Week 19 - ATP Masters 1000 - Mutua Madrileña Open - Madrid, Spain (clay)

Jan · Hall of fame

RE: Week 19 - ATP Masters 1000 - Mutua Madrileña Open - Madrid, Spain (clay)

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

Kedders backhand looked wooden tonight, just didn't switch it on and he then started running round his fearhand again.
The ball didn't half kick up off this surface though, I think was the issue for him at times. In the end, Shappers just had all the variety he needed to fox kedders. A fine performance by him without too much trouble in the end. A bit disappointing that.

indiana · Tennis legend

Pity but a very good tournament for Kyle overall.

Meantime Fed overtakes Rafa by a fair distance in the rankings with Rafa far from defending his title points from last year and Fed continuing to hold rock solid to his clay form of last year

Rafa needs to win the Rome title ( ie reverse Madrid by replacing a QF with the title ) to get back ahead of Fed and then retain his French Open title.

Priesty · Challenger level

Smudge226 wrote:
Kedders backhand looked wooden tonight, just didn't switch it on and he then started running round his fearhand again.
The ball didn't half kick up off this surface though, I think was the issue for him at times. In the end, Shappers just had all the variety he needed to fox kedders. A fine performance by him without too much trouble in the end. A bit disappointing that.

Serving a bit disappointing too I thought. But on the whole as had been said a good week.

JonH · All-time great

I'll do a Vandy here - as 1985 Queens was to Boris Becker and springing him as a Wimbledon contender, indeed he won that same year, 2018 Madrid may well be the same for Shapovalov. he may not win this week but he has shown for a 19 year old, he has real game and can play on different surfaces. My BOLD (see what I did there) prediction is that Shapo will win a slam by end of 2019, 7 attempts to do it, reckon he will.

And a future top 3 or 4 player for sure.

indiana · Tennis legend

Good tournament all round for the younger and indeed much younger brigade and with what Tsitsipas has been doing of late.

I have thought there some false alleged fresh dawns for a true new wave but I wonder now. Rome, the French Open and the grass court season to come seem that bit more interesting to see how they follow up.

Sheddie · administrator

Currently watching Zverev-Shapovalov. The German playing some brutally efficient tennis to take the first set. Even though it's clay, it's actually the Zverev serve which is the massive difference between the two players - at 6'6, he's able to get so much more purchase off it, and while Shapovalov was able to get into a fair few rallies in Kyle's service games, he barely gets a look in against Zverev. Virtually every Zverev service point is either a service winner, or a clumping winner on the second shot.

Zverev's enormous reach on the return also really helping him negate the massive angles Shapovalov is able to get on his serve

flamingowings · All-time great

Shappo is now getting absolutely hammered by Zverev, 6-4, 4-0 down.

JonH · All-time great

Just to add zverev went on and took the title today 6-4 6-4. Well done to him.

TMH · Futures qualifying

It's definitely the dawn of a new era. It will be interesting to see if Djoko and Murray can get back to their best / contending for slams / #1, and it will be interesting to see how many of Wawrinka, Raonic, Nishikori, etc get back to top 5 levels. And then there's DelPo too. But these youngsters have been making names for themselves for a while now and they seem ready to really go big this year.

Zverev, Shapovalov, Chung, Rublev, Khachanov, Coric (although he seems to have really stalled this last year or two), Tsitsipas, de Minaur, Ruud, Augur-Aliassime... plus the American contingent of Donaldson, Tiafoe, Fritz, Mmoh... sure, some of these guys will fall away, some will be nearly men, but we're looking at the future of tennis here. And that's before you even take into account the veterans of Thiem, Kyrgios, Edmund, Sock, Dimitrov, Schwartzman and Pouille - who are all in the top 25 before the age of 25 (bar Dimitrov who is 26). You get the feeling the latter bunch will be the new Berdych's, Tsonga's, Ferrer's of the tennis world - the top 10/20 contenders but never really good enough to compete consistently with the very best.

We've been seeing stats about the average age of the top 10, 20, 50, 100 for years now, and how it continues to rise as the same old players stay in broadly the same old positions, but that trend is finally reversing. I think we're seeing one of the big shifts in the sport. It will certainly be fascinating watching this new crop battling against the aged veterans of the previous top 4/5 (if they can ever get back to full fitness...). I, for one, am very much hoping we get to see it before the big guns hang up their racquets for good.

TMH · Futures qualifying

On a side note re Zverev - I remember a video clip on the ATP website, about seven years ago on his brother Mischa, talking about his return from a very long injury lay-off and his hopes of returning to the top 100/50. Alex (then Sascha) was also in it, and they talked about just how promising this kid was and their strong tennis roots. Now still only 21, he is #3 in the world and less than 3,000 points off the #1, and has already won a couple of Masters. Very much following the career trajectories of Djokovic and Murray who also reached #3 and were winning Masters tournaments at a similar age.

Found the clip! Well worth a watch.

www.youtube.com/watch