CraigC: Strategic Analysis of this year's French Open Final?

[lukman41985]

CraigC,

If you watch the final and have some time after watching it, would you mind analyzing the match from a strategic standpoint? I, and I'm sure all of the members, would greatly appreciate it and be very thankful. It'd be great to hear what you thought each player was doing? What worked for each player? What didn't work? And the whys? behind each of these questions. It would really be a treat to read seeing as how great your previous articles and contributions to the forum have been. It would also be a bitch to write, I know...

[CraigC]

Yep Yep

Up at 6 am anticipating this match for the last month. I'm taking notes just for you LUKMAN!! I called Roger in 4 about a month back and I have an expensive dinner bet on this one. GO ROG!! I'll try to do the analysis later today, time permitting.

Craig C

[lukman41985]

Looks like we'll have to wait until you come back from your dinner, Craig--sorry! Thank you so much for doing this.

[jhm36]

hmmm, I missed most of the match, but from what I saw and have read around the net, Federer was not playing at an inspired level. What's up with this habit of playing great the first set then taking a nap? Seems like far to often when Nadal gets a tough shot from him back in play, Federer goes for too much, losese focus, and makes an error. All those serves to his backhand that he didn't do much with. Why not run around them and make Nadal mix it up and serve to his forehand. Wow, Nadal must think playing Federer is simple as heck. Keep the ball in play and hit it to his backhand and bet anything you want that the forehand will make an error on a crucial point. etc, etc. What a one-sided rivalry this is turning out to be. I'm disappinted in Federer. Lossing four finals to Nadal in just a few months? Seems like a major mental thing going on.

[CraigC]

Analysis as requested

First I am truly depressed at Federer’s performance and give all credit to Nadal for being the one guy that can take Fed off his game. So, as requested, here is my take on the match. I only saw it once so there may be a few glitches but….

The Fed plan was obvious from the beginning. Roger used his inside-in forehand to get the ball to Nadal’s backhand and then tried to attack using his forehand angle. Nadal countered this effectively by the second set, using a variety of passing shots that kept Fed very off balance. One hard line, one dipping line, one hard cross, one lob…brilliant variety.

Fed tried to play crosscourt to Nadal’s backhand, and Nadal tried to play crosscourt to Federer’s backhand. Several times throughout the match, Federer tried to switch the rally by hitting his backhand down the line. Nadal hit back down the line and they got into a down the line rally. Nadal dominated a laarge majority of these rallies early and I believe Roger realized that he could not win using that tactic. He tried the slice up the line, the short slice up the line, the drive up the line …and Nadal countered all of these perfectly hitting back down the line with better pace and depth than Federer.

I found it very strange that Federer did not employ his backhand angle when Nadal hit a down the line backhand. Federer claims it is one of his favorite shots and he hit it only once in the entire match. I believe it could have stopped Nadal from hitting back down the line so often……All of this means that Federer had only a few choices off the ground. Either, he had to hit his forehand so angled that Nadal couldn’t change direction, but Nadal played many backhands up the middle to take away Federer’s angle. Or, he had to rip his backhand HARD crosscourt to punish Nadal for hitting the backhand down the line. He failed miserably on this account. I believe we saw the same thing happening over and over because Nadal forced Federer to make that shot, and Roger did not execute. MacEnroe claimed that Fed should have sliced more but the few times Federer did slice, Nadal read it so quickly that he got up on the ball and rolled a tight angle to Federer’s backhand, putting him in more jeopardy.

Now, Fed won almost 80% of his net points, but did not venture in very often. He won most of his serve and volley points, but only played those on break points. I cannot answer why but I believe it was a major tactical error. Even if he loses a couple of games on his returns, why did he not chip and charge or rip returns and come to net, just to make Nadal think about the possibility of an attack. He already lost most of Nadal’s service games so why not change it up. It seemed Roger wanted to beat a claycourter using a claycourt style.

Federer used many wide serves on the deuce side figuring Nadal would hit the ball crosscourt to Roger’s forehand so Fed could start the rally on offense. Nadal hit some brilliant returns, playing high and deep down the line, giving him time to recover and making Roger hit his backhand from a high ball, or take a high risk and play the ball on the rise, tough to do on clay.

