The all-too-early but highly-anticipated Roland Garros quarterfinal between the two title favorites is upon us. World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and nine-time champion Rafael Nadal will collide on Wednesday.
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will be facing each other for the 44th time in their careers when they meet in the quarterfinals of the French Open on Wednesday.
Nadal is leading the head-to-head series 23-20, including 14-5 on clay. His clay-court dominance, however, once stood at a commanding 9-0 over Djokovic. They are an even 5-5 against one another on the slow stuff dating back to the start of the 2011 campaign. In even more convincing evidence of a turning tide, Djokovic has won five of their last six encounters overall. The Serb most recently cruised 6-3, 6-3 earlier this spring in the Monte-Carlo semis.
Interestingly, their first-ever showdown also came in the quarters at Roland Garros. Nadal was cruising 6-4, 6-4 in 2006 when Djokovic retired and allegedly claimed to be in control of the match when it came to a premature end.
Nadal is 6-0 lifetime against Djokovic at this event, including 17-4 in total sets. One of their most memorable collisions came in the 2013 semifinals, with the Spaniard escaping 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7(3), 9-7 en route to the eighth of his nine titles.
The full head-to-head history:
The two title favorites have cruised without much trouble into the last eight. Djokovic has improved to 39-2 on the year–including 26-0 in his last 26 matches–thanks to straight-set victories over Jarkko Nieminen, Gilles Muller, Thanasi Kokkinakis, and Richard Gasquet. He has not even been extended to a tiebreaker.
Whereas Djokovic was brimming with confidence even before his arrival in Paris, Nadal apparently needed what is maybe his favorite tournament to restore order to his otherwise disappointing 2015 campaign. Of course, that would only happen with a win over Djokovic followed by his 10th Coupe des Mousquetaires. But it has been so far so good for Nadal this fortnight. The world No. 7 has gotten the best of Quentin Halys, Nicolas Almagro, Andrey Kuznetsov, and Jack Sock, surrendering just one set to Sock in the process.
“It is not the final, you know,” assured Nadal, who will turn 29 on match day. “It’s a quarterfinal. And, no, the winner of that match will not (yet) be the Roland Garros champion. [He] will be a semifinalist. That makes a big difference. Even if it’s a special match, it’s a quarterfinal match.”
“Of course it is a different approach mentally when you play Nadal in quarterfinals than any other player,” Djokovic assessed. “There is no doubt about that. I’m going to try to keep my routine the same. I know what I need to do to have a chance to win. That doesn’t mean that I will win. The future is unpredictable.”
The top seed is correct, especially when something extreme has to give. Will it be Nadal’s 70-1 lifetime record and nine titles in 10 appearances at Roland Garros that suffer a blemish, or will Djokovic’s positively dominant 2015 campaign take a rare hit? In the end, current form should rule the day. Nadal, of course, will put up a commendable fight and show flashes of his French Open brilliance. But he may be underdone by a propensity to leave returns way too short and the occasional errant forehand that is becoming surprisingly common in his game.
Pick: Djokovic in 4
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Everyone is expecting Djoko to win 100%, I think he will win 80% but there can be a upset too..You never know
against gulbis in the semis last year he struggled with the heat and made some bad errors…it’s much much hotter on friday and murray is a very strong player defensively speaking….
Oddsmakers agree with you sanju giving Nole a 75% chance to win.
Murray has lost to him 8 times in a row..the question is does Murray believe?
I don’t think it’s about Murray – his game on clay isn’t good enough to beat Djoker under normal conditions. but if it’s hot and Djoker starts getting panicky and making errors in the way he does in the heat then it could happen….Murray trains in Miami….he’ll cope with it better..
He lost to Djoko in Miami 6 0 in 3rd rem 🙂
but it wasn’t very hot then was it??!!
TBH, the heat sensitivity is one of the improvements I’ve noticed. Nole looked like he was wilting when he lost to Nishikori at the USO.
However, it was 33 deg. (likely higher on court) when Nole destroyed Roger in Rome last month.
andyroddick @andyroddick 18h18 hours ago
Take a second and say it out loud.@RafaelNadal has won 9 French Opens.Cant take those away.Perfectly executed match by @DjokerNole. Props!
Rafa in Spanish: 1st you congratulate him, 2nd is to accept the loss, 3rd is to analyze why I lost then work really hard #RG2015
Not the words of burn-out.
#GOAT
rafa has always said 1 and 2 after a loss, and 3 as well whenever there were reasons to analyze… as opposed to just a bad day or an opponent who was just too good.
