I said two things yesterday in my short fairly lightweight post that ring too true.

What if you’re a betting man and you like the looks of the Kyrgios v Khachanov match later today? How do you lean there? Does the Aussie even show-up? Looks like a clash of titans on one hand. Does that materialize or does Nick just do Nick?

I’ll add my final image of the post that along with Kyrgios and in the spirit of the ridiculous lower-half of the draw, higher seeds making for the exit like school kids playing hooky, captures this tournament pretty well:

Aside from the Big 2 (this week — Big 1 last week in Montreal), Cincy is like a cute little county fair with a bunch of fun games and cute exhibits.

Let’s just say watching Kyrgios play Khachanov last night was like watching a poorly behaving farm animal in that county fair exhibit get the better of his “owners” and make simply another ghastly scene — only too typical of Kyrgios.

Lots of banter on this match. Check Twitter for pundit and fan responses.

We know Kyrgios. Look at my “preview” of that match. Dead-on. Could be a clash of titans. But. Nick could just do Nick. Which is exactly what happened.

And most criticism that I’ve seen is right to say that this is on the ATP.

Don’t forget: this uber-talented Aussie has two terrible themes on-going in his unstable career:

1. he’s offensive to the chair, the fans, his box, and sometimes his opponent; the constant chirping and childish animation is totally out-of-line for the professional tennis tournament court.
2. he tanks matches.

Those are very different and very disturbing for most of us who love this sport.

Without going into much detail, the leadership of this god-forsaken sport needs to simply say, “you’re banned.” Since the ATP hasn’t set any precedence, the organization has to be bold and controversial in putting a stop to this bulldozer of tantrum tennis (“controversial” only because they haven’t done shit before: Nick’s history is bloodied — soaked — in disturbing, unacceptable behavior without any meaningful consequences).

Ban him for a year. Easy. Wont miss him a bit. Anything less than a year ban is bullshit.

He’s still one of the most talented players on tour and does have the balls to call-out discrepancies in the way, for instance, chairs deal with some of the Big 3 vs the rest of the field. Or the way he’ll underhand serve to the frightened Nadal twenty-feet behind the BL. Nick has a lot to offer the tour. But this bullshit behavior during matches has to go away.

Overall, this 2019 Cincy field/tournament other than Novak and Roger is a joke. Sorry, this sentiment of mine beams with Masters 1000 brightness.

This was my point yesterday.

And yes Nadal does have a hand in this marvelous garbage.

He employed the same sort of shenanigans at Indian Wells in March. Here in Cincy he fucked-up the lower half pretty good. This is on the ATP, too. He won Montreal, so reach into your brain and set-up a Cincy draw, knowing that he’s going to pull-out or at least go half-assed, and put Roger in the bottom. Or something to that end.

One of your Cincy finalists:

Kecmanovic
RBA
Schwartzman
Gasquet
Nishioka
de Minaur
Goffin
Mannarino

RBA is legit, especially in 2019 (what a year for this class act). Watching him tame Tiafoe yesterday was good match management.

But the rest of that band needs a rhythm section.

Just another fun little chapter from our pals at the ATP.

Let’s hope we get a Federer vs Djokovic SF, to bail-out, per usual, this sickly organization, for the sake of this merry mid-summer midwestern amusement park revelry.