I'm not sure. I think her head had gone, unfortunately. I'd love to see her win a slam but she seems to wear the weight of expectation heavily.

 

Now, now! Hewitt, Safin, A-Rod*, DelPo, Wawrinka, (Soderling?) is quite a roll-call of players eclipsed by the big three: they all deserve respect, and maybe a little sympathy over the timing of their birth!

* No, not that one

 

Agreed. Even how tense she looked before the match started was a sign that she was really feeling it. In contrast Marketa looked quite relaxed. Understandable as she really had a great week and getting this far was just gravy.

 

One of the better pre-match predictions I've seen...

"Djokovic in four sets
The youngster will come at the king of Wimbledon with furious speed and intent, but many of his best shots will rebound off Djokovic’s implacable defence. The errors will mount, and the stress will find its way into Alcaraz’s serve. Once he starts to miss his spots, he’ll be a sitting duck.

Simon Briggs"

 

Djokovic can’t figure out why people don’t like him. Maybe he should throw another tantrum.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/66226270

 

That fine will definitely teach him!

 

In general, I think the fines for this sort of thing need to be set higher - that fine is nothing to him. So as not to unfairly penalized the players who just scrape by at the lower ranks, it should be a percentage of what the player is earning at the event. Enough to make it hurt, and not just be petty cash or a rounding error like this one is.

With Djokovic, he so desperately wants to be loved as much as Roger/Rafa - I think people sense this and it doesn't go over well with many. There was a time when I was a fan, but as time goes by I just find some of the stuff he does to be tiring, and the fans of his can be brutal if something happens that they see as unfair. Like the lady he hit at the US Open when he was DQ's getting death threats - those weren;t from him, but I think even that puts people off him to a degree.

It was interesting that he was shaking out his wrist for a while after he smashed the racquet. The feed I was watching they mentioned it a few times, but then he stopped shaking it out and it seemed to not be a thing, and wasn't affecting his game. When one commentator mentioned that it didn't seem to be affecting him, Johnny Mac said something like "If there was ever a problem to begin with..."

I was thinking the exact same thing...whether it's deserved or not, I don't think that reputation for playing head games will ever go away.

 

Yes, unfortunately, I think you're right; it's a great pity I'd love to see her win Wimbledon, the whole crowd was behind her but maybe that just put more pressure on her.. She's thrilling to watch and when she's on form, she plays like she could be the love child of Arancha Sanchez Vicario and Andre Agassi

.. but there really should be parity in the women's game.. as we've seen time and time again in the men's game where a player loses the first two sets comprehensively, and can even be a break down in the third, only for them to come back and win it in the fifth..
I love that kind of battle, and for me, that's where women's tennis just doesn't cut it in the same way..

Imagine if the game of Professional 11 aside women's football (or soccer in the US) was only half that of the men's game, or even at 60 minutes, I don't think it would see the level of attention it's now rightly receiving.

BTW.. I'm really looking forward to the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand

 

Vondrousova looked as call as a cucumber, whereas Ons was apparently showing looking very tense for some time even before they went out on court.

 

Just before we all move on to Cincinatti or Rogers Cup etc, is it just me would happily lose the on-court interview with the defeated finalist? Like, what insights are they bringing? If a champion wants to cry, fine. But breaking down the loser in public is just bloodsport. For every polished performer with great English skills like Djoko, there will be a Murray or Jabeur who is hugely hurting and just needs a quick hug from the president of Kia Motors or Princess Kate and done.

 

This argument gets made often, that women should play 5 sets in majors if they want to be paid the same as men, etc.

There’s some history of them doing that in the year end finals, back from the mid-80’s to the late 90’s. It didn’t work well, as matches went on for far too long, and ratings fell. If men’s and women’s tennis were played the same way, it would maybe make some sense, but the differences in how men and women play would make it unwelcome.

Men tend to hit a lot of aces, and have a lot of serve plus one points as they call it now. Points and games tend to be shorter with fewer points played than women. Women tend to have longer rallies and longer games, so extending to 5 sets is really going to drag things out. Schedules are already packed at grand slam events, so adding a pile of extra time to a lot of the women’s matches is only going to make this dramatically worse. Would we now need majors to be 3 weeks long to accommodate the extra time this will add? Players already complain that matches end far too late (where there is no curfew in place) so trying to cram more into the same time frame is going to make this unworkable.

Remember when all the masters 1000’s were all 5 sets for men? Now they are all 3 set matches, and still some of these events take nearly 2 weeks to complete. The tennis schedule is packed all year long, and players have very little time off at the end of the year. I honestly don’t think there’s a real need for this. If anything, given how the masters events have changed, if anything happens it would be for the men to play 3 sets in majors.

 

I’m good with the final interviews with both players. It would be odd not to hear from both finalists, but the people doing the interviews should have some empathy for the loser.

