Here they are. Medals for three very different nations.

Tennis nations that is. Chile has really carved itself into Olympics history by having players in the Olympic final the last two events, Nadal has given Spain a whole new respect in tennis this year, which is also true for Djokovi’s Serbia. Chile has had several good players over the years, but isn’t known for producing a large amount of them. There has been a lot from Spain, but most have done their job on clay. Now Nadal does it on every surface. This will probably go into history as one of the best years for a singles player (winning RG, Wimb AND Gold on hard) That’s hard stuff!

Nadal had no problems giving Gonzo the hard court lesson by two easy breaks of serve in the 1st and 3rd sets, with a slightly closer 2nd set tiebreak. The best man (without too much doubt) won the Gold medal. A very dedicated Olympics nation won the silver, and a new force in tennis got the Bronze. Good Job guys!

Now the biggest open of the fall, the US Open is 1 week away.

BTW… go to atptennis.com and look closely for a historic moment in about 5 or 6 hours.

Blake won! No gold for Fed

You have to feel bad for the man. This season has truly sucked for him. No GS, no Masters, no important bigger tournament win, no beating Nadal on clay, no GOLD! How will he ever recover? Will he be so down from this terrible season that it just keeps on going into USO? Or will he continue his continued win since 2004? But what happened?

Very simple, very straight forward tennis talk: Blake played better than Federer almost every game. To about 3-3 in the first set, Blake held easily, Federer struggled. At 4-4 and 5-4 it looked like Federer was coming up with some answers to Blake’s continued pounding. However, that last service game was so full of errors, winners, u name it, that it was decided by the best player of 1st set and that was Mr. Blake. 2nd set started with some other Federer I haven’t seen in a while. Got broken and Blake eased to 3-0 lead. Federer was not angry, but just walking around looking confused. Nothing worked at that point. However, at that point, IMO, it was Blake who was the best on all terms. Serve, forehand, even backhand sat on the line, hard and woops! 3-0. Federer played like 8 or 9 points on that world class level, but only enough to level it at 3-3. Then Blake played like in the 1st set, and Federer could answer on occasions. But not enough! Blake won the tiebreak comfortably 7-2. Blake was better and the h2h is now 1-8.

Djoko, Rafa, Gonzo are coming up…

Olympics last 8 breakdown

Federer – Blake
Oh no. Blake is going in way too confident with a 0-8 record against the #1. He has even won ONE set in their 8 “close” battles. I’m not making fun of Blake, but if he were to pull a win today, it would be biggger than Roddick’s Miami win, Gonzo’s MC win, even Djokoivc’s SF Aussie Opne win. Blake has to my recollection never played his absolute best against Federer. I remember watching them in USO in 2006, Blake’s best fall season, where they battled in 2 intense tiebreaks, one of which Blake won. It doesn’t do him good to lose the 2nd set 6-0 though. That’s just plain embarassing. I would be stunned to see Roger losing a set today, but Blake seems to be tuning up his engine for the most important part of the season for him. But hey… Federer has lost to so many different jokers this year, maybe Blake can finally get a win as well.

Mathieu – Gonzalez
How about that Gonzalez?! He beat tiny Rochus 6-0, 6-3 and has eased through the opponents to reach another QF for Chile. Is he like a patriot or something? He hasn’t really done what he did last year and I can’t see him returning to Shanghai regardless of what he does here. But is he here to defend his Bronze? Just one more win now and that’s a good possibility. Although, likely opponents will be either Nadal or Djokovic. What about Mathieu? I big talent IMO, but somehow will never break through. He looked decent during French Open, but hasn’t done much since. Could be close, but Gonzo seems strong.

Monfils – Djokovic
Now this is interesting. Monfils took out Nalby in 2. I’m not saying that’s so great, but he has gone silently through the draw and ended up in a QF against Novak. I assumed Novak would have problems getting fresh air in his lungs on the very first day. However, he seems to come with the humid and non-fresh conditions. I think this match is all in Monfils’ hands. If he plays confidently like in French Open, he should have a shot at Djokovic. I haven’t seen Djokovic play at all, but I have a feeling he’s not giving 100%, maybe only 99.5. That’s usually enough to go 8-6 in a tiebreak in contrast to 6-8. However, my gut tells me Djokovic sees the Big 3 all still in and wants a damn medal just as bad as the rest. Beating Nadal in a SF on hard court shouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world.

