Mutua Madrid Open 2017 Clay Masters

DarthFed

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El Dude said:
Before herios jumps in to remind us, Thiem - at 23 years old - is hardly a "prospect." I know it is 2017 and players MIGHT be peaking later, but I think Thiem is about as good as he will ever be. There might be micro-changes, but I don't see a major breakthrough coming. But as I've said before, the difference between him and say Tsonga/Berdych is that he'll have more chances with an aging Big Four. Poor Jo-Wilie and Berdy saw their primes completely overlapped by the Big Four. A very unfortunate time to peak.

I'm reminded of poor Guillermo Coria, who was primed to go on a Kuerten-like run as the new clay maestro before a certain young punk from Mallorca showed up. The true greats find a way to win, but the lesser and near greats, and very good players, need help from Lady Luck to get their big titles, and we'll know what a capricious one she is.

I'm not high on Thiem either but I'm not sure I'd say he won't get quite a bit better. But the problem is he isn't nearly good enough now and if Zverev reaches full potential and you have a couple more standouts break onto the scene he won't be good enough in the future. With that said he is going to be at worst the 3rd favorite at RG behind Nadal and Roger if Fed plays. Yes there is no way I'd include Djoker or Murray ahead of Thiem on clay at this moment as crazy as that sounds.
 

Kieran

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El Dude said:
Before herios jumps in to remind us, Thiem - at 23 years old - is hardly a "prospect." I know it is 2017 and players MIGHT be peaking later, but I think Thiem is about as good as he will ever be. There might be micro-changes, but I don't see a major breakthrough coming. But as I've said before, the difference between him and say Tsonga/Berdych is that he'll have more chances with an aging Big Four. Poor Jo-Wilie and Berdy saw their primes completely overlapped by the Big Four. A very unfortunate time to peak.

I'm reminded of poor Guillermo Coria, who was primed to go on a Kuerten-like run as the new clay maestro before a certain young punk from Mallorca showed up. The true greats find a way to win, but the lesser and near greats, and very good players, need help from Lady Luck to get their big titles, and we'll know what a capricious one she is.

Yeah, I kind of agree. I don't buy the late-peak theory, by the way, because so many of these youngsters don't lack physically - they lack something between the ears. And although that's something they can learn, it's also something that many young great players of the past had down pat from the off, more or less. So it's not recent. Thiem at 23 is now on the cusp of tennis middle-age. He has this season to make some big mark in the sport, or he's no longer a prospect, he's heading into Missing Link territory...
 

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It's just gone 11pm in Madrid - and it's 2-all... :cover
 

El Dude

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DarthFed said:
I'm not high on Thiem either but I'm not sure I'd say he won't get quite a bit better. But the problem is he isn't nearly good enough now and if Zverev reaches full potential and you have a couple more standouts break onto the scene he won't be good enough in the future. With that said he is going to be at worst the 3rd favorite at RG behind Nadal and Roger if Fed plays. Yes there is no way I'd include Djoker or Murray ahead of Thiem on clay at this moment as crazy as that sounds.

I agree that Thiem will improve, but the question is how much: I don't think it will be that much, although possibly enough to win a Slam or two as the Big Four fade.

I'm also inclined to agree that he's probably third favorite behind Rafa and Roger at RG. That doesn't speak well for the current state of the tour, however.

Kieran said:
Yeah, I kind of agree. I don't buy the late-peak theory, by the way, because so many of these youngsters don't lack physically - they lack something between the ears. And although that's something they can learn, it's also something that many young great players of the past had down pat from the off, more or less. So it's not recent. Thiem at 23 is now on the cusp of tennis middle-age. He has this season to make some big mark in the sport, or he's no longer a prospect, he's heading into Missing Link territory...

When we talk about young players, we're now looking at two generations, with a third teasing at the edges (Aliassime, in particular). Unless something radical changes, the 89-93 group looks to be the worst in Open Era history, or at least since Ashe's group (39-43), especially if we narrow both to four years and take out Thiem (93) and Ashe (43) and add them to the later generations. I suspect "NextGen" (94-98ish) will be a bit similar to that very interesting generation of talented underachievers born between Sampras/Agassi and Federer: Kuerten, Moya, Rios, Kafelnikov, Corretja, Enqvist, Medvedev, etc. Lots of very good players, but no truly great ones. It is important to remember that Kuerten, born in 1976 and with only 3 Slams in his trophy case, was the best player born between Sampras (71) and Federer (81). That's a ten-year gap with no truly great players born. As I've written about before, we can see a similar gap after Novak born in 1987, and unless Zverev (97) becomes great, the gap may be even longer.

