Roland Garros 2011

[don_budge]

Rain Delay...Time out Roger.

After leading 5-2 in the first set Federer showed a rare sign of weakness and failed to serve out the set. Now he finds himself staring at Nadal serving for the second set and it's a rain delay. What to do?

He's in the locker room with his coach Annacone...what is the discussion about?

Looking at the match it is much like I mentioned in my previous post...Roger's ordinary backhand is to hit cross court into the teeth of Nadal's topspin forehand and after two or three balls generally Nadal turns the advantage in the point to him with his massive overspin.

It appears to me that whenever Roger can turn the points into a backhand to backhand game it is to his advantage more often that not. When he slices low to Nadal's backhand, Nadal is left with the option to hit up and crosscourt into Roger's forehand or try to match Federer backhand for backhand. I would like to see Roger work on that backhand side a lot more, changing speeds, spin, depth and height over the net. Too much pounding into the strength of Nadal's game...and so far it looks like a losing game.

If he can pin Nadal over on the backhand side he will open up the forehand side in the process.

Never change a winning game...and always change a losing game.

[stotty]

I agree with DB. Constantly hitting over b/hs to Nadal doesn't work. Nadal seems to have more trouble with low slice!

Nadal was rarely at his best in the final. He won playing at only 80%. I got a little bored watching, actually. Nadal has Fed in his back pocket on clay and that's all there is to it. Djoko/Nadal would have been a better game.

[don_budge]

Earth to Roger...Come in. Roger? Roger?

I find it very puzzling that Roger is not putting the ball on Nadal's backhand side a vast majority of the time. Maybe a part of this is his not playing many left handers on a regular basis.

Being left handed myself...my first tactic against a right handed player is to play their backhand. Especially if it is a two handed backhand because I have not met that many that can beat me on my forehand side plus I think it takes more energy to hit the two hander compared to the effortless stroke that I have hitting one handed. I like to make it this backhand to backhand game for a number of reasons and probably the biggest reason is that I am used to it...comfortable with it.

I also find that if I can establish the game as a backhand to backhand, down the line contest, it opens up the forehand side as well. Then I will slide the ball over to that side, not giving my opponent much to hit in the process, then guess what? The whole backhand side is open to attack. I try to repeat this same tactic over and over...constantly reseting the point when necessary. McEnroe made a pretty decent career of it doing some variation of this. Well, you get the gist of it.

I would dearly love to discuss this tactic with Federer, watching McEnroe in the mirror...maybe I will give him a call...or write his father a letter. I can just hear it now...my wife calling me..."don_budge, there's somebody on the phone for you named Roger".

[gzhpcu]

The world order has been re-established. Nadal and Federer still dominate. The journalists saying Federer should retire and those saying Nadal has lost it, are once more proven wrong... now let's see Wimbledon...

[llll]

The world order has been re-established. Nadal and Federer still dominate. The journalists saying Federer should retire and those saying Nadal has lost it, are once more proven wrong... now let's see Wimbledon...

are you back from vaca tion??

how about that video of your overhead??

[gzhpcu]

are you back from vaca tion??

how about that video of your overhead??

No, I am not... I access the internet with my iPhone... will be back Wednesday...

But I get the gist to your suggestion, it is all about getting a higher elbow to initiate the right drop...

[gzhpcu]

Unfortunately, Roger is not a very good loser. Interviews in Swiss newspapers with him, have him saying that he was in control of the match, missed his opportunities, actually should have won...

Then the Swiss paper Tages Anzeiger ran an article entitled "Three arguments against Nadal", stating his body can't keep up with the strain, Roger's 16 GS title record is safe, blah, blah...

Much as I like his tennis, never found that he could lose with grace. Especially bad was the time he cried for 15 minutes after having lost the Australian Open to Nadal. The celebration ceremony for Nadal was ruined, he was in the spotlight.

