Week 2 - Australian Open men's qualifying - Hard

philwrig · Hall of fame

RE: Week 2 - Australian Open men's qualifying - Hard

indiana · Tennis legend

Oh, decent opponent, but no mitigating circumstances that I can see for downing tools, if that's what happened, as he so often used to do in futures.

SMC1809 · All-time great

Yes, there's definitely no excuse for doing something you might not have done.

indiana · Tennis legend

..or indeed, for some, casting any carefully worded possible aspersions about certain players :)

steven · Tennis legend

SMC1809 wrote:
Yes, there's definitely no excuse for doing something you might not have done.

biggrin

RJA · Hall of fame

Obviously a very disappointing result but as I have already said I expect a mixed bag from Dan this year so results like this aren't that surprising especially against a player of Fucsovics potential. Concerning though that by all accounts he didn't put up any real fight in the second set.

Miriambee · Futures level

I wonder if he was unwell. he normally performs well on the big stage.

Ratty · County player

Here's a thought. Maybe Dan Evans is just being, well ... Dan Evans.

And maybe that 6-week streak of success in July & August 2013 was just, well ... a lucky streak, and not the herald of a new dawn.

Time will tell.

indiana · Tennis legend

And it was maybe our total imagination that we saw Evo playing really well in that period, playing consistently to a new level that he had just shown in flashes before. Or maybe not !

You don't play like that by luck, you play like that by having the ability to play like that.

Yes, he may really fall back again, and yes here I do agree that that would unfortunately be possibly more to do with matters about Dan other than his intrinsic tennis abilty.

I do have certain doubts, but I better not even hint much more about those again before I get divebombed on ! I really do hope my doubts are unfounded and that he has a great year.

Ratty · County player

indiana wrote:

You don't play like that by luck, you play like that by having the ability to play like that.

Yes, of course you are right. I would never win a single game against a pro tennis player, no matter how lucky I got.

But the role of luck in sporting success is usually underestimated. Here's a couple of quotes from the Nobel Prize winning behavioural psychologist Daniel Kahnemann:

Success = talent + luck; great success = a little more talent + a lot more luck

and:

Regression effects are ubiquitous, and so are misguided causal effects to explain them. A well-known example is the "Sports Illustrated jinx", the claim that an athlete whose picture appears on the cover of the magazine is doomed to perform poorly the following season. Overconfidence and the pressure of meeting high expectations are often offered as explanations. But there is a simpler account of the jinx: an athlete who gets to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated must have performed exceptionally well in the preceding season, probably with the assistance of a nudge from luck - and luck is fickle.

Priesty · Challenger level

Had Fucsovics gone on to qualify it may have been possible to forgive Evo a little, but in actual fact he lost in the FQR to a 27-year-old ranked 268.......

Oli's rival from junior days Thiem has also made the main draw.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I don't think '27 year-old' is a pejorative term (quite the opposite maybe) but i agree that Dan Evans' had nothing to fear in his draw and it's a missed opportunity.

The US did well getting three men through, (2 each for the Germans and French).

Young Dzumhur carried on his run of form after beating Brown and didn't drop a set.

Berrer must be the oldest guy (unless I've missed someone) at age 33, Thiem the youngest at 20.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 11th of January 2014 09:49:30 AM

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 11th of January 2014 09:49:51 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

In fact, maybe we should just giving a passing congratulations to Dan Cox who, at least, was the only one of the three to have lost to a guy who went on to actually qualify (and qualify easily - only losing 5 games, 4 games and 6 games respectively in each round).

RJA · Hall of fame

Although Fucsovics seems to have thrown away victory in the final qualifying round losing 9 of the last 10 games after having led 6-3, *4-2

It is made all the worse for Fucsovics, and arguably Evo as well, that the beneficiary, Vincent Millot, gets fellow qualifier Wayne Odesnik in the first round of the main draw.

indiana · Tennis legend

i think I'll pass on giving Dan Cox "congratulations", but yes does put what appeared at the time a not indecent effort into further context.