Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Not really sure for either draw.
The men's is any of the top four. I've actually got a sneaky feeling it might be Murray, but I would put all of them on about 25%.
Womens? It's never wise to back against Serena, whatever her state of fitness. If she makes the quarter-finals, then her. If not, basically any of the top fifteen seeds. Petkovic, maybe...

[Diable Rouge]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Can't see Murray beating Nadal in the semis - before Djokovic's emergence the Dunblane lad looked like he could challenge, but just hasn't stepped up his quality. So, the Mallorcan will defeat Djokovic in the final. As for the ladies, Serena will beat Zvonareva in the decider.

[The Exploding Vole]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

MatthewLumby on Twitter: "Well done Laura and Elena today. Didn't win but both played well."

... British, by any chance?

[Gangster Octopus]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Roddick's gone. And Zvonareva's not looking too good.

[Gangster Octopus]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Diable Rouge wrote:

As for the ladies, Serena will beat Zvonareva in the decider.

Zvonareva lasted an hour and a quarter after this prediction. Who's Serena going to lose to tomorrow?

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Petkovic also went out within a couple of hours of my posting...

Serena's next opponent is Maria Kirilenko. Thing is, with every round Serena losing becomes less likely rather than more so.

[Commodore]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

The cheer that greeted Murray's victory was electric. They should use that roof more often.

If Murray gets his shit together on his serve, he gives himself a chance of making the semis. But no champion-elect has his serve broken when they're serving for the match as he did against Ljubicic. The unpredictable but potentially dangerous Gasquet is next up. A five-setter beckons.

Two potentially cracking matches tomorrow with Federer vs Nalbandian followed by Djokovic vs Baghdatis.

[Kettle]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Baghdatis v Djokovic has not disappointed at all. A bit of proper needle to the match as well. Marcos digging in really well to try and save the game.

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

It was exciting, but the Tennis wasn't that great. Too many errors. Djokivic needs to seriously up his level if he is to win the title.
I didn't notice any particular needle. There was some fist-pumping, but that seemed to me to be directed at the players support camps, rather than at each other. The handshake at the end was warmer than normal, if anything.

[Commodore]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Baghdatis has a smile that lights up the place; no wonder the crowd warmed to him (when they turned up, Centre Court was half empty when it kicked off). It was a pulsating encounter, but the fact that Djokovic was far from his best and still won through (the old Djoko might have surrendered) means that he's still a threat.

Nadal's next match against Del Potro looks a well tasty encounter, btw.

[Gangster Octopus]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Sisters ain't doing it...

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Oh Caroline, No.

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Nice spread of countries in the women's quarter-finals, with a strong central and eastern european theme.

For patriotic reasons I have to support Kvitova, but for personal ones I would love to see Marion Bartoli take the title. She has a realistic shot (but then, in the absence of the Williams' sister, they all do).

[Tony C]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

I was rather sorry to see Kubot go out - cruel for him, too, after being two sets up against Lopez.

I admire a good singles player who takes his doubles seriously at Grand Slams, although he and his specialist doubles partner Knowles went out in the first round despite being seeded 10.

[Diable Rouge]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Is even Nadal now going to fall victim to the legendary DR vote of confidence?

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Nope.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

I must admit I'm not the greatest follower of women's tennis but I thought I knew most of the top players - so this year's women's (sorry, ladies, they're ladies at Wimbledon aren't they) semi final line-up has embarrassed me, as I've never heard of anyone left in it apart from Sharapova.

Is that just me, or is this the women's equivalent of the year in the men's that ended up Krajicek-Washington in the final?

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

No, it's not like that.

Lisicki is a suprise, but she was seen as a real rising star, talked about as being a future no.1, prior to the injuries. She also made the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 2009 (which I will admit I had forgotten)
Azarenka has been a consistent top ten player for the last few seasons, most of them spent in the top five (she is a higher seed than Sharapova). She has underperformed in slams compared to her ranking, this is her first time beyond a quarter-final, but she had made to the quarters in five of the previous ten slams, including once at Wimbledon.
Kvitova was a semi-finalist here last year, a quarter-finalist in Australia this year, and is ranked 8th in the world. She was considered a good outside bet for the title prior to the tournament.

As I mentioned on the French Open thread, Federer has never lost a slam match from two sets up. Tsonga is currently seriously testing this record, a break up in the final set.

[Outside Agent]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Federer has made a proverbial dog's dinner of this one. He's got to 30 on plenty of Tsonga's serves and then proceeds to committ some really poor unforced errors. His body language suggests he thinks he's beaten too.

[Gangster Octopus]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Janik wrote:

As I mentioned on the French Open thread, Federer has never lost a slam match from two sets up.

He has now.

[Outside Agent]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Federer collapsed like a rookie there. Little evidence of coherent strategic play when he found himself threatening to break Tsonga's serve - and that was quite alot over the last two sets. He rushed shots when solid returns to prolong the rally would have seen him win his share. By the end he had a face like a bag full of mortal sins, as my late Granny would say, and he looked like he couldn't wait to get the game over with. Serious mental weakness here, and overall the defeat is more telling than those to Berdych, Soderling, Nadal or Djokovic over the last three years. I'm really not confident of him adding to his sixteen slams now.

It was a defeat that Nadal, Djokovic and even Murray would not have suffered here.

[Tony C]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Here's a poorly informed, narrow-minded and borderline racist piece on women's tennis.

Written by Jim White, almost inevitably.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/8604542/Wimbledon-2011-shriek-factor-steals-the-thunder-from-the-quality-of-Sabrine-Lisickis-play.html

[The Exploding Vole]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

And they wonder why people don't buy newspapers.

The trouble with events like Wimbledon is that they're often covered by writers who: a) don't really know much about tennis; b) don't seem to want to know much about tennis; c) probably wish they were somewhere else.

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

I think the centre court crowd has picked a favourite, and it's entirely due to noise. Azarenka is fairly notorious for her grunt/shriek, but it sounds even worse when up against someone like Kvitova, who doesn't bother grunting at all.

[Janik]

Nadal vs Djokovic - match of the season?

Now that's how to serve for a set. Ace, ace, ace, win the next point. Sampras-like...