2008 Australian Tennis Open

Wonder what the bookies made out of that pair of results??

Well played Djokovic.

skully wrote:Wonder what the bookies made out of that pair of results??

I had $50 on Joker to win the thing a couple of days ago.

Looking pretty good now

skully wrote:Wonder what the bookies made out of that pair of results??

I want to know what odds I could have got for Federer and Nadal both losing in straight sets.

That's zero sets out of six for the top two players in the world.

I could sense that Federer was climbing back. He was clearly off his game and was lacking in confidence. But he was fighting hard. If he'd won the third set lucky dip he was a good chance of storming back to take the match.

Djokiovic will go in to the final as favourite but if Tsonga plays like he did on Thursday then Novak won't have a chance.

Cheers.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I think situations like this show us how great Federer really is. He's a brilliant front runner and he's so good that he's in that position most of the time, but we need to see him in situations like this, when he's behind, demoralised and being outplayed. Does he have the mentals to comeback and win?

2 sets down. Can he do it?

Yep this is what probably keeps him behind Sampras. Sampras came back from the brink on many occassions in Slams.

Hass wrote:

skully wrote:Wonder what the bookies made out of that pair of results??

I want to know what odds I could have got for Federer and Nadal both losing in straight sets.

500s at least Hass.

Paul Keating wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I think situations like this show us how great Federer really is. He's a brilliant front runner and he's so good that he's in that position most of the time, but we need to see him in situations like this, when he's behind, demoralised and being outplayed. Does he have the mentals to comeback and win?

2 sets down. Can he do it?

Yep this is what probably keeps him behind Sampras. Sampras came back from the brink on many occassions in Slams.

Not that many that I can recall.

Fed was a bit unlucky tonight - the Joker was going for broke and it mostly came off. Fed also served for the first set, lost his serve in the second to an arsey shot around the net which may not have even been in and wasn't challenged and held set points in the third. He really only had a bad patch of a few games which cost the match.

Fair do's to Joker though - I don't think he can play better than he did today.

Hope Tsonga kicks his arse though.

Serbist.

JGK wrote:

Paul Keating wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I think situations like this show us how great Federer really is. He's a brilliant front runner and he's so good that he's in that position most of the time, but we need to see him in situations like this, when he's behind, demoralised and being outplayed. Does he have the mentals to comeback and win?

2 sets down. Can he do it?

Yep this is what probably keeps him behind Sampras. Sampras came back from the brink on many occassions in Slams.

Not that many that I can recall.

Fed was a bit unlucky tonight - the Joker was going for broke and it mostly came off. Fed also served for the first set, lost his serve in the second to an arsey shot around the net which may not have even been in and wasn't challenged and held set points in the third. He really only had a bad patch of a few games which cost the match.

Fair do's to Joker though - I don't think he can play better than he did today.

Hope Tsonga kicks his arse though.

He wasn't unlucky, he just wasn't good enough.

Frankly, I think it's great that the impregnable 1-2 fortress of Federer-Nadal has been breached. Bring on the Joker-Song era.

Federer's fore-hand was absolutely screwed today. Unlucky. But Djokovic is good.

Sharapova destroyed Ana in today's final.

Amazing that Ana goes up to 2 and Maria stays at 5 in the world.

JGK wrote:

Paul Keating wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I think situations like this show us how great Federer really is. He's a brilliant front runner and he's so good that he's in that position most of the time, but we need to see him in situations like this, when he's behind, demoralised and being outplayed. Does he have the mentals to comeback and win?

2 sets down. Can he do it?

Yep this is what probably keeps him behind Sampras. Sampras came back from the brink on many occassions in Slams.

Not that many that I can recall.

Fed was a bit unlucky tonight - the Joker was going for broke and it mostly came off. Fed also served for the first set, lost his serve in the second to an arsey shot around the net which may not have even been in and wasn't challenged and held set points in the third. He really only had a bad patch of a few games which cost the match.

Fair do's to Joker though - I don't think he can play better than he did today.

Hope Tsonga kicks his arse though.

Sampras’s record in slams in five set matches is an amazing 29-9. Federer’s is 11-10. I can’t find any stats on how many times both players have come back to win from two sets to love. But I can think of at least four for Sampras.

He came back from two sets down against both Courier and Larsson in the ‘95 Australian Open. Courier again at Roland Garros in ‘96, and against Black at the ‘00 Australian.

Sampras played for nearly a decade and a half. He saw off at least two if not three generations of new players. Federer has been great for the past five years and during this time, the best players he has encountered are Agassi, Hewitt, Roddick and Nadal.

Roger Rasheed on Channel 7 made the comment that in Sampras’s first slam win, he had to beat Lendl, McEnroe, Muster and Agassi to win the US Open. That is an incredible list of good or great players.

Of the past 30 years I’d go with Sampras, Borg, Federer, Lendl, McEnroe, Edberg, Becker, Wilander, Connors, Agassi.

The only black mark against Sampras is his appalling record at the French where year in year out he was knocked out in the first or second round by no-name players.

Now we head to the French Open to see if Nadal can lay claims to being as good as Borg on clay, after surpassing Kuerton last year.

The way I see it, if Fed hadn't been around we'd be talking about Nadal as possibly one of the greatest players ever - he'd probably have 3 French and a couple of Wimbledons at least by now. Yet is is miles behind Federer.

Sampras did have an amazing win in 1990 but didn't do much else for the next 2-3 years.

And on your list, I'd certainly have Connors and Agassi ahead of Edberg, Wilander and Becker.

One set all in the Men's final.

Most of the crowd going for Tsonga and the Joker camp isn't happy about it.

One way the Joker can fix that - and at the moment he looks like doing it.

Yup, the Joker is serious and is starting to dust The Song. And the crowd is not happy. And some amusing angst between French and Serbian supporters in the crowd. Farkin ethnics.

Djoko takes the second set. He's such a great returner. Almost Agassi like.

Tsonga could do with playing a few more drop shots, like he did against Nadal.

What's with this Aussie/American chant of "Let's go "......." Let's go". Has there ever been anything quite as trite and inane?

Punching gloves after every over by the sorry-arsed Indian and English batsmen . . .

No, that's cool. Only cool dudes do that.

Oh! Tsonga missed a great chance to break.

"Has there ever been anything quite as trite and inane?"

No - not unless you count Aussie Oi Oi Oi or 'Here we go here we go', or that moronic load of twaddle the Barmy Army do that ends 'Barmy Army...Barmy Army' ad infinitum ad about three ads after nauseum. They're all much of a muchness, all OK the first three times you hear them but irritating as buggery the next million.

Big tie-break coming up.

Fred Nerk wrote:"Has there ever been anything quite as trite and inane?"

No - not unless you count Aussie Oi Oi Oi or 'Here we go here we go', or that moronic load of twaddle the Barmy Army do that ends 'Barmy Army...Barmy Army' ad infinitum ad about three ads after nauseum. They're all much of a muchness, all OK the first three times you hear them but irritating as buggery the next million.

You find buggery irritating?