[wonderbang]

crystal_t33rs:

Here are the wonders of Google

Today, more and more indoor courts use the same, or similar, surface as outdoor hard courts (such as Deco Turf).

One can see this more and more in indoor courts today. It started becoming popular about 5 to 7 years ago, it seems.
Prior to that, the typical indoor surface was a rubber carpet put down over a concrete base. This type of surface - commonly known as 'carpet', or 'indoor carpet' - was known to be quite fast, and was used in Davis Cup against countries where the majority of players grew up on the much slower clay surface.

Special surfaces can only be used indoors. Most commonly carpet surfaces, carpet courts vary in playing characteristics due to differences in thickness, texture, and materials used in the base and yarn. Suspended surfaces may be used indoors. The ATP tennis tour also considers rubber surfaces as carpet, such as that of the Paris Masters.

So basically, nowadays, there are probably more similarities than differences but generally indoor carpet is considered a fast court that favors big servers and hitters.






Oh I topped a page! Hmmm....well since we're on the topic of Murray.....looks like he got more than a trophy after beating Simon for the Madrid Masters!






oh! and Venus qualified for the year-ending championships....woohoo!

[dOotsiez]

^ and also I suppose without the weather conditions, things like wind and humidity could all affect the speed of the surface and work in certain player's favour.

Madrid sure knows the meaning of class with those model ball girls

Venus almost always qualifies for the WTA championships but she hardly plays for various reasons. I'm hoping she has every intention of playing this year. I still remember the epic final between Justine Henin and Sharapova last year which went for 3 and a half hours without a tiebreak, that was the most exciting match in women's tennis I had seen for a long long time. Who would've thought that a year later neither of those women would be playing?

[crystal_t33rs]

Madrid sure knows the meaning of class with those model ball girls

Venus almost always qualifies for the WTA championships but she hardly plays for various reasons. I'm hoping she has every intention of playing this year. I still remember the epic final between Justine Henin and Sharapova last year which went for 3 and a half hours without a tiebreak, that was the most exciting match in women's tennis I had seen for a long long time. Who would've thought that a year later neither of those women would be playing?

UGH! I agree about the Madrid tourny w/ the ball girls. LOL.

And I loved last year's WTA championships final too. Gosh, Justine Henin TT_____TT It actually gets me teary-eyed everytime I remember she's retired... And I'm really sad Maria's not playing this year. I mean it's bad enough Justine's not playing. It's just as bad without Maria!!! >__<

And yeah for Fed getting to the final of Basel I hope he gets it this year too. I guess this is the year of the IS tournies for Roger. I want to hope him getting the Paris one, but is that too much? Oh, and thank you both dOotsiez & wonderbang for the info. I hope if Roger and Andy meet in Paris, Roger will beat him. XD I'm so freaking biased, it sometimes embarasses even myself thinking that way. XD

[wonderbang]

You're welcome crystal_t33rs

^ and also I suppose without the weather conditions, things like wind and humidity could all affect the speed of the surface and work in certain player's favour.

Madrid sure knows the meaning of class with those model ball girls

Venus almost always qualifies for the WTA championships but she hardly plays for various reasons. I'm hoping she has every intention of playing this year. I still remember the epic final between Justine Henin and Sharapova last year which went for 3 and a half hours without a tiebreak, that was the most exciting match in women's tennis I had seen for a long long time. Who would've thought that a year later neither of those women would be playing?

I know what you mean....usually by the WTA championships, Venus has already checked out for the year and so it's hard to see her do well. And it seems like Venus always squeaks in to the top 8 in the last few spots only because she plays so little! She's only played a dozen or so tournaments while Jankovic has at least double that amount.

[dOotsiez]

The Williams sisters probably play to about 50% of their potential, they commit so little to the game, yet they're the only people on tour who can just turn up at a grand slam without any match practice and still win without losing a set (venus this year for example). It's amazing!

And yeah for Fed getting to the final of Basel I hope he gets it this year too. I guess this is the year of the IS tournies for Roger. I want to hope him getting the Paris one, but is that too much? Oh, and thank you both dOotsiez & wonderbang for the info. I hope if Roger and Andy meet in Paris, Roger will beat him. XD I'm so freaking biased, it sometimes embarasses even myself thinking that way. XD

ur welcome

And Roger won! Totally in JesusFed mode and played amazingly well, by any standards. But I understand he's not sure if he'll play Paris. I'm sure he wants to take some weeks off to prepare for the masters cup, that tournament means almost the same as a grand slam to him.

[crystal_t33rs]

Did Roger play in Paris last year? I just remember being completely WOWED by his Masters Cup matches... heh. ^^; I wouldn't mind if he didn't play at Paris though. Quick question, would a player lose points if he decides to not participate in a tourny he participated in last year?

Oh & I'm happy for Roger! He did have a bit of an unpredictable streak against Nalbandian so... I wasn't going to hope for too much, but he won anyway!

EDIT:
Roger's playing in Paris! O__O; I thought he'd take the week off and practice a bit for the Shanghai Masters... Andy Murray is in Rafa's side of the draw this time... From what I remember of Roger's side, Robin Soderling looks like a pretty good potential match-up for his second round.

[cecilia]

i'm glad roger is playing @ paris
let's just hope fatigue doesnt drag him down and make him do a safin in the first round (i'm sure it wouldnt happen but yeah)

[dOotsiez]

Good to hear Federer's playing. Safin's actually considering retirement now it's sad to see a former champ never reach his full potential.

Did Roger play in Paris last year? I just remember being completely WOWED by his Masters Cup matches...