That said, the difference between that generation and NextGen, is that NextGen is two generations removed from a great one, with its elder generation (89-93) being anemic. Kuerten's Krew peaked between one great generation and a very good one with a GOAT, so didn't have a lot of time to shine. They also declined very quickly, and should have dominated in the early 00s, but were looking rather old - except for Moya and one or two others.

So imagine that Kuerten generation, but with several players winning 2-4 Slams, and half a dozen winning a Slam, and I think that's what we'll probably see from NextGen. Actually, they might be more similar to the 1944-48 generation, that was two generations removed from the Greatest Generation in tennis history (1934-38: Laver, Rosewall, Hoad, Emerson, etc), and just ahead of a new excellent generation (1949-53) that included the first superstar born in the Open Era (so to speak): Jimmy Connors. That group had Newcombe, Nastase, Smith, Kodes, Okker, etc; Newcombe is a bit historically underrated and deserves to be in the Becker/Edberg group, but in that sense is more of a lesser great than one of the truly best.

NextGen is still young enough that someone can separate from the pack, but right now there is no clearly dominant player. I think we'll have a better sense of the generation a year or two from now. Maybe someone emerges as relatively dominant, but I think it will be somewhere on the Kuerten-to-Newcombe spectrum, and thus more of the first among near-equals rather than the Borg or Federer of their cohort.
 

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Kieran said:
It's just gone 11pm in Madrid - and it's 2-all... :cover

As soon as the schedule for today came out it was obvious that it was set up to give Nadal the recovery advantage. Why h ave that doubles match on the main court? Why not start with the woman's match, then Nadal/DJokovic followed by Thiem/Cuevas? It's Barcelona all over again - both clay events set up for Nadal to win. :nono

On another note - says a lot about the state of Djokovic's game that he couldn't even take Nadal to a third set. I don't see how he can be the 2nd favorite for the FO when he can't even make it to a final these days. And of course my opinion of the rest of the top 20 is that they're worthless, so the FO is pretty much a done deal as long as Nadal doesn't get injured - again - before the final. The rest of the players get hyped to play Federer - but that's about it. The King of Clay? They don't care about Nadal - it's all about beating Federer, even at age 35. They all want to have a story about how they once played or beat the GOAT...
 

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Kieran said:
DarthFed said:
There hasn't been a huge show of endurance though from Fed. The Aussie Open was his first tournament in 7 months, naturally he was well rested. And his legs weren't really tested by Zverev after the 5 setter vs. Nishi and then he got an extra day off before the final. The only real big show of endurance was consecutive tough 3 setters vs Berd and Kyrgios.

And it's a fact that he is more aggressive with the backhand and ROS. No point denying it, that's why he has been dominating Wafa this year.

Players don't get more aggressive aged 35, bro. Their bodies aren't that anymore. And taking 7 months off wouldn't leave him "well rested", it would leave him rusty. So would age. His reflexes would be even less sharp than they've been since 2012. And he played 3 five setters in 8 days in Oz. When did he ever endure so well as he is now? Answer: never. Played a long match against Berdy, but the next day he showed no ill effects against Nick. That goes to 3 hours and less than 2 days later, he's dancing round the court like an elf. Buddy, let me stay within the rules and say, "that's quite remarkable."

And by the way, this only came up because front was unwisely attacking Djoker for allegedly juicing, as if they all do it, except the oldest man in the room... :cover

:rolleyes: Can I say this within the rules - ASS TALK. That is all. :lolz: Federer even said he played like crap in Dubai because he was still tired from Australia and that it wasn't until IW that he felt back to normal. BUT - 6 weeks to recover from 7 matches would be normal for a 24 year-old Federer - or even a 30 year-old Federer? I don't think so. He pretty much said he played the Miami final on auto-pilot because he was tired. So there's ridic - and then there's stupid. And the idea that Fed is getting help from one of Sharapova's little Russian pills or anything else is beyond stupid. The guy has 14 sportmanship awards voted to him by his fellow players for a reason. BUT - he's suddenly going to throw away his reputation and his legacy at 35? I take it back - that's not stupid...it's ludicrous and just abut the dumbest sports "resurgence" theory I've ever heard - and I've been following sports for a real long time and heard some doozies...
 

Front242

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If Thiem wins his youth will at least mean he will recover better but the scheduling is still despicable.
 

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El Dude said:
Talk about sour grapes, Kieran. You sound like a Rafa fan in denial - you just can't accept that Roger has beaten him three times this year, except if Roger is cheating or possibly if Rafa wasn't playing his best. Rather typical Rafalite hubris.

