2023 Mens French Open Final - Novak Djokovic V Casper Ruud

First man to win all majors at least three times

The best ever and I still stand by he has the most dominant style

Fed was stylish I give him that one

Didn't he have real problems with blisters on his feet as well, early in his career?

Stood alone as a voice for superstition

Yes Des

He had problems with heat as well if I remember, always suffered in 25 plus

Fed had humility

Federer had fake humility

Fed was a smug bast@rd leopard

He was a horrible winner , I esp hated how he lauded in front of Roddick in 2009

There was no need for that after such a battle

No Federer was a genuine good guy

He always had this little smug grin after every win, Jock and Nadal soon wiped it off though

Jun 11, 2023 -- 5:38PM, SontaranStratagem wrote:

Fed was a smug bast@rd leopardHe was a horrible winner , I esp hated how he lauded in front of Roddick in 2009 There was no need for that after such a battle

I don't remember that...... may not have seen the game

I don't understand why Djokovic has to be so boastful when he is clearly the number one tennis player in the world

He paraded the trophy around and Roddick was made to sit and wait leopard

They could have at least let Roddick leave as it was cruel after missing out a third time like that, id have wanted to just get out of there

Djokovic has morals and honour

Djokovic lied when he tried to get into the Australian Open, didn't he?

Let's remember Serbia started a war in Europe, which killed many people

was that Ruud's mum in the pink dress?

I really don't get why the media really turned on Novak - even prior to covid.

He was such a clown/comedian/impressionist & they used to lap it up.

He is by far the most likeable of the big 3.

he's got a lot better in the last five years

put the trophy down

woman in background clutching mask to face…… lol

Jocko admitting he is a right b*stard in private …… Who'd have thought it !

Djock didn't start the war though

Feel a bit for Ruud 3 losses but he'll win one soon enough

It's because the more successful he became post 2011, the more he became a threat to the duopoly of Fedal that the media absolutely loved, he waded in and broke it up and they didn't like it.

Noah probably had the least graceful win when he barely eyeballed Wilander, gave him a little hand slap and ran off to the crowd

And now he's surpassed the pair of em to boot

And they've tried to stop him post 2020

France to their credit haven't stopped anyone going there so fair play to em

some deep s*** there from Novak, "forget about the past and look to the future", what about Kosovo

it always feels like the US is where he's most vulnerable, seems like he tends to run out of steam there

Right.....Off out for a walk

.... I maybe sometime....

calander slam looks a possibility. no one else can play well enough to beat him on grass...........then the us open

one of the most amazing stats in Tennis is that Federer never played Nadal at the US Open

^ yes that's my hunch

Also I remember when he kept beating Murray at the Aus Open when sometimes didn't look completely fresh got some on his back too

^ to mes

Novak should get to 30 if he's bothered.

nadal and novak played 10 times against eachother at the french open.......no two players can have played eachother at a slam more than this?

Nadal v Novak at Roland Garros has provided some of the best matches of all time imo.

Clay for me is the best surface for tennis because you truly need an all round game for it, not many cheap on serve for example.

*cheap points

It's rally tolerance, strategy and all around awesomeness. Not a constant clustercoitus of flukes and improvisations like on grass.

Jun 11, 2023 -- 6:42PM, brain dead jockeys wrote:

nadal and novak played 10 times against eachother at the french open.......no two players can have played eachother at a slam more than this?

remember asking this once, think Evert-Navratilova was the record

just checked, they may have at the time, they played 9 times at Wimbledon as the most.

Grass should be done away with

It's time Wimbledon went to clay , Aus and US already occupy hard courts

I agree.
Grass should be binned.

fantastic that Novak wins the 23rd slam on the same day that the boy he grew up with in juniors wins a title on grass with a metal hip.

The Big 4 took different journeys but will always be stars in the same constellation. Rgeir greatness was forged from their rivalry.
Novak said he wanted to show that there are no limits, only in the mind. He proved that today.

the slams have the perfect mix....2 on hardcourt and 1 on the two extremes..........this is the way it has been since 1988 when aus open went to hard court. i cant think of any players since then whose two best surfaces were clay and grass.........there have been lots who were great on hard and clay - lendl, willander, courier and lots who were great on hard and grass - sampras, murray.........i cant think of any who were great on clay and grass and below on hard..........bjorg won 6 french and 5 wimbledon but couldnt get it done on hardcourt despite losing a few times in final of USO..........but times were diff then. there were way more tournaments on indoor carpet than outdoor hardcourt.
playing wimbledon on hardcourt would be like california without sunshine.

