Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[meganfernandez]

Speaking of woke, this woke me up. Seriously, why do guys do this? He isn't the only one. Commenter said junior guy players have been doing this for 20 years. Can someone translate, please?

https://x.com/Spllomi/status/1748042190729703663?s=20

[nelslus]

Speaking of woke, this woke me up. Seriously, why do guys do this? He isn't the only one. Commenter said junior guy players have been doing this for 20 years. Can someone translate, please?

https://x.com/Spllomi/status/1748042190729703663?s=20

......Overcompensation?

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Emma Raducanu: I may step down a level to recapture my form
Briton stranded just inside the world’s top 300 – which is too low to earn her direct entry into WTA events on ranking alone

Simon Briggs,
TENNIS CORRESPONDENT, IN MELBOURNE
19 January 2024 • 4:25pm

Emma Raducanu says she is prepared to drop down a level in the search for more match experience, which could mean a visit to the second-tier ITF circuit.

After her three-set loss to China’s Yafan Wang on Thursday, Raducanu remains stranded just inside the world’s top 300 – which is comfortably too low to earn her direct entry into WTA events on her ranking alone.

She has already received a wild card invitation into the Abu Dhabi Open, which starts on Feb 5. From there, the question is whether Doha and Dubai – the next two big events in the Middle East – will also be keen to fast-track her into the draw.

If not, she could end up playing a humble $40,000 event at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton in the week after Abu Dhabi (Feb 12 onwards), or perhaps a $60,000 in Porto the week after (Feb 19 onwards).

The prize money for winning those events would respectively be £3,140 and £4,750 – a drop in the ocean for a woman who was ranked No 4 on the Forbes rich list for female athletes last year, with an estimated income of around £12 million. Her US Open triumph brought in around £1.8 million on its own.

“I really believe that the difference in level between the quote ‘lower-level tournaments’ and these tournaments is not that big,” said Raducanu in Melbourne. “Because you gain so many skills, you’re playing in these conditions. The wind here was a prime example. My opponent [Wang] played a lot of ITF and got a lot of matches under her belt, but the level really isn’t that different. So yeah, I would play whatever suits my schedule, whatever suits the plan.”

After Dubai, the next big tournaments are the American duo of Indian Wells and Miami, known as the Sunshine Double, which occupy almost the entire month of March. Raducanu’s protected ranking of No 103, which she can use in eight more tournaments after her first deployment here at the Australian Open, should be good enough to earn her a spot in qualifying at those events. But she sounds like she is keen to get a decent run of matches first.

“I would love to compete beforehand,” said Raducanu, when asked about the Sunshine Double. “I think now going back, training a little bit, tidy some things up. Then it depends on the ranking and wild-card situation.”

And what about the team around her? Nick Cavaday, the childhood coach whom she first worked with as a six-year-old at Bromley Tennis Academy, is to continue for the immediate future. Raducanu said: “The work we’re doing has been paying off, because to get me to this level from nothing, after only six weeks, was good.”

The next question is whether she should engage a travelling fitness trainer, especially in view of the way she has been fading in deciding sets. Three of her four matches on this trip to Australia and New Zealand have been three-setters, and in two of them she was seriously undermined by a loss of physical condition. Even when she beat Elena-Gabriela Ruse in Auckland, she came under pressure from a surging opponent and only managed to save herself via some clutch serving at the death.

Raducanu sounded open to this idea. “I worked with a really good trainer back in London,” she said. “But he’s with the Lawn Tennis Association, so I don’t know if he travels too much. I think that certain weeks sporadically travelling with a fitness coach is a great idea. For example, when the tournaments are two-week events [which applies to both Indian Wells and Miami]. If you get knocked out early, it’s a prime opportunity to do a 10-day little block. So I think it’s something to be looked at. But in the immediate future. I think it’s just getting more time in practice for tidying up any bugs.”

Bugs were certainly an issue for Raducanu against Wang. She found herself retching into a towel during the third set, after contracting what she suggested was some kind of gastric virus. And then there was the forehand glitch – more the sort of thing she was referring to above – which saw her air-mail perhaps a dozen balls well over the baseline.

Thursday night still delivered a decent showing, however, against an opponent who plays in a similar style to Raducanu herself. And the whole experience of being back on 1573 Arena – the same court where she won her first-round match last year – felt highly motivational.

