Novak Djokovic appears free to defend French Open title as France lifts vaccine passport rules

teotjunk said:
When he lost to Tsonga at Australian Open 2008

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He said this about Tsonga's level

Is not the real level I think. Sure, he can play like this, but not every week. It's impossible.
Click to expand...

He was 100% spot on... Tsonga very rarely ever played at that level again... maybe 2011 WIM after he was down 2 sets to love against Roger springs to mind...
 
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teotjunk said:
When he lost to Tsonga at Australian Open 2008

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He said this about Tsonga's level

Is not the real level I think. Sure, he can play like this, but not every week. It's impossible.
Click to expand...
And was he wrong???? Did Tsonga replicate that level regularly???
 
The Big Foe fan said:
After every loss :-

My foot was injured
My back was injured
My leg was injured
My wrist was injured
My d**k was injured
Click to expand...
So what is the excuse that your idol was swept in the US Open final in 2021?
Exhaustion?
Nervousness?
Lack of love from the stands towards him?,
or that Medvedev was really superior to him in all facets of the game?
:sneaky:
 
teotjunk said:
When he lost to Tsonga at Australian Open 2008

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He said this about Tsonga's level

Is not the real level I think. Sure, he can play like this, but not every week. It's impossible.
Click to expand...
He was not wrong at all!
:D
 
Game on now for the slam race. If Novak wins it again it will cancel out the Aussie Open as he was the favourite there but Nadal is the big favourite for the French. If Nadal wins he’s got a nice vision. If anyone else wins then Novak is right back in the race with Wimbledon to come a few weeks later!
 
Do not get too high by what is right in front of your eyes. They have to play some clay events first. And war has to be put to a halt before RG22. Playing a regular game 'who wins' on forum ATM is delusional.

Slam race Nadal vs Djokovic is far from over whoever wins RG22. Clearly Nadal is a favorite for RG 22, but he was favorite for RG21 also.

What every Nadal fan knows is that Djokovic is better (motivated) and more dangerous when he is trying to catch up a leader of the race.

Let's see some BO3 clay events first. There is a plenty of time, for tennis and for Ukraine war, before RG22 starts.

Do not go into psychosis - again. Asses objective reality calmly. We are humans. We can think. Unlike small cats. Small cats can only die of fear, each moment of their lives.
 
teotjunk said:
The point is not whether he was wrong or right but he was a bit salty about the loss.. Whether he was right or wrong, he was salty
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This is like searching for a smallest blot on a paper instead of looking at the other valuable contents of paper. If he appreciates his opponent then its fake humility, if he says something true about his injuries r opponents unreal level- then he is salty and giving excuses.
This won't stop unless we change our perception.
 
DSH said:
So what is the excuse that your idol was swept in the US Open final in 2021?
Exhaustion?
Nervousness?
Lack of love from the stands towards him?,
or that Medvedev was really superior to him in all facets of the game?
:sneaky:
Click to expand...
He's Not my idol.
Medvedev outplayed him fair and square. Albeit he had some fatigue but there's no excuse for that performance.
 
What does that mean exactly though? Lifting vaccine passports to dine in a restaurant or to enter the country? Canada is lifting vaccine requirements to attedn events, but not to allow entry of foreigners. That means that if you want to enter Canada, you have to be vaccinated. Means nothing that someone already there can eat without showing proof of vaccination when going to the movies.
 
TheAssassin said:
Let the Triple Career Slam start loading, lads.

tennisgifs-tennis.gif
Click to expand...
What a fanatic.

He'll end up in a mental institution if he continues this.

Calm down, it's just a little yellow ball... You hit it well. Bravo.
 
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Novak Djokovic is unacceptable.

Medvedev should also be disallowed in, not that he's a factor on clay.
 
catskillthunder said:
As a Nadal fan, there is no one else I'd rather see in the FO draw then Novak. I want Nadal to have another crack at him at RG so that all the talk from last year can be settled.
Click to expand...
Be careful of what you wish for. Novak is, and always will be, the STRONGEST challenge to Nadal and an RG crown.
All the other chumps - Titspas/Thiem/Med/Zed etc CANNOT defeat Nadal in RG in a MILLION YEARS.

Sure, Nadal is the favorite vs Novak in RG. And will always be. But if Nadal is injured/exhausted and does NOT play his A+ game - Novak might get the 3rd RG and clinch the GOAT debate.
Nadal and his team will DESPERATELY hope that someone else takes out Novak in F.O.
 
