Running tennis thread 2024

BTW, a couple things of note from last week’s 1000 tournament in Monte Carlo. Djoker and Sinner both went down in the semis, leaving a final between Tsitsipas and Ruud, which Tsitsipas won.

Taylor Fritz lost in the first round, which dropped him to 15th in the rankings and elevated Ben Shelton to the 14th spot. That makes Shelton, coming off his title in Houston, the new No. 1-ranked American man.

At 21, he’s the youngest to do that since Andy Roddick in 2004. The other men to reach U.S. No. 1 at 21 or younger are Agassi, Connors, Courier, McEnroe and Sampras. All six of those players went on to earn the world No. 1 ranking.

Shelton is also the first left-handed No. 1 American since McEnroe in 1990.

 

So far so good for Rafa. Easy 6-2, 6-3 win.

 

Not so fast.

Loses to Alex de Minaur (4) 7-5, 6-1

 

Yeah, that Cobolli match was just a warmup to get back into competition. De Minaur is an actual player, and he’s having the best year of his career. He’s been hovering around the top 10 all year.

The good news for Rafa is he came out of the match with no further injuries (at least as far as we know at the moment).

Here are some post-match quotes.

“I feel much more comfortable and happier today than one week and a half ago,” he said. “I was able to manage to play two matches, played against a great player. I was not very far [away], without a doubt. I feel myself, if I am able to keep practising days on the Tour, and my body allows me to spend hours on court and have practices the way that I need.

“I hope to be competitive. I hope and believe I can be competitive in a few weeks. That’s the way that I need to proceed today, and to give me a chance to be ready at least to compete at Roland Garros.”

“I didn’t practise a lot, so that [performance] encourages me to keep going. It tells me that, if I’m able to spend days on the Tour and keep practising with the players, I really hope and believe that I can keep being competitive. If my body allows me to push the way that I need.”

 

Djokovic withdrew from the 1000-level Madrid tournament -- one of the big French Open tuneup events -- this morning. He'll have two more chances to get in another event before Paris -- Rome (1000), May 8-19, and Geneva or Lyon, both 250 events May 19-25.

Djoker has played only three tournaments in 2024 -- Australian Open, Indian Wells and Monte Carlo -- as well as the United Cup early in the year. He has not won a championship this year -- only the third time in his career hasn't won one by this date.

In 2018, coming off an injury, he recorded his first title at Wimbledon in July (that year, he'd played in seven tournaments before the French). In 2022, his first tournament victory came in Rome in mid-May, but there's kind of an asterisk on that one because he was banned from several tournaments -- including Australia, Indian Wells and Miami -- because he wasn't vaccinated.

 

Rafa knows where he is in career, and his goals have changed a bit.

“At this point, the main thing is not winning, it’s leaving the tournament fit, more than anything else. That’s what has happened [in Barcelona].

“Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to play when you know maybe you’re not going to be able to battle all match. In a few weeks that may be the case. But today, after everything I’ve been through over the last few months, it’s not time for heroics. This is a time to be realistic, to look for answers with as much caution and logic as possible. That’s the reality. Once I lost the first set, the match was over.”

 

Rafa’s first big win in his latest comeback — takes out De Minaur in Madrid.

 

This is why we should love doubles: ATP Masters 1000 Madrid | Results | ATP Tour | Tennis

 

The door has opened wide for Medvedev and Rublev in Madrid.

No. 1 Djokovic is not in the field. No. 2 Sinner has looked strong in advancing to the quarterfinals, but withdrew from the tournament today citing a hip injury that he said "has slowly been getting more painful." Alcaraz lost to Rublev in the quarters, saying he still has concerns about the forearm injury that kept him out of Monte Carlo and Barcelona.

BTW, if Medvedev wins his quarterfinal match tomorrow against Jiri Lehecka, he'll pass Alacaraz for the No. 3 spot in the rankings. That probably won't last long, though, because next week is Rome, where Medvedev is the defending champion, so unless he wins it again, he'll lose points.

 

So much for Medvedev's window. He has now joined Alcaraz and Sinner in the ranks of the injured, retiring from his quarterfinal match with a right leg issue.

 

Sinner and Alcaraz are passing up Rome to try to get healthy enough to contend in Paris. Medvedev is going to give it a go, perhaps because he has 1,000 points to defend as the 2023 champion.

Nadal and Djokovic are also in. Rafa has a likely second-round date with ninth-ranked Hubert Hurkacz, which seems problematic given Rafa's current status.

 

I don't want to jump the gun, but...

We might be witnessing the end for both Nadal and Djokovic this year -- well, the beginning of the end for Djokovic.

Both got crushed in their second match of the Rome tournament (Djoker's was a third-round match since he had a first-round bye). Rafa not unexpectedly went down 6-1, 6-3 to Hubie Hurkacz, a legit top 10 player. Today, though, Djoker looked overmatched again No. 32 Alejandro Tabilo, a 26-year-old Chilean lefty whose only tournament title as a pro came at a challenger a couple weeks ago.

This is almost certainly Rafa's last year. He's been struggling with injuries and, really, is just lucky to be able to get out on the court. The Hurkacz loss was only his 11th match of the year and his goal now not to win but to get out of each match upright.

Djokovic has cut way back on his schedule as well -- Rome was just his fourth tournament of 2024, along with a couple matches in the United Cup in early January. His match record for the year is 12-5, which sounds good, but remember you can only get one loss per tournament and five of those wins came in one event -- the Australian Open, in which he made the semis but looked old and tired in losing to Sinner. He has not looked like the dominant Djokovic since.

Speaking of Sinner (who didn't play in Rome due to injury), Djoker's loss today clears the way for a changing of the guard at the No. 1 spot in the rankings. While Djokovic still leads by 1,090 points, that lead will disappear when the French Open starts in a couple of weeks. As defending champion, the 2,000 points he got from that victory will drop off his rankings total while Sinner only has 45 points to defend, giving Sinner a lead of more than 800 points.

To be fair, Djoker has an excuse for this one -- after winning his second-round match a couple days ago, he was conked in the head by a metal water bottle that accidentally fell out of a fan's backpack while Djokovic was signing autographs. And I have been way wrong before in predicting great players' demises. But there is certainly reason to believe Djoker's decline has begun.