Novak Djokovic won his 17th consecutive match and captured a second straight title on the Asian Swing by rolling over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2, 6-4 in the final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Sunday. Djokovic, whose current streak also includes titles at the U.S. Open and in Beijing, needed just one hour and 18 minutes to prevail.
Djokovic dropped serve once in the first set but more than made up for that hiccup with three victorious return games.
A more competitive second set saw Tsonga kick things off with four consecutive holds. The Frenchman, however, never had any prayer against his opponent’s serve. In fact, Tsonga won only a single point in five return games. A double-fault by the underdog on break point at 4-4, ad-out proved to be decisive.
Highlights:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2xIYR8gyv4]
“Today the key was to get as many serves back into play to Jo because he has one of the biggest serves in the game,” Djokovic assessed. “He has shown that in the second set, with some break points early in the set. He came up with some aces, some big serves.
“Generally, I felt always in control of the match. I felt like I’ve done everything right. I’ve won many of my service games very comfortably. I didn’t allow him to get into the rhythm, get into the match. Today’s match, and overall the tournament, it’s gone incredibly well for me.”
[tweet https://twitter.com/SHRolexMasters/status/655723508559798272]
The week still went extremely well for Tsonga, who prevailed in consecutive three-setters over Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Kevin Anderson, and Rafael Nadal.
“I’m very satisfied,” the runner-up assured. “To come back at your best level, it’s always a long process. I’m happy today to be back really close to the top 10. Like I said just before, it gave me energy to continue to work hard and try to achieve other good things.”
Tsonga is going to surge six spots to No. 9 in the race to the World Tour Finals. That would put him as the first alternate, which will be especially important if Andy Murray follows through with his threat to skip it and prepare for the Davis Cup final on clay in Belgium.
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Rafa (a) has never sheltered behind injuries as a reason for his losses and (b) is extremely reluctant to admit to how bad they are until it is so obvious it becomes impossible to hide.
He has battled with severe pain throughout his career. The transition from clay to grass is hard on most players – and for Rafa particularly difficult. All the more surprising he achieved the Channel slam which is a measure of his sheer will power to break through the pain barrier.
He has only recently admitted he was playing with severe pain ALL through 2013: the year which stands out for me as possibly one of his greatest in the light of what it represented.
The constant raking through their careers comparing Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, based on raw numbers, is to lose sight of what each of them have individually achieved and contributed to this sport.
#ComparisonsAreOdious
#RafaThread
Apologies. I’ll repost
note to Ricky: due to overload of pictures in Rafa’s thread I have trouble opening the thread from both my Windows phone and IPhone…this is why I had to post here…I apologize for the inconvenience and will stop doing it…
thank you for understanding!
@ ed, 10:46 am.
you have to observe that from the fact that in order to reach the finals Rafa would have had to beat Novak in the qtrs…that would give him enough confidence boost to deal with Wawa I believe…but it is only me speculating…I would definitely vote for Rafa beating Wawa in that case… 🙂
I think nats you are confused about what you mean by 100% . Are you sure you know what you mean? If by Rafa at 100% you mean Rafa at his peak, Rafa is not and was not at his peak in any of his matches after AO 2014. To say we should not mention his health or age issues is to be in denial. If Laver played today and lost, he maybe 100% as per your definition as we should not mention his age or health as that would be disrespectful to him but the fact would be that beating him would not prove the opponent is faster or better than Laver. I used an extreme example to show you the absurdity of your argument. By claiming Rafa has to be 100% to beat Djoko on clay it is you who is being disrespectful to Rafa.
[deleted. Reason: instigation]
Sorry Ricky. I thought you said to post this discussion on Nadal’s page.
My mistake.
Do you differentiate between being at his peak and at his 100%?Those are two different things!
Rafa simply could not be at his peak in 2014…I never said he was…his peak was in 2010 and since then his game started to decline to some extent in the same time when Novak started to improve on all counts…but Rafa still managed to be at his best as he did at the FO 2014 considering his age and the status of his game…he is not a miracle worker to run for hours and hit winners all over the place as he used to when he was at his peak…
Rafa confirmed this in his Wimbly interview…
RAFAEL NADAL: I didn’t play with lot of pressure. I won in the French. I am having a great season. I am playing well. At the time 2014 hardly qualified for a great season by Rafa’s own standards…yet he was pleased because he was already aware that he could not win it all like he used to…so what other proof do you need????
I never said we should not mention his health issues…what I said is that we should not use it as an excuse…he lost to Kyrgios who played WELL not because Rafa was injured….live with it!
and yes Rafa will have to be at his 100% to be able to beat Novak…it’s me and most likely 95% of fans worldwide including Rafa and Uncle T. who will tell you the same…and I do not think there is anything disrespectful in it…your opinion is simply biased…
moreover, I never said we should not mention Rafa’s age issues…on the contrary!!! I am the one who is indicating that age is a huge factor in Rafa’s current game and that makes the main reason why he has to alter his game to suit his age…the same as Fed…
and BTW your example on Laver really makes no sense… 😉
I assume that the less than 100% Rafa would be playing against a 100% Novak.
Mary compared beating this Rafa to a beating a 77 year old Rod Laver, in case Laver made a comeback to ATP tour. Seriously you are comparing a 29 year old Nadal to a 77 year old Laver? Laver retired 40 years ago, its such a long time ago that even my great-grandfather was alive when he stopped playing. Rafa Nadal is not at his best but comparing him to a 77 year old Laver is the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read on this site.
There are very few players (if any) that can take down Djokovic at 100% these days.
Nadal is no longer at his peak and I don’t know where he goes from here to beat Novak if Novak’s level continues. If Nadal recovers his game, then perhaps on clay.
Federer in best of three on a fast hard court and Stan in slams is his biggest threat (if it can be called that) at the moment.
[deleted. Reason: insult]
Ricky your moderation is biased. I only repeated what 64 aces did. But you retained his comment and treated mine as an insult. He said ” Mary compared beating this Rafa to a beating a 77 year old Rod Laver, in case Laver made a comeback to ATP tour. Seriously you are comparing a 29 year old Nadal to a 77 year old Laver? Laver retired 40 years ago, its such a long time ago that even my great-grandfather was alive when he stopped playing. Rafa Nadal is not at his best but comparing him to a 77 year old Laver is the biggest load of nonsense I have ever read on this site.”
So I said his lack of logic in not understanding the logic of the comparison was the source of the biggest load of nonsense on this site.
I dont see any insults in there. Regardless, if you want to insult each other, do so via email. If you want to talk about tennis, do ao here. Thanks.
Ricky, if you do not see any insult in 64Aces post oct 23, 3:48pm how did you see an insult in mine when I just repeated what he said?
Ricky I was talking about tennis but 64aces chose to insult me. I gave an extreme example to show that age and health do matter when deciding whether someone is at 100% and the evaluation of what the defeat of a legendary player means. 64aces poked his nose in and insulted me although my post was not meant for him but for nats. You did nothing about it. Instead when I repeated back 64aces post, you deleted my post. and have chosen to retain his post claiming you see no insult. You are playing favorites.