Niland won the Israel open. Beat some serious quality to do it too.
Impressive! I suppose Schuettler was the biggest scalp, although his heyday wasn't quite yesterday or the day before. Well done to Conor
The French Open is on at the moment. Murray came from two sets down to beat Gasquet today. It was a terrific match for two and a half sets but Gasquet ran out of gas and Murray knew he just had to outlast him, without necessarily playing that well. Gasquet had played ten matches in the previous fourteen days and requested that this match be played tomorrow. I was happy enough with the outcome, seeing as I put money on Murray when he went two sets down
Federer coasted through against Luczak. Nadal should find it easy enough tomorrow, and is the clear, clear, favourite to win the event. I'm personally nervously looking forward to Hewitt - Chardy, though Eurosport will be showing a womens match instead.. damn women!
Womens semi finalists mean there will be a first time Grand Slam winner
Dementieva v Schiavone
Stosur v Jelena Jankovic
I'm what? I'm ants at a picnic?
Schiavone wins it! She would have been the least fancied of the last four, and wouldn't have even been considered a contender before the tournament but she shocked the world.
Well done to her.
Nadal takes on Soderling in the mens final tomorrow. A real grudge match between two guys who don't like each other, but more importantly a match for the French Open crown.
Nobody watching this game then?
57-57 atm
'mon Isner.
Cumann Peile Dún Dealgan - Champions 2015 (too many accolades to be typing)
Termonbarry Athletic TID!
I'm up for Mahut myself, but it'll be terrible for whoever loses.. not to mention the fact that whoever wins is fudgucked for the next round!
Truly sensational.. it'll surely never happen again!
Sat gobsmacked at that match...Athletes...Isner was out on his feet...it was like two boxers going blow for blow.
My Goal Is To Deny Yours...
Incredible stuff and the first and last time it'll ever happen because the rules will almost certainly be changed after this. Fascinating as it is, it sort of sums up all that's wrong with men’s tennis; two big servers completely unable to get a break point, just monotonous.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Tallaght Stadium Regular
It is fascinating but as passinginterest says it sums up men's tennis. 155 games and only 2 breaks. Only 20 odd break points! The two boys have now almost doubled the previous record for aces in a match - I think they are on 95 and 98, the previous record being 51. It would be a pity to introduce a tie-break in the final set, but probably inevitable. There's a strong case for slowing down the men's game or raising the net a couple of inches. Isner is 6 foot 9!
I think it's a little harsh as there's a lot more to it than the pair of them being big servers. In order for something this insanely close you need a few things to happen. Firstly fitness is a factor, crazy long sets usually don't reach a 30 game total because one player will give way to fatigue first. Their fitness level has to be remarkably tightly balanced (as in far more than two pros typically are) to be still going this long, ditto on mental strength. Their overall ability on the surface (Isner is a much better all-rounder but both have shaky grass records) must in turn be phenomenally close. Finally this must give way to the advantage of serve, in that if neither player shows a sufficient difference in fatigue (although Isner looked more likely to go first it wasn't requisitely different to end the match) then the difference in energy being expended on service games as opposed to return games becomes more pronounced. While the amount of effort required to serve as opposed to returning is neglible early it becomes more prevalent the longer a match goes and once you reach a 150 total game count well then it's really quite big. Essentially this match is a perfect storm.
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Raising the net would make it even harder for smaller guys to compete. A guy under 6 feet tall would have to hit heaps of top spin serves.. and a guy like Isner would probably enjoy that. As for slowing down the game - Wimbledon has actually slowed down a fair bit already, and there are much longer rallies from the baseline these days than there were twenty years back. The balls in use are heavier, the grass composition is different and the advances in racket technology make it easier to hit passing shots and heavy strokes from the back of the court.Originally Posted by seand
I agree that guys like Karlovic and Isner have an advantage because of their height, but you can't really do anything to combat that without hurting others - Roddick for example is a brilliant server, but at 6'2 that is a stroke that he has perfected and is no less fair than any other player's best stroke. You could also argue that a guy like Isner is disadvantaged by his height when it comes to dealing with low slices etc
While Isner has always been a bug server, you have to give huge credit to Mahut for continuosly holding serve while serving to stay in the match, the mental strain is huge. Also, Mahut came through qualifying where he won his last two matches 24-22 in a third set against Bogdanovic before coming from two sets down in the final qualifying round, which is played in the best of 5 format. Including qualifying he has spent about 20 hours on the court and he's still in the first round!
Also, I doubt that Wimbledon will introduce a final set tiebreak at 6-6, perhaps at 20-20 or something like that.
I didn't see it but it smacks of a fix. Were there no service games broken in the earlier sets?
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
A break each in the first two sets, but then two sets to serve won by tie-breaks followed by 137 games to serve, followed by a final break.
It also has to be remembered this is a freak 5th set. There have been plenty of astonishing servers playing each other in past campaigns and yet the record was only 24-22. There's no need to change the rules on the back of one match.
The Model Club
Tell all the Bohs you know
that we've gone and won two-in-a-row
and it's not gonna be three
and it's not gonna be four
it's more likely to be 5-1.
Federer finished?
I suppose we should have seen the signs after he went two sets behind in his opening match Monday week, but after today's shock defeat, we may have seen the end of Federer, it's difficult to see him returning to the Grand Slam circuit if he feels he can't regain his peak standards. That said, Nadal has looked far from invincible this fortnight either, so Murray may never have a better opportunity to reach his first Wimbledon final.
On the challenger tour, Conor Niland had a decent win over former World No 1 Thomas Muster in Germany (Niland was last direct qualifier so even one win helps his cause)
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With Muster's style of play, it'll be tough for him to beat many pro's at 42 years of age.
Rafael Nadal wins Wimbledon 2010. Congratulations to one of the all time greats.
Looks like the Irish are having a tough time of it this weekend in Davis cup. Niland and McGee lost their opening matches to the Lithuanians last night. It's all up to Cluskey and King to keep the tie alive in the doubles!
Weaseling out of things is important to learn, it's what seperates us from the animals!! Well... except for the weasel.
Niland's also getting some slagging from Off the Ball for suggesting Serena Williams couldn't beat any male players in the top 1,000 (to be fair, he was only responding to Murray's comments). On a serious note though, it's surprising that women's tennis hasn't become a five-set game to date, physically the players are a lot stronger than previously, so they'd be able to go the full distance.
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