Federer proved to be very afraid of the Nadal forehand. Nearly every time Nadal hit the backhand down the line and slightly more to the middle, Federer would run around it and hit back down the line. It was disturbing to see Federer stay away from one of his greatest weapons, the inside-out forehand. The fear of Nadal’s spin must be overwhelming for Roger.

OK so that’s how I saw the patterns. Some simple concepts…Nadal wins his forehand to backhand diagonal, the backhand to backhand rally down the line, and the nearly non-existent forehand to forehand down the line. Federer wins his forehand to backhand diagonal. Nadal leads 3-1 in baseline rallies. ADVANTAGE NADAL

Roger dominates the net, wins serve and volleys and generally goes above 50% when playing offensively. Federer chooses to stay back, rarely serve and volley, and returns defensively. ADVANTAGE NADAL

Nadal changes to Federer backhand, better than Federer changes on nearly every shot and plays nearly every defensive shot to Federer’s weaker wing. ADVANTAGE NADAL

Federer hits his kick serves down the T on the ad side to Nadal’s backhand but Nadal gets around it and uses his forehand to start the rally. Nadal serves a slice serve down the T to Federer’s backhand and Federer cannot get around it, and must start the point using his backhand. ADVANTAGE NADAL


That is the story for the last 3 sets. But I’d like to deal with what I think happened, and I’m sure there is more to the story but….
Fed came out playing lots of variety, tons of high balls and spins. He had Nadal totally off balance, and played great claycourt tennis for 5 games. Then Fed, feeling confident, resorts back to HIS GAME, and tries the power. He finishes off the set but now Nadal catches his rhythm and Fed never goes back to the variety. Nadal finds the backhand, Federer struggles, and tries to force the power game, ripping backhands crosscourt and ripping forehands all over the place. The backhand breaks down, forcing Federer to rely on his one shot, and because there is so much pressure to hit a winner, Fed makes some mistakes by overhitting, and the match goes into the tank.

A few other notes. I found it fascinating that Federer’s serving in the first set followed a theme. Hit almost everything serve the backhand and make the serve. Hit some serves to the forehand but be sure to miss them. This keeps Nadal honest but always lets Roger start on Nadal’s backhand. So, is it intentional, did he just serve poorly that day to the forehand, or is he that fearful that his serve collapses from the pressure of the Nadal forehand? I wonder. It’s not like he gets hurt by big returns if he misses first serves….hmm.

Lastly, gotta mention that 30-30 point in the 4th. That was the heart of a champion out there and awesome to see.
For Lukman who asked me to write this, please do not presume that I think I know how Roger can beat Nadal. I only write the things I see in the game. Hope it proves helpful and opens the forum for discussion. At the very least, if a few people add their thoughts, we can learn something.

CC

[lukman41985]

Craig,
Thanks that was awesome. The depth of thought and completeness of that analysis was just terrific. If you're interested, here's Mats Wilander's (one of the greatest strategic minds in tennis history) take on the match--it's similar to yours: http://matswilander.com/media/video/FrenchMensFinal.wmv

[gsheiner]

There were a few things that struck me some of which were mentioned by Wilander as well. I personally think Federer played a poor tactical match and didn't show enough fight. We all saw the incredible defensive point Fed won late in the match and we all had to ask ourself why not be willing to fight like that for larger portions of the match.

Now as to specific tactics. As elegantly pointed out by Craig, Nadal had the advantage in most patterns. The truth is that Fed can't beat Nadal ( especially on clay ) other than accepting that he must venture into unknown territory and experiment with totally different patterns.

I saw Fed hit a few short to medium slices up the line and Nadal actually attacked up the line and followed to the net. If I had a tape of the match I could quantify the number of times this happened.

Now if I'm Fed, I'd rather have Nadal at the net and me hitting a backhand pass or even topspin lob than have Nadal hitting forehands from the baseline.

