Roland Garros 2017, Paris, France, ATP GRAND SLAM

[Moxie]

Tignor jinxes Rafa . I agree with almost everything that he says. But, I don't see Kei winning the firs quarter. It will probably be Sasha.

I don't think it's a jinx. Who else was he going to pick?

 

[GameSetAndMath]

In USA, RG is carried on TV by NBC and Tennis Channel. NBC will telecast the semifinals (at least one of men's and women's) and the finals. In addition, NBC will telecast the early rounds live from 12 to 3 p.m. on holidays (opening sunday, memorial Monday, middle Saturday and middle Sunday). Anything else you need to watch on Tennis Channel or live stream.

Here is more detailed info on TV coverage of RG'17 in USA .

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Does anyone know whether there is any hype show on TV before RG begins to promote it?

 

[Moxie]

You started this thread a year ago?

Ha! No, but I cribbed off my old one.

 

[Moxie]

People just don't give a flying fu€k about the draw, do they?
Not a single post and the draw has been out for an hour or two. I am disappointed in you blokes.
At first glance the draw looks somewhat boring, especially with no Roger.
Will there be a draw challenge? I want to post predictions.

The challenge is up: https://www.tennisfrontier.com/tennisforum/threads/roland-garros-draw-challenge-atp.5443/
@Puppet Master, I hope you'll do it and as part of the group!

 

[Carol]

Ummm, I don't think Muzz is going to be able to play RG in these bad conditions...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...Andy-Murray-affected-shingles-Tim-Henman.html

 

[Moxie]

I may have to re-think my draw challenge.

 

[Moxie]

At the risk of giving you all a crib sheet for your draw challenges, Jon Wertheim breaks down the seeds.

 

[Shivashish Sarkar]

Odds for winning RG after the market had time to digest the draw.

1. Rafa 10/11
2. Novak 4
3. Stan 14
4. Andy 17
5. Thiem and Sasha 18 each.

All the rest are 66 or worse.

This is my line of thinking as well. Djokovic has to be the second favourite no matter how big the margin is.

 

[isabelle]

Ummm, I don't think Muzz is going to be able to play RG in these bad conditions...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...Andy-Murray-affected-shingles-Tim-Henman.html

I"m worrying about him another shingles's very annoying, he already had it in AO, bad period for Sir Andy

 

[El Dude]

I think you three distinct tiers: first, Rafa as the clear favorite; second, you have three contenders in Novak, Thiem, and Stan, who have separated themselves from the rest of the pack; third, everyone else, from dark horses like Murray, Zverev, Nishikori, Goffin, Tsonga, etc, on down. I suppose you could separate that third tier into dark horses and snowballs (chances in hell), but the point is that anyone other than the top four winning it would be a huge surprise, whether it is Zverev, Cilic, or Pablo Carreno Busta.

If Andy were playing better he'd be in the contenders category, as would Roger if he were playing. But Andy probably has less of a chance of winning this tournament than Zverev, Glassikori, and Goffin, maybe one or two others.

 

[Shivashish Sarkar]

As a reply to the post above, I would say Murray is probably a lesser contender than is Zverev or Goffin. I would also swap Thiem with Zverev. I would like to have your views on this one.

 

[Shivashish Sarkar]

Has anyone prepared individual players' paths? I mean the players' draws, the top 4 seeds?

 

[mightyjeditribble]

Rafa seems to have a very straightforward way through to the semis:

According to seedings:

R1 - Paire
R2 - Haase or de Minaur
R3 - Simon (31)
R4 - Sock (14) / Bautista Agut (17)
QF - Raonic (5) / Dimitrov (11).

In R1 & R2 he doesn't have the easiest opponents he could have faced, but it's not as though they will pose a threat to him. There is no one I see in his quarter who has any chance to upset him; RBA could be the most dangerous clay-court player in the quarter, but he has no way of hurting Nadal.

Of course, the winner of the projected QF Djokovic v Thiem is likely to be a sterner test in the SF.

 

[mightyjeditribble]

The Djokovic/Thiem quarter is more interesting. Of course, both of them are second-tier contenders for the title behind Nadal.

Their projected paths to the QF are as follows:

Djokovic
R1 - Granollers
R2 - Sousa / Tipsarevic
R3 - M. Zverev (32)
R4 - Pouille (16) or Ramos Vinolas (19)

Much like Nadal, the first two rounds are not the easiest opponents Djokovic could have faced, but he will come through them without much trouble. Misha Zverev has had a good week last week and is obviously in form. With Novak's recent form, he could cause him trouble ... but I doubt it. Even if he does, taking into account his heroics in Geneva, I don't think he'll have what it takes to beat Djokovic over best-of-5.

