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Tennis - General Discussion
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John Dunbar
correct about everything
france should have gone with benneteau.
Sax Russel
Banned
Sucks for France, even a broken Tsonga probably had a better chance @_@
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
Most amazing performance I've seen from an injured since Rafa at AO 09.
greenleaves
Member
So happy for Roger. It's been so long since the last time the Swiss were really in with a chance to win Davis Cup, in 2003 when Federer had a painful loss to Hewitt. Gasquet needed to play out of his comfort zone today in order to win, but didn't. He wasn't able to dictate play from the baseline, and Roger dominated play.
Diprosalic
Banned
:^)
John Dunbar
correct about everything
overall a pretty good season for federer, especially after last year. still, was only a couple of close matches away from being an amazing one. hopefully he's improving for next season and this wasn't just the last hurrah.
2014 was infinitely better than 2013. Hope Roger can stay healthy next year and keep up his level of play. Was especially pleased with his performance against the top ten.
Great match today from Roger, but especially need to credit Stan for playing incredibly well this whole weekend.
Great match today from Roger, but especially need to credit Stan for playing incredibly well this whole weekend.
Yup, without him, the swiss were doomed.
Great job Federer and Wawrinka. Finally the swiss win Davis Cup. It would have been a shame especially since they have 2 active GS champions. A wonderful way to the end the year for both Federer and Wawrinka. Amazing seasons for both. It would have been even better if Federer won Wimbledon. Next year 
That's what I think too. Gasquet is out of form and even at 100% of his capabilities, he hasn't the type of game to bother Federer. I guess the reasoning was that Federer played not so well on friday, but he was incredible today.
To be fair, picking indoor hard courts (or grass !!!) would've been just as bad against guys like Federer and Stan. On clay we at least have Monfils who regularly has good results at Roland Garros and Tsonga who defeated Roger and Stan on it. With Tsonga's injury, circumstances haven't favored the French.
In any case, great win, congrats Switzerland, Stan, Roger. Hope our guys get another chance in the coming years, but it's nice to see deserving players win.
Now we have to endure the no-tennis period, no fun for two months !
Yeah, I agree. You could tell he was upset too.
FortuneFaded
Member
The crowds at the French open are terrible so this is of no surprise to me.
Lone_Prodigy
Member
Congrats to Switzerland. Too bad Tsonga was hurt.
Good year for Federer at his age even though he didn't win a Slam.
Good year for Federer at his age even though he didn't win a Slam.
Who can be down 1-3* in the first set, but still win it 6-4?
Who can be down 0-4* in the second set, face 3 set points but still win it 8-6?
Me, that's who! =p My friend just cannot maintain a lead against me, lol
Oh yeah....congrats to the Swiss team on the Davis Cup win. I really didn't get to see much of it. I only saw part of the Tsonga-Wawrinka rubber. Fed adding to his extracurriculars.
Who can be down 0-4* in the second set, face 3 set points but still win it 8-6?
Me, that's who! =p My friend just cannot maintain a lead against me, lol
Oh yeah....congrats to the Swiss team on the Davis Cup win. I really didn't get to see much of it. I only saw part of the Tsonga-Wawrinka rubber. Fed adding to his extracurriculars.
You should play in the pros since you never lose. You could be like Goldberg was in wrestling.
PS3GamerKyle
Member
Great job Federer and Wawrinka. Finally the swiss win Davis Cup. It would have been a shame especially since they have 2 active GS champions. A wonderful way to the end the year for both Federer and Wawrinka. Amazing seasons for both. It would have been even better if Federer won Wimbledon. Next year
Took the words out of my mouth.
Was pleasantly surprised at Fed's performance this year, especially considering the wretched 2013 season.
Are you ranked ? You should try playing tournaments. It's fun.
perfectchaos007
Member
With Davis Cup concluding yesterday we are officially in the off-season. Fortunately for us fans, the off-season is only 5 weeks. Unfortunately for the players, the off-season is only 5 weeks.
Diprosalic
Banned
saw it on a picture:
Stan won
- his first GS
- his first Masters 1000
- his first Davis Cup
this year at 29. Late bloomer indeed.
Stan won
- his first GS
- his first Masters 1000
- his first Davis Cup
this year at 29. Late bloomer indeed.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
I want to play you badly brah.
perfectchaos007
Member
Be afraid MIMIC, he played on UNT's non-existent varsity mens tennis team!!
As of now, it's actually perfectchaos who has provided us with the best proof of his level of play and is the de facto tennis-GAF man to beat. His video was actually quite good. Maybe a little lack of consistency (if I may) but overall, not bad, and he's the only one who posted a real match situation video here, to my knowledge.
I'm sure you would all beat me.
perfectchaos007
Member
I think I've actually controlled my grunting a bit since then...or not. I need to video myself again to find out haha.
I played in some open tournament a couple weeks ago ( 1 set per round ) and lost in the 3rd round to the #1 tennis player at TLU ( DIII university in Texas ). I was on serve @ 3-4 when he broke my serve then held to win the set 6-3.