“I accept the defeats and there is only one sure thing: I want to work harder even than before to come back stronger,” Nadal said following the match.
“I am going to fight. I lost in 2009 and it was not the end. I lost in 2015 and it is not the end. I hope to be back here next year with another chance.”
and in March…
It’s not the question of tennis, [It’s] the question of being relaxed enough to play well on court,” Nadal told reporters. “Today my game in general improved since a month and a half [ago]. But at the same time, [I’m] still playing with too many nerves for a lot of moments, in important moments.
“I have been able to control my emotions during 90 per cent, 95 per cent of my matches of my career… But I’m going to fix it,” he said. “I don’t know if [it’ll be] in one week, in six months, or in one year, but I’m going to do it.
He’s obviously motivated (which, for me, isn’t burn out).
For me, it is anxiety that has finally reached a point that it is severely impacting his confidence and game exacerbated in no small part by past injuries and feeling rushed.
#BetweenTheEars
hawkeye,
agreed
please send him a text message suggesting kindly he try things he hasn’t tried before to help with the anxiety 🙂
“It’s not a big surprise, no? I didn’t win enough before here. It’s something that could happen when you see the draw.” -Rafael Nadal #RG15
“I was doubtful about myself the 11 years that I was playing here. I won nine and I lost twice. Doubts are good in life.”-Rafael Nadal #RG15
Tempered doubts, yes. Excessively angst-ridden doubts, no.
exactly hawkeye!
From an article just prior to Rafa’s return in 2013…
Nadal plays hit-and-run tennis. Just keep hitting. Just keep running. Hardcourts splinter his knees and the Australian Open would have been an unforgiving examination. The indisputable fact is that he will return immediately to the obsessive-compulsive rituals that soar beyond superstition. Nadal’s world collapses unless he performs a checklist designed to provide “the order I seek in my head”.
He must have a cold shower 45 minutes before a match.
He must carry one racquet on to the court.
He must have five other racquets in his bag.
He must have wrapped his own white grip on his racquets in the locker room.
His bag must be placed next to his chair, on a towel, never on the chair.
He must sprint to the baseline after the spin of the coin. A split-step and then a jog around the back court.
He must towel down between every point. It can be ace or double fault – he must towel down as if he is covered in sweat.
He must run his hair behind both ears.
He must touch his nose.
He must pick at his underpants.
He must drink from two water bottles at changeovers. One bottle has cold water, one is warm.
He must face the labels of his drink bottles to the end he is about to play from.
He must never rise from his seat before his opponent.
He must wait at the net post so his opponent can reach his seat first.
He must never walk on the sidelines as if he is avoiding cracks in the pavement.
On clay, he must run his foot along the plastic baseline on the side of the court he is about to play from.
At the Australian Open, when going from one side of the court to the other, he must walk across the MELBOURNE sign.
He must have his socks at the exact same height.
He must fold his towels after every changeover.
Her cannot step on any lines on the court.
It can be quirky. It can be annoying. Disrespectful? Opponents are kept waiting while he stuffs around. Point being, he cannot help it. He has walked through a hotel foyer in Sweden, hopping around the marble floor like he was playing hopscotch.
“What are you doing?” he was asked. “What is that movie with Jack Nicholson?” Nadal replied. “The one where he’s walking down the sidewalk and …
“You mean As Good As It Gets?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s it.” Nadal laughed: “I love that movie.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Maybe I hate cracks, too.”
Nadal is as fair as they come. Among the big four in men’s tennis of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Nadal, the Spaniard just might be the most genuine and likeable of them all. He has tried without success to stop every twitch. Is this not a diagnosable psychological condition? “Man,” his coach and uncle Toni Nadal said, “He will tell you what you want, but I am zero obsessive. At first I didn’t mind, but a player who puts bottles in line with the court and will not step on lines is obsessive.
“Once he told me about a movie As Good As It Gets. He was saying how superstitious the main character was and I said: ‘He’s like you’. And he replied: ‘No, no’. When you do senseless things over and over, you’re superstitious. He has told me before he can stop doing them and I have told him to do it. “I like things that are logical. It does not affect his game but if he needed those things to play well, it would be bad.”
Nadal does need them. It is not just in tennis. Two hours after his seventh French Open title, we sat alone in the grandstand of Court Philipe Chatrier when Nadal walked out with an army of family members. Photographs were taken with the trophy.
