US Open - Day Nine

The Quarter-Finals get underway today and the men's matches see Novak Djokovic take on Jo Tsonga in the night match whilst earlier in the day Lucas Pouille takes on Gael Monfils. I'd expect Djokovic to win unless Tsonga can bring his very best to court minus mental walkabouts - a big ask for him. I'd take Monfils to beat Pouille as Lucas must be feeling the effects of a number of long matches plus Monfils has that bit more experience at these stages of slams.

Monfils in 4

Djokovic in 3

But for Pouille the average age of the q-finalists would have been quite high. The absence of the likes of Kyrgios and Thiem in the last eight shows just how gruelling the tour is.
At this rate, from the time of the French next year onwards, the GS winners are likely to be almost exclusively 30-somethings.
Difficult to see past wins today for Djoko and Monfils (who now appears to have settled for sensible hair !) .

No surprise to see Pouille bow out without much fuss, did well to get this far but inevitable let down after a big win and 5-set matches before.

Players really are peaking later than they ever were before, Monfils is 30! Stan 31! Then you have Andy and Novak playing as well as they ever have at 29. It's incredible. While I think Federer was better in his Mid 20s you could make a case Murray and Novak have played at a higher level than Federer did 10\11 at the same age

Monfils into his first grand slam SF for 8 years! Obviously, it being Monfils, he's done it in style - no sets dropped so far.

Tsonga retires after the second set.  I saw the first set which I thought was quite poor from both players (Tsonga managed to get broken on the strength of 3DFs and one UE in one of his service games).  Then I had to step out, and now I see Tsonga retired.

Very strange path to the SF for Djoko.  One w/o and two retirements in five matches.

Just give the man the title now. Clearly the gods want Djokovic to win the tournament or has Djokovic sold his soul to the devil?

Has anyone had an easier path to a GS semi-final? On the one hand, Djoko's as fresh as a daisy. On the other, he's hardly battle-hardened.

A lack of matches doesn't really matter to Novak. As he says this is a dream scenario for him. 6 hours on court and he's in the semis!

I could only see Murray beating him, but not now. Their matches are physical and with such a physical advantage I can't see how he can lose this.

Just goes to show that looking at the draw often does not mirror what happens in the actual tournament. Novak looked to have the hardest draw of the top four seeds but everything so far has fallen for him. Got to be favourite now and if he does win it will be deserved. Monfils looks to be at the top of his game and could cause some trouble.

Danny_1982 wrote:A lack of matches doesn't really matter to Novak. As he says this is a dream scenario for him. 6 hours on court and he's in the semis!

I could only see Murray beating him, but not now. Their matches are physical and with such a physical advantage I can't see how he can lose this.

Indeed !

His six hours on court have just been a series of practice matches really. In fact, I think there's every chance that this passage to the SF has taken less out of him than a series of tough conventional Slam fortnight training sessions.

Agree that Novak is now the heavy favourite over Andy.

Meanwhile ....... what odds of a Monfils retirement ........