Then in doubles my partner and I lost in the quarter finals 6-2 to a couple of Ju-Co players...one was a french guy who has an offer from Nicholls State ( DI university in Louisiana ) and the other was South African and spoke very little English but has offers from Ole Miss and Louisville ( Both DI schools). So, we were pleased with our 2 games we got against them haha. I hit a couple of return winners against the South African guy, but they hit plenty more on us...
Hmmm, don't think so, he just began playing tournaments (amateur tournaments) last year if I recall correctly. Which is already cool if you ask me, but the pro level is a selected few affair.
Perfectchaos is the guy on the foreground (who grunts !)
Being French I haven't the best idea of the general university tennis level in the US, even if I watched a lot of videos from Matt Lin's channel. I've seen comparison sheets between french and US rankings but it's usually not very accurate.
In any case well done ! How much tournaments do you usually play in a year ? Are you ranked ?
perfectchaos007
Member
Hmmm, don't think so, he just began playing tournaments (amateur tournaments) last year if I recall correctly. Which is already cool if you ask me, but the pro level is a selected few affair.
Perfectchaos is the guy on the foreground (who grunts !)
Being French I haven't the best idea of the general university tennis level in the US, even if I watched a lot of videos from Matt Lin's channel. I've seen comparison sheets between french and US rankings but it's usually not very accurate.
In any case well done ! How much tournaments do you usually play in a year ? Are you ranked ?
It's complicated how the US tennis amateur system works but I'll try to explain.
First of all, that tournament I played in actually wasn't sanctioned by the USTA which is the governing body of US-Tennis.
Normally I'll play 4 or 5 USTA sanctioned tournaments per year. Sanctioned tournaments all have an "open" draw, but I generally play in the NTRP 4.5 level draw so I am just about guaranteed to play against players my level and I'm not over-matched. There are sandbaggers you'll come across occasionally, but for the most part people are honest about their ranking and the draw is fair. Also, every player has a computer ranking so if one player wins every match in a NTRP 4.5 draw with dominant match scores, then that player will more than likely be bumped up to NTRP 5.0 which would restrict them from playing in any tournament under NTRP 5.0. In my case, I'm not allowed to play in an NTRP 4.0 tournament because the computer rankings have me as a 4.5 player. I could play NTRP 5.0 or "open" but I would lose pretty quickly so whats the fun in that?
This year my ranking got as high as #17 among 4.5 NTRP players in Texas. That's out of 400+ players. So, not bad I guess.
Also, we have a year end championships where the top 8 qualify. I applied as an alternate, but ultimately didn't get selected. Next year I'll try harder to get a top 8 ranking so I'll be guaranteed a spot
It's complicated how the US tennis amateur system works but I'll try to explain.
First of all, that tournament I played in actually wasn't sanctioned by the USTA which is the governing body of US-Tennis.
Normally I'll play 4 or 5 USTA sanctioned tournaments per year. Sanctioned tournaments all have an "open" draw, but I generally play in the NTRP 4.5 level draw so I am just about guaranteed to play against players my level and I'm not over-matched. There are sandbaggers you'll come across occasionally, but for the most part people are honest about their ranking and the draw is fair. Also, every player has a computer ranking so if one player wins every match in a NTRP 4.5 draw with dominant match scores, then that player will more than likely be bumped up to NTRP 5.0 which would restrict them from playing in any tournament under NTRP 5.0. In my case, I'm not allowed to play in an NTRP 4.0 tournament because the computer rankings have me as a 4.5 player. I could play NTRP 5.0 or "open" but I would lose pretty quickly so whats the fun in that?
This year my ranking got as high as #17 among 4.5 NTRP players in Texas. That's out of 400+ players. So, not bad I guess.
Also, we have a year end championships where the top 8 qualify. I applied as an alternate, but ultimately didn't get selected. Next year I'll try harder to get a top 8 ranking so I'll be guaranteed a spot
Ok, I kinda see how it works. Thanks for the explanation. Seems you're doing quite well !
Overall it seems a little more complicated than France's system, but the basic idea is the same. Here, the French Tennis Federation provides a computer generated ranking to all players who have played sanctionned tournaments, calculated with an analysis of the year's results.
We have a national ranking ladder (here it is for reference, "40" being the lowest ranking, and "1ère Série" being Tsonga, Monfils, etc). All the tournaments are organized around it. The draws include the low ranking players first, and stronger players are gradually added to the draw (a guy who won against a same level player will probably play his next round against a guy ranked one rank ahead of him, etc).
We accumulate points with victories, each rank in the ladder requires to have a certain amount of points to attain, if we beat higher ranked players we have more points, if we beat lower ranked players we get fewer. All the results are recorded on the Federation site and the rankings are automatically calculated 3 times a year.
It's basically a mini-ATP system, the main difference being in points attributed not by performances in tournaments but performances against other players.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Rumours flying around a lot of Spanish tennis sites that Nadal is looking at summer 2016 as his retirement date. He is reportedly feeling less and less secure in his body and thinking more about his future career with regards to his Manacor tennis academy, which opens in that summer. That would seem to point at Rio 2016 as the logical date, so we could be losing Federer and Nadal at the same tournament. Would be sort of fitting.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
Eehhhh. That's not true in the slightest. Rafa's body is fine.
perfectchaos007
Member
Wow you have way more levels of tennis in France than we do here, but I do like how its all streamlined. We play tournaments based on our NTRP and then wait for computers to move us up or down based on our results. Here is a breakdown of NTRP ratings and what a typical player at each level has developed in their game. 1.5's are beginners, 6.0 - 7.0 are pro's.
Facebook chat: The tennis world reacts to Federer and Wawrinka winning Davis Cup
http://tenngrand.com/2014/11/26/fac...ts-to-federer-and-wawrinka-winning-davis-cup/
http://tenngrand.com/2014/11/26/fac...ts-to-federer-and-wawrinka-winning-davis-cup/
Lone_Prodigy
Member
This is pretty good. I didn't know who Neil Harman was so I Googled him and one of the first results was about plagiarism.
Hi All! I rarely post here, but as a HUGE tennis fan and an Aussie, I wasn't sure if this news made it to your neck of the woods up there in the Northern Hemisphere!
It was announced two days ago, but I still haven't seen it mentioned here so maybe you guys didn't hear about it?
Fast Tennis...devised by Tennis Australia
Federer vs Hewitt to kickstart it
I'm pretty excited to see it in action, but I don't live in Sydney so I won't be going in person
What do you guys think?
It was announced two days ago, but I still haven't seen it mentioned here so maybe you guys didn't hear about it?
Fast Tennis...devised by Tennis Australia
Federer vs Hewitt to kickstart it
I'm pretty excited to see it in action, but I don't live in Sydney so I won't be going in person
What do you guys think?
Thanks for the link, I remember reading about this event earlier this month. I'll definitely watch it if I can, it's probably going to be a fun event, but I'm not convinced.
I'm not against seeing a new score format per se, but to me, tennis is so good because it has advantages and 6 games sets, not despite of these aspects. Lets, I could do without, but the game and the set's structure is pretty much perfect for the sport. And it's not like there's a whole lot of epic 3 hours three setters at club level. I can understand the time constraints for amateurs, but hey, you can always just play a single set.
As I see it, removing advantages and shortening sets equals to getting rid of a part of the "duel" aspect of the game, when you and your opponent are close to each other and must force the decision to win. Or when you gain a short lead but must absolutely maintain the quality of your game to keep it. That said, for children, it could be interesting (some clubs already use slightly modified rules for young players).
I could see how this format would benefit Federer. Lack of ads and shorter sets would probably favor his aggressive playstyle.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
THose are horrible rules. Uuuugggghhhh. Stop trying to "fix" tennis. Just enforce the damn time in between points and it will be good.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
No. It's just some tennis Australia bullshit exhibition. Those will never be the official rules. Fucking disgrace Federer is even stepping on that court.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I think the only real rules changes to tennis I'd make would be making lets and netcords count as out balls. Lets are just time-wasters, and netcords diminish the extent to which you feel either player is in charge of their own destiny. Aside from that, I like everything else. If anything, I'd abolish the final set tie-break at the U.S. Open and bring back best-of-five set finals for major events.
Lets on serve AND during play as errors ? Don't think it'd work. Would be a source of conflict on court, both at club and pro level. No, lets should just not stop the point, even on serve, where in 90% of the time, they don't significantly change the trajectory of the ball. As with the unpredictability of the netcord, I think it's part of the fun, like on this point.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, from a practical view-point it just doesn't work, it's more of my ideal "if we had all the technology to do this I would want it" change. Even so, I disagree about the unpredictability. There have been so many times when I feel like it has robbed a match of a real point - players definitely do not intend to make netcord winners, so attributing them with points takes away any merit in winning that point. You're just introducing a random roll of the dice that rewards them unfairly. I don't see why it's any different to obviously wrong referee calls adding drama back in the bad old pre-Hawkeye days. That introduced drama and was effectively outside player control, but nobody advocates keeping that.
I understand your point, but ultimately, it's sport : there's going to be unpredictability no matter what. Bad rebounds, wind, people screaming in the attendance, strings tearing in the middle of a point, sun in your eyes when you serve... Playing well is also about dealing with that and turning surprising events to your advantage. Whereas referee errors are real, factual mistakes we could correct.
You make me miss Soderling even more
I wonder what he's up to these days. I read he commercialized his own tennis ball brand in Sweden.
perfectchaos007
Member
I hear they are changing up college tennis rules this year in effort to make it more broadcast friendly. They already play let serves but this year it looking like no-ad scoring, tiebreak at 5 all, and a 3 hour time limit (if match is still being played after 3 hours, the player with the lead wins ). Some of these rules are atill being proposed and I really hope the stupid time limit doesn't pass.