Secondly, Fed cannot beat Nadal in the ad court when Nadal gets his slice serve in and forces Fed to hit a backhand return. Fed must stand further wide in his starting return position and dare Nadal to go down the middle. The Nadal slice will have a tendency to come back to Fed and if he gets it he can hit a forehand to start the point.

And by standing very wide on the return, even if Nadal insists on serving
there , Fed will be behind the ball and can rip a sharp crosscourt angle or even a slice up the line. Anything is better than the pattern that exists now where Fed is flailing at a ball high and to his side and either missing or rolling a weak shot into the middle of the court where Nadal can dominate with his forehand.

Of course he could do this on his deuce court return as well. I don't have the stats as to fed's percentage of return points won on the deuce side as compared to the ad side but I'm willing to bet it's worse on the ad side.

Next, Fed should experiment with a wider starting position for his deuce side serve. Everything is coming back but at least pull Nadal as wide as possible to open up the court. Let Nadal try to go down the line from way wide. Fed could begin to anticipate this shot and then attack on the rise crosscourt with either slice or topspin.

And, here is another idea but I'm not sure if this shot is in Fed's repertoire. Instead of hitting his topspin slice serve he could experiment with a more pure slice serve again trying to move Nadal as wide as possible.

Just a few of my thoughts.

Glenn S.

[lukman41985]

There were a few things that struck me some of which were mentioned by Wilander as well. I personally think Federer played a poor tactical match and didn't show enough fight. We all saw the incredible defensive point Fed won late in the match and we all had to ask ourself why not be willing to fight like that for larger portions of the match.

I agree with you all the way--where was the fight on the other points?

[johnyandell]

Jesus, I might actually enjoy TV commentary if it was at the level of our Forum.

Craig--fabulous. Glenn thank you also.

I hope we all appreciate the value of Craig's contribution here at no extra subscription cost...

[CraigC]

Thanks.

Thank you all for the praises. I hope others can jump in and add more. If I get time, I'm going to throw some ideas on how Fed might beat Nadal using some different strategic thoughts and plays. Then you can rip it apart and continue doing so until one person on this site gets the formula right. Then we can sing the praises!!

CraigC

[lukman41985]

Craig,

I wish I could jump in with some more insight but I just did not watch the match close enough. I was so excited that I didn't want to think--I just wanted to watch. I really wish I had recorded it so I could go back and re-watch it. I really loved the exchange we had when I posted my thread on the this year's final in Dubai. Thanks so much again for your wonderful insight.

[CraigC]

LUKMAN-well??

Lukman-

Did you get that stuff I sent? Your private message box is full and I'd like to know if you received my email and attachments?

CC

[jhm36]

I hope Lukman is off having fun playing lots of tennis.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the informative posts.

Also ask if anyone has looked at Nadal's record in finals. It's staggering. Number 1 all time at the moment. 17-2, winning percentage of 89.5! Federer's 37-13 at 74 percent.

http://www.tennis28.com/titles/surface_all.html#wp_finals

Maybe another reason Federer is struggling against Nadal his year. At the moment, Nadal is the surest bet in a final that tennis has ever seen. Still very early, I know, and that crazy high winning percentage will be coming down.

[gzhpcu]

All I would like to add to great comments so far is, that I have the impression that when the going gets rough, Roger is not that much of a fighter Early in his career, he was criticized for folding when the match got tough. In fact, here in Switzerland the press really was hard on him. I believe he has in this respect not changed so much: he has gotten technically much, much stronger but relies more on his superior technique than on fighting spirit. He dominates all of the tour players, because he has no competition strokewise. Rafa is the big exception: he has tremendous fighting spirit, like Jimmy Connors used to have.

[lukman41985]

I agree with you Phil. Although, Hewitt is a great-fighter and has no technical weaknesses in his game, he still gets beaten handily by Roger. Agassi, if he was younger, maybe the Agassi of 2000, could probably take out Roger. They've had such close matches the last two years at the U.S. Open that I think a younger Agassi would have taken.

The point about Nadal is very true. He's such a fighter. And, he's such an incredible athlete. He does have great, if extreme, technique. Especially on the backhand side--he can really flatten it out, but it's just such a solid stroke. That's easy to forget when his forehand is so explosive!