Mostly he just sounds like a total fool. Insulting the integrity of one the most fair players ever? Really? I'm actually embarrassed for anyone who believes this kind of claptrap. He's probably got a very nice Grassy Knoll in his backyard though.
 

El Dude

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Busted, I agree with you that Novak is not the second favorite at RG anymore - unless, of course, he turns things around in Rome, but it is hard to see that happening. But I don't agree with your take on young players not caring about beating Nadal; at worst, that would be like saying young players in the early 00s only wanted to beat Sampras, and didn't care about Agassi - and I think Rafa and Roger are a lot closer in terms of reputation as a great than Sampras are or ever were. Plus most players know that beating Rafa on clay is harder than beating Federer anywhere.
 

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I wonder who is the second favourite in Paris, if not Nole. Okay, he's not the player he was, but we can all expect some sort of push in Rome and Paris. But if not Nole, who's 2nd favourite for RG? Thiem? Goffin? It's not too clear cut...
 

Front242

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Kieran said:
I wonder who is the second favourite in Paris, if not Nole. Okay, he's not the player he was, but we can all expect some sort of push in Rome and Paris. But if not Nole, who's 2nd favourite for RG? Thiem? Goffin? It's not too clear cut...

I haven't even seen him on clay this year but hands down it's Roger. Don't care what the bookies say or it's his worst surface blah, blah. He's been in more finals than anyone on tour at RG besides Nadal and is the best player this year by a country mile. The other top players are playing like poop although Stan is always a danger to everyone if he turns up in form.
 

the AntiPusher

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Kieran said:
the AntiPusher said:
El Dude said:
The takeaway for me from this thread is that Front thinks that somehow everyone is juicing but Roger, Kieran can't resist with his Roger jabs, Carol thinks that Rafa beat a near-peak Novak and her fangirlism reached a new level that she even annoyed kskate2.

Good times.

El dude You fell to mentioned that AP predicted that the practicing sessions against Novak juiced Rafa's confidence and added stamina to his bh and depth to his fh

Rafa was practicing with Novak? That'd be unusual, no? or am I reading you wrong?

By the way, didn't Novak's box look very sparse today? Just Pepe and Novak's brother. The brother looked confused and bewildered. Pepe looked like he'd levitated a couple of times. Only an inch or two, mind, so it could have been just wind... :popcorn

Yes Bro. Rafa practices this week with Djoker
 

Kieran

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Roger has no form on clay. You think he'll walk in straight off the street again and have a chance?
 

DarthFed

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Kieran said:
I wonder who is the second favourite in Paris, if not Nole. Okay, he's not the player he was, but we can all expect some sort of push in Rome and Paris. But if not Nole, who's 2nd favourite for RG? Thiem? Goffin? It's not too clear cut...

If Roger plays it is him by default. Sure there is the chance he gets upset right away but with how he's played so far this year and how everyone else not named Nadal is currently playing it's tough not to have him as the 2nd favorite.
 

Kieran

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the AntiPusher said:
Kieran said:
the AntiPusher said:
El dude You fell to mentioned that AP predicted that the practicing sessions against Novak juiced Rafa's confidence and added stamina to his bh and depth to his fh

Rafa was practicing with Novak? That'd be unusual, no? or am I reading you wrong?

By the way, didn't Novak's box look very sparse today? Just Pepe and Novak's brother. The brother looked confused and bewildered. Pepe looked like he'd levitated a couple of times. Only an inch or two, mind, so it could have been just wind... :popcorn

Yes Bro. Rafa practices this week with Djoker

Interesting. I wonder how that came about...
 

the AntiPusher

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Kieran said:
the AntiPusher said:
Kieran said:
Rafa was practicing with Novak? That'd be unusual, no? or am I reading you wrong?

By the way, didn't Novak's box look very sparse today? Just Pepe and Novak's brother. The brother looked confused and bewildered. Pepe looked like he'd levitated a couple of times. Only an inch or two, mind, so it could have been just wind... :popcorn

Yes Bro. Rafa practices this week with Djoker

Interesting. I wonder how that came about...

I don't know how it happened but it works for the Nadal camp..google it, you can see it via YouTube
 

Front242

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Kieran said:
Roger has no form on clay. You think he'll walk in straight off the street again and have a chance?

I sure do.
 

Kieran

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Front242 said:
Kieran said:
Roger has no form on clay. You think he'll walk in straight off the street again and have a chance?

I sure do.

Sheesh, even you'll start to ask questions if that happens, bro... :popcorn