When he loses, it is never because the opponent was better, it was because he wasn't playing well, lost opportunities, etc. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Sure he is gracious with his groupies, but a man is to be judged how he copes with adversity. He is mediawise, and has great PR. The Kipling poem cited at WImbledon to meet victory and defeat with the same reaction, does not apply to him.

Had to get it off my chest. I remember him as a junior player in Switzerland, crying and smashing rackets when he lost. The child is the father of the man. It is still there deep inside, sorry to say.

He also knows nothing about the history of tennis. Did not know who Donald Budge was in an interview. Admits he has never read a book in his life.

I admire his flawless, classical tennis, but have never particularly cared for his character when things go wrong.

Nadal, always humble, even apologized to Roger for winning! Nadal may not have beautiful strokes, but he has a beautiful character.

[stotty]

Phil

I'd say you're being a bit harsh on FED, although I agree with you to a certain extent.

Fed gave an amazingly banal speech after defeating Roddick at Wimbledon in their 5 setter that showed little respect for his opponent or the great stage where he had just played. He lacks emotion toward others.

I don't agree he is a bad loser, though. He has learnt to be gracious in defeat as we all must (or should try at least) as we mature.

I find Nadal very lovable. I think the team around him have played a part in developing his character and helped to keep his feet on the ground. All that success would certainly have gone to my head when I was 25

[don_budge]

Phil?

Unfortunately, Roger is not a very good loser. Interviews in Swiss newspapers with him, have him saying that he was in control of the match, missed his opportunities, actually should have won...

Then the Swiss paper Tages Anzeiger ran an article entitled "Three arguments against Nadal", stating his body can't keep up with the strain, Roger's 16 GS title record is safe, blah, blah...

Much as I like his tennis, never found that he could lose with grace. Especially bad was the time he cried for 15 minutes after having lost the Australian Open to Nadal. The celebration ceremony for Nadal was ruined, he was in the spotlight.

When he loses, it is never because the opponent was better, it was because he wasn't playing well, lost opportunities, etc. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Sure he is gracious with his groupies, but a man is to be judged how he copes with adversity. He is mediawise, and has great PR. The Kipling poem cited at WImbledon to meet victory and defeat with the same reaction, does not apply to him.

Had to get it off my chest. I remember him as a junior player in Switzerland, crying and smashing rackets when he lost. The child is the father of the man. It is still there deep inside, sorry to say.

He also knows nothing about the history of tennis. Did not know who Donald Budge was in an interview. Admits he has never read a book in his life.

I admire his flawless, classical tennis, but have never particularly cared for his character when things go wrong.

Nadal, always humble, even apologized to Roger for winning! Nadal may not have beautiful strokes, but he has a beautiful character.

Well the only thing that surprises me about this post is that you, Phil, took dead aim, loaded and fired. Good for you, brother. By all means...get it off your chest.

I admire Federer's tennis game because in my opinion he represents something of the classic game that I cherished in my youth. To hear someone declare that in their opinion he is nothing but a millionaire crybaby comes as no surprise to me. I have no heroes. Especially not in the world of professional sports. Much of the class in "classic" disappeared with the huge amounts of money exchanging hands at that level of the game. Excessive amounts of money has a way of bringing out the "beast", instead of the best, in everyone.

I remember one time seeing him on TV at the US Open...when he thought the cameras were no longer on him, launch into a tirade against the chair umpire that was filled with expletives...very funny, I thought to myself.

Say what you want...cling to some fantasy you may have about Nadal and his noble character, but his behavior, to me declares otherwise. Maybe you think he says the right thing in his charming broken English but to me his behavior says something totally different.

Nadal is engaging in his own fantasy of his personal self in-graciousness worth if you ask me. Right from the opening coin toss when he is in the spotlight he is hogging the show. His little act that he goes through when he keeps his opponent and the officials at the net waiting for him while he is fiddling with his tube of whatever it is and his water bottles is the epitome of his disgraceful performance. It continues with his endlessly bouncing of the ball before he serves, keeping everyone waiting for him...his little ritual with the towel and the ball boys, then wiping off the baseline before he takes his position to return serve keeps everyone waiting for him, including his opponent...the way he trots around the court...the way he avoids crossing the net before his opponent does...constantly tugging his shorts out of his ass is really childish and borish...the rolling around on the court after his victories...his fake emotional curtain calls...the "clamdiggers" and sleeveless shirts he wore in the past...the permanent sneer on his face...it all adds up to "bush league" behavior as my father would say and it is all premeditated to get as much attention out of any given situation as humanly possible. Whether you care to admit it or not, this guy is promoting "NBA" behavior to this sport that used to be so rich in...traditional sportsmanlike behavior.

But this doesn't change my opinion about either one of these guys. The bottom line is...they certainly are great tennis players, but in the end they are just human beings. Even for them the bar is not set that high. Fans and corporations have created these monsters...these millionaire crybabies. I wonder how gracious they would be if they had real jobs.

Maybe it's not such a good idea to speak of these things...we might just wake the sheeple. Canon and Agassi were not just whistling Dixie when they declared..."Image is Everything". It's all "Show Business" now. In my book, athletes are not entertainers...but that is what they are nowadays.

[bottle]

This is fascinating, Phil. Once again you're in a position to know some things the rest of us didn't.

That said, Roger is Roger and WAS ever so close, both in the first and second sets.

I like very much what you said about Rafa, too.

Everything in tennis, as Doug King has suggested, seems to be about opposites. Maybe Roger will start reading a few books as he gets older.

[gzhpcu]

I started reading at the age of 4. First Alice in Wonderland, then Pinocchio...

Now about 15,000 books later, am reading "L.A. Noir" by John Buntin.

[tennis_chiro]

A couple of observations

Those last few are very insightful and meaningful posts. But unfortunately, meaningless in the commercial engine that drives big time tennis today.

1. To be a champion, you have to always think you could have won, maybe even that you should have won, to keep going forward and working as hard as you have to work day in and day out; otherwise, you have no chance against the Nadals, Murrays, Djokovics and Federers; and, incidentally, most don't!

2. It's really sad to hear that Roger made those comments. But, two points could have made a helluva difference. Obviously, the inch by which he missed the drop shot at 2-5 in the first set. And then, after his comeback at the end of the third, failing to convert triple break point in the first game of the 4th. Maybe it was the second game. But at the beginning of the 4th set. You may not have realized it, but through the first three sets, Roger won more points than Nadal. Read the winners/errors stats through the first 3 sets and Roger has some legitimacy to say he controlled the match. A couple of patches where he lost control of his forehand and also where he couldn't get in his first serve really hurt him. But his more aggressive strategy and backhand were certainly a refreshing change. Nadal seems almost inevitable as a victor on clay, but this is the first time in a long time on the clay that I got the sense Roger really could push Rafa around. It was great to see him going forward more and converting some of those break points. In the past he seemed to play way too defensive on those points. But he hasn't used the volley enough in recent years and, as brilliant as some of his volleys were, he is not as sharp as he should be in cutting off angles and making the outstretched volley to the open court. There were two key occasions where he missed the volley off Rafa's backhand down the line. Also, he needs to close maybe one step more and rely more on his quickness to cut off the angle after the drop volley instead of on his footspeed to run down the angle pass (which he did successfully on one occasion, but not on others). Volleys need to be "concluders" more of the time.

3. Who would you say is truly a "good loser". That is, after a match, can dispassionately dissect what happened and say the opponent really deserved to win because they played better today or had a better strategy. I was very impressed with the post match interview of Schiavonne. I hate her grunting, but I love her athleticism and passion. She said Li Na played better and really deserved to win the match, mostly because of the depth of her shots at the beginning of the match. She felt she had chances in the second set and could have gotten it, but she did say Li Na deserved to win the match. And she looked like she meant it! Who else can you say displays the kind of "Kiplingesque" demeanor we would like to see our students or our children, much less our champions, display? Roddick has done a pretty good job of that on some very tough occasions. You rarely hear that truly "dispassionate dissection" coming from even coaches.

