WIMBLEDON 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Wimbledon_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_Singles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Wimbledon_Championships_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_Singles

krygios/nadal rd 2, if nick can get by jordan thompson ~ seeing a impending matchup vs rafa motivated him in acapulco but obv who knows w krygios

Pliskova looked fabulous at Eastbourne. P much trucked Kerber in the final, who herself had looked great vs Halep.

Also in the easier bottom half of the draw. The top half looks murderous.

osaka out
sascha out

Tsitipas saved a mp vs Fabbiano - now on serve in the 5th.

Fabb was fab. 11th match on grass in the last three weeks. It showed. Tsisty couldn't keep his footing.

24-year age gap on Court 1 right now!

And Cori G is up a set and a break on Venus.

4th set most kyrgios set ever

thompson 6-0, nick won 5 points

and then Kyrgios took the fifth 6-1

Meanwhile, the carnage continues: Thiem out against Querrey
Fed lost the first set against Harris

Great match from Cori Gauff yesterday!

azarenka was outstanding just now

Stan taken to fifth set by Isner V.2 (Opelka)!

While I'm not thrilled to see pro tennis dominated more and more by the taller and tallest, that was an exciting upset.

I was gonna say that Fabbiano, at five-eight, is maintaining the balance but he just blew a 3-0 lead in the 4th set t/b vs Karlovic (15 inches taller) and now he's in a decider too.

In the end it was Dr. Ivo who blew that one. Didn't help that Fabb's last match point came from a mishit.

Opelka has maximum Jonah From Veep energy

dang that is kinda otm

coco thru rybarikova in straights

looking at the stats, coco did not even face a break pt

two days at wimbledon was awesome, got to see all the wta teenagers basically

jelly

our Lex's awesome profile of two of those teenagers: https://www.wtatennis.com/news/philosophy-painting-and-friendship-getting-know-serenas-wimbledon-opponent-kaja-juvan

This is particularly the case when they begin teasing each other about their "weird" reading tastes. "If I want something to shut my brain off I read some sleazy romantic teenage books," says Juvan - but that's not where her heart really is. "But if I want to read something for pleasure, I read psychology, and I like philosophy as well."

Who are her favourite philosophers? "I like Socrates - it's really interesting because it was right at the beginning of philosophy - he started it. And then there's this saying from Descartes that faith is a projection of humanity, and I think that's a really smart saying because it's really related to God, and I think that's something humans like to do."

Swiatek interjects: "That's probably the only WTA interview where someone has mentioned Descartes." Juvan grins. "That's why I'm her friend, because we both have weird tastes!" Rolling her eyes for effect, Swiatek begins to distance herself - "I'm not that weird!" - but Juvan isn't having any of this claim to normality.

"Oh my God, you read about queens and kings of the 14th century!" Throwing her hands up, Swiatek admits defeat. "I like historical novels, OK? It's my thing." Reaching into her bag, she pulls out a Henry VIII T-shirt she has bought as a present for her coach, and the teenagers collapse into giggles.

conversely gauff said her favorite singer is jaden smith

i spose hes a modern philosopher tbh ~

lucky loser lauren davis from down a set takes out kerber

rafa is gonna cook thru kyrgios im p sure now

juvan philosophizing to an early lead on serena

both williams out to teens would be something

nick has worked himself into this match & has his serve now

loved that body shot to nadal

kyrgios on tomic otm? or wimbledon otm?

gotta say my instinct is to take kyrgios' side over the suits

tbh I am here for any and all bad things that happen to Tomic the Tank Engine

Gauff on Centre Court in a couple hours.

hurkacz!

RIP coco

lol

tennis doesn’t deserve nick kyrgios pic.twitter.com/3PqNfWvVub

— sanaa (@sanaa_mq) July 5, 2019

If only he got further in slams - total waste.

RIP coco

― k3vin k., Friday, July 5, 2019 10:12 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Events since this post have been kind of incredible, and now they have to play more tennis!

33 unforced errors in 66 minutes for azarenka

Great turnaround in that second set by Coco. Hercog is slipping.

