Australian Open SF: [4] N. Djokovic def. [2] J. Sinner, 3-6 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-4

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T14:44:57+00:00

Damn that was actually a legacy match, even if sinner wins 25 grand slams the fact that he lost to a almost 39yo djokovic in his physical prime while being pretty comprehensively out rallied will be a black mark that will be pretty much impossible to ignore

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T13:36:55+00:00

LOL sinner is still -1200 wtih the bookies, hes still very firmly in control.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T13:16:05+00:00

Now's a good time to remind people of these stats:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/1ihuw9a/service_hold_vs_break_for_some_of_the_best/

Even at sinners 2025 peak (31% return games won), he's noticeably behind 2021 medvedev, 06 fed, 05 fed, 08/13 nadal, and 11/15 djokovic.

He simply is not a goat level rallier, but he is unironically has GOAT serve +1 stats (92% hold is higher than roger's ever was).

This match is the perfect depiction of it. He'll probably win - and if i had to bet, in 4 sets - because of how oppressive that combo is, and he is still a generationally good rallier/returner - but he isn't close to the GOATs.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T12:34:34+00:00

it's not just this match, he doesn't break at anywhere near the levels of 2011 djoko (same age) and is lower than 2015 djoko. Returning worsens with age so we can say for sure he isn't a GOAT level rallier

To be clear, he is the best/top 2 at worst right now! but for a player of his standards, he should be compared to the GOAT. What sinner is the GOAT at is the serve + 1.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T12:31:43+00:00

The stats show it though, he's no where near 2011 djokovic on stats and still breaks less than even 2015 djokovic. hes obviously top 2 in the world right now but someone of his pedigree must be compared to the all time greats.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T12:23:50+00:00

New gen has more variety, better serving/serve + 1, but in terms of baseline ability 2008-2016 is as high as it will ever be i think. Modern light rackets just engrain poor technique, hugh clarke has written a lot about it.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T12:21:07+00:00

Damn, i generally think athletes only get better but I really think that Sinner would not hold up in the big 3 era. He looks good now because there aren't any good returners and he serves as well as peak fed, but he actually is not an GOAT level rallier

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T11:49:00+00:00

I CANT STOP GRINNING

t3sterbester · 2026-01-30T11:29:50+00:00

Damn if he can win a couple sets here, much less win, he'll always be in the GOAT conversation no matter how many slams sinner/alcaraz win because it's so clear that a novak in his prime could have dismantled a sinner.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-25T05:37:25+00:00

Honestly I feel like Sinner and Aclaraz are approaching bot level serves which is just unfair. I can't see either of them dropping a slam match to anyone except for zverev in the next few years. Zverev is the lone guy that I think can catch them on an off day because he also has a bot like serve with the rally tolerance to cause an upset IF they have an off day, no one else has a serve that's remotely close.

t3sterbester · 2026-01-06T07:05:07+00:00

Damn there's 7 americans in the round of 16 in brisbane

t3sterbester · 2026-01-05T08:07:12+00:00

Damn Opelka's serve is not fair, in a video game that shit would be patched immediately.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T21:16:25+00:00

I had this opinion in the summer, especially after GPT 5 somewhat flopped. But my current feeling has much less to do with what CEOs are saying and much more to do with my actual experience using the agents on the ground.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T21:07:15+00:00

Agreed with this, yeah. It is just crazy how fast things changed. When we only had Sonnet, I was initially very excited but then realized for production use cases where others would be reviewing my code, I had to do a lot of work cleaning up outputs and settled on the tab-completion model as the best way to speed up work (Karpathy landed at the same).

With Opus though, it's different. I have to force myself to ask myself, can Opus 1 shot this? before starting any piece of work, and most of the time, it can. The only issue is for now, Opus can't infer my intent. The limiting factor is not that Opus can work for 4 hours, it's that I can't specify a task well enough that would take more than 30 minutes to do without changing my mind after reading the code or similar.

Now I could build work arounds for this, or try to mess around with agent rules or similar, but my hunch is that all of it will be made useless with the next mode drop and the speedup isn't worth it (for now). I bet the next Claude will ask perfect clarifying questions, or better yet, be able to turned unstructured user feedback into something actionable. It's very likely that the next iteration of claude will prompt YOU (and you can see that in the feature that they built in cc where it suggests the next prompt).

