Indian Wells Masters 1000 (2016)

[the AntiPusher]

Great posts by everyone and I can only say "WHEW".. That kid Zverev is going to be a force, maybe Very soon. I think Rafa has to really need to study his rallies patterns.. If he takes his fh crosscourt extreme to a righhanders bh, Why does he feels that they are gonna rallie CC with him instead of stepping up and ripping the ball DTL to Rafa's BH. Point is Rafa has got to shorten his opponent's court by coming closer to the center. IF he tries this style against Djoker, he will get annihilated. IMO

 

[isabelle]

Manacor's bull gave Tabasco 1 bagel and Zverev 1 too...bon appetit !! he seems to feel more confident this week I guess he can reach quarter at least

 

[herios]

Manacor's bull gave Tabasco 1 bagel and Zverev 1 too...bon appetit !! he seems to feel more confident this week I guess he can reach quarter at least

He just did that.

 

[herios]

Woke up this morning to find Jo ended Thiem's run rather quickly 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and seven minutes. He meets Nole who won in an hour and five. Yikes

Thiem was the player of the month in February, but he is still better on clay, less on HC. He will be a much stronger contestant on the clay event in Europe.

 

[herios]

In the bottom half, the top 4 seeds have been eliminated: Murray, Wawrinka, Berdych and Gasquet.
Cilic, Goffin, Monfils and Raonic will fight now for a place in the final.
Fingers crossed for Milos, to come out on top.

 

[nehmeth]

Woke up this morning to find Jo ended Thiem's run rather quickly 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and seven minutes. He meets Nole who won in an hour and five. Yikes

Thiem was the player of the month in February, but he is still better on clay, less on HC. He will be a much stronger contestant on the clay event in Europe.

These courts are quite favorable to red dirt players. Thiem had a tough match against Sock the night before and has a lot of tennis under his belt already. A little rest probably would do him a world of good.

 

[herios]

I went through the stats of the 4 players who are in the run in the bottom half.
In the first QF, Cilic - Goffin, the winner will be a first time SF in a master event.
Goffin has had only one QF appearance in a master event before (Rome last year), while Marin Cilic had 7 of them, without ever making it to a SF. Compared with his slam results (1W and 2 SF), he had seriously underperformed in masters.
Monfils has had 1F and 2 more SF showings in masters before, Milos had 2F and 3 SF under his belt.
So of the 4 of them, Milos is on paper the favorite to reach another final.

H2H between Milos and Gael, is 2-2, with the last one going to Milos at the AO this year.

 

[the AntiPusher]

Great posts by everyone and I can only say "WHEW".. That kid Zverev is going to be a force, maybe Very soon. I think Rafa has to really need to study his rallies patterns.. If he takes his fh crosscourt extreme to a righhanders bh, Why does he feels that they are gonna rallie CC with him instead of stepping up and ripping the ball DTL to Rafa's BH. Point is Rafa has got to shorten his opponent's court by coming closer to the center. IF he tries this style against Djoker, he will get annihilated. IMO

Manacor's bull gave Tabasco 1 bagel and Zverev 1 too...bon appetit !! he seems to feel more confident this week I guess he can reach quarter at least

Isabelle, Rafa needs to defeat Kei and really win a set off Djoker for this to be a truly successful week.. IMO

 

[10isfan]

Picking Raonic over Monfils. If healthy, he could win Wimby this year.

 

[the AntiPusher]

Picking Raonic over Monfils. If healthy, he could win Wimby this year.

I am going with Monfils.. I sense a small change in the spectacular shotmaking frenchman

 

[tented]

Thursday, March 17, 2016 Day 11

STADIUM 1 STARTS AT 11:00 AM

Daria Kasatkina VS (18) Karolina Pliskova

NOT BEFORE 1:00 PM
(10) Marin Cilic VS (15) David Goffin
(4) Jamie Murray / Bruno Soares VS Feliciano Lopez / Marc Lopez

NOT BEFORE 5:00 PM
Magdalena Rybarikova VS (13) Victoria Azarenka

NOT BEFORE 7:00 PM
(12) Milos Raonic VS (13) Gael Monfils
(7) Pierre-Hugues Herbert / Nicolas Mahut VS (8) Edouard Roger-Vasselin / Nenad Zimonjic

---

STADIUM 2 NOT BEFORE 1:30 PM

Julia Goerges / Karolina Pliskova VS Sara Errani / Oksana Kalashnikova

NOT BEFORE 4:00 PM
Philipp Kohlschreiber / Dominic Thiem VS (6) Vasek Pospisil / Jack Sock
(3) Timea Babos / Yaroslava Shvedova VS Bethanie Mattek-Sands / CoCo Vandeweghe

 

[BIG3]

Due to work schedule, I can only watch last couple of games in set 1 & 3. Very impressed by the young kid, his coolness in tie-break, and coming back in 3rd set after being bageled. The matchup reminds me much of classic Rafa-Nole. Though Rafa was moved around in most of baseline rallies, he just hang in there and got most balls back, only to wait for Nole’s UFE or neutral shot (then punished by Rafa popping FH). Let us see if vintage Rafa is really coming back after QF and SF.

 

[Carol]

Due to work schedule, I can only watch last couple of games in set 1 & 3. Very impressed by the young kid, his coolness in tie-break, and coming back in 3rd set after being bageled. The matchup reminds me much of classic Rafa-Nole. Though Rafa was moved around in most of baseline rallies, he just hang in there and got most balls back, only to wait for Nole’s UFE or neutral shot (then punished by Rafa popping FH). Let us see if vintage Rafa is really coming back after QF and SF.

To each his own topic......it doesn't matter how Rafa plays :cover :nono

 

[the AntiPusher]

Can Rafa at present form defeat Kei on Friday?

 

[nehmeth]

Can Rafa at present form defeat Kei on Friday?

Yes. And when he does, I will make sure "Debbie" is nowhere to be found! :snicker

 

[Front242]

I thought you meant pop as in shanks that land outside the court or hideous gunk that flies fifty feet into the air like an amateur

Nah front boy, trust me, I'd be the first one to point out if his forehand was that bad. But honestly these few matches have been the best he has played in forever. This high bounce helps him a lot. If he faced this version of Zverev in the same round last year he would have lost 6:3 6:2 but he hung in there and fired plenty top notch forehands. If he could fix his serve right now, he'd be too big of a fish for Novak to catch.

Too big a fish for Novak? LOL, don't get too carried away there

 

[the AntiPusher]

Can Rafa at present form defeat Kei on Friday?

Yes. And when he does, I will make sure "Debbie" is nowhere to be found! :snicker

Amen Brotha:clap

 

[herios]

Can Rafa at present form defeat Kei on Friday?

Yes. And when he does, I will make sure "Debbie" is nowhere to be found! :snicker

Amen Brotha:clap

I watched Kei playing St. Johnson and he did not impress me at all. Johnson could have easily defeated him, but an army of butterflies found their way in his guts when he was serving for the set a break up and also in the TB's having mini breaks up. He simply choked, Kei sort of escaped that match.
If Kei plays anywhere close to that level, Rafa will have no problems tomorrow.

 

[10isfan]

I agree. Kei isn't playing well in general despite the TN title. I think Nadal wins the match.

I hope Monfils wins, although I have nothing against Raonic. It's just that I have given up expectations that Monfils will take winning seriously enough to beat good players sometimes.

 

[Carol]

If Rafa plays well it doesn't matter how Kei plays