A semifinal spot will be at stake when Rafael Nadal goes up against Andrey Kuznetsov on Thursday in Doha. Novak Djokovic and Leonardo Mayer are also in quarterfinal action.
Andrey Kuznetsov vs. (2) Rafael Nadal
Picking up right where he left off following an impressive 2015 fall swing, Nadal is in fine form early in 2016 as he heads into quarterfinal competition at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open on Thursday. The fifth-ranked Spaniard won the season-opening exhibition event in Abu Dhabi and so far in Doha he has taken out Pablo Carreno Busta and Robin Haase. Since dropping his opening set to Carreno Busta in a tiebreaker, Nadal has reeled off four in a row via scorelines of 6-3, 6-1, 6-3, and 6-2.
It has already been an outstanding week for Kuznetsov, who punched his ticket to the last eight with straight-set victories over Marsel Ilhan and Ricardas Berankis. This is the 79th-ranked Russian’s second career showdown against Nadal, having previously gone down 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 in the third round of last year’s French Open. Kuznetsov is a clean ball-striker who does his best work on the slow stuff, but he does not have the necessary firepower with which to hit Nadal off the court. The No. 2 seed should cruise into the semis without too much trouble.
Pick: Nadal in 2 losing 5-7 games
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(1) Novak Djokovic vs. (8) Leonardo Mayer
Djokovic and Mayer will also be going head-to-head for the second time in their careers on Thursday. Their only previous encounter came at the 2014 Australian Open, where Djokovic coasted 6-0, 6-4, 6-4. Based on the Serb’s form, there is no reason to think much will be different this time around. Building on what was a purely dominant 2015 campaign, Djokovic is off to a 2-0 start this season with consecutive 6-2, 6-2 beatdowns of Dustin Brown and Fernando Verdasco.
Mayer has been similarly untouchable through two rounds, having dropped a total of nine games to Benjamin Becker and Pablo Andujar. The 35th-ranked Argentine is likely to narrowly miss out on Australian Open seeding, as he would have to pull off this monumental upset and then reach the Doha final in order to have a chance. Djokovic will not let that happen, as the top seed will be eager to make some kind of amends for his surprising quarterfinal loss at this tournament last year to Ivo Karlovic.
Pick: Djokovic in 2 losing 5-7 games
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Oh no! Kuznetsov bfeaks back.
I cannot believe what I am seeing.
Rafa cannot hold his serve.
Rafa breaks yet again.
Now, will Rafa consolidate the break for the win? Or will mental problems continue.
Stay tuned.
15-0
I’m guessing no time warnings today?
Double MP
Vamos Rafa.
Finally! Rafa wins!
Commies are nuts. Claiming Kuz is going to have a great year LOL.
Yes, I thought that was quite hilarious!
Now they will interview Rafa on court.
Win isn’t complete until someone posts a link to an animated gif.
Hope it appears soon so I can forward to Benny.
Someone keeps reporting about his imaginary friend ‘Benny’ AT 4:52 PM. LOL
You have your own tics, just like Rafa.
I put in CAPS where Rafa said mental problem. Someone wants everybody to think he is only joking.
Rafa says:
Normalmente me he aceptado los fallos. Este año, más que no aceptarme los errores ha sido un tema mental. Cuando uno tiene un PROBLEMA MENTAL, acepta menos las situaciones; no es que las acepte menos o de peor modo, sino que sencillamente no puedes analizarlas bien, con claridad. No es que no aceptase los fallos, sino que cada fallo me perjudicaba mucho; este año, cada fallo me ha hacía fallar tres veces más. El fallo, mentalmente, me ha generado una desconfianza mucho mayor de lo que lo hacía habitualmente.
AT 5:51 PM,
I didn’t put CAPS at AT 5:45 PM because it’s clear without CAPS that ‘Benny’ is someone’s imaginary friend – it’s mental problem. LOL
hawkeye,
Just for you – Rafa said in the interview that he was most pleased with the mental aspect of the match for him. He found solutions to get the win. Rafa said it himself! It’s all about the mental!
