Madrid champion Novak Djokovic will clash with young Canadian Denis Shapovalov in his opening match in Rome. Fellow Madrid finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas kicks off his campaign against even younger Italian wild card Jannick Sinner.
(1) Novak Djokovic vs. Denis Shapovalov
After a lackluster spring season, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic came roaring back with his first clay court title of 2019 in Madrid last week. The Serb was impressive in his defeat of Stefanos Tsitsipas. Djokovic began the year with a dominant run to the title of the Australian Open, but faltered in Indian Wells and Miami, losing early in upset wins to Philipp Kohlschreiber and Roberto Bautista Agut respectively.
Denis Shapovalov had a good run on hard courts, particularly in Miami where he finally lost to Roger Federer in the semifinals. The Canadian NextGen star hasn’t fared as well on clay. In fact, until this week, he hadn’t won a single match on the dirt in three tries. For him to run into Djokovic so early in the tournament is a spot of bad luck.
It’s doubtful Shapovalov will be able to hang with Djokovic on clay. He was able to take a set from the world No. 1 this year in Melbourne, but Djokovic is nearly as good on clay as he is on the slow hard courts of the Australian Open. And his clay game isn’t exactly Shapovalov’s strong suit.
Cheryl pick: Djokovic in 2
Ricky pick: Djokovic in 2
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(8) Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Jannick Sinner
It’s a rare thing for Stefanos Tsitsipas to play someone younger than he, but on Wednesday, the Madrid finalist will take on 17 year-old Jannick Sinner, who stunned Steve Johnson in the first round. The shock wasn’t necessarily that Sinner is 17, but more that he is ranked 263 in the world and generally finds himself competing on the Futures tour. A generous wildcard for the Italian into the Rome event handed young Sinner a golden opportunity.
Stefanos Tsitsipas has had an impressive couple of weeks. The Greek won his first clay court title in Estoril, then followed that up with a run to the final in Madrid, during which he beat Rafael Nadal before going down to Novak Djokovic. Certainly, there is the real possibility that Tsitsipas is fatigued, but it’s hard to imagine the Greek allowing Sinner another opportunity for an upset.
Cheryl pick: Tsitsipas in 2
Ricky pick: Tsitsipas in 2
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Tsitsipas takes down Fognini in straights for an impressive win against the home crowd favorite. It should be a heck of a match tomorrow against Fed, though both guys will probably be pretty tired.
Elizabeth nah dont hate you my friend, we are all entitled to like or dislike who we want hun, be a boring old world if we all agreed on everything lol 🙂
Elizabeth yeah summer solsice , just a small camp this one, and im doing a talk on tai-chi, which ive never done a talk before eek lol ….
Well good luck with your speech, Alison. I don’t know anything about tai-chi, so I can’t help there. But you have been doing tai-chi for some time, if I recall. Just give it to them from your heart with no fear 😀
Glad it’s you, not me tho. I hate public speaking – well mostly.
Both Rafa and Novak are playing well so far ….
Yes I have them meeting in the Rome final – with Rafa the winner. But maybe someone will spoil that meeting? I sort of hope. Would love to see Stefanos win the Rome trophy.
Yeah, that was well-played of Fed to beat Coric.
But next up for Fed is Stefanos!
Can Fed survive? He barely made it past Coric. I didn’t think rusty Fed would beat Coric. Maybe the match play and hours on court is what Fed needs to summon the confidence to beat the young Greek.
Oh no. Petra Kvitova on her way out. Dang it. Well, the Rome winner is not going to be what I predicted. Maybe the winner of Osaka vs Bertens QF – or the winner of Pliskova and Azarenka QF. Thiem may have bombed out but his girlfriend, Kiki Mladenovic is suddenly playing close to her best tennis and is set to play Sakkari after a confidence boosting win over Kvitty. I wouldn’t count out Kiki Mladenovic if she’s finally going on a hot streak – perfect timing ahead of FO for her as well. Hope she remains focused.
Fed’s chances hinge on his serve, imo. If he serves well (65% or better 1st serves) and isn’t totally out of gas, he will be tough for anyone to beat. The rest of his game has been extremely strong and he has exceeded all expectations in his quality of play so far on the clay. It will be interesting to see how much he has in the tank tomorrow, but Tsitsipas has also played a lot of tennis lately and may not be terribly fresh.
Fed rusty? Are you sure? How long more will he stay rusty? Until he’s beaten again?
Thanks Elizabeth xx 🙂
For you Elizabeth similar to what ill be doing hun https://youtu.be/cEOS2zoyQw4 hope you like it, good for relaxation xx
Thanks, Alison. Nice – I’m a tree hugger too, so I like it and understand 😀
Tsitsipas is looking really good considering clay is not supposed to be his best surface.
Hello Big Al,
I was going to write a long post on the WTA page because no one in real life will listen to how excited I am about WTA QF’s. Now I that I see you here…
See if you agree:
Naomi over Bertens – just barely because Naomi’s energy level. Heart says Bertens though.
Vika may be ready to beat Karolina on clay in Rome. There are reasons to argue otherwise tho. Who has the better legs is the question. Vika or Karolina?