Jun 11, 2023 -- 9:28PM, Journeyman wrote:

fantastic that Novak wins the 23rd slam on the same day that the boy he grew up with in juniors wins a title on grass with a metal hip.The Big 4 took different journeys but will always be stars in the same constellation. Rgeir greatness was forged from their rivalry.Novak said he wanted to show that there are no limits, only in the mind. He proved that today.

Fook off with your big 4 bollocks.
Murray was never more than just a fly in the ointment
We are so fortunate to have THREE great players at the same time who have pushed the game to unimaginable levels.

Jun 11, 2023 -- 9:47PM, brain dead jockeys wrote:

the slams have the perfect mix....2 on hardcourt and 1 on the two extremes..........this is the way it has been since 1988 when aus open went to hard court. i cant think of any players since then whose two best surfaces were clay and grass.........there have been lots who were great on hard and clay - lendl, willander, courier and lots who were great on hard and grass - sampras, murray.........i cant think of any who were great on clay and grass and below on hard..........bjorg won 6 french and 5 wimbledon but couldnt get it done on hardcourt despite losing a few times in final of USO..........but times were diff then. there were way more tournaments on indoor carpet than outdoor hardcourt. playing wimbledon on hardcourt would be like california without sunshine.

I'd suggest some kind of hybrid surface, definitely not hard but similar to grass rather than clay

at the time it was a big 4 for a while, but on reflection it was a 3+1

There was literally no other player who was able to live with them during their prime other than Murray, he took Gold off of Federer in the Olympics final and he wanted that badly, and he took 2 slams off of Novak, reached World Number 1 and won a bucketload of masters.

They were better than he was but he was the next best thing.

I always said he needed to change his playing style, without looking at the stats, I would hazard a guess that every time Murray got to a slam final, and he made 11 of them, he had more playing time on court than his opponent did, and that takes it toll not just in the final but on his body in the long run, hence the surgeries and time out of the sport, always took ages and ages to put a ball away, waiting and waiting for the right moment til the % chance of hitting a winner reached a certain point, Federer looked to hit a winner as soon as he could with his deft forehands.

Lol Mes.
Why not include Stan & make it a big 5?
He's won the same number of slams as Murray & at 3 of them to boot!!
Btw, with Wimbledon Murray benefitted massively from favourable scheduling.
None of the other big 3 ever had that to favour them.

There was never a big 5 at any point, Stan had a brief 3 year spell between 2014-17 where he spiked in success with 3 slams and the only Masters event he ever won, you can't compare that to the longevity of Murray who was competing in the last 4 of slams over a 10 year period winning 13 masters and 2 golds whilst having to compete against the big 3 at their best, he played in 19 1000 finals, Stan 4. And 7 of those Masters wins were against the big 3. Wawa overall record was no where near remotely close to his.

Apart from the UK media, I'm sure no other journos put him alongside the BIG THREE.

I note you never addressed the favourable Wimbledon scheduling which he benefitted from

you're not understanding, I'm talking about at the time, when he was consistently getting to slam finals, all pundits, commentators and the written press labeled it the Big 4, as time pasted away, it became clear it was a big 3 and Murray wasn't at the same level and that's what it's been called ever since. As for favourable scheduling, it happened at every home slam in tennis to suit local audience, it happened however with Federer all over the world because he was the biggest draw and tournament organisers always asked him when he wanted to play in conditions that suited him, same with Nadal, Nadal didn't like it when he couldn't play during the day because at night it's slower, heavier and more humid so a lot less top spin for him to work with, he has played in the evening there but mostly during the day and when it has been evening it's usually against local French player for TV.

at the French Open

Neither were favoured as much as Murray at Wimbledon, it was just so blatant.
Did he ever start a match before it was nice & cool in the evening?
You'll probably cite bigger TV audience for evening but should that justify putting his opponents out in the blazing heat time after time?

London's blazing heat is considered a chilly and cloudy/rainy day by Spaniards and people from the balkans tbf.

Not aware of prime Murray really doing all that much melting in US and Aussie heat either really.

Lol.
It all adds up over a 2 week slam.
Murray only won in 2013 v Novak cos he was cooked after having to play Del Potro in the hottest part of the day.

^ in the semi

Novak was not cooked, he had 2 days to recover, moreover Murray played later that evening so had less time to recover than him, swings and roundabouts.

murray would have won 7 plus slams in the agassi sampras era. he would probably have won the career slam. look at the poor winner so the french open and aus open during agassi's career when the latter was on holidays. murray got to the french open final and beat nadal in the madrid masters final and novak in the italian masters final.
one amazing stat is that nadal and murray never met in a slam final.
anyone who thinks murray was better than nadal on grass need to consider that nadal and murray met 3 times at wimbledon in the 2008 qf, 2010 semi and 2011 semi............murray only won 1 set in three matches. nadal being better than murray on grass was a pivotal part of his career given that he had to beat him on the way to winning his two wimbledon titles. Because people see the mountain of french opens rafa won, they auto think murray was better than him on grass which is simply not true.

