2019 Australian Open...ATP 2000...Melbourne, Australia

[don_budge]

Reminds me of when 19 year old Federer beat Sampras in Wimbledon.... change of the guard... well played...

Yes...I kept thinking the very same thing.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Federer was 19 but Sampras was ONLY 30.

The more I thought about it the major difference in the two matches/matchups was that Federer is now 37. Sampras had the stamina at 30 to make a go of it on the grass at Wimbledon for the entire five sets. But here on the hard courts Down Under Roger just ran out of gas. He may have been somewhat gassed after one and surely after two sets. At the end of the match Stefanos was dominating every phase of the game. Maybe it was his backhand that was most impressive as he was just hitting out on it most of the time...applying judicial slice when the situation called for it.

But he actually dominated the forecourt and his forehand was just punishing. He may still have some potential to be mined in the service motion and tactics to be explored but he really came of age during this match. I have been watching him so closely now for a year and of course I have watch our boy Roger under a microscope forever. But there was a big difference even from the Hopman Cup match to this match in Tsitsipas. The difference? He learns. He just soaks it up.

Stefanos Tsitsipas now becomes the player to watch. Stefanos Tsitsipas versus Anybody. He won't shine every time like Federer has for the past years. Not yet. He has a lot to learn. So much to learn. But he has the foundation...one that you can build as high as you possibly can. Like Federer's game. It would be interesting if he just takes this in stride like I think/hope he will. Just show up on the court for the next match. Keep learning. Keep developing. It's a game for a lifetime. He's young and the sky is the limit...just to keep a level head.

Great, great match. So much skill and diversity of shot. It has been forever since we have seen anything like this. Is this the new paradigm? The don_budge paradigm. The book is Bill Tilden. The model is Richard Gonzalez with the Don Budge backhand. Harry Hopman is the coach. Roger Federer is the Living Proof. Time will tell. The test of time.

The match between Pete Sampras and young Roger Federer was a long time ago. The paradigm was shifting once again. It does so every 16,17 or 18 years or so. WE are due. Overdue. That sure was exciting. Tennis for the sheer bloody fun of it.

[don_budge]

Stefanos Tsitsipas in a Word...Meteoric

Gallant and class come to mind as well. Time will tell. The test of time.

[don_budge]

Roger Federer in a Couple of Words...Gallant and Class

[don_budge]

Stefanos Tsitsipas versus Roger Federer...Round of 16...2019 Australian Open

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfR3uGVYzVg

Yesterday was a coming out party for Stefanos Tsitsipas and I have only one complaint...Stefanos should have minimised his curtain call out of respect for his opponent. The man who has single handedly carried this ATP Tour on his back for the last umpteen years. To the man who kept the game alive amidst all of the court and equipment engineering the coaching hijacking. The Once and Forever King...Roger Federer.

A couple of weeks ago these two played a match at the Hopman Cup and it was a beauty. Roger won in a couple of tie-breakers but the beauty of the match even belied the score. Like the song "Days of Future Passed" they played to the melody of a melancholy drama because you had to know in your heart of hearts that this is where it has to end. And it did. At the Australian Open yesterday Stefanos Tsitsipas took fate by the short hairs and took what he declared was his. If only he had just gone out and waved once at the crowd and gone to his chair then quietly left the stadium...like Björn Borg would have.

Right from the start this was going to be something special. The old warrior just dug down into the DNA of his past somehow and managed to take the first set. If he was to win this match he had to. Unfortunately he also had to take the second and the third because it was going to a war of attrition and his young opponent was only getting stronger and hungrier on the other side of the net. He was relentless...and so was Roger. The problem was one of energy and this game is a game of energy and balance. Once you get gassed you start to falter. If you falter...you are lost.

The second set was a war. Federer easily holding on to his serve. Serving at love...at fifteen. Never facing a break point. At the same time he was putting a lot of pressure on the Tsitsipas serve...or so it seemed. Roger was zero for twelve on break point opportunities and this was the thing that broke him. His inability to break his opponents serve. When push came to shove it was Tsitsipas who stepped to the plate full of confidence and full of the occasion. He blasted Federer off the court in the second tie-break...the fourth they had played in as many sets. The end of this set didn't bode well for our wonderful champion. It was in fact the end. He made a game of it. It was pretty much the same way in the third. Roger seemingly putting so much pressure on the Tsitsipas serve. Tsitsipas taking nearly five minutes per service game and Roger completing his in under a minute thirty. But Stefanos had said earlier in the week he likes to surprise people. He surprised everyone at the end.

They were trading shots...all of the shots in the tennis lexicon. Everything spin...every location. Deep and short. Underspin and topspin. Serving angles. Serving cannon balls. Roger was hanging tough. He was hanging with the young blood. Something had to give and it did. It was Roger's legs. Just as stroke pointed out in an article that he posted somewhere in the bowels of this thread...Roger is outstanding in every facet of the game that he can control but the two that he cannot...he cannot. His legs basically don't work like they need to against an opponent like Stefanos. Like the opponent that Stefanos was becoming and became from he beginning of this match to the end. He grew up and frightfully quickly. He was not the same person that he started the match as. He was a hungry wolf that had his fangs in the leg of his prey and he dragged him down. Then he ate him alive. That was scary.

I have watched the young man for nearly a year now and I can tell you his growth has been truly...well there are no words. He has matured as a player and he put it on full display in this match. He played his idol of many years and he did just exactly what he must do. He treated him just the same as the next player...only more so. Once he got on top he never let up. He kept going up to the line whether it was to serve or receive and he was going up to that line with only one thing in mind. Destroying the game of his older opponent. It was a beautiful match. Extraordinary by todays standards as both players made use of all of the court...the approach game and volley was in effect. Tsitsipas at one point leading Federer in net points played by 54 to 42. I don't know how it ended up. It was personally self satisfying. The game was played as it was meant to be played. All that they needed were two wooden racquets.

So now it gets interesting. I have been writing for some time that the only match to watch is Roger Federer versus Anybody and now this guy has turned out to be not just Anybody. So he inherits the mantle. Now it will be the next opponent deep in the heart of a Grand Slam. New and virgin territory for young Stefanos. He plays a guy who is just as tough as they come who is playing the best tennis of his career. Roberto Bautista-Agut. Roberto has played 18 sets this week. Stefanos has played 16. Forget about it. The five setters that Bautista-Agut have played don't amount to a hill of beans. It's man to man now. And I mean MAN to MAN. Both players come to the court tomorrow more full of confidence than they have ever felt in their careers. But Stefanos had a look in his eye at the end that looked like he had the eye of the tiger. He couldn't wait to get to the line to play the point. No dilly dallying...he was so in the moment.

So you just have to wait and see. The Federer match behind him. He marches right into the enemy's camp tomorrow.

A word about Roger. I will never forget you my friend. You have been a friend and you have never let me down. I made you the Living Proof in a paradigm that doesn't fit the mood of the "Modern World" and you made it possible for me to back it up. Me...a nobody with a keyboard. Just a hack living out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. You backed up every word that I wrote about you and you did it yesterday too. No...I will never forget you. The courage that you showed in the face of the most terrible opponent you will ever face...you faced the future. The abyss. You did it with the courage that you have showed over the years and your steely gaze never wavered. You never caved in to your emotions. Not in front of us. You are a man...feet of clay. You are a hero and Lord we know that we need them now. Thank you. With all of my heart. The King...The Living Proof.

[don_budge]

I don't say this with anything but my usual sense of irony...but Milos Raonic 6-1, 6-1, 7-6 over Alexander Zverev? Even worse than the Nadal takedown of Berdych. My contention is Zverev is vastly overrated. Sometime in the future he might be the player that some are projecting but I hate to be the bearer of bad news...there are going to have to disappear a lot of tennis players. He simply has not shown any signs whatsoever of any development and his choice of coach reflects that.

Milos Raonic on the other hand just might be listening to a voice from the past. That of John McEnroe...he never did get the opportunity to listen or read don_budge who was egging him on to the net some years back. I saw a bit of Raonic take down Stan Wawrinka and he seemed to me much more motivated to get to the net than I had ever seen him before. Unfortunately I was soundly sleeping and never saw a point of this match with Zverev.

Alexander is playing the one dimensional game. He learned it in the juniors. So many players on the tour are doing the exact same thing. So many coaches are guilty of collusion in this regard. Go along to get along. But Zverev has become a poster boy for my teaching paradigm because he has severely limited himself in all possible outcomes. He has maybe maximised his potential to do exactly what he has been doing for thirteen years.

