Rafael Nadal has lost a grand total of six games through his first two matches at this year’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
Is there anything Diego Schwartzman can do to try and stop the nine-time Rome champion from lifting another trophy?
Probably not.
In addition to his nine titles, Nadal is 63-6 lifetime at the Foro Italico–including 12-0 in his last 12 matches. The second-ranked Spaniard is poised for more success this year, because he was practicing on clay while almost everyone else (all seven of the other Rome quarterfinalists, in fact) tried their hands on the hard courts of New York. It has paid off for Nadal so far, as he destroyed U.S. Open semifinalist Pablo Carreno Busta 6-1, 6-1 in his opening match and then defeated Dusan Lakovic 6-1, 6-3 on Friday.
Schwartzman was a disappointing 2-3 in three post-corona tournaments prior to the Rome Masters. The 15th-ranked Argentine appears to be rounding into form this week, but it has not been easy. He beat John Millman 6-4, 7-6(1) in the second before battling past Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to reach the quarters.
Of course, the biggest problem for Schwartzman is the matchup. He is 0-9 lifetime against Nadal and 2-22 in total sets. Count on it being 0-10 and 2-24 by Saturday night.
Pick: Nadal in 2 losing 5-7 games
WWW?
Vamos Rafa!
Vamos Schwartzman!
Beat down….but might take 2 hours!
Diego on fire in set 1. Rafa looking subdued.. hope rafa can turn it around from here ala rg 2018
Rafa is not able to buy a first serve today and everythingn diego touches is turning to gold
Diego is playing the match of his life tonight.. winners galore and rafa seems terribly subdued
The serve is bad, and rallying against Schwarzman not going to work as court position wise, Schwarzman has the advantage. Rafa is standing way behind the baseline giving Schwarzman so much space and also time to move inside the court to attack.
Rafa is rusty up there in the head, not being able to make changes to the way he plays, seems running out of ideas, and going CC so often. Schwarzman simply moves so quickly all over the court and gets to any ball at will. Schwarzman’s DTL shots are working fine but Rafa’s hardly.
I agree that Rafa is rusty In his head. This was what worried me about him playing Diego. Rafa’s first serve has gone AWOL. He keeps getting broken back. This is just bad from Rafa. He knows how to play Diego. No surprises here.
Well better lose to diego than djoko.. lack of match practice has done him in..
Will Rafa play hamburg given the lack of match play?
vmk1,
Agreed. Better to lose here than lose to Djoker in the final. As you said, lack of match play has done him in.
Diego has always been a pain in the butt for Rafa and rafa has had to dig deep to eke out the wins. Today rafa was just sub par and diego cashed in
Schwarzman played well, I feel he’s the best among all four winners of the QFs. His shots were with depth, and he could move quickly inside the court to attack.
I think he’ll beat Shapo tomorrow to reach the final, and if Djoko plays like he’s playing today, Djoko may lose to Schwarzman if they meet in the final. Djoko really not that impressive in the QF.
Rafa playing like this, even if he wins today, he’s going to lose to Shapo as Shapo serves better than Schwarzman and rushes forward when he has the chances, and will drop shot Rafa very often given how far back Rafa is behind the baseline.
The serve is Rafa’s greatest weakness today, in some of his service games, he couldn’t even buy a first serve!
Schwartzman has always been capable of beating Nadal and Djokovic but has underperformed at key moments in the match or compared to his prior matches coming into the match. The interrupted season has obviously worked in his favour on this occasion.
It just proves how vulnerable Nadal (and even Djokovic) is after an interrupted season. Nadal underperformed without a large crowd due to his need for attention, Djokovic had a brain snap and let his well-known anger issues get the better of him when staring down a potential loss and Fed was smart enough to know better and stay away.
Rafa’s problem against Schwarzman is that he always tries to rally with Schwarzman from the baseline; if Rafa plays more aggressive attacking game (like when he did against Djoko in the final last year) when he sees Schwarzman across the net, I think he’ll have lesser troubles beating Schwarzman (than playing his usual baseline rallying game).
I do feel that Rafa is wary of Schwarzman’s ability of hitting winners from both wings whether its CC or DTL, hence he becomes more defensive; if Schwarzman has a bigger serve, he will be as hard to beat on clay as Djoko, if not harder.
This is one of the 3 things I had asked few days back
Thiem in djokos half
Stan in djokos bracket
Diego nowhere near rafa
I am zero percent confident that rafa will win RG. The lack of match play and the weather this time in Paris as well as the roof and night matches are all not boding well for him. The only solace will be Novak not winning it too:-)
Whether Rafa wins at RG or not, to me it’s ok. I also doubt that Djoko will win at RG. This year I would say is almost a total write off; with the COVID-19 pandemic getting worse at France, UK, Spain and other European countries, I have doubt that the revised ATP calendar is still valid.
At least Rafa gets to retain his points; if Djoko wins at Rome, he’ll almost certainly end 2020 as year end no.1 for the sixth time. I honestly think that Djoko is after all these records – 6 YE no.1, most weeks at no.1 and winning the most slams, before he thinks of retiring and two of those three records could be achieved within this year or early next year.
News update: Rome organisers have done another about-turn and decided there will no longer be fans for semis and finals.