A 6 year period between Australia 2010 and Wimbledon 2016 (incl. both), there were a total of 27 slams played

Murray 10 of those finals, Nadal made 12 of them, 22 slam finals they both made out of 27 and they never met in one

BDJ,

I reckon the big 3 all made each other better players cos they knew they had to in order to compete.
If the other 2 weren't around, they might have just been good players rather than great.
Novak especially transformed himself from being a whipping against Fed & Rafa to now being the GOAT.

The thing that most amazed me about Murray was also the background - Scotland, Dunblane, hardly a hotbed for producing world class tennis.

Yet, he rose through all the ranks and even sometimes right to the top, in an era where 3 potential other GOATs were active an in prime condition.

Amazing in my book.

I say that as someone who in their youth played tennis almost daily at some points, wanted to be a star player, and realised how hard it is even if you rise up towards the county level of play in the country (where I would have got spanked).

It's a hugely competitive sport, let alone near the top.

Absolutely.
With such a competitive sport, it's incredible to think that the big 3 have won 65 of the last 76 slams.

There's no doubt the big 3 fed/rafa/djok are the dominant force overall in the era. And a huge force at that, which may never be repeated. Though in many ways makes Murray's achievements so much more incredible, to do against that presence.

Murray was the only player of the era to pose serious threat, sometimes successfully, to those big 3 and sustain it in the top level against them. In Scotland, before him most barely even knew what tennis was...

Yet, he rose through all the ranks and even sometimes right to the top, in an era where 3 potential other GOATs were active an in prime condition.


It is amazing. When Murray first had taken on Lendl and met Novak three times in the space of four finals, winning the US open final with a comeback and beating Novak fairly easily in the Wimbledon final, Novak's team were focusing more on Murray as the obstacle to overcome than Fed/Nadal. So seriously did they take the Lendl factor, Novak took on Becker as coach, copying Murray's move of using a multi slam winning eighties legend in a coaching role.

It's amazing to think Novak's direction was completely shaped by his rivalry with Murray with the Novak/Becker combination revitalising Novak's results in slams over the next three years.

Yes, Murray should be proud of what he achieved in this era.
A shame he couldn't get over the line in some of those epic battles he had with Novak in Oz.

Wes is a victim of the English press, read between the lines and you can see the contempt he has for Murray, the English press for years depicted him as a stereotypical, miserable, dour Scot with an obsessive mother, which all stemmed from the joke he shared with Tim Henman about supporting anyone but England at the World Cup and would be wearing a Paraguayan shirt when they played against them, that and along with the demonstrative behaviour in the early days at Wimbledon which upset the pompous, latte sipping middle classes who frowned heavily at such behaviour, God forbid someone showing a will to win. The casual followers who don't see all the side interviews week in and out over the years don't see the sense of humour and real personality, therefore they proceed to do down their achievements. History shows the big 3 were over time notches above but there was a time when there genuinely was a top 4, where the top 4 players were always making the last 4 of slams and Masters and other players struggled to get a look in.

you draw attention to the long match Novak had against Del Porto in 2013 as an excuse for him losing to Murray in the Wimbledon final, but why not mention what happened 6 months earlier in Australia, Murray played a 5 setter against Federer AFTER Novak's straight sets semi win against Ferrer to the loss of just 5 games.

Regardless everyone accepts those 3 were in a league of their own.

Lol mes.
I've already said Murray should be proud of his career especially seeing he was up against the 3 greatest of all time.
My gripe is you can not deny he was so obviously looked after by home town scheduling at Wimbledon. Can you name an occasion other than if he was in a final or was opening the following year as champion when he was on court before it was lovely & cool in the evening?
He was so clearly looked after & that was down to scheduling not the misfortune of playing an all time great in a semi.

all hometown players or big time stars get preferential treatment as said before, it's the way the cookie crumbles, it seems the favourable scheduling you put forward is really just a pretext, you let it slip earlier when you diminished his first Wimbledon win citing Novak's long match with Delpo but a) no mentioning Murray had to play after so had a lot less time in between the semi and final that Djokovic had and b) the Aussie open 6 months earlier where Novak played first again, lost just 5 games in a straight sets win and Murray having a 5 setter against Federer after, admit it, you just don't like him

mes,
the other big 3 didn't have a hometown slam to gerrymander the schedule.
Re Del Potro, geez mes, we're talking like a couple of hours here mate
Not exactly like in Oz where men's semis are (or were) played a day apart - 2009 a classic example where Rafa had a long match v Verdasco after Fed had won his semi the day before.
I tolerate Murray but the British media hype was way ott.