How many times have you heard that tennis is a game for a lifetime? Well it is. Roger Federer has certainly demonstrated this with a late surge in his career by further adapting and tweaking his broad base of fundamentals. Yesterday you saw Stefanos Tsitsipas take a giant leap in development in just about every phase of his game. This has been accomplished in the relatively short span of a year or so since he took to the tour full time.

Zverev is a mental basket case now because of the frustration of his lack of development. He was seen pounding his racquet to smithereens. I would pull him off of the tour and put him through an intensive session in the don_budge School of Tennis Thought and Philosophy at this point for a major makeover. It is a game for a lifetime and it is never too late to learn. But ego, endorsements, hype and all of the rest of the pitfalls will prevent this young man from a sane approach to going forwards. What is the definition of insanity? To keep repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

I hope that I am wrong in this case. But I don't think that I am. Physically he just isn't the sort to be able to pound the whole field into the ground over a span of two weeks playing three out of five...much as he pounded that poor racquet into the ground.

[bottle]

Bottie like Barty.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkTV2--PcDI)

[gzhpcu]

Federer said he will play Roland Garros this year. “I am in a phase where I want to please me...” he said.

[don_budge]

Reminds me of when 19 year old Federer beat Sampras in Wimbledon.... change of the guard... well played...

I was thinking the exact same thing. Federer was 19 but Sampras was ONLY 30.

[stroke]

Good to see Stefanos take out Roger. We need a change. I am hoping Medvedev can do what everyone says he's capable of and maybe knock out Novak. If not Medvedev then maybe Zverev can do it. The trouble is Stefanos will likely have to get past Nadal and that might be tricky. I left the Roger/Stefanos match after the seventh game and the first thing I noticed is that Stefanos' backhand didn't seem as good as Roger's, or it wasn't until that point. It's almost a handicap to go into the ring against Nadal with a one-handed backhand.

I see Agut won in 5 sets. He must be getting tired despite his fine form of late.

To me, Stefanos has a top tier one hand backhand but he does not appear to be able to take it on early like Fed can. In fact, I would say no other player with a one hander can take it early like Fed. And I think that is the only way as a right handed one hander to deal with the Nadal hook forehand. Stefanos as you say does not appear to be a good matchup vs Nadal. And Fed's slice bh looks way way better than Stefanos'.

[stotty]

Alex is a very slight favorite vs Milos. Should be a very interesting match. I am very curious to see how Medvedev deals with Novak also. Novak of course is a very strong favorite, but so was Fed.

Good to see Stefanos take out Roger. We need a change. I am hoping Medvedev can do what everyone says he's capable of and maybe knock out Novak. If not Medvedev then maybe Zverev can do it. The trouble is Stefanos will likely have to get past Nadal and that might be tricky. I left the Roger/Stefanos match after the seventh game and the first thing I noticed is that Stefanos' backhand didn't seem as good as Roger's, or it wasn't until that point. It's almost a handicap to go into the ring against Nadal with a one-handed backhand.

I see Agut won in 5 sets. He must be getting tired despite his fine form of late.

[stroke]

Alex is a very slight favorite vs Milos. Should be a very interesting match. I am very curious to see how Medvedev deals with Novak also. Novak of course is a very strong favorite, but so was Fed.

[gzhpcu]

Great that Tsitsipas also embraces net play...

[stroke]

That's all it takes to take out Fed in a big match. Fed played like the master champion he is, and Stephanos, obviously a star in born. He is going to be a rock star of tennis. As db has said, and I agree, something about him reminds me of Borg, a 6'4" Borg. He is extremely likeable on the court, so watchable, and extremely good looking, but not in the pretty boy way of Alex. Massive endorsement dollars coming his way. Clearly, he is going to be a threat on all surfaces. He may be even better on clay. Very unusual skill set.

[gzhpcu]

Reminds me of when 19 year old Federer beat Sampras in Wimbledon.... change of the guard... well played...

[don_budge]

Roger serving at 3-4 in the third is 0 for 12 in converting break points. Stefanos refuses to buckle and Federer perhaps being not assertive enough when he has the opportunity. Cat and mouse.