Rome 2017 final: Novak Djokovic vs Alexander Zverev

Djokovic or Zverev?


  • Total voters
    77

Meles

Bionic Poster
Too bad Tommy Haas isnt there :oops: I saw him at Wimbledon I think in 2014 or 13, he looked done already then:eek:
Ferrer Rafa-- feel almost sick just thinking of it. Thiem Rafa on the other hand :D With my luck I end up watching Berdy again for the 4th time :rolleyes:
Heaven help us I feel your Berdy pain.
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Meles

Bionic Poster
Also didn't Novak play *twice* on Saturday prior to the Sunday final ?

Does someone know the exact times when he finished the Delpo match, played the Thiem match and faced Zverev on Sunday ? Wasn't it something like thrice in 30 odd hours ? He isn't 24 anymore and this schedule would be tough even on a 24 year old. Don't give me the 'he only played one set vs Delpo and finished off Thiem in under an hour' etc...It is not just about the physical tiredness but the mental exhaustion from playing back to back.

Funny there isn't even a mention of that whereas if it were someone like Nadal who had to play with this schedule, the tired/injured excuse making would start preemptively from Saturday.
He finished off Delpo early from Delpo up 2-1 in the 2nd, then first SF, women's final, and then later match with Thiem. The court time was not the issue, but the later final at 8 pm might be something. It was of course no factor whatsoever for the Madrid final, but for Nole.:rolleyes:
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I Am Finnish

Bionic Poster
Z was the better player he deserved to win

Djokovic was off just like against Nadal last week:confused: still a postive week for him overall playing better than in MC/Madrid but it is not enough to win rg he needs to raise his level
 

I Am Finnish

Bionic Poster
No Pouille just has 50% Finnish blood and probably a passport to Finnland to boot.:rolleyes: Hopefully he'll be a great ambassador playing many of the geriatrics ready to be finnish.:p He's your kind of guy.:D
But im not finnish i don live in Finland or speaking thè language :oops::eek:
 

racquetreligion

Hall of Fame
If you watch the match carefully youll see Djoker was over dramatic vocally, wobbling around pretending he was off balance the whole match, rarely finishing his strokes and hitting mostly to the centre short enough for AZev to take the risk and win the point. Even shaking hands with Azev and Umpire you can see the false act.

It was fixed and the ATP knows it well paying Nole as its next gen propaganda has been a laugh. They did the same for Nole on the ATP finals to make sure he lost even paying Raonicheat to skip the match the week before to make sure Murray went to no1 without a hitch and now look at Murray as a no1 what a joke!. Djoker is bought and makes a ridiculous actor anyone can see through, very sad state for tennis.

Fed, Nadal, Murray cannot be bought but the Djoker surely has the Russians on him even knows Azev well as they played exhibitions together for Noles charity, its too fishy to see a seasoned champion do such silly acts of stupidity.
 
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chjtennis

G.O.A.T.
Great win by Zed. I think we have finally found a real deal. I hope Zverev wins his 1st slam sooner than later. This result will motivate and inspire all the other young guns - Thiem, Kyrgios, even older guys like Dimitrov, Raonic, Nishkori, and so on. A great thing Zverev has done!
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
Oh I think Fed is US Open favorite for sure, but Sascha is getting into servebot territory with enough return to make him a threat. Think of what a grinder Zverev was much of last year and now he's going to start mowing through the draw with quick match times at the majors. That play style gives him so much more effective stamina than a player like Thiem with a physical playing style. I really think we could see Zverev going deep at majors all too suddenly.

I am troubled by the Zverev return game on hard courts this year. Last Fall Zverev had a stunning run of returning starting at the US Open. I don't have games easy, but tennis abstract had him from US Open through to his defeat by Ferrer last Fall with 40.6% return points won which is stunning and much better than 2017 at 35.6% or all of 2016 at 37.1%. Some of this may be the slightly faster court conditions this year and he simply may have had the luck to not hit a lot of big servers in the Fall. 20% on return games at this young of an age is ok, but he must improve because once he hits 25 or so the return game will start dropping and 20% on return games is marginal for a slam winner as I'm sure you're aware (Roddick;).)

Grass may have the same stat anomaly as a short period like Fall 2016, but Zverev did very, very well. Zverev was about fifth on first return stats winning 31.8% (Fed last year 28.0% and 2015 was a top notch 30.5% of points. Zverev broke 24.5% of the time in 2016 on grass, Fed 18.7% in 2016 and 21.3% in 2015. Based on his hard court return progress (pretty small) I doubt Zverev improves and he probably drops as 24.5% on the high side for only 8 matches.

Zed could easily get in the 91%/21% range on grass games this year would be my guess. Fed in 2015 was 95.8%/21.3% on games. If they meet on grass, it would boil down to who can break who. Zverev is certainly going to give most anyone a match on grass this year.;)

On clay impressive stuff by Zverev as Raonic and Isner had been hard to break this year.:eek:

If Zverev goes deep in wimby , say QF, I doubt he'll cross 90 on serve..again, its a small set of data... same for the last year fall for Zverev.

Not so sure about Raonic, who's been injury hampered this year, but impressive to break isner who had been serving well in Rome.
 

Mainad

Bionic Poster
If you watch the match carefully youll see Djoker was over dramatic vocally, wobbling around pretending he was off balance the whole match, rarely finishing his strokes and hitting mostly to the centre short enough for AZev to take the risk and win the point. Even shaking hands with Azev and Umpire you can see the false act.

It was fixed and the ATP knows it well paying Nole as its next gen propaganda has been a laugh. They did the same for Nole on the ATP finals to make sure he lost even paying Raonicheat to skip the match the week before to make sure Murray went to no1 without a hitch and now look at Murray as a no1 what a joke!. Djoker is bought and makes a ridiculous actor anyone can see through, very sad state for tennis.

Fed, Nadal, Murray cannot be bought but the Djoker surely has the Russians on him even knows Azev well as they played exhibitions together for Noles charity, its too fishy to see a seasoned champion do such silly acts of stupidity.

Right you are then! :)
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
If Zverev goes deep in wimby , say QF, I doubt he'll cross 90 on serve..again, its a small set of data... same for the last year fall for Zverev.

Not so sure about Raonic, who's been injury hampered this year, but impressive to break isner who had been serving well in Rome.
Its very much reading the tea leaves this hard to clay to grass transition. I found this kind of insight very helpful in my league play last year (almost swept everything on grass), but again could be dumb luck too.:D If your eyes says less than 90 that's sauce for the goose. The numbers just based on hard improvement added to last years grass show 89 and I'm presuming his serve game has improved more over the clay season in a way that will translate to other surfaces when I say 90 or 91.

Zverev really seems to have good reach and just does a good job of hitting back first serves fairly deep when he's on a roll for part of a match. I believe this attribute has really helped him return first serve and he's like a lightweight Murray in breaking servebots as a result. Unlike Murray, Zverev is not a lightweight on serve so he just needs a break or two in a match and often will prevail in tiebreaks with his superior movement versus other servebots.

The ****** probably is much the same as he handles big servers quite well on return and can get by with just a few breaks against them.

Well anyway I'll keep an eye on Zverev's serving success on grass since its probably going to be his big change from last year and helpful in my predictions (I'm defending a lot of points soon.:confused:)
 

sbengte

G.O.A.T.
He finished off Delpo early from Delpo up 2-1 in the 2nd, then first SF, women's final, and then later match with Thiem. The court time was not the issue, but the later final at 8 pm might be something. It was of course no factor whatsoever for the Madrid final, but for Nole.:rolleyes:
sFun_nopity.gif

Of course a factor for anyone who plays the second semi in a masters and then plays the final < 24 hrs later. They need to fix it no matter who is disadvantaged - Thiem or Fed or Djoker. (It is usually never Nadal, because he rarely if ever plays the second semi)

See my rant on this :

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...r-getting-screwed.564337/page-3#post-10342682
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
Of course a factor for anyone who plays the second semi in a masters and then plays the final < 24 hrs later. They need to fix it no matter who is disadvantaged - Thiem or Fed or Djoker. (It is usually never Nadal, because he rarely if ever plays the second semi)

See my rant on this :

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...r-getting-screwed.564337/page-3#post-10342682
LOL Cheatdal strikes again.:D I have to say a little extra rest for Thiem did him no good with Nole.:oops:
 

Sartorius

Hall of Fame
I like how Zverev does not ball-bash his way to win, something he did against Federer at Halle last year. When he's on he's just solid all around, and with that serve it becomes difficult to sidetrack him (or get a break back). Djokovic may play better than that but at times it looked like he was beaten at his own game.
 

zep

Hall of Fame
Zverev doesn't hit with pace? He was clobbering the ball pretty darn hard and deep out there.

