Week 15 - Qatar F2 ($10,000) - Doha (Hard)

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

RE: Week 15 - Qatar F2 ($10,000) - Doha (Hard)

indiana · Tennis legend

It's probably for the best that I'm not really on twitter these days. I can be quite a passionate keyboard warrior ( me really fight ? - never ! ), and it looks as if these guys might drive me nuts.

Anyway, hard luck Liam, but good to see clearly better form.

steven · Tennis legend

D'oh! disbelief I knew I was going to have to dash as soon as the match ended so I'd got both versions prepared at 5-5 ... it then went into a tiebreak and I had to leave. Got back, pulled out the info for the Final, thought nobody's posted the full SF results so I might as well add them, and copied in the wrong ones - not to mention that the Bossel-winning version said 7-5 in the 3rd as well, so even that would have been wrong.

Now corrected above ... and gave you all a good laugh into the bargain - what more can you ask for wink (though apologies if anyone came to it late and did think Liam had won, though the Golding v Bossel final listed below it should have rung alarm bells in that case!)

To think that the reason for doing it in the first place was to make sure I didn't get the tweet wrong ... (though I didn't get that wrong, so in one sense it worked!)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Luke and Antoine lost their doubles final 6-4 6-3

NB by my reckoning, Oliver is up to about WR 336 now, and 320 if he wins

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Friday 11th of April 2014 09:11:49 PM

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

What's the link for the stream? If there is one for the final? And what time is it on?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Mervatron wrote:
What's the link for the stream? If there is one for the final? And what time is it on?

here it is:

http://www.youtennis.tv/LiveTV?Area=

they're just warming up now

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

and Golding breaks :)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Some poor serving getting Oli into trouble., 4-4

korriban · Challenger level

Set lost 4-6. Horrible, horrible service game. Terrible serving for the last 2 or 3 service games actually, and exceptionally passive in his intent, but very aggressive in his demeanour outside the rallies - more thrown/broken rackets and screaming/swearing.

I'm very much warming to the Oli story, but this is a bit of a throw back performance today.

Hopefully the rest of the match will be different. Come on!!!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

And more poorer serving gets him into worse trouble.

4-6 to Bossel.

Close though, and Oli arguably better from the back of the court.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

korriban wrote:
Set lost 4-6. Horrible, horrible service game. Terrible serving for the last 2 or 3 service games actually, and exceptionally passive in his intent, but very aggressive in his demeanour outside the rallies - more thrown/broken rackets and screaming/swearing.
I'm very much warming to the Oli story, but this is a bit of a throw back performance today.
Hopefully the rest of the match will be different. Come on!!!

We're certainly watching the same match ! cry

His top-spin second serve has deserted him completely. The misses are getting more and more ridiculous. So he's now trying to hit a flat second serve. But that's more prone to fault in the normal way of things. AND he's allowing it to completely get to him (which is not that surprising).

korriban · Challenger level

When Oli hits side to side he generally wins the points, when he hits down the middle it is invariably short and loopy and he loses the point as Bossel cleans up for winners. Combined with very very poor serving, this is a baffling performance. Bossel isn't even having to play well - just wait for short balls up the centre and wallop them! I don't get it, as Oli looks like far the better player, but he's just not playing.....

And with no notice, and without any obvious signs of a problem at all, no trainer, no visible issues, a retirement!?

Hmm. Well perhaps he was hampered, but if he was, it wasn't something that looked at all apparent from the rallies at all. Benefit of the doubt......?

-- Edited by korriban on Saturday 12th of April 2014 03:28:00 PM

-- Edited by korriban on Saturday 12th of April 2014 03:30:48 PM

steven · Tennis legend

Oli: "Struggled to get to grips with the wind today, pretty pathetic match to be honest."

So what actually happened, korriban/CD? I went to sort something out and came back expecting to catch the latter stages of the 2nd set and hopefully a 3rd, but the stream had vanished and he doesn't mention an injury in his tweet.

korriban · Challenger level

steven wrote:
Oli: "Struggled to get to grips with the wind today, pretty pathetic match to be honest."

So what actually happened, korriban/CD? I went to sort something out and came back expecting to catch the latter stages of the 2nd set and hopefully a 3rd, but the stream had vanished and he doesn't mention an injury in his tweet.

Well I assumed an injury. I was watching the beginnings of the second set. Bossel served the first game which went to a few deuces. Oli managed to drop his serve straight away playing very poor stuff....Bossel was serving, I flicked over to check the footy scores, and then the next thing when I flicked back the stream had finished and the trophies were on the court. Perhaps it was all delayed, with problems in transmission......I assumed it must have been a retirement by Oli, but maybe it was a simple technical glitch on the live stream

Was WAS fact, was that Oli played terribly - I found the stream at 4-4 first set and Oli lost all 4 games I watched before the "break". And he looked the better play, the better ball striker, the better mover, but simply couldn't serve properly at all......some of his efforts as CD said were missing by 15-20 feet, one serve to the deuce court landed 10 feet inside the Ad court service box about half way between the net and the service line. Furthermore he was looping his forehand returns and many of his FH groundstrokes straight down the middle half way up the court, with Bossel able to pick his spot......it wasn't pretty.

I agree with the second part of Oli's tweet from what I saw.....Oli doesn't seem to have a plan B at times when things are against him......anyway, a $10k Final isn't too bad, but probably not where Oli wanted to be at this point. Good luck to him for next week

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Oli: "Struggled to get to grips with the wind today, pretty pathetic match to be honest."

So what actually happened, korriban/CD? I went to sort something out and came back expecting to catch the latter stages of the 2nd set and hopefully a 3rd, but the stream had vanished and he doesn't mention an injury in his tweet.

Well, I saw zero sign of an injury. He doubled over a couple of times but that was just because Bossel's only real claim to fame were some absolutely sweet drop shots and drop volleys, and Oli ran as best he could but was a little flat-footed getting going and ended up a touch out of breath. No sign of any injury as such (no holding his back, no being hampered in his ground shots). And, yes, the wind might have been a factor - Oli hits quite a rounded ball so the wind can take it - but I didn't really notice the wind, and it didn't seem a problem in the rallies. It's true that when he hit the ball a bit short, Bossell punished it but, hey, that's tennis . ..

My summary would be that Golding was slightly better from the back of the court, Bossel made a surprising number of unforced errors and only really had a bit of lefty-ness going in his favour (and his drop shots).

But Oliver's second serve completely deserted him. Now more pressure of the first one. So tries to just get it in. But Bossel did well punishing those short ones. So Oli knows he has to go for more on his second serve. And carries on missing. And it's a bit of a downward spiral. Because Oli got frustrated (quite rightly), Bossell was obviously beginning to enjoy himself etc. etc.

I reckon he should just put it behind him. It's a shame he didn;t manage to make the second set last longer and play himself back into it. But it was still pretty good overall.

NB my stream stayed up to the end - definitely no retirement - though the score was lost from ITF and Bet365. So maybe some glitches some where.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 12th of April 2014 04:17:55 PM