Y'ALL

Hah right?

RIP k3vin k.

shit did she win? I had to go to a meeting

incredible. I turned it off at 3-5 I think?

She did win, which I believe means she is now President of the WTA

Also, I am not expecting Gauff to win Wimbledon, or the US Open, or the Australian Open, or the French Open in the next 12 months, BUT if she does she will be the youngest first-time Slam winner EVER. If she wins Wimbledon next year after losing the other tournaments, she would miss Hingis by half a week.

obviously rooting for her and she capitalised on the situation amazingly but the hercog missed smash on her own mp is the worst thing i've seen

wow pliskova broken at love serving for the match vs muchova at 11-10 3rd set

plish now has to hold to force the historic first ever 12-12 tiebreak

oof muchova wins on a net cord, props to her tho

fed in full goat mode

1 hour 14 min

i like this pella fella

and he's thru raonic!

Novak: 3, 2 and 3; Rafa: 2, 2 and 2; Fed: 1, 2 and 2. Lol men's tennis. Quarters should be interesting though.

Much-Plish was outstanding, of course.

I'm reaching a bit here, hoping the hegemony is broken, but curious to note that Fed, Rafa and Novak have each lost their most recent encounters with their respective QF opponents. Goffin beat Djokovic on clay in Monte Carlo 2017, Querrey beat Nadal on hard court in Acapulco 2017, and Nishikori beat Federer in that opening round-robin match at the O2 last November. I'd be happy to relax my always-Fed stance, but only if the other two fell first. And then RBA for the title.

lol def reaching, prob its more likely that none of the 3 lose a set again

In the Nadal/Querrey QF today there was a strange, really obvious scoring screw-up that nobody commented on, not the players or the announcers. It didn't affect the outcome, but I've replayed it a couple times to be sure I wasn't missing something.

7th game, 1st set, Querrey served at 30-love. Nadal's return crosscourt went a foot or two wide, and it was loudly called wide. Then the chair umpire announced 30-15 and the scoreboard displayed 30-15. Should have been 40-love, of course. Nobody said anything. Querry went ahead and served and won two more points for the game. Anybody else see this?

I just watched that incident on iPlayer. The suggestion seems to be that the umpire overruled the out call on Nadal's return, but he said nothing other than the score. At 40-15 Nadal starts to walk to the chair (commentator: "he's forgotten he got the overrule"). At change of ends Querrey looks puzzled (Ump: "did you hear/see(?) it?" Querrey: "er, no"). Weird one.

Getting pretty tired of the relentless length and pressure of Novak; Goffin was a break up and then lost 10 in a row. Hard to see RBA hurting him on grass. Can't call the other semi at all. 10 days ago you'd say Fed but he looked a little laboured vs Kei.

After re-watching the whole game, I figured it must have been that - an unannounced overrule that left everyone confused, Nadal included. By the time anybody might have questioned it, it wouldn't have made any difference, and the game was soon over. Nadal's shot still looked clearly out to me by inches, if not by as much as I first described.

These remaining matches do give me a numbing feeling of inevitability. With all the chatter about Federer v. Nadal for the first time since blah blah, has anyone mentioned that this is the first time the Big 3 have all been in the semis at a major since the 2012 French? Looking back over the records, from 2007 to 2012 I lost count of how often that happened. More often than not.

what a hold (fed getting to 4-1 3rd set)

how many match points must get dissed

great match, great drama

fucking hell both these guys

nadal didnt serve well enough and couldnt end rallies

Tennis, bloody hell

id be happy to be wrong but i dont think fed can beat djoker on sunday

I don’t think so either. This was great but not quite the display vs Murray in the semis in 2015; that level was only good enough for a set vs Novak two days later.

Fingers crossed for a distracted, UEing Serb.

Nadal didn't play well but that was still tremendous from the old man. So much patience today on the long rallies, forcing Rafa into uncharacteristic errors.

Not sure if it will be enough against Nole, but I hope to be proven wrong too. I've really gone off Djokovic these past few weeks over his poor attitude re: Gimelstob.

I kept expecting Nadal to take charge and Federer to fold, but aside from S2, he hung in there like never before. Even in the final game, RF made some great first serves which Nadal kept returning strong, but Fed kept pouring on the pressure. I really don't think that Rafa played poorly so much as Federer stayed strong and outwilled him.

I'll be surprised if Sunday is one-sided.

yeah nadal played pretty well, if he breaks in that final game i dont think its outlandish to think he comes back to win tbh

Incredible, flawless performance from Halep today - 6-2, 6-2 over Williams in under an hour and just three unforced errors!

Never seen anyone read Serena's serve like that, and her court coverage was Djokovic-like.

mahut just got tagged in the head on an overhead ~ hope hes ok

Hard to believe that's the same Halep who six weeks ago in Paris got clobbered by Anisimova, never able to even begin getting into the match.

I don't often keep watching through all the after-ceremonies and celebration, but it was touching to see how much it meant to Halep. Apparently, she was quite honored to be in the presence of royalty! Also surprised by the BBC lady in the on court interview disparaging Halep's French Open win by comparison.

Apparently, she was quite honored to be in the presence of royalty!

Romania was a kingdom from 1881 to 1947, until the advent of communism put an end to the monarchy. Many Romanians think back fondly on this supposedly resplendent period to better cope with the horrors of the Gheorghiu-Dej/Ceaușescu era, so royalty (much like Christianity) is viewed in a positive light by a significant segment of the population. There was even talk of restoring the throne after 1989, as Michael I was still alive at the time. Thankfully, that never happened.

men's doubles final is fantastic

It is ridiculously good. Let’s have five tie-breaks.

Halep irresistible from about 2pm on Tuesday.

Rooting for the French team if only because I can remember ER-V’s dad beating Connors at the French. I am old.

the grounds pass only folks have had to wait a long time 2 get in here lol

omg mahut

colombia!

I feel sorry for Mahut

I feel like that many nutshots deserve a victory

its true, and yet

Eye socket, throat and knackers - here, have a runners-up trophy to put next to the little trinket we gave you in 2010 for losing an 11-hour match. Also, I’m still sore on his behalf for the loss at Queen’s to Andy Bloody Roddick all those years ago.

Bit of a shame MxD final gets pushed to No.1 court today. I know it was past 9pm when the Colombians won last night, hence no LD final, but how late was it two years ago? Muguruza-Venus was a longer match than Halep-Serena and Kubot/Melo won the MD 13-11 in the 5th. They squeezed the LD final in under the roof back then... admittedly it was a double-bagel blowout and didn't trouble the curfew.

yerman has followed up 3 UEs with 3 extremely good points

aaaand an UE

aaaand another one?!

literally six UEs to throw that tie-break

Final should be over, v v poor from Fed at the end there.

he's started set two angry

Literal lol at Mirka's face after Federer breaks to start the second set: "Why didn't you play like that in the TB?!!"

Aaaaand there's the double break.

is djokovic injured

Nah just mentally recovering from that first set. Roger did nearly the same thing in his match against Nadal - stole the first set in a TB, lost the second 6-1.

Lol that was quick but I expect more of a third set.

Solidly on serve so far

Fed set point - what a play at the net

solid serve to save

TB

it's a tiebreak, so RF has his errors out on show again

jesus and how

Ughhhh

Biggest difference in Roger's game in this match vs the one against Rafa: consistency in rallies. Against Nadal, he showed more patience - content on just making his shots, drawing Rafa into errors.

Here, he's the one making the errors, going for too much on the finishing shot.

Two SPs

These TBs are going to give me nightmares.

Just a few key errors which is expected. Fed is in his late summer; Djoko is no 1 and dominant.

Fed hasn't faced a single BP on his serve yet is somehow down two sets to one. Unbelievable.

Djokovic hasn't been dominant in this match at all! Fed has been outplaying him consistently EXCEPT during those awful, awful TBs.

Djokovic is hardly winning those points, Roger is handing them to him.

Fed has won 10 more points than Djokovic. This is an awful way to lose a Slam final.

