Cincinnati Masters Thread

[laverfan]

First topic message reminder :

Mens Singles Draw - http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/422/mds.pdf

Mens Qualifying Draw - http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/422/qs.pdf

OoP (Updated Daily) - http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2012/422/op.pdf

Live Scores - Guess this is passe now. So here is the Twitter link - http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23cincytennis (Live Scores is available on the ATP Web Site).

Live Streams - Live Score Hunter, Sport Lemon

TV Coverage - Starts Monday.

Cupcake/Pastry/Cakewalk/Strawberries and Cream Draw Discussion - ??? (Let me know and I can update this thread with the 606v2 link).

Daily Schedule.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Scores/schedule.aspx?EventId=422

Center Court

Afternoon @ 12:30pm local - Federer v Djokovic
Afternoon @ NB 4pm local - Li v Kerber

Grandtsand

Afternoon @ 1pm local - Srebotnik/Zheng v Hlavackova/Hradecka
Afternoon @ NB 3pm local - Lindstedt/Tecau v Bhupathi/Bopanna

Match Pick of the Day - Federer v Djokovic

Surprise of the Day (Previous) - Kerber d S Williams

Enjoy!

[laverfan]

You like statistics so here's one: since the start of 2011 Fed and Djoko have played 8 times and Fed has lost 6 of them, so let's change the "Fed has the beating of Djokovic" record.

Hence Federer and Djokovic being in the same half is not changing the final outcomes of significant titles. I agree, as I stated to SB as well.

[socal1976]

I am already adding a multiplier to Novak's slam count in my consideration of the goat list. Not only due to the incredible competition the two greatest players by all accounts in the open era or close to it, but because he has to beat the draw committee as well as Fedal. At this rate his five slams get counted for about 10 slams for a regular champion who didn't have to fight the ALLEGED fix and fedal at the same time.

People can scoff and make their little idiotic jokes all they like the facts are the facts.

But it is a fact that Djoko has won 5 slams, and any attempt to say he is worth more than that is not a fact, it is entirely subjective. There are also no facts to prove that any draw-rigging has taken place. Maybe he got unlucky, but there is no way to quantify luck as a fact. So the question is, do we deal with facts, or do we deal with speculation and subjectivity. And also, do we at least acknowledge which is which?

Where does it then stop - do we have to got back to every slam in the Open Era and re-evaluate it subjectively and try and reach some agreement. Are Borg's FO's worth less because he greatest rival, Connors, didn't show up? Are McEnroe's slams worth less because Borg retired? Do we have to re-examine Sampras' 14 slams to see if he had easier draws than in Agassi's 8 and then divide 14 by 1.3, mulitply 8 by 1.7 and try to match Agassi up with Sampras?

My own view is that if someone is going to big up their favourite player on an entirely subjective basis, they should at least acknowledge that that is what they are doing, and the bias involved, not try to couch it in terms of 'facts' that aren't there, and proclaim it as any sort of truth. That's not what the records books will do.

I don't care Julius people can say whatever they like it is my personal valuation of a player. In my personal valuation I have already elevated Djokovic because frankly in my opinion he has had to fight not only federer, Nadal, but the financial interests in tennis who favor these two. Frankly all your other examples are meaningless. In my 30 years of watching tennis I have seen any example of draw favoritism and possible discrimination then the odd case of Novak Djokovic. In fact I can't think of a single grandslam champion who faced an iota of the difficulty of drawing the GOAT 15 out of 17 possible chances. Or in 5 straight tournaments where only 3 big 4 guys show up getting the semi with the other big 4 player every time. If you can find me a similar type of discrimination anywhere for a big champion in tennis by the powers at be then I will happily add a mulitiplier in my personal view of his grandslam success, but you won't. The closest thing in TERMS OF ALLEGED JOBBING that I can' remember was in 1974 when the FO awholes screwed connors out of a possible slam by not letting him play because he played team tennis earlier the year I believe. But that was basically one year this is like a 5 year turd taco that doesn't stop giving.

[socal1976]

Laverfan it has nothing to do with the GOAT debate Djokovic it has to do with fairness and the integrity of my favorite game. If Murray was in Djoko's position and suffered the same level of draw discrimination as a number 1 ranked player always getting the semi against a big 4 guy whenever 3 out of the show up for a tournament, drawing the hardest semi possible 15 out of 17 times in a row I would be just as vocale frankly. In the minds of most people Djoko has no chance of surpassing Nadal or Fed in the GOAT race that is fine with me. But I will yell from the top of my lungs about this issue because I think this is very dangerous ground. This to me is almost, almost, almost as big an issue as if gamblers were getting players to fix matches. Nothing, not even PED's in my mind are as sinister a possible threat to the game as the tournaments fixing the draws to give certain players a preference over others.

In fact, I don't even need to prove draw fixing to add a multiplier to Novak's slam count. Why? Lets just say Novak won 5 slams while being the world's unluckiest man in history when comes to draws and coin tosses. Even if Novak is simply defeating the world's worst coin toss luck and two GOAT candidates I would still add said multiplier. AT this point I don't care about proving the intent of the draw committees.

The numbers are what the numbers are, 15 out of 17 he gets the worst possible semi he could draw, and 5 in a row now when only 3 of the big 4 show up and Djokovic draws them the other big 4 guy in the semi. Lets just say Novak has overcome two goat candidates and the worst statistical draws of all other top players in the history of the game, wheteher that be threw alleged fraud and tampering or just terrible coin toss ability the end result is the same.

[summerblues]

LF: I moved the continuation of our discussion to a new thread.

As far as Cincy goes, I am quite looking forward to it. After the Olympics and a decimated Toronto (which nevertheless looks like will be won by a member of top 4) I am hoping for a return to normalcy.

[socal1976]

PS: I have been quite impressed by IMBL in this discussion (across multiple threads over the last few months). I know he does not think the draws are rigged - and may even have some emotional capital invested in this position - yet he has been very impartial when it came to the logical nitty-gritty of the debate. That is much harder to do than it sounds.

I personally would say I am not. . And you are agreeing with an arbitrary collection of numbers to indicate a draw being rigged? Strange.

I hope you take this comment back Laverfan.
My 'arbitary' data was not there to show that the draws were rigged, in-fact I do not think this is the case as I have said many times.
However it showed that it is possible to have a 'suspicious' set of draws even if they seedings are totally balanced- look at Summer's 'tribe' analogy for an expansion.
But as I have said, unless presented with more hardcore facts, rather than just statistics (and in this case the data is too small to really reach conclusions) I do not think there is draw-rigging.

No, no one can prove 100 percent one way or the other. But i would like to nip it in the bud and wipe out any possible suscpicion for the integrity of the game and in fairness to the fans and all the players. They should simply do a blind draw through a third party accounting or law firm, unknown to the grandslam draw committee and broadcasters alike. There is way too much smoke here for me to simply stick my head in the sand and accept that the honor system alone can insure the credibility of the game.

[laverfan]

Some nice matches. Recommended Baker v Kohlschreiber.

[Guest]

PS: I have been quite impressed by IMBL in this discussion (across multiple threads over the last few months). I know he does not think the draws are rigged - and may even have some emotional capital invested in this position - yet he has been very impartial when it came to the logical nitty-gritty of the debate. That is much harder to do than it sounds.

I personally would say I am not. . And you are agreeing with an arbitrary collection of numbers to indicate a draw being rigged? Strange.

I hope you take this comment back Laverfan.
My 'arbitary' data was not there to show that the draws were rigged, in-fact I do not think this is the case as I have said many times.
However it showed that it is possible to have a 'suspicious' set of draws even if they seedings are totally balanced- look at Summer's 'tribe' analogy for an expansion.
But as I have said, unless presented with more hardcore facts, rather than just statistics (and in this case the data is too small to really reach conclusions) I do not think there is draw-rigging.

No, no one can prove 100 percent one way or the other. But i would like to nip it in the bud and wipe out any possible suscpicion for the integrity of the game and in fairness to the fans and all the players. They should simply do a blind draw through a third party accounting or law firm, unknown to the grandslam draw committee and broadcasters alike. There is way too much smoke here for me to simply stick my head in the sand and accept that the honor system alone can insure the credibility of the game.

Why would they need a law firm? Are we now saying that draws are not 'valid' because of past draws and trends?

I am sorry but I have bought into draw rigging or even 'Discrimination' Look at how many times Agassi and Sampras avoid each other in the draws. Nothing is said of that. All I am seeing here is 'unfair on Djokovic' Exactly what is unfair?

I would like to see RR return. Then that way there can be no complaints.

[Josiah Maiestas]

Djokovic has lost to 4 of his 5 rivals the last times hes played them. That puts the 'rigging' of draws in a fairly precarious place. I doubt any of the top 4 are concerned enough with who they get in the semis.

[laverfan]

I would like to see RR return. Then that way there can be no complaints.

In a smaller pool of players like WTF, it can work, but with larger pool (like 48, 56, 64 and 128) of players, it may be very difficult to even organise.

Such a change would also require a hierarchical set of RRs like DC, perhaps.

[Guest]

I would like to see RR return. Then that way there can be no complaints.

In a smaller pool of players like WTF, it can work, but with larger pool (like 48, 56, 64 and 128) of players, it may be very difficult to even organise.

Such a change would also require a hierarchical set of RRs like DC, perhaps.

It can be done. It takes out a lot of the 'structure' involved with seedings.

Something as trivial as say put the even numbered players on one side and the odd numbered players on the other.

From a revenue perspective it would be a nightmare, but it would end the taboo on draw rigging.

[Guest]

RR is a halfway house to seasonal leagues. This will create a premiership of about 16 players and all the rest would probably have to go part time.

[The Special Juan]

I want to see Murray play Haas.

[invisiblecoolers]

I wrote this on the other thread to further explain how right LF was, lemme redo it here

Understand this problem since you go Maths and Stats I will say this by Constants vs. Variables

1]Names are variables where as numbers are constants
2] Variables will have different value with time , like in our case the names will have different seedings for a tournament, where as constants value never change and hence 1 will always be 1.
3]Draw is based on constants and not on variables, you can never do it on variables coz the variables value keep changing.

To explain this clear, Del Potro was ranked 248 at the start of 2011, his form in 2010 was as bad as that [what ever be the reason like injury] and he hence doesn't deserve to meet the top 4 only in quarters , considering his form and ranking he can draw anybody in the 1st round itself.

Had we done the draw by names, then Hewitt,Roddick, Ferrero, Safin, Federer,Nadal,Agassi [all who played in 2004] ranked no.1 in the past cannot be drawn against each other before semi's which makes it an impossible scenario, thats why draw can never be done on variables i.e on names, coz their rankings keep changing and never remain constant.

Hence the draw can only be done on constants ,i.e the seedings here and which LF has clarified has gone right by stats.

Djoko was the best player in 2011 but certainly the 2nd best in 2012 so far and whats the garuntee he will remain the 2nd best by the end of 2013? so if Djoko lose his ranking to say no.17 does he still deserve to meet the top 4 only in semi's? certainly not.

Hope this clears the confusion now for you and the So-Called Confusionist Controversy theorem core guys.

[Guest]

Dolgopolov crashes out 6-1 6-1.

[laverfan]

Dolgopolov crashes out 6-1 6-1.

All the travelling must be playing havoc with his system. He was OK in Washington and won it, but Toronto and now Cincy.

[Guest]

Well the commentators felt physically he didn't look right. Hope he can re-group and come out firing on all cylinders.

[Guest]

Cilic off to a flyer in his match with Stakhovsky 3-0

[Guest]

Young who is on a 16 match losing streak is 3-0 to Levine.

[The Special Juan]

So is Cinci on TV?

[Guest]

It is on Sky Sports 4 TSJ

[The Special Juan]

Thanks. I only get SS1 and SS2 so that's a real shame. Excuse to go to the pub local bistro and watch it if it's on though

[laverfan]

TSJ... Try one of the streaming web sites I mention.

[laverfan]

Is rain going to mar Cincinnati as it did Toronto.

[laverfan]

Young who is on a 16 match losing streak is 3-0 to Levine.

He lost the first set. 2-19 (one match at AO, another at Memphis). He had beaten Murray once. Can he beat Vince Spadea's record (21-match losing streak)?

[Guest]

Young who is on a 16 match losing streak is 3-0 to Levine.

He lost the first set. 2-19 (one match at AO, another at Memphis). He had beaten Murray once. Can he beat Vince Spadea's record (21-match losing streak)?

I have every confidence he can. Why he hired his mum as coach is beyond me!

[The Special Juan]

Thanks LF.

How many losses in a row for Young now?

[socal1976]

Great tiebreaker in the baker/kolby match. Baker has set point on serve 8-7

[socal1976]

Baker wins the first set, very nice on home soil for the American comeback kid.

[socal1976]

By the way I agree with Legendkillar. There should be no discretion at all in these draw committees or as little as possible. Every semi should be 1 v. 4, and 2 v. 3. Period end of story. That is what they do in everysingle team and individual sport tournament in the states. In the NFL, NBA, NHL, Baseball, in everything here if you have 8 teams in a tournament. 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5'; period end of story and you never have to read one of my posts about alleged draw tampering every again. Simple and fair solution and the fact that the tournaments don't implement it leads me to believe that they like to have their discretion so that they can do this kind of tinkering and spicing up draws for themselves.

[Guest]

socal to have someone of the law for something as trivial as tennis competition draw is extreme. You claim discrimination, let me point out that as a Murray fan I have to witness brutal defeats to a certain Nadal despite the few victories Murray has had over him. Should I cry foul or claim "discrimination"

As per say, luck of the draw.

The Nadal and Federer rivalry has run it's course.

People want something new. Not just a Djokovic and Nadal semi, but new blood. The top 4 has become tiresome and I am sure tennis may lose some supporters unless the new blood ups it's game.

[socal1976]

LK, Murray has been hard done always getting Nadal as well LK because I actually think he would prefer playing federer. At the risk of quote hijacking this thread as others have accused me if you want to address this issue go to the Nole and Names thread. I just wanted to agree with your other post. I will just say that Novak has been number 1 and 2 for about 18 months therefore he should get more favorable draws than murray and if you want to address this lets go to Novak and names. Repost there if you like.

[laverfan]

Thanks LF.

How many losses in a row for Young now?

17 including Cincinnati. Last win is against Dimitrov at Memphis in Feb 2012.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/Yo/D/Donald-Young.aspx?t=pa

[The Special Juan]

It wouldn't be as bad if he was being beaten by top players but he's not. Who on earth is Steve Johnson?

Random predictions:

Lu to beat Berdych in straight sets.
Chardy to beat Roddick.

[Turron]

On the other hand, some of the arguments of the other side were. Specifically, one argument that has gained a lot of traction is that the distinction between "drawing numbers" rather than "drawing names" is important and invalidates the initial claim. I cannot emphasize enough how baseless this argument is. It is entirely irrelevant whether the drawing is done on numbers or names.

Er, no. 1 and 2 have to be in separate halves of the draw and 3 and 4 are also in separate halves. Federer and Djokovic are separate halves of the draw at Cincy, not because they are Federer and Djokovic but because they are #1 and #2. How can you think that whether or not the draw is made by numbers or names is irrelevant?

[HM Murdock]

Er, no. 1 and 2 have to be in separate halves of the draw and 3 and 4 are also in separate halves. Federer and Djokovic are separate halves of the draw at Cincy, not because they are Federer and Djokovic but because they are #1 and #2. How can you think that whether or not the draw is made by numbers or names is irrelevant?

It's irrelevant in terms of disproving the claim that draws are being manipulated based on players identities.

i.e. if someone claims players are being drawn based on who they are, what is gained by analysing the rankings?

But this a discussion for the "Names, Numbers and Nole" thread!

[Guest]

Haas and Nalbandian locked in the first set at 5-5. Haas had some BP's at 5-4.

[laverfan]

On the other hand, some of the arguments of the other side were. Specifically, one argument that has gained a lot of traction is that the distinction between "drawing numbers" rather than "drawing names" is important and invalidates the initial claim. I cannot emphasize enough how baseless this argument is. It is entirely irrelevant whether the drawing is done on numbers or names.

Er, no. 1 and 2 have to be in separate halves of the draw and 3 and 4 are also in separate halves. Federer and Djokovic are separate halves of the draw at Cincy, not because they are Federer and Djokovic but because they are #1 and #2. How can you think that whether or not the draw is made by numbers or names is irrelevant?

You may want to consider this - https://www.606v2.com/t33610p50-names-numbers-and-nole, if you have not looked at this already.

[socal1976]

Here we go ladies and gents a full field and hopefully the weather cooperates. Cincy may need special inclusion in socal's crappy weather list. Not only is it cold as hell in the winter has brutal humidity in the summer. As a Djoko fan this is the one outdoor hardcourt masters he has not won probably due to the humidity and the faster court. So for those you who like fast court tennis cincy is usually the quickest of the outdoor hardcourts.

[The Special Juan]

Haas beats Nalbandian. He never fails to amaze me. I do want him to face Murray though

[socal1976]

Haas has been doing great lately. I wish he had better health in his career I think he would have been consistently one of the best guys. Chardy just breaks Roddick. Cmon Chardy.

[laverfan]

Haas continues to defy his age. Del Potro may prove to be too much, if he has recovered.

[laverfan]

Baker down a set to Tomic.

[socal1976]

I really enjoy watching Tomic play. Talk about a very varied and gifted player. Baker also is an enjoyable player to watch a very smooth and devastating two handed backhand. The one I can't wait for is Richie G v. Milos Raonic.

[The Special Juan]

Come on Jurgen!! (I'd rather see Murray play Melzer than Querrey but that will no doubt come back to bite me).

Tomic is a good player to watch when he plays well but when he doesn't it's rather painful. Did Chardy win?

[laverfan]

Chardy beat Roddick.

[Guest]

Fish having break points on the Lopez serve is now facing one of his own

[socal1976]

If you guys like volleying and attack tennis we are sure to see one in the Lopez and Fish match. Thank god Roddick lost. The US broadcast would have tied up hours of coverage with god awful Roddick matches that I would have been forced to record and fast forward. All that precious DVR space and broadcast window has been saved. Now I can watch some proper players.

[laverfan]

Stepanek doing well against Ramos.

[The Special Juan]

Ah Chardy won. I knew it; I should have put money on it.

[socal1976]

You should not gamble juan, that is why I only play poker preferrably with player's not as good as me then it isn't gambling as much. Fish looks like he is taking care of a rusty Lopez. I want Richie G to capitalize and get by the tough luck of drawing Raonic first up. Raonic's serve on the cincy's ultra-hot hardcourts is going to be a nightmare to deal with.

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