Atlanta, Olympics

Atlanta

The Atlanta tournament was won by Nick Kyrgios over John Isner in very hot weather.  Isner committed one of my tennis no-nos (see July 8 post) which was:  “don’t double fault in tiebreakers”.  He did it once in the first set and twice in the second.  A little surprising that Kyrgios didn’t go to Rio, as he is the highest ranked player in Australia.

Olympics.

Novak Djokovic lost to Juan Martin del Potro, a big surprise.  Not that del Potro isn’t good, but Novak is the best hard court player in the world by a wide margin and del Potro has been hampered by a wrist injury, as we all know only too well.  Of note is that Djokovic has lost two big matches lately – Wimbledon and now the Olympics.  Relevant to these losses, in my opinion, is the reality of how difficult it is to stay unbeatable in tennis for more than about three years:

If you look at the records of previous greats of the game, only one, Roger Federer was essentially unbeatable for more than three years.  I am measuring “unbeatable” by looking at consecutive weeks with the number one ranking.  If you take a look at greats of the open era, here are their streaks of being number one uninterrupted:

Federer          237

Connors         160

Lendl             157

Sampras         102

Djokovic         99*

McEnroe         58

Nadal              56

* - still going

The reason it’s so hard to be totally dominant for very long is the extreme pressure on the number one player combined with the fact that competition is deep and stiff on the men’s tour.  When he retired, Sampras emphasized that the mental pressure, the travelling and the constant need to practice had taken their toll on him.  I believe Federer was able to stay at the top for so long because he actually enjoys the life style. 

Novak, as noted in recent posts, has been quite irritable on the court recently.  He was nearly disqualified from a couple of clay court warmups for the French Open because he nearly hit bystanders after throwing his racquet.  These recent surprising losses, considered along with his more volatile behavior, might indicate that the pressure is finally getting to him.  It’s worth keeping in mind that other things in his life may also be drawing his attention – like fatherhood.  It will be interesting to see how he performs at the US Open.  He looked pretty good at the Rogers Cup.

Let cord woes

            At both the Rogers Cup and Atlanta, many “false positive” let cords appeared to have been called by the net sensor.  This frustrated players.  In the Atlanta tournament, Kyrgios hit a serve that was called a let, and Brad Gilbert, a commentator, stated that the ball had passed several inches above the net.  On 6/21/16 in this blog I proposed a mechanism whereby the mechanical sensor might falsely detect a let, and suggested we go back to the tried and true method of having a human being simply put his finger on the net cord.  I say it again right now:  Give nets the finger!