…It’ll be interesting to see if Nadal continues serving to Djokovic’s forehand side today like he did at Monte-Carlo. Nadal is a creature of habit, so I’m sure he’ll be interested in seeing whether that drubbing he gave Djokovic just a couple of weeks ago was due to that tactical change, or more a product of Djokovic’s emotional depletion.
…By a ridiculously lopsided score of 6-3, 6-1 (in 2 sets, just as I predicted in my previous blogpost!) as well. Appropriately, he punctuated his first victory in 8 tries (all in finals) versus his nemesis with his third ace of the match, followed by the release of a primal “Vamossss,” really his only celebratory gesture the entire match.
To put things in perspective, Nadal’s won the Masters tournament a record 8 consecutive years, dating back to 2003. As the commentator mentioned, there is likely no parallel to this achievement, whatever sport you’re talking about.
Is this a prodigy signalling a return to the tennis summit we saw Nadal scale in 2010, or just a confluence of favorable circumstances in part assisted by an aberrant performance by Djokovic?
I think a little bit of both, pending further confirmation (say, by beating Djokovic at the French Open final, should they both reach it). Djokovic, owner of perhaps the best return game in tennis, managed to earn only one break chance, when he was down 4-0 in the second set, which he converted. But that was obviously too little too late. Hurting his cause was his rather ineffectual service game too. He won 0 points on his first serve in the second set, if my memory serves me right. In any case, he can’t have won more than 2 first serve points in all.
But who in their right mind can question that what we witnessed just now in terms of tactics and execution belonged to the Nadal of old, when the thought of playing Djokovic didn’t invariably induce a mental handicap too debilitating to overcome on the court? Indeed, Djokovic’s poor return game today could just as much be attributed to Nadal’s serve, which was unquestionably clicking this afternoon in Monte Carlo. Not that the two cancel each other out; that’d be too puerile, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.
I’m only saying that this loss is no reason to bemoan (if you’re a fan of “Nole”) or pillory (if you’re a fan of Rafa) Djokovic’s game. The upshot is that I think Djokovic should be congratulated for doing well to reach the final given the circumstances (i.e., his grandfather’s recent death). He was also sweet and gracious in his exchange with Nadal following the defeat, showering his opponent with all kinds of beatific commendations. That’s a nice self-effacing moment for him, again, given the circumstances. Nadal, too, should be recognized for his convincing victory. This should be some indication of good tidings to come, even if you’re still not persuaded that this means Nadal will steamroll Djokovic the next time they meet with each other.
My favorite moment, besides the scintillating point Nadal played to break Djokovic at 40-30 in the 4th game of the second set (not, however, without proceeding to lose serve the following game for his first and only loss of serve), was when Nadal quipped during the awards ceremony, “after 7 times, thank you [Djokovic] for this win.”
Amazing start to any Nadal fan’s day or afternoon or evening, I have to say.
So says the infallible haruspex at Yahoo! Tennis. This despite notching 0 wins on every surface listed. The Monte Carlo Masters must be played over some kind of ersatz clay then, I’m guessing.
Silliness aside—and in case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo! Tennis for some reason this year has decided to become the Huffington Post of tennis, and become a dump for random tennis articles found on the internet—tomorrow’s final looks to be very interesting. As many already know, Djokovic is going through a rather emotional week. Practicing the morning before his match against Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov last Thursday, a messenger brought news that his grandfather had just passed away. Despite this, Djokovic’s soldiered on, deciding to continue playing the rest of the tournament and skipping his grandfather’s funeral.
This all seems rather peculiar to me, especially since he was by his own account very close to his grandfather. (He tweeted a dedication of his Miami Masters win this year to him.) I myself probably would have withdrawn, so I have to wonder about his intentions in remaining in the tournament. In any case, the usual bromides probably suffice for most to explain his decision, e.g., that his grandfather would have wanted him to persevere, or that he wants to win this title so that he can dedicate it to his grandfather, etc. There’s nothing wrong with any of these reasons. After all, he’s never won it.
