2018 Davis Cup Final: France v Croatia

That Henry Leconte is insane good. I had no idea he was that good, always knew he was very talented though. I wonder if he played in current era, how high he would be ranked ?
Yes! He would be top ten one week, then lose early the next. He was fun to see. Mercurial. Henri had a lot in common with fellow lefties, goran ivanisevic, and petr korda.
What did the Davis Cup do to deserve such a dark ending... .
It is what they did not do. They did not keep pace with the increasing physicality of the tour, the decreasing commitment to national team competition, and the dwindling interest and attention span of the public. Davis Cup done got disrupted.

~Ya. So, Like, i can totally keep up with the tennis and the kardashians on my phone...why would i, like, watch three days of five set tennis matches?~

Sad ending. I mean, rebranding.
 
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zalive

Hall of Fame
Then what about watching two weeks of a GS, or week and a half of Masters tournaments.
Top players are forced by ITF/ATP rules/obligations to attend top tournaments. At the same time nothing such existed in DC, while cup's schedule is totally sacrificed relative to toughest tournaments schedule such as GS's. Of course top players skip DC in most opportunities given how it is.
Take Novak for an example, he's very patriotic, he participated in DC each time with national pride, and he even didn't participate in the DC primarily for his own achievements. But he cannot negate his own physical limits.

The whole view at the tennis or the sport in total is buying stories launched by those who make large profit on it. One way or another someone pays for those competition, one way or the other it's common people. But instead of sports being non-profitable for anyone but those really involved in it, it became the money making industry for the rich. And they sell the story it has to be this way, that it's absolutely necessary for the survival of sports. Which is a ridiculous idea. This way actually common people are paying more than they would have to otherwise, because they fill as well the pockets of those who skim the profit from sports.

At one point we'll all need to clean our eyeglasses. The need for this actually occured 'yesterday'.
I admire Noah and French team, I think they're view on this is more clear, their statements suggest they understand what's behind this.
 
They should have put Simon against Cilic imo.

Simon and Monfils weren't there to play.

I don't know if they're injured or if they just didn't want to participate, but they weren't there to be put in. France did the best they could with a terrible lineup (Tsonga is barely a top 100 player this year) but there was no way they were going to win with their B-team.
 

zalive

Hall of Fame
if Pouille played #1 rubber, would france have won this davis cup final ?

Unlikely, Borna was in too good form as well.
Monfils is the one (probably the only one) who might have made a difference. Two things, h2h but even more important, he's a very tough DC competitor. So Monfils was the one with the power to bring both individual wins for France. But since his own form is not splendid there's no guarantee he would have won even a single one.

Aren't you glad Croatia won? Country of only 4 mil. people, this is great stuff, you know.
 

zalive

Hall of Fame
No doubt Del Potro was a huge factor in his losing that match. I just think Marin crumbled a bit in that fifth set and gave up on himself. And I certainly agree, far too often fans regardless of region love to say it’s a choke when really it’s not. I just thought that Marin gave up on himself late in that match.

Moving forward a lot of players have had huge seasons following Davis Cup triumphs. With Nadal, Federer and Murray not at their best this is a huge opportunity for him. Then again so was the World Tour Finals this year and he went 1-2.

You know, I concluded I need to rewatch the fifth set, it was two years ago so I had to check whether what I have in my memory is correct.
And you know what...it wasn't. Again watching, Marin didn't gave up discipline, up to 3:3 at least everything was normal. It's Delpo who played a clever game to avoid pinning in BH corner by his game so Marin simply had to play more shots to his FH than he would prefer. But what was the key is the difference in serve/return. Delpo from the third set on has increased the second serve speed so Marin was limited to how much pressure he can make against his serve. At the same time he was increasing pressure against Marin's second serve. So Delpo was less vulnerable on his serve. What Delpo did was to return those second serves deep to Marin's BH corner and this is where Marin was not up to the task quite, he was losing initiative after a second serve and has been forced to defend, but he also made too many UEs with his BH - though he was put under a pressure. Anyway, Marin suddenly depended on a good % of first serves in but he was unable to produce enough...and this is where he got his serve rebroken, then broken again.

I watched again and I don't see any mental issue in that match. Pressure from Delpo was real. He served better than Marin and because of this he was more dangerous against second serves taking the early initiative over those points. And Marin's % of first serves was inadequate to resist. As for the mental aspect, I didn't see that being the reason (unless we count in the serve % in a mental aspect - the ability to serve better when it matters the most and on most important points - that didn't work at the end of the match).
 

zalive

Hall of Fame
Interesting. I suppose I should rewatch myself. Maybe this evening.

Well for the complete truth, he did fall apart at 3:4 for the second break. Regular game until 15:15, but next three point he made a DF and two complete UEs.
But interesting, the rest of the set looks regular to me.
Look for 5th set stats, actually they reflect precisely what happened (though 14 UEs look too much taking into account that majority of those UEs were in a defensive situation). Low first serve in %, low second serve pts won for Marin.
Delpo looked patient. For the example he didn't even try to hit winners or get FE's against second serves. Instead he was placing them deep aiming for corners, mostly the BH side. Two games in which Marin got broken in the fifth set he had a catastrophe serve with first serves not going in. That's not the way how you defeat Delpo.
 
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