What I would really like to see is the after each match on court interview with the winner eliminated. They already do press so for me this is an add on that is of little value...

Oh, just a point of order...it is not the Rogers Cup anymore. It’s the National Bank Open...or just the Canadian Open. It is the second oldest active tournament after Wimbledon, by the way...

 

You're right, yes, if only

Yes, completely formulaic these days - but the "Hey guys, thanks for watching" line to the spectators is always nice. I cannot imagine any of them every saying that in a presser!

Oops, sorry, and - respect of course!

 

It's pretty long, but once you start watching it's hard to stop.

 

You make some very valid points, but my argument is not about being paid the same. It's purely about the match, the battle, the competition between two great athletes; for me, three sets don't hold anywhere near the same amount of interest as five sets, for example; just imagine Alcaraz vs Djokovic's final at Wimbledon being three sets, it would have been massively compromised and depleted in my opinion.

I take your point about scheduling and that would need to be very carefully worked through; perhaps a tournament like Wimbledon (my favourite for so many reasons, and not because it's my local could take place over two sites (another nearby Tennis Club) in the first week, condensing down into one site for the second.

In terms of the number of aces nowadays, there is no doubt a disparity, but if we go back to the wooden racket/crossover days there weren't anywhere near the number of aces in the men's game, probably not too dissimilar to the number of aces in the women's game nowadays, and it was still just as exciting (if not more) at five sets.

I would really hate it if the men's game were to go to three sets across the board, it would not hold anywhere near the same level of fixation and fascination for me.

 

Yes, I think Sue Barker (who retired last year) did a much much better job, and you really felt that she had so much empathy for the runner-up.. Probably because she was so often in their shoes

 

Sue Barker had been presenting Wimbledon for a very long time and had crafted her art well. (and is sorely missed)

Folks have been saying Annabel Croft did a great job over the full two weeks, which I personally agree with.
It's surprising that she was there at all given that she only just lost her husband to cancer at the end of May (which is probably why she looked ragged some days)

One thing I hope we can agree on - it could all have been so much worse - we could have had Clare Balding speaking to the finalists.....now that would have been a tragedy in the making.

 

The men's doubles was already trimmed to 3 sets from 5, so that is now the case across the board at all majors (Wimbledon was the last hold out). Sorry but the trend is not going in the direction you favour, it's going the opposite way. 5 sets for men's singles is a big tradition, so I don't think it's going away any time soon, but I do think it will eventually be that all matches are 3 sets.

For me the interest isn't based on the number of sets, but the quality and style of play. I've seen very boring 3 set and 5 set matches, and very thrilling 3 set and 5 set matches. For me the number of sets is not a key factor.

My username is archer because I was a competitive archer for a very long time. My sport went through a major upheaval in the 90's that dramatically shortened the event and how the winner was chosen (at the behest of the IOC). It went from archers shooting for 4 days (288 arrows total), and whoever had the highest cumulative score won, to having a ranking round of 72 arrows, then very short head to head matches of 18 and 12 arrows each - single round elimination. It changed the flavour of the competition in a major way - in the old format having one bad arrow out of 288 was something you could live with, and not have a big impact. In the new format, having one bad shot in a 18 or 12 arrow match means you lose, period. It went from a rather leisurely drawn out event, to short high pressure matches.

People whined and complained that the matches were too short, but those who understood what they had to do to win, just did that and moved on. I competed under both systems and won and lost under both systems. A good player will adapt to whatever the changes are that is made, rather than pulling a Jamie Murray and whine that if it was 5 sets they would have come back...

 

Yes, regrettably that does seem to be the trend.. Although with doubles you don't get that same sense of Grecian or Romanesc gladiatorial type battling, you hopefully have half the court covered by your partner, whereas in five-set singles you often get the sense that they are literally pushing themselves physically and mentally to the edge and in some cases beyond, and I love that

Yes you can have a boring five-setter of course, and yes you can have an exciting three-setter, but it just never seems to have the same qualities that make five sets so special.

Being a competitive Archer sounds fascinating.. I'm guessing you are training in things like breathing techniques, heart rate control, meditative practices, and the like?? Although I have done the odd extremely amateur level competing, it's not actually a sport that I know a great deal about. I'd imagine the changes that were made would make the sport more intense and dynamic for the casual television viewer;
whereas the last thing I really want to see with five-set singles tennis is pandering to the casual viewer or to those with a short attention span.

 

Do you think there should be no tie breaks then? Eliminating those would certainly make matches longer, but that would absolutely make matches less exciting. Tying length of the match to excitement is a tenuous thing for me...

3 set matches can go for well over 3 hours (longest women's match of 2023 to date was at the French, and was 3 hours and 51 minutes, and there have been 45 matches that have been 3 hours or more so far this year), so I don't think this is a "short attention span" issue, really...