US Open

[jimlosaltos]

I congratulate Amanda Anisimova for the way that she has come back from her Wimbledon defeat. She avenges her 0 & 0 defeat to Swiatek in the quarters. Wins a tough 3 setter against Osaka, in the semi's and is back in another Grand Slam final at the U.S Open. She's been through alot and has come out the other end. Good for her!! I'm pulling for her.

Absolutely. Great to see both women back.

What a battle they had. Osaka served for the match at 6-5 in the second set after winning a nervous first set tiebreak, but was broken. Amanda took over then let two match points slip away with perhaps tight shots

Plus, the two women's lives and their tennis are more alike than not. Hard, flat power hitters. Amanda might be the best returner in women's tennis, where returning seems to trump serving. On one point in the first set you knew it was on when Amanda hit an 83 MPH return winner off a respectable second serve. No quarter given. No idle rally balls, waiting for an error.

Both women were phenoms, Amanda Anisimova at 14 years old was the youngest player in a main draw match since 2005, Naomi Osaka at 16 years old won her first main draw match over a top 20 player. One a 'Jersey girl of Russian parents, the other a Floridian returned to her birthplace in Japan.

Both dropped out of tennis. Both experienced severe depression. Both have come back in a big way.

Both winners.

P.S. This was a fast-paced match but it still ended at something like 12:56 AM this morning. On a weekday! There were no huge delays. The prior semifinal Pegula-Sabalenka was only 2 hours long. Why does the USTA insist on scheduling matches that run into the next morning? It's not for the ticket holders - stands started out full, ended up half empty. It's not for the TV viewers, except perhaps in Osaka. To sell more Honey Deuce's?

[seano]

I congratulate Amanda Anisimova for the way that she has come back from her Wimbledon defeat. She avenges her 0 & 0 defeat to Swiatek in the quarters. Wins a tough 3 setter against Osaka, in the semi's and is back in another Grand Slam final at the U.S Open. She's been through alot and has come out the other end. Good for her!! I'm pulling for her.

[don_budge]

Good to see Naomi Osaka playing more tennis and giving the social justice a rest. I hope. She competed well and overwhelmed serve challenged Coco Gauff. Leave the social justice to others. Take care of your child and when on the court...play hard. I give her a lot of credit.

[stroke]

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/djokovic-alcaraz-us-open-2025-intergenerational-battle

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hA6sH3bbrU7DvLNX8

[don_budge]

Coco Gauff splits with a coach and brings on Gavin MacMillan, a self-described biomechanics specialist who helped Aryna Sabalenka resurrect her serve.

Gavin working his magic. I've looked at video before and after of Sabalenka's serve. I've studied it a bit and written on her motion before in another thread. I was critical in my comments regarding the claims and results of Gavin MacMillan. Sabalenka's serve looks like an accident waiting to happen. She does a most interesting thing to offset the deficiency in her motion. She just hits it as hard as she can and doubles down on the second serve. Her approach to the game is brutal. Hitting out from just about every position on the court. That is pretty impressive in itself but the question is of sustainability.

It looks as if she is just plain fatalistic about things. But the motion has a very pronounced and nervous looking hitch at the critical juncture where back swing becomes forward swing. The transition point. Because of her fatalistic approach she has the ability to just throw the nerves to the side and hit all out. I don't detect any element of "control" in the traditional sense in her service game approach. Just all out come what may. She gets away with it. Afterall...she is a superb athlete. But I wonder that if at some point the nerves get a hold on her and that thin line of being out of control doesn't raise it's ugly head. I haven't seen anything to convince me that Gavin has fixed her serve at all.

Regarding Coco's serve. I would approach her the same as any other tennis player. First the setup position, which I don't like one little bit. Then you proceed to the back swing. You have to arrive at that transition point in balance and in position to push the pedal to the metal. It will be interesting to see how long he lasts in her camp and how he spins it. He is more of a spin doctor than a biomechanics expert. A biomechanics expert would have eliminated the obvious hitch in Sabalenka's motion or admitted the obvious truth.

[stroke]

True, but I still enjoyed watching the match.

A clash of styles. You've criticized Lorenzo's deep positioning, justifiably, and he was up against an opponent with aggressive, almost Fed-like court positioning.

Never stood a chance BUT Lorenzo did hit some of the most amazing shots I've seen in ages -- he had. Guy hit some outright winners from the box seats on the run to within inches of the baseline that left Sinner unable to react. Ditto some returns. Not enough. Was never going to be enough.

But years later he'll have the highlight reel

He is a beautiful player technique wise. Gasquet 2.0.

[jimlosaltos]

Sinner had his fast forward/video game going vs Musetti. Musetti had no chance. Not a small margins situation.

True, but I still enjoyed watching the match.

A clash of styles. You've criticized Lorenzo's deep positioning, justifiably, and he was up against an opponent with aggressive, almost Fed-like court positioning.

Never stood a chance BUT Lorenzo did hit some of the most amazing shots I've seen in ages -- Stunning. Guy hit some outright winners from the box seats on the run to within inches of the baseline that left Sinner unable to react. Ditto some returns. Not enough. Was never going to be enough.

But years later he'll have the highlight reel

[stroke]

https://www.thetennisgazette.com/news/lorenzo-musetti-claims-jannik-sinner-did-something-to-him-at-the-us-open-which-nobody-else-ever-has/

[stroke]

Sinner had his fast forward/video game going vs Musetti. Musetti had no chance. Not a small margins situation.

