Tennisnowornever

If there is one guy I hate writing about its Stan Wawrinka!! But probably not for the reasons you are thinking… Actually, as a player and as a personality I really love Stan. In fact, it’s a shame the tennis world doesn’t talk about him as often as we probably should . He is, after all, a 3 time grand slam champion at 3 different slams and holds an impressive 75% success rate when he reaches a major final.   However, the thing is….he is an impossibly annoying subject to write about!! Why? 1)       He’s unpredictable: I like to make predictions, especially before grand slam events, which sometimes hit the mark and other times (more often than not) don’t. Trying to guess where Wawrinka is at, however, is a sure fire route to public humiliation… 2)       He’s unpredictable: Not only does Stan’s form go up and down like an elevator from tournament to tournament, but he can also find a world beating level from seemingly ...

Having talked of injury in my last post , there were also a few players that were hit particularly hard by exactly this and it has left fans in doubt of whether we will see them at the upcoming US Open. It’s one thing for Wimbledon to be annoyed with player withdrawals, but if one player can justifiably be angry with the tournament then it would be Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Grass courts are always injury central as they retain natural moisture which sends players sliding and slipping all over the place: it’s the nature of the beast. The transition from clay to grass can be hard on the body and is often the reason behind injuries that players carry into Wimbledon. The later in the day you are scheduled, the more aware you should be of this fact as the surface is at its most treacherous after a couple of matches have already been played on it. As the tournament progresses the courts get steadily worse, especially around the baseline, as the grass gets damaged and churned up. This has a...

Here we are again folks: it’s that time of year. Excitement and anticipation is bubbling up within you, simmering under your skin as you try to sleep until it reaches boiling point and you can physically wait no longer. Like a child desperate to unwrap their gifts and hoping to sneak a peak of the man himself. Twas the night before….the Championships Wimbledon?!? Yes, it’s Wimbledon Eve everyone and that means one thing only! It is time for unnecessary pre-tournament analysis and predictions that will most likely not come true!! Yay!!!                                 But we do it anyway because somehow to just watch and enjoy the matches for what they are would be too simple….so let’s start! There is no better place to start than with this year’s top seed, defending champion and world number 1: Andy Murray . Sorry, Sir...

How many times, tennis fans, have you heard commentators, journalists and now retired legends of the game squawk enthusiastically about the quality of play we have been spoiled with in the era of the big 4? Tournament after tournament they chant:  ‘The physicality is remarkable!!’  ‘These guys are just superhuman!!!’  ‘Will we ever see such greatness on court again?!!?!?’ ……Sound familiar? But before we accuse the hypothetical record of needing to be changed we should realise the band responsible for releasing it have recently launched a new album. That’s right, the smash hit of the moment: it’s the #nextgen!! All of a sudden EVERYTHING is about Zverev, Kyrgios, Thiem and the gang. What a boyband that would be. And don’t get me wrong, this is completely justifiable. No one would be talking about them if they didn’t have results and talents to back it up. Meanwhile that ‘classic album’ is still selling really well. You know, that one that brought the band to...

Just a short round up this evening of the day’s action from day 2 of the Aegon Championships at Queen’s club. If you read my earlier series '5 things we learned from the French Open 2017' then you will know that lesson 5 highlighted the unpredictable nature of the men’s and woman’s games so far this year. Today’s results have only strengthened this belief. All started innocently enough as third seed Milos Raonic took to the centre court to face world number 698 Thanasi Kokkinakis. Although these stats make it sound like a demolition should have ensued the encounter was never going to be that straight forward. Raonic has not had a particularly convincing 2017 season so far. He has struggled with injury and is currently ranked number 16 in the ATP race to London. Opponent Kokkinakis had been ranked as highly as world number 69 back in June 2015 and is only 21 years old so clearly has talent well above what recent form would suggest. Still, with Kokkinakis low on match pl...

Lesson #4 Power play is in vogue, but will that work on grass? If there was one thing that particularly struck me from this year’s French Open it was how clearly style of play influenced the outcome of so many matches. Of course, this is always the case. Federer has a grass court game as obviously does Sergei Stakhovsky, Marcus Willis, Johanna Konta etc. That doesn’t mean they are not capable of winning on clay (and vice versa: King of clay Nadal has won Wimbledon) but it is evidently a more natural fit for someone like Rafa or Fabio Fognini So why did this concept come as such a surprise to me? After all, Roland Garros has a reputation as being the most physically draining of all the slams and clay is a surface famously hard to adapt to if you have not been brought up playing on it. It takes time to develop an understanding of how to win on it and many of the all-time greats of tennis such as John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Martina Hingis failed to ever lift the c...

Lesson #3 No man (or woman) is a machine... This post is perhaps more personal to me than has been the case so far. Actually, I have a confession to make! So make a cup of tea, sit down and brace yourselves for a revelation….I am a Djokovic fan. I know, it’s not the hot thing to be right now but don’t try to save me friends: my appreciation of the Djoker already runs way too deep. Seriously though, it’s not exactly news to any follower of the ATP tour (fan of Djokovic or not) that his form has taken somewhat of a nose dive in the last 12 months. It all started at Wimbledon 2016 when he crashed out of the 3 rd round to the ‘blind squirrel that found a nut’- Sam Querry- in 4 sets (don’t look at me like that! That’s the words of Querry’s own coach, not mine!!). But, realistically, for a man who had just conquered the pinnacles of the sport by holding all 4 slams at once (something not even Federer and Nadal have managed to date) it was not initially that concerning to most. Ho...

Lesson #2 The changing of the guard is coming…..But it’s not here yet!! If you read my last blog post ‘5 things we learned from the French Open: Lesson 1’, then you will know that the French Open 2017 taught us that the next gen are on their way as they gain confidence and slowly chalk up wins against the big 4. In particular, Dominic Thiem looks like a strong charge who could have a fruitful clay career awaiting him. However, it’s easy to fall into a trap of overpraise for younger players when they do succeed when, in reality, they lack the consistency necessary to rule the game. Let us stick with Thiem for a moment: in 2016 at the ATP World Tour finals Dominic was able to take the first set from Novak Djokovic in their round robin match but went on to be relatively easily dispatched in the two sets that followed. Sure Djokovic raised his level, but anyone watching would probably have agreed that Dominic’s reaction to taking the first set resembled one of panic at finding him...