Tennis-X Davis Cup Picks and Pans for This Weekend

Waffles David Goffin, Kimmer Coppejans, Ruben Bemelmans and Arthur de Greef
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This country needs an education on how to name their children.

March 3rd, 2016 at 12:19 am

^^^
:))

March 3rd, 2016 at 1:27 am

@Kath
Going to be away so will miss this, but will be there in spirit.
Gotta say tho., if Andy wasn’t playing would not be in the least interested. The DC doesn’t rock my boat. And, heart sank when I read about his committment to it this year. Am with CDP on this. :(

March 3rd, 2016 at 2:31 am

Am much the same Margot. Not happy with his commitment for rest of year either. Anyway have fun whatever you are up to. K

March 3rd, 2016 at 3:12 am

Czech Republic v Germany: Believe the German team can put up a bigger fight than indicated in the article.

March 3rd, 2016 at 3:18 am

Glad to see Nole in action this weekend.
Some more news about World Nr.1:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/djokovic-nominated-for-2016-laureus-award

March 3rd, 2016 at 3:38 am

@J-Kath, I agree. Kohlschreiber is one of those players who can pull off an upset any given day. Same with Brown (though maybe not on this surface).

March 3rd, 2016 at 10:51 am

I can only hope, that the Germans will play decently. Zverev is a fresh hope in that circle and Kohly and Brown can make some surprises.

March 3rd, 2016 at 12:42 pm

Agree with RZ and J-Kath. The Germany-Czech DC tie doesn’t seem that lopsided. The Czechs will win but maybe…Zverev surprises somebody and wins a match. Let’s see if the Germany uses Brown only for the doubles portion. His game doesn’t seem to lend itself well to clay.

March 3rd, 2016 at 12:46 pm

Meanwhile, CNN voted Djokovic the best sportsman in the world ahead of Messi and Curry, not bad not bad..

March 3rd, 2016 at 1:58 pm

Kyrgios is out! Replaced by Sam Groth. What bad luck, I’m not that confident in Groth beating Isner on grass

March 3rd, 2016 at 4:27 pm

Oh whoops I thought that just happened today. My bad lol

March 3rd, 2016 at 4:39 pm

Did Djokovic win the World Sportsman of the Year award already? I thought he was just among the nominees. The list was released only one or two days ago. Anyway, nominee or winner, still a great accomplishment and congratulations. He will probably win. It will be his third.

March 3rd, 2016 at 5:36 pm

@Tennisfan

Groth is pretty good and especially at Davis Cup…he was really hard to beat against the Murray bros. in the doubles against GB. Also pretty impressive in some of his recent singles matches. It will be close against Isner but do-able. Keep your toes crossed….

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:01 pm

No he was nominate only so far, it happens in April. Go Steph!!
This is not voted by your peers, but by editors, commies, etc.
Note; Fed has won this twice along with Nole.
Go Steph!!

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:02 pm

Yes WogBoy, Jane and all Nole fans….well done. A well deserved honour.

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:04 pm

I can see some jealousy here, firstly, nobody is talking about St Roger, why bringing him in conversation? This time around don’t blame Nole and the other fans, but the followers of the order of St Roger.

Secondly, it is official and Nole won CNN award for the best sportsman in the world, voted by the plebs and others on Twitter, he is the PEOPLES CHOICE, see the difference or you are blinded by the lights surrounding his holiness?

Laureus award is yet to come, that’s different.

Thanks JK, you see, Nole didn’t have to go to Hollywood, they brough his award to him;)

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:14 pm

This is for the doubting Thomas followers, you don’t need to put your finger in Nole’s body to check if this is true or not, just use google translate for the link I shall provide as a proof:

http://www.rts.rs/page/sport/sr/story/38/Tenis/2232329/Đoković+najbolji+sportista+sveta+u+tviter+anketi+Ci-En-Ena.html#comments

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:22 pm

Wog Boy – Djokovic has likely had the best year in tennis history in 2015, but Steve Curry has had a spectacular run as well. And Lionel Messi is magic and as much a sportsman as Nole and Curry.

