Tuesday 26 April 2011

Belgrade, Munich, Estoril ramblings

I'm going to use this post to collect random thoughts that don't deserve their own post, and will update it through the week.

  1. Dudi Sela lost (4)6-7, 6-3, 3-6 to Mischa Zverev in Belgrade. I haven't seen the whole match, but from what I saw - Sela had patches of good play, and then started spraying error after error each time... It's too bad, as he really had this match in his hands - after being 0-3 down in the 3rd set, he came back to 3-3, and then to 40-0 on Zverev's serve, but missed all 3 break points and lost the rest of the games. Disappointing... (Apr. 25)
  2. This has nothing to do with any of the tournaments above, but I can't read any more articles about Donald Young and the USTA... (Apr. 25)
  3. The facebook page of the Belgrade tournament is great. Though I might be a bit biased, and only saying it because they have lots of Novak pictures ;) (Apr. 25)
  4. Ivan Dodig, who was a semifinalist in Barcelona last week, just lost to Philipp Petzschner 1-6 4-6 in the 1st round in Munich.  Fatigue? After playing against Rafa, you can't blame him... (Apr. 26)
  5. More from the 1st round in Munich: Stan Wawrinka lost to Dustin Brown :O I had him winning the tournament in my predictions... (Apr. 26)
  6. The Germans are really doing well in their home tournaments, aren't they? Last week we saw Petkovic, Barrois, Lisicki and Goerges do well in Stuttgart, and this week in Munich we have Brown defeating the 2nd seed, Petzschner defeating the 1st seed (Youzhny), and a total of 6 Germans still in the draw (though tomorrow, Thursday, two of them play each other). (Apr. 27)
  7. Surprise in Belgrade: Novak Djokovic gets broken twice in a match!! *gasp*
    Just kidding, while he was indeed broken twice, he still defeated Adrian Ungur 6-2 6-3 in his first clay-court match of the season. This brings his streak up to 25-0 since the beginning of the season, and 27-0 since December 2010 (Davis Cup finals). So he's now tied in second place with Lendl in the "Best start of a season" category. (Apr. 27)
  8. Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich won their match today, and are through to the doubles semifinals in Belgrade! (Apr. 28)
  9. Quarterfinals results moved to a separate post which can be found here. (Apr. 29)
  10. Belgrade semis: Janko gave Novak a walkover, and Feli Lopez defeated Volandri, without losing a set all week. In the on court interview he said that he only got broken 3 times this week, and if you add that to the fact that he's one of only 5 players to take a set from Novak this year, I think we might have a very interesting final tomorrow... (Apr. 30)
  11. Munich semis: Tomorrow it'll be Davydenko vs. Mayer. It's Davydenko's best result in a while, good for him. (Apr. 30)
  12. Estoril semis: Del Potro beat Cuevas in a very nice match, the second set was tight. And Raonic... retired against Verdasco :( The final should be good! Too bad that it's the same time as Belgrade, and that I'll be in class when they start :-| 
  13. Finals "summary" here.
And that is all!

(All photos taken from the Serbia Open facebook page or the Munich Open official site)

4 comments:

  1. Dear Anna, Nole is not tied in second place with Lendl in the "Best start of a season" category, after all, because accroding to the ATP "Guru" Greg Sharko, Lendl's streak is really 29, not 25. That is because the 1985 season-ending Masters event was played in January 1986 and he won 4 straight matches there that should be added to the tally.
    My source - http://www.usatoday.com/sports/tennis/2011-04-04-weekly-net-post_N.htm

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  2. Yeah, they "surprisingly" remembered that they should include the season-ending masters in all of their statistics. So now Lendl is actually third with 29 matches, and Bjorg is second with 33 (stats here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2011/04/17/Friday-Briefing-Belgrade-Estoril-Munich.aspx).

    Frankly, I find it silly - either we're counting from the beginnig of the season, and then it's 25, or we're just counting streaks, in which case Djokovic has 27. But then you can just count all streaks in general, in which case there are a lot more players in the mix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-Grand_Slam_tennis_statistics_and_records#Longest_match_winning_streaks_.28all_surfaces.29).

    It just seems like they want it to appear like a lesser achievement... Whatever.

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  3. I totally agree, it's silly to count the 1985 season-ending Masters event as a 1986 event. For me Nole's achievement ia great anyway, and I don't really care if he passes Lendl's record of 29, or not. Is start to season is stil the best in 25 years and that's amazing.
    On adiffernt subject - Please, if you don't mined, tell the guys in Tapuz his nickname is The Djoker, not The Clown (there's a big difference). Thanks.

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  4. Dear Anna, forget about what I asked you before, I don't really care what they call him (It's was childish of me to ask that and I regret it).

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