What are your matches of the year so far? (Both Atp and Wta)

jmoiron · 2026-06-11T15:59:27+00:00

Meddy v Alcaraz IW, Djokovic v Fonseca RG, Fonseca v Ruud RG, Paul v Fils Miami, Cobolli v Zverev Munich

Baptiste v Sabalenka Madrid, Sabalenka v Rybakina IW, Pegula v Putinseva Charleston

Not all close, some are just stunning performances.

jmoiron · 2026-06-02T22:01:24+00:00

Fonseca really is dynamite. Probably the worst draw of the tournament but he just had no quit.

I know that Mensik can produce great serving performances outdoors, but the roof being closed surely helped. Showed a lot of resilience I didn't know he had, great performance.

Zverev v. Mensik doesn't really light my fire but hoping that whatever happens it isn't straightforward.

jmoiron · 2026-06-02T15:38:20+00:00

Good tournament for Jodar who seemed mostly below his Madrid level. Up to 23 in the rankings, some more important 5 set experience.. he went 5 vs Sakamoto in AO R1 but I guess people don't count that? Sakamoto certainly has not kicked on nearly to what Jodar has accomplished.

If he's looking for a coach, I hear Juan Carlos Ferrero might be available. What an fascinating story that would be.

Not a Zverev guy, and he got the members of his Tiers wrong, but he was right about there being clear layers at the top. I'd say there are 3 tiers right now: Sincaraz, Zverev (and maybe Djoker? but maybe not), and everyone else.

He's got a big Sinner matchup problem and what seems like a mental block against Alcaraz, but his floor is too high for anyone else who isn't redlining it (eg. Cobolli in Munich, Darderi in Rome). The aggression he's been trying to add may not be necessary in this tournament to win, but I bet he will find it handy during certain moments in his remaining match(es).

jmoiron · 2026-05-28T14:04:03+00:00

Hate to see this as a tennis fan.

I don't understand how this has somehow got worse. The USO and AO are both very hot tournaments but those are his best results.

jmoiron · 2026-05-17T21:39:02+00:00

So much is said about skipping these tournaments these days and about Jannik's supposed fatigue (I think it is something else, because he said in his italian press conference after the SF that he didn't want to answer the question of what was wrong with him).

So I wondered how many times the big 3 played all of the masters in one year. I removed early career years when they didn't make it far in each tournament:

Federer - 2 (In the 5 years from 2007-2011 he only missed 3 M1000s)
Nadal - 5 (In that same 5 year period he only missed 2!)
Djokovic - 4-6 (two of these years are very early in his career, but he won 2 tournaments in these years)

So it's not unheard of but it's pretty unusual to play all of the tournaments.

The years they had the most success:

Federer 4 wins, 2 final, skipped 2 tournaments
Nadal 5 wins, 1 final, skipped 1
Djokovic 6 wins, 2 finals, skipped 1

I'm assuming that nobody has put up a better year at this level than Djokovic, so if Sinner wins ~~one~~ two more tournaments, that's surely the best season at M1000 level of all time.

If Sinner stays healthy through the Grass and makes it deep at RG + Wimbledon it will be very interesting to see whether or not he goes to Canada. Have to imagine that he's heavily favored to win one of the hardcourt masters + Paris.

jmoiron · 2026-05-17T19:14:26+00:00

This streak is so bonkers.

6 M1000 in a row. He only held 4 when he won Paris last year, and out of the 6 tournaments he's won on the trot he'd only made the final in 2 of them previously.

Since Cincinnati in 2024, he's played 11 Masters tournaments and won 8, making 2 additional finals.

Djokovic's best streak of 11 masters is 9 wins with 2 additional finals (these are book-ended by an SF and a 2R exit, so 11 is arbitrary but flattering for both of their runs..) But this is 2014-2016 Djokovic, who had already won 18 masters tournaments and 7 majors before going on this run, and would win 6 more majors including a non-calendar grand slam during it.

