2018 U. S. Open Championships...ATP 2000...New York, New York U. S. A.

[tennis_chiro]

The Nadal/Thiem match was a classic. Very high level for Thiem in first set, but not Nadal. Very high level for both players as the match went on. And it got better and better. Nadal went to the net over 50 times! If you missed it, it is worth trying to dig out a youtube version. There are also tapes on things like ESPN+.

don

[gzhpcu]

You have to admire Nadal’s fighting spirit. He never gives up. In this, he is better than Federer.

[stroke]

Thiem wins 1st set 6-0 in 24 minutes. McEnroe said he would have given 100-1 odds that would not happen. Me too.

[stroke]

Thiem starts off on fire with 2 breaks for a 3-0 lead. We will see.

[stroke]

Looking forward to Nadal Thiem. I am certainly not going to tune in until Serena is off court.

[arturohernandez]

Funny, that he just signed with Uniqlo for a very long term deal.

Slowly, the mind is thinking about the long term.

If he wins one more GS, he may just announce it right at the awards ceremony.

I saw him two years ago in Halle. He beat Khachanov in two very close sets.

I am glad I got to see him when he was still playing at that level.

[stotty]

Roger has never sweated much but nevertheless the body can go into a cycle where it can sweat inexplicably more, even for minimal sweater like Roger. I still haven't seen the match but it must have been bizarre judging by the posts on the forum.

Del Potro is 2 sets to 1 up as against Isner I write. The game is mindboggling dull.

[stroke]

I just don't think Fed let the match go. I will say this, I have always thought that Fed was a minimal sweater, which is of course a desirable tennis trait, like most all of Fed's tennis traits, but he was sweating more than I have ever seen him. I am not at all certain that is his whole long spectacular career, this was his worst ever weather wise. Something was amiss with him I think. And on an unrelated side note, he looked much better in Nike, but I am not much of a fan of Nike with their latest hire/rehire.

[don_budge]

A mind game for all of us to ponder now.

I am not buying into this business of it being too hot or too anything. That was a really piss poor performance. I hate to say this, but it looked to me as if he threw the match. He served for the second set...that is a done deal. He had points to go up 5-2 in the fourth and somehow managed to fuck that up. I have been saying for a long time that this stuff is starting to resemble "Big-Time Wresting".

Just 48 hours earlier he faced down one of his biggest nemesis' on the tour and made him look like a frustrated hack. This guy was playing into his wheelhouse all day and he was muffing shot after shot. Totally overdoing the dropshot routine. Served how many first serves in? Double faulting twice in the tiebreak. The FBI? Give me a break. Tennis just got a black eye.

The interview after the Kyrgios match Federer was asked about being a role model with his behaviour. Well one match cannot destroy a career...but that image is going to stick for a while. Terrible...terrible...terrible. There are no words to describe just how poor of a performance that was. His opponent must have know how soft Federer was playing it.

I stopped watching the match with Kyrgios after the first set. I found that I was not that interested. I watched some of this match too and I did see the finish. All of the last set. That was a real stinker. Weather my ass. I am more inclined to believe tennis_chiro's comment about his children being kidnapped. Roger...that sucked. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. How could you? What are you doing?

[arturohernandez]

Back to Fed.

I get that it was very hot and not comfortable but it was a night match and he has played these before.

From tennis.com
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2018/...h-round/76681/

“I just thought it was very hot tonight,” explained Federer, who was drenched in sweat from the onset. “Was just one of those nights where I guess I felt I couldn't get air. There was no circulation at all. I don't know, for some reason I just struggled in the conditions tonight. It's one of the first times it's happened to me."

Federer added this: "At some point, also I was just happy that the match was over, I guess.”

Matt Damon said that training for the last Bourne movie left him in tears at the gym.

It was that much harder for him to get in the kind of shape that was not such a big deal in the first movie.

I wonder if Fed is starting to feel like Matt Damon. He knows how much work it takes to play at such a high level.

He is putting the same work and yet physically he is not the same.

I admire his will to keep fighting.

I just don't know how much his body can keep listening to his will.

[arturohernandez]

It was hot for everyone. And BTW, the weather in NYC is an average day in the Houston area from June to September.

Summer tennis here is half fighting to want to stay out longer and half really playing tennis.

From September to May it is mostly about actually playing tennis.

Glad to see that even extremely well conditioned pros feel exactly the way I do.

[tennis_chiro]

I watched the post match interview live. Fed said the heat and humidity had him feeling like he couldn't breathe. That explains some of it, but it still seemed like he was making very strange choices.

don

[gzhpcu]

We are all human, even Federer. Important is to move on....

[stroke]

I cannot think of a bigger upset in mens Slam tennis.

[klacr]

-77 unforced errors in the match
-10 double faults - his second highest at the US Open and joint third at a Grand Slam
-49% of first serves - his second lowest percentage in 98 US Open matches and fifth lowest in 393 Grand Slam matches.

Producing stats like that, it's tough to win at any level. Federer was his own worst enemy.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton