Australian Open Tennis

Very interesting tennis season starting.   Rafael Nadal at #1.  Roger Federer (almost 37 years old) is defending champ and #2 in the world.

 Lots of interesting changes coming in both the men's and women's games.  

Venus Williams - who has played more matches at the AO than almost anyone, is currently battling out her first round match with comeback Swiss player, Belinda Bencic.


Brutal day for the Americans yesterday.  Venus, Sloane Stephens, Vandeweghe, Jack Sock, and Isner all out in the first round.

Stephens has not won a single match since she won the U.S. Open in September.


Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov looks ready to challenge Federer/Nadal.


Yes, he is looking very sharp.  And he won the ATP World Tour Finals (against a fave of mine, David Goffin - but I forgive him).  And he's so easy on the eyes.

yahooyahoo said:

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov looks ready to challenge Federer/Nadal.



I was sorry to see it when Venus drew Bencic for her first-round match.  Tough draw.  

yahooyahoo said:

Brutal day for the Americans yesterday.  Venus, Sloane Stephens, Vandeweghe, Jack Sock, and Isner all out in the first round.


Stephens has not won a single match since she won the U.S. Open in September.



This article has just* appeared on our ABC Online site, on the dedicated tennis area - thought of you immediately! 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-16/australian-open-tennis-statistics-clutch-time-pressure-work-win/9329322

*I say ‘just’ because I’ve very recently woken up cheese


oh dear, CoCo wasn't very ladylike today... And it seems more than a few visitors are having problems managing our bananas this year. (Apparently their slightly tougher skins this year, possibly due to recent seasons' wild weather near harvest, call for sharp teeth or a knife edge so you can 'unzip' them)


I want to like Vandeweghe, but her attitude bugs me.   Same with Jack Sock (he seems clownish to me, not necessarily a jerk).   Along similar lines, I find the Australian, Nick Kyrgios, pretty much unwatchable.  He told a spectator to "shut the f*** up" during his first round match.

Nice to see Djokovic back.  He changed his service motion.   Agassi is coaching him, and he added the recently retired Czech player Radek Stepanek to his team.  Will be interesting to watch.  


Will Ferrell interviews Federer after his first round win.  Pretty funny.



Sorry I was sleeping while you were writing... cheese 

Um yeah, Kyrgios and Tomic. Not incredibly popular, as you can imagine! Apparently Hewitt has taken Kyrgios in hand and is working hard to change things (commentators have noted the change). But after those brat-sulking ‘millions’ comments this week, everyone’s basically ready to shun Tomic. The rumours are he’s going in to a reality TV show, to which the commentator I heard said ‘that’ll ruin any chance he has for anything in life. I hope doesn’t do, he doesn’t need that’, and the tone indicated only failures go that way. 

I haven’t caught up on news yet, just woke up (to an ant plague in kitchen and living room). A little background on summer here may help you: @marksierra can be more precise, being on the spot, but this summer down south is brutal. We’re sweltering through disgusting ultra-high temps and humidity for weeks, while you’re arctic. They’ve had days over 40 degrees C, nights in the high 20s, bushfires on the outskirts (my friend was watering her roof for ember protection), then suddenly the temperatures drop ten degrees or more in an hour and it’s almost like coming out of winter for a day or two. And the winds are kind of unpredictable, both direction and force.* So the players are training and playing in this, but most aren’t used to this degree of changeability (even Melburnians are finding it hard).

* when they were playing in Brisbane, it was unbelievably hot and humid, and for a couple of days the wind was gale-force. It spun a tall cupboard on my balcony around 180degrees and opened the door!


Have you kept up with Ashleigh Barty over the last few years? She’s interesting. Got tired of her sport even though in top-tier training and marked for super-star career, so changed games: played women’s cricket (and did really well), then moved to another sport (and did that also really well), then suddenly came back to tennis winning everything in sight and having a ball. 

Also this summer suddenly everyone here is talking about Alex de Minaur, really impressed by him. 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-16/australian-open-ash-barty-through-to-second-round/9334208. Summary of our day/night


Great article, marksierra - I didn’t realise that all those racquets each player has are because of the humidity and heat, I’d thought it was due to the number of balls they’d hit off each racquet (thereby stretching the strings). Really clever science, eh!

(Oh lord, I’m becoming a Queenslander, finishing my sentences on a rising inflection. Sigh)


I catch up on matches the next day - quickly run through the replays on ESPN3 of matches that are of interest to me.   I watched Bencic v. Kumkhum last evening (matches start at 7 pm, Eastern Standard Time).   Bencic fell to the Thai qualifier with a wicked two-handed forehand that Bencic could not figure out.  Great match.   Dimitrov pulled through a 5-setter against American qualifier Mackenzie McDonald.  McDonald actually bageled Dimitrov in the 4th set!  Tsonga also pulled through a tough 5-setter against Canadian phenom Denis Shapovalov.  

Ashleigh Barty up tonight, as well as Federer.  Simona Halep (#1 seed), Maria Sharapova, Wawrinka (v. American Tennys Sandgren, pronounced "tennis"), Delpo, Johanna Konta, Djokovic, and Goffin also on the docket.  One to watch might also be Lleyton Hewitt teaming up with Sam Groth (who has been doing some commentating) in the men's doubles.  