Novak has won it twice already. So a 3rd and 4th, etc. doesn’t add much – yep, he is another great player and sportsman – so more awards do nothing but reaffirm he is a fine selection.
Better it goes to different people and does not become like the Edberg in Honor of Roger Award. Let it go to someone else, so they too can have a well deserved honor.
It would be a crime not to select Lionel Messi at least once.

And also with Djokovic, if he is offered to carry the Serb flag at the Olymics, he should refuse. Already done that, so let someone who is also a champion from Serbia, with so many standouts who will be known only for a brief time during the Olympics. For many athletes, it is the only place they will ever get widespread recognition

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:32 pm

Thats no Award(from your link), that is the results of a survey.
The other that was mentioned earlier by VP was the one I was referring too.
Then you went on a babble rant of false Sainthood you want to claim. It doesn’t exist.

http://lwsa16.laureus.com/news/news/nominees-announcement/

Go Steph!!

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:40 pm

In that case why bringing Roger (St) into conversation when nobody was talking about him nor he was nominated for any award, jealousy?

March 3rd, 2016 at 6:59 pm

63% voted for Nole, people’s choice:)

March 3rd, 2016 at 7:01 pm

“In that case why bringing Roger into conversation…”

Ok, Rafa won it once.

March 3rd, 2016 at 7:06 pm

..or Rafa?

March 3rd, 2016 at 7:09 pm

“Go Steph!!”

Yeah, anybody but No1e..

March 3rd, 2016 at 7:18 pm

CF1,

Agree, they are both great and deserve it, though I am neither Messi nor Barcelona fan.

March 3rd, 2016 at 7:26 pm

Thanks for the link, wog boy. I googled that “award” and could not find it. I should have googled “poll” instead of “award” because it was not really an award but rather a poll. I believe poll and award are not synonymous. By the way, I also googled that CNN poll and could not find it. It must be some obscure poll that not a lot of people knew about. But at any rate, Djokovic did get the highest votes. Congratulations!

March 3rd, 2016 at 8:20 pm

If CNN is obscure than the poll must be obscure too, agree.

March 3rd, 2016 at 8:33 pm

You people shouldn’t be so down on yourselves, ask Sean to organize poll on TX and you will have result you want, I don’t have doubt about that…and it won’t be obscure poll since it is on TX with desirable winner, no?

March 3rd, 2016 at 8:39 pm

@ Wogboy –

Expect he who did go to Hollywood was gutted.

Obviously been worrying me as I’m Sleepless.

March 3rd, 2016 at 8:53 pm

You people? Lol

WB just FYI a poll/survey is different that an Award. BIG difference.

That said, I hope for your sake Nole gets many more numerous awards this year. He has deserved the recognitions no doubt. At this rate you shouldn’t have to worry and talk down other players to bolster him. He is having fine success this year so far on his own.
This year he may attain your Sainthood label you seemingly jealously covet. ;)

March 3rd, 2016 at 8:58 pm

“award” was “lapsus lingue lapsus calami” and I accepted that in my very next post, but still it is nice recognition by the fans worldwide, if that (award) is all you can hold against me good luck with that.
As for jealousy, well, I am not the one who came on this thread to tell the people who won “the award” twice, even nobody was talking about that one, one that starts with St …that was fashion guru from TX, tuxedo fashion guru..

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:15 pm

If a poll is known to just a few and could not be found under CNN when one searches for it, then it is obscure. I have seen bogus internet articles before that use the CNN logo. This could be very well be one of them. But as I have said, bogus or not, obscure or well known, I believe Djokovic deserves it. He has been the best for several years now. Nobody is questioning that. I certainly do not. I like the guy and he deserves all the awards, polls etc that he wins.

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:19 pm

Jk,

You must be sleepless this time of the night in Scotland, I am sure if you watch academy award ceremony it will make you sleepy, give it a go..;)

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Oh Lord, somebody is desperate, I told you stick to one sentence, no?

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:21 pm

And who are you to tell me to stick to one sentence posts? Is Tennis-X yours? Just because you cannot handle my rebuttals does not mean you should restrict me. You’re so full of youself. You cannot even admit that you posted a misleading message. You are a condescending person who call people names in your arguments. That’s a loser’s tactic.

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:32 pm

“That said, I hope for your sake Nole gets many more numerous awards this year.”

As for me everything after USO last year is a gravy. That was most important tournament for a few reasons that I am not going to elaborate. With that win Nole climbed to the top shelf of tennis greats and this fan is very relaxed watching Nole since then. Nole can retire tomorrow or not win anything big in the future and this fan will not blink. The only matches I want him to win is the ones when he faces the GOAT, for the rest I don’t really care. I am already well into searching for my next favorite player, and it want be any of present best ones since I don’t see it natural to chear somebody that Nole is/was battling nor I have desire to stay in the winning circle just for the sake of backing up winner every time.

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:38 pm

Somebody is losing it..

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:40 pm

Now, I have to say big thank you to two Roger fans on this thread who made my, otherwise boring, day in Sydney far more interesting, like few days ago. It is much appreciated, but I have to go now to do some work, enough bludging for today, I have other responsibility aside of killing my time on TX..but I will be back, I enjoy socializing with you people, as much you do with me..
Ciao..for now.

March 3rd, 2016 at 9:53 pm

“As for me everything last year after USO is gravy”
I am happy for you. For me every match win after 17 is gravy ( finger wag ).
You don’t need to jeep re explaining your poll/survey vs award junk, just take your lickins’ and a keep on a tickin’

March 3rd, 2016 at 10:05 pm

Sleep well and dream on.

March 3rd, 2016 at 10:28 pm

“I am happy for you. For me every match win after 17 is gravy ( finger wag ).”: Roger would not agree, otherwise he would not make such great efforts in changing his play style, or he would not make so many changes in his coaching team ;)

CF1, totally agree with your comment from 6:32 PM

March 4th, 2016 at 2:24 am

Sad that Groth lost but at least Tomic won! Hoping for Aus to win in the doubles

March 4th, 2016 at 4:12 am

Wogboy

The thought of watching the awards made me sleepy.

March 4th, 2016 at 8:50 am

LOL Its A LOAD OF CODSWALLOP J-Kath ;).

March 4th, 2016 at 8:53 am

In your face!! Well done, Kohly ;)

March 4th, 2016 at 10:10 am

Very nice from Boris Becker. He’s in Hannover as supporter :)

March 4th, 2016 at 10:22 am

Gotcha . Green Lady!!

March 4th, 2016 at 11:35 am

Thanks to Jane for breaking the news on Collins, here. Probably be an article put up soon.
My own quick read was he came across as a clownish dandy when I started watching in the early 80s as a kid.
But as I got into the sport as a player and fan, I realized Bud Collins was a key figure in creating the international image of tennis as an exciting display of mostly attractive athletes playing at a fast pace (compared to golf). Collins was relentless in bringing it major money revenue, and promoting it as a global sport.

He was an old-time print journalist at a Boston newspaper but had the vision to see with satellite TV broadcasting, pioneered by Telstar, costs rapidly dropping, that global broadcasting would bring the sport to a far larger fan, player, and business, and advertising revenue base.
He positioned himself at the TV sports news center and was seen as the garish friendly American intro’ing the sport on Thai, Soviet, Chilean, and Yugoslavian TV. And kids in those nations, coaches – some – began gravitating to it, and dreaming.

Collins did play by play, and serving as the interviewer of the athletes and prominent celebs in the stands at places like Wimbledon. He wrote fine articles, still. Remaining at his core a print journalist who once “did” crime scenes, messy big name divorce cases, lost dogs, Boston snowstorms, baseball..whatever his editor assigned and took those generalist skills to tennis. Building stars into household names and new wealth. Creating “buzz” as American Mad Men of the day said. Doing early branding of stars like Evert, Newcombe..creating “image” in a way multimillionaire agent-execs at IMG now do. And of course branding himself as a literally “colorful commentator”
So the young kids began dreaming and some became stars, from countries past the dozen or so with good programs and a large fan base when Collins took to TV.
Prize money and more importantly, endorsement money grew exponentially from the engine Bud Collins and organizers like Jack Kramer helped create.
Bigger impact on the sport than Ashe, Billie Jean King, a Serb kid who dreamed watching the eccentric old guy expound at Wimbledon.
(From a total impact on tennis perspective, Bjorn Borg had more impact than imagined. More than “higher Slam Count players”, because past his playing skill, he became the 1st international media tennis megastar. Hysterical women chasing him like he was a major rock star. Intrigue, glamour. Chris Evert too, as blonde maiden ingenue, then the steel-nerved ice queen. Bud Collins saw it and helped fan the flames of their fans and helped create their image. And a 100 more players. Sometimes lamely – “Fraulein Forehand” – sometimes spot on – “Courier, the new American with a message” )

March 4th, 2016 at 3:37 pm

Don’t know if it’s just me being a cinephile myself, but love the Oscars. Didn’t miss any since last 20-25. This year with them cutting the endless thankyou speeches with teleprompting the names was an awesome decision. But I understand is not for everybody. This year had a lot of history: Leo; Ennio Morricone winning soundtrack for hatefull eight at 85 yld, which is an awesome score, have the opening credits in my phone and hear eveyday at the gym; the cinematographer winning 3 years in a row: Gravity, Birdman and The Revanant, which almost all frames is an insane picture (beautifull photography). He only used natural light 3-4 hours a day. Anybody who ever worked with photos and movies knows how hard it is. Anyway, to each his own, but I love it!

Saw all movies competing for Best apic and all acting as well.

March 4th, 2016 at 4:45 pm

Awards are always a matter of opinion and not everyone will agree on who wins the awards each year. One award that I found out the truth about, which made a lot of sense to me afterwards was the sportmanship award voted by the players, not sure which one that is. Federer has won it either 11 times or 13 times. I was able to talk with players since I was staying at the same hotel as them during the ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco, so I asked about that award. I always thought that the players could vote for any player that they felt was best suited for that category as well as I felt they would have put meaningful time into it. Turns out that there are only like 4 or 5 players at the most that you are even able to vote for and that the player I talked to about it who is a top 100 player said straight up that there isn’t much thought put into it and that it’s just easy to pick Federer and not a lot of players even care all that much about it. So the players that I felt that could have easily won the award during these past 13 years, probably were never even on the list to vote for in the first place because they are barely able to be in the top 10 if even in the top ten. So getting the inside story helped me to understand that award a lot more.

March 5th, 2016 at 6:12 pm

Dave,

While you are around, I wasn’t able to find neither book nor DVD in stores, so I had to order them, I hope $38 that I spent (equivalent of cartoon of 24 standard beers) was well spent..or I am coming to Canada to look for you:)
Bookstore lady told me that book is really in demand and that is excelent read, DVD store person couldn’t tell me much about movie since she was too young and inexperienced for the job she was doing. Still waiting to be delivered.

March 5th, 2016 at 6:40 pm

Wog Boy,

That’s awesome that you ordered them. I actually just got the book back from a friend that borrowed it today. I had a cool experience about the movie peaceful warrior. I was sitting beside Dudi Sela on a plane and I told him to watch the movie before matches. After one of his practices where he played a set against Millman and won easily, he shouted to me in the stands: Peaceful Warrior twice. I said: you watched it? He said that he started watching it and that he liked it. He agreed that everything is about trying to be in the moment when playing tennis and that as he has gotten older it’s actually gotten to be more difficult. When you are younger, like the guy in the movie, you are fearless at times. You lose that as you get older I guess. Anyways, I thought it was a cool experience and wanted you to know about it.