"Djokovic hasn't been dominant in this match at all!"

Sorry what I meant is slam form and what they are bringing into the match.

I think 10 more points is more to do with that weird 2nd set from Djoko...although I am half-watching this with the cricket.

Still on serve and Fed playing toe-to-toe: 2-2

jesus this match

Fed has broken and he wants some more: 30-30

we are going all the way

To serve for a fifth set... where thankfully, there'll be no more tie breaks.

Federer needs to play the fifth set like it’s the sixth set

lol

I should probably have waited before posting that but hey

phew that point!

well a god rally to stop Djoko from getting one of these breaks back

into the net: one more BP

One more shot at that fifth set...

3 SPs

And there we go.

Roger served it out and my stream promptly cut out argh.

Fed now @ deuce

sorry Novak @ deuce

Two good serves to see it out. On serve: 2-1 D

Its two breaks points djoko, with net cords helping him a bit

A few BPs saved..

0-30 Fed, danger

Two BPs to save

Fuck

Breaks!

0-15, cheap at the net

DF for break back

and he eventually does it

Played out of his skin there

RF with a couple of excellent first serves from 30-30

drop shot!! 0-15

Lololol these dropshots

But on serve in the end. Fed needs to serve to stay in it

into the net fuck!

tame BH into the net: 30-30

5-5

fuck that get at the net from D: 30-30

novak is the most mentally tough athlete i think ive ever seen

lol

"When is the tiebreak--10-all?" is something Novak Djokovic just asked chair umpire Damian Steiner. #Wimbledon

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) July 14, 2019

shit back fed: 15-30

oof that miss. Way too nervy.

Clutch serving to get himself out of trouble again.

this is p compelling stuff

i cant see this getting to 12-12 but that would be insane drama

6-6, way to go to a TB :)

sixth set beginning now, as DJP wanted

wow

:D

PLEASE finish this now

Come on old man!!

Incredible, played out of his skin - to serve

jesus

ace: 30-15

ace: 40-15

one more left

40-40, too early at the net

holy hell

turned to a BP back

8-8

I can't. I can't.

insane stuff

My husband just stormed out of the room in disgust, and honestly I can't blame him.

I am not massively rooting for either of them but fuck me

Fed didn't close it out, Djoko wins the next and we are all on serve

9-9

both
of
these
fucking
guys
my
god

this match is nuts man

10-10

Totally getting to that 12-all tiebreak, sigh.

it seems obv now that 12-12 was the fated destiny of this

11-11

OMG HE ACTUALLY GOT A HAWKEYE CHALLENGE RIGHT

saved that fuck me

what a hold

too damn much

this is agonising

jesus my brain is going

He's not showing up for this TB again.

prob has to win this pt at 2-4

that backhand! novak

3 CPs

done

happy for him

unbelievable

Yuck

This and the cricket at the same time. Too much.

This should have been Federer 3 sets to 0 but whatever. Blergh.

Never in doubt

yeah Fed deserved this, Djokovic a master of tranquility though.

lol who eats grass

Madness

Total points won

Roger Federer: 218
Novak Djokovic: 204

— Tumaini Carayol (@tumcarayol) July 14, 2019

fed w two champ pts on his serve is gonna stiiing gdamn

Give it about five years before I can stand to watch highlights of this. Particularly the Fed MPs.

Lol Fed. "I'll try my best to forget it"

yeah tbh that's it, two CPs, had it there and then..

Didn't think I'd be broken up for a man who has 21 slams but there you go

Booooo. I hate watching Djokovic play.

Would he have quit if he had won? Like.. immediately?

(Fed obviously, Djoko is gonna continue playing until he surpasses Fed's 20)

Doubt it, Fed has said he wants to be around for Tokyo Olympics.

And he likely will if he keeps playing like this!

has fed ever lost a final from up champ pt before

i understand djokovic haters but he is just so good, cant hate him

Not Slams. But he lost to Del Potro from MP up in Indian Wells F last year. Also Nadal in Rome F 2006. And Novak has done him at least twice now. Not finals though (USO sf once or twice and possibly Paris Masters sf last year - 76 57 76).