You misconstrued what I said. I was talking about neutral rally balls. If you watched yesterday's match Zverev was trying to hit those at a fairly average speed, deep in the middle of the court without giving Djokovic any speed, angle or space to work with and then if Djokovic's shots landed a bit short he went after those. If you try to knock the cover off the ball with every shot, Djokovic uses that speed to his advantage.
 

swordtennis

G.O.A.T.
Players tend to win less Slams into their 30s. Federer began to unravel after AO 2010 when he was heading towards 29.

Yeah, because Agassi has a track record for coaching a lot of great players in the past and turning them into champions. LOL
Djokovic already has 12 Slams and 30 Masters without Agassi.
Well It is a positive to me just to see agassi again and see what he has to offer.
 

Bill W

Rookie
I was very happy for Zverev. It's nice to see other people win tournaments once in a while. The big four are very stingy.

Someone probably already said this, but I bet Thiem was watching this match at home wondering why he didn't get that version of Novak... instead of the one he got.
 

clayqueen

Talk Tennis Guru
will be surprised if zverev manages to take a set .
I missed the last 3 rounds of Rome over the weekend so just reading all the posts now. I have to say I laughed out loud when I read your post, mainly because I've finally got proof that I shouldn't take anything you say as gospel truth. ;) ;) ;)
 

abmk

Bionic Poster
I missed the last 3 rounds of Rome over the weekend so just reading all the posts now. I have to say I laughed out loud when I read your post, mainly because I've finally got proof that I shouldn't take anything you say as gospel truth. ;) ;) ;)
It was a prediction and not truth/ reality. But guess you can't even tell the difference.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk
 

Djokovic2011

Bionic Poster
Someone probably already said this, but I bet Thiem was watching this match at home wondering why he didn't get that version of Novak... instead of the one he got.
I was thinking the same thing, poor Dominic. :( Strange though that Djokovic saved all his fire for the semis rather than the final. The only thing I can ascribe it to is the fact that Thiem had beaten Nadal the previous round, as if Novak was sending out a message to Rafa saying "this is what I would've done to you too if we were playing tonight".
 

mike danny

Bionic Poster
I was thinking the same thing, poor Dominic. :( Strange though that Djokovic saved all his fire for the semis rather than the final. The only thing I can ascribe it to is the fact that Thiem had beaten Nadal the previous round, as if Novak was sending out a message to Rafa saying "this is what I would've done to you too if we were playing tonight".
That's why Novak needs a coach. He had no idea how to approach Zverev for the first time.
 

TheGhostOfAgassi

Talk Tennis Guru
I was thinking the same thing, poor Dominic. :( Strange though that Djokovic saved all his fire for the semis rather than the final. The only thing I can ascribe it to is the fact that Thiem had beaten Nadal the previous round, as if Novak was sending out a message to Rafa saying "this is what I would've done to you too if we were playing tonight".
I dont really think that any players can plan it out as you are saying, its unrealistic. Novak is inconsistent at the moment. Maybe he will get consistency back, but with age thats more difficult. He is not used to that and started doubting himself, he has to work through it.
 

Djokovic2011

Bionic Poster
That's why Novak needs a coach. He had no idea how to approach Zverev for the first time.
Which just seems odd to me. I mean surely he'd watched some of his matches before?! I know its not the same as actually playing him before but you would've thought a player with his experience would've known more or less which tactics to employ, regardless of not having a coach to help him out.
 

clayqueen

Talk Tennis Guru
I was thinking the same thing, poor Dominic. :( Strange though that Djokovic saved all his fire for the semis rather than the final. The only thing I can ascribe it to is the fact that Thiem had beaten Nadal the previous round, as if Novak was sending out a message to Rafa saying "this is what I would've done to you too if we were playing tonight".
Except that Zverev did to Djoker what Nadal did to Zverev.
 

