Recap of how we got here:
Roddick (tweet ya later) has bowed out to the über-solid Wawrinka. It will now be Swiss-on-Swiss when he plays Fed. Watch this match for a priceless one-hand backhand lesson. Imagine this, Federer just won a set without losing a point on serve. 20-0 for his service points against Robredo. Robredo did bounce back and take the second set though.
Berdych v Djokovic is the premier QF match. Both cruised easily in the round of 16. Berdych put up one set 14 winners to 0 errors at one point. He wiped Verdasco off the court. Novak has played well and been fortunate, he is very well-rested. Should be an awesome eastern european matchup. All of the final 8 are european. This whole tournament has been notable for european dominance. Only a couple of Chinese women have been the exception (more below).
Murray's scores are ridiculous. His closest set of the tournament has been 6-3. He is averaging 17.5 to 5.5 in total games per match. And now he comes up against unseeded Dolgopolov (who?). Actually this Ukranian has knocked off Tsonga and Söderling in back-to-back 5 setters. I think we have to assume that "the Ukraine is weak" at this point!
What are the most important shots in tennis? Serve and Return. Those were on display when Roanic (Canada!) boomed it at David Ferrer. Ferrer showed some amazing return game to keep up. He took sets 2,3,4 to await... Cilic? I wonder how much more we will see of the 20-year-old kid from Canada. He will crack the top 100 with his Aussie result.
Sheilas:
It is amazing to me that we don't see any tattoos on tennis players. Do we? I can't think of any. And even more amazing that the first I have seen is on a Chinese woman (with the curtest name on tour), Li Na. She has some sort of rose inked just below her left collar bone. I would think we'd see more on tour by this point. Are they banned from Wimbledon or something?
Shout out to Kuznetsova and Schiavone for playing a 3-hour final set to 16-14. All kinds of drama. It might have been an hour shorter, but Schiavone lost a key point for running into the net!
The "Canada!" line was good for a chuckle - it's always fun to make fun of Canada - but the "Ukraine is Weak" line had me LLOL.
ReplyDeleteTwo more things on Roanic:
ReplyDelete1. Didn't you think the announcers were over the top in their praise of him in his match last night? He's a good tournament and looked great at times against Ferrer, but they were talking about him like he was a can't-miss #1.
2. Do you think he got so good at tennis so as to avoid the fate of another tennis-playing Milos?
1. The ESPN commentators are so desperate for an American star that they will settle for any North American. I thought they were gushing about his serve and said that other players wouldn't want to go against him for that reason, but I didn't think they were making him out to be so special. Then again he is only 20 and looks even younger, so maybe they see strong potential.
ReplyDelete2. Sports scenes in any sitcom are invariably hilarious (hilariously bad). So those Seinfeld writers struck pure gold with that plot line. Look at the little baby! Baby got lucky on that one! Another game for Milos!