RandoEFC

I know he loves to blow hot air and come across as a cocky sod but when he says he's come to England to prove himself here and he's been successful, you can't disagree. Great season at his age, for him I suppose it's off to tick another box somewhere else because he's done what he came to do in this league.

Nishikori melted away there, very solid from Murray anyway though.

Kubica really is the one who got away for F1. Such a talented driver, could well have been on a par with Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, or if not would at least have been at the top end of the Rosberg, Webber, Button, Ricciardo group.

Nishikori shits the bed and loses the tiebreak 7-0. #LETSGO

Stan has battered Cilic 6-3 6-3 6-1. Andy has just broken Nishikori and is serving for the third set, on course to set up a rematch of last year's semi-final against Stan.

I'd have him at sensible money.

A loss of form that has become a crisis. It seems to happen with players when they lose a bit of motivation. Last year, Djokovic finally won the French Open, then he lost early at Wimbledon and in the first round of the Olympics (to Del Potro to be fair to him). He got back into it a bit more later in the year when Murray was chasing him down for the #1 ranking but he still didn't get back to top form and eventually lost top spot and hasn't got a realistic chance of getting it back until at least after Wimbledon. He dumped Boris Becker as coach at the end of 2016, and the rest of his team earlier this year when form wasn't improving, don't know if that's set him back even more or whether it has just had no effect.

Don't rule out Novak yet. Lost count of the amount of times people (including me) have said that Federer and Nadal are finished winning slams yet here we are at the second slam of the year and Roger has one with Rafa odds-on to win the other. Djokovic still has a lot to give.

I don't think the English attitude towards international football is like that at all. Supporters of the English national team have been far from content for a very long time despite being better than Scotland. In fact, one of the main reasons that England fail to engage the public in really giving a shit about international football is the perennial failure to compete with countries that should be our rivals - Germany, Spain, France, Italy. On paper, we should be their equals over time with ebbs and flows where each side gets on top for a while but we've just got nowhere near competing with them since before I was born.

If it takes Nadal or a red hot Stan to knock out Murray that's a decent tournament from him given some of his other recent losses. Be disappointing if he loses this one to Nishikori though.

Passive smoking and smoking in confined spaces is actually even worse than puffing on a fag as the smoke that comes out of the end is unfiltered if you breathe that in. Pretty shitty all round. I know a lot of people are turning to vaping but last time I checked the line was that there was "a good chance" it's healthier for you than smoking tobacco. Not sure about anyone else but if something only has "a good chance" of being better than cigarettes I'm not sure I'll be hopping on that gravy train .

Read it'll be 2-3 months recovery which would see him miss the start of the season.

Fognini could do himself a favour and get his head sorted then he could easily be consistently on the same level as the likes of Nishikori in my opinion.

I don't mind Stan but him having more slams than Murray would be wrong on so many levels.

Any smokers on here? Anyone a former smoker? Trying to quit? Social smoker? Cigar connoisseur? I've been a social smoker pretty much since I turned 18 but that transitioned into becoming an actual smoker (about 5 a day) just over a year ago, not long after I moved into my own place. However, I've now made the decision to quit whilst probably still having a few fags on a night out - wish me luck!

Murray looks back in some form this week and this one is in the bag. Edmund and Anderson look to be on their way to a fifth set to decide their match. Gwan lads.

A reliable "ITK" apparently...

Are buyouts compulsory in Spain? Seems a pretty massively obvious no-no unless you don't want to be able to demand big money for players who are worth more than when you signed them through the time and energy spent by the club to develop them.

Is it common for Spanish clubs to get less than what they should do for players because of buyout clauses agreed 2-3 years earlier? I know we're linked with this Sandro that has a similar €5m ish clause in his contract.

Forgot to post this at the weekend, <3 JB

Whether it's Gordon Ramsay himself or the people who edit his shows in order to market him that way, it's the absolute lowest form of 'entertainment'. Engineered yelling and swearing in situations that absolutely don't require it, can't believe enough people continue to watch it to enable him to make a career out of it.

So what's wrong with City doing that? Why don't they spend £10-15m trying to find and develop the next Dele Alli or the next John Stones instead of paying six times that for players who are established but never in a million years worth that money.

Man City will literally pay £50m for a rotation player and it's their own fault for spending that much on players that aren't worth it in the past. Don't tell me that "today's market" is responsible for prices like this. The value is still out there, I've made this argument in other threads about Spurs (who finished ahead of City this season lest we forget) signing most of their first team for less than £20m. It's not the market, it's a question of whether clubs are stupid enough to pay triple the actual necessary fee because they can and or they're too lazy to find a viable alternative who might just need slightly longer to develop into a top class player for £20m instead of £60m. Absolute embarrassment the lengths City and similar clubs will go to to get their man.

Hamou what a daft twat. Hoping for a miracle from Muzza to win the French but if he plays well it's not out of the question. Been six months since he's been at his best though.