2018 ATP Finals RR - (1.) Novak Djokovic vs. (3.) Alexander Zverev

[True Fanerer]

The match started out quite nicely, but has turned into a disaster like this entire tournament has been.

 

[Red Rick]

Now DJoko is just hitting the lines to complete the humiliation.

SHame he gifts Zverev that point

 

[Meles]

In the end; 7 for 7 garbage matches at WTF

 

[RF-18]

Was easy in the end for Djoko. Was expecting a more even scoreline.

 

[swordtennis]

Lol nadal does wake the mummy up from the defensive dead.

 

[I Am Finnish]

Brutal

 

[Red Rick]

He warned Djokovic up before the Isner match. Lol.

Still the 2nd best player at the tournametn.

Start a petition to give Khachanov 800 points for his WTF performance?

 

[Chanwan]

Zverev has potential though. He hung with Djoko for a set from the baseline on a medium hardcourt and served bananas in that set. He still has potential to win big in the future.

Potential - sure. But he's among the worst volleyers in top-100 and he's got no clue as to how to play. Lendl might help him develop more aggression. It doesn't make any sense to try and rally with Novak like that.
Lendl also needs to fix the mental midgetry. After failing to break at 4-all, his game fell completely apart for the rest of the match

 

[swordtennis]

Oy vey djokovic 3.0 in 2019?

 

[I Am Finnish]

WTF is Meh so far

 

[Bukmeikara]

Why is everyone from next gen so mentally weak? We have not seen a mentally strong player so far out of any youngster or even bellow 25 age player, why?

Because they are facing the three best players ever who can run as much as them and their hypotetical advantage - youth, its completely non existent.
Look at it as a game, Zverev as good as he is has played the game 50 times ... the Big 3 500 times

 

[NoleFam]

Still the 2nd best player at the tournametn.

Start a petition to give Khachanov 800 points for his WTF performance?

Lol yea. I don't think Khachanov would handle this Djokovic like he did in Paris though. I would give him a better chance to beat him than anybody in his group though.

 

[Nadal_Django]

Still the 2nd best player at the tournametn.

Start a petition to give Khachanov 800 points for his WTF performance?

Lol

 

[Meles]

Djokovic and Anderson the only ones in solid form at WTF.

 

[swordtennis]

The match started out quite nicely, but has turned into a disaster like this entire tournament has been.

Fed is still alive why so glum?

 

[Chanwan]

Why is everyone from next gen so mentally weak? We have not seen a mentally strong player so far out of any youngster or even bellow 25 age player, why?

Tsitsipas will prove the exception to this rule. De Minaur as well, I think. It's the SoMe-generation - otherwise, I don't know why

 

[swordtennis]

Djokovic and Anderson the only one's in solid form at WTF.

Kandy gets too much flack around here. Without fed and djokovic around he prob has a couple majors. Dude has a big game.

 

[True Fanerer]

Fed is still alive why so glum?

I'm glad he won yesterday. Don't get me wrong. That first match vs Kei screwed my brain up . I'm still in recovery.

 

[Meles]

WTF is Meh so far

Had to watch Milan final rerun yesterday to wash my eyes out.

 

[NoleFam]

Potential - sure. But he's among the worst volleyers in top-100 and he's got no clue as to how to play. Lendl might help him develop more aggression. It doesn't make any sense to try and rally with Novak like that.
Lendl also needs to fix the mental midgetry. After failing to break at 4-all, his game fell completely apart for the rest of the match

I actually thought today was one of his better volleying performances. Lol. That's how poor he is up there. He has aggression but on this type of court, aggression can work against you against Novak. He redirects better than anyone and seems to know where every ball is going. I think the Zverev forehand is the weakness and chink in his armor which makes him second guess his shots from the baseline when he is being pressured. He's still young and has time to get better in the mental department.

 

[loosegroove]

Hahaha! Nole essentially said, "We pretty much sucked it up out there...hope you enjoyed the match".

 

[Red Rick]

Djokovic wiped the street today.

 

[Meles]

Kandy gets too much flack around here. Without fed and djokovic around he prob has a couple majors. Dude has a big game.

Very smart managing his game as in very aggressive.

 

[swordtennis]

I'm glad he won yesterday. Don't get me wrong. That first match vs Kei screwed my brain up . I'm still in recovery.

Now that match was atrocious and i rarely ***** about those things! Total ugh match.