Melzer-Nadal
I don’t know how Melzer would beat Nadal. I have to place him in the same category as Mathieu, only lower. He has never met Nadal, I’m sure he’s happy, and I think that he will be sent home packing. There’s no way Nadal will lose this match, now that he’s in a position to take on Djoko in the next round. Nadal will win. Safest bet of the day.

Del Potro wins in silence

I bet half of you didn’t know, but Del Potro just won his third straight title! The NINETEEN year old Argentine has really drilled through the last three tournaments, beating bigger and smaller tennis names. Last night he got his biggest win so far. Not only did he beat Roddick, but he did it quite convincingly. 6-1, 7-6 is far better than most had expected. 6-1 against one of the best servers isn’t bad. 7-6 against one of the best tiebreak players isn’t bad either. 19 year old vs soon-to-be 26 years of routine on this level just shows where Del Potro is at today. He beat a top 10 player and entered the top 20. There’s something promising with a skyskraper of 6′6 with a forehand that worked great yesterday. He hit far more winners than Roddick, and was able to move him around like a junior. Roddick did play a bad first set, putting a lot of balls wide and in the net, but second set was well-played from both and Del Potro came out victorious in the deciding tiebreak. Good Job! Now Washington is up, and both of them could face off in another final on Sunday as Del Potro is 2nd seed. I actually think that we’ll see them again on Sunday.

I Beijing they’ve just started playing the first round, and from what I can tell, there are no upsets yet. Nadal beat Starace in 3. Federer def. Tursunov in 2. Murray and Djokovic are still waiting for some available court, and Davydenko secured his 2nd round after defeating Gulbis yesterday. It seems that the heat has left Beijing, so maybe there won’t be too many upsets early. I don’t know if and when the heat returns, but after having watched the beach volley players sweating after 10 seconds, I assume it’s not pleasant in the hot humid conditions. Several players said it’s the worst they’ve experienced. And Cincy, Montreal, Indy are usually all super hot places during the US summer. Well.. if you want the gold, you’ve got to put out a little sweat.

T-7 days until Nadal can finally call himself the best player. Fun to know that regardless of how they do in Beijing, Nadal will be seeded first in New York.

Let’s end the discussion with this…

I wrote an entry discussing who could be the greatest of all time, when the topic was hot. I don’t like the main points anymore, but there is still one point that I want to continue to say again and again: we have to stop comparing different eras in tennis! 70s was one, 80s was a completely different, only to be kicked by the 90s and then the high-tech 2000s.

Also, I think I know why Federer should be ranked over Sampras.

First of all… we have to make it a discussion about the Open Era. I still think that tennis was more like a hobby sport even in the 70s than the incredible high level pro sport it has turned out today. Therefore, if you want to find GOATs, then find one in the Open Era and one before. I’m gonna stick to the players who took part of the official ATP ranking system that started in 1973. Why? Because that was the time when tennis actually started to go pro. Players where travelling all over the world to play as many events as possible (with exceptions of course) and they were making a decent living, even when losing.

So from 1973, which unfortunately excludes Rod Laver, there are only 6 players I want to even consider when talking about the best of Open Era time. Borg, McEnroe, Federer, Connors, Lendl, Sampras. All of them have dominated the sport in a longer period of time. In fact the player with least amount of weeks at #1 was Borg with 109. The next would be Agassi at 101, but he never dominated the sport. If Sampras was the reason for that, then so be it. Bad luck. Or.. why didn’t you beat him more often? Because he was better most of the time.

Okay. Borg will never be the greatest because he quit early. Who knows what achievements he could’ve had if he had gone into the mid 80s. What makes Borg so big, is the Grand Slam record. And I don’t mean only winning RG and Wimby a total of 11 times, but also reaching the final in USO 4 times. This gives him 141-16 in GS matches! He didn’t play Aussie Open, which was the case for many players at the time. But because he had tough competition in Connors, McEnroe and a few others, he actually never dominated the sport enough to make him bigger than the ones I mentioned above. In addition, his achievements where big, but few.

John McEnroe is a different story. He actually played an entire lifetime and therefore has gone through more ups and downs than Borg. One thing they do have in common, is the number of weeks at #1 and even consecutive weeks at #1. Borg had 109 at #1, Johnny had 170. Taking the longer career into consideration I would make it a tie. Borg had 46 consecutive weeks, McEnroe had 58 AND 53. McEnroe lost more matches than Borg on a week-to-week basis, but McEnroe played more and kept the top spot as late as September 1985. In my opinion, McEnroe and Borg are close in a relative comparison. Only BIG difference is that Borg won 11 slams in short time and McEnroe 7 in a longer.

