The crowd might get ugly tonight at the Brooksby/Djokovic match. As much as Brooksby looks like a completely spoiled prep school kid, he's still from the USA and the crowd has been REALLY into him so far this open. Meanwhile, Djokovic has been clearly rattled/disappointed at the crowd's lukewarm reaction to him. If Brooksby shows any fight at all, look for the audience to boo / cheer Djokovic's missed first serves and to offer some light heckling. I don't think Brooksby has a chance to win, but I do think there's a non-zero chance we get some Djokovic anger/stink-eye, which might be some juicy catharsis for my fellow Djoko-haters.
Brooksby seems like the most promising USA men's player in a long time if he gets a serve, he could really do some damage.
Was really pulling for Svitolina there. But Fernandez is a hell of a player for only 19. My goodness.
no one in the mens game right now can beat djokovic in a 5 set match. it's sad. it doesn't matter if his opponent wins the first set. it doesn't matter if he wins the first two sets. no one is A)mentally consistent enough and B) has a varied enough game. he basically just uses the first set to figure the other guy out, and then he takes him to the woodshed. everyone djokovic plays gets tired/nervous after the first set or two. djokovic is such a perfect returner that he can just play defensively and let the other player beat themselves. this is one reason why he's disliked, is because he's basically just a wall. djokovic is just simply on another level. in order to beat him you have to be able to beat him in multiple ways. you have to have a strong serve and not overly rely on only one shot. you have to beat him one way in the first set and another way after that. If you only have one game plan he'll figure it out and adjust. I never gave the arguments about "playing in a weak era" any weight for Federer/Nadal, because they had each other, Roddick, Murray, Tsonga, young Djokovic himself. But there is a vacuum right now in the men's game. The players who were supposed to step up to the plate are all washouts like Dmitrov and Raonic or wildly incosistent like Zverev, Thiem, and Tsitsipas . he hasn't been challenged at a major since the 2019 Wimbledon final where Roger choked that match away. he's gonna get the grand slam this year and next year probably. he might finish with 30 gs titles. and yeah, he's a terrible person to boot. makes me sick to hear tennis commentators talk about how monumental this record would be when it's actually the death knell of the sport.
I hate when I have to put a match on mute because of the constant grunting. Sabalenka's grunting is ridiculous.
This is what I was worried about with Sabalenka: the unforced errors. I just can’t see her being consistent enough to win 7 straight matches despite her immense talent. I’d love to be wrong.
so yeah, I know what I said earlier about fernandez, but you hate to see a collapse like that. feels bad.