Australian Open tennis 2020

[K]

Kyrgios wins in a fifth-set 10-point tie-break, almost two hours after his first match point.

There always seem to be runs of points for one player in these match tie-breaks.

He'll play Nadal next.

[Jezza]

The match went for over four hours, which was Kyrgios' longest in his career.

Can't say I'm a fan of the 5th set tiebreak though.

[K]

... which is all Isner's fault! And I'm not sure he's even played in one yet.

[K]

Federer in some early trouble.

His Hungarian opponent takes the opening set.

[K]

But Federer has the break in the 2nd set.

Fucsovics has, tattooed on his arm, "Forgive me for my sins."

[K]

Roger is cruising now. Would losing to Roger be on of his sins?

...............................

Update: Federer wins in 4 sets.

Trivia: the spin on one of his passing shots late in the game was measured at 3250 rpm. I wonder what he could get with old (wooden!) racquets.

[K]

J. Niall:

"Nadal ... takes an inordinate time between serves. Kyrgios takes an average of 16.4 seconds, one of the least on tour.

Nadal's game is labor-intensive, involving longer rallies. Kyrgios wins by shortening points with an abrupt swing. Nadal expends enormous energy in every shot (6.46 kilojoules last round), Kyrgios has a low-emission style (5.36kj), albeit the sheer time on court meant he more than doubled Rafa's energy oultlay in his epic last match than Nadal did against Pablo Carreno Busta; it is a measure of Nadal's greater athleticism and full bore effort that, despite a much less taxing run in his three matches, he's still had 280 "high-intensity" changes of direction compared to Kyrgios' 206."


Obviously AO are providing data. I wonder what they mean by "6.46 kJ" per shot, etc. They can measure many things, but they surely cannot measure energy expenditure on shots, or even total energy expenditure over the match. Whatever they do measure, surely they should be giving that, not dressing it up as a guessed energy expenditure.

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

Nadal will win in 3 sets tonight

[K]

J. Braden:

"It took nearly three years, but Dominic Thiem is finally acting like a top 10 player. His reward has been his best tennis yet.

For years, Thiem played far more often than his peers. In 2016, when he first cracked the top 10, he played 82 matches, 17 percent more than the average of the end-of-season top 10 players. But now, a more mature and confident Thiem is designing his playing schedule more carefully, and his results on court have never been better.
...

As Thiem worked his way up to the top of the game, he had been the ATP Tour’s Ironman. In 2015, for instance, he rarely took a week off, playing in 30 tournaments, 48 percent more than the top 10 average of 20.3. That tied for eighth-most among players who finished the year ranked inside the top 100.
...

In 2016, he played 82 matches, while the top 10 averaged 70.1. In 2017, Thiem competed in 77 tour-level contests, almost 15 percent more than the top 10 average of 67.2; and in 2018, Thiem again played in more matches, 74, than the top 10 average of 64.2.
...

Last season, Thiem didn’t play the week before any Slam, and in total, he played 68 matches — exactly the top-10 average for 2019 and his lowest tally since 2015, when he played 64.

“I think with the age, I have to take little bit more care of myself,” Thiem said. “My goal is to play less tournaments, for sure, but to play well in every single tournament I play.”"

[K]

Wawrinka & Medvedev are about to go to a 5th set.

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

Go the Russian

[K]

Wawrinka with the double break now will serve for the match.

His famed backhand (the best one-handed backhand in the game) has been on display the last few games.
Last game, Medvedev hit an ace, called for the same ball, and promptly hit another ace! All to no avail, though...

[K]

Lovers of the one-handed backhand should probably start watching now, as Wawrinka joins Thiem in the QFs.

I reckon these two have the best one-handed backhands in tennis.

Thiem will play the winner of Nadal-Kyrgios. Wawrinka will play the winner of Zverev-Rublev.

[K]

Nadal-Kyrgios starts.

Nadal double-faults twice in the opening game but holds.
Kyrgios aces to hold his opening game.

They have brought out the A team in the commentary box, led by John McEnroe.

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Kyrgios comes in to the net and Nadal sizzles a curling passing shot down the line.

McEnroe says Kyrgios still needs to learn better court positioning.

--------------------------------------------

Courier says Nadal stands 7m behind the baseline to receive serve.

Nadal gets the early break of serve.

[K]

Nadal wins the third-set tiebreak and leads 2 sets to 1.

The set lasted 72 minutes. Sadly, Kyrgios's racquet did not survive the set.

There were two crucial double faults in the tiebreak that cancelled each other out. Kyrios went for broke on a second serve and double faulted to give Rafa a set point. Rafa then was distracted between first and second serves and returned the double fault.

------------------------------

Courier said an interesting thing about the Kyrgios double fault. He said that to the mathematician it was the right decision to go for the second-serve ace, because he was winning well less than half of his points on second serve. He's just making it two first serves, Courier said.

Let's see: after three sets, the Kyrgios first serve % is 75%; his win % on 1st serve is 67%, and on 2nd serve 38%.

Yep, Courier is right! By making his second serve a first serve, he made it a 50% chance of winning the point, which is indeed much better than 38%.

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And, just before 11pm, Nadal wins through a 4th-set tiebreak. Final score: 6-3 3-6 7-6 7-6.


Post-match, John McEnroe looks like he's wearing a shirt from the 70s.