TennisFan3 said:
Be careful of what you wish for. Novak is, and always will be, the STRONGEST challenge to Nadal and an RG crown.
All the other chumps - Titspas/Thiem/Med/Zed etc CANNOT defeat Nadal in RG in a MILLION YEARS.

Sure, Nadal is the favorite vs Novak in RG. And will always be. But if Nadal is injured/exhausted and does NOT play his A+ game - Novak might get the 3rd RG and clinch the GOAT debate.
Nadal and his team will DESPERATELY hope that someone else takes out Novak in F.O.
Click to expand...
I really don't get how you can keep dealing in such absolutes when you have been proven wrong enough times to make you understand.
 
catskillthunder said:
As a Nadal fan, there is no one else I'd rather see in the FO draw then Novak. I want Nadal to have another crack at him at RG so that all the talk from last year can be settled.
Click to expand...
I truly don't understand how Novak beats Nadal ONCE and all of a sudden Nadal has to prove himself and overcome Novak. Are we forgetting how Nadal STOMPED Novak in the 2020 French Final?? How he beat Novak in Rome 2 of the last 3 years (including 2021)?? Or how he's beaten Novak in the French Finals in 2012 and 2014 (and the semis in 2013)??
 
#21 coming up. Should be an exciting battle between Rafa and Novak, with supporting cast of the rest of the tour!

The next couple of years will see these 2 warriors fight to the bitter end to see who will have the GS record, gonna be good.
 
The_Order said:
He was 100% spot on... Tsonga very rarely ever played at that level again... maybe 2011 WIM after he was down 2 sets to love against Roger springs to mind...
Click to expand...

I quote Nadal himself:


But we can’t predict the future?. Sure he was right but it could have been a lucky guess as either way he would have a 50% chance of being right.

How can Nadal tell if that was a fluky performance like Soldering or a genuine step up in level like Warinkwa in 2013 or Djokovic in 2011. Del Potro who trashed Nadal in 2009 US open could have easily be in contention for world No 1 for the next couple of years if not for his injuries.

Can you imagine if Djokovic had lost his Australian 2013 match to Warinkwa in straight sets and then said something similar? It would have come back to haunt him as famous last words.

The possibility that Djokovic would have lost the match in straight sets was there. Warinkwa was serving for the second set in before the enormity of the occasion got to him and he choked it away and it won’t have been a close victory but a trashing as Warinkwa beat Djokovic by two breaks in the first set
 
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TennisFan3 said:
Novak might get the 3rd RG and clinch the GOAT debate.
Click to expand...

LOL. No debate ... Laver is the GOAT!

Novak is in the picture if he wins a GRAND SLAM ... until then, he and all the other pretenders will always fall a tiny bit short of Laver.

If the GRAND SLAM was so easy, at least one of Connors, Borg, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic would have achieved it by now. None of them have. Rod did it TWICE!
 
Novak Djokovic, once my favorite tennis player, has effectively retired from the tour. What he needs is his good old Serbian friends or a priest or I don't know anyone other than Pepe to tell him to get a grip. He is a parent, a husband? Get a fake vaccine card, we all know you can do this in Serbia, and shut the eff up about your own choice.
Nobody has a choice about much of anything, we are all cogs in a machine.
 
Karma Tennis said:
If the GRAND SLAM was so easy, at least one of Connors, Borg, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic would have achieved it by now. None of them have. Rod did it TWICE!
Click to expand...
Laver is a legend, but 3/4 majors were on grass when he won both his CYGS. Everyone you're listing had to contest the CYGS on three different surfaces, except Borg and Connors early in their careers.
 
BeatlesFan said:
Laver is a legend, but 3/4 majors were on grass when he won both his CYGS. Everyone you're listing had to contest the CYGS on three different surfaces, except Borg and Connors early in their careers.
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Indeed three of the four Majors were played on Grass courts. However, the grass courts of Wimbledon, Westside Tennis Club and the various venues used in Australia (Milton, White City, Kooyong) during that era where very different and played very differently.

Now that was mitigated to some extent by the fact that the dominant style of play in those days was Serve and Volley - but it was so because of the Grass courts.

The modern Grass plays a lot more like hard court ... more consistent bounce is the main thing ... so different playing styles can succeed on Grass.

Imho, purely from a playing conditions pov, it was much harder to achieve the GRAND SLAM in Laver's time than it is today. I don't think the playing conditions - in terms of playing surfaces - is anywhere near as important these days.