Good H&S decision, if thats what it is.
Or maybe its because the whole tournament has turned into a damp squib now.
that was a joke (I think)
I was concerned about this match because Diego has been a tough opponent for Rafa. He may never have beaten Rafa, but he has pushed Rafa and made him work for his wins.
Rafa was not ready to go at it with him today. I don’t know how many DLTL forehands Rafa missed in the match. His serve really let him down.
This is what I was worried about after such a long time away from competition. Rafa thrives on match play. His strategy was all wrong today and normally Rafa can regroup mid match to make adjustments. But he wasn’t mentally ready either.
You’re absolutely correct.
Yes, it was. Nadal losing has thrown a spanner in the works now. Their decision was likely based on the expectation of a Nadal v Djokovic final.
I just found out Rafa lost. I feared this would happen remembering his ludicrous Diego complex and how badly he played against him at Rg when he was completely sub par for the beginning of that match.
This was especially going to be the case when Rafa hasn’t played any tennis for 7 months! We all know how he needs competition and he is 34! That counts for something!
I am not wildly optimistic about Rg given all the circumstances ie virus, weather, roof.
I must say that I find Rafa’s excessive respect for Diego infuriating. However well Diego may have played we have discussed in this forum before ie during Rg how Rafa really overdoes this whole respect business. Sometimes you would never guess he had won RG 12 times!! Honestly I could shout at him sometimes!
I fear that covid will negatively impact Rafa this year. No clay season in April/May where we could reasonably assume more titles were on their way. Then the insane scheduling where Toni had made clear that Rafa was only going to be able to play one of the majors because of the risk to his knee playing them back to back. This effectively meant Rafa had to skip cincy and the USO which is a tournament he could definitely have won!😠😠
As Toni said, the scheduling was very disadvantageous to the older members of the tour.
But how about Djokovic.. what tenacity.. he also had not played since dubai.. comes to win cincy .. almost on the way to winning uso and now in the rome final against an opponent he should win.. at this rate Djoko looks like he will have most weeks at no.1, most slams, and also most titles with the majority at premier tournaments.. this guy is out of this world..
Rafa has suffered way more with injury vmk.
Toni, who is never one to big Rafa up, quite the reverse, said a while ago that with less injury time out Rafa would already have surpassed Fed’s record for slams. This is surely true with knock on effects for weeks at number one and masters as well.
You have to look.at a player’s career as a whole and Rafa was a beast at 19 stacking up tournaments very young in a way neither Fed or Nole were able to.
amy, part of those injuries are because of his style of tennis.
I believe Fed winning titles with a lower stress on his body than Nadal, is in itself a skill like Novak’s return skill or Rafa’s fighting spirit.
At the end of the day, the numbers are quite a good reflection of their overall value. Both Rafa and Novak can still win more, but I have a feeling Novak will not win more slams than Rafa.
Fair enough Eugene! 😀
I admire all 3 players immensely..
Yeah true.. and it is the same body which has enabled him to win 12 roland garros by helping him impart the spin and enable movement on clay like nobody else.. so have to accept the bad with the good.
What’s your hunch Eugene on final tally ?
Almost on the way to winning the USO? As I recall, Novak lost in the fourth round when he was defaulted for hutting a lines person.
Let’s not get carried away.
Er… I have doubts that Djoko would win the USO in the first place; he winning at Cincy was to be expected considering those players he met and beat; the other TOP few seeds fell by the wayside.
Djoko also had problem putting away Busta in the fourth round, and that’s why he was frustrated; before the match he already knew he had to grind against Busta, I think physically Djoko wasn’t at his best hence the frustration.
His Rome draw was really a kind draw, just see who he had to beat to reach the final! Had he gotten Rafa’s draw and meeting Schwartzman in the QF, he might not have it his way! He struggled to put away Koefer, then had a hard time beating Rudd (who had a long match in the previous round).
He’s fortunate Diego spent three hours beating Shapo in the SF; that’ll help Djoko in the final. Djoko may win the final in straight sets.
I would say I admire Djoko’s tenacity, his never give up and always wants to have the last say in the match attitude. It’s his grinding, retrieving, defending etc that won him some of those matches when he was about to lose them.
Yes Amy.. not disputing that at all. But just in awe of Djokovic.. he has been hammered on the adria tour, ptpa, us default but he still producing results not only on his favored hard courts but also on clay. His mental and physical strength is something else which is a joy to behold. If Rafa is not to win the FO i hope djoko wins it(not vs rafa in the final though🤞🏻)
I hope Thiem wins it. Don’t even know if he will participate. But I would be happy for any new gen guy to win it.
He will ofcourse participate
Vmk, I admire Nole in many ways!
Just think there are many ways of looking at the subject!
All 3 are co-goats imo
Anybody but Djokovic for me..period 🙂 he can win a second rg after rafa wins his second AO
I agree about anybody but Novak. Yes, he can win another RG when Rafa gets his second AO!
I think this is going to very tough because of the seven month layoff and playing it in the fall and not the spring and the virus. It’s a mess. Rafa needs preparation. He works his way into his best form with the warm up clay tournaments and then peaks at RG. He can’t do that this year.
The comment at 1:01 pm is not anonymous. It’s Nativenewyorker