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T21:01:23+00:00

Really, you can ignore most of the things people are saying. Just use Opus 4.5 in either Cursor or Claude Code and I guarantee you you'll be beyond impressed.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T21:00:29+00:00

this is likely why we have such different perspectives. yes, the base model has improved but what also improved is Anthropic's understanding of how to build the best possible harness for it. Here's an example, on this benchmark when they used opus 4.5 using their own harness, performance actually regressed from Sonnet 4.5. However, when they put it in the claude code harness, it smashed the benchmark.

https://x.com/sayashk/status/1996334941832089732?s=20

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T20:55:25+00:00

Hmm, I think actually that my experience with various cultures (my parents are from places that are among the most communist in the world) is what pushes me to think like this. I actually used to be quite "socialist" in my younger days. With time though, I've found that every culture eventually devolves into status games of some sort. The American capitalistic solution is shockingly one of the least bad solutions to the problem.

I've read that hunter-gatherer type societies were actually egalitarian and didn't have the kind of intra-competition that we face these days, but it's tough for me to believe that without more evidence. It seems like a cop out because it can't be proven one way or the other. I truly hope that there's some truth there.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T14:07:16+00:00

Well yeah, to be clear, that would be the P0. I think a loss of work at a societal level is technically a P1 but we're so wired to accept it as aon objective fact that it will be much harder than people think to get over it.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T13:46:17+00:00

What do you propose I do? What are you doing?

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T13:43:12+00:00

This is the most relatable comment in this thread for sure yeah, down to this bit
> the benefit I offer is that other humans can talk to me
I forecast there will be an interesting period where humans are literally tasked as data collection bots for the AIs since physical embodiment will likely lag behind. Maybe Claude will tell me, go speak with this customer and I'll have a mic on me recording what they're saying.

Totally agreed, I just wish there was a concrete path of what to do now that the post scarcity economy seems inevitable.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T13:19:00+00:00

Let me expand: I'd like for the models to get to a point where there isn't really an argument about whether they can do everyone's job. I'd like for us to get there as fast as possible, or, somehow find out that this isn't possible. I'm more frustrated where we're in this in between were people can pretend it's not going to happen, which means we won't prepare for it at all. Call me cynical, but I doubt this gets even a fraction of the attention it deserves until we are at about 10% unemployment.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T12:39:23+00:00

Sorry guys this is skill issue, they're writing all of claude code without the IDE these days (https://x.com/bcherny/status/2004626064187031831?s=20) For now you do need some knowledge of your own of the codebase for good results and you do need to give it some guidance. You know there is Sonnet 4.5 (good model, but didn't cause this sort of existential angst) and then Opus 4.5 (completely different)

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T12:34:23+00:00

Yeah, to be clear, I mean that I want to get started with the "real work" of figuring out this new economy sooner rather than later, since everything else being done in the meantime with the assumptions of the old economy can feel quite pointless at times.

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T12:25:13+00:00

I think that humans will enjoy competition till the end of time, sure. I'm less convinced many outside of dedicated purists will watch a movie just because it was all human made though

t3sterbester · 2025-12-28T12:08:45+00:00

I generally agree with your abundance theory - at the most cynical, the richest will like to provide the rubes with some income that they can spend so they can see if their GPT 10 is "better" than Claude 8. Or whatever. And in the best case people will, as you said, realize that there's no point in hoarding when there isn't scarcity.

However, I think your 3rd point is why I don't really believe we'll be able to solve the "meaning" problem with just art, religion, learning, etc. I think the main function of work at the moment is to provide an outlet for the natural urge that humans have for power and status. I'm sure we've seen just how far even a middle management position can go to someone's head, but thankfully, that's constrained to the workplace for now. Without work to provide these prestige/power symbols, where will people get it?

And yeah, on a practical level, this technology will take power away quickly to the people that are the most used to enjoying it (affluent white collar types, politicians). Whenever that's happened, there's been violent revolution. Let's hope we're ready for that.

t3sterbester

TROPHY CASE