Someone doesn’t believe him.
hawkeye is hellbent on proving that Rafa needs psychiatric treatment and he is faithfully echoed by his yes woman. Strictly speaking, beyond a certain level tennis is purely mental. So high performing guys will talk of calmness, anxiety , stress etc but that doesn’t mean they have mental disorders like our quack and his assistant would have us believe.
Rafa said he was starting to worry that he might not even be able to play anymore.
Just like every other player.
Riiiiight.
Every other player isn’t in the rarefied elite heights like Rafa. You and your Djoko fan club may try to discount Rafa, paint Uncle T as demonic, Rafa as mentally incompetent ( amy claimed selfish Uncle T wasn’t allowing Rafa to get another coach. The implication:T is evil and 29 year old Rafa is unable to take important decisions related to his career i.e. is mentally incompetent. ) Your hm will jump in and say it is ok to accuse Rafa of all kinds of mental ailments but defending him against that charge is “beyond disrespectful” !!! Must have also attended your Univ!!!
I would like to see an example of where I, or the “hm”, said that it is okay to accuse Rafa of all kinds of mental ailments. You are making this up out of thin air to once again instigate. Which seems to be your primary reason for being here.
There is no Novak fan club, but there is a fan club that presumes to decide who is a real Rafa fan or who makes up phony accusations about Rafa fans being Novak fans. Convenient, but false.
There is again an absence of logic here.
Native at Jan 8 5:04
Hilarious!!! ROFL!!!!
Nadal said that for the first time, he felt the fear of not being able to play tennis and pointed out the mental challenge that had kept him from being the 14-time Grand Slam winner that he is. “For the first time in my career I went on the court with ‘fear of failure,’” Nadal said, reports Tennis World USA. “Not of losing, but of not being able to play.”
I am not a “yes” woman for anyone and I would appreciate it if you would not presume to speak for me. You invariably make it into a thinly veiled personal attack.
You repeatedly try to instigate arguments with your fallacious statements. Show me where I said that Rafa has an anxiety disorder. If you have been actually reading the comments on this site, then you would not jump to inaccurate conclusions.
In point of fact, on the issue of Rafa having an anxiety disorder, hawkeye and I disagree. However, we can do so in a respectful wsy without trashing each other. What a concept!
Rafa has Marchenko next. I don’t know this guy but am hearing some good things about him. I hope that Rafa can play better in that match.
But the important thing is that Rafa did get the win!
Finally! I dont think Rafa is happy with the way he plays. His serve is just so predictable, why dont go down the T more often? Probably he’s not confident enough, and even against a no.79 player?
Luckily he didnt lose this time to a no.79 player, it would be embarrassing again for him. Why cant he just step harder on the pedal once the first set is in the bag? This pattern is ongoing for so long its getting irritating.
I think Rafa is not going to have the luxury of doing this again against his next opponent. These lower ranked guys have nothing to lose and come out with no pressure and just swing for the fences with their shots.
Fortunately for Rafa, Kuznetsov started missing a bit. Rafa also played better in the third set.
UE’s – Kuznetsov 10, Rafa 1
Rafa is trough to the SFs! Vaaamooos!!!
http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/happy/cheering-clapping-smiley-emoticon.gif
Ricky,
Are you still here? I want to know about this guy Marchenko.
Marchenko is an even worst opponent for Rafa. He’s hitting the ball so hard and playing so well at the moment. If Rafa continues to play this way, I wont be surprised that he will be beaten.
Marchenko needed the trainer during his match, hope nothing wrong with him. After seeing Rafa’s level in this match, he must be liking his own chances of winning.
Marchenko is hurt
What’s wrong with him?
back injury
I have never seen this guy Marchenko but I know that Ricky was talking about him the other day on one of the topic threads. His record doesn’t look that impressive, but I guess it’s how he plays that is important.
Rafa will have to be ready for this guy. But this business of getting the break and then getting broken back is a pattern that is quite frustrating to watch. Once that guy Kuznetsov got the break, he started hitting winners and going for his shots. You don’t want to let these lower ranked guys back in the match and give them confidence that they can somehow get the win.