 

[Red Rick]

I actually thought today was one of his better volleying performances. Lol. That's how poor he is up there. He has aggression but on this type of court, aggression can work against you against Novak. He redirects better than anyone and seems to know where every ball is going. I think the Zverev forehand is the weakness and chunk in his armor which makes him second guess his shots from the baseline when he is being pressured. He's still young and has time to get better in the mental department.

The bigger thing is that if he had a forehand that was anywhere near up to standard of his backhand, he wouldn't really need to volley that much except for the putaways.

Volleys get more important the worse you are at finishing a point from 3/4 into the court.

 

[Doctor/Lawyer Red Devil]

He now leads the H2H against all other WTF participants.

 

[RF-18]

Djokovic wiped the street today.

Looool

 

[Chanwan]

The scariest thing is that Djokovic isn't even forced to play very aggressive in the last few months.

Basically only Nadal makes him be aggressive.

Exactly my thoughts:

That's the scary thing for the rest of the tour though. Novak being solid from the baseline is enough to beat anyone who's not redlining. And the boring thing for those of us who are not Novak-fans.
This match reminds me a bit of 2016 post AO and before his downfall. His level was still good enough to get it done, but he wasn't doing anything special most of the time. Fear factor obviously also played and plays a role

 

[Meles]

I actually thought today was one of his better volleying performances. Lol. That's how poor he is up there. He has aggression but on this type of court, aggression can work against you against Novak. He redirects better than anyone and seems to know where every ball is going. I think the Zverev forehand is the weakness and chink in his armor which makes him second guess his shots from the baseline when he is being pressured. He's still young and has time to get better in the mental department.

Zedrot easily has the worst volley game in history of ATP tennis. His overhead is excellent, but otherwise total pusher garbage.

 

[Red Rick]

Lol yea. I don't think Khachanov would handle this Djokovic like he did in Paris though. I would give him a better chance to beat him than anybody in his group though.

I don't think that either.

But Khachanov's Paris win is easily the best performance outside the Big 3 this year. Can't wait for him to enter the top 10, which might take a while cause all these bad tennis players get 200 points per RR win here in London.

 

[swordtennis]

Well the kid has Lendl in his corner so he is in good hands lets see where he can take Z.

 

[Nadal_Django]

Zedrot easily has the worst volley game in history of ATP tennis. His overhead is excellent, but otherwise total pusher garbage.

Still with a nice chance for a semifinal spot if he beats Isner in his next match.

 

[ABCD]

I'm glad he won yesterday. Don't get me wrong. That first match vs Kei screwed my brain up . I'm still in recovery.

You are joking? A billionaire guy who does not know you exist lost a tennis match and you are concerned about it? Try to contact him and tell us what happened.

 

[NoleFam]

I don't think that either.

But Khachanov's Paris win is easily the best performance outside the Big 3 this year. Can't wait for him to enter the top 10, which might take a while cause all these bad tennis players get 200 points per RR win here in London.

Yea Khachanov is awesome. Tsitsipas was pretty good in Canada too but couldn't pull off that last big win. Don't worry we will see a lot of Karen in the future.

 

[Meles]

I don't think that either.

But Khachanov's Paris win is easily the best performance outside the Big 3 this year. Can't wait for him to enter the top 10, which might take a while cause all these bad tennis players get 200 points per RR win here in London.

Half of the Milan honorees last year are now better than the 4 worst here this year.

I don't get it. Two years of goating in Milan at end of year event. Here we get 7 garbage matches and counting.

 

[True Fanerer]

Now that match was atrocious and i rarely ***** about those things! Total ugh match.

It really was. I'm happy with his match vs Djokovic. I expected him to be at least average in his first match after that. Maybe he will settle in now and have a chance. Djokovic the man right now.

 

[Meles]

Still with a nice chance for a semifinal spot if he beats Isner in his next match.

That is a big, big if

 

[Red Rick]

You are joking? A billionaire guy who does not know you exist lost a tennis match and you are concerned about it? Try to contact him and tell us what happened.

A random internet person who doesn't care about you says something you probably don't care about, and you start to berate him?

 

[NoleFam]

The bigger thing is that if he had a forehand that was anywhere near up to standard of his backhand, he wouldn't really need to volley that much except for the putaways.

Volleys get more important the worse you are at finishing a point from 3/4 into the court.

Yea this is true. I think the forehand can get better though and he can improve that shot in the future. He will never be a great volleyer but he can become a competent one. He needs a little more development there.

 

[True Fanerer]

You are joking? A billionaire guy who does not know you exist lost a tennis match and you are concerned about it? Try to contact him and tell us what happened.

My tennis brain d***. I've got a drink in my hand for breakfast. I'm fine.

