Running Tennis Thread 2022

Low risk, low reward. By punting the middle-of-the-night matches to the Internet they save money on production and travel costs for the talent and drive eyeballs to the streaming service by baiting the sickos who want to watch tennis in the middle of the night in January.

 

My sincere apologies to Ms. Cornet, who just beat Halep to advance to her first major quarterfinal -- in her 63rd appearance in a major.

 

It was over 90 F most of the afternoon in Melbourne. Current temperature at UP Chip world headquarters is 2. The heat policy here is that I would like to have some.

 

Keys has apparently found her game again -- dismantled Krejcikova last night/this morning and is in the semifinals.

Murray... well, nothing to see here.

 

Woke up at 2 a.m. and for some reason thought about betting Berrettini to beat Monfils 3-2. Should have pulled the trigger.

 

Both men's quarters followed the same script -- heavy favorite takes the first two sets, underdog battles back to take it the distance, favorite pcks it back u in the fifth to close it out.

Rafa vs. Berrettini will be an interesting semi, but I'm really intrigued by the possibilities of a Medvedev-Rafa final.

 

That was quite gutty (pun intended) performance from Rafa, though I kind of got the vibe that we would have been done 90 minutes earlier if his stomach had not been acting up.

 

An American man has not won a Grand Slam championship since Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003. It's been 19 years.

With one exception, it's been even longer since an American-born woman not named Williams has won a Grand Slam (Capriati, 2002 Aussie). Sloane Stephens won at Flushing in 2017. I don't know if Kenin counts.

 

Anyone else catch the Medvedev-Cressy (thx da Man) match in the qtrs? Medvedev was yelling "how lucky is that guy" etc., totally classless and announcers (Cahill?) called him on it and said that's weak juniors stuff. I'm getting my anti-Medvedev grudge going and want Rafa to wipe the court with him, totally dismantle him and open him to humiliation (how about 1/1/0).

 

Madison Keys' up and down career gets on the upswing this fortnight. Her quarters win over Krejcikova might have been the best two sets she's played in five years. She has the ability to be overpowering when things are right. Barty is going to be a hell of a challenge for her, but she's on the right path.

 

For simply "USA" purposes I'd love to see Madison win the Aussie, especially since she lost to Stephens at the USOpen when she was soooo close. However, I think Barty's got too much talent and versatility for Keys to overcome. I very much enjoy watching Barty play, she's not a blaster, not a softballer, just has everything, including great fundamentals and great footwork.

 

I did ( BTW, it’s Cressy — an up-and- comer born in Paris, played at UCLA, now representing the U.S.).

That’s not new for Medvedev. He has a lot of McEnroe in him in a lot of ways. He’s gotten into it with umpires and officials before (I remember one at the U.S. Open — in 2020, I think? — and he threw money at an umpire at Wimbledon a few years ago). He’s a hothead and a character. He said after the match he was wrong to say that stuff.

He’s also smart and funny and disarmingly charming. You might remember he was the villain early on the Open in ‘19 and was booed loudly by the New York crowd, only to become a fan favorite by the end of the tournament.

Cressy gave him trouble by coming in behind just about every serve, and Medvedev, who plays way behind the baseline to return serve, couldn’t get to Cressy’s wide serves, and when he did he couldn’t his angle returns past Cressy.

He finally started playing closer in the fourth set and was able to get the angles, creating break point after break point — but he couldn’t close the deal (3-for-12 on break points for the match, 1-for-9 in the fourth set).

Finally got the break at 5-5 after three of four deuces. It was a very good match.