Federer did play Paris last year, lost to Nalbandian 3rd round. Nalbandian then went on to beat Nadal in the finals. Strange thing with Nalbandian, he's the only person who seems to just turn it on for the indoor season.

And I agree. The stuff Federer did at Masters Cup last year was just off this planet, I thought I had been desensitized to Federer tennis by then, but clearly I was wrong. Some highlights from last year

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=MVV69cdYBYo
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=AR7do5BFgzA&...feature=related

[crystal_t33rs]

Okay... excuse my ignorance once again, but what exactly is Round Robbin. How does that stuff work? Is Roger playing this Wednesday? I saw the schedule for Tuesday's matches, but only remember seeing Rafa also playing doubles...? Oh, and Roddick, Gael, and Djoko!

[dOotsiez]

^ For masters cup, the round robin format is used, so the top 8 gets divided into two groups of 4, and each player will play with every other player in the group, then top two players with the most number of wins will progress to the semifinals. The top player from one group will play the second player from the other in the semifinals, and vice versa, the winners from the semifinals will play in the final.

It's different to the normal elimination rounds because normally if you lose a match, you're out. but with Round Robin, if you lose a match, you can still score the highest or the second highest number of wins in your group and get to the semifinals. Like last year, Nadal, Federer and Roddick all lost matches in their Round Robin groups, but all made it to the semifinals. Hope that clears it up

And yes, Federer's playing on Wednesday, I think they gave him the latest date because he played Basel last week, so he needed a few days of rest.

[crystal_t33rs]

OHHHH. Wow, so that's how it works! I kind of like it. ^__^; Thank you, doOtsiez! You're always one of the people answering all my questions. HAHA. Anyways, I'm REALLY(times infinity) hoping for a repeat of the '06 & '07 Masters Cup performance from Roger. LOL. XD

[dOotsiez]

^ hahaha me too

Novak Djokovic lost to Tsonga AGAIN? Why does he always implode at this time of the year? I remember him going out on a string of losses last year too... :S

[cecilia]

djokovic and del potro gone now
oooooooooo
i havent had the energy or time to watch any of the tennis *sigh*
could it really be a possible rafa-roger rematch?

[crystal_t33rs]

Eep! Don't say Roger-Rafa yet! What if it doesn't turn out that way??? lol. I said it was so totally going to be a Roger-Rafa USO Final, but look at how Andy Murray totally dominated(except the third set) that match!

I'm happy Tsonga won! He's up against Andy Roddick next! I would say just Andy, but Murray's also an Andy.... And Roger's up against James Blake!

[wonderbang]

Year Ending Championships Participants! (Gotta show love to the doubles players too)

ATP SINGLES
1 Nadal
2 Federer
3 Djokovic
4 Murray
5 Davydenko
6 Roddick
7 not yet determined
8 not yet determined

ATP DOUBLES
1 Bryan/Bryan
2 Nestor/Zimonjic
3 Bhupathi/Knowles
4 Erlich/Ram
5 Bjorkman/Ullyett
6 Dlouhy/Paes
7 Fyrstenberg/Matkowski
13 Cueva/Horna (qualify through winning RG)

WTA SINGLES
1 Jankovic
2 Safina
3 S. Williams
4 Dementieva
5 Ivanovic
6 Zvonareva
7 Kuznetsova
8 V. Williams

WTA Doubles
1 Black/Huber
2 Medina Garrigues/Ruano Pascual
3 Peschke/Stubbs
4 Srebotnik/Sugiyama




I don't know about you guys but I think this is definitely a superstar list of players. The only players I haven't really heard of are Fyrstenberg/Matkowski but they must have been playing well to have qualified.

Anyhow, the big last tournaments of the year are coming up and I'm excited to see the season end with a bang!

[dOotsiez]

^ LOL funny how theres so little interest in doubles these days. I think it's a pity that so few of the top singles players play doubles now, whereas before, most of the top seeds played doubles as well (Hingis or even Navratilova, McEnroe, Seles, Graf).. these days, doubles are becoming so specialist.

hmm who do we reckon will qualify for the last two spots in the ATP? I think barring a tennis miracle, we're looking at del Potro and Simon. Ferrer's already out, and Blake will need to knock off Federer, and Tsonga/Roddick. Love Blake, but that just ain't happening.

[aeroshaastranger :)]

how can the french fans boo rafa just cos he retired gosh that's pissing me off!!!

lol

bad day for paris masters!!


all TOP 4 seeds out of paris masters!

[crystal_t33rs]

Why did Rafa retire?!! This has been a strange day indeed. Federer with a stiff back problem? I hope he gets better! I knew he should've taken it easy after Basel.... And Naldandian beat Murray! Am looking forward to Tsonga-Roddick though! I hope Nalbandian gets the title again though if he makes it through past Davydenko.

[dOotsiez]

how can the french fans boo rafa just cos he retired gosh that's pissing me off!!!

HAHA they're french! they're infamous for that. And you gotta understand, if you pay money to see someone retire mid match, you might be a little annoyed

With federer, i'm not too worried, he treats Masters Cup almost like a grand slam so most likely it's a precautionary measure on his part. He went from feeling too jaded to play Stockholm to playing 3 tournaments in 3 weeks, so it's disappointing but not surprising to see him withdraw.

This is really anticlimatic though..

[cecilia]

heuk~~~
unbelievable
got up to check to see who got through i see rafa & roger retire
i guess the roger-rafa match up thing was a bit too early lol
a bit sad roger withdrew but i guess the masters cup is more important