When it was all done and cloud-dusted, when Nadal had finished contemplating the empty arena for memory’s sake, and after the high-heeled shoes of his mother and girlfriend had stopped boring holes into the surface, he stood back so that everyone else could vacate the premises first. And then when he thought no one was looking, he still went out of his way to avoid stepping on the lines.
June 4, 2015 at 5:07 pm
—He [Rafa] was saying how superstitious the main character was and I [Toni] said: ‘He’s like you’. And he replied: ‘No, no’. When you do senseless things over and over, you’re superstitious.—
===============================================
Is Rafa supersticious or isn’t he – that’s the huge question! 😆
“People with OCD have excessive doubts, worries, or superstitions. While all people experience these problems occasionally, OCD patients’ worries can control their lives. They may cope with common problems by indulging in compulsions that are excessive or do not make logical sense.”
http://www.psychguides.com/guides/ocd-obsessive-compulsive-disorder/
Sound like anyone we know?
From a recent SI Mailbag by Jon Werthiem….
“This was one of those casual hallway talks, so I will not name names. But I was speaking recently with a former champion who made an interesting observation about Toni. This former player is a fan of the Nadal camp and was not saying this critically. But, essentially, he noted that Toni is more of a diagnostician than a clinician. He is great at spotting the issues. He is less good at solving the issues. When Nadal figures out how to take Toni’s observations and use them to his advantage, all is good. When Nadal knows the problems but struggles to self-correct, life becomes more difficult. “
For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone here knows for sure what is wrong with Rafa. We can posit, theorize, discuss and put forth our own ideas. Is it excessive anxiety? Is it burnout?
I brought up the issue of burnout. I did not say that it was necessarily so. But I have been wondering and worrying. It’s only natural when you see your player looking nothing like his normal self, not competing in huge moments of matches.
I sincerely hope that is not the case. Some quotes have been put up to refute this notion. That’s all well and good. But there have also been other comments from Rafa that are a bit concerning. At times he seems to be way too okay with losing. At times he seems to be resigned to his ranking going down. He has said things that make me wonder and then there are other quotes that sound like a player who is determined to find a way out of this.
Rafa has done so much, confounded his doubters and critics and naysayers. I am hopeful that he will figure it out.
sublime tennis from novak, this was the heaviest loss nadal experienced at RG. he may never fully recover, although there are still few good matches in him. i understand this forum is heavy pro-nadal and heavy anti-novak!?
^^You understand this from whom, where? You have every right to understand whatever you damn well please sir but you have no right to infer “understandings” on behalf of other posters. People are free to root for whomever they please here. What do you want, a red carpet, “welcome Oh Novak fan” complete with ululating hand-maidens? Please.
This is a free forum, if you want to pitch for Novak, welcome! If you want to pitch for Rafa, welcome, even more so in my book! Guilt tripping? Pfft……………
And I agree: Novak was sublime, Rafa was awful. Of course you wish and hope Rafa never recovers. The better for you for Novak to rule in a weak era.
^^^^@ Mr. Strummer
‘I understand this forum is heavily pro Rafa’……………….
How perceptive of you! Have you also spotted we are fans of tennis with respect for many players including your favourite? More importantly, we respect each other’s opinions. Trot off ducky and try your baiting tactics elsewhere.
I don’t think Novak’s tennis was sublime. He looked rattled and whinny in the first set when it was competitive. Once Rafa ran out of gas it was Novak all the way, easier than a training session for him.
^^^Shirling
Not like you to miss ritb’s ‘diplomacy’………………:-)
just wanted to point it out to Mr. Strummer … another one to adopt the Oracle role of predicting that Rafa may never recover although maybe having a good few matches in him… I hope there’s many more like him – Rafa will feed off these comments and show the world, yet again, that he’s a great champion.
With Rafa all the way!
That was beautifully done by Djokovic, make no mistake about it. He came really close to wilting in the first set even though he clearly the better player. Good thing he pulled it together in time. Interesting to see how the slams unfold going forward. Novak might actually be in with a shot for the CYGS. Amazing. Of course, still very pre-mature but he definitely deserves to be there. That said, I really wouldn’t mind Stan winning as well. Great guy, great game.
