Of course not. But the draw is missing: Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka, Cilic and Nishikori, at least.
So, let’s see some of these young lads take-up the slack.
We’ve already begun this discussion, previewed the younger field briefly, ahead of schedule. We’re ahead of schedule at Mcshow Blog.
The biggest hiccup in all of this is the loss of Federer, not just his loss to Zverev, but the suddenly very real possibility that he is feeling a bit the wear-and-tear of this 2017 affair.
Wrote this last week: “Let’s start with Roger. I watched most of his first match v Polansky. He looked sloppy, bad at times and still breadsticked the local cuisine 2 and 1. He won one of his service games in less than a minute, literally :58 seconds it took to win a game. Looking at the scoreline, however, did not give one any indication that he may struggle a bit vs. Ferrer in his second match.
He looked old against Ferrer, who’s about equal in age to the Maestro. David hammered Federer’s second serve, kept the 2-seed off-balance, used his relentless defense to attack a seemingly tired Federer. As I said on Twitter, Federer looked hungover; he was sluggish and even grumpy, at one point smashing a ball deep into the stands upon missing a fairly routine overhead smash.”
The final the same kind of slop. I wrote he’d found some comfort between then (^) and the final, but he really hadn’t. Part of this is the difficulty of his draw (or lack-there-of). I wrote in my preview that Nadal clearly had a more difficult draw (Shapovalov aside). Federer played his draw on one leg. What gave away his trouble throughout was his visible frustration throughout. He looked irritated, tired, hungover (I tweeted this during Ferrer match). In reality, he was bit of a mess.
I imagined a rise in the SF because of a bump in efficiency; he looked more in control. Most of us were a bit deceived as well by his is 2017 form in general, which has been odd, to say the least. His dominance. Other than those 2 losses prior to Sunday (themselves bizarre against Donskoy and Haas), has Roger broken a sweat in 2017 other than some mild perspiration in Melbourne?
In other words, I was a little surprised by Zverev’s dominance. The second serve and FH were too much, especially for an ailing Federer. Zverev’s second serve averaged around 115mph and he had one DF. Good luck with that.
But the injured Federer didn’t give us much of a look in the final at a chance exchange with the strong 20 year-old. A healthy Federer maybe turns this final into a classic? How bad is the injury? When exactly did it surface? Again, I say he looked less than 100% all week (if he was disengaged, not wanting really to press – why play?). We’re left with a few questions.
Some are surmising he should have sat Montreal and come-back for Cincy. I say, if he’s injured — it’s probably not devastating — now he can rest for NYC with some good HC reps under his racket. If he’s hurt, he’s out. Pretty simple and an elderly injury will stand-up to this tour like the final went yesterday. Even worse for an injury, Bo5 September hard courts is tax season.
Good for Zverev, picking-up his second Masters title. I am more interested in the youth development at this point. We need deeper and deeper fields with more danger, more parity.
That Federer and Nadal were advertised as fighting for No. 1 going into Cincy is almost absurd.
I’m pleased that Tommy Paul beat Donald Young today. Isner next with a chance to play Sascha. In fact, Sascha plays hopefully Tiafoe, who’s up a set now.
Indeed, how will my American brethren do here.
Maybe that’s really how to grow this blog, become a fan blog. Seems to be the trend, folks. Sure, I have a nice loyal little readership that spans the globe (best part of my audience). But I want to build threw the roof.
And those corny fanblogs do that. Part of that politicized global culture, I suppose. People are going crazy. I suppose my blog should be crazzier to tap into this madness. Sad.
Oh yeah, back to the tennis. Nadal has a tough draw with Gasquet and probably his buddy Gilles Muller next. Then more HC athletes will await the Spaniard’s slightly over-valued chase for #1.
More on #1 later, when I feel crazy enough to write a crazy post about that crazy #1 ranking.
Mcshow Blog 
Yep, I would not be surprised to see Federer out in the 4th round at the US Open (early prediction).
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Not a bad call – if he’s ailing. With his 2 seed, he should get through first few rounds.
Let’s hope two weeks is enough to get that back back 100%.
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Some fangirl bloggers “cough the obvious suspect cough!” are seemingly calling it a season when their favourite does as well, simply pathetic. Keep the tennis faith strong Matt! The tennis gods approve!
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Know that I have many many words in the “queue,” meaning in my brain ready to bury that fool and so many others. This fangirl garbage mucks up the sport’s air waves, leaks into much of tennis discussion.
The louder they are the more flawed is their case. Simple as that. Google doesn’t help as one can find things like the sizes of feet, feeding into the GOAT argument things like Djokovic’s left foot is a half size bigger than Federer’s, therefore. . . .
Utter garbage.
Garbage I like to set on fire . . .rants have a regular occurrence here.
Did you not like the one I wrote about their abusive Wimbledon draws/court scheduling?
Are you a step behind? You seem not yourself, Caligula.
Heavens forbid, someone is using you.
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Rest assured I have read some of that trash about rigged scheduling and what not, utterly sad and yet amusing at the same time.
This year’s Wimbledon was a bit of a disappointment though, and I think you would agree. The tennis gods practically handed Federer the title, don’t get me wrong he was knocking on that door the last couple of years as we all know, but he was practically unchallenged during the entire tournament. Yet this wasn’t the same as Nadal’s French Open run where he steamrolled anyone unlucky enough to face him, all of Federer’s longtime opponents on grass just simply vanished due to upsets or injuries.
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Did you not see Nadal’s draw at the French?
No way can you make that statement about Fed’s WB draw being bereft of talent compared to Nadal’s FO.
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I am sticking to my view that Federer could call himself “lucky” at WB this year, it still doesn’t detract from his overall achievement, but it would have been more convincing had he played against more top 10 guys on his way to the title. I would have loved to have seen a Fed vs. Murray/Nadal/Djokovic bout just to see how Federer handled those baseline grinders who in the past have shown to be tricky opponents for the GrandMaster. Quarter final against an uninspired Raonic who certainly has seen better days, a semi-final against a declining Berdych who Federer has almost no fear of anymore, and an underwhelming Cilic who seemed lost in the final due to nerves/injuries who really knows. Federer is a grass-court genius these players aren’t even close to challenging him when he is on his A-game. That is why I would have loved to see a match where Federer was fighting some of his older demons to see how that would unfold just like he did at the AO this year.
It seemed to me that Nadal on the other hand vaporised his opponents one by one during his FO run, and it seemed that no one (Thiem, Wawrinka et al.) could keep up with the clay monster.
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Ha ha. You’re showing your hand.
News: Raonic withdrew yesterday, adding to the ATP HC collapse.
See how you do with this one: Is Cincy a must win for Nadal, playing what is virtually a 500 or 250 level tournament?
Or are you happy enough that Monday, either way, he gets #1 by default?
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I couldn’t care less if Nadal gets #1. In fact, he doesn’t quite deserve it in my book, he needed to square off with Federer on grass at Wimbledon this year and prove that he could defeat the GrandMaster again, but an out of this world Müller played the match of his life. I would have loved to see how Federer would have fared against Müller that day, the guy looked like an incarnation of Pistol Pete, scary stuff!
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Muller was like Pistol Pete? Wrong and how dare you utter such filth. Nadal is not as potent on non-clay. Plain and simple. Is Shapovalov a left-handed Sampras? This is Nadal.
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