So fairly plain sailing for Novak through to the quarters, but we'll be able to judge where his game is from whether he comes through easily or expends unnecessary energy.

Thiem
R1 - Tomic
R2 - Bolelli/Mahut
R3 - Johnson (25) [or Coric?]
R4 - Goffin [10] / Karlovic [23]

Can't expect Tomic to do too much, though Mahut's experience could make things tricky in R2 in front of the home crowd. R4 against Goffin is the tough one.

Thiem has been the second-best player in the clay-court season this year, and he has experience of going deep at RG. I expect him to reach the QF after a big fight against Goffin. If he faces Djokovic there, I'd expect him to go down easily to Novak, as he seems to have a match-up problem.

 

[mightyjeditribble]

Stan Wawrinka's quarter

R1 - Kovalik
R2 - Dolgpolov / Berlocq
R3 - Fognini (28)
R4 - Monfils (15) / Gasquet (24)
QF - Tsonga (12 ) / Kyrgios (18) / Ferrer (30) / Cilic (7)

It's a dangerous thing to predict anything about Stan, but surely even he could not contrive to lose in the first two rounds here. The next three matches will tell us a lot about whether we have a Stanimal on our hands. Fognini is always tricky. Monfils and Gasquet can be dangerous, although the pressure of playing in front of the home crowd can get too much for both of them, I think. Wawrinka hasn't played Monfils since 2011 (h2h is 2-2). He actually has a losing record against Gasquet (1-2), but I don't really expect Richard to make R4 after his results on clay this year.

The other side of Wawrinka's quarter is pretty open. I think Tsonga is most likely to make it through, and he will be another test in the QF.

If Wawrinka makes it through to the SF again, it will take something special to stop him.

 

[mightyjeditribble]

Murray's quarter

R1 - Kuznetsov
R2 - Lokoli/Klizan
R3 - Del Potro (29)
R4 - Berdych (13) / Isner (21)
QF - A. Zverev (9) / Nishikori (8)

It's hard to back Murray to make it out of his quarter, given his results so far. And the draw hasn't been particularly kind to him. I guess his advantage is that there are question marks over all the other contenders in his quarter:

Del Potro is once more battling with injury.
Nishikori has been inconsistent and injury-prone as usual this year.
Berdych has been playing fairly well (reaching the final in Lyon), but he has lost the last 7 meetings with Murray, the last 6 in straight sets.
Zverev could be the favourite in this quarter. However, in Rome he was the underdog. Now everyone will expect him to make at least R4, and could well back him as the favourite in R4 / QF. How will he deal with this? He could be forgiven a let-down after his heroics in Rome.

So I guess any of these four + Murray could make it out of the quarter. If their SF opponent is Wawrinka, I think they will lose. If someone else (e.g. Tsonga) makes it out of the second quarter, then things will be more open.

 

[mightyjeditribble]

Conclusions:

Nadal is and remains the heavy favourite. The lack of potential banana skins in his quarter just cements this status. He has never lost at RG later than the QF (although he only lost twice, and pulled out once, so the sample size is pretty small).

Given their draws, I would now put Djokovic > Wawrinka > Thiem in the group of the other three contenders. It is very close though, and a lot of question marks over these guys. Counterintuitively, I probably give Thiem the best chance of the three to reach the QF (despite Goffin in R4), simply because Wawrinka is always so hot-and-cold, and Djokovic has been so inconsistent this year.

I don't think anyone else is worth discussing before we get to the later stages. I guess Murray/A Zverev/ Tsonga are dark horses. (Very odd to say this about the world #1 and last year's finalist. But I don't find any way to justify considering him a contender based on recent form.)

 

[mightyjeditribble]

As a reply to the post above, I would say Murray is probably a lesser contender than is Zverev or Goffin. I would also swap Thiem with Zverev. I would like to have your views on this one.

I don't think Zverev is ready to be a contender. He can definitely be a spoiler, and I think he is a dark horse. I don't think you can put Zverev ahead of Murray to win the title TBH. Murray is still #1 in the world and was in the final last year. Zverev is probably at least as likely as Murray to reach the SF stage. But IF Murray makes it there, he will be more dangerous IMO.

 

[Mastoor]

Nole's draw is as expected. Rafa in his half, Thiem or Goffin in his quarter. The only surprise was that they handpicked the other Zverev to Nole's quarter. No wonder Nole rejected Nike 3 times. ;-)

I watched last year final on youtube the other day. My thoughts are that it is hugely underappreciated match. It is probably one of the best ever played there, but certainly much better than anything I saw on clay this year. Here is the link if you want to watch it: