A completely meaningless match in terms of future bearing on the tournament will take place when fellow Spaniards Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer collide at the World Tour Finals on Friday. Nadal has already clinched the group, while Ferrer is out.
Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer will be facing each other for the 30th time in their careers when they wrap up their round-robin campaigns at the World Tour Finals on Friday afternoon.
Nadal is dominating the head-to-head series 23-6, but it stands at a far more competitive 5-4 in Nadal’s favor on hard courts. The two Spaniards most recently squared off in their only meeting of 2015 on the clay courts of Monte-Carlo, where Nadal survived a quarterfinal test 6-4, 5-7, 6-2.
Fast forward seven months and this is a strikingly different world No. 5. So far this fall, Nadal has finished runner-up in Beijing and Basel, made a run to the Shanghai semifinals, and reached the quarters in Paris. At none of those four events, however, did he perform better than he has through two London matches. Nadal cruised past Stan Wawrinka 6-3, 6-2 then erased Andy Murray 6-4, 6-1.
This is the first time since Rome in 2013 that the 14-time major champion has defeated two top-four players in the same tournament.
Ferrer also stormed into the O2 with plenty of momentum, having captured recent titles in Kuala Lumpur and Vienna. But once again a steep step up in competition has proven to be too much for Ferrer to handle. The seventh-ranked Spaniard lost his opener to Murray 6-4, 6-4 before blowing a 5-2 first-set lead against Wawrinka and falling 7-5, 6-2.
Ferrer’s baseline game has been solid this week, but his serve has given him no chance so succeed against the best players in the world. In two outings, the 33-year-old has combined for zero aces and 11 double-faults (eight against Murray, three against Wawrinka).
A proverbial “dead” match is not a particularly enthralling proposition for the fans, but if you could pick two players to contest such a match, Nadal and Ferrer would be the two. Their effort levels can never be questioned regardless of circumstances. Unfortunately for Ferrer, Nadal’s best effort vs. his own best effort is a significant mismatch right now.
Pick: Nadal in 2
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Yes, hawkeye has been on fire here! He is good at providing some much needed levity!
Seconded.
@2:42 am,
It’s called polluting (the internet)
😆
Listen up people, do you hear there?
Rafans focus on Rafa and pretenders focus on Rafans.
And it makes me wonder.
Keep your mind sharp and focused, stay confident, be strong and fight fiercely, Rafa!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUU0h1qUEAAEZHb.png:medium
I’ll re-post this, it’s meant for SF. 🙂
If you had posted this on the right page, Rafa would have won.