AVFCforever1991 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 I had a bet on him to win, word removed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Its a bit pointless betting at this stage because the odds wont change that much until after the quarters and with Nadal you can never be sure about his fitness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 (edited) . He can certainly be spoken of in the same breath as people like Borg, McEnroe, Connors & Agassi. I'd argue the 4 greatest tennis players of all time are from the current batch Federer , Nadal , Djokovic and Murray Harsh on the Sampras'ssss of the world but I don't beleive Sampras would have dominated if he were playing now against those 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH8K0bPc-BE Edited June 24, 2013 by Dr_Pangloss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCDAN Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Personally I prefer nadal to federer, just never clicked with the guy for some reason although I appreciate his quality and what he brought to the game just not a fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Nadal has zero charisma and is extremely annoying. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCDAN Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Sorry don't agree with that at all, his persona on the court is nothing like his real character, always congratulates people after they have beaten him, never makes excuses for his losses, evidenced today by the fact he refused to blame his knees for the loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjw63 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Kirilenko can sit on my face if she likes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjw63 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 So can Robson, to be fair Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packoman Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Robson is flying at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 To explain the Rafa loss. Since his comeback he’s played 8/9 tournaments on clay a surface where he is the best ever player on, it’s also a surface where he plants a leg at an angle and slides on the clay. It has less impact on his knees and as such there is limited pain building up in his knee throughout a match. Which is why he could maintain such a schedule on clay and play as many matches. But grass is a surface rarely played on, there are 2 warm up tournaments Queens and Halle and he skipped them both this year and last year. meaning he’d played a total of 2 grass court matches before he last yesterday in the almost 2 years since he lost to Djokovic in 2011 final. He wasn’t fully prepared for the surface, especially when you factor in how differently the ball bounces in the first week. Grass changes as the tournament goes on, the ball bounces higher the further you go into a tournament which is more and more similar to how the ball will bounce off dry clay. Though there are still big differences the bounce on grass is closer to clay at the later stages than it would Cincinnati masters or US Open. So in the earlier rounds of Wimbledon the ball bounces lower and will favour a strong serve a bit more, it will also mean it’s the hardest way to adapt for Nadal coming from pretty much an entire year of only clay court playing. It’s clear his footwork was all wrong and his backhand was erratic as a result. The more he learnt as the game went on the more strain a firm planting of his leg had on his knee. He was getting it right but a combination of him missing some key chances (serving for 2nd set and set point in tie break) and the fact his opponent served himself out of trouble more than once resulted in the match getting away from him. You have to ally this to the simple fact Nadal has won a total of 4 slams away from the clay of France. He’s lost to many many different players in his defeats in those slams. So his loss in earlier rounds insn’t really as big a surprise as it would be Federer, Djokovic or even Murray going out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 I think people need to remember how different clay court players are from hard / grass court players. Nadal’s game on clay is heavy hitting with lots of top spin and given the clay surface as it gets more messed up as people run around during a set the bounce is harder to predict. So you are forced to play further back instead of taking the ball on the rise after the bounce and be attacking. So it reduces the match to a game of defending especially as the ball doesn’t bounce of clay as fast meaning the number of winners that can be hit on the surface in general is reduced. While on grass and hard court the ball doesn’t bounce as high and is quicker off the surface meaning more winners can be hit it. Also the consistency of the court means that predicting where a ball will be after an opponent hits it is easier to read consistently meaning the ball can be hit earlier, on the rise meaning it favours attacking players more. Then the factor of indoors, or with Wimbledon roof shut means wind is no longer a factor meaning even more accurate prediction of ball meaning more attacking play which is why the greatest attacker of them all Federer is at his most lethal then. Another factor to throw in to confusion is Federer is old school and has a one handed backhand which is why we see Nadal managed to get wins over Fed on grass and hardcourt as the tactic of pummelling his backhand non stop pays dividends for Nadals game. But such a tactic for Nadal against Murray or Djoko fails more often as they have very effective double handed backhands. Murray and Djokovic are the new breed with games tailored to beat Nadal rather than Federer, Nadals game was made to defeat Fed. Murray has