Vale: Philippoussis - career over

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red+black

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Jul 12, 2001
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The forgotten man of tennis, Mark Philippoussis, has made a bad start to 2005. Thanks to the Steve G Tennis site, you can see that he is in a slide that in my opinion, is absolutely impossible to arrest, and as such, spare a thought for our fallen "champ" as he goes through the motions in his final year:
Code: 
15/12/2003 - #  9 - ATP Points: 1615
20/12/2004 - #109 - ATP Points:  400
10/01/2005 - #110 - ATP Points:  400
17/01/2005 - #124 - ATP Points:  360
31/01/2005 - #203 - ATP Points:  210
He hardly won a match last year so he isn't defending many points, but he did make the 4th round at Wimbledon. His only two chances to make the draw are to qualify or receive a wildcard. Failing that, he will lose 150 ATP Points and his ranking will drop to between #400 and #450.

So, I don't think it's premature to thank him for his Davis Cup efforts and on making two Grand Slam finals, but we will never see him on a tennis court again.
 
Possibly the biggest waste of talent in Australian sporting history (although 2 grand slam finals is a fair effort). Very frustrating man, but obviously very proficient in the sack.
 
Won't be sorry to see him go.

If he can be bothered practicing once in a while instead of surfing and slamming chicks he could easily make it back to the top 50 and he'd still be within the 10 or so blokes that have a realistic shot at winning wimbledon.

If he doesn't make it back it will be solely due to him not having the desire to pull his finger out. In which case he won't recieve any sympathies from me.
 

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Scud made his choice. Make something out of his talent, or nail media whores and in the case of Paris Hilton...just whores. He chose the latter. Im sure he will reach the end of his career with no regrets...
 
His career isn't 'over' but he is limited to Wimbledon and the occasional hardcourt tournament, too many weaknesses to win other tournaments.
 
starz said:
His career isn't 'over' but he is limited to Wimbledon and the occasional hardcourt tournament, too many weaknesses to win other tournaments.
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His career practically IS over, being ranked in the 200s and in the 400s if he doesn't get in the main draw at Wimbledon. This year, he will not play a single Masters Series event, and he will play 1 Grand Slam at most, that if he gets very lucky. He will have to qualify for virtually every tournament that he wants to enter.

I don't think he can do it.
 
Don't worry about rankings he can still win at Wimbledon and maybe a few little tournaments here and there. The othe Slams are out o reach he gets worn down in long rallies.
 
Yeah I reckon he's a good chance at a wildcard at Wimbledon, which arguably is a problem with the wildcard system. Would he get it because he is a former finalist, or because of some reciprocal agreement with Brits and the Oz Open? It's not really fair that the 4 hosts of the Grand Slams can give wildcards to locals, or do some deal with the other Slams.

Maybe Poo can pull a Goran, but the odds would be astronomical.
 
Ranked #205 now, probably drop a few more by Monday.

002 Hewitt, Lleyton
110 Arthurs, Wayne
154 Luczak, Peter
205 Philippoussis, Mark
231 Reid, Todd
286 Kimmich, Marc
292 Healey, Nathan
308 Baccanello, Paul
367 Guccione, Chris
...
1064 Draper, Scott
1463 Larkham, Todd
 

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JohnF said:
LOL, Australian tennis is in a disgraceful state.
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Chris Guccione just won a challenger event without losing a set.The guy can serve big and he played reasonably well in the australian open (where canas was just too good for him)..i am not jumping the gun yet but big servers with less than average all around game (leaving out the serve)can make it to the top 20 :eek: , but lets hope he can improve his game, the kid can volley pretty well with eastern grip (thats why stronger backhand volley)
 
starz said:
Molik just made the SF and Hewitt made the Final of the Aussie Open, were you aware of that?
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quarter final actually. the word of the day though, is D-E-P-T-H.
 
red+black said:
quarter final actually. the word of the day though, is D-E-P-T-H.
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Exactly.

We have two excellent players (Hewitt and Woodbridge - but do doubles count?) and a few that are competant players (Molik, Stosur) and the rest are fringe at best. The Gooch might become something if he learns to hit a few groundstrokes (most likely has a shot at Wimbledon), Reid looks to be a C grade version of Hewitt, Philippoussis is Philippoussis, Arthurs is good for a laugh and the doubles in the Davis Cup and that's about it.

When you compare us to the Argentinians and the Spaniards who have a quarter of the players in the top 100, you can see that we are fairly thin on depth compared to them.

I hope we discover another player decent men's singles player otherwise Hewitt is going to have to be carrying the Davis Cup team in his suitcase for the next 5 years.
 
JohnF said:
Exactly.

We have two excellent players (Hewitt and Woodbridge - but do doubles count?) and a few that are competant players (Molik, Stosur) and the rest are fringe at best. The Gooch might become something if he learns to hit a few groundstrokes (most likely has a shot at Wimbledon), Reid looks to be a C grade version of Hewitt, Philippoussis is Philippoussis, Arthurs is good for a laugh and the doubles in the Davis Cup and that's about it.

When you compare us to the Argentinians and the Spaniards who have a quarter of the players in the top 100, you can see that we are fairly thin on depth compared to them.

I hope we discover another player decent men's singles player otherwise Hewitt is going to have to be carrying the Davis Cup team in his suitcase for the next 5 years.
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I rate Arthurs very high in the doubles. He won a tournament in doubles the other day in the U.S. Keep an eye on Peter Luczak who I think will have a good period very soon.
 
eastaugh36 said:
Keep an eye on Peter Luczak who I think will have a good period very soon.
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He's in reasonable form the last few weeks. Last week he qualified for the tournament in Brazil and then went to the semi's including a win over Fernando Gonzalez. The two weeks previous to that he qualified in Vina del Mar and Buenos Aries, where he was unlucky to draw Gonzalez who he lost to in a tight one and then Moya in Argentina who beat him in straight sets.
 
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