Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will lead their respective countries into ATP Cup quarterfinal action on Friday. Djokovic is going up against Denis Shapovalov, while Nadal faces familiar foe David Goffin.
Novak Djokovic (SRB) vs. Denis Shapovalov (CAN)
Seven of the eight ATP Cup quarterfinal teams are the same as they were in the 2019 Davis Cup two months ago, both Serbia and Canada included. The Canadians–who finished runner-up in Madrid–needed plenty of help to get here, but the fact they were on thin ice was no fault of Shapovalov’s. He went 2-1 in singles against Stefanos Tsitsipas (win), Alex de Minaur (loss), and Alexander Zverev (win) to go along with an essential doubles victory over Germany with Felix Auger-Aliassime.
The world No. 14’s tough sledding continues in the form of a fifth career contest against Djokovic on Friday. Djokovic is sweeping the head-to-head series 4-0 overall with a dominant 9-1 record in total sets. No set has been more competitive than 6-4. The second-ranked Serb appears to be up to his usual tricks Down Under, having picked up straight-set round-robin victories at the expense of Kevin Anderson, Gael Monfils, and Christian Garin. This should be an extremely entertaining but mostly one-sided showdown.
Pick: Djokovic in 2 with no tiebreakers
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Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. David Goffin (BEL)
Nadal and Goffin will be squaring off for the sixth time in their careers on Friday. The 33-year-old Spaniard leads the head-to-head series 4-1, although Goffin won their only previous hard-court meeting 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 6-4 at the 2017 Nitto ATP Finals (Nadal was far less than 100 percent due to a knee injury.
This time around, the world No. 1 is healthy, well-rested, and in fine form. So far at the ATP Cup he has defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili, Pablo Cuevas, and Yoshihito Nishioka in straight sets. Goffin owns a 2-1 record (beat Radu Albot and Grigor Dimitrov, lost to Dan Evans). The 11th-ranked Belgian has been blown out by Nadal only twice in five matchups, so this could be at least somewhat competitive.
Pick: Nadal in 2 losing 8-10 games
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Rafa’s ROS is also getting poorer; he had ten BPs vs Goffin but only converted two, and Goffin isn’t even a big server! In this doubles match, both Rafa and PCB couldn’t even handle Vliegen’s serves, couldn’t figure out how to return his serve after one and a half sets of tennis.
Seems that PCB is the better player here than Rafa; Rafa almost cost Spain the break in the second set, as usual he always has problems serving for set and match.
Just horrible from Rafa, serve not ok, ROS not ok, even the FH ends up hitting to the net! Spain better wins this match, so that Rafa can have some more match practices. He’s playing below par so far here in Australia imo, needs more matches to at least get his game on track for the AO.
Why is Rafa overplaying before the ao. This is not good. I am fearful of an injury at this rate in humidity .
Fed us having last laugh resting
But Sanju, Rafa needs the matches, he needs to bring his game up to par; he’s been poor lately – poor serving, poor ROS, FH and BH not at desirable level.
If Rafa doesn’t play, and he keeps resting, he won’t feel confident about his game. I bet he’s very pumped up now after winning the doubles, pushed to the limit but still came back to win, that’s how Rafa strives in his matches. At least he would feel happy not letting the team down, by at least helping to win the doubles and getting Spain to the SF.
He’s hard wired that way, can’t help it; at least he now knows what are the areas he needs to improve; imo he really needs to work on his serve, because without a good to great serve, he will have a hard time winning in Melbourne with those hot and humid conditions.
Phew, team Spain wins finally. Rafa needs to be pushed to the brink, to the edge, before playing his best few points to win. PCB contributes a lot to this victory imo.
At least it’s a bit of redemption for Rafa, not to lose both the singles and doubles to let the team down. Rafa sounded a bit pissed with the scheduling, and to think that Rafa’s team is the TOP two team and they’re getting the worst treatment here. The last team to play the QF and also having to travel from Perth to Sydney, and their SF opponents get to play the QF the previous day and so have an extra day rest.
Terrible scheduling and terrible treatment for Rafa and his team! Shame on the organizers!
How will they be able to play tomorrow is beyond me…Rafa and his team are at huge disadvantage.,.I hate seeing Rafa meet well rested and pumped up Kyrgios under these circumstances…
Oh, I see, Rafa will play de Minaur not Kyrgious…
Rafa danced into the ATP Cup semi-finals:
https://twitter.com/TennisTV/status/1215637201192701952
🙂
Vamos Rafa and his team!!!!
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ 💪 💪 💪 💪 👏 👏 👏 👏
Seriously, is Djoko going to play at Adelaide after this ATP Cup? He’s already looking exhausted with the humid conditions here; why play another tournament just before the AO? Is he desperately wanting to get the no.1 ranking back?
If Rafa and Djoko are killing themselves overplaying just before the AO, who would stand to gain? Fed maybe, as he’s well rested after his round of exhos; Tsitsipas disappoints this ATP cup, not playing well; Medvedev struggles at times; Thiem and Zverev 👎 this tournament. Who else?
You guys are better off cutting Rafa some slack. I’m sure he knows what’s he’s doing and also what’s good for him! He’ll be fine! I really don’t care if Spain wins this tournament, does not matter to me! I just want him to be battle tested for the AO! He knows he has the brush up on his game that’s all! As for the #1 ranking, pffffff!! Novak can have it, just want Rafa to win slams everything will fall into place!! The #1 ranking has never determined whether he wins GS or not!
Vamos Rafa!!
Djoker will pull out of Adelaide if he needs the rest. Signing up for it was probably a hedge against going out early in the ATP Cup.
