Cincinnati 2014: Western and Southern open

[kskate2]

Novak finally gets the break and holds. One game away 5-3

 

[Front242]

Hard fought win for Novak. He hit a lot of forehand errors there.

 

[Riotbeard]

Hard fought win for Novak. He hit a lot of forehand errors there.

Thank god he survived!

 

[Riotbeard]

I feel like it needs to be pointed out that little league softball is on espn2 and poker is on espn. No tennis. Absolute Travesty.

 

[I.Haychew]

I feel like it needs to be pointed out that little league softball is on espn2 and poker is on espn. No tennis. Absolute Travesty.

It's a travesty to us because we love tennis. We just have to accept the phact that tennis isn't a popular sport. Most sports phans don't even care about the phinals of majors, much less the early rounds of Cincinnati. I consider myselph lucky when there are actually live matches on Tennis Channel...unless it's a Nadal match. Then, I'd much rather watch Little League sophtball or poker.

 

[TsarMatt]

For some reason, I'm not surprised Tsonga lost in the first round. I remember Del Potro losing R1 in Miami last year after beating Djokovic and Murray to the final in IW.

A scare for Djokovic too. Simon is a really frustrating match-up. Good luck beating him if you want to play conservative tennis. The man is like a brick wall.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I don't know if I'd be that arsed about finding a way around rampaging Tsonga just to reach the quarters of Toronto when I'd just won Wimbledon and had Cincinnati in the coming week which is the one needed to complete the "Career Golden Masters" - anyone else think that's a crap name by the way?

I don't know about "tanked", it's not a word I like to use relating to the top guys who are competitive enough to win majors, but I certainly think Nole could have tried harder in that match.

I don't think he'd deliberately lose though in the hope of his two rivals getting tired out. Djokovic is a proud guy.

I too think it is a bad name. The worst part is I think ATP settled on this name after
getting suggestions from fans and a committee spent hours going over the long list?
The term "Golden" certainly does not belong year. WTF? Oh wait, that is the name
ATP settled on for the end of year event and so what else do you expect from them?

 

[Moxie]

^ Why not the "Masters Box Set?" Having all of something has often been called a "Box Set." Yes, that name to me does seem manufactured. But they've done it with Rafa, too. When he won all 3 MS on clay in whenever it was, they declared it the "Clay Slam," as if anyone had ever even thought of it as a thing before. (I'm pretty sure they hadn't.) That said, I think Djokovic will complete his box set, either this year or next. And it'll be a great achievement, whatever anyone wants to call it.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The name cannot be changed, officially at least. ATP has settled on it after putting a lot of
"thinking" into it.

 

[Correspondent Kiu]

Hi people,
Here is the live coverage we promised.
I spent the entire day at the tournament, it was beautiful day when it came to weather, Tempretures were in the mid 70s and for most of the day, there was a light breeze, though it turned into a tricky wind later in the day. B the time it got dark, it became down-right chilly and windy!

I started the day with Tsonga and Yozhny and ended with Nole and Giles...in between I saw Cilic, Paire, Pospisil and Seppi, plus numerous more... I lost count! There were times when 8 different courts were in play! I have to admit, as good as I thought I did, I missed entire matches, it's just impossible to see everything.
This place is huge, I walked around it for 10 hours and still couldn't remember where all the courts were situated.

As for Jo-Willy, that was one of the matches I saw in full, it was a let-down for sure, Youzhny was all game but Jo-Willy was still in Canada!

I took lots of pictures of today's stars, look for them in the front page.

I also got our prize together for the Challenge thread and will be back there tomorrow for more. Sadly, I have to finish my coverage and leave tomorrow afternoon, but I will post another reply when I return.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

^^you need the extra heads of hydra(?)..and inspector gadget style necks that can telescope up and around to view all the courts.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The OOP for Wednesday is out. All the remaining 14 second round matches are scheduled. Murray
at 11 a.m. and Fed at around 3 p.m. on centre court. Unbelievably, the night slot on the
centre court goes to Agut and Monfils while Isner is booted out of the center court (by someone
outside the big 4 and top 4). Time for Isner to get angry and lose.

 

[Kieran]

Meh, I go to bed and Nole falls asleep? Well done to Simon for making that one interesting.

And Steve Tignor makes an unwarranted and absolutely gratuitous attack on John Isner. Tell me, what did Isner ever do to deserve this? Shocking... :nono

 

[TennisFanatic7]

Isner to beat Murray, Federer, Raonic and Djokovic is a totally reasonable prediction....

 

[Kieran]

Isner to beat Murray, Federer, Raonic and Djokovic is a totally reasonable prediction....

:laydownlaughing

I think Tignor's been paid off by the stars. He's been wrecking too many players heads by jinxing them...

 

[isabelle]

I'm not surprised by Tsonga's loss, he's still unable to play well 2 weeks in a row, that's probably why he never won a GS

 

[the AntiPusher]

I'm not surprised by Tsonga's loss, he's still unable to play well 2 weeks in a row, that's probably why he never won a GS

Unfortunately, I think you may be correct about JowillieTs chances in a GS. I hope you are wrong because He is very deserving

 

[Kieran]

JW would need a very strong wind behind him to win a major. I don't think he's cut out for the final day of a slam...

 

[herios]

In any case he will be a very dangerous opponent comes R4 at the USO, unlike earlier this year.

For today I am curious how Vasek Pospisil will do against Roger, yesterday he had a good win over Radek.

 

[Kieran]

It's Pospisil that Wodger will be fatigued, and I had him to go out early in this event. Not out of any conviction other than the feeling that a 33 year old should start showing signs of the effort. But I had Rad the Impaler to go further, and he;s cost me savagely now on the challenge... :cry