always been more defensive but is adapting a more attacking game in recent times which has resulted in his slam win and 3 consecutive finals before French open. While Djoko has been a more attacking player that developed his game and added epic all round defence to attack to make him the best all round player the game has ever seen. Nobody outside of that group is consistent enough, but Ferrer would be 4th best player on Clay. Berdych & Tsonga are dangers with their big hitting and service particularly to Federer. Delpo has had too many injuries, but was a dangerous player and still is on his day. That’s about it on the Tennis 101 for today 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted June 25, 2013 Moderator Share Posted June 25, 2013 That's interesting about week 2 wimbledon grass not being the same as week 1. You forget that it's not as simple as just being a grass tournament. So if Rafa had gotten through week 1 both in terms of the draw and in terms of his knee, then he might have become at least more of a contender from then on. Anyway, I'd say the seeding committee are having a sneaky grin because of the bit of stick they got for putting him as low as #5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Murray and Djokovic are the new breed with games tailored to beat Nadal rather than Federer That’s about it on the Tennis 101 for today But that claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Murray is losing in his head to head record against Nadal (W5 L12) but winning in his head to head against Federer (W11 L9) Djokovic is losing in his head to head record against both, but has a better record against Federer (W13 L16) than he does against Nadal (W15 L20) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 (edited) I hate those stats as they are misleading it's very uninformative for many people who don't know tennis that well. Firstly, grand slam records and masters or atp 500 records are very different. Given the nature of the tour players will be in different levels of condition and put different focus on tournaments bar slams. Slams are best of 5 sets and playing in semi finals and finals of a slam requires an amount of skill in preserving energy in earlier rounds. So slam head to heads are really the true test. Also those head to head records encompass different surfaces spanning players entire careers. Murray and Djokovic of 2009 and 2010 are vastly different to the players of 2012 and 2013. Just look at Djokovics record against Nadal from 2011 to now. Rafa has won 4/6 on clay with Djoko winning every other meeting on every other surface 6/6 including 3 slam finals. Look at Murray, he'd lost every meeting with Federer in a slam until his 5 set win this year in Australia. So to try reduce the big 4 to simplistic career head to head stats is erronious on many levels. Edited June 25, 2013 by CVByrne 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunRickyRun Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 I think people need to remember how different clay court players are from hard / grass court players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjw63 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Zakopalova can also sit on my face, right after a sweaty two hour match Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 I hate those stats as they are misleading it's very uninformative for many people who don't know tennis that well. Firstly, grand slam records and masters or atp 500 records are very different. Given the nature of the tour players will be in different levels of condition and put different focus on tournaments bar slams. Slams are best of 5 sets and playing in semi finals and finals of a slam requires an amount of skill in preserving energy in earlier rounds. So slam head to heads are really the true test. Also those head to head records encompass different surfaces spanning players entire careers. Murray and Djokovic of 2009 and 2010 are vastly different to the players of 2012 and 2013. Just look at Djokovics record against Nadal from 2011 to now. Rafa has won 4/6 on clay with Djoko winning every other meeting on every other surface 6/6 including 3 slam finals. Look at Murray, he'd lost every meeting with Federer in a slam until his 5 set win this year in Australia. So to try reduce the big 4 to simplistic career head to head stats is erronious on many levels. Yes Murray and Djokovic are the new breed with games tailored to beat Nadal rather than Federer That’s about it on the Tennis 101 for today But that claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Murray is losing in his head to head record against Nadal (W5 L12) but winning in his head to head against Federer (W11 L9) Djokovic is losing in his head to head record against both, but has a better record against Federer (W13 L16) than he does against Nadal (W15 L20) and if you look at recent records Djokovic has got the upper hand against Federer in slams, he beat him in the US open 2011 and again in straight sets at Roland Garros in 2012. He did loose at Wimbledon last year though but generally he has had the upper hand against Federer and Nadal except on clay against Nadal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 (edited) Edit : ignore brain error Edited June 25, 2013 by tonyh29 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 (edited) Yes it would be helpful if we had sufficient permissions to delete our own posts. Edited June 25, 2013 by PaulC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted June 26, 2013 Share Posted June 26, 2013 I think it's key for Federer to get through these early rounds without dropping more than a set or two if he's gonna be able to defeat both Murray and Djokovic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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