Hyeon Chung v. Daniil Medvedev should also be an interesting match.  And great to see the American Ryan Harrison into the third round.  He faces Marin Cilic tomorrow.


did you catch the grunting protest by the audience??  While somewhat amusing, and very typical of old-style Aussie 'larrikin' humour, it's clearly a watershed moment in several ways. Barty was not impressed, Sabalenka was really embarrassed and her game interrupted, and yet again we're discussing game tactics: is it feminine, is it gamesmanship, us it a poor personal style to be re-trained, etc. 

personally, I think that these days because acoustics are such that everything is so amped up, players need to be completely aware of every personal sound - would they want people to hear a fart or burp, or tummy rumble for instance? So learn to control 75% of your breathing and exclamations, control your internal dialogue, and thereby show you're a better human.


No, I missed that.  I'll look at the replay if I get a chance.  The men "grunt" just as loudly.  It's more of an issue for the women, I think, because it's more high pitched.  It's unfortunate that it's pointed out more for the women than for the men for this reason.   Sharapova is in a class by herself when it comes to "grunting" (shrieking, in her case).


By the way, Hewitt is helping coach Alex De Minaur.  That kid was on fire in the run up to the AO, making the semis at Brisbane, followed by making the final at Sydney the next week.   He went out early to Tomas Berdych at the AO, but he does seem to have a great future ahead of him.   Only 18 years old.  Who knows though, some of these players make a big splash like this, but never quite live up to the hype (which can be overdone at times).   He's got a great on-court demeanor and seems to be mature beyond his years.  Fingers crossed for him.


Dominic Thiem and Denis Kudla are grunting their heads off.  The sound is not offputting. It's very loud from both guys, but low pitched.


Very impressive performance by the American qualifier, Kudla, against the #5 seed, Austrian Thiem.  Thiem is up a break in the 5th, but Kudla only has positives to take away if he can't quite pull off the upset.


Go Monfils.  I go to US Open every year and have always wanted to see him live.  Great player and so athletic.  My son's favorite player is Djovich but I'm a Fed fan,so we have lots of heated discussions



angelak said:

I want to like Vandeweghe, but her attitude bugs me.   Same with Jack Sock (he seems clownish to me, not necessarily a jerk).   Along similar lines, I find the Australian, Nick Kyrgios, pretty much unwatchable.  He told a spectator to "shut the f*** up" during his first round match.

Nice to see Djokovic back.  He changed his service motion.   Agassi is coaching him, and he added the recently retired Czech player Radek Stepanek to his team.  Will be interesting to watch.  

My son loves CoCo.  We saw her play last year at a small court and my son cheered for her very vocally.  At the end of the match, he went to get his ball signed, and she said " you're the guy who was great" and signed his ball first.  Really gracious.


He also likes Kyrgios, who I find intolerable.


Here, there’s a lot of comment about the vocalisations of both men and women, but feel most of the men usually have it more under control. It’s not so much that it’s not ‘ladylike’ but that it’s unsporting.  We’ve been arguing about it for close to 20 years, I think. 


Hewitt is mentoring a lot of the younger pack, trying to get some of them back on track and stop some of the newbies from going off. They’re hoping his life experience might rub off on Kyrgios and Tomic especially. 



campbell29 said:

My son loves CoCo.  We saw her play last year at a small court and my son cheered for her very vocally.  At the end of the match, he went to get his ball signed, and she said " you're the guy who was great" and signed his ball first.  Really gracious.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/tennis/australian-open-2018-coco-vandeweghe-blasted-for-calling-opponent-fing-bh-20180116-h0itwv.ht


Great match on: Kumkhum v. Martic.


Just so you remember, Melbourne is currently heat wave-gripped; it's been over 42 degrees C for most of the day. My close friend had done most of her housework by 8:30am.

This is what the players are able to say able the weather courtside:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2018/jan/19/australian-open-players-talk-about-sweltering-heat-in-melbourne-video


Remember, too, we're also playing international cricket and we've just held an international bicycling Tour in this intense heat with massive winds and no rain. And people are training for the Queen's Baton Relay and triathlons and marathons to be held for the Commonwealth Games in about 9 weeks...


Friday was a scorcher for the players and the organizers did not close any of the retractable roofs.  What's the point of having them if you don't use them under extreme weather conditions?


Because to us, if you had read my comment, it's not necessarily all that bad...there are other outdoor sports being played at international level without such protections.

Edited to add: we see tennis as a quick sport. Cricket, on the other hand, you're standing out in the field all day literally, with only short breaks for lunch and tea, and then you're playing under lights until maybe 9pm. The only thing that would stop a match would be rain, or actually finishing the match early. There is no shade on a cricket pitch, the only covers are on the grass when there are no players around.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-19/australia-v-england:-finchs-century-not-enough/9342760


American Lauren Davis is battling #1 seed Simona Halep in Rod Laver Arena.  Termperature looks to be reasonable today, around 80 degrees F according to several weather sites.  Davis took the first set, then flagged in the second.  Looked to be having some problems with her heart rate.  She's bounced back in the third set, but just went down a break.  


Davis breaks back.  5 all in the third. 


Halep could not serve it out.  Lauren Davis breaks back to continue the set.  No tiebreak at the majors in the final set (except at the US Open).   Great match.  

Halep serving to stay in the match.


In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.

Sponsored Business

Find Business

Advertise here!