US Open Tennis 2017: Last Man Standing

[Janik]

Well, he got to deuce at last. But two points later it's over, Nadal finishing off with a booming serve near ace to get match point and then a serve-volley to seal it. Basically the tactics Mats Wilander wanted from Anderson! Laveresque, that. Attack the opponents strength, because if you can beat them on that then they will have nowhere else to turn.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

Well. Happy of course that Rafa won but that match, as a microcosm of the tournament, and the tournament as a microcosm of 2017, was garbage. What a terrible year of men's tennis and sad to see that the incredible era of the last decade has seemingly come to an end. While all four will no doubt still have some life in them, it seems they're all past their peak and it's very unlikely to ever have all four near their best in the same slam again. All good things must come to an end of course but it's sad.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

Don't mean that to take away from Rafa by the way, he played well and did a job. But he wasn't even tested. Not even facing deuce until he got tight at the end, ffs.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Very humble speech from Andersen at the end. Feel sorry for him as he was on a hiding to nothing, at least he made it a respectable score but Nadal was always going to win. I agree with Wilander who basically said he should have played a totally different game than normal because his normal game was never going to beat Nadal.

[multipleman78]

What an unpredictable year at the Grand Slams. In January i doubt any of us were predicting a Roger/Rafa clean sweep and God knows what the odds were on Ostapenko and Stephens picking up a slam.

Hopefully the big guns all get fit and raring to go for the Australian Open. Williams and Azarenka on one side and Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka, Raonic and Nishikori on the other side were all sorely missed here. Even a big personality like Kyrgios would have been nice to fill the void.

Does anyone have track of all the predictions we made for the top 4 at the end of the year?

[Janik]

My tip of Belinda Bencic will be the worst of them. By a county mile.

I agree with Wilander who basically said he should have played a totally different game than normal because his normal game was never going to beat Nadal.

I understood where Wilander was coming from, and why he also critiqued Jerzy Janowicz for taking the same approach of playing his normal game against Andy Murray in a Wimbledon semi-final a few years back. It does, however, ignore whether these players are capable of executing something away from their normal game at anything like the necessary level. If they cannot, that won't work either. Their best bet may be playing to their strengths and hoping on a 1 in 100 than trying to play to the opponents relative weaknesses (which are simply less prominent strengths in the case of the big four) if doing so means something that they are not capable of pulling off.

[San Bernardhinault]

My earlier prediction that it would be like the Rusedski year holds. A big serving one-off from the bottom half will end up being smashed by one of the two big guys from the top half in the final.

I might change my earlier prediction of that bottom-half guy from Querrey, who is too obvious, to Kevin Anderson. He's exactly the kind of player who has just kind of been around for ever without being that good, relying mostly on his massive serve, and who might have one really streaky slam in his career.

If my predictions were always this good, I could make some money at the bookies.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Does anyone have track of all the predictions we made for the top 4 at the end of the year?

I'll bump the thread in question so we can all have a look.