Weeks 3-4 - Australian Open 2016 (Men's - Non Andy)

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

RE: Weeks 3-4 - Australian Open 2016 (Men's - Non Andy)

theemptyvessel · Club Coach

I think john has caught Aljaz mostly on his bad days, he is certainly no better or worse than a number of other top 50 players and provided he has no more injuries should stay there for a while. Whilst he has no major weapons he does usually have a reliable serve, good defense, a good forehand and plenty of athleticism on court to keep him in points.

The closest comparison in style I can think of is Roberto Batista Agut who is a consistent top 30 player and someone that Aljaz beat twice last year along with wins over Lopez, Simon, etc. The main thing is that Aljaz is very much a clay courter and I am expecting good things during the clay court season for him starting with the Golden swing. If Victor Estrella Burgos can win an ATP event then Aljaz should not struggle now he has the ranking for direct entry and maybe even to be seeded for the smaller tournaments. In terms of the majors I doubt we will see Aljaz make much of an impact outside of Roland Garros and so with his current ranking the immediate aim has to be to grab as many points as he can from the early clay season and hope he can push on enough to sneak into the seeded spots in France.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I think things panned out much as expected.

Empty vessel is spot on re Aljaz's strengths and weaknesses. He isn't going to pull up trees at Hard or grass court GS,

Kyle will run out of steam for the time being but if he can address his issues with stamina can do seroius damage.

Dan although close to his best needs a favourable draw to make any progress beyond the first round but with regular qualification will get them.

And the second week is all about Andy and he's likely to take us deep. Only if you are Swiss or Serbian can you have similar expectations to the worlds number one ranked men's tennis nation and DC holders (by the way that's us!)

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Tuesday 19th of January 2016 05:05:52 PM

RJA · Hall of fame

I thought that it was a rotten draw for Evo as unless Lopez had a bad serving day I never expected Evo to have many break opportunities. With Evo's own serve being a weak part of his game I always work on him having to break a couple of times to win a set when he is playing good opposition.

Kyle's result was much more disappointing as it was the kind of draw you don't get too often in a Slam. The concerning part over his fitness is not that he failed to last a 5 set match in tough conditions but that he was in trouble physically at such an early stage. He really needs to fix the problem ASAP because once you get a reputation for a lack of stamina opponents are much more likely to dig in even if they are two sets down.

RJA · Hall of fame

stevemcqueen wrote:
Thanks for your comments, Constant. It is a shame Dan got so badly thumped, but he has still had a good tournament, beating the world ranked 105, 207 and 132 in qualies. I wonder whether he will come home before travelling to Dallas for the $100k event at the start of next month. Dallas would be much warmer and better for training!

Dallas is an indoor event so it won't make much difference with regard to training.

thejester · Satellite level

RJA wrote:
stevemcqueen wrote:
Thanks for your comments, Constant. It is a shame Dan got so badly thumped, but he has still had a good tournament, beating the world ranked 105, 207 and 132 in qualies. I wonder whether he will come home before travelling to Dallas for the $100k event at the start of next month. Dallas would be much warmer and better for training!
Dallas is an indoor event so it won't make much difference with regard to training.

I'm guessing it was more of a general point re: warm weather training. Though I'd expect Dan to head back to the UK anyway. With a favourable enough draw I fancy Dan to do well indoors in Dallas

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Chris Goldsmith ‏@TheTennisTalker 4h4 hours ago

A huge 30% of the current ATP top 200 are aged 30 years+, that's a massive 60 players.. @Tennis

Special mention to Stepanek (age 37 1/2!) and Robert (age 35 1/2), not to mention Lopez, Hewitt, Mahut, Robredo, Rog, and any other 34+ guy I've missed who's made the second round in Australia

john · Top national player

theemptyvessel wrote:
I think john has caught Aljaz mostly on his bad days, he is certainly no better or worse than a number of other top 50 players and provided he has no more injuries should stay there for a while. Whilst he has no major weapons he does usually have a reliable serve, good defense, a good forehand and plenty of athleticism on court to keep him in points.

The closest comparison in style I can think of is Roberto Batista Agut who is a consistent top 30 player and someone that Aljaz beat twice last year along with wins over Lopez, Simon, etc. The main thing is that Aljaz is very much a clay courter and I am expecting good things during the clay court season for him starting with the Golden swing. If Victor Estrella Burgos can win an ATP event then Aljaz should not struggle now he has the ranking for direct entry and maybe even to be seeded for the smaller tournaments. In terms of the majors I doubt we will see Aljaz make much of an impact outside of Roland Garros and so with his current ranking the immediate aim has to be to grab as many points as he can from the early clay season and hope he can push on enough to sneak into the seeded spots in France.

This is possible/likely. I must admit it's only been half a dozen or so times I've watched him. Just my observations on those occassions.

Last night, even when he was keeping the ball in court he was rarely deeper than service box length. No depth, no power and lots of unforced errors on "nothing" shots.

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Coup Droit wrote:

Chris Goldsmith ‏@TheTennisTalker 4h4 hours ago

A huge 30% of the current ATP top 200 are aged 30 years+, that's a massive 60 players.. @Tennis

Special mention to Stepanek (age 37 1/2!) and Robert (age 35 1/2), not to mention Lopez, Hewitt, Mahut, Robredo, Rog, and any other 34+ guy I've missed who's made the second round in Australia

This stat seemed unlikely, so I checked! The rankings page of the ATP website allows sorting by age, so it is very easy to analyse. In the top 100, there are 34 players aged 30 or over! I think a far more interesting stat would be how this has changed over the years. This doesn't seem to be possible, the ATP site only lists recent week's rankings. The SteveGtennis.com website (which I used to look at regularly) has rankings info dating back decades, but it does not list age. This data obviously exists though. Given unlimited time, it would be interesting to see how age affects performance in other sports as well....

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Er, his stat is for top 200, not top 100.

So if there's 34 in the top 100, then probably 60 in the top 200 makes sense.

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Yeah, I was just chuckling at how wrong I was!

christ · Futures level

There are some interesting (and nearly relevant) tables at tennisabstract.com/reports/rankingsByAge.html

-- Edited by christ on Wednesday 20th of January 2016 03:28:08 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

stevemcqueen wrote:
Yeah, I was just chuckling at how wrong I was!

smile smile smile

been there, done it !

insomniacfolder · Challenger level

Great result for Gordon Reid in the wheelchair singles.
He defeated #1 seed Shingo Kunieda 6-3 7-6(1)
Kuneida had won 7 of the last 8 Australian Opens, in both singles and doubles. 14 titles out of the last 16. Oh, the two he didn't win, he didn't enter in 2012!
But, he won't be adding to the haul this year

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Big shout out this time for Gordon Reid, who has just become a Grand Slam Champion for the first time.

Absolutely deserves one of these

Hopefully he has set a trend for this weekend in Australia.