Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka will battle for the Roland Garros title on Sunday. Djokovic is going for the career Grand Slam, while Wawrinka aims for his second major trophy.
Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka will be squaring off for the 21st time in their careers when they collide in the French Open final on Sunday afternoon.
Djokovic is dominating the head-to-head series 17-3, but that is not to say the matchup has been without drama. In fact, their last four Grand Slam meetings (and all of their completed slam showdowns that did not end in retirement) have resulted in five-setters. Djokovic won the most epic of all 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7(5), 12-10 in the 2013 Australian Open semifinals and he prevailed 2-6, 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 later that season in the U.S. Open semis. Wawrinka got some revenge with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 9-7 upset at the 2014 Aussie Open before Djokovic returned the favor 7-6(1), 3-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 earlier this year Down Under.
The world No. 1 is 5-1 lifetime against Wawrinka on clay and the only blemish came via first-set retirement at the 2006 Umag event. They have faced each other eight times since their last clash on the slow stuff, which came three years ago in Madrid (Djokovic got the job done 7-6(5), 6-4).
Although Wawrinka is a major champion who has always accounted himself well on red dirt, his appearance in the Roland Garros title match could not have been expected. The ninth-ranked Swiss had lost seven of his previous 15 matches leading up to this fortnight. Suddenly in swashbuckling form, Wawrinka has advanced with wins over Marsel Ilhan, Dusan Lajovic, Steve Johnson, Gilles Simon, Roger Federer, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga–almost all of them in convincing fashion.
Whereas Wawrinka (and Tsonga, among others) benefited from a weak bottom half of the bracket, Djokovic put in the hard yards during a daunting trek through the top half. After disposing of Jarkko Nieminen, Gilles Muller, Thanasi Kokkinakis, and Richard Gasquet, the top-ranked Serb made quick 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 work of nine-time champion Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray then pushed Djokovic to five sets in a semifinal spread out over two days, but the favorite survived 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 5-7, 6-1. He is now 41-2 for the season and has won 28 matches in a row.
As strong as Wawrinka is on clay, the underdog will struggle to hit through Djokovic’s borderline impenetrable defense on a relatively slow court. Djokovic did not have to spend too much energy in his continuation against Murray on Saturday–especially not physically–and the brief scare may actually serve as a wake-up call.
With Djokovic one step away from the career Grand Slam, there will be no stopping him now.
Pick: Djokovic in 4
[polldaddy poll=8915881]
http://www.si.com/tennis/2015/06/07/french-open-wertheim-fifty-parting-thoughts?page=4&devicetype=default
“I feel like this issue has been discussed enough already, but a few thoughts on the Carlos Bernardes and Rafael Nadal situation.
1) Still puzzling over the origins of this mishegas. You’re at a small ATP event in Rio. A veteran player—never mind a star—puts on his shorts backwards and asks to change. You’re the chair umpire, imbued with discretion. You’re not letting him leave the court to change? Really?
2) Nadal’s unwillingness to speed up his play is maddening in the extreme. The guy does so much right and is so sporting in so many other respects. Why not adjust your behavior to comply with the rules? Why even let this become the issue it has?
3) When there’s a dispute between an official and players, it’s thoroughly reasonable for the ATP and/or ITF to give them a “vacation” from one another. We do this all the time in other contexts. Siblings fight and we parents separate them. Attorneys feud with judges and efforts are sometimes made to keep them apart from the next trial. I would go further and suggest that it would be lousy judgment for the ATP/ITF had they NOT separated the feuding parties for a while.
4) But the issue here is the formalization of the policy. When Nadal admitted making the request and the ITF supervisor admitted that the request was granted, precedent has been set. The next player to have a beef will cite this case and we will have embarked on everyone’s favorite amusement park ride, the slippery slope
• In the wake of the controversy, here’s an email an anonymous official sent me: “I found it interesting that it has gotten so much attention as this situation is relatively common through all levels of tennis. All chair umpires, from college through the futures, challengers and ATP/WTA have a “no list” of players whose matches they don’t want to officiate, generally due to an issue that arose in a recent match. Most of the time umpires will only put a player on the list for a few weeks to give tensions time to defuse—in rare circumstances, perhaps after repeated issues, it might be permanent. This happens all the time, and most of the time the player doesn’t even know about it.
