Tennis happenings

Dominic Thiem needs to watch it.

            Dominic Thiem has had great success this year.  In this grass court warmup season he has already won a tournament and has now advanced to the quarterfinals in Halle after beating Teymuraz Gabashvilli in the round of 16.  Thiem got off to a bit of a slow start against Gabashvilli before taking over and dominating.  The slow start raises a potentially significant issue for Thiem though – fatigue.

            Because he’s been so successful this year and has gone deep in so many tournaments, Thiem is playing a lot of tennis!  Last year he was 36-26 for the year (62 matches), but in 2016, with less that half of the year completed, he is 47-11 (58 matches).  So, he’s played essentially a full 2015 season in half of the 2016 season.  As he heads to Wimbledon, Thiem needs to start thinking about fatigue.  Although there is a day off between matches in majors, weather can sometimes force consecutive day play, and the matches go 5 sets instead of 3.  In my opinion Thiem might have been better off losing to Gabashvilli so he could get some rest.   At least Thiem won his next match without playing a point, as his next opponent, Philipp Kohlschreiber, withdrew with an injury.

Federer-Goffin

            It’s not often you see a player broken 4 times in a 6 game set, but that’s what happened to David Goffin in his first set with Roger Federer.  Of course, for that to occur, Goffin had to break Federer once.  The set was won by Federer 6-1.  If you want to know why people love to watch Roger, take a look at the point he played in the second set with Goffin serving 5 games to 6, 15-15.   Shots like the one Federer played there are, as Thomas Berdych once said of Federer’s play, a celebration of the game.  The second set tiebreaker in this match was also very entertaining.

The women

            Four former Wimbledon finalists – Bouchard, Kvitova, Muguruza and Radwanska, went out early in grass court warm up tournaments.  For Muguruza and Radwanska, the issues appeared to be difficulty with transitioning from clay, and outstanding grass court opponents.  For the other two, the problem appeared to be lackluster play far below the capabilities of the players.  That’s always disappointing to fans.

Try a different metaphor some time!

            Justin Gimmelstob, who is covering the grass court warm up tournaments for tennis channel, frequently uses the metaphor “locked and loaded” to describe players’ good forehands or backhands.  In this era of dreadful gun violence, couldn’t he find different one to use every now and then?