Week 24 - ATP - Queen's Club (doubles)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Week 24 - ATP - Queen's Club (doubles)

helki · Futures qualifying

Stircrazy wrote:

Stretch & the Beast swing into action in the fourth match on Court 9 tomorrow. Let's see how they cope together on the green stuff. Hope I'm not jinxing their chances by starting this thread...

You probably are! wink

But I hope not. Junior Murray is also on again today with his partner from his earlier days. Two doubles wins? Fingers crossed.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Phew! M & M had to labour for an hour & 31 minutes before they overcame the "Gucci"/Hewitt scratch pairing 6-7(8) 7-6(5) [10-5], but for a long time in the second set, it looked as though they wouldn't! They're going to have to play a helluva lot better in the QFs to convince me their partnership is working. Only trouble is their QF opponents will be Booty & Rajeev Ram, who earlier saw off the 4th seeds, Jeff Coetzee & Wes Moodie, 6-4 3-6 [10-5]!

-- Edited by Stircrazy at 21:29, 2008-06-11

murrayfan99 · Lower Club Player

Is the partnership working? They are 13th in the race and Jamie is 14 places ahead of Butorac in the rankings - despite some bad losses this year.

I guess it depends on how good you think Jamie could be as a doubles player. He's matching my expectations - I wasnt inclined to expect much more than this - thinking maybe he could reach 20ish with a good run of results - but 30s was a more realistic expectation.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

At least they won, but that's much harder than you should have to work against Guccione/Hewitt, especially with Guccione's shocking groundstrokes, especially the backhand, so I'd have thought in doubles just serving to that all the time would ensure you wouldn't get broken.

Butorac and Ram should be beatable as well, so another semi final for this partnership which isn't too bad; and remember, they've won an ATP event, beaten the Bryan's and reached a MS semi final, so that isn't a bad year at all, and back on their best surface they should do well - we'll ignore the poor clay form as it isn't their surface, plus many of the top teams struggled as well

john · Top national player

Young Murray and partner lost 4 & 4 to Ullyet and Bjorkman

helki · Futures qualifying

I'm not sure why you think clay is not their best surface, FD? Perhaps not for Murray but didn't MM win in Paris in 2005 and 2006 with JoBjo? SF in 2004 and QF last year. He can't be that bad.

Is Murray the weak link? hmm

James · Satellite level

Well I personally don't think that anyone should be in any doubt that out of M & M Jamie is the weaker of the two players, Max obviously has much more tennis ability [hence his singles ranking] and also has a very big serve.. I wouldn't know if he's that much superior on volleys; anybody able to comment on this? Jamie will probably always be a decent doubles player, ranked from mostly around 20-40 but I think it would take dramatic improvement [or possibly an out of this world run at Wimbledon.. on his best surface] for Jamie to show signs that he can be a Top 10 doubles player. On the other hand, Max has already proven that he is a Top 10 player and is very capable on all surfaces.

steven · Tennis legend

James wrote:

Well I personally don't think that anyone should be in any doubt that out of M & M Jamie is the weaker of the two players, Max obviously has much more tennis ability [hence his singles ranking] and also has a very big serve.. I wouldn't know if he's that much superior on volleys; anybody able to comment on this? Jamie will probably always be a decent doubles player, ranked from mostly around 20-40 but I think it would take dramatic improvement [or possibly an out of this world run at Wimbledon.. on his best surface] for Jamie to show signs that he can be a Top 10 doubles player. On the other hand, Max has already proven that he is a Top 10 player and is very capable on all surfaces.

I saw the Beast practising volleys at Queen's and judging by the way he stands virtually touching the net and there hardly seems to be any way past him, I'd imagine he's probably one of the best volleyers in the world. The only area in which Jamie looked a bit stronger was movement (though neither of them is as good at that as a top singles player would be), other than that Max is clearly the better of the two.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

ForeverDelayed wrote:

At least they won, but that's much harder than you should have to work against Guccione/Hewitt, especially with Guccione's shocking groundstrokes, especially the backhand, so I'd have thought in doubles just serving to that all the time would ensure you wouldn't get broken.

