Meanwhile somewhat off-piste but in the men's singles I'm flicking to livescores every so often and the Nadal match is barely moving......everything is SOOO SLOOOWWWW. the following match started a full 15-20 minutes later yet they have already played 13 games and a full TB to just 13 games for the Nadal match. It's painful - they tried to stop him doing this - but he's now if anything worse than ever before.
QF: Colin Fleming & Jonny Marray lost to Max Mirnyi & Horia Tecau (BLR/ROU) 4-6 6-7(3)
Not a bad result, of course, becuase the other pair are also good. But a little disappointing especially as the boys led 5-2 in the second set. Colin and Jonny haven't really set the world alight as a doubles pairing so far - Some good wins for sure, but lots of losses in tight matches - perhaps they don;t have that intangible "chemistry" or "sixth sense" together in tight situations.
Is Ross likely to return the tour next year???? If so, I'd have thought Colin would have been keen to team up with him but, if that was to happen, what about Jonny?
And, in my opinion, therein lies the reason Colin and Jonny don't "set the world alight" as a pair, they both know it's a short term thing and I would imagine as a result neither is putting in 100% to gel. I'm not saying its conscious at all in fact I suspect it isn't.
I guess some of you might tell me this is silly and plenty of doubles players do well in short term partnerships but as I see it to really get long term sustained success players commit to a partnership permanently, whether it ends up lasting 6 months or 6 years. Those who move around and chop and change might have the odd couple of very good tournaments, even enough to get them high in the rankings but they won't be there consistently in the way the others are.
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To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty