Winner Named in 2013 Tennis-X Top 10 Ranking Contest

I do enjoy these contests,and i look forward to predicting next years,and congrats to Mat 4 too,and little me joint second who knew lol,and sorry Stan we all shouldve had some faith in you.

December 15th, 2013 at 2:12 am

Many congrats :) to mat4, alison, scineram n the other winner posters. GOOD JOB!!

Also wud lik to say that GOd Job TX Staff for doin this for d posters. :)

December 15th, 2013 at 3:51 am

^^sorry….good job

December 15th, 2013 at 3:53 am

Congrats to mat4, hippycic and scineram.
Well done!

December 15th, 2013 at 9:09 am

Thanks Margot,i hope Mat4 tunes in,it would be a shame for him to miss out on the prize,especially given that he hasnt actually posted for a while.

December 15th, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Mat4,
Congrats, you are da man!

December 15th, 2013 at 3:10 pm

Margot, I hope you enjoyed SPOTY tonight. I managed to find an illicit stream. The acceptance speech was vintage Andy: self-deprecating and emotional. So great that Martina presented it in person.

December 15th, 2013 at 5:22 pm

Well at least me and my son Colin got an honorable mention!

December 15th, 2013 at 8:14 pm

LOL, I was so wrong with my picks.

Congrats Mat4!

December 15th, 2013 at 8:18 pm

@kimberly,
Missed that, congrats!

Also, what about those Dolphins over the Pats?

December 15th, 2013 at 8:48 pm

@The DA
Glad you could watch that! Andy’s acceptance speech was an absolute classic, as you say. This award seems to have meant a great deal to him. Nice compliment to Martina too. :) What a star he is.
At last The Great British Public has given him the recognition he so richly deserves. Better late than never eh? *raised eyebrow*

December 16th, 2013 at 1:29 am

Hej Mat4!

Where have you gone and very well done to you! Please tell us what your “fabulous prize” is!

Alison, Hats off girl! Well done to you.

December 16th, 2013 at 2:17 am

Congrats mat4, well deserved. I took the liberty to copy/paste your post from The Changover. These are the kinds of posts, and posters, that are rarely seen on TX these days. Instead, we’ve got hashtag posters.

———-
mat4 November 14, 2013 at 2:26 am | Permalink

In 2011, Novak had developed an efficient pattern against Rafa: pressure the BH playing FH CC and wait until Rafa tries to go DTL; most of this shots were shorter, and it allowed Novak to get in the court, attack with a BH CC at an acute angle, and when Rafa managed to get the ball, he would answer with a FH CC and be finished by Novak’s BH DTL.

So Rafa worked on two shots: his BH CC and the FH DTL to break this pattern: he could stand the pressure playing with his BH CC suddenly, and when it didn’t work, the manage to defend his FH side playing DTL. Just watch the end of the epic match at Roland Garros.

So, in the last two matches, Novak changed his own pattern. One, he improved his net game to cut Rafa’s defensive BH slices with volleys. Then, he reworked his BH [DTL] to be able to use it almost IO, and he worked a lot on his own FH DTL. Now, Novak plays almost always in the open side of the court, making Rafa run; he doesn’t jail Rafa in his BH corner, but makes him play the BH on the run, and that’s the moment he attacks. It allows Novak to be less predictive, and, by making Rafa guess where and when Novak will attack, Rafa loses a few tens of second and his timing is not good, especially for difficult shots DTL. It is very important, because Rafa needs to make big cuts for his shots to be deep and powerful enough.

Finally, the few stats seen in the last match suggest that Rafa is covering 20% of court more than Novak, and it is a bonus.
———

This one’s for you mat4, Merry Christmas. The Best Match of 2013:
http://youtu.be/8cztsxP1iVQ

December 16th, 2013 at 5:02 am

Nice work, Mat4! Congratulations!!

December 16th, 2013 at 11:28 am

Thanks Madmax for those sweet words :))..

December 16th, 2013 at 12:47 pm

@Margot – “Better late than never eh?”

I knew they would come around one day, eventually. And he got over 50% of the vote – the highest margin in the 60-year history of the award. Amazing transformation from disliked to loved.

Still work to be done on tennis-x it seems. Delpo gets a column for his sportsman award but none for muzza yet. tsk

December 16th, 2013 at 2:10 pm

Ok well 8th place tie, I suppose I will take it!
Congratulations to Mat4 on winning!
Margo, DA it did appear that the award actually did mean quite a bit to Andy, didnt it? I am not British, don’t know how important SPOTY is, but he got a little wobbly-voiced at the end. I suppose he really appreciated the public behind him. Anyhow, I was quite happy for him, he looked great, had a classic Murray humor speech and Martina being there was great.

Hope everyone is well and enjoys the Holidays.

After that, BRING IT ON, AUSTRALIA!!!Q

December 16th, 2013 at 9:31 pm

I am sorry that I left the T off your name, MargoT !

December 16th, 2013 at 9:33 pm

“Also wud lik to say that GOd Job TX Staff for doin this for d posters. :)”

What Perfect fan says. :-)

And congratulations to all the winners!

I think there’s a nice YouTube of Andy accepting his award.

December 16th, 2013 at 9:56 pm

Mat4,

Congratulations. To be honest, I was injured during this competition.

Besides, Tennis-X should consider a separate competion for the real tennis season – aka – Clay. Then everybody can be a winner!

December 16th, 2013 at 10:41 pm

@dari
I forgive u darling :) and really good to see you back.
Yes, Andy seemed very emotional, for him lol, about the award. His voice was all quivery, bless.
BTW new slogan for Andy being touted, something like “not a bad award for a man ‘with no personality'”!!

December 17th, 2013 at 2:49 am

Meant to say thanks to Perfect Fan too.

December 17th, 2013 at 4:28 am

Not really keen on awards ceremonies as such for sport or otherwise,and i didnt see this one TBH,but Congrats to Andy on winning SPOTY anyway,and great to see him finally getting some recognition,after winning Wimbledon i had a feeling that somehow it was NID.

December 17th, 2013 at 5:28 am

Also just to wish Andy all the best of the coming year,and hope he remains healthy and injury free,looking forward to seeing him back playing again.

December 17th, 2013 at 5:32 am

@Margot – hehe, yes Addidas put that ad up immediately after Andy received the award. Lots of people misunderstood and thought it was a huge faux pas, but Andy was the first to retweet it.

BTW, Andy has confirmed that he will return next week to play Tsonga at Mubadala World Tennis Championship:

http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2013/12/murray-return-court-next-week-abu-dhabi/49994/#.UrBSzrQhU4M

Great news.

December 17th, 2013 at 11:34 am

Andy has confirmed that he will return next week to play Tsonga at Mubadala World Tennis Championship:
—
English Translation:

Mr. Lady Forehand will return to collect his share of petrodollars.

December 17th, 2013 at 3:13 pm

^ and how about you? Are you still planning to play in the next PokerStars Tournament? Hows that goin?

December 17th, 2013 at 3:24 pm

Congrats HR on your charity poker win.

Well played.

December 17th, 2013 at 3:41 pm

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1890556-what-will-it-take-for-a-tennis-star-to-win-sis-sportsman-of-the-year
#Sports Illustrated # Fail

December 18th, 2013 at 3:25 am