2013 Running Tennis Thread

Sharapova vs. Azarenka yesterday sounded like an orgy with all the screams and grunts.

Serena will win Saturday, though. If it weren't for Sloane Stephens down under, we'd be looking at another Serena Slam to go with the one in 2002-03.

 

Serena over Maria 6-4, 6-4 for le title.

 

Why don't the baseball players use Serena's HGH dispenser? She's friends with ARod, hook a brother up.

 

The speech in French was impressive, though. There's no PED for that.

 

Nadal just amazes me. He will not only run down balls that look like sure winners for his opponents, but half the time he'll hit a clean winner in return from the most unlikely places off the court, behind the baseline, etc. The man just seems to be able to stretch and slide forever and you can never count a point as being over against him.

I don't give Ferrer much of a chance in the final. The two met in the semis last year and Nadal just absolutely smoked him in straight sets. I'm looking for something like 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 for Nadal.

I really think it was stupid not to seed Nadal at least second and in the opposite half of the draw away from Djokovic. I mean, c'mon, he's 58-1 at Roland Garros and has won seven titles. Quite possibly the greatest clay court player of all time. I know his ranking dipped because he was out with an injury, but the tournament should have the freedom to re-seed players based on past performance.

It was also terribly unfair to Djokovic, the No. 1 player in the world, to force him to face Nadal before the final.

 

Seedings are on world rankings, no? Nadal's injury is why he got that seed.

 

Yeah. But I think the individual tournaments have the right to change the seedings if they deem it best. Wimbledon has done that for years, moving up the good grass court players and bumping down the clay court specialists.

And we're not talking about the difference between being seeded 18th and 19th. This screwed with the entire draw.

 

Wimbledon's pretty much the only tournament that does it, on the basis of "grass is so different."

But as far as Nadal is concerned, clay is different, too.

Players revolt at any mention of tweaking the seedings, though, and they kind of have a point.

"I worked my butt off over the past 52 weeks to reach No. 3 . . . and you're gonna seed me No. 5 or 6 behind a couple of clay or grass specialists?"

 

I agree with the players. Keep it as organic as possible and don't attempt to 'fix' outcomes.

So Djokovic lost in a semifinal. So what?

 

I'm glad Bethanie Mattek-Sands seems to be turning her career around. That is all.

 

She stopped eating gluten! So have I. It's really amazing. For 2 years, I'd go off gluten and feel better, only to second guess it and go back on.

I'd be really hungry and go to the fridge, see a nice turkey sandwich and have the following conversation:

You're starving, and there's nothing gluten-free in the house. So Djokovic became World #1 off gluten, so what? You know firsthand professional athletes are full of shit. It's probably in your head. I'm sure gluten-free is just the latest fad diet. Eat the sandwich.

And then I'd be a zombie for 36 hours.

After a glutenous binge a month ago, followed by a week of barely functioning, I'm off gluten again and feeling really good.

Seeing Mattek-Sands' successful run at the French has really convinced me once and for all there's something to this.

 

Well, in terms of ranking, it does have some meaning. Djokovic lost to Nadal in the final last year. This year, it happens to be the semifinal, so his current point total in the rankings drops (you replace points in a 52-week cycle). A weird irony about the rankings points is they only reflect how deep you go in a tournament, not who you beat or lost to. So a five-set semifinal loss to Nadal is weighed the same as 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 to John Journeyman. So it has relevance in that respect. It could potentially affect his seeding at the U.S. Open or year-end ranking.

It also denies a player, through no fault of his own, a chance to reach a Grand Slam final, which are always considered career milestones.

This debate, of course, is not new (thank you, Caroline Wozniacki). What should count more: results in weekly, routine tour events or Slams? I think the players and the fans --- both casual and diehard --- put more weight on the slams.

I will say right now that Nadal should be seeded No. 1 at Roland Garros next year --- regardless of whether he plays another event or not between now and then. He's won the freakin' tourney EIGHT times in the last nine years. It reminds me of their requiring six-time champion Bjorn Borg to play qualifiers in 1982 because he had taken some time off. Borg said "screw that" and retired in his mid 20s, denying fans a few more years of great rivalries with Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl. That kind of stuff just hurts the sport.