/depth a lot, but he didn't really continue that

The 22 and under group is going to obliterate that generation.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, January 29, 2017 2:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I need them to start getting on w/it. But Thiem is killing his career by overplaying, I think Kyrgios will win Slams but he won't be a dominant figure, the first wave of 1996 kids have all turned out to be permanently injured (Kokkinakis, Chung) or not that good (Coric), and who knows what effect fatherhood will have on Fritz's career. Rublev is insanely talented but has such a poor attitude. Tiafoe's technique is sooooo ugly. Opelka will reprise Isner's career.

Zverev is the best hope to me but he'll turn 20 without having been to the second week of a Slam. Some of the teenagers look really promising - Ruud, Shapovalov, Auger-Aliassime - but they're a while off being on tour...

The WTA seems to be in much the same situation re: a paucity of young stars. Bencic and Bellis both seem injury-prone, sadly. Aiava looks good, as well as her fellow 2000 girls Andreescu, Yastremska and Pervushina.

Or maybe the new model of "underwhelming results until your mid-20s, bag 1-2 Slams" is really here to stay and what we've seen is the last of the truly dominant champions