But there are other factors which make achieving the GRAND SLAM very tough now - in particular the level of the competition and the significantly greater scrutiny that the top players are placed under.

That's why I have always said that any player who can achieve the GRAND SLAM now would factor in any GOAT discussion.
 
BeatlesFan said:
Laver is a legend, but 3/4 majors were on grass when he won both his CYGS. Everyone you're listing had to contest the CYGS on three different surfaces, except Borg and Connors early in their careers.
Click to expand...

If the CYGS just boiled down to “3/4 majors we’re on grass” then at least ONE of the great male players would’ve done it in the 25 years between Don Budge in 1938 and Laver in ‘62. Yet Gonzalez, Hoad, Sedgeman, Jack Kramer, Ashley Cooper, etc never did it. The CYGS is a seminal achievement, no matter the distribution of surfaces
 
MissileBackHand99 said:
If the CYGS just boiled down to “3/4 majors we’re on grass” then at least ONE of the great male players would’ve done it in the 25 years between Don Budge in 1938 and Laver in ‘62. Yet Gonzalez, Hoad, Sedgeman, Jack Kramer, Ashley Cooper, etc never did it. The CYGS is a seminal achievement, no matter the distribution of surfaces
Click to expand...

Gonzalez, Kramer turned pro before hitting their primes.
Hoad was a match away from doing it, but stopped by Rosewall finally.
Sedgeman, Cooper? not that good.
 
Karma Tennis said:
LOL. No debate ... Laver is the GOAT!

Novak is in the picture if he wins a GRAND SLAM ... until then, he and all the other pretenders will always fall a tiny bit short of Laver.

If the GRAND SLAM was so easy, at least one of Connors, Borg, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic would have achieved it by now. None of them have. Rod did it TWICE!
Click to expand...

Laver got 1 grand slam in a full field - 69. Great achievement.
The amateur one in 62 doesn't matter anywhere near as much. lets not pretend otherwise.
 
All a die hard Rafa fan needs to do is take a trip to Paris with a niggling "cough" and it starts all over again. Au revoir mon Djoker.
 
Tommy Haas said:
All a die hard Rafa fan needs to do is take a trip to Paris with a niggling "cough" and it starts all over again. Au revoir mon Djoker.
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lol wtf is going on here?

Nadal doesn't need Djokovic to be banned from any tournament... least of all RG ffs...

Djokovic has had many slam opportunities where Nadal and Federer weren't in the draw... too bad he wasn't good enough to capitalise on all of those chances...

Nadal has had one and the endless crying over it isn't going to change anything.
 
abmk said:
Laver got 1 grand slam in a full field - 69. Great achievement.
The amateur one in 62 doesn't matter anywhere near as much. lets not pretend otherwise.
Click to expand...

The 69 Grand Slam at age 31 I am super impressed by though. Looking over his draws there are some formidable opponents and tough matches. Stellar achievement.

The 62 Grand Slam was a total joke for sure, as he wasn't even close to the best player in the world at that point as his pro results in 63 showed.
 
abmk said:
Gonzalez, Kramer turned pro before hitting their primes.
Hoad was a match away from doing it, but stopped by Rosewall finally.
Sedgeman, Cooper? not that good.
Click to expand...
Ahhh so that's the excuse. Cooper won 3/4 Slams in '58, missing only the French. And Gonzalez was definitely talented enough as an Amateur to win it

Hoad was I believe 2 sets away from winning it in '56. My point is that it's a seminal achievement, regardless of what the surfaces are. And again, if it wasn't, somebody would've done it after Laver turned pro in '63 and before open tennis in '68 (as Newcombe, Santana, Stolle, Emerson, etc were still amateurs then)
 
MissileBackHand99 said:
Ahhh so that's the excuse. Cooper won 3/4 Slams in '58, missing only the French. And Gonzalez was definitely talented enough as an Amateur to win it

Hoad was I believe 2 sets away from winning it in '56. My point is that it's a seminal achievement, regardless of what the surfaces are. And again, if it wasn't, somebody would've done it after Laver turned pro in '63 and before open tennis in '68 (as Newcombe, Santana, Stolle, Emerson, etc were still amateurs then)
Click to expand...

Gonzalez was younger, nowhere near prime level, turned pro very quickly. So no.
Cooper get belted when he turned pro next year.

Laver got dominated by Rosewall and Hoad when he turned pro next year.
Its a great achievement in a full field regardless of surfaces.
But not so much in an amateur field with best players in the pro field.
 