And he likely will if he keeps playing like this!

yeah!

I didn't hate Djokovic but his continued public support of Justin Gimelstob is unconscionable and a huge reason why men's tennis is a mess rn. Andy Murray he is not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/sports/novak-djokovic-atp-player-council.html

he's just so deeply unlikeable to watch. in everything. even those stupid uniqlo ads.

i can hate him

someone should ask fed in this press conf if he is pro/con/indifferent to the 12-12 tiebreak rule

& he said "it is what it is" ok

the gimelstob affair is unfortunate but tbh just seems like a convenient excuse for people who've always hated him regardless

it smacks of generic eastern european bias imho

My dislike of him was compounded by the Becker connection, who I hated more than anyone who has ever played the game.

Give him his due, he may have dips in intensity and focus in matches but seemingly never when it really matters. Fed’s winner-UE diff was +32, Nole’s was +2. How on earth, I blame the electoral college, etc etc

1 could say that fed wins this match vs any other man in history

he's for people who thought Sampras was the ultimate in charisma black holes.

Also the 12-12 t/b thing - ok in the sense it keeps the tournament moving, prevents players being spent for the next round because they had to toil for six hours plus, but I think they should have suspended it for the final(s). These guys are doing nothing until August and there’s a roof.

I really didn't see the need for that change at all. And Novak was cynically playing for the TB whereas Fed was really going for the break on the 5th (The only come back would be that this match would lenghten out what was the longest final ever even further).

Watching the highlights late last night I was reflecting on why Djoko so confident of winning the breakers against a man who isn't bad at anything to do with the goings on in a tennis and that got me to armchair-thinking of what you have to do to get to this level at his age. The management of it, my assumption that Fed plays a lot less (and its here that someone who follows the ATP tour all year around can fill in the gaps) to get to slams in that competetive shape that can last out for two weeks...but one which also leads to a severe lack of sharpness at the moments that decide the matches in a close contest. The edge that perhaps only be ironed out through volume of matches. But maybe idk Novak plays a similar volume of matches throughout the year and is bringing the confidence of winning multiple slams recently.

Like, this would not matter at all - one player in grass can get anywhere near Fed's level to find that out. One or two other players in clay lay out those lack of edges in Fed for us to see. Just yet another layer to Fed's incredible accomplishments. To do all this with slightly younger greats like Nadal and Djoko. And Djoko will almost certainly only surpass his slam total because absolutely no one seems to be coming through apart from Thiem who has made two slam finals - and this is on clay.

This is a good piece on Djokovic that maybe gets close to why he's so mentally tough, a willingness to win ugly: https://www.theringer.com/2019/7/14/20693870/novak-djokovic-roger-federer-wimbledon-final-2019

Anyway, I kind of think Fed will win the US Open now. He's been quietly doing well all year, and apart from his RG blowout to Nadal, all his other losses in 2019 have been to in-form players in extremely tight matches. He's taken those losses maybe a little too well, and it cost him yesterday's title. He won't want to repeat those mistakes again.

Good piece, the para laying out all the stats from the match is pretty heartbreaking. I think the gap in it though is to ask where has Fed's ability to close out slams, after winning 20 of them, gone. Fed has always had that adulation from crowds and has coped perfectly well before.

and maybe what's missing is the thing you can do only when younger -- i.e. you can play as many matches, win the smaller titles, as a way of preparing for the bigger ones. Then again Novak is ridiculous on the big points too.

Since he last won a Slam (which was only 18 months ago), Fed has... lost from two sets and MP up vs Anderson, lost a tight four-setter under lights in insane humidity vs Millman, lost a tight four-setter in which he missed dozens of break-points vs Tsitsipas, and been thumped in straights (in which he actually played fleetingly well) on clay by Rafa. And then yesterday. Four of those five Slam exits seem like "old man loses edge" but I think the Federer of 2013 would have lost all of those matches too, maybe not even competitively. Meanwhile, he's sailing through most other rounds and continuing to win at 1000/500/250 level. I think the reduction of schedule (and Edberg's 2014-15 retooling of his game, the new racket, etc) is giving him chances he wouldn't have had at this age to go deep in these events.

