Week 31 - ATP Masters - Cincinnati

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

RE: Week 31 - ATP Masters - Cincinnati

S&V · Club Coach

Gasquet just got lucky when Llodra retired.

indiana · Tennis legend

Unless Roddick has recently been renamed as Woong-Sun Jun, it would appear that he has pulled out. Anyway, that's who Kohlschreiber is playing. I'm sure the Tuesday night Cincinnati crowd are enjoying this star attraction

Pity that

since with Washington last year and last year's Canada and Cincinnati Masters, he has 400 ranking points coming off over the next 3 weeks, and as things stand only 60 points to replace them with. So, would seem to be a sitting duck for Andy Murray overtaking him in the rankings.

I know he's not going to the Olympics. so I wonder what his other plans are over the next few weeks ?

-- Edited by indiana at 00:58, 2008-07-30

steven · Tennis legend

He's trying to defend his title in Washington during the Olympics, though if his shoulder is still playing up, who knows.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, it looks as if he must have a real problem with his shoulder or something else.

It's not like him to miss a tournament in the English speaking world !

S&V · Club Coach

I assumed Roddick became a moonie, too bad.

steven · Tennis legend

He says he crashed after a hard day, fell asleep with the light on and woke up with a crick in his neck that wouldn't go away. So that even happens to top tennis players, does it?

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

If you think about it too much, the fact that Karlovic has just beaten Federer, starts to look like bad news rather than good. Not at that stage yet but he'd be a horrible opponent in a Masters semi-final.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

My thoughts exactly. Andy leads the H2H 2-0 but they were both very close matches. I would probably have taken Andy to beat Fed in his present form, but Ivo on these fast courts is a menace to break - it would only need Andy to throw in one of his poor service games per set and goodbye.

Drew · Jul 31, 2008

Rather Ivo in than Fed imo.
Getting to the final is a reality now.

indiana · Tennis legend

I would have liked to see Andy pitted against Federer in the semi-finals.

However, even allowing for Federe's current form and the fact that those do appear really fast courts, which obviously suits Karlovic, if we are looiking for Andy to reach the final here, I prefer Karlovic ( or Kohlschreiber smile ) to Federer.

You tend to know what you are going to get from Karlovic, even at his best, whereas if things were suddenly to click again for Federer, he would be so much more of a problem.

Also, yes matches with Karlovic have been close, but I do think Andy matches up well to a big server like that.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Karlovic will always be a more preferable opponent to Federer, even with him in such dire form at the moment, because Federer is just a better player.

Murray's already beaten Karlovic on fast courts in San Jose, and although if Murray throws in a bad service game he may get broken, if Karlovic has a poor service game, Murray could easily hit 4 solid returns and that would be the break.

Matches with Karlovic are always close because he is so difficult to break, but he's a notorious choker and doesn't actually have a great tiebreak record, so if Murray can get to a tiebreak, then all you need is for Karlovic to serve 2 or 3 second serves, and you'll win it.

(This is presuming Karlovic beats Kohlschrieber and Murray beats Andreev/Moya)

indiana · Tennis legend

Anyway, guess this time, we can't really complain about Andy being in the wrong half of the draw and / or draws not opening up for him.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

It's Moya for Murray, who beats Andreev 6-4, 7-6(2).

Incredibly brainless TB from Andreev, double faulting twice to gift it to Moya really.

indiana · Tennis legend

I didn't see the match, although I saw some of the earlier match against Djokovic.

Really good effort for Moya to win 2 matches, either side of Andy's match. Even better if he'd won in 3 sets smile

OK, Moya followed by Karlovic or Kohlschreiber to reach a Masters Series final. Your time has come, Andy !

-- Edited by indiana at 23:01, 2008-07-31