A player making the request, like Nadal did, is much less common, but is usually honored just like if the umpire had made the request. So much of being an effective chair umpire depends on having the confidence and respect of the players, and if a recent incident is in the back of a player’s mind, it can cause there to be a lack of confidence in the official before the match even starts. Our goal as officials is to give players a fair match without unnecessarily becoming part of the match, and you never want something from a past match to affect a future one—from either the player’s or official’s side. There are many qualified officials at all of these tournaments, so keeping one player away from a specific official, doesn’t burden the officiating assignments too much and generally makes for a smoother match for all involved.”
Spot on. However, I do not agree with #4, this is false logic. A precedent is not established by an admission of the facts (as Rafa did), it is established by an event occurring FOR THE FIRST TIME. The ATP official who wrote to Wertheim said what the ATP has consistently stated about this non-issue: it was not the first time a player had requested temporary separation from an umpire. If the Rafa/Bernardes affair was not the first time, it therefore cannot be the precedent setter.
This whole issue was driven by Nole and Fedfans hoping to use it to distabilise Rafa to Novak’s advantage in the context of the RG 2015 trophy, much like Roger has used the time in between points issue to try and distabilise Rafa’s march towards eclipsing his Slam haul.
Commies repeat this saga time and time again but making sure they never mention the issue about the shorts just going on and on about Rafa sacking an umpire for enforcing the time between points.
Please Rafa, get back to your winning ways soon, that’s all that matters. The rest is froth.
Wonderful post.
Anyone who is willing to look at this fairly can see how clear and simple the real situation is. But you have to be willing to look past years of distortion surrounding rg and rn.
Agree with ritb on point 4. Agree with Werthiem on Bernardes poor discretion.
However, this is what I sent to Wertheim after reading this article yesterday…
On Hawkeye at Roland Garros:
Hawkeye is not used on clay because its margin of error on ALL surfaces is 3-5 mm which is better on surfaces where the ball leaves no mark. The mark on clay is more accurate than 3-5 mm. If Hawkeye disagrees with the mark left on clay, it more than likely means that Hawkeye was wrong.
On Nadal’s unwillingness to speed up his play:
It is likely caused by an undiagnosed OCD condition that is not within his control.
The 20 second time limit was written when Tennis was played in long pants and fancy bonnets. More than half of the players exceed 20 s between points more than 10% of the time. It shouldn’t be about who goes over by the greatest amount of time.
Against Murray and Wawrinka, Djokovic on at least a dozen points per match went 25-35 seconds with no violation (only one warning). Remember, there is no discretion allowed in the rule for physically demanding long rallies (which most of the court conditions now encourage).
As Nadal said himself, he has played this way all of his 13 year career so why has this been the discussion for only the last three years (around the time he recorded his 10th slam when he turned 26). Coincidence?
I’m not saying everyone needs to bend for Nadal but the rule should be consistent and if you don’t want to allow for physical points, then put a 40 second clock out there. Forcing 20 seconds primarily on Nadal just makes tennis suffer.
(Will not respond to any bonehead insults from some-bot-y’s regurgi-post troll reply to this.)
^^Great! Why do I have the feeling every pundit knows this (issue about the time violations) but no-one wants to risk the ire of the Chosen One by pointing out the obvious…….
like I’ve been saying over the years: The Emperor Has No Clothes
They are not worried about Roger. They are just part of the federazzi GOAT machine
They are asleep..
#TheMatrix
Stan exposed Djerk’s shortcomings. Djerk basically defends the baseline and if you play attacking tennis against him he is toast. Rafa ought to bear this in mind. Djerk is good at winning best of 3 but he can’t maintain his precision defending from the base line over 5 sets too well especially if his opponent takes the game to him. Of his 8 GS titles a few of them went down to the line. He wouldn’t want to see Stan in his draw eve again because now Stan believes he can beat him.