So what does this mean for world number 2, Rafael Nadal, who’s become Djokovic’s favorite high-profile punching bag as of late? Real quick, here are some of the X’s and O’s that no respectable sports journalist would dare indulge (for fear of charges of insensitivity and speculation-mongering). But I’m no journalist, so why do I care? With that said…
I think that with Djokovic’s grandfather’s death weighing heavily on Djokovic’s mind, and Rafael Nadal having just collected his 41st consecutive victory at Monte Carlo and now gunning for his 8th consecutive championship there, you have to feel that this is the perfect collision (or collusion, if you’re a partisan of Djokovic) of positive energy for the former and negative forces for the latter for Nadal to finally reverse the course of this embarrassing journey that Djokovic has taken him on over the last year, beating him in 7 straight finals in that period. (This includes, of course, two clay-court Masters tournaments on which Nadal had been the 5-time defending champion, until his subsequent losses to Djokovic.)
This is evidenced by Djokovic’s lackluster performances this week, needing three sets to beat Dolgopolov and Berdych, whom he beat today to reach the final. Nadal, on the other hand, has seemed reinvigorated by the smell and feel of his favorite surface, posting some nice statistics on serve and winning every single set he’s played so far. But we shouldn’t overstate the relevance of these niceties against Djokovic, whose game has become more and more clearly a problem of matchups for Nadal (just as Nadal’s was always a problem of matchups for Federer). Even if Djokovic is getting troubled by the likes of Nishikori, Murray, Berdych, and Tipsarevic, players against whom Nadal has got a sterling record, the law of transitivity clearly doesn’t apply.
Still though, me being the fanciful (and loyal) type, I’ve got to put my money on Nadal. He’s been brutalized too much that he needs to win this. There’s an unfortunate Scylla and Charybdis here, too. If he beats Djokovic, fans of Djokovic will inevitably chalk his victory up to moment. If he loses to him, Djokovic’s legend grows, and Nadal’s further wilts. I think he will want to see to it that the better of this awkward dilemma takes place.
Prediction: Nadal in 2 close sets.
With so many Roger Federer partisans out there in the professional tennis blogosphere predicting an easy victory for Federer over Nadal in tonight’s highly anticipated Australian Open semifinal, it was incumbent upon me to do my part to help vitiate their influence somewhat, if not in readership, then numbers-wise. (Yes, I am a Nadal partisan.)
Sure, Rafael Nadal hasn’t played fantastically, and Federer did whip Nadal in their last meeting at the year-end Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, as Pete Bodo from Tennis.com points out, but that was at an indoor hardcourt event, the kind of setting that simply does not play to Nadal’s strengths. Indeed, indoors events never favor Nadal when it comes to playing quintessentially hard court guys like Djokovic, Federer, and Murray, even though he has beaten them all recently in the same event. My advice for my fellow aspiring soothsayers: throw out these irrelevant considerations.
More relevantly, Nadal whipped Federer in Miami last year, an outdoor hard court event (which the Australian Open is), and furthermore, beat him 3 out of the 4 times they played in 2011 overall. Judging against Nadal based on one good match by Federer over Nadal and his thus far impressively clinical performance over non-Nadal opponents in this tournament is a sure-fire bet to throw off your judgment, and make you overlook the qualities that make Nadal so tough of a matchup for Federer. Indeed, Federer won’t be playing Nadal in the kind of hard court condition that clearly favors him. And remember: he is playing Nadal, his career bogeyman, in a grand slam event after all. This last bit is very pertinent because Federer has beaten Nadal in a grand slam match in less than 5 sets only once, at Wimbledon in 2006. The opposite is not true.
With that kind of historical significance attached to this moment, Nadal’s hungry resolve to get another chance at restoring his erstwhile ascendancy over Djokovic (16-7 before last year), and make a mockery out of the unreasonably modulated skepticism that the so-called pundits perennially levy at him despite his achievements—he can never prove them wrong, only confirm that they’re right in their doubts, it’s hard to envision Federer having a 3 or 4 set victory over Nadal. At the least, it will go 5 sets.