I think you are being too harsh on Rafa…and you should give some credit to Kuznetsov as well…he played some great shots, nothing Rafa could do about it…
My post above is a reference to the luckystar post at 5:02
Rafa gave him the chances to hit wherever he want. How many of these lower ranked players were doing this to Rafa these days? If they were so brilliant they would be at a higher ranking! Why Rafa seems to lose to these low ranked players so often compared to Fed or Novak? He allowed them to play that way against him and that to me is frustrating.
Rafa has big weapons just like Fed or Novak, yet he’s not using them well enough to win matches quickly but has to fight so hard so often.
Yep, many (not all) points, Rafa set Kus up with short balls. (same as Fog at US Open and Sod at FO).
i agree with lucky….rafa shouldn’t be working this hard when he could put matches to bed much more quickly. given his history of injuries it’s especially bad as he is putting so much unnecessary strain on his body. hawks is right when he says it’s mental…when you’ve been in the habit of letting things happen a certain way then it’s hard to get back to playing as you want.
i don’t buy into this endless recurrent line about rafa having the match taken out of his hands..he let’s players into the match and gives them belief.
you don’t see nole, fed and andy doing this time after time.
It’s called denial amy.
love the new avatar hawks…
amy, I know right?
Have to thank Ricky as I found it on one of his old articles.
Vamos Ricky!
huge talent back in the day. Disappeared due to injuries. Almost lost to Gulbis last fall. Got hurt against Chardy.
Ricky,
Thanks for the brief summary of this guy!
I just looked up Marchenko and he’s ranked 94.
I managed to see the third set but I recorded the match and will be able to watch it and analyze Rafa’s game. Whoever hits hard and fast going for broke can trouble Rafa. We learned it last year, didn’t we? No surprise there. However, there is a difference now: Rafa stays mentally in the match to beat an inspired opponent and refuses to surrender as he did on numerous occasions in 2015! So we should take positives from this match…and what is great is to see Rafa in the semis! Bravo Rafa!
Way to go, Champ! We love you! ??❤
Kuznetsov usually does not hit so hard and fast and go for broke against other players. He played like Fognini does against Nadal and not against others.
I have no problem taking positives from this match at all. But I also get concerned when Rafa is up a break in the second set and then gets broken and loses the set. It’s a pattern that we saw all last year and he has to find a way to not let it happen that frequently.
I think the key here is that Rafa did stay strong mentally and find a way to win. That’s what I am taking from this match. But I still don’t like seeing him have to work so hard against a player like Kuznetsov. He struggled against PCB and now this guy. Haase was more like what I want to see from Rafa.
I agree…
Exactly. Whats that to be happy about when he has to go the distance against guys ranked so low? No doubt they would go for broke against him but hasn’t Rafa learned about this fact and not allow them to gain any edge over him playing like that?
It’s not like they started going for broke from point one and Rafa had to defend right away. Why after winning the first set but letting them back into the match again and made life difficult for himself? Its not a one off but it happened so often its getting ridiculous. And whats with breaking his opponent’s serve but couldnt consolidate and getting broken right away?
If he couldnt sustain a good level over two sets, how’s he to do so over a BO5 sets match?
Sometimes I really dont like the Nadal attitude ( Rafa plus Toni), its like they think every match should be hard fought. Why dont they learn from Fed or Novak for once, ie be more ruthless and never allow your opponent back into the match?
Luckystar (AT 5:24 PM)
—Why dont they learn from Fed.., ie be more ruthless and never allow your opponent back into the match?—
===
.
They learned to beat him. 🙂
“learned” i.e., past tense. Long time ago, no?
Rafa will embarrass himself if he plays like this against Nole (assuming he gets there).
I agree about this idea of Rafa having to slug it out with nobodies. I don’t like seeing him expend this kind of energy in his first tournament of the year.
I think one thing Novak has been doing extremely well is winning efficiently. I think it’s essential for Rafa so that he can protect his body and stay healthy.
It’s the attitude of the opponents who following Rafa’s debacle in 2015 have strong belief they could end up beating Rafa! Novak with his huge success in 2015 has made himself invisible! That is the difference! The other thing is that Rafa does not have serve like Nole to bail him out.
