Rome aka the Internazionali BNL d’Italia

[don_budge]

Djoko beat Norrie but was unamused at getting tagged by an overhead at the net.
In fairness he turned and walked into it. But he gave Cam the Death Stare and latter a chilly handshake.
Let's see how the new forum software does with a link.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ehrLsm9WJcE?feature=share

Imo, Novak was being a drama queen in that instance. He turned his back after shanking an absolute sitter, standing in the absolute middle of the court and turning his back. And then got offended at the Norrie finish. That was all on Novak to me.

Oh, absolutely. Novak walked into the line of fire. All on him.

Give each other a big like. A couple of real homies. Both so far removed from reality...hard to imagine. Cam Norrie comes away smelling here. Really bad. First of all...Novak has been at the top of the mountain longer than anyone. He climbed that mountain all by himself. Does he deserve a little respect? I cannot imagine a player doing this to either Federer or Nadal and getting away with it. The reality...Novak turned his back to Norrie. He didn't walk into it. On such a play it is on Norrie to miss the player who has conceded the point by turning his back. Instead he drills him in the back. A real coward. The worst of it was Norrie's reaction. Just a nonchalant wave of the hand with his back turned. Real bush league. Amateurish.

Novak handled it like a pro. He stayed on his side of the net which must have required quite a bit of self control. In certain circles...less civilized perhaps...Norrie would have his lights punched out. Maybe in the locker room. That was a cheap shot. Really the cheapest I have seen in a long while. Particularly so with Novak's status. Status does count too.

[stroke]

Novak's somewhat pompous post match remarks to this "incident " did nothing to strengthen his case to me. He said something about it was just not about the ball that struck him(what appeared to be a vicious, but half swing overhead, to the foot) but also too many "come ons", almost after every point, , and also, the injury time out at the last game of the match, as Novak was serving it out. Well, the injury time out was uncalled for, and if that was the real problem here, ok, but it is not. And it happened well after the incident. I did not notice too may come ons, but whatever. Anyway, it seems to me that Novak was just trying to justify his actions about being unhappy with Cam. As a side note, I have seen pro players appear to turn their back, giving up on a point, prompting a nothing shot from their opponent, only to spring back to life and steal the point. All this being said, I like Novak, not that it matters. I just think he was wrong here in his reaction to Cam.

[stroke]

Match of the day, obviously Novak vs Rune. Novak obviously the favorite with an implied probability of winning at 74%. Oddsmakers are actually giving Rune a lot of respect to put the odds where they are. Could be a great match. Rune seems to really enjoy the fight.

[stroke]

https://nypost.com/2023/05/16/novak-djokovic-throws-a-fit-after-getting-hit-with-overhead/

An article on this Novak/Cam drama ha.

[stroke]

Rune gets a bad call by Chair Umpire Muhammad on a game point for Rune, back to deuce for Novak, who eventually gets a break of serve of Rune on this key game. There was no call on the disputed point, Rune stops play and says the ball was out. Hawkeye confirms the ball was clearly out. Novak loves it as Rune loses it. I hope that the Muhammad call was not influenced by the pending outrage of Novak should he have made the correct call. It really was not a tough call from the umpire chair.

[jimlosaltos]

Tsitsipas has a perhaps surprisingly easy 7-5, 7-5 over Musetti. The younger Italian seemed to have problems with the playing conditions -- and I'm sympathetic. Played until 1:58 am in night cold with what looks like less than excellent lighting. As they say, same conditions for the Greek but he's been there and done that a few more times.

Maybe Tsitisipas read John's write up on Musetti's backhand and it got him motivated
Announcers said Tsitsi is on a 16-0 run vs other singletons.

[jimlosaltos]

Woke up to see Rune-AH had a re-rerun of his whopping of Djokovic in Paris. One is an accident, two in a row ... ?

Will watch later but ATP has this on Rune's backhand. Zero UFEs vs 6 for Novak's backhand. That follows a trend where Djokovic, once the possessor of what many called the best backhand in tennis is no longer winning backhand rallies -- with Medvedev, Zverev, Musetti -- but Novak's forehand seems, to me, better than ever.



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[stroke]

Very well done by Rune. He went to work, hard hat clay court tennis where he basically said to Novak that he could outlast him in rallies, that Novak cannot hit enough winners to beat him, and he was right.

