'24 US Open Day 5 Order of Play & Discussion

[mick1303]

Sinner is the overall favorite, but I think Medvedev wins his second Slam here.

There is something wrong with Medvedev's serve. And even a very good ground game will not compensate for this against better opponents. If he'll reach QF stage and lose to Sinner, it will be a successful tournament for him.

[Fastbackss]

I love that when I went to check the scores it showed aryna's match as being today...because it was.

[ponchi101]

Y'all, I have said this before, and I will say this again.....many of us pride ourselves on being tennis experts. BUT, from tournament to tournament....we really need to understand that, often, we do not really know a damned thing.

The Roger/Rafa/Novak era is over. LOL, Novak may still win 10 more Slams, for all I know. But, he IS older now, and his body is breaking down on him. He finally won his damned PRECIOUS!!!! gold medal, and maybe he's beyond exhausted after this. Carlos has already had a great career, and one certainly can suppose that he has more Slam and big titles to win. Sinner is very talented, and certainly will win more Slam and big titles. Both of them still have plenty of time to truly dominate, with room at the top for others.

Maybe it's that there is more weird pressure and stress on the players these days, with the constant attention from the internet, social medial, journalists/media hangers-on, etc. Maybe, at least not yet, they do not have the rabid focus that one needs to win big titles so often. LOL, maybe they are saner in that way. Maybe how much you can now earn more easily does take away some hunger.

Who knows. But, IMO, all of this is just more of a crap-shoot.

I don't think we pride ourselves of being experts, but we also do not NOT know a damn thing.
We do pretty well in between.
The point of yesterday's loss by Novak is that Popyrin is exactly the kind of player that he would never lose to. It is not as if Alexei is a new force on the tour; this guy has been around and his game is well known.
This is not like when he lost to Rune at Paris; we all thought Rune was a new, real deal (that's another story). What surprised me so much was that Novak was unable to even keep the ball in, and Popyrin was playing spectacular tennis. They all can do it, but not for three sets. Well, Popyrin did it yesterday.
Maybe he will do a Paolini; learn to play better at an older age. But yesterday's match was surprising to me.

OTOH. I did say that I felt that Novak's preparation for the Open was totally wrong (the "not playing other tournaments before" approach). Glad to see that for once, this non-expert was sort of right

[jazzyg]

That is how Djokovic has been playing all year except for the Olympics. He has played with little intensity and still been good enough to beat a lot of players, but the days of him killing himself to win are over.