I feel so much better that Djerk did not win in Rafa’s palace. The King will be back.
‘Djerk basically defends the baseline and if you play attacking tennis against him he is toast’ LOL… i am happy about stan’s win but hehe, this does not make sense haha…
Regarding belief, stan actually feels he can beat anyone! And he is proving it now.
I am happy about Stan’s win, but will not use it to now degrade Novak’s game. He is quite good at transitioning from offense to defense and mixes it up well. That’s one of his strengths. I am not about to trash him all over the place because he lost to Stan.
Stan won because he was the better player that day. He has always had the game to trouble Novak. But he didn’t have the belief. However, Stan did beat Novak in the quarterfinals at the 2014 AO, so he already knew he could beat him. He didn’t gain that from this win!
The idea that Novak can’t keep up a good enough level of play in a best three out of five set match, is not born out by the facts. The guy isn’t #1 for nothing! He also has 8 slams.
Amazing that some would demote Stan’s victory on the grounds of “bludgeoning” when that was the argument used against Rafa’s game, that he was just a ball-passer and didn’t come up with enough winners. So now they turn it around when it fits them.
The argument is as unfair as it is dead wrong and had it been the other way around we would never hear the end of it. Stan deserves to be praised for this amazing win.
For me, the only tennis I don’t like to watch is the ace after ace one, I don’t take anything away from it – if someone has this weapon good for them but, I just don’t like watching it. Even so, I wouldn’t call it bludgeoning either.
Well done to Stan and sorry for Novak’s fans, he was indeed very gracious in defeat and that long applause was nice to see.
++++++1
Agreed. When critics write about Rafa being in “beast mode” it sounds more like an insult than praise. Now they write about Stan playing in “beast mode” and we are to interpret this as the greatest strength a player can have.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/tennis/french-open-2015/top-stories/Novak-Djokovic-haunted-by-Paris-ghosts-of-Sampras-Edberg-Becker/articleshow/47580622.cms
Sanju, i replied to one of your posts on the previous page. Just telling in case you have missed 🙂
Which one Hasan? There are so many posts there..so difficult to find 🙂
haha..regarding open stance backhand
Eh, maybe you DID need to do something special and go a gear up to win the big cup at RG Novak, or maybe you are happy with the dinner plates:
http://www.tennisworldusa.org/Novak-Djokovic-believes-he-does-not-need-to-do-anything-special-for-Roland-Garros-articolo23983.html
“After lifting the Italian Open title, Novak Djokovic managed to grab his 4th ATP 1000 event of the year and with a 22 match winning streak before heading into Roland Garros, the Serbian believes he does not need to prepare to go all the way in Paris.
“I don’t think that I need to go a gear up; I don’t think that I have to do anything special in order to be successful in Roland Garros,” Djokovic said. “I have been very close to that title before, played several finals. I just need to continue preparing myself for that event as well as I’m preparing for any other, and try to keep the routine going. Hopefully that can bring me to where I want to be.”
With everything that he has achieved so far this year, this kind of confidence is not a bad thing at all for the Serbian. Djokovic has already won the Australian Open and has since gone on to lift every masters 1000 event he has entered – Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and now the Italian Open.
So as things head to the major part of the clay season, Djokovic might already be the pick for many to be crowned champion at Roland Garros. Only time will tell, whether Djokovic is able to do that or not.”
Pride does indeed come before a fall………………
I am convinced..you just wont stop 🙂 Haha
So mean you are , poor guy..stop shoving dinner plates at his face 🙂
Won’t stop until all the mean juices in me are drained, or Rafa starts winning important matches, whichever comes first. 🙂
sanju, you enjoy Rafa’s slumps so spare us the sanctimony.
Yes after every slump, he rises like a phoenix..so as well enjoy the downs 🙂
Sanju,
Novak lost because Stan played inspired tennis. It wasn’t about Novak when all was said and done. Stan came out and played like a man on a mission. He didn’t let up, kept his focus, fought off break points, served extremely well, hit his SHBH will brilliant precision and accuracy. He was the better player on the day.
