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    Placing qualifiers is random.

    If Konta can beat Garcia then she could comfortably go deep - obviously you don't want to draw the 6th seed in round 1, but if you beat them then you don't meet anyone else higher ranked until the Quarter Finals.

    Murray's level is more or less completely speculative. I wouldn't expect him to beat del Potro, but it's not impossible - and Delpo had a recent wrist scare. Equally, he could lose to Duckworth. Edmund is very up and down at the moment, he's just had a thrashing from Johnson and it's not the only terrible result he's had recently, but their have been some good ones there too.

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      Patty Schnyder has made it through qualifying, aged 39. Wonder whether she can challenge Kimiko Date for longevity.

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        So it will be Heather Watson who will get the chance to try to win her first ever US Open main draw match.

        (It strikes me that, as of now, there's probably an Only Connect R1 question in there somewhere, with two of the four clues being "Johanna Konta: French Open" and "Heather Watson: US Open".)

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          Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
          who gets Zverev?
          Well, it is Peter Polansky. Unlucky guy, huh? Well not really, as Polansky has made it as a lucky loser, completing a remarkable calendar year of getting entry as a lucky loser into every single slam.

          Watson got Makarova. Not a terrible draw, Makarova's ranking is slipping and Watson won their only previous meeting last year. But Watson will have to maintain her recent improvement in form.

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            That is unreal. Not Watson's draw, that is pretty mundane, but the Polansky tidbit.

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              I know. It means
              a) he's been very close to direct acceptance for each slam, but not close enough to get in
              b) in each tournament he's lost in the final qualifying round
              c) then getting picked in a random draw among the four highest ranked players to lose in that round. Four successive times - this becomes less remarkable if multiple luck loser slots became available, I don't know how many draws he'd have been in, could have been more than 4.

              Polansky has been calling himself the lucky loser GOAT.
              Last edited by Etienne; 25-08-2018, 08:06.

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                That is astonishing!

                Edit: I'll fill in a bit of statto detail on that story:

                In the Aus, he was one of 2 LLs, in the French he was one of 8 LLs, in Wimbledon one of 7 LLs and in the US he is one of 2 LLs.

                He lost in R1 of all three previous slams this year, in chronological order to Khachanov, Herbert and Dennis Novak.

                The total of 17 LL spots in the 3 completed slams this year generated six R1 victories, but only one R2 victory, which was where two winning LLs (Bemelmans and Zopp) faced each other in R2 of the French: Zopp won that match but lost to Marterer in R3.
                Last edited by Evariste Euler Gauss; 25-08-2018, 12:15.

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                  Janik's privilege on here to start, and name, the slam-specific threads, but if it were up to me I'd call the forthcoming one "Amazon Disgrace".

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                    I'm on strike for that very reason. Plus I'm out all day tomorrow and Monday, and then on holiday for the second week of the tournament (crossing fingers that the Italian TV coverage is more traditional, indeed).

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                      Under-the-radar happenings this week - Heather Watson made it to the Semi of a WTA Tour level event in Quebec City. The points accrued push her back past Katie Boulter to British No.2 and back inside the top 100. She may well have been close to making the final (the only info I have is the score) as she was a set up on Parmentier in the Semi and the decider went to a tie-break, which the Frenchwoman won.

                      There is a big deal on the WTA this week as it's the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. Featuring one N.Osaka. Japan is one of the most passionate Tennis-following countries in the World, and they have their first ever Slam singles champion to honour. It's a fair bet that Osaka will be the top earning sportswoman in the World in 2018 off the back of that, and I would also guess she has a chance of breaking into Forbes overall top 100 earning Sportspeople. That list was Woman-free in 2017 due to the effective absence of Serena and Sharapova.
                      Last edited by Janik; 16-09-2018, 10:25.

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                        Osaka trounced Cibulkova 2&1 in R2 (as the #3 seed, Osaka got a bye through R1). Good 'homecoming'.

                        Konta notched a comprehensive win over Dabrowski in R1. Which is one she should have won, of course, but it remains good to do so. Next up, another instalment against Donna Vekic. It's odd how draws work, and certain matches come up again and again for players who are not necessarily meeting in finals (see also Edmund vs Shapovalov).

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                          Originally posted by Janik View Post
                          Next up, another instalment against Donna Vekic.
                          Which Jo lost. World No.40 seems to be very much her level this year, sadly.

                          Nothing much going on on the Men's Tour this week in British terms. Sole notable items is the Skupski boys being into the SFs of an Indoor tournament in Metz. Which is as seeded, they were #4 for this.

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                            Someway below the full tour, but there are three UK men's future's tournaments being played at the moment - and Jack Draper has won the first two. Obviously as a Wimbledon junior finalist we knew he had potential, but being able to win against adults is often a different skill. Those two victories will bring him up to about 630 in the world. Not bad, considering there will only be three players ahead of him who are under 18 - and he's not yet 17. With George Loffhagen (who is only 8 months older) being the fifth highest under 18 in the world.

                            It's not an infallible guide to success (in some ways it depends on the proportion of senior to junior tennis played) but it's very promising.