Assuming Rafa finishes the ATP Cup healthy he’ll have a week to rest and train before the AO. I’d like to see Spain win. Lot of ranking points available for those worried about Rafa losing his #1, which is pretty low down on my list of worries.
If Djoko gets back to no. 1, he would be even harder to beat at the slams, because as a no. 1, he would not want to lose it again, at least not without a fight (being no. 1 seems to be Djoko’s obsession in addition to winning slams and catching Fedal) and he may put up performances like the AO2019 even more often!
I think Djoko is eyeing Fed’s weeks at no. 1 record, in addition to catching Fed’s slam records.
I hope Rafa is ready to counter the force that is Djoko. Its time Rafa gets some serious wins over Djoko, esp at the slams, including on non clay surfaces.
Nadal just had problems adapting to the humidity. He is sweating more than most anyway and this probably gets close to unbearable when he switches to a wet sauna. Changing the venue and climate overnight is not easy in a sport where the margins are so small. Rafa is neither undercooked / untrained nor tired. He’ll play better tomorrow. It is a bit absurd to think that Djoko trained more than him.
I think that one key reason why Nadal didn’t win Miami is the humidity over there. He just didn’t adapt well/fast enough. IW is just before that and it’s so dry, which probably makes adjustment harder.
Playing in the evening for the next two days will probably help, but Spain’s ATP Cup chances might be spoiled by this one factor.
In any case, if no injury occurs, Rafa should be just fine by all means when AO starts.
Not really. Rafa played great in Miami when he was younger, just never quite got over the finish line. He says 2010 should have been his year to win it but his knee went out on him in the semis v Roddick and Rafa was as angry as I’ve ever seen him, pounding on his knee with his fist and swearing at it in Mallorquin. Nowadays he seems to pass on Miami – doesn’t want to take chances with the clay season to prepare for, I think.
Rafa not ever winning Miami is really strange. He was able to play injury free most of the time. He was’t tired. He was in form more often than not. Rafa failing to get over the finish line for no particular reason is not really plausible. I was just saying that there must be some extra factor, and climate may be an explanation. I think he lost or withdrew on several occasions due to fatigue, dehydration, lethargy or similar.
On outdoor hardcourts, Nadal is as good as Federer and Djokovic. I don’t think that him not winning Miami is just bad luck.
Not bad luck, the factors are Fed and Djoko. He had lost Miami finals to both Fed (2005, 2017) and Djoko (2011, 2014), so essentially he has to be able to beat them should he meet them in the finals. I think if he can bear them at Miami in the final, he can beat anyone else.
He lost to davydenko once in miami final.. 5 time runnerup he is
Come to think of it, Spain was really doing not bad against Belgium, because I realized that Belgium was playing at Sydney all along, so they’re used to the court surface and the weather there! Furthermore, they were well rested not having to play for two days (they last played on Tuesday) before the QF.
The Spanish team OTOH had to travel to Sydney from Perth and had only one day to get used to the conditions at Sydney (last played on Wed before the QF).
I don’t know how the organisers are going to improve on this going forward, it will be unfair to those teams playing the group stage at the other two locations.
Imagine Spain playing against a stronger team than Belgium, say a well rested Australia in the QF, Spain would be at a big disadvantage. Or Belgium having to play a weaker team than Spain, Belgium would then have a big advantage.
The SF between Serbia and Russia should be a good one, Khachanov may beat Lajovic and Medvedev could certainly put up a tough fight vs Djoko.
Spain vs Aussie, I think Kyrgios will be too much for Agut; if Rafa is pumped up after winning the QF, perhaps he would beat De Minaur. The doubles may then be the deciding match again.
Actually I expect Kyrgios to choke against RBA. I doubt that he can bring his best tennis (and sustain it long enough) against a less acclaimed opponent. The Spaniard is so disciplined, he will exasperate Nick. Rafa playing bad two days in a row is again not very likely unless the conditions get the best of him.
NK has been relying on his big serve. Their match will depend on RBA being able to return well. We’ll see. Rafa has been very troubled by high humidity in the past few years while the Aussies are used to the conditions.
Hey guys!…This is interesting…
https://www.watoday.com.au/sport/tennis/de-minaur-could-be-rested-20200111-p53qkz.html
Let’s c whether DeMon is gonna play today or not…if not,then my theory is right that Nicky is desperately wants to play Rafa..1)bcoz he is so obsessed with Rafa 2)what did he say while ago?Oh yeah!…i smell blood when i c this guy on the other end 3) They know Nicky has huge adv over Rafa if they put Nicky instead of DeMon..and Rafa’s condition too is not very good atm…
Btw…What the heck is about DeMon ‘mentally exhausted’ this past week??I mean ATP Cup is the bo3..unlike slams when u have to play bo5 in 7 days???How do u want to play grand slam when u ‘re already mentally exhausted after just playing 3,4 matches in the bo3??😂👈
Just some dirty tricks by the Aussie; I hope it backfires!
Agut can beat Millman and I hope Rafa will beat Kyrgios and then end of story. It’s even better than Rafa having to play two matches in one day. Points will be short playing against Kyrgios, so even if Rafa has to play the doubles he’ll be less stressed physically.
Anyway everyone knows Kyrgios desperately wants to beat Rafa, it’s not news!
Lol, I guess DeMinaur has recovered from his Greek fever just in time to come down with a nice case of Spanish flu… Pity, I kind of like the Demon, but I wonder what this is doing for his self-confidence.
These commies are just so shameless!! It was so obvious that they were just dying for Rafa to lose to Dimanur!!! Well I’m happy Rafa showed them whose boss!!! Sigh!