(1) Rafael Nadal vs. (7) Andy Murray
Ricky: The good news for Murray is that he played Nadal tough in a recent Rome three-setter, he seems to be well past his back-surgery issues, and he is playing the best clay-court tennis of his career (this is just his second-ever French Open semifinal). Unfortunately, that standard was still barely good enough to survive five-setters against Philipp Kohlschreiber and Gael Monfils. Nadal is not at his dominant best, but he has plenty of momentum after pulverizing Ferrer in the last three sets of their four-set quarterfinal. Since Murray won their first Grand Slam semifinal at the 2008 U.S. Open, Nadal has won four such meetings in a row–and none of those four meetings were particularly competitive. Nadal is simply far better than Murray at this point in majors, especially at Roland Garros. Don’t be surprised if this is a beatdown of the highest order. Nadal 6-4, 6-4, 6-1.
Steen Kirby of Tennis East Coast: Nadal just beat Murray in Rome, but it took him three sets. The Spaniard has won all five previous meetings on clay and he leads the overall head-to-head series 14-5. Murray has a had a great fortnight to reach the semifinals and it’s clear he is finally improving from back-surgery recovery time, but this is Nadal on red clay at the French and a back issue of his own has seemed better the past two matches. Murray is coming off two five-set matches, so I think this is the end for him…and in routine fashion. Nadal 7-5, 6-4, 6-2.
Joey Hanf of The Tennis Nerds: At one point Wednesday, with the sun fading in Paris, it seemed like both Murray and Nadal might have play their respective quarterfinals over two days. However, both men finished their matches in time and they were both rather bizarre contests. Nadal faced his first test of the tournament against Ferrer and after dropping the first set, he quickly found his best form and lost only five games in the next three sets. Murray played one of the craziest matches of the year, winning the first two sets against Monfils before dropping the next two. He then bageled the Frenchman in the fifth. The Nadal-Murray “rivalry” isn’t exactly a rivalry, but Murray has had some big Grand Slam wins over Nadal. He has beaten Nadal at the Australian and U.S. Opens, but clearly the Spaniard is different animal at Roland Garros. I haven’t seen Murray hit his forehand as well as he is now since Wimbledon last year, so I think he will push the favorite. But greatest clay-courter of all time simply does not lose in the semifinals. Nadal 4-6, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-1.
Jared Pine of the Second Serb: Tennis fans had to wait almost three years for this rivalry to be renewed a couple weeks ago in Rome, and it was worth the wait. Nadal came back from a break down in the deciding set to win 7-5 in the third. Now the two are meeting in the semifinals, the same round in which 11 of their 19 previous meeting have taken place, including seven in a row. Both players struggled at times in their quarterfinals but finished strong to advance, and will be relatively well-rested for their semifinal. This has always been a bad matchup for Murray and it is only worse on clay. Nadal should have no real problem getting to his ninth French Open final. Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
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(18) Ernests Gulbis vs. (2) Novak Djokovic
Ricky: This is going to be an intriguing battle between Gulbis’ offense and Djokovic’s defense. Djokovic, of course, is not a strictly defensive player, but Gulbis has never been more confident and he will come out swinging freely and will not let up regardless of the score. That tactic, combined with the fact that the Latvian is playing by far the best tennis of his life, will keep him competitive for a while. However, this is Gulbis’ first trip to a major semifinal. Djokovic, on the other hand, has slam semis for breakfast and he even has six Grand Slam titles. Experience will be factor, as will Djokovic’s superior ability to that of–say, Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych, and just about anyone–to make Gulbis hit extra balls to finish points. Djokovic 7-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Steen: Gulbis and Djokovic have not met in three years. Gulbis has never taken a set off the Serb in in his four losses to him, but he does have a lone win in 2009 on a hard court. Gulbis is on an amazing run and has enjoyed a fantastic past couple of weeks, having now made himself a Top 10 player. Djokovic, though, is also on a long winning streak and has dropped just one set in his five matches this fortnight. Gulbis thrashed Berdych in the quarters, but Djokovic is at a different level. Again, my pick is the higher seed and favorite in straight sets. Djokovic 7-6, 6-4, 6-1.
Joey: One of my favorite quotes of the year was Gulbis saying that he has chosen to go on the “gluten-full” diet. Of course, his semifinal opponent is famous for his gluten-free diet and if you think Gulbis’ statement was just a coincidence, think again. He was taking a little jab at Djokovic and it will be interesting to see how the match plays out. Gulbis has been serving very well all tournament and his movement has been Djokovic-like. However, the world No. 2’s motivation to complete the career Grand Slam may be greater than Gulbis’ motivation to be world No. 1, and that’s saying something. The Latvian always says nothing short of winning the tournament is a success, but I sensed a level of relief from him after his quarterfinal crushing of Berdych. The tipping shot in this match will be Djokovic’s backhand down the line, which will feed right into Gulbis’ weakness, the forehand. Gulbis will certainly not tank like some have in this tournament, but Djokovic will be too good in a best-of-five match. Djokovic 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, 7-6.
Jared: To say this is a dream semifinal would be a stretch since these two could have just as easily met in the first week in Paris. However, a match featuring two of the best two-handed backhands in the game right now is not the only thing that makes this a mouth-watering semifinal. This is a matchup of brute force and elastic defense between two friends, who even share a little bit of history at this event. Prior to this semifinal, Gulbis’ best result at a slam was the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in 2008, when he lost in three competitive sets to none other than the Serb. Djokovic has been a part of many thrilling semifinals at majors and this should be another one. Djokovic 4-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.
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Murray made it very clear in his presser that when rafa is playing like this, all your tactics and stuff go down the drain. I think he was implying that when rafa is hitting the ball that well, the match is on rafa’s racket.
We don’t know what’s going on in a player’s head. But what could be going on in novak’s head? My guess is that novak was overly confident after dispatching rafa in Rome. He knew that rafa is not the same on clay this year as rafa lost to ferrer and almagro. Then, novak’s 4 match win streak must have instilled greater belief. Then rafa’s potential back issues during the event must have made him feel his chances are great. BUT, in my view, lots of things have changed. Rafa’s ruthless dismissal of murray is BOUND to diminish djokovic’s belief. After all, if djokovic beat rafa at rome, murray also came awfully close to beating rafa ! Look what happened to him here.
Rafa has improve with every match this clay season.Literally. He was finally able to replicate his form on the practice courts in actual matches. These are signs of vintage rafa who is not afraid of anyone.
Djokovic, in my view, has not been that great during the fortnight. His opposition has been weak and he dropped one set each to Cilic and Gulbis when those guys played good tennis. So, I don’t think djokovic is playing very well. He is playing good tennis and I know he has a reputation of significantly raising his level against rafa. The weather on sunday will be in rafa’s favor. This will be a huge boost to rafa’s confidence and a dent to djokovic’s confidence. According to Muzz, rafa’s forehand was uncontrollable in the sunny weather as rafa was being very aggressive. It was cold/damp in rome so murray was able to profit from that.
Djokovic got bothered by the heat in the semi. so when he sees similar conditions on sunday, his confidence will definitely take a hit.
The weather, djokovic not playing scary tennis, rafa’s rejuvenation in terms of self-belief and performance , the final being a best-of-5 at Roland Garros, all make rafa the favourite in my view.
http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2014/06/23/Roland-Garros-Brain-Game-Djokovic-Nadal.aspx
I really like Craig O’Shannessy’s analysis and discussions of tactics,strategies and patterns. His knowledge is rich.
He has predicted djokovic in 4 sets and has written an insightful preview.BUT, i have a problem . Throughout his preview, he has only discussed ways on how to beat rafa …as in what should djokovic do given what has worked well for him in the past against rafa. Apart from suggesting that rafa shud serve more to djo’s forehand, he has not offered anything. A good part of this preview appears to be a tactical guide to djokovic !
the patterns can be made for rafa too…
vamosrafa (at 8:38 am)
—Throughout his preview, he has only discussed ways on how to beat rafa—
I have a feeling that money talks in his bank account.
I too have a lot of respect for O’Shannessy’s analyses and I agree with you @vamosrafa, this time he is letting his Novak fanboy ism get in the way! I like how these pundits act as if Team Rafa is sitting there doing nothing to counter Djokovic’s arsenal. Anyone who follows tennis knows how Rafa respects his opponents and Djokovic is no exception. Respect means you study your opponent’s patterns, understand what works for you and adjust accordingly. Also, Rafa is known as the best at making mid-match adjustments if needed.
Lord, it’s as if it’s Rafa and Uncle Toni against all the coaches in the world! That, is a measure of the respect they have for Rafa.
Vamos!
Craig definitely doesn’t need to discuss Rafa’s strategy who has already beaten Nole here many times.
For me, Rafa’s key to win would be:
1. Warm and sunny conditions
2. He needs to be aggressive with his FH right from the start
3. Target Nole’s FH with his FHDTL.
4. Will need to convert more than 70% of his 1st serve pts and >50% of his 2nd serve. Will need his bodyline serves to work well.
^^ 5. will need to play more meaningful BH’s than he did in their previous meetings, not just hitting those to keep the ball in play.
“Craig definitely doesn’t need to discuss Rafa’s strategy who has already beaten Nole here many times.”
This is quite irrelevant . so what if rafa has beaten him here? it is a clay court match no diff than any other grand slam match. Both players apply just about the same tactics on all surfaces. If nole has comperehensively beaten rafa in the last 4 meetings ,why is there a need to discuss what nole has to do ! Does not he have the ‘winning formula’?
Murray made it quite clear yesterday that when rafa is hitting the ball that well, tactical aspect loses its importance. He said you can have all the tactics in the world but rafa does not allow you to apply them.
The preview should have covered both aspects ! that is the purpose of a good preview.
Well, I for one can’t understand why is everybody here saying that Nole must be over-confident and all that stuff. He needed the win in Rome to be confident about his chances, not to be over confident about it. That match will give him the belief to at least push himself. I don’t understand how he would have felt better for the final if he had lost that Rome final. He is mature enough to understand the difference between confidence and over-confidence knowing that each day out there is different.
Also, Rafa stating those past 4-5 matches means that he too is affected by their previous encounters and thinks that it will have a role to play in their final.
Weather alert for Sunday. VERY unstable 🙁
But don’t hit the panic button just yet. The sudden mini heat-wave combined with turbulent winds veering all over the place are provoking thunderstorms. The situation changes from hour to hour which means there is no point trying to anticipate the exact timing even for today. It could be quite different by tomorrow afternoon.
Next Ed bulletin at 15.00hrs.
The world agrees Rafa is at his very best in warm sunny conditions.
Is there any evidence that Nole is better than Rafa when it is cold, wet weather?
I cant think of any matches when that applied.
What I do vividly remember however is the 2010 final against Soderling which had us all hyper-ventilating beforehand – acerbated the by cold, wet conditions which the pundits decreed favoured Soderling.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/frenchopen/7806935/French-Open-2010-Rafael-Nadal-is-world-No-1-following-defeat-of-Robin-Soderling-in-Paris.html
There was a poster on TT called Raindrops and we joked she had to do her ‘rain dance’ that day to keep the rain at bay.
Nope. There is no evidence that Nole is better than Rafa in cold conditions. It’s just about the warm conditions bring up much more potency to Rafa’s groundstrokes.
Don’t think you will find evidence. I think there is no doubt that nole will get the benefit from a damp,slow, heavy court and there are logical reasons for that. SO in a rafa vs nole contest, cold ,damp conditions on clay favor nole but that does not mean rafa cant beat him.
*note RG 2008 final was also played in damp,cold conditions.
I don’t attach any importance to what happened in Rome, even less to what happened in Miami, the WTF or Beijing. Rafa has never won many titles in the winter and he was suffering with back injury since the AO.
Rafa never talks himself up. He always goes along with the flow, acknowledging that he has lost to Novak 4 times in a row recently because he knows that’s what everyone wants to latch on to; just like he would call Fed the best in history and say how he would have to be at his best to have any chances against him, despite their h2h.
Rafa praised Murray before the SF, saying Muzz was a great player and one of the contenders for the title then crushed him. The British press interviewed Moya just before the match, who told them how much respect Rafa has for Andy and that Rafa expected a tough match. The commies also kept banging on about how Murray should have beaten Rafa in Rome, how he dominated the 1st set and how he led 4-2 in the final set and how Rafa only won that set 7-5. What did that match have to do with the SF yesterday……….NOTHING.
Ahmm.. Yes!
But Nole is not Muzz nor is Rafa!
Also after his 2011 losses Rafa does tend to reflect on his previous matches with Nole.
What are the significance of these previous encounters only the 2 of them know..
I would not say that the Rome final has no significance. It surely has. But the significance is definitely bring overhyped. Rafa was clearly under-performing in the rome final.
Rafa hit 15 winners to djo’s 43 winners in rome. this is sufficient evidence of rafa being far from his aggressive best. Keep in mind that rafa hit more winners than Djokovic in both RG 2013 SF and USO 2013 final ! Rafa is much more aggressive in slams and at RG, he is a diff beast. He has also started all their RG matches much more aggressively.
The rafa djo will be facing on sunday will be a diff proposition.
emailed you
At least Muzza had the consolation of winning twice as many games against Rafa at RG than Federer managed in the 2008 final lol.
In fact Roger has not been able to take Rafa to five sets at RG since the 2005 SF.
I think that SF was also the time Federer first came out with the quote (repeated several times since) “it is not always the better player who wins when it goes to 5 sets.”
Has repeating that statement many times make it at all more true?
what statement
that it’s not always the best player …
that is a true statement
Also true for best of 3
Would be for best of 1, too!
