I actually already clarified my hyperbolic enthusiasm for the Rome QF between Novak and Rafa in a post in which I broke down that first set leading unto the 12th game; that's where the level became more classic; the second set saw better overall tennis then did those first 11 games of the first set. I'll …
Category: ATP
2016 French Open Men’s Draw
The draw. For starters, the Federerless draw is a terrible reminder that life is short, and that we're all going to die. Like most big sporting events, picking grand upsets seems more a move to draw attention to oneself. This tournament should more or less play-out according to the seedings; but, because it's clay and some …
The Twelfth Major
Indeed my title is a play on my previous post, but I (we) also need to know that this next chapter in the 2016 ATP tour is all about Djokovic finally securing the elusive FO, which would be his 12th major title. If he can win RG, he'll be locked and loaded to make all kinds …
The Twelfth Game
The level of this fight was actually pretty mediocre until the 12th round. I mentioned in my last post, having just watched these legends square-off in two hugely even sets, that this was a classic. It was. What happened in the 12th of the first set eclipsed said mediocrity and inspired these fighters to continue to raise the level. …
2016 Rome QF: Djokovic v Nadal
I really hope you got to see this classic, ideally live. I have watched a lot of tennis in my day and this is truly one of the better matches I have ever seen. The match itself is a classic, but the reverberation for me comes, too, from the context, the careers and histories of …
Rome
I got a chance to see Djokovic, Federer, Wawrinka and Nadal play among others a bit as Rome has gotten underway. Djokovic vs. Robert was vintage Djokovic. Unless he's really not going to invest much in Rome to save himself for RG, this was just typical Novak doing enough in the early rounds to survive …
Madrid and the Clay Debate
We're at the SF in Madrid and let's take a look at how we got here. Nadal beat Kuztensov, Querrey and Sousa. He now gets Murray in a rematch of last year's Madrid final, where Murray triumphed over the clay king 3 and 2. Certainly Nadal is looking to use this to fuel his 2016 …
Dumbed Down
There is no better way to describe tennis on clay than tennis dumbed down. One of my favorite readers/commenters, blackspy, put it this way: "Clay is a surface that favours power & patience over technique, since points are won in a pretty specific way, most of the time." I one-upped you, comrade. Yours is a …
My Guilt
This is the absolute worst topic for most sports fans to discuss and probably the most significant: drugs in sports. Really, in just about every case, the public will never know. There is only suspicion aside from the few cases where a failed drug test is reported (RARE) or an athlete admits to cheating by using …
The Murmur
We have some very interesting off-the-court tennis news that probably helps clarify what's going on on-the-court. In the event that some wonder how I am dealing with Nadal's rediscovered "formidable form," I am humored, no longer at all discouraged that more people can't come to question how this guy's form and "confidence" are so unstable. …
Mcshow Blog 
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