All right. There are 4 player who completely stand out in terms of dominating, slam wins, weeks at #1, consecutive weeks at #1, tournament wins ++++++

Jimmy Connors dominated tennis, almost the way Roger Federer has done until now. Difference is just those two sneaky enemies in Borg and McEnroe. Borg’s phenomenal summer form, EVERY YEAR, contributed to a lot of swapping between the three. However, of the three, Connors was by far the most consistent, and would generally NOT lose to lower ranked players. A fighter of another dimension and the only time he would lose was when his opponent played a fair and better game. I don’t know if Connors was crowned the King of semifinals or not, but reaching like 20 major SFs isn’t THAT easy. Just look at the graphics at wikipedia, a little down the page there to see all the yellow colors, which indicate SF. In fact, take this for a record… from 1973, it would take him 10!!!!!! years to not achieve a QF or better at a slam. He lost in 1st round in French in 73 and then reached QF or better in all slams until Wimbledon 1983! Federer will never get there, I’m sure. Although win is much more important, it is also a sign of consistency and domination. Connors was IMO the best of the 70s. One last record, which shows what player Connors was is the 1241-277 W-L. It gives 81.75%!! When Lendl emerged, Connors was NOT a top player anymore and played almost another decade without too good results. What does that mean? Well… that %age would have been even higher had he retired in the mid-80s. Good candidate for Greatest of Open Era time!

Then there’s Ivan Lendl. I feel sorry for this bastard. He would have, without a doubt, become the Greatest of all time if he would have been more efficient in the GS finals. 270 weeks at #1, 157 consecutive is 3rd best after Connors and Federer. He has a sick 1071-239 (81.8%) which is close to Connors. And like Connors in the 70s, he actually dominated much of the mid and late 80s. I still cannot believe that Lendl was in the USO final every year from 82 till 89. That’s 8 consecutive USO finals. He only won 3! A total of 8 slams and 11!!! runner’s up! He could have had 19 slams! Another impressive record is the Year-End Champ. where he made the final 9 times in a row from 1980 to 1988. Sick, sick, sick! Why not the best of all time? He did not dominate the sport enough! Connors is still better IMO.

Then there were two. Roger Federer and Pistol Pete. I’m gonne make this one short. Sampras dominated the 90s, Federer has dominated the mid 2000s. Sampras was less dominant, Federer (at least thus far) more dominant in a shorter period. I’ve said it before. Sampras did not have more competition than Federer. If that was true, he would lose mostly to his competition. That was not the case. In fact, if you look at his best years, he would lose to low ranked players. Most of Federer’s losses came to Nadal. Yes, Sampras has more weeks at #1 and more slams, but Federer has several years more to play. Sampras was not even close to the Federer achievements when turning 27. 

We can go on and on about this, but I think that I’ve summed up what I mean about the biggest names in tennis. When determining the best players of the Open Era, I would give priority to weeks at #1 and consecutive weeks, + slams and masters + winning %. Winning % is probably the most important stat.

Sampras is at 77%, Connors 82%, Lendl 82%, Borg 82.5%, McEnroe 81.5%, Federer 80.4%

My list as of today is:
1. Connors
2. Federer
3. Sampras
4. Lendl
5. Borg
6. McEnroe

So there you have it… no more opinions from me until Federer retires.

Nadal joins the #1 club on August 18th, but…

did you know there is a club that is even more prestigeous?

23 players have hit the #1 spot in the (ranking) open era. Being 24th, Nadal may not feel that special. It all comes down to the number of weeks. But the more important club to join, is the Year End #1 group. Most players who hit the top ranked spot usually hit it early or mid-season allowing the best of the best to take it over in the fall. Would you believe that Borg only ended two of his years as the top ranked guy? Well, he did. Reason being that Connors regularly replaced him during those first few years of Borg’s career. Add McEnroe as well and you get a turbo trio of swapping positions.

There is one record Federer is now close of losing from both Connors and Sampras. Connors had a 5 year run of being YE world #1 and Sampras 6. Federer has only 4 because he climbed to #1 after Aussie Open in 04. If he’s going to play better this fall, he can take that too.

Although the YE #1 club has some big names, there are a couple of surprises as well. Agassi for example, spent 101 weeks on #1 spot, but only ONCE ended the year as #1! Sampras is to blame. Andy Roddick should be happy to have ended 2003 as top ranked, because he only spent 13 weeks on top, and most of them where the off-season.
Here’s a chronological list of the YE #1 players so far:

Nastase
Connors x 5
Borg x 2
McEnroe x 4
Lendl x 3
Wilander
Lendl
Edberg x 2
Courier
Sampras x 6
Agassi
Kuerten
Hewitt x 2
Roddick
Federer x 4 (5?)