[neilchok]

Really! Bold call. Fritz is certainly playing the best I've ever seen from him. Match up is tough if his serve is neutralized.

What's the old line, was it Vitas Gueralitis, "Nobody beats Vitas Gueralitis 16 times in a row"?

I saw fritz play sinner courtside at indian wells I think 5 years ago. This was before Sinner got really good. And I remember thinking fritz was the most talented player I had seen that day. He won points so easily, it was scary. It just was that he was a psycho and mentally not as strong as sinner.

[stotty]

Taylor Fritz on how he lost the match despite having 13 breakpoints vs Djoko, via ATP:

“I had so many more chances that you're not going to see on a stat line,” Fritz said. “I was in points at Love-30, 15-30, 30-All. I was just playing these points just really poorly. When it comes down to the break points themselves, I'd say, out of the first 10, I would say five or six of them he played pretty well.

“Then maybe, like, four of them I just played a bad point or was too conservative or pulled the trigger at the wrong time. Just bad decision-making, because I wasn't playing as well as I would have wanted to.”

The crux of the disappointment lies in the sheer amount of opportunities squandered and knowing that, for the most part, Fritz was on equal footing with Djokovic; the victor admittedly struggled in the middle two sets to get a feel for the ball.

Fritz raised his game even more in the third set, and both players were at their best in an nip-and-tuck fourth.

“I just can't come out of those first two sets down two sets to love. Like, I need to play better,” Fritz said. “That's the thing that's frustrating. I don't need to play that much better to make it happen, because I had all the chances I had playing how I was playing, and I just need to serve a little bit better, too.”

I’ve heard the story so many times before. It’s not as though Novak (or Roger, or Rafa) has spent his career cruising to 6–2, 6–1 wins. Far from it—many of those matches have been 6–4, 5–7, 7–5 battles. The difference is, he’s come out on top in the vast majority of them, for twenty years! He has a knack of winning the tight ones, over and over again. As a good friend of mine recently put it: His matches are close but they’re not.

[stroke]

Taylor Fritz on how he lost the match despite having 13 breakpoints vs Djoko, via ATP:

“I had so many more chances that you're not going to see on a stat line,” Fritz said. “I was in points at Love-30, 15-30, 30-All. I was just playing these points just really poorly. When it comes down to the break points themselves, I'd say, out of the first 10, I would say five or six of them he played pretty well.

“Then maybe, like, four of them I just played a bad point or was too conservative or pulled the trigger at the wrong time. Just bad decision-making, because I wasn't playing as well as I would have wanted to.”

The crux of the disappointment lies in the sheer amount of opportunities squandered and knowing that, for the most part, Fritz was on equal footing with Djokovic; the victor admittedly struggled in the middle two sets to get a feel for the ball.

Fritz raised his game even more in the third set, and both players were at their best in an nip-and-tuck fourth.

“I just can't come out of those first two sets down two sets to love. Like, I need to play better,” Fritz said. “That's the thing that's frustrating. I don't need to play that much better to make it happen, because I had all the chances I had playing how I was playing, and I just need to serve a little bit better, too.”

Fritz has a real mind for the game. He is a superb player, just not quite as good as the Big 3, Sinner, and Alcaraz. Tennis is a brutal game.

[jimlosaltos]

On a trivial note, this photo of Jasmine Paolini by noted sports photographer Ray Giubilio is getting some buzz.

To me it seems more of a novelty than a great photo, but it draws your attention. The "mask" over her face is from the Yonex logo making the strings lighter there and just happening to fall over her face and mouth. Ray had to be in the right position and work hard to get a chance, but I'm sure he wasn't aiming for this. For camera buffs, Ray was using a Nikon Z9 { my camera of choice! } which is "fast" enough to catch this.

Look at this and more Ray's photos on his 'Gram

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNyAv5O4vT8/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=028d372d-3e72-4705-918e-a5ea177d3c97

It's quite common to get photos of the racket in front of players' faces, so much so that there is a term for this -- "a Phantom Zone photo". That's from DC Comics where villains like "Zod" are cast into the Phantom Zone, their faces on a moving two-dimensional surface. { Zod actor Terrance Stamp just passed, by the way. A great).

That's my digression of the day.

filedata/fetch?id=108289&d=1756921915&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Taylor Fritz on how he lost the match despite having 13 breakpoints vs Djoko, via ATP:

“I had so many more chances that you're not going to see on a stat line,” Fritz said. “I was in points at Love-30, 15-30, 30-All. I was just playing these points just really poorly. When it comes down to the break points themselves, I'd say, out of the first 10, I would say five or six of them he played pretty well.

“Then maybe, like, four of them I just played a bad point or was too conservative or pulled the trigger at the wrong time. Just bad decision-making, because I wasn't playing as well as I would have wanted to.”

The crux of the disappointment lies in the sheer amount of opportunities squandered and knowing that, for the most part, Fritz was on equal footing with Djokovic; the victor admittedly struggled in the middle two sets to get a feel for the ball.

Fritz raised his game even more in the third set, and both players were at their best in an nip-and-tuck fourth.

“I just can't come out of those first two sets down two sets to love. Like, I need to play better,” Fritz said. “That's the thing that's frustrating. I don't need to play that much better to make it happen, because I had all the chances I had playing how I was playing, and I just need to serve a little bit better, too.”

[stroke]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ybx7iQHNEAP41Jdx6

Pretty much tells the story.