Djokovic2011

Bionic Poster
I dont really think that any players can plan it out as you are saying, its unrealistic. Novak is inconsistent at the moment. Maybe he will get consistency back, but with age thats more difficult. He is not used to that and started doubting himself, he has to work through it.
Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe it had just been so long since he last competed in a Masters final that he'd forgotten how to play in one?! ;)
 

TheGhostOfAgassi

Talk Tennis Guru
Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe it had just been so long since he last competed in a Masters final that he'd forgotten how to play in one?! ;)
After his losses after RG due to personal problems he got self doubt. He also has had some injury problems that can affect play and confidence. You can see in other players decline they have to fight their way back, its not like they suddenly play 5 matches in a row superb again. Takes some time. Maybe with new coach and better strategy it will not take that long time as it has taken for the others to come back.
 

clayqueen

Talk Tennis Guru
After his losses after RG due to personal problems he got self doubt. He also has had some injury problems that can affect play and confidence. You can see in other players decline they have to fight their way back, its not like they suddenly play 5 matches in a row superb again. Takes some time. Maybe with new coach and better strategy it will not take that long time as it has taken for the others to come back.
Yes, it might take Djoko 2-3 years to get his form back.
 

TheGhostOfAgassi

Talk Tennis Guru
Yes, it might take Djoko 2-3 years to get his form back.
We dont know that, but there is a chance for that if we look at whats normal time being in decline dump. He maybe need to change his game a little so he can last longer like the other players in same situation had to do. He has pretty much had the same tactics for 6 years, it has been a winning formula, but with age maybe more difficult to do the same way, so physically demanding.
 

Meles

Bionic Poster
I like how Zverev does not ball-bash his way to win, something he did against Federer at Halle last year. When he's on he's just solid all around, and with that serve it becomes difficult to sidetrack him (or get a break back). Djokovic may play better than that but at times it looked like he was beaten at his own game.
They may go about things differently, but the basic workings of their ground games are very similar. Zverev was consistently hitting hard and taking time from Djokovic. Going for UEs from the opponent and preventing the opponent from running him. Worked perfectly and left Djokovic scratching his head.:p
 

YellowFedBetter

Hall of Fame
Mark my words boys, soon Zverev will be dominating and many of us will be getting just as sick of him as Djokovic/Fed/Nadal. I know I will. Just can't really like him for some reason.
 

TheGhostOfAgassi

Talk Tennis Guru
"strange" that some would think him arrogant, almost Kyrgios.:D
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After Barcelona I cant recall any finger wagging. He is like a changed player. Plenty of times in Roma there were reasons to do that. Hope that is gone forever :D His court manner in Roma was perfect as far as I could see, think I saw all of his matches.
 

cc0509

Talk Tennis Guru
Yes, it might take Djoko 2-3 years to get his form back.

2-3 years? He's 30. His career will be over by then. He doesn't have that kind of time. I doubt it will take 2-3 years but more like 2-6 months. It's not like he forgot how to hit a tennis ball. He's low on confidence mostly.
 

veroniquem

Bionic Poster
To be fair to Novak, he played absolutely horrible in the final. I'm happy for Z but playing like he did, Novak would have lost to anyone across the net on Sunday.
Maybe playing several days in a row + the emotion of making a master final after a long drought was too much to cope with for him and he needs to get his rhythm back. It takes some time.
Look at how long it took Rafa to extirpate himself from his slump.
 

3fees

G.O.A.T.
To be fair to Novak, he played absolutely horrible in the final. I'm happy for Z but playing like he did, Novak would have lost to anyone across the net on Sunday.
Maybe playing several days in a row + the emotion of making a master final after a long drought was too much to cope with for him and he needs to get his rhythm back. It takes some time.
Look at how long it took Rafa to extirpate himself from his slump.

He is still in a swoon, yet he has weathered the storm better and indeed he would have lost to most, he seems to try and cruise right now instead pushing himself all out at times and this has not worked.

Cheers
3Fees :)
 
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