Rafa
must work hard for every point and his opponents are very well aware of the fact that he tends to get tentative on key points so they do their all to taka advantage of it!
But Rafa is making progress in that regard. It is just the matter of time when they will all be trembling when facing Rafa…
That’s only one part of the difference.
The other part is that Rafa is no where near as consistent as he was in 2013. Better than 2014 granted but he is not a jedi yet.
That’s what I meant when I said “making progress”…I know he is not there yet but unlike most of you I learned to appreciate every little improvement in Rafa’s game rather than listing his flaws which I am well aware of…that’s all… ?
You have lowered your standard. What kind of progress if he cant do it consistently? His progress is too slow, when the AO is round the corner. We just can say that all the time, that comparing to 2015 he has already improved but is that all we gonna say the whole year?
Rafa has already ‘wasted’ one full year beating himself, and he’s no longer young. If he cant pick up the pieces quickly, he’ll miss his chances again at the AO this year and he’ll be another year older come AO2017! He has not much time to waste, if he’s serious in wanting to win some more slams.
Hey, what slow progress?! Maybe in your own eyes…he just won in Abu Dhabi and is in the semis of the first ATP tourney! He did not lose this year as far as I know…and you do remember how it was last year? So it sure is a progress!
Too slow for the AO thats what I meant.
hawkeye,
Yes, good point about the consistency. However, I am hoping that this will improve as Rafa continues on this year.
No, dont blame it all on 2015. Before 2015 some of these players were already playing this way against him and with successes.
Rafa has the bad habit of recoiling into defensive mode once he’s met with an aggressive player. He lost to Novak in the Masters so often because Novak was so aggressive on the get go, like MC 2013 for eg. Its just not in Rafa’s DNA to fight fire with fire, although he has the ability to play aggressive tennis on the get go if he so desires like at the slams. Rafa’s aggressive game is so good that he almost never lost playing that way. He beat Fed and Novak at the slams when he plays his aggressive game from the get go.
Rafa’ s game is mastered for offense AND defense…I think you are forgetting how many matches Rafa had won with his extraordinary defense which he turns into offense at will…Rafa is no longer that fast and such game plan does not work against those who can run forever and hit harder…but I see Rafa and his team working on it, changing things…it does not happen overnight… Rafa of 2015 is not the same as Rafa of 2013…and his game plan changes accordingly…it will just take time and matches to master the execution…
Rafa’s defence/offence game works best on clay but not anywhere else thats why he’s not dominating on non clay surfaces but could win some.
Like I said, he’s not going to fight fire with fire, so in the first place he has to be aggressive and never let his opponent has the opportunity to fight back. Right now he allowing them to do so. We are not talking about 2013 level, even back then Rafa was aggressive FROM the baseline, not exactly moving inside the court.
He’s now trying to play more inside the court, be offensive and shortens points when possible. However, he always couldnt sustain such a style all through a match but has lulls that cost him a set and as a result he has to spend time fghting to win in the end.
He has to be more ruthless and never let his opponent off the hook when clearly he has outplayed his opponent in the first set. It happened during his matcb vs Ferrer at WTF, abd at Abu Dhabi if I’m not wrong. The PCB match was different as PCB was aggressive from the start and so Rafa has to fight to win.
I completely agree with you and I think we do not differ match in our views…I also think Rafa has to be more aggressive but he is used to playing one way and the new game plan works for a while but it takes time to fully implement it…I feel he is not yet confident about his new game plan…
lucky,
I did not see the match with PCB, so I appreciate you pointing out that he was aggressive from the start. That creates a whole different dynamic in the match.
I think you do make an important distinction between opponents who come out blasting and matches where Rafa is able to be in control and then somehow lets it slip out of his grasp for at least a set.
nats,
I also wanted to chime in and agree with your point that Rafa is not yet fully confident with this game plan. He has to adjust and adapt and with time, it should pay dividends.
Btw, it’s 4:3 for Novak with Nole up a break but the statistics show Novak won 0% on second serve…(0/6) Interesting…
he was 1 of 12 at one stage