Ilios
Winger
Medvedev was hugely impressive for the most part against Tsitsipas aswell, barring a wobbler in set 3 where Tsitsipas started applying the pressure, and a few unforced errors came out. I fancy him against Djokovic tbh, like you say, Novak is very good at actually winning, but he's certainly not been as convincing recently, and you can definitely take sets off him.Osaka's very much the real deal but it hurts my brain that she's already got double the amount of Slams that Victoria Azarenka has.
What are we all thinking for the men's then? It seems to have gone massively under the radar that Novak Djokovic has played like an absolute bag of shite in nearly every big match he's played in since he demolished Rafa here in 2019.
Poor against Rafa and nearly chucked it away against Tsitsipas in Paris 2020, quite poor against Thiem after he lost the plot in Melbourne 2020, poor against Federer apart from the final set and poor against Bautista Agut at Wimbledon 2019 and poor against Thiem in Paris 2019.
Meddy Bear in 4 sets for me unless the proper Novak Djokovic turns up. If he's trying to slap winners constantly then he'll get beaten easily.
I wonder how much the lack of crowd impacts Djokovic? Normally the crowd is on his back and supports his opponent, which gets Novak distracted and annoyed sometimes. However, it can also spur him on. I'll never forget Wimbledon 2019, when a 37 year old Federer had back-to-back Championship points, and the crowd went absolutely wild - as though England had to just won a penalty in the World Cup final. And Djokovic somehow fought back and won, and smirked at the crowd.
I suspect Federer will take regret from that day to his grave, it should have been his 9th Wimbledon and it would currently have put Novak on 16 and RF on 21 GS titles, which is potentially significant.