“It’s pretty surreal,” she said of the warm support she received from the fans, who included many British expats. “I really missed that feeling. Wow, I think being away and coming back, I was really taken aback and surprised by how much support I was getting. So I was really taking it in but not in like a farewell kind of way. I was more like ‘Well, I just want to keep going and keep seeing them all’.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2024 ... lian-open/

[meganfernandez]

Tsurenko confronted people on Twitter who rejoiced that she lost to Sabalenka so badly - or made fun of her, not sure which. She said her friend in Ukraine was just released from Russian captivity after a year and a half and has a leg infection, and just being alive makes her happy, so suck it. Basically.

https://x.com/ltsurenko/status/1748626214724546894?s=46


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Owendonovan]

Mannarino has a kind of "above it all" arrogance I don't really care for.

[skatingfan]

Mannarino has a kind of "above it all" arrogance I don't really care for.

I think he was just lying, probably to himself as well given that he went out and won 3 games.

[ponchi101]

I find it hard to label as "arrogant" a man that basically goes out there to play in his pajamas.

[3mlm]

Mannarino, at 35, just had the best year of his career, winning three titles, is at a career high ranking, is the #1 ranked player in France, a country with ten top hundred players, and just lost to the world #1, the best slam player ever, in the 4th round of a slam. Probably feeling OK about himself.

[ponchi101]

I did not know he had reached #1 in France. That must be worth a pretty franc for the rest of his life.

[ti-amie]

Djokovic: Easier to get along with young guns than Federer, Nadal
Novak Djokovic opened up about the differences between his relationships with his Big Three rivals and younger stars like Daniil Medvedev and Carlos Alcaraz. Read his words…

Sasa Ozmo
January 22, 2024

When Novak Djokovic speaks to Serbian reporters at Grand Slams, those are usually opportunities to ask about topics not strictly related to matches. On Sunday in Melbourne, Djokovic spoke about his relationship with the younger generation of players compared to his relationship with his greatest rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

The motive behind the question were nice words spoken by Daniil Medvedev about Novak during his post-match press conference on Saturday – the Russian recalled a story back from 2017, when Djokovic offered to take him with a private jet to Niš where Serbia and Russia were due to meet in a Davis Cup tie.

He was asked: “In this final stage of your career, do you prefer to be surrounded by young stars that have a different relationship towards you – some even openly like you like Medvedev – or was your wish to bring your career to the end alongside Federer and Nadal?”

To which Djokovic responded: “First of all, I want to thank Daniil for his kind words, he pleasantly surprised me.

“He did already tell that story, but I very much appreciate the way he brought it to people. I, too, have the best possible opinion about him as a person, colleague, and as one of my biggest rivals in the last five years. I know that he is a man with the right values and it’s true when he says that he has a great relationship with the majority of the Tour – I can see it in the locker room, he and his team try to communicate nicely with everybody.”

Djokovic said that doesn’t have any regrets about not finishing his career alongside Federer.

“Yes, no particular regret or it would (mean something to me) to finish alongside Nadal. They are two of my biggest rivals – especially Nadal, as I’ve said numerous times – and that’s never going to change. The amount of energy spent on our rivalry during all these years, how many times we played each other (Djokovic leads head-to-head 30-29)… It’s impossible for me to play Alcaraz sixty times. That won’t be possible, because he will finish his career before me,” Djokovic said bursting out laughing, then added, of his relationship with the younger generations:

“Jokes aside, I am really enjoying the rivalries I have with all those guys. Alcaraz, Medvedev, Sinner, everybody near the top I get along with quite nicely. If I were to compare my relationship with them to the one I had with Federer and Nadal, the relationship with my younger fellow players is much better, nicer. I enjoy it.”

Asked to elaborate on his words, Djokovic replied:

“I don’t know, it’s just more open, the younger guys are more communicative. We just get along better, that’s it.”

In the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, Djokovic will continue his quest for a record 25th major title and an eleventh at the Ausrtralian Open. The 24-time Grand Slam champion is due to face Taylor Fritz, with whom he holds a 8-0 record.


https://www.tennismajors.com/australian ... 39307.html

[ponchi101]

"It is so much easier to have a great relationship with players that I know will fold like a cheap chair the moment they step on court against me".

[Owendonovan]

Speaking of woke, this woke me up. Seriously, why do guys do this? He isn't the only one. Commenter said junior guy players have been doing this for 20 years. Can someone translate, please?

https://x.com/Spllomi/status/1748042190729703663?s=20

I've noticed that compression underwear leads to more picking of the area.

[ponchi101]

Do players really do that a lot? Serious question.

[Owendonovan]

Enough to comment on......