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                              Britain get a wildcard into the hopefully short-lived new format Davis Cup, so won't play again until those finals next November. The more they announce about how this going to work, the worse it sounds. Six group winners will be joined in quarter finals by two best runners-up, who will be determined by sets then games won. In a group of three where all win one match, this raises the real possibility of team A being ranked above team B as second placed in the group despite having lost to them. And if say 3 runners-up all finish on 1 win and 8 sets won over 2 matches, to split them by games won is wholly unsatisfactory, especially as some teams will go into their final rubber knowing they only need to win a certain amount of games to progress (along with their opponents). It's going to be a bloody joke.

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                                So, with Konta losing in R1 of the China Open (a Prem Mandatory level event for the women), and Watson failing to qualify, the good Tour-level news for British fans on the women's side is Boulter qualifying. She faces Flipkens in R1, a repeat of this summer's ITF Southsea final, which Flipkens won in 3 sets. Flipkens is presumably still a slight favourite, but it's winnable, fingers crossed.

                                Not much cheer on the men's side, where the China Open is a 500 level event (simultaneous with a rival event at the same level in Japan). Norrie failed to qualify, and of course Murray has ended his season after his second defeat in a few months by Verdasco in Shenzhen last week. Edmund is in, but has yet to play R1.

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                                  Damn! Flipkens in 3, again. The qualification points push Boulter up to 101st in the live rankings. She'll be a top 100 player soon, surely.

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                                    I just saw a bizarre tennis stat - Jack Sock (still the world number 17 thanks to his good end to 2017) has won just 6 (SIX) matches in 2018. That's out of 17 tournaments played. The highest current ranking of the 6 players he's managed to beat is 97 (though some were ranked higher when he actually played them).
                                    Last edited by Jimski; 06-10-2018, 06:39.

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                                      Wow, that is quite something for an active player. He currently has 1850 points in the official rankings, of which 1545 are from his last five tournies of 2017 (Basel, Shanghai, Stockholm, Paris, ATP Finals), and just 305 points are from this calendar year. He's 165th in the current official YTD ("Race") rankings.

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                                        Then again he's gone from ranked around 40 to world number 2 in doubles this year, so maybe that's now his focus?

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                                          Sock lost again today (in the first round of the Shanghai masters).

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                                            Jimski (in August):
                                            Djokovic seems right back in form now. Could easily make a late run for the year-end number one from here...

                                            Janik (in response):
                                            He has won Cincinnati, beating Federer in the final. Which makes him the first player to have won all 9 of the current Masters Series, apparently. That surprises me, I would have thought Rafa had already done it. I think end of year no.1 is pushing things though - he is still ~2500 points behind Nadal, i.e. Djokovic will trail even if he wins the US Open and Nadal goes out in R1. Nole winning seems possible, but the other bit is unlikely.[/QUOTE]

                                            Looks as if Jimski called that one right. Djokovic will be 2nd in the rankings on Monday, and if he wins tomorrow's Shanghai final against Coric he'll be just 215 points behind Nadal. Much more relevantly, he's second behind Nadal in the live YTD rankings and if he wins tomorrow he'll be just 35 points behind Nadal in those rankings, which is a gap he's likely to eliminate by some margin given that he's in the strongest form of any man currently on the Tour. He just *thrashed* A Zverev in their Shanghai semi.

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                                              Random British update. Edmund lost to Zverev in the quarter-final at Shanghai, which probably ends any chance he had of making the season finals, barring a swathe of withdrawals. But he's still got a decent chance of being in the top 10 when the Australian Open rolls around - where of course he has a LOT of points to defend.

                                              Katie Boulter has secured her first ever ranking in the top 100 with some fine results in China, particularly a win over Sakkari and pushing the better Pliskova to a tight final set. Watson is having a miserable time though.

                                              Much lower down, but one possible name for the future, and one probable name were playing in Lagos. 14 year old Mukhtar Andu is British, but must have some family ties to Nigeria as he's been granted a couple of wild cards to the main draw in the last two weeks. And this week, he managed to beat his opponent - against an unranked qualifier but a win is still a win. This means he will have a world ranking, and as there are no other fourteen year olds with a world ranking he is now the top ranked played under 15 in the world. In the next round he played the top ranked under 17 player in the world - who is Jack Draper. This was a big step up, and Draper won with two bagels. As mentioned a few posts ago, Draper had won 2 15k tournaments in the UK, well his foray into 25ks has seen him reach a final and then win the second time around. He is now going to be ranked about 420 which is very high for one so young - especially with it only having come from 4 tournaments. There will only be 6 or 7 people under 19 ahead of him in the world, and he'll be GB #8.

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                                                Sadly Del Potro fractured his patella in Shanghai. Unclear what prognosis is, but he sounded very downbeat.

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                                                  Novak is in the kind of career form where he could sweep the board in the next 9 months except for beating a fit Nadal in the French. Federer has gone from 1 to 3 in a few months and that's probably a fair reflection of their current potential when all three are fit.

                                                  Still no challenger to these three now Delpo is injured? Updated points:

                                                  https://www.atpworldtour.com/en/rankings/singles

                                                  Race to London

                                                  https://www.atpworldtour.com/en/rank...race-to-london
                                                  Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 15-10-2018, 11:56.

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                                                    So Konta makes it to the SF of the Kremlin Cup. And will play her second Daria of the tournament. Oxus and Jaxartes.

                                                    If Sasnovich had lost her 2nd round match, Konta would also have played both *ertens in the same tournament.

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