 

[swordtennis]

It really was. I'm happy with his match vs Djokovic. I expected him to be at least average in his first match after that. Maybe he will settle in now and have a chance. Djokovic the man right now.

That was a great match. Fed was really out there solving the djokovic puzzle. Nearly pulled it out. Just that djokovic went into that damn siege mentality mode.

 

[Red Rick]

Half of the Milan honorees last year are now better than the 4 worst here this year.

I don't get it. Two years of goating in Milan at end of year event. Here we get 7 garbage matches and counting.

Wouldn't call Milan goating, but players at least played up to the standards of their ranking.

It's not like Tsitsipas or De Minaur wouldn't eat sh*t against Djokovic

 

[ABCD]

A random internet person who doesn't care about you says something you probably don't care about, and you start to berate him?

You didn't read "The little prince", did you? Otherwise you would not write what you wrote.

 

[George Turner]

Wow, what happened? I checked the score and Zverev had break point. Played a couple of blitz chess games online, checked the score and it was over!!

Zverev can still qualify with a win over Cilic and would have a good shot of beating Kandyman in the semis. Don't count him out yet.

 

[Red Rick]

You didn't read "The little prince", did you? Otherwise you would not write what you wrote.

No sorry I can't read. I can only smell when people are full of it.

 

[Deleted member 3771]

Potential - sure. But he's among the worst volleyers in top-100 and he's got no clue as to how to play. Lendl might help him develop more aggression. It doesn't make any sense to try and rally with Novak like that.
Lendl also needs to fix the mental midgetry. After failing to break at 4-all, his game fell completely apart for the rest of the match

Zed knows how to be aggressive, just not without hitting the net or hitting half a foot long.

 

[Chanwan]

I actually thought today was one of his better volleying performances. Lol. That's how poor he is up there. He has aggression but on this type of court, aggression can work against you against Novak. He redirects better than anyone and seems to know where every ball is going. I think the Zverev forehand is the weakness and chink in his armor which makes him second guess his shots from the baseline when he is being pressured. He's still young and has time to get better in the mental department.

Agree on the forehand. Lendl did wonders for Murray's forehand so who knows, maybe he can do the same for Z.
Every volley Zed hit, he hit right to Novak. As far as the aggression goes, look at his court position. He runs around 2 meters behind the baseline just like le Monf. He was just rallying with Novak today and to no surprise, he blinked first (Novak absolutely dominated the 5-9 shot stats - can't remember the numbers, but he won more than double iirc).
True for the mental department. And him beating subpar Novak and Fed in his first 2 Masters' finals also speaks in favor of him not being a complete head case.

The bigger thing is that if he had a forehand that was anywhere near up to standard of his backhand, he wouldn't really need to volley that much except for the putaways.

Volleys get more important the worse you are at finishing a point from 3/4 into the court.

True - but nevertheless, you need competent volleys to be the very best. You're simply denying yourself a lot of easy points if you can't put them away.

 

[Red Rick]

Wow, what happened? I checked the score and Zverev had break point. Played a couple of blitz chess games online, checked the score and it was over!!

Zverev can still qualify with a win over Cilic and would have a good shot of beating Kandyman in the semis. Don't count him out yet.

Zverev can't beat Cilic.

He already played him and they can't both qualify.

 

[Red Rick]

Agree on the forehand. Lendl did wonders for Murray's forehand so who knows, maybe he can do the same for Z.
Every volley Zed hit, he hit right to Novak. As far as the aggression goes, look at his court position. He runs around 2 meters behind the baseline just like le Monf. He was just rallying with Novak today and to no surprise, he blinked first (Novak absolutely dominated the 5-9 shot stats - can't remember the numbers, but he won more than double iirc).
True for the mental department. And him beating subpar Novak and Fed in his first 2 Masters' finals also speaks in favor of him not being a complete head case.


True - but nevertheless, you need competent volleys to be the very best. You're simplying denying yourself a lot of easy points if you can't put them away.

Yes.

Big difference between the traditional approach and just strolling in for the putaway though.

 

[Chanwan]

Wouldn't call Milan goating, but players at least played up to the standards of their ranking.

It's not like Tsitsipas or De Minaur wouldn't eat sh*t against Djokovic

don't burst his NextGen bubble...

Yes.

Big difference between the traditional approach and just strolling in for the putaway though.

Also true. All I'm saying that Djoko and Nadal are getting a lot of easy points from the forecourt even though they are beating everyone from the back court. Having that ability simply makes them (and Z if he gets there) that much harder to beat.