Talk About Tennis 2.0

Sinner will now win group if he beats Zverev which would mean Zverev-FAA would be for second

If Zvervev wins, still 3 way ties possible.

Thursday 13 November, 2025 (Day 5)

Inalpi Arena Starts at 11:30 am

RR
K. Krawietz/T. Puetz (6) Vs (7) S. Bolelli/A. Vavassori
Not Before 2:00 pm
RR
T. Fritz (6) Vs (7) A. de Minaur
Not Before 6:00 pm
RR
J. Cash/L. Glasspool (1) Vs (3) M. Granollers/H. Zeballos
Not Before 8:30 pm
RR
C. Alcaraz (1) Vs (9) L. Musetti

Sinner wins group, FAA-Zverev for 2nd.

Looks like we will get the expected final. Can't see Musetti beating Alcaraz, and that means Alcaraz gets FAA/Zverev, and there, maybe Zverev has a 35% chance of beating him.
Sinner is into the final almost by default.

Am surprised the crowd made so much difference to the Musetti DeMinaur match..unless it didn't..could not see it.

It didn't. The crowd was fair and it got excited when Musetti started his comeback. But it was more Deminaur not being able to close the deal.
It was not a French crowd at RG when a French player is on the court.

deMinaur wins in straight sets, which officially puts Alcaraz through.

Scenarios:

Musetti wins - Musetti #1, Alcaraz #2
Alcaraz wins in 2 - Fritz and DeMinaur tie in sets, goes to games
Alcaraz wins in 3 - Fritz, Musetti, DeMinaru tie in sets, goes to games

Forgot to note games won...

DeMinaur is 37-39 games, Fritz 36-39. DeMinaur won in exactly enough games! So Fritz is out.

Musetti is 24-28 so likely needs to win outright, or lose in three sets but win 2 more total games in a loss.

The toughest and cruelest sport in the world.
Taylor was 2 points away from qualifying first in the group (had he beaten Carlitos). Didn't, and now he is totally out.
The last 3 games of the match were insane. Both of them simply got to everything, and some of the points were true gems.

Now about 80% probability of:

Alcaraz vs Zverev
Sinner vs deMinaur

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 13, 2025 5:24 pm The toughest and cruelest sport in the world.
Taylor was 2 points away from qualifying first in the group (had he beaten Carlitos). Didn't, and now he is totally out.
The last 3 games of the match were insane. Both of them simply got to everything, and some of the points were true gems.

Yeah and if he wins one more game today he'd be ahead of ADM.

That said, I don't know if I would say this the "cruelest" sport. I know everyone thinks that about their favorite sports is the cruelest and hardest. But I mean, look at what happened on those two plays in the 9th inning of game 7 of the world series I don't think anything tops that this year at least.

You had a team. Maybe, some selfish player for the Blue Jays is thinking "that was not me". Maybe he is right.
In tennis, the individual aspect leaves nowhere to hide. YOU won, or YOU lost. You may want to thank your team, you may want to rely on them, but the person on the court was you.
That is the reason I say it is so cruel. And in golf, you are really not competing against any opponent; it is you against a golf course.

J/C are following certain patters. For example, they keep a match close and then, boom, they just crush the opponent.
4-4 in the first set. And then Carlos won 8 of the next 9 games. And was seriously never in doubt.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 13, 2025 7:39 pm You had a team. Maybe, some selfish player for the Blue Jays is thinking "that was not me". Maybe he is right.
In tennis, the individual aspect leaves nowhere to hide. YOU won, or YOU lost. You may want to thank your team, you may want to rely on them, but the person on the court was you.
That is the reason I say it is so cruel. And in golf, you are really not competing against any opponent; it is you against a golf course.

Yeah baseball is a team sport, I was more referring to the two plays in the bottom of the ninth inning - a catcher toe tapping the plate to get a runner out by millseconds, or outfielders crashing into each other and still catching it. Those tiny margins seem "cruel" especially considering it was 9th inning of game 7 of world series. ATP Finals is at best fifth most important tournament, and this was round robin.

I mean in this case, our example of "cruelty" is a player going 1-2 and not making the next round of a tournament

Tennis is not the only sport where people play one on one as well. I'm not saying it's not tough/cruel sometimes, just saying its pretty cliche for fans of all sports to say that their sport is the hardest/cruelest. I don't think this is really a great example of it. A silly similar example - just today one football podcast claimed "There is nothing harder in sports than winning an NFL game." Which ... 13-16 teams do every week

Oh and Mick, we got your games won as part of a tiebreaker there today. I guess if Fritz had won one more game (not vs ADM) it would have had to go to ATP rankings and he would have moved on.