Mladenovic over Sakkari by even a slimmer margin than any other QF and for reasons less clear. Both came through Rome qualifying !! Is it for the Greek or the French?
Konta vs Vondrousova. Konta wins the first set but the sneaky teen from the Czech Republic wins the next two sets.
that’s it! Thank you for reading 😀
The way this tournaments gone anything is possible !
only one I have confidence in is Vondrousova over Konta.
I had Bertens over Osaka ,but she could be running on fumes.
Pliskova over Azarenka in a tight three setter.
Sakkari in another tight three setter.
Could be wrong on all counts ..
Been waiting for Ricky to post but I think there’s a chance for stubborn old Federer. He seems willing to fight for it. It’s a tough one.
Test
I read you, Joe.
Just watched the 1st set of Nadal-Basilashvili. I don’t see how anyone could glean very much about Nadal’s level from that set. Rafa didn’t have to do anything. I counted exactly one Nadal winner (in the last game) and I didn’t see anything else that even counted as a forced error from Basil; he just sprayed unforced errors the whole set. It was about as weak a professional performance as I’ve seen, even worse than when Nadal obliterated him at RG a couple years ago. Even Basil’s hard shots were hit pretty much right at Nadal; he hit a couple winners and that’s about it.
Now, I don’t know what the second set was like, and I only saw snippets of Rafa’s first match, in which Chardy looked horrible as well. But based on what I’ve seen, Kevin is totally wrong that Fed should fear Nadal if they meet in the SF. Federer’s tennis today was mostly fabulous and Coric was pretty much equally good (he won a lot more points, mostly based on the lopsided first set).
If current form holds and Fed can serve at a reasonably high pct. (65% or so), I predict that he will beat Nadal if they meet in the semis. That’s still a big if, because Tsisipas will be a very tough opponent, and Verdasco seems to save his best tennis for when he faces Rafa.
Something is wrong with your eyes Joe! Rafa was hitting with depth and was serving well, hence his opponents had no chance in returning his shots, either overhit and hitting into the net. Rafa simply forced errors, or made his opponents hit UEs, that’s the pressure he put on them. Rafa doesnt need to hit winners all the time.
As for Fed, he struggled against Coric (what had Coric done on clay lately?), what more if he has to face Rafa?
Troll alert👆🏻
How very original!
Yeah – just like your post!
At least there was some substance to my post. Why not respond to it?
Notice that I didn’t say Nadal was bad in that set -though he had 1 winner to 7 UE. I just said that it was hard to draw any conclusions about the state of his game because his opponent was so bad. In any case, I was responding to Kevin, who in several recent posts has bigged up Nadal’s chances while downgrading Fed’s. Why not call him a troll?
There is a good reason why you were referred to as a troll and you know it too. Sousa and Coric have not exactly set the tennis world on fire but Roger beating them barely is enough evidence to place Fed as the favorite if Fedal comes to pass. But if Rafa losing two games does not tell you about the state of his game, you can at best say that the Fedal match is tough to call. But you resort to your usual hyperbole and then claim you are “objective”. So troll smith it is😁
Forget about Sousa. Did you watch the Fed-Coric match? Imo, the quality of both players in that match was higher than Nadal in the first set against Basilashvili. Surely you understand that one cannot only look at the scoreline to gauge a player’s form. However, if you indeed watched the Fed-Coric match and disagree, then fine.
Nadal has of course dominated Fed on clay over their careers. However, he has not beaten him, on any surface, for over five years. Fed has beaten him five straight times and is playing like he has nothing to lose. Perhaps you think that anyone who picks Federer over Nadal on clay automatically qualifies as a troll. I obviously disagree.
Well in some parallel universe- i am sure there is a Joe Smith who puts Fed as the favorite because he beat his opponents losing two games while nadal scraped his way over Coric.
Placing fed as favorite over rafa is not trolling. Cherrypicking by saying fed has not beaten rafa on any surface for five years when they have not played on clay for that duration. Surely you also believe that past performance is not indicative of future performance, more so when not on the same surface. I am not even saying Rafa is the favorite if it comes to Fedal and i am not even “objective” but installing Fed as the favorite after both of their performances today is hyperbole. I did watch the match. Roger could not produce a bp on corics serve in the third and he is not even a big server. He was very lucky to win that one which he himself admitted in the presser.
But you my dear man are churning out pseudologic and hence TROLL
Remember that I only watched the first set of Nadal’s match against Basilashvili, and my prediction was accordingly qualified. Perhaps if I had watched all of Nadal’s two matches I would say otherwise. But I don’t think anything I said counts as hyperbole, either substantively or rhetorically.
What does seem to trigger the “troll” label is anything that goes against the Rafa groupthink that prevails on this site, prominently including that Nadal always be the prohibitive favorite on clay, even when he has failed to make a final in three straight tournaments.
Yes Joe, and like saying Djokovic is always the favourite off clay.That doesn’t mean he can’t get beat as we’ve seen .
I don’t see why it’s so annoying to predict a player might lose.Its not an insult.
It’s a fact that Nadal ,Fed etc are at age where upsets get more common ,no matter how dominant they once were.