Butorac and Ram should be beatable as well, so another semi final for this partnership which isn't too bad; and remember, they've won an ATP event, beaten the Bryan's and reached a MS semi final, so that isn't a bad year at all, and back on their best surface they should do well - we'll ignore the poor clay form as it isn't their surface, plus many of the top teams struggled as well

Thanks for putting the season so far for Jamie & Max into some kind of perspective, FD. I guess I, like so many other success-starved British tennis fans, am guilty of being only too willing to believe in the hype when Jamie starts talking up his & Max's chances in a particular tournament, only to have my hopes cruelly dashed when things don't quite work out as planned - again hmm

- with the result that I then become hypercritical...!

Interesting that you should say that Booty & Ram are beatable & then refer to Jamie's & Max's defeat of the Bryans earlier this year because, if they do win the Booty/Ram match, the team on the other side of the net will be the Brazilian fifth seeds, Melo & Sa, who earlier this evening dumped out the top seeds 6-4 1-6 [10-7]!

(Methinks the twins' cloak of invincibilty is beginning to slip... wink

). Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I wouldn't like to say!

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

helki wrote:

I'm not sure why you think clay is not their best surface, FD? Perhaps not for Murray but didn't MM win in Paris in 2005 and 2006 with JoBjo? SF in 2004 and QF last year. He can't be that bad. Is Murray the weak link?

Murray's never been a great player on clay which is why I'd say it was their weaker surface, but Bjorkman and Mirnyi made a habit out of doing well at RG despite the fact the slow clay shouldn't suit their out and out serve/volley game.

Just think that on the faster surfaces they will be more dangerous as the serves won't come back so often, and their good volleying will win them more points.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Stircrazy wrote:

ForeverDelayed wrote:

At least they won, but that's much harder than you should have to work against Guccione/Hewitt, especially with Guccione's shocking groundstrokes, especially the backhand, so I'd have thought in doubles just serving to that all the time would ensure you wouldn't get broken.

Butorac and Ram should be beatable as well, so another semi final for this partnership which isn't too bad; and remember, they've won an ATP event, beaten the Bryan's and reached a MS semi final, so that isn't a bad year at all, and back on their best surface they should do well - we'll ignore the poor clay form as it isn't their surface, plus many of the top teams struggled as well

Thanks for putting the season so far for Jamie & Max into some kind of perspective, FD. I guess I, like so many other success-starved British tennis fans, am guilty of being only too willing to believe in the hype when Jamie starts talking up his & Max's chances in a particular tournament, only to have my hopes cruelly dashed when things don't quite work out as planned - again - with the result that I then become hypercritical...!

Interesting that you should say that Booty & Ram are beatable & then refer to Jamie's & Max's defeat of the Bryans earlier this year because, if they do win the Booty/Ram match, the team on the other side of the net will be the Brazilian fifth seeds, Melo & Sa, who earlier this evening dumped out the top seeds 6-4 1-6 [10-7]! (Methinks the twins' cloak of invincibilty is beginning to slip... ). Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I wouldn't like to say!

The Bryan's are sort of having a Federer-style year with them seemingly always having some more results, don't seem to have a title this year that I can remember (I know Fed's won Estoril), and yet are still top of the race by a convincing margin, suggesting they are still the best doubles team around.

Still, better to face Melo/Sa than the Bryan's, and should be a good incentive for Murray and Mirnyi to have tomorrow

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

And Jamie & Max finally make it on to the centre court tomorrow, though predictably not until after the four singles QFs have been played. Wonder if the Beeb will finally condescend to show some doubles on interactive...

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Some thoughts on Jamie's strengths from a potential mixed doubles partner (& someone who presumably knows what she's talking about! wink ), as quoted in today's Times:

Liezel Huber, a strong favourite for the doubles title [at the DFS Classic in Edgbaston] with Cara Black, said that she was expecting to partner Jamie Murray in the mixed doubles at Wimbledon after Jelena Jankovic, from Serbia, revealed that she was not prepared to risk her fitness to defend the title with Murray. Huber, the 31-year-old who was born in South Africa, but is now a United States citizen, teamed up with Murray to reach the semi-finals at last year's US Open. "I assumed we'd play the whole year because you need to build up a relationship and grass is a good surface for us, but I expect more from him than what he's achieved," she said. "We can win Wimbledon, but we'll have to work hard for every match. Some of his winners are incredible and he has a great serve, although he can be a bit too nice with the lady on the other side - he needs to crush them."

* A fearsome opponent! biggrin Let's hope they can "win Wimbledon"!

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Murray and Mirnyi win the first set 7-6(7), and save 3 set points to do so at 6-4 and 7-6.