AyeReadyStu
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Everything posted by AyeReadyStu
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I'd love to see Murray go on and dominate the sport winning another 3-4 slams now, but a word of warning, Murray does turn 30 next year, and even the best of all-time haven't won much after turning 30. Slams won after turning 30, from players that have 3+ slams in the Open Era: Wawrinka 2 slams, Agassi 2, Connors 1, Federer 1, Newcombe 1, Sampras, 1, Borg 0, Edberg, 0 Becker 0, Lendl 0, McEnroe 0, Wilander, 0, Courier 0, Vilas 0, Kodes 0, Ashe 0, Kuerten, 0. So history isn't on Andy's side when it comes to winning more slams, therefore next year is pretty crucial for him in terms of his own legacy, if he doesn't win the Aussie or French next year, then history suggests he probably won't win them at all. If you want some good news however, Laver won all 4 (the Calendar Slam) at the age of 30, and Ken Rosewall won 4 slams after turning 33! Those two are very much anomalies though.
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That's true, poor management by Kovalev's camp there. Like you (and most people who saw the fight) the judging on the last 6 rounds does raise an eyebrow. Don't see how Ward won all 6 clearly.
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From reading today it seems virtually everyone gave the fight to Kovalev except the judges. LA Times, ESPN, HBO, The Guardian, Ring Magazine, FOX, and Associated Press all scored it between 115-112 Kovalev to 117-110 Kovalev.
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I couldn't be happier to be more wrong. Djokovic just looked like he didn't want it anymore, played the completely wrong way and Murray did the right thing and tried to shorten the points when he could and it paid off. Unbelievable, congrats to him!!
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Anyone seeking a high-quality competitive final tonight will be disappointed. Murray must be gassed, 10hrs on court in less than 3 days, now playing for the 3rd day in a row with less than 24hrs to recover. On top of that he's played 4 tournaments in the last 6 weeks. Novak meanwhile has had a stress-free progression to the finals, and had Friday off (great scheduling by the ATP there, not sure how one group gets a day off before the semi's and the other doesn't in the World Tour Finals of all places ). Murray will be lucky to win 6 games.
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Stayed up late to catch this last night and I had exactly the same scorecard. 5-1 through the first 6 rounds with 4-2 Ward between 6-12. 115-112 Kovalev in the end. Kovalev won the 10th surely. Kellerman and Lederman gave it to Kovalev too, Lederman on HBO had it 116-111 Kovalev which is a bit too much the other way mind. To give it 114-113, considering I had it 59-54 Kovalev after 6rds, (and considering Ward was on the receiving end of a 10-8 round in the 2nd) you have to give the last 6 rounds to Ward 10-9. I just don't see that unfortunately. Be nice if Ward actually fought someone outside of California/Nevada for once too.
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Monfils has pulled out of the WTF with injury, David Goffin will replace him for his match vs. Novak tomorrow. Not surprising since Monfils did look like he injured himself vs. Thiem yesterday. Wonder which Stan will turn up vs. Cilic tonight. Cilic could also do Murray a big favour by beating Stan since it would secure Andy's spot in the SF, but Cilic surprisingly hasn't beat Stan for almost 7 years
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Laughable claims like the US Open and those 3 retirements he got? Or the Shanghai draw where every seed in his half except Bautista-Agut lost in the first 2 rounds? Even at the Olympics, if he'd have got past Del Potro he had a cake of a draw up til the semis, where he would have met Rafa, who even then isn't much use anywhere outside of clay at this moment in time. I'm not saying he gets easy draws every tournament, of course, just in the second half of 2016 he's been on a very nice run with tournament draws raining good fortune down on him. Murrays draw: Slam Winner, Slam Winner, Slam Finalist. Djokovic's draw: Injured (will pull out), Injured, Overrated. Laughable claims alright...
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Yup, on the flip side. if he does get through this and win the WTF no one can say he doesn't deserve to be Year-End #1.
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It's about to get worse for Andy when you consider Raonic will probably withdraw and get replaced by Berdych in Novak's group. I don't see his quad tear repairing itself in 6 days, and he said as much himself, that is was borderline whether he'd play or not.
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It's an actual draw, seeds 1/2 and 3/4 are kept separate, but 5-8 can be drawn in either group. Murray just got absolutely shafted by the draw, very unfortunate.
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Jeez Murray got a group of death there while Novak got the easiest possible draw (plus Raonic isn't 100% to play because of injury, which would mean Novak gets a group of Berdych, Thiem and Monfils, and Monfils isn't 100% either ). Murray has his work seriously cut out for him here.
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Berdych v Murray should be a cracker tonight, if Murray wins he's halfway to being #1, if Berdych wins he guarantees his spot at the World Tour Finals, add in some spice that they're not exactly the best of friends and it should hopefully be good.
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In other Murray-related news Thiem (home crowd favourite and potential dangerman) got knocked out by Troicki in the other half of the Vienna draw last night. At risk of putting egg on my face there is really no one left in the Vienna draw that should come between him and the trophy and a nice 500 points now, if he plays half-decent (although he has struggled a lot with his first serve% this week). His draw is open. Tsonga should probably be his likely final opponent should he get there.