And, what's more, he hasn't even played a light schedule in 2019! 43 matches (47 if you count Hopman Cup) by the middle of July is maybe more than anyone else on the main tour. It's more than he played at this point at his peak in 2007.

At 8-7 40/15 all I could think about was those US Open semis. It had to be an another ace or nothing. Novak was going to find a way to get out of it. Fed net-rushing on that nothing FH at 40/30 was disastrous. Those BPs at 11-11 were Fed's last chance. Knew how the t-b would go.

The article above is very good - nails it pretty well.

I wonder if Roddick took a little sour delight in this. He outplayed Fed for long stretches in 2009, lost a couple of tie-breaks and eventually gave it up in a marathon fifth on a frame mis-hit. I guess that was a feature of Fed Slam finals in his 20-something pomp - he *always* won the breakers.

Thanks for the additional info - quite fascinating seeing all of these tight losses...and if he is doing that against Anderson then he will do it against Djoko.

That approach at 40/30 was...yeah, waking up in the middle of the night sweating and screaming stuff. How can you work yourself into that position and do this when you get to it? idk, and maybe nobody else does.

I'd say 18 months is a big-ish gap from winning one slam to another. In most individual sports when a 'great' starts winning the big ones they just stack 'em in batches. Seems like a habit that once broken is hard to get back on.

Gotta say I am not sure about Djoko hate as portrayed in that article. Novak is more hated than Nadal? If it wasn't for an injury or two Fed might have never won the French Open, surely a bigger crime than the tantrums and Grass-eating (The gimelstob affair is more recent, as grooveman says). Bringing in the Kyrgios tweet is funny but part of you is thinking the guy is sitting at home writing that shit instead of troubling anyone in the last stages of a slam.

Maybe there is something to anti-Eastern European (and Russian) bias. That little corner of the world is piling up slams across women and men's games. Maybe there is a correlation between the hate Novak gets and Lendl did? Novak has double the number of slams tho'.

eh insanely successful people who are also desperately needy are easy to dislike. not much more complicated than that. also the stupid number of ball bounces before serving that he did in the early bit of his career.

lendl was great and still wish he had a wimbledon rather than pat cash

No-one seriously thinks this about 'anti-Eastern Europe' bias, do they?

Goran was adored, late in his career at least. Safin hugely popular. Can't claim to be too well up on WTA crowd popularity, but I think Ivanovic, Jankovic and Azarenka were all pretty well liked? Halep and Pliskova are too.

To name but seven of the legion of popular Eastern European players over the years - especially in the women's game.

Personally, always rooted for Lendl, Mecir, Korda, Mandlikova, Myskina, Zvereva...

No-one seriously thinks this about 'anti-Eastern Europe' bias, do they?

― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Monday, 15 July 2019 bookmarkflaglink

grooveman was saying it upthread. Then I thought of Lendl as a near analogue of someone who was very successful from that part of the world, and I remember reading something about how Lendl wasn't liked very much. But I wasn't around for him (or Navratilova)

Lendl was pretty dour, he was never going to be a crowd favourite, no matter where he came from

Lendl was my first favourite and while I was still young it was pretty clear he wasn't the one most people were rooting for/people though you should root for. I'd not go as far as to throw it down to anti-EEU bias, though I'm not into tennis deep enough to say anything about that.

Good read on the Ringer about Djokovic though.

Weirdly, Novak *was* a crowd favourite early in his career. He used to do a bit of a Tony Virgo and impersonate other players, was generally regarded as a "personality". I think he managed to trash a lot of goodwill in one on-court interview at Flushing Meadow after beating Roddick; Roddick had been poking fun in pressers re: ND's habit (back then, pre-GF diet*) of retiring from matches or citing injuries, and ND had a bit of a go back. Cue entirely predictable booing and I'm not sure his public persona ever quite recovered.