But always predicting a certain player might lose is a bit suspect. Not saying Joe doesn’t believe what he’s saying but he’s definitely biased for Fed and against Rafa.
@Joe For the record I don’t have today’s Nadal/Verdasco match stats but I’m pretty sure that Dasco hit a LOT more winners than Nadal did in the first set but lost anyway. He went with one of the standard anti-Nadal strategies: red line your game. Fer is one of the few that occasionally gets it to work.
I was 90% sure Rafa would win today because he was well rested, having spent less time on court playing than he normally spends in practice while Verdasco had two 3 set matches, one VERY tough v Thiem. He’s 35 years old. It was amazing that he played as well as he did for most of the first set today.
I am sorry that Fed had to pull out, and no I don’t know what’s ailing him except he said “right knee”. Doubt if he knew how serious (or not) it is this morning. Nothing too bad, I’d guess. I think he tried warming up before calling it a tournament.
True, that Fed barely survived! Coric should’ve won in straight sets, if only he didn’t choke to lose the second set, when serving to stay in it. Also he choked while leading in the TB, couldn’t serve it out.
Anyway, I don’t think Coric was playing badly but neither was he fantastic, just playing normal tennis by his standard, usually grinding from the back of the court, though he’s better in set one and caught Fed by surprise.
Fed playing like that, I think Tsitsipas will beat him in the QF.
Yeah, gotta agree that Tsitsi is favored v Fed based on recent play by both. Scraping by Sousa and Coric – Rafa would currently eat both for breakfast – does not inspire belief.
Coric is not having a great year by any measure but he usually plays very well v Fed. What’s his magic?
Based on what I saw in the 1st set against Basil, Nadal would not have beaten Coric today, much less eaten him.
Come on Joe, Rafa playing like that would beat Coric in straight sets! Don’t be so biased! Fed was leaking all sorts of errors! Rafa won’t play like that and won’t give Coric much chances!
When Coric sees Fed across the net, he begins to play like Djoko; it’s just that he’s not Djoko therefore he has to fight so hard to win, and sometimes loses.
Kyrgios logic 👇🏻 Djokovic will not be goat even if he surpasses roger’S gs haul because he has a negative h2h against him but Federer is goat despite the negative h2h against the other members of the big 3
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/sport/tennis/1127925/Novak-Djokovic-Roger-Federer-Nick-Kyrgios-Grand-Slam-titles/amp
What logic! Who does Kyrgios think he is? Djoko could beat Fed 25 times, does Kyrgios think that beating Kyrgios himself would mean more than beat Fed 25 times???
I’ve never bought into the school of thought that thinks Kyrgios is ‘good for the game’, attracts a younger generation of fans, etc., etc. Nor am I amused by his show boating tactics. To my mind he is simply an uncouth loud mouthed lout, who is a bad model for young people coming into the game.
As for his disgraceful performance yesterday: words fail me! Setting a good example my foot!11
But his follow up interview insulting the whole field was the final straw,. Just who does he think he is for goodness sake?
ps: However I agree with him about the cringe=making ‘showing his love’ ritual by Djokovic which makes my toes curl with embarrassment too
No wonder after the cringeworthy sucking up above this happened 👇🏻
https://www.google.com/amp/s/uk.sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/did-hurt-chair-federer-plays-031504491.html
I agree that Coric did not play the big points as well as he could against Fed, but he still hit a lot of winners and made Fed play a lot of rallies. I thought he played at a very high level.
I did not think Fed would win before the match because of having to play two matches in one day at his age. Fed’s level was better against Sousa.
Unless he is totally exhausted, I also think Fed will beat Tsitsipas.
👆🏻 How does one even refute that? So if Fed wins, he was not exhausted or won in spite of exhaustion. If fed loses, it was because of exhaustion.
Then he wonders why he is labelled a troll
#headsiwintailsyoulose
Coric hit lots of winners because Fed was too slow to get to the ball! Against Rafa, Coric would be made to retrieve the ball as Rafa was hitting with depth and power and was controlling the points.
Totally disagree that Coric’s winners were because Fed was slow. He played amazing defense! In general, a tennis ball can be hit much faster than a person can get there. It wouldn’t matter if Usain Bolt was on the other side; a well struck well placed ball is going to be a winner against anyone on any surface.
Yup cannot refute that👆🏻 If fed wins it is because he is not exhausted or despite exhaustion. If he loses, it is because of exhaustion
#headsiwintailsyoulose
Vmk1 did you not know in the make believe universe of Joe, it is Fed who won 11 RG and Rafa just 1.
This guy Joe. spends all his time denigrating Rafa and downplaying his chances n his achievements. Give it a rest man . Stop hating on Rafa so much and maybe try to get some positive energy yourself.
I can’t understand how can ppl dislike certain tennis players so much that they do not know on a personal level to denigrate them day in and day out.
Rafas the KOC, with all that hes won on this surfacem i have to scratch my head and ask, what the hell does he have left to prove, surely its down to everyone to beat him not the other way around , some will never give him any credit for his achievements no matter what its the way it has been , and the way it always will be :-/