I think the question is, how often is it true: quite often or not very often? (and why say it at that moment … when a very promising player just turned nineteen beat you at the toughest court. In hindsight it was even less charitable a statement, given that the following four times Roger played Rafa at RG he lost again each time and while being in his prime.
The whole world and their fathers and mothers are offering Djokovic tactics and tips to beat Rafa..They all want someone else to win other than Rafa. We will see anyways what happens on the court.
Sanju (at 10:14 am)
The legionaries of the Federazzi have always wanted someone else to win other than Rafa.
All the weather predictions i have seen for sunday, it is sunny after 1 pm onward. Rain will be there but in the morning hours.
You obviously have not seen this latest update
http://paris.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-france/ville/previsions-meteo-paris-3903-1.php
I’m sure the final doesn’t commence until 15.00hrs.
I I’m also getting a nauseating feeling that this final would be a damp squib too.. and not a classic as many hope for.
In favour of whom to win ? Tell Tell
Can’t pick a winner.
^^^ you mean in terms of the level of play, or the outcome?
both.
I feel one of them would turn up flat.
If Rafa were to lose tomorrow he’d be the first player to lose all 4 major finals to the same opponent.
But he won’t let that happen.
All these computations and probabilities are neither here nor there. What I was trying to point out in my previous post is that what happened before mean nothing, it’s who plays better on the day and my gut instinct, which is all it can be, is that Rafa will prevail tomorrow.
Vamos Rafa
Yup.
The better player tomorrow will win!
The match in Rome does had a meaning..proves Rafa was nowhere near his best but that he showed no tendency ti fight hard for the win either…I kind of expected such outcome…Rafa knew there was no point killing himself in that final when he was not at his best while Nole was playing superb…so, well deserved win for Novak..does it have an influence on tomorrow’s match? Only to the extent that Rafa can expect Nole to repeat his performance and should be prepared for it..
read Nole’ statement to the Serbian press…he said he was ready to beat Rafa and lift the trophy…
This phone gives me a hard time..forgive my spelling errors..?
So all that talk about not feeling great and other things going on that he didn’t want to talk about was all eye wash as usual.
Exactly..I pointed it out before i read your reply… ?
@natashao,
any link to the Nole’s serbian press??
it was a print version of daily newspaper …but you could check these sites:
http://www.vijesti.me -sport
http://www.kurir-info.rs
Djokovic should have traded the WTF for the FO with Rafa although I think Rafa would prefer to win his 9th FO and not win the WTF.
The Halle draw is out
http://www.atpworldtour.com/posting/2014/500/mds.pdf
So the speculations about Nole being ill are far gone and just mind games…I hope everyone including Rafa is clear that Novak will start with all guns blazing…
The final is scheduled for not before 3 pm local time.
Thanks Naddy. As I thought.
Has Djokovic issued a fresh bulletin on the state of his health?
Where did the idea come from it might be mono setting in?
From the comments above I’m getting the sense the crisis has passed 😉
I think it was someone here who speculated about mono.. too much of imagination!
1. I think Djoker was making excuses fro dropping a set to Gulbis because he said it was half way through the 3rd set that he began to feel bad.
2. I think he wanted to spent watch the Rafa/Andy match hoping Andy might come through, although that’s no better fro him because Andy has beaten him in 2 slam finals.
He surfaced as soon as the match finished.
^^Those were my thoughts exactly regarding his delay to do press after his match, he went straight to the next telly with his team to see the Rafa/Muzza match and then concocted the illness story as is his wont.
Rafa will not be fooled.
Please tennis Gods, bring the sun tomorrow afternoon….
Vamos Simona!! Can you imagine if both Shriekapova and Djokovic won RG? Oh Lord, have mercy………………..
*reaches for the smelling salts*
I like Simona but I also like Sharpie primarily for her determination and her fighting spirit…IMO she is at advantage due her experience and mental strength… Please don’t make any parellel with Nole & Rafa match, I will call for augusta to intervene..?
^^What? Not even a compliment to Sharpie? Hahaha!
Even though I am not a fan, I admire Sharpie for precisely the same reasons: her fighting spirit. Honestly, it reminds me of a certain great from Mallorca. That is where the similarities end. Rafa plays tennis, Sharpie just bashes the ball, no tennis nous whatsoever…………
I wish she would tone down the shrieking though……………
Is he never going to learn?
To be absolutely frank. My first thought, when I read he was 2 hours late to the press room, was don’t tell me there’s a problem with the post-match drug test.
Wash your mouth out Ed ?
^^and you said MY cynicism knows no bounds??
With certain people my default mode is to think the worst.
Excuse my ‘grammar’ I started writing one thing then changed it but not completely. I read it over but saw what I thought I’d written.