(* - he attributed his miraculous improvement in stamina 2010-11 to eliminating gluten from his diet, which is a small part of the general BS that seems to surround him).

He used to do a bit of a Tony Virgo

WHERE'S THAT SLICE BALL GOING

Actual LOL

when you say Tony Virgo you, of course, mean John Meo.

Gaaah! I knew it wasn't right when I posted it.

:D

This, from the Ringer, rings (npi) true most of all:

"This is, in essence, the whole tragedy of Djokovic. He arrived either a little too early or a little too late in the Federer-Nadal screenplay—too late to seem like an equal partner in the story, too early for the story to have ended without him—and as a result has always felt weirdly extraneous, even as he’s won 16 majors and been the best player in the world for most of the last 10 years."

Novak is more hated than Nadal?

Yes. There were as many "Vamos Rafa"s as there were "Come on Roger"s during their semi, but the final was a completely one-sided affair. Like Michael pointed out, Djokovic was much more loved by the public when he was just starting to win Slams - all those funny press conferences, the Sharapova impressions, the Djoker nickname. I guess that kind of thing just stopped being cute once he started really threatening the Roger-Rafa duopoly (The Ringer otm). Djokovic is not my fave for various reasons, but purely tennis-wise I'd prob still root for him over Rafa.

and re Federer: This is just my personal impression but I get the sense that since 2016, post-knee surgery and back problems, Fed has been treating his career basically like an extended farewell tour - happy to play on as long as he remains healthy, not putting pressure on himself, not sweating the small stuff. This has translated to breezing past the losses and not really doing anything to fix the late-stage mental lapses: like, even if he doesn't win, it's all good as long as he's still making semis and finals.

Yesterday was the first time in a very long time that I felt that he really, really wanted to win but couldn't, simply because he hadn't bothered to really look at himself and see how he's been reacting in these tight situations. And it's weird given how good he's been at analysing his own game in the past and fixing what needed to be fixed (adding the dropshot which he used to hate, coming in to the net more often, beefing up his backhand). Yesterday's loss was probably a good wake up call for him - it's no use having all the tools in his repertoire if he can't bring it during the most important moments in a match.

This, from the Ringer, rings (npi) true most of all:

"This is, in essence, the whole tragedy of Djokovic. He arrived either a little too early or a little too late in the Federer-Nadal screenplay—too late to seem like an equal partner in the story, too early for the story to have ended without him—and as a result has always felt weirdly extraneous, even as he’s won 16 majors and been the best player in the world for most of the last 10 years."
― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, July 15, 2019 8:58 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't follow tennis super duper closely but this feels correct. Honestly I think a lot of the anti-Djokovic sentiment is a function of everyone's love for Fed. Novak is a real threat now to surpass Fed's record for majors and I think the average fan doesn't want to see that happen. Kind of like a low-grade version of Bonds passing Aaron on the HR list (actually maybe a better example is Jimmie Johnson trying to overtake Earnhardt and Petty for NASCAR titles. there are probably other better examples I'm forgetting too).

Any examples that someone outside the US might understand?

well shit, I guess NASCAR isn't the global phenomenon I thought it was.

Federer singles record, since his return from injury at start of 2017 (incl Hopman and Laver Cups): 152-21 (87.9% W/L, 14 titles (18 if you include the SUI/Europe team titles)). Of those 21 defeats, 7 have been from match point up (Donskoy, Haas, Del Potro, Kokkinakis, Anderson, Thiem, Djokovic). You can probably throw another couple of squeakers in there (Djokovic, Paris Masters sf 2018, when he never lost serve; Thiem, Indian Wells f 2019, when he was coasting up a set + break). Maybe not counting the Slam exits vs Millman/Tsitsipas as they didn't go five (though Fed had a bunch of chances). OTOH, I think Fed has got out of jail maybe 12 times in this period (down mp vs Monfils, Kyrgios twice, tight matches vs Coric, Wawrinka, Berdych, that AO final vs Nadal, etc).

My suspicion is that, in the small subset of total matches which really go down to the wire, Novak is rather better than Fed's approx 12-9 recent record. Maybe not.