Tennis Anyone?

TimeODanaos

Great stuff - with the blue-lit rooftops, I guess it was (so to speak) the "best" night to be up high in Manhattan. Enjoy the matches!(jealous, moi?) Don't forget the wrist shots from Flushing!

Peemacgee

Splendid match, congratulations to Ms Raducanu.

Born in Canada
Romanian father
Chinese mother.

Another marvellous victory for Great Britain!

These two play great tennis and hopefully will be a joy to watch for many years to come.

Archer

So, Novak felt the pressure - both of the moment and from stellar play by Medvedev. I recall seeing him play in person back in 2018 at the then Roger's Cup in Toronto. No indication at all that he was headed for the heights he has achieved, other than perhaps that he was a very good mover for someone that tall.

gbesq

Even the best players can have a bad day. Medvedev simply played a better game than Djokovic. He play was calm, meticulous and very efficient - no wasted effort, very little emotion. It was clear early into the match that the pressure had rattled Djokovic. He became increasingly frustrated with his own play and that didn't help matters. His first serve percentage was dreadful and there were a number of times that I noticed that he wasn't making as much of an attempt to chase down and return volleys as I would have expected given his past performance. The more points he lost, the worse it became. I was hoping for a better match given that I was there in person, but still glad that I attended. .

Archer

Novak looked very tentative at times, which is unlike him. I've seen him fall behind so many times and come back from it*, but this felt different, even in the first set. They say that when the tension mounts, the first thing to go is the movement, and that appeared to be what was happening there. He was missing what were essentially just rally balls at times, and the shots he was hitting didn't appear to have clear purpose a lot of the time. If the strategy was to out last Medvedev in rallies, it was a poor one.

But all credit goes to Medvedev, who was solid as a rock, except for the last part of the third set when he was serving for it at 5-3. I do wish the crowds in NY were a little more respectful of the players - it seems to be the worst event on tour for the yahoos yelling out at the wrong time. 🤦

In the end I was happy to see either win, but would have preferred to see the calendar slam completed.

What I'm curious about now, is how Novak will fare going forward. He's a great champion so I have confidence he will recover, but there is a small part of me that wonders if this will hurt enough to throw him off, at least for a while. He was very invested in this win.

You see people lose and react very differently to it. For example Fernandez was pretty clear that her loss in the final hurt, was fuel to get better and be back there as soon as she could. Novak seemed defeated, and the emotions were pretty raw.

Glad you enjoyed seeing it in person!

Cheers, Al

* - my wife and I have sometimes jokingly speculated that once Novak retires, he will tell people that he let sets go early in matches just to make it challenging for himself...😀