Grachka wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Did Kyrgios just wee in a bottle at courtside ? Pat Cash said hes taking a break and the camera cut awa
To the London skyline and they made a few jokey comments ?

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 I think they were joking about him taking a break from moaning to the umpire on the changeover

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 Ok, phew. It was the cut away that made me wonder ! 

Well, that was fun :)

In the last 16, there's one qualifier and one wildcard. 10 seeded players.

A far better geographic spread that in the women - half are non-European in the men's

On a country basis, the USA are very strong, in terms of depth of players at last-16 level, with Australia performing far better on a per capita basis

4 - USA
3 - Australia
2 - Spain
2 - Netherlands
1 - GB
1 - Belgium
1 - Italy
1 - Serbia
1 - Chile

There's a far wider age range that in the women's too - two age 35+ (Nadal at 36 and Djoko at 35)
And a strong presence at the lower end - Alcaraz age 19, Sinner and Nakashima age 20
Average age: 26

(No decent doubles player at all - unlike the women)

indiana wrote:

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Thanks, CD. Strikes me as truly rolling back the years with that combined USA / Australia presence in the L16?

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 Great to see - add in GB and you have 8 from the old traditional nations. 

Folks may have spotted John Isner took the record yesterday for most career aces served .

It made me look at his record and two things struck me. First was how the Atlanta and Newport events have become pretty much his own personal domain these past years. Atlanta has some of the speediest courts around and I noticed Jack D, Liam and Ryan all have this on their planned schedule, as does Andy.

More interesting though - Isner has a better record at Roland Garros than Wimbledon. His win loss percentage there , in as many appearances , is superior by some way. 63 percent in Paris versus 58 percent at Wimbledon. Take out his Wimbledon semi and youd have an even bigger difference . At Masters level , IW and Miami are his best events with Madrid, on clay, albeit it at altitude , being his next best.

Quite surprised me really

JonH comes home wrote:

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indiana wrote:

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Thanks, CD. Strikes me as truly rolling back the years with that combined USA / Australia presence in the L16?

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 Great to see - add in GB and you have 8 from the old traditional nations. 

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 Really? I get the nostalgia thing but personally I'd love a bit of diversity. It would be nice for me to have some players from Africa and Asia in the mix and we've had some wonderful South American and French players in the past, for instance that add something different. It's one of the reasons I love the football World Cup when it takes place in Rio or Cape Town, it's a more cosmopolitan vibe that adds to the excitement (although not Qatar so much for political reasons!). I can understand why there are so many US players though as they have so many advantages in terms of weather, training opportunities rtunitie, tournaments offered all year round etc. but I don't think that's a good thing for the sport overall. 

The thing that jumped out at me from the geographic make up of the last 16 of men and women was that there were no Chinese players.

Personally, since the Peng incident, I was quite pleased (on a country level). But - more generally - I would have liked to see some Chinese representation, and - yes - other Asian players.

I have less problem with little South American presence (although Garin is there this time) because they are usually more present at Roland Garros and that's a surface issue.

I have a horror at the thought of a Commonwealth event - to be avoided at all costs, I would say.

But I'm happy seeing more US and more Aussie presence again - it had got down to very little - and the absolute worst scenario for tennis, I think, is when it's just all European (as it pretty much often is, especially in the women's) with high numbers of Eastern European women - it becomes too generic, overall.