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I think someone needs to open their eyes and have a look at the ATP Rankings. You've got the wrong Zverev, there's two. The one Djokovic may play next is #144 in the world. Tsonga beat the other one you're thinking about. And he was definitely not 100% at the USO, he could well have lost earlier had he had to play those two matches. But hey, according to you he would have beat everybody in straights even if he couldn't serve. Indeed, Vesely beat him last time they played. And Monfils, well, who knows what the fuck was going on in his head that day, he pulled a Kyrgios for the first two sets and showed up in the third. Novak said himself he was having difficulties serving, and the two retirements allowed him time to recover from those niggling injuries. What's laughable is to think, for some insane reason, he would have straight setted everybody and won the title if he wouldn't have benefitted from retirements and a walkover.
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Basically impossible before 2017. First half of 2017 he has a chance up until about the French Open, as Novak is defending lots of points. After that it becomes difficult. What he can do however, is close the gap on Novak before the end of this season as he has places where he can make up points. However... frustratingly, even though Novak's not been 100% since Wimbledon, in all three tournaments he's played that offer rankings points since then he's had some insanely jammy draws and a lot of luck. He had 4 of his 6 opponents retire against him at the US Open om the way to the final, without them he probably wouldn't have got that far given his niggling injuries at the time. Now here in Shanghai every seed in his half except Tsonga has already lost, and he's playing journeymen till the semi. Murray meanwhile has a really tough draw.
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Exceptionally frustrating week for Andy at the Shanghai Masters and he's not even played a match yet. Djokovic's ridiculous luck with draws continues, every seed in his half except Tsonga is already out and basically every dangerous unseeded player is also out. To sum it up, he has a cakewalk to the final and basically everyone with a chance of beating him bar Tsonga has already lost. First he gets 4 retirements at the US Open and now this, the lucky bastard's up there with celtc in the jamminess stakes. Meanwhile Murray has Stan Wawrinka, Raonic, Goffin, Monfils, and Pouille all in still remaining in his half. Not to mention dangerous unseeded players like Sock and Gilles Simon.
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Loss of form more than injury. He's top 50 probably but his career high of #21 is deceptive. He's one of those guys that vultures smaller tournaments. He played nine ATP 250's last year when he got to #21 and four ATP 500's. Of those 13 tournaments he got past the Quarter Finals just three times. Got to the final of one 250. Considering the top guys don't even play those tournaments that's pretty poor. He's never got past the third round at a Masters. Got past the third round in a slam 1/28 attempts. Record against the top ten is 1-24. His whole career he's won 1 ATP tournament. Looking at his results in tournaments it's a mystery how he got to #21 cause he barely seems to go deep in any tournament. He just plays a shitload of them I guess, wins 1/2 matches and collects the points. His career Win-Loss ratio at ATP level is 48%. How the fuck do you get to #21 in the World by winning less than half of all the matches you've ever played I have no idea.
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Mayer Fuck off you average Argie journeyman. Probably be back losing challengers next week in front of 2 men and a dog.
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Congrats to Stan on winning last night, so glad Novak didn't win considering he had an absolute donation of a path to the final. Three retirements and Edmund/Monfils making 100UE's between them both in just six sets. If he had Murray's path to the final he could well have lost early, he was vulnerable at the beginning of the tournament and got away with it. As for Murray, from the moment he decided to skip Toronto and play Cinicinnati, it was pretty clear his focus this Autumn was retaining Olympic Gold, not the USO and challenging Novak for #1 (which is now out sight for him until 2017 at the least). If Murray was aiming for #1 he would've matched Novak - played Toronto and skipped Cincy in order to be fresh for the USO, as he had a chance to make up big points on Novak there but he missed it. Now he needs a good rest before the Asian Swing and the World Tour Finals as he can still make up some points on Novak heading into 2017 if he performs well and Novak falters. If he really wants to mount a challenge to #1 it would be best if he forgot about Davis Cup and concentrated on Shanghai, Tokyo and Paris before London. He has a chance to make up points on Novak till the end of the year, Novak is defending almost 4,000 points whereas Murray is only defending 1,200 or so. Doing well here could give him a nice head start to aim for Novak's #1 spot in early 2017 since he's defending Wins basically everywhere up until Wimbledon whereas Murray has quite a bit of room for improvement, early losses at Miami and Indian Wells, Semi's in Monte-Carlo, and he didn't play Rotterdam or Brisbane. I'm not hopeful however as Murray historically tends to be pretty shite after the USO while Novak turns into the Terminator.
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New Novak would magically turn it on again after struggling a few days ago. Most of the top seeds in his half have already lost and he's already had 2 walkovers. I'm starting to think there's no way this cunt isn't winning this thing now.
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Unlucky for Dan Evans, to lose after having match point must be gutting. Fair play to Stan though, he didn't go into his shell and go full defensive when he was down in the tie-break, and down match point like some other big players do. He took some ballsy risks, went big on second serves and started hammering his groundies, even serve volleyed on match point down.
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Dan Evans takes the third set vs. Stan! Up 6-4 3-6 7-6! Nice to see Dan's finally got his finger out and started putting hard work into his game, he's easily top 50 talent-wise, shame until recently he was more concerned with partying his talent away.
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Cracking match from Kyle, he's far exceeded expectation at this tournament. Djoko next. I want to give Kyle a chance but Djoko has a habit of making players who are all-forehand-with-an-ok-backhand look silly. Still though, if Kyle plays like that and Novak's wrist starts hurting, who knows.
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Fuck me Djokovic is lucking out. Only played 5 sets and he's in the 4th round after Youzhny retires after 5 games. Fuck sake.