Karma Tennis said:
I sort of agree with you ... but tell that to the statisticians and the keepers of the record books. Laver has achieved two GRAND SLAMS.

But as @MissileBackHand99 said above, achieving one GRAND SLAM is a seminal achievement.
Click to expand...

Laver achieved one grand slam in a full field. Other one was amateur one in 62. His weaknesses at that time were exposed by Rosewall and Hoad in 63 when he turned pro next year (dominated him)
The statisticians also say Laver won only 11 slams and Emerson won 12 of them. Should we not take into account the context, the pro field etc?
 
abmk said:
Laver achieved one grand slam in a full field. Other one was amateur one in 62. His weaknesses at that time were exposed by Rosewall and Hoad in 63 when he turned pro next year (dominated him)
The statisticians also say Laver won only 11 slams and Emerson won 12 of them. Should we not take into account the context, the pro field etc?
Click to expand...

How long is a piece of string?

The Record Books show the documented history of the statistics.

We can debate all the business until the cows come home. But it is what it is. The players can only play who the play and win or lose!

Laver achieved two GRAND SLAMS. No debate.

Emerson won 12 Major Titles. No debate.

(The point about Laver's performance in 1963 is moot. The Professional Circuit was very very different. Cut Laver some slack. Once he adjusted to the vigours of the Pro. Circuit, he started to dominate it pretty quickly.)

So many people wax lyrical about Federer's achievements in the sport. Does the fact that he won a significant proportion of his Major Titles prior to 2010 change how we should view him in 2022? He was so dominant prior to 2010 and yet was unable to complete the GRAND SLAM.
 
Karma Tennis said:
How long is a piece of string?

The Record Books show the documented history of the statistics.

We can debate all the business until the cows come home. But it is what it is. The players can only play who the play and win or lose!

Laver achieved two GRAND SLAMS. No debate.

Emerson won 12 Major Titles. No debate.

(The point about Laver's performance in 1963 is moot. The Professional Circuit was very very different. Cut Laver some slack. Once he adjusted to the vigours of the Pro. Circuit, he started to dominate it pretty quickly.)

So many people wax lyrical about Federer's achievements in the sport. Does the fact that he won a significant proportion of his Major Titles prior to 2010 change how we should view him in 2022? He was so dominant prior to 2010 and yet was unable to complete the GRAND SLAM.
Click to expand...

eh, we're talking about full fields vs amateur fields. Has nothing to do with 2010. Yes, Fed was unable to get the grand slam in 06 or 07 because of an absolute road block called Nadal on clay.
Laver-Rosewall were very close in 64, close enough in 65-66 in the pros.
Also being the best in an amateur field or pro field does not necessarily translate to grand slam in full field.
 
abmk said:
Also being the best in an amateur field or pro field does not necessarily translate to grand slam in full field.
Click to expand...

Were you alive in 1967, 1968, 1969? It was pretty obvious in those years, once the Pro. players returned to the Open stage who were the best players in the world.

Full fields back then did not have 32 Seedings, only 16! That fact alone has benefitted the Big 3 enormously and is oft forgotten by recent modern followers of the sport.

Federer didn't get the GRAND SLAMin '06 or '07 because winning any GRAND SLAM is one of the toughest challenges in sport.
 
Karma Tennis said:
Were you alive in 1967, 1968, 1969? It was pretty obvious in those years, once the Pro. players returned to the Open stage who were the best players in the world.

Full fields back then did not have 32 Seedings, only 16! That fact alone has benefitted the Big 3 enormously and is oft forgotten by recent modern followers of the sport.

Federer didn't get the GRAND SLAMin '06 or '07 because winning any GRAND SLAM is one of the toughest challenges in sport.
Click to expand...

No, I wasn't alive in 67-69, but am aware of the history. Being the best player or one of the best ! = grand slam in an open field.
and please fed would easily winning amateur grand slams at his prime, as would Borg. As would Gonzales/Rosewall if they stayed in amateurs.
Its ridiculous to equate grand slam in an amateur field (with best players in pros) to that in a full field.
Fed was unable to get the grand slam in 06 or 07 because of an absolute road block called Nadal on clay.

Laver's 69 GS was stupendous. That along with winning LA PSW (biggest HC event) makes it the greatest year of open era. But please don't exaggerate 62 amateur grand slam, which he definitely would not have won in a full field.

yes, I'm aware 32 seeds has reduced upsets.
 
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