Who do you think, today, displays the kind of attitude we are implicitly referring to here? The kind of post defeat (or victory) response we could count on from an Ashe or a Smith, maybe a Rosewall or Laver? Curious to hear what some of you might put forward.

don

[don_budge]

Who? The Big Three aren't so bad, afterall.

Who do you think, today, displays the kind of attitude we are implicitly referring to here? The kind of post defeat (or victory) response we could count on from an Ashe or a Smith, maybe a Rosewall or Laver? Curious to hear what some of you might put forward.don

First...Roger Federer. Close second...Novak Djokovic. Distant third...Rafael Nadal. Btw...these three are the only ones that seem to make it near a microphone, at least at the majors.

For the most part their public personnas are within the modern tolerances...things have gotten a bit NBAish in many respects when it comes to behavior and sportsmanship. I personally don't care if Federer has read Dostoyevsky or not. He is a tennis player and that is all he is to me. Except for the one instance when he was not aware he was on camera, in all of the tennis that I have seen him play, I have not personally witnessed him making any public blunders or faux pas. Not once. Immaculate manners...in public.

The same goes for the other two. Roger's image is a bit more polished, but who knows it may all be image. I certainly like his tennis better. I realize that some of my standards are somewhat antiquated compared to some of the thinking here on the forum. But you could certainly do worse than the three of them representing their sport nowadays.

I will say this about Roger as well...all of his fellow competitors seem to actually love the guy, which I think says a lot. Nadal for all of his ticks and idiosyncrasies doesn't seem like such a bad guy, to me he is only a tennis player also...I just don't personally like what I interpret as his grandstanding behavior. I think Djokovic is growing into his role...and he actually seems to have a sense of humor.

But certainly the type of attitude that you are referring to when you cite names such as the ones you mentioned...is surely a thing of the past. With the possible exception...being Roger Federer.

[stotty]

I think Phil's point is being missed here to an extent. It's about the person, not the polished, professional image side put on for the cameras. Every players true character will find it's way thru if the spotlight is on them long enough. Fed's had eight years under that intense spotlight and I can see very well what Phil is referring too. Though perhaps Phil is being harsher than I would be, we have to give Phil the benefit of doubt as he knew Fed when he was young.

I'm English. I knew Murray when he was young, watched him play a fair bit against the boys I coached. He was a miserable son of a gun then, and he's miserable son of a gun now. Not a likeable bloke in my opinion. He seems to treat his coaching team like dirt too. Better to be unemployed and in the gutter than be treated like a lackey by someone like Murray.

Sorry, just had to get that one off my chest.

[gzhpcu]

don,
Thinking you could have won, is one thing, but saying it in an interview, and not giving credit to your opponent is something else.

For example, in an interview with a Swiss paper he said:

"I play with a smaller margin of error, so it is normal that I will have more fluctutions. Nadal is just satisfied with doing the same thing all the time. I am the one who dictates and decides the outcome of the game."

He says he decides the outcome of the game, and then he loses. So did he decide to lose?

then in respect to the final set:

"6-1 is a pretty hefty result. I had the feeling that I played my two first breakballs correctly. At 0:40 he took his backhand extremely early and dumped it down the line, a ball like that could very easily go out. It was actually the wrong decision he took, but he still won the point. Afterwards, the wind started, and I had to submit to a stupid break."

He says he played correctly (but lost the points), that Nadal took the wrong decision (but won the point), then that the wind made him lose his serve!

Guess I am just missing the old days when the Aussies would just say that their opponent played better and congratulate them, and, would never hint at an injury hampering them. You are fit, or you don't show up to play.

But I guess with all the megabucks today, and the spotlight on them, many players just get inflated egos.

Maybe some may think I was harsh with Roger, but I have observed him and his attitude since he was a teenager, and pick up his attitude when he loses. It has not changed. He has been fortunate that due to his great talent, he hasn't lost too many times.