Remember the argument I made about a year ago in response to the hiring of Ivan Ljubičić? The reasoning went something along the lines of Roger needs to start winning ugly; the beauty pageant is over if you want to win anything resembling anything of significance. Re-read this completely different post I wrote on the …
Continue reading 2017 Australian Open Hangover: Calling Dr. Ljubičić
What a fortnight of tennis, ending in what will go down as an historic final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Despite whatever criticism a viewer might have of some of the actual tennis in the final, Federer's wayward FH, for instance, or Nadal's failure to convert breakpoints (both respective cornerstones of these titans' games), …
Continue reading 2017 AO Final: Federer Beats Nadal and Secures 18th Grand Slam Title
First of all, congratulations to Andy Murray. Getting that third major does back-up his two odd-ball majors in 2012 (USO) and 2013 (WB) when Djokovic's form took a long-term dive, Nadal was typically erratic and Federer was in the midst of his steady decline. I watched as much of the match (taped) as I could, but, frankly, …
This is a perfect opportunity to look at the field that most likely defines the draw at "The Championships" in a couple of weeks. First a rhetorical question: will 2015 go down as the year that Federer played the greatest tennis of his career, or as a kind of tipping-point signaling a critically low-point for the ATP, in …
A couple of things I need to make clear. The clay court remains. . . how should I say this and not alienate too many people. . .inferior. Poor. Sure, I could resolve to say it is simply a different surface, gives the professional sport a little diversity, adds to the calendar, the seasons, etc. But …
Djokovic's loss Wow, a lot of shit went down on the clay today, so I have to address that, but I had planned to write a little about the night in the NBA and my thoughts on Federer, having had a chance to see him play yesterday against Garcia-Lopez, his first match back from injury. Don't read …
We have what we all want: Djokovic v Federer. They are tied in their H2H at 22, but I think you know how I feel about those H2H arguments. This one is especially irrelevant as one guy is still playing in his 35th year. To reiterate, Federer has to come-up with a slightly different game …
Final thoughts on the Doha final: there appears to be traction with the following claim: Djokovic is playing the best tennis that's ever been played by a human on earth. Yes, some of the "commentary" we've all seen sounds similarly grandiose and, really, pretty ridiculous. Djokovic is #1 in the world, playing brilliantly dominant tennis. That's …
Federer looked pretty solid fighting-off his opponent, #233 Kamke, and a little cold. He'll have a better test vs. Dimitrov who survived a three-setter vs. Troiki. More interesting is the Cilic v Thiem match to determine Federer's SF opponent (granted, if Dimitrov doesn't shock Brisbane). Thiem has game and this would be terrific progress if …
Continue reading Brisbane/Doha/Chennai Notes: Youth movement, Ljubičić, etc.
So much of these off-court observations are conjecture. If anyone has more accurate information to clarify/correct an observation, by all means, comment. This kind of thing came up when I first started to blog about tennis in the spring and made a point of saying Lendl had, unfortunately for the Brit, left Murray. A reader …
Mcshow Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.