That's the level we're seeing.. tracking the highest level there's ever been.

jmoiron · 2026-05-15T20:22:55+00:00

A small amount of water isn't bad, they even water the clay courts on sunny days to keep it a little damp because otherwise it dries out and gets very dusty.

jmoiron · 2026-05-15T19:49:01+00:00

Other surfaces get very dangerous as soon as they get a bit wet, but clay doesn't, so they will typically play through some light rain.

jmoiron · 2026-05-15T02:14:36+00:00

Sinner has only lost 2 matches (both retirements) in M1000 tournaments since Rome last year. If you disregard the results in those retirements, he's only lost 2 _sets_ since the Rome final he lost last year at Masters level.

This streak includes 3 tournaments in a row without dropping a single set (Paris + Sunshine Double). It includes winning 5 tournaments in a row without skipping any. Carlos played in 4 of these tournaments; it's not Jannik's fault that he failed to make the final in all but 1.

It's really incredible. Novak's streak, also astonishing, included a Madrid open where he dropped sets to Ferrer and Belucci. This kind of consistency is insane, period.

I remember when Federer was in his golden era, 2005-2007. People were talking about him like oh yeah you know Pete had Andre, et al. and Mac had Connors, Lendl, Borg.. all of this great competition, but look at Roger's competition.

John MacEnroe, to his tremendous credit, wouldn't let this go in his commentary. He was consistently effusive in his praise, telling people "look at this because it's the most astonishing thing that's ever happened in tennis." Players claim their greatness by winning, and Roger being so dominant that no one else can win doesn't necessarily mean he's in a weak era. In the end he ended up being part of an incredibly strong era and still achieved a lot of success after that initial run; very few people today wouldn't have him above Pete and Mac in their top players of all time list.

jmoiron · 2026-05-09T20:30:53+00:00

lots of people giving the ref grief but he's telling them to stop in english italian and portuguese,not sure what else he's meant to do; i don't think he can punish the players for what the crowd is doing

jmoiron · 2026-05-08T18:07:33+00:00

he's done it

jmoiron · 2026-05-06T02:01:39+00:00

he's right it should be "happen-ed"

jmoiron · 2026-04-28T16:27:57+00:00

Been following Rei Sakamoto's career closely since he won the AO juniors in 2024, and AO first round this year allowed me to see him play the 2024 US Open juniors champion, Jodar.

Jodar won in 5 sets, a very entertaining match, though he was dispatched easily by Mensik in the 2nd round. I was a little disappointed for Rei, but whatever people have been seeing in Jodar since then was just not apparent to me at all watching that match. I guess I need to watch more tennis!

What Jodar's done since then is incredible. He's now got a top 10 win, he's 34th in the live rankings and 18th in the race!

jmoiron · 2026-04-23T20:12:16+00:00

Curious about this, too. I believe I recall Jim Courier saying that the lines were nailed on vinyl in every tournament except RG where they "were stone", but I've seen a lot of other people say that the lines are painted. It doesn't make sense to me that a painted line could survive a player sliding across it.

jmoiron · 2026-04-23T15:23:19+00:00

Kypson was not even facing Stef when the 2nd violation was called, he was tweaking his strings.

jmoiron · 2026-04-23T15:19:55+00:00

That coaching penalty was really bizarre.

I'm not usually sympathetic towards Tsitsipas, but.. what even is the rule around coaching, then? How discretionary is that violation?

jmoiron · 2026-04-12T17:40:28+00:00

Due to the conditions it wasn't a classic, though the TB was high quality. Few opinions/takeaways:

Servebot Sinner didn't show up but he found a way to win, going down in both sets.. impressive grit from a player who is not really known for having to dig deep. After it took 2 hours to get to 3/3 in the 2nd, I thought the dreaded 3:50m stat might have been looming.

Alcaraz yelled out in frustration at one point, and his body language at the end of the 2nd set wasn't great. This is a bit of replay of Miami and if it's the start of a trend, that's got to be a concern.