Want to share this if anybody has the hear to read: (I did my best with the translation)
http://www.elmundo.es/blogs/deportes/sinred/2015/06/04/no-entierren-a-nadal.html
PARIS – Is he always going to play like this? Sergi Brugera asks himself about Novak Djokovic while simultaneously hinting a “no” with his tone. The day after Rafael Nadal’s 2nd elimination in RG suggests a disquieting reflection about his future in the elite of tennis. Disquieting doesn’t seem to be the adjective to which all conversations lead in a morning the tournament lives as an orphan. Like a Wimbledon without Federer or a football world-cup without Brazil.
“I was with him after the match and he’s very motivated in front of this new challenge” adds Carlos Moyà, who’s waiting with his wife and daughters to play his veterans double match along with Juan Carlos Ferrero. “This had never happened before, results not coming immediately after a come-back. There’s an enormous appeal in the extreme adversity” says the ex number one and 1998 RG champion.
The tables at the back or the players’ hall have become a playground. On the floor, sleeping, beside some bags full or rackets, we can see little Vega, Juan Carlos’ 9 month old daughter. “Since when is Rafa playing poorly? Since beginning of the year, no?” proposes the 2003 champion and finalist a year later who also went through a drop in his ranking. “It’s obvious he’s not at his best level and he acknowledges it, he’s said that he’s working to recover his game. You can talk about a drop, ok, but it would be too early to interpret it as the beginning of a decline. He’s capable of winning Wimbledon and USO.
There’s a confluence of arguments. 29 (and two days) years old, we can’t talk about decadence.
“What happened on Wednesday reflect each player’s form. Djokovic is at his best, even better than 2011. Rafa has more doubts than ever. There’s two points that perfectly define their respective moments. With 6-5 down in the first set, serving, 30-15, Rafa nets an easy smash. In the 2nd set, 5-3 to Nole, deuce, after Rafa has saved two set points Djokovic returns an early-bounce, BH, one metre from the net that not even Federer would do” suggests Moyà
Another anchor that Rafa hasn’t yet lifted is his lack of calm, the conditioning of playing excessively tense. “He needs to know that all his shots are ready, make many good points to sustain the flow of his game and he only had that feeling at some moments in the first set” adds Philippe Bouin, important journalist of L’Équipe from 1980 till 2010 and still avid and wise observer. “He doesn’t move as well as he did, he lacks energy, more solid support and stability in his legs. Most likely he will never play as he did when he was 23 or 24 since life is a progressive decline in itself but, in my opinion he’s still in the top 4 and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him winning another RG”.
“He puts too much pressure on himself from the desire to win. It’s this anxiety he’s mentioned before. The best Nadal appears in the most difficult situations. He never takes a step backwards and now he’s lacking belief, that running FHDL. He’s not loose and sees the court much smaller” Ferrero maintains.
1993 & 1994 and 1997 finalist, Bruguera has lunch with Sebastian Grosjean, whith whom he works trying to squeeze Richard Gasquet’s talent. “The important thing at this stage of his career is to maintain the competitive hunger. This he doesn’t lack. You only need to see him train and play although right now things are not like before. He’s been away for a long time and it’s normal that he struggles with this rhythm. What was amazing though was those amazing come-backs we were used to”.
Bouin concurs in noticing that Nadal’s ambition is still intact. “Borg lost it very quickly but he’s more alike Connors who at 39 reached the USO semifinals. His passion for the game is intact”.
Thanks @Shireling1. Nice to hear the perspective of those who are more likely to know and understand better what Rafa is going through. Beats pundits anytime.
So Rafa has said recently it is anxiety. Now Moya confirms.
As I’ve said all of this year.
Anxiety disorder.
June 5, 2015 at 4:15 pm,
Rafa said more than 2 months ago, in Miami: ¤¤ But at the same time, still playing with too much nerves for a lot of moments, in important moments, still playing with a little bit of ANXIOUS on that moments.¤¤
http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=108015
In the article, Shireling1 posted, Moya doesn’t speak about ‘anxiety’. Ferrero repeats what Rafa has said: “….It’s this anxiety he’s [Rafa] mentioned before…”
Some-bot-y lied about not caring what I said.
Yummy yummy yummy! I get all the attention I need from some-bot-y.
Hillarious!!!
#YoureWelcomeMyFan
June 5, 2015 at 5:01 pm,
I care what Rafa & Moya & Ferrero have said.
^^^ You just cared yet again!!!! (and lied before)
Yummy yummy yummy…
As JJ would say, HOW MANY TIMES????
Too funny.
#YoureWelcomeMyFan
#Humb1e
Here come da calendar slam like I say back in February.
With a hawkeye on the future.
Amaaaaaaaziiiiiiing!!!!!
#NID