SMB Tennis thread (note there is a specific Wimbledon 22 thread)

None of these rules will probably ever come in to the main tour fortunately. Every single one of them is dreadful and do nothing but take away from the game.

What's wrong with the automatic hawk eye? Bit like goal line technology, it means there won't be a bad call and saves potential home cooking line calls. I'd definitely be for that.
 


The ATP Finals get underway at the O2 today. Shame the Thiem-Anderson match pretty much directly clashes with the Port Vale match, but Federer-Nishikori is on at 8pm and available to basically anyone with a TV.

Schedule:
12pm - Doubles featuring Jamie Murray (Sky Sports Arena)
1.45pm - Thiem-Anderson (Sky Sports Arena - match starts at 2pm)
6pm - Doubles (Sky Sports Arena)
7.45pm - Federer-Nishiori (Sky Sports Mix / BBC Four). BBC coverage starts at 8pm

Top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas won the NxtGen title beating 2nd seed De Minaur in the final. Having just turned 20 a couple of months ago and ending the season at a career high 15 and the vast majority of his points coming from late April onwards, you'd have to think he would have a very good chance of making London next year. Same with 22 year old Khachanov who is the first alt this week.

Oh and a great week for 20 year old Stirling Uni student Maia Lumsden who won 25k Shrewsbury yesterday and should now be up to about 350 in the WTA rankings. She won the 15k event in Sunderland last year.
 
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Canny crowd in here for the doubles, not sure if I'll be chewed to get in that early when I go on Tuesday.

Looks like I'll be seeing Nishikori vs Thiem if Federer wins tonight and Nishikori vs Anderson if he loses.
 
The ATP Finals get underway at the O2 today. Shame the Thiem-Anderson match pretty much directly clashes with the Port Vale match, but Federer-Nishikori is on at 8pm and available to basically anyone with a TV.

Schedule:
12pm - Doubles featuring Jamie Murray (Sky Sports Arena)
1.45pm - Thiem-Anderson (Sky Sports Arena - match starts at 2pm)
6pm - Doubles (Sky Sports Arena)
7.45pm - Federer-Nishiori (Sky Sports Mix / BBC Four). BBC coverage starts at 8pm

Top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas won the NxtGen title beating 2nd seed De Minaur in the final. Having just turned 20 a couple of months ago and ending the season at a career high 15 and the vast majority of his points coming from late April onwards, you'd have to think he would have a very good chance of making London next year. Same with 22 year old Khachanov who is the first alt this week.

Oh and a great week for 20 year old Stirling Uni student Maia Lumsden who won 25k Shrewsbury yesterday and should now be up to about 350 in the WTA rankings. She won the 15k event in Sunderland last year.
Do you know who is playing on Wed and Thurs night?
Ive tried to look earlier the week and couldnt find it
 
Do you know who is playing on Wed and Thurs night?
Ive tried to look earlier the week and couldnt find it

It's not been announced yet, usually announce it the day before. I'd expect Djokovic to be headlining on the Weds and Federer on the Thurs, but Federer may depend if someone in the group is through, someone out and it all comes down to 'the other' match if you know what I mean.
 
34 unforced errors for Federer, sad to see him play like that. Probably be the two winners on the Tuesday afternoon when I'm there - Niskikori vs Anderson. Would love it if they put the 2 losers on and I got to see Roger.
 
It's a shame. He's not really been playing well since Indian Wells. I know he beat Nishikori 2 weeks ago in Paris, but the official stats will show he has lost his last 5 matches against top 10 players and he's not had one top 10 win since beating Dimitrov in Rotterdam in February you'd never have thought that after winning the Aussie Open.

Fear that next year will be his last on tour

I wouldn't be too surprised either unfortunately. If it is, there'd be lots of fitting places for him to end:

Wimbledon - favourite slam
Laver Cup - in Switzerland next year
Basel - home tournament
O2 - final event of year (if he qualifies)

I think he might wait until 2020 and have one last crack at Olympic Gold (singles), but you do get the impression it's not too far off and it will be a big shame for the tour just for general interest and bums on seats.
 
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Nishikori - Anderson it is then. Was always likely, but as they have both won, hopefully less pressure and they best play their best.
 
Nishikori - Anderson it is then. Was always likely, but as they have both won, hopefully less pressure and they best play their best.
Feel sorry for you mate, unless you are a staunch Anderson fan - what a beatdown.

Do you know who is playing on Wed and Thurs night?
Ive tried to look earlier the week and couldnt find it
Woah, they've gone for Cilic vs Isner at 8pm tomorrow instead of Djokovic vs Zverev which is at 2pm.
 
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Feel sorry for you mate, unless you are a staunch Anderson fan - what a beatdown.


Woah, they've gone for Cilic vs Isner at 8pm tomorrow instead of Djokovic vs Zverev which is at 2pm.
I was really looking forward to booking this but not going to bother now. Its quite a long way for me to go for a game im not interested in!
 
I was really looking forward to booking this but not going to bother now. Its quite a long way for me to go for a game im not interested in!

Yeah it doesn't really set the pulses racing, I doubt there'll be many break points throughout. Just a bit strange, even for TV, not just the live crowd - you've got the current best player in the world against the young lad they are pushing hard in terms of marketing, both coming in on the back of wins, yet that is buried when most are at work.

Wonder what they'll do on Thursday - I guess it'll probably depend on what happens in this forthcoming Federer-Thiem match.
 
Feel sorry for you mate, unless you are a staunch Anderson fan - what a beatdown.


Woah, they've gone for Cilic vs Isner at 8pm tomorrow instead of Djokovic vs Zverev which is at 2pm.

Nope, not a big Anderson fan :D, but he played well to be fair. Pretty disappointing really. I've no interest in doubles and the singles match just wasn't competitive.
 
Aga Radwanska retiring now and Lucie Safarova retiring after the Australian Open.

Well... I was not expecting to read either of those things in the past week. Seems like a lot of fairly big names starting to disappear all of a sudden.
 
First of the 8 matches to go to a decider. Hardly a sign of a break in the first set and a half and now they're breaking for fun. Cilic 2-1 with a break in set 3.

Thiem vs Nishikori at 2pm tomorrow, Federer vs Anderson at 8pm.
 
Federer, to be fair, has come back with 2 straight set wins to top the group and has set up a decent looking semi final with Zverev tomorrow afternoon.

Just catching up with Cilic vs Djokovic now. Dead rubber as Cilic is out and Novak has already topped the group, but a very competitive first set in which Marin had a set point in the tie break, but ultimately lost it. Djok vs Anderson in the other semi final tomorrow evening.
 
Just too good at the moment is Djokovic. Absolutely outclassed Anderson there.

Indeed, makes it look so easy. Felt really sorry for Zverev earlier after beating Federer, did nothing wrong and was visibly upset with the booing. Would love to see him win it tomorrow, but obviously unlikely. He did have two break points to go 5-4 up and serve for the first set in their match a few days ago but couldn't convert and then it was one way traffic after that.

I'm just hoping for a decent match. Crazy how 13 of the 14 matches so far have been straight sets wins. In contrast, 10 of the 15 matches in the women's equivalent in Singapore went the distance.
 

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