Nadal needs to play his heart out this fall, if he wants to break into this “exclusive” club. But Federer, IMO is still by far the most stable and consistent #1 ever. His consecutive weeks on top shows why these 4 years are worth perhaps more than Sampras’ 6 years. When did Sampras go W, F, W, W in the respective Grand Slams 2 times in a row?

I will start a new Greatest of all time entry soon. Timing is perfect with Federer’s so-called “fall”.

Looking ahead to Shanghai

Like last year, there will be no photo finish on the 3 best players. All of them qualify for Shanghai before the heat strikes the northern hemisphere. And like last year, there are some new names, and quite a few who in theory could fight for the last 5 spots. Here are some contenders:

Davydenko (387)
Davydenko’s 2007 is probably not as good as 2008. ONLY, and only, because of his Miami Masters win. Without that, he’s got nothing to be very proud of. He has won two clay events, SF in Monaco and and final in Estoril. Even the SF in Dubai was above expectation. In Grand Slam he lacks the goods. 4th round in Melbourne is his best, and after having reached numerous SFs, especially in RG, he now has only SF in USO on the ranking. If he loses early in New York, he might be heading down towards the Murray, Blake, Nalby ++ crowd. But does he have to goods to keep the level of consistency up? I don’t know… a total of 16 points in the two HARD court masters?! That’s poor for a #4. I think we’ll see him in Shanghai, but like previous years, there aren’t too many players there he will beat, unless he finds his Miami form back.

Murray (380)
If Murray doesn’t pass Davydenko, I will be disapointed. He has a great chance now to ride the momentum into USO and do a good job in the sleepy fall where several top players usually fail to perform. QF in Wimby and the recent Cincy win are the main highlights. But the combo Canada+Cincy gave him a total of 145 points. Only Nadal can show to that impressive figure. No doubt he is on his way UP. Watch out Davydenko!

Ferrer (322)
Where the hell is he? Isn’t this his favorite time of the year? It certainly was last year. Ranking-wise he’s in the same soup with Davydenko, a strong SF from last year’s USO and his current form doesn’t seem to promote a reprise. But he has SOME decent resutls, which gives him the #5 spot which is fully deserves. Two QF in Wimby and RG, QF in Monte Carlo and the clay and grass wins in Valencia and Holland. I don’t know what he’s doing these days, but he needs to start working again if he wants to defend his final in Shanghai. A first round loss in New York might be bye bye for him.

Blake (271)
A surprising big leap down to Blake at 271 points. He seems to be bery consisten in Masters, but Grand Slam is another story. He made a decent QF run in Melbourne, but RG and Wimbledon are not his best friends. USO should change that. If there’s ONE grand slam Blake has a tiny tiny shot at, it’s USO. He usually does well in the fall and maybe even a good run in Beijing, can bring him up inside the 300 point club.

Roddick (255) currently 8th
Last man standing inside the Shanghai party. I think it’s been a while since Roddick was in trouble of not qulifying this late in the season. If sort of feel sorry for him, because that Rome injury seems to have stopped that good momentum he had going on. I mean, Roddick in a clay AMS semifinal?! NO!
At that point he was 2nd or 3rd on W-L %age. Now he’s falling. 9th on the rankings and still problems with injuries and awkward sleeping positions! Come on! Like last year, 0 points in 3 AMS tournaments ruins his total, and last but not leas a total of 22!!! points in Grand Slam. He has a 3-2 Grand slam record for 2008! That’s the worst ever for him! Maybe not going to Beijing will help him in New York?
I think we will see him in Shanghai, as he is much more consistent than the three or even four players above him.

So that’s the current list of hopefuls inside the border. Here are some other potentials:
Wawrinka, Almagro (don’t think so), Verdasco, Simon!, Andreev (no way), Tsonga (still alive?)… the ones further down are below 200 points and seem less likely. But do you remember last year. Nalbandian was ruled out. He won two AMS in October and went straight to China. ANYTHING can happen.

What I liked about this year’s Cincy

Just look at the last 8 players in the tournament. It’s the optimal mix of players. You’ve got the late “bloomer” Karlovic standing 15 feet high. Kohlschreiber is also blooming late, if that’s what he’s doing this year. Good oldy Moya reached the QF of a hard court Masters, which he just doesn’t do anymore. He played a few good matches this week. Andy Murray, the big talent from GB, has finally gotten that first important title. He is still only 21 and represents the late 80s generation. If nothing bad happens, Murray has probably entered the top 6 to stay there.

Gulbis has since USO last year impressed me. He seems like he fits in the Djoko-Murray category. He has the height to be a decent server. He has good groundstrokes, he moves well and has the brain. He was the only guy, besides Federer, to take a set off Nadal in Wimbledon. You have to take notice of such “details”. He is still 19 I think and just starting his pro career and moving fast upwards.
Djokovic is probably one of the most promising future #1 since Becker maybe, or Sampras? Age 21 he is probably the strongest #3 EVER and was very close to #2 in May. Now he just needs to continue his fight against two of the best players we’ve seen in some time. Also belongs to the late 80s generation.

Lapentti? How the heck did this guy get here? He hasn’t done anything special in ages and is still running strong at age 32. He was a top 10 player and it’s always nice to see old players getting back in the spotlight again. Nadal is ALSO of that same mid-late 80s generation and needs no further introduction. In 12 days, he will finally be the world’s best tennis player.

What I liked the most though, is that we finally got a NEW winner of a masters title.
Listen to this.. the last NORMAL year in terms of # of masters winners was back in 2004. We had 6 different winners that year. 2005 it all changed to Federer, Nadal and a few other guys. 2005 Fed and Rafa shared 8 out of 9 titles and Berdych took that last, but not the most important Paris Masters. 2006, Robredo won the Hamburg title when Fed and Rafa didn’t meet for class, and Roddick took a suprise win in Cincy. Like the year before Fed and Nadal weren’t too interested in Paris, so Davydenko took this one. 2007 you can add Djokovic and Nalbandian.

Point is that it’s just a little more fun to see other player than Federer, Nadal and now Djokovic sharing all titles.

GO MURRAY AND THE mid-late 80s models!

Andy or Novak?

Andy Murray has finally started to live up to his potential as described by the “experts” on the flat screen. It actually reminds of the Federer days in 02 and 03 when he was on his way up, but too many poor results made the fast rise impossible. Tonight Murray will face the ONE week younger Djokovic in his first Masters final. Djokovic is probably one of the fastest risers through the ranking, by jumping from unknown to #3 behind two superstars in no time. Very similar styles of play, but one of them has a bigger weakness. Can you guess?

Murray’s serve, right. The reason he passed the Ivo test yesterday, was because he knows how to return and played very well every time Karlovic didn’t hit the T or out-wide aces. So every time Ivo mixed it up with a net approach or just a more “sophisticated” serve, Murray knew what to do. From what I saw, Murray was able to lob over the giant sucsessfully almost every damn time. Against Novak, he must raise his game significantly. Karlovic is easy to crack, if you get his serve back more than half of the time, but Djokovic has less limitations. In fact, yesterday’s Nadal beating showed that Djokovic might be headed for the Olympics just to represent his country, but I think that US Open title sounds far better to him. And winning Cincy will be the best prep.

So who will win? Murray won their last meeting in Toronto last week, but Djokovic seemed a little out of his element. Murray did play great, but it cannot be unsaid that every time they met before this, Djokovic had almost no problems beating him. Novak is 4-1 h2h and 8-3 in sets. But who SHOULD be the most determined to win this? Murray. If he wants to get close to slams, he must start beating the top guys more than just “that once” and win THESE events, not San Jose and Memphis. I actually think both players have more than enough reason to give 101% today, and therefore we could get their closes match. If there’s a favorite, it’s gotta be Djokovic, but if he doesn’t play like he did against Nadal, Murray might find a way to beat him. But Murray…… YOU HAVE TO SERVE WELL! Hold it over 70%, man!

New World #1

The question is now, when? If he loses to Novak tonight, he’s gonna have to wait another couple of weeks before passing Federer. If he wins, but loses the final, he will have to wait another week, I believe. But best of all, if he wins the whole damn thing, he will get a sweet winning streak from April and #1 position on Monday. Can he pass Novak? I see NO reason why not.

In the other SF a couple of “newcomers” have entered the arena. Karlovic is one big man, and Murray has started to play very consistent compared to earlier in his career. This time in 2006 he defeated the virtually unbeatable Federer, but was losing many 1st rounders. This year he is reaching several QFs and SFs.

Who will play the final? Is it possible to NOT pick Nadal? The guy isn’t losing matches anymore. And do I dare guess that Karlovic will hit 10+aces? Scoreline will be something like 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. Murray is a good returner so I can’t tell who wins the third set tiebreak. I go with Murray.