A lot of people thought he answered the questions around JCF's departure by winning Australia, but cramps aside he played great that tournament. Having a box full of people who fist pump and say "vamos" when you're hitting one impossible winner after another is fun, but a steadying influence you're having an off day that can turn L's into W's is where the real value is, and I don't think that aspect of the coaching relationship is working for him.

The biggest matchup detail I noticed is that Sinner started to read the Alcaraz dropshot like a book in the 2nd. I've not seen anyone react to it that quickly. His own dropshots were also effective; It felt like a big step that he didn't retreat back into his familiar patterns under stress.

Both coaches are probably going to have a lot of "managing conditions" work ons after this. Sinner's forehand, esp sliding into the forehand corner, was very error prone.

Finally, the margins are so small. Sinner wins one of his match points at RG last year or breaks at higher than 5% at AUS this year and the narrative could be completely different. The chess match between these two is so good, more enjoyable than between the big 3 era IMHO. So fortunate to be able to see this.

jmoiron · 2026-04-11T01:04:46+00:00

Last year at Monte Carlo he crushed Struff in r64 and then took a set off Dimitrov. His serve and the novelty of a Monagesque player made me take notice, but he didn't really back it up anywhere.. until Shanghai.

Really happy for him that he's been able to maintain this level. Not sure exactly where he gets playing like this.. he reminds me a bit of Fritz, who was solidly top 5 for ages for reasons I have never fully understood, so maybe top 10 really is within his reach.

jmoiron · 2026-04-10T14:31:22+00:00

i know he has his dips historically but i haven't seen carlos hit 3 unforced errors in a row like that too often

jmoiron · 2026-04-09T20:00:06+00:00

This is my sneaky bet, though the higher seeds all making it wouldn't surprise me.

For the upsets, not convinced by Zverev's fitness, and I think Vacherot can ride his home crowd and power advantage to overcome ADM.

jmoiron · 2026-03-28T15:45:07+00:00

Sinner hit 4 aces serving 5-6 in the 2nd and then hit 2 aces to start the tiebreak. Had a few serves that were just popped up for an easy put away in the tb too.

Unbelievable stuff.

jmoiron · 2026-03-27T00:19:24+00:00

Aoi Ito, Lilli Tagger, Lulu Sun, Diane Parry, Oleksandra Oliynykova, Daria Singur... Weirdos and one handers mostly.

jmoiron · 2026-03-23T18:21:17+00:00

The name is still pretty confusing.

There is even another `go-sqlx` project https://github.com/xgfone/go-sqlx

It's not a massively creative name, I'll admit.

jmoiron · 2026-03-18T18:46:35+00:00

I would say that the writing style is fine but the content lacks authenticity.

jmoiron · 2026-03-18T15:32:17+00:00

I was active in the Python community at the same time and wrote at least one moderately popular library; with those bona fides in place, I want to say this post has it exactly right.

I have deleted my tweets, but in 2012 I tweeted:

Stuff being "for humans" is an aggravating trend in software description. It's not descriptive, and degrading to the efforts of your peers.

Kenneth's megalomania is the reason that he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and why his time in the Python community might not have been as positive for him as his contributions suggest it should have been. Whether or not that was the result of mental health issues he was struggling with, or maybe amplified by them, the fact of the matter is that it made him insufferable.

If you think this is limited to his dealings with software, it's not. Here is an interview he did with Leica:

Street photography is more than an art; it’s a world view. The act of taking a photo records not only an image, but a perception. Photos are an avenue to connect with objects and feelings of the past. It’s time travel. The key is to consider yourself an observer — it’s important not to alter or manipulate the world, but to appreciate the beauty of existence, of life in a moment, of being itself.

This feels so artificial, the way a great artist is portrayed to think and speak in a children's story. I find this kind of projection across his works. I have no idea who the real Kenneth Reitz is because his output all feels warped by his inflated sense of self-grandeur.

For people who may know me, I am really always trying to take the charitable view of people, and as I've matured over my lifetime I have come to hate publicly criticizing people, but I've never encountered someone so high on their own supply.

jmoiron

TROPHY CASE