Federer pick and chose which court and when he played at every tournament
Murray finished his match 3 and half hours after Novak's match ended
The British hype was once British disdain, they did not like him in the beginning, only when he started winning and realised he was the real deal did they have no choice.

mes,
both semis are never played at the same time, in Oz they are/were played a day apart.
There was always Murray from the very 1st time he was at Wimbers v Nalbandian I think.
Being a gobby sweaty sock didn't help initially but obvs reeled it in a bit to get the crowd support at Wimbers.

*Murray hype

the 3.5 hours was Wimbledon reference 2013

in oz yes, so even worse for Murray that year, a day later and a much longer match.
Even now he's not universally like in England, the media didn't like him for a long while nor his mother, that took a lot of time and it definitely wasn't from the beginning. Even ol' Delpo himself didn't like Murray or his mum because of the public image  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhkYBO0KeU

After having 3 days off & playing in the evening.

Geez was that it re Del Potro.
Was expect some kind of brawl.
Btw, Del Potro what a loss to the game due to injuries.
Would definitely have been in the mix for multiple slams.

eh? the point was that Murray and his mum were not well liked or perceived in the media and that was relayed to fans and as it seemed from the relevant clip, players as well, in the earlier days.

I think he was the only player that I can ever remember having his mum going everywhere with him.
Obviously players probably just thought it as a way to wind him up I guess, just a bit of sledging, nothing to write home about.
I can never remember the media being negative about Judy iirc.

Yes it was, it's unheard of for any tennis player to talk about their mums especially to them.
Judy was portrayed as some kind of mad dog women with the gurning face at ever Murray match, living her life through him, it started to change a but when he started to make inroads into the latter stages of Wimbledon, before they he was characterised as some kind of new McEnroe with his demonstrative behaviour.

Just old fashioned sexism imo.
It's not like she doesn't know about tennis.

not sexism, they didn't know much of her only the image.

image based on?

dear God. Read above, just 4 posts.

Yes, I've read mes, ta.
I just happen to disagree with your assessment.
Cheers.

if you read it why was you asking what was the image base on, I literally said a few posts before it was the image projected as this mad dog women with a gurning face following him around everywhere, as he was always McEnroe esque with his demonstrative behaviour when he fist came on to the scene, along with his mother, it spawned comments like delpo's, which as you said, had f all to do with sexism delpo of all players, normally wouldn't say boo to a goose.

image projected as this mad dog women with a gurning face

Yes, mes & that was what I was disputing.
If you care to read - I stated that if was harshly dealt with by the media the it was likely to be due to sexism

Wesdag • June 15, 2023 9:23 PM BST
Just old fashioned sexism imo.

What Delpo's motivation was I've got no idea, I'm not a mind reader.
Simple sledging would be most people's guess.

Btw, I've little interest in dissecting the career of this Caspar Ruud type journeyman or the popularity of his mother.

Wes & mes. how about a new discussion about how well Andy Murray will do in Queens and Wimbledon after winning 2 challenger titles on grass in consecutive weeks...

opens up his Queens campaign against Alex de Minaur tomorrow

I know what you said it was likely to be, but unless you've only been following tennis for 5 minutes, it was known at that time that she had a reputation as I described, therefore it's highly unlikely it had F all to do with 'sexism'

During the match they got into a squabble at the changeover because Murray was Complaining about balls being hit at him and his mum was always very vocal from the stands hence his comment.

Incidentally I don't think Murray is going to do anything significant at Wimbledon, he's beaten 10 mugs he should be beating even with a metal hip the last 2 weeks, in a bo5, with a kind draw, he could make the quarters at best but there's no chance of winning a slam or making a slam final anymore, as much as I would like to see it.

you think QFs is realistic? I think he'll have done really well if he makes R4 and the last 16. even that feels too much

All depends on the draw and if he can beat the first couple of players in straights to have enough energy in reserves, if he gets into these super long 5 setters early on then no chance.

has he got a week off before Wimbledon do you know? or has he entered Eastbourne?

don't know

would be very wise to take a week off after 3 weeks of tennis

mes, surprised to still see yer biting re precious Andy & his ma

Would be shocked if Murray gets to the 2nd week - with or without mater.
The schedulers can only do so much to help him out.

you werent fishing, you have genuinely contempt for your  country's greatest ever sportsman, suck it up

Thought that was Jack Wilshere.

john lloyd said on a podcast recently that murray has a chance at wimbledon considering the lack of grass players etc..........what a dreamer........a genuine 1000/1 chance is murray.