[stroke]

Tsitsipas has a perhaps surprisingly easy 7-5, 7-5 over Musetti. The younger Italian seemed to have problems with the playing conditions -- and I'm sympathetic. Played until 1:58 am in night cold with what looks like less than excellent lighting. As they say, same conditions for the Greek but he's been there and done that a few more times.

Maybe Tsitisipas read John's write up on Musetti's backhand and it got him motivated
Announcers said Tsitsi is on a 16-0 run vs other singletons.

Yes very interesting comparing the backhands of those 2. To me slice wise, Musetti is clearly better, but Tsitsipas did outplay him off that wing this match no doubt. They may end up kind of like Gasquet and Stan, hard to say which is best. I still think neither of them is quite there with Gasquet and Stan.

[jimlosaltos]

Pulled a few stats on Rune upset of Djokovic to see if they matched my impressions of what happend. (2 images)

Djokovic won a majority of the 0-4 shot rallies (O'Shannessy's normal match determiner) but LOST by a lot on longer rallies.

Rune won 45 of rallies longer than 4 shots vs Novak's 30, for an enormous margin of 15 -- which is stunning against "the machine"

This all started with Rune's aggressive service returns, hugging the baseline in the first set, although moving back later.

Contrary to some commentary, the stats show Djokovic serving pretty much as he always does -- speed, percents, placement -- all pretty much par.
Djokovic also earned 35% unreturned serves, good for him on clay.

BUT Rune was being very aggressive returning. Hit hard and kept Novak on his backfoot. Second image shows him inside the doubles alley on several returns of Novak's go-too wide slice in the ad court. Rune's fastest return of Novak's service was 164 km/h -- a full 20 km/h greater than Novak's fastest.

Note also that Rune went after Djokovic's forehand return of serve -- hitting 68% of his serves in the deuce court wide vs 49.3% for the year.



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[stroke]

I felt like Rune just played very solid, not reaching for winners, just pretty much saying to Novak can you hit through me and take it. Novak could not.

[jimlosaltos]

One other thing that stood out to me at Rome so far, was the crowd that showed up for Tsitsipas-Musetti.

Put aside for a minute the insane scheduling that had Tsitsipas playing Sonego in the morning then having a match starting at around midnight -- and continuing to 1:48 AM.

The crowd that showed up was phenomenal. Late at night, on and off rain, wearing down jackets for the cold -- and there's a good crowd. Yes, Lorenzo is a local but that's awesome support for ATP tennis IMHO. Yes, the baseline expensive seats were largely empty, but over half the seats looked used.

This image from TennisTV is about half an hour into their match so already the next day. Look at the crowd and maybe a third were there when Stef waved thanks.

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[jimlosaltos]

Tsitipas, stuck with yet another late night match, takes our Borna Coric in straights, 3 & 4.

Is Tsitsipas trying out some new service tactics? Yet another match where he serves a very low percentage in (48% tonight) but he won 90% of those he landed against a pretty good returner in slow conditions. Curious.

Stef averaged 127 mph / max 134 mph.

Checking: Vs Musetti got only 53% in for 1st set but went up to 63% for match, won 80% of first serves in the cold, wee morning hours on clay, 123 / 135 mph.

[jimlosaltos]

Men's semifinals

Ruud, having a down year, is 4-0 vs Rune, all on clay. Rune has won 1 set, that at last year's French. Rune won the French juniors. That surprised me a bit when I first saw it. Thought he was a hard-courter. Win over Djoko shows just how well the Dane plays on clay. Completely neutralized Djokovic's wide serve.

Tsitsipas vs Medvedev 4-7, but Stef has won their last 2, both on hard courts, and their only Roland Garros meeting, 2021. Medy is quietly playing as if he actually likes clay! No drama Octopus?

Tsitsipas just might have gotten his A game back finally after elbow surgery. Hit some spectacular half-volleys and overheads in Rome. Serve seems back as well.

Here are Tsitsi's first serves through the quarters; hasn't lost a set and I think only broken twice in fortnight? Via TennisTV

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[jimlosaltos]

But here's Tsitsipas's achilles heel, backhand service return. Tries to block-drive ala Fed and misses too many. Again thru quarters, from TennisTV.

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