And who can forget that the last time Nadal played Federer at the Australian Open, in the final, Nadal memorably reduced Federer to tears. Then, as is the case now, Nadal had been the heavy underdog, having just played the longest Australian Open semifinal ever. But he still willed himself through. There’s admirable good-will between the two, and Nadal deeply respects Federer, but Nadal has Federer’s number at the grand slam stage, and he will be fain to throw aside all such niceties tonight, not just to get another crack at solving the Djokovic mystery, but also to reinvent himself, and inch ever closer to Federer’s record 16 grand slams haul.
Prediction: Nadal defeats Federer in 5 sets.
Rafael Nadal defeated Antonio Veic today in the manner we are used to seeing him vanquish opponents in his previous conquests at Roland Garros, winning 6-1, 6-3, 6-0. The road wasn’t all smooth, however, as he was broken twice in the second set; even still, he won 12 straight games thereafter to win the set and close out the match without a hiccup.
All said, he finished the match with 28 winners to 10 unforced errors, doing much better than in his second round match against fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar, in which he had more winners (37), but almost as many errors (26). Going into his next match against veteran Ljubicic, whom he has beaten in 6 out of 8 career meetings, he should benefit from a much needed confidence boost. But how will he fare from here on out? Will he even beat Ljubicic? In considering this question, an interesting thing to keep in mind for the rest of Nadal’s tournament is the ways in which he has managed to not lose sets or matches, which I think in its own way will prove to be a boon for his hopes to win a 6th French Open title and thereby equal Bjorn Borg’s record haul.
Recall that in his first match, Nadal managed to stave off an extraordinary server having an extraordinary serving day in John Isner, keeping his composure in the final two sets by concentrating on holding serve and trying to strike that balance between bold precision and diffident conservatism that we are not used to seeing in Nadal, going for the lines only when opportunity struck, and not pressuring himself into making difficult shots simply because he feared losing the point and being down one ace, and afterwards, a game, or god forbid, the set. In his second round match, he managed to ward off losing the third set on multiple occasions wherein the unexpectedly tough foe Andujar found himself in the most favorable position of being up, variously, 5-1 and 5-3, and with the comfortable psychological pad of being up several break, or game, and set points. (Amazingly, if I remember correctly, he lost the 9th game while being up 40-0.) In this match, we saw Nadal trying out a different strategy - going for more high-risk shots, and trying to play with confidence despite not having it.
This provides grist for the currently au courant mill of seeing a chink in Nadal’s armor that has, until this year, never been there before - at least not when he’s playing on his favorite surface. I think this view is largely correct. Nadal is obviously shaken from awareness of his own vulnerabilities, recognizing that whereas in the past he could count on his own reliability in avoiding dumping forehands into the net and hitting backhands out of bounds and winning a match simply by minimizing his errors, now he can’t do that, as another player - the world number 2 and currently perfect Djokovic, that is - has found the formula of doing that and going for broke on seemingly every shot.
Obviously, on days when Nadal’s confidence is high, he can hit those tough shots routinely - perceived difficulty decreases or increases in inverse proportion with how high one’s confidence is on a given day. What we’ve seen lately is a more tentative Nadal on his best surface. My point, thus, is that whereas Nadal has traditionally started matches on clay with sky-high confidence, which for most players, including himself, translates to less error-prone and more consistently superior play, and hence has likewise felt little pressure in going for the sorts of shots that make legions of fans adore Nadal, he’s finding nowadays that he needs to build that confidence up first before kicking into first gear and trying the same shots. In a strange way, Nadal is searching for the ghost of his past self right now, and trying to restore the energy and brilliance that in years past, before he ran up against the new and much improved Djokovic, presented itself in a most inexorably frightening way to his opponents right from the get-go.
It is comforting, then, that Nadal seems to be going through the motions of discovering himself at such a timely moment, i.e., in the early rounds of the tournament. For he meets Croat Ivan Ljubicic next, someone who has given him trouble in the past. Fortunately, Ljubicic has never beaten Nadal on clay. Expect Nadal to beat Ljubicic fairly easily. If he doesn’t, he will find himself having a more difficult time than usual against Swede Robin Soderling - if both of them win - in the quarterfinals, still to-date the only person to have ever beaten Nadal at Roland Garros. If he is able to meet the Croat and Swede challenges, he should beat Andy Murray, if he turns out to be his opponent in the semifinals, since Murray hurt his ankle today.
Prediction: Nadal beats Ljubicic 6-4, 6-2, 7-5.
Rafael Nadal finally prevailed today after about 4 hours against the big serving American John Isner, winning in very tough fashion by the scoreline of 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-7 (2), 6-2, 6-4. The intensity of the match came as no surprise to me, despite the fact that a leading byline leading up to this first round matchup had in general been some variation on “Isner dangerous, but no real threat.” For my part, I was not convinced. Nadal always has had trouble with tall, big serving guys. Remember earlier this year at the Pacific Life Open quarters, where Nadal was utterly confounded by the Croat Ivo Karlovic’s unpredictable huge serves, barely ekeing out a victory decided by a third set tiebreak?
Sure, theoretically speaking, the slow courts of Roland Garros are supposed to slow down the pace of the ball dramatically. But what many have failed to appreciate is that the new Babolat balls that tournament organizers decided to switch to this year from the old Dunlop ones have been reported to be - as Andy Murray said - “quite fast” and to perform more like hard court balls. And, as if suffering from amnesia, many have overlooked the fact that Isner is top-20 material. Not top-20 in the sense of having a vast repertoire of weapons from which to draw and perturb his opponents, but in the sense of having a pretty solid attacking game that is predicated on hoping that one’s adversary commits an error here or there that puts one in position to win sets - if not outright, then in a tiebreak. As we saw today, Isner did just that, taking the second and third sets in tiebreaks.
The takeaway, then, is that winning isn’t easy, not even for Nadal. Those who think that Nadal should have slaughtered Isner have just been spoiled by his remarkable streak that ended on this day - that of having never been taken to 5 sets by anyone in his 7 years of competition at the famous red dirt of Paris. More importantly, though, is his continuation of a streak that is still ongoing: to this day, Nadal has yet to lose in the first round of a grand slam tournament - something even the great Federer has already been subject to 6 times in his career.
But perhaps you’re wondering if an early 5-setter is perhaps an inauspicious start? Well, let me remind you that last year at Wimbledon, Nadal was taken to the limit early in the second and third rounds, by previously unheralded players Robin Haase and Philipp Petzschner. Result? He won Wimbledon.
So, breathe easy, Nadal fans.
As many of you tennis fans know, top-ranked Rafael Nadal today lost in his second consecutive final in as many tournaments against second-ranked Novak Djokovic at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. He was defeated in 3 sets. Because before the BNP Paribas Open final at Indian Wells 2 weeks ago Nadal had yet to lose to Djokovic when taking the first set in 23 career meetings, but since then he’s been 0-2, many commentators are suggesting that Djokovic, not Nadal, is now the best player in the world. Another impressive statistic that it has been au courant to adduce in support of that claim is the fact that Djokovic is on a 24 match winning streak in 2011 (all on hard courts). I beg to differ.
Despite Nadal’s loss, his consistent, tough resistance to Djokovic’s imposing hard-court game - a game Federer, generally considered (still too) to be the best hard-court player in the world has a lot of trouble with, as evidenced by his 3 straight (mostly one-sided) losses to Djokovic this year - proves that the old cliche that Nadal is just a clay court player with surprise victories on hard courts is no longer true, if there ever was any doubt. In addition, he is the reigning French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open champion.
I submit that it’s too early to call Djokovic the best player in the world, as clay court season is next, and Nadal is expected to win big then (he swept all the clay tournaments he played in last season, including the French Open). Recall that no one was saying that Nadal was the best tennis player in the world when he was the owner of 81 consecutive clay-court victories. As such, saying that the best (imo) hard-court player is the best player in the world (as Chris Chase from Yahoo! Tennis has done) is silly. To be the best player in the game, Djokovic needs to prove himself on the other surfaces, as Nadal has done by having won multiple grand slams on all the surfaces.
In any case, I love that tennis is going through a new development: Federer playing the role of spoiler, instead of Djokovic (and Murray, when he shows up). Federer is losing his game gradually, but that’s expected, since he is not after all immune to aging. He’s still frighteningly formidable, though. His only losses this year are: 3 times to Djokovic and once to Nadal. Not too shabby for a player everyone wants to write off as washed up.
