Week 32 - Olympic Tennis Competition - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Hard

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 32 - Olympic Tennis Competition - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Hard

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

QF: (4) Rohan Bopanna & Sania Mirza (IND) CR 16 (15+1) defeated (ALT) Andy Murray & Heather Watson CR 68 (2+66) by 4 & 4

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Congrats to Marc Lopez and Rafa on their gold medal. And to Spain.

Marc seems a truly nice guy and Rafa is a legend, really, coming here, and as he says:

"Win a gold medal today after two months and a half with no practice, with no preparation at all, just working on the gym, is something that is a dream, no? The moment was unbelievable, and we had fun. We fight hard. The only thing that we can say is that we are very, very happy."

Spectator · All-time great

Probably not a bad thing: Mr Murray gets to focus on a singles medal round in which he will have to play either Nishikori/Nadal or Nishikori/Del Potro in succession; Ms Watson has had her shot; no one was embarrassed; and Mirza and Bopanna, each of whom should be an excellent candidate for a doubles medal of some sort and both of whom have had their difficulties finding partners through no fault of their own, are on course for the medal round.

This Olympics is turning out a fine one in many ways*: the men's singles medal round is all one could have hoped for (unless one is a Djokovic fan); the men's doubles produced a surprise-that-isn't-a-surprise gold, a suprise-only-because-they-were-the favourites silver, a goodness-you-finished-the-singles-and-still-won bronze, and a yes-its-my-umpteenth-Olympics-but-I-can-still-win fourth (sorry for Nestor/Pospisil, though. Such a rough place to be, fourth). There's a Cinderella going to the ball in the women's singles together with a yes-I-really-am-number-two finalist, well deserved pairs across the board in the women's doubles, and some lovely mixed doubles combinations.

*except for the French. Not only were the matches lost hard, but huge sympathy to them for the loss of their colleague (the team's physiotherapist - and sympathy to his family), which puts all the other losses in perspective, and must be devastating.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

SF: (2) Andy Murray WR 2 defeated (4) Kei Nishikori (JPN) WR 7 by 1 & 4

The match to decide Andy's opponent in the final has yet to be played.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Andy

SPOTY again

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Not sure if Andy was seriously impressive or if Nishikori was plain awful. Certainly the game in the 2nd set in which Nishikori lost his serve was astonishingly bad, finishing with a drop shot into the net with Murray 6 ft off the court. I expected Nishikori to be a tough opponent on this surface.

Sim · County player

kundalini wrote:
Not sure if Andy was seriously impressive or if Nishikori was plain awful. Certainly the game in the 2nd set in which Nishikori lost his serve was astonishingly bad, finishing with a drop shot into the net with Murray 6 ft off the court. I expected Nishikori to be a tough opponent on this surface.

I only saw the second set but thought it was a combination of Andy playing well and Nishikori poorly. Agree Nishikori was awful for the game when broken. The penultimate point of the match was a bit special.

Andy has now won 3 Olympic medals to go with his 3 grand slams. Not half bad!

Sim · County player

Del Porto takes Nadal into a third set 5-7 6-4. Will be well over 2 hours duration....

Spectator · All-time great

And Del Potro has broken Nadal at 4-4. Serving for the match ...

And broken. 5-5. The whole 'warriors' trope is often overused, but these two truly are.

-- Edited by Spectator on Saturday 13th of August 2016 08:12:30 PM

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

JMdP eventually takes the other semi-final in three after a protracted encounter, so:

Final: (PR) Juan Martín del Potro (ARG) WR 141 (CH = 4 in January 2010) vs (2) Andy Murray WR 2

The head-to-head is 5-2 in Andy's favour. They last met in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells (hard) in 2013, when JMdP won in three. Before that in the WTF (hard) in 2009, when Andy won in three!

savva0122 · Intermediate Club Player

Watched most of the Rafa/Delpo match, truly epic. Honestly thought Nadal's strength of character would see him though, but what a fairytale for Delpo and I'm genuinely pleased for him. Not that pleased, though, that I want him to win tomorrow...

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Have to think that best of 5 sets suits Andy. DelPo has had so little tennis recently that his match fitness levels can't be where he would like them to be and I am sure that SF took it out of him both physically and emotionally.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
L16: Jack Sock & Bethanie Mattek-Sands (USA) CR 34 (24+10) defeated Jamie Murray & Johanna Konta CR 17 (4+13) by 4 & 3

So, they lost to the eventual gold medallists. Could've been worse.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

And Nishikori beat Rafa in three (6-2 6-7(1) 6-3) to take the bronze medal in the singles.