Djerk has enough cups he needs some trays. 🙂
^^^^Nadline: Love that one, I’m nostalgic for the days when you and deucey used to trade gags
The sienna of Tenngrand. Congrats.
After winning so many RG plates, Novak can now melt them into a nice trophy!….hehe!!!
Fed @ Wimbledon
Rafa @ RG
Nole @ AO
People of tennis community need to understand one thing – Nobody can beat these guys when they are playing there best on these surfaces.
Period!
no way
^^^Riky
Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the comment by abhirf?
Agree with Ricky.
Rafa beat Fed at his best @ Wimbledon.
Stan beat Nole at his best @ AO.
At least you got one out of three!
Doesn’t Fed have the same number of AO Slams as Novak, 5? So can we not argue that Rafa beat Fed at AO at a time it was one of Fed’s best surfaces?
too bad that at ’09 Fed had two days or rest and Rafa one, too bad Rafa had an exhausting 5 setter semi and could barely move to practice on the Saturday in between and on the Sunday morning 🙂
federer has won 4 AO titles, not 5 ..
Rafa @ RG true
Other 2 definately not true
Fed got beaten by Rafa in 08 Wimby and it was Roger at his near best or best. His level was equal to his 07 level, Rafa just improved in 08 vs 07. It wasnt that Roger wasnt playing well ,I give it to you that he had some mental demons of the thrashing he got 4 weeks back at RG 08, so mentally maybe a bit weak however no issue in his game.
Rafa beat Fed when he was at his best in Wimby
^^Ting!
Nope he wasn’t. Most definitely not. Using that logic, Nadal was fit in AO 2014. Nadal doesn’t have a monopoly on lack of fitness excuses. Fed lost shitloads on trraining period and according to Pierre was playing catch-up the whole year.
OxC says:
June 8, 2015 at 12:14 pm
—Using that logic, Nadal was fit in AO 2014—
============================================
Rafa wasn’t fit, he got injured during the warm-up of the AO 2014 final. He was suffering from that back injury (facet syndrome) all year round.
Wimbledon
As a very young player, still improving on grass, rafa came close to beating fed at his best at Wimby in 2007. (Before actually beating him there in 2008.)
Had they met again at Wimby with a healthy rafa in subsequent years the best grass player ever (rf) might have been beaten there again by rafa… not at all unlikely.
Remember the ’08 match? Over 5 sets Roger did not once break rafa, if memory serves. It was almost over in 3. And in 4. The level of tennis was outstanding throughout most of it… could not be described as mere ball-bashing or physicality etc.
AO
Rafa has been injured etc more often than I care to remember at AO. Even in Novak’s best 12 months, at AO ’12, when rafa had been defeated 6 times in a row by Novak, the match was very close through the last sets, remember? That match alone spells that it is far from certain that at his best Novak cannot be defeated at AO.
RG
Now, and with no bias! :-), rafa at his best at RG? We have 8 tournaments where he was at his best or close enough and no one came close, and one where he was not at his best and one came a little closer still did not win. 9 out of 9.
Roger broke rafa’s serve one time in that match. He was up a break in the second set before rafa stormed back to take the set 6-4.
Well, rafa at RG is on a totally different level than federer at wimbledon or esp novak at AO.
Novak got beaten by stan in AO in 2014 and he was pushed to 10-8 by stan in the final set in 2013. Novak is very strong at AO but rafa’s level at RG is a totally different thing.
In Wimby 2008 final, Roger was very good but not at his best.
His service was pretty average that day comparing how he has served there over his career.
Also about not even getting close in a best of 5 when Rafa is at his best: Rome 2005, 2006 finals and RG 2013 SF comes to mind.
dunno, I stayed home the entire glued to the tv… they both played at an incredible level, by all accounts.
I think that the facts of Rafa’s level on grass when in good form versus Roger’s level on grass when in good form… i.e. similar level… do not sit well with millions of people out there.
Like I said, very good Roger vs Best Rafa!
Even a good Roger day on grass makes for pretty high level quality.
The fact that Roger played much better in the last 3 sets should be enough to suggest that he didn’t played his best that day.
revisionism, I think
roger at wimbledon 2008 was best roger on grass
Perhaps that was hard to acknowledge even while watching it because …
too much cognitive dissonance between …
on the one hand:
the 22 two year old claycourt specialist, still improving on grass, with a positive H2H against Roger nearly won in 3 and 4 sets and then did in 5 … against Roger at his prime and with multiple Wmbledon titles to his name
and on the other hand:
the notion that roger was the better on grass by a long shot than anyone else. He was, compared to all… with this one exception of this improving young claycourt specialist.
It was well before 2008 that biases around Roger and Rafa became entrenched and hardly questioned.
abhirf,
we’ve had similar conversations before,
I wonder,
have you ever had at least some glimpses of truth of the biases we rafans have been pointing out over the years, or are in your views all those things we point out just our misconceptions because of being a fan of this particular player?
abhirf, ok even if we agree it was roger not at his absolute best on grass in 2008, what makes you think rafa was ? Just look at rafa’s serve back then! It was an improved shot but weak as compared to what it became in the years after ! His forehand was also nowhere as aggressive as it got in the years after that! Only his backhand was near its top level.
Rome 2006, again, rafa was the king of clay at that time but his serve was a joke at that time! he just used to roll it in to start points with some advantage! His approach was so much more defensive too. It was 2008 onward he started playing with aggression on all surfaces! Hence , the 2008 RG where he lost about 1.4 games on average per set throughout the tournament!
No Rafa just felt the pressure of closing out the match and temporarily let Fed in.
It is all opinion about who played best.
2008 is considered by most to be the best match in the history of the game. It is somewhat self serving as a fan to suggest that such a match was possible when one guy was not at his best.
Novak has a very efficient mundane style. What is his signature shot? He makes few mistakes, to his credit, but wins most matches due to his opponent’s bad play than his excellence. I don’t get the point danica made about Novak having to get passed Rafa at RG being the reason he’s failed to win it; everyone has had to go through Rafa in 11 years and the 2 people who beat a les than 100% Rafa didn’t win the title. People have to acknowledge Rafa’s dominance at RG for over a decade. It’s unheard of to only lose 2 matches out of 93 in best of 5 sets on clay in 11 years. That is who I call a GOAT.
Novak couldn’t hang with Stan yesterday, Stan was the superior player.
Stan played very well, and adapted his game to Novak, after first set.
Yet Stan did not play the best claycourt played there in the last 12 years. That was done repeatedly by Rafa, and that level of claycourt game is far higher than anything we have yet seen from Novak at RG, this year and all previous years.
With the possible exception of his first match with Rafa there 9 years ago when he retired two sets down yet ‘in control of the match’. 🙂
“Novak has a very efficient mundane style. What is his signature shot? He makes few mistakes, to his credit, but wins most matches due to his opponent’s bad play than his excellence”.
This better be a joke !!!!
No, it’s just denial from an overly obsessed Rafan. Nothing new.
vamosrafa,
Yes, it is a joke! Really? Novak lost in the final! Okay! But now the trashing and revisionist history regarding his game? Really?
It is beyond a joke! It’s insulting!
Just imagine, if Djokovic had won, we would have endured a treacly speech about how marriage had matured him, made him a better man, made him a better player, he can now hit overhead smashes and volley, all thanks to holy matrimony.
As it is, my only criticism of Wawa’s speech was his not telling the whole world how his recent messy and very public separation from his wife helped his game focus, helped improve his game and winners count per game.
😉
We all know there would be some idiots on Tour who would be sorely tempted to try out Wawa’s blueprint for success. I mean, some did go gluten free, no?
Maybe some should adopt cold shower, 10 pre-game rituals, two towels, perfectly adjusted bottles… a guaranteed success for a near perfect record at the toughest tournament. Sorry, couldn’t resist :-).
Or, if you are a woman pro player, take some time off to develop your fashion industry. You stand to get to 20 slams and still be going strong.
^^Touché!
@RITB
You forgot to mention his declaration just before his child was born………………………….
‘without a doubt priorities change: my priority.is my family: tennis is not the number one anymore”
The commies never stopped referring to his newly married state in the run up to the USO and the fact that he was now a father for weeks after the child arrived.
I seem to recall he cut short the ‘paternity leave’ to jet out east for the Asian swing barely ten days after the birth. No sharing the night time bottle feeds, changing nappies etc.
So what is Novak’s signature shot? The BHDL? How often does he use it? How often is it his go to shot?
I know you hate djokovic but such delusion? LOL.
Backhand DTL is a signature shot for him but you don’t even have to go beyond the second shot in a rally to see his signature shot. His ROS! My God…perhaps he has the best returns ever!
It’s a figment of someone’s imagination that he is the best returner of all time. he has problems returning serves from the giants. Don’t be so gullible and swallow everything you’re told.
We don’t need to swallow what we are told. We can pretty much derive our conclusions from what we have seen.
Nole is the best returner at present and maybe of all times.
nadline is necessarily delusional to maintain her reality.
Tiggy’s awfully quiet post final, I wonder why? Would expect to have seen his take by now…….
Here you are…
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2015/06/2015-french-open-final-stan-wawrinka-novak-djokovic/55199/#.VXWmcc9VhBc
Djoko won just 1 point off Stan’s 2nd serve in the whole of the 2nd set! How about that for the best returner of all time?
But Stan’s 2nd serves were far more powerful than many would even attempt.
Many of 2nd serves ranged around 110 mph. That is insane.
You still seem confused about Return of Serve vs the Return Game.
forget it…some posters have no clue about the difference between return game and ROS…
YES! This is not the first time it has been pointed out!
yeah…rafa told us too novak has the best returns ever….. why do you lie rafa? such a bad guy you are .
Cannot believe someone can be this delusional but nadline keeps raising the bar. I remember once dimitrov gave rafa a tough time in Monte carlo and after the match she said dimitrov has the best one handed backhand on the tour because he was hitting it so well against rafa . LOL …..Dimitrov having the best one handed backhand and now novak relying on opponent’s mistakes and not having any weapons of his own! HAHAHA
a guy has 8 slams, 24 masters 1000, has beaten rafael nadal 21 times, has beaten roger federer 19 times but he basically relies on opponents’ mistakes to win matches. HAHAHAHAHA
nadline used to be a tennis fan but she gave all that up because of the weak era and now loves Rafa instead of tennis. Nothing new.
Thank you! Well said! 🙂
Yes, Rafa did say that in 2011 so everyone has latched on to that. That was in 2011 it doesn’t apply anymore. ROS and return game is semantics. You set up control of the point with the quality of your ROS.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
No. It’s not,
Service return percentage and return games won percentage are undeniable numbers.
At one time before the Weak Era, I believe that you probably knew this.
Why don’t you pay attention to Rafa if he is your favorite player? He just said at RG when he was interviewed that Novak is the best player right now, that it will be difficult to beat him, he will have to play at his best!
Well? How can you trash Novak when Rafa himself has given him all due credit? Doesn’t Rafa always tell the truth? Or is Rafa lying now?
I don’t get it!
You guys just don’t like an objective point of view.
No such thing.
Just like nothing can travel the speed of light.
But with that analogy in mind, you are not even moving.
so what is your objective point of view? LOL … ferrer, murray have incredible ROS…
what is your ‘objective’ point of view? hehe
Sorry, if I am disrupting the topic of discussion. Just felt compelled to write
read somewhere at the top about the Wimbly 2008 finals, when Roger Federer was supposedly not at his best.
Thats B/S, Fed had the BEST Wimbly that year till the finals. Till the finals, he did not lose a set and was broken the least number of times. Guess once or twice.
He played great in the finals. He was just beaten by Rafa who played even better. Perhaps the best performance of his career.
Surely, a match of that quality cannot be produced if one player was not at his best.
Brilliantly stated backed up with real data.
and brushed Safin aside in 3 sets in the semis and later he said something like ‘ this is my part of the season’ … he was being cocky but oops…. got dethroned
What are you saying man? Since when has Safin been a legend on grass? And Roger beating people in straight-sets on grass is no biggy. He’s by far the best player of this era on the surface. That by and of itself does not come even remotely close to an assessment of his form.
He was very satisfied with his form and was dimissing the field just like in previous years. He dropped one set en route to the final (lost one set to Ferrero) but did not drop a set en route to the final in 2008. He was claiming ‘it is my time now’ and he was beaten by rafa! Do you honestly think rafa had developed his aggressive game fully back then? NO WAY. His serve was underdeveloped and forehand was nowhere as aggressive as it got in later years.
Federer is undoubtedly the best on grass as far as this generation is concerned! He leads the field with a HUGE margin. The point being discussed is, he was never at the same level of dominance as that shown by Nadal at RG! Federer was lucky not to run into nadal in 2010 because the 2010 rafa was serving so much better, hitting his forehand more aggressively . Nobody here is saying rafa is better on grass! NO WAY.
Rafa’s best at RG is a totally different level. That is what being said ! Nobody is questioning federer’s brilliance on grass!
Roger had not dropped a set until the final at Wimby 2008.
Atul,
Bravo!
something can travel at the speed of light = light.
implied
RITB..Tignors article
http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2015/06/2015-french-open-final-stan-wawrinka-novak-djokovic/55199/#.VXWwss-qqkp
Thanks @Sanju
Haha, no way does Roger at his best on grass lose to a guy who struggles to make it out of the first week at Wimbledon most of the times. Fed fought like a lion, there’s no doubt about it. He wasn’t going to let go of the trophy so easily but what he played that day wasn’t grass court tennis (nor was it his physical best. He was visibly tired in the fifth set and literally getting by only on his serve). Could it be mental?Yeah probably though I don’t buy it. But he wasn’t spectacular from the forecourt throughout the tournament. Interestingly, he was brilliant on that front during AO 09, but with his back problems becoming an ongoing issue by the end of 2008, his serve failed him completely which, even against Nadal is a huge surprise. And then of course it is the court speed at Wimbledon. I was watching the final last year and I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. Djokovic was moonballing on some of the points, Roger’s slice had no bite to it and it looked like a re-run of an Australian Open match with Roger banging his head against a brick-wall. The comments for both matches had a premium on superior defense and rallies when in fact, the awe and excitement ought to have been reserved for superior offense. To be fair, 2009 had the same problem. Luckily for him, they had to close the roof for both the Semis and Final matches in 2012 and that is the first time in a long time, I’ve seen Roger attack confidently on grass. Trust his superior offense to do the job for him. Otherwise, he pretty much plays with a sword dangling on his head.
OxC says:
June 8, 2015 at 4:33 pm
—Haha, no way does Roger at his best on grass lose to a guy who struggles to make it out of the first week at Wimbledon most of the time.—
=========================================
Rafa reached the final in 2006 & 2007:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHDqF3CWgAAmKIW.png
Doesn’t change the fact that he barely makes it out. With the exception of 2008, he has struggled every single year. Obviously once the top cover of the grass is eroded the surface plays even more conducive to Nadal’s style. The fact that both Nadal and Djokovic have the same number of Wimbledons as Edberg and Becker displays the extent to which the game has regressed with crucial skill-sets being lost to bare athleticism. It is not an issue of artistry but an issue of amazing skills being rendered irrelevant on the court to satiate uneducated and uninitiated masses. It’s borderline ludicrous to think of how little these guys have to adjust (and they STILL struggle). I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy watching ping-pong in the name of tennis.
I at times cannot understand why cant some Rafa fans give proper credit to his main rivals and always find faults in them. What is wrong in acknowledging the truth? Also why keep Rafa on a pedestal when he is clearly not there during many parts of his career? He has faced ups n downs like anybody else.
Also if people are finding faults in Rafa, not sure why question the integrity of his fans . Who said that fans are supposed to be blinded by their love and keep their blinders on.
RAFA IS HUMAN, HE IS NOT GOD THE ALMIGHTY.
gussie and quite often nadline seem incapable or unwilling to understand and accept this
June 8, 2015 at 4:58 pm
—gussie and quite often nadline seem incapable or unwilling to understand and accept this—
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chloro is incapable or willing to understand that people are entitled to give their opinion if they so wish.
[I used somebody else’s quote]
Correction:
incapable or willing ➡ incapable or unwilling
well said Sanju…..I really agree with this!!
Sanju,
Preach it! You go! Don’t take any crap!
You are a Rafa fan through and through just like everyone else. Just because you don’t have blinders on and don’t worship Rafa like a God, does not mean you aren’t his fan!
We have Rafa’s own words. He has given full credit to Novak. He has praised his game many times. He has respect for the other top players. If he can say positive things about them, then why can’t his fans?
I just think it’s unfortunate that after Novak lost, his game and achievements must be degraded. I do not like him, but I am not about to demean his accomplishments. You don’t win 8 slams in this sport by playing crap. The unfortunate thing is that what is being said here about him is similar to what some obsessed Fed fans have said about Rafa. They have degraded his game as he continued to beat Fed. They did not respect Rafa’s game. Yet now here some are doing the same thing in trashing Novak’s game.
The guy can play! He’s got the talent. He has played Rafa tough and beaten him at slams. So let’s give the guy all due credit. He lost the final because he wasn’t the best player. Stan got the better of him. But Novak isn’t going away. He’s the #1 player with maybe the biggest lead ever in ranking points. That’s not something that can be trashed or just ignored.
Stan beat Novak in 4 yesterday..well if it was Rafa..the sorry state Rafa is in today..he would have been crushed in straights . Novak can absorb the power better than Rafa at this stage of their careers.
Stan would have beaten anyone yesterday.
^^^^Cant argue with that Sanju! You have always been Rafa’s harshest critic ever since I can remember. Cheryl once said how you must drive the rest of us crazy with your anti-jinxing 🙂
Rafa said he didnt watch the finals and was busy practising!!
What do you think about Rafa’s chances at Wimbly?
Atul1985 says:
June 8, 2015 at 4:42 pm,
—Rafa said he didnt watch the finals and was busy practising!!—
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You can see the proof on the Rafael Nadal page.
For me, it depends how much match play Rafa gets before Wimby. If he plays Rosol on Wednesday and is tentative (being 1st match on grass and all) and is blasted off the court, that will reduce the amount of time he spends on court, not good. Of course he gets another chance for more time on court at Queens but you get my drift………..
If he can get to the semis at both Stuttgart and Queens then I think he can get into Wimby reasonably confident.
His chances at Wimby? Massively depends on the draw……………
If he makes the QF, will be a good result in my opinion.
I agree Sanju. Lets see.
The extra week of rest would have really helped Rafa in the past couple of years.
This year, he got the extra week of rest during the French Open itself…lol
Agree. At this point if he survives the first week it’s a success story. Remember he only has 150(?) points to defend from Wimbledon. Any points he can earn is gravy,
He may have some good results in the grass season. Ultimately there are only two things I’m concerned about.
No injuries.
And somehow work out his mental issues… that anxiety … that seems deep-seated. I do believe that this is as necessary, if not more, than the thing that seems to be enough and used to be enough: getting enough good wins to rebuild confidence. Until that is sorted he will never be safe from the sort of bad days he’s had often enough all season now. I just wish that thinking about adding a past pro to his team were as ‘normal’ for rafa’s team as it is for other teams of other top (and wealthy) players.
#MagnusLarsson
As much as I’d like to blame that faux pas on my spell checker, I’ll have to admit to a senior moment there…
#MagnusNorman
(Then again, Larsson is available soooo…)
Atul,
I think that Rafa needs to get matches under his belt and get the feel of the grass. He’s always talked about the importance of getting practice for the transition to grass. If he can get some wins in the warm up tournaments, then we will see.
I am not ready to make any predictions specifically about Wimbledon. Rafa is now at #10 and his draw is going to be quite different because of that. Things are different now. I would like to see Rafa have a good run because it will help his confidence. But we will just have to wait and see.
Not losing in the first or second round would be a great help!!
First year ever with Rafa that I am not dreaming of him winning……
such a bitter irony about the extra week this year when he is out early from RG…