March 5th, 2016 at 6:51 pm

Dave,

It is cool experience!

March 5th, 2016 at 6:54 pm

Dudi Sela said that he hung out with Nole quite a bit in the past in Israel. Nole had people from Israel working on his team in the past. He had nice things to say about Nole.

March 5th, 2016 at 6:55 pm

I saw Marin Cilic quite a bit at the hotel. He stayed the whole week even though he lost his first match. I met him and he was really nice. I actually was very close to writing a note for him so that he could tell Nole about Collodial Silver. It’s totally natural and anti bacterial and if Nole would have known about it in Dubai, he wouldn’t have had those issues and his eyes would have been fine for the match against Lopez. Djokovic said it was his first time having eye problems like this, but I have seen him struggle in the past with maybe contact lenses or something. So I was going to tell Cilic to pass the message to Nole since there is no possible way that I can contact him myself and tell him about Collodial silver.

March 5th, 2016 at 6:58 pm

Yes, he did struggle with lenses, but not with infection. Seeing how you enjoyed Acapulco I am sure yiu would have great fun at AO, the only difference would be that you wouldn’t have a chance to have that first hand experience with players since they are staying in different hotels or private accommodations. There is few travel agencies from North America who are organizing the tours of Australia (and Kiwiland) including few days at AO. The one that I worked with is from California, but they do top end of the market, best seats in RL Arena, best hotels and best hospitality where ever they go, you can see their advertising board at IW next week, just behind the clock, at least that’s where it was until last year. It is not appropriate from me to advertise them, but they are absolutely top of the service.
I have another Canadian friend from TX, who might be coming next year to Melbourne, he is missing in action on TX as of lately so we can all meet in Melbourne next year and he is RF fan but we managed to sort out our differences;) He was in Belgrade too and we had great time (at least I and my family had) ..and Serbs didn’t bash him up for being Roger fan, right Lapinroyal??:))

March 5th, 2016 at 7:26 pm

That’s cool that you could still get along. I am glad we went to Acapulco though. We had to decide between Acapulco and Indian Wells. Indian Wells would have been better for quality of matches, but there is no way I would have met any of the players or stayed at the same hotel as them. So that part was great. Wog Boy, let me know what you think of the book and the movie when you get a chance. You might go through stages where you feel like the guy from the movie who goes through different stages. It was well spent money. And you will have to hunt me down in Mexico if you want to get me. haha. I live in Mexico with my wife who is Mexican. I might go to Canada in the summer if I have time.

March 5th, 2016 at 9:52 pm

I see, I thought you live in Canada, well, Mexico is on my wish list too, you never know:)

March 5th, 2016 at 10:09 pm

BTW, you have great and knowledgeable Nole fan who is Mexican and she occasionally posts on TX, keep an eye on poster that posts under “Yolita” moniker, you can always learn something from Yolita.

March 5th, 2016 at 10:13 pm

Nice. I will look for Yolita. I was born and raised in Canada, but have lived in Mexico for over 5 years. How did you get a visa to live in Australia? I thought it was really difficult to be able to stay in Australia for more than 6 months at a time no matter what country you are from.

March 5th, 2016 at 10:20 pm

I came here long time ago (around 30 years ago), and it was much easier in those days to come to Australia, you had to have right trade which was on the list of ten trades that Australia needed and the rest was the matter of paperwork in Australian embassy in Belgrade, they were also the other (legal) possibilities which are to many to mention, all that changed since early ’90s and gradually became harder and harder to immigrate to Australia, it is extremely hard today, but still achievable if you have legit immigration agent who can give you all the options and be fair to tell you if you stand a chance and if it is worth of having a go, but you have to